Hillary’s Hate Speech

I’m tired of this subject. I have already written extensively on the subject on human rights and same-sex marriage (SSM). It’s become so contentious that I have become the object of the worst forms of name calling and derision, which have often progressed into personal threats and intimidation. Just yesterday, one blog-world atheist found out where I teach – the telephone and fax number – and tried to encourage his fellow-atheists jam up their lines, simply because they disagreed with my stance on human rights, expressed in a prior essay. Sometimes, there are even intimations of violence.

Even though it’s becoming obvious to many that our social climate is beginning to boil over, this hasn’t stopped our power structures – the media, the university and government – from using the most inflammatory language to describe those who oppose SSM. We are routinely termed “bigots,” “hate-mongers,” “homophobes,” and just plain “idiots.” However, our Secretary of State has just upped the stakes by comparing us to murderers:

• In a speech [December 8, 2011]designed to convince the world that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said religious objections to homosexuality should not stand in the way of vigorous United Nations action to promote the homosexual rights agenda. On Tuesday, Clinton said promoting the global acceptance of “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people” is “one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time,” likening the effort to ending racial, sexual, or religious discrimination. She noted that perhaps the “most challenging issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens.” These objections, she said, are “not unlike the justification offered for violent practices towards women like honor killings, widow burning, or female genital mutilation.”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/hillary-clinton-religious-objections-to-homosexuality-like-supporting-honor?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4aa198a190-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines12_09_2011&utm_medium=email

Comparing us to murderers will just further inflame the viciousness, especially when coming from the government of the USA. If we are murderers, then it becomes justified to treat us as murderers. At first, we had been compared to Nazis and the KKK by the luminaries of our society. When this comparison stuck, then it became easy to make the argument, “If we deny the voice of the Nazi and the Klansman, we should also deny the voice of the anti-SSM bigot.”

This perverted reasoning has banished our voice from the mainstream media, the schools and the university, replacing it with scorn which has understandably flowered into contempt and discrimination. Christians and Christian groups have now been barred from the universities for expressing opinions that have now been deemed “bigoted.”

The hypocrisy has reached levels that would have been thought unbelievable just a few decades earlier. We are charged with “discrimination” by those who discriminate against us. We are charged with “hate speech” by those who show no reservations about using hate speech against us. We are charged with “bullying” by the bullies who routinely silence us. We are charged with denying the human rights to others by those who deny us the human rights of freedom of speech and religion upon which this great nation had been founded. We are systematically vilified for merely expressing our opinions – opinions that had traditionally constituted the fabric of all the nations of the West.

We have been called “unjust” by those who would deny us justice. And now we are likened to murderers. If we have become so contemptible, it is unsurprising that we are treated with contempt. Evidently Clinton doesn’t believe that the levels of scorn directed toward the church are yet great enough, and so now we have become like murderers.

We still have laws against pedophilia and incest. Should this nation be regarded as a nation of “murderers” because we still affirm these “discriminatory” laws, thereby denying human rights on the basis of our traditional values? Isn’t our justification for maintaining such “antiquated” laws like “the justification offered for violent practices towards women like honor killings, widow burning, or female genital mutilation,” according to Clinton?

Presently, pedophiles, now termed “minor-attracted people,” are making their bid to find sanction under “human rights.” World magazine writes:

• Homosexuality shook off its status as a mental illness in 1973 when the American Psychiatric Association removed its entry from the DSM. Societal acceptance wasn’t far behind. Now activists are casting pedophilia as just another sexual orientation.” (December 17, 2011, 68)

And why not! If SSM is a human right, why shouldn’t pedophilia be one also? However, I don’t think that Clinton would regard those who would maintain statutes against pedophilia as comparable to murderers. But why not? Even to raise this issue is now regarded as “homophobic?” But are we murderers because we would vote against the right to have multiple wives or husbands? Are we murderers because we insist on maintaining the right to teach our children chastity until marriage? Aren’t we denying the human rights of minors? Should we be treated with contempt because of this?

Clinton would deprive us of our human rights and our vote, claiming that the human rights of SSM should trump everything else:

• The secretary of state added that nations must pass LGBT civil rights laws, even when they offend the majority of a nation’s citizens. “Leadership, by definition, means being out in front of your people when it is called for,” Clinton said. “[W]e are each free to believe whatever we choose…But progress comes from changes in laws.”

