Archive for Christian Life

The Gay “Marriage” Revolution, and the Future of American Christianity

May 11, 2013 Christian Life, Fascism, Feminism, Politics, Pro-Life, Theology

Almost 30 years ago, in 11th grade health class, we all had a very substantial discussion of homosexuality. (The health class included a sex-ed component, and it was in this context that the discussion took place.)

The teacher–RR, who was also my tennis coach–was quite liberal, but, to his credit, was fair in his presentation to the class. He was a secular Jew who, while not Christian, grudgingly appreciated the benefits that Christians brought to the table. Neither myself, nor any other Christians in the class, ever had a problem with him.

In fact, get this, folks: RR referred to anal sex as “sodomy” and, while conceding to conventional wisdom–which, at the time, dictated that one in ten people were gay–he seemed to think of that lifestyle as an aberration. (In fact, most of the teachers–even the most liberal, tolerant folks who were high up in the local teacher union–were of that mindset. While they harbored no hatred of gays, they did not look at the lifestyle as one to be embraced or promoted, either.)

The year was 1983, and the United States was a different country. Reagan was President; the Cold War was hot; the Moral Majority had its high water mark of relevance; and, while Americans were not on board with Jerry Falwell, the American people had no desire to ditch the Judeo-Christian consensus that made America–and Western Civilization–exceptional. Americans weren’t all Bible-believing Christians; they did, however–sometimes grudgingly–accept that the Christian consensus that informed our understanding of law and justice, even with its faults in execution, was a good thing.

Back then, gay “marriage” was on no one’s radar.

Sadly, the year was 1983, and the decline–while under the radar–was already in progress.

The same decline that has destroyed Europe had not quite come full-circle in the United States. But the wheels were turning.

Abortion had been legal for ten years; the process that led to its legalization had been in play for longer than that. The Kinsey reports of the 1940s were a culmination of the synthesis of Darwinian thought presented as science, Nihilist rejection of objective truth, academic hatred of all things Christian, and outright fraud.

But, over time, Kinsey’s key mantras were absorbed into the mainstream: the academy, the justice system, the news media, the entertainment sector, and–before long–most sectors of government.

Making matters worse, key sectors of the Church were already in the process of succumbing to European skepticism. This process began in Europe with the Enlightenment, then accelerated with the advent of Biblical liberalism, whose adherents promoted “Higher Criticism”. By the mid-1940s, the same Germany and France that gave us Luther and Calvin, and the same England that had given us Wilberforce, Spurgeon, Tyndale, and Edwards, was all but dead.

While the Europeanization of America had been going on since the late 1800s, this process accelerated after World War II. American seminaries welcomed European scholars, and sent their best students to study in European seminaries. Those great students would go on to become pastors, scholars, authors, and professors who would pass on that liberalism to their students.

This is why mainline Protestants in the 1960s, sadly, were making “care packages” for Communist soldiers in North Vietnam, all while our men were fighting valiantly–and dying–to liberate people from a brutality that was rooted in the godlessness of Communism.

This is why the Church was caught flat-footed by the onslaught of feminism and the ensuing Sexual Revolution.

This is why the response of the Church has been largely reactionary: opposition to agendas rather than a promotion of a better agenda rooted in Creation and Redemption. If the Church teaches a sexuality that consists of, “Don’t have sex until you get married; it’s better when you wait…” or “If you wait until marriage, you will be a better flower in the garden…” or “The men will appreciate you better if you wait until marriage…”, then that is proof-positive that they are being reactionary.

Otherwise well-intentioned efforts–such as the True Love Waits initiatives–reflect a Church that is in reactionary mode. As a result, the Church is failing in its role of salt and light. They first are caught flat-footed, and their response is proving to be years late and many dollars short.

Hugh Hefner started Playboy in 1953; he called himself Kinsey’s pamphleteer. This marked the advent of modern pornography, which added rocket fuel to the fire of the Sexual Revolution. A pornography industry that was once relegated to the seedy sectors of American society is now part of our mainstream. While I have never seen their movies, I know who Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy are. But they wouldn’t be mainstream without Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems. (That Bob Woodward would use the title of their signature movie as a code name for a Watergate informant speaks volumes to the impact that pornography was already having on our mainstream.)

