Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Right Side of History

Right Side of History

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Eww, Dad-ishness

A common motto of the progressive left––whether arguing for homosexual marriage, state-funded transgender surgeries, dismemberment of a child in utero, or state-run health care––is that their opponents are on the “wrong side of history.” 

This sentiment plays well with society on the whole. After all, who wants to be seen with a flip-phone, wearing crocs, or sporting a bucket hat. Ew, to being backwards. Ew, to dad-ishness. Our age craves being savvy. You have to be to keep up with the leaps and bounds technology has made over the last decades.

With all the technological invasion––er––innovation, we also conclude that our morality needs tinkering with as well. If ever there was a crime to the modern mind, it is the crime of being a backwards bumpkin. The virtue of the age is being up-to-date with all the current sentiment.

The God of Our Age

This reveals that our god is not the Living God of the Bible, but the god demos. Mankind is our god. Thus, the whims of this god dictate our morals, our values, our sentiments, and our cultural mores. When “the people” are in charge, sentiments come into and out of fashion like Fourth of July fireworks. Up they go, boom they go, into oblivion they go. 

We have no underlying foundation underneath us, and so we are gullible for every new sentiment that demos demands that we go along with. In this year’s Miss Universe pageant, one contestant was a man, claiming to represent all women; he has the testicular fortitude to do this because he’s (well a man) and he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to look like a woman. If you can afford it, then anyone can be a woman. Then demos demands you applaud him as he feigns his femininity down the catwalk.

In another episode of the madness which demos has brought upon us, “parents” can decide to not assign their child a gender, and we are to shed a tear at the preciousness of their forward thinking. A young boy is dressed in drag, dances for a bunch of men, who throw dollar bills and catcall, and we’re told to be tolerant.

If you raise objections to these unsavory episodes in our cultural evolution to a utopia of brotherhood…er, I mean sisterhood, cause #TheFutureIsFemale…and peace and inclusivity, you are tsk-tsk-ed for not being on the right side of history. But this brings up an interesting question: how do we know whether we are reading history correctly?

Reading History Rightly

C.S. Lewis raised this question in his essay Historicism. In essence, as Christians we believe that God is the author of all history, and thus all history has meaning. The problem is when we assume we can interpret that history correctly. Lewis states, “I do not dispute that History is a story written by the finger of God. But have we the text?”1Lewis, C. S.. Christian Reflections (p. 130). HarperOne. Kindle Edition. It is the pinnacle of our arrogance that we think we’ve got the bird’s eye view of the story that we are in. We have one line in this great story, and we think we have the insight to understand the whole novel.

Lewis points out that while we think that history has preserved for us “important” figures, he gives the illustration of Genghis Khan, how are we sure that Khan is actually an important actor in the story God is telling. Perhaps the main character in that scene is one of his many victims and the patience they showed in the midst of their suffering. We don’t know how to read history very well (we actually don’t know how to read many things very well, but I digress).

Claiming to be on the right side of history, is claiming that the gods have spoken. Since demos is the god of our age (thank you, Karl Marx) we should not be surprised at the use which is made of turning “current-ness” into a dividing line between the righteous and unrighteous, the woke and the broke, the open-minded and the bigots. We decided to splurge on our lusts, and any restraint on our desires will anger the god. Demos demands that we read history according to his authority, and he says selling baby parts to heat our hospitals is a-ok. So get with the times.

Not Our Story to Tell

However, history isn’t the story of mankind. It is the story of God becoming a man, in order to redeem mankind. All mankind was entirely on the wrong side of everything: history, art, science, and racial/gender studies of the 17th century. Every religion has sought to make history mean something. But this means we also have the mystical insight of the gods; which is why we have sought to become as God.

A story is precisely the sort of thing that cannot be understood till you have heard the whole of it .2Lewis, C. S.. Christian Reflections (p. 132). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

But if God became a man, we would know something about the story God is telling. It is a story of creation, fall, redemption, judgement, and ultimately a resurrection. Christ was born, died, rose again, and this is––as Spurgeon once put it––the hinge of history. All other events must be in reference to that great event. 