In her estimation, the majority vote no longer counts. She is not alone in this opinion. A single judge was able to overturn California’s vote in favor of Proposition 8, limiting marriage to one man and one woman, simply because he deemed it “unconstitutional,” even though there is nothing in the Constitution protecting SSM or anything like it. In other words, “My prejudice reigns uber alles!” Clinton tries to build her case on “evolving” values.

• She stated worldwide “opinions are still evolving” on homosexuality as they did with slavery, and “what was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights…In each of these cases, we came to learn that no [religious] practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us,” she said.

Why should we regard the latest values as the best? Why the presumption that we are evolving into something better? Is this notion anything other than the tyranny of modernity – the newest is best?

Besides, where then do human rights come from if not from religion? If its origin is no higher than the nation itself, then Clinton has no right to say that her own Western values (religion) are any more valid than those of nations that reject SSA. By leaving God and His transcendent truth out of the equation, Clinton is engaging in nothing more than cultural imperialism, saying, in effect that, “Our Western values are more valid than yours!”

Clinton is also denying her own nation’s religious basis for human rights. Our Declaration of Independence powerfully affirms:

• When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The Declaration wisely appeals to a source higher than the laws of England – to “the laws of nature and of nature's God [which] entitle them.” Without God, there exists no authority upon which the new Federation could find rationale for their decision to break from England and from its existing laws:

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A right can only be “unalienable” if it cannot be trumped by “evolving” ethical standards. Recognizing that our rights find their origin in religion – in God Himself – secures their immutability.

Clinton has nothing upon which to base her assertion that SSM represents a human right. Why should her assertion carry more weight than the assertions of other nations? Without this higher moral authority, her stance is no more than cultural imperialism. This is also something that will play well in Muslim nations, which want to make the case that the West is imperialistic and decadent. Clinton’s “evolving” standards have not only polarized this country, but they also serve to polarize internationally.

Even worse, without the sanction of God, we cannot escape the mire of moral relativism – morality is no more than our sentiments and social conventions! If this is the case, we have no rational basis upon which to make a moral claim. If we try to do this, we can say no more than, “Well, this is our social convention, and I feel it should be yours also!”

Meanwhile, the words of the Bible are reiterated once again:

• Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." (Romans 8:35-36; Psalm 44)

Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul assures us in the next verse, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Abortion, Mental Health, and Human Nature

We are wired with moral sensitivities – rights and wrongs. Therefore, when we do what we believe is right, we feel right. When we act in opposition to our wiring, we suffer certain consequences. Perhaps this hard-wiring is able to explain recent findings of a strong correlation between having an abortion and mental health problems:

• The prestigious British Journal of Psychiatry (BJP) recently published “Abortion and Mental Health: Quantitative Synthesis and Analysis of Research Published 1995-2009.” The paper, a culmination of Dr. Priscilla Coleman’s extensive experience in the field of abortion and mental health, finds that women who have undergone abortion have an 81% increase in the risk of mental health problems, and an even greater risk for substance misuse and suicidal behaviour (230% and 155% respectively). Nearly 10% of the incidence of all mental health problems was shown to be directly attributable to abortion… The sample encompasses 22 studies, 36 measurements of mental health effects and 877,181 participants of whom 163,831 had experienced an abortion.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/major-study-on-abortion-mental-health-risk-under-attack-but-criticisms-base?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=92bc3740d4-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines12_07_2011&utm_medium=email

Because this is a highly charged topic, the responses have been heated:

• Within the academic community, ad hominem attacks questioned Dr. Coleman’s scholarly objectivity, calling her an “anti-abortion campaigner” with an “agenda-driven bias” and “obvious conflict of interest” undermining her ability to critically review the primary studies. The journal allegedly failed to detect “egregious scientific errors” and left the readers to “sort through the serious flaws” themselves. Several critics called on BJP to retract the article.

Unless Coleman’s findings based upon these 22 studies can be conclusively overturned – and generally, ad hominem attacks reflect the fact that even the attackers know that their case is weak – women considering abortions need to be advised of these risks.

Furthermore, these findings should promote questions about human flourishing. “Can a potential mother flourish psychologically after terminating the new life within her womb?” Many women have reported that they have suffered for years after submitting to this ill-advised action. For some, tormenting regrets remain.

This also begs the question, “In what other ways are we hard-wired? And in what circumstances do we violate this hard-wiring to our own detriment?”

