Homosexual marriage and moral relativism

Rob Bell's in favor of homosexual marriage. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

The former pastor has rejected a biblical view on most issues. His book, "Love Wins," denied a hell for those who have rejected the free gift of redemption from hell through the very expensive death of God the Son on the cross. So to chuck the plain reading of God's word regarding homosexuality should be no acrobatic stretch for him (here).

This is nothing new for those who profess to be leaders of God's people. Long, long ago, God hammered the prophets and religious leaders through the words of Ezekiel.

-- Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing...
-- ...They say, "Declares the LORD," when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word...
-- ...You have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life.

Ezekiel 13:3, 6, 22 

We live in a nation that no longer honors God's word as such. Few in the church adhere to its tenets. Few believe it is his special revelation to his creatures. In fact, if you stand upon God's word, if you truly believe what he has said, if you live your life to honor him and love him in your obedience, you will be mocked, ridiculed, and rejected. The tolerance in America for vocal Bible-believers is wearing thin, and this has caused many church leaders to try and adapt God's word to the culture.

Said Mr. Bell, "I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it's a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think … we need to affirm people wherever they are." Affirm away, but I must ask, is it love to encourage and embrace the actions of another if you know such conduct is a direct affront to the God who loves them? As I pled with my dad and my mom as a lad, "Cigarettes will kill you," do I not have a moral responsibility to declare the truth to those careening toward an eternity of torment separated from the God who so loved his creatures that he provided them an off-ramp from that destination?

Every congressman in America may be in favor of homosexual marriage, but that does not make it good or right. Our nation will continue to reject the absolute nature of God's word. I must not. I cannot. If I untether myself from the only sure anchor-point in the universe, the word of God, all becomes relative. 

I believe Mr. Bell is correct. The ship has sailed. America has left its biblical moorings far behind. Without that foundation, marriage becomes a meaningless merging of any number of persons, creatures, or objects. Why can I not marry my sofa?

In reality, though, Love has won. God the Son absorbed the full wrath and condemnation of God the Father on our behalf. Until man takes hold of that gift and lets God reorient him to reality, he still stands in rebellion and in hostility toward God. He stands condemned and his doom is sure, despite his personal enlightenment on issues cultural and political.

We must remain anchored upon the sure foundation. With tears in our eyes we must continue to cry out to our nation, "Please, don't go that way," and point them back to their God and their Savior.

Even if we are the only one left on the dock.

Moral inconsistencies: homosexuality & pedophilia

From time to time, I peek in on left-leaning America to see what issues they have been considering, the positions they take, and the support they offer.  Sometimes I come away understanding their position, not agreeing with it but following their train of thought.  Sometimes I just end up befuddled.

Like the other day.

On the Huffington Post, two articles stood comically side-by-side, one by Billie Jean King, that '70's symbol of I-am-woman feminism, lamenting the fact that so advanced a nation would still have such knuckle-dragging laws on the books like "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" (here) and the other by Sinéad O'Connor, that Irish minstrel who earned fame and fortune by shredding a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live, continuing her loathing of the papacy for their poor handling of the priestly pedophiles (here). 

Why so funny?  How is it that the military would be hammered for opposing the homosexual lifestyle but the dramatic leftists should be lauded for opposing a pedophiliac lifestyle?  Why is homosexuality acceptable but pedophelia intolerable?

That's what happens when you loose yourself from an objective moral determinant.  You can have it your way.  Orange is good.  Yellow is evil.  Why?  Um, because.  Upon what do you base that.  Folks who like orange are just happy people so that's good, but I find yellow morally reprehensible therefore bad on the church for not crucifying all of those in favor of yellow.  When you have a moral standard given by the One who embodies those standards, the colors come into clear focus.

Dismiss the standard and you get Billie Jean (homosexual Billie Jean) praising homosexual advocacy for the military while Sinead rails against pedophilia.

I guess HuffPo missed the joke.

