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Progressive view of American history: The good old days were all bad.

Posted by :admin On : October 31, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Education, Progressivism, Truth

There seems to be few things that are exempt from the battlefields of the culture wars. The latest casualty is history…you know, the stuff that is learned in high school or at least what people used to learn in high school. But the history lessons taught in American schools for 200 years following the founding has been dumped by the education establishment in recent years. American history is no longer the grand story of American culture since the arrival of the first Europeans but has become a tool to promote the liberal political/cultural agenda. The nation’s history recorded by each generation’s citizens and eye-witness historians is an accurate record of America’s story. But now we have the latest two or three generations which claim the five hundred years of American history recorded by thousands of historians over the period is distorted and not reflective of the real story. Therefore, it must be trashed and replaced by a revised interpretation of history consistent with the current enlightened understanding of what really happened.

This approach to history is not new for it has been around since the early 1800s. It is called the Whig theory of history and is also known as the Progressive theory of history. This theory rests on the belief that the most advanced point in time represents the point of highest development. It assumes “…that history is an inevitable march upward into the light. In other words, step by step, the world always progresses, and this progress is inevitable.” [1] Thus, the historical record must be judged only in light of current beliefs, assumptions, and politics, all devoid of timeless truths, wisdom accumulated through the ages, tradition, and heritage. The roots of the Whig theory reach back to the humanistic concept of human perfectibility of the French philosophers which arose during the Age of Enlightenment during the eighteenth century. Known as progressivism, the theory contradicts the Christian view of man as having a fallen nature.

The progressive theory of history is alive and well in the twenty-first century halls of academia and the organizations that serve its needs. One of those organizations is the College Board whose membership is comprised of 6,000 institutions of higher education. Its mission is to expand access to higher education by helping students to achieve college readiness and college success through such programs as the SAT and the Advanced Placement Program. The organization also acts in areas of research and advocacy for the education community. [2] It is in the College Board’s new Advance Placement course in history that dramatically advances the progressive view of history and which has caused considerable concern to many including the Texas State Board of Education and the Republican National Committee as well as some of the more conservative members of the Golden, Colorado school board.

The school board wants to review the College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. history course which they believe contains significant anti-American content. The school board proposed to establish a committee to review texts and course plans to assure the course materials were balanced and “promote more citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights” and “don’t encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard for the law.” [3]

Now, who could argue with teaching that promotes a good citizenship and patriotism in a well-ordered and lawful society? Well, hundreds of students, parents, and teachers are bothered by such radical ideas and have been protesting the school board’s planned review for weeks. The protesters claim the board is attempting to change the course content to suit their views (what about the views of the people that elected them?). The College Board’s Advanced Placement history course content being taught for the first time this school year “gives greater attention to the history of North American and its native people before colonization and their clashes with Europeans, but critics say it downplays the settlers’ success in establishing a new nation.” The College Board stated that the course was built “around themes like ‘politics and power’ and ‘environment and geography’.” However, what is missing from the course framework is as significant as that which is included. For example, Martin Luther King isn’t mentioned, but the Black Panthers are. The Board explained that the content was not to be considered exhaustive, but one New Jersey teacher cut to the heart of the College Board’s unspoken agenda. He argues that the course “…has a global, revisionist view” and “depicts the U.S. as going from conquering Native Americans to becoming an imperial power, while downplaying examples of cooperation and unity.” [4]

To a large extent, Americans are a people that are ignorant of their history. Because they don’t know where they came from, they are unaware of the dangers into which the dominant humanistic worldview is leading America. This was not always so, and it has occurred by design and not by accident or neglect. The teaching of history falls within the sphere of education, and education has been in the hands of progressives for a hundred years. Of all of the institutions of life in America, the educational establishment is the one that is most saturated in the humanistic worldview which stands in direct opposition to the biblical worldview upon which the nation was founded.

