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The difference a day makes – Another interpretation

Posted by :admin On : November 28, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Equality, Government, Homosexuality, Marriage

The voters of Oklahoma amended its state constitution in November 2004 to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Following a suit filed in Tulsa County, U.S. District Judge Terrance Kern ruled the ban on same-sex marriage was a violation of the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. Because the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal, gay marriage became legal in spite of the wishes of approximately 75% of Oklahoma’s electorate. [1]

Toby Jenkins, head of Oklahomans for Equality, hails the decision as a sunrise on a new day that ended “marriage discrimination” in Oklahoma. He cites four examples of such alleged discrimination: failure to process loan applications by same-sex couples, prohibition of same-sex couples from sharing an apartment in an assisted living center, prohibition from having a vehicle title issued in both names of a same-sex married couple legally married in another state, and prohibition of the right to request cremation of a deceased partner by the other partner in a same-sex relationship. [2]

However, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear challenges to rulings allowing same-sex marriage in some states may be more of a go-slow approach than an endorsement of same-sex marriage. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ November 6th ruling favored those that define marriage as being between one man and one woman and almost guarantees the highest court will take up the issue at some point. The language within the Sixth Circuit’s ruling is significant, “…marriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades. So widely shared, the tradition until recently had been adopted by all governments and major religions of the world.” [3]

In upholding the traditional view of marriage, the court’s verdict ended with these words. “When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers. Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.” [4]

For most people in Oklahoma and America, Mr. Jenkins’ sunrise for equality is in reality a sunset for liberty. Ultimately, same-sex marriage is not just about equality, honor, and dignity for the proponents of same-sex marriage but a means to force the majority of Americans to forfeit their religious beliefs, bow to the god of equality, and embrace 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 deny this reality of the LGBT agenda, just ask the president of Gordon, a Christian college that is being threatened with loss of accreditation because of the school’s longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff and its public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians. [5] Or ask the Lexington, Kentucky, tee-shirt maker who was found to have violated the city’s Human Rights Commission’s “fairness” ordinance and was ordered to attend “diversity training” for re-education. His crime? He refused to make tee-shirts for participants in a local gay-pride parade. [6] Or ask Jennifer Keeton, a former graduate student in counseling at Augusta State University, who was threatened with expulsion unless she changed her religious beliefs that failed “to conform to professional standards” with regard to LGBT issues. [7]

For millions of others in America who oppose the LGBT same-sex agenda because they adhere to the tenets of their Christian faith, the sun is setting on religious freedom as the nation descends into a dark night of coercion and oppression.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Writ of Certiorari, The Supreme Court of the United States, Sally Howe Smith v. Mary Bishop, et.al., August 6, 2014. http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Oklahoma-Smith-petition-8-6-14.pdf (accessed November 11, 2014).
[2] Toby Jenkins, “The difference a day makes,” Tulsa World, November 9, 2014, G-6.
[3] United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 14-1341, Opinion, November 6, 2014. p.7. http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/14a0275p-06.pdf (accessed November 11, 2014).
[4] Ibid., p. 42.
[5] 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).
[6] 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).
[7] Sarah Netter, “Georgia Grad Student Sues University Over Gay Sensitivity Training,” abcNews/US, July 27, 2010, http://abcnews.go. com/US/georgia-student-sues-university-lgbt-sensitivity-training/story?id=11261490 (accessed August 7, 2010).

“Workplace violence” comes to Canada

Posted by :admin On : November 21, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Government, Humanism, Islam, Worldview

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines workplace violence as “…violence or the threat of violence against workers. It can occur at or outside the workplace and can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and homicide, one of the leading causes of job-related deaths. However it manifests itself, workplace violence is a growing concern for employers and employees nationwide.” The OSHA website also tells us that workplace violence can strike anywhere and anyone…people in homes, pizza delivery persons, gas meter readers, psychiatric evaluators…literally anywhere work is or can be done.[1] But OSHA’s definition is so broad that it is meaningless. Almost any violence can be classified as connected to the workplace however tenuous that connection might be. Not only does OSHA mask the real reasons for much of the violence, but it magnifies the level of workplace violence by equating minor non-violent and non-criminal occurrences with violent crimes such as physical assault and murder. Effectively, a large segment of general societal violence is jury-rigged to the workplace and made the responsibility of employers. The assumptive language of OSHA’s workplace violence regulations is that all such violence is workplace related.

