Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Happy Thanksgiving…

November 26, 2009 by debese

As we pause today to (hopefully to continue to) give thanks I’d like to share the following:

First:  I’m thankful for my salvation, my wife, my family and the countless blessings in my life.  All of which are gracious gifts of God.

Second:  Some worthwhile thoughts by Al Mohler on the subject of Thanksgiving:  (Read the entire post here)

Thanksgiving is a deeply theological act, rightly understood. As a matter of fact, thankfulness is a theology in microcosm — a key to understanding what we really believe about God, ourselves, and the world we experience. A haunting question is this:  How do atheists observe Thanksgiving?

Finally: A poignant thought by the twitter user “FakeJohnPiper“

Turkey is most glorified in you when you are most stuffed with it.

Posted in Al Mohler's Blog, Life Events, Posts of Interest, Quotes | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

Psalm 109 / McLaren followup…

November 23, 2009 by debese

McLaren graciously answered my email to him on his blog.  You can read it here.

His answer is helpful, especially the last paragraph where he promises that he would be against similar “rhetoric” against any president.

If I were to sit down and talk with him I’d probably seek a little clarification on a couple of points:

“I’m not sure if your assumptions about my “political ideology” are accurate … I hope you won’t make unwarranted assumptions in that regard.”

First – my assumptions about his political ideology are based on his advocacy aligning itself squarely with one particular political party.   But more importantly it’s ironic that I shouldn’t make unwarranted assumptions about McLaren, but we’re free to assume that the perpetrators of the Psalm 109:8 scandal are 1st, advocating the assassination of a president and 2nd, part of the “religious right”.

“Regarding President Bush, I honestly never heard or read anything by anyone about him that is close to what is being said about President Obama.”

This only backs up my prior political assumptions because one would have to be in the remotest place of the earth not to have heard the vitriolic hate thrown at the former president for all but a few weeks of his presidency.  I suppose the difference between McLaren and me, other than a huge world-view difference,  is that I’m fully aware of the stupid, hateful and disgusting comments made toward the former president Bush (a president whose policies I somewhat agreed with) as well as the stupid, hateful and disgusting comments made toward current President Obama (a president whose policies I mostly disagree with).

Just a couple of sideline issues there.  Again props to McLaren for saying that he would be against such rhetoric against a president regardless of political persuasion….if he saw it.

And that’s enough of a political foray for this blog for a while…on to more “divine satisfaction” type posts…

Posted in Philosophical Thoughts | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

McLaren and Psalm 109:8…

November 21, 2009 by debese

Recently a friend told me they found the new “Prayer” for our President, then showed me Psalm 109:8 : ” Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”  We chuckled, he mentioned that we should definitely not include verse 9 and then the conversation ended.  Neither of us have the desire for any sitting president to undergo calamity, nor do we put much stock in reading current political situations into imprecatory psalms.  Such an approach to Scripture takes away from the focus on God and onto minuscule political issues.

So, chalking this experience up to just another political joke circulating I went on my merry way not knowing that I should have been outraged…or so says Mr. Brian McLaren.

According to his blog McLaren is “disgusted by the latest absurdity from the religious right…”  He’s also “depressed by the lack of courage among Evangelical leaders to speak out strongly against it.”  He follows by challenging evangelical leaders to speak out!

I’ll address his challenge first.  The reason he won’t have many accepting this challenge is because most evangelical leaders (MacArthur, Piper, Mohler, Sproul, Greening, the divinesatisfaction blog…ok…a bit of a stretch there) are spending their time focusing on rightly dividing the Word of Truth, equipping the saints and evangelizing the world to be overly concerned with trivial political humor no matter if it is done in good or bad taste.  I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the first, nor the last time Scripture will be used for political humor.  Perhaps…and this is what I hope though it may not be true yet…the so-called “religious-right” has learned that the way to spread the gospel is not through politics, a lesson McLaren and the “religious left” obviously haven’t learned.