The founder and architect of America’s progressive education was John Dewey who was bitterly hostile to Christianity and traditional Western thought. Dewey did not believe in the existence of God, supernatural religion, and life after death. Man was an evolutionary product and nature is all there is. The only thing that mattered was human self-realization through interaction with nature. On this foundation he built the progressive theory of education which emphasizes experience, observation, social responsibility, problem solving, and fitting in to society as opposed to centuries of traditional education by which is meant the acquisition of knowledge. [5] For progressives, the historical record holds little importance as a guide to the present and future unless it is used as the “horrible example” of America’s past sins for the purpose of leading ignorant citizens to surrender their values and freedom. From this denigration of American history, we see the obvious disconnect between progressive education and the traditional understanding of that history. If one holds the progressive view of history, the views of the present generation must be superior to those of past generations and by default superior to their concepts of timeless truths, ancestral wisdom, tradition, and heritage. In this denigration of America’s past, the progressive theories of education and history support and promote the larger all-encompassing philosophy of humanism which has been described in several earlier articles.

Ashley Maher is an eighteen year old Chatfield High School senior who helped organize the protests against the Golden school board’s plan to review the content of the Advance Placement history course. She assures that, “We are going to fight until we see some results.” [6] By “results,” it must be assumed she means that the school board’s desire to promote citizenship, patriotism, the free-market system, respect for authority, respect for individual rights, civil order, national unity, and respect for the law will be duly censored from any Advance Placement American history courses in Golden’s high schools. It would be interesting to hear Ms. Maher’s response to the question as to why her values and interpretation of American history are superior and should be taught while at the same time suppressing and/or misrepresenting the factual historical record about which she knows nothing. Following that moment of silence from Ms. Maher, it is also doubtful her parents or her Boomer grandparents peopling the picket lines could give a coherent, logical answer. Should they manage some sort of response, we counter with the words and actions of those eye-witnesses to American history: the Pilgrims and Puritans; colonial farmers and frontiersmen; Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and the rest of the founding generations; Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the Abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln, the Doughboys of WWI and soldiers, sailors, and airmen of WWII, and millions of others who made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. For most modern-day Americans of the last three generations, it would be an answer they have not heard thanks to humanism’s revisionist view of American history and suppression of the historical record of our ancestors.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Murray N. Rothbard, “The Progressive Theory of History,” Ludwig von Mises Institute, September 14, 2010. http://mises.org/daily/4708 (accessed October 28, 2014).
[2] College Board, https://www.collegeboard.org/about (accessed October 14, 2014).
[3] Colleen Slevin, “Colorado board backs review of curriculum,” Tulsa World, October 3, 2014, A9.
[4] Colleen Slevin, “Critics slam school board over history course review,” Tulsa World, October 4, 2014, A4.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 23-24, 289-290
[6] Slevin, “Critics slam school board over history course review,” A4.

The synchronization of the American church?

Posted by :admin On : October 24, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, God's Law v. Man's Law, Government, Homosexuality

“This court has no jurisdiction over me, I am a German,” insisted Herman Goring as he stood with other Nazi war criminals in 1946 before an international military tribunal in Nuremburg, Germany. But Robert Jackson, chief counsel for the United States, responded that “…there was a ‘law above the law’ that stood in judgment of all men in all countries and societies.”[1] These contrasting views of the source of laws by which men should be judged continue to be at the heart of the cultural conflict in America—is the ultimate source of law to be God or man? Modern America and the American church face the same dilemma as faced by Germany and the German church of the 1930s.

We have previously quoted Eric Metaxas with regard to the dramatic changes in German life following the democratic election of Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933. In less than two months the democratically elected Reichstag (parliament) succumbed to pressure from the Nazi political machine and placed the whole power of the government under Hitler’s control. Thus began a series of radical changes to conform all of German life to Nazi rule. Metaxas’ eloquent assessment of events bears repeating.