The secularist appeal to being on the “right side of history” is really just a recapitulation of the serpent’s lie in Eden. It is an appeal to think we can tell and interpret our own story. To us this is not given. We can’t even recount every last detail of the last ten minutes (let alone what it means); so who are you, oh man, to think you can interpret the trajectory of all of human history? Never be bullied into thinking you must think like the crowd, simply out of fear of being on the wrong side of history. Rather, fear being on the wrong side of the Son of Man when he comes to separate the sheep and the goats (Cf. Mt. 25).

I recently published a collection of my essays. It is available in Kindle & Paperback over at Amazon:

References[+]

It Would Only Take 3,144 Doctors

It Would Only Take 3,144 Doctors

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My friend Toby Sumpter wrote a piece recently, outlining a very cogent argument for how individual States could quite practically abolish abortion overnight by doing to the abortion issue what Colorado and Washington did with the Marijuana issue. We need an all (peaceful) ideas on the table mentality when it comes to abortion, so here is something that I’ve been mulling over that I think is quite attainable within a decade or so, where we coordinated enough to do it. I’d also point you to EndAbortionNow.com as a great work in this fight. In light of the latest video exposing the butchery of Planned Parenthood, here is an idea.

Another Video Exposing Planned Parenthood’s Butcher of the Unborn Dropped Yesterday

There are around 200,000-300,000 Protestant churches. Obviously not all of them are doctrinally sound, spiritual healthy, or interested in the abortion issue. So, take just half of those churches.

150,000 churches. 50 states. 3,144 counties.

That’s 3000 churches per state, and roughly 47 per county.

One of the most persuasive talking points that Planned Parenthood has in their arsenal is that they provide access to health care for women. Now, this has obviously been debunked numerous times, and of course their “health-care” involves slaughtering infants and selling their organs for profit.

However, what if we zeroed in on that claim and over a decade worked to open women’s health care clinics in every county in the US? What if the church subsidized many of the “crisis pregnancy centers” which have done so much good work over the last 40 years, and provided comprehensive health care for women. What if we offered a better product at a lower cost than Planned Parenthood?

Legislation is one front in this war. We do not fight merely to pull down, but to build something better in its place. I want to direct this especially at Christian high school and college students who are passionate about this fight: what if you aimed you life purpose to get a medical degree in order to run one of these clinics. It could only take 3,144 doctors.

The Trumpheaval

The Trumpheaval

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My Reaction to Trump Thus Far

It has been a while since I commented on the convulsions o’er yonder in D.C. Thus far, the Trump Administration has done things I’ve been pleasantly surprised by: withdrawing from the Paris Accords, appointing Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, many of his other cabinet appointments, the general direction of his tax/economic policies, the some of the foreign policy decisions, and I’ve enjoyed calling my coffee covfefe (makes me feel exotic). Other things have been unsurprising and were my concerns in the GOP primary last year: very soft on abortion and homosexual mirage, wanting to replace Obamacare rather than an entire repeal, and some of the continuing uncertainty surrounding what Trump’s intended aims are (what does he mean by making America great again).

One thing that has been of continual pleasure though, is how the media and the left have exhausted themselves in chasing after his every decoy. He tweets, they foment outrage for a week. Then he tweets again, and they obediently comply with their dutiful railings against his unpresidential methods. He is playing them like a fiddle, and it still seems like the media especially are profoundly dense at recognizing how dependent they’ve become on him. If the news media is content to waste their energy trying to sniff up every possible link between Moscow (the one I don’t live in) and Trump, and tire out their audience, have at it. Their emotional tank is running on fumes and they still have three and a half more years–at least–of this.

In Soviet Russia…

Speaking of Russia, I think perhaps the one observation I think is important to make is that the left and the media–but I repeat myself–can’t seem to leave this alone. It isn’t that they think it is important, but it is that they think they’ve found something the American people will side with them on in their attempt to slow down Trump’s presidency. However, we must not forget that Trump did the customary thing of letting his opponent, Clinton, concede graciously and fade into the background.

