Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics Archives | CrossExamined.org

Who has not been exposed to or may be even involved in discussions of controversial topics these days?

It seems that talk of politics, race, religion, and a whole host of other controversial topics are swirling around us everywhere we go. Some topics we can ignore and avoid, and others we get sucked into. Some discussions we get reluctantly and others we get into too eagerly. There are numerous pitfalls to having these discussions that we all want to avoid, so today, I want to offer eight tips for discussing controversial topics that will hopefully help your discussions be more productive and respectful. Being that the USA is in an election year (2020), politics seems to be on everyone’s mind, so let’s start with this quote from a book that I reviewed a few years ago entitled “Before You Hit SEND: Avoiding Headache and Heartache” by Emerson Eggerichs to set the stage:

“Some people enter politics because they derive personal fulfillment from the ‘gotcha’ approach to issues. It isn’t about what is true but about the political chess game. The key is to put a better spin on a matter than the other candidate and to put the opposition in checkmate…In political circles the rule of thumb is never admit a mistake or that you don’t know something. Thus, keep talking in an interview to sound like an expert, all the while aware that you don’t know. Feeling on the hot seat, and determined never to be wrong, but fully cognizant that the information is insufficient or incorrect, keep moving your lips, weaving and ducking as best as your polemical skills permit.”

If this sounds all too familiar to you and you’re tired of it, keep on reading!

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #1: You Could Be Wrong

It is important to recognize that we could be wrong about what we believe about reality. Interestingly enough, a challenge could actually be a blessing in disguise. It could be an opportunity for us to let go of false beliefs and acquire true ones. Of course, challenges do not always result in a changed belief; they can also result in a more nuanced and more strongly defended belief. But regardless of the ultimate result of a challenge, when we see it as an opportunity, we give the other person a respect that is often missing from discussions today.

When we demonstrate that we can have a rational discussion where arguments are presented and granted when they are sound, we demonstrate that we are committed to truth. We demonstrate that we understand that we are not perfect and do not necessarily have everything figured out. We also demonstrate that we are willing to hear others out, understand the reasons that they hold the other view and carefully consider those reasons. Greg Koukl summarizes this quite well in his book “Tactics: A Game Plan For Discussing Your Christian Convictions“:

“A commitment to truth — as opposed to a commitment to an organization — means an openness to refining one’s own views. It means increasing the accuracy of one’s understanding and being open to correction in thinking. A challenger might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, an ally instead of an enemy. An evangelist who is convinced of her view, then, should be willing to engage the best arguments against it.”

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #2: Find Common Ground

This is so important. Regardless of who you are discussing a controversial subject with, you can find some sort of common ground with them. The very fact that we are all created in the Image of God provides a strong set of commonalities that we can begin with. If we hold to the same worldview, in general (this discussion just being one of working out the details), then it is important to recognize that up front. Even if you remain in disagreement at the end of the conversation and agree to pick up the conversation again later, it is important to affirm where agreement exists. Again, Greg Koukl offers wisdom here from “Tactics“:

“As a general rule, go out of your way to establish common ground. Whenever possible, affirm points of agreement. Take the most charitable read on the other person’s motives, not the most cynical. Treat them the way you would like others to treat you if you were the one in the hot seat.”

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #3: Assume Good Will

Speaking of charitable motives, always assume this. No one likes to have their character attacked, particularly when they know that they are not deserving of such an attack. Even if we do not attack one’s character verbally in our discussion, we may still be doing so in our minds as the conversation progresses (or regresses). It is important that we focus on the person’s claims and arguments for the claims rather than their motives because their motives logically have no bearing on the truth of their claims.

Further, when we assume good will, we are more willing to understand where someone is coming from. When we understand where they are coming from, it gives us an opportunity to address a deeper concern that they have with our opposing view- we can offer them a logically, rationally, and evidentially supported alternative that takes into account their deeper commitment. When we understand that the other person ultimately has good intentions, it allows us to show kindness while we speak and defend truth. In his book “Before You Hit SEND: Preventing Headache and Heartache,” Emerson Eggerichs lists out the important reasons why kindness in controversial topic discussions is vital:

“Kindness eases others, which enables them to hear the substance of our concern. Kindness demonstrates and builds trust. Kindness affects the emotions, which is key when seeking to inform or persuade. Kindness maintains a relationship, and relationship determines response. My communication kindly demonstrates who God is.”

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #4: Listen To Understand

Listening is vital to the discussion. If we are truly there to defend a position and, hopefully, convince the other person that our view more closely matches reality than the one they presently believe, we have to be able to properly understand their current view. It does us no good to argue against a view that the person does not hold. If we have soundly defeated a view and offered ours as an alternative, but the view that we have defeated is not what the other person holds, we have not given them a reason to abandon their view in favor of ours. We’ve given them reasons to not accept that other view, yes, but we have not given the reason to change from the view that they currently hold. Listening takes patience. We cannot always be eager to sneak in a rhetorical jab or present the next logical “gotcha!” We need to focus on what the other person is saying in order to understand to ensure that what we are about to present actually addresses and applies to their claims.

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #5: Ask Honest Questions

One of the great ways to listen is not just being quiet and focusing but asking clarifying questions. Questions like “what do you mean by that,” or “how do you get from X to Y in your logical thinking” helps us to learn about other views and the reasons why people hold those views. Asking honest questions in order to learn demonstrates that we are willing to consider and engage other views (Tip #1) as they actually are rather caricatures of those views.
Some people may have even considered the views that they espouse more deeply. Foundations and implications may not have crossed their minds. This is also where asking honest questions can be helpful. Jonathan Morrow speaks to the wisdom of asking questions:

“People may not ask…questions of their own beliefs or think carefully about the way they view the world, but they still have a worldview. And it affects every area of their lives. Every person–knowingly or not– filters the information that enters their minds through their worldview. They then make sense of that information based on their worldview. This process is automatic and the filtered information shapes their beliefs and influences how they function in society, including the smallest decisions they make.”

Asking honest questions demonstrates to the other person respect and demonstrates a spirit of humility a heart of a student. Listen, understand, and appropriately critique in a loving and kind manner. I will refer you to both of the books already mentioned above for more on this tip.

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #6: Get Your Facts Right

This cannot be emphasized enough. It is important that our claims match reality, meaning that we need to get our facts right. This affects the persuasiveness of our presentation in multiple ways. First, if we do not have our facts right, then any conclusions that we draw from those incorrect claims will be questionable. We simply cannot use false claims about reality to come to true conclusions about reality. It is not logical, and no one would be reasonable to accept a conclusion that is dependent upon something false for its truth.

Second, when we do not have our facts right, it appears that we do not value truth enough to verify claims. This could be because we are gullible, lazy, or simply just want to believe that our conclusion is true, so we’re looking for any confirmation of it. When we do not check the claims we make for truth before we use them to persuade someone to our view, it demonstrates that we are more committed to a view than to what is true.

Third, if we value a particular view over what is true, why should anyone trust us about anything else that we claim? Getting our facts right is not just an issue of making a sound argument, but an issue of personal character and trust. If we do not take the time to investigate our claims before using them, we should not be trusted. I’ll quote Eggerichs again, here:

“Perhaps in many cases we didn’t know it was untrue. No harm, no foul. Even so, an honest error in judgment does not make it okay, especially when we repeatedly make such mistakes. The real point here is to the lazy and neglectful individuals who keep making mistakes and claim they did not know the truth. They may be innocent, but one becomes guilty of carelessness and inattentiveness. We must aggressively get our facts straight to avoid a routine of ‘honest’ mistakes.”

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #7: Avoid or Qualify Speculation

Part of getting our facts straight is to communicate the difference between what we understand to be facts and what we are speculating about what those facts mean for the future. Speculation can get quite emotional because it tends towards two extremes: either a “best-case scenario” or a “worst-case scenario.” The first gives people a utopianistic feeling and expectation. The second gives people a fearful feeling and expectation. Both of those are strong drivers of strong action and rhetoric, but they are only founded in speculation. We do not want to give someone a false impression and cause them to react according to that falsehood.

Speculations about all sorts of things take place in conversations, but it seems that speculations about future events and individuals’ motives tend to be the most damaging. Obviously, no one can see the future. We can certainly look to history and notice a pattern of certain conditions preceding or coinciding with certain events, but because we are not omniscient and may be overlooking an key condition that may change the whole outcome, speculating about the future needs to be done carefully and with qualification. Some people may choose to just avoid it altogether.

Obviously, too, no one can see the heart of another individual. When we speculate about the “pure evil” or “purely altruistic” motives someone may have for defending a particular political policy or view of the world, we tread on dangerous territory here, as well. We do not want to be guilty of encouraging character assassinations or character glorifications. The character of a person has no logical bearing on the truth of their claims, so we need to focus not on their character but on the claims being made to argue for or against their truth. It is wise to simply avoid speculating about motivations for holding a particular view.

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #8: Learn to Use Reason Well

Communicating truth to those we wish to persuade is only part of the discussion. The other important part is using truths together to come to reasonable and true conclusions and to avoid using truths together to come to unreasonable and false conclusions. We may present a series of true statements, but if we present them together in such a way that they do not connect logically, then we run the risk of believing and promoting unreasonable or false conclusions. We also run the risk of being unable to identify where another’s reasoning has gone wrong even though we know that their conclusion is incorrect.

Norman Geisler describes logic like this:

“Logic is a way to think so that we can come to correct conclusions by understanding implications and the mistakes people often make in thinking.”

