Artist: Albert Popa |
“Virtue-signaling” and shaming have become common ploys in
the political arena. In effect, they convey the message that “I am virtuous,
but you are a hypocrite and need to change.” This charge of “hypocrisy” has
found a soft target among Christians who are no longer sure about what to
believe. They want to be good and faithful but are being tossed about by many diverse
charges.
AOC has been exploiting such charges to advance her
political agenda:
·
“Sometimes, especially in this body, I feel as
though if Christ himself walked through these doors and said what he said
thousands of years ago ― that we should love our neighbor and our enemy, that
we should welcome the stranger, fight for the least of us, that it is easier
for a rich man - for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
man to get into a kingdom of heaven ― he would be maligned as a radical and
rejected from these doors.” https://www.mrctv.org
AOC knows that if she succeeds in making the Christian feel
ashamed, they might reconsider how they vote. However, she is wrong that we
would reject the real Jesus when He returns. If we read the Bible, we will not
be surprised by His return, since we already know Him. He even instructed His
disciples to go into the world to teach everything that He had been teaching
(Matthew 28:18-20), and we are the happy recipients of His teachings.
Instead, AOC is trying to preach another Jesus, one who has
become popular in our present “progressive” political climate. This new Jesus
not only accepts all people but also all forms of behavior. While Jesus
did accept all who came to Him, He also required them to repent of their sins:
·
And he answered them, “Do you think that these
Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they
suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all
likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed
them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived
in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise
perish.” (Luke 13:2-5)
However, it earns us points if we can demonstrate that we
are not sexist, racist, anti-LGBTQ, or anti-alien. No one wants to be regarded
this way, certainly not Christians, and AOC knows this.
There is no argument at all about our mutual responsibility
to love all others. However, AOC also believes that love requires us to accommodate
their sinful behavior, like Mr. Minton who demanded that a hospital perform
sex-change surgery on him. However, AOC wants to deprive hospitals and
physicians the right to live by their faith and their conscience:
·
"My faith commands me to treat Mr. Minton
as holy because he is sacred, because his life is sacred, because you are not
to be denied anything that I am entitled to."
Yes, Minton is sacred, but his behaviors might not be. Several
years ago, Barbara Walters had hosted a special on people who wanted to have
their legs surgically removed, claiming that they were never intended to have
them. However, surgeons understandably refused to administer this surgery.
However, many want to take away this kind of right in favor
of coercion -- doctors forced to comply with all kinds of requests like
euthanizing an elderly dependent parent, doing an abortion, or administering
sex-change hormones to children. Perhaps this will also extend to euthanizing
or castrating the mentally ill, and why not?
All of this raises broader questions about the nature of
love. Does love require us to eliminate:
·
Police, government, prisons, and the army?
·
School suspensions and any punishment of
students?
·
Any form of reprimand?
·
Parents who punish their children?
·
Employers of fire their employees?
·
Any prohibitions on any form of behavior?
I hope that this list looks ridiculous to you. It should!
The Bible also endorses many forms of sanctions, even within the Church.
In the minds of many, including AOC, the “big tent” concept
– protecting people of different persuasions so that they can gather safely and
comfortably together -- no longer applies. Instead, conformity to an evolving
secular religion is being militantly pursued at the expense of the “freedom of
conscience and of religion.”
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