Weeks before the election he was threatening to “lock her up.” Clinton’s corruption and HER links to Russia were perhaps one of the voters’ primary reason for disdaining her. This Trump + Russia story that the media can’t seem to let go of is curious, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump resurrect his threat to investigate Clinton’s emails issue. If he does, the Russia story will be dropped within moments. “What ties to Russia? We never were concerned about Russian hackers…that was the paranoid GOP.”

We Hate the Womb, Because We Serve the Serpent

Notice, though, that the media has not risen up in ire that three of our states are seeking to negotiate a treaty with other countries, which is an actual act of treason. If nothing else, we are in for a very tumultuous couple of years, and we deserve it. After all, these are our news stories: feminists no longer want men to join their cause because men are just not to be trusted, unless they are dressed as a woman, the anus is now a sex organ which teens are being taught to use as such, because heaven forbid we actually conceive a child (which if you do you are damaging the environment). We hate the woman’s womb because it reminds us that the Seed of our first mother crushed the head of the Serpent our nation has come to serve. We have tolerated this idolatry and rebellion against God and nature, and thus, we deserve every tweet-storm from Trump and every upheaval that is coming.

Marching to a Better Song

Marching to a Better Song

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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.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.

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? 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? 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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A Suggestion for Kaepernick

A Suggestion for Kaepernick

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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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Missing the Forest for the Trees

Missing the Forest for the Trees

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A Few Thoughts

There seems to be a debate amongst Christians as to whether we ought to respond to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter. It seems to me that we must be careful to affirm the right thing, and rebuke, from scripture the right thing. In this case, it seems like many Christians are ceding something they ought not to, in an effort to heal a wound they ought to.

The common argument is that to respond to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter is to overlook the plights of injustice which the black community faces. One example I’ve seen used is that by saying everyone should eat, but not giving Bob a plate of food is to overlook the individual issue. As far as it goes, that may well be true. My concern is that the #BlackLivesMatter movement divides into two camps, those folks who genuinely want to voice their concerns about perceived & actual injustices and those who want to use the BLM movement to advance a liberal tax agenda by securing a segment of the electorate.

The first group has some legitimate concerns which need addressing, the later are shameless charlatans which we must not cede the moral high ground to.

Two Reminders

First, Planned Parenthood has killed more black people this year than Law Enforcement does in 10 years. As @Chocolate_Knox put it:

Second, the tax policies of white liberals has been, by far, the most detrimental factor over the decades to the black community. It has produced a culture of fatherlessness, as a single, black mom, with 4 kids gets more income from government welfare programs than she would have from a hard-working husband. When our government has incentivized a system where it is well-nigh impossible for responsible black man to provide a better living than the government welfare system can, we should not be surprised at the result of decades of fatherlessness in that community. Any community would suffer from such a blight.

Studies have repeatedly shown that crime rate, drug use, educational achievement, poverty, etc. change dramatically for the better, when there is a father in the home. Marriage has been dis-incentivized, and the federal government has replaced fathers like a scowling, and humorless governess.

What to do then…

The saddest thing in all this is the shameless exploitation of the black community, through the impoverishing effects of tax policies which deprive black children of fathers. The real tragedy here, which ought to be making headlines, is the disproportionate deaths of black children at the hands of Planned Butcherhood clinics, who have been selling their body parts, at profit, to ensure that white liberals can buy their Lamborghini!

Thus, my concern for Christians is that we miss the forest for the trees. We quibble over the proper response to the outcry from #BlackLivesMatter, and miss the fact that another generation of black children has been systematically either orphaned or, what’s worse, butchered and sold like chattel.

We are told to disciple the nations, in the process of this we will often be tempted to forsake that task and adopt agenda of Satan’s humanistic worldview, which only encumbers, enslaves and kills. We are to set the captive free, and to do this, the Bible and not humanistic moralism must be our authority. Humanism leads to segmentation into voting blocks which can be controlled and, thus, racism always ensues; the Gospel, on the other hand, leads to repentance of our individual and hereditary sins, and, thus, the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2).

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Dead Silence

Dead Silence

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Mr. Trump…

…your silence this week on the Supreme Court’s ruling which struck down Texas’ abortion laws, spoke volumes. You, as the GOP’s presumptive nominee, are now the spokesperson for the pro-life movement, and the fact that you offered no rebuttal, rebuke, or response is shameful; you’ve already scratched the bottom of the shameful behavior barrel, but your dead silence on this miscarriage of justice was quite telling.