Going back to speculation for a moment: Speculation often results from the mistakes using of true claims to support implications that do not follow. The reciprocal error is made, as well: an implication (conclusion) that either necessarily follows from the true propositions and the valid reasoning or true propositions when taken together yield a high probability of or are all best explained by an implication are accused of being speculation. This error often results from the misunderstanding of logic and mistakes in thinking. But when true claims are used correctly, logic is understood correctly and we adjust our thinking to match both, both errors regarding the acceptance of speculations and rejection of implications can be avoided.

There are numerous fallacious ways to reason using true claims that will lead us and others to false conclusions. We need to learn not only how to use logic (connect true claims together) correctly, but we also need to learn how to avoid fallacies in our attempts to connect one true claim to another true claim. When we learn these, we not only can guard our communication, guide our discussion, and clearly present our case, but we can also analyze others’ claims and be able to respectfully and lovingly ask questions that will guide the other person to see the error that they are making.

As a bonus, learning to reason well gives the first tip I offered in this post (recognize that you could be wrong) a solid and reasonable foundation. The first tip is not a call to be malleable in your thinking simply because we don’t want to offend or we all want to get along; it is a call to recognize that we all hold wrong beliefs about this world and that those wrong beliefs can be positively identified, removed from our worldview, and replaced with true beliefs about the world. Learning to reason well gives us the tools to adjust our beliefs to match reality and to communicate that knowledge to others. Finally, if you want to learn how to reason well, I highly recommend the book “Come, Let Us Reason” by Norman Geisler for its introductory view of logic that is easy to follow for anyone who desires to learn.

Marx Attacks!

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Phil Bair

If I were to ask you who the most influential philosopher of the 21st Century is, what would your answer be? The correct answer might surprise you.

It is Karl Marx.

Karl Marx believed that class struggle would occur naturally on its own without the help of any social engineer. He believed the Communist Revolution was the inevitable outcome of socio-economic forces, and it was only a matter of time.

He was wrong.

The marxists of today believe in the class struggle, just like Marx did in his day. Except that now, the new Marxists recognize that it won’t naturally happen on its own. They have forged a new agenda to bring about a social revolution similar to the one Marx imagined. Except this time the intended outcome will be a cultural and social revolution they hope to control through deliberate measures rather than an unpredictable result left to chance.

A Worldview and its Weapon

A study of this cultural marxism can be summarized as the movement to apply classical marxist ideas of economic class struggle to cultural classes and identities primarily based on proportionality. The majority classes (e.g., white anglo-saxon male, cisgender Christians) are seen as oppressive just because they are the majority. Minorities are seen as oppressed just because they are minorities. Power is perceived as an automatic property of having greater numbers in your group, and that alleged power is always seen as villainy.

Whenever you see and hear people use language like “American racism,” or “systemic racism,” or “American original sin,” or any other expression of built-in institutional or structural bias cited as the cause of socio-economic disparities, cultural marxism is behind it. It is blaming imaginary policies and systems for what it sees as institutional discrimination rather than identifying the real causes of the disparities. It is the myth that the whole system is rigged against minorities and in favor of the “privileged.” It is the idea that what was institutional discrimination in the past still exists, despite the fact that Jim Crow laws and the earlier scourge of slavery have been eradicated. It is blaming society for disadvantages rooted in individual dysfunction and/or cultural pathology.

The left-wing marxist soldiers are engaged in a systematic and widespread attack on Western Civilization. They use an insidious tool known as “critical theory” to accomplish their objectives. It is important to understand that despite having the word “theory” in its name, critical theory is not technically a worldview or an ideology. It is a methodology. It functions as a weapon designed to torpedo social frameworks that are healthy and beneficial for all mankind. The worldview behind the methodology of critical theory (cultural marxism) sees those frameworks as evil and oppressive. Critical theory poisons the minds of those in society against those frameworks and deceives them into thinking they should be dismantled and replaced by an anti-Christian collectivist framework that becomes the true oppressor and destroys the freedom and rights of God’s image-bearers. Critical theory is not the ideology itself, but the blueprint for aggression and activism that is designed to pulverize the existing social fabric and establish the new order the marxist ideology visualizes.

The weapons of the critical theory include challenges from radical feminism, identity politics, the weaponization of homosexuality and transgenderism, and the accusations of systemic racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and evangelical religious oppression. The battle is waged against what they view as the establishment of “whiteness.” The Equinsu Ocha, the white devil, is the enemy, and has to be destroyed at all costs in order to bring about social justice and cultural transformation.

The strategy? Criticize, demonize, disrupt, divide, and destabilize Western society and its institutions by cultivating resentment and grievance culture so that they can be dismantled more easily and a new social order can replace them. The criticism and accusations of critical theory don’t have to be true, and they rarely are. Truth doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the marxist narrative, to be accepted as dogma through blind ideological conformity. Critical theory seeks to turn people against each other by fostering tribal warfare and victim culture. It stirs up hatred and animosity based on false narratives people have been brainwashed in for decades in our colleges and universities.

One of the largest flaming arrows critical theory has been shooting at us over the last few years is the idea that evangelical Christians have abandoned the Gospel to embrace a power-centered “right-wing” political agenda. We are told that our efforts to promote the Kingdom of God in this life and in our society have been co-opted by a fawning devotion to the spiritually and morally problematic “orange man” occupying the White House. (And by the way, it’s called the “White House.” Hello? The White House.) The purpose of this accusation is to shame and intimidate us into silence when it comes to speaking into our current socio-political climate. After all, we are subordinate to the Son of God, not the Republican Party. This has taught us to avoid politics in the church so as not to offend those in the laity whom the marxist ideology has infected, and to avoid any potential divisiveness taking a stand may cause. Very clever.

The reality is, God is the author of all truth. Truth always has political implications, whether we like it or not. Therefore to avoid politics is to avoid truth. To avoid truth is to ignore the author of all truth: God. Which group of people are terrified of getting political more than any other, and which community avoids it like the plague with unrelenting tenacity? The church. Take your time.

The easiest way to establish a new order is to silence the most vocal opponents of that order. Social engineering is just as much about silencing dissent as indoctrinating the credulous. Critical theory has had overwhelming success in this regard.

Marxism vs Freedom

What does this new social order look like? No classes. No racial “inequality.” No “oppression.” No white “privilege.” No wealth or income, “inequality.” Absolute uniformity of outcome through the coercive power of the state. No dissent. No opposing ideas. Utopia.

Oh, and by the way, no freedom. Free people are at liberty to think and speak as they wish, based on their convictions, and this is not allowed. Nothing contrary to the marxist narrative of class ideology is permitted, no intolerance of the state ideology will be tolerated.

Every outcome is equalized through force. The state is greater than the individual, and until the revolution is complete, people will be treated and judged according to their class, not as stand-alone human beings created in the image of God. If you are white, you are privileged, and you are damned in the name of social justice. Whether you enjoy any personal “privilege” or not, and whether you are personally racist or not, you are guilty, privileged, and racist anyway — period. None of the details about who you are as a person matter. The only thing that matters is that you belong to the white class, and therefore you are a target.

It is almost impossible to dislodge this ideology from its acolytes. The false accusations carried into our minds by the pathological vector called critical theory are so deeply embedded and so thoroughly pervasive in our society that they have been elevated to the status of axiomatic certitude. Anyone who challenges these presuppositions is seen as a drooling hateful neanderthal and will be treated as a pariah. The mechanism to silence dissent is known as “political correctness.” You are not allowed to question the narrative nor attempt to refute it by speaking the truth. Truth is offensive. This is what happens when myth has been implanted in the minds of multitudes of people through indoctrination (from the entertainment industry, the media, and academia) and repetition for so long that people are no longer capable of seeing the world any other way.

The Infected Church

Now this poison has invaded the Body of Christ. Untold numbers of Christians are redefining the principles of their faith to conform to the agenda of social justice rather than personal redemption. The Gospel articulates and endorses a well-defined concept of true justice. But it stands in sharp contrast to the false justice in modern marxist ideology that now has so much of the Church in its death grip.

The monolithic ideology of “white guilt” is wreaking havoc in the Church by pressuring white Christians into “apologizing” for things they didn’t do, and to adopt an attitude of self-condemnation as a means to redeem themselves before the judgment seat of social justice. It comes in the form of progressives (which are now almost identical to marxists) insisting on whites becoming “woke” to their alleged implicit racial bias and defining themselves by their newly enlightened status as pathetic inferiors.

The most virulent lie in the arsenal of critical theory in our present moment is the idea of systemic racism, belief in which is a form of mental illness (a mind detached from reality). Those who are brainwashed by it will attack you like rabid animals if you so much as question their holy article of faith or offer evidence that systemic racism doesn’t exist. Facts don’t matter. The only thing that counts is subjective interpretation of personal experience guided by junk ideology. That is why they spray such toxic venom at their own black brothers and sisters who are trying to teach them a different way of understanding their condition — a way that embraces the truth. For them to admit, that possibility would force them to stop blaming their favorite scapegoat (whiteness), and to honestly examine the real roots of their suffering.

