Note: Apparently, not all church leaders agree on certain aspects of this issue, nor do members. We at SoL have been given to understand that strong differing opinions are understood and tolerated within the church. SoL's view is not based on current cultural trends and sentimental human relations and emotional stories but on Scripture, universally true principles, real charity, and timeless objective moral standards that come from God.
The following is our response to the new page, mormonandgay.lds.org. And we've also been reading some of the responses from the other side. It seems this is yet another effort to make everyone happy which has resulted in nobody being made happy, at least not the ones who take this issue seriously. It's astonishing that the Word of God does not have the first, middle, and last word. The Bible is absolutely clear about homosexual lusts and behaviors being wicked and repentance through Christ being available and necessary to all who care about God and eternal life. We think Mormon homosexualists know that they are at opposition with Scripture, as in the Standard Works, as in the Standard for the regulation and spiritual growth of all immortal souls. It looks like they have to work very hard to justify their moral relativism and denial of the plain and precious gospel, God's plan, which comprises sin and possible repentance and redemption through Christ. It doesn't matter if people are born that way, which they aren't, or not; these lusts and all degrees of behaviors are destructive and sinful.
Here are some of our thoughts about this mormonandgay.lds,org.
This page boasts diverse individuals' stories but neglects to show any of the people who have resisted and overcome homosexuality. (We know plenty and have ourselves published two books on this subject, My Darling From the Lions and Captain of My Soul, highly endorsed and prefaced by experts, yet rejected by leading LDS publisher Deseret Book. D.B.'s books on this topic are gay-affirming and have no expert endorsements. Make of that what you will.)
Christ's gospel of sin, repentance, and redemption is not emphasized, rather it argues in favor of the weakness of homosexual lust.
The Atonement is mischaracterized as something that can make us comfortable with our sinfulness rather than humbling and changing and purifying our desires.
The dark, broken, rebellious, pornographic, addictive, promiscuous, narcissistic, dangerous world of homosexual lust and how people get into it is completely ignored.
Homosexuality is portrayed as a harmless orientation rather than a disorder or sin.
Homosexual behaviors are not clearly defined. Therefore, any individual or ward leader can choose to put up boundaries, or not, anywhere they please.
Mormon gays are shown as sympathetic characters because they are not officially allowed the full perverse and dangerous physical homosexual contacts they desire.
No concern is shown for the obvious depravity or emotional and mental illnesses of the gays highlighted. How unkind is that?
"Authenticity," as in accepting the natural man and sharing one's feelings, is considered the highest value and most helpful attribute. Not reality, not truth, not goodness, not virtue, not humility, not repentance, not forgiveness, not love of God and His word. Just authenticity. Authenticity is nothing in and of itself. A serial killer is authentic. It is incredible that certain people's trendy pro-gay stories are held in the highest esteem regardless of holy scripture and regardless of the crimes or causes or illnesses behind these stories. In reality, these stories are probably not authentic at all; at best they are whitewashing, denial, incomplete, deceptive and justification for sin.
No help is offered for healing from horrific child sexual abuse, as in the sad case of Ricardo. He explains how at a very young age he was seduced and initiated into homosex by
predatory older males, which he admits had a huge influence on him and obviously interfered with normal
sexual development. Astonishingly, the story is apparently included to convince us to embrace this person's resulting choice for a homosexual lust identity rather than to show evidence of serious crimes against him as a child and his ruined life. He says that sharing his feelings helped him see that "nothing is broken or needs to be fixed." Oh really?
There appears to be some disconnect on what sexual purity and healthy sexuality actually are as in the case of lesbian Laurie who says, "The gospel has not made me attracted to men. But it has helped me be attracted to one man." What? Aren't we all supposed to keep our sexual attraction focused on one person---our spouse? This statement shows some seriously obsessive wrong-headedness by way of sexually objectifying human beings in general. It seems that gays/lesbians walk into a room and see sex and sexuality, not people.
The greatest available comfort for gays is shown to be, not God's love and truth, repentance through Christ, and spiritual guidance, but human relations by way of venting one's feelings on others. Tanya tells about her son who was so relieved to "come out" but who was still so depressed that he only lasted 5 months on his 2-year mission. Once home he was put in a ward leadership position! This is how we deal with spiritual death and sexual sin and confusion and mental illness?