During this time, the sexual revolution was in full swing, and homosexuals were gaining an unprecedented level of acceptance. The Church’s response: the liberals began the process of blessing homosexuality; the conservative response was mostly reactionary, providing Biblical exposition as to why homosexuality is a sin.

On abortion, the Church was sleeping at the wheel. While the Catholics were fighting it–even as they were decimated by the Griswold v. Connecticut decision–the Protestant world was all over the map, and didn’t have a clue what they were up against. When Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton came down in 1973, even the Southern Baptist Convention was ambivalent if not supportive of it. In fact, it would not be until after 1993 that The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary would bring in an ethics professor who opposed abortion.

During that time, conservatives embarked on campaigns against gay rights. In spite of these efforts, court decisions and corporate-political-academic tides have not only ramrodded homosexuality down our throats, they have managed to capture public opinion by pointing to social and economic inequities–that our liberal establishment has spent decades creating–in order to promote the cause of gay “marriage”.

On pornography, the reaction was similar: the Church mounted spirited campaigns against pornography. The Supreme Court punted on the issue of obscenity and established a “community standard”. That led to a plethora of anti-porn efforts in local circles. All of that was rendered moot with the advent of the World Wide Web.

When public schools began promoting promiscuity-based sex education, the reaction of conservatives was to bring in abstinence-based sex education. (Again, reactionary.)

While I have no qualms with the conservative viewpoints regarding pornography, homosexuality, and abortion–I oppose abortion, sodomy, and pornography–the problem is not the viewpoints, but rather the reactionary presentation of sexuality as a whole. (On sex education, I oppose all government involvement in this. That is the responsibility of parents.)

What Christians have failed to grasp is that the Sexual Revolution is not simply about sex. If it were just that, the “revolution” would have been over as soon as AIDS came to fruition in the 1980s. Roe v. Wade would have fallen during the Reagan years.

No, the Sexual Revolution was–and still is–merely one front in the larger attack against God’s created order. It is rooted in a denial of a God who Created everything; it is rooted in the denial of the primacy of Man over other created things; it is rooted in the denial of Man’s fallenness; it is rooted in the denial of Man’s need for a Messiah.

While Jerry Falwell was absolutely correct about the sinfulness of homosexuality, I think he missed it when he categorized it as one of our great “National Sins”. Ditto for pornography.

While we must rightly call homosexuality for what it is–just as we must call adultery for what it is, just as we must call lustful intent for what it is, just as we must rightly call covetousness for what it is–the societal recognition of these things is not the problem; it is a symptom.

Rejection of God’s Natural Law–and the implications of that–has led us to where we are today.

From here, it will get worse before it gets better. The Christian consensus that made America exceptional is eroding, and that erosion has accelerated from a slow, arduous process to a very rapid process.

Will we go the way of Europe, or will we experience a reclamation? Will we face the hard truths about our failings and act diligently on that truth, or will we continue to live in denial, providing–at best–reactionary answers to problems that require addressing the ugly roots?

I am not hopeful for the short-term. I believe we will probably see at least one post-Christian generation, during which we will witness an era of barbarism that would make the worst of our atrocities against the Indians pale in comparison. Legalized abortion is the tip of the iceberg, and that is fomenting a culture of death that has yet to come to full fruition. But it will, and the results will be ugly.

In the long-term, I am hopeful. Jesus said that not even the gates of Hell would prevail against the Church. Not even all the blunders of the Vatican of old could extinguish the Gospel; God raised up reformers like Luther, Calvin, and their contemporaries. Fallen men they were, but they were instruments of deliverance nonetheless.

Every dog has its day, and that is true of the godless. They will revel in their short-term victories, just as their predecessors–from Nero to Stalin–did.

And yet the Church–bloodied as She may be–is still in the fight. And while Her enemy will make that path ugly and nasty and dark, Her light will overcome that darkness.

But just as Jesus–when confronted by the Pharisees on various matters–responded by pointing to the roots (in some cases Natural Law), the Church must be forceful in doing this.

Whether you are a young earth Creationist or someone who accepts that the earth and universe could be much older, Creation is a big deal. Connecting sexuality with marriage, rooted in Creation–as Scripture does–is a big deal.

