The “Bigoted” Church?

Is the church the malignant presence that atheists and the media suggest? In a new nationwide George Barna survey, it was found that

• three-quarters of U.S. adults believe the presence of a church is “very” (53%) or “somewhat” positive (25%) for their community. In contrast, only one out of every 20 Americans believes that the influence of a church is negative—either very (2%) or somewhat so (3%). That leaves about one out of six adults (17%) who are indifferent toward the role of churches.

This means that 75% believe that the church of the USA is at least “somewhat positive.” With all of the negative publicity – we’re often portrayed as “bigoted” and “ignorant” – attached to Christians and the church, such a high percent expressing approval is remarkable. While it can be argued that public opinion polls might not be that valid, it can equally be argued that what we hear about the church in the media is equally invalid and unrepresentative.

Predictably, it was those aged 18-27 who expressed the highest levels of dissatisfaction with the church. Why? Perhaps because age gives us more perspective, while the youth is more influenced by this present Christophobic culture!

The Essence of Psychotherapies

What accounts for the “success” of psychotherapy? According to many voices in the field, it has nothing to do with the specifics of the particular therapy. Sol L. Garfield, the former editor of the Journal of Counseling and clinical Psychology, wrote,

• It thus appears that some type of explanation [or diagnosis] offered by the therapist during psychotherapy has a positive impact on the patient. It seems that whether or not the explanation or interpretation given is “true” …is really of little significance in the therapeutic situation. (Handbook of Eclectic Psychotherapy, 151).

What then makes the difference? Why do clients report improvement? According to Jerome Frank,

• It is generally agreed that the success of a psychotherapist depends in part on his genuine concern for the patient’s welfare. (Persuasion and Healing, 183)

This concern is so critical to the therapeutic process that Hans H. Strupp has argued that

• “future research efforts must be aimed at matching a particular patient with a particular therapist for the purpose of achieving a human relationship in which the patient as a human being can feel respected, accepted, and understood. (Divergent Views in Psychotherapy)

However, former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson regards this as manipulative and deceptive:

• It is not difficult to appear to be attentive when one is rewarded handsomely. If we place our trust in somebody, it matters very much whether that person only appears to be worthy of our trust, or actually is worthy…The therapeutic relationship always involves an imbalance of power. One person pays, the other receives. (Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological Healing, 244)

Consequently, Masson believes that “therapy is never honest”:

• Because therapy depends for its existence on the postulate that the truth of a person’s life can be uncovered in therapy [and this Masson denies], the therapist is rarely willing or able to acknowledge that the profession itself is fraudulent. (240)

Masson supports his claim by citing a number of self-serving myths that psychotherapists tell themselves and others, like “he came to me after he had tried everything else.” However, the biggest myth seems to be that psychotherapy represents healing insights more than relationship and the power of suggestion.

Does this mean that insights have little to do with genuine healing or that counseling can’t impart significant truths? Of course not! I think that Positive Psychology has made strides in identifying some common sense life-strategies that really make a difference – forgiveness, respect, thankfulness, honesty, and confession of wrong-doing.

However, it’s noteworthy that the Bible had been there all the time. For example, take Paul’s admonition:

• Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephes. 4:31-32)

Trusting in Ourselves: The Religion of the World

One pastor commented that he does theology with the New York Times in one hand and the Bible in the other. He was merely commenting on the need to be relevant. Since I don’t get the Times, I sometimes listen to liberal, postmodern preachers. One was expounding on the essence of faith:

• “Faith is usually used to exclude others. We don’t need more exclusion. Faith is not best served by a narrow definition of who’s in and who’s out! It’s not about a rigid, mind-numbing set of doctrines.”

I knew he was talking about me and my type – Bible-believing Christians – and so I braced myself. Not that we want to exclude anybody – we want to include all in our faith – but we serve a God whose way is narrow. Nevertheless, it was hard not to feel a twinge of shame, whether it was deserved or not. I assured myself that it wasn’t. I wondered whether the preacher realized that he was excluding me with his sermon? That thought restored my courage enough to examine myself. Was I being unnecessarily exclusionary? Was I turning spiritual seekers into outcasts?