OSHA’s workplace violence rules were written long before November 5, 2009, when Army Major Nidal Hasan shot to death thirteen people (fourteen including the unborn child of one of the victims) and wounded thirty-two others at Fort Hood, Texas. Major Hasan committed these crimes after years of open and verbal support of Islamic jihad while serving as an Army officer. Hasan is an American-born Muslim who had exchanged emails with a leading Al-Qaeda personage in which Hasan asked if those attacking fellow soldiers were considered martyrs.[2] Hasan fired over 200 rounds in the killing spree while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” which means “Allah is the Greatest” and is the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer as prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad.

Only four days after the shootings at Fort Hood, General George Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army, appeared on several Sunday news talk shows and expressed concern regarding the speculation as to the cause or motivation behind the shootings. “We have to be careful because we can’t jump to conclusions now based on little snippets of information that have come out. As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.” (emphasis added) Not only was the general more concerned with protecting diversity than exposing the truth regarding the attack, he deliberately switched the focus of what happened when he said that he did not think there was currently discrimination against the estimated 3,000 Muslims who served in the Army at that time. Implicit in the General’s unwarranted statement was that if Hasan had acted because of his religious beliefs, it would have been because of discrimination against Muslims within the Army.[3]

Forty-six people were killed or wounded just three days earlier on an Army base whose supreme commander was General Casey. The perpetrator was a Muslim who shouted “Allahu Akbar” and had a well-known history among his military peers and superiors of being in sympathy with and vocally supporting Islamic jihad. However, the general’s greatest concern was for discrimination against Muslims in the military and not the families of the dead and those wounded by Hasan. It is incredibly naïve for anyone to believe the general did know the complete story of Nidal Hasan within hours of the killings and not just little snippets of information.

So the United States government saw to it that Hasan’s crimes were labeled “workplace violence” as opposed to what it really was…an act of terror whose motivation was to advance the beliefs and purposes of a false religion. Workplace violence may describe the location, but it does not reveal the cause or motivation of the violence. Government leadership committed to the philosophy of humanism must at all costs defend its humanistic concepts of diversity and multiculturalism in which moral relativism rules and all belief systems are coexisting and equally valid. Thus, we can all rest well tonight because diversity has been defended and OSHA is churning out even more rules and regulations to combat “workplace violence” such as committed by Major Hasan.

Recently, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a thirty-two year old Muslim convert, shot and killed a ceremonial guard on his way to attack the Canadian House of Commons and was subsequently killed by guards. Humanism in Canada is even more advanced than in the United States, but Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the courage to call the assault on the House of Commons a terrorist attack. However, true to liberalism’s humanistic roots, liberal leader Justin Trudeau quickly reassured the Muslim community.

And to our friends and fellow citizens in the Muslim community, Canadians know acts such as these committed in the name of Islam are an aberration of your faith. Continued mutual cooperation and respect will help prevent the influence of distorted ideological propaganda posing as religion. We will walk forward together, not apart.[4] (emphasis added)

According to Muslim tradition, the Quran was verbally spoken to Muhammad and is the mother document upon which Islam rests. One wonders how Zehaf-Bibeau’s actions are a deviation from the Islamic faith when the words of the Quran repeatedly justify his actions. Two examples of many similar verses that justify Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack are found in the Quran.

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): but take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.[5] [Surah 4:89. Quran]

Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): “I am with you, give firmness to the believers: I will instil [sic] terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them.[6] [Surah 8:12. Quran]

Are these verses, which are consistent with the actions of Zehaf-Bibeau, distorted ideological propaganda as Trudeau would have us believe? The Quran either does or does not define Islam and direct the actions of its followers? If they are reflective of the Quran’s instruction for conduct of the followers of Islam, the verses cannot be distorted ideological propaganda. If the verses are not reflective of proper conduct for the followers of Islam, how does a follower of Islam determine which verses of the Quran are to be followed and which must be considered distorted ideological propaganda?

