Cultural Commentary
Marching to a Better Song
The momentum is on our side now. We pro-lifers have written, marched, voted, and prayed for a moment like this. This is a moment when we can take advocacy beyond simple rhetoric and see it take the form of actual progress towards the goal of the end of abortion. David Daleiden‘s undercover exposure of Planned Parenthood’s selling of baby parts forced a renewal of attention upon the “medical procedure” which heinously dismembers babies, which, in another mother’s womb, could survive if labor came prematurely. We’ve shown pictures of dismembered babies, we’ve started clinics to help mom’s facing a pregnancy they weren’t prepared for, and we’ve cited scientific studies which show that life begins at conception, a heartbeat within a few days thereafter, and for all our advocacy we’ve been painted as backwards buffoons of a bygone era.
The science is our on side when it comes to this matter. It isn’t on the side of climate change, nor on the side of sexual orientation, nor on the side of trans-gender-bending. To those who advocate for the pro-choice stance, please let me appeal to you once more to set down your rhetorical guns and listen to our side for a moment.
Indeed, the world is a complex web of difficulties and sufferings. It can feel tangled, because it is. But what if we actually found a point of agreement here? You say that abortion is a woman’s right. But can we back up for a second? You claim to care deeply about women; in fact, we do too. It isn’t calloused of you to care about a woman and her body. Neither is it calloused of us to care about a baby and the baby’s body.[epq-quote align=”align-left”]It isn’t calloused of you to care about a woman and her body. Neither is it calloused of us to care about a baby and the baby’s body.[/epq-quote]
Here’s the rub, evangelical Christians have, for a while now, been attempting to state that pregnancy is something beautiful, glorious, and queenly. It is the love between a man and a woman made visible. Thus, our protesting the abortion of the unborn has to do with a broader premise that there is something majestic about erotic love. It has the magical capacity to produce another life. Our concern about abortion is even broader than simply mothers & babies. Our concern is that our disregard for the glory of human life has produced a society that doesn’t know how to hear the symphony that is the interweaving of the deep tones of manhood and the pealing strains of womanhood mingling to produce a new line of music.
Our concern is for all things good, true and beautiful. Are there gnarled messes of humanity to be sorted out? Yes. A teenage girl raped by her uncle and now carrying his child is a horrific situation. But does a discordance in that moment in the symphony mean that the entire song must end in silence? Does the new line of notes that is that new child have to be deleted from the sheet music in order for the performance end in a perfect resolution? [epq-quote align=”align-right”]Does the new line of notes that is that new child have to be deleted from the sheet music in order for the performance end in a perfect resolution?[/epq-quote] Might I assert that our view of the world and humankind has a greater luster to it than the individualistic mindset that often accompanies the pro-choice worldview?
Now, a word to pro-life Christians. We have made it here, through many twists and turns. Some setbacks by our own doing (like unhelpful zealots bombing abortion clinic). Some setbacks due to blood-thirsty and greedy political maneuvers. Let me remind you that victory is not simply the abolition of abortion. Our end goal is the glorification of Christ by obeying his command to disciple the nations. It is the establishment of a Christian society which teaches young men & women that their sexuality belongs in the context of a faithful marriage, and this means personal responsibility.
It also implies hard consequences for selfish decisions. The heat of passion may bring about a pregnancy. We believe that neither the mother nor father are then at liberty to walk away from the new strain they’ve created. We also believe that the Bible provides a framework that enables us to sort through the (uncommon) occurrences of pregnancies caused by rape, incest, etc. In essence, the victory we seek is the triumph of the Gospel, as we as a nation submit to Christ and His Word as the standard for life.
Onward.
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The Tizzy Party Protests
Ah, what days we ‘mericans are living in. Sex-symbols who have spent their lives making money off of objectifying women through so-called “entertainment”, spent a whole weekend protesting our new President who is a notoriously braggadocios womanizer; this new President, however, threatens to cut off access to the heinous rite of abortion, which these protestors insist is quite sacred and necessary to their happiness.
