9 April 2009 – Rockstanding

From John Piper:

Today, sixty-four years ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged for his part in the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He is known by many for one main sentence. It is worthy of Holy Week.

Here is the context of his most famous quote:

The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call. (The Cost of Discipleship, 99)

Red Envelope Project World Net Daily got the scoop on The Associated Press and countless other “big” news organizations with this story which you probably didn’t hear about:

The White House mail office has confirmed it received a “deluge” of as many as 2.25 million red envelopes symbolizing the empty promise of lives snuffed out in abortion in a massive campaign that was larger than most White House mailing movements in the last 35 years.

White House mail worker “Steve” has handled letters for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for more than three decades. Every single package and letter destined for the White House goes through his office.

Asked if he has seen a flood of red envelopes bound for the White House, Steve chuckled.

“Uh, yes,” he said emphatically. “Believe me, they made it here.”

Steve said while Obama has been occupied in Europe, his administration has noticed millions of red envelopes on behalf of aborted children.

“Quite frankly, there was definitely a deluge of mail coming through,” he laughed. “I had to handle them all.”

“I’ve been here 35 years, so I’ve seen presidents come and go,” Steve told WND. “This campaign ranks up there with the big ones.”

The Red Envelope Project is an idea sparked in the mind and prayers of a Massachusetts man, Christ Otto, who envisioned in January thousands of red envelopes sent to the White House, a visual expression of moral outrage over the president’s position on abortion.

On the backs of the envelopes, senders wrote a message Otto composed: “This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.”