Perhaps the most disturbing part of this web page concerns the now popular worldview of professional therapy for gays. In a nutshell, LDS therapists are instructed to confirm the gay person's gayness, regardless of any previous abuse, underlying trauma, or pathology, regardless of the hippocratic oath, regardless of the therapist's knowledge, experience, and life's work, regardless of his convictions about God or morality and his constitutionally protected right to exercise them, regardless even of a client's fervent wish to repent, heal, and change! Not only is this website saying: Be gay but don't actually live gay, but to the therapists it is saying: Be Christian but don't actually live Christian. This is what is called crazy-making. Thomas Jefferson called it tyranny over the mind of man.
Please note that there is no mention of any kind about therapists helping a person change and overcome homosexuality, even if that is what they seek! What is really occurring here, whether leaders know it or not, is systematic activism toward the full acceptance of homosexual behaviors in the church.
SoL knows who is behind this goofy web page. It's people we've written about before who wish to remake the church and the gospel of Jesus Christ to include homosex. They have set themselves up as a light, have the ear of some leaders, and patiently push their agenda in every possible way. They are openly against change therapy, even though they are forced to admit "shifts in sexuality can and do occur." These people could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. They have got the church stating that people who wish to change and want counseling in that direction are not to be helped in that way because these pro-gay pseudo-therapists, some of which are proud homosexuals themselves, assume it should not happen.
And another thing. If Mormon gays are never supposed to act out their sexual fantasies in any way, why does everybody need to know about them? Isn't the management of one's personal sexuality a private part of life for everyone, single or married? Aren't gays exactly the same as other members in this way? In other words, why do these particular people feel free to make their private sexual feelings public, and what is everybody else supposed to do about it? The web page does not make this clear. We can only assume that we are being instructed to treat self-proclaimed gays as more special than anyone else and never to help them overcome their miserable oversexed minset--why? Because this fits in with what the world is doing?
It appears that this page exists, at least in part, to indoctrinate the general membership into especially recognizing homosexuals, accepting perverse sexual lust as immutable, ignoring sexual abuse and emotional and mental illness, and treating open homosexuals as healthy, harmless fellow congregants/leaders.
Whatever a church says about its ultimate disapproval of this age-old sin that got two cities burned to the ground by the Lord is completely drowned out by the "respect" and "acceptance" we are being coerced to exercise regarding a person's self-proclaimed harmful and unnatural sexual attractions. Apparently, our human relations and interests, no matter how steeped in sin we humans are, are more important than truth, our relationship with the Godhead, and the welfare of our immortal souls. Apparently homosexuality, once considered a vice so ugly that polite society would not name it, is now touted by churches as an attractive characteristic. Yes, in this case gay is just another interesting and world-friendly kind of Mormon we can boast we include in our midst.
It's not too hard to imagine what kinds of things will happen next. "The triumph of sin [and illness and insanity and Godlessness and every other bad thing] comes with our failure to perceive it (Roger Scruton)."
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Monday, October 24, 2016
Cover Girl Boy? Or Clown?
Happy Halloween. Cover Girl Magazine has selected a 17-year-old male blogger with a large following to feature on an upcoming issue cover. Yes, a boy on the cover of Cover Girl. How's that for nonsense? He says he isn't a "transgender."Apparently being homosexual is old news, as is the bizarre idea that a person wants to be the opposite sex than their body indicates. You just have to be male and like to wear make-up to make waves. It's art, he says. Okay, but it's too bad he has to use his own face as his canvas. (We suggest that this young man may be more in love with fame than make-up/art.)
To most women, make-up is pretty much an annoying but necessary evil. Yes, news flash, make-up loving boys, women don't love to have to wear the sticky stuff! They use every excuse to avoid it. Haven't you heard them complain? Oh no, I forgot my lipstick! Oh no, how will I have time to put on my face? Oh no, I can't be seen like this--where are my sunglasses? Boys don't know how lucky they are.
Granted, there have been times when men wore wigs and make-up and ruffles in polite society. But were they rebelling? Trying to make a name for themselves? Was it art? Was it sexual? No, it was just the silly fashion, and important male and female differences were strongly upheld.
Man, how does a mere teenager get into something so obsessively kinky? How does he allow himself to be led by the nose-ring? And how does an entire people develop an appetite for it?