But now let me turn to McLaren’s pious “disgust” with the perpetrators of the afore-mentioned political Bible-humor.  I have sent McLaren an email asking him to share with me if  and when he published his disgust over the condemnatory religious rhetoric spewn forth from the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  This to me seems even more serious than the Psalm 109:9 scandal  for  while most of those who perpetuate that “joke” really wish no harm to the president, Rev. Wright’s hate-filled messages are meant to be extremely serious!  Some might say that this isn’t comparing apples to apples.  True, but if you’re not outraged by the Wright “apple”, you have no Christian reason to be disgusted by the Psalm 109:8 orange.

But let’s try to find something a bit similar.  I also asked  McLaren to share with me any comments he may have made about the film about the assassination of President Bush.  This is, after all, the crux of the issue.  For possibly the first time many non-Christians and liberal Christians are looking at the context of the verse and crying that what the joke is really about is the desire for the death of the President.  If he  wasn’t  “disgusted” by the “absurdity” from the liberal left (McLaren’s political bent) he has no Christian reason to be disgusted by the Psalm 109′ers.  After all, the Psalm 109′ers have plausible deniability since they don’t include verse 9.

Another thing strikes me as ironic.  McLaren over the past few years has reinvented just about everything within Scripture, from Hell, Paul, the atonement, Christ, God, innerency, etc.  It’s obvious that literal interpretation is not something he takes much stock in…so why start with Psalm 109?

If Mr. McLaren has in the past shown outrage over the likes of Rev. Wright and the assassination fetish that the left had both in film and comedy over the past 8 years, then  I will gladly grant him his “disgust” over the Psalm 109′ers.  But, I still have to ask…why?  Aren’t there bigger things than politics?  The Bible is going to be misused and abused for every reason under the sun (like supporting candidates who favor the murder of the unborn).  Those who find their satisfaction in the God of the Bible must know what these misuses and abuses are, be  able to correct them, and then move on!

And, those who find their satisfaction in the God of the Bible must know how to laugh at themselves…and sometimes even their  own political ideology.

*edit* McLaren ends his post with “Lord, save us from your followers.”  I might amend that to say, Lord, teach us to follow you instead of our favorite political ideology/candidate.”

Posted in Culture, Philosophical Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Book Review: Heretics / Orthodoxy

November 11, 2009 by debese

In case the few, yet distinguished, readers of this blog haven’t noticed, over the past month or so I have been working my way through Gilbert K. Chesterton’s book(s) “Heretics / Orthodoxy.”  This book was originally 2 books, one aptly named “Heretics” and the other “Orthodoxy” but has been combined into one edition.

I say that I “worked” through this volume precisely because at times I did have to toil to wrap my brain around early 20th century vocabulary and/or cultural references.  I have stated previously that I felt that Chesterton was the Dr. Albert Mohler of his day, very acutely aware of the popular philosophies that were circulating and influencing the times.  And like Dr. Mohler, Chesterton has a way of cutting to the heart and/or foundation of each philosophy and uncover the fatal flaws and mistakes made by their proponents.   Chesterton was up against philosophies of Nietzsche, Marx, Kipling, and Shaw to name a few.

In the first part of the book Chesterton takes on specific philosophies, deconstructs them and points out their fallacies and absurdities.  Each chapter is filled with intricate, sometimes paradoxical arguments as He points out that Kipling in loving the world and its civilizations became imprisoned to a superficial knowledge of it.  Chesterton demolishes Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and the Nietzsche philosophy of the super-human.  He lays bare the pessimistic and non-mysterious thoughts with statements like

“The man who said, ‘Blessed he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed,’ put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely.  The truth ‘Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.’”

A common thread that appears throughout the “Heretics” chapters is that Chesterton shows the reader that the philosophies of the day are little more than an idealism (and often a pessimistic idealism at that) that is not based on any sense of reality.  This idealism leaves no room for mystery, takes the wonder out of life and creation and confuses morality.  But what I truly found amazing was that the idealism of the early 1900’s is quite similar to the idealism of the early 2000’s.  The world is so busy knowing everything that it truly knows nothing.  The world is so idealistically bent toward inclusive intellectualism that it removes itself from any real moral foundation.  I think that the scary difference between the early 1900s and the present is Chesterton was fighting this faulty philosophy primarily with admitted atheists and agnostics while we are battling this faulty philosophy with people who claim to be Christians.