We’ve spent over a year now hearing your wildly flailing remarks on a whole range of topics, as it seems nothing was off limits to you. You mocked a respected conservative journalist in Megan Kelly, and spent weeks exhibiting behavior more suited to a pre-schooler. You defended your steaks, your wine, your hotels, your university, your abusive staff, all while berating men and women who have spent much of their lives and reputations fighting for conservative causes (Erik Erickson, Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz, etc.).

Your language was often on just this side of libelous slander, and you did not shy away from airing crazy, loony-tune stories about Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. You’ve probably had more airtime than any GOP candidate has had in decades, combined!

And yet here, when the lives of millions of innocent babies are at stake, you, Mr. Trump, failed to decry this latest abomination, all while basking in the praise and endorsements of so-called evangelical leaders. This is not only sickening, it is a cause for great sorrow. You’ve been a great butt of many jokes, and ridicule and mockery are generally the only fitting response to you and your policy proposals.

Spineless When it Mattered

But here, I cannot laugh, I must mourn the betrayal of the pro-life movement into the hands of an egotistical salesman. Your silence ought to have been the death knell of any support from evangelical Christians, but as Jeremiah once said, “my people love to have it so (Jer. 5:31)”. Sir, with all do respect, you have undertaken to be given the mantle of leadership of a country whose hands are stained with the blood of millions of children. That ought to haunt your sleep, cause your fists to clench, and put iron in your spine to spend your energy denouncing and ending this heinous practice which our judiciary has failed to end.

Instead, silence. From a man known to run his mouth, silence. From a man who is a father to a lovely family, silence. From a presidential candidate who is now the leader of the pro-life movement, silence. A dead silence, with all the meaning of that phrase. You are either too timid, or too calculating (which is worse) to speak up when black babies will be slaughtered in disproportionate numbers because abortion continues. Sir, if you have an ounce of the bravado which you daily parade on Twitter, you would use it to put in front of the American conscience the fact that we have dissected 540,000 unborn Americans this year. Were you silent because you were sickened by this? Or because you do not care?

Please, Mr. Trump, you must be made to care; and one day, you will be made to care (Rom. 2:6).

Update:

Since originally publishing this on June 29, 2016, Mr. Trump finally denounced the Supreme Court ruling.

However, the underlying issue of his ambivalence towards this dire matter still remains of extreme concern.

Want to do something?

22 weeks abortion
© Center for Bio-Ethical Reform

Share this image. This is a 22 week old baby. My sister and sister-in-law are both about this far along in their pregnancies; meaning, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could not inhibit the slaughtering of a child this old.

Also, call your Senators, Representatives, the Trump Campaign (646-736-1779)

Do not be silent.

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Murder Only 3% of the Time

Murder Only 3% of the Time

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So the Senate voted to defund Planned Parenthood, and for this we ought lift up grateful praise to the Lord for a small victory. However, you’ll likely see the Twitter-sphere abuzz with how calloused these politicians are to deprive women of their healthcare, when abortions are only 3% of what PP does.

Screen Shot 2015-12-04 at 10.53.37 AM
Dr. Quack says, “See…I don’t ONLY do amputations…that’s only a third of what I do!”

Planned Parenthood claims abortions account for only 3% of their services; this is a profoundly deceptive statistic. This is creative marketing. They also count handing out a condom as one of their services. It’s like a Doctor amputating a patients leg, handing him an aspirin and then claiming that the amputation was only 50% of the procedure. Or as Rich Lowry finely illustrated here: “Major League Baseball teams could say that they sell about 20 million hot dogs and play 2,430 games in a season, so baseball is only .012 percent of what they do.”

Nevertheless, by whatever metric you decide to use…it is intolerable to legally allow the dismembering of an unborn infant and then to also fund it via tax dollars. By Planned Parenthood’s metric a serial murderer could claim that only 3% of his activities were murder, and so if you want to execute him you must be against eating cereal and getting dressed in the morning. Hater…

Ben Zornes