We were gay soldiers

"For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish."
Isaiah 60:12

Admiral Mullen

Admiral Mike Mullen and Senator John McCain went nose-to-nose in the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting on Thursday over whether homosexuals should be able to serve openly in the military. 

A post-modern Chief of Staff and a former POW turned career senator.  The one welcomes, "Swing open the door!" while the other cautions, "Not so fast with Pandora's box."

On Friday, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of Staff of the Army sided with the Senator.  "Not so fast, please."

Here's the sober truth.  Apart from a people who strive to live their lives in honor of the God who created them and thereby in accordance with his word, homosexuality and every imaginable sexual knotting will become accepted.  Without an objective source of truth to which we can appeal, all bets are off.  If homosexuality is now okey-dokey, why is polygamy frowned upon?  Why do the NAMBLA folks get such a bad rap?  Who's to say when the age of consent should be?  Try running openly homosexuals by Curtis LeMay or George Patton.  But Mike Mullen's just ducky with it.

Senator McCain



Who's to say, apart from an objective determinant for right and wrong?

Well, Christian, get over it.  In case you've been napping the past thirty years, America civically, culturally, academically, and spiritually has dismissed the God of the Bible (who happens to be the God of our heritage).  I challenge you to find a commandment (of the Big Ten) that most Americans still accept as valid.

American Christians have never known persecution, but the lions are roaring.  Consider what's happening in the military:

• A military friend noted today that he can't talk too openly about his relationship with Jesus Christ and what that means, but he could chat openly about his homosexual relationship (if he had one).
• Chaplains will either stop preaching the Bible or they will be speaking openly against a policy endorsed by the Department of Defense and their Commander in Chief.  Most chaplains don't preach the Bible anymore anyway, but those that do will now face military discipline for disobeying a superior's directives.

So what's a Bible-believing Christian to do?  Some thoughts.

First, we are sojourners.  While I passionately love the United States of America, her vistas, her cities, and her heritage, this is not my home.  Should she decide to turn her back on the living God, I will weep and grieve for the death of such an ideal and for her people, but I will not follow.  That said, I will continue to be the very best citizen that I can be until that conflicts with the word of God.

Consider Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael (aka, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego).  Those gents lived in about as pagan a land as you could hope to live.  We refer to moral trash heaps as Babylon for a very good reason, and that was the land where they were dragged and made to serve within the government.  They did very well, thank you, and did not compromise despite high-temperature quarters and gruff and growly roommates.  They served and served with distinction in a land hostile to their convictions.

I alluded to it above, but the second point is the most important; a Christian cannot compromise when the world (or his country or his commander) demands him to do so.  Daniel, when told not to pray, continued his habit of thrice-daily prayer with windows wide opened.  The three amigos, when told to bow, stood tall in a sea of genuflecting moral mice.  How's that for standing out in a crowd.  Both instances would have brought certain death but for the amazing intervention of God.

But as the three declared, it didn't matter whether God delivered them from the furnace or not.  They knew he would deliver them--ultimately.  Peter and John faced the same issue.  Either buckle under the Sanhedrin's threats and omit the politically incorrect name of Jesus Christ in their preaching or face cultural alienation and disciplinary beatings.  Their response?  "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard...We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 4:19-20, 5:29).  Jesus' disciples took a beating for that, happy that they were "counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name" (5:41).

Cutting to the chase, the Christian soldier, like Daniel and his three friends, should still be able to serve and honor God.  Crossroads may loom.  Chaplains, too, can still serve, but they know that they will be required to stand before the military Sanhedrin and declare their higher allegiance to God.  The only way the military will be able to handle that pile of goo is by either dissolving the chaplaincy in its entirety (for the first time in our nation's history) or only enlist a chaplain corps that holds to a neutered version of the Bible.

Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials...

Rainbows and olive drab

AP ran this yesterday:

The Defense Department starts the clock next week on what is expected to be a several-year process in lifting its ban on gays from serving openly in the military.

