Thursday, January 14, 2016
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
Astute Parents Alert To Jihadist Intrusion
A Virginia school system shut down
classes for a day over protests that erupted in response to a
Geography assignment that would have required students to write in
Arabic the fundamental Islamic statement of belief known as the
shahada.
If Jews or Muslims rebuffed an
assignment to write John 3:16 or “Jesus Is Lord”, would the
leftwing media formulate coverage of this story in such a manner so
as to paint those standing up for their First Amendment rights
against the state attempting to impose a particular religious
perspective as the villains?
Students are rarely taught English
penmanship these days.
So why is time being spent now in
regards to what amounts to a Third World language?
Before progressives look down their
haughty noses in condemnation at those seeming to oppose the
celebration of pluralism, perhaps they ought to realize to what it
was these parents were reacting.
In Islam, to be considered a Muslim,
the primary requirement is to recite with conviction the disputed
statement that the students would have been required to write.
That is, in essence, “There is no God
but Allah and Muhammad was his prophet.”
In the eyes of jihadists and allied
extremists, if students sign their names to such a statement, is that
considered a binding proclamation of conversion?
If so, should jihadists discover the
names of students having completed this assignment reverting back to
their Christian professions of faith and ways of life, what is to
prevent fatwas from being drawn up calling for the violent execution
of these unsuspecting pupils?
For the punishment regularly called
upon those those leaving Islam for another faith is often death.
The parents noticing this subtle
subversion of the public school system should not be looked down upon
as unsophisticated rubes or rednecks.
Instead, they ought to be commended for
exercising a degree of vigilance and discernment many in this day
have been conditioned to overlook for fear of the reprisals that
might be imposed for failing to surrender to the tyranny of political
correctness.
By
Frederick Meekins
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Friday, January 08, 2016
Wednesday, January 06, 2016
Tuesday, January 05, 2016
Monday, January 04, 2016
Columnist Compares Candidate To The Son Of Perdition
In
a commentary transcript, columnist Cal Thomas compared the rise of
Donald Trump with the rise of the Anti-Christ.
The
consideration of such is always good discernment on the part of an
Evangelical public intellectual when a political figure begins to
accumulate a devoted following..
However,
out of curiosity, did this commentator make an as bold a statement
regarding President Obama?
After
all, there was a point when church worship bands and elementary
school choruses alike were singing songs of praise in homage of the
forty-fourth president.
Thomas
observed that at one time a divorced man could not expect to be
elected President but that Evangelicals are now comfortable with a
candidate that has been married three times and can barely quote a
single Bible verse.
But
didn't Thomas himself help get this kind of ball rolling when he
co-authored “Blinded By Might”?
In
that work, Thomas advocated the thesis that Christians shouldn't
really get that involved in politics.
Instead,
believers ought to recognize a distinction between an individual's
personal sense of piety and their ability to govern effectively.
Interesting
how such a directive is rescinded as soon as average Christians are
considering a candidate that does not spew the social justice
platitudes infiltrating religious circles to an ever increasing
degree.
By
Frederick Meekins
Sunday, January 03, 2016
Friday, January 01, 2016
Headline Potpourri #82
In his oration at a
global forum on the environment, President Obama insisted that the
greatest threat to the climate is cynicism. Does he intend to curb
that emission as well?
As often as he is
absent from the airwaves and that the third hour of his program is a
rebroadcast of the first hour, on what grounds does Michael Savage
criticize those that take time off around Thanksgiving?
President Obama is
suggesting that the border between Syria and Turkey be sealed. If it
is acceptable to call for the sealing of that border, why not the one
between the United States and Mexico?
From the pulpit, a
minister poked fun of the elderly women at his former pastorate that
became noticeably upset at a young woman wearing a short skirt that
showed up to witness an infant dedication. But weren't those senior
saints merely reflecting how they had probably been instructed for
decades from the pulpit such as by that pastor's own documented
tirades opposing women wearing pants? Pants are usually more modest
that a skimpy skirt.
It was remarked from a
pulpit that acts of kindness that you do for family because the
person is related to you are not done from the standpoint of
Christian love. But so long as a deed is done for a person in a
spirit of magnanimity, is God going to be that picky about it?
What's the big deal if familial relationship is the primary
motivating factor? Doesn't God place most people in families for the
purposes of taking care of these particular individuals? Is it
really more pious to travel halfway around the globe to take care of
other elderly while your own are neglected?
It was said in a sermon
that we ought to let those with plagues such as leprosy touch us
because Jesus allowed a leper to touch Him. However, as the source
of healing, it was doubtful Jesus was going to contract the
debilitating illness. Furthermore, was not the Triune Godhead the
deity that implemented the regulations that, for lack of a better
term, stigmatized those with that particular affliction? As an
illustration, the pulpiteer mentioned the time that he was touched by
someone with a developmental disability. However, unlike ebola,
retardation is not communicable.
Regarding these
refugees that have sewn their mouths shut in protest until they are
granted entry into Europe, is socialized medicine also expected to
pick up the tab to surgically correct such deliberate acts of
self-mutilation?
At the Paris
environmental summit, Prince Charles panicked that the actions we
take now will determine the fate of the planet in terms of ecology.
But is he so troubled that he will surrender his fleet of luxury
automobiles and his mother her multiple palaces and as many corgis?
Or is deprivation and sacrifice something to be imposed upon the
classes of humanity from less polluted gene pools?
Obama panicked
regarding fish swimming in the streets of Miami. But isn't that the
occasional chance you take building a city essentially on a sandbar?
A headline regarding
the social services center shooting in California read “FBI Unable
To Determine If Terrorism Involved.” Will this determination
render the victims any more or less dead?
Regarding this proposed
“No Gun List” that would parallel the “No Fly List”. Will
those placed upon it forbidden from purchasing firearms also be
forbidden from knowing why they have been placed on it? Terrorists
and extremists also make extensive use of social media and related
messaging technologies. If Obama gets to take away your right to
bear arms without the due process inherent to these kinds of lists,
what is to prevent the government from summarily denying you access
to the Internet?
Jim Bakker is blaming
his fall into sin on witches conspiring against him. I guess the
encounter with Jessica Hahn was merely a physically rigorous exorcism
and the laying on of hands.
The song connected with
Christmas “Let There Be Peace On Earth & Let It Begin With Me”
might be a noble aspiration. However, the terrorist assault on San
Bernadino proves how lyrically vapid the tune is so long as there are
at least two that disagree with the sentiment.
On WMAL's “Mornings
On The Mall”, host Larry O'Connor referenced Donald Trump's
interview with Alex Jones but would not bring himself to enunciate
the name “Alex Jones” because O'Connor does not support the
so-called conspiracy theories emphasized by Alex Jones. So does
Larry O'Connor disrespect in the same manner every other media
personality or public figure with whom he happens to disagree?
How long until a No
Vehicular Travel List is promulgated from the names on the No Fly
List denying these persons access to the nation's roadways through
electronic license plate readers and facial recognition technology?
How long until there is a No Food List promulgated from the names on
the No Fly List to deny sustaining nutrition to those not in
compliance with administration objectives and agendas? What we are
seeing is he who wishes he was the Beast laying the conceptual
foundations for the actual Beast.