The philosophy of humanism would have us believe that all belief systems are equally valid. If all belief systems are not equally valid, then the tenets of humanism are fundamentally flawed including humanistically defined concepts of diversity and multiculturalism which are embraced by General Casey and most of the leadership of the institutions of American life. When common sense and thousands of years of human experience expose the falsity of the humanistic worldview, its defenders use the power of office and meaningless language such as “workplace violence” and bogus definitions of diversity and multiculturalism to mask its failings.

Humanism’s diversity is a close kin of multiculturalism and focuses on the differences within society and not society as a whole. With emphasis on the differences, mass culture becomes nothing more than an escalating number of subcultures within an increasingly distressed political framework that attempts to satisfy the myriad of demands of the individual subcultures. There is a loss of unity through fragmentation and ultimately a loss of a society’s central cultural vision which leads to disintegration. Humanism’s impulse for diversity is a derivative of relativism and humanism’s perverted concept of equality.[7]

…the humanist multicultural agenda reveals that multiculturalism is not intended to supplement but rather to supplant Western culture that is so steeped in Christianity. The attack on Western civilization comes through a dismissal of American religious values as they intersected with and made possible the rise of the American political system…The essence of multiculturalism has its roots in the denial of absolutes, one of the cardinal doctrines of humanism, which translates into a moral relativism. Such a values-free approach, according to the humanists, makes it impossible to judge one period or era in relation to another or to say that one culture’s ethic is superior to another.[8]

The American experience since the first Europeans set foot on its eastern shores has been centered on a Christian understanding of the world. America became the greatest nation in the world because it was founded upon principles based upon that understanding.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] OSHA Fact Sheet, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2002.
https://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/factsheet-workplace-violence .pdf (accessed November 5, 2014).
[2] Billy Kenber, “Nidal Hasan sentenced to death for Fort Hood shooting rampage,” Washington Post, August 28, 2013.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nidal-hasan-sentenced-to-death-for-fort-hood-shooting-rampage/2013/08/28/aad28de2-0ffa-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html (accessed November 5, 2014).
[3] Lindy Kyzer, “Gen. Casey on the strength of our diversity,” Army Live, U.S. Army, November 8, 2009.
http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2009/11/gen-casey-on-the-strength-of-our-diversity/ (accessed November 5, 2014).
[4] Erika Tucker, “Soldier killed in what Harper calls ‘terrorist attack’ in Ottawa,” Global News, October 22, 2014. http://globalnews.ca/news/1628313/shots-fired-at-war-memorial-in-ottawa-says-witness/ (accessed November 5, 2014).
[5] The Meaning of The Illustrious Qur-an, (Dar AHYA Us-Sunnah), p.49.
[6] Ibid., p. 98.
[7] 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), p 398.
[8] Ibid., pp. 189-190.

America’s malaise

Posted by :admin On : November 14, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Government, Humanism, Worldview

Malaise seems an inadequate word to describe what’s happening in and to America. Synonyms for “malaise” are sickness, illness, disease, disorder, anxiety, depression, and discontent. It appears all are needed to describe America’s mood and condition. One magazine cover reads, “Is the world falling apart?” [1] Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan laments the nation’s decline in a recent column titled “Things fall apart for many public institutions.” [2] He lists numerous examples of this brokenness in recent years including the Center for Disease Control’s fumbled response in protecting Americans from an Ebola epidemic; basic security breaches in protecting the president at and away from the White House; the invasion of the southern United States by 60,000 children and young people from Central America; the Obamacare rollout debacle; the federal and state response to Hurricane Katrina in which 30,000 New Orleans residents were stranded for days; the strategic blunders by the president and civilian policy makers in handling the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; failing schools; skyrocketing national debt; deteriorating infrastructure; and political, racial, and cultural clashes. [3] And the list grows weekly.