I found it strange that he was preaching against doctrine. Wasn’t that what preachers do – preach about truth? And wasn’t his sermon doctrinal, even if it’s not the kind you found in Sunday School class? Is it even possible to open my mouth without something that resembles doctrine coming out? I tried it to myself and found that I couldn’t.

His pounding became more insistent, and he waxed eloquent against a pastor who threatened one doubter in this manner: “Who are you to doubt the sacred Scriptures.” The post-modern preacher then contrasted this condemnable behavior with his ideal – giving others the freedom and encouragement to cobble together their own faith. However, he didn’t seem very encouraging about the pastor he had just condemned.

Are there pastors who react antagonistically when confronted with difficult questions? Most pastors I know welcome questions as opportunities to minister more intimately to those struggling for answers. However, this preacher didn’t talk as if he knew any of them. Perhaps he didn’t want to know them? Demonizing pastors on the other side of the tracks makes for spicier sermons.

Well, if faith doesn’t involve a divine revelation, what does it involve? What is the ideal? Fortunately, the preacher didn’t keep me in suspense for long:

• “Living at ease in mystery of the vast universe…Living comfortably and confidently in the cloud of the unknown without the need to set everything down in the form of a doctrine.”

I had little problem with this. After all, it’s certainly better to feel comfortable with the mysteries than uncomfortable. Besides, there are many things that we can’t even begin to understand. But isn’t faith something we believe in, something that’s supposed to guide our thinking and decision-making? We may be awed by what we don’t understand, but it hardly seems like an adequate basis for life. He cleared up my confusion a minute later:

• “Faith is trusting in ourselves to find the answers. Life unfolds as we learn to trust our deepest experiences and to count our lives as something to be appreciated.”

At least he acknowledged that there are answers. I was beginning to think that it was just about searching without any possibility of finding. But what if we can’t trust in ourselves? And what if we’ve tried to trust in ourselves but found that this placed an additional and impossible burden on our already hobbled shoulders? Or even worse, perhaps we’ve learned that our experiences haven’t been trustworthy?

Rather, shouldn’t we place our faith in the person who has more experience, wisdom and intelligence – in someone who has been leading a successful life? Also, isn’t it foolish to tell an impulsive teenager or a sex-crazed maniac to trust in his experiences? It seems that we would need a standard to measure whether our experiences are really trustworthy. When I studied math, I would look in the back of the book for the right answers. Was there any way of measuring whether my self-trust was leading me in the right direction? The preacher ignored this concern.

However, I noticed that everyone in the church was affirmatively nodding their heads. But I was having difficulty in understanding why this wasn’t a divisive doctrine, while believing in God was. If I found that I could live a fruitful life by trusting in myself, wouldn’t I be justified in looking down on those who weren’t living as well? It might become very tempting to exclude the “losers” from my company in favor of the “winners?”

I might not be able to answer all of these questions, but evidently the preacher could. He had several degrees, and everyone else seemed aware of this fact and sat riveted to his sermon. Oddly, even though he was preaching self-trust, it seemed that they were oddly “hearing” preacher-trust.

Persecution Thrives When We Refuse to See

Western nations – now bastions of multiculturalism and religious pluralism – refuse to see outside of their worldview, that certain systems of belief systems will not tolerate peaceful and equal co-existence. Consequently, sixty percent of the Jews of the Netherlands are now contemplating fleeing because of this refusal to engage reality:

• Sixty percent of Dutch Jews are ready to pack up and leave the country. The cause is a boom of Islamic antisemitism in the famous multicultural Netherlands.

