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Our Children: The Greatest Mission Field

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

Be assured that when the knock comes at your door, it will be unannounced, it will be warrantless, and it will come at the most inconvenient time.

The social service worker will be polite, but cool and business-like. Despite your confusion, fear, and even anger, you dare not lose your poise because that will ultimately be used against you. You will learn in short order that your refusal to cooperate will be futile; the social worker will just return with whatever government force is needed to remove your children from your home.

They’re Coming for Your Children…

After initial pleasantries, your children will be sent to a separate area where they will be questioned individually outside of your presence. You will not be told who made the accusation, only that an anonymous report has been made and the worker is compelled to do a “welfare check” on your children.

Make no mistake, the social worker will have the power to place your children in a government-approved foster care facility to “protect” them from the harmful effects that they are exposed to in your home. Then the investigation will begin in earnest with court hearings and public exposure to the “problems” created by your care of the children.

For the Crime of Christianity…

You may wonder what crime could trigger such a harsh result. Potential sexual or physical abuse? Neglect of the children’s health, medical, or nutritional needs? No. The time soon may come in America where this scenario occurs simply because you are teaching your children Christian values instead of what the secular culture and government want them to learn.

This whole picture may seem repugnant to you, and it should. It also may seem somewhat far-fetched to you, but it shouldn’t. The groundwork for this scenario is already in place. Until recently, it has been used mostly for good to address the issues of child abuse and neglect. But just as once-trusted institutions like the FBI and the Justice Department have abused their power for political purposes, it appears that the Department of Child Services in the state of Indiana has now been weaponized against conscientious Christian parents.

According to a report from the Indiana Family Institute (IFI), the Indiana DCS removed their gender-confused child out of the home of Mary and Jeremy Cox in June 2021 because of their biblically-based beliefs about sex and gender. Apparently, they were also not referring to their son with his preferred cross-gender name and pronouns, nor were they endorsing his self-identification as a girl because of their Christian faith. The overzealous case workers rationalized their demonic behavior by saying:

“We just feel that at this point in time, this child needs to be in a home that’s not going to teach her that trans, like everything about transgender … tell her how she should think and how she should feel. However, she should be in a home where she is [accepted] for who she is.” (Emphasis added)

In a moronic ruling, the family trial court in Indiana agreed with the DCS position and removed their son from the home and even went so far as to bar the parents from speaking to their son about the topic of sex and gender. This Christian mother and father then asked the Indiana Supreme Court to consider the case, but it declined.

How Will the Supreme Court Rule?

Now, they have petitioned for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Supreme Court to review the wrongful removal of their son from their home and SCOTUS is set to hear arguments about the matter probably in their April term. Their filed petition concludes with this language:

“No other fit parent should lose custody of their child or face a government muzzle on their deeply held religious beliefs and best judgment. M.C. and J.C. have exhausted every other remedy and are gravely concerned that the state of Indiana will come for their other children. This Court’s intervention is needed.”

Indeed, unless God intervenes, SCOTUS intervention is ultimately necessary if the basic framework of the nuclear family in America is to survive. This, then, becomes one of the most crucial cases to come before our highest court in recent times including those involving abortion and same-sex “marriage.” All God-fearing eyes should be turned intently to see the ruling from SCOTUS when it is ultimately entered.

As for the Cox family, unfortunately, their confused son aged out in the “wonderful” world of Indiana foster childcare and is now an adult. Yet they continue to pursue this case to protect the rest of their children as well as your children and grandchildren and all Bible-believing families all across this nation.

KGB/Gestapo Tactics

The stark reality is that these Gestapo/KGB tactics are not confined solely to attacks on the teaching of the truths of the Christian faith. Nevertheless, it should be painfully obvious to all true Christians that our American culture is not friendly to the Bible’s message of sin, redemption, and transcendent morality. Our ruling elites do not want biblical truths passed on to the next generation because it interferes with their godless culture’s embrace of hedonistic excess.

What better way to accomplish this goal than through penetrating the minds of our innocent children with false history and false concepts of self-fulfillment while suppressing true critical thinking and logic. Their ultimate goal is an unthinking population that depends on the government for everything by creating generations who simply do what they are told and who lack the ability to evaluate real truth much less biblical truth.

This is why our vulnerable children come under attack beginning as early as preschool. Our would-be masters want to completely eradicate any thought of Christian concepts from our children’s minds before they can crystallize into true belief. Thus, they have engineered a swiftly eroding quality of our public education system along with a headlong attack against the entire family structure, beginning in the home.

We Didn’t Get Here Overnight

To be certain we did not get to this precipice overnight. Nevertheless, it is not too late for Christians to awaken from their slumber and realize that we are in a pitched battle with forces beyond our comprehension; and at stake are the precious, eternal lives of our own children and grandchildren.

As believers, we are well aware of the admonition of Paul in Ephesians 6:12, where he says:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

By the same token, we also know that these times in which we are living in our nation are too challenging; they are too grave for us to sit idly on the sidelines any longer. We are not advocating a fanatical response, but if the very lives of our precious children are at stake, then the fainthearted need not apply. How long will we allow our cherished offspring to be sacrificed on the altars of demonic absurdity?

Our Greatest Mission Field

Simply put, true Christians need to be committed to singularly focused, prayer-filled efforts to raise our children in a godly and biblically based manner, regardless of the personal cost. Our children are the greatest mission field. The spiritual upbringing of these next generations of our children and grandchildren in the only truth that matters is essential both to the survival of America and to the eternal destiny of these treasured little ones as well. The gospel of Jesus Christ is so crucial that it is a hill upon which we will stand and die if necessary. Our children – are they not worth a new revolution if that is what it takes? If we say that we really love them, isn’t it time we started acting like it?

A Christian Response to a Viral Deconversion Post

1. Does Truth Exist?, 2. Does God Exist?, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Natasha Crain

Social media has been a popular place to share deconversion stories over the last few years, and sometimes so many people resonate with those posts that they go viral to some extent (being liked and shared by thousands of people).

There’s one that’s being shared all over Facebook right now, written this week by a lady named Myndee Mack. At the time of this writing, it has 8,000+ likes/loves, 7,000+ comments, and over 3,000+ shares. Clearly, Myndee’s post is compelling to many.

I’d like to offer a response.

