Archives for : Christianity

The difference a day makes – Another interpretation

Posted by :webmaster On : November 28, 2014
0

Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, Government, Homosexuality, Marriage

The voters of Oklahoma amended its state constitution in November 2004 to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Following a suit filed in Tulsa County, U.S. District Judge Terrance Kern ruled the ban on same-sex marriage was a violation of the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. Because the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal, gay marriage became legal in spite of the wishes of approximately 75% of Oklahoma’s electorate. [1]

Toby Jenkins, head of Oklahomans for Equality, hails the decision as a sunrise on a new day that ended “marriage discrimination” in Oklahoma. He cites four examples of such alleged discrimination: failure to process loan applications by same-sex couples, prohibition of same-sex couples from sharing an apartment in an assisted living center, prohibition from having a vehicle title issued in both names of a same-sex married couple legally married in another state, and prohibition of the right to request cremation of a deceased partner by the other partner in a same-sex relationship. [2]

However, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear challenges to rulings allowing same-sex marriage in some states may be more of a go-slow approach than an endorsement of same-sex marriage. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ November 6th ruling favored those that define marriage as being between one man and one woman and almost guarantees the highest court will take up the issue at some point. The language within the Sixth Circuit’s ruling is significant, “…marriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades. So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world.” [3]

In upholding the traditional view of marriage, the court’s verdict ended with these words. “When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers. Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.” [4]

For most people in Oklahoma and America, Mr. Jenkins’ sunrise for equality is in reality a sunset for liberty. Ultimately, same-sex marriage is not just about equality, honor, and dignity for the proponents of same-sex marriage but a means to force the majority of Americans to forfeit their religious beliefs, bow to the god of equality, and embrace the consequent moral relativism which provides no means for finding truth or judging something based on the concept of right and wrong. For those that deny this reality of the LGBT agenda, just ask the president of Gordon, a Christian college that is being threatened with loss of accreditation because of the school’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff and its public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians. [5] Or ask the Lexington, Kentucky, tee-shirt maker who was found to have violated the city’s Human Rights Commission’s “fairness” ordinance and was ordered to attend “diversity training” for re-education. His crime? He refused to make tee-shirts for participants in a local gay-pride parade. [6] Or ask Jennifer Keeton, a former graduate student in counseling at Augusta State University, who was threatened with expulsion unless she changed her religious beliefs that failed “to conform to professional standards” with regard to LGBT issues. [7]

For millions of others in America who oppose the LGBT same-sex agenda because they adhere to the tenets of their Christian faith, the sun is setting on religious freedom as the nation descends into a dark night of coercion and oppression.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Writ of Certiorari, The Supreme Court of the United States, Sally Howe Smith v. Mary Bishop, et.al., August 6, 2014. http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Oklahoma-Smith-petition-8-6-14.pdf (accessed November 11, 2014).
[2] Toby Jenkins, “The difference a day makes,” Tulsa World, November 9, 2014, G-6.
[3] United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 14-1341, Opinion, November 6, 2014. p.7. http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/14a0275p-06.pdf (accessed November 11, 2014).
[4] Ibid., p. 42.
[5] Matt Rocheleau, “Accrediting agency to review Gordon College,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2014. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/11/agency-review-whether-gordon-college-antigay-stance-policies-violate-accrediting- standards/Cti63s3A4cEHLGMPRQ5NyJ/story.html (accessed October 8, 2014).
[6] Tony Perkins, “Intolerance fits liberals to a T (Shirt),” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 9, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/intolerance-fits-liberals-to-a-t-shirt (accessed October 13, 2014).
[7] Sarah Netter, “Georgia Grad Student Sues University Over Gay Sensitivity Training,” abcNews/US, July 27, 2010, http://abcnews.go. com/US/georgia-student-sues-university-lgbt-sensitivity-training/story?id=11261490 (accessed August 7, 2010).

America’s malaise

Posted by :webmaster On : November 14, 2014
0

Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Government, Humanism, Worldview

Malaise seems an inadequate word to describe what’s happening in and to America. Synonyms for “malaise” are sickness, illness, disease, disorder, anxiety, depression, and discontent. It appears all are needed to describe America’s mood and condition. One magazine cover reads, “Is the world falling apart?” [1] Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan laments the nation’s decline in a recent column titled “Things fall apart for many public institutions.” [2] He lists numerous examples of this brokenness in recent years including the Center for Disease Control’s fumbled response in protecting Americans from an Ebola epidemic; basic security breaches in protecting the president at and away from the White House; the invasion of the southern United States by 60,000 children and young people from Central America; the Obamacare rollout debacle; the federal and state response to Hurricane Katrina in which 30,000 New Orleans residents were stranded for days; the strategic blunders by the president and civilian policy makers in handling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; failing schools; skyrocketing national debt; deteriorating infrastructure; and political, racial, and cultural clashes. [3] And the list grows weekly.

Buchanan says that things were not always that way, and he raises the question: “What happened to us?” “Whatever happened to that can-do nation” that survived the Great Depression, armed itself and fought World War II over five years, and placed a man on the moon in ten years because we said we could do it? [4] Mr. Buchanan ends his column in dismay but offers no solutions. To Buchanan’s list we must also add the extreme societal devastation caused by the fracturing of the family structure which the late Senator Daniel Moynihan described as the he biggest change in the North Atlantic world that he observed in his forty years of government service and which happened in “an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable forty years ago had happened.” [5]

Something is profoundly wrong in America. The symptoms of the sickness are known and well-defined as shown above. The solutions put forth by politicians, bureaucrats, education professionals, scientists, sociologists and psychologists, economists and business professionals, and a host of others in the knowledge class generally treat only the symptoms with remedies that often seem to make matters worse while at the same time fail to diagnose the disease itself.

How do we determine what went wrong with America and why? To find the answer it makes sense to go back in history to a time when things were working, a time when America was unified and had confidence in the rightness of its central cultural vision? Once we find that point in time, we must ask ourselves what changed. A cursory examination of modern history in America quickly identifies that point in time as the 1960s and the emergence of the Boomer generation. What changed was a dramatic rejection by many in the Boomer generation of the values and central cultural vision of all preceding generations of Americans since their arrival as colonists in the early 1600s. A comparison of the Boomers and the Greatest Generation confirms the beginnings of America’s cultural divide.

Much has been written and said about the Greatest Generation, a term that has gained almost universal acceptance following Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation. For it was this generation that grew up during the deprivations of the Great Depression, fought a world war, persisted in blocking Soviet threats and aggression in a prostrate post-war world, and built the world’s greatest peacetime economy. Following the Allied victory in 1945, the United States stood at the pinnacle of world power. But unlike any other time in history, that generation acted not as victors but as a good and honorable people who poured their resources and energies into helping devastated nations and their starving peoples around the world. And, they didn’t retreat in the face of new dictators and despots as they fought the hot war in Korea and the cold war in other parts of the world, primarily against the USSR and its satellites. Following World War II, they married; went to schools, colleges, and universities in record numbers; and birthed approximately eighty million children who became known as the Baby Boomers. [6]

And through all of these deprivations, challenges, and monumental efforts, “They stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.” [7] But, how do these values play out in twenty-first century America? Personal responsibility has been replaced by government responsibility for our health, wealth, happiness, and well-being. Duty is out of date and doesn’t resonate with the goal of self-actualization. It’s all about me, baby! Honor is no longer based on timeless standards and awarded on merit but is now a matter of personal opinion and popularity. And as to faith, the beliefs of the naïve and ignorant masses that still believe in the Christian God are tolerated as long as they do not share their faith in public nor practice that faith if it conflicts with the dictates of the state.

