Category: Posts Social and Political

“The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8).

We’re bound to lose, you know.  It’s baked in.  No matter how close we get, no matter how hard we strive to preserve what’s left of public morality and common decency in this crumbling pagan society, we’re not going to win.  And the reason for this is revealed in the quote above right from the lips of our Lord: They’re simply better at it than we are.  “Better at what?” you ask.  Navigating the world, manipulating processes, and reaching predetermined ends (recall our Lord’s trial).  The “sons of light” are either ignorant of how such things are done or live by rules that preclude behaving in such a manner.  They know that ends do not justify means and that they cannot do evil to bring about good.  The “sons of this world” have no such scruples.  But they are shrewd enough to know that their intentions must be covered.  Though their minds are darkened unto righteousness, they are “enlightened” unto evil, and so their proud and impenitent hearts are ever manufacturing new ways to craft deceitful schemes.  The sons of light simply can’t catch up, and do not wish to.  AND THIS IS WHAT IS PLAYING OUT RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES.

“So what are the sons of light to do?” you ask.  We can’t adopt their tactics, for in doing so they win in the worst way.  What then?  And here is the bad news: We shall ever lose in this world.  And I fully believe that such is our Lord’s intention.  His desire is that we look to Him, not the ballot box.  Oh, we should continue to vote, assemble, and bear witness to what a truly just society would look like—of which today’s self-(un)righteous “social justice warriors” know nothing.  But we must understand that this side of heaven, the deck is stacked against us.  In a real way, it’s proof of our divine citizenship and of the justice of our cause—as if protecting life from the cradle to the grave and religious freedom needed vindication. 

We’ve read the Book.  In this world, the sons of light lose.  We often do not understand.  We ask ourselves, “How could God let this happen?  We must always remember that the clay doesn’t talk back to the Potter; the clay finds its strength resting in the Potter’s hands.  Moreover, because we have read the Book, we also know that ultimately, the sons of light do win—AND WIN BIG!

“The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.”  This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this happen; it won’t be the last.  I really don’t mean to trivialize this.  It’s infuriating.  But I just mean to say, look to the One who will one day right all the wrongs.  And in the meantime, let us be sure to keep our own hearts pure and always live as “sons and daughters of light.”

If you must have a parade to tell us how proud you are of yourself, you’re not proud of yourself.  If you must convince people that you feel good about yourself, you don’t feel good about yourself.  The truth is that deep down inside, you know that there is something wrong with yourself.  Such is as it should be.  Because we are created in the image of God, we are rational beings with moral natures, each of us bearing a conscience.  This is what separates us from the animals.  We know there is a God who is righteous and just, almighty and all-knowing.  We know that there is right and wrong, and try as we may we can’t escape this knowledge.  We also know that we are separated from this God because of our sins.  Indeed, we know that our problem is not only that we sin but that we ARE sinners—that our very nature is crooked, turned in on itself, and morally depraved.  And we even know that this righteous God from whom our sins have so separated us shall one day judge the world—that is, ourselves.

One might think that such knowledge would make a man repent, run to this God begging forgiveness, and promise to love Him above all things.  But such is the broken and sinful nature of a man that he will not do this.  Instead, the man turns away from God clinging to his sin—for he loves his sin more than he loves the true God.  And in an attempt to live in his sin with a clear conscience, he creates his own god, an idol, who will approve his sin and even cheer him along his way.  The man does not know that behind this false god which he has created lies a very real demon.  And even if he did know, he would not care so long as this demon allowed him his pleasures which demons are naturally gratified that he should indulge.  One day he might not even feel that pang of conscience or hear that inward voice that has cried out for so very long that something is terribly wrong with himself.  The true God whom he despised has justly given him over to his sinful devices and he is now a prisoner to his passions, a lecher, the image of God within so withered that hardly a man is recognizable at all.  And so the man gratifies his whims all the way to hell (Romans 1:18-32). 

But to the man who still hears that voice of conscience, who knows he’s not right, indeed even hates himself (for every true believer first hated himself before he came Christ, and after coming hates his sin all the more), to that man there is hope.  Indeed, it is God’s greatest gift to you that thus far you still suffer your alienation from Him for your sin.  And now this great God comes to you with open arms imploring you to come and trust Him to cleanse, restore, and save you from your sin and final judgment.  Will you be completely healed of your sinful desires?  Maybe, maybe not, but He will put you on the path to healing so that as time goes by you will grow in His grace so that you will look less like yourself and more like Him. 

The good news is that you no longer have to pretend you are proud anymore: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’  And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’  And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).

Now don’t get all bent out of shape.  I just needed a title to hook you.  That said I would like to address an issue which is the direct result of a profound change that has occurred in our society over the last forty-plus years.