The second part of the book, Orthodoxy, was written as a response to his critics who claimed that he attacked others philosophies without defining his own philosophy.  This is basically a philosophical auto-biography of how Chesterton went from being an agnostic to believing in Christianity.  In the opening chapter he defines himself as:

“the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before…I freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century.  I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age.  Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth.  And I found that I was eighteen hundred years behind it.  I did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths…but I have discovered not that they weren’t truths, but simply that they were not mine.  When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom.”

The following chapters offer a keen insight into the thought process that God used to bring Chesterton to Christ.  Of these chapters the one entitled “The Suicide of Thought” really stood out.  In this chapter Chesterton demonstrates the good and the inherent danger of the strict intellectual and/or skeptic that questions divine authority.

“The peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself….It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith.  Reason is itself a matter of faith.  It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.  If you are merely a skeptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, “Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction?  Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic?”  “The young skeptic says, ‘I have a right to think for myself.’ But the old skeptic, the complete skeptic, says, ‘I have no right to think for myself.  I have no right to think at all.’”  And so Chesterton realizes that there must be some truth that is beyond human thought and comprehension.  There must be a foundation, a standard by which mankind can reason, a standard that is fixed and yet in some ways mysterious.  An intellectual and/or skeptic thinks himself brilliant for asking questions, yet Chesterton responds “We have found all the questions that can be found.  It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers.”

If you only have time in your life to read one chapter of this book…read “The Suicide of Thought.”

 

Due to its philosophical nature this book is great for world-view issues, but is not meant to be a book on apologetics.  The reader will need to have a dictionary nearby and wouldn’t hurt to have a set of encyclopedias to look up vague cultural references.  However the reward for reading this book is great.  It stretches the mind and forces one to put his philosophical beliefs through the ringer.  There are hundreds of quotes that I would love to include but I will close with this quote – a quote that summarizes the heart of the Christian experience, and the ultimate end of Chesterton’s journey to orthodoxy: “Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”

Posted in Book Reviews, Philosophical Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Heretics / Orthodoxy (4)…

November 4, 2009 by debese

As Chesterton builds his defense of Christianity he broaches so many subjects that it’s hard to pick out just a few to mention.  The following is an excerpt that beautifully demonstrates the  parodox of the martyr and the suicide as he reacts to the modernist notion that one ought not pity the man who takes his own life.  Have you ever considered why one is a good thing and one is absolutely horrible?

Continue Reading »

Posted in Gilbert K. Chesterton, Philosophical Thoughts, Quotes | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Heretics / Orthodoxy (3)…

October 27, 2009 by debese

The science of “celebrity”

I’ve been thouroghly enjoying my adventure through G. W. Chesterton’s Heretics and Orthodoxy.  I say “adventure” because being an early 20th century author he employs language and cultural references that are not always readily understandable, so some work is involved in grasping what he is saying.  I continue to find it amazing that despite the so-called death of the so-called moderns, and now even the possible death of post-modernity, that we are still dealing with the same root issues that Chesterton was dealing with 100 years ago.  I’m guessing that to a degree most of these issues have been around for most of human history in one form or another.

But here is the quote de jour from the chapter “On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity” in “Heretics.”  This particular selection deals with the notion that a scientific civilization tends to destroy the power of the ordinary man and prop up the “experts” or celebrities as we might view it today.  I find this selection quite prophetic.

Science means specialism, and specialism means oligarchy.  if you once establish the habit of trusting particular men to produce particular results in physics or astonomy, you leave the door open for the equally natural demand that you should trust particular men to do particular things in government and the coercing of men.  If, you feel it reasonable that one beetle should be the only study of one man, and that one man the only student of that one beetle, it is surely a very harmless consequence to go on to say that politics should be the study of one man, and that one man the only student of politics.  As I have pointed out elsewhere in this book, the expert is more aristocratic than the aristocrat, because the aristocrat is only the man who lives well, while the expert is the man who knows better.  But if we look at the progress of our scientific civilization we see a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popular function.  Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better.  If scientific civilization goes on (which is most improbable) only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest.