The challenge to the Judeo-Christian worldview by the Boomer elite is not a new occurrence. For hundreds of years a conflict has existed within Western civilization between those that believe in a transcendent God and those that do not. But, it was in the mid-twentieth century as each sphere of influence in American society began abandoning the Judeo-Christian central cultural vision under the onslaught of the purveyors of the humanistic worldview. The abandonment of the biblical foundations upon which the nation was built became evident as the leaders of the Boomer generation took the reins of leadership in the institutions of American life and imposed their humanistic values upon the policies, practices, and standards of those institutions. What are those humanistic values and beliefs held by many Boomers in leadership? There is no God and no life after death. Nature is all there is, and man is merely the evolutionary product of nature. Man can solve his own problems through science and reason. Freedom of expression and civil liberties are paramount in all areas of life. Happiness, freedom, and progress are the goals of mankind. The focus of life is on self and self-development. Society requires extensive social programs to achieve the goals of humanism. [8] It is obvious that these humanistic values have little in common with the Greatest Generation’s values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.

Arguing from the Judeo-Christian worldview held by Americans from the Founders through the Greatest Generation, Christopher Badeaux describes the provision of order supplied by that worldview and the consequences of its abandonment in favor of the humanistic worldview.

The Lord made the Universe according to a set of hidden but largely discernable rules, and those rules produce specific, predictable outcomes once the rules and variables are known. Furthermore, all things are made ordered—oriented if you prefer—to not only the Lord, but also to decent and right outcomes…Our consciences and our natural inclinations are manifestations of this intrinsic order; disregarding them gives rise to disorder. Indeed, even doing things that are right and good can be taken to extremes that place one outside of that natural order. When we step outside of that order, as anyone who has lived with someone suffering through, say, anorexia or alcohol addiction can tell you, the disorder radiates outward in a spiderweb-crack pattern of pain. [9]

The problem with the humanistic worldview is that its prescriptions fail the test of what is required for a culture to survive. First, cultural unity and cohesiveness necessary for any society to survive can never be achieved through a dictatorial center of authority required by humanism. Second, humanism is inherently a false worldview because it steps outside the order of the universe. Therefore, it cannot answer the basic questions of life by which all people seek to understand the meaning and purpose of life.

With the ascendance of the humanistic worldview in society, the spiderweb-crack pattern of disorder and dysfunction radiates through every institution of American life. This is the reason our public institutions and the institution of family is falling apart, and polls consistently show that Americans believe that society is truly disordered and falling apart. Mr. Buchanan asked what changed America. Without doubt, what changed America was the humanistic leadership of the institutions of American life that abandoned the central cultural vision of the Founding Americans and every generation up to and including the Greatest Generation. It is only when Americans return to that central cultural vision whose foundation is Christianity that disorder will become order and America will began working again.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “Is the World Falling Apart?” World, October 4, 2014, Cover.
[2] Patrick Buchanan, “Things fall apart for many public institutions,” Tulsa World, October 28, 2014, A-11; Pat Buchanan, “Things fall apart,”
Creators.com, October 14, 2014. http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/things-fall-apart.html (accessed October 29, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 2, 85.
[6] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 9.
[7] Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation, (New York: Random House, 1998), p. xx.
[8] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, Eighth Edition, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), pp. 13-15.
[9] Christopher Badeaux, “Faith, Fear and Cormac McCarthy,” The City, Vol. 1, Issue 3, (Winter 2008), 84-85.

How we choose to deal with our sin defines our destiny

Posted by :webmaster On : November 7, 2014
0

Category: Archives, Christianity, God's Law v. Man's Law, Homosexuality

Bishop Edward J. Slattery, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, recently wrote of the confusion within the Catholic Church regarding its teaching on divorce, cohabitation, and people who experience same-sex attractions (“We are not defined by our sin”). He states that much of this confusion resulted from the Vatican’s October publication of a working paper (Relatio post Disceptationem) of the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Family whose purpose was to raise awareness of significant pastoral issues concerning divorce, cohabitation, and homosexuality. The document was designed “…to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured.” [1] [emphasis added]

One of Bishop Slattery’s concerns is that much of the confusion results from contemporary commentators and even some in the church who use language that tends to diminish the human person through emphasis on their sinful activity. This is a legitimate concern, and as the bishop states, “…activity should never be confused with identity. The human person always remains greater than what he or she does or experiences.” [2] The Bishop is correct in that the importance of man’s identity is confirmed by the inestimable value God places on man. The tremendous value of man to God is undeniable when one considers that the cost of man’s redemption from his sinful state was the sacrifice of God’s own Son on the cross. Therefore, God does not condemn man nor can the church. But man was given freewill, and with freewill man made choices that are in conflict with God’s commandments and plan for mankind and thereby condemned himself. When this happened, it was called sin and broke the relationship between God and man. It is at this point that man often attempts to justify his activity because of his identity, and the modern church is often a co-conspirator in excusing sinful activity.

From a broader perspective, it would appear that much of the confusion in the church world stems from the church’s efforts (both Catholic and Protestant) to be inclusive of people who want to be accepted by the church but also want their sinful lifestyles to be accepted too. To do so they engage in theological contortions to answer questions and give perspective that will bring “maturity” (i.e., acceptance of the sinner and the sin within the church). It is in these efforts that the Bible is ignored even though it is the ultimate source of truth and is exceptionally clear in most cases as to God’s answers and perspective with regard to both sin and the sinner.

An example of this confusion and blurring of lines with regard to sin, the pastoral teaching of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops correctly states that, “God does not love someone any less simply because he or she is homosexual. God’s love is always and everywhere offered to those who are open to receiving it.” [3] However, this truthful teaching is often perverted to mean that love is all that is necessary by those wanting the church to embrace both the sinner and his sin. To do so dismisses the admonitions of Paul to the Romans regarding homosexuality which are clear-cut and still applicable in the twenty-first century. [4] This is but one example of the great caustic of relativism seeping into the church and by which biblical truths are ignored and eroded.

To claim love is all that is necessary is to dismiss the centrality of the cross in the great meta-narrative of the Bible with regard to creation, the fall, and man’s need for redemption. Christ died for the sins of the world to obtain forgiveness for man, and every man has a choice as to whether or not he will accept that forgiveness and follow Christ. To follow Christ is to follow His commandments. But, if love is all that is necessary, then the cross becomes irrelevant, sin is a misnomer, Satan is a myth, and God does not care about how we live our lives.

Bishop Slattery rightly says, “Chastity, after all, pertains not just to our behavior but also to the state of our hearts.” [5] Acceptance of Christ is first a matter of the heart. We can’t clean up our lives before we approach Christ. Every human approaches Christ as a sinner whether he is guilty of adultery, homosexual behavior, fornication, murder, theft, or one of a thousand other sins. I am a sinner saved by grace, the unmerited favor of Christ. I have repented of my sin and have been forgiven. Not only have I repented of past sins, I have turned from my sinful ways. Homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, and any other label the sinner wears can repent, be saved, and fellowship with God for eternity. However, to do so, they cannot stay in their sin. When the sinner accepts Christ he must put away the sin and often this “putting away” can be a difficult and continuing struggle for the new Christian. But it is the struggle to lay down one’s sin coupled with continued repentance which makes the difference, not a continuing indifference to one’s sin.

In 1937, the Confessing Church in Germany was under severe persecution from Nazi rulers and that portion of the German church aligned with Hitler. Brilliant theologian, pastor, and opponent of the Nazi regime, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a dramatic paper in which he cautioned his fellow pastors in the Confessing Church.