It used to be that women said to men, “If you would like to enjoy, oh, say, ‘the finer things in life,’ you may have them.  But first I want a ring on my finger and a promise before God and everyone else that you will love, honor, and obey me for the rest of your life.”  And men, having no other recourse to those goods, said rather plaintively, “Oh, alright.”  And the system worked rather well with some failures here and there.

But somewhere along the line, women changed the rules.  They began saying, “We’ll go ahead and let you have the finer things before you commit to us.”  In other words, “We’ll let you enjoy the privileges of marriage without bearing its responsibilities.”  And men said, “Now that’s more like it!”  And the result has been an exponential growth in out-of-wedlock childbirths which any sane person would describe as wholly predictable.

So what am I saying?  Only what everyone knows—that when it comes to sex, WOMEN HAVE THE POWER.  If women set the bar at ten feet, that’s how high men have to jump; if women set the bar on the ground, men will walk all over them.  Is that rocket science?  And now let me draw the obvious conclusion: This country will never return to a moral sexual ethic, nor will illegitimacy ever be reduced unless women as a collective force hold the line against sexual immorality.

You can call this a double standard, sexist, and any of those other popular catchwords used to stifle debate; I choose to call it, “reality” or “human nature,” and when you run up against these, you are going to lose.  Are men equally to blame for the breakdown of the family we have witnessed the past several decades?  Of course they are, and had I had sons, I would have taught them sexual purity and respect towards women that is a woman’s due, as every Christian father should.  But this does not change the fact that on the whole men are men and women are women, and that it is women who have the power to make men behave, and if they don’t, men won’t.  It’s as simple as that.

But this won’t happen.  Feminism has taught three generations of women that they can and should be as sexually predatory and promiscuous as men, even though deep down women know that such is not a woman’s nature, proving that feminism not only debases women but renders them utterly stupid.  Witness the recent disgraceful display of a high school valedictorian pleading for abortion and contraception for young women or the spate of women school teachers laying underage boys.  You’ve come a long way, Baby! 

So as an aging man who has his own share of failures and mistakes, I plead with young Christian women: Hold the line!  Heck, I’ll even plead with pagan women: Hold the line!  You’ll be glad you did and society will be a better off.

A few years ago, there was some question concerning President Obama’s Christian faith.  I doubt not that much of it was an attempt to discredit him by conservatives, but some of it was also driven by his own words of admiration for Muhammad and the religion of Islam.  Regardless, the issue was resolved in the media by President Obama’s protestation that he was a Christian, and in today’s society, saying that one is something is irrefutable evidence that one is something—just ask a transgender.

Well, I would like to take up the unenviable task of rehearsing that question all over again for the purpose of elucidating some religious tenets of what today goes by the name of “progressivism.”  (Understand, I only use the former President as an example for my larger purpose.)  To begin, I believe that Barak Obama believes that he is a Christian.  Having said that, I do not think he cares for the doctrinal content of the Christian faith as that concerns, say, the historic doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the atonement, regeneration, the Second Coming, Biblical inspiration, and a host of other teachings of the faith.  I believe that for Mr. Obama, Christianity primarily consists of the ethical teachings of Jesus boiled down to the Sermon on the Mount and others of his sayings—all of which are then tossed into the contemporary blender of tolerance, diversity, and social justice touching on race, gender, LGBT, the environment, etc., etc., and, most important of all, harnessing the coercive power of government to remake society along Progressive lines.   

Which is all to say that for Barak Obama, his real religion is progressivism.  Let me put it this way: If Mr. Obama were to emigrate to, say, a Muslim nation, and it became expedient or just plain convenient for him to convert to Islam…well, as long as that particular brand of Islam allowed for Progressive ideals (though that’s hard to imagine), I think he would convert.  And if you were to confront him about it, I think he would shrug his shoulders and say something like, “Look!  We’re forcing people to live together whether they like it or not, government is feeding, housing, and clothing people, and actively promoting racial and gender equality while punishing inequality, women receive free contraception and unlimited access to abortion, people of the same sex can marry or be whatever gender they wish, we’ve moved away from fossil fuels, banned drinking straws AND saved the whales!  What more can you ask for?”  In other words, to an ardent Progressive, religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, or what have you, IN THEIR BEST FORMS are merely expressions of THAT ONE TRUE RELIGION which is BY DEFAULT progressivism. To put it another way, religion only serves the purpose of politics in the task of social reconstruction.

But why do I call progressivism a religion?  Because it has all the trappings of one.  Like most religions, it has a theory (mythology, rather) of origins which is called, “evolution.”  And though this theory is predicated on naturalism, it still posits a god but renames him, “natural selection,” because, for some odd reason, it seems impossible to get anything done without some mechanism doing it.  Imagine that!  This mythos becomes all-embracing providing answers to questions reaching back billions of years when no one was there to see anything happen.  But that’s okay because the cosmos is littered with evidence all over the place needing only the discerning eye of the scientist to unlock its secrets and tell us what happened.