That’s because it never was “all about sex,” but rather about a God who makes and keeps His promises.

14 comments

Yesterday, it was Syphilis; Today, it is HIV/AIDS; Tomorrow it will be

May 10, 2013 Christian Life

something really bad. Whether that is a new strain of gonorrhea, or something far more insidious than AIDS, we don’t know. But we’ll get another mass societal scare.

I’m old enough to remember when AIDS first hit the national scene. It had started out as a virulent illness largely confined to the male homosexual community, intravenous drug users, and those who slept with people in those groups. Early in the game, some hemophiliacs, organ transplant recipients, and others who relied on blood transfusions, were infected via a contaminated blood supply. But by the late 1980s, we turned the tide against that. But not before Ryan White–and tennis great Arthur Ashe–succumbed from tainted transfusions.

Back then, if you tested HIV-positive, it was tantamount to a death sentence. The only drug that had shown any promise was AZT, which was a crapshoot.

Today, HIV/AIDS is still largely restricted to the male homosexual community, intravenous drug users, and those who sleep with people in those groups. If you keep your pants zipped until you get married, eschew intravenous drug use, and neither you nor your spouse enter the marriage with HIV, and you each remain faithful, your chances of getting HIV/AIDS are infinitesimal.

It is the same with any other sexually-transmitted disease. HPV, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, the list goes on.

On the bright side, HIV/AIDS is not necessarily a death sentence anymore. The treatments are more effective; the protease inhibitors developed in the mid-1990s sparked the development of new generations of drugs that are making HIV/AIDS a more containable condition, much like diabetes. While there has been huge talk of a vaccine, I wouldn’t hold my breath: HIV is not like the flu; it is as elusive as the common cold, only deadlier. Development of a vaccine–or even a cure–is probably many years down the road, perhaps decades.

On the downside, HIV/AIDS is merely the devil we know. If science develops a cure for HIV/AIDS–just we developed a cure for most strains of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia–we still will have plenty of devils we don’t know.

The new strain of gonorrhea should be troubling. This is because–due to the misuse of antibiotics–even the development of a cure for these new bacterial strains will be problematic.

And that does not account for the new viruses we will see emerging.

Ultimately, we need to face the reality: the counterculturalists of the 1960s and 1970s were wrong. “Free love” is too expensive.

Before the sexual revolution, a smaller amount of women were engaging in the bulk of the promiscuity, and the female virgins outnumbered the male virgins across the board.

Today, it is the other way around, even though the women have more to lose: their bodies are more receptive to various STDs than the men’s bodies are. (Back in the day, I warned my CPC clients: “You have a greater chance of getting HIV from a man, than a man would have of getting HIV from you if the roles were reversed. And if you get HIV, your life as you know it–is over.” I said that because, back then, HIV was a virtual death sentence.)

The hookup culture has given women carte blanche to engage in sexual behavior that now carries far less societal stigma than it did 30 years ago. The men, sadly, have also taken the Red Pill. If you’re a man and have the audacity and no morals, it’s easy to get laid. If you’re a woman and want to “hook up,” that scene is easier today than it ever has been.

That said, the Law of Sowing and Reaping shall not be up for repeal. And as long as we insist on a society where our moral understanding is not informed by the Christian consensus that served America well–before we absorbed European post-Christian skepticism–we will continue to reap the whirlwind.

6 comments

Home Run by Dreher

April 23, 2013 Christian Life, Theology

HT to Farmer Tom. This is a classic

26 comments

Priceless

April 21, 2013 Can't Fix Stupid, Christian Life, WTH

from Vox Day:

Now, I realize that many doubt my thesis that most of the desirable tenets of Christian civilization will not survive in post-Christian society, but note that in Diamond, we already have a well-regarded, much-honored academic overtly advocating a return to many pagan, pre-civilized customs. But it never seems to occur to those who eagerly anticipate Western post-Christianity that those raised in a pagan society without Christian customs and strictures will not necessarily retain the civilized customs that are inculcated in the secularist or pagan raised in a Christian society.

It is easy to say, well, we’ll keep the Western strictures against widow-strangling, witch-burning, and academic-raping, we’ll just toss the ones against homosexual-marrying, public fornication, polygamy, and letting children play with loaded guns… wait a minute! The brutal reality is that a society in which most children are “allowed to make their own choices and follow their own interests” is a society where the values, and the resulting societal strictures, will eventually be decided by those semi-feral children and not their overly permissive parents.

