State Bullying of Religion

Can you be forced to print material that goes against your conscience? If you have a print shop, can you refuse an atheist customer who wants you to print material that states that the Christian faith is a fairy tale? Or can you refuse to print Gay-Pride promotional material? Well, an ordinance in Lexington, Kentucky “ban[s] public accommodations discrimination based on sexual orientation.” This means that you must print it, even if it represents a denial of your faith!

The Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (GLSO) had wanted Blame Adamson, owner of Hands On Originals, to print T-shirts for their Gay-Pride event. According to GLSO’s complaint with the Lexington Human Rights Commission:

• When Blaine learned that it was a gay pride festival, he asked, “You know we’re a Christian organization, don’t you?” He then continued on to say that Hands On Originals would not print shirts related to a gay pride festival. He suggested that he could refer us to a different business who would print the shirts. Our committee member told them he would take that offer to the board, but that he felt that we would not want to do business with anyone who did business with Hands On Originals, based on their discrimination.

However, it seems that the Lexington, KY ordinance is unconstitutional. It is in violation of the “Free Exercise of Religion” clause:

• The Ordinance unconstitutionally compels speech, because it requires printers to print material that they do not want to print. Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed. (1977) and Keller v. State Bar (1990) reaffirmed that the government generally may not compel someone to give over money to a private or even quasi-public entity when that money will be used for political or ideological speech.

• Indeed, speech on T-shirts is as protected as speech in books. Under the GLSO’s view, a book publisher that is opposed to (say) Scientology could be required to print pro-Scientology books. Likewise, a printer that hates Nazi ideology could be required to print pro-Nazi leaflets in those jurisdictions.

Increasingly, Christians must defend their Constitutional 1^st Amendment rights. It is not enough that the Constitution specifies certain rights. These must be upheld in court, and when we fail to do this, it can also mean a failure to faithfully follow our Lord in all regards:

• Then they [the Sanhedrin] called them [the Apostles] in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:18-20)

Sometimes, to obey State ordinances is to disobey God. To obey God may mean to disobey these ordinances, or at least to challenge them in court.

The Intolerance of “Tolerance”

Vanderbilt University was founded by Methodists in the 1870s. However, things have changed. According to AlbertMohler,

• In more recent months, Vanderbilt’s administration decided to push secularism to the extreme — launching a virtual vendetta against religious organizations on campus. Officials of the university informed religious groups that had been recognized student organizations that they would have to comply with an absolute non-discrimination policy. This means that religious organizations (primarily Christian) must now allow any Vanderbilt student to be a candidate for a leadership office, regardless of religious beliefs or sexual orientation. In other words, a Christian student group would be forced to allow the candidacy of an atheist. A group of Christians who believe in the Bible’s standard of sexual morality would be required to allow the candidacy of a homosexual member. There can be absolutely no discrimination, the university insists, even if that means that Christian organizations are no longer actually Christian.

Vanderbilt’s position represents the intolerance that secretly piggy-backs on “tolerance.” In their “tolerance,” they are intolerant of Christian groups. It also reflects a hypocritical double-standard – a policy that is not enforced across the board, as David French of The National Review has observed:

• The reality, of course, is that Vanderbilt is trying to force the orthodox Christian viewpoint off campus. The ‘nondiscrimination’ rhetoric is mere subterfuge. How can we know this? Because even as it works mightily to make sure that atheists can run Christian organizations, it is working just as mightily to protect the place and prerogatives of Vanderbilt’s powerful fraternities and sororities — organizations that explicitly discriminate, have never been open to ‘all comers,’ and cause more real heartache each semester for rejected students than any religious organization has ever inflicted in its entire history on campus. Vanderbilt’s embattled religious organizations welcome all students with open arms; Vanderbilt’s fraternities and sororities routinely reject their fellow students based on little more than appearance, family heritage, or personality quirks.

If French is right, Vanderbilt is a case study in intolerance – a growing trend within secular society – not tolerance. If the fraternities are allowed to discriminate according to their petty criteria, why is Vanderbilt intolerant of Christian criteria – the very standards that built almost all of our Ivy League schools?

