Announcing the 2024 ND Pro-Life Conference
Is the sanctity of life important to you and your family? Then we have just the event for you. Following NDFA’s incredibly successful 2022 ND Pro-Life conference, NDFA is excited to announce its 2024 ND Pro-Life Conference to be held on January 22, our state’s new official Right-To-Life Day!
Topics will cover everything from the current status of abortion across the nation and state, to the dramatic increase in chemical abortions, the situation with pro-life legal challenges in ND, and what you can do to stand for life in our state. The one-day conference will be held at the Heritage Center starting at 9 AM, and tickets are available on Eventbrite for $20 per person or by calling 701-355-6425 for group rates.
David Bereit, founder and former CEO of 40 Days for Life, will be our keynote speaker. Other speakers will include:
Jor-el Godsey, President of Heartbeat International
Drew Wrigley, North Dakota Attorney General
Jill Chandler, Executive Director of Relate Care Clinic
Personal testimony from a post-abortive mother
Join us on January 22 to gather, learn, and celebrate the sanctity of human life. You won’t want to miss the premier life conference planned for North Dakota in 2024!
A Tale of Two Suits
When is a suit not just a suit? The typical men’s clothing store would say that a suit is always more than the fabric, cut, style, etc. In other words, a suit makes a statement. However, I know more than a few men for whom a suit is just that – a suit – and maybe less, like a nuisance. What you see above is the fabric of a new suit I recently purchased, and I guarantee you, it’s way more than just an ordinary suit. It’s what I’ll be wearing to our son’s wedding.
As you might imagine, living in our household these days has been far more exciting and busier than usual. Our son Chris is getting married on November 25 – a little over two weeks away. He is marrying a wonderful Christian young lady named Rebekah, who has been brave enough to stay with her future in‑laws (us) for the past few months while starting her new job and planning the wedding. We’ve really enjoyed getting to know her better and she still intends to marry our son, so it seems we haven’t messed up anything too badly. During these months of wedding preparation, Ruth and I have tried to help a bit here and there, but we’ve also focused on our wedding attire. Apparently, jeans and a flannel shirt won’t cut it as father of the groom, or so I was told. Which brings me back to the suit.
When I went to purchase it, I knew it had to be in the black-charcoal-gray spectrum, given the wedding colors, but didn’t know much else. I also knew it couldn’t look like the groom’s suit, which will be in a darker charcoal shade. I had to match accessories, decide on a tie color and pattern, pocket square or no pocket square, etc. I think you get the picture. But that still doesn’t answer the question of why this particular suit?
The new suit checks all the boxes from a technical point of view, but it needs to say something. It needs to reflect me. Thus, while the pattern is a very sedate gray, it has a more complicated pattern when you get closer. The cut is for someone my size, so it’s not a slim fit or a heavily contoured cut. The pants are a traditional length and cut, and it has a small, dignified lapel pin. In short, it’s a suit for a 60-year-old father of the groom. (For all you guys who hate clothes shopping, thanks for hanging in there. It gets more interesting.)
Now let me take you back to 1984, long ago when my wife and I first met. For our first date, I took her to the symphony and afterward to one of the most elegant (and pricey) restaurants in the city. On a student income, it was the equivalent of mortgaging my home for that date. In retrospect, it was more than worth it, and she was thankfully swept off her feet. What did I wear? A suit, but a very different one than the wedding suit I just purchased.
The suit that night was a dark blue pinstripe; a very serious blue pinstripe. I matched it with a bright red tie and white shirt. I was a lot skinnier back then, so it was a slim fit and very stylish cut. To be blunt, it exuded power and intensity. And why shouldn’t it? I was all set to take on the world with what I had learned at college and my talents and abilities. I was impressive, and clearly the girl on my arm thought so. I later learned that my “impressiveness” had very little to do with her dating and marrying me, although she did admit to liking me in that suit.