A few observations then, shall we? One of the demands of these tizzy party protesters is equality. They are the downtrodden of the earth, and with their sacrosanct p••••-hats nesting atop their head, they demand to be treated with equanimity & seriousness. The ingratitude is quite repulsive; even the poorest American has it better off than the average Lithuanian (ranked 49th on the list of GDP per capita). They decry the “1%”, but the data tells us that “the U.S. represents 4.5% of global population but nearly 30% of its total GDP.” In essence, honey, you are the “1%”.<fn>https://mic.com/articles/2636/compared-to-the-rest-of-the-world-americans-are-all-the-1#.cZX8E5ez1</fn>
Furthermore, the vulgarity which was on display was quite telling; they claim to be repulsed by Trump’s “rhetoric” and how it demeaned women. Yet, many of these celebrities don’t blink twice when they say and do the same sorts of things in the name of their art, performance, entertainment. The same group demands that gender is fluid, but they screech for “women’s rights”. My dear, “woman” is no more; that term might trigger someone who identifies as a gay man, but was born a straight woman. The term “women’s rights” might summon up for “him” thoughts of the patriarchal system of our ancestors.
Speaking of the patriarchy–you know the oppressive system where the father is the head of the home–the patriarchy that gave us modern comforts such as hair-driers, light-bulbs, and cars. The patriarchy that bled on these shores for their very liberty which allows you to express your views. The sad truth of the thing is that the lunacy of all this screeching for equality is asking for dry water, and a lightless sun.
Equality has come to mean something vastly different from the impartiality with which it ought to be synonymous with. Rather, it demands that a woman should be allowed to writhe and contort her body in a sexual way (as Scarlett Johansen, Madonna, Miley Cyrus and these other spokes-babes often do), yet expect men to not see it as what it is: sexually arousing.
They want to get paid for trotting the pleasures of the marriage bed onto the stage and the screen, but do not want the responsibility of perpetuating the pornification of our boys and men, which produces men who come to view the female body as a disposable pleasure, sort of like pizza pockets, or Coors Light. If they want dignity, they’re barking up the wrong doctrinal tree. Secularism reduces all of us to disposable blobs of tissue; it, in fact, objectifies us all. Christianity glorifies men and women. Of course, all mankind should be treated with impartiality, respect, and dignity; but the only basis for that dignity is found in the Christian Gospel.
The Bible does not produce oppressed women; sin in man produces oppressed women. The Bible offers the cure: a new heart, through the good news of Christ’s atoning work on the cross. We cannot legislate or protest our way out of the mess we are in. We must repent of our hatred towards God, His Word, and His Church.
However, a word to Trump supporters. I didn’t vote for Trump, for I found him, his policies and his lack of forthrightness on what his undergirding principles were appalling. That said, many of his appointees, and some of his executive orders “repealing” Obama’s overreaches are moves in the right direction. I am ready to applaud where he happens to reduce the size of government, and I’m prepared to oppose his overreaches. You should be prepared to do so as well.
Now, to Christians caught in the thick of all this. Many Christians who opposed Trump have made the mistake of lumping in their loyalty with the aforementioned “tizzy party”. Christian Trumpers though are showing a dangerous amount of blind loyalty to Trump. I saw both “sides” bickering over whether Obama or Trump had more people at his inauguration. This is a profound case of the pettiness that is causing our inability to have a grown-up debate on all these issues. A Christian’s loyalty must rest with King Jesus alone, and then, in allegiance to Him, we submit to how His Word commands we build our culture.[epq-quote align=”align-left”]A Christian’s loyalty must rest with King Jesus alone, and then, in allegiance to Him, we submit to how His Word commands we build our culture.[/epq-quote]
Finally, and then I promise I’ll be done for now, these protesters need to realize that letting movie stars and people like Madonna lecture the American people is precisely how Trump was elected in the first place. Enough Americans were tired of being told–by leftist celebrities–what to think and what they must embrace. I read recently that over the last several presidential cycles the average TV clip of a candidate has gone from 49 seconds down to 7 seconds. It maybe is no wonder that we can’t seem to have an intelligent conversation, when our attention span can’t handle patiently following an argument without wondering: “Where’s  some poster-board and a Sharpie?”