Anyone who turns from his sinful way at the word of proclamation and repents, receives forgiveness. Anyone who perseveres in his sin receives judgment. The church cannot loose the penitent from sin without arresting and binding the impenitent in sin…The promise of grace is not to be squandered; it needs to be protected from the godless. Grace cannot be proclaimed to anyone who does not recognize or distinguish or desire it…The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and it will not only trample upon the Holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them. For its own sake, for the sake of the sinner, and for the sake of the community, the Holy is to be protected from cheap surrender. The Gospel is protected by the preaching of repentance which calls sin sin and declares the sinner guilty…The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance. [6]

Americans are especially averse to pain and suffering, and much of the modern church has that mindset. This is why it is difficult for some in the church to require the often painful “putting away” of sin when it welcomes the sinner into the supposed “big tent” of Christianity under the banner of love. Many in the modern church insist that the problem is not “cheap grace” but “cheap laws.” In other words, love and looking to Christ is all that matters. But grace without repentance is still cheap grace. Writing in his classic work The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer described this toxin within the church.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church…In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin…Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. [7]

When we approach the cross with a contrite heart, our destiny is defined by how we respond to Christ’s invitation to be a part of His eternal kingdom. A person who willfully continues in his sin cannot be excused for they “…are [not] open to growing in virtue” and their heart remains unconverted. If the church does not make this distinction clear, it is guilty of misleading people as to their eternal destination.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Edward J. Slattery, Bishop of Tulsa Diocese, “We are not defined by our sin,” Tulsa World, October 18, 2014, A17;
http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/readersforum/bishop-edward-j-slattery-we-are-not-defined-by-our/article_bb6fed60-fa34-581b-951c-5884295d6ffa.html (accessed October 20, 2014).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gavin Newsom, et.al., Letter to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, June 10, 2014.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.sfgate.com/file/829/829-ArchbishopLetter.pdf (accessed June 23, 2014).
[4] Romans 1: 18, 24-27. RSV
[5] Slattery, A17.
[6] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 292-293.
[7] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God,” (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), pp. 117-118.

The synchronization of the American church?

Posted by :webmaster On : October 24, 2014
1

Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, God's Law v. Man's Law, Government, Homosexuality

“This court has no jurisdiction over me, I am a German,” insisted Herman Goring as he stood with other Nazi war criminals in 1946 before an international military tribunal in Nuremburg, Germany. But Robert Jackson, chief counsel for the United States, responded that “…there was a ‘law above the law’ that stood in judgment of all men in all countries and societies.”[1] These contrasting views of the source of laws by which men should be judged continue to be at the heart of the cultural conflict in America—is the ultimate source of law to be God or man? Modern America and the American church face the same dilemma as faced by Germany and the German church of the 1930s.

We have previously quoted Eric Metaxas with regard to the dramatic changes in German life following the democratic election of Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933. In less than two months the democratically elected Reichstag (parliament) succumbed to pressure from the Nazi political machine and placed the whole power of the government under Hitler’s control. Thus began a series of radical changes to conform all of German life to Nazi rule. Metaxas’ eloquent assessment of events bears repeating.

With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made “legal.” Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself…In the First months of Nazi rule, the speed and scope of what the Nazis intended and had begun executing throughout German society were staggering. Under what was called the Gleichschaltung (synchronization), the country would be thoroughly reordered along National Socialist lines. No one dreamed how quickly and dramatically things would change.[2] (emphasis added)

Herman Goring, the second most powerful man in Germany and founder of the Gestapo, called this dramatic reordering of society merely an “administrative change.”[3] “Everything must now be synchronized under the Fuhrer’s leadership and under the idea of Gleichschaltung—and the church must lead the way.”[4] The synchronization of the church began with a series of regulations and laws that effectively wed the church to the state and compromised the very biblical principles upon which their faith rested. These laws and regulations initially dealt with the “Jewish question” and included restrictions on Jews from serving in professions such as the law, medicine, teaching, literature, the arts, theater, and film. Christians of Jewish blood were also prohibited from serving in the ministry.[5]

Casting aside two millennia of Christian orthodoxy, the majority of the German churches willingly allowed themselves to be synchronized with the prevailing German political and social goals instead of the teachings of Jesus Christ. They wanted a strong state-oriented church, a “positive Christianity” that was “very aggressive in attacking those who didn’t agree with them and generally caused much confusion and division in the church.”[6] Eventually, the German church of the 1930s separated into three groups: the large apostate German Christian church, the Confessing church which initially opposed Hitler but became the silent church of appeasement, and a small but faithful remnant that became the uncompromising and suffering church. We see much the same divisions between churches in twenty-first century America, only the dividing factor is now centered on humanism which Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “the most severe enemy” that Christianity ever had.[7]

Bonhoeffer was a leader in in opposition to the Nazis and the German apostate church. Bonhoeffer preached that the purpose of the state was to make possible law and order as opposed to lawlessness and disorder, and it was the church’s role to “continually ask” whether the state’s actions could be justified as legitimate. But Bonhoeffer also recognized that the state could not only fail by in the provision of law and order but could also harm society with the imposition of “excessive law and order.”[8] Metaxas quotes Bonhoeffer’s indictment of the Nazi regime.

And if on the other hand, the state is creating an atmosphere of “excessive law and order,” it’s the job of the church to draw the state’s attention to that too. If the state is creating “excessive law and order,” then “the state develops its power to such an extent that it deprives Christian preaching and Christian faith…of their rights.” Bonhoeffer called this a “grotesque situation.” “The church,” he said, “must reject this encroachment of the order of the state precisely because of its better knowledge of the state and of the limitations of its action. The state which endangers the Christian proclamation negates itself.”[9]

An excess of law and order makes it difficult if not impossible for the church to question the state regarding the legitimacy of its actions. By questioning the state’s excessive laws and order imposed on its citizens, the church may violate the very laws to which it objects. The inability of the church to question the state with regard to its actions is particularly relevant to the twenty-first century American church which finds itself at the same point of decision as faced by the German Church in 1933. Here we return to our initial observation that essence of the modern struggle in America is to determine whether man’s law supersedes God’s law. Put another way, is man’s law above God’s law as implied by Herman Goring and much of the humanistic leadership in American society? Two immediate examples expose the seriousness and immediacy of the challenge to the church.

Annise Parker is the left-leaning and openly gay mayor of Houston, Texas, America’s fourth largest City. In May she imposed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance which prohibits businesses from discriminating against gay and transgender residents. The ordinance became known as the “bathroom bill” because one of the provisions allows transgender individuals to use either a male or female public restroom facility. Opposition to the ordinance began growing during the summer as pastors and various religious leaders gathered signatures for a referendum to be placed on the November ballot which would repeal the ordinance if passed. To prevent the referendum, the city attorney subsequently rejected thousands of signatures he believed did not qualify.[10]

Under the guidance of the mayor and city attorney, both still smarting from the significant efforts of the religious community to repeal the human rights ordinance, five pastors were subpoenaed and ordered to turn over to their sermons, text messages, photographs, electronic files, calendars, and emails and virtually all communication with members of their congregations on topics such as homosexuality and gender identity. The pastors face fines and possible incarceration if they fail to do so. The obvious goal of the mayor and city attorney is intimidation. However, one pastor responded, “We’re not intimidated at all. We’re not going to yield our First Amendment rights—even if it ends in fines, confinement, or both.”[11] With opposition growing to the mayor’s effort to silence the church, Houston City Attorney Feldman remained unfazed and warned the pastors that, “The fact that you happen to be a pastor and you happen to be at a church doesn’t provide you with protection.”[12] But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had a different interpretation for Feldman contained in an official letter to the city, “Whether you intend it to be so or not, your action is a direct assault on the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment. The people of Houston and their religious leaders must be absolutely secure in the knowledge that their religious affairs are beyond the reach of the government. Nothing short of an immediate reversal by your office will provide that security.”[13] [emphasis added]

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, is a lot smaller (about 46,000) and a long way from America’s fourth largest city. But for the liberals and other advocates of the homosexual agenda, no place is too small to be overlooked when rooting out any perceived violation of human rights. Ministers Don and Evelyn Knapp who have been marrying couples for twenty-five years at their Hitching Post Wedding Chapel recently discovered this when the city told them that they would go straight to jail if they refused to “marry” same-sex couples (180 days in jail and fines up to $1,000 per day for every day the ministers refuse to perform the ceremony). Unlike the Colorado cake baker’s business, the Knapp’s chapel is a religious corporation. But this makes little difference to the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender mafia as they trample religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment under the guise of achieving their perverted definition of human rights.[14]

Albert Einstein was exiled from Germany because he was a Jew. Although he did not believe in a personal God, he was not an atheist. He described himself as somewhere between an agnostic and belief in a pantheistic god in which nature is the totality of everything and is identical with divinity. Yet, even though he was not a believer in Christianity, the suffering church had a profound impact on his life.

Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came I looked to the universities to defend it…the universities took refuge in silence. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers…but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few weeks. I then addressed myself to the authors…They are, in turn, very dumb. Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.[15]

As it was for the German church in 1933, it is decision time for the American church of today. We must ask ourselves: At what point do we have to become lawbreakers rather than betray our faith? The Houston pastors have given their answer.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God, (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), pp. 60-61.
[2] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 149-150.
[3] Ibid., p. 157.
[4] Ibid., p 176.
[5] Ibid., pp. 150-151, 156-157, 160.
[6] Ibid., p. 151.
[7] Ibid., p. 85.
[8] Ibid., pp. 153-154.
[9] Ibid., p. 153.
[10] Josh Sanburn, “Houston Pastors Outraged After City Subpoenas Sermons Over Transgender Bill,” Time, October 17, 2014.
http://time.com/3514166/houston-pastors-sermons-subpoenaed/ (accessed October 21, 2014).
[11] Tony Perkins, “Houstunned: Pastors Vow to Fight Mayor’s Sermon Grab,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 15, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/houstunned-pastors-vow-to-fight-mayors-sermon-grab (accessed October 21, 2014).
[12] Tony Perkins, “A Subpoena for Your Thoughts…”, Tony Perkins Washington Update, October 17, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/a-subpoena-for-your-thoughts (accessed October 21, 2014).
[13] Tony Perkins, “Pulpit Friction: Texas Leaders Rally to Pastors’ Defense,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 16, 2014. http://www.frcblog.com/2014/10/pulpit-friction-tx-leaders-rally-pastors-defense/ (accessed October 21, 2014).
[14] Tony Perkins, “Natural Marriage in Idaho: Give it Arrest,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 20, 2014.
http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/natural-marriage-in-idaho-give-it-arrest (accessed October 21, 2014).
[15] Lutzer, p. 89-90.

Connecting the dots: The homosexual agenda

Posted by :webmaster On : October 17, 2014
0

Category: Archives, Christianity, Education, Equality, Homosexuality

For many Americans who have been clueless about the homosexual agenda and its ultimate goal for American culture, the rapidity of recent events has caused their understanding to become clearer as the relevant features of the agenda reveal the big picture. Much like connecting the dots on a child’s line art puzzle, Americans are increasingly able to connect the dots of the homosexual agenda as each event/demand/right is connected with a preceding event/demand/right until what was once a jumble of seemingly unrelated and innocuous platitudes, occurrences, demands, and actions becomes a recognizable and frightening reality.

One of the major tools for winning concessions for the homosexual agenda is the plea/demand/right for tolerance and equality as defined by humanism. The humanists would force all to bend their knees at the altar of tolerance and equality, but that altar requires bowing to the god of humanism and embracing the consequent moral relativism which provides no means for finding truth or judging something based on the concept of right and wrong. For those that fail to bow, they become the objects of intolerant harassment through restrictions on free speech (speech codes), coercion, intimidation, and loss of religious freedom.

Current examples of the sacrifice of religious freedom upon the altars of humanist tolerance are legion. One of the many is the effort to crush religious freedom at Gordon College, a 125 year old nationally ranked liberal arts Christian college with 1700 students located in Wenham, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. The college’s website states that it “…combines an exceptional education with an informed Christian faith.”[1] However, the college’s effort to fulfill its promise regarding the provision of an informed Christian faith has caused it to run afoul of the New England Association of schools and Colleges‘ Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Gordon is being charged with potentially violating the standards of the accrediting agency because of Gordon’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff, both on and off campus and its public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians. Loss of accreditation typically results in loss of U.S. Department of Education federal financial aid for students which tends to be a death knell for colleges.[2]

Commission director Barbara Brittingham states that the commission has not dealt with a case involving potential sexual orientation-related discrimination but that, “It’s a matter of looking at the information we have and deciding if the institution is meeting our standards.”[3] [emphasis added] One wonders if the commission’s standards include consideration of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.

But that is not the end of the story. It seems that the tentacles of humanistic tolerance must reach into all levels of society to choke out perceived discrimination. The City of Salem now refuses to let Gordon use its city-owned Old Town Hall because of the college’s policies violate a municipal ordinance that prohibits Salem from contracting with entities that discriminate. The mayor of Salem was exceptionally sharp in his criticism of the college. “The clear message is that homosexuals are not worthy of employment, or even recognition of their existence, in the Gordon community. It is a slap in the face of every gay and lesbian person, particularly every gay and lesbian Christian, that says you are somehow less of a human being, you do not belong in the embrace of God’s merciful arms.”[4] Apparently, the mayor has never read the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans in which God condemns homosexual behavior.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth…Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves… [Romans 1:18, 24. RSV]

A planned White House executive order will bar federal contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation and include colleges such as Gordon whose students receive federal financial aid. Numerous Christian leaders have requested the President to include a religious exemption.[5] If an exemption is not allowed, Christian colleges and universities across the nation will be forced to accept students and hire teachers whose beliefs contradict the beliefs, mission, and goals of those institutions.

One Gordon graduate and subsequent employee left Gordon because he could not come out as openly gay. He subsequently formed GordonOne, an LGBT organization. He believes that Gordon’s president “has made Gordon a fortress of faith rather than a place where the doors are open to people who want to be part of a conversation about what it means to be a Christian.”[6] [emphasis added] It is apparent from this former student-employee’s comment that we must begin any conversation about what it means to be a Christian with three assumptions: the Bible is not the final authority on what it means to be Christian, the Bible’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality cannot be accepted, and the doors of Christianity are not open to homosexuals. Only after these suppositions and assumptions are accepted can the conversation begin. In other words, Gordon’s goal of providing an “informed Christian faith” is acceptable only after being sanitized by the LGBT community to meet their litmus test of tolerance and equality. To pass that test, Gordon must surrender beliefs in unchanging biblical truth and that it must accept practicing homosexuals as Christians.

Gordon is not the only one in the crosshairs of the homosexual agenda. No organization is too large or too small to be strangled by the tentacles of its intolerant agenda. We’ve heard of the woes of various cake bakers who, based on their religious beliefs, had the effrontery to refuse to bake cakes for homosexual weddings. Now we have the case of the Kentucky tee shirt decorator who refused to make tee shirts for participants in a local gay-pride parade. After two years, Lexington’s Human Rights Commission ruled that the tee shirt maker violated the city’s “fairness” ordinance and was ordered to attend “diversity training” for re-education. The commission’s Executive Director Raymond Sexton believes that Christians in the marketplace must “…leave their religion at home.” Otherwise, he warned, “you can find yourself two years down the road and you’re still involved in a legal battle because you did not do so. We’re not telling somehow how to feel with respect to religion, but the law is pretty clear that if you operate a business to the public, you need to provide your services to people regardless…”[7] [emphasis added] But the Human Rights Commission is telling someone how to feel with respect to their religion. That is the purpose of diversity training…to tell someone how they ought to feel and think.

As the dots are connected on the picture of the homosexual agenda in America, it becomes increasingly evident that it portrays the suppression and consequent eradication of Christianity from the public square in America. The first amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Religious beliefs and feelings translate into exercise thereof, and the Constitution protects not only religious feelings and beliefs but free exercise as well. Commissioner Sexton and others promoting the homosexual agenda would prohibit both.

In light of the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion, how can the President, the New England Commission on Higher Education, the City of Salem, the City of Lexington, and a legion of others sidestep the Constitution by requiring Christians to abandon the exercise of their most deeply held religious beliefs? They cannot unless we allow them to do so. If we allow the demagogues of humanistic tolerance and equality to prevail, then the free exercise of religion will mean little more than that which can be practiced behind the closed doors of a silent church or in the muzzled confines of one’s heart. This certainly cannot be the intent of the Founders.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Gordon College, http://www.gordon.edu/ (accessed October 8, 2013).
[2] Matt Rocheleau, “Accrediting agency to review Gordon College,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/11/agency-review-whether-gordon-college-antigay-stance-policies-violate-accrediting-standards/Cti63s3A4cEHLGMPRQ5NyJ/story.html (accessed October 8, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Evan Allen, “Gordon College joins request for exemption to hiring rule,” The Boston Globe, July 4, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/03/gordon-college-president-signs-letter-asking-for-religious-exemption-from-order-banning-anti-gay-discrimination/79cgrbFOuUg7lxH2rKXOgO/story.html (accessed
October 13, 2014).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Tony Perkins, “Intolerance fits liberals to a T (Shirt),” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 9, 2014.
http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/intolerance-fits-liberals-to-a-t-shirt (accessed October 13, 2014).

