You know that feeling after you’ve read a really great book? The one that makes you want to tell everyone to read it, too? Sometimes you buy it for others, and pass it along. You want everyone to absorb the content and take as much away from it as you did. Well, that’s how I feel about the band for King & Country, and it’s for more than just their unique talent.

Joel and Luke Smallbone aren’t just a couple of brothers whose music is topping the charts; they are men whose morals and convictions lead them to influence the culture with an encouraging message. In a society that panders to those who sell out for their shot at the big leagues, these men are becoming successful while espousing a truth that women and men in this generation desperately need.

Through their “Penny Culture” campaign, Joel and Luke are addressing the modern worldview head on by posing a question: “Can you put a dollar amount on your worth?”  Of course not, because you’re “priceless,” right?  And yet, “actions speak louder than words.” And if we say we’re priceless, but live according to the dictates of a culture saturated with promiscuous, brazen, and indifferent people, we wind up selling our priceless selves for little more than a penny.

We see it every day. From movies to billboards, the reoccurring theme is the same: sex, and not sex that costs you something, like a lifetime commitment.  We’re talking about plain, old, gratuitous, “I didn’t even ask her what her name was” sex.

We live in a world that encourages women to “liberate” themselves, but our view of “liberation” is skewed. Cultural feminism defines the “problem” in terms of men who want to oppress women by lowering their self-worth — getting the price as cheap as they can.  But instead of empowering women to demand the highest price (love, lifelong commitment, respect, honor, etc.), the culture surrounds them with hypersexualized imagery and tells them that the road to empowerment lies in selling themselves short.  In other words, it’s like buying filet mignon at ground beef prices while convincing the beef that it was empowered to set the price.

Wearing a penny on a necklace, Joel and Luke reject the culture’s view of women. “How about we start a revolution of people that treat the opposite sex with respect & honor?” they ask. They remind the teens and college folk who attend their concerts that every man and woman is priceless, regardless of the low price the culture would lay on them.

And I think that’s refreshing. I’ve grown up in this “Penny Culture,” and it’s easy to fall prey to the lifestyle it produces. Those with graceful, sophisticated, old-fashion values — the real class acts of our generation — are hard to find, while the “progressive modernizers” of our society are frighteningly front and center, clawing their way to the top in order to be the ill-fitted role models for our youth.

The world wants you to settle — to sell yourself for infinitely less than you’re worth. Think about it long and hard. There has to be more. You’re worth more, aren’t you? (If you just read this and said, “No,” then think again. That’s the culture talking.)

We need more men like Joel and Luke, real men who will take a stand against the Penny Culture and loudly proclaim that the lifestyle it pushes is wrong, and that you — yes, you — are worth more than a mere penny. Joel says, “At every fK&C performance, we take a moment to pass on our position regarding a woman’s incredible worth — as well as call out us men! It’s time for us to step up and stand out, and treat you ladies as you deserve to be treated. Chivalry is not dead!”

Here, here! Chivalry certainly isn’t dead! Ladies, the men you read about in books — the ones who will fight for you because you’re worth fighting for — exist! Don’t give up, and don’t settle for less than you’re worth.

“If we could leave you ladies with one thought,” said Joel, “it’d be this: Don’t let any man disrespect you in relationships. So often society suggests for women to talk, dress, and act like you’re worth nothing more than a penny, but it’s our belief that there’s a God who says you’re priceless!”

Well said, Joel.

Joel Smallbone on the Penny Culture

for King & Country: Let Your Love Be the Proof

This is a scary time to be a woman, but not for the reasons liberals want you to think.  In a pro-Obama ad that PolitiFact calls a “Pants on Fire” lie, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is telling voters across the country that, “It’s a scary time to be a woman,” because Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and other conservatives support overturning Roe v. Wade, passing a bill that would limit abortions, and repealing the health care mandate requiring even religious insurance companies to provide contraception.  Be afraid, women; be very afraid.  Employing this oft-used tactic, the ad tries to paint conservatives as extremists who are against a women’s “choice.”