A Maryland commission
on firearms suggested that guns should be removed from the homes of
those accused of making a “substantial threat”. Most would
assume that would consist of saying things like “I plan to shoot
Such and Such” or “I'll beat the digestive effluent out of So and
So if they do this or that.” However, it seems that educators and
social workers (not simply law enforcement) will play a role in
determining what constitutes a substantial threat. As a result of
the leftwing women and the other assorted feminized types that
dominate these respective professions, the threshold of what
constitutes a threat of violence will likely be lowered considerably.
To this class of social engineers, a threat of violence can consist
of little more than publicly suggesting that specified protected
minorities should not be lavished with so many handouts and set
asides. In those of such diminished rationality, a threat can
consist of nothing more than a man raising his voice at a woman in a
scathing exchange actually instigated by the woman.
An interfaith forum was
held in Northern Virgina for the purposes of preventing hate crimes
against Muslims and Sikhs. Maybe the Sikhs get a bad deal at times.
But interesting how such forums don't really give a flip about crimes
committed against Jews and especially Christians.
President Obama and
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton urge a strategy of engagement
with ISIS counseling that America offend the terrorist organization
as least as possible. As such, will they condemn scantily clad women
in the media and reverse their approval of gay marriage?
President Obama, how is
altering the mission of NASA from that of exploring space to being an
outreach effort to Muslims working for the country?
Shouldn't Obama's
propagandists like Josh Earnest (whose name is a synonym for
“Confirmed Liar”) be the last to say a candidate ought to be
disqualified from office for undermining the Constitution?
The Countryside Voice,
a publication part of the Campaign To Protect Rural England, lamented
on the cover of its winter 2015 issue, “Why rural poverty is going
unacknowledged”. Probably because that's not where the deadbeats
live that murder British soldiers along the side of the road and then
post agitprop videos still drenched in blood.
The December 2012 issue
of Monitor On Psychology was about preventing obesity. The masthead
cartoon featured two witches standing outside a gingerbread house.
One turns to the other and remarks of the two portly youths
meandering by, “Remember when we use to have to fatten the kids up
first?” As in regards to the November 2012 cartoon that mocked
America's Pilgrim Forefathers in favor of the Native Indians, this
one also raised a number of issues. Will the magazine run a cartoon
from the perspective of the children about witchcraft no longer being
a deviant spirituality where its practitioners were once driven out
of respectable society? Secondly, if witches luring children in with
candy to be cannibalized in a laughing matter, will the magazine also
run cartoons soon poking fun of child molesters luring children into
vans?In a criticism of what he categorized as a narcissistic variety of esigesis, Lutheran theologian Chris Roseborough spoofed pastors that gleaned Old Testament narratives for illustrations or metaphors to assist believers through the challenges in their own lives. For example, facing our own Goliaths. But unless such passages are presented in such a light, are they really all that pertinent to the life of the individual? Ancient Semitic battle narratives don't really float most people's boats to any significant extent.
Pastor Jason Cooley
insisted that Baptists should avoid Christmas because it is “Rome's
holiday”, meaning the Roman Catholic Church. Does that mean
Baptists should also avoid the Catholic Church's savior as well? For
despite that denomination's shortcomings, they still advocate a
Trinitarian Christology.
In his condemnation of
Christmas, Pastor Cooley observed if the holiday is really about
Christ, don't spend any money and see what happens. He suggested
that children raised on Christmas would break down crying. In other
words, the scene wouldn't be too much different than the way pastors
claiming that they aren't in it for the money and that insist God
always provides toss a fit when the offering is down.
Hillary Clinton
proclaimed that “mass shooting” is a term that we should not have
to teach the meaning of to our children. Does she intend to be as
forcefully principled regarding the carnal debauchery sweeping over
society such as gay marriage?
Jeb Bush quipped does
Donald Trump get his foreign policy advice from the Saturday or
Sunday shows? However, one of the most informative geopolitcal
primers I ever saw was the G.I. Joe cartoon from the 1980's.
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Why Study Philosophy?
Because of its reputation as
an esoteric field thanks to areas within the broader discipline
concerned with matters barely connected with everyday life, many ask,
“Why study philosophy?” when confronted with the subject.
Related to this are concerns and reservations raised by many sincere
Christians regarding this area of study because of luminaries such as
Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Marx who used their formidable cognitive
abilities to undermine the Judeo-Christian framework of Western
civilization.
But in reality, philosophy
can be a powerful tool capable of helping the Christian to better
comprehend God's universe and to fulfill their Scriptural obligations
as salt of the earth. In “Introduction To Philosophy: A Christian
Perspective”, Norman Geisler provides the reader with a number of
reasons why the study of philosophy is useful beyond the exercise of
mental abilities (20-22).
For starters, philosophy can
aide the individual in understanding human society. Though many fail
to realize it, philosophical issues are found at the base of
civilized life and how a populace approaches these issues will
determine the very quality of life enjoyed throughout society.
For example, does a woman's
right to reproductive choice outweigh the human rights of the tiny
life growing within her? Or, is it just to discriminate against
those who have done no wrong in order to benefit the descendants of
those who have faced historic injustices even though these
descendants currently enjoy a considerable degree of equality?
It has been said that
America is the only nation based on a set of ideas rather than an
accident of geography. Those seeking to solve these complex social
issues had better offer justification beyond the brute power of the
state if delicately balanced liberties are to remain intact.
Professor Geisler also
points out that philosophy with its emphasis on clear thought can
help liberate the individual from provincialism and clarify the
meaning of Scripture. Many times what the Church considers holy writ
are in fact human accretions added on for whatever reason. These
might be legitimate or mere grabs at power whose origins have been
forgotten in the distant past.
Besides assisting the Church
in sifting between what is God's directive and man's opinion,
legitimate philosophical inquiry can elucidate the holy reasoning
behind a number of divine decrees. For example, through the
application of reason and analysis, one can deduce that the Biblical
dictates forbidding adultery are in fact rules set down by a loving
Father rather than by a deity seeking to be a cosmic wet blanket.
It would be an accurate
analogy to compare history's philosophical giants with the great
military leaders of the past. Just as aspiring military officers
study the strategies and tactics of these figures for the purposes of
perfecting their own craft in order to defeat their battlefield
adversaries, Christians must know their own opponents in the arena of
ideas so that they might win souls for Christ and to retake social
territories in the culture war (or at least prevent the loss of
additional intellectual or moral ground).
For those turned off by
military analogies and comparisons, John Warwick Montgomery suggested
that the apologist must soak up the ideology of his day in a fashion
not unlike a missionary learning a foreign language in order to
communicate with those spiraling down the path towards eternal
damnation. Philosophy, rightly applied, can be an immense help in
the accomplishment of this task, especially when so much of
contemporary thought is an eclectic mishmash of Nietzschean,
Darwinian and Marxist ideology. With even a passing familiarity with
philosophy, one is able to realize how many blows are struck at human
liberty simply through poorly defined phrases and concepts.
II Corinthians 10:5 says,
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up
against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to
make it obedient to Christ.” For too long assorted factions within
the Church have sought to sanctify their own ignorance. As a result,
culture is reaping a harvest of bloodshed, blasphemy and disbelief.
It must be realized that God
is the God of all creation, including philosophy when built upon a
solid foundation. If Charlie Church is to reach out to Phil
Philosophy, he must do so by showing that this field rightly divided
also points back to the creator and sustainer of all things.
By
Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Naive Religionists Eager To Find Shackles Under Their Nonsectarian Commemorative Photosynthesizing Lifeform
The scene is a classic one in terms of cinema. Depicted is an army defending its position with muskets or rifles drawn as the adversary marches steadily closer. To maintain awareness of the situation, a commanding officer reminds those under his authority to remain steady and not to fire until explicitly ordered to do so. Inevitably with the tension so thick, a trigger will release and a weapon fires before the desired moment.