Denial and Confrontation

If your friend consistently complains that s/he is mistreated by others, but you observe that s/he brings this “mistreatment” upon themselves by verbally abusing others, what do you do? Do you confront? If you care about your friend, you can’t simply enable them to continue denying the real problem. If you do enable, the problem will merely continue!

This is the thinking of Muslim reformer and former Dutch Parliamentarian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Although Islam tolerates no criticism, she believes that Muslims need is to hear the uncomfortable truth:

·        Muslims were responsible for eleven, and possibly twelve, of the sixteen major international terrorist acts committed between 1983 and 2000;

·        Five of the seven states that support terrorists, and as such appear on the U.S. State Department’s list, are Muslim countries, and the majority of foreign organizations on that same list are Muslim organizations;

·        Muslims were involved in two-thirds of the thirty-two armed conflicts in the year 2000, while only one-fifth of the world population is Muslim. (11)

In The Caged Virgin, Ali also cites many other problems endemic to Islam – problems which Islam is unwilling to confront. She therefore reasons:

• If nothing is wrong with Islam, why then are so many Muslims on the run?...Why do we Muslims move to the West, while at the same time condemning it?...Why is the position of women in Muslim countries so abominable? If we Muslims are so tolerant and peaceful, why is there so much ethnic, religious, political, and cultural strife and violence in Muslim countries? Why can’t or won’t we acknowledge the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves? Why are Muslims so full of feelings of anger and uneasiness, and why do we carry so much hostility and hate within us both toward ourselves and toward others? Why are we incapable of criticizing ourselves from within

Ali finds it ironic and unfortunate that while Muslims are fleeing the repressive silence in their home countries, they are finding the same silence in the West:

• Yet European governments are seriously considering limiting the freedom of the press to discuss Islam; some newspaper editors were fired for printing the cartoons. The tragedy for many Muslims is that their inability to criticize the dogma of religion in their own countries will be continued in Europe. (xv)

What do Muslims need? The same things that all of us need – the freedom to see, to speak and to choose! Is Islam is the true religion, then Muslims shouldn’t shun the light of scrutiny! Ali therefore hopes that the West will stop enabling denial and will reaffirm it principles of freedom and fairness:

• The West needs to help Muslims help themselves, and not support them in their illusion by avoiding the underlying questions…This change can only begin by subjecting the sources of Islam to thorough critical examination. (13-14)

How serious is the denial? Ali claims that almost all of their prayers ended with a pleas for the extermination of the Jews. She adds:

• Many madrassas imbue their pupils with an irrational hatred of Jews…Jews are consistently portrayed as instigators of evil. (38)

Such teachings are a sure prescription for ongoing violence. Closer to home, she cites the words of her own mother:

• When my sister and I were small, we would occasionally make remarks about nice people who were not Muslim, but my mother and grandmother would always say, “No, they are not good people. They know about the Koran and the Prophet and Allah, and yet they haven’t come to see that the only thing a person can be is Muslim. They are blind.” (x)

Blindness, however, is curable. It requires the open exchange of ideas and supporting evidences – the soil of the democratic experience - not threats of violence.

Disappointment with God

Here is a letter I just sent to a dear friend who has experienced many failures and closed doors – and he had believed that God was leading him – and, as a result, is disappointed with God

I can't speak with any authority about your situation, but I can about mine! I too had asked for and trusted in God's guidance on many occasions, but I got failure instead - like when I set up a Christian counseling service. Almost immediately, it fell apart (along with me). It was a humbling experience, but I needed humbling - something I couldn't see at the time.

After my life-threatening chain saw injury, the surgeon told me I'd have to exercise my hand in order to insure its future use. However, I didn't, thinking instead, "God is totally in control. He's going to take care of me. I therefore don't need to exercise my hand."

Well, it froze up on me just as the surgeon told me it would, if I didn't get some mobility into it. I therefore felt betrayed by God - that I had trusted Him completely, as He told us to do.

However, over the years, there were so many times I felt like punching the daylights out of someone, but had to dismiss the thought because I couldn't use my right hand. So I began to see that, even in this, God was mercifully directing things, even by allowing me to have my errant theology.