I don't know about you, but that wording makes it sound like it's a done deal.  The impetus behind the article (you can read the rest of the article here) was President Obama's State of the Union Address where he stated,

This year ..., I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It's the right thing to do.

First things first.  Barack Obama commands our military.  One of the little-honored aspects of our nation's greatness is that our military is run by civilians.  At the tippy-top of the chain of command in every service branch is a civilian Secretary (Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, etc.).  Over those folks is the POTUS.  The civilian says, "Jump!" and the general with his entire service behind him says, "How high?" as they're already getting into their pre-leap crouch. 

So if the Commander in Chief of the military, Barack H. Obama, tells the military that homosexuals will now be allowed freely and without retribution, that's the way it is.  You don't need some high fallutin study to figure out how to implement it.  Officers carry out the orders of their commanders...whether they agree with the order or not.

Now that I've acknowledged that the CinC can do as he pleases (for the most part), let's move on to green-lighting homosexual behavior in the military.  It is dumber than a pile of rocks.  That said, bring it on!  Whoa.  Yeah, that was a bit abrupt on the turn reversal.  Sit with me a spell.  Here's why I believe it to be crazy.

Our national defense is not the place to experiment with social mores.  Culture can vascillate from chastity belts to Chastity Bono, but that doesn't mean that our military should follow suit.  It must maintain the core character necessary to defend our nation.

An example of such tinkering was Bill Clinton's opening up more front-line roles for women.  With the job market wide-open for women, it seemed a natural progression to put Tanya in a tank.  So thinking that flying fighters and fomenting filibusters was no different, we now have women carrying rifles wearing flak vests in Iraq.  Some problems have surfaced, known for millenia by men of the military but unforeseen by myopic politicos.

1. Men and women are different - Strength.  Yes, Virginia, a few women can lift more and run farther than their peers of the testicular gland, but they are the rare exception.  Most women do not come close to the sheer strength or stamina of a man.  What's that mean to a combat unit?  A handicap.  Here's the deal.  We don't need women in those roles.  So why put them there at all except for the fact that Helen Reddy is woman.  Hear her roar.
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2. Men and women are different - Making babies.  Leftist sophisticates look down their teleprompter raised noses at those who would suggest that men and women in high-stress, close-quartered jobs with little by way of recreation in their off-duty hours will end up making babies.  Generals and admirals agonize over what to do to prevent copulating within their commands.  One poor general went so far as to prohibit it under penalty of UCMJ action.  That went over like a SCUD missile (here).  Still, pregnancies are epidemic (but we do know what causes it).  A woman in a combat environ or aboard ship who winds up with a little swabbie in the galley oven will soon find herself with a one-way ticket stateside.  Her replacement?  Hah!  With as thin as Congress has cut our military, most positions are barely one-deep as is.  The unit will be left one man short.  Twice over.
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3. Men and women are different - Chivalry is not dead.  If Billy Hank and I share a fox hole, when shells start exploding a sand wedge to our right, Billy Hank is going to be concerned for his posterior and I will be concerned with mine.  That innate fear and self-preservation will serve to make us a lethal tandem.  Substitute Billy Hank for Billy Jean and I'm more apt to be looking over my shoulder at how she's doing.  Why?  Because man, by his nature, will seek to protect the filly's posterior than he will his own.  No, it's not environmental.  It's natural.  It's how we are created.  By my flinching toward Billy Jean, I put the both of us at greater risk.  It doesn't matter if she's in the fox hole next to me or in the airplane at one-mile line abreast in an air combat element.  Do we want to improve combat lethality or women's self-esteem?

Those three little items, seemingly as obvious as the difference between boy and girl, received no attention when President W. J. Clinton deemed the lassies fit for more rigorous military positions.  Inserting women into such positions has caused some problems within combat and near-combat units.  And here's another point.  Because someone can does not mean someone should.

Turning toward the homosexual question, the same leftist ignorance surfaces.  No, we don't have to worry about pregnancy (though that does cause issues with trying to call such a union a family, doesn't it?).  We don't have to worry about strength, either, but there are issues.