Observers of America's cultural situation witnessed something similar in the developments that unfolded surrounding the 2015 Starbuck's Christmas cup. For whatever reason, the purveyor of shockingly overpriced caffeinated beverages decided to go with a plain red cup unadorned by any additional ornamentation with the exception of the company's mermaid logo. Absent were the snowflakes or decorations of Christmas cups past.
Christian Evangelist Joshua Feuerstein responded that this design alteration was akin to removing Christ from the celebration of His birth. Most Christians shrugged off such a reaction with a laugh or two, remarking that they really didn't care as they never purchased a $7.00 cup of coffee in the first place and weren't about to begin doing so now.
Others such as Lutheran theologian Chris Roseborough reflected that it is the duty of actual Christians rather than retailers to take the true meaning of the holiday to the broader unbelieving world. Still others such as Southern Seminary President and former Southern Baptist functionary Richard Land assured that there will indeed be a boycott of Starbucks nevertheless just to assure the captains of commerce that conservative
Christians are still capable of exerting economic influence. Yet an additional perspective contends that, since lack of a snowflake on a red cup has got to be the flimsiest of evidence of a war against Christmas that one could come up with, that must mean the war against Christmas must be about as real as flying reindeer. However, children born the day I published my first column regarding the effort to undermine Christmas are now nearly old enough to legally spike their eggnog.
These deprivations of liberty and subversions of culture have occurred with such regularity that I was able to assemble a sufficient number of these holiday-themed columns into my first book published in 2006 titled “Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors” and am well on my way to completing an even longer sequel. Among these apparently non-existent incidents ranked students denied the opportunity to attend a performance of “The Christmas Carol” because of the work's holiday-specific content, municipalities terrified to refer to their celebratory greenery by the traditional nomenclature, and students forbidden from distributing to classmates something as simple as a candy cane accompanied with a card interpreting the confection's origin from a religious perspective.
Even more disturbing than either Christians that don't celebrate Christmas over objections as to what they perceive as the holiday's questionable origins or outright unbelievers wanting to censor the Gospel message because of the offense of the cross comes an additional outlook that is apparently aroused by the prospect of cultural subjugation. This particular viewpoint was articulated in a ChristianPost column titled “Why Christians Should Lose The Christmas Culture War” by Jared Byas. Of his particular bias, Mr. Byas writes, “For me, defending God means letting go of 'Merry Christmas' so my non-Christian neighbors feel respected when I invite them to the holiday table. For me, keeping Christ in Christmas is not about winning the culture war --- but about losing it.”
If that is how Jared Byas gets his Christmas jollies, that is his own business. But just because his mental lights exhibit the symptoms of a loose bulb, there is no reason the remainder of us must also. If your neighbor is such a burro excretory orifice that they have a mental breakdown at the sight of religious symbols or even decorations where the religious meaning might not be quite as obvious, is there really much of a point in inviting them to this hypothesized nonsectarian holiday table? If we are to gradually set aside the traditions that characterize this particular season, perhaps the first to go is pretending to care about those that you barely give the time of day to the remainder of the year.
It might be one thing to tone down one's in your face religiosity in the attempt to reach out to an acquaintance overtly hostile towards true spirituality. However, this attitude of abject surrender is not without profound consequences.
Those such as Jared Byas elevating nicety to the status of something akin to the Prime Directive from Star Trek have failed to realize that God establishes different missions or objectives for what are conceived of as the distinct social spheres or what might be referred to as orders of creation in Augustinian theology. For example, Romans 13:3-4 stipulates, “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil...For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid: for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the minister God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. (KJV).”
However, for someone that is thought of as a traditional minister in terms of church office that administers the sacraments or delivers the public proclamation of God's Word to draw a sword to settle an acrimonious debate on what color the new carpet in the sanctuary would be or to resolve a heated doctrinal disagreement in Sunday school class would be for such a pastor to overstep the boundaries of appropriate authority. Translated in terms of the Christmas issue, it might be in good taste that, if you invite the adherent of another faith over for Christmas, you don't berate them up one end and down the other as to the shortcomings of their errant belief unless they first proceed to attack you in like manner.
However, a culture or nation cannot necessarily afford to be as lenient in terms of its standards and foundational assumptions. For example, those that do not share in the assumption that values Christmas as a cherished celebration should be allowed to verbalize that they do not, articulate the reasons why, and pretty much allowed to continue along in their affairs without bodily harm or without fear of such to an extent that a person steeped in a common sense realism would deem sufficiently reasonable. However, that does not mean that the majority that value, celebrate, and derive meaning from the comprehensive narrative source from which Christmas is derived should be required to cower in silence for fear of upsetting those that do not or of receiving punishment for having done so.
In the attempt to position themselves as profoundly pious, it is quite evident that some fail to comprehend the full implications of what they are actually advocating. Jared Byas writes, “For me, keeping the Christ in Christmas is not about winning the culture war --- but about losing it.”
As in any conflict, sometimes the battles go on for so long and become so acrimonious that the involved parties can end up forgetting that for which they are fighting. The term “culture war” gained widespread notoriety in Pat Buchanan's speech at the 1992 Republican convention. In the address, the political analyst and former presidential candidate gave rhetorical voice to the proverbial Silent Majority noticing then that the embrace of progressivism and permissiveness on the part of various institutions such as academia, media and government was resulting in symptoms of noticeable decline throughout American culture and society.
Therefore, in calling for a surrender in the culture war those of the viewpoint shared by Mr. Byas think that what they are calling for is a truce on the part of all parties to simply play nice on the part of all parties irrespective of creed. What they are inadvertently giving the green light to is an anything goes mentality that will eventually result in the worst depravities and possibly even atrocities imaginable.
The veracity of this observation is already playing itself out in regards to the gay marriage issue. After standing up for years against the steady drumbeat to normalize this particular moral corrosion, many sincere Christians finally relented. They essentially said, “Fine, go ahead and do as you please in the privacy of your own bedroom. Just don't expect the remainder of us to stand around applauding in approval.”
This armistice of don't ask don't tell did not last long in terms of history's lengthy reach. For throughout this unfolding cultural revolution, the propagandists and social engineers insisted that the love between a couple of any combination imaginable was not dependent upon a piece of paper. But nearly as soon as those attempting to order their thoughts and their lives in compliance with the sanctified and the holy began to make peace with the fact that much of society was going to recognize such unnatural couplings as perfectly ordinary, additional blows were landed by the ephors of the judiciary that those objecting to the solemnization of wanton carnality would also be required to render the legal equivalent of acceptance and adulation.
In a court ruling upholding the right of conscience for the marrying couple but apparently not for the objecting merchant, a baker was threatened with financial ruination and the profound psychological trauma resulting from such for doing little more than refusing to bake a cake for a wedding that the baker believed to be an abomination in the eyes of God and for a couple not even likely to remain faithful to one another within the next couple of years anyway.
Libertines will snap why can't the baker just go ahead and bake the cake? Traditionalists can retort why can't the couple simply find another baker (which shouldn't be too difficult given that those of the couple's boudoir proclivities are often quite skilled in those crafts requiring a creative flair).
So what other freedoms and liberties is Jared Byas willing to surrender when he hoists the white flag in the culture war? Edmund Burke admonished that all it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.