While it’s possible Myndee will come across this article, I’m not writing it primarily for her, but rather for the thousands of people who find her post to be a compelling assessment of Christianity and for Christians whose friends are sharing it and want to have a thoughtful response to share. The reason I say I’m not writing it primarily for her is that a one-on-one response would be more relational and personal in nature and tone—like a letter. My purpose here is to help those challenged by her words with a more direct response to the reasoning and theological clarity/accuracy of what she wrote.

“I used to be Christian. I prayed without ceasing. I spent time in the word. I asked. I sought. I knocked until my knuckles bled. My heart was pure. My faith was at least as strong as a mustard seed. I went to Christian elementary school. I prayed the sinners prayer at 6 years old. I would beg my mom to take me to church. I had pages and pages of notes from sermons and from my own studies. I hosted women’s groups. I went to Bible college. I attended church retreats from childhood all the way through young adulthood. I taught at children’s church. I believed I was a sinner in need of a savior, and I accepted Jesus as that savior.”

Myndee sets up her post by making it clear she wasn’t a new Christian rejecting her faith. She wants us to know that she has spent many years involved with the church and presumably seeking God. We have no information on what kind of churches she was part of (certainly something I’d be curious to know about if I met her in person), but the main point here seems to be that she doesn’t want the reader to be dismissive of her.

And I think it’s important to not be.

Don’t be Dismissive

Christians often are dismissive of deconversion stories, saying, “If they walked away, they weren’t truly saved anyway.” Regardless of your view of the assurance of salvation, this is not a helpful response. When people have genuine questions and struggles that they share, we should be ready and willing to offer answers both for them and for those looking on across social media.

That said, I can’t help but note a brief sentence in here that relates to much of what she goes on to write regarding the nature of sin: “My heart was pure.” From a biblical perspective, no one’s heart is “pure.” More on that shortly.

“I was also trapped in a vicious cycle of self hatred, shame, guilt, and repentance. Bible verses such as ‘your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked’ combined with ‘you are fearfully and wonderfully made’ gave me spiritual whiplash.”

Conflicting Scripture?

It’s quite easy to pull any two verses out of the Bible and think they are in conflict if you aren’t looking at them in the context of the whole. The same could be said for virtually any book in the world. In this case, there’s a very important distinction that is missing between being fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and having a deceitful and wicked heart (Jeremiah 17:9). The fact that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” is a statement about our design and value: We are not the process of blind, purposeless chance, but rather a purposeful creation who has been given value by our creator—even made in His very image (Genesis 1:27). The fact that we have a “wicked heart” is a statement about the moral choices we are inclined to make. Anyone who is a parent can look at a child and agree that they are extraordinarily valuable and they make bad choices. It’s the same with every human. This isn’t a matter for “spiritual whiplash” once you understand the crucial that distinction between value and morality.

The Vicious Cycle

Furthermore, it’s likely that this conflation of value and morality led to the “vicious cycle” she felt of self-hatred, shame, guilt, and repentance. Knowing that you are inclined toward sin should not cause you to hate yourself. The Bible is clear on our value as image bearers. God so loved His creation that He gave His one and only Son to die for us. We should value ourselves as highly as God values us.

But God is also holy and just. When we sin—transgress a moral law—we rightly feel guilty because we are guilty. If someone intentionally kills an innocent human being, most people would say that person should feel guilty because they did something that is objectively wrong; guilt is not a bad thing, it’s a healthy thing that signifies a functioning conscience. It draws us to repentance, both to the person(s) wronged and toward God.

Therefore, sin, guilt, and repentance are not a vicious cycle. Sin is an ongoing reality in a fallen world, guilt is an appropriate response when we’ve done something wrong (against God’s standards), and repentance leads us back to God. As Christians, we should then accept that Jesus has forgiven us. Self-hatred is not a biblical part of that equation.

“I was taught Romans 8:38-39 and warned of the perils of backsliding all in the same sermon. The thought of somehow committing the unforgivable sin (blasphemy of the Holy Spirit) haunted my mind.”

Beware of Backsliding

Romans 8:38-39 is talking about how nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus. In context, Paul is saying that no one can bring a charge against God’s chosen people because it is God who justifies; no matter what happens on Earth, we are “more than conquerors” because nothing can separate us from the Lord. This is a statement about what’s true for those who are saved. While Christians have different views on the assurance of salvation, even for those who believe you can lose your salvation, this is not a contradiction with Romans 8:38-39. If you could “backslide” to a point where you have lost salvation, those verses would simply no longer apply to the unsaved person. It’s a different audience.

“Though I believed [in Christ] with every fiber of my being, I suffered from anxiety, self-loathing and a crippling fear of death. I longed to forge genuine connections with my church family but when I tried to open up about my fears and confusion, I was told I just needed to have more faith. When I had theological questions that made other leaders uncomfortable, I was dismissed if not outright ostracized.”

Just have more Faith!?

If it’s true that Myndee raised her fears and confusions with her church family and was met by dismissal, it’s incredibly sad. Certainly, I’ve seen Christians tell people who have questions to just have more faith, and that’s a terrible response. Biblical faith is confident trust based on who God is. If someone doesn’t understand why there’s good reason to be confident in the existence or identity of God, telling them to just trust more without giving them reason for a confident foundation from which to trust is not the solution.

I only say “if it’s true” because I do think it’s become a bit of a script for many who deconvert to say that no one would or could answer their questions. Did they ask one person? Five? Anyone outside their own church? Read books? There’s no way to know for any individual, but if you’re genuinely seeking truth, you should be seeking answers in many places. There are numerous resources available.

“My hunger and thirst for righteousness went unquenched. Those who claimed to be the hands and feet of Jesus showed me how they weaponized the Bible for their own gain.”

Weaponized Bible

It’s impossible to know what she has in mind about weaponizing the Bible, but today people often claim the Bible is being weaponized any time a Christian shares truth people don’t like. For example, if you say that God made two genders (and you can’t change those genders), you will be accused of “weaponizing the Bible.” If the Bible is truly God’s Word, that’s not using it as a weapon. It’s sharing truth. (Of course, truth should be shared in a gracious way.)

However, it’s possible Myndee grew up in a church that truly did weaponize the Bible in an abusive sense. If that’s the case, again, it’s awful. However, we have to recognize that we can’t blame God when people misuse His Word. We must seek to know if the Bible is true regardless of those abuses.

“My traumas and mental health issues were blamed on the devil, and I was made to feel as though I wasn’t Christian enough because of my struggles that, ironically, stemmed mostly from Christian teachings.”