Make no mistake: those who believe in the lie of systemic racism have no desire to see that alleged racism eradicated — ever. If it did exist, and if it came to an end, their precious grievance culture and celebration of their own victimhood would cease to exist. They must believe it’s true, and they will never believe otherwise. The accusation of racism toward whites is what they live for. It is what nourishes and sustains them. That their psychotic security blanket could ever be taken from them is unthinkable. Do not believe for a second that movements like Black Lies Matter really care about black lives or true justice. They only care about one thing: the obliteration of the foundations of Western Civilization. Their web site speaks of dissolving the nuclear family. Their leaders openly inform us they are trained marxists. Their marches advocate deadly violence against the police. Meanwhile, they ignore the over 300,000 black victims of homicide at the hands of other blacks over the last 40 years. The only time they protest and riot against the loss of a precious black life is when it occurs at the hands of the police. And they don’t give a flying rat’s patoot whether it was justified or not. I repeat: they don’t care about black lives — at all. Black Lies Matter is a race-baiting hate group, and the only thing that matters to them is the perpetual decomposition of our society. They are the most high profile puppets of critical theory you can possibly find.

Conclusion

This is the essence of the attack of left-wing marxist pathology in our society. It has achieved the lofty status of a militant social cult. It has already destroyed Europe, and we are next in line. The invasion has already begun. The most tragic aspect of all this is that gullible Christians, especially the millennial variety, have been brainwashed into the new marxist ideology and are busy helping the left do the dirty work of destabilizing American society, and worst of all, invading the Body of Christ like a metastasizing flesh-eating disease that is exterminating the true Gospel of Christ and replacing it with a demonic substitute.

Christian Naivety is Harming the Church’s Engagement with Today’s Culture

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Natasha Crain

I had no idea my last article, “5 Ways Christians are Getting Swept into a Secular Worldview in This Culture Moment,” would resonate with so many—it’s been liked and shared over 250,000 times to date (!). Although I no longer leave comments open on my site (I just don’t have the time to moderate and respond), I had the opportunity to observe a flurry of conversation threads on social media related to what I had written. Those conversations threads generated all kinds of ideas for future articles, but the one that pressed on me most over the last few weeks was this one.

As I considered the types of pushback I received from some fellow believers (not skeptics!), I started to realize that their comments had little to do with the facts, logic, or manner in which I wrote that particular article. Rather, they were the same kinds of reactions I’ve see to any post other Christians, or I write involving a call to better discernment in the church. Articles of this nature are often met with the same types of broad pushback about 1) the need for love, 2) the need for action, 3) the need to not be fearful, and 4) the need for unity (the implication being that these things are all somehow in tension with discernment).

I want to show today why there’s a certain biblical naivety in such comments—one that actually harms the church’s ability and opportunity to effectively engage with culture.

1. There’s a naivety about the relationship between discernment and love.

This, perhaps, is one of the greatest naiveties in the church today. If you have anything to say that is perceived to be negative, there will be plenty of Christians ready to tell you you’re not being loving. Others won’t directly make that accusation but will instead point out that they’re “just going to keep on loving people,” as if it’s impossible to offer truth while loving people.

Now, there are certainly times when Christians deliver truth in unloving ways. That’s a whole other conversation. But what I’m addressing here is the aversion some Christians have to any sort of statement that suggests a person, group, or action is wrong from a biblical perspective. In a lot of cases, those Christians even agree that the person/group/action is wrong, but they think there’s a negative tradeoff between drawing attention to our disagreement and being loving.

Please hear me out: It is not more loving, biblically speaking, for Christians to be a group of Pollyannas in a hostile culture. It’s naïve.

Jesus didn’t create the church to be an endless source of warm fuzzies to the world around us. That approach may draw some people to some version of Christianity, but it won’t be a Christianity based on the teachings of Jesus himself. As Christians, we’re called to be salt and light in the world. But how can we “preserve” God’s message when we refuse to share what He’s said in the name of our own definition of love—one rooted in either comfortable silence or superficial niceties? Surely, this is not a biblical love for others, as I explained in my last post. A biblical love is one that loves others in the context of what it first means to love God.

Furthermore, it’s extremely naïve to think that the more we look like the world—cheerfully glossing over the worldview differences that should drive our thinking and living—the more people will seek Jesus. Why seek Jesus when who He is and what He taught apparently makes no tangible difference in the lives of Christians, other than that they (sometimes) go to church on Sundays and pray in the quiet of their homes? How does this challenge people to consider the radical claims that Jesus was God himself, has authority over our lives, made reconciliation with our Creator possible through his sacrifice on the cross, was supernaturally raised from the dead, and is our only hope for eternal life?

It doesn’t.

We can keep on smiling and nodding along with culture, but let’s not be deluded that we’re doing Jesus any favors with complacency in the name of “love.”

2. There’s a naivety about the relationship between discernment and action.

I received several well-meaning comments and messages in response to my article suggesting that what Christians need to be focusing on right now is how to help those who are suffering due to inequality and discrimination…not on being critical of how people are doing that. In other words, don’t worry about the underlying (neo-Marxist) worldview of an organization like Black Lives Matter, just jump in and serve alongside of them—why can’t we all just work together, even if we have some disagreements?

To be clear, I didn’t say or imply that Christians should never work side-by-side with nonbelievers. That would be ridiculous. Once again, however, nuance is called for. There are many non-Christian organizations in the world working toward causes that Christians should care about as much as non-Christians, and in ways that don’t conflict with a Christian worldview. If we want to help save an endangered species side-by-side with an organization that assumes a naturalistic worldview (in which that species developed through blind, purposeless chance), there’s probably not an issue. Our approaches and end goals, in that case, can align despite divergent underlying worldviews.

But what if a non-Christian organization seeks to achieve a common goal using approaches in conflict with a Christian worldview?

And what if it turns out that what we think is a common goal is only superficially in common? That when we dig deeper, we find out that we may be using similar words but have a wildly different ending vision in mind?

This is exactly the issue in the case of Christians and the BLM organization. BLM’s specific vision and desired policy approaches for getting there are decidedly hostile to a Christian worldview. Al Mohler does a good job of explaining why in this article, so I’ll encourage you to click here for further explanation if you’re unfamiliar with the issues.

As Mohler says, “Black Lives Matter did not emerge merely as a sentence. Those three words function as a message and a platform making a significant political statement—one guided by a Marxist ideology that seeks to revolutionize our culture and society.”

And to be sure, the label of “Marxist ideology” is not something being unfairly thrust upon BLM. You can see a video here of BLM founder Patrisse Cullors assuring her interviewer that the group has an underlying ideology: “We’re trained Marxists.”

I have no doubt that Christians are well-meaning when they say they just want to get involved and do something to show their concern and support for the black community. But the choice isn’t BLM or nothing, and pointing out major issues with BLM doesn’t imply an encouragement to do nothing! (As just one alternative, you can bring training to your church on how to better support biblical justice through the latest efforts of the Center for Biblical Unity.)

Discernment must go hand-in-hand with action. If we’re unaware of how our actions are working toward a society opposed to our fundamental beliefs, we’re just naïve lambs being led to the slaughter. Well-meaning Christians may not realize it along the way, but make no mistake…those leading the lambs most certainly do.

3. There’s a naivety about the relationship between discernment and fear.

Another common response I see to articles written about the distinction between biblical and non-biblical thinking is that the activity of discernment is inherently fear-based.

“Do we really have to fear anything that isn’t explicitly Christian?”

“Why are you scared of people who believe differently?”

It’s unfortunate and sad when Christians think that the motivation behind discernment is somehow rooted in fear, as common statements like these assume. When someone attempts to clarify the line between biblical and non-biblical thinking, they’re not “scared” of what others believe or suggesting that there can be no common ground at all; they’re illuminating important differences because Christians should be able to see clearly enough to guard God’s truth from error (1 Tim. 4:16).

As Christians, we should be concerned when the lines between biblical and secular thinking are becoming so muddled in the minds of many believers that we’re losing our ability to impact culture. But concern isn’t some kind of unhinged emotional response that’s anxiously scrambling to get people to see your way because you’re afraid you’re losing a battle (the idea I think people have in mind when they make statements like the examples here). We know how the battle ends, but we’re called to preserve and fight for truth in the meantime. To not do so because we assume discernment is rooted in fear is a naivety about the need to think and live differently than the secular world. It’s a failure to understand just how different a biblical worldview and all of its implications for our lives really are.

4. There’s a naivety about the relationship between discernment and unity.

Finally, another common refrain from Christians when discernment-related questions are raised is that those questions cause “division” in the body of Christ. The basic idea is that we need to prioritize unity over differences.

But take that thinking to the extreme: Should we align ourselves with Christians who think blowing up buildings is “biblical”? Of course not. I can’t imagine that the same people who comment about our need for unity would say we should. We all recognize that a line must be drawn at some point. The problem is that many Christians are subjectively drawing that line based on cultural comfort rather than biblical direction.

In Ephesians 4:11–15, Paul tells Christians to speak the truth in love rather than being like infants “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.” The result, he says, is that we will “grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

Discernment is part of spiritual maturity.

Paul speaks to the importance of sound doctrine in his instructions to Timothy as well: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Tim. 4:2–4)

The Bible in no way suggests that we are to accept all ideas put forth in the name of Christ as equally valid or to remain silent. Championing a superficial unity to avoid working through disagreement naively allows many harmful ideas to infiltrate the church. [For help talking about this with your kids, see Part 2 in Talking with Your Kids about Jesus.]

In sending out his twelve disciples, Jesus said, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Just as today, the world the disciples would be preaching to was hostile to their message. Jesus’s command to them was to navigate what they would encounter by being shrewd—having “sharp powers of judgment,” as the dictionary defines it. We, too, should be both shrewd and innocent, but we’ve lost a lot of that balance to the naïve confusions I described here.

How do we fix it? That will be the subject of my next article.