With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made “legal.” Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself…In the First months of Nazi rule, the speed and scope of what the Nazis intended and had begun executing throughout German society were staggering. Under what was called the Gleichschaltung (synchronization), the country would be thoroughly reordered along National Socialist lines. No one dreamed how quickly and dramatically things would change.[2] (emphasis added)

Herman Goring, the second most powerful man in Germany and founder of the Gestapo, called this dramatic reordering of society merely an “administrative change.”[3] “Everything must now be synchronized under the Fuhrer’s leadership and under the idea of Gleichschaltung—and the church must lead the way.”[4] The synchronization of the church began with a series of regulations and laws that effectively wed the church to the state and compromised the very biblical principles upon which their faith rested. These laws and regulations initially dealt with the “Jewish question” and included restrictions on Jews from serving in professions such as the law, medicine, teaching, literature, the arts, theater, and film. Christians of Jewish blood were also prohibited from serving in the ministry.[5]

Casting aside two millennia of Christian orthodoxy, the majority of the German churches willingly allowed themselves to be synchronized with the prevailing German political and social goals instead of the teachings of Jesus Christ. They wanted a strong state-oriented church, a “positive Christianity” that was “very aggressive in attacking those who didn’t agree with them and generally caused much confusion and division in the church.”[6] Eventually, the German church of the 1930s separated into three groups: the large apostate German Christian church, the Confessing church which initially opposed Hitler but became the silent church of appeasement, and a small but faithful remnant that became the uncompromising and suffering church. We see much the same divisions between churches in twenty-first century America, only the dividing factor is now centered on humanism which Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “the most severe enemy” that Christianity ever had.[7]

Bonhoeffer was a leader in in opposition to the Nazis and the German apostate church. Bonhoeffer preached that the purpose of the state was to make possible law and order as opposed to lawlessness and disorder, and it was the church’s role to “continually ask” whether the state’s actions could be justified as legitimate. But Bonhoeffer also recognized that the state could not only fail by in the provision of law and order but could also harm society with the imposition of “excessive law and order.”[8] Metaxas quotes Bonhoeffer’s indictment of the Nazi regime.

And if on the other hand, the state is creating an atmosphere of “excessive law and order,” it’s the job of the church to draw the state’s attention to that too. If the state is creating “excessive law and order,” then “the state develops its power to such an extent that it deprives Christian preaching and Christian faith…of their rights.” Bonhoeffer called this a “grotesque situation.” “The church,” he said, “must reject this encroachment of the order of the state precisely because of its better knowledge of the state and of the limitations of its action. The state which endangers the Christian proclamation negates itself.”[9]

An excess of law and order makes it difficult if not impossible for the church to question the state regarding the legitimacy of its actions. By questioning the state’s excessive laws and order imposed on its citizens, the church may violate the very laws to which it objects. The inability of the church to question the state with regard to its actions is particularly relevant to the twenty-first century American church which finds itself at the same point of decision as faced by the German Church in 1933. Here we return to our initial observation that essence of the modern struggle in America is to determine whether man’s law supersedes God’s law. Put another way, is man’s law above God’s law as implied by Herman Goring and much of the humanistic leadership in American society? Two immediate examples expose the seriousness and immediacy of the challenge to the church.

Annise Parker is the left-leaning and openly gay mayor of Houston, Texas, America’s fourth largest City. In May she imposed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance which prohibits businesses from discriminating against gay and transgender residents. The ordinance became known as the “bathroom bill” because one of the provisions allows transgender individuals to use either a male or female public restroom facility. Opposition to the ordinance began growing during the summer as pastors and various religious leaders gathered signatures for a referendum to be placed on the November ballot which would repeal the ordinance if passed. To prevent the referendum, the city attorney subsequently rejected thousands of signatures he believed did not qualify.[10]

Under the guidance of the mayor and city attorney, both still smarting from the significant efforts of the religious community to repeal the human rights ordinance, five pastors were subpoenaed and ordered to turn over to their sermons, text messages, photographs, electronic files, calendars, and emails and virtually all communication with members of their congregations on topics such as homosexuality and gender identity. The pastors face fines and possible incarceration if they fail to do so. The obvious goal of the mayor and city attorney is intimidation. However, one pastor responded, “We’re not intimidated at all. We’re not going to yield our First Amendment rights—even if it ends in fines, confinement, or both.”[11] With opposition growing to the mayor’s effort to silence the church, Houston City Attorney Feldman remained unfazed and warned the pastors that, “The fact that you happen to be a pastor and you happen to be at a church doesn’t provide you with protection.”[12] But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had a different interpretation for Feldman contained in an official letter to the city, “Whether you intend it to be so or not, your action is a direct assault on the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment. The people of Houston and their religious leaders must be absolutely secure in the knowledge that their religious affairs are beyond the reach of the government. Nothing short of an immediate reversal by your office will provide that security.”[13] [emphasis added]