Mishandling Mental Health

From a biblical perspective, mental health challenges can be part of both a spiritual and physical battle. There’s no way to diagnose this particular situation without knowing the specifics (and even if you knew some specifics, no one could definitively claim that x part is spiritual and y part is physical). But if her struggles were truly stemming from her response to “Christian teachings,” there are a couple of points that should be made.

First, how we feel in response to reality doesn’t determine what is reality. If we feel traumatized by the idea of hell, for example, that has no bearing on whether hell is real. So claiming trauma from biblical teachings is not inherently a statement about whether those teachings are true. Christians shouldn’t feel traumatized by a theologically accurate understanding of God’s judgment (there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus—Romans 8:1), but however a person does feel does not determine what’s true.

Second, sometimes people may feel the kind of trauma she’s talking about in response to a misunderstanding of biblical truth. If she felt self-hatred (as she mentioned previously) because she didn’t have a theologically accurate understanding of the value-morality distinction, that’s not the fault of what the Bible teaches. It’s a tragic misunderstanding on her own part that was never clarified by further study or other Christians.

“I was doing my best to maintain a good, close, loving relationship with the god of the Christian Bible. I wanted nothing more than that. To abandon myself. To die so he might live in me. What I was actually doing was denying my own compassion, my own intuition, which was objectively more righteous than a God who murders entire civilizations (the children too) and sends his own creation to hell for what can only be described as a design flaw. One the designer, the creator, is ultimately responsible for.”

More Righteous than God!?

This is quite the statement. She claims that her own compassion and intuition (moral intuition, presumably) are more righteous than that of the biblical God. She even states that this is objectively so! Yet where does she get the objective basis for her morality if God doesn’t exist? If there is no God, the universe is the product of blind, purposeless chance, and there is no such thing as an objective right or wrong. Without a higher-than-human moral authority and lawgiver, there is no objective moral law. The compassion she praises herself for is meaningless in such a world—it would simply be a function of evolutionary survival mechanisms, not of an actual moral nature (and therefore would not be praiseworthy!).

The same goes for the moral intuition she claims. If God doesn’t exist, that intuition is an evolutionary delusion brought upon the human species by time and chance. There is no objective morality to have moral intuitions about if there is no God. She claims her morality is objectively superior, but she has no objective standard if God doesn’t exist. And if a god does exist but hasn’t revealed himself, she still can’t claim to have knowledge of what objective standards this hypothetical god put in place—he didn’t reveal anything!

She then says that God “murders” entire civilizations. First, this isn’t morally wrong (as she clearly assumes) if there is no moral law giver. Second, she misses the distinction between murder (the unjustified taking of innocent human life) and killing (any taking of life). Most people recognize that killing in self-defense is not considered murder. Some would say that killing in the context of a just war isn’t either. And some would say neither is the death penalty.

Not all killing is murder. For God to murder people would mean He was unjustified in taking their lives. When God commands the killing of people in the Bible, however, it’s clearly because of judgment that He, as the all-knowing and perfectly just God of the universe, had the knowledge, nature, and right to make.

Free Will, a Design Flaw?

She then goes on to again confuse creation with our ability to make moral choices. Free will is a feature, not a bug, in God’s design of the human being. If we didn’t have the ability to make morally significant choices, we would be robots incapable of being in relationship with Him, which was His purpose in our creation. If we use our free will to reject God and His offer of forgiveness for sin, we will be subject to judgment because He is a holy and just God. Just as it’s not loving to let criminals go free in earthly justice systems, it’s not loving to let moral law breakers (every human) to go free in the “cosmic” justice system. But in God’s love, He paid the penalty for us. We simply have to accept His gift of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.

“Then one day, I could deny and ignore it no longer. The Christian god delights in violence. The Christian church caused me more harm than good.”

If you read the Old Testament, God does not delight in violence. He is a patient God who seeks the heart and repentance of His people.

Also, harm and good are two terms that require an objective basis for meaningful definition. A person’s subjective feelings of what is harmful or helpful, good or bad, and right or wrong do not define what is objectively true.

“In getting away from it, I found the peace that passes all understanding. I am now immersed with love, with grace, with joy. I have found freedom in what others call “witchcraft”. I don’t worship the moon or my crystals. My Tarot cards are not a god to me. I respectfully utilize these things to help me connect to myself and to this beautiful world I get to be a part of and share with my fellow humans. I don’t care if Tarot or Reiki or Buddhism or Christianity is real. I care if it is helpful.”

Utility over Truth

This says everything. As I have pointed out multiple times here, nothing she has said so far has had anything to do with what is true or real. A skeptical reader might say that “of course” she had already decided that Christianity is false, and she’s just telling us more about her journey—that it goes without saying that truth mattered. But that’s simply not the case for many people today, and she says it explicitly here: “I don’t care…if Christianity is real.” The motto of so many people who have deconstructed or deconverted is what they subjectively find helpful. The nature of truth is rarely considered.

If you’re reading this and don’t know what you believe, please consider that what you find helpful may or may not be true, and believing what is false but subjectively helpful in your own estimation can have serious consequences for your life now and for eternity. I might find it helpful to my peace of mind if someone came and told me that I will never have a car accident, so I can drive however I want. But if that’s not true, it doesn’t matter how much peace and joy the falsity provided. I’ll die in a car accident if I’m not driving with care.

What’s real matters.

About that Witchcraft . . .

Additionally, if the “witchcraft” she does has an actual consequence in the world because she is tapping into the demonic, she should recognize that this, indeed, is real. And if witchcraft is real, that means the supernatural is real. And if the supernatural is real, that should point her to the existence of God and ultimately back to the Bible, which explains exactly who is behind the witchcraft (Satan) and the role he plays in reality.

On the other hand, if the “witchcraft” does nothing, there’s no reason to do it at all. But I’m guessing she finds it appealing because witchcraft gives a person methods for attempting to exhibit control over the universe. If she struggled with feeling a lack of control under the sovereignty of a God she believed to be murderous and horrible, it would make sense she would try to regain control in her next belief system. But again, if it actually does something, that should point her back to a supernatural worldview in which God exists.

“I don’t care what your doctrine is, I care what kind of impact you make on the world around you. I care more about your mental and emotional health than whether or not you believe the ‘right’ thing.”