• The list of Dutch victims is dramatic: from the killing of the anti-Islamist political leader Pim Fortuyn to the persecution of the Somali dissident Ayaan Hirsi Ali to the murder of the director Theo Van Gogh, condemned to death for his film "Submission," a denunciation of the crimes of Muslim theocracy. Fortuyn's successor, Geert Wilders, has lived under 24-hour police protection for many years. Now the Dutch Jews are ready to flee Holland.


Why? The article cites many reasons including, “attacks on the street, the appalling security around Jewish institutions, the attempted burning of synagogues…”

• From the data of the last report of the Dutch police, the number of anti-Semitic acts in the country has increased by 48 percent this year… Lester M. Wolff van Ravenswade described the difficulties faced by Jews living in Amsterdam. "I cannot go to public events dressed as a Jew, let alone go out on Saturday night. Which party do I have to vote for in order to live safely with the kippah on my head? ".

Sadly, Dutch institutions are also caving in to Islamic pressure. For example:

• Twenty percent of history teachers stopped giving lessons on the Holocaust because of the growing presence of Muslim pupils in public schools.

What is the West unwilling to see? That Islam isn’t just another religion like Judaism, Christianity or Buddhism! It has a militant agenda for world domination, and violence and coercion, found in all Islamic countries, are reflective of this fact. As recently as 7/7/11, an Islamic group, “Muslims Against Crusades,” has announced their intention,

• …to launch 'The Islamic Emirates Project', that will see high profile campaigns launch in Muslim enclaves all over Britain, with the objective to gradually transform Muslim communities into Islamic Emirates operating under Shari'ah law.


This website mentions Britain because, “There are now over 2.8 million Muslims living in the United Kingdom – which is a staggering 5% of the population.” By establishing these Islamic enclaves or “emirates,” they anticipate that they will “pave the way for the worldwide domination of Islam.”

Within these emirates, no Muslim will be able to change their religion. This is merely a part of Shari’ah and Islam – something that can be found in every Islamic nation. While Muslims who leave the faith will either be killed or imprisoned, Islam’s double-standard encourages the conversion to Islam from other faiths. This is all part of the strategy to “pave the way for the worldwide domination of Islam,” and is enforced throughout the entire Islamic world:

• In a video four militants claiming to be Taliban recite a death sentence against Abdul Latif, a Christian convert…As “a warning to other infidels” he says, “You who are joined with pagans…your sentence [is] to be beheaded…whoever changes his religion [from Islam] should be executed.” (WORLD, July 16, 2011, 41-42)

Consequently, many Afghan Christians, including some converted from Islam, are attempting to flee to whatever country that will have them, but their plight continues to be desperate. Some are threatened with expulsion back to Afghanistan:

• Afghan Christians already exiled in New Delhi published an open letter: “We do not know how he whole world and especially the global church is silent and closing their eyes while thousands of their brothers and sisters are in pain, facing life danger and death penalty and are tortured, persecuted and called criminals.”

Perhaps we are all blind! Let us pray that our Savior will remove the log from our eyes.

Dealing with Bigots

Finally, after two millennia of ignorance, we progressives are tossing aside the strangle-hold of tradition like a sweaty garment clinging to our skin. For a prime example of how we are shining our “light” into the darkness, we offer the following for your enjoyment. A school in Sweden has pioneered some bold changes by banishing gender pronouns:

• In accordance with a national school curriculum that seeks to fight the “stereotyping” of gender roles, a preschool in the Sodermalm district of Stockholm has incorporated a gender-free pedagogy that eliminates any reference to gender completely.

• Staff at the “Egalia” preschool avoid using words like “him” or “her” and instead address the 30 or so boys and girls, aged 1 to 6 years, as “friends…the school has hired a ‘gender pedagogue’ to help staff remove masculine and feminine references in language and behavior, going so far as to make sure that lego blocks and other building toys are kept next to kitchen and cooking toys to avoid any gender roles being given preference.