Sadly, the study and practice of clinical psychology have largely bypassed this essential question about our human nature in favor of an emphasis on choice and immediate gratification. Questions of individual psychopathology have trumped those about who we are and what we need. Consequently, we know more about human differences than we do about our many human similarities.

In contrast, the Bible is written from the perspective that we are all related by a common origin and nature. Therefore, there are many commonalities – certain things bring benefit to humanity and certain things harm.

Clinical Psychology provides little instruction in morality. Since when have you ever heard a psychologist say that “righteousness exalts a nation” (Proverbs 14:34) or “those who live by the sword shall die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52) or “he who sows wickedness will reap trouble” (Proverbs 22:8)? Since when has modern psychology preached that you have a responsibility to care for your parents or the new life in your womb? Instead, it’s a matter of what feels right for you!

However, what might feel right, in the short run, becomes poison down the road. Steroids might take the 100-yard-dash, but might fail to take you across the final finish-line. The affair might fill you with excitement but leave you with years of regret. We need a moral roadmap, one that will enable us to avoid the dead-ends.

Western Missions, Western Guilt

Hwa Yung, the bishop of the Methodist Church of Malaysia, is concerned about the waning of Western missions. He cites Western guilt and charges of “imperialism” as major culprits, and he wants to counteract these.

For one thing, intellectuals from the newly established countries,

• Long for their countries to become modern democracies with advanced economies. They do not buy into the secularization theory that suggests that the unique, finely balanced combination of democracy, political stability with checks and balances in government, civil society, human rights undergirded by a strong a just legal system, and an advanced economy with minimal corruption will emerge willy-nilly with modernization. They have looked at the 20th-century experiment called Marxism, perhaps the most secular of ideologies, and have found it utterly wanting for either the prosperity or the freedoms they seek. (Christianity Today, Nov. 2011, 44)

This conclusion should be a matter of common-sense, but it certainly isn’t common. Oddly, the secularists of the Western university credit secularism with Western successes. Meanwhile, they have substituted moral relativism for a commitment to moral absolutes and marvel speechlessly before the various moral-economic-social-political woes that are now afflicting the West. This is because they are unwilling to give credit where credit is due:

• These intellectuals have reached the same conclusions as those of the late American legal scholar Harold Berman and the sociologist Rodney Stark: The moral values, legal principles, and psychological basis of the best modern Western civilizations came from their Christian history. Thus, many, like Chinese cultural Christians, see the gospel alone as able to provide adequate moral foundations for rejuvenating their nations.

Oddly, we in the West have lost vision of this fact. In fact, it has even become politically incorrect to make such observations, which can imperil one’s livelihood.

Yung cites a 2008 article in The Times (UK) by Matthew Parris, a journalist and former British MP, reflecting on his visit to Malawi:

• Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOS, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good…Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone, and the machete.

Well, haven’t Christian missions undermined indigenous culture? Isn’t there a basis for Western guilt? Yung cites Yale professor Lamin Sanneh claims that “Christian missions actually helped to preserve cultures and languages” through the translation of the Bible into “vernacular languages”:

• As he put it, “Christian missions are better seen as a translation movement, with consequences for vernacular revitalization, religion change and social transformation, than as a vehicle for Western cultural domination.” I don’t know of any serious scholar refuting Sanneh’s thesis.

If we are concerned about the advancement of the Third World, then missions should be encouraged. In her discussion of the missionaries to Africa, historian Ruth Tucker acknowledges that, while there were missionaries who also understood their role as one of westernizing the natives,

• They, more than any other outside influence, fought against the evils colonialism and imperialism brought. They waged long and bitter battles…the heinous traffic in human cargo. And after the demise of the slave trade they raised their voice against other crimes, including the bloody tactics King Leopold used to extract rubber from the Congo. The vast majority of missionaries were pro-African, and their stand for racial justice often made them despised by their European brothers. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that without the conscience of Christian missions, many of the crimes of colonialism would have gone entirely unchecked. (“From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya,” 140).

All of this should give renewed emphasis to Jesus’ words:

• Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)

The Bible, Jack Rogers, and Gay Rights

Here is my letter to a very special gay friend:

Thanks so much for Jack Rogers’ book (Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality). I read it with much interest, trying to understand how an Evangelical would come to the conclusion that the Bible doesn’t forbid homosexuality, at least for today. Although I’m still confused about this, Rogers did provoke me enough to write a short rebuttal:

Central to Rogers’ position are the methods by which we interpret the Bible:

• I saw a clear picture of a shift from a literalistic method of biblical interpretation to one that looks at Scripture through the lens of the redeeming life and ministry of Jesus Christ. (16)

This statement is very confusing to an educated Evangelical. This is because we also try to understand the Bible contextually. This means that it’s important to take into account the type of literature we are trying to interpret. Some are highly literal and some figurative, like the sayings of Jesus.