Whose Morality Should We Legislate? 44 Quotes from Frank Turek and Norman Geisler

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Luke Nix

“We’re living in a society in which people feel no obligation to control their own actions. Instead, we rationalize and justify every aberrant behavior under the umbrella of freedom granted by the First Amendment, never admitting that freedom without reasonable and responsible limits destroys individual lives and ultimately destroys the fabric of a civilized society.”

“It is critical to recognize that the founders [of America] were pledging their lives to restore not someone’s revealed religion, but everyone’s self-evident morality.”

“It is important to note that even though the Founders believed the Rights of the people came from God, they did not insist that every citizen believe in God; they simply saw no way to justify those natural moral Rights unless there was a God.”

“The Moral Law actually is clear to everyone. It is evident by a person’s reactions rather than by his or her actions.“

“The Moral Law is not always the standard by which we treat others, but it is nearly always the standard by which we expect others to treat us.”

“The moral rightness or wrongness of a law is not determined by whether its enforcement is successful or unsuccessful…We’ve always found it difficult to enforce a number of our laws, including laws against murder, spouse and child abuse, rape, and theft, yet no sane person would ever suggest that these laws should be repealed because they’re difficult to enforce.”

“[Rights] should not be based on what people do, but on what is right as defined by the Moral Law. In other words, by definition, laws are prescriptive—they prescribe what ought to be done, while behaviors are descriptive—they describe what is being done. If everyone were to commit murder that wouldn’t make murder right. And it certainly wouldn’t be wise to discard all laws against murder because enforcement is difficult.”

“Most people are law-abiding citizens who don’t require someone constantly looking over their shoulder to keep them in line. In other words, the law, aside from law enforcement, has a certain restraining effect in itself. So when immoral behavior is legalized (the restraining effect of the law is removed), that behavior eventually loses its stigma of immorality. This is because many believe that whatever is legal is moral. That’s why legalization only result in more immoral behavior.”

“The history of abortion, like that of slavery and Prohibition, shows that laws can change hearts and attitudes when given enough time.”

“Even though many laws are difficult to enforce, most people obey them without the continuous presence of law enforcement. But since many believe that whatever is legal is moral, legalization of immorality will only result in more immoral behavior.”

“When libertarians or liberals seek to give people more freedom (i.e., by passing a law that legalizes a formerly illegal activity), they do exactly what they condemn conservatives for doing. They impose their morals (and thereby the associated effects) on people who do not agree with those morals.”

“A common mistake of relativists is to confuse behavior and value, what is and what ought to be. What people do is subject to change, but what they ought to do is not. This is the difference between sociology and morality. The former is descriptive, the latter is prescriptive.

“The Moral Law tells [atheists] intuitively that genocide is wrong. But they can’t appeal to the Moral Law to justify their belief because acknowledging the Moral Law would logically mean acknowledging the existence of the Moral Law-giver.”

“If man is the ultimate authority, then human beings are perfectly justified in defining morals and ethics that fit their own desires, even if those ethics are the ones espoused by Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and the Chinese government–murder, torture, and abuse.”

“Large-scale evolution is not only a theory that affects how one looks at things in the biology lab; it has a dramatic impact on government, philosophy, law, and ethics, as well.”

“The [First] Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing a national religion or denomination, but…it logically cannot prohibit Congress from establishing a national morality.”

“Allowing the [Supreme] Court to read their own meaning into the Constitution defeats the whole purpose of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

“If an unelected tribunal of judges can pour any interpretation they desire into a law, then the intentions of the people expressed in that law can be frustrated and usurped. The law ultimately means nothing if its original intent is not honored. Stop signs are useless if drivers are free to interpret them as ‘Go!'”

“While the Bible does not call for its political imposition on civil governments, it does call for those who believe in the Bible to be politically active.”

“The Bible does not command Christians to set up a Christian America; it simply commands them to help create a moral America.”

“What the Left really means when it asserts relativism is that all traditional absolutes are relative—their new absolutes are the only true absolutes. Reasonable people know better.”

“If we continue to let the Supreme Court and the Left suppress the Moral Law morality from our public life, our country is not likely to survive the evil that will continue to grow within it.”

“Like the physical universe, the moral universe is governed by unforgiving laws that we do not have the power to alter.”

“The truth of the objective Moral Law is most clearly seen by analyzing the tangled rhetoric of those who ignore it.”

“A Moral Law government avoids the intolerance of a purely religious government and the moral relativism of a purely secular government.”

“As history has proven, again and again, human beings have an unfailing propensity to suppress the Moral Law when that law gets in the way of their desire for pleasure, power, or property.”

“Today, our moral positions are more often fueled by feelings and emotions than by careful thought.”

“As a society, we rightfully discriminate against all kinds of harmful behaviors (e.g., drunk driving, theft, rape, etc.) regardless of the fact that some people may have been ‘born’ with a propensity to commit those crimes.”

“Even if we are ‘born’ heterosexual or homosexual, we are not required to engage in any particular form of sexual conduct. While we may have strong desires, our conduct is not mandatory. A choice must still be made.

“The fundamental problem in our world is that people willingly choose to do things that deep down they know they shouldn’t do. The fact that we’re all flawed to some extent—is precisely the reason we need a system of laws in our society.”

“We are not saying that all women who have abortions are murderers but victims themselves, deceived by the euphemisms of the abortion propaganda machine.”

“If the ‘pro-choicers’ were truly ‘pro-choice’, they would invite pro-life advocates to their meetings and into their clinics. After all, life is the only other choice a woman can make. Instead, pro-abortion advocates greet pro-lifers with court orders to keep as far away as possible. The pro-abortionists have only one choice in mind. The other choice isn’t good for business.”

“No one has the moral right to choose anything that directly ends the life of another innocent human being. The right to life is the right to all other rights. Without life, we’d all have no rights whatsoever.”

“Because of the legality of abortion, family and friends often feel free to pressure women into killing their babies when they wouldn’t otherwise do so.”

“When the [Supreme] Court ignores the intent of a particular law, it is ignoring the will of the people. Instead of the people governing themselves, they are governed by the imposed will of unelected judges. That’s not representative democracy, that’s closer to tyranny.”

“[Some men with whom women are sexually active] favor abortion because it frees them of what would normally be a long-range responsibility. In effect, abortion makes women more susceptible to predatory males who want to use women for sex but aren’t really interested in making long-term commitments to them.”

“All moral positions impose values. Even the moral position that you should not impose values on others does just that: it imposes values on others. For if we are not to restrain people legally from doing wrong, then we impose on others the effects of the wrongdoing.”

“It is precisely because humans are not animals that we do not kill them in difficult situations. That is, since we believe human life has a higher value than that of animals, we do not treat humans like laboratory rats. Moreover, human beings don’t lose their value when they lose their health. People are valuable because of their humanity, not because they lack an infirmity.”

“Laws favoring abortion impose values on the life of the unborn; pro-life laws impose values on the liberty of the mother. In other words, the pro-life side wants to impose continued pregnancy on the mother, while the pro-abortion side wants to impose death on the baby.”

“If money made people happy, the United States would be the happiest place on earth. Instead, we lead the world in indicators of unhappiness such as suicide, drug use, and divorce.”

“Money without morality leads to the kind of materialistic madness we’ve been experiencing. We have everything to live with and nothing to live by.”

“How can those responsible for legislating morality do so when they have trouble discerning right from wrong? Are such people really qualified to make decisions of the highest moral consequences?”

“Why won’t those who use immoral means to get what they want in their private lives use immoral means to get what they want in their public lives? Those who refuse to restrain their appetites in private are unlikely to resist the enormous temptation to abuse their political power to get what they want (and to use that power to cover up their ‘private’ indiscretions).”

“When the ideal is not realizable, then we should legislate the optimum achievable within the existing conditions. That is when the maximum is not possible, we should not settle for the minimum but should legislate the optimum.”

All these quotes came from Drs. Frank Turek’s and Norman Geisler’s book Legislating Morality: Is It Wise, Is It Legal, Is It Possible. Check out the full chapter-by-chapter review of the book and other featured posts:

5 Casualties of the Court’s LGBTQ Sex Ruling

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

“Sex” in civil rights law now legally means sexual orientation or whatever gender you think you are. That’s the result of a surprising Supreme Court decision (Bostock vs. Clayton County) from Justice Neil Gorsuch. Problem? Yes, here are five casualties of this ruling:

We the People: If you think you have the ability to govern yourselves through your elected representatives, the United States Supreme Court again made a mockery of that Constitutional principle. You can work to elect the right people and pass all the laws you want, only to see a handful of unelected lawyers on the Supreme Court nullify or replace your laws with their own.

That’s what six justices did this week. They changed the 1964 civil rights law into a law that they desired, despite the fact that the very changes they made have been rejected by Congress in recent years. Now, just like that, “sex” no longer means biological sex but sexual orientation and whatever a person thinks their sex is at the time.

As Justices Alito and Thomas wrote in dissent, there’s only one word for what the Court did: “legislation.” “A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall.”

Now, many actually agree with the result (it has some big negatives I’ll get to in a minute). But the means by which this result was achieved should disturb everyone because it strikes at the very heart of our Constitution and our rights as people to govern ourselves. It’s an injustice for judges to impose their legislative will on the people. If judges want to change the law, then they should do what any citizen has to do—convince fellow citizens to go through the legislative process to get the law changed. To merely impose their will on the people is tyranny.

Women: Justice Gorsuch’s opinion furthers the Leftist claim that sex is defined not by biology, but by one’s state of mind. Therefore, if a man thinks he’s a woman, then the law must treat him as a woman. Although Gorsuch tries to deny this result, what he’s done is given legal grounds for biological men to gain a legal advantage over actual women in the workplace, in the bathroom, and elsewhere.