Truth-Neutral Living

Well, you might not care about what people believe, but again, this has no bearing on what’s true about the world. If there’s a God who created this incredible universe and every human being, then He is the only one with the rightful authority to say what matters and what doesn’t. The Bible is very clear from beginning to end that what people believe about God matters. There are right and wrong beliefs, and they have significant consequences. And when people do live according to right beliefs about who God is, who we are, what our relationship is, what’s required of us, and more, that flows into a true peace that surpasses all understanding.

This doesn’t mean a Christian won’t have any mental and emotional struggles, however. Counseling and sometimes medication are important for dealing with the kinds of challenges we encounter in this world. That’s a different question than whether or not doctrine matters.

“If being on the inside of Christianity helps you be a better, more whole human, I want that for you. I want whatever brings peace to your soul. Despite life’s turmoil, my soul is more at peace and I am a better human, both internally and externally, outside of Christianity.”

You do You

Again, it doesn’t matter what you want for someone. See answer above—the same logic applies. It’s what God wants for us. It’s how God defines what is better or worse. It’s who God thinks we are when we are most wholly human.

You might use your own definition of “better” to conclude you are a better human outside of Christianity, but if God disagrees, you’re in an infinitely worse place.

“Outside of Christianity, there is no more “us vs. them” or “wheat vs. chaff” for I see that we are all one under this universe. We are all made of stardust, here for a short time and instead of wasting my life dying to myself to try to please an angry, jealous god whose wrath could not be appeased outside the brutal murder of his own son, I spend my time building genuine connections and embodying love.”

If there is no God, she’s right that we’re made of material stuff alone, with no inherent value, and with no objective meaning of life. But if that’s truly the picture of the world we live in, she has no objective basis for claiming God is morally wrong, her “genuine connections” are with other groups of stardust with no actual value, and the love she is “embodying” is just a bunch of chemical reactions. Those are consistent truths with the worldview that we’re all just stardust and nothing more.

But it’s important to note that she simultaneously misconstrues the claims of Christianity here. Again, murder is the unjustified taking of an innocent human life. If you understand Christian doctrine, you know that the Trinity is God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—three persons, one nature. Jesus is God. He laid down His own life (John 10:17-18). Out of His love for us, He took the punishment for sin and offered us eternal life. Her description here is a complete mischaracterization and misunderstanding of this beautiful truth from our all-loving and perfectly just God.

“If you are worried about my eternal state, don’t be. If the god of the Bible is the loving god Christians claim he is, then [He] will meet me where I am. He will allow me to walk the path that helps me be a better human and live a life without anxiety and self-loathing. That god will understand my plight and accept my inability to accept a doctrine that has caused me irreparable harm. And if you think the god you believe in will say to me ‘depart from me, I never knew you’ when my time on earth is through, that’s not a god I’d want to spend eternity with anyway.”

It’s quite presumptuous to assume that the God of the universe will “meet you where you are,” when by that you mean He’ll accept whatever decisions you make as right for you. If He has already given us a Bible to tell us what we need to know so that we can meet Him where He requires, that’s the standard to which we’ll be held. The Bible explicitly and repeatedly tells us not to be anxious (e.g., Matthew 6:27). And as I already explained, we aren’t to be self-loathing.

It’s truly sad that the theological misunderstandings she has about God have led her to hate Him so much that even if He were real and the Bible were true, she claims she wouldn’t want to be with Him anyway. Theology matters. It’s the difference between someone longing to be with the God who loves them and someone longing to reject the God whom they hate based on an errant understanding of His Word.

All of this begs the question of what is actually true. Unfortunately, the most viral social media posts are rarely about seeking truth. They’re about people’s experiences and emotional responses to those experiences. Experiences and responses aren’t unimportant; they’re part of life. But they don’t determine what’s true. That’s why it’s so important for Christians to have an understanding of apologetics (the case for and the defense of the truth of Christianity). In a world that no longer even asks what’s true, we have to be able to show that’s still the pertinent question…and then demonstrate the Bible is truly God’s Word.

Where Did Guilt Come From?

2. Does God Exist?, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

As a prosecutor for many decades, I often found myself reflecting on the impact that feelings of guilt have, even upon criminals with lengthy records. Why was it that the guilty wanted to talk about their crime, even after being advised of their rights? Why would those who had “gotten away” nonetheless seek to escape their feelings through alcohol or drugs? Apart from true sociopaths, it seemed to me that people cannot simply cast-off feelings of guilt by force of will. The feelings persist and they demand a reckoning. That voice of conscience – that voice that so many of us try so hard to quiet– simply refuses to cooperate.

Where Guilt Comes From

Put simply, feelings of guilt arise when a person senses the disconnect between what they have done, or are planning to do, and what they realize they “ought” to do. But why should this be so? Why should we feel conflicted about the behavior we are consciously choosing? For example, when I am hungry, my instinct is to eat to satisfy the hunger. But when I eat too much, and do so repeatedly, I begin to realize I am becoming a glutton. Despite satisfying my urge, I realize that I should not act that way. Similarly, I may elect to act in a way that hurts someone else to advance my own interests. But later, I begin to feel qualms and regret my behavior.

Why is it Universal?

What worldview, I wondered, best explains this near-universal human experience?

To the secularist, such feelings are the product of long-term social evolution. Initially, this explanation made sense to me. After all, why wouldn’t the person with a “pro-social” approach add to their group’s potential for survival? And wouldn’t feelings of guilt for wrongdoing tend to produce pro-social behavior? But the more I thought about this, the more I realized that it lacked true explanatory value.

If we did in fact evolve from primitive protohumans, how did these first thinking humans begin to feel guilt? After all, no one ever enjoys feeling guilty, and such feelings definitely tend to constrain – not expand – behavior choices. They would cause a person to think twice before doing something that might be in their individual interest. Stealing from one’s neighbor, for example, or killing one’s rival to obtain his belongings, would benefit an individual assuming they felt they could accomplish it. Giving a stranger food or shelter, by contrast, would put someone at a disadvantage if resources are scarce. It makes much more sense that any potential benefit in group thinking would be outweighed by the limitations on guilt-inducing behaviors. Imagine the lion chasing its prey but then feeling “guilty” and stopping short of his goal. How long would he survive? Probably not long enough to pass his genes on to the next generation.