We also are quick to make use of the “lens of the redeeming life and ministry of Jesus Christ.” We too want our interpretation to conform to the reality of His work and teachings. The Apostles certainly did! Whatever distinction Rogers was trying to make, one thing was clear – he didn’t approve of the way that Evangelicals had been interpreting Scripture.

Rogers then began to cite various instances where Evangelicals had historically been dead wrong in their interpretations – the use of tobacco disqualifying ordination, the justification of slavery, and the role of women. He then asks the rhetorical question,

• How could certain theologians and pastors be so confident that they understood the Scriptures, when we now believe that they were so wrong? What were the primary philosophical and theological resources of early America that directed people to think in ways that we now can hardly comprehend? (29)

Indeed, seeing our past mistakes – both personal and church-wide – should make us more self-examining. However, Rogers intends this lesson to be broader in scope:

• What is instructive about these examples is that a similar pattern is emerging today regarding people who are homosexual. Those who oppose homosexuality claim that (1) the Bible records God’s judgment against the sin of homosexuality from its first mention in Scripture; (2) people who are homosexual are somehow inferior in moral character and incapable of rising to the level of full heterosexual “Christian civilization”: and (3) people who are homosexual are willfully sinful, often sexually promiscuous and threatening, and deserve punishment for their own acts. The church is once again repeating the mistakes of the past. (34)

Rogers is not fair in his assessment. Those of us who regard homosexual practice as sin do not regard homosexuals as “inferior in moral character and incapable of rising to the level of full heterosexual…” This statement is blatantly mistaken. Although there might be extremists who think this way, this is not a position that can be honestly extracted from the Bible. Instead we believe that we are all sinners who are desperately in need the Savior.

Although it is true that some sins are more destructive than others (1 Cor. 6:18-19), it is also true that any sin can damn us. Consequently, we do not have the right to regard any as “inferior.” On the contrary, we are reminded that God chose this worlds rejects and low-life for salvation (1 Cor. 1:26-29), among whom I gladly number myself.

Roger’s characterization of us is lamentable, especially since it is found among so many championing gay rights. It is also hypocritical. While they show such exquisite sensitivity towards gays, they find nothing inconsistent about heaping unfair abuse upon those who don’t agree with them.

Roger’s position is also logically problematic. He argues that since Evangelicals have been wrong in the past, they are now wrong about homosexuality. To apply this logic further, it means that we can’t be right about anything – not Jesus, not the Cross, nor anything. However, I’m sure that Rogers has also been wrong about many of his past beliefs. According to his logic, wouldn’t it them mean that he is also wrong about homosexuality? Of course not! However, it’s important to recognize that his logic rules equally against him!

Rogers then inveighs against “rational analysis” in favor of “personal encounter,” suggesting that the former is rigid and dangerous:

• Fascism in Europe demonstrated the danger of a rigid worldview that did not allow for diversity of opinions. (38)

While it is true that a “rigid worldview” can be dangerous, it depends upon what one is rigid about. Rogers is rigid about gay rights, and most gay advocates have little use for the “diversity of opinions.” Instead, he credits the neo-orthodoxy of Barth and Brunner with substituting the rigidity of “rational analysis” with a more humanizing perspective:

• They did not view the Bible as a collection of inerrant facts, but as a very human document that reliably recorded a very real encounter of real people with a real God…The influence of neo-orthodoxy and the biblical theology movement enabled the church to take a fresh look at oppressive social institutions. (39)

Of course, if the Bible isn’t a “collection of inerrant facts,” then it has errors, and it’s up to us to recognize which parts are inspired and which aren’t. This means that we (and consequently our cultural conditioning) become the final arbiter of truth. It is no longer then a matter of Scripture judging us, but instead of we sitting in judgment over Scripture. If we really have that level of insight, then Scripture becomes irrelevant. If we have the capacity to judge Scripture, then we also have the capacity to produce the equivalent of Scripture.