The quest for equality and the loss of respect – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : October 3, 2014
1

Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, Humanism, Worldview

As noted in Part I, another name for equality is egalitarianism which is a fundamental tenet of humanism whose worldview has captured almost all of the institutions of American life and its leadership. The purpose of Part II is to reveal the undeniable linkage between humanism’s quest for equality and the consequent loss of respect in every facet of America life.

The defining characteristic of humanism is the exaltation of self, and this emphasis on self leads to inward focus and results in egotism. Humanist Manifesto II preaches that “The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value.”[1] The practical outworking of humanism’s view of self invariably leads to a quest for equality, the roots of which reach back to the leveling theories of the French Revolution. For biblical Christianity, the central theme is about relationships as demonstrated by the sacrifice of God’s only son at Calvary to make possible fallen man’s redemption and restoration to right relationship with Him.

Worldview

Universals are called by various names including norms, permanent things, eternal truths, and first principles. These universals apply to all of mankind, in all cultures, and all of human history. Human nature reflects a number of universals. Man’s craving for order is a human universal. Above all man must have order, and as man attempts to achieve order he constructs his worldview—his perception of reality, an understanding of the way the world works, his basic beliefs. The affliction of modern man is his propensity to cast off the universals as he constructs his worldview. The order upon which one builds a worldview cannot be based on whim, choice, or man-made theories but must reflect unchangeable truth. One of those truths is that man was created in the image of God, and the order sought by any worldview must reflect these image-of-God qualities and what it means to be human. When a worldview fails to account for the true nature of man, it is false and destined for failure because it cannot provide a sustained order.

Therefore, the superiority of a worldview must be measured by its ability to bring order, and this is the measure we must use in evaluating humanism and Christianity. Which of these worldviews provides the respect sought by human nature or becomes the catalyst for loss of respect: humanism’s exaltation of self through its quest for equality or the value Christianity places on relationships? The prescriptions offered by these competing worldviews for achieving respect between men in the conduct of human affairs are mutually exclusive. One must be true and the other false.

Christian worldview

Wilfred McClay wrote, “…we shape our relationships, but we are more fundamentally shaped by the need for them, and we cannot understand ourselves without reference to them…we are made by, through, and for relationship with one another.”[2] One of the fundamental needs (universals) of mankind is to dwell together, in other words, a need for relationships. For the Christian, the importance of human relationships is a reflection of the Trinitarian relationship, a picture of His fundamental being. God’s being is shown by the Father-Son relationship and the relationship of Christ with the Church of which He is the head and we are the body.

For mankind, these relational patterns are present in various entities—marriage, family, community, nations, and the Kingdom of God. In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul gives an insight into the operation of these relational patterns which speak of brotherhood and not equality, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit…If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them as he chose.” [1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 17-18. RSV] Put another way, we are one human family, but not every member of the family can have the same place and position. Distinctions in the family are required. Status in family is determined by God. To sum up, man’s relational patterns are hierarchical.

Humanist worldview

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was one of the principal founders of the humanistic psychology movement. In his 1943 A Theory of Human Motivation, Maslow developed the concept of a “hierarchy of human needs” which proposed to rank the needs of humans.

Self-Actualization – Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. Self-actualizers are people who strive for and reach a maximum degree of their inborn potential.

Esteem – Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, and respect by others.

Love-Belonging – Friendship, family, sexual intimacy.

Safety – Security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property.

Physiological – Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion.[3]

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs conflicts with the human universal of the primacy of relationships in motivating human beings. In Maslow’s hierarchy, the sex act is labeled as non-relational physiological need and banished to the lowest level of needs. Family at the second level is merely for safety’s sake and non-relational. It is only at level three that we see relational needs: family, friendship, and sexual intimacy.[4] The other four levels deal substantially with self, whether basic physiological/safety or esteem/self-actualization.

Maslow’s theories of human motivation are based on the humanistic worldview. They fail as human motivators because they dramatically diminish the importance of relationship in favor of self. Apart from physiological and safety needs which are creational givens, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is upside down as it reflects human nature and leads to a false worldview. The societal disorder that permeates the entire planet is a result of the widely held humanistic worldview which has elevated self above relationships. And the engine driving this topsy-turvy worldview is the quest for equality which demands a leveling of society which in turn can be achieved only through socialism. Therefore, humanism’s imposition of equality as a means of establishing a foundation for respect in individuals and society in general is fatally flawed.

Humanism’s equality attempts to re-structure society by eliminating distinctions and thereby increasing respect, but it does the opposite. This is evident from the writings of Richard M. Weaver, “The most portentous general event of our time is the steady obliteration of those distinctions which create society…If society is something which can be understood, it must have structure; if it has structure, it must have hierarchy…” Weaver called the elimination of hierarchy through the egalitarian notion that in a just society there are no distinctions a perversion. “…the most insidious idea employed to break down society is an undefined equalitarianism…Such equalitarianism is harmful because it always presents itself as a redress of injustice, whereas in truth it is the very opposite.”[5]

Here Weaver reveals the fatal flaw at the heart of equality and its failure to instill respect among people. Justice breeds respect…respect for authority, property rights, institutions, customs, and traditions, and to regard with esteem people who share that understanding of justice. But, equality that pretends to insure justice is inherently unjust in doing so. Forced equality’s injustice is inevitably corrosive to human relationships and leads to loss of respect in all facets of society.

Undeniable linkage

How does this Christian view of the supremacy of relationship promote respect in a dog-eat-dog world focused on its rights rather than responsibilities? Just as a focus on self inevitably fades into a demand for equality, fraternity (brotherhood) is the product of relationship. Brotherhood taps into human emotions that are rooted in mankind’s divine connection – those image-of-God qualities indelibly imprinted on man’s being. Man was made for brotherhood, and the emotional bonds of brotherhood link him with family, community, and nation. Those connections give us status in family which extracts duties and obligations from its members, entangling alliances that call for and fosters fidelity and respect.

Equality is rooted in self and demands its rights which often are nothing more than gossamer imaginings of a humanistic worldview. The undeniable linkage between the humanism’s quest for equality and the consequent loss of respect at all levels of human activity and relationship are obvious. Humanism’s forced equality leads to suspicion, resentment, disunity, and ultimately to disrespect of people, laws, authority, institutions, and the nation’s central cultural vision. It fails to provide an order based on truth which is requisite for respect. Only through the Christian worldview’s focus on relationships and consequent brotherhood can man give and receive the respect that flows from his image-of-God qualities found in his human nature.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifesto I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 18.
[2] Wilfred McCray, “The Soul & the City,” The City, Vol. II, No. 2, (Summer 2009), 8-9.
[3] Neel Burton, M.D., “Our Hierarchy of Needs,” Psychology Today, May 23, 2012.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needs (accessed September 18, 2014).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 35, 40.

The quest for equality and the loss of respect – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : September 26, 2014
0

Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality

Loss of respect for authority and time-honored institutions, customs, and traditions is one of the major casualties in the quest for equality in all facets of American life. Here we do not mean the equality spoken of by John Adams who defined equality as—a moral and political equality only—by which is meant equality before God and before the law. The humanist understanding of equality is synonymous with egalitarianism: a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic rights and privileges. Basically, it is a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among men.[1] When we speak of equality in this article and the one to follow, it is meant to describe the humanists’ definition of equality. To properly understand the corrosive nature of the quest for equality on human beings and culture in general, one must understand humanism.