It’s hard to imagine how pro-social thinking would have arisen in the harsh and competitive environment of the first humans. If we are just evolved but now intelligent primates, why would we ever depart from pursuing our own, individual short-term best interest? Raiding and stealing from others makes a lot more sense than trying to make peace with someone who is bent on taking what you have. Why would we limit our possible choices by deciding that we “ought” to do something that helps others but only provides us a possible, longer-term benefit? And if we chose to do so, would this not be the result of an intelligent selection? Feelings of guilt would play no useful role here. Indeed, being burdened by guilt would detract from survivability and therefore be rooted out over time. Moreover, if pro-social thinking is an intellectual exercise, why would feelings come into play at all? Why not simply decide sometimes to act one way depending on the circumstances, without ever experiencing feelings about our choices? What possible advantage would such an approach confer?

What does Altruism Prove?

No, pro-social or altruistic thinking only makes sense in a person who already has in mind the view that building a stronger community, or helping others, is itself a good to pursue. An individual possessing this capacity would decide to forego killing his rival in search of something greater in the more remote future. He would realize this is something he “ought” to do even if his hunger or greed were impelling him to a different decision.

Why would we have such a capacity built into us? The secularist has no answer, but the Christian does. The capacity for guilt did not evolve. It was built into our minds in the same way acquisition of language and understanding the concept of “fair play” were, put there by an intelligent Creator who has a moral law that he desires us to obey. And so, when we stray from that law, there are feelings of dissonance and regret that emerge from that mental “subroutine” leading us back to the “good.” Morality, and the resulting feelings of guilt, are a message to us from outside, not an evolved internal trait.

Now it is true that we do not all experience guilt in the same way. Different cultures, and different groups within a single culture, may feel guilty about different things. But many common features are evident. No one feels guilt after doing good, or angst after following their conscience. No one feels pleased when they betray a friend. And of course, consciences can be seared by poor upbringing which distorts what “good” and “evil” are in the first place. Our minds naturally follow a selection process as to what we “ought” to do, even if what informs that process has been distorted.

Written On our Hearts

Secularists see guilt as something in need of fixing. They look to modern science – psychology or pharmacology or both – to help people finally rid themselves of this vestige of what they view as our primitive and superstitious past. But it is to no avail. Feelings of guilt flow from the moral law “written on our hearts,” guardrails meant to guide us on to the right path, and no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape them.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Correct, NOT Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone (Updated; downloadable pdf, PowerPoint) by Frank Turek

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (Mp3/ Mp4)

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Al Serrato earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He began his career as an FBI special agent before becoming a prosecutor in California, where he worked for 33 years. An introduction to CS Lewis’ works sparked his interest in Apologetics, which he has pursued for the past three decades. He got his start writing Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace and Pleaseconvinceme.com.

February 19, 2024/by Ty Unknown

Only God is Above the Law

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

“No one is above the law.” So the popular saying goes, and no truer thing was ever said in a mere six words. This thought, and our Western system of justice which sprang from it, stands as a testament, and a tribute, to the philosophy that gives humanity its best chance for self-government and ordered liberty.

The philosophy that found its expression in this view was itself largely shaped by a Christian worldview, one in which our individual rights, and our equality under law, were grounded in a transcendent being who made us for a purpose. Our Founders certainly understood this when they declared their right to independence from Great Britain and affirmed that “all men are created equal.” In their view, this equality finds its roots in the “Creator,” who endows each person with “certain unalienable rights.” As the familiar phrase sets forth, among these rights are “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Many secularists today have misapplied this thought, mistakenly asserting that this concept also applies to God. They fail – or refuse – to see the distinction between the Creator and the created, as they put God “on trial” for everything from genocide, “ethnic cleansing” and murder in Old Testament times to every instance of suffering in the modern world that God could, but fails, to prevent.

A moment’s reflection should make plain that God need not answer to us – he, indeed, is the one thing “above the law” for he is the law. He is no more subject to it, or answerable to us, than the computer programmer is to the rules he writes into a computer simulation. While God’s apparent indifference to the human condition may cause us to speculate about his nature, or his will, none of our opinions or our accusations will ever “make out a case against him.” This is simply nonsensical when one realizes what the concept of God entails.

Most people understand this intuitively. Take the prevailing view of abortion in many circles today: a majority of Americans apparently still support the notion that a mother has the right to end the life of the baby growing within her. Christianity holds, to the contrary, that it is always wrong to take innocent human life. Since the developing child is “innocent” and since he or she is “human life,” that should end the discussion. The reason it does not is that many people recognize that the baby’s life is different – the baby lacks self-awareness or developed intelligence and the baby is “dependent” upon his mother’s body for continued life. These factors, skillfully manipulated through the rhetoric of “choice,” lead many people – who refuse to think through what in fact is at play – into serious error.

Think of it this way: human beings, regardless of their age, level of intelligence, or degree of dependence on others are in a horizontal relationship with each other. We are all the same kind of creature. While we each possess distinct and different talents, and while opportunities for development differ, we are equal in the nature of our being. Though many wish to view the mother as “superior” to the child, in reality she is not. The mother of the child did not “create” the child she is bearing; the child was “begotten.” This may sound like mere semantics, but it is not. For it is the power to “create” from nothing – as God did in the Big Bang event – that gives the right to dictate to those that were created. Men and women, when they procreate, are but a link in the chain of life that God set into motion tens of thousands of years ago. They take part in the process; they are not the source of it.

If science ever leads to the creation of fully functional AI robots, human beings will be the “creators” and will have the right to do with those robots what they will. Having created them from raw materials, whatever rights they are eventually given will be dependent entirely on the will, and wishes, of those who created them.

As the Bible teaches, in God we live and move and have our being. This is literally true: the sum total of what we are is grounded in God’s creative power. If he were to stop thinking of us for even a moment, we would cease to exist. Our relationship to him is not one of equals, as we are entirely dependent upon him for our continued existence.

I’d say that gives God the power to define morality. It places him above, and as the source of, our earthly law. As created beings, we should spend less time judging God and more time listening to what he expects of us.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Correct, NOT Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone (Updated; downloadable pdf, PowerPoint) by Frank Turek
Intellectual Predators: How Professors Prey on Christian Students by Frank Turek (mp4 Download) (mp3) (DVD)
Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl (Book)
Letters to a Young Progressive by Mike Adams (Book)
Another Gospel? by Alisa Childers (book)

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November 27, 2023/by Guest

The Surprising Way Tinkerbell Shows the Flaw in the Transgender Identity Crisis

Culture CrossExamined, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

I know what you might be thinking. “Tinkerbell, Melissa? Seriously?” But stay with me here. The pre-woke movie era had some good stuff in it that’s surprisingly relevant and counter-cultural by 2023 standards.