According to neo-orthodoxy, Scripture then is merely “a very human document that reliably recorded a very real encounter.” If this is all that Scripture is, then why should the “encounters” of middle-eastern folk two thousand years ago be any more revealing and authoritative than my own encounters? If it’s just a “very human document,” then it shouldn’t be so! Only if it’s entirely God-breathed and thus inerrant is it worthy to govern my life.

Rogers slips between one point of view and another. Sometimes, it’s the fallible Bible that is at fault for our “oppressive social institutions,” and sometimes it’s the fault of the interpretation of the hated Evangelicals. However, most of the time, Rogers wants us to understand that our principles of interpretation are at fault. Consequently, he endorses the principle of love in contrast to a strict adherence to Scripture. Rogers inappropriately cites:

• He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Cor. 3:6)

Rogers wrongly concludes that the killing “letter” of the law pertains to Scripture. Therefore, if Scripture kills, we have to be very tentative about it. However, read contextually, the “letter” pertains to the Covenant of Moses, not to Scripture:

• Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was (2 Cor. 3:7)

Rogers sets forth “seven guidelines for interpretation.” (54) On the surface, they seem to be sound, but the devil is in the details. Number five reads:

• “Let all interpretations be in accord with the rule of love, the two-fold commandment to love God and to love our neighbor.” (62)

This is a sound and central Scriptural principle. However, Rogers explains:

• When we interpret Scripture in a way that is hurtful to people, we can be sure that we are not glorifying God. (62)

What does Rogers mean by “hurtful?” To explain, he cites his denominational report of 1983:

• “No interpretation of Scripture is correct that leads to or supports contempt for any individual or group of persons either within or outside the church…Any interpretation of Scripture is wrong that separates or sets in opposition love for God and love for fellow human being.” (62)

What does “contempt for any individual or group” entail? Any refusal to accept homosexuality as Biblically acceptable represents “contempt.” Well then, can we ever interpret Scripture as condemning any sin? Must we then not censure those who steal and lie because this would represent “contempt?” Should we also be accepting of adultery, pre-marital sex, polygamy, pedophilia, and prostitution? And isn’t Rogers demonstrating “contempt” for those who disagree with him and the historical interpretations of the church?

Does the prohibition against showing “contempt” for certain behaviors also rule out Jesus’ teaching in support of church discipline? He instructed the church to avoid those who refuse to repent:

• If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. (Matthew 18:17)

Wouldn’t the exercise of church discipline violate Jesus’ teaching? Wouldn’t this embody “contempt?” Rogers reinterprets “love” in terms of indulgence of various sexual lifestyles. He cites New Testament professor, Walter Wink, approvingly:

• “Many of the practices that the Bible prohibits, we allow, and many that it allows, we prohibit. The Bible knows only a love ethic, which is constantly being brought to bear on whatever sexual mores are dominant in any given country…” (63)

It seems that Rogers and Wink are very ready to invoke the “love principle” of the Bible, in a way that supports their politics. However, once the Bible disagrees with the prevailing practices, then “Many of the practices that the Bible prohibits, we allow.” Very convenient! Why then even cite the Bible, if the true authorities are ultimately Rogers and Wink, drawing from the Bible what they find agreeable and discarding the rest?

Rogers is able to use his “love principle” to justify any form of self-indulgence. He applies this principle to the question of divorce and remarriage. In support, he cites his denominational statements:

• “Whenever free Protestant churches are studying this problem today in the light of Jesus’ total teachings on human relations, the trend is unmistakably away from a strictly legalistic approach to one more finely and fundamentally spiritual.” (43)

Sadly, this “fundamentally spiritual” approach can be used to justify just about any divorce:

• “Infidelity can be spiritual as well as physical and it manifests itself in many forms. It is therefore unrealistic to hold that divorce is permissible only when marriage has been broken by one or two forms of infidelity, both of which are physical acts.” (43)

Well, of what do “spiritual” grounds for divorce consist? Just about anything! If you don’t find your marriage romantic or spiritual enough, this newly discovered spiritual principle of “love” is enough to set you free from spouse and children or any commitment. Hence, the virtue of commitment is made to bow before personal fulfillment, now construed as a “spiritual” right.

It is pointless to examine how Rogers interprets the various texts that prohibit homosexuality. Clearly, he doesn’t regard these texts as authoritative. For him, what is authoritative is his contemporary understanding of “love.” Instead of trying to contextually understand a passage, he has already committed himself to imposing his doctrine of “love” upon it. However, I proceeded out of curiosity to see how he would explain them away.