At the University of Mississippi, not only has the word “Christmas” been banned because it “connoted too much Christianity on campus” but so has the traditional color combination of red and green, having been replaced with red, blue, and silver. Commissars at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville decreed that in the future staff and student organizations must eliminate all religious themes and cultural allusions associated with designated celebration periods commonly referred to as holidays. But do such acts of censorship also apply to Muslim or secularist Jewish populations as well?
One waits with anticipation to hear of the commencement of orgies and human sacrifice. Think that remark goes a little too far?
It must be pointed out that the Nazis were also big on removing Christ and Christmas in favor of generic winter celebrations venerating nature, the state, and the COMMUNITY. As to the orgies, the University of Mississippi has changed the name of its celebration from the festive yet dignified “Grand Ole Christmas” to “Hotty Totty Holidays”. And with a name like that bringing to mind drunkenness and lewd behavior, academic administrators will still gawk on dumbfounded and flabbergasted at the expansion of the alleged rape culture supposedly reaching epidemic proportions on campuses across the country.
From the way Byas formulates his argument, it is assumed that insisting that the existence of Christmas be recognized is an inherently selfish act. This is evident in the phrase ...laying down my demand that the coffee shop I share with my non-Christian neighbors 'privilege' my religion.” The word “privilege” was no doubt deliberately selected in the attempt to link this issue with the revolutionary fervor of the Black Lives Matter movement with its constant drum beat of “White privilege” in the hopes of eroding resistance to increasingly extravagant demands. But are the motives for demanding a generalized respect for Christmas necessarily an either/or dichotomy between selfishness and altruism? Why can't it be a little bit of each?
In “The Wealth Of Nations'”, Scottish economist Adam Smith hypothesized that it was through the enlightened self-interest of numerous individuals making decisions on behalf of their own particular needs and desires that the great invisible hand was able to manifest the will of providence. This particularly brought about the distribution of a finite quantity of goods and services.
However, this theory can just as properly be applied to a Christian approach to the controversy surrounding the Christmas issue. In his call for abdication along this front in the culture war, Jared Byas believes that he I upholding the Biblical admonition to esteem others more highly than ourselves. And that principle does indeed have a place in adjudicating the relationship between specific individuals.
For example, if someone wishes you “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” and they seem sincere in their extension of the sentiment, there is no need to go “Old Testament” upon them calling down holier than thou condemnation in how you go out of your way to maintain the theological formalities of the holiday. Such stridency might do more harm than help in advancing the cause of Christ.
However, what about addressing the attempts of unbelievers demanding that their own animosity towards traditional expressions of religion be granted a place of privilege so militant that in order to be satisfied an entire civilization is expected to lay down in what amounts to ritualized suicide? Therefore, provided one goes about it in a levelheaded manner, each time that you speak out against a censorship or deprivation of Christmas even if as little as letting someone know how much these radical activists tick you off, you are not being selfish.
You are in fact defending the right of someone else to enjoy Christmas unabashed in compliance with their particular convictions. Even more importantly, you are also lighting a candle against a pending Dark Age bent on plunging the world into an engulfing and pervasive tyranny.
By
Dr. Frederick Meekins
Observers of America's cultural situation witnessed something similar in the developments that unfolded surrounding the 2015 Starbuck's Christmas cup. For whatever reason, the purveyor of shockingly overpriced caffeinated beverages decided to go with a plain red cup unadorned by any additional ornamentation with the exception of the company's mermaid logo. Absent were the snowflakes or decorations of Christmas cups past.
Christian Evangelist Joshua Feuerstein responded that this design alteration was akin to removing Christ from the celebration of His birth. Most Christians shrugged off such a reaction with a laugh or two, remarking that they really didn't care as they never purchased a $7.00 cup of coffee in the first place and weren't about to begin doing so now.
Others such as Lutheran theologian Chris Roseborough reflected that it is the duty of actual Christians rather than retailers to take the true meaning of the holiday to the broader unbelieving world. Still others such as Southern Seminary President and former Southern Baptist functionary Richard Land assured that there will indeed be a boycott of Starbucks nevertheless just to assure the captains of commerce that conservative
Christians are still capable of exerting economic influence. Yet an additional perspective contends that, since lack of a snowflake on a red cup has got to be the flimsiest of evidence of a war against Christmas that one could come up with, that must mean the war against Christmas must be about as real as flying reindeer. However, children born the day I published my first column regarding the effort to undermine Christmas are now nearly old enough to legally spike their eggnog.
These deprivations of liberty and subversions of culture have occurred with such regularity that I was able to assemble a sufficient number of these holiday-themed columns into my first book published in 2006 titled “Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors” and am well on my way to completing an even longer sequel. Among these apparently non-existent incidents ranked students denied the opportunity to attend a performance of “The Christmas Carol” because of the work's holiday-specific content, municipalities terrified to refer to their celebratory greenery by the traditional nomenclature, and students forbidden from distributing to classmates something as simple as a candy cane accompanied with a card interpreting the confection's origin from a religious perspective.
Even more disturbing than either Christians that don't celebrate Christmas over objections as to what they perceive as the holiday's questionable origins or outright unbelievers wanting to censor the Gospel message because of the offense of the cross comes an additional outlook that is apparently aroused by the prospect of cultural subjugation. This particular viewpoint was articulated in a ChristianPost column titled “Why Christians Should Lose The Christmas Culture War” by Jared Byas. Of his particular bias, Mr. Byas writes, “For me, defending God means letting go of 'Merry Christmas' so my non-Christian neighbors feel respected when I invite them to the holiday table. For me, keeping Christ in Christmas is not about winning the culture war --- but about losing it.”
If that is how Jared Byas gets his Christmas jollies, that is his own business. But just because his mental lights exhibit the symptoms of a loose bulb, there is no reason the remainder of us must also. If your neighbor is such a burro excretory orifice that they have a mental breakdown at the sight of religious symbols or even decorations where the religious meaning might not be quite as obvious, is there really much of a point in inviting them to this hypothesized nonsectarian holiday table? If we are to gradually set aside the traditions that characterize this particular season, perhaps the first to go is pretending to care about those that you barely give the time of day to the remainder of the year.
It might be one thing to tone down one's in your face religiosity in the attempt to reach out to an acquaintance overtly hostile towards true spirituality. However, this attitude of abject surrender is not without profound consequences.
Those such as Jared Byas elevating nicety to the status of something akin to the Prime Directive from Star Trek have failed to realize that God establishes different missions or objectives for what are conceived of as the distinct social spheres or what might be referred to as orders of creation in Augustinian theology. For example, Romans 13:3-4 stipulates, “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil...For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid: for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the minister God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. (KJV).”
However, for someone that is thought of as a traditional minister in terms of church office that administers the sacraments or delivers the public proclamation of God's Word to draw a sword to settle an acrimonious debate on what color the new carpet in the sanctuary would be or to resolve a heated doctrinal disagreement in Sunday school class would be for such a pastor to overstep the boundaries of appropriate authority. Translated in terms of the Christmas issue, it might be in good taste that, if you invite the adherent of another faith over for Christmas, you don't berate them up one end and down the other as to the shortcomings of their errant belief unless they first proceed to attack you in like manner.
However, a culture or nation cannot necessarily afford to be as lenient in terms of its standards and foundational assumptions. For example, those that do not share in the assumption that values Christmas as a cherished celebration should be allowed to verbalize that they do not, articulate the reasons why, and pretty much allowed to continue along in their affairs without bodily harm or without fear of such to an extent that a person steeped in a common sense realism would deem sufficiently reasonable. However, that does not mean that the majority that value, celebrate, and derive meaning from the comprehensive narrative source from which Christmas is derived should be required to cower in silence for fear of upsetting those that do not or of receiving punishment for having done so.