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More Diversity? Really?
You just sometimes can’t make this stuff up. Last month, CoverGirl feature this lovely lad as they’re featured model:
I had a little fun and wrote satirically about the sad knot of confusion our society has gotten itself into.
Well…they obviously are goading me on, but lo, and behold, this month they are featuring their first muslim CoverGirl. She is beautiful, and I have no issue with them featuring her, she is after all a girl on CoverGirl…as it should be. But then there is the way that Social Media responded with goosebumps of excitement over all this “diversity”:
Notice that emphatic prayer from our all inclusive society: “Yes! MORE. DIVERSITY. PLEASE.”
We can’t get enough diversity, we need more, gotta have it, nom, nom, nom. The problem is, we no longer have any objective standard (other than the moving target of diversity) for what is actually beautiful. If all you want is diversity, you will no longer have any meaningful definition of beautiful. If lady-boy is what we now admire as loveliness, why stop there?
I mean, really, why are we so narrow minded as to leave this guy out of the diversity celebration:
This sad fellow, subject of many a meme, is not beautiful. However, the tolerance & diversity crowd must acknowledge, from the corner in which they’ve painted themselves into, that this guy is beautiful and has the same right to grace the front cover of their magazines as lady-boy, the Muslim girl, or Kim (either Kardashian or Jong-un).
In essence, we our moral relativity has brought us to the point where nothing is meaningful, and diversity itself will simply being an impotent word, stripped of al its essential meaning. Then nothing true, good, or beautiful will remain, and we will wonder what it used to be like when women were creation’s loveliest creature and strength of men was the pride of the earth.
Diversity is wonderful, but so long as it stays in the bounds of reality and God’s created order. Lawless men are not free men, they are lead in the crucible, slowly melting into an indiscernible puddle of dross.
Another Point for the Men
I am proud to say that we now live in such a tolerant and diverse society that my nine month old son can now grow up to be anything he wants. Take for example the fact that the latest front page of CoverGirl featured a CoverBoy for the first time.
What a hope-filled generation this is…full of aspirations, and after decades of Disney telling us to follow our hearts, we have finally broken free and discovered ourselves. Men have been shut out from gracing the covers of beauty magazines for generations, and this has perpetuated a culture that leaves boys insecure that they are not beautiful enough. It has left them to squander their lives away by fixing engines and caking their hands with grease. It has left them with sunburned, rugged skin from longs hours at construction sites, lumber yards, corn harvest, and such repressive activities.
But at long last, men have broken the gender barrier, and are now able to become woman of the year, like Bruce Jenner, or CoverGirl. In fact, my personal opinion here, it takes a real man to be a woman of the year or CoverGirl. There’s nowhere but up here for men. What feminists have been unable to accomplish for decades, men have finally attained…equal magazine time for all.
In all seriousness, we have come to the point where we are celebrating our shame. And yes…mockery is the only response when we applaud our young men for painting themselves like clowns. When you act the court jester, expect the court’s laughter. This generation is sadly confused and has found that the reward for all their tolerance activism is now a bland world of no meaningful variation and diversity. We’ve aimed for diversity for its own sake, and our culture is now as flavorful as Malt-O-Meal porridge.
The feminists wanted to overthrow the oppression of men, they demanded equality at all costs; and now their crusades are entirely irrelevant, because what a man is and what a woman is no longer is of any consequence. Only your “feels” matter. Their glory is their shame…this CoverBoy’s “beauty” is his shame. He’s made in the image of God to be male…to go plow a field and raise a family by the sweat of his brow, the toil of his mind, and provide for his wife something that she might make beautiful.
Now, men are allowed to usurp the position of the fairer sex, or as Milton put it “heaven’s last best gift” and insist that we want to be pretty too. Men weren’t made to be pretty…we were made to sweat, bleed, and toil so she could be pretty.