• The Swedish pronouns “han” and “hon” (him and her), for instance, have been replaced in the school by the genderless “hen,” a made-up word that doesn’t exist in Swedish but is used extensively by feminists and homosexuals. There are also no traditional children’s books such as Snow White, Cinderella or the classic fairy tales…The shelves instead have books that deal with homosexual couples, single parents, adopted children, and treatises on “new ways to play.”

Before the hopelessly narrow-minded conclude that these are mindless, ideologically-driven policies, we want you to know first that these innovations are being subjected to intense scrutiny. To cite just one example of how our “side” in this debate is in the absolute educational vanguard where these issues are concerned, please take pride in the knowledge that…

• …the state-funded Swedish Science Council has granted $80,000 for a post-doctoral fellowship for research into “the trumpet as a symbol of gender.”

So you see, friends, you can rest assured – we are definitely on the right track! And yet, perhaps you are wondering whether it might be more appropriate to directly assess the impact of these innovations on the students in question. However, this line of thinking just reflects your underlying homophobia. Only a hate-filled bigot would suggest that such improvements in our fine schools could possibly adversely affect our children.

We know all about your type. You’ll try to make some outmoded appeal to reality – like the outlandish proposition that males and females are different and require appropriate terminology to reflect those intrinsic differences. Bah! Such foolishness! We know so much better now. What you call “reality” is nothing more than a social construct, which the dominant repressive culture has imperialistically imposed on the rest of us.

But hear this, loud and clear—your time is happily over. We have decisively won over the media and the universities. They are now solidly in our camp. They refuse to use your antiquated terminology of “he” and “she.” In fact, we have made such strides that anyone who does use those wretched terms will be laughed into a corner. We now even have the politicians in our pocket. It might have required some intimidation, but if intimidation is required to silence you bigots, then so be it. And if that doesn’t work, well, there’s always violence. Who cares about the lives of a few when the rights of so many are at stake!

After all, we are on an enlightened campaign to eliminate discrimination. And eliminate it, we will, even if we have to curtail freedom and use discrimination against the forces of repression in order to accomplish our high and lofty goals. We’ve already succeeded by sending many of the repressive elements for “sensitivity training.” OK, to be totally forthcoming here, we freely admit that there is absolutely nothing sensitive about the training. It’s a matter of force-feeding our propaganda, but it works. We’ve already convinced large swaths of the public that by calling their children “he” or “she,” they have scarred their children for life, even driving them to masochistic acting-out. As a consequence, we have triumphantly succeeded in convincing the voters that it is we who are the caring and sensitive ones.

Finally, make no mistake about it--anyone who opposes us, we will malign. After all, that’s what they’ve done to us. To heck with their democratic processes, as some might call them! They have long been the tool of the oppressor, but now we will use them to bring true enlightenment and liberty!

The Fight to Bring Same-Sex Couples Together is Tearing Us Apart

Is the federal Defense of Marriage Act, limiting marriage to a man and a woman, unconstitutional? Now our Department of Justice (DoJ) is arguing this very thing:

• The Obama Administration has now completed a full turn on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), arguing before the courts that the law is unconstitutional and should be voided. Obama’s Department of Justice (DoJ) filed papers last Friday in a lawsuit filed by Karen Golinski, an attorney with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, whose partner was denied benefits based on DOMA. The DoJ argues in their brief that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection. The DoJ’s entrance into Golinski’s case represents the first case where Obama’s administration has dropped neutrality for active opposition to DOMA.

The DoJ is basing its challenge upon guarantees of “equal protection,” but how far should equal protection go? All law is a practice of discrimination. We discriminate against 12 year-olds driving and buying alcoholic beverages. However, society has over-riding reasons to deny equal protection to minors. We also deny it to polygamists, pedophiles and streakers. However, no one screams “unconstitutional,” at least not yet. What then should make DOMA unconstitutional?

• The DoJ’s 31-page brief asserts that DOMA’s “official legislative record” shows clearly that Section 3 of DOMA, which limits the federal definition of “marriage” to the union of one man and one woman, and “spouse” to indicate a member of the opposite sex, was “motivated in large part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships.”

