How Did We Miss It?

This week's episode on the need for boldness in the face of the bullying from those who oppose the moral truth of the Word, Stand or Fold, has picked up a life of its own. In the wake of its popularity, I started thinking more about how we got here. How did we get to the point where sexual immorality, especially homosexuality, is more accepted than Biblical truth even by many who claim to be Christians?

One of them I addressed in the program is that we're not teaching the Word as truth. I don't believe this is intentional nor do I believe that those doing the teaching deny the truth of Scripture. It's that we use the language of fiction to teach about real events and real people. Talking about Bible characters and teaching Bible stories makes it seem like morality tales not much different than Aesop's Fables.  They're just stories that didn't really happen. That's what we're conveying without really meaning it. Younger generations raised in the church don't have the grasp of Biblical reality that they needed to go out into a hostile world.

However, I think I understand something as I've looked at the issue from another angle. At the beginning of the heat on water being turned up, we didn't take it seriously. Our cultural frog was cooked because even when we noticed the water getting warm, we never believed it would ever get hot enough to boil. It took decades to get here. Evil is more patient than we are. As a whole, the church isn't very good at seeing how things play out in the long game.

The decline started a long time ago, the 50's to be more exact. It started with that piece of fiction known as the Kinsey Report and the publication of Playboy. These two launched the normalization of sexual immorality into popular culture. Kinsey especially with its almost scientific sounding work and the pushing of homosexuality as just another acceptable part of human sexuality. (The report also pushed pedophilia as normal and children as young as infants as sexual beings). Most of the church ignored these events as the culture of the time didn't as openly embrace either of these, although Playboy did make several ripples in the social fabric.

Starting with these two events, those who embraced these ideas pushed them into the forefront through entertainment. Over time, resistance was worn down. When Ellen Degeneres came out as a lesbian, there was a small furor but not much. Her show only got cancelled because it lost its charm when it became all about her being gay. The humor was stripped from it. Then came shows proclaiming that not only was homosexuality normal, gays were cooler than everybody else. Queer Eye for The Straight Guy was about a group of gay men fixing a clueless straight man. People ate it up.

At the same time, morality standards were dropping in other areas. In the 90's, the Federal Government's standards on obscenity were no longer enforced. At a time when the internet was just beginning to explode, the graphic nature of pornography went wild. Twenty plus years later, it's embedded so deep in our culture that we may never be free of its influence.

And what was the church doing when we could have done something to stem the tide? Ignoring it. Not like today when we're afraid to deal with it because of the hate mail and fear of losing people but because we didn't see the danger. The prevailing attitude of the day was that this was so obviously wrong that we didn't need to say so. Everyone sitting in the pews knew homosexuality was wrong. They knew that sex outside of marriage and porn was wrong. Why insult their intelligence by telling them what they already know?

And that's precisely the problem. Certainly, most of the people in church in those days did know that. Most of us assumed that what wasn't being said in church was being said at home. It obviously wasn't. The later generations never heard it and were more easily swayed from the truth of the Word. People who never really got that the Bible is history and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit were more easily deceived by the messages the world was sending. Add in the absurd idea that loving someone means supporting everything they do, and we have our current problem. So when we ask, "Why are people surprised when we believe what Christianity has taught from the beginning?" we need to consider that they may actually have never heard it before.

We need to always be bold preaching the Word, now more than ever. Fearless preachers and Christians can always make a difference when empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit. The truth of God's Word will not change no matter how much anyone might want it to. Our call to be gentle and bold must be fulfilled. The bullies and the hateful are here. Those who call evil good and good evil are more powerful than ever. We can't change what has already happened, we can only be faithful today.

In The Wake

Once again, we sit in the wake of another mass shooting, this one at a high school in Florida. The senseless death and violence at the hands of a disturbed individual rocks us to the core. We see human nature on display in the reactions. We see the best in the teachers who died to save others. We see some of the worst in the blame throwing in the media, online, an in the halls of politics.

A few months ago after another shooting, I recorded an episode called The Growing Stigma about my concern that the mentally ill would become even more ostracized than they already are in our society. That concern is growing with each incident.

The battle lines have been drawn for a long time. People on front lines are increasing the assault with their rhetorical weapons. Some blame guns while others blame mental illness or the medications used to treat it. The government, people who interact with the shooters, and anywhere the blame can be cast fill the online world. People are demanding a solution and none of them will be happy unless it's their version that wins. The tribalism that has been rising in America is on full display.

Very few are hitting close to the mark. We live in a secular society that has cast off the safety lines of religion and morality. It's like trying to steer a ship without a navigation system. You don't have any idea where you're going and no idea how to get there even if you did. Worldviews have consequences.

As faith and religion have been systematically removed from culture it has been replaced with an almost nihilistic society with no purpose and no real meaning. In a world of Darwin, Planned Parenthood, and environmental extremism that puts the Earth and animals above humanity, life has lost all meaning and is cheap. We're nothing more than animals who won the evolutionary lottery and got big brains. Mankind isn't special or unique. Why should we give more thought to ending a human life than we do to killing a dangerous stray dog? In fact, many environmentalists are also abortion activists that do put the life of an animal or plant above human life. This is the main message in the media and education system. Is it any wonder why violence is on the rise?

Mental illness is not to blame. Guns are not to blame. The FBI and government aren't to blame. Large, sweeping legislation to change or alter any of those will not solve the problem. As long as we teach our younger generations that human life has little to no value, we will have shootings. We will have death.

Just over thirty years ago, I was a lonely, nerdy kid. I had few true friends and even fewer that knew about the anger that was seething within me. I lived angry. I was constantly bullied by the jocks, preps, and any other group that could get away with it. In today's world, I would have been an at risk youth to be one of these killers. However, we still lived in a culture that largely respected life. For all of the failings of the Eighties, that much was still true. The idea of shooting my tormenters never crossed my mind even when I had my hunting bow at school for archery class in PE. (It was a lot of fun to see them try to draw my bow and fail.)

Beyond the respect for life, I had people in my life that would have seen something if there was a problem and acted. I also found target shooting to be very therapeutic. I could send my rage into that target and feel the stress leaving. It was my best outlet. I shot a lot of arrows in the range my parents set up in the basement of our house. In my case, a weapon was a great relief valve that I used often.

Jesus warned us that in the last days, the love of many would grow cold. (Matthew 24) Is there any doubt that we are in such times? We scream and shout about bullying yet certain groups are socially acceptable targets. We talk about compassion for the masses but the individual slips through our fingers. Compassion and love are not for the masses but for each person. Real love is shown not on grand scales but in small acts of kindness, respect, and mercy.

The shrinking Christian minority needs to withdraw from these huge debates about massive programs and legislation save to say that these solutions will fail. Only by demonstrating the real love of Christ can we hope to change the direction. Human life will still have little to no value as long as we continue on this path. Those who are outside of Christ do not have an understanding of love, mercy, and justice. If we live such things in obedience to the Word of God, we can be the shining example we are called to be. If we engage in the blame games of the world, we lose and our society is lost.