In the attempt to position themselves as profoundly pious, it is quite evident that some fail to comprehend the full implications of what they are actually advocating. Jared Byas writes, “For me, keeping the Christ in Christmas is not about winning the culture war --- but about losing it.”
As in any conflict, sometimes the battles go on for so long and become so acrimonious that the involved parties can end up forgetting that for which they are fighting. The term “culture war” gained widespread notoriety in Pat Buchanan's speech at the 1992 Republican convention. In the address, the political analyst and former presidential candidate gave rhetorical voice to the proverbial Silent Majority noticing then that the embrace of progressivism and permissiveness on the part of various institutions such as academia, media and government was resulting in symptoms of noticeable decline throughout American culture and society.
Therefore, in calling for a surrender in the culture war those of the viewpoint shared by Mr. Byas think that what they are calling for is a truce on the part of all parties to simply play nice on the part of all parties irrespective of creed. What they are inadvertently giving the green light to is an anything goes mentality that will eventually result in the worst depravities and possibly even atrocities imaginable.
The veracity of this observation is already playing itself out in regards to the gay marriage issue. After standing up for years against the steady drumbeat to normalize this particular moral corrosion, many sincere Christians finally relented. They essentially said, “Fine, go ahead and do as you please in the privacy of your own bedroom. Just don't expect the remainder of us to stand around applauding in approval.”
This armistice of don't ask don't tell did not last long in terms of history's lengthy reach. For throughout this unfolding cultural revolution, the propagandists and social engineers insisted that the love between a couple of any combination imaginable was not dependent upon a piece of paper. But nearly as soon as those attempting to order their thoughts and their lives in compliance with the sanctified and the holy began to make peace with the fact that much of society was going to recognize such unnatural couplings as perfectly ordinary, additional blows were landed by the ephors of the judiciary that those objecting to the solemnization of wanton carnality would also be required to render the legal equivalent of acceptance and adulation.
In a court ruling upholding the right of conscience for the marrying couple but apparently not for the objecting merchant, a baker was threatened with financial ruination and the profound psychological trauma resulting from such for doing little more than refusing to bake a cake for a wedding that the baker believed to be an abomination in the eyes of God and for a couple not even likely to remain faithful to one another within the next couple of years anyway.
Libertines will snap why can't the baker just go ahead and bake the cake? Traditionalists can retort why can't the couple simply find another baker (which shouldn't be too difficult given that those of the couple's boudoir proclivities are often quite skilled in those crafts requiring a creative flair).
So what other freedoms and liberties is Jared Byas willing to surrender when he hoists the white flag in the culture war? Edmund Burke admonished that all it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.
At the University of Mississippi, not only has the word “Christmas” been banned because it “connoted too much Christianity on campus” but so has the traditional color combination of red and green, having been replaced with red, blue, and silver. Commissars at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville decreed that in the future staff and student organizations must eliminate all religious themes and cultural allusions associated with designated celebration periods commonly referred to as holidays. But do such acts of censorship also apply to Muslim or secularist Jewish populations as well?
One waits with anticipation to hear of the commencement of orgies and human sacrifice. Think that remark goes a little too far?
It must be pointed out that the Nazis were also big on removing Christ and Christmas in favor of generic winter celebrations venerating nature, the state, and the COMMUNITY. As to the orgies, the University of Mississippi has changed the name of its celebration from the festive yet dignified “Grand Ole Christmas” to “Hotty Totty Holidays”. And with a name like that bringing to mind drunkenness and lewd behavior, academic administrators will still gawk on dumbfounded and flabbergasted at the expansion of the alleged rape culture supposedly reaching epidemic proportions on campuses across the country.
From the way Byas formulates his argument, it is assumed that insisting that the existence of Christmas be recognized is an inherently selfish act. This is evident in the phrase ...laying down my demand that the coffee shop I share with my non-Christian neighbors 'privilege' my religion.” The word “privilege” was no doubt deliberately selected in the attempt to link this issue with the revolutionary fervor of the Black Lives Matter movement with its constant drum beat of “White privilege” in the hopes of eroding resistance to increasingly extravagant demands. But are the motives for demanding a generalized respect for Christmas necessarily an either/or dichotomy between selfishness and altruism? Why can't it be a little bit of each?
In “The Wealth Of Nations'”, Scottish economist Adam Smith hypothesized that it was through the enlightened self-interest of numerous individuals making decisions on behalf of their own particular needs and desires that the great invisible hand was able to manifest the will of providence. This particularly brought about the distribution of a finite quantity of goods and services.
However, this theory can just as properly be applied to a Christian approach to the controversy surrounding the Christmas issue. In his call for abdication along this front in the culture war, Jared Byas believes that he I upholding the Biblical admonition to esteem others more highly than ourselves. And that principle does indeed have a place in adjudicating the relationship between specific individuals.
For example, if someone wishes you “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” and they seem sincere in their extension of the sentiment, there is no need to go “Old Testament” upon them calling down holier than thou condemnation in how you go out of your way to maintain the theological formalities of the holiday. Such stridency might do more harm than help in advancing the cause of Christ.
However, what about addressing the attempts of unbelievers demanding that their own animosity towards traditional expressions of religion be granted a place of privilege so militant that in order to be satisfied an entire civilization is expected to lay down in what amounts to ritualized suicide? Therefore, provided one goes about it in a levelheaded manner, each time that you speak out against a censorship or deprivation of Christmas even if as little as letting someone know how much these radical activists tick you off, you are not being selfish.
You are in fact defending the right of someone else to enjoy Christmas unabashed in compliance with their particular convictions. Even more importantly, you are also lighting a candle against a pending Dark Age bent on plunging the world into an engulfing and pervasive tyranny.
By
Dr. Frederick Meekins
Monday, December 21, 2015
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Tyrant Pastors Insist Congregations To Be Viewed Like Dimwitted Children
In an examination of alleged rebellion in the church, Pastor Jason
Cooley compared rebellion in the sacred assembly to rebellion within the
context of the biological family.
As an example, the pastor provided the illustration of a husband telling his wife to do one thing while the wife responds how she feels led by the Lord to go in another direction.
But provided that either alternative is equally godly, wouldn't a loving husband take into
consideration what the wife had to say and perhaps in many instances even defer to her suggestion?
So why wouldn't a pastor worthy of respect as such do similarly?
Rev. Cooley insists that, since such indolence would not be tolerated in the home, it should be just as quickly punished in the church.
Pastors insisting that they should be obeyed without question or hesitation like a parent in general and a father in particular need to be reminded of a fundamental assumption that cannot really be altered.
That is you have no say into what family you are born; however, an adult is perfectly free to up and leave any church in which they do not feel that they are being respected as a free human being.
This legalistic pastor admonished in this same homily posted at SermonAudio that one cannot have a foot in what would be considered a strict congregation in terms of the expectations imposed upon the members and the other foot outside in terms of refusing to relent to pastoral obedience.
So does Cooley intend to bestow a blessing upon those that depart such congregations to attend those that still adhere to essential Christian doctrine but which do not deem it necessary to clamp down so tightly regarding secondary matters?
Or will he hint at Hellfire in the attempt to frighten people from looking for more psychologically or methodologically balanced churches?