Let's be clear. This guy is not trying to pass for a girl. He is obviously a boy wearing make-up. And that's the point that is being made. Boys can wear make-up. They don't say why. To get attention? To look, what--- pretty, like a woman? Is it just plain vanity? Perhaps all of the above, plus rebelliousness and most probably sexuality gone awry. Without God all things are permitted. But what is it about this gimmick being encouraged by huge corporations? Shall we follow the money? We think so. Here we have an entirely new market for newly labeled but same-old products. Big bucks. GQ magazine is on board too. "It's about time," they say. Think of the new advertising GQ can sell. And maybe Cover Girl will amass enough interest and advertisers to start Cover Boy, or whatever, all the while laughing up their jewel-studded leather sleeves.
As for the persona of this individual, we don't know a single woman who acts as effeminate as this boy acts. We only know clowns who act that silly. In other words this person is a clown. An effeminate clown. He is putting on a show. That's how desperate he is. It is not real life. And this type of thing is what is scintillating, brilliant, glossy, and worthy of fame and fortune in our world today. This is how you get famous these days. Be a boy who spends hours and hours doing girly things to get attention. Perhaps this says a lot about our oversexed, entertainment-glutted, voyeuristic, indulged, and bored young people today. It's positively creepy.
Is this a harmless modern trend? We don't think so. The fifth century B. C. historian Herodotus wrote of the Lydians. They were a conquered people in Greece. Their Persian conquerors knew, after they took away their arms, how to keep the Lydians under submission. They put the boys in girls' clothes and doing feminine occupations, in other words they did their best to turn the men into women so there would be "no danger of their rebelling." And here we have Americans doing that very thing voluntarily! And it's celebrated! It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that effeminate people are more easily coerced and enslaved than no-nonsense sane people, be they male or female!
We remind our readers: boys must learn masculinity. It has to be taught and modeled. Otherwise, they'll learn something else. It's easy to see what this boy learned from our culture today and what Cover Girl is bent on teaching.
And how about the individual himself? We believe it to be shameful and cruel, and grossly immoral, to exploit this young person to make money. His phoniness, vanity, and affectedness are off the charts. He is a clown putting on a show who isn't being treated like a clown putting on a show, rather as a serious person worthy of respect and emulation in the real business of living. How's that for deceit? What kind of future does such a person have? He won't be a silly17-year-old cross-dresser forever. He'll probably move on to much more nefarious activities, heaven forbid.
And before all the hate mail from the homosexual community starts pouring in, let's remember we're just talking here about a boy who likes to wear make-up, Halloween style. Nothing sexual here apparently. Still, if we at SoL express our belief that it's a bad idea for boys to do such a girly thing as wear make-up, we will be called bigots. Go figure.
Sad to say, one can't help surmising that this young person is already part and parcel of the seamy and perverse sexual liberation subculture, beginning with pornography. You cannot get into cross-dressing and the like without the aid of porn. In fact, this shocking and perverse magazine cover is a form of pornography. What's next? You can bet there are people on the look-out for the next money-making sensation.
No one seems to care that a young person has been exposed to every sort of perverse ugliness. Be that as it may, this poor, exploited, delusional young man is setting himself up to be abused sexually. He, and those supporting him, have made him a sitting duck for predators and to become a predator himself.
What we have here is just another little jab into the eye of reality, order, and God. By way of exploiting youth.
To most women, make-up is pretty much an annoying but necessary evil. Yes, news flash, make-up loving boys, women don't love to have to wear the sticky stuff! They use every excuse to avoid it. Haven't you heard them complain? Oh no, I forgot my lipstick! Oh no, how will I have time to put on my face? Oh no, I can't be seen like this--where are my sunglasses? Boys don't know how lucky they are.
Granted, there have been times when men wore wigs and make-up and ruffles in polite society. But were they rebelling? Trying to make a name for themselves? Was it art? Was it sexual? No, it was just the silly fashion, and important male and female differences were strongly upheld.
Man, how does a mere teenager get into something so obsessively kinky? How does he allow himself to be led by the nose-ring? And how does an entire people develop an appetite for it?
Let's be clear. This guy is not trying to pass for a girl. He is obviously a boy wearing make-up. And that's the point that is being made. Boys can wear make-up. They don't say why. To get attention? To look, what--- pretty, like a woman? Is it just plain vanity? Perhaps all of the above, plus rebelliousness and most probably sexuality gone awry. Without God all things are permitted. But what is it about this gimmick being encouraged by huge corporations? Shall we follow the money? We think so. Here we have an entirely new market for newly labeled but same-old products. Big bucks. GQ magazine is on board too. "It's about time," they say. Think of the new advertising GQ can sell. And maybe Cover Girl will amass enough interest and advertisers to start Cover Boy, or whatever, all the while laughing up their jewel-studded leather sleeves.
