A Clash of Creeds
Mark your calendar for the most unique fundraising banquet in the history of Iowans for Life!
You know how most fundraising banquets usually play out. They focus on a nice meal and some nice speeches. Nothing wrong with that, by the way!
Not this year.
On October 24th at the Meadows Events & Conference Center, you will be thrust into a vortex of viewpoints that will leave your head spinning.
Yes, you are going to enjoy a simply lovely meal, but for the first time in history, four of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers will be on the same stage together for what can only be described as a clash of creeds, dramatically presented in their own words. Issues such as contraception, God, charity, and yes, abortion, are all going to be on the table.
Whew!
Margaret Sanger
Our first guest is arguably the most influential of the bunch.
She was a pioneering feminist who labored long and hard to advance women’s rights.
Mrs. Sanger is the person who not only coined the term “birth control,” but who is largely credited with making it legal and accepted by the masses, regardless of religious affiliation.
And she was a sex educator who authored many books on the subjects of sex, motherhood, and eugenics, including “The Pivot of Civilization,” “What Every Girl Should Know,” and “Motherhood in Bondage.”
Time Magazine named her one of the 20 most influential Americans of all-time.
And finally, she is the founder of a sprawling medical empire that operates 650 health clinics in the U.S., Planned Parenthood.
Ayn Rand
Our second guest is a Russian immigrant to the United States at the age of twenty-six.
She staked out a unique career that blended writing and philosophy. Her two most famous novels were Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. She founded a philosophy she dubbed “Objectivism.”
For those who have never read any of her writings, you should know that she has had a profound impact on legions of prominent leaders in the United States, including Majority Leader of the House, Paul Ryan; Senator Rand Paul; John Stossel on Fox News; and Mark Cuban who you see on the television show, Shark Tank and who owns the Dallas Mavericks.
One of her most provocatively titled philosophical treatises is “The Virtue of Selfishness.” Get ready for Ayn Rand!
Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Our next guest hails from Albania. She committed herself to Catholic religious life and at the age of 21, she took her first vows. After living in a convent in India for many years and serving as a headmistress of a school, she received a call from God to live among and serve the very poorest of the poor in Calcutta, one of the most destitute places on the planet.
She founded the Missionaries of Charity with about a buck in her pocket. Imagine walking into one of the poorest places in the world with little more than the shirt on your back. Before she “retired” to more heavenly pursuits, she leveraged that buck into an international outreach to 133 countries served by some 4500 women.
She was recognized for her humanitarian outreach by receiving a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and in 2016, Pope Francis named her a saint. You know to whom I refer, the one and only Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
G.K. Chesterton
With three such strong women on stage exchanging such adversarial viewpoints, we felt we needed a strong moderator who had the ability to inject some wit into the proceedings in case the conversation heats up.
Who better than G.K. Chesterton?
Chesterton is an enigma. Is he a poet? A novelist? A philosopher? A theologian? A biographer? An orator or a debater? Yes, on all scores.
He famously debated the well-known attorney and atheist, Clarence Darrow. Rumor has it that he mopped the floor with his hapless adversary.
His book, “The Everlasting Man” was a significant influence on C.S. Lewis’s conversion to Christianity.
No less a figure than Archbishop Fulton Sheen identified our moderator as “the greatest influence on his own writing, because he never used a useless word, he saw the value of a paradox, and he avoided what was trite.”
Our esteemed moderator does not fit into a neat category. He is a once-upon-a-time atheist who became a Roman Catholic for the simple reason, he said, that Catholicism is true.
Mr. Chesterton is one of the most quoted men of the 20th century.
This is THE banquet of the year!
Do you see what I mean? This banquet will be unlike any other you’ve EVER attended
Get ready for an epic clash of creeds!
There’s more! Select audience members will even have an opportunity to ask questions of our guests during the Q & A section.
IFL welcomes the Natural Journey Alliance
And there’s still more! Iowans for Life is thrilled to offer this banquet under the umbrella of The Natural Journey Alliance (NJA), our new parent company. This exciting alliance includes our partners, Iowa Right to Life and Restored by Grace Ministries.
We slashed overhead thanks to NJA, leaving more resources for mission.
Five-hundred people attended last year’s banquet. We added a couple hundred more seats this year in anticipation of the buzz being created by the presence of Mrs. Sanger, Mrs. Rand, Mother Teresa, and G.K. Chesterton.
As you can see, the pro life movement is expanding and changing in anticipation to the new challenges of the 21st century.
We expect the Clash of Creeds to sell out very early. We encourage you to take advantage of our early bird registration and reserve your table of 8 today for $500.
The price will go up to $600 beginning June 16th, so don’t wait.
You are going to be talking about Clash of Creeds for a long time to come!
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