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, is a lot smaller (about 46,000) and a long way from America’s fourth largest city. But for the liberals and other advocates of the homosexual agenda, no place is too small to be overlooked when rooting out any perceived violation of human rights. Ministers Don and Evelyn Knapp who have been marrying couples for twenty-five years at their Hitching Post Wedding Chapel recently discovered this when the city told them that they would go straight to jail if they refused to “marry” same-sex couples (180 days in jail and fines up to $1,000 per day for every day the ministers refuse to perform the ceremony). Unlike the Colorado cake baker’s business, the Knapp’s chapel is a religious corporation. But this makes little difference to the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender mafia as they trample religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment under the guise of achieving their perverted definition of human rights.[14]

Albert Einstein was exiled from Germany because he was a Jew. Although he did not believe in a personal God, he was not an atheist. He described himself as somewhere between an agnostic and belief in a pantheistic god in which nature is the totality of everything and is identical with divinity. Yet, even though he was not a believer in Christianity, the suffering church had a profound impact on his life.

Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came I looked to the universities to defend it…the universities took refuge in silence. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers…but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few weeks. I then addressed myself to the authors…They are, in turn, very dumb. Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.[15]

As it was for the German church in 1933, it is decision time for the American church of today. We must ask ourselves: At what point do we have to become lawbreakers rather than betray our faith? The Houston pastors have given their answer.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God, (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), pp. 60-61.
[2] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 149-150.
[3] Ibid., p. 157.
[4] Ibid., p 176.
[5] Ibid., pp. 150-151, 156-157, 160.
[6] Ibid., p. 151.
[7] Ibid., p. 85.
[8] Ibid., pp. 153-154.
[9] Ibid., p. 153.
[10] Josh Sanburn, “Houston Pastors Outraged After City Subpoenas Sermons Over Transgender Bill,” Time, October 17, 2014.
http://time.com/3514166/houston-pastors-sermons-subpoenaed/ (accessed October 21, 2014).
[11] Tony Perkins, “Houstunned: Pastors Vow to Fight Mayor’s Sermon Grab,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 15, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/houstunned-pastors-vow-to-fight-mayors-sermon-grab (accessed October 21, 2014).
[12] Tony Perkins, “A Subpoena for Your Thoughts…”, Tony Perkins Washington Update, October 17, 2014. http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/a-subpoena-for-your-thoughts (accessed October 21, 2014).
[13] Tony Perkins, “Pulpit Friction: Texas Leaders Rally to Pastors’ Defense,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 16, 2014. http://www.frcblog.com/2014/10/pulpit-friction-tx-leaders-rally-pastors-defense/ (accessed October 21, 2014).
[14] Tony Perkins, “Natural Marriage in Idaho: Give it Arrest,” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 20, 2014.
http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/natural-marriage-in-idaho-give-it-arrest (accessed October 21, 2014).
[15] Lutzer, p. 89-90.

Connecting the dots: The homosexual agenda

Posted by :admin On : October 17, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Education, Equality, Homosexuality

For many Americans who have been clueless about the homosexual agenda and its ultimate goal for American culture, the rapidity of recent events has caused their understanding to become clearer as the relevant features of the agenda reveal the big picture. Much like connecting the dots on a child’s line art puzzle, Americans are increasingly able to connect the dots of the homosexual agenda as each event/demand/right is connected with a preceding event/demand/right until what was once a jumble of seemingly unrelated and innocuous platitudes, occurrences, demands, and actions becomes a recognizable and frightening reality.