Ladies, you want that promotion? All other things being equal, who do you think your employer is now going to promote—you or the man transitioning to a woman who now has heightened legal grounds as an even smaller minority to sue for “discrimination”?

Do you want privacy and safety in the bathroom and showering facilities? What policy is your employer or gym going to adopt—the common sense one where biological men and women are kept separate, or the one that prevents a costly discrimination suit by inviting men into women’s facilities?

LGBTQ People: Gorsuch has not just made it harder for women; his reasoning contradicts the very rationale for the existence of women and the LGBTQ people he’s supposedly trying to help. For when someone identifies as a woman, man, lesbian or gay, they are presupposing there is such a thing as objective biological sex. How else can one have sex with someone of the same sex unless one can differentiate that person from the opposite sex? And how can a man transition into becoming a woman unless men and women actually exist?

The practical outcome of the Court’s opinion is that either one’s biology or psychology can determine one’s sex. But if a person’s subjective psychology usurps their objective biology, then there is no objective way of identifying anyone as a man, woman, or LGBTQ. Sex and sexual identity are just figments of the imagination (much like Gorsuch’s justification for his opinion).

That’s why some lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and feminists have been against the subjective transgender psychology standard that Gorsuch just affirmed—it defines them out of existence!

96% of the Population: Ask anyone in corporate America this question: Are you more likely to experience problems at work for supporting LGBTQ political goals or opposing them? It’s not even close, as I found out personally.

HR departments in corporate America are proponents of everything LGBTQ, and those who identify as such are actually better off than their straight counterparts. LGBTQ households, on average, earn more than traditional households, and gay men earn 10% more than straight men. While there are individual exceptions (hence the lawsuit that brought this case to the Supreme Court), there appears to be NO systemic problem of anti-LGBTQ bias in the workplace.

Yet, this Court’s decision will employ the strong arm of government to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. The decision will force companies to give employment preference to a long list of sexual orientations that, at best, 4% of people claim (a 4% that already has a financial advantage). Anyone who claims an LGBTQ identity will now have more job security than John or Jane Doe. How so? Because if a company has to downsize, who are they going choose—one of the helpless Doe’s, or the person of a new legally-preferenced minority who can bring a costly lawsuit alleging “discrimination”?

While reverse discrimination may not be the intent of this decision, it is an inevitable consequence. As soon as you give preferential treatment to one group of people, you are automatically disadvantaging anyone not part of that group.

Moreover, there isn’t any medical consensus as to what sexual orientation or transgenderism is. But the effect of this decision is that businesses are now forced to give preference to those who identify as “ambigender; bigender; blurgender; collgender; conflictgender; cosmicgender; crystagender; deliciagender; duragender; demiflux; domgender; fissgender; gemelgender; gendercluster; genderfluid; gendersea; genderfuzz; genderfractal; genderspiral; genderswirl; gendervex; gyaragender; libragender; ogligender; pangender; polygender; trigender (whatever that all means). How is it possible to even know you’re in compliance if you can’t define what compliance is? How many young workers will claim one of these nebulous labels just to get an advantage? (Their claims for special treatment can’t be objectively disproven like Elizabeth Warren’s claim to be a Native American.)

In short, this decision doesn’t fix an existing workplace problem (thankfully, LGBTQ folks are doing quite well). Instead, it creates legal and administrative chaos, and it legally justifies reverse discrimination against an already underperforming 96% of the population. That’s anything but “equality.”

Religious Freedom: If any group is being discriminated against in corporate America, it is Christians and other conservatives who are hiding under their desks for fear of being outed, excluded, and shamed by the “inclusion and diversity” police. Are their First Amendment rights now nullified? How about Christian, Muslim, and Jewish schools: are they now forced to hire teachers and administrators who contradict their natural law and scriptural views of proper sexual behavior? Will religious people now need special permission from the Supreme Court to live as if there are two genders created for one another?

Judge Gorsuch says those questions are for another case. Given his faulty reasoning skills and legislative impulses, in this case, I’m not optimistic he’ll respect reason or the Constitution the next time either.

The COVID-19 War

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Dr. Dan Eichenberger

The United States incurred an unprovoked attack, and the enemy (COVID-19) has inflicted casualties. The President declared war and already invoked the Defense Production Act, essentially forcing private companies into the production of what the government demands. Since the war has been declared, the expectation is there will be casualties, both of those on the front lines and the innocent. No realistic individual can believe wars come without lives lost. Yet the war strategy is marred with ill-defined goals and no clearly defined end-game. The strategists of this war appear to be politicians, epidemiologists, scientists, and actuaries. The President declared war; however, he is not relying on the general principles of warfare necessary to win. Wars are never won by near-complete withdraw and a shutdown of a country’s economy, limiting the financial strength to continue the fight. History confirms that withdraw comes with consequences usually in favor of the victor.

The way to defeat this enemy is through immunity. The two methods for immunity are active immunity and passive immunity, both helpful in promoting herd immunity. Passive immunity through immunizations is likely months away, and this war cannot wait for its development. Active immunization must occur and will only happen through the exposure of the disease and supporting the individual until resolution. The quicker herd immunity occurs, the fewer hosts/victims will be available for infectivity. This war, as all wars in the past, can and will be won on the backs of the fighters. There will be losses, and there will be sacrifices. However, the longer we wait to truly enter the battlefield, the more untoward consequences our passivity will create. We are held hostage by bureaucrats and activists who intend to utilize this crisis for their underlying agendas. We are already losing liberties with our first and second amendments in many states by government fiat. We are social shaming and virtue-signaling across all social media platforms as well as mainstream media. We are federalizing more financial agencies to redistribute wealth and socialize more of our free-market.

The economic devastation of shutting down a vast amount of the country increases financial devastation for the most vulnerable in our country. The realities of this include increase in bankruptcies, businesses shutdowns, unemployment numbers skyrocketing, increases in domestic violence, increases in suicides, considerable increases in homelessness, leading to less access to adequate nutrition and healthcare. When forced to choose between paying rent, buying food for a family, or paying for medicine or healthcare, most individuals choose to rent and food and forego the healthcare needs. This leads to increased morbidity and mortality down the road. The 2008 recession provided ample support of these conclusions, including the British Medical Journal (BMJ 2013;347:f5239, https://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5239 ) attributing 10,000 suicide deaths to the economic recession.

The media portrays this war in a biased fashion utilizing data and statistics which support their narrative and promote their underlying agenda. They routinely use numbers and metrics in absolute terms without providing a reference to a standard population base or another comparable metric. They regularly state the worst-case scenarios rather than the more conservative numbers and rarely, if ever, report the underlying bias, assumptions, or deficiencies of the modeling. A perfect example of this is hospital beds and ventilators. The only scenario in which the United States wouldn’t have enough ventilators or beds is if COVID-19 infected everyone at virtually the same time across the country, which is unrealistic and virtually impossible.

This war is mostly a logistics problem. We will continue to see hotspots (battles) around the country, and the biggest challenge is getting the right people, the right equipment, in the right amounts to the right place at the right time. The majority of patients, other than the critically ill, are no more challenging to treat than other patients. The limiting factor in treating these patients is the time, energy, and additional supplies required every time you walk in the room. This is the limiting factor and is a logistic problem more than anything else. Many hospitals are furloughing employees because their censuses are so low. We are still learning about the disease in the critically ill and making some inroads; however, many of these critically ill patients will die no matter what medical advances are made. This is not only the nature of war; it is the natural consequence of life.

This war needs to be managed differently; otherwise, the long-term effects will be worse than the current disease. The economy needs to be selectively reopened immediately based on a risk analysis for each company. The legislatures need to restrict and/or limit any litigation related to a private company wishing to reopen. Individuals need to take personal responsibility related to their individual actions. Society needs to assist in protecting the most vulnerable, which includes the elderly and infirmed. We need to recognize and acknowledge there will continue to be hotspots around the country, and we will continue to see deaths. Every community needs to have strategies and plans in place to logistically and effectively manage each new battle.

Herd immunity is the solution to win the war. The sooner war strategies are implemented to reach this goal, the sooner we win.

The Redefinition of Love—Resulting From the Loss of Truth

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Rich Hoyer

Most people agree that we should love one another. But what does it mean to love others?

Love can’t mean what our culture says it means. It can’t be untethered from a transcendent moral standard (i.e., God’s word and natural Law) and left to be defined subjectively by our feelings, to be molded and fashioned into whatever shape current societal trends bend it. The average person in the US today is a Popular Secularist[1] and has accepted the Popular Secularist definition of love. When most people speak of love today, to speak of “loving others” means something like, “I want you to have whatever you want; to exist in whatever state you think will make you happy.” Love is now defined in terms of the core Popular Secularist values of comfort and happiness rather than by the traditional values of goodness and truth. Thus, in today’s culture, to be unloving or hateful is to stand in the way of a lifestyle choice of another which that person thinks will bring him happiness and satisfaction, even to tell someone that what they want is “wrong” in some way and to suggest that they should deny themselves of certain wants and desires. That’s what it means to be “unloving” in our Popular Secularist culture today.

When the concept of knowable moral Truth (a standard of right/wrong and good/evil which originates from beyond mankind and beyond societal opinion) is rejected by a culture, there is nothing by which to authoritatively measure our wants and desires. It becomes impossible to say, “My desire for this person is wrong,” or “My desire to do this is bad for me and for society.” All that is left is for people and society to voice their opinions. Yet, many in our society don’t act like their definition of love is opinion. Some even seek to impose their opinion on those who disagree with the dominant societal view even though there is no solid philosophical foundation to justify such action. Society is still left to talk about concepts like love, but the traditional definition of love which joins love tightly to Truth is lost.