My central focus is Christ Himself. My blog is committed to the defense of the Christian faith, and so I always feel somewhat torn writing about subjects like this that seem to be tangential. However, this subject is not merely a scholarly one or even a legal one. It has become a battle-ax to beat down the opposition, claiming that those who oppose have an “animus toward gay and lesbian individuals.” The media and universities have long been terming such people as “religious fanatics,” “homophobes” and “bigots.” In tandem with these biased and unmerited charges is the growing contempt for the Evangelical and Catholic communities and the vilification of everything we believe in. To add insult to injury, these same sources continue to hypocritically deny any bias.

Already, in many places, the contempt is breeding self-contempt and even violence. I therefore feel compelled to ask several questions:

1. What evidence is there for the allegation of an “animus toward gay and lesbian individuals?” While we all struggle with negative feelings for those who vilify us, in my 35 years as a Christian, I have never heard a sermon expressing this “animus.” In fact, I am a bit disturbed by the absence of sermons speaking against the various sexual sins that have become ubiquitous, whether adultery, trial marriages, or pornography.

2. Even if some do have this “animus,” why should their negative motivation be a cause to strike down a law? None of us have pure motivations. We struggle against all manner of biases and resentments. However, the laws that we pass or repeal should be according to their merits and not a psychological analysis of the people promoting the law.

3. Isn’t the DoJ exercising their own bias or “animus” against the supporters of DOMA? Is the DoJ examining the same-sex community for their “animus?” Hardly!

4. Shouldn’t the repeal of DOMA also be considered in light of the possible repeal of the anti-polygamy and anti-incest laws? Aren’t they too the product of the “animus?”

5. Isn’t there something myopic about the DoJ’s challenge? Shouldn’t it be undertaken in light of an investigation regarding the long-range impact of same-sex marriage and other alternative groupings on the well-being of a society?

I have no animus towards gays. I’ve struggled with my own sins too long to have contempt on others. No Christian has any Biblical license to do so! If Christ has forgiven us, then we have the same responsibility towards others. However, if we are concerned about people struggling with suicide, we won’t put a gun in their hands. The same is true for people struggling with same-sex attraction. As love withholds the gun, love also withholds encouragement from those who would pursue a self-destructive lifestyle.

Love is also beholden to the welfare of society. In this regards, John J. Davis (Evangelical Ethics) writes of the work of British Anthropologist, J.D. Unwin:

• After a comprehensive study of both Western and non-Western cultures throughout human history, Unwin concluded that the record of mankind “does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it had been absolutely [heterosexually] monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.” Unwin observed that a society’s adoption and maintenance of heterosexual monogamy as a social standard “has preceded all manifestations of social energy, whether that energy be reflected in conquest, in art and sciences, in extension of the social vision, or in the substitution of monotheism for polytheism.” (p. 116)

If we refuse to consider the long range impact of alternative sexual groupings, perhaps it’s because of our own “animus” towards the welfare of our society?

Relationships: Ugh!

Making relationships work is simple stuff but also can be maddeningly difficult and confusing. The Apostle Paul outlines a very simple and clear-cut strategy:

• Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephes. 4:31-32)

When you are determined to treat your mate, friend or boss kindly, compassionately, and forgivingly, just about any basis for conflict is removed. Your mutual interests become the same. They want the best for themselves, and you want the best for them also. From where then can bitterness arise? Why then the conflicts? James claims that

• What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. (James 4:1-2)

Conflicts result when our interests do not coincide. When we want something that our friend won’t or can’t give, quarrels develop like tropical downpours. But if relationships are really so simple, why then is there a divorce rate of more than 50%? Well, there are many reasons for this. Unrealistic expectations help to account for this high figure.