We must beware of leaving things to the “experts.”  This is a prime danger of political activism.  In many cases political activism, whatever the cause, props up certain individuals who people believe will solve the problem and therefore we believe that it is their responsability to solve the problem and our responsibility to vote, and get others to vote for them (I believe the current administration beautifully exemplifies this, though it wasn’t absent in the last one either).  As Christians we have been given great personal responsibility!  It is wonderfully true that in one Man, Christ, we have been saved, but we are further instructed to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” meaning that we don’t sit back and let the “experts” handle our Christian responsibilities…we join the chorus and sing with all our individual might!

Posted in Gilbert K. Chesterton, Philosophical Thoughts, Quotes | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Knowability of God…

October 22, 2009 by debese

Can one truly know God?  Some might argue that because God is infinite and we are finite our perception of God will always be flawed and therefore it would be arrogant to assume anything or claim to know for certain anything about God.  This however is a flawed argument based on just a little truth.  It is true that God is infinite and we are finite, however that does not mean that we cannot truly know things about God…especially if He has chosen to reveal specific things about Himself in His Word.

This type of argument could be employed in other matters of philosophy as well.  The idea that because something is unattainable (like us fully understanding God) that it is undefineable.  G. K. Chesterton points out this fallacious argument in his book “Heretics”.

We may not be able to get to the North Pole.  But because the North Pole is unattainable, it does not follow that it is indefinalbe.  And it is only because the North Pole is not indefinable that we can make a satisfactory map of Brighton and Worthing.

God is “defineable” in the sense that God has given revealed to us His “definition.”  It’s only because of this that we can say with any certainty how we are to live for, worship and enjoy God forever!  I think that in a very real sense had God not chosen to “define” Himself to us we would have a hard time defining ourselves for only in God do we see our true purpose – to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.  One cannot glorify or enjoy what one cannot certainly know, if only in part.

Posted in Desiring God, Doctrinal Issues, Gilbert K. Chesterton, Quotes | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Heretics / Orthodoxy (2)…

October 14, 2009 by debese

As I continue reading Chesterton’s Heritics / Orthodoxy I am getting the sense that Chesterton was the early 1900’s version of Dr. Albert Mohler.   I mean by this that both men are very acutely aware of what is going on in the culture, how it has gotten to where it is and where it will inevetably lead.    This quote from the chapter “The Suicide of Thought” is very descriptive, and in a way very prophetic of where we are today.  Enjoy (Bold added for emphasis):

…What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.  Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition.  Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be.  A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself.  The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason.  Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature.  But the new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time.  The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic.  The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on.  For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder.  But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong.  Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one.  Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view.  We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.

We live in a time where men never doubt themselves while insisting that the Bible is anything but God’s inspired and inerrant Word.  To claim that because we cannot know God and therefore cannot make claims to know what Scripture is saying, makes a person stop working…a poisonous humility.  To accept the claim of Scripture, that it is God’s revealed Word, is to drive us to seek to know God through what He has revealed to us.

Posted in Gilbert K. Chesterton, Philosophical Thoughts, Quotes | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Heretics / Orthodoxy (1)…

October 13, 2009 by debese

I have begun reading through Gilbert K. Chesterton’s book “Heretics/Orthodoxy” which as it turns out is already much more insigtful and much less  irritating  than reading the works of heretics who generously ignore orthodoxy.  Of course whenever one uses the word “heretic” of another person immedietely charges of hate and bigot are levied.  This did not stop Chesterton, and should not stop those concerned with Biblical orthodoxy today.  As Chesterton battled heresy and heretics in his day (and in  this book), he made this very important statement:

…I have come to believe in going back to the fundamentals.  Such is the general idea of this book.  I wish to deal with my most distinguised contemporaries, not personally or in a merely literary manner, but in relation to the real body of doctrine which they teach.  I am not concerned with Mr Rudyard Kipling as a vivid artist or a vigorous personality; I am conceerned with him as a Heretic – that is to say, a man whose view of things has the hardihood to differ from mine.  I am not concerned with Mr. Bernard Shaw as one of the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive; I am concerned with him as a Heretic – that is to say, a man whose philosophy is quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong. I revert to the methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the general hope of getting something done.