But conservatives are NOT the ones who are anti-women.  Here are the very scary facts:

• Obama’s health care “reform” actually hurts women, increasing their health care costs by $900 per year, in the form of 21 new taxes.
• Women find it harder and harder to pay for college with tuition rising 8.3% per year, despite the president’s pledge to relieve student debt.  His policies have been totally ineffective and don’t address the problem of skyrocketing tuition.
• More women are out of work, with employment down by 2.9% among women since the beginning of the recession.  There are now 83,000 fewer jobs for women than when Obama took office.
• Under Obama’s watch, the number of women slipping in poverty has shot up to 7.5 million.
• Obama’s own administration pays male staffers 18% more then its female staffers.
• Planned Parenthood says they received nearly $500 million from the federal government in their most recent annual report.  Remember that Planned Parenthood performs 1 in 4 abortions in America and actively covers up the risk of abortions for women, including “breast cancer, depression, mental illness, and suicide.”  And that’s not to mention all the other sick and twisted things they do (like aiding and abetting sex traffickers and helping to cover up statutory rape).

And liberals think they’re helping women?  The truth is that President Obama and the Left can’t even talk about their record on women’s issues without incriminating themselves.  Therefore, they are compelled to slander conservatives who are out to make life better for women, protect unborn life, and preserve religious liberty.  Their strategy is ridiculous, but somehow the Left expects to pull the wool over America’s eyes. The DNC ad got it right on only one count — this really is “a scary time to be a woman.”

America is in the midst of an unemployment crisis, and women are bearing the brunt of the problem.  The number of women out of work is the highest it has been in 25 years.  On top of this, employment levels for women are down 2.9% since the beginning of the recession.

Many women are finding it increasingly difficult to find work, with one study revealing that the actual number of women employed in the United States in May 2012 was about 83,000 lower than it was in January 2009.

While women have made huge strides in joining the workforce over the past several decades, the recession of the past four years is threatening to erode those gains.

Please share this infographic if you believe that we need to implement pro-growth economic policies that help create good paying jobs for American women! (For a full size version of this infographic, click here, or click the graphic above.)

Nearly all Americans have been hard hit by the recession, but women have been hit the hardest. A shocking 17 million women are now in poverty on President Obama’s watch, and almost 7.5 million women are in extreme poverty.

And reports of financial woes continue to rise. According to one study, 84% of women experience difficulty paying a bill on time, and 75% are having trouble making their rent or mortgage.

Share this infographic if you agree that it is time for our elected officials to recognize the real economic hardships American women are facing instead of propagating their false version of the “War on Women.”  (For a full-size version of this infographic, click here or on the graphic above.)

Recently, President Obama and fellow Democrats have been accusing conservatives of waging a “war on women.” Well here’s the funny thing, there really is a war on women going on — and it’s called the economy of the past four years.

To bring this stark fact to life, we have created seven different graphics showing how the current economic malaise is hurting women.

We’ll release one graphic a day for the rest of the week, starting today: Under President Obama there are 780,000 more unemployed women, an increase of eight percent.

To turn our economy around, we must support elected officials who will oppose job-killing regulations and wasteful government spending, and instead implement pro-growth economic policies that will create good-paying jobs for American women and men.

Please take a minute to share today’s graphic with your friends and family to help spread the word about the REAL war on women.  (The full-size version is available by clicking the graphic above.)

So here’s a little story about the time I blushed, well, fifty shades of red.  You can’t miss the smash hit, Fifty Shades of Grey.  You see women reading it on every bus, subway, and in every hair salon.  So what’s a girl to do?  Read the book to see what all the hype is about, right?  Sure, I thought.  So I flipped through a couple of pages to check it out.

Yeah.  Instant regret.

Two pages in, I had to put the book down and ask God for forgiveness!  Talk about “mommy porn.”  I thought books like this were only found in some women’s homes on a hidden book shelf next to covers of Fabio, a horse, and some buxom beauty. Put a glossy new cover on it, and it’s a best seller?

American women are in dire straits. Our country’s national debt is sky rocketing; women account for 92% of the jobs lost under this administration, and our children’s and parents’ health care is in dire jeopardy of being run by Washington bureaucrats obsessed with taking away our right to “shop” for this commodity.  It’s no wonder women need an escape, but while Fifty Shades of Grey may seem like a simple “escape” from the real world, it’s more like jumping from the frying pan into a nuclear reactor.