• Coleman [a San Francisco psychologist] says that the constant cultural pressure to have it all—a great sex life, a wonderful family—has made people ashamed of their less-than-perfect relationships and question whether such unions are worth hanging on to. Feelings of dissatisfaction or disappointment are natural but they can seem intolerable when standards are sky-high.” (Psychology Today, March/April2004, 38)

Our failures to fathom what constitutes a well-lived life go hand-and-hand with our unrealistic expectations. We mistakenly believe that the good-life is about getting rather than giving. When we fail to get our priorities straight to recognize that we receive more from giving, we necessarily place ourselves in competition with others to get limited resources – respect, money, popularity, power, and position. This is a sure prescription for conflict and alienation.

However, there is another factor – one seldom recognized – that undermines relationships. Oddly, even though there is now so much emphasis placed upon the value of intimate relationships – and so many groups available to connect with like-minded spirits – they seem to be getting scarcer. In one study,

• McPherson found that between 1985 and 2004, the number of people with whom the average American discussed ‘important matters’ dropped from three to two. Even more stunning, the number of people who said that there was no one with whom they discussed important matters tripled: in 2004, individuals without a single confidant now made up nearly a quarter of those surveyed. (The Lonely American, 2)

This is alarming! What can account for this collapse of intimacy? I think that this is a product of our unwillingness to honestly engage ourselves, to be real and transparent. Without these, we are consequently unable to engage others. If the foundation of our lives isn’t solid, nothing can be built upon them.

Intimate relationships require that two people share the same reality. This is the common ground upon which satisfying, bridge-building communication must take place. However, if we have spent our lives devoted to building self-esteem, self-trust, and self-image at the expense of the truth about ourselves, the bases for common ground, especially intimate common ground, shrink.

When I’m transparent with others about my weaknesses and failures – and I often do this to inject some humor and to show the object of my real confidence, Christ – many become uncomfortable. If they haven’t learned to accept their ugly parts, they tend to feel uncomfortable when an associate makes such revelations, even humorously. They instead insist that I have to learn to trust myself.

Besides, self-esteem comes at a high price. If self-esteem has become the trajectory of our lives, we will accentuate the good about ourselves and deny the unpleasant. Consequently, we adopt a very distorted view of ourselves. Shelley Taylor (Positive Illusions) writes,

• Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases. (p.214)

For instance, in one study of nearly a million high school seniors, 70 percent said they had “above average leadership skills, but only 2 percent felt their leadership skills were below average.” Another study found that 94 percent of college professors think they do above average work. And in another study, “when doctors diagnosed their patients as having pneumonia, predictions made with 88 percent confidence turned out to be right only 20 percent of the time.”

These distortions play havoc with our relationships in other ways. Although we might know that kindness and forgiveness are keys to intimacy, we often justify our lack of kindness and forgiveness, because we have convinced ourselves that we are morally superior to others.

Often, we don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge these types of attitudes, but they manifest themselves in profound ways. I used to catch myself judging my wife: “I’d never do that to her!” I might not have realized it fully at the time, but I had been deeming myself morally superior to my wife. I was a king, and so she had to be a queen! However, when we fill ourselves with these judgments, we also justify withholding kindness and forgiveness. After all, she deserves to not be forgiven! She wasn’t the queen that I required that she be to compliment my kingly status. As the Proverbs say, “Pride only breeds quarrels!”

As my self-esteem has fallen (and my God-esteem has risen), my wife increasingly looks better to me, and also everyone else. Consequently, I’ve learned to respect others more and to extend to them kindness and forgiveness more readily.

John Gottman and his institute have become prominent in the area of marriage. Although not a Christian, he too has come to appreciate the simplicity of certain principles for improving our relationships:

• “The typical conflict-resolution advice (techniques) won’t help. Instead, you need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict between you—and learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other.” (The Seven Principles for making Marriage Work, 24)

We resonate with being treated with the basic dignity with which we were created (Genesis 1:26-27). We were created in glory; we have to reflect this in our treatment of others. We have to pass on to others what God has given us:

• Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col. 3:12-14)