Posted on 04/02/2015 12:38:23 PM PDT by lifeofgrace
I originally wrote this a year ago. It being Holy Thursday, I think it's appropriate to revisit the topic. Instead of Christianity becoming more cohesive and strong in America, it's weaker than ever. We must remind ourselves of our purpose in believing in Christ. There is no better time than Easter weekend.
I’ve seen some eyes opening, one by one, to the fact that Christianity in the US is fractured, and that it was fractured purposely by those pursuing an agenda to advance LGBT causes at the expense of religious liberty.
An excellent piece by Joe Carter is one example of such an epiphany.
He wrote,
This is the reality that religious believers must recognize. We are not facing a new, unexpected challenge to religious liberty. This campaign of vilification was put in place more than three decades ago in order to normalize and institutionalize a life-destroying, soul-crushing form of sinful behavior. We may be shocked that on this issue some Christians are more influenced by an obscure essay they’ve never read than the book that contains the Word of God. But those are the facts that we must accept.
The fracture comes as a cultural wedge driven into the heart of Biblical authority. For to accept LGBT behavior as if it were another genetic disposition and expression of love as intended for humans, is to deny the Biblical precepts defining marriage, sin, and the proper role of humans on Earth. For some Christians, this is an acceptable compromise, and for others, it’s too large a pill to swallow.
At minimum, the fracture has caused confusion within the Christian community, leading some to doubt their own beliefs.
Erick Erickson wrote about Biblical authority, illustrating with a well known story from the Book of Daniel,
Too many Christians today try to find loopholes. What is five times five? Twenty-five. What is two times three? Six. What is the purpose of man kind? To glorify God. What is the first commandment? “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. What is the definition of marriage? Ummm . . . .
I’ll say it again: the wedge and the resulting fracture in Christianity is no accident. The leaders of the LGBT movement have been running their playbook for 30 years. The seminal book on this topic is “A Queer Thing Happened to America: And what a long, strange trip it’s been”. It’s 700 pages, scholarly and footnoted. I would recommend reading it to anyone engaged in the fight for religious liberty in this country.
The fracture has nearly accomplished two of the key goals these LGBT leaders set out in their book “After The Ball” written over 30 years ago.
At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights-long after other gay ads have become commonplace-it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified. (This will be all the more necessary because, by that time, the entrenched enemy will have quadrupled its output of vitriol and disinformation.) Our goal is here is twofold. First, we seek to replace the mainstream’s self-righteous pride about its homophobia with shame and guilt. Second, we intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types.
That’s right, the LGBT leaders consider Bible believing Christians to be their enemy.
And Christians have been engaging the enemy trying to convince them we’re their friends. This is a disastrous strategy. It never works.
It never works. Never.
In this engagement strategy, Christians who seek understanding and fellowship are swayed by their personal friendships with their gay friends—it’s okay for Biblical Christians to have gay friends, it’s okay to like gay people and eat meals, play sports, and listen to music, basically what friends do. It’s not Biblical to let their desire to engage in anti-Biblical behavior change a Christian’s concept of sin. That happens a lot.
Those Christians who are swayed serve to make the Christians who aren’t seem like monsters for believing the Bible. In fact, that’s been the plan from the beginning.
I am not advocating bitter hatred or vitriol: those who align themselves with (the late) Fred Phelps or his followers are as anti-Biblical as the LGBT leaders themselves. In fact, it would appear that Phelps and his ilk might even be coconspirators in advancing the LGBT cause:
The public should be shown images of ranting homophobes…bigoted southern ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged; menacing punks, thugs, and convicts speaking coolly about the “fags” they have killed or would like to kill; [excerpted from Carter’s piece, from After The Ball]
The fractured wing of American Christianity believes that “niceness” equates to “love”. Matt Walsh wrote about what he calls the “Nice Doctrine”,
The propagators of the Nice Doctrine can be seen and heard from anytime any Christian takes any bold stance on any cultural issue, or uses harsh language of any kind, or condemns any sinful act, or fights against evil with any force or conviction at all. As soon as he or she stands and says ‘This is wrong, and I will not compromise,’ the heretics swoop in with their trusty mantras.
They insist that Jesus was a nice man, and that He never would have done anything to upset people. They say that He came down from Heaven to preach tolerance and acceptance, and He wouldn’t have used words that might lead to hurt feelings. They confidently sermonize about a meek and mild Messiah who was born into this Earthly realm on a mission to spark a constructive dialogue.
The problem here is that you can’t have a constructive dialogue when the other party in the dialogue has as their objective to either make you believe they are right, or to demonize you. This is not constructive.
So how to heal the fracture? I’m not sure it can easily be healed, but what Christians can do is decide whether to follow Biblical authority or cultural authority. Those who follow cultural authority call Biblical authority “dogma”.
The father of all community activism, and modern radical revolutionary thought, Saul Ailinsky, wrote about dogma decades ago in Rules for Radicals,
I detest and fear dogma. I know that all revolutions must have ideologies to spur them on. That in the heat of conflict these ideologies tend to be smelted into rigid dogmas claiming exclusive possession of the truth, and the keys to paradise, is tragic. Dogma is the enemy of human freedom. Dogma must be watched for and apprehended at every turn and twist of the revolutionary movement. The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with complete certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice.
Ailinsky’s words are subtle and seductive. Who are Christians to believe that they have the answer to everything in one book? The words summon the images of the inquisition, the crusades, the pogroms, and the Salem witch trials.
Those words and the beliefs they convey put enough doubt in to the hearts of some believers in Christ to move them into the cultural authority side of the fracture. It seems more and more move that way every day.
The answer to the fracture may be shocking to some readers.
Jesus was not nice. But Jesus was not violent.