1. Habitation.  Enlisted troops within all services are bunked en masse.  Barracks full of dudes.  Hot bunks stacked within the confined spaces of naval vessels.  How are these quarters divided?  Boys and girls.  Pray, tell, how do you divide them when men can live out their sexual urges?  How do you separate homosexual partners?  Do you ask them to simply curtail their hunger?  How has that worked with men and women?  How comfortable will guys be with guys with homosexual appetites living in close proximity?  If you say they shouldn't have an issue with it, then men and women who are not involved in a relationship should be able to cohabit, too.  It's a ludicrous rationale.  When you begin to tear down one wall, you put the entire structure in jeopardy.
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2. Sexual creep.  An eighteen-year old, male private loves another eighteen-year old male private.  Cool, says the CinC.  But what if the first private loves a male from his high school who happens to be seventeen years, three hundred days old?  Is that a crime?  What difference does two months make?  Two years?  What if the 35-year old major loves the thirteen-year old boy in his neighborhood?  Where do you now draw the line?  Why?  If Lois can love Louise, why can't Larry love his labrador?  You may say that's extreme and hyperbolic reasoning, but when any sexual appetite outside the natural appetite between man and woman gets blessed by the government, every other group will want recognition.  Ask the polygamists in southern Utah.
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3. Discipline.  Serving in the military in times past meant saying "no" to your libido.  Going away to war meant leaving the ladies behind.  While raping and pillaging has been the way of conquering militarys in past centuries, that was not how the American military began.  Such conduct flew in the face of Washington's General Orders and in the early army's idea of good order and discipline.  The man who could discipline himself in small things could be trusted to discipline himself with greater responsibilities.  With "Don't ask/Don't tell" in place, the soldier with homosexual proclivities subordinated his appetites for something greater, serving his country, moreso than the airman who was making it behind the hangar with another airman and ended up getting her pregnant thereby hurting the entire unit.
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4. Him.  There's another problem, one we don't like to talk about.  It's God.  Rather, he's not the problem but our ignoring his directions and designs is a problem.  He created Tab A to fit into Slot B.  He states that misusing that glorious design is a serious offense to Him.  That would indicate that while I might have a particular desire, dwelling upon it and acting upon it become the problem.  It is interesting to note that past civilizations that have embraced homosexual normalcy have gone the way of the dodo.

With that kind of pile, why do I think the military should dispense with its sexual distinctions?  Because they haven't kept their own UCMJ for years.  Adultery is punishable under the UCMJ (here).  When's the last time you've heard anyone hit for such an offense?  We have erroneously come to believe that what takes place in the bedroom has no impact upon what I do on the battlefield.  The ancients of the military (those who crafted the UCMJ) think it bears directly.  The occasional colonel will get a slap on the wrist for a dalliance with an enlisted troop, but adultery?!?  The masses titter.

Drinking and driving?  Huge punishments here, but with the number of kegs that flow at parties, you have to wonder what's going on.  Drunkenness?  Not a problem as long as you don't drop trou in the middle of the street.  If you're an "ugly" drunk, then and only then will you get conduct unbecoming.

And what about "carnal knowledge"?  Was a time when that was seen as an affront to military integrity.  It's still on the books.  Sex outside of marriage as punitive?  How Ozzie and Harriet!  No, how biblical.

Our military's law is rooted in Judeo-Christian morality.  Since our nation continues to divorce itself from God Almighty, why would we expect the military to follow suit?  Who cares whether such restrictions improve their ability to meet the enemy in battle, we want to appease the loins of the masses, don't we?

So where to from here?  As Archie Bunker would say, "Right down the terlet, Edith.  Right down the terlet."  Homosexuality will be blessed within the military within a year.  No surprise.  But if we're going to drop the moral pretense regarding homosexuality, let's drop the moral hypocrisy in other areas.  Why are strippers forbidden at the clubs?  Why can't General X romance Technical Sergeant Y as long as they're both happy?  Who cares what their families think?  We'll let them use medicinal pot to get over it.