For years, I tended to think that I couldn't trust God because He had let me down. But now I see that this thinking was wrong. Instead, I now thank God for the pain and failures because I see that I needed them, as King David had recognized:

• It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. (Psalm 119:71) 

However, at the time, I didn’t realize that to be the man that my Savior wanted me to be, I required some rigorous training. Paul also confessed:

• We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. [9] Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Cor. 1:8-9)  

I trust that God has a purpose for allowing you to go throw the Valley of the Shadow of Death. You may not see it for many years, but just know that it is there. He has taught me so much through my pains and failures. In retrospect, I wouldn't want it to be otherwise.

The Life of the Mind

Our post-modern culture has neglected the mind, apart from material matters like medicine and meteorology. I’ve been told by Washington Square Park/NYU mavens that 40 years ago all manner of political and philosophical opinion were being promoted from the Park by book tables, pamphlets, and preachers. Ideas mattered! One such atheistic observer encouraged me that I am the last Socrates of the Park.

Why the demise of ideas? Well, we’re told that they don’t matter, even worse, that they have no basis in reality. For example, multiculturalism assures us that there are no objective standards by which we can judge other cultures. Consequently, we can’t pass judgment.

This is tragic and prevents us from confronting the problems we find in other cultures. Muslim reformer and former Dutch Parliamentarian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, laments this fact. In her book, The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, she points the accusing finger at multiculturalism and Western intellectuals who don’t apply this concept consistently:

• These same liberals in western politics have the strange habit of blaming themselves for the ills of the world, while seeing the rest of the world as victims. To them victims are to be pitied, and they lump together all the pitiable and suppressed people, such as Muslims, and consider them good people who should be cherished and supported so that they can overcome their disadvantages. The adherents of multiculturalism refuse to criticize people whom they see as victims…They are critical of the native white majority in Western countries but not of Islamic minorities. Criticism of the Islamic world, of Palestinians, and of Islamic minorities is regarded as Islamophobia and xenophobia. (xvii)

Ali argues that this unwillingness to judge according to moral universal standards is detrimental:

• Because multiculturalists will not classify cultural phenomena as “better’ or “worse” but only neutral or disparate, they actually encourage segregation and unintentionally perpetuate, for instance, the unsatisfactory position of Muslim women. State subsidies for nonstate schools allow Muslims to have their own schools…in which young girls are indoctrinated…with very conservative Islamic practices. (63

Western self-imposed moral blindness is ubiquitous and has resulted in neglect of the abused:

• But in the bigger countries, no NGO yet monitors the number of times an honor killing is committed in a [Western] member state, or the number of times a girl is circumcised, or the number of times a girl is removed form school and forced into a life of virtual slavery. (170

Meanwhile, many Islamic Study departments in Western universities are more committed to indoctrination than in the things that should characterize the university:

• Yet, in spite of having Arab and Islam faculties, most universities in Europe serve as activist centers to further the Palestinian cause, instead of research and teaching centers for Muslim students. (169)

However, having degraded the life of the mind in regards to moral questions, the West now lacks the heart and rationale to stand against intimidation:

• The present-day attitude of Western cultural relativists, who flinch from criticizing Muhammad for fear of offending Muslims, allow Western Muslims to hide from reviewing their own moral values. This attitude also betrays the tiny majority of Muslim reformers who desperately require support – and even the physical protection – of their natural allies in the West. (176)

Consequently, the pushiest prevail, undermining the West’s claim of being just. It should come as no surprise that the life of the mind is also disparaged within the church. Doctrine and the Biblical teachings of the church have been set aside, allegedly because “doctrine divides.”

Sadly, many churches have replaced the primacy of Scripture with goal of experiencing God – unmediated mysticism – claiming that the mind and our fixation upon Scripture is just an impediment. The deceased but now popular Henry Nouwen advised that we clear our minds by the simple repetition of a single word:

• “The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart…This way of simple prayer…opens us to God’s active presence.”

