An unstamped letter from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop caused a security scare when Capitol Police shut down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s for 45 minutes office yesterday.
From the very beginning, Dhati Lewis had a plan. He was going to be in the NFL, and that was it. Yet, when he was so close to achieving it, God gave him a different dream. Instead, he suddenly found his calling into ministry, one that inspired his mission of being God’s hands and feet in urban contexts, starting with his own neighborhood.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Dhati Lewis serves as the Vision and Multiplication Pastor of Blueprint Church as well as the founder and president of MyBLVD, an organization focused on helping disciples thrive where they live, work, and worship. Dhati is passionate about bringing contextualized resources to disciple-makers through coaching, consulting, cohort training, and church planting. He is married to his best friend, Angie, and they live in Atlanta, Georgia, with their children and church family. He is the author of Among Wolves: Disciple-Making in the City and Advocates: The Narrow Path to Racial Reconciliation.
Notes & Quotes:
“I was going to these studies and I started hearing words like evangelism and discipleship. I was like, ‘Man, I knew my friends, they loved the Lord, but they ain’t talking about this.’ You see, Christianity to them was don’t go to the club, don’t drink, don’t have sex outside of marriage, don’t join a fraternity or sorority, don’t, don’t, don’t. . . . I was just like, ‘God, I'm real clear on what not to do. I just don’t know what you’re calling me to do.’ ”
“It was like either I was around people who got my context but didn’t have that same commitment to theology and mission, or I was around people who got my mission in theology, but they didn’t get my context.”
“And many of us define God’s will by the path of least resistance. It is like, God, why does it feel like we are always calling Christians to easier and better? It’s never harder and worse. And I recognize that for many of us, our North Stars are comfort, and we’re addicted to our comfort.”
“We wanted to establish a blueprint and we want it to be a church that’s planting other churches because we want to be a church that’s going to be the last generation to leave the urban context for sound discipleship. And so that’s what we did.”
Links Mentioned:
Power Beats Pro Bluetooth Earbuds Giveaway
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Check out Dhati’s books Among Wolves and Advocates on Amazon.
To learn more about Dhati’s passion and vision for urban ministry, check out MyBLVD’s website
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Verses Mentioned:
Matthew 16:18
Koop’s letter, addressed to Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, protested federal funding of abortion in health care legislation.
“More specifically, I am troubled about the possibility of federal dollars being used to pay for elective abortions and Americans being forced to subsidize them,” Koop wrote. “I firmly believe that strong protections must be included in this legislation so that health care providers are not forced to participate in abortions against their will.”
Roll Call reports that the letter was stampless with “C. Everett Koop” written in the upper-left corner, and staffers reported it as a suspicious package to the police.
Reached at his home Wednesday, Koop confirmed that he wrote a few “beautifully typed” pages on his views of the health care legislation. The fact that it caused a Capitol Hill scare is “nonsense,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware that sending a hand-delivered letter was an offense,” he said, later adding: “I did it over a weekend. I don’t have a lot of secretarial help and I’m 93.”
Koop wrote in his letter that a Hyde-like amendment, which bars most federal funding for abortion, should be included in any health care bill.
“I believe that including this legislative language is necessary to ensure the elective abortions are not financed either directly through a public plan or indirectly through federal subsidies provided to purchase health insurance through state exchanges,” he wrote. “I also find it troubling that the legislation requires all state exchanges to offer at least one health plan that includes abortion coverage – no other federal health plan has that specific requirement today.”
Koop, now a professor at Dartmouth Medical School, was Reagan administration’s surgeon general from January 1982 to October 1989 and is considered influential in moving evangelicals into the pro-life camp.
(h/t Kathryn Jean Lopez)