Or perhaps the military could simply honor the God who made them.  No, he has been dismissed from the discussion long ago.

The intolerance of God

Tom Krattenmaker of USA Today has a cross-shaped burr under his saddle about Christians in prominent athletics. Oh, like most folks, he doesn't mind thanking God here or a little prayer there. No, what has chafed his posterior is that their convictions have gone public. These men and women have the audacity to encourage their teammates, their fans, their coaches to have a relationship with--is anyone looking?--shhh--Jesus Christ.

Krattenmaker sees a conspiracy (ital - mine):

"Far less visible, but worth knowing about, are the infrastructure and strategy of the sports-world evangelicalism that powers these pious displays. Athletes' expressions of Christian faith reflect decades of hard work by evangelical ministries to convert players and "coach" them to use their stature to promote a particular version of conservative Christianity."

Ptooey on that particular version. I guess he prefers a Burger King, have-it-your-way, Christianity. But then, so do many Americans. Not a week goes by when I don't hear someone suggest that the Christian walk depends upon your interpretation as though the Bible were some kind of tabula rasa that you color to your liking.

So distasteful does Mr. Krattenmaker find this, note the language he uses:

"They are also leveraging sports' popularity to promote a message and doctrine that are out of sync with the diverse communities that support franchises, and with the unifying civic role that we expect of our teams."

He's obviously not writing about Nobel Prize winners. So what's he driving at?

"...should we be pleased that the civic resource known as "our team" — a resource supported by the diverse whole through our ticket-buying, game-watching and tax-paying — is being leveraged by a one-truth evangelical campaign that has little appreciation for the beliefs of the rest of us?"

Mr. Krattenmaker's underlying assertion: Christianity that declares damnation for those who reject God's provision has no place within the public sphere. He takes aim at a prominent Heisman Trophy winner and national championship quarterback.

"Certainly, Tim Tebow must be applauded for the good he does working on his father's missions, but he should be seen, too, as one who promotes a form of belief that makes unwelcome judgments about everyone else's religion."

The weighty theological research done by Mr Krattenmaker? Public opinion polls. Seems most folks don't favor the flavor of Jesus-only salvation. When last I looked, God wasn't running for election. He doesn't genuflect to Gallup Polls, Pew Research, or Nobel Selection Committees.

Krattenmaker's problem, and the problem of thousands of liberal theologues who declare many avenues to God, is not with Tebow. They have a fundamental issue with God Himself. You see, it's not Tebow pushing a "Jesus-or-else" message. Jesus is pushing the Jesus-or-else message because that's the way it is. Here's a sampling Christ's "intolerance:"

• I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
• Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. (Matthew 7:13)
• The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me. (Luke 10:16)
• Everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the oen who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. (Luke 12:8-9)

You get the idea.

Now here's the deal. This is not something Tim Tebow or Colt McCoy or Sam Bradford concocted. Man rebelled against God. Only the Creator could fix the broken creation, and He did so by becoming the recipient Himself of the deserved condemnation. Paul tells the Roman church that God did this that He might be both just and the justifier to bring about the reconciliation of man to God (Romans 3:26). He offers us the free gift of restored life with Him...if we are willing to receive it.

This is not some whacked out sect of Christianity. This isn't the NCAA's crazed, Kool-Aid drinking quarterback club. This is just what the Bible says. As God's primary communication to us, His letter tells of the disaster that looms ahead for all mankind, but it also tells of the Life Preserver that God has provided in the bloody sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The travesty is not that athletes are trying to get folks to wake up to that reality, but that so many like Mr. Krattenmaker and milquetoast ministers have diluted the plain message of redemption and so deluded the masses into believing that God's merely the voice in the drive-thru at Burger King.

We can't have it our way.
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You can read the entire USA TODAY article here.