What has long been decried by the civilized Christian West as “the cowardly act of animals” – how very raciss and judgmental – may well become the next “new normal”. No one should be so foolish as to believe that behavioral change on a societal level is either predestined or readily controlled by government bureaucracy. It is easier to destroy than create; it is easier to degrade than strengthen. The progressives who proudly proclaim that the youth of today are much more open to “gay marriage” should keep in mind that in the not-too-distant future, those formerly open-minded youths may well find themselves position of the disregarded, close-minded elderly, listening in horror as the progressives of tomorrow proudly proclaim that the youth are much more open to “sexual services on demand”.

Take away the Christian consensus that informs the Western understanding of what is “civilized”–we sure as heck didn’t get it from the Atheists–and you will have to replace it with something.

Vox did leave out an angle: those youth–proudly extolled by today’s academics for their “open-mindedness” on a variety of issues from gay “marriage” to in utero infanticideabortion–will be the same progressives who fill the death panels that will green-light the “right to die” of these academics when they become too much of a burden on society.

No comments

Vox Day Hits Another Homer

April 12, 2013 Christian Life, Pro-Life, Theology, WTH

This is his take on the Kermit Gosnell trial.

No doubt this case will spark protests that Not All Abortion Clinics Are Like That as it gradually leaks into the public consciousness despite the best efforts of the media to keep it contained. But that is akin to claiming that there was nothing wrong with Bergen-Belsen because, after all, things were worse at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Let’s make it perfectly clear. If you are a doctor or a nurse who performs abortions, you are every bit as bad, every bit as purely evil, as the SS-Totenkopfverbänder who slaughtered people in the National Socialists’ extermination camps. And if you are a woman who aborts her child, you are every bit as bad, every bit as disgusting, as the SS guards at those camps, who may not have bloodied their hands themselves, but were complicitcollaborated by making the killing possible.

And if you simply support the so-called “right” to legal abortion, you are no better than a card-carrying member of the National Socialist German Workers Party. In fact, you are even worse. For all their many flaws, the National Socialists at least had a substantive cause: the preservation of a defeated and economically devastated German nation. Your cause is mere female convenience, rendering you even more repellant and abominable in the eyes of anyone who values human life. Their symbol was the reversed Swastika, but yours should be a pyramid of infant skulls.

I understand you have your rationalizations and your justifications. I am aware that you firmly believe that an unborn, or partially born, or newly born, child is either not human or is for some reason or another unworthy of the same right to life possessed by adult human beings who hate racism, support sexual equality, and voted for Barack Obama. I appreciate that you are absolutely convinced that acting to terminate the life of a genetically unique individual who is dependent upon his mother for his continued survival is no different than cutting one’s hair or trimming one’s nails. I know you assert that because it is a woman’s body, she can do whatever she wants with it, all the various trespassing and drug and flasher laws notwithstanding. Or perhaps you have a different reason, in which case feel free to make your case for it here.

But remember this: the Nazis had their justifications too. And those justifications were considerably more soundly rooted in science, history, and logic than yours are.

I assure you, I guarantee you, that future history is going to remember feminists and everyone else who supported the 20th-21st century Holocaust of the Unborn with every bit as much disgust and horror as today’s progressives regard 18th-19th century slavers and 20th century Nazis. The tide is already beginning to turn, as many feminists have finally realized a few of the unforeseen, but retrospectively obvious consequences of their so-called right and begun lobbying for laws against sex-screening and the free exercise of their unholy “right” for officially unapproved reasons.

So, I call on you to rethink your stance, truly rethink it, and repent. Redeem yourself by turning against this evil practice you have supported and speaking out against it. Ask for forgiveness from God and from the millions of innocents whose deaths you rationalized and even encouraged. What is done cannot be undone, but it is never too late to turn away from evil and refuse to continue walking along its dark path.

Stop all the endless rationalizations and justifications. Just stop. They are pointless. You know, in your heart of hearts, they aren’t convincing anyone. They aren’t even convincing you.