A few days ago, it struck me how those two suits in some way represent the tremendous changes that have occurred over the decades. They represent the shift from a twenty-something arrogant kid, to a person who realizes he doesn’t know everything (which is proven almost daily). The suits denote a shift in thinking about what matters – from physical objects and status, to intangibles and actions based on deeply held beliefs. It means that I’ve learned to trust the Lord more over the past decades and that He’s led me to understand how important public policy is in protecting my faith in our current society. And yes, my new suit also mirrors the lines on my face and my gray beard, from years of work, parenting, and life’s ups and downs. Hopefully, there is some wisdom woven into that suit fabric as well.
On November 25, I won’t be the star of the show, and that is how it should be. I don’t have that blue pinstripe suit anymore, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t wear it to my son’s wedding. I don’t fit the blue suit anymore, in more ways than one. And that’s for the better. My son is starting his life with a gray suit, and that is a far wiser place to begin.
What Are You Thankful For?
by Jacob Thomsen
As we enter November, I like to think about things that I am grateful for. Thanksgiving, which is only a few weeks away, is not only a wonderful holiday, but a great reminder for us to stop and think about the things that we’ve been given.
Of course, everyone’s list differs in many ways, but there are many things that most people will have on their list in common. Many of us are thankful for our families, health, a place to live, etc. It’s incredibly important that we don’t take these things for granted.
There are plenty of personal things that we’re all thankful for as well, and I’d like to talk about some of the personal things that fall into this category.
First and foremost, I am thankful for God and the ways He changed me when I was saved. I was saved in 2020 (a story for another time) and there were a lot of things that changed within me in those moments. One of the biggest changes I noticed was a deeper appreciation for beauty. I started to notice the beauty in everyday moments that I hadn’t before. I noticed the beauty of the clouds in the sky, the leaves on the trees, the way the wind blew through the grass, and much more. It was as if the world changed around me. It was truly an amazing thing.
Another thing He did in me that I’m thankful for was to allow me to feel and experience deeper emotions. This may sound a bit weird, but God made me emotional. Before I knew Christ, I was hardened to my emotions and was striving for what some would stereotypically call manhood – not expressing emotions and trying to be “hard.” God softened my heart and now I cry more, laugh more, and feel things in a deeper way, and I’m incredibly thankful for it.
Something else I am thankful for is football. Now, this is not a superficial statement saying that I enjoy watching football. I played football for 14 years of my life and it taught me things I’m not sure I would have learned anywhere else. It taught me resilience. When I look in the face of adversity, I know that I can stand up to it with God’s help. It taught me that preparation is very important going into a battle. I’ve spent countless hours studying opponents and trying to understand what they would do to win a game. That has translated into this career quite well because I have learned that studying the opposition’s side of a bill is just as important as forming our own arguments.
Above all, football taught me hard work. Hard work leads to a reward in and of itself. We may not have won every game, but looking back on my football career, I feel a sense of accomplishment knowing I worked very hard towards a goal, and I had several people around me working toward that same goal. I played football for nearly two-thirds of my life up until this point. To many, it may just be a sport; to me, it has been a formative teacher that has guided me through life and taught me some incredibly important lessons. I am truly grateful that God gave me the ability and opportunity to play football.
The thing that I am most thankful for is God’s hand on my life. As I look back through the years, I can now see His guidance in getting me to where I am now. I came to Bismarck to go to school and (more importantly at the time) to play football. I would not be in the position I am today without those opportunities afforded to me through the grace of God. I’m thankful that before I knew Him, He had a plan for me.
There are so many more things to be thankful for. I’d encourage you to look at the things around you and the things you’ve been given. Remember that everything is a gift. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ll ask you, what are you thankful for?
Music for the Dead
This past Friday night, my wife Ruth and I attended a concert at the Belle Mehus Auditorium in Bismarck. It was an unusual performance. The music was based on Verdi’s Requiem and the performance was given by musicians from the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra and a choir composed of members from the Bismarck-Mandan Civic Chorus and the Bismarck State College Concert Choir. However, that’s not particularly unusual. The strange part was the piece they performed – Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín. That would be Terezin, the WWII concentration camp.
So, what was the concert about? If I may borrow the description provided by the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra.