One of the major tools for winning concessions for the homosexual agenda is the plea/demand/right for tolerance and equality as defined by humanism. The humanists would force all to bend their knees at the altar of tolerance and equality, but that altar requires bowing to the god of humanism and embracing the consequent moral relativism which provides no means for finding truth or judging something based on the concept of right and wrong. For those that fail to bow, they become the objects of intolerant harassment through restrictions on free speech (speech codes), coercion, intimidation, and loss of religious freedom.

Current examples of the sacrifice of religious freedom upon the altars of humanist tolerance are legion. One of the many is the effort to crush religious freedom at Gordon College, a 125 year old nationally ranked liberal arts Christian college with 1700 students located in Wenham, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. The college’s website states that it “…combines an exceptional education with an informed Christian faith.”[1] However, the college’s effort to fulfill its promise regarding the provision of an informed Christian faith has caused it to run afoul of the New England Association of schools and Colleges‘ Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. Gordon is being charged with potentially violating the standards of the accrediting agency because of Gordon’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff, both on and off campus and its public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians. Loss of accreditation typically results in loss of U.S. Department of Education federal financial aid for students which tends to be a death knell for colleges.[2]

Commission director Barbara Brittingham states that the commission has not dealt with a case involving potential sexual orientation-related discrimination but that, “It’s a matter of looking at the information we have and deciding if the institution is meeting our standards.”[3] [emphasis added] One wonders if the commission’s standards include consideration of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.

But that is not the end of the story. It seems that the tentacles of humanistic tolerance must reach into all levels of society to choke out perceived discrimination. The City of Salem now refuses to let Gordon use its city-owned Old Town Hall because of the college’s policies violate a municipal ordinance that prohibits Salem from contracting with entities that discriminate. The mayor of Salem was exceptionally sharp in his criticism of the college. “The clear message is that homosexuals are not worthy of employment, or even recognition of their existence, in the Gordon community. It is a slap in the face of every gay and lesbian person, particularly every gay and lesbian Christian, that says you are somehow less of a human being, you do not belong in the embrace of God’s merciful arms.”[4] Apparently, the mayor has never read the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans in which God condemns homosexual behavior.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth…Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves… [Romans 1:18, 24. RSV]

A planned White House executive order will bar federal contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation and include colleges such as Gordon whose students receive federal financial aid. Numerous Christian leaders have requested the President to include a religious exemption.[5] If an exemption is not allowed, Christian colleges and universities across the nation will be forced to accept students and hire teachers whose beliefs contradict the beliefs, mission, and goals of those institutions.

One Gordon graduate and subsequent employee left Gordon because he could not come out as openly gay. He subsequently formed GordonOne, an LGBT organization. He believes that Gordon’s president “has made Gordon a fortress of faith rather than a place where the doors are open to people who want to be part of a conversation about what it means to be a Christian.”[6] [emphasis added] It is apparent from this former student-employee’s comment that we must begin any conversation about what it means to be a Christian with three assumptions: the Bible is not the final authority on what it means to be Christian, the Bible’s explicit condemnation of homosexuality cannot be accepted, and the doors of Christianity are not open to homosexuals. Only after these suppositions and assumptions are accepted can the conversation begin. In other words, Gordon’s goal of providing an “informed Christian faith” is acceptable only after being sanitized by the LGBT community to meet their litmus test of tolerance and equality. To pass that test, Gordon must surrender beliefs in unchanging biblical truth and that it must accept practicing homosexuals as Christians.

Gordon is not the only one in the crosshairs of the homosexual agenda. No organization is too large or too small to be strangled by the tentacles of its intolerant agenda. We’ve heard of the woes of various cake bakers who, based on their religious beliefs, had the effrontery to refuse to bake cakes for homosexual weddings. Now we have the case of the Kentucky tee shirt decorator who refused to make tee shirts for participants in a local gay-pride parade. After two years, Lexington’s Human Rights Commission ruled that the tee shirt maker violated the city’s “fairness” ordinance and was ordered to attend “diversity training” for re-education. The commission’s Executive Director Raymond Sexton believes that Christians in the marketplace must “…leave their religion at home.” Otherwise, he warned, “you can find yourself two years down the road and you’re still involved in a legal battle because you did not do so. We’re not telling somehow how to feel with respect to religion, but the law is pretty clear that if you operate a business to the public, you need to provide your services to people regardless…”[7] [emphasis added] But the Human Rights Commission is telling someone how to feel with respect to their religion. That is the purpose of diversity training…to tell someone how they ought to feel and think.