Tinkerbell (2008)

So first, here is a brief movie synopsis for those who may not have seen the movie: The first Tinkerbell movie was made in 2008. The story starts with Tinkerbell as a new fairy. She was a fairy who was born a certain way, as what’s called a tinker fairy, where she “tinkers” with things to build them. But she hates it. The main setting is in a magical place in Neverland called Pixie Hollow where there are other “talents” that other fairies have, such as water, animal, light, wind, or flower fairies. She struggles with who she is as a tinker fairy and who she wants to be, especially after finding out that tinker fairies don’t get to go to the Mainland for spring. She wants to be anything but a tinker fairy. She refused to accept the truth that this was actually who she was and instead stubbornly embraced her truth.

The entire movie is about her trying to be every other fairy type, anything other than who she was born to be. Her supportive friends knew she was a tinker and tried to tell her many times that this was who she was. Good for them. At the end of the movie, she finally accepts that she shouldn’t deny her true identity by trying to be something she’s not. She ends up happily embracing being a tinker fairy.

The Truth About Tinkerbell

I’m sure you already know what I’m getting at. The parallel to today’s identity crisis are clear, and quite the opposite message from this movie: you can’t change the truth to your truth.

Let me say this. First, I feel for those who struggle with their identity. There’s a deep and intense struggle to change who we are to be accepted by others or seen how we want to be seen. But there’s freedom in loving how God made you. And I mean how he actually made you. What I mean by that is some people might say, “But God made me with this identity! I didn’t choose to be a man in a woman’s body, or this race, or even this species!” I want to lovingly counter this idea with these questions:

Says who?

Where did you get that idea from?

By what standard are you measuring that this is God’s will for your life and how He made you?

If God has revealed Himself, He did so in the person of Jesus. I didn’t make this claim. Jesus did. If Jesus is who He says He is, then how would we find out information about Him? Here’s the answer: The Bible. People that walked and talked with Jesus and witnessed His life, resurrection, and miracles recorded them, then died horrendous deaths, never denying any of it was false. In other words, if Jesus is everything He says He is, I trust the Book that tells me who He is and what He taught, and what He commanded His disciples to do and teach.

Identity in Christ

And what He says about how you are made matters when it comes to this topic: you were born one way, but He says to be born another way. He says to be born again.

“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’” John 3:3 (NIV)

He wants you to find your identity in Him, not yourself. He wants you to love who He is and how He made you, not make a God in your own image that likes what you like and loves what you love. Jesus came for you too and says that He is the bread of life. What He’s saying is that this world will not satisfy, and looking within isn’t sustainable. He’s the standard for what’s good, true, and fulfilling.

A Lesson from American Idol

On a harder-to-accept level, people living “their truth” can sometimes look forced and awkward. Like someone trying to be something we all know they aren’t. It reminds me of one of those American Idol auditions where someone goes in thinking they’re a fantastic singer because everyone around them was telling them they were a great singer. But they open their mouth, and it’s total cringe. What’s stunning is their denying the fact that they are an objectively bad singer. Perhaps the people around them were afraid to tell the truth because the person was too sensitive or emotionally fragile to handle tough feedback. Everyone knew they weren’t a star. But everyone went along with it, perhaps out of fear. I see the same principle when it comes to today’s identity crisis.

Now isn’t it interesting, and rather ironic, that we live in a world that says self-love is the battle cry of the day but then the same instigators want you to deny everything about who you are for a fleeting feeling that changes? There’s wisdom in accepting yourself for who you are, not denying it to fill a void.

5 Fatal Flaws in Transgender Ideology

Culture CrossExamined, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

Many people who support transgender surgery and cross-sex hormones may be well-intentioned, but the transgender ideology behind those intentions is fraught with fatal flaws. Here are just five of many. Contrary to transgender ideology:

1. The Design of the Body Proves There are Only Two Genders

Transgender advocates insist there are multiple genders. However, the design of the human body shows there are only two genders. Humans can either produce sperm or eggs. There is no third reproductive output in humans or mammals. Of course, there are humans who cannot produce either due to biological deficiencies, but that is an incapacity, not a thirdcapacity to produce something else. Thus, the claim that there are more than two genders can only be entertained if one detaches the concept of gender from biological sex.

However, insisting that gender is completely different from someone’s biological sex doesn’t work either. If gender and biology were completely different things — if there’s no relationship between the two — then why would anyone advocate for cross-sex hormones or sex change operations? Which leads us to flaw two.

2. Transgenderism Must Presuppose Fixed Genders

While transgender advocates deny that there are only two genders, they must unwittingly presuppose two genders for transgenderism to be possible. Why? Because if I’m a biological man but think I’m a woman, I must have some idea of what a man and woman are to recognize my problem. I must also know what a man and woman are to make the so-called “transition.” If genders are completely fluid with no fixed reference points, there would be no way to recognize the mismatch between my biology and psychology and no destination for my transition. In other words, “gender dysphoria” could not exist without two known, fixed genders.

The denial of fixed genders has sparked a bit of a civil war among some identifying as LGBTQ, because if the T’s get their way, the L’s, G’s, and B’s don’t exist (search for #LGBminustheT). How can one be lesbian, gay, or bisexual if there are no fixed genders? Each of those identities rely on fixed genders. Likewise, some feminists are unhappy because, without fixed genders, there are no women and therefore no women’s rights.

This is one reason why Matt Walsh’s documentary, “What is a Woman?,” has so many transgender advocates and Leftwing academics stumped by the question, “What is a woman?” They are caught in a dilemma. If they say a woman is a biological female, then transgender ideology is false. If they refuse to define a woman, transgenderism is not possible. Who is transitioning to what? And what happened to women’s rights?

3. You Can Change Your Mind But Not Your Biology

When biology and psychology are mismatched, why do we think changing the body instead of changing the mind is the way to fix the problem? We don’t do this for other conditions.

When anorexics falsely think they are overweight, we don’t say, “You’re right. Let me get you some liposuction.” For people who honestly believe they should have healthy limbs cut off (a condition known as “trans-abled”), we don’t say, “You’re right. If you think you should not have a right arm, we will cut if off for you.” When your daughter insists she’s a mermaid, you don’t take her off the coast and drop her in the ocean. So, why do we think we should cut off healthy sex organs instead of helping people change their minds?