And what’s it going to get us?  Nothing.  It’s erotica, sexually themed fantasy, quasi-intellectual word candy that’ll rot our brains … and maybe our souls.

Christian women, we need to wake up!  This country needs us. It needs our passion, our intensity, our desire to defend ourselves and our families.  It needs the $22.50 we spent on “Fifty Shades of Grey” to be invested in a cause or campaign in which we believe (click here for a good place to start).

But women everywhere are politically and spiritually asleep, lulled into a cultural obsession with Christian Grey, an abusive therapist who seduces a college senior.  And some men are even buying it on the advice of women as a lesson book for what women like.  I recently heard a male bus driver say he wants to get this book on audio!  (I’ll bet you do, ya perv!)

Is this what we’ve come to: Women — Christian women — flocking to bookstores in droves to buy morally reprehensible tripe?

Why are we falling headlong into this grey area, where Hollywood tells us that all we should care about is stepping outside of reality and filling our heads with hormone-driven daydreams of men to whom we are not married?

Do you remember being afraid of the dark as a child?  (Ninety degree turn, I know.  But stay with me.)  Do you remember the day you stopped being afraid?  It was probably when you learned that darkness is simply the absence of light.  Have you thought about that?  While we can study light, we can’t study darkness.  Why not?  Well, how do you measure how dark a room is?  You measure the amount of light present.

Now let that sink in for a moment. What in your life is dark? What is light? We can only measure darkness in our lives by looking at how much light is in it.

And somewhere, in this struggle between light and dark, we have the annoying issue of “grey,” that fuzzy middle ground in which we find such a false refuge from condemnation, but which in reality God hates so very much.  And we need to ask ourselves, “What is grey for me? Facebook? The music I listen to? The movies? What about the books I read? What about Christian Grey?”

Sisters and fellow Christians, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that Fifty Shades of Grey is merely a pornographic pleasure for our minds, and, as we know, the Bible commands us to guard our hearts, for everything we do will flow from it (Proverbs 4:23).  By investing our energy in smut, we are tearing down these walls of protection around our hearts.

The Lord has given us a clear, black-and-white example of true love.  The images that are depicted in Fifty Shades of Grey are full of lust and give a false perspective on how men and women should present themselves.

While Christians are still to be a part of the world, we must not conform to its patterns. Anne Frank once said, “Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” Ironically, sometimes we have to be that candle. Let us choose to defy and define darkness in our lives. It just may shine light on a grey area in your life and maybe in the life of another.

Let us resolve to keep our eyes, our money, and our time away from morally questionable pursuits, and, instead, let us focus on the God of true love, who is fifty shades of great.  Let those of us who are single resolve to wait for a man who knows our value is not in how much you can service him, but how much we can serve the Lord.  Let us wait for a man who knows that true love is black and white, not shades of grey.

Today’s guest blogger is actually two women. This piece was authored by Alison Howard, Concerned Women for America’s (CWA) Executive Assistant to the CEO, and Amy Clemenson, an intern with CWA’s Ronald Reagan Memorial Internship Program.

Alex Swoyer, Miss Naples USA and member of Young Women for America

Smack dab in the middle of what I like to think is the most hostile debate in college classroom history, I found myself a lone defender. The topic of defense, you might ask? Beauty pageants.

Presumably, my position was shaped during the ill-famed 1989 Little Miss Baton Rouge Pageant. After all, I won “Most Congenial,” a tiny plastic tiara, and bragging rights among the other two-year-old girls. This also means I can personally attest to the fact that TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras doesn’t accurately reflect every pageant participant and her mother. My mom is quite rational, thank you very much.

Now fast forward back to my sophomore year in college and me trying helplessly to convince twenty-something feminist students that there are some positive aspects to pageants.

The odds were against me, to say the least. My opposition raised the usual anti-pageant protests dating back to the 1960s — “women strutted like animals,” “sexist objectification,” and “rigged competitions.” Even the timeless “cattle yard parade” metaphor was thrown up a time or two. Still, I refused to back down, no matter how intimidated, frustrated, and utterly outnumbered I was.