As the dots are connected on the picture of the homosexual agenda in America, it becomes increasingly evident that it portrays the suppression and consequent eradication of Christianity from the public square in America. The first amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Religious beliefs and feelings translate into exercise thereof, and the Constitution protects not only religious feelings and beliefs but free exercise as well. Commissioner Sexton and others promoting the homosexual agenda would prohibit both.

In light of the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion, how can the President, the New England Commission on Higher Education, the City of Salem, the City of Lexington, and a legion of others sidestep the Constitution by requiring Christians to abandon the exercise of their most deeply held religious beliefs? They cannot unless we allow them to do so. If we allow the demagogues of humanistic tolerance and equality to prevail, then the free exercise of religion will mean little more than that which can be practiced behind the closed doors of a silent church or in the muzzled confines of one’s heart. This certainly cannot be the intent of the Founders.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Gordon College, http://www.gordon.edu/ (accessed October 8, 2013).
[2] Matt Rocheleau, “Accrediting agency to review Gordon College,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/11/agency-review-whether-gordon-college-antigay-stance-policies-violate-accrediting-standards/Cti63s3A4cEHLGMPRQ5NyJ/story.html (accessed October 8, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Evan Allen, “Gordon College joins request for exemption to hiring rule,” The Boston Globe, July 4, 2014.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/03/gordon-college-president-signs-letter-asking-for-religious-exemption-from-order-banning-anti-gay-discrimination/79cgrbFOuUg7lxH2rKXOgO/story.html (accessed
October 13, 2014).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Tony Perkins, “Intolerance fits liberals to a T (Shirt),” Tony Perkins’ Washington Update, October 9, 2014.
http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/intolerance-fits-liberals-to-a-t-shirt (accessed October 13, 2014).

Same-sex marriage will be a bust for civilization

Posted by :admin On : October 10, 2014
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Category: Archives, Homosexuality, Humanism, Marriage

Lisa Bracken believes that legalization of same-sex marriage would be good for Oklahoma’s economy (“Same-sex marriage can be boon for economy”[1]). She is wrong on two counts.

In the short-term, the supposed economic gains will be enormously offset by costs associated with societal dysfunction caused by same-sex marriage. Even though the legitimization of same-sex marriage is relatively new, its devastating effects are already being felt in those countries that have allowed it. Documenting 10 years of same-sex marriage and civil unions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Hoover Institution researcher Stanley Kurtz found that it has led to far fewer marriages and soaring illegitimacy in which “80 percent of firstborn children are born out of wedlock, and 60 percent of children born thereafter are born to unwed parents. This has a devastating impact on children since unmarried parents are much more likely to separate.” Kurtz wrote, “Marriage in Scandinavia is in deep decline, with children shouldering the burden of rising rates of family dissolution. And the mainspring of the decline—an increasingly sharp separation between marriage and parenthood—can be linked to gay marriage.”[2]

In the longer term, homosexuality and same-sex marriage undermines society. The central cultural vision upon on which the nation was founded was based on biblical Christianity and its understanding of the nature of man and his origins. The truth of the Christian worldview of marriage as being between a man and woman is supported by the fact that it is a cultural universal imprinted on human nature and common to all people groups, all cultures, and all ages in history. Heterosexual marriage is the well-spring of civilization, and its centrality in the human experience is indisputable. Humans have fashioned numerous methods by which to organize their societies, but the common link to all is the family unit—a father, a mother, and children living together in bonds of committed caring.

Supporters of homosexuality believe that they have the right to marry just as heterosexuals, and those rights are based on equality. However, homosexuality is a choice, and choice does not automatically equate with a “right to” nor mandate equal consideration. Many people may have a predilection to alcohol, criminality, or some other activity including homosexuality. But all are choices and with God’s help those tendencies can be conquered.