The Nobel sham

(...or "The deification of Barack Obama")

The cluster of Nobel Peace Prize winners from throughout most of the 1900's includes some heady company. Teddy Roosevelt and Elihu Root. George C. Marshall and Martin Luther King, Jr. Mother Teresa and Lech Walesa.

Things started getting goofy with that vaunted prize in the latter edges of the twentieth century.

• Yasser Arafat. PLO terrorist extraordinaire.


• Jimmy Carter. No, not for his work between Israel and Egypt in the 1970's, but he won it in 2002. For???


• Mohamed ElBaradei. That's the guy I wrote about recently from the Atomic International Energy Agency who sees Israel as the greatest "nuclear threat" in the Middle East.


• Al Gore. For climate change??? Did he make the climate change? Will he stop the climate from changing? That's like someone winning the prize for the sunrise.

The scales of the absurd have not only tipped, they've completely toppled with the selection of Barack Obama, President of the United States, as the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. I count two former presidents receiving this accolade for something they did while president. President Obama is the first president to win the award for something he might do.

You see, submissions for Nobel take place the February prior to the award being given. That means that President Obama held the helm of our nation for, 0h, one month when he was nominated. What had he done? Bailout I. I don't recollect if he'd genuflected to the Saudi king yet but his great international sucking-up and American apology tour was just getting under way.

Did he stabilize the Balkans? Did he calm the waters between Pakistan and India? Did he unite the factions of Afghanistan or Iraq? Did he neuter the hatred of fundamental Muslims toward Christians and Jews (i.e. the West)? Did he solve the world's economic crisis? Did he make Republicans and Democrats the best of friends? Did he make peace between Brett Favre and Green Bay?

I can't think of anything Barack Obama did worthy of a Nobel Prize. Yet.

Despite my disagreement with almost everything he's implemented as president to date, the proof is in the pudding. Well, he just put the pudding in the fridge to set up. No, worse. He just got the ingredients out onto the counter. He may yet prove a worthy recipient of that for which the Nobel Peace Prize is intended, but bestowing it on a president after one month's work is like giving Tim Tebow the NFL MVP trophy for 2010...right now.

This smacks of Hollywood's self-congratulatory lovefest we call the Academy Awards. I love you. You love me. How about we give each other a little naked trophy?

What is going on? He wins the election of the world's strongest nation economically, influentially, and militarily with paltry little experience (absentee senator? Community organizer?). He wins the Nobel Peace Prize for...for...can anyone help me with this one? An AP article yesterday quoted African bishops heaping praise upon the President as evidence of divine pleasure.

"If the election of a black as head of the United States of America was a divine sign and a sign from the Holy Spirit for the reconciliation of races and ethnic groups for peaceful relations ... this synod and the universal church would gain from not ignoring this primordial event of contemporary history which is far from being a banal game of political alliances," the archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo gushed.

I'd be really sick if I understood half of what the bishop said.

President Obama is a man, just a man, but a man who holds the reigns of our nation. What he does with them still remains to be seen. To date, he has done precious little to warrant laurels from his own country much less the international community.

Alfred Nobel must be spinning like a top in his grave.

QotD: The Magician's Nephew

I never did post the second quote from C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair. I'll have to in the near future. The crystal clarity with which Lewis saw the world and then transformed that vision into wondrous children's stories still staggers my mind after this my sixth reading of these books.

Tonight, reading through the second to the last book (NOT the first) of the Narnian Chronicles, The Magician's Nephew, with my girls, I came across this passage. Listen carefully to the words of evil Uncle Andrew.

"Oh, I see. You mean that little boys ought to keep their promises. Very true: most right and proper, I'm sure, and I'm very glad you have been taught to do it. But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys--and servants--and women--and even people in general, can't possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures..."

As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle's face the moment before Polly had vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew's grand words. "All it means," he said to himself, "is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants."

Oy. The applications for that in America 2009 are endless. I'll leave you to chew upon it while your stomach turns.

Perhaps some Marshwiggle philosophy later in the week...