When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.
Blaise Pascal
I want to be humble.
But I have found there is a major flaw, a defect, when it comes to humility: You don’t feel that you have the right to say “Enough is Enough!” Sometimes humility allows itself to get walked all over. It’s too nice. Sometimes the humble person will keep the discussion going when it’s clearly over. It’s too patient. Sometimes humility gives the benefit of the doubt to people who abuse the privilege. I think 57 years is enough time to give those you disagree with an opportunity to prove their point. I think 57 years is more than fair.
I have thought about this subject quite extensively, and even though my penchant for humilty says, “Give your opponents more time to make thier case,” I’m done. 57 years done. Especially when you have been using those years watching, weighing, evaluating, and testing. I have been on the front lines of the battle, I’ve got scars, I have evidence, and I’ve got the goods. As a pastor for 27 years, father-of-four, college and graduate school degree holder, and missionary to Russia, I’ve seen things. 57 years of things.
The Results are In: Modern progressive thought is a complete failure and it has led us down a road to ruin. Instead of offering us fresh new insights, and providing society with transformitive human constructs, we have been left with a wasteland of broken souls. Instead of listening to the professors of progress, we need to “ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16) In other words, mom and dad, grandma and grandpa had it right the whole time, and we need to go back to the ancient paths they once used to tread.
Mary Harrington, in an article called “Reactionary Feminism,” describes what the ancient way once believed and promoted:
“Male and female bodies are different; humans can’t change sex; most women want to have children; heterosexuality is the default human condition; outsourcing domestic chores is a movement to reintroduce a servant class; children do better in stable two-parent families; and our hyperfocus on individual freedom is a central factor in the plummeting of birthrates worldwide. We need to be against technological developments that promise to free us from love, longing, and human nature itself, restating these truths is an act of feminist resistance.”
In other words, bring back God’s original design and quit screwing around with what used to be considered “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.” (Philippians 4:8).
And if you do, finally, you will find rest. But our silly obsession that we need to keep changing, transforming, and progressing, is destroying us. Peachy Keenan, in her book “Domestic Extremism” explains the cultural shift that has corroded so many of our young, “Once children come to believe their mom and dad are clueless bigots and racists who are holding them back from being who they are, the cult leaders own them…the entire project – (Public School and Higher Education) – is based on the Marxist agenda of abolishing the family so they can produce an army of activists for revolution.”
And what does the revolution want?
Peachy continues, “The end product is a citizen who will go to his grave believing a set of Ministry of Truth-approved lies: ‘whiteness’ is instrinsically evil, abortion is health care, there are dozens of genders, America was founded on racism and must be dismantled, marriage is oppressive and bad for women, children hold you back, and unchecked sexual ‘exploration’ with a variety of partners of every gender is the surest path to emotional happiness.”
And she caps it off with this, “If you don’t agree with this quote, you are a dangerous extremist: ‘It’s normal and healthy to experiment with sexual activity, of any kind, starting at a young age. You may not be the gender you were told you were, because your parents are ignorant or transphobic. If you want to change your gender, you totally can, even in kindergarten, and you can always switch back later.”
Why does it matter?
This matters because Christians have been asked to be both Salt & Light to a lost world. Salt keeps things preserved and tasty, and light tells the truth. Telling people that God’s way is simply the best, is the best thing for them. The Hebrew language calls this “Shalom.” It is a peace that comes from living under Jehovah’s umbrella of blessing. It is the feeling one gets when all the world is right. As a Christian I want people to have that.
Are we just being political?
There is major disagreement in Christian circles when it comes to speaking into culture. Some Christians think we have no busines telling others about what is good, and right, and true. They often deride you as being overly political, and we must stay silent in our fortresses of solitude (Otherwise known as the church). There are two problems with this assessment: (1) All politics deal with moral decisions, and as a Christian citizen I should speak up about what is right and wrong, good and true. (2) Politics is more than just wanting to win for your party, it is wanting the “government of the people” to be a blessing (Provide for Common Welfare) and a hinderence to evil (Protect the Vulnerable). If you as a Christian only want to be political so your team wins, then you missed the whole point of Christianity.
If you want to be a blessing, you must speak up!
Winston Churchill made a very wise statement after years of assessing what led up to WW2: “Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness. A sincere love of peace is no excuse for muddling hundreds of millions of humble folk into total war. The cheers of weak, well-meaning assemblies soon cease to echo, and their voices soon cease to count. Doom marches on.”
Or as the writer Terry Pratchett says, “Evil never sleeps.”
If evil never sleeps, then the Christian must remain vigiliant. For 57 years I have lived life, seen moral consequences firsthand, and for the last 27 I have been watching and warning as a pastor. I have found after all my counseling and watching the prognosticators on television, and reading the news, Scripture is right. Homosexuality and deviant sexual relations has destroyed far more people I know than you can imagine. Nice Christians, who think they are operating out of ‘virtuous motives’, especially wanting to be nice and not offend, are no match for the hungry drive of lust and wicked perversion that Satan will unleash on the unsuspecting.
Scripture always proves true, so when Paul warns in the book of Romans 1:18-32 we must listen and not laugh it off:
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them…
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
So now what?
The answer is very easy, go back to the ancient paths. Stop trying to be someone you are not. Love people by warning them, not celebrating their debauchary. This last point takes patience and care. Real love hangs in there.
I recently watched the change in the United Methodist Church and how they have agreed to completely accept all lifestyles on a national basis, and they are changing the language of scripture to be inclusive. This means they want to abolish Patriarchal language and even violent triggering language. In other words, they no longer want to let God speak for himself.
He is a good Father, and having a good Father is a good thing, not a oppressive construct of a politically hawkish party. Everyone longs for a Father, and to deny the existence of God as Father is denying goodness. Peachy Keenan writes something very insightful, “Just because not all men are good guys, just because some of them ghosted you and broke your heart, doesn’t mean masculinity itself should be treated like a disease. If an apple is rotten, you don’t burn the entire orchard. We need them apples!”
In the same way, just becasue some fathers are absent, or were cruel, or were unkind does not mean that God the Father is. The reason so many people are angry with dads is because in their heart they have been designed to have God the Father as their Father. Don’t burn down the world because your dad was not like God.
“Ask for the Ancient Paths…”