In his book Visions of Order-The Cultural Crisis of Our Time published 50 year ago, Richard Weaver states that when a culture “… by ignorant popular attitudes or by social derangements” imposes a political concept that creates a different principle of ordering society contrary to universal truths, dissatisfactions arise because society has tampered with the “nature of things.”[3] Homosexuality is a disorganizing concept with regard to human relationships and ultimately disorganizing in building stable, enduring societies. Where traditional marriage declines, so do those societies decline that allow it to occur.

Homosexuality and same-sex marriage are issues that must ultimately be dealt with in the arena of morality and cultural health. The economic considerations of Chamber of Commerce cheerleaders such as Ms. Bracken are both inappropriate and crass with regard to the debate about homosexuality and demands for its legitimization through same-sex marriage. But such dollars and cents concerns are to be expected from those with a humanistic view of life based on the material and denial of universal and timeless concepts of right and wrong.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Lisa Bracken, “Same-sex marriage can be boon for economy,” Tulsa World, September 27, 2014, A-19.
[2] D. James Kennedy, Ph.D., “Five Good Reasons to Reject Same-Sex Marriage,” Coral Ridge Ministries – Crosswalk.com, July 7, 2004. http://www.crosswalk.com/1272492/ (accessed September 30, 2014).
[3] Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1995, 2006), p. 22.

The quest for equality and the loss of respect – Part II

Posted by :admin On : October 3, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, Humanism, Worldview

As noted in Part I, another name for equality is egalitarianism which is a fundamental tenet of humanism whose worldview has captured almost all of the institutions of American life and its leadership. The purpose of Part II is to reveal the undeniable linkage between humanism’s quest for equality and the consequent loss of respect in every facet of America life.

The defining characteristic of humanism is the exaltation of self, and this emphasis on self leads to inward focus and results in egotism. Humanist Manifesto II preaches that “The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value.”[1] The practical outworking of humanism’s view of self invariably leads to a quest for equality, the roots of which reach back to the leveling theories of the French Revolution. For biblical Christianity, the central theme is about relationships as demonstrated by the sacrifice of God’s only son at Calvary to make possible fallen man’s redemption and restoration to right relationship with Him.

Worldview

Universals are called by various names including norms, permanent things, eternal truths, and first principles. These universals apply to all of mankind, in all cultures, and all of human history. Human nature reflects a number of universals. Man’s craving for order is a human universal. Above all man must have order, and as man attempts to achieve order he constructs his worldview—his perception of reality, an understanding of the way the world works, his basic beliefs. The affliction of modern man is his propensity to cast off the universals as he constructs his worldview. The order upon which one builds a worldview cannot be based on whim, choice, or man-made theories but must reflect unchangeable truth. One of those truths is that man was created in the image of God, and the order sought by any worldview must reflect these image-of-God qualities and what it means to be human. When a worldview fails to account for the true nature of man, it is false and destined for failure because it cannot provide a sustained order.

Therefore, the superiority of a worldview must be measured by its ability to bring order, and this is the measure we must use in evaluating humanism and Christianity. Which of these worldviews provides the respect sought by human nature or becomes the catalyst for loss of respect: humanism’s exaltation of self through its quest for equality or the value Christianity places on relationships? The prescriptions offered by these competing worldviews for achieving respect between men in the conduct of human affairs are mutually exclusive. One must be true and the other false.

Christian worldview

Wilfred McClay wrote, “…we shape our relationships, but we are more fundamentally shaped by the need for them, and we cannot understand ourselves without reference to them…we are made by, through, and for relationship with one another.”[2] One of the fundamental needs (universals) of mankind is to dwell together, in other words, a need for relationships. For the Christian, the importance of human relationships is a reflection of the Trinitarian relationship, a picture of His fundamental being. God’s being is shown by the Father-Son relationship and the relationship of Christ with the Church of which He is the head and we are the body.

For mankind, these relational patterns are present in various entities—marriage, family, community, nations, and the Kingdom of God. In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul gives an insight into the operation of these relational patterns which speak of brotherhood and not equality, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit…If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them as he chose.” [1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 17-18. RSV] Put another way, we are one human family, but not every member of the family can have the same place and position. Distinctions in the family are required. Status in family is determined by God. To sum up, man’s relational patterns are hierarchical.