Buchanan says that things were not always that way, and he raises the question: “What happened to us?” “Whatever happened to that can-do nation” that survived the Great Depression, armed itself and fought World War II over five years, and placed a man on the moon in ten years because we said we could do it? [4] Mr. Buchanan ends his column in dismay but offers no solutions. To Buchanan’s list we must also add the extreme societal devastation caused by the fracturing of the family structure which the late Senator Daniel Moynihan described as the he biggest change in the North Atlantic world that he observed in his forty years of government service and which happened in “an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable forty years ago had happened.” [5]

Something is profoundly wrong in America. The symptoms of the sickness are known and well-defined as shown above. The solutions put forth by politicians, bureaucrats, education professionals, scientists, sociologists and psychologists, economists and business professionals, and a host of others in the knowledge class generally treat only the symptoms with remedies that often seem to make matters worse while at the same time fail to diagnose the disease itself.

How do we determine what went wrong with America and why? To find the answer it makes sense to go back in history to a time when things were working, a time when America was unified and had confidence in the rightness of its central cultural vision? Once we find that point in time, we must ask ourselves what changed. A cursory examination of modern history in America quickly identifies that point in time as the 1960s and the emergence of the Boomer generation. What changed was a dramatic rejection by many in the Boomer generation of the values and central cultural vision of all preceding generations of Americans since their arrival as colonists in the early 1600s. A comparison of the Boomers and the Greatest Generation confirms the beginnings of America’s cultural divide.

Much has been written and said about the Greatest Generation, a term that has gained almost universal acceptance following Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation. For it was this generation that grew up during the deprivations of the Great Depression, fought a world war, persisted in blocking Soviet threats and aggression in a prostrate post-war world, and built the world’s greatest peacetime economy. Following the Allied victory in 1945, the United States stood at the pinnacle of world power. But unlike any other time in history, that generation acted not as victors but as a good and honorable people who poured their resources and energies into helping devastated nations and their starving peoples around the world. And, they didn’t retreat in the face of new dictators and despots as they fought the hot war in Korea and the cold war in other parts of the world, primarily against the USSR and its satellites. Following World War II, they married; went to schools, colleges, and universities in record numbers; and birthed approximately eighty million children who became known as the Baby Boomers. [6]

And through all of these deprivations, challenges, and monumental efforts, “They stayed true to their values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.” [7] But, how do these values play out in twenty-first century America? Personal responsibility has been replaced by government responsibility for our health, wealth, happiness, and well-being. Duty is out of date and doesn’t resonate with the goal of self-actualization. It’s all about me, baby! Honor is no longer based on timeless standards and awarded on merit but is now a matter of personal opinion and popularity. And as to faith, the beliefs of the naïve and ignorant masses that still believe in the Christian God are tolerated as long as they do not share their faith in public nor practice that faith if it conflicts with the dictates of the state.

The challenge to the Judeo-Christian worldview by the Boomer elite is not a new occurrence. For hundreds of years a conflict has existed within Western civilization between those that believe in a transcendent God and those that do not. But, it was in the mid-twentieth century as each sphere of influence in American society began abandoning the Judeo-Christian central cultural vision under the onslaught of the purveyors of the humanistic worldview. The abandonment of the biblical foundations upon which the nation was built became evident as the leaders of the Boomer generation took the reins of leadership in the institutions of American life and imposed their humanistic values upon the policies, practices, and standards of those institutions. What are those humanistic values and beliefs held by many Boomers in leadership? There is no God and no life after death. Nature is all there is, and man is merely the evolutionary product of nature. Man can solve his own problems through science and reason. Freedom of expression and civil liberties are paramount in all areas of life. Happiness, freedom, and progress are the goals of mankind. The focus of life is on self and self-development. Society requires extensive social programs to achieve the goals of humanism. [8] It is obvious that these humanistic values have little in common with the Greatest Generation’s values of personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith.

Arguing from the Judeo-Christian worldview held by Americans from the Founders through the Greatest Generation, Christopher Badeaux describes the provision of order supplied by that worldview and the consequences of its abandonment in favor of the humanistic worldview.

The Lord made the Universe according to a set of hidden but largely discernable rules, and those rules produce specific, predictable outcomes once the rules and variables are known. Furthermore, all things are made ordered—oriented if you prefer—to not only the Lord, but also to decent and right outcomes…Our consciences and our natural inclinations are manifestations of this intrinsic order; disregarding them gives rise to disorder. Indeed, even doing things that are right and good can be taken to extremes that place one outside of that natural order. When we step outside of that order, as anyone who has lived with someone suffering through, say, anorexia or alcohol addiction can tell you, the disorder radiates outward in a spiderweb-crack pattern of pain. [9]

The problem with the humanistic worldview is that its prescriptions fail the test of what is required for a culture to survive. First, cultural unity and cohesiveness necessary for any society to survive can never be achieved through a dictatorial center of authority required by humanism. Second, humanism is inherently a false worldview because it steps outside the order of the universe. Therefore, it cannot answer the basic questions of life by which all people seek to understand the meaning and purpose of life.