During my tour of duty at the crisis pregnancy center–from 1990 to 1993–it was accepted that about 1 in 4 women of childbearing age had had at least one abortion.

Now, that figure is closer to 2 out of 5.

Men: in other words, if you are dating a woman who has EVER had sex, there is probably a greater than 50/50 chance that she has had at least one prior abortion. Do with that information what you will.

This has great implications–none of them good–on a variety of fronts. I shall elaborate later.

4 comments

The Passive-Aggressive War on Christianity

April 5, 2013 Christian Life, Theology

Here is a prominent example.

The Army has an instructor teaching a Reserve unit, and–in the training session–included a slide that had a list of examples of religious extremism. At the top of the list: evangelical Christians.

When the defecation hit the circulation, the Army went into denial mode, the instructor apologized and–when pressed on the matter–said he got his info from the ultra-leftist Southern Poverty Law Center. When they were approached, they denied everything.

That, folks, is passive-aggressive behavior. That is the nature of the assault on Christianity in America. The attackers are cowards who prefer semantic drive-by shootings as they bathe themselves in dishonesty. This is the face of those who seek not just to undermine the Christian, but that which has represented the best of Western Civilization.

THEY–not the Christians–are the extremists. They would foist their own fascism onto you and–after millions of Americans died–claim, after the fact, that “we had no idea it would come to that”, all as they deny any responsibility.

2 comments

The Bible and American Cognitive Dissonance

April 5, 2013 Christian Life

A FB friend of mine posted this gem, courtesy of the HuffPo.

(RNS) More than half of Americans think the Bible has too little influence on a culture they see in moral decline, yet only one in five Americans read the Bible on a regular basis, according to a new survey.

More than three-quarters of Americans (77 percent) think the nation’s morality is headed downhill, according to a new survey from American Bible Society.

The survey showed the Bible is still firmly rooted in American soil: 88 percent of respondents said they own a Bible, 80 percent think the Bible is sacred, 61 percent wish they read the Bible more, and the average household has 4.4 Bibles.

If the Bible is so commonplace in America, wouldn’t its moral teachings counteract the downward trend? Almost a third of respondents said moral decline was a result of people not reading the Bible, while 29 percent cited the “negative influence of America” and one in four cited corporate corruption.

Doug Birdsall, president of American Bible Society, said he sees a reason for why the Bible isn’t connecting with people.

“I see the problem as analogous to obesity in America. We have an awful lot of people who realize they’re overweight, but they don’t follow a diet,” Birdsall said. “People realize the Bible has values that would help us in our spiritual health, but they just don’t read it.”

If they do read it, the majority (57 percent) only read their Bibles four times a year or less. Only 26 percent of Americans said they read their Bible on a regular basis (four or more times a week).

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything,” said the Bible can come across as intimidating to the uninitiated. “There’s a tendency to think that if you read the Bible, you have to read it from start to finish. But when people do read the Bible, they don’t know where to begin,” Martin said.

Even more ominous is this:

Younger people also seem to be moving away from the Bible. A majority (57 percent) of those ages 18-28 read their Bibles less than three times a year, if at all.

No comments

How to Stop a Cult, Part 1: Building a Cult

March 26, 2013 Christian Life, Theology

A cult requires two things: one or more leaders–usually one–and a set followers.

If you have those two things, you’ve got the beginnings of what can easily become a cult.

In other words, ANYTHING can become a cult.

It can be a religious group; it can be a club; it can be a company (think multi-level marketing); it can be a gang; it can be a government agency; it can be a head of state.

But how does a cult typically start?

For one, it usually begins with a leader. More often than not, the leader has a substantial amount of charisma. He (in some cases she) is someone who inspires a certain loyalty. He is usually a dynamic speaker, with great people skills to boot. He may appear (or at least initially be) charitable, selfless, kind, devoted, and trustworthy. He may even be humble in his beginning stages.

As he begins his run, the leader is all that and change. He attracts a swath of people, he is likeable, he is providing answers that many people need (and that some people want to hear). The group is growing, people are happy, and some of the growth takes on a momentum of its own.

The problem is, at this stage, there are some critical, subtle switches–both within him and within the hearts of the people in the group–that people flip, and, as they flip those switches, they make fateful choices.

That critical stage where this occurs is early in the process, not later.