Humanist worldview

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was one of the principal founders of the humanistic psychology movement. In his 1943 A Theory of Human Motivation, Maslow developed the concept of a “hierarchy of human needs” which proposed to rank the needs of humans.

Self-Actualization – Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. Self-actualizers are people who strive for and reach a maximum degree of their inborn potential.

Esteem – Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, and respect by others.

Love-Belonging – Friendship, family, sexual intimacy.

Safety – Security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, property.

Physiological – Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion.[3]

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs conflicts with the human universal of the primacy of relationships in motivating human beings. In Maslow’s hierarchy, the sex act is labeled as non-relational physiological need and banished to the lowest level of needs. Family at the second level is merely for safety’s sake and non-relational. It is only at level three that we see relational needs: family, friendship, and sexual intimacy.[4] The other four levels deal substantially with self, whether basic physiological/safety or esteem/self-actualization.

Maslow’s theories of human motivation are based on the humanistic worldview. They fail as human motivators because they dramatically diminish the importance of relationship in favor of self. Apart from physiological and safety needs which are creational givens, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is upside down as it reflects human nature and leads to a false worldview. The societal disorder that permeates the entire planet is a result of the widely held humanistic worldview which has elevated self above relationships. And the engine driving this topsy-turvy worldview is the quest for equality which demands a leveling of society which in turn can be achieved only through socialism. Therefore, humanism’s imposition of equality as a means of establishing a foundation for respect in individuals and society in general is fatally flawed.

Humanism’s equality attempts to re-structure society by eliminating distinctions and thereby increasing respect, but it does the opposite. This is evident from the writings of Richard M. Weaver, “The most portentous general event of our time is the steady obliteration of those distinctions which create society…If society is something which can be understood, it must have structure; if it has structure, it must have hierarchy…” Weaver called the elimination of hierarchy through the egalitarian notion that in a just society there are no distinctions a perversion. “…the most insidious idea employed to break down society is an undefined equalitarianism…Such equalitarianism is harmful because it always presents itself as a redress of injustice, whereas in truth it is the very opposite.”[5]

Here Weaver reveals the fatal flaw at the heart of equality and its failure to instill respect among people. Justice breeds respect…respect for authority, property rights, institutions, customs, and traditions, and to regard with esteem people who share that understanding of justice. But, equality that pretends to insure justice is inherently unjust in doing so. Forced equality’s injustice is inevitably corrosive to human relationships and leads to loss of respect in all facets of society.

Undeniable linkage

How does this Christian view of the supremacy of relationship promote respect in a dog-eat-dog world focused on its rights rather than responsibilities? Just as a focus on self inevitably fades into a demand for equality, fraternity (brotherhood) is the product of relationship. Brotherhood taps into human emotions that are rooted in mankind’s divine connection – those image-of-God qualities indelibly imprinted on man’s being. Man was made for brotherhood, and the emotional bonds of brotherhood link him with family, community, and nation. Those connections give us status in family which extracts duties and obligations from its members, entangling alliances that call for and fosters fidelity and respect.

Equality is rooted in self and demands its rights which often are nothing more than gossamer imaginings of a humanistic worldview. The undeniable linkage between the humanism’s quest for equality and the consequent loss of respect at all levels of human activity and relationship are obvious. Humanism’s forced equality leads to suspicion, resentment, disunity, and ultimately to disrespect of people, laws, authority, institutions, and the nation’s central cultural vision. It fails to provide an order based on truth which is requisite for respect. Only through the Christian worldview’s focus on relationships and consequent brotherhood can man give and receive the respect that flows from his image-of-God qualities found in his human nature.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifesto I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 18.
[2] Wilfred McCray, “The Soul & the City,” The City, Vol. II, No. 2, (Summer 2009), 8-9.
[3] Neel Burton, M.D., “Our Hierarchy of Needs,” Psychology Today, May 23, 2012.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needs (accessed September 18, 2014).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 35, 40.