Rogers firstly deals with the sin of Sodom (Genesis 19; also Judges 19:1-30):

• The central idea in these passages is the sacred obligation of hospitality for travelers. (70)…The sin of Sodom is mentioned several times elsewhere in the Bible, but never in connection with homosexual acts. (71)

It is most-likely true that Sodom had committed the sin of inhospitality. However, Rogers is mistaken that the Bible never mentions Sodom’s sin “in connection with homosexual acts.” The prophet Ezekiel cites numerous sins:

• Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. (Ezekiel 16:49-50)

It wasn’t just that Sodom had been “arrogant…not help[ing] the poor and needy…haughty,” it also did “detestable” things – the very word (toebah) used to describe homosexuality in Leviticus 18 and 20. However, the Letter of Jude is more specific:

• And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home--these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 6-7)

Rogers’ other attempts to explain away the Bible’s injunctions against homosexuality are equally unconvincing. Sadly, Christians have often proved themselves hasty to justify contemporary fads and to subtly introduce them into the church. Let us therefore pray that we might remain faithful to our Lord through His Word, a Word that is able to

• Build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:32)

Secularism and the Death of “Equal Access”

The First Amendment reads:

• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

When government rules that religious groups can no longer rent space at public schools, while allowing other community groups to do so, it violates the constitution: “prohibiting the free exercise [of religion] thereof…” It is also discriminatory and denies the principle of “equal access”:

• The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review a more-than-16-year legal battle over a New York City “unequal access” policy. The policy discriminates against churches and other religious groups that desire to meet on weekends at public school facilities on the same terms as other groups. The high court’s decision not to weigh in on the Alliance Defense Fund case means that the policy can stand and that the New York City Department of Education can keep religious services out of public school buildings on weekends even though numerous other community groups use school space for their meetings. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/supreme-court-ignores-discrimination-against-religious-groups-in-public-sch?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b00971ab78-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines12_05_2011&utm_medium=email

Why this blatant hostility towards religious groups? It fits into the new and monopolistic stealth religion of secularism and religious pluralism. Here are some of its unwritten tenants:

1. All religions are the same and should be treated as such!
2. Secularism (materialism, atheism, naturalism) is not a religion.
3. Secularism is about facts, proofs, and evidences. Religion is about faith. Therefore, secularism should govern public discourse and decision-making. Religion should be kept private and confined to churches, mosques and synagogues.
4. Secularism is neutral and moderate. Religion is biased and extreme and therefore must be overseen by secularism.

These, of course, are the modern dogmas vigorously promoted by the media, schools, and government. However, they are all biased and reflect the secular version of religion. Instead:

1. Religions are very different.
2. Secularism is just as much a religion as the others, although it doesn’t entail any idea of a Supreme Being. Instead, the human being is supreme, at least some of them.
3. Secularism is just as much committed to their unprovable religious beliefs as are those groups they deem “religions.” For one thing, secularism believes and promotes “Naturalism.” However, this belief – everything happens and originates naturally – lacks the slightest scientific support. Secularism also unjustifiably dismisses the idea that other religions could have evidential support.
4. Secularism is anything but neutral. It’s all about its own self-promotion. Instead of allowing “equal access” to the public schools, secularism is actively and monopolistically promoting its own values.

Yes, we are diverse and must forge some way by which we can all live together under the umbrella of the USA. However, this cannot happen as long as secularism refuses to be transparent about its faith, goals, and policies. Without transparency, we can’t ever hope to have any meaningful conversation and compromise.

Corporate Repentance

Below is an excerpt of a letter that one Christian wrote to the Occupy Movement and then my response to it:

• The value of your movement is in spontaneity, diversity, and flexibility. Do not let extreme ideologies hijack your movement. Do not let the media define who you are. Avoid every temptation to name a spokesperson or a leader, no matter how charismatic that person is. Keep pressing into raising questions more than giving answers. Be generous, mysterious, and enigmatic. A movement is organic and generative, and your passion must be carried into the conversation for the next generation, from Wall Street to dining room table discussions. Above all, do all things out of love.

I’m sure that the Christian means well by this advice, but is he really giving them a basis for hope? Although there might be some virtue in “spontaneity, diversity, and flexibility,” it only finds its value in leading to truth. In themselves, these qualities can just as easily lead to violence and revolution.

And why shouldn’t “media define who you are?” Why shouldn’t they stand for something of worth? What is the virtue of remaining undefined? I seems that such advice merely feeds into Occupy prejudices – big is bad; small is good; order is evil, while disorganization is “organic and generative.”