The leader may begin to see the devotion of the people around him, and that stokes his ego.

The people may get energized by the growth of their group and the dynamic nature of their leader, and they decide he can do no wrong.

Through that subtle process, the leader goes from a humble servant with charisma to a powerful leader who is never wrong. He starts believing that about himself, and the people in his group become HIS followers. They have made him their god; he has accepted the job.

You now have a cult. It may be large; it may be small. But it is a cult.

If you are in a church setting, here’s what it looks like:

(1) Most of the people come to church just because they like the pastor. They are less-interested in the Christian implications–or even the Biblical veracity–of his message; they are attracted to HIM.

(2) If you dare to question the veracity of anything the pastor says or does, you can count on ending up on the pastor’s–or his lieutenant’s–permanent doo-doo list. At best, you will be ignored for the rest of your time there; at worst, you will be called everything short of Satan himself and run out of town. Come to think of it, if they run you out, they may be doing you a favor…

(3) The pastor becomes very controlling and micromanagy. If he doesn’t think you are giving enough money, you’ll get a visit. If you take any initiative as a teacher, you may find yourself getting grilled by his lieutenants. If you cannot give him undying devotion, you will become persona non grata. If you tell him anything he does not want to hear, you are marked for life.

(4) As a counselor, the pastor becomes very domineering. He makes your decisions for you rather than guide you through the process of making those decisions yourself. (Sometimes, he starts doing that because people WANT him to do that, but–rather than force people to own their responsibilities–he becomes accustomed to that as the default for everyone else, and he begins doing this in ways that work to HIS advantage and not necessarily the best interests of the people involved.)

(5) As a husband, he may be controlling and/or abusive. That abuse may be physical, it may be sexual, it may be overt–or even covert–manipulation. That once charitable, selfless leader is now the most controlling, domineering, pathological mass of flesh that has no resemblance to the Biblical Jesus. At home, his wife and kids see him as a self-serving son of Belial–look that up in 1 Samuel–who puts on a costume every Sunday and Wednesday.

At this point, everyone knows what he is, but they are now afraid to call attention to the large elephant defecating all over the room. They will CRUSH dissenters, even though they know better. At this point, disaster is likely, and a peaceful resolution is close to impossible.

(6) In a worst-case scenario, the pastor starts taking sexual liberties that are not his to take. It may be with another woman; several other women; teenage girls; even members of the same sex. At this point, the disaster is imminent.

The best-case scenario: a nasty church split;

The medium scenario: a sex scandal that rocks the leadership and forces people back to their senses (think Jack Schaap).

The worst-case: mass suicide (think Jim Jones).

16 comments

How Do You Stop a Cult?

March 25, 2013 Christian Life, Theology

The short answer: once it is in full swing, you can’t, except either (a) by force or (b) by miracle.

Once a cult leader is in place–and his followership is sufficiently brainwashed–they will follow him until he crashes and burns. And when that happens, the fallout will be severe.

Toward that end, I would suggest that Linda Murphrey–the daughter of the late Jack Hyles–need not sweat it. Short of having something explosive–such as a sex tape–there was absolutely no way she could have stopped him. There were too many “True Believers”, and–in the absence of overwhelming evidence–that was not going to change.

Having said that, the cult dynamic is not a new phenomenon; neither Jack Hyles nor his successor–Jack Schaap, who has been sentenced to prison for his affair with an underage teen–invented that dynamic. Nor will it end with the demise of Schaap.

Having said that, the larger question is how do you PREVENT a “ministry” from becoming a cult?

And make no mistake, preventing that begins with YOU. The minister, the deacon, the elder, the secretary, the wife, the faithful attender.

I’ll address this in more detail in the days or weeks to come. But this is the opening salvo.

5 comments

Former Pastor Jack Schaap Gets 12 Years in Sex Case

March 23, 2013 Can't Fix Stupid, Christian Life, Criminals, Sex Offenders, Theology, WTH

Didn’t hear about this until a commenter at Boundless mentioned it.

According to letters released by federal prosecutors last week as part of the government’s sentencing memorandum, Schaap wrote to the teen that his sexual relationship with her was “exactly what Christ desires for us. He wants to marry us + become eternal lovers!”

11 comments
« Older Entries