But now recent pageant news has me asking the question, “All that defense, for what?”

Did you catch Miss Ohio’s shocking comment during Miss USA? When Miss Ohio was asked to provide an example of a positive female role model, she answered, Julia Roberts’ character in the movie Pretty Woman. In this movie, Julia Roberts plays an ambitious prostitute — not exactly the model example of positive womanhood. What about strong women like Susan B. Anthony, Mother Theresa, Condoleezza Rice, and others who have fought against norms and stereotypes to uphold their core convictions? Thankfully, the pageant judges didn’t think prostitutes a good example either, dubbing Miss Ohio the second runner up.

What’s more, who can forget the transgendered contestant allowed to compete in the Miss Universe pageant? Now young women can’t even look to beauty queens anymore without wondering if they are, in fact, actually women.

Honestly, I was ready to trade in my own tiara after reading these stories — that is until I learned Young Women for America’s own Alex Swoyer won the Miss Naples USA Pageant. Alex is a fresh reminder that there are intelligent, morally upright women dedicated to using pageants as a platform to serve, inspire, and witness to the rising generation.

I wasn’t blessed to have the support of a YWA club that connected me with other conservative college students on my campus. But believe me, facing college — or brutal classroom debates — is easier alongside other women who share your values.

Learn more about YWA college chapters at www.ConcernedWomen.org.

Any conservative woman who dares to make waves in the political stratosphere by taking a steel-spined stance for what is right can expect to be immediately subjected to a ferocious onslaught of coarse vulgarities from the left. The self-proclaimed “women’s rights” advocates attack these women with the most demeaning, vulgar, and sexist language imaginable.  Why?  Because they fear them more than any other set of individuals on the planet; they are a supposed contradiction, the feared paradox that exposes the ultimate liberal hypocrisy.

Conservative women are a blatant contradiction to their belief that women are inherently liberal, pro-abortion, pro-“gay marriage,” and victims at home, school, and work by male domination. Republican men, that is. This entitlement-prone, victim mentality creates a permanent slave to the liberal agenda and a vote on which they can always count.  However, liberals should not be so hasty to assume that they have a complete monopoly over women.  There are plenty of us who are the exact opposite of what they have so desperately tried to manipulate or — if that doesn’t work — bully us into being.

Where are the liberal women rallying in support around the women hung, raped, and tortured at the hands of Sharia law? And where are the liberal women crying out in opposition to the systematic hangings of homosexuals in Iran? And where are the liberal women demanding equal rights for the helpless baby girls who are killed in their mother’s wombs in China because their parents wanted a boy but are only allowed one child? Or the babies with handicaps who are not allowed a chance at life at all? Or all the millions of baby girls who would have grown into women if they had not been aborted over the course of the past 50 years? Oh that’s right, there are no liberal women rallying for those causes. They’re all conservatives.

Knowing, living, and fighting for the truth can carry a weighty price for some women. A woman like this in political leadership is to be feared and hated above all else and destroyed as quickly as possible. I have heard this phrase used dozens of times, “You are not a REAL woman,” as though the liberals have the right to define what it is to be a woman. They particularly fear conservative women in politics because they are usually impossible to manipulate.

Most conservative women who enter roles of political leadership are not doing so for career advancement either inside or outside the political world. Instead, they usually attain positions of political leadership as their children are growing older or have moved off to college and, after having become aware of the imminent jeopardy of our country, way of life, safety, and the well-being of their children and grandchildren, they are possessed by a powerful “mama-bear”-type motivation and drive to fight this crisis.

Political maneuvering and manipulation has proved ineffective in containing these women, and so the liberals have realized that they must resort to more drastic means — destroying their credibility, reputation, and image by using the over-obliging media which more than happily blasts them with every imaginable slur, falsehood and sexually brazen insult.  After the ugly battle is over (by the time the debris has been cleared and the truth exposed) the damage has already been done, and few are able to survive the aftermath with their reputation, stamina, and respect still in tact.

Here’s to those who are brave enough to do the right thing no matter what the sacrifice.