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A Suggestion for Kaepernick
The sports world is all abuzz with commentary, criticism, support, disgust, and a wide variety of other responses to Colin Kaepernick‘s refusal to stand for the National Anthem. If this is the first you’ve heard about it, you haven’t missed much. To ‘splain, wait, that’d take too long, let me sum up: the 49ers quarterback has garnered a lot of attention for not standing during the National Anthem in a show of solidarity for the mistreatment of black Americans at the hands of law enforcement.
Now, regardless of my personal view of his “protest” (not a positive view, mind you), I would actually like to make a friendly suggestion to him that I think would launch his protest from the Bay level to the Stratosphere level. This idea would be a neon flashing light for his cause, and would almost ensure that the whole News media would continue talking about him & his protest for the foreseeable future.
Here it is:
At the next game, during the National Anthem, all eyes will be on Kaepernick; he should sanctimoniously stand up, march as close as he can to midfield and unfurl an upside down American flag (the sign of a ship in distress) with these two facts written on it: 1) black babies 5x more likely to be aborted than white babies & 2) 1 of every 2 black babies will be aborted.
If he cares about protecting and preserving black lives, he should do this at every game this season, unapologetically, and rally the nation to outlaw abortions once and for all. Otherwise, we will just assume he is just another celebrity pulling a publicity stunt. There’s a long and glorious tradition of peaceful protests, if Kaepernick would like to go down as a modern day Wilberforce, perhaps he’ll take my advice. But alas, this all will likely fizzle out far sooner than it should, and not bring awareness to the real genocide being carried out against black America every day.
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Surprised by the Hardwood Floor
The Thud of Our Keister
We have come to the point where our society’s keister has been brought up short by the hardwood floor of reality; we kicked the chair of Biblical order and authority out from under us, and now we find that the Law’s of the Creator determine that those who would defy and redefine gravity will–in the end–find their end (usually resulting in an unforgiving “thud”).
We’ve railed against “the Patriarchy”, and now are surprised by the hard and brutal truth of a society without Fathers. We’ve spared the rod of fatherly protection, and now have spoiled a generation; our boys have been curdled with effeminacy, our daughters with the mouldering loneliness which comes from Enlightenment individualism.
By forsaking the Biblical order of the home, our sons and daughters have been brought up without the guidance of parents wisdom, and now have come to the inevitable conclusion of moral subjectivism; this results in thinking they can make squares that are circle, up that is down, and feelings which trump DNA.
Our Sons & Daughters
Our daughters are attending drunken parties as expressions of their millennial independence, then being raped behind dumpsters by white-washed tombs of Western Culture. But don’t talk to us about the protection afforded by strong, wise, and caring Fathers.
Our sons have become professional rapists because we have taken them to the movies that taught them how; all in the name of a good time. Then our Victorian sensibilities are dumbstrrruck (roll the r there) when they demonstrate what spirit they are of: the libertine spirit of this age of subjective morals. We’ve raised them on the Disney message “follow your heart”, which brought them to binge on pornography by the time they are 12, and then we harvest what we’ve sown as they come of age: greedy and lecherous fools.
Reaping What We’ve Sown
We should be proud of the morally ambiguous creatures which our self-esteem, follow your heart, fulfill your destiny, do what feels right instruction has produced. They have discovered themselves, wasn’t that our goal? Oh, but in discovering themselves, we found that the human heart is a dark pit of sin, idolatry, and selfishness.
There is no excuse for what Brock Turner did. None. This case, by all accounts, is one of the saddest miscarriages of justice we’ve seen in recent years. However, should we be surprised that justice is miscarried when we’ve insisted on rejecting the moral/legal framework of the Christian worldview, which would afford the maximum penalty of the death sentence for rapists (Deu. 22:25)?
We will not have God’s rule over us, and so we ought not be surprised that our society is now ruled by the laws of devils. We’ve failed to instruct our sons and daughters in the ways of biblical wisdom, and now we are reaping a harvest of adults who have no moral north pole. We let our children discover themselves, yet the human heart is incapable of plumbing the depths of its own wickedness.
The only way to “discover oneself” is in the light of the Gospel, which tells us we’re sinners in need of a Savior. The good news is that when we find ourselves crashing into the hardwood floors of reality we are conveniently positioned to kneel in repentance.
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