When Tolerance Will No Longer Be Tolerated

          “With the country moving toward inclusion, the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have instead sent a message to young people that only some of them are valued…They’ve chosen to teach division and intolerance.”  Such was the response by the president of the Human Rights Campaign (described as the largest U.S. gay rights group) to a recent decision by a Boy Scouts of America (BSA) review board to maintain its existing membership policies, as reported by the Associated Press.  After reading the article I am left with feelings of dismay and wonderment; and with a lingering question: In contemporary society in the United States of America is this what passes for rational thought and legitimate argumentation?  Based on the frequency of such statements it would seem the answer to that question is “yes." In my opinion, the reason for such disconnected thinking is systemic yet explainable if one considers the foundational principles undergirding contemporary viewpoints on fairness, tolerance and the like as expressed in the AP article.  Indeed such reasons are worth taking time to consider.

The first foundational principle emerges with the following: “With the country moving toward inclusion…”  Notice please the question begging, as the dissenter assumes the good to be defined by the direction the country moves and then proceeds to use that assumption as proof that those who move differently are wrong.  Obviously this is nothing more than foisting an arbitrary ethic on American culture and demanding its acceptance.  Surely what is good and right and true must come from outside culture, from outside the individual in a culture, lest morality become transient and ultimately meaningless for all members in a society.

Secondly, the assertion is made that the BSA “has sent a message to young people that only some of them are valued.”  This is nothing more than a bald and baseless assertion.  Once again, it is assumed in this statement that valuing young people is equivalent to celebrating any lifestyle any individual youth or group of youths might choose to adopt.  However, it is obvious all ideals are not equally true and legitimate.  Values are not so capricious as to be defined by some select group in society.  They also must transcend culture.

Like much of the reasoning permeating American culture today, the president of the Human Rights Campaign is doing nothing more than foisting, conditioning and presenting question begging and self-stultifying arguments.  His view that everyone must accept his groups definitions of values, fairness, inclusion and tolerance (which are based on the current whims of a segment of contemporary American culture) or be derided into submission seems somewhat less than tolerant of others viewpoints.  Apparently the position that a young person can be valued for their personhood while declining to celebrate their lifestyle is tolerance that will not be tolerated.

This nation was not founded on such arbitrary and vapid principles.  Our Declaration of Independence begins and ends with transcendent, objective, self-evident truths: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  American society was established on the principle that each member is created by a divine Sovereign Creator that He endows with unalienable rights by members who once pledged themselves to the sacred.  This Creator then is the definer and arbiter of the right and the good, and He says: “at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be untied to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two, but one.  Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Matthew 19:4-6, NIV) and “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21, NIV).  Futile thinking and foolish hearts permeate the society who neither glorify nor give thanks to the Creator who has created them in His image.

In my opinion, the only hope for mankind, the only way back to reasonableness of thinking undergirded by foundation of the Truth, is Christ Jesus.  “Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:31b-32)  With this firm foundation, ideas of tolerance, fairness and equality can be carefully considered against the backdrop of a transcendent absolute moral law that does not ebb and flow with the cultural current, for the betterment of society.

Cultural Shift, Majority Rule or Might Makes Right?

In reading the local paper this morning, I came across the following headline: "Cultural shift driving change in military's gay policy."  This was an associated press story, and the link to the entire article (dated February 3, 2010) is provided below, along with a previous piece dated February 2, 2010):

AP Article - Change in Military's Gay Policy

AP Article - Signs of Cultural Shift

My intention here is not to deal with the merit of men or women who have adopted and espouse a homosexual lifestyle actively serving in the military, whether under "Don't ask, Don't tell" or otherwise.  Rather, my concern is more to how we are making decisions in this nation on important moral, ethical and lifestyle issues in our contemporary culture.

Even up to the near recent past, homosexuality as a lifestyle was considered wrong.  Morally wrong as a lifestyle because it was considered sinful, and hurtful to the individual and to the society at large.  This feeling was largely based on the stance on such issues from a Biblical framework.  Biblically the behavior, lifestyle and/or practice is never condoned and is in every case condemned as abhorrent and profane.  The position was clear, the behavior was morally wrong.

In the two articles, however, the idea of right and wrong is absent from the text.  In its place are peppered phrases like, "attitudes and circumstances have changed", "gays and lesbians have been given comprehensive legal status as a protected class", "59 percent of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military", and "the US census has for the first time begun tabulating information about gay couples who live together."  It begs the question, "What does this have to do with whether homosexuality is right or wrong?"

The more I pondered the topic, the more I began to think that the articles did say something about right or wrong.  Perhaps in our contemporary culture whatever is popular culturally at any given time is the right thing, morally, ethically or otherwise.  Perhaps the comments about attitudes, opinions, and circumstances are the pure determining factor as to good, right and truth.

If this is the case, if what is good, right and true is determined by culture then there are some ramifications that must be acknowledged.  If that is the case, then we in America have chosen to call God a liar, or at least have told Him that He cannot exist.  We will have arrogated to ourselves the responsibility of deciding that which is right and that which is wrong.  Whatever God has called good and right is heretofore irrelevant in our society.  We are choosing to expel God and instead ourselves be the pure measure of all things.  Maybe that's the way we want it, maybe we see this as our culture to do with as we wish, maybe we like having the power to decide for ourselves.

I can only say, beware.  We have seen, and we have been told before how that kind of experiment will turn out.  If God does not exist, then we have no excuse and must live up totally with the cultural outworkings of that kind of ideology.  If popular opinion is the litmus test for right and wrong, if God does not exist and is irrelevant in moral choices and we are nothing more than a mindless, pointless collocation of atoms existing only to pass on genetic information then nature read in tooth and claw is the only way, and what remains is not good or bad, objective right or wrong, but might makes right.  First the majority will rule, and decide how culture will go.  Then a popularly elected body will decide for everyone how things will go.  Eventually one man (or woman) will decide how things will go, and those who sound the victory bell now will hear the death knell of freedom and liberty and cry out for answers as to why it all came to pass.