Today’s guest blogger is Caroline Biggs a Liberty University Chapter Leader with Young Women for America.

First, let me say this: How many debates do we really need to have?  Second, how encouraging is it to see a woman running for president who isn’t afraid to pray for her country?  I know I am not the only one overjoyed to see a woman standing her ground.  It’s refreshing to finally see female leaders, like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, unashamed of their faith.  But Bachmann displayed extraordinary courage when recently asked if she’d be willing, as president, to lead the nation in prayer.  She stated, “I think that a president doesn’t lose their First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression and religious worship and liberty … I would be most pleased to do that – to lead the nation in prayer.”  Of course, her remark sent critics into a tizzy, with many of them babbling on about “separation of church and state.”

Now, I haven’t decided who I will vote for, and it surely won’t be based on gender, but we have to respect the place and purpose of women in our country today.  While there are more men on the debate platform this year, there are more women at the polls.  These women are everyday wives, moms, and friends, and they have been the largest voting bloc in this country since 1964.  Women are America’s ultimate decision-makers – from what foods to pack in our kids’ lunches to who should be president, women call the shots.

Besides bold national female leaders, our country needs courageous leadership from everyday women.  As the CEO of the largest public policy organization for women, I know they can swing this election and the direction of our country for the greater good.  A relatively new phrase, “Wal-Mart moms,” has gone viral.  According to Reuters, a Wal-Mart mom defines America’s middle class wives and mothers who choose to shop at the discount superstore in order to save for their households.  It is reported that the Wal-Mart mom represents 16 percent of the electorate.  If women can choose the fate of the most powerful political leader in the world, imagine what they can do for our school systems, neighborhoods, and society at large.

America is at a tipping point.  Our country is $14.6 trillion in debt, the school dropout rate is one out of every three children, 40 percent of today’s babies are born out of wedlock (many who never know their father), child abuse is reported every 10 seconds, and 1.37 million children are aborted each year.  What’s worse, we have yet to witness the consequences resulting from these tragic events.  What could lie ahead is a generation that lacks stability, discipline, and moral guidelines.

Women play a big role in solving these social problems.  Through their experience, personal choices, and willingness to stand up and speak out for their moral values, today’s women can solve these social ills and change the course of history.

So, ladies, ignore those loud-mouth critics and speak out loud.  It’s time to stand up on behalf of our children and grandchildren.  But before you do, remember to say a little prayer.

Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

We Christian women are called to be confident in the love that God provides.  With our self-esteem constantly targeted by the media, it is sometimes difficult to remember that the Lord created us to be a treasure won by a determined and respectable man.  Unfortunately, our society encourages women to be the hunters instead of the hunted.

Nine out of 10 males I personally interviewed say that when a woman pursues them, it highlights two very unattractive attributes: insecurity and desperation.  So why do women do it?  Is it because we are impatient and unwilling to wait for Mr. Right to come our way or because we are craving male attention?

Both of these reasons are a result of not trusting the Lord.  He has provided a way to fulfill each of our needs.  When we feel uncared for, He assures us in places like Jeremiah 33:11 that His love is always with us.  When we feel that unattractive, He whispers through Psalm 139:14 that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

So when a man pursues us, we need to remember who God designed us to be.

1. We show obedience to the Lord by investing time and emotion only in solid Christian men.
2. We show respect for ourselves by giving our time only to men that have the courage to ask us for our number and not cowardly giving us his in case we want to hang out sometime.
3. We show value by accepting dates that require time and thought and not accepting “we can do whatever you want to do” pseudo-dates.
4. We show loyalty by humbly going to God in prayer concerning each gentleman that requests a relationship with us.
5. We show honor to God by saving sex for marriage and dating only men who are dedicated to following this command.

Even though movies like No Strings Attached and American Pie give a degrading view of male and female relationships, this should not be the reality in Christian dating relationships.  We must all guard our hearts from the lies with which we are daily bombarded and combat them with the truth God has made clear to us: He loves us, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and He is faithful to provide.

After all, we are supposed to be loved as Christ loved the Church.  So why would we settle for less?

Our guest author is Amy Royall.  She is a junior at Liberty University and an active member of the LU chapter of Concerned Women for America.