The signature concert of The Defiant Requiem Foundation, Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín, tells the story of the courageous Jewish prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp (Terezín) during World War II who performed Verdi’s Requiem while experiencing the depths of human degradation. With only a single smuggled score, they performed the celebrated oratorio sixteen times, including one performance before senior SS officials from Berlin and an International Red Cross delegation. Conductor Rafael Schächter told the choir, “We will sing to the Nazis what we cannot say to them."
To say it was moving would be an understatement. It was actually multimedia, with pictures and film from the camp, narration of Schächter’s thoughts, and video recordings of prisoners who had been part of the Terezin choir. As the performance ended, there were not many dry eyes, and a few people at the end were audibly sobbing over what they had just seen and heard. This was not a date night event!
As I’ve noted before, both Ruth and my families have personal ties to WWII and concentration camps. Ruth’s great-grandfather hid over 300 Jews during the war and was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, never to return again. It was the same fate for his son and grandson. My grandfather was part of the underground, creating false documents for fleeing Jews and also hiding them in his home. My father was a fugitive during the war, to avoid being sent to forced labor in Germany, also effectively a death sentence. Yes, it was personal.
While the performance was very moving, I kept thinking, how did it come to this? What went wrong to cause these artists,musicians, tradesmen, and every imaginable type of person to be imprisoned? The obvious answer is that the Nazi regime waged war and imprisoned millions of Jews and other “subversives” as part of its extermination campaign. But let’s go further back.
Asummary from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museumexplains the political atmosphere and events that led to the Nazis coming into power. Here are select passages that paint a picture of the circumstances surrounding this shift in political control.
In the Reichstag (parliament) elections of May 2, 1928, the Nazis received only 2.6 percent of the national vote…
Many Germans perceived the parliamentary government coalition as weak and unable to alleviate the economic crisis. Widespread economic misery, fear, and perception of worse times to come, as well as anger and impatience with the apparent failure of the government to manage the crisis, offered fertile ground for the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.
Using a deadlock among the partners in the "Grand Coalition" as an excuse, Center party politician and Reich Chancellor Heinrich Bruening induced the aging Reich President, World War I Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, to dissolve the parliament in July 1930 and schedule new elections for September 1930. To dissolve the parliament, the president used Article 48 of the German constitution. This Article permitted the German government to govern without parliamentary consent and was to be applied only in cases of direct national emergency.
Bruening miscalculated the mood of the nation after six months of economic depression. The Nazis won 18.3 percent of the vote and became the second largest political party in the country.
In 1932, Hindenburg dismissed Bruening and appointed Franz von Papen, a former diplomat and Center party politician, as chancellor. Papen dissolved the Reichstag again, but the July 1932 elections brought the Nazi party 37.3 percent of the popular vote, making it the largest political party in Germany.
On January 30, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany. Hitler was not appointed chancellor as the result of an electoral victory with a popular mandate, but instead as the result of a constitutionally questionable deal among a small group of conservative German politicians who had given up on parliamentary rule. They hoped to use Hitler's popularity with the masses to buttress a return to conservative authoritarian rule, perhaps even a monarchy. Within two years, however, Hitler and the Nazis outmaneuvered Germany's conservative politicians to consolidate a radical Nazi dictatorship completely subordinate to Hitler's personal will.
The thing that sticks out to me in this account is the loss of faith in their political process. Would the Nazis still have risen to power if Germany had continued to function within its existing parliamentary system? Perhaps. But abandoning the one system that provided any checks and balances virtually assured this result.
We are certainly blessed that we do not currently live in a political situation as bad as Germany in the 1930s. As Christians in America, we face ever-increasing opposition to our values, assaults on our Constitutional rights, threats to undermine our Supreme Court (i.e., “packing”), erosion of voter confidence, and much more. Perhaps a day will come when all this becomes too much and our country looks nothing like it was envisioned by our founding fathers; however, I don’t think any of us want to open the door to replacing our form of government with fascism or a dictatorship.
One of the critical takeaways for me from this account is that voting was an extremely important piece of the political chain of events that resulted in the Nazi rise to power. Paradoxically, it could have also prevented or at least delayed this outcome. What happened in the voting booths mattered not just to Germany, but ultimately to much of the world.
