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I have read all you posted and it's true we are agreed in most respects. But not all. Particularly this one:

In a similar way, if people in general - who obviously don't have their morality as fine tuned as you do (or me, I basically agree with everything you say) can at least draw the line at same sex sodomy, there's a chance maybe their view of what is moral and what is not may become more and more enlightened. I don't think it useful to want all or nothing.

It is a great fallacy to believe that we can adopt the strategies of the enemy to serve our ends. Most can recognize the evil that is "the ends justify the means."

Few recognize the inherent evil of pragmatism ... a mindset so flawed in such an insidious fashion that the Left would have had to invent it (and it did) had it not existed as a vehicle by which the West would presume the powers of alchemy.

But "incrementalism" is understood as intrinsically flawed by even fewer still.

Truth does not work the same as falsehoods. Deceipt operates like the slow heating of water to make a pot of frogs boil before they know it. Truth is the dousing of cold water sufficient to stop the cooking -- of pasta, veggies or frogs -- in its tracks.

It's deceipt that comes upon a person like dusk -- one minute they still can read in the waning light, the next moment they are blind. But truth is like the sun which illuminates all the moment dawn's rosy fingertips break the horizon.

You cannot "incrementalize" people toward the truth. That's a bait and switch operation doomed to failure every bit as surely as the GOP's staunch defense of the "rape/incest" clause for permissable abortion will ensure the practice remains legal however "reduced" or regulated abortions may one day be.

You are right that people cannot be "incrementalized" towards the truth. People cannot be pushed, coerced, pummeled, or legislated into truth. Approaching truth (which you and I both understand to be the truth of God) is an individual journey, undertaken volunarily. I also respectfully disagree that it is a "all or nothing" journey. Have you read C.S.Lewis' "Surprised by Joy"? He describes one man's spiritual journey very well.

Just as your very poetic description of deceit being a gradual darkening, like the sunset, it is also described that the dawning of truth in a person's heart is like the rising of the sun. It does not go from pitch blackness to the brilliance of noon, it is a gradual process of enlightenment to the truth of God's existence, His love, and His Person.

But here, we're not talking about somehow getting masses of people to become saints. We're talking about a war, and there are many battles in this war. Just because the war can't be won with one giant symbolic nuke, doesn't make it worthless to fight one battle at a time.

I look at it like this: if ONE child or teenager can be saved from becoming seduced into a miserable life of homosexduality, it is a cause for celebration . If many can be saved, it is a great victory.

Homosexuality is a worse depravity that the other sexual sins we have been discussing. It is so depraved that those who habitually indulge become hardened to God's voice in their hearts, and they are prone to seeking others on which to prey. Sexual license which degrades society is a continuum; but I see no wrong - and great good - to fight this battle, and not succumb to hopelessness, or defeat, thinking that because there is other immorality rampant there is no use in fighting this one.

Little Jeremiah -

Yes, but....

Yes, I agree that deceit and Truth often advance in
the vastly different ways that you outline.

But I believe that people of Truth must strive to be
an effective influence in the political fray as part
of our commission to be salt and light - and we need
to acknowledge that political parties are **not**
churches.

When we discuss politics and law (rather than Truth
and Law) we must consider that politics is the art
of the possible and that our success depends upon
addition rather than subtraction - joining with those
who partially agree with us rather than separating
from those who don't agree with us entirely.

- Gordon

p.s. If your point is that people of Truth ought to
avoid politics and law, then I have misunderstood your
posts.
- gb