As for the persona of this individual, we don't know a single woman who acts as effeminate as this boy acts. We only know clowns who act that silly. In other words this person is a clown. An effeminate clown. He is putting on a show. That's how desperate he is. It is not real life. And this type of thing is what is scintillating, brilliant, glossy, and worthy of fame and fortune in our world today. This is how you get famous these days. Be a boy who spends hours and hours doing girly things to get attention. Perhaps this says a lot about our oversexed, entertainment-glutted, voyeuristic, indulged, and bored young people today. It's positively creepy.
Is this a harmless modern trend? We don't think so. The fifth century B. C. historian Herodotus wrote of the Lydians. They were a conquered people in Greece. Their Persian conquerors knew, after they took away their arms, how to keep the Lydians under submission. They put the boys in girls' clothes and doing feminine occupations, in other words they did their best to turn the men into women so there would be "no danger of their rebelling." And here we have Americans doing that very thing voluntarily! And it's celebrated! It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that effeminate people are more easily coerced and enslaved than no-nonsense sane people, be they male or female!
We remind our readers: boys must learn masculinity. It has to be taught and modeled. Otherwise, they'll learn something else. It's easy to see what this boy learned from our culture today and what Cover Girl is bent on teaching.
And how about the individual himself? We believe it to be shameful and cruel, and grossly immoral, to exploit this young person to make money. His phoniness, vanity, and affectedness are off the charts. He is a clown putting on a show who isn't being treated like a clown putting on a show, rather as a serious person worthy of respect and emulation in the real business of living. How's that for deceit? What kind of future does such a person have? He won't be a silly17-year-old cross-dresser forever. He'll probably move on to much more nefarious activities, heaven forbid.
And before all the hate mail from the homosexual community starts pouring in, let's remember we're just talking here about a boy who likes to wear make-up, Halloween style. Nothing sexual here apparently. Still, if we at SoL express our belief that it's a bad idea for boys to do such a girly thing as wear make-up, we will be called bigots. Go figure.
Sad to say, one can't help surmising that this young person is already part and parcel of the seamy and perverse sexual liberation subculture, beginning with pornography. You cannot get into cross-dressing and the like without the aid of porn. In fact, this shocking and perverse magazine cover is a form of pornography. What's next? You can bet there are people on the look-out for the next money-making sensation.
No one seems to care that a young person has been exposed to every sort of perverse ugliness. Be that as it may, this poor, exploited, delusional young man is setting himself up to be abused sexually. He, and those supporting him, have made him a sitting duck for predators and to become a predator himself.
What we have here is just another little jab into the eye of reality, order, and God. By way of exploiting youth.
Friday, October 21, 2016
To Stand for Good You Must Fight Against Evil
Let's review in a nutshell how the culture war has gone in the past few decades. Let's take an objective look. What are the tactics of those on the right side? What have been the outcomes?
Although there are many battles in this war, we'll name just a few of the most public and controversial.
We'll start with the issue of legalized abortion. What is the tactic people have used to try to fight it? They have called their movement "pro-life" (in response to pro-choice). Sounds good. Sounds positive. Doesn't directly attack and confront anybody else's views. But what has happened? In four and a half decades sixty million unborn babies have been destroyed, sanctioned by the state. Even though technology has shown that human fetuses have fingers and toes and beating hearts very early on, and even feel pain and suck their thumbs, abortions and abortion practices have continued in numbers and increased in barbarity. Even half-born full-term babies are being brutally murdered. Even when the publicly funded abortion mill Planned Parenthood was dramatically and unequivocally exposed as an illegal human baby parts selling business, the practice is accepted and advanced; only the exposers of the truth are vilified. So how did the positive pro-life tactic work? It didn't. It hasn't. Even with the trucks and billboards showing piles of tiny, bloody, dismembered human beings, it hasn't worked, perhaps because it is too little, too late. People have hardened their selfish hearts so far that they can turn a blind eye to these barbarous inhumane realities.
