In 1984, a video called The Silent Scream helped change the way people think about the unborn child.  The footage of an actual abortion and the fetus's reaction reminded us that abortion involves the death of a real person.  Well, a recent bit of footage has similar potential, only it couldn’t be more different from The Silent Scream.  The footage was part of a recent PBS special, The Music Instinct: Science & Song. 

The program was an exploration of, among other things, music's "biological, emotional and psychological impact on humans."  Part of this exploration included how music affects babies.  If we are, as some scientists believe, "wired for music," then babies are ideal test subjects since their reactions are, by definition, instinctual.

The research involved the effect of music on fetuses.  While we knew that mothers often sing to their unborn children, we weren’t sure that the unborn child could hear them.  We are now.

A segment of The Music Instinct featured Sheila C. Woodward of the University of Southern California, who has studied fetal responses to music.  A camera and a microphone designed for underwater use were inserted into the uterus of a pregnant woman.  And then Woodward sang.  The hydrophone picked up two sounds: the whooshing of the uterine artery and the unmistakable sound of a woman singing a lullaby.

Then something extraordinary happened. Upon hearing the woman's voice, the unborn child smiled!  It was one of those moments that makes you catch your breath.  The full humanity of the fetus could not have been clearer if he had turned to the camera and winked.

Apparently, fetal responses to music aren't limited to smiling.  They have been observed moving their hands in response to music, almost as if conducting.  They have been soothed by Vivaldi and disturbed by loud tracks from Beethoven.  They have even responded "rhythmically to rhythms tapped on [their] mother's belly."

The connection between fetal responses to music and abortion weren't mentioned in the show. The program's website contains no mention of Woodward and her findings.  It's as if someone realized the implications and hoped nobody would notice.  I don't think that there's some kind of conspiracy afoot.  I just think that the PBS people's worldview won't allow them to make the obvious connection. 

Abortion on demand is only possible if people minimize the similarities between the fetus and us.  That kind of denial is hard work because what we have learned in the past 25 years makes any denial of the fetus' humanity absurd.  So instead of looking at the evidence, many people don't see it.  Call it "worldview-induced blindness."  In other words, they have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear.

Humans, we are told, are a "musical species" whose brain devotes more to the appreciation of music than even the processing of language.  That makes someone who smiles and moves his hands in response to music undeniably human, whether we notice it or not.

-- Chuck Colson

Proverbs 20:12 "Ears that hear and eyes that see -- the Lord has made them both."

The very first order of the very first continental congress was to pray.  Not prayer to just any god, but to the Christian God -- a prayer that was prayed "in Jesus' name."  That first national assembly in American history affirmed, on record, the propriety and importance of calling on God.  This is the unified collective soul of our founding fathers to turn their hearts to the Lord.  The spirit of this nation began in His name.  (Visit a blog of mine a couple months ago about memorializing our American beginnings, and another I assembled from the prayers of our American Presidents.) 

From now until the end of America, we will be debating endlessly about the faith of our founding fathers.  No longer will we just accept, despite the volumes of evidence, that these men appealed to Almighty God as the source of our independence as a nation.  If you asked someone what evidence they have that this nation was not founded upon Christian principles, one often pointed out source is Article XI of the Treaty of Tripoli, which begins with these words:


This, they say, is where our founding fathers rejected Christianity.  This is the proof that Christianity did not play a role in the beginning of this country.  The treaty was passed unanimously by the senate and signed by President John Adams.  But is this true?  Is that really what our founding fathers believed?  Here is a little background on the Treaty of Tripoli.

The Muslim Barbary Powers of Tunis, Morocco, Algiers, and Tripoli were warring against what they claimed to be the "Christian" nations -- England, Spain, France, Denmark, and the United States.  During this conflict, they attacked American merchant ships and captured who they called "Christian" seamen.  This was in retaliation to what had been done to them by "Christian" nations in previous centuries, such as in the Crusades.  This war waged through the presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.

In an attempt to rescue the captured seamen and to stop the attack upon American vessels, President Washington began the negotiation of treaties with the Barbary nations.  (At the same time, he also issued the construction of naval warships to defend those American vessels being attacked by Muslim pirates.)  The Treaty of Tripoli was one of the many treaties that sought to put an end to the escalation of a "Holy War" between Christians and Muslims.  The complete Article XI is as follows...


To say that "the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion" is true.  The founding fathers themselves openly described America as a Christian nation.  However, they included constitutional prohibition against a federal establishment of religion.  A state government may consider a certain religion, but the federal government does not.