Thus, love becomes like a boat that is untethered from its moorings, left to drift here and thereby the wind and waves of societal fads.

Yet love and Truth go hand-in-hand. Without Truth, that which is claimed to be love is a counterfeit—much like what happens when a person mistakes infatuation for love. Love for another must include a desire for that which is good in the life of the other. More specifically, to love someone is to work to bring about that which is good in the life of another. Yet the only way to measure “the good” is to have a standard that originates from a source beyond society’s opinion by which we can examine the choices put forward. Thankfully, we do have a true measuring stick to measure the good in the form of God’s revelation given to us through the Bible and through natural Law.

Christians should know what love is and what it looks like. We shouldn’t be deceived into accepting the cultural definition of love that is grounded in feelings rather than Truth. In fact, we can learn a lot about love simply by looking at the assumptions at play in the conversation when Jesus answered a Pharisee’s question in Matthew 22:36, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus’ answer is found in verse 37-40:

Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment.
³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus said that to love God and to love others as yourself are the greatest commandments, the highest responsibility of man. It’s at this point that the Popular Secularist might agree to say, “Yes, LOVE is the greatest value! See, even Jesus said so. You Christians should be more loving of people. You should affirm them and not criticize their lifestyle choices and beliefs just because they are different than yours.” Sadly, we are seeing more and more Christians affirming immoral lifestyle choices in the name of being more inclusive, affirming, and loving—even in the spirit of the Love of Christ Himself!

Yet those who adopt such a stance fail to consider the context as well as WHAT WAS ASSUMED by the Pharisee’s question and by Jesus’ answer. Both assumed that moral truth CAN BE KNOWN. Both were basing their definition of love, not on subjective feelings, but on the clear revelation of moral Truth originating from God Himself. After all, the question was, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?” We must ask the question, “To which Law are they both referring?” The answer, of course, is the Law that was given by God to the people of Israel! And from where did that Law originate? From God! In other words, if you want to love God and love others, you must do the things detailed in God’s Law given to Israel.[2] As Jesus said in verse 40, “All of God’s law is designed to help you love God and love others” (my paraphrase). This is not a subjective concept of love, but one that is based on the clear ability to access and to know God’s revelation to man. In short to love God and to love man is to obey the Law of God.

That very revelation to man is what the now dominant Popular Secularist worldview denies. According to Popular Secularism, God may or may not exist, but we certainly can’t definitively say “who” God is, much less what God wants. Thus, the concept of love is left to float about and be defined by whatever wind and wave of doctrine the current version of society pushes. Love becomes like a boat detached from its moorings floating aimlessly this way and that.

While it may not surprise us when non-Christians such as Popular Secularists adopt this viewpoint, it should surprise us when professing Christians adopt this viewpoint. It is partially because many Christians don’t know the Scriptures because they don’t read the Bible, that they are easily led astray by this “wind and wave” of false doctrine that is born from the Popular Secularist worldview. Some professing Christians, I would dare say, are really Popular Secularists at heart even though they profess to believe in Jesus. Their actions and attitudes, just like those of everyone else, flow out of their deepest convictions, which align more closely to the culture at large rather than Christianity.

Yet as Christians, if we truly are Christians, we must accept the teachings of the Bible, the words of Jesus Christ Himself, rather than the convictions of our current culture. We must measure everything we see and hear by the measuring stick of God’s revelation to us. If we fail to do so, we will not be transformed into the image of Christ and will instead conform to false notions of all sorts of things—including distortions of fundamental concepts, even love.

Notes

[1] Popular Secularism is the dominant worldview in the West today. Popular Secularism holds the following assumptions about reality:

God may or may not exist.
1. If God does exist, no one knows which God is true.
2. No one can rightly say one religion is right and another wrong.
3. To make such claims is intolerant.
As such, no one can claim to know what God wants mankind to do to the exclusion of the claims of others.
1. Thus no religious book (the Bible, the Koran, etc…) can rightly claim to be the word of God.
2. Each book carries the same weight, but less weight than the wisdom of elite educational progressive knowledge today.
Morality is probably real but has more to do with the survival of society rather than the pleasure of God.
1. It’s undeniable that “evil” is real.
2. Yet since we don’t know if God is real or who he is, no one can rightly say that someone’s actions are objectively wrong unless the majority of society agrees.
3. Thus, morality is a construction of society rather than a product of God’s revelation to us.
Comfort and happiness are the highest human considerations.
1. Humans should work to make sure that everyone is comfortable and happy.
2. Anything that denies comfort and happiness should be avoided and possibly forbidden.
Economic considerations should always be held in higher regard than religious claims.
1. Public policy/laws should be decided by considering whether something will provide more money for society rather than based upon “religious” claims about morality.
2. As a contemporary example: If legalized gaming with bring added revenue to a city to alleviate budget shortages, that knowledge should be considered more important than religious claims that added gambling opportunities are not “good” for society.
3. “The good” is defined in economic, sexual, and environmental terms.
(Near) total sexual freedom is something to which everyone is entitled.
1. Homosexuality, Transgenderism, sex outside of marriage, are all legitimate lifestyle choices as people should have the right to do what they want.
2. Only those sexual activities that “harm” others are wrong.
3. A growing number of Popular Secularists believe that each person should be entitled to freedom from being offended, including silencing dissenting voices.
Ignorance and the abuse caused by “the rich” are mankind’s two main problems.
1. If we educate people, many of the world’s evils and inequities will disappear.
2. Governments also need to pursue income redistribution to bring about economic justice.
3. If all would cooperate, we could usher in near utopian conditions, and life would improve for everyone.
No one knows what happens when we die.
1. If there is no God, there is no Judgment Day to worry about.
2. On the other hand, some believe that just about everyone goes to heaven.
3. In the minds of those, only the really bad people go to hell, if there is such a place.

[2] Today, one must not immediately institute all the Old Testament laws willy-nilly. One must recognize that God’s revelation is progressive in nature. The Moral Code is repeated in the New Testament and is still valid, while the Ceremonial and Civil laws are obsolete, having been fulfilled by Christ.

Secularism, COVID-19, & the “Non-Essential” Church

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Rich Hoyer

Many have asked the question, “Why are churches considered ‘non-essential’ during the Coronavirus shutdown and places like restaurants considered ‘essential’? Why are churches closed while grocery stores and restaurants remain open (at least for carry-out orders)?” The insinuation is NOT that food isn’t necessary, but the focus of the inquiry is on why churches are not considered ‘essential.’ After all, if social distancing is practiced in the church building and if surfaces are sanitized, how is being around people in a church building any different than being around a few hundred people in the Walmart or Meijer or the grocery store (especially since most church gatherings in the US number 100 people or less)?

Part of the answer lies in worldview analysis. Everyone, whether a person realizes it or not, has a worldview. Everyone thinks with their worldview. And our worldview assumptions drive the decisions we make. For instance, if we believe that God is real, knowable, and cares for mankind, we will pray to God because our basic worldview assumption tells us that God hears our prayers. If, on the other hand, we don’t believe that God is real, knowable, or caring, then we won’t pray because we would consider doing so a waste of time. It’s my assertion that the average person in the US holds to a worldview that I call “Popular Secularism.”[i] Popular Secularism (PS) is a softer version of classic Secular Humanism (SH). SH flatly denies God’s existence. It also explicitly denies any spiritual realm beyond the physical, material world. PS, on the other hand, allows for a person to believe in whatever spiritual realm and religious view that he/she chooses. God may or may not exist. PS, however, considers spiritual concerns as being less important than physical, material concerns. Thus, a person can believe whatever he wants with regards to spiritual things. But PS treats a person’s spiritual beliefs like a parent views a child’s fairy tale. These are nice things to believe, but when its time to get serious, there is little-to-no room for certain spiritual practices.

Thus, enter the current discussion about why church gatherings are deemed “non-essential” while restaurants and other retail businesses are deemed “essential.” Because the average person in the US is a Popular Secularist, and because our politicians are elected from the general populace, we see Popular Secularists making the decisions for our country. And since PS views spiritual concerns as less important than physical and material concerns, church gatherings are deemed “non-essential” while food concerns are deemed essential.

Someone might object, “It makes sense to limit gatherings of people to protect the populace from getting sick.” Yes, but the question raised is this: If the populace is already gathering together (several hundred at a time) once or twice a week at the grocery store, how is the church gathering together once a week any different? The answer from the Popular Secularist might be that “people need to eat but they don’t need to go to church?” Here, though, we see the Popular Secularist reasoning from his worldview, which considers spiritual things less important than physical and material concerns. Again, the point of making this statement is not to say that I don’t think food is essential; it’s to point out WHY church gatherings are officially considered “non-essential.” PS considers spiritual things less important than the material.

When the dominant worldview of culture says, “This world is all that we can be sure exists,” of course, those who think with that worldview will prioritize this life, the here and now. PS reasons, “This life is all there is. We need to make sure that we extend it as long as possible.” While the Biblical Christian worldview says, “Life is a gift from God. We will take precautions to stay healthy and to help others stay healthy. But gathering as a church is just as important as going to the grocery store because spiritual things are just as important as the physical. And we are confident that eternity with God is far greater than life here and now.” As the Apostle Paul said, “To live is Christ; to die is gain.”