But evolution embraces far more than just “science.”  You see, the doctrine of evolution also provides a framework for viewing all of history and thus, like religion, has an eschatology as well—a doctrine of last things or how things will turn out in the end.  To the Progressive, “history” is marching ever forward (our better angels in tow) towards a wonderful new world where all is right.  There is no oppression, everyone has the same amount of stuff, and no one is better than anyone else.  As for personal liberty, there is sexual freedom (of course) but government makes certain that all else is regulated and evenly distributed.  It is a heaven on earth—a utopia—that progressives desire, which is why they speak little of an afterlife; after all, such ideas sap people’s energy from the here and now, which is what really matters.  To the extent there is a heaven “up there,” everyone goes (except for evangelicals and traditional Catholics).  But interestingly and actually quite fascinating, like Christianity and other religions, progressivism also has its apocalyptic side which we see in the environmental “crisis” that is constantly played out before us in the media and our educational institutions.  “The earth has only ten years,” we hear, “and then we will be unable to reverse certain catastrophe!”  It will be decades before we are able to quantify the trauma inflicted on hundreds of millions of children the world over for such passion-laden, apocalyptic child abuse.  But then such apocalyptic fervor answers the Progressive need for more government control.

I could speak of other doctrines: progressivism has a doctrine of sin, but it is reinterpreted from the personal to the societal.  A person is a sinner only to the extent that he harms society, and that harm is socially-constructed along the lines of racism, sexism, homo-, trans-phobia, etc.  And like sin, salvation is also socially-constructed with everyone living in peace on the Quad of some educational institution, forever learning, and forever becoming more equal.  Sorta makes angels floating on clouds sound exciting, doesn’t it!  You see, they really don’t grasp that their understanding of equality (which is conflated with sameness) actually makes for a terribly boring world. 

I’ll stop here but I think you see what I mean when I say that I think Mr. Obama’s religion (and millions like him) really has little in common with historic Christianity as it understands itself.  His religion is progressivism—which truly is a religion—with Jesus making cameo appearances in support (or kidnapped, if you prefer).  And Progressive religion will always oppose and hate (and I do mean “hate”) authentic Christianity, because the latter stands in direct contrast to the former—and the former’s understanding of diversity and tolerance will only extend so far.  Authentic Christianity will always pose an existential threat to progressivism, WHICH IS ONLY THE OLD PAGANISM IN GAUDIER GARB.  Communist countries both current and past are all the proof we need of that.

The Apostle Paul tells the Church at Philippi, “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (1:9-11).

Love has fallen on hard times.  I speak not of the music and entertainment industries which have long equated love with sex; we are accustomed to that.  I speak of the way love has been more subtly perverted by the world’s gospel.  This pagan gospel is quite simply that love is personal and therefore under the control of persons.  It concerns the way they feel about each other, and being a completely subjective experience, is not subject to the judgement of anyone else.  Thus, love is a feeling.  It comes and goes and takes various shapes and sizes; it is quite amorphous, and its definition is subject only to those “in love.”  Love, any love, regardless of its expression between persons is regarded thus as “true love,” for it is “true” for them.  So, not only is love perverted but truth as well and so must be dragged down the same slough of relativity which encompasses this pagan and false understanding of “love.”

Though I do not deny that love is celebrated between persons and encompasses emotions, I deny that such is the definition of love.  Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” indicating that love is obedience (John 14:15).  And though it is popular among devotees of pop culture to picture Jesus as an itinerant hippy playing the mandolin and leading rounds of kumbaya with his disciples at campfires, he could actually be quite stern: “Go and sin no more,” “Sell all you have and give to the poor,” and his first sermon, “Repent! For the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  I have failed to find a single, “Smile, God unconditionally loves you,” anywhere.

But returning to where I started above with Paul and his beloved Philippians, Paul prays that their love may abound with knowledge and discernment.  Did you hear that?  Knowledge and discernment, not feelings and passions.  In the Scriptures, love is INFORMED; it is not a shapeless, formless, “whatever I want to do which is meaningful to me and whomever I choose to be with.”  Because our hearts are “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9), we require the word which tells us what love is, which is obedience to the heavenly word in the Scriptures which in turn leads to greater knowledge of that sure and true way to godliness and purity.  In sum, the gospel of Jesus Christ knows nothing of an uninformed, or rather ill-informed, love which I get to fill with my own meaning leading to self-fulfillment; love’s goal is not my personal satisfaction but godliness through knowledge of his word and obedience thereunto.