With the ascendance of the humanistic worldview in society, the spiderweb-crack pattern of disorder and dysfunction radiates through every institution of American life. This is the reason our public institutions and the institution of family is falling apart, and polls consistently show that Americans believe that society is truly disordered and falling apart. Mr. Buchanan asked what changed America. Without doubt, what changed America was the humanistic leadership of the institutions of American life that abandoned the central cultural vision of the Founding Americans and every generation up to and including the Greatest Generation. It is only when Americans return to that central cultural vision whose foundation is Christianity that disorder will become order and America will began working again.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “Is the World Falling Apart?” World, October 4, 2014, Cover.
[2] Patrick Buchanan, “Things fall apart for many public institutions,” Tulsa World, October 28, 2014, A-11; Pat Buchanan, “Things fall apart,”
Creators.com, October 14, 2014. http://www.creators.com/conservative/pat-buchanan/things-fall-apart.html (accessed October 29, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 2, 85.
[6] 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), p. 9.
[7] Tom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation, (New York: Random House, 1998), p. xx.
[8] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, Eighth Edition, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), pp. 13-15.
[9] Christopher Badeaux, “Faith, Fear and Cormac McCarthy,” The City, Vol. 1, Issue 3, (Winter 2008), 84-85.

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.

Statistics: Facts often used to replace truth.

Posted by :admin On : September 12, 2014
2

Category: Archives, Government, Truth

Leonard Pitts’ recent syndicated column was provocatively titled “If GOP is so right, why are red states so far behind?” Pitts raised the question because of the results of a recent study by two Princeton economists that found the economy has grown faster under Democratic presidents. From President Kennedy to and including President Obama the economy grew at 4.35 percent as compared to 2.54 percent growth under Republican presidents during the same period. He also pointed to a statistic supplied by Occupy Democrats, a left-wing advocacy group, that of the ten poorest states, nine are red states and of the poorest 100 counties, ninety seven are in red states. Based on the report’s statistical revelations, Pitts asked several questions, “If Republican fiscal policies really are the key to prosperity, if the GOP formula of low taxes and little regulation really does unleash economic growth, then why has the country fared better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones and why are red states the poorest states in the country?”[1]

To be fair, Mr. Pitts does note that the ability of presidents to influence the economy is “vastly overstated.” He even cites the Princeton researchers who stated that their study does not support the idea that Democratic policies are responsible for greater economic performance under Democratic presidents. Further, he concedes that red states and counties tend to be more rural and likely to have modest incomes while at the same time may enjoy greater spending power than wealthier states and counties. Yet, Mr. Pitts can’t resist the assumption that the fiscal economic policies of the Republicans are inferior to those of the Democrats. He states that, “…the starkness and sheer preponderance of the numbers are hard to ignore.” After comparing the true blue state of Connecticut’s first place in per capita income of $56,000 with red-state Mississippi’s last place at $32,000, Pitts says that, “At the very least, stats like these ought to call into question GOP claims of superior economic policy…”[2]

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, d**n lies, and statistics.” Mark Twain popularized this quote in America but attributed it to former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. How does one lie with statistics? One way is to erroneously assume a correlation between two variables and simply imply that one causes the other. Although Mr. Pitts agrees that the study’s findings do not support the idea that there is a correlation between the economic policies of Democratic presidents and the above-mentioned superior economic statistics, that is, one does not cause the other, he does believe that, given the sheer magnitude of the numbers, we must assume there is some correlation between the economic policies of Republican presidents and the lesser economic growth experience thereunder.[3]

Mr. Pitts has not lied (in a manner suggested by Twain), but he has been seduced by the power of statistical “facts” and as a consequence has “…drawn a mathematically precise line from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion.”[4] To summarize, Mr. Pitts’ conclusion is that, although the statistics provide no correlation between superior economic performance and the economic policies of Democrat presidents, the statistics must almost certainly provide correlation between the Republicans’ lesser economic results and their economic policies. Therefore, Republican economic policies are linked in some unexplained manner with the poorer results and consequently must undermine Republican claims of superior economic policies. Calling the Republican claims of superior economic policies as “overblown, at best,” Mr. Pitts ends his column with a challenge. “If that’s not the case, I would appreciate it if some Republican would explain why.”