While you can change your mind, it is literally impossible to change your biology. You can mutilate your body, but you cannot change the DNA of your 100 trillion cells or the many thousands of biological differences between men and women.

Any attempt to “transition” between the sexes implicitly admits these differences and affirms the binary nature of gender. Otherwise, there would be no use for hormones or puberty blockers. In fact, if there were no differences in the physical and biological designs of men and women, transgenderism would not only be impossible but unnecessary. If men and women were the same, there would be no need or desire to transition. So instead of me thinking I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body, why not think I’m a man with a woman’s mind? That way I can actually fix my problem with good mental health care.

4. Sex Is Not Assigned At Birth

For transgender ideology to succeed, people must come to believe that gender is arbitrary and is “assigned” at birth. But everyone knows that gender is not “assigned” at birth — it is discovered at birth (or sometimes before). It’s not like people vote at gender-reveal parties, or that doctors arbitrarily decide the sex of a newborn. No, they discover and state the baby’s sex because there is no ambiguity.

In the extremely rare cases where genitals are ambiguous (intersex), tests are done and choices are made to correct the problem. Most patients end up male or female rather than assuming a non-binary status. This is not the same as transgenderism where people with fully formed and healthy sexual organs attempt to transition to the opposite sex. Intersex is a biological condition; gender dysphoria is a psychological condition. The existence of intersex conditions does nothing to support the claim that sex is “assigned” at birth. Birth defects do not disprove the norm. In fact, they would be impossible to identify without the norm.

We live in a fallen world. All of us are born with deficiencies and defects. That doesn’t mean we are less human or less worthy of respect. But that also doesn’t mean we should mandate that everyone else live according to such deficiencies or defects. When someone is born deaf, we don’t tell the rest of the world they can never speak or listen to music because it might offend the deaf. Yet that is precisely what transgender activists and the rest of the woke world are trying to impose on our entire society.

5. There is No Basis for Transgender Rights

We seem to be inventing new “rights” in America every 10 minutes. But where do rights come from? They can’t come from the government because a right is something you have regardless of what anyone else says about it (including your government). Rights can only come from God (“our Creator” as the Declaration of Independence puts it). Without God, every moral issue is reduced to a matter of opinion.

What evidence do we have that God wants anyone to amputate perfectly healthy sex organs? There is none from natural law, the Bible, or any other supposed revelation that claims to come from God.

People can demand that their government legislate or declare certain behaviors as “rights,” but that doesn’t make them rights any more than a government can legislate that a biological man is a woman. That doesn’t make him a woman. Instead of trying to change reality to fit our thoughts, we should be trying to change our thoughts to fit reality. As I document in the new third edition of Correct Not Politically Correct (from which this column is adapted), there are several more fatal flaws in transgender ideology, including the evidence showing that transitioning doesn’t fix the underlying problem. But that’s for the next column.

Can Moral Guilt Feelings Ever Be Objective?

Atheism, Culture CrossExamined, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Bobby Conway

The feeling of moral guilt is a universal experience – that inward gnaw or inner ouch that we have done something wrong. It is that feeling a line has been crossed, a law has been broken, which leaves one wondering if we are genuinely guilty. But are these feelings just that—feelings? A mere subjective experience? A cognitive disrupt? A snafu?

**Are Guilt Feelings only Guilt Feelings?**

Well, that depends. A person can feel guilty and not be guilty, i.e., pseudo guilt, while a person can also be guilty and not feel guilty. This may be the result of an anesthetized conscience, one’s moral ignorance, some level of psychopathy, or whatever the case may be. In the event we feel guilty, how can we know if our feelings are objective? The answer is surprisingly simple. We should look for a corresponding link between our feelings of guilt and our moral actions. For example, if Steve feels guilty for robbing a local bank that he never did, then he’s not experiencing objective guilt, but from a bad case of pseudo guilt. However, if Steve feels guilty for robbing a bank because he did, then his feelings of guilt are objective in that his feelings correspond to reality. In other words, there’s a corresponding link. An objective match. The reason Steve feels guilty is because he is guilty.

Unfortunately, some people wrongly relegate our feelings to the subjective department, while claiming only reason is objectively dependable. That’s not only wrong. It’s naïve, really naïve.

Just as our reason can provide logically informative thoughts that are either true or false, objective, or subjective, so to our feelings can provide emotionally informative thoughts that are also either true or false, objective, or subjective. Therefore, it’s patently false to assume all our feelings are subjective and can’t provide objective intel. Just as it’s patently false to assume that our reason provides only true thoughts and is always objective.

It’s patently false to assume all our feelings are subjective and can’t provide objective intel. Just as it’s patently false to assume that our reason provides only true thoughts and is always objective.

Feelings Aren’t All Bad

While our feelings certainly can mislead us, they also have the capacity to capture our attention and rightfully so. And this is especially true relating to feelings of guilt. From the Christian worldview perspective, our feelings of guilt are God’s way of grabbing our attention. Like a check engine light, these feelings are meant to alert us to the objective fact that we have failed to make good on our moral obligations. That we have offended our Moral Lawgiver. That we have fractured our relationship with him and need moral repair. But fortunately, God has not left us without a remedy. There’s a way to unload our guilt. And that way is through Christ. Via his atonement, believers can both acknowledge their moral trespass and ask for forgiveness and subsequently experience both forgiveness for their objectively morally guilty action, while also expecting to have their feelings of guilt soothed on account of Christ’s atoning love and grace.

A Christian Apologist Responds to Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s Satanic Grammy Performance

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

If you watched the 2023 Grammys, then you probably saw Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s blasphemous pop hypnotic hit “Unholy.” This song has been buzzing. It has more than a hundred million views and earned a Grammy for “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.”

Musically, it feels a bit like R&B meets belly dancing. Its Middle Eastern lilt and thumping rhythm lend a dark allure, as the lyrics spin a sordid tale of excess and adultery. One philandering husband neglects his wife and kids at home, sneaking out to a gender-bending strip club — “Body Shop.” Sung from the perspectives of the club’s prostitutes, the story is laced with luxury name brands, product shots for condoms, and vivid descriptions of sexual deviance.