In addition, Article XI was inserted to further distance the United States from European Christianity.  The purpose of Article XI was to assure the Muslim Barbary Powers that the US was not the same as the "Christian nations" of previous centuries.  The US was not out to wage a holy war.  It is absolutely false that the Treaty of Tripoli indicates a separation of religion from the founding fathers.  Especially when you consider a discussion between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson regarding the Barbary conflict:


John Adams believed that a country founded upon the Bible as their only book of law would be a utopia!  And Jefferson believed that the "God who gave us life gave us liberty."  Our founding fathers seized an opportunity to establish a country built on the principles of the Lord Jesus Christ.  One may doubt that the founding fathers had such a faith, but you cannot destroy that true freedom, just as the founding fathers believed it, comes only from God.  As we enter into this Independence Day weekend, may we reaffirm our dependence upon God, and celebrate that we are free in Christ.

John 8:36 "If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed."

The summer blockbuster Transformers: Rise of the Fallen finished the weekend raking in over $200 million despite the abysmal reviews surrounding the movie.  The PG-13 film at two-and-a-half hours in length features foul language, crass jokes, racial stereotypes, various parts of Megan Fox, and phallic imagery -- like a pair of wrecking balls dangling between Devastator's legs to symbolize... well, you can figure that out. 

Which is all really quite a shame.  Transformers are for kids!  What an opportunity to pass the cartoon I enjoyed when I was a kid and the action figures I used to play with on to another generation.  If Michael Bay had cut down on the stupidity, I guarantee the film would have raked in at least another $50 to $100 million, smashing the all-time record.  But forget the kids.  We'll leave the family films to Pixar, I suppose. 

In the movie, Megan Fox is there mostly as eye candy.  And she knows it.  "Really, my only job is to look attractive," she said.  She wears little and is often positioned in provocative poses as though she's doing a swimsuit calendar photo shoot.  As she revealed (no pun intended) in a recent interview, all of this attention being in a blockbuster franchise, all the fame and glamor that comes with it, has not been a fun ride for her.

Megan says that she deals with insecurity, and it started when her parents divorced.  She began craving attention.  She thought that the best way to cure her fear of rejection was to become famous.  However, her plan has backfired.  That sense of confidence she thought fame would give her is now having the opposite effect.

"I felt like once I achieved that success then all of my internal issues would be solved and I would be this really confident person," Megan said, "and I'm not.  It's not just physical insecurity.  It's also a feeling of not being acceptable, and wanting to be.  Of course, I think that has something to do with my parents' divorce and not seeing my dad and always feeling rejected.  You don't ever really get past that."

The pressure of Hollywood, she says, has resulted in eating disorders and severe depression -- so much so that her hair was falling out.  She's also found it difficult to just hang out and keep her friends.  Some will cancel their plans to go out because they don't want to be seen with the star and have their picture plastered all over the internet.  Other times, Megan doesn't know who to trust.  She's just being used because she's famous, and she can't know for sure if those who say they are her friends really are her friends.

Her co-star, Shia Labeouf (pronounced "SHY-uh luh-BUFF"), said in an unrelated interview that Megan's search for confidence by being famous is not an uncommon theme in Hollywood.  "Actors live dependent on being validated by other people’s opinions," he said.  "I think acting is a con game.  The good actors are all screwed up.  They’re all in pain.  It’s a profession of bottom-feeders and heartbroken people."

If Megan Fox is any indication of the cause -- that this heartbreak she deals with every day comes from her parents' divorce -- this is what happens when we neglect the future generation.  As a fellow-blogger recently put it, "Children need to be guaranteed the presence of their parents' love for one another."  Rob is no expert on the subject, but he doesn't need to be.  There have been enough studies to show that children thrive in a solid, functional father/mother parent environment, and languish without it.  The result of divorce can be something like Megan faces every day -- an ongoing, never-ending pursuit to feel like they are loved, and that the love they find is real and secure.

There's no doubt that Megan Fox is a success story.  Even kids from broken homes can see big things happen to them, though most kids from single-parent homes wind up in poverty.  Either way, success doesn't change the inner struggle they fight.  Nothing can make up in adulthood what they lost as kids.  Transformers is just a movie, but the neglect that millions of children face each day as a result of broken families is real.  Less than 40% of kids from broken homes say they felt "emotionally safe" growing up, as opposed to 80% of kids who came from intact families (Elizabeth Marquardt, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce).  It's time we stopped neglecting our children.  Husbands and wives, the love you show for each other is the best thing you can give your kids, and to our future generations.

1 Timothy 3:5 "If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?"