I love the statement that I put in bold because it seems today we cannot discuss the philosophy without someone assuming that we are attacking the persons character.  And on the flip side (See the Hate Card post) some refuse to discuss philosophy and jump right into the personal attacks.

All that to say:  I think I’m really going to enjoy this book.

Posted in Gilbert K. Chesterton, Quotes | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Hate Card…

October 8, 2009 by debese

Over the summer a fierce, nation-wide “conversation” (aka debate) took place over health-care reform.  Almost immediately the opponents of the Presidents plan were labeled as racist regardless of why they disliked the plan or what logic they used to argue against it.  This argument is called “playing the race card” which good ole Wikipedia defines as: an idiomatic phrase that refers to the act of bringing the issue of race or racism into a debate, perhaps to obfuscate the matter. It is a metaphorical reference to card games in which a trump card may be used to gain an advantage. This of course wasn’t the first time this ploy has been used and most likely won’t be the last.  (Of course it’s never used when arguing against a conservative black man or woman but I digress)  You come to expect such ad hominem tactics in the political arena but Christians have their own type of “race card” that they play when Biblical orthodoxy and even common sense doesn’t back up their arguments.  It’s called the “hate card.”  And I think that there is no other place that this tactic is more prominently displayed than in the Christian homosexual debate, and it goes something like this:  If you believe that homosexual behavior is a sin then you’re a hateful, hypocritical bigot…therefore your arguments are worthless.  A less-common but equally fallacious argument on the other side would be:  You’re a homosexual therefore your arguments are worthless.

This “hate card” argument is an important argument to deal with, but must be dealt with carefully and above all lovingly and graciously.  Just as the “race card” has a legitimate history of arguing against people actually making arguments and spewing forth hate based on the color of a persons skin, so the “hate card”, especially in the homosexual argument, has a history of defending against people actually physically persecuting and spewing forth hateful, vitriolic filth against a person based on a person’s private sexual choices and/or tendencies.   Such racism and hate is to be condemned!

However….just because one person acted in a vile and hateful fashion does not mean that everyone who believes homosexual behavior is a sin is hateful and desires to persecute the glbt community. Just like a person who disagrees with a black president isn’t necessarily a racist.

Unfortunately though any debate I have witnessed involving Christians advocating and/or defending homosexual behavior ends up with the “hate card” being played…and usually very quickly.

Here are some examples from a recent post over at Tony Jones blog, that interestingly enough was not originally about the homosexual behavior debate:

A homosexual advocate writes:

“Love the sinner hate the sin” is a euphemism for: I hate you and I hope God sends you straight to hell. “No, I don’t hate gays.  I love you” is a euphemism for: If I could, I would torture you to death and I hope God sends you to hell.
“Evangelical or fundamentalist or literalistic or conservative Christian’ is a euphemism for: hate-filled person who wishes the Nazis had succeeded, but since they didn’t are giving it their best Bob Jones try.

This is just a partial sampling but extremely illustrative of the “hate card.”  The statements are not meant to be arguments, but meant to destroy the character of the opponent.  A way of twisting anything the opponent might say into hate speech to be disregarded.

So how does one argue against such, ironically hateful, tactics?  The same way genuine believers have been dealing with them for centuries – live genuine, gracious, loving lives.  The problem for those that demonize their opponents is that when other people discover that the person they are demonizing isn’t like they’ve been told he is, they lose their credibility.

As I wrap this up, there are two important points that must be made.  The first actually comes from the above commenter at Tony Jones blog.  Here is the end of the same comment that included the above statements:

I can’t think of any other minority groups in the 21st century America which are treated as sub-humans as are gays and the transgender.

I believe that there is much truth in that statement.  For while the “love the sinner, hate the sin” argument may be valid there have been those who have used it…and then proceeded to hate the sinner as well.

Secondly, when involved in the “homosexual behavior isn’t necessarily sin” debate I ask this question to the advocates of homosexual behavior (which to my knowledge has still gone unanswered):  “Can you love a God who hates (as sin) all homosexual behavior?”