Never mind that Jesus taught against placing our faith in mindless repetitions:

• And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. (Matthew 6:7)

In The Signature of Jesus, Brennan Manning has given similar advice:

• “The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God in prayer…” “Contemplative spirituality tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness…we must come to see reality differently.” “Choosing a single, sacred word…repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.” “Enter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.” (Quoted by Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, 83)

Evidently, Manning is content to overlook the counsel of Scripture:

• Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly…But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. (Psalm 1:1-3; Joshua 1:8)

According to Scripture, blessedness is not a matter of clearing our minds of God, but rather, of contemplating both Him and His Word!

Spiritual Disciplines guru, Richard Foster, reinforces the errant idea that the mind is necessarily a hindrance to the Christian life:

• Imagine the light of Christ flowing through your hands and healing every emotional trauma and hurt feeling your child experienced that day. Fill him or her with the peace and joy of the Lord. In sleep the child is very receptive to prayer since the conscious mind, which tends to erect barriers to God’s gentle influence, is relaxed. (Celebration of Discipline, 39)

Instead of Jesus’ admonition to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and mind, Foster would gladly have us dispense with the conscious mind, which “erect barriers to God’s gentle influence.”

In contrast to this, the early church understood that the life of the mind – what we understand and believe – is foundational for every other aspect of the Christian life. There had been a conflict between two groups of “believers.” One group insisted that circumcision to become a Jew and to follow the Law was necessary for salvation. Meanwhile, Paul and Peter argued that this requirement would cause Gentile believers to stumble. They recounted instances of God’s miraculous workings among the Gentiles, proving that God had accepted them without circumcision.

James then confirmed their testimony with Scripture (Acts 15:15-19). Although they might have been concerned that the conflict would cause division, they had a greater concern - the truths of God and the preservation of the Gospel. The Spirit had revealed to them that salvation was purely a matter of the grace of God, and this truth trumped everything else! Consequently, to resolve the confusion they formulated this letter to be sent throughout the Christian world:

•  “The apostles and elders, your brothers, to the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.” (Acts 15:23-24)

Among other things, this letter reflected the fact that their thought-life was important. As long as thinking was conflicted, they remained “disturbed.”

What we think determines everything else – our self-concept, attitudes and treatment of others, relationships, and even experiencing God! If I believe that He forgives and cleanses me of my sins when I confess them, I am going to feel grateful and intimate with my God. However, if I belief that I must first earn that forgiveness, then I will remain doubtful, depressed and resentful.

The life of the mind is paramount. What we believe is critical to everything we say and do. Consequently, because the Apostles had resolved this theological problem by the Holy Spirit, the church grew:

• As they [Paul, Timothy and Silas] traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey.  So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. (Acts 16:4-5)

Burying our confusion will no more “strengthen” us than a house built without a foundation. Without resolving this fundamental truth, our lives rest upon the shifting sands. Indeed, there are many truths upon which our house must find its support. This requires a steady diet of Scripture meditation – the very thing now regarded as counter-productive.

The Joys of Free-Sex

At least it should be joyous, according to many segments of our intelligentsia. However, it seems that another free-sex experiment has bitten the dust.

The Children of God – recently renamed The Family International (TFI) - had emerged in 1968 from the Jesus People Movement:

• Founder David Berg adopted evangelical views on many doctrines, but over time his teachings supplanted the Bible. Cult watchers criticized Berg’s teaching that female disciples should use sexual favors…to convert men to Jesus. More notoriously, the group once had an open attitude about sexual contact between adults and minors. Both practices ceased by 1987… (Christianity Today, April 2012, 14).

Happily, TFI has continued to move back into Biblical conformity. One scholar stated,

• “I don’t know of any comparable group that has changed so quickly or so fundamentally altered such a large number of its beliefs and practices.” (14)

This reversal raises an important question. Why have the many experiments in sexual libertarianism failed?  Why does a practice, which can be so pleasurable, so readily find itself in hospice care? Of the many U.S. communes that had been based on sexual permissiveness, none remain, as far as I know. What was it that these various groups encountered that had closed the door so decisively on this experiment?