Is this synical, maybe.  Is this extremist fear, hardly.  We have countless accounts through the years of the dangers of a culture driven by the winds of cultural "attitudes and circumstances".  The founders of this nation were keenly aware of the precipice on which this democratic republic stood, and how a religious backdrop was absolutely necessary for morals and the established government to function.  Not Church control of the government, but a society (public, private, government or otherwise) submitted and obedient to an absolute Governer.

I am not addressing here whether or not homosexual men or women should be allowed to serve in the military.  I do not fear or hate any homosexual man or woman.  What I do know is that if such weighty and important moral and ethical questions are to be left to public opinion, to majority rule, to an ideal of might makes right then our nation is not on the proverbial slippery slope, but has rather stepped off the edge by inverting reality by denying what God has deemed good and right and true and instead arrogating to ourselves that solemn duty.

Re-Defining Marriage?

What is marriage anyway?  It seems this question above any other ought to be explored these days.  In the last week i've seen no less than three articles in the local paper and have heard even more relative to the upcoming Health Care Bill discussions speaking to the status of marriage in the United States, more states expanding marriage to gay and lesbian couples (Washington D.C. being the latest) and other related topics.  Following are my thoughts on the subject for what they are worth:

First off, my starting point is similar to the one I presented in the last post on abortion, namely if marriage is just the joining of two entities who desire to enter into the state recognized union then by all means let there be no bounds on which two entities go through the process and call themselves married.  I don't intend to be crass or jocular at all in saying this, but if we continue down the road we are on I really don't think it will be that long until there is an outcry because a person cannot be married to their pet.  And why not?  If marriage is just the union of two entities who are dedicated to one another and who desire to live in the same home in a caring relationship then why should that not cover the situation I just described?  There are many who care deeply for their pets and in some situations the pet is very much loved and real caring relationship exists.

Re-defining marriage is only a problem if marriage was originally ordained by God as the Bible describes.  In other words, if man decides what constitutes marriage then it will always be in a state of flux.  As moods and conditions change, marriage as defined by the culture's ever changing attitudes must change as well.  However, if the Bible is true and the Biblical definition of marriage is true, then regardless of how culture changes marriage cannot change.  Why is that?  Why do Christians get so upset when gays and lesbians protest so vehemently to be included in marriage?

The answer is really quite simple.  God established marriage between a man and a woman as a picture, elsewhere described in the Bible as between Jesus and the Church, and also as a reflection of the very nature of God in the Trinity.  How so?  God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have existed in the Trinity from eternity in a perfect relationship of community.  When God decided to create man, He said it was not good that man be alone and gave him a helpmeet, a partner of his own body to exist with in a relationship, namely woman (taken from man).  The man and the woman come together in an intimate way and the Holy Spirit then participates to knit the new life together in the mother's womb.  There is no other union where this particular arrangement, which was so beautifully orchestrated, can take place.  This is why there is no place in Scripture where homosexual relations are anything but condemned.  It is not that feelings are not present, or the desire to be intimate is not present, it is that any relationship other than that established by God does not reflect the glory of the relationship in the Trinity.  It does not bring glory to God, and therefore is a perversion of the natural, and should be condemned in any time and in any situation.

As to the sexual preferences of individuals the same sort of closer look is needed.  Desires and feelings for things other than those prescribed by God are real.  They are just as real as the desire to lie, to cheat, to steal, to dishonor parents.  As believers, we must acknowledge that the standard is the same for all sin, it is all deplorable for the same reason: we were created to bring glory to God, when we break His law whether in word, in thought, or in deed we fail to do as we were intended and are in need of forgiveness.  Faithfulness here I believe is the key.  We must either be faithful to God in being single, or be faithful to God in being married as God established.  In this point the Christian has done much damage over the years by not holding up the lifelong commitment and cheapened the covenant of marriage itself.  Just think, is it possible for the Trinity to be seperated?  That is exactly what divorce implies, that God can be seperated and eternal covenants can be broken.  The limitations of humankind, the fall of man and the subsequent provisions for divorce are not being discussed here, but the point remains that as Christians we must hold up our end of the bargain and not say on the one hand that marriage is a covenant relationship established by God and then run to divorce.  In "The Loving Opposition", Stanton L. Jones puts it this way, "Outside of the marriage of a man and woman, the proper use of sex is to honor God by costly obedience in living a chaste life...And so, the Christian vision for sexuality and marriage is our foundational reason for rejecting homosexual action as a legitimate moral option."

For the Christian, essence preceeds existance.  By that I mean that who we are should define what we do.  God created us to bring Him glory through being obedient to His Word, living our lives for Him in whatever circumstance or situation we are in, in short to use the free will with which we were created to actively pursue righteousness.  This is why marriage is such an important issue for believers, why homosexuality is similar to all other sin, it is attempting to revise or redefine our very essence, who we are, what we were created to be.

This is a tough issue and I hope this post has been presented in a way that lovingly but sternly addresses the issue from a Biblical point of view.  Quite simply, if the Bible is true then marriage is only defined and only legitimate if the arrangement is in accordance with the Word.  If marriage is defined by majority decision, or cultural climate, or poll data, or popular opinion then it can be anything and everything.  For my part, I believe even the idea that marriage can be re-defined is to believe a lie.  Marriage was established by God and will always be just as He originally gave it.  What contemporary culture chooses to call marriage, is not marriage re-defined, it is not marriage at all.