But another question should be asked to those on the other side of the debate:  Can you love a God who forgives the sin of homosexual behavior and grants new, completely satisfying life in Him to all who repent and believe?  And perhaps a follow up question:  Do you recognize that your sins are just as reprehensible to a Holy and Righteous God?

Over the summer a fierce, nation-wide “conversation” (aka debate) took place over health-care reform.  Almost immediately the opponents of the Presidents plan were labeled as racist regardless of why they disliked the plan or what logic they used to argue against it.  This argument is called “playing the race card” which good ole Wikipedia defines as: an idiomatic phrase that refers to the act of bringing the issue of race or racism into a debate, perhaps to obfuscate the matter. It is a metaphorical reference to card games in which a trump card may be used to gain an advantage. This of course wasn’t the first time this ploy has been used and most likely won’t be the last.  (Of course it’s never used when arguing against a conservative black man or woman but I digress)  You come to expect such ad hominem tactics in the political arena but Christians have their own type of “race card” that they play when Biblical orthodoxy and even common sense doesn’t back up their arguments.  It’s called the “hate card.”  And I think that there is no other place that this tactic is more prominently displayed than in the Christian homosexual debate, and it goes something like this:  If you believe that homosexual behavior is a sin then you’re a hateful, hypocritical bigot…therefore your arguments are worthless.  A less-common but equally fallacious argument on the other side would be:  You’re a homosexual therefore your arguments are worthless.

This “hate card” argument is an important argument to deal with, but must be dealt with carefully and above all lovingly and graciously.  Just as the “race card” has a legitimate history of arguing against people actually making arguments and spewing forth hate based on the color of a persons skin, so the “hate card”, especially in the homosexual argument, has a history of defending against people actually physically persecuting and spewing forth hateful, vitriolic filth against a person based on a person’s private sexual choices and/or tendencies.   Such racism and hate is to be condemned!

However….just because one person acted in a vile and hateful fashion does not mean that everyone who believes homosexual behavior is a sin is hateful and desires to persecute the glbt community. Just like a person who disagrees with a black president isn’t necessarily a racist.

Unfortunately though any debate I have witnessed involving Christians advocating and/or defending homosexual behavior ends up with the “hate card” being played…and usually very quickly.

Here are some examples from a recent post over at Tony Jones blog, that interestingly enough was not originally about the homosexual behavior debate:

A homosexual advocate writes:

“Love the sinner hate the sin” is a euphemism for: I hate you and I hope God sends you straight to hell.

“No, I don’t hate gays.  I love you” is a euphemism for: If I could, I would torture you to death and I hope God sends you to hell.

“Evangelical or fundamentalist or literalistic or conservative Christian’ is a euphemism for: hate-filled person who wishes the Nazis had succeeded, but since they didn’t are giving it their best Bob Jones try.

This is just a partial sampling but extremely illustrative of the “hate card.”  The statements are not meant to be arguments, but meant to destroy the character of the opponent.  A way of twisting anything the opponent might say into hate speech to be disregarded.

So how does one argue against such, ironically hateful, tactics?  The same way genuine believers have been dealing with them for centuries – live genuine, gracious, loving lives.  The problem for those that demonize their opponents is that when other people discover that the person they are demonizing isn’t like they’ve been told he is, they lose their credibility.

As I wrap this up, there are two important points that must be made.  The first actually comes from the above commenter at Tony Jones blog.  Here is the end of the same comment that included the above statements:

I can’t think of any other minority groups in the 21st century America which are treated as sub-humans as are gays and the transgender.

There is much truth in that statement.  For while the “love the sinner, hate the sin” argument may be valid there have been those who have used it…and then proceeded to hate the sinner as well.

Secondly, when involved in the “homosexual behavior isn’t necessarily sin” debate I ask this question to the advocates of homosexual behavior (which to my knowledge has still gone unanswered):  “Can you love a God who hates (as sin) all homosexual behavior?”

But another question should be asked to those on the other side of the debate:  Can you love a God who forgives the sin of homosexual behavior and grants new, completely satisfying life in Him to all who repent and believe?  And perhaps a follow up question:  Do you recognize that your sins are just as reprehensible to a Holy and Righteous God?

Posted in Culture, Philosophical Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Older Posts »