This seems to remove our attention from where it needs to be: The evil is inside each one of us. We all have a tremendous capacity to corrupt and hurt. There aren’t the good guys and the bad guys. There isn’t the good 99% and the evil 1% upon which we can vent and rail. Although this 1% might have a greater capacity to negatively impact many, so do movements, whether defined or undefined.

This letter advises, “Keep pressing into raising questions more than giving answers.” Questions are only valuable as a possible vehicle to bring us to valuable answers. Why do research if it fails to shed light on a particular question? If Occupy wants to be heard, they need something to say. If they can’t come up with any answers, how can they expect anyone to meaningfully address the problems – and there are many.

Maybe it might sound clichéd, but maybe the answer might be corporate repentance, seeing that we have the same root of greed within ourselves? Maybe the many problems that confront us require a particular spiritual solution and not an undefined movement? Maybe it might involve the recognition that we are sinners who need the Savior? Maybe it requires the acknowledgement that the more we have moved away from the Savior, the more our problems have multiplied?

The Constitutional Convention had been meeting for five weeks, and had hit a perilous deadlock. The large states were insisting that congressional representation be based on population; the smaller states wanted a one-state-one-vote rule. According to James Madison, the Deist, Ben Franklin, broke the impasse:

• Mr. President…In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.

• I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?

• To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

• I therefore beg leave to move - that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service-

Hence, the impasse was broken! Perhaps we too as a nation need to revisit these wise words!

De-Christianizing the Military

It was by George Washington’s insistence that his troops would have chaplains. He and others recognized that their war was a moral one, and victory required that the highest moral standards had to be maintained. On July 9th, l776, he wrote to the Continental Congress:

• The Colonels or commanding officers of each regiment are directed to procure Chaplains accordingly; persons of good Characters and exemplary lives - To see that all inferior officers and soldiers pay them a suitable respect and attend carefully upon religious exercises. The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger -The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavor so to live, and act as becomes a Christian Soldier defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.

Much has changed. The de-Christianizing of America has become more than a matter of removing crèche scenes and crosses. On Dec. 2, 2011, the Family Research Council (FRC) revealed:

• The soldiers who wake up in Walter Reed Medical Center are in Maryland--not communist China. But under the Navy's new rules, they may not know the difference…And this time, it has a high-value target: the Bible. In a memo obtained by FRC, Navy officials have announced that "no religious items (including Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit." The new orders are buried in a four-page document about patient care, which an Army officer forwarded to us in disbelief. Effective immediately, families, friends, and even pastors will have to check their beliefs at the door to visit one of the largest military hospitals in the United States .

• Last night, after we circulated the memo to leaders on the Hill, an outraged Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) took to the House floor and blasted the policy. "Mr. Speaker, these military men and women who are recovering at Walter Reed and Bethesda have given their all for America ... They've defended and taken an oath to the Constitution, and here they are. The people that come to visit them can't bring a religious artifact? They can't bring a Bible? ...A priest can't walk in with the Eucharist and offer communion to a patient who might be on their deathbed because it's prohibited in this memo from the Department of the Navy?"

Washington and the Founding Fathers would have been shocked by these developments. While we are no longer allowed to give away a Bible in certain circumstance, other religions are being promoted in the military. The LA Times reported on Nov. 26, 2011 that,

• The [US Air Force] academy this year dedicated an $80,000 outdoor worship center — a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with propane fire pit — high on a hill for the handful of current or future cadets whose religions fall under the broad category of "Earth-based." Those include pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and followers of Native American faiths.

All forms of sexual contact are also becoming protected behaviors – unlike the giving away of a Bible – within the US military

• On Nov. 15 [2011], the Senate Armed Services Committee had unanimously approved S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a provision to repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Article 125 of the UCMJ makes it illegal to engage in both sodomy with humans and sex with animals.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/senate-approves-bill-legalizes-sodomy-and-bestiality-us-military

These developments, along with many other similar ones, are truly troubling, at least for me. How do I cope? We justifiably realize our insignificance when pitted against these powerful and destructive societal shifts. However, such threats are nothing new to the people of God. David confidently proclaimed: “When I am afraid, I will trust in you. (Psalm 56:3).

Trust is central, when faithfulness to the Gospel can result in jail. This is the very situation that confronted Peter and the others, when they were brought before the threatening Court. However, they did not buckle but proclaimed, "We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). God help us!