Notes

[i] [i] Popular Secularism is the dominant worldview in the West today. Popular Secularism holds the following assumptions about reality:

God may or may not exist.
1. If God does exist, no one knows which god is true.
2. No one can rightly say one religion is right and another wrong.
3. To make such claims is intolerant.
As such, no one can claim to know what God wants mankind to do to the exclusion of the claims of others.
1. Thus no religious book (the Bible, the Koran, etc…) can rightly claim to be the word of God.
2. Each book carries the same weight, but less weight than the wisdom of elite educational progressive knowledge today.
Morality is probably real but has more to do with the survival of society rather than the pleasure of God.
1. It’s undeniable that “evil” is real.
2. Yet since we don’t know if God is real or who he is, no one can rightly say that someone’s actions are objectively wrong unless the majority of society agrees.
3. Thus, morality is a construction of society rather than a product of God’s revelation to us.
Comfort and happiness are the highest human considerations.
1. Humans should work to make sure that everyone is comfortable and happy.
2. Anything that denies comfort and happiness should be avoided and possibly forbidden.
Economic considerations should always be held in higher regard than religious claims.
1. Public policy/laws should be decided by considering whether something will provide more money for society rather than based upon “religious” claims about morality.
2. As a contemporary example: If legalized gaming with brings added revenue to a city to alleviate budget shortages, that knowledge should be considered more important than religious claims that added gambling opportunities are not “good” for society.
3. “The good” is defined in economic, sexual, and environmental terms.
(Near) total sexual freedom is something to which everyone is entitled.
1. Homosexuality, Transgenderism, sex outside of marriage, are all legitimate lifestyle choices as people should have the right to do what they want.
2. Only those sexual activities that “harm” others are wrong.
3. A growing number of Popular Secularists believe that each person should be entitled to freedom from being offended, including silencing dissenting voices.
Ignorance and the abuse caused by “the rich” are mankind’s two main problems.
1. If we educate people, many of the world’s evils and inequities will disappear.
2. Governments also need to pursue income redistribution to bring about economic justice.
3. If all would cooperate, we could usher in near utopian conditions, and life would improve for everyone.
No one knows what happens when we die.
1. If there is no God, there is no Judgment Day to worry about.
2. On the other hand, some believe that just about everyone goes to heaven.
3. In the minds of those, only the really bad people go to hell, if there is such a place.

The Separation Doctrine Between Church And State

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Jason Jiménez

In 1830, upon arriving to North America from France, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “The religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.”[1] The Constitution of North Carolina (1776) proclaims: “…all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences.”[2]

It is astonishing to think that despite all the evidence indicating our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian truths, America continues to reject the obvious. Many of the secular advancements to replace religious discussion from the public square come from employing “separation of church and state” and the First Amendment as legal principles penned by Jefferson. Secularists (non-religious) want us to believe that Jefferson allegedly supported the idea that there was no place for any religious reference among the citizenry and that religious disturbance was not to be tolerated in the public affairs of life. They incite these false views and misrepresentation of the facts because they want us to buy into the lie that America has always been a secular nation. However, contrary to popular belief, what we actually find in history is quite a different story regarding Jefferson’s viewpoints and the role Christianity played in shaping America. With historical objectivity as our guide, let us settle the truth about the “separation of church and state” once and for all.

Who Phrased the Infamous Phrase?

In reference to the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state,” we can indeed attribute that to Thomas Jefferson. However, we must do so in the proper context. Jefferson was not the originator of this phrase, but it was actually used as a famous metaphor by ministers in England in the 1500s, and eventually in America in the 1600s. After periods of state control and corruption of religion, an early Methodist bishop by the name of Charles Galloway insisted that there ought not to be any intrusion of governmental matters with ecclesiastical ones. Rev. Richard Hooker was actually the first to use the phrase, “separation of…Church and Commonwealth” under the reign of King Henry VIII of England. (The phrase “separation of church and state” originated from the Pilgrims’ religious flight from England under the ecclesiastical supremacy of Queen Elizabeth). The Pilgrims fled to Holland and eventually settled in America where they stressed that the government had no right to “compel religion, to plant churches by power, and to force a submission to the ecclesiastical government by laws and penalties.”[3]

Therefore, the purpose of separation was always to protect the church from interference by the government – not to protect the government from the church.

What Did Our Founders Believe?

The First Amendment is essentially divided up into two clauses. The first being the Establishment Clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion;” and the second being the Free Exercise Clause: “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But what exactly is the intended meaning of words like “establishment,” “religion,” “prohibit,” and “free exercise?”

Well, the Framers made it abundantly clear from the start that Congress, not individual states, is limited in its capacity to establish, exercise, and even disestablish a state-run religion. Additionally, the Establishment Clause is the one that prohibits Congress from having jurisdiction or enforcement over the religious freedoms expressed in public life, and, it is the Free Exercise Clause that allows the state (i.e., Congress) to protect these religious freedoms and expressions. Historically speaking, the view of that day was that the Church (religion) and State (government) were two separate spheres but with adjoined purposes.

Government was to protect the civility for the people. Religion was to enhance the morality and vitality of the people.

On July 13, 1787, the Continental Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance, and in it they prodigiously professed: “Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged.”[4]Those in attendance included George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. These men are considered the most prominent figures in the development of the U. S. Constitution and the ratification of the Bill of Rights. George Washington was not only the President of the Convention which created the U.S. Constitution, but he was also the President of the United States who pushed for the creation of the Bill of Rights to enhance the principles and protections of the liberties expressed in the U.S. Constitution. We find no mentioning of a privatized faith of any sort in Washington’s writings or addresses to the American people.

What Did Jefferson Believe?

It’s important to point out that though Jefferson was the architect of the Declaration of Independence, he was not a framer of the U.S. Constitution.[5] Jefferson was in France (acting as Ambassador) at the time of the writing of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. On June 19, 1802, Jefferson wrote a letter in response to an article he had received from Dr. Joseph Priestly who accredited the success of the U.S. Constitution to him. Jefferson wrote:

One passage in the paper you enclosed me must be corrected. It is the following, ‘And all say it was yourself more than any other individual, that planned and established it,’ i. e., the Constitution. I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned, and never saw it till after it was established.[6]

Upon Jefferson becoming President in 1801, many Baptists were strong supporters of his Anti-Federalist positions and sought counsel from the President. They did so based upon the reading of the Kentucky Resolution of 1798 whereby Jefferson declared his beliefs of interpreting the U.S. Constitution:

That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitutions, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, our prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”; and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed….[7]

According to this and other public remarks by Jefferson, the Danbury Baptists knew the President opposed governmental control and interference in religious matters of the church. In October 7, 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut wrote to President Jefferson about their concern that religious liberty is a God-given right, not a privilege granted by the government. They realized that if the government granted such religious freedoms to the people, then that would mean that it could, at any given time, remove them. In response to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson replied on January 1, 1802:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties [emphasis mine].[8]

On subsequent occasions, Jefferson articulated this same position to others as he did to the Danbury Baptists. Jefferson wrote, “I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S.”[9] John Adams agreed with Jefferson, stating, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[10]

Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists were simply addressing the dangers of the government’s marginalizing religious freedoms, not the other way around. Once again, it is perfectly clear that the separation doctrine was a campaign of the church to remove government oversight, not the government trying to remove the Church from public life.

When Did It Become Misinterpreted?

In 1878 the U.S. Supreme Court used Jefferson’s “separation” metaphor as part and parcel to the ruling that it is the government’s duty to protect rather than limit the free exercise of religious preference. In fact, the Court took it a step further by invoking Jefferson’s famous Virginia Act of Religious Freedom of 1786 in order to point out a few exceptions whereupon the government does have authority to intervene on religious matters. David Barton interprets the Court’s ruling of Jefferson’s statute as such,

That Court (and others) then identified a handful of actions that, if perpetrated in the name of religion, the government did have legitimate reason to limit, including bigamy, concubinage, incest, child sacrifice, infanticide, parricide, and other similar crimes. But the government was not to impede traditional religious expressions in public, such as public prayer, public display of religious symbols, public use of Scriptures, acknowledgement of God in public events, and so on. In short, the separation of Church and State existed not to remove or secularize the free exercise of religion but rather to preserve and protect it, regardless of whether it was exercised in private or public life.[11]

Thus, according to the Founders, religion played a virtuous role in shaping the values of a nation governed by the moral character of the people and for the people.

And yet in a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1947, the High Court declared that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment not only applied to the imposed limitations of the federal government, but to States as well. Justice Black openly declared, “In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.’”[12]

Over a century and a half later, the U.S. Supreme Court seized Jefferson’s phrase “wall of separation” and applied an anti-religious interpretation to the First Amendment. It was no longer a safeguard from intrusion or obstruction on the part of Congress, but now a flipped version that merged the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment with the due process law of the Fourteenth Amendment that fundamentally changed the course of religion in public life. Since the pronouncement by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1947, almost every case addressing religious and public separation cite Jefferson as the architect of both the First Amendment and the law of “separation of church and state.”

However, as already shown, this is not only a fabrication of American history, but it’s also a poor rendering of the First Amendment. Spalding clarifies, “What this reconciliation of religion and politics did not mean is equally important, and crucial to understanding the meaning and significance of religious liberty: This official separation of church doctrine and the new federal government never meant—was never intended to imply—the separation of religion and politics, or the expunging of religion from public life.”[13] That’s precisely why former Chief Justice, William Rehnquist (served 1986-2005), admittedly observed, “The metaphor of a wall of separation is bad history and worse law. It has made a positive chaos out of court rulings. It should be explicitly abandoned.”[14]

Based on the examination of the origin and historical meaning of the separation doctrine, it’s obvious that it has always been the government that has jumped the “wall of separation” and not the Church. But because of the mishandling of our Founders’ religious (mainly Christian) viewpoints, particularly those of Jefferson, and robbing the government of its proper role to protect religion in public life, secularism has altered the course of American history. As a result, secularism has been widely successful in removing God, redefining truth, and is well on its way to replacing Christianity.