How about the issue of gay marriage? Conservative, family-values people took the tactic of standing for traditional marriage and family. It was supposed to be so wholesome and inoffensive. How could anybody argue with a pro-marriage stance? Well, they did. Homosexualists, in case you haven't noticed, are very very sensitive to opposition. Anything not celebrating sexual liberation is the enemy. So how did that play out? We lost, and we lost big. On the national scale, in every entity of social interaction, in families, in churches, in schools, in entertainment, in workplaces, in government, in courts, homosexual behavior has not only been given the green light but given special respect and importance.
We took the standing for something tactic and we lost. We lost the pro-life battle. We lost the marriage battle. We lost spectacularly. Now we see religious freedom being attacked. As a result we see religious freedom being defended, at least here and there. Again, we've been ambushed and are forced on the defensive. Conservatives say: okay then, do whatever you want, but at least let us live and work and speak and teach our children according to our conscience. How is that working? Who is winning? They are. Apparently, in this day and age, the way things are, individual sexual freedom is trumping people's deeply-held religious beliefs. (Richard Wilkins predicted this would be the case 20 years ago.) It's a case of: "everybody's ideas and behaviors have to be respected, oh, except anything or anyone having to do with God's rules for sexual morality." It's a case of we're right and you're a bigot who deserves to be silenced and punished. Now that is tyranny over the mind of man, as Thomas Jefferson put it, which he swore eternal hostility against. Oppressing true religion is evil. (We say true religion because there are plenty of false and violent and destructive sects and cults that clothe themselves as religion which we should oppose and certainly give zero respect to.) Interestingly, some organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America and many churches are forfeiting some measure of their religious freedom already without any outside coercion, perhaps to avoid potential repercussions. One example is the acceptance of homosexuality.
Obviously, just being for something good hasn't worked. Who ever won a battle against evil by going into a safe little corner? Who ever won a battle without knowing and facing and fighting an organized, united, vicious, attacking enemy head on? Granted, there are strategies that must be considered and utilized. Anyone who has read The Art of War knows that. We're saying that the above strategies, although many groups of sincere people worked very hard and continue to work hard,were not and are not winning strategies at all but merely weak reactive and defensive measures. In the end, you can't even hold your ground that way. Such an enemy will totally overrun you.
We submit that closing our eyes, ears, and mouths to evil, like the three monkeys, and merely promoting a good thing is not enough and accomplishes nothing in a war such as we have here. Failing to stop evil leads to more evil. And by being distracted from or avoiding the fact that real evil exists and increases, we have failed to stop it.We must unite to fight Evil with a capital E, for the sake of human posterity and for the love of God. We must shake off the cowardly shackles of political correctness and speak, stand, write, fight AGAINST these evils. And we'll be standing for the good in the process.
One example of fighting directly against something and winning is the STOP ERA movement (1972-1982) formed by recently deceased Phyllis Schlafly. She was successful because she pointed out the negative impact the ERA would have had on women and the entire country. But sad to say, public sentiment has more sway than politics or laws and, well, just look at how everything is going. Rising generations are no better off, people don't believe in God, sexual boundaries have eroded, marriage is degraded, abortions continue, and women are angry--for no particular or real reason.
There are many more evils, but as per this article, it comes down to this:
Men and women are different in important ways.
The abortion practice is evil.
Sex is serious. If it is misused it hurts people.
Homosexual behavior is evil and harmful.
Oppressing true religion is tyranny.
It's a cold cold insidious war, a war for the hearts of men. If we do not specifically fight against the devil and his evils, evil will claim us. If we are to be effective soldiers, that must be our open-eyed, open-eared, free-speaking, unflinching, essential belief. We aren't true Christians unless we believe there is evil that must be opposed.
Although there are many battles in this war, we'll name just a few of the most public and controversial.
We'll start with the issue of legalized abortion. What is the tactic people have used to try to fight it? They have called their movement "pro-life" (in response to pro-choice). Sounds good. Sounds positive. Doesn't directly attack and confront anybody else's views. But what has happened? In four and a half decades sixty million unborn babies have been destroyed, sanctioned by the state. Even though technology has shown that human fetuses have fingers and toes and beating hearts very early on, and even feel pain and suck their thumbs, abortions and abortion practices have continued in numbers and increased in barbarity. Even half-born full-term babies are being brutally murdered. Even when the publicly funded abortion mill Planned Parenthood was dramatically and unequivocally exposed as an illegal human baby parts selling business, the practice is accepted and advanced; only the exposers of the truth are vilified. So how did the positive pro-life tactic work? It didn't. It hasn't. Even with the trucks and billboards showing piles of tiny, bloody, dismembered human beings, it hasn't worked, perhaps because it is too little, too late. People have hardened their selfish hearts so far that they can turn a blind eye to these barbarous inhumane realities.