What is the point I’m making? The next time somebody tells you that voting is meaningless and that politics has no effect, point to Terezin. Your vote might matter more to the future of our country and state than you could ever imagine. Remember, we never want to hearmusicfor thedeadin our country.
NDFA: An exciting new vision for the future
NDFA’s new fiscal year has just begun, and we want to let you in on some of our exciting new plans for next year. The theme of this coming year is greater engagement. That means greater engagement with churches, business leaders, legislators, and you!
To further engage churches, our intent is to travel around the state this year and speak to pastors and congregations about three things. First, we want church leaders and congregants to know who we are and what we do. We Christians need to stand strong in the policy arena and stick up for our Biblical values, and NDFA can help.
Second, we want to equip churches across ND to respond to policy issues and have a strong voice in the creation and advocacy of policy. NDFA can provide insights into the policy world and how Christians can best make their voices heard. We have many real-world stories from past legislative sessions and other occasions about how to best do this.
Finally, we want to announce the launch of our Church Ambassador program! Our Church Ambassador program will consist of at least one person from a congregation who is willing to inform, educate, and engage their church on relevant policy issues. We will provide regular policy updates and information to the Church Ambassador to share with their church. In turn, they can provide questions, suggestions, and needs to us on behalf of their church. If you are someone who is keenly interested in public policy and politics here in ND, please contact us, and let’s talk about whether being a Church Ambassador is right for you.
The second group NDFA would like to further engage is our business community. In addition to representing their values in the work we do, we want to help protect their rights to live out their personal values in their place of business. There are many groups in our society that desire to force their immoral beliefs on our business community. Further, they want business leaders to not only comply with but to actively affirm their twisted values. We refuse to stand by while this happens. We want to engage with business leaders to hear their concerns and identify how we may be able to help them.
In engaging legislators, we will spend time over the next year informally meeting with them as we travel around the state. This not only enables us to form closer relationships, but also to plan and strategize for the 2025 legislative session.
Perhaps even more importantly, we want to hold our very first Legislative Academy session! The Legislative Academy will be an annual program for legislators that covers subjects such as how our country was founded on biblical principles, strategies on how to draft and get bills into law, and how a legislator’s faith can best be integrated into their policy decisions. It also aims to make sure that our legislators are well-rounded on the key policy issues that are most important to their constituents and to our state’s citizens. At the Academy, legislators will hear from seasoned statesmen, policy experts, governmental officials, and more. This should be an exciting program and we look forward to many legislators, especially many freshman legislators, taking advantage of this opportunity.
Finally, we want to engage you! We plan to connect with you in many ways. We will continue to bring you the latest breaking policy news, share relevant opinion pieces, and of course send our popular weekly emails throughout the coming year. You will receive our periodic mailings and special publications as well (e.g., legislative scorecards). Finally, we love it when you reach out to us, whether it is with a policy question, a question about our organization, or a suggestion on how we can be more effective.
We are also planning to hold even more events this coming year. We will once again hold our annual spring gala (we have another great speaker lined up!), our pro-life conference in January, a conference in the fall of next year, and smaller get-togethers between these major events. We will announce them through email and social media, so be on the lookout for those announcements, and be sure your friends and family get our emails too. We are incredibly excited about these events and think you will be too.
I’m convinced that this year will be a sensational one. While there isn’t a full legislative session coming up, we know that there is more than enough work to be done around the state to engage everyone in the world of policymaking. By the grace of God, and with your help, we will be able to achieve great things this year for faith, family, and freedom here in ND!
We’d love it if you would be our partner on the exciting journey that lies before us. Your support will make all these plans into a reality and will protect biblical values in our state in a concrete way. You can donate to NDFA by following this link, or by mailing a check to: NDFA, 1515 Burnt Boat Dr., C-148, Bismark, ND 58503. If there is some specific part of our vision you’d like to donate for (e.g., Legislative Academy, church engagement), we’d be happy to accommodate your request. Just let us know by email if donating online, or add a note/memo on the check if donating by mail. Thank you for supporting NDFA’s ministry in North Dakota!