If Mr. Pitts had done his homework, he would have found the explanation given by another nationally syndicated columnist less than ten days earlier. Robert Samuelson has written about business and economic issues since 1977. He is the author of three books on the American economy, a columnist for the Washington Post, and formerly was a columnist for Newsweek magazine for twenty-five years. Like Pitts, Samuelson also wrote a column about the Princeton study which he titled “Do Dems run the economy better? Nope.”[5]

Samuelson’s interpretation of the results of the Princeton study was very different than that of Pitts. Samuelson stated that “Democrats would no doubt like to attribute the large…growth gap to macroeconomic policy choices, but the data do not support such a claim.” Samuelson called about half of the gap that favored Democrats attributable to their “good luck” with regard to outside events or trends beyond their control. Three of those events and trends that dominated (and whose timing favored Democrats) were the global oil shocks that hurt Republicans more than Democrats, productivity gains, and military buildups that boosted economic growth.[6]

To the Princeton researchers the cause of the remaining half of the gap favoring the Democrats is a mystery. But for Samuelson the reasons were obvious and contrary to what the study’s statistics seem to suggest. He explained that, “Democrats focus more on jobs; Republicans more on inflation. What resulted was a cycle in which Democratic presidents tended to preside over expansions (usually worsening inflation) and Republicans suffered recessions (usually dampening inflation).” Without thoughtful interpretation, the surface implications of the Princeton study suggest that the “…economy’s performance during a president’s tenure in office is a good test of the soundness of policies.” Samuelson disagreed and explained that there is a long lag between the adoption of policies under a current administration and their true effects over time (usually after the administration has left office). He points out that expansive policies that feed an economic boom spawn hurtful consequences (e.g., inflation and overconfidence resulting in financial crises) that must be addressed with more painful policies, usually during the next administration. However, those painful policies can (and generally do) result in long-term dividends.[7]

Samuelson’s diagnosis of America’s economic roller coaster is somewhat akin to the analogy of visits of grandchildren to permissive, over-indulgent grandparents. It’s party time for the grandkids. High sugar diets, new toys, fun and games, few rules, and a good time is had by all. However, when mom and dad pick up the kids, they have to deal with the belly aches, renew and enforce rules and restraints, and re-establish the connections between work-reward and rebellion-consequences. In other words, the kids must return to the real world under mom and dad’s rule. For close to six decades Americans have ridden the economic roller coaster, alternately driven by Democratic children and their Republican parents. Hopefully, the American electorate will eventually understand the cause of much of America’s economic ups and downs. If so, there is hope for Republican economic prescriptions.

In the information age, facts have grown exponentially. We have become a fact driven society. Richard M. Weaver wrote, “One notes that in everyday speech the word fact has taken the place of truth…And the public is being taught systematically to make this fatal confusion of factual particulars with wisdom…The acquisition of unrelated details becomes an end in itself and takes the place of the true ideal of education.”[8] The myopic acquisition of unrelated details by a society results in fragmentation through loss of wisdom. Such societies retreat from the glorious heights from which one can clearly see truth and descend into a forest of facts—minutiae that hide truth and ultimately destroy in men’s minds that even the concept of truth exists.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] Leonard Pitts, “If GOP is so right, why are red states so far behind?” Tulsa World, September 4, 2014, A-13.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Leonard Louis Levinson, The Left Handed Dictionary, (New York: Collier Books, 1963), p. 218.
[5] Robert J. Samuelson, “Do Dems run the economy better? Nope.” The Washington Post, August 24, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-do-democrats-run-the-economy-better-nope/2014/08/24/1e3d847c-2a0c-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html (accessed September 5, 2014).
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 58.