How about the issue of gay marriage? Conservative, family-values people took the tactic of standing for traditional marriage and family. It was supposed to be so wholesome and inoffensive. How could anybody argue with a pro-marriage stance? Well, they did. Homosexualists, in case you haven't noticed, are very very sensitive to opposition. Anything not celebrating sexual liberation is the enemy. So how did that play out? We lost, and we lost big. On the national scale, in every entity of social interaction, in families, in churches, in schools, in entertainment, in workplaces, in government, in courts, homosexual behavior has not only been given the green light but given special respect and importance.
We took the standing for something tactic and we lost. We lost the pro-life battle. We lost the marriage battle. We lost spectacularly. Now we see religious freedom being attacked. As a result we see religious freedom being defended, at least here and there. Again, we've been ambushed and are forced on the defensive. Conservatives say: okay then, do whatever you want, but at least let us live and work and speak and teach our children according to our conscience. How is that working? Who is winning? They are. Apparently, in this day and age, the way things are, individual sexual freedom is trumping people's deeply-held religious beliefs. (Richard Wilkins predicted this would be the case 20 years ago.) It's a case of: "everybody's ideas and behaviors have to be respected, oh, except anything or anyone having to do with God's rules for sexual morality." It's a case of we're right and you're a bigot who deserves to be silenced and punished. Now that is tyranny over the mind of man, as Thomas Jefferson put it, which he swore eternal hostility against. Oppressing true religion is evil. (We say true religion because there are plenty of false and violent and destructive sects and cults that clothe themselves as religion which we should oppose and certainly give zero respect to.) Interestingly, some organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America and many churches are forfeiting some measure of their religious freedom already without any outside coercion, perhaps to avoid potential repercussions. One example is the acceptance of homosexuality.
Obviously, just being for something good hasn't worked. Who ever won a battle against evil by going into a safe little corner? Who ever won a battle without knowing and facing and fighting an organized, united, vicious, attacking enemy head on? Granted, there are strategies that must be considered and utilized. Anyone who has read The Art of War knows that. We're saying that the above strategies, although many groups of sincere people worked very hard and continue to work hard,were not and are not winning strategies at all but merely weak reactive and defensive measures. In the end, you can't even hold your ground that way. Such an enemy will totally overrun you.
We submit that closing our eyes, ears, and mouths to evil, like the three monkeys, and merely promoting a good thing is not enough and accomplishes nothing in a war such as we have here. Failing to stop evil leads to more evil. And by being distracted from or avoiding the fact that real evil exists and increases, we have failed to stop it.We must unite to fight Evil with a capital E, for the sake of human posterity and for the love of God. We must shake off the cowardly shackles of political correctness and speak, stand, write, fight AGAINST these evils. And we'll be standing for the good in the process.
One example of fighting directly against something and winning is the STOP ERA movement (1972-1982) formed by recently deceased Phyllis Schlafly. She was successful because she pointed out the negative impact the ERA would have had on women and the entire country. But sad to say, public sentiment has more sway than politics or laws and, well, just look at how everything is going. Rising generations are no better off, people don't believe in God, sexual boundaries have eroded, marriage is degraded, abortions continue, and women are angry--for no particular or real reason.
There are many more evils, but as per this article, it comes down to this:
Men and women are different in important ways.
The abortion practice is evil.
Sex is serious. If it is misused it hurts people.
Homosexual behavior is evil and harmful.
Oppressing true religion is tyranny.
It's a cold cold insidious war, a war for the hearts of men. If we do not specifically fight against the devil and his evils, evil will claim us. If we are to be effective soldiers, that must be our open-eyed, open-eared, free-speaking, unflinching, essential belief. We aren't true Christians unless we believe there is evil that must be opposed.
The Insidious Spread of Godlessness
The following blast email caught our eye. The subject was "Is there more than one truth?" What a loaded question! We doubt that people realize what harmful ideas they are spreading around in so innocuous a disguise.
At a gathering, two 8-year-old boys began arguing over the prize from a box of Cracker Jack. They’d just finished sharing the treat when one of the boys suddenly accused the other of taking the prize.