Humanism is focused on the individual and self as opposed to relationships. The humanistic philosophy proposes that nature is all there is and exists independently of any outside consciousness (God). Man is an evolutionary product of nature and his values and morals arise from his experiences and relationships on this earth alone. Truth is relative and discovered through advances in science and reason through which man will achieve his purpose—happiness, freedom, and unending progress—on this earth for there is no life after death.[2] Equality as a tool to level society is a product of humanism, and the tenets of humanism and its consequences to society must be understood before we can understand the role of equality in loss of respect. The antithesis of humanism is the biblical Christianity, and the two are the principle combatants in the raging culture wars.

It is from these two worldviews that we examine respect for people and their institutions, customs, and traditions. One sees loss of respect in every facet of society: personal conduct, marriage, family, the workplace, dress, law, government, education, and manners to name just a few. Before we examine the link between society’s quest for quality and loss of respect, we must first examine and understand the consequences of a loss of respect. In other words, the symptoms that lead to diagnosis of the disorder and its prescriptive remedy.

Examples of loss of respect abound in most Western cultures, and they are rooted in rebellion and disrespect for authority. One British study by Dr. Aric Sigman, psychologist and fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, reports that “…nursery-age children are becoming increasingly violent and disrespectful towards their teachers, ‘parent battering’ is on the rise, and the number of policemen attacked by children is soaring.” Dr. Sigman stated that the parents of these children have raised a “spoilt generation” with an inflated view of their own self-importance, and these “little emperors” are used to having their demands met by their parents. Such a combination hardly prepares the child for adult life. The consequences of this widespread lack of discipline among children have led to Britain having “…the highest rates of child depression, child-on-child murder, underage pregnancy, obesity, violent and antisocial behavior, and pre-teen alcoholism since records began.” The authority of teachers and parents has been enormously weakened legally, professionally, and culturally which has led to a rise in violence in the home, at school, and society in general. Dr. Sigman believes that respect for authority is a basic health requirement for children.[3]

The two people with the greatest impact on shaping the behaviors of American children in the twentieth century were John Dewey, architect of the American educational system, and Benjamin Spock, child psychologist and author of the most influential book on child-rearing in the twentieth century. Their humanistic child development and education theories, centered on the empowerment of children and coupled with a lack of discipline in the home and classroom, are primarily responsible for a loss of respect for authority throughout the Western world.

The premier generation birthed and baptized in the humanistic worldview was the Boomers born immediately after World War II to the end of 1964. J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman wrote Generation Ageless, a book describing the general mindset of Boomers.

The economy, not protests, is the central dynamic shaping the shared generational character of Baby Boomers…Boomers didn’t have to aspire to the American Dream; they felt they were born into it…they championed a new notion: that of an unfettered, indulgent, absorbed, celebratory self.[4] [emphasis added]

It is the Boomers’ indulgent, absorbed, celebratory self that is the defining characteristic of humanistic worldview. In conjunction with focus on self, the Boomers embraced humanism’s “unending questioning of basic assumptions and convictions.”[5] This caustic combination of self and a relentless questioning attitude is the vaccine with which many Boomers were inoculated against respect for authority, tradition, custom, and heritage.

If self is the defining characteristic of humanism, its polar opposite is the overarching importance of relationships (man to God and man to man) that is the keystone of the Christian worldview. The central theme of the Bible is found in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross and whose story speaks overwhelmingly of the inestimable value that God placed on His relationship with man. The necessity of the cross was not an unforeseen accident, Plan B, or a last minute making the best of a bad situation because God foreknew the cost of His creation. The knowledge of that cost was over-ridden by God’s will to love, an expression of His very character, to share the inner life of the Trinity with His special creation. Being created in the image of God, man’s nature was also transfused with the importance of relationship with God and earthly relationships with man.

A picture of the importance of relationships as opposed to self is expressed throughout the Bible. It is interesting to note that nine of the Ten Commandments speak directly or indirectly with regard to relationships. Three speak directly of relationships. “I am the Lord your God…” is a direct ordering of the relationship between God and man, and “You shall have no other God before me…” gives clarity to that relationship. The third speaks directly to the relationship between child and parent: “Honor your father and your mother…” Six others prohibit actions which would be injurious to relationships: misuse of the name of the Lord, worship of false gods, murder, adultery, theft, and coveting a neighbor’s possessions, wife, or servants. Only the prohibition of labor on the Sabbath may be considered as dealing most closely with man’s self.[6]

Additionally, the biblical view of self is far different view from the unfettered, indulgent, absorbed, celebratory self of humanism.

As to the unfettered freedom of self promised by humanism, the biblical answer is found in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry…But now put them all away; anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth.” [Colossians 3: 5,8. RSV]

Jesus condemned humanism’s indulgent, pleasure-seeking intemperance in the parable of the rich man who took his ease, ate, drank, made merry, and was consumed with his own plans. But Jesus called him a fool whose unprepared soul was required of him that night. [Luke 12:16-20]

Jesus dealt with the self-absorbed in the parable of the Good Samaritan when he answered the question of one of his disciples, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus exposes the heartless self-centeredness of the Pharisee and Levite and elevates the importance of relationship among all of mankind regardless of pedigree, purse, nation, or religion.

Matthew’s gospel makes plain Jesus’ attitude toward those with a celebratory self. “He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” [Matthew 23:11-12. RSV]

The foundation has been laid for an examination of the role of humanism’s quest for equality in the general loss of respect in society. This foundation has included an examination of humanism and Christianity’s differing conceptions of self and relationships and the consequences thereof. In Part II we shall examine how the humanistic exaltation of self as opposed to the biblical focus on relationships has undeniably linked the quest for equality with a loss of respect for authority and time-honored institutions, customs, and traditions.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] “egalitarian,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1963), p. 264.
[2] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, Eighth Edition, Revised (Amherst, New York: The Humanist Press, 1992), pp.35-37.
[3] Fiona MacRae and Paul Sims, “The Spoilt Generation: Parents who fail to exercise authority breeding youngsters with no respect for anyone,” Mail Online News, September 14, 2009. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1213236/The-spoilt-generation-Youngsters-lack-respect-authority-attacking-parents-police-teachers.html (accessed September 11, 2014).
[4] J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, Generation Ageless, (New York: Collins, 2007), pp. xii, xiv.
[5] Lamont, p. 15.
[6] Exodus 20:3-17. RSV]

Quran verses taken out of context? Thousands of Christian deaths say “No.”

Posted by :webmaster On : September 19, 2014
3

Category: Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars, Islam

Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw said: “The Quran clearly states that non-Muslims should be killed. Arab is the ethnicity, not Muslim or Islam. Be wary of the individuals who claim to be ‘Muslim-American.’ Be especially wary if you are a Christian.” Mike Jones’ in his editorial[1] (“Out of Line-Bennett’s Muslim-bashing goes too far.”) accused Bennett of cherry-picking verses from the Quran and using them out of context. However, Jones is either naive or woefully uninformed with regard to the Quran and Muslim persecution of Christians around the world in the name of Islam. There are 109 verses in the Quran that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Unlike practically all of the Old Testament verses of violence which are limited by the historical context in which they are presented, those in the Quran are mostly open-ended and not constrained by time or context in its call for war on non-believers.[2] For many countries dominated by an emboldened Muslim faith, the rallying cry has become “convert to Islam or die.”

Open Doors ministry reported that of the fifty countries with the worst persecution, forty-one are Muslim.[3] Exhortations to violence and persecution against infidels (any who do not believe in Allah or his messenger Mohammed) are found in the particulars of the Quran and are practiced by many of its followers, especially in countries dominated by Islam. Both the Vatican and the Center for Study of Global Christianity reported that 100,000 Christians died in 2012 because they were Christian—devout, nominal, or cultural. Christians were killed for their beliefs or ethnicity, killed while worshiping in a church, murdered because they were children of Christians, or killed because of their Christian witness.[4] Most of the deaths were at the hands Muslims and committed in the name of Islam as dictated by the Quran.