In this sermon, Pastor Cooley also criticized those that set out to establish churches on their own without proper authority.
By that, does that mean he intends to repent of being a schismatic and to return to the Roman Catholic Church?
By Frederick Meekins
As an example, the pastor provided the illustration of a husband telling his wife to do one thing while the wife responds how she feels led by the Lord to go in another direction.
But provided that either alternative is equally godly, wouldn't a loving husband take into
consideration what the wife had to say and perhaps in many instances even defer to her suggestion?
So why wouldn't a pastor worthy of respect as such do similarly?
Rev. Cooley insists that, since such indolence would not be tolerated in the home, it should be just as quickly punished in the church.
Pastors insisting that they should be obeyed without question or hesitation like a parent in general and a father in particular need to be reminded of a fundamental assumption that cannot really be altered.
That is you have no say into what family you are born; however, an adult is perfectly free to up and leave any church in which they do not feel that they are being respected as a free human being.
This legalistic pastor admonished in this same homily posted at SermonAudio that one cannot have a foot in what would be considered a strict congregation in terms of the expectations imposed upon the members and the other foot outside in terms of refusing to relent to pastoral obedience.
So does Cooley intend to bestow a blessing upon those that depart such congregations to attend those that still adhere to essential Christian doctrine but which do not deem it necessary to clamp down so tightly regarding secondary matters?
Or will he hint at Hellfire in the attempt to frighten people from looking for more psychologically or methodologically balanced churches?
In this sermon, Pastor Cooley also criticized those that set out to establish churches on their own without proper authority.
By that, does that mean he intends to repent of being a schismatic and to return to the Roman Catholic Church?
By Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Monday, December 14, 2015
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Terrorist Attacks Prompt Church To Downplay Its Open Border Homilies
In response to the terrorist attack in
Paris, Pastor William Strum of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville,
NC remarked how dumb a nation had to be to grant entrance to swarms
of refugees.
Both he and Senior Pastor Sean Harris
suggested that the approach of targeting specific Jihadist leaders
and cells would ultimately be doomed to failure.
Rather, the Western World must consider
eliminating significant swaths of the Islamic population.
Yet in a SermonAudio podcast uploaded a
little over a week prior to these remarks that addressed Hungary's
refusal to admit Islamic refugees, Pastor Strum declared that, as a
minister of the Gospel, that he would teach that these infidel
indigents should be allowed entrance since it is our obligation to be
more “Christian” than “American”.
Pastor Strum was previously so sure of
his position regarding this issue that he announced in the podcast
that he was requiring the students in his world religion class to
write a paper on the Christian approach to immigration.
In Christian school jargon, that means
the essay will likely be graded down if the approach taken by the
student is not in agreement with the personnel opinion of the
instructor.
Apart from not machine gunning down
without warning those violating our borders without permission, the
primary obligation of the American government is to protect actual
Americans first and foremost.
If a nation decides not to admit a
single immigrant, a society has fulfilled any so-called Christian
obligation.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, December 11, 2015
Legalist's Alternatives To Christmas Even Less Biblical Than Disputed Holiday
In his condemnation of Christmas,
Pastor Jason Cooley suggests that parents in general and fathers in
particular not impose an outright prohibition against the holiday
cold turkey.
Instead, the minister suggests it might
be better to phase things out gradually over time.
If so, then what is so wrong with these
traditions and practices to begin with?
Applying this methodology to other so
called “sins”, instead of dropping his three extra wives all at
once, would the polygamist be allowed to release them back into the
singles pool one at a time in elimination ceremonies reminiscent of
the tribal council on Survivor?
Or what if someone has a mistress?
Is it being suggested that instead of
romping with her three times per week, that the philanderer merely
cut back to once per week for a whole followed by a period where she
is still wined and dined but simply not bedded before the
relationship is cut off entirely?
In his opposition to Christmas, Pastor
Jason Cooley on a SermonAudio podcast remarked how he was trying to
get his church to fast that day.
However, isn't elevating that to an
implied obligation just as pagan or Romanish as the other traditions
that this fanatic rails against?
For even if Baptists of this hardline
variety insist that what they are doing is voluntary, the
authenticity of your individual faith will be drawn into question if
you fail to hop on board and go along with them.
Matthew 6:17-18 says, “But thou, when
thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear
not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and
they Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”
If a church body has the authority to
shame or guilt trip people into semi-compulsory fasts, what's so
wrong with the season of Lent?
And is not one of the condemnations of
Christmas that no human, only God, has the authority to implement a
mandatory religious observance such as a festival or holy day?
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Fans Still Hungry For The Hunger Games
As someone with formalized studies in history, philosophy, and political science, I would be fascinated by a film or two detailing how it became an acceptable notion to force children to fight to the death in gladiatorial combat.
Click On The Headline
New York Post 12/10/15
Today's cover: San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook plotted jihad with his boyhood next-door neighbor http://nyp.st/1OT58k9
Posted by New York Post on Thursday, December 10, 2015
Wednesday, December 09, 2015
Jihadist Sympathizers Oppose Commonsense Migration Policy
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Donald Trump's proposed ban on Muslims “Goes against everything we stand for.”
Is it against everything that Americans that actually work for a living stand for or merely everything the prevailing globalists wanting to enslave humanity in a New World Order stand for?
Of course Cheney is opposed to any curtailment of immigration.
He needs access to a steady supply of cheap transplant organs.
As an advocate for an interventionist foreign policy, Dick Cheney justified that on the grounds of standing against belligerent Islam.
So why is it do we want those of that particular persuasion to be allowed the opportunity to overwhelm our borders in their mission to spread violence?
Dick Cheney wasn't the only public figure or media personality to get swept up in the anti-Trump frenzy.
One particular Yahoo headline approvingly intoned “Muslims decry Donald Trump's comments.”
Too bad the adherents of that particular errant theology aren't as eager to denounce the violence of their coreligionists.
According to J.K. Rowling, Voldemort (the antagonist in her Harry Potter Series) was nowhere near as bad as Donald Trump.
What she is saying is that outright murder (which Voldermort committed against Harry's parents as well as numerous other characters throughout the series in case Rowling has forgotten) is apparently not as bad as exercising one's First Amendment Rights in a politically incorrect manner.
Speaking to the issue on The Five on Fox News, Juan Williams articulated his agreement with Hillary Clinton that Donald Trump's suspicions of Muslims are reprehensible.
So will Juan Williams also now admit that National Public Radio was correct in condemning his own verbalized reservations about explicit Muslims?
Juan Williams remarked in response to Donald Trump's remarks that fearmongering and demagoguery sell.
What, sort of like the current occupant of the Oval Office, applauded along with Williams and throngs of brainwashed drones, for accomplishing little more than emerging from his mother's birth canal as half Black?
Trump's proposal to ban Muslim citizens from reentering the United States might go a step too far.
However, forbidding the entrance of residents of specific countries is not beyond the bounds of propriety.
The United States exists primarily for the benefit of those categorized as actual Americans.
We should be the ones to determine the criteria by which immigrants will be admitted and not the other way around with foreigners dictating these terms.
By Frederick Meekins
Is it against everything that Americans that actually work for a living stand for or merely everything the prevailing globalists wanting to enslave humanity in a New World Order stand for?
Of course Cheney is opposed to any curtailment of immigration.
He needs access to a steady supply of cheap transplant organs.
As an advocate for an interventionist foreign policy, Dick Cheney justified that on the grounds of standing against belligerent Islam.