Notes

[1] ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, HENRY REEVE, AND JOHN C. SPENCER, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA (NEW YORK: ALLARD AND SAUNDERS, 1838), 319.

[2] “NORTH CAROLINA CONSTITUTION OF 1776,” BELIEFNET, HTTP://WWW.BELIEFNET.COM/RESOURCELIB/DOCS/169/NORTH_CAROLINA_CONSTITUTION_OF_1776_1.HTML.

[3] DAVID BARTON, THE JEFFERSON LIES: EXPOSING THE MYTHS YOU ALWAYS BELIEVED ABOUT THOMAS JEFFERSON (NASHVILLE: THOMAS NELSON, 2012), 120.

[4] “THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE, ARTICLE III,” NORTHWEST ORDINANCE, HTTP://WWW.NORTHWESTORDINANCE.ORG/.

[5] JEFFERSON WAS NOT THE ARCHITECT OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT (READ THE LETTER TO MADISON ON DECEMBER 20, 1787), AND HIS LETTER USING THE PHRASE “WALL OF SEPARATION” WAS WRITTEN OVER TEN YEARS AFTER THE FIRST AMENDMENT WAS RATIFIED!

[6] H. A. WASHINGTON, THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON: BEING HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, CORRESPONDENCE, REPORTS, MESSAGES, ADDRESSES, AND OTHER WRITINGS, OFFICIAL AND PRIVATE, PUB. BY THE ORDER OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS ON THE LIBRARY, FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS, DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE (WASHINGTON, D.C.: TAYLOR & MAURY, 1853), 441.

[7] “THE KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS OF 1798,” CONSTITUTION SOCIETY, LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 4, 2011, HTTP://WWW.CONSTITUTION.ORG/CONS/KENT1798.HTM.

[8] “AMENDMENT I (RELIGION), DOCUMENT 58, THOMAS JEFFERSON TO DANBURY BAPTIST ASSOCIATION,” THE FOUNDER’S CONSTITUTION, HTTP://WWW.PRESSPUBS.UCHICAGO.EDU/FOUNDERS/DOCUMENTS/AMENDI_RELIGIONS58.HTML.

[9] “AMENDMENT I (RELIGION), DOCUMENT 60, THOMAS JEFFERSON TO REV. SAMUEL MILLER,” THE FOUNDER’S CONSTITUTION, HTTP://WWW.PRESS-PUBS.UCHICAGO.EDU/FOUNDERS/DOCUMENTS/AMENDI_RELIGIONS60.HTML.

[10] “MESSAGE FROM JOHN ADAMS TO THE OFFICERS OF THE FIRST BRIGADE OF THE THIRD DIVISION OF THE MILITIA OF MASSACHUSETTS,” BELIEFNET, HTTP://WWW.BELIEFNET.COM/RESOURCELIB/DOCS/115/MESSAGE_FROM_JOHN_ADAMS_TO_THE_OFFICERS_OF_THE_FIRST_BRIGADE_1.HTML.

[11] BARTON, THE JEFFERSON LIES, 126-127.

[12] “MCCOLLUM V. BOARD OF EDUCATION – 333 U.S. 203 (1948),” JUSTIA US SUPREME COURT CENTER, HTTP://WWW.SUPREME.JUSTIA.COM/CASES/FEDERAL/US/333/203/CASE.HTML.

[13] MATTHEW SPAULDING, WE STILL HOLD THESE TRUTHS: REDISCOVERING OUR PRINCIPLES, RECLAIMING OUR FUTURE (WILMINGTON, DE: ISI BOOKS, 2009), 56.

[14] “REHNQUIST’S DISSENT IN WALLACE V JAFFREE (1985),” BELCHER FOUNDATION, HTTP://WWW.BELCHERFOUNDATION.ORG/WALLACE_V_JAFFREE_DISSENT.HTM.

Why Religious Freedom Should Matter to Absolutely Everyone

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Mikel Del Rosario

Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Society

Why should religious freedom matter to everyone? Because the value we put on religious liberty shows how much we really care about freedom. If you’re going to be able to work for the common good—with people from all sorts of backgrounds—the law has got to protect your freedom to live by your convictions.

But what is religious freedom? Religious freedom is a civil right that comes from God, not the government. Why should it matter even to people who aren’t religious? Because religious freedom upholds freedom of conscience for both religious and non-religious people.

What is Religious Freedom?

Religious freedom is a civil right that doesn’t ultimately come from the government. The founders of our nation knew this. All they did was recognize the rights God already gave us. That’s why they wrote The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution–to protect our intrinsic rights from being infringed upon by the federal government.

Having religious freedom doesn’t just mean you have the right to believe certain religious claims are true. It also means having the freedom to live according to your convictions in everyday life–not just while you’re sitting in your house or in church. Our founders said no government had the right to take religious freedom away. That’s what the opening section of the Declaration of Independence is all about. The idea that God, not the government, grants us religious freedom is one of the key ideas our system of government was built on.

So, religious freedom means the right to both believe and act on our beliefs in society. But how does the law relate to the freedoms of our non-religious friends and neighbors?

Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Society

To have a free society, we’ve got to have religious freedom—even in a diverse, pluralistic culture. Why? So people from all kinds of backgrounds can live out their beliefs in matters of conscience. This relates to freedom of speech too. If you’re gonna live in a free society, you’re gonna hear from people who disagree with you.

Look, if you’re an atheist, I’m not offended. Why should I be? Hopefully, you’re not offended by me being a Christian, either. Part of true tolerance is being able to have a respectful conversation about some of the most important things in life—even with people who disagree with us. But the law’s got to provide freedom of belief and expression for everyone. This is one reason the Freedom from Religion movement isn’t very helpful in a pluralistic society. I like how Kelly Shackelford, president, and CEO of First Liberty Institute, put it on the Table Podcast:

There’s no freedom from religion if there’s freedom of religion. There’s no freedom from speech if there’s freedom of speech.

When you live a free society, you hear things that you disagree with. That’s OK. People have a right to say things you disagree with. But that includes religious things you disagree with. Freedom of religion means you don’t have some right to be free from hearing about someone else’s religion. It’s gonna happen in a free society where you have the exchange of ideas.

This is why a law forcing someone to take down a nativity scene on their own property doesn’t help society—it’s the government exercising an unjust power over conscience.

Why Religious Freedom Should Matter to Everyone

I like how Shackelford responds to a common argument for removing religious things from public life and explains why everyone should care about religious freedom:

[Many people] the use of the term which, of course, is not in the Constitution, “separation of church and state.” But then they read that in a bizarre way, to mean that everywhere the government is, religion can’t be there. Well, the government’s everywhere. So what that would essentially mean is, religion goes into the corners of society, and religious expression [too]…

Some people want religious freedom to mean, “You have the right to your religion in your church, in your synagogue, and in your home, and that’s it.”They think the country would be better if religion was removed from public society [but] if these folks ever got what they really wanted, what they’d really have is the government having power over people’s conscience: Freedom from religion.

If the government could tell us that we [could not] talk about religion in public, we [would have] given incredible power to the government over the marketplace of ideas, and people’s conscience and expression…for the atheist, they lose freedom, too…so, we really all should be for full, vibrant religious freedom–for those of faith–and those who don’t have faith at all.

As Christians, we don’t need an unfair advantage. All we need is freedom to speak the truth…You think especially [of] some of the Muslim countries where there’s just a complete meshing of government and religion. And certainly there’s not religious freedom in those places.

That’s a very different idea from ours and…what they do when they infuse [religion] with the government is they take away people’s freedoms. I think the Judeo-Christian [worldview] that believes your faith is between you and God, is what’s behind giving freedom to everybody, no matter what their faith is, or even if they have no faith at all.

Religious Freedom and Freedom of Conscience

Maybe the best way to help our skeptical friends think about this is to frame the conversation in terms of freedom of conscience. Religious freedom is a part of that. Thinking about it like this, no one should feel threatened. At least that’s the way I see it.

In the end, religious freedom is so important to a diverse, pluralistic culture because both religious and non-religious people must be free to live out their beliefs in matters of conscience. A country where you can only say things that support the position of the government or a majority perspective is no free country at all. And that is why religious freedom should matter to absolutely everybody.

The value our society puts on religious freedom tells us a lot about how we see freedom in general. In a diverse, pluralistic society, we must value conscience rights if we’re going to maintain a free society where people of different faiths and no faith can still work together for the common good.

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #1: You Could Be Wrong

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #2: Find Common Ground

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #3: Assume Good Will

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #4: Listen To Understand

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #5: Ask Honest Questions

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #6: Get Your Facts Right

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #7: Avoid or Qualify Speculation

Controversial Topic Discussion Tip #8: Learn to Use Reason Well

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Notes

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Who Phrased the Infamous Phrase?

Therefore, the purpose of separation was always to protect the church from interference by the government – not to protect the government from the church.

What Did Our Founders Believe?

Government was to protect the civility for the people. Religion was to enhance the morality and vitality of the people.

What Did Jefferson Believe?

Thus, according to the Founders, religion played a virtuous role in shaping the values of a nation governed by the moral character of the people and for the people.

Notes

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