Bennett’s charges that the Council on American-Islamic Relations has ties to terrorist organizations are called unfair by Jones. However, CAIR’s founders had direct ties with known terrorist organizations, and its continuing ties to terrorist organizations are extensive and well-documented. In defense of CAIR, Jones notes CAIR’s condemnation of ISIS’ actions including its recent highly publicized beheadings. For CAIR and other Muslim organizations, ISIS has become a Muslim-Islam public relations nightmare. But in truth, ISIS’ actions reveal what a world dominated by an unrestrained Islam may look like. Such world domination by Islam is the unifying call of almost every Muslim-dominated nation and Muslim terrorist organization. CAIR’s condemnation of ISIS is about PR, not revulsion at their deeds. Otherwise, CAIR condemns the Quran which says, “[Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, ‘I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip.’” [Quran, Sura 8:12]

The tenets of Christianity speak of God’s creation of all peoples with one blood and mandate that we treat each person we meet with kindness, patience, and dignity. It is those biblical principles of Christianity and its predecessor upon which the nation was founded and made it possible for all faiths including Muslims to live and practice their religions in freedom. America’s story is not one of perfection but an example of what can be. But the reality is that Christians are being persecuted by the millions and killed by the tens of thousands throughout much of the Islamic world. A second reality is that that same Islamic world threatens America. And whether they are Christians or Muslims who reject the Islamic jihadist mentality promoted by the Quran, Americans must recognize the growing Islamic threat to their safety and religious freedom. This vigilance is not born of fear as Mr. Jones believes but a somber recognition of what’s happening everyday all over the globe.

If Jones really wants to understand the real meaning of fear, he should visit Christians in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, or dozens of other cities in northern Iraq. He will be able to easily find Christians because many of their homes and businesses have been marked with the Arabic symbol for N. N stands for Nazarenes by which is meant Christians. Such markings effectively give license to steal from, maim, rape, and kill the inhabitants. The Nazis used the same tactic to mark the homes and businesses of Jews with the Star of David which also marked the beginning of the genocide.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Mike Jones, “Out of Line – Bennett’s Muslim-bashing goes too far,” Tulsa World, September 14, 2014, G1.
[2] “What does the Religion of Peace Teach About…Violence?” TheReligionofPeace.com Guide to Understanding Islam. http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm (accessed September 15, 2014).
[3] “World Watch List Countries,” Open Doors. http://www.worldwatchlist.us/ (accessed September 15, 2014).
[4] Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “Counting the Cost (Accurately),” Christianity Today, August 21, 2013. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/september/counting-cost-accurately.html (accessed September 16, 2013).

Seduction of the American Church

Posted by :webmaster On : September 5, 2014
0

Category: Archives, Christianity, Truth

This article should be of interest to Christians and those who may not be Christians by confession and lifestyle but who believe in the importance of maintaining a biblical Christian worldview in America. Christians are the church. The church is not the buildings or organizations that serve the church body. So when we speak of the seduction of the church, we are speaking of the seduction of individual Christians and particularly the leadership of churches and other Christian organizations.

To seduce means to lead away, to persuade to disobedience or disloyalty, or to lead astray. Only one of its definitions refers to the enticement into unchastity.[1] Seduction was Satan’s original weapon used to attack God by separating man from Him. At his first encounter with Eve in the Garden, Satan’s seductive words led Eve into disobedience and disloyalty to God. Seduction worked well because God gave man a free will. Man can choose to obey or not. To love God is to obey Him, but to disobey is sin which results in separation from God. That is Satan’s purpose, to separate man from God.

However, man was not created stupid. He soon reasoned that separation from God led to pain, misery, emptiness of soul, loneliness, and death without God. Therefore, Satan created a new god for fallen man to worship and obey—the god of self. Self would be deified and worshiped in the temple of humanism. Man would be liberated from the need to obey anyone but the new god of self. However, man found that liberation of self merely anesthetized the symptoms of disobedience and separation from God. Soon the morphia of power, wealth, and pleasure wears off and the suffering and loneliness return along with the reappearance of the hideous specter of death apart from God.

The greatest threat to Satan’s seduction of mankind is the empowered and obedient church of Jesus Christ. Frontal attacks against the church are of no avail. Therefore, Satan again resorts to seduction, his most trusted and lethal weapon. Satan’s strategy is to defeat the church by subtly injecting the god of self into the church body. It is the little foxes that destroy the vine. At first he encourages a little compromise here and there. Mix in bit of disunity. Allude to the harshness and inflexibility of the Bible. Question the relevancy of the Bible and the church in light of modern problems. Concentrate the churches’ focus and efforts substantially if not exclusively on the temporal problems and injustices in the world. Attempt to discredit the truth of the Bible through science and psychology. Finally, the church elevates self above God. The new church is now consumer-oriented, and its patrons are clients to be pampered. The gospel is softened so as not to offend. Therapy replaces salvation in dealing with sin. Worship becomes entertainment. Commitment becomes optional as church attendance for many is limited to an hour or two on Sunday mornings a couple of times a month. The gospel of self-improvement is preached instead of the word of God found in the Bible.

David Wilkerson (1931-2011) was the author of the best-selling The Cross and Switchblade and was the founder of Teen Challenge addiction recovery program with centers found in many countries of the world. The recovery rate for its residents exceeds 80%, one of the highest among similar organization. Formerly the pastor of Times Square Church in New York City, Wilkerson preached a sermon in 1998 titled “The Dangers of the Gospel of Accommodation” in which he described the seduction of the modern church in the United States.

A gospel of accommodation is creeping into the United States. It’s an American cultural invention to appease the lifestyle of luxury and pleasure. Primarily a Caucasian, suburban gospel, it’s also in our major cities and is sweeping the nation, influencing ministers of every denomination, and giving birth to megachurches with thousands who come to hear a non-confronting message. It’s an adaptable gospel that is spoon-fed through humorous skits, drama, and short, nonabrasive sermonettes on how to cope—called a seeker-friendly or sinner-friendly or sinner-friendly gospel…The gospel of Jesus Christ has always been confronting—there is no such thing as a friendly gospel but a friendly grace. [emphasis added]

If you are a young man and have certain skills, you find those skills and a part of the city that would best suit you. You move into that area, poll it, and find out what the nonchurchgoers want. “You don’t like choirs. Well, would you go to a church that didn’t have a choir? Yes. You don’t like to wear suits. Would you go where it’s informal? Yes.” Then you go to your computer and design a gospel that will not confront but will shoot out the desires and the needs of the people…then you design your message to help people cope with their needs. The program you design is intended to make the church comfortable and friendly for all sinners who wish to attend.[2]

Wilkerson spoke of three things that identify the heart of the gospel of accommodation:

The accommodation of man’s love for pleasure – “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers…of pleasures more that lovers of God.” [2 Timothy 3:1-4. KJV].

The accommodation of all man’s aversion to self-denial – Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” [Matthew 16:24. KJV]

The accommodation to man’s offense to the gospel – An accommodating gospel is the way of cheap grace. As Wilkerson described it, “It’s cruel, pastor, to lead sinners to the Cross, tell them they are forgiven by faith, and then allow them to go back to their habits and lusts of the flesh, unchanged and still in the devil’s shackles.”[3]

A recent variant of the accommodating church is the multisite electronic church. One such church has multiple campuses in the metro area, others around the state, and is establishing new churches out of state. The total combined attendance on a recent Sunday morning was reported to be 79,000. Each site may have as many as eight one-hour services on any given Sunday; each tightly packed with rock-concert style worship, simultaneous water baptisms, and a video message from the senior pastor. The founder and senior pastor explained that “…the service is designed to appeal to unchurched people, with casual dress, refreshments in the sanctuary, and a concert-like atmosphere. We’ve found that a lot of unchurched people love to go to concerts, and so our worship experience is very concert-like. There’s intelligent lighting, great sound systems…We’re not doing church for church people…” The pastor defends the accommodating nature of the church services by explaining that every service ends with an invitation to make a commitment to Christ.[4] One wonders if those making the commitments understand that a genuine commitment to Christ leads to the cross and ultimately death to self. Paul’s letter to the Galatians makes this clear. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, wo loved me and gave himself for me.” [Galatians 2:20. RSV]