So why is it do we want those of that particular persuasion to be allowed the opportunity to overwhelm our borders in their mission to spread violence?
Dick Cheney wasn't the only public figure or media personality to get swept up in the anti-Trump frenzy.
One particular Yahoo headline approvingly intoned “Muslims decry Donald Trump's comments.”
Too bad the adherents of that particular errant theology aren't as eager to denounce the violence of their coreligionists.
According to J.K. Rowling, Voldemort (the antagonist in her Harry Potter Series) was nowhere near as bad as Donald Trump.
What she is saying is that outright murder (which Voldermort committed against Harry's parents as well as numerous other characters throughout the series in case Rowling has forgotten) is apparently not as bad as exercising one's First Amendment Rights in a politically incorrect manner.
Speaking to the issue on The Five on Fox News, Juan Williams articulated his agreement with Hillary Clinton that Donald Trump's suspicions of Muslims are reprehensible.
So will Juan Williams also now admit that National Public Radio was correct in condemning his own verbalized reservations about explicit Muslims?
Juan Williams remarked in response to Donald Trump's remarks that fearmongering and demagoguery sell.
What, sort of like the current occupant of the Oval Office, applauded along with Williams and throngs of brainwashed drones, for accomplishing little more than emerging from his mother's birth canal as half Black?
Trump's proposal to ban Muslim citizens from reentering the United States might go a step too far.
However, forbidding the entrance of residents of specific countries is not beyond the bounds of propriety.
The United States exists primarily for the benefit of those categorized as actual Americans.
We should be the ones to determine the criteria by which immigrants will be admitted and not the other way around with foreigners dictating these terms.
By Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Catholic Media Invokes Christmas Imagery To Manipulate Refugee Policy
In the attempt to play on Christian sympathies at Christmas time, the National Catholic Register has posted a story titled, “No Room At The Inn, Why So Few Syrian Refugees Come To America”.
Firstly, the only ones that can be blamed for that are those that formulate the admissions policy.
Most Americans aren't held in much higher esteem by the secret society elites that run the upper echelons of the State Department and related agencies than the refugees applying for entrance.
It is doubtful your State Department gives a hoot what you think.
If the agency had it's way, those that run the place would probably like nothing better than to implement Prince Philip's proposal of systematic depopulation in the most diplomatic way possible where you would end up thanking them for doing you a favor in terminating your existence.
Secondly, Roman authorities ordered the swarms of whom Mary and Joseph ranked to report to their ancestral lands.
The United States did not compel the dispossessed to flock here only to slam the door in their face.
There is not a constitutional obligation to let them in.
Thirdly, enough with badmouthing what transpired at the inn after all these centuries.
How do we not know that the beds there weren't filled by other pregnant women also on the verge of giving birth or perhaps even elderly in nearly as much agony as Mary might have been?
Even if Mary had made a fuss that she was carrying the Redeemer, without angelic intervention to verify, why ought she have necessarily been believed in the first place?
By Frederick Meekins
Monday, December 07, 2015
The Purpose & Scope Of Apologetics
Apologetics exists as a field of Christian study to aide the believer in understanding his beliefs, why critics refuse to ascent to these eternal truths, and how these beliefs apply to broader intellectual concerns. Upon hearing of these applications of the discipline, those unfamiliar with such studies might conclude the field to be a subject preoccupied with trivial, esoteric arguments divorced from more pressing issues arising in the course of everyday life.
However, Apologetics does not have to confine itself to the halls of higher education. Apologetics does, in fact, have a role to play in the more popular forms of communication and cultural expression often looked down upon by more traditional academics and clergy.
Many students enrolled in formal degree programs and academic courses of Apologetics no doubt embrace aspirations of serving the Lord in the capacity of a pastor, missionary, or some other form of traditional Christian service. While these students are to be commended for such lofty goals, it must be noted that formalized education in Apologetics can also be good preparation for vocations involving more direct confrontation with the social and cultural realities of the day.
Such an assessment is not a detached observation. Rather it is one derived from my own experience of nearly two decades as a writer of editorial and op-ed commentaries. These efforts began in local newspapers but eventually migrated onto the Internet as that particular technology became more widespread and assessable.
One would not, at first glance, suspect a connection between Apologetics and scathing news analysis. However, Apologetics can serve as as useful tool to get at the ideas and assumptions concealed beneath the theatrics and hoopla surrounding most public issues.
Likewise, the Evangelical might be surprised by the receptivity of many of these public forums to the presentation of the Christian worldview since most believers have grown accustomed to a hostility towards traditional religious perspectives in the mainstream media. The point is not so much for the Christian to expect to anchor the nightly news on one of the major networks but to capitalize on those opportunities made available by new technologies contributing to the democratization of the means of mass communication.
The ability of the Christian to stake a foothold and win at least a modest audience in the tumultuous arena of public debate is predicated on the nature of truth itself. Romans 2:14 says, “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, since they show that requirements of the law are written on their hearts...”
This reality serves as a gateway to an apologetic utilized by some of the most influential Christian thinkers. Dr. John Warwick Montgomery writes in “The Law Above The Law”, “...the fundamental function of the legal profession is to seek justice by seeking truth. The lawyer endeavors to reduce societal conflicts by arbitrating conflicting truth claims (68).” Similar things could be said of the journalist or columnist as these modern scribes chronicle the events of the day and attempt to relate them to the overall human condition.
Yet the Christian taking the insights of Apologetics into the public debate should not expect things to always go along peachy keen. After all, this is an age whose prevalent outlook of relativism stands in opposition to the absolute claims of the Christian faith. It, therefore, falls to the apologist to show the contemporary unbeliever, acculturated to the temper of these times, the disjunction that exists between what the average non-Christian publicly professes and the stable moral order the heart actually longs for whether the individual fully realizes it or not.
C.S. Lewis in “Mere Christianity” noted that when there is a disagreement between two individuals, “It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some Law or Rule of...morality...Quarelling means trying to show that the other man is wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless (there was) some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are (31-32).” If radical tolerance really was the ultimate principle around which the universe operated, argumentation would be pointless and perhaps impossible. Alister McGrath writes in “Intellectuals Don't Need God & Other Modern Myths”, “Lewis's point ... is that there is a core of moral constraints underlying human civilization (40).”
The Christian makes the argument for the superiority of his answer by comparing how well Christianity and the competing belief system in question measure up to various tests such as that of systematic consistency and coherence. By this test, the philosophical investigator examines how well the statements within a given worldview logically fit together and how these propositions square with the external facts. In the arena of public debate, this test is carried out by extrapolating from policies and ideas to their ultimate conclusions and how they either help or hinder both the individual and the nation.
For example, Winfred Corduan of Taylor University writes in “No Doubt About It: The Case For Christianity”, “Relativism plays the role of Zorro in the world of knowledge. It stays in concealment for long periods of time only to suddenly appear at crucial moments, conquer the day, and go back into hiding (37).” In other words, relativism might be good for tearing down dogmas, but there is no way an individual can live or a society govern by this perspective consistently. Because with no standard by which to cry “foul”, such an ethic naturally degenerates into the strong imposing their arbitrary will upon the weak.
Francis Schaeffer noted in “A Christian Manifesto”, “We live in...sociopolitical law. By sociopolitical law we mean law that has no fixed base but law in which a group of people decides what is sociologically good for society ...and what they arbitrarily decide becomes law (41).” So if society needs to kill a few million Jews or experiment on a few million fetuses, who is the average relativist to argue against these kinds of things when these atrocities are couched in the language of the “common good”? There might have been a time when Christians could have ignored the outside world with little peril; but as apologists such as C.S. Lewis, John Warwick Montgomery, and Francis Schaeffer have made know, that day is long gone if it ever existed at all.