Jesus restrained Himself with incredible, supernatural strength. The small bits of outrage he exhibited were a very mild demonstration of His displeasure with hypocrites, fakers, and self-promoters within the religious establishment.
Jesus was and is God. The earth, the sea, the sky, and universe, obey His command. With a single word, He could have summoned ten thousand angels to do His bidding, to wipe the face of the earth clean and start over. He could have called down thunder and fire onto His enemies (as some of His disciples suggested).
But Jesus did not do that.
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
[Philippians 2:6-8 NIV]
Christians are not to be dogmatic, because dogma is a product of man. The “tragedy” that Ailinsky paints so well resulting from those “claiming exclusive possession of the truth, and the keys to paradise” is not the dogma of Christianity.
The fact is that Christians do not possess the truth. Rather, we are possessed by the Truth.
Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Either we, as His followers on earth, are possessed by Him, or we are not.
Following cultural authority is the wide road, and the Bible tells us where that road leads. It is through the narrow gate that we must pass.
In America, we need a cultural revolution. It starts with an awakening. Then comes a personal decision each must make: will I follow Biblical authority, and be possessed by the Truth, or will I follow cultural authority and compromise the Truth? For the Truth is not an object to be manipulated, but the Person and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Deny Him at your own peril.
When Jesus was on earth over 2,000 years ago, He restrained Himself. When He returns, He will not.
While there is still time, place yourself on the side of history (His story) that has the ultimate win. Fight the good fight, and endure to the end.
At this time, it may appear that the cultural war in America is being lost by Christians, but only for a time. If enough sleepers awaken, we can have a turning back to God not seen since the days of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield.
May it be so.
P.S. I've said this many times, that belief in the Bible hangs on two verses: Genesis 1:1 and John 14:6. Genesis 1:1 claims that God created everything, and in John 14:6 Jesus claims that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. If these two verses are true, then everything else in the Bible must also be true. If either of them are false, then the Bible is nothing more than a fable.
Is it “nice” not to warn people of clearly immoral actions?
Does it really keep the peace? When you’ve been silent, has it made you peaceful?
Why is the person warning the other considered bad?
Good and evil must separate. Everything else is just uneasy detente and a postponement of the inevitable necessity.
It comes down to one’s view of the Bible. Is it God’s inerrant Word? If so, the condemnations of homosexuals in the Bible is all you need to know. Their way is death and there is absolutely nothing political correctness will do that changes that.
If the Bible is not God’s inerrant Word, then it becomes a moral free-for-all where everything is permissible and the only sin in the world is hurting others.
As all this social-based morality creeps into our churches, it is important to remember that God’s Word has not changed in 2000 years. If God condemned it 2000 years ago, it’s still condemnable today.
If you aren’t grounded in that, you will quickly and easily fall victim to the modern liberal view of morality with all its social conscience and you will miss out on knowing the God of the Bible who redeems your soul from the pit.
Western Civilization is largely disintegrating and it follows that Christianity , a part of Western Civilization is disintegrating as well. Watch for mass conversions to Islam in the near future all it will take is a few celebrities publicly confessing Islam and then the mass conversions will start.
"While there is still time, place yourself on the side of history (His story) that has the ultimate win. Fight the good fight, and endure to the end."
You are right. Spiritual vacuums will always be filled with something.
As evidenced by Romans 14, Christianity has always been fractured.
In fact, note the multi-denominational Christian delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
Essentially, the “compromisers” are not Christian in the first place. They’re Christians in name only, but worldly in every other respect. Christ promised damnation to such people:
Mat 10:33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
“Shall deny” is the Greek “arneomai” which primarily means “contradict.” The “compromisers” contradict Christ, who declared that marriage was between a man a woman (Matt. 19:5).
But even further, if you think about it, the “compromisers” are engaging in the crime of false prophecy. God has declared his views on the depravity of homosexuality, and they falsely prophesy that God didn’t say what He said, and He said something He didn’t say. Christ promised damnation to false prophets too, in Matthew 7.
Study: Muslims To Outnumber Christians Worldwide At 2070
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/04/02/study-muslims-to-outnumber-christians-worldwide-at-2070/
Excellent post - thank you. As a Catholic, I can stand with this author completely. May our numbers grow exponentially!
“Western Civilization is largely disintegrating and it follows that Christianity , a part of Western Civilization is disintegrating as well.”
IMHO our lifespans are so infinitesimal in the context of eternity that they are substantially less than a fraction of a blink in a lifetime. That said, in my personal opinion, we are just experiencing a difficult time that is hardly a blip on God’s clock. Ultimately what is right and good will come out on top. These are some of the thoughts that keep me somewhat sane.
Sorry, but I’ll take my cue from almost 2000 years of Christian leaders and thinkers on the score of being martyred.
Take as many of them with you as possible. Remember the Muslim invasions.
The Word is very explicit about the watchman who does not give warning vs the watchman who does. Ezekiel 33: 1- 20.
excerpt:
7 “Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me. 8 When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. 9 But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life.
Funny I was just thinking on this subject that we view Jesus in the wrong context..
Try viewing Jesus in the context of the perfect all knowing “rational” man....
His action and reaction come it to clearer context..
To be rational is to be patient to be forgiving but to be uncompromising on truth...
Jesus spoke truth
I used to be sidetracked by the bottom line of one’s view of the Bible. However, it is the life of Jesus portrayed within our lives, the living Holy Spirit, that is the greatest witness. We are His witnesses to the truth of His word.
Revelation 13 speaks to you personally.
13:10
If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.
The choice is to live to see the Return from earth as a slave or, to die and be resurrected at the Return to reign with Him. I think those that live, live a verrrry long time, but they are a remnant.
Sure, in the long run the good Lord wins out.
Worth being someone’s tag.
Romans 12:9 “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”
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