Perhaps we humans weren’t endowed with a “blank slate” that can be programmed according to will, as sexual libertarianism assumes. Perhaps we have a human nature that is only amenable to a limited degree of reprogramming – a nature pre-programmed with jealousy, oxytocin, the need for commitment, dignity, honor, and sexual fidelity, and all of those other things that provide for a stable environment for children. And perhaps when this nature is violated, there are painful health, relational and psychological consequences, like when you violate the nature of a car by putting oil in the gas tank.

When we buy a car, we get an owner’s manual telling us how to care for the car. This assume that we cannot treat the car in any manner we’d like. It too has a nature - characteristics that require certain care.

We know enough about cars to know that we can’t experiment by depriving it of an oil change. We also know enough about alternative sexual lifestyles to know that experimentation comes only with a high price tag. Despite the claims of the Man-Boy-Love-Association, we know enough about the consequences of pedophilia to know that it is nothing more than child abuse. I have yet to hear a glowing testimony of someone sexualized as a five-year-old!

We also know of the ills of adultery. One psychologist sung the praises of his adulterous open-marriage to our therapy group. However, he later admitted that when he saw his wife enter their home with her sex-partner, he had to be hospitalized for two weeks. His nature could not handle his chosen lifestyle.

Why is Western society so myopic? Perhaps it wants to be. Perhaps it’s addicted to immediate gratification. Sounds juvenile? In any event, our God mercifully allows us to reap the consequences of the “pleasures” we demand:

• Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. (Proverbs 1:29-32) 

The consequences are there. We merely have to be willing to open our eyes to them.   

My Question

I often write about the positive fruits that grow from the soil of Christianity. However, many respond negatively to these essays, insisting that the fruits haven't been that positive. Here’s my response to a non-Western Christian friend who took strong issue with my post, “Why the West has been Best,” arguing that such arrogant claims will not engender love for Christianity.

"Thanks for responding. Please know that I appreciate and value your viewpoint, even though we may disagree on a number of points.

  

Regarding Love: People really disagree about what it means to love. I think that we have to answer the question according to the person and needs of the one we are trying to love. So let me start with the youthful Christian in the West.

In the secular West, we have been fed - indoctrinated - with a steady diet of all the bad that has come out of Christianity. In fact, many non-Western scholars, like the Chinese, admire the West and attribute the success of the West to Christianity. They are perplexed by what they find in universities like Harvard - the rejection of traditional Western values - and interpret it as a form of self-contempt.

Even worse, Christians who attend such universities emerge after four or seven years with the understanding that Christ has not made a positive impact on civilization and that the church has utterly failed. Therefore, they routinely try to remake the church into something else - something it is not - convinced, by the barrage of politically-correct dogma, that the church should be ashamed of its contribution. They understandably gravitate into the modern and now-esteemed philosophies, convinced that the church requires an overhaul. They therefore campaign for women's rights to an abortion and homosexual marriage and are more inclined to embrace non-judgmental forms of practice – meditation, visualization, mystical practice – in favor of theology.

What then does it mean to love such people? I think that Western Christians need to see that there is another side of the story that has purposely been left out - the great contributions of the church, and that Christ does make a difference even on the national level.

What does it mean to love the Muslim? Ex-Muslim and now atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, writes that what Muslims need is to hear the truth, especially since everyone around them, even the West, indulges them with exactly what they want to hear, lest they riot. By refusing to hear any criticism of Islam, they are in denial:

• The West needs to help Muslims help themselves, and not support them in their illusion by avoiding the underlying questions…This change can only begin by subjecting the sources of Islam to thorough critical examination. (The Caged Virgin, 13-14)

Love sometimes must take the form of tough-love and confrontation. Speaking as a Christian and not a Westerner, I think that there is a valuable place for people like you who want to love the Muslim in nurturing ways in hope that they will awaken to the love of Christ. Many at Jesus-for-Muslims believe this way, and I certainly admire much of the good work that they have done.

However, I also think that people who confront and debate Islam, like the people at abnsat.com, are also providing a valuable and loving service, even though they might be despised by Muslims for what they perceive as unloving, critical conduct.

Your Brother in Christ, Daniel”

However, I later tried to build a biblical case for my position and was finding difficulty in doing so. This doesn’t mean that my position is necessarily mis-guided, but it does cause me to hesitate.

I certainly welcome the feedback from others on my stance.