Of the gains made by Christians in the discipline of Philosophy over the past several decades, J.P. Moreland says in “Evangelical Apologetics: Selected Essays From The 1995 Evangelical Theological Society Convention”, “In spite of these gains, however, it would be misleading to speak as if all were well on the battlefront. There is much work to be done...philosophical apologetics should be focused on those areas of study in which activity is underrepresented...Political and social philosophy would get my vote here (19-29).” This analysis has echoed this sentiment in calling for a Christian voice to address the pertinent issues of the day. This examination also embraces the spirit of Dr. Moreland's comments calling upon apologists not to ignore other forms of popular communication for the most part traditionally overlooked by Christian polemicists, primarily imaginative literature.
Bombarded with an unending twenty-four hour news cycle and conflicting streams of argumentation on nearly every conceivable issue, some overloaded minds simply turn off any alacrity they once had for the absorption of raw facts and refined logic. The desire to be entertained here in the twenty-first century shows few signs of letting up.
John Warwick Montgomery writes in “Neglected Apologetic Styles: The Juridical and The Literary” appearing in the same volume as J.P. Moreland's essay writes, “The...juggernaut of scientific technology has alienated many in our society...Might literary creativity offer a way through this labyrinth? Can literature succeed where other paths have failed (126)?” Unlike rational argumentation, which as to get around tenaciously held objections or what C.S. Lewis referred to as “watchful dragons”, stories have a way of infiltrating the defenses of the mind before one realizes what is happening (McGrath, 198).
The success of this approach is not predicated, however, upon literature for literature's sake. For although packaged in the regalia of high adventure, sympathetic characters and compelling settings, to literary sophisticates John Warwick Montgomery observes in “Myth, Allegory & Gospel”, “Chesterton, Lewis, Tolkien display...an infuriating combination or ingenuousness and genius. On the other hand, no 20th century writers in the English-speaking world have had such an ... extensive impact on the intelligentsia in the sphere of ultimate commitment (14).” Of Tolkien, Montgomery admits that some say of this fantasist that he “...limits his imagery to the symbols of Celtic and medieval myth and the verities of the Christian tradition that in the judgment of a recent critic ...'his earnest vision seems syncretistic, his structure a collage, and his feeling antiquarian.'. (14).” Yet “The Lord Of The Rings” has been heralded as the greatest novel of the twentieth century and the cinematic adaptations set in this imaginary realm are the box office hit of any Christmas season.
What these tales do is tap into a fund of themes, ideas, and images etched upon the human mind and soul. Lewis himself reflected upon the theories of Jung and Tolkien to account for the appeal of these timeless narratives. Jung believed that myths and fantasies verbalize symbols universal to the human psyche. Tolkien Christianized this idea when he said as quoted in “Myth, Allegory & Gospel”, “The Gospels contain...a story of a larger kind which embraces all of the essences of fairy stories (117).” John Warwick Montgomery further expounds, “To Tolkien and Lewis, tales such as “The Chronicles Of Narnia” can...serve as pointers to...Christian Redemption. Moreover, they will establish in the heart of the sensitive reader an appreciation of and a longing for the Christian story (118).” This technique works because, as Romans 1:20 informs, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities --- his eternal power and divine nature --- have been clearly seen so that men are without excuse (NIV).” Thus, each human being's inbuilt curiosity regarding God and eternal things pops up in regards to the stories of good and evil so prevalent in contemporary popular culture.
With such names as Lewis and Tolkien attached to it, the average Christian might feel unworthy of employing an apologetic having grown synonymous with classical literature for fear of not properly honoring it. However, even those unlikely of ever penning a timeless epoch for the ages can still use speculative narrative to stimulate the imagination in the direction of religious truth. In fact, one does not even have to adorn the tale in the traditional medieval fantasy motifs popularized by this format since the underlying concepts being presented are much more important than the external trappings and regalia.
Though it might seem a bit clichéd now in light of the popularity of Left Behind and the crop of other End Times novelizations that popped up at the turn of the millennium, in a creative writing class during college I wrote a short story incorporating certain elements of a literalist eschatology such as the Rapture, the Mark of the Beast and Christian Redemption and placed them in a literary setting incorporating elements of the techno-thriller and police-state genres. The story was surprisingly well-received by a state university audience. Some of the students were kind enough to rank it among the best in the class.
It has been said that those who can, do; those who cannot, teach. Likewise, in the literary world, those who can, write; those who cannot, criticize.
Among those Christians who enjoy imaginative adventures but lack the creativity to craft their own speculative worlds there is more than ample opportunity to relate the symbols found in these narratives to Biblical truths. Some might consider it bizarre to comb science fiction and fantasy for parallels in Christian thought. Silly as it seems, it is not without precedence among secular academics to examine this kind of material through the analytical lenses of their own respective disciplines.
Such efforts have given rise to a group of semi-popular works one might classify as “Star Trek Studies”. One such volume entitled “The Ethics Of Star Trek” by Judith Barad, head of the Department of Philosophy at Indiana State University, examines the moral dilemmas confronted by these beloved characters created by the late Gene Roddenberry. It would, therefore, be just as legitimate to probe and analyze programs such as “Babylon 5”, “Stargate”, “Battlestar Galatica”, and “Doctor Who” as a form of apologetic outreach to an overlooked segment of the population, namely science fiction enthusiasts. The Blackwell Philosophy & Pop Culture Series already does something similar from the standpoint of secular philosophy.
II Corinthians 10:3-4 says, “...we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses (NAS).” The Scripture acknowledges that the children of God are at war. In this conflict, it would not be strategically sound to have all the participants engaged in the same kind of combat. The army fights on the land, the navy on the sea. Still other agencies such as the CIA gather intelligence for the other branches and engage in other assorted activities not exactly fitting the mission profiles of the other services. Likewise, it is the mission of the apologist to gather information of the conditions outside of the Church and to relay that knowledge back to the body of Christ and to go into places where a pastor might not be accepted or appreciated.
By Frederick Meekins
Sunday, December 06, 2015
Pastors Needing To Get Somewhere Run All Over The Congregation
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In a blog post at ChristianPost, it said that the most common reason a pastor
leaves a church is because the pastor believes that they have taken a church as
far as they can.
From the assorted scandals that erupt nearly constantly, I would have assumed it was because the pastor couldn't keep his hands off other men's wives or even underage minors. But on a more serious note, why is it that a church has to necessarily “go anywhere”. Isn't it enough that people show up each week, politely listen to the sermon, drop a few dollars into the collection plate, and wash and repeat the next week? A pastor saying that they have to take a church as far as they can sounds like a pronouncement uttered from atop a dangerous precipice. Primarily, it sounds like a pastor is willing to stomp all over a congregation in order to make a name for himself. In such a situation as a member of the congregation or regular attender, if you don't go along with the pastor's outlandish schemes, you are made out to be some kind of dangerous subversive. Slow and steady wins the race. If you find yourself in a congregation where the church needs to “go somewhere”, you might very easily find yourself in the jungles of Latin America where the unsuspecting before they realize it are forced to line up to take the “spicy Kool Aid” whether they really want to or not. Frederick Meekins |
Friday, December 04, 2015
Thursday, December 03, 2015
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