Often the gospel preached by the accommodating church tends to perversion or denial of biblical truth over time. A recent example has been a significant topic of discussion in the church world with regards to comments to the congregants by the wife of a pastor of a large Texas megachurch. With her nearby pastor-husband’s nodding approval, she said,

I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God—I mean, that’s one way to look at it—we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy. That’s the thing that gives Him the greatest joy…So, I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?[5]

This particular ministry had a Godly Christian heritage and history. But the siren song of power, popularity, and success has seduced the new generation to bow to the god of self. Paul in his first letter to Timothy warned of the days in which some of the American church presently finds themselves. “Now the spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared…” [1 Timothy 4:1-2. RSV] Many leaders and congregants in the American church have been seduced by Satan and are following the path described by Paul which results in a powerlessness and apostate church destined for judgment and eternal damnation.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] “seduce,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, 1963), p. 781.
[2] David Wilkerson, “The Dangers of the Gospel of Accommodation,” Assemblies of God Enrichment Journal, http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/199901/078_accommodation.cfm (accessed September 2, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Bill Sherman, “Growing in faith,” Tulsa World, August 17, 2014, A-1.
[5] Heather Clark, “‘Do good for yourself’ Osteen Says. Obedience, worship ‘Not for God’.” Christian News Network, August 28, 2014. http://christiannews.net/2014/08/28/do-good-for-your-own-self-osteen-says-obedience-worship-not-for-god-video/ (accessed September 2, 2014).

Why I believe

Posted by :webmaster On : August 29, 2014
1

Category: Archives, Christianity, Truth

A child-like faith

I became a Christian as a child of six. Owasso was a tiny little hamlet of about 250 people, barely four blocks long and two blocks wide straddling a two-lane concrete highway meandering southward towards Tulsa through the perennially-flooding bottom lands and across an old bridge over Bird Creek. This little wide spot in the road had two or three churches, a grocery or two, a school, a collection of small houses, and not much else. Our children’s church teacher and her husband (a nonbeliever) were dairy farmers as were my parents and as my mother’s parents had been. Our teacher helped with the milking and some of the farm work, but on Sunday mornings after chores, she would pick up her grandchildren and any other neighbor kids that were so inclined and take them to church. I still remember well those Sunday mornings when she taught us flannel graph stories from the Bible including Noah, Moses, Joseph, David and Goliath, and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. She mixed in her own stories of “Barney in the Barrel,” “The Little Red Hen,” and others, all reflecting the truth of Christ’s love for each of us.

One Sunday morning she asked if any of us (probably about eight or nine in attendance that morning) would like to accept Jesus into their heart. I moved from the back row of three homemade benches and came to the front and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. Why did I believe? Some will say my child’s faith was mere emotional manipulation. Others will say it was the Christian influence of family and friends to conform. But the Bible gives the real reason. I believed because my child-like faith responded to the gentle wooing of the Holy Spirit. Luke recorded Christ’s words as He described the utmost importance of a child-like faith, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” [Luke 18:17. RSV]

Reason

As we grow physically and mentally, our child-like faith must not remain static. Since that day I moved from the back bench to publicly profess my belief, my faith has grown and continues to grow because of reason. Right reason applied to my observations and experiences in the light of the biblical revelation and divine guidance increases my faith and helps me in my everyday life’s walk of faith. Life happens, and bad things happen to people who are faithful to God. How should Christians respond when they experience the trials of life such as when a spouse unexpectedly files for divorce, the death of a child or spouse, loss of job, betrayal by friends, and agonizing pain or loss of health? Here, right reason helps sustain faith in times of adversity. The believer continues to believe because he or she knows the truth of God’s word and because their life’s observations and experiences substantiate the truth upon which their faith rests. All the while the world shouts that there can be no faith in a God who would allow such tragedies, but the world only sees the natural and temporal. Faith transcends the natural to the realm and reality of the supernatural. The Apostle Paul wrote of how Christians should deal with the difficulties of life in their faith walk.

How weary we grow of our present bodies. That is why we look forward eagerly to the day when we shall have heavenly bodies which we shall put on like new clothes. For we shall not be merely spirits without bodies. These earthly bodies make us groan and sigh, but we wouldn’t like to think of dying and having no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will, as it were, be swallowed up by everlasting life. This is what God has prepared for us and, as a guarantee, he has given us his Holy Spirit. Now we look forward with confidence to our heavenly bodies, realizing that every moment we spend in these earthly bodies is time spent away from our eternal home in heaven with Jesus. We know these things are true by believing and not by seeing. [2 Corinthians 5:2-7. Living Bible]

Is Paul saying that faith is blind and denies reason? Absolutely not. Paul is speaking of the eternal hope of the Christian in spite of present circumstances. Faith is not an abandonment of reason. C. S. Lewis challenged the widespread assumption that there is a battle between faith and reason, “It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions [that attack faith]. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.”[1]

Reason is an ally of faith. Our observations and experiences of life aided by right reasoning lead us to belief in the truth of Christianity and all upon which it rests in spite of circumstances. In one sense reason leads us to the door of Christianity, but faith invites us in and holds our hand as we continue the faith journey. However, reason was not left at the door. As we move along our faith journey, we encounter life—all sorts of thoughts, ideas, things, situations, difficulties, trials, struggles, disappointments, opportunities, and so forth. At that point reason continues to assist and guide within the framework of truths we hold and have incorporated into our faith walk. In this sense, reason helps us to accept the seemingly unreasonable as we search the Bible, pray for Divine guidance, and work out our own salvation.[2]

Lewis captures well the linkage between faith and reason when he wrote that faith “…is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”[3] It is not blind faith but a faith that is supported and increased through right reason. In time faith grows to be more important to our belief in the God of the Bible than our reasoning ability. Faith never abandons reason for it continues to play a secondary and supporting role. As faith grows and reason diminishes, reason has helped us come full circle once again to a child-like faith, and through faith we can withstand changes in our moods, our failures, our doubts, our circumstances, or any other of life’s challenges.

I believed because of a child-like faith. I continue to believe and my faith grows as right reason filters my observations and experiences in life in the light of the biblical revelation and divine guidance. However, there is a third reason I believe.

Best evidence

We humans have an insatiable thirst for truth about the meaning and purpose of life. Man has always recognized a divine order in the universe, nature, and human relationships. The more science reveals about the earth’s exquisite and complex order, the greater the evidence for a supernatural creator of that apparent order. Those that deny a supernatural creator continue to search for an over-arching theory of everything. For them the universe nothing more than a cosmic box full of puzzle pieces in which each piece must to be analyzed in its minutest detail. Once understood, the pieces can be fitted together to answer the basic questions of life, all of which is to be accomplished without help from a mythical God. In their attempts to fit the pieces together, often forcing un-natural and harmful configurations, they focus on the minutia, constantly arranging and rearranging, and end with meaningless patterns which reveal neither truth nor offer satisfactions demanded. Richard Weaver diagnosed modern man’s affliction which he described as a “…severe fragmentation of his world picture…which leads directly to an obsession with isolated parts.”[4]

The Bible is a book of history, poetry, prophecy, parable, and allegory in which God reveals Himself and paints the grand mural of the creation, the purpose of man, our present sorrow, the means of redemption, and our eternal destination.[5] It is the unifying picture on the puzzle box which in one grand sweep makes sense of everything in man’s experience since his creation. However, the picture is not enough for it is prescriptive and must be applied by each human being in order to fit the pieces together in a way that gives meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in this life and the next.

In spite of all the protestations of humanists, Darwinists, atheists, intellectuals, pundits, false religions, and others, the long view of man’s sordid history on this planet and the heart-breaking immediacy of the world’s pain and suffering revealed by today’s 24/7 news cycle point to man’s failed efforts to answer the basic questions of life with false philosophies and religions that deny the God of the Bible. It is the biblical revelation that gives the best explanation and evidence of who we are, what went wrong with the world, and how we can get out of the mess we are in. This is the third reason why I believe.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, Mere Christianity, (New York: Harper One, 2002), p. 116.
[2] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 111.
[3] Lewis., pp. 115-117.
[4] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences,” (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 59.
[5] Johnson, p. 176.