The other insisted he had not, and it wasn’t too long before the two youngsters were shouting at each other and drawing a lot of attention. An adult stepped in, separated the boys, and sternly asked them what the ruckus was all about.
“He stole the prize,” one boy accused, and the other responded defiantly, “I did not!”
The adult took the box and peered inside, then tore the box open, exposing a small paper puzzle that was wedged in the cardboard wrapper. He looked at both boys, who hung their heads for a moment. Then they looked at each other, grinned sheepishly and apologized. Moments later, they ran off to play, the prize forgotten.
You don’t have to win an argument to seize the prize. Sometimes there’s a lot more worth in recognizing what’s true for someone else, identifying what’s true for you, and looking for a common truth in the situation. You don’t have to agree with another’s point of view – but it sure helps if you understand it.
The prize in any argument is finding the truth for everyone and recognizing the worth of both sides of a story.
Then you can run and play again.
Here is SoL's response:
To answer your question, no, there is not more than one truth, no matter how much we "understand" other points of view. Understanding people has nothing to do with whether their perception is valuable or right or true. There are absolutes when it comes to reality, truth, right and wrong. And it's absolutely wrong to pretend that just because someone perceives/decides/ remembers/thinks/believes something strongly it is any sort of true or good. The little boys in the story were both wrong, and their sides of the story were worse than worthless--they were unfounded and accusatory and selfish. They eventually realized it and were right to feel ashamed. You have misunderstood the Chinese proverb, which is tongue-in-cheek; it means human beings, you and me, are often very sure we are right when both people are wrong. C.S. Lewis wrote, "There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one." The scripture says the truth will set you free, not "your truth" or "my truth," the truth.
We need to think these things through and be careful what we share. This is godless secular progressivism disguised as a little nonjudging feel-good story and these insidious, harmless looking emails is one way these wrong ideas spread. This self-serving garble-de-gook results in unthinking people separating themselves from God and His objective standard of right and wrong.
Everyone should read The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis, a very thin but important book. He begins by examining something similar to this email that he read in a high school textbook.
There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “There are three truths: mine, yours, and the truth.”
There are two sides to every story, and somewhere in between lies the real story – as the following tale illustrates: At a gathering, two 8-year-old boys began arguing over the prize from a box of Cracker Jack. They’d just finished sharing the treat when one of the boys suddenly accused the other of taking the prize.
The other insisted he had not, and it wasn’t too long before the two youngsters were shouting at each other and drawing a lot of attention. An adult stepped in, separated the boys, and sternly asked them what the ruckus was all about.
“He stole the prize,” one boy accused, and the other responded defiantly, “I did not!”
The adult took the box and peered inside, then tore the box open, exposing a small paper puzzle that was wedged in the cardboard wrapper. He looked at both boys, who hung their heads for a moment. Then they looked at each other, grinned sheepishly and apologized. Moments later, they ran off to play, the prize forgotten.
You don’t have to win an argument to seize the prize. Sometimes there’s a lot more worth in recognizing what’s true for someone else, identifying what’s true for you, and looking for a common truth in the situation. You don’t have to agree with another’s point of view – but it sure helps if you understand it.
The prize in any argument is finding the truth for everyone and recognizing the worth of both sides of a story.
Then you can run and play again.
Here is SoL's response:
To answer your question, no, there is not more than one truth, no matter how much we "understand" other points of view. Understanding people has nothing to do with whether their perception is valuable or right or true. There are absolutes when it comes to reality, truth, right and wrong. And it's absolutely wrong to pretend that just because someone perceives/decides/ remembers/thinks/believes something strongly it is any sort of true or good. The little boys in the story were both wrong, and their sides of the story were worse than worthless--they were unfounded and accusatory and selfish. They eventually realized it and were right to feel ashamed. You have misunderstood the Chinese proverb, which is tongue-in-cheek; it means human beings, you and me, are often very sure we are right when both people are wrong. C.S. Lewis wrote, "There are a dozen views about everything until you know the answer. Then there's never more than one." The scripture says the truth will set you free, not "your truth" or "my truth," the truth.
We need to think these things through and be careful what we share. This is godless secular progressivism disguised as a little nonjudging feel-good story and these insidious, harmless looking emails is one way these wrong ideas spread. This self-serving garble-de-gook results in unthinking people separating themselves from God and His objective standard of right and wrong.
Everyone should read The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis, a very thin but important book. He begins by examining something similar to this email that he read in a high school textbook.
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