Visually, the music video and live Grammy performance portray a kind of satanic drag cabaret, with the lead singers Sam Smith and Kim Petras as Satan and a stripper, respectively. In the video, the “Body Shop” translates into a speak-easy strip club in the backroom of an auto-body garage. The dancers crowding and piling on top of each other rub and writhe in ecstasy.

Allusions to kink and orgies abound. The story ends with the husband dying for his sins in a car crash, as the wife sheds her coat and wig to reveal she’s really a male stripper. At the Grammys, the story is streamlined. Kim Petras swoons and sings in a stripper cage. Pyrotechnics and red lighting create a hellish ambiance, as gender-bending demon dancers worship a devil-horned Sam Smith. This song has all the subtly of a jet engine.

Scrolling through social media, one can see a predictable partisan divide. Right wing pundits aired their grievances (rightfully so), as the left sang its praises, making sure to point out that Sam Smith is gay and gender queer, and Kim Petras is a transgender woman (male identifying as a woman).[i]

What should we make of this megahit?

With all the hype surrounding this song, it invites critique from several angles. We’ll consider some of the more obvious ones here. First, we’ll ask whether this is just an elaborate marketing ploy. Second, we’ll address whether it’s just art. Third, we’ll ask whether it’s satanic. In answering those three questions, we’ll cover a fourth angle, LGBTQ ideology. Lastly, we’ll ask what wisdom we can glean from this song. It’s clearly not just a song. It’s a symbol, perhaps even an anthem. And we do well not to downplay or exaggerate it. Instead, we can practice discernment and draw from it ministry insights into our cultural milieu.

Is this just a marketing ploy?

Behind the garish lights and red leather, it’s easy to see the machinations of marketing strategists. It has the feel of choreographed controversy, like a well-rehearsed dance number between left-wing libertines and right-wing moralists.

It’s been said that “all publicity, is good publicity.” By that measure, this song does not disappoint. It’s obviously meant to offend. It displays fire shows, hellish lighting, gender-bending kink, and burlesque aesthetics. But more than that, it’s blasphemy. The dance numbers are choreographed sexcapades punctuated by the Catholic sign of the cross (i.e., crossing oneself). This gesture connotes a blasphemous kind of sexual sacrament.

It would be too simplistic to dismiss this song as a gimmick, as mere shock-value. Sure, controversy draws crowds, but this song is more than that. It’s not just offensive. It’s transgressive. It’s an affront to Christianity, traditional marriage, monogamy, binary gender, heteronormativity, chastity, modesty. And it does all that with a wink and a smirk. They know what they’re doing. It’s supposed to upset people like you and me. It’s supposed to drive us to anger-blogging on social media, giving it free publicity at our expense. Meanwhile, we come off looking like puritanical luddites with no taste in music.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that marketing strategy is well underway. I just don’t think this song is reducible entirely to a marketing ploy. We cannot say it’s just orchestrated outrage, because if that’s all they wanted, they could have gotten a bigger response by putting Sam Smith in blackface with Kim Petras in a MAGA hat. Now that would have taken some real courage!

The point isn’t merely to offend. It’s to offend the right people. That is, offend the people on the right. “Unholy” is strategically marketed to offend the right people by celebrating irreverence, sex-positivity, and LGBTQ practice.[ii]

Is it just art?

Whatever else this song may be, it’s still art. And that might be its strongest defense. For those who see this song as a defiant strike against oppression and moral busybodies, this song sounds like artful indignation.

Historically speaking, music has often been a fulcrum for toppling authority and transgressing boundaries. Who can think of the Civil Rights Movement without the resonant refrain of “We Shall Overcome”? Or think of women’s equality without hearing Aretha Franklin demand “R.E.S.P.E.C.T.” (1967)? Communist Russia and East Berlin undoubtedly took a hit from the punk rock movement in the 1970’s and ’80’s. I like to think that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 to the tune of “We’re Not Gonna Take it!” (Twisted Sister, 1984). We could likewise note the cultural sway in Elvis’s hips, Liberace’s hats, Mick Jagger’s lips, and Ozzy’s bats. Music, if nothing else, is powerful. It has a long history of deliberately breaking cultural norms, for good or ill.

In that vein Sam Smith and Kim Petras are nothing new. They are challenging moral norms about marriage, family, and gender identity, and they’re framing it as an anti-religious dig at Christian conservatives. The question remains, however, is all that justified in the name of art?

That “art defense” might go something like this:

Premise 1: Art can be a justified way to break cultural mores.

Premise 2: This song is art.

Conclusion: Therefore, this song is justified in breaking cultural mores.

I won’t dispute premises one and two. I don’t need to. The argument is invalid. It has an undistributed middle term. Simply put, neither premise is talking about all art. “Art” is the undistributed term here. We can explain this fallacy with a question distributing the middle term: Is everything done in the name of art justified?

Clearly no. Art doesn’t justify murder, or rape, or animal sacrifice. Evil is still evil, even in artistic form. The same is true of misdemeanors and “poor taste.” Imagine if Smith and Petras used this song to come out as “trans-Black,” or to celebrate Christopher Columbus, or came out as pro-life? It’s hard to imagine their progressive supporters still saying, “It’s just art!”

In reality, this song was never just art. It’s also marketing, fashion, entertainment, and culture. It’s a commentary on family, identity, sexual ethics, and religion. And it’s a socio-political statement endorsing the LGBTQ movement. Sam Smith leaves no question about that. Speaking of his[iii] experience in this song, he says he felt “courageous to step into the queer joy of it all,” and “[i]t feels like emotional, sexual, and spiritual liberation.”[iv] The rest of the album (Gloria, 2023) reinforces that message. Yes, that messaging is framed in a piece of music. So, it can be artfully indirect. But the message still comes across loud and clear.

Is it Satanic?

If you’re thinking this is what Satanism looks like, however, you’re only half right. “Unholy” clearly uses hellish satanic imagery, but compared to modern-day Satanism, it’s a cartoon. The main streams of Satanism today deny the existence of any literal devil.[v] They’re atheistic. They deny any supernatural realm, along with all gods, angels, demons, and devils. Satanists today are more likely to be edgy, humanistic, liberal activists, with a serious authority complex.[vi] So it’s no surprise when the Satanists said of the Grammy performance, it was “alright,” “nothing particularly special,” and “red clothing, fire and devil horns…[are] all kind of passé now.”[vii]

But “Unholy” doesn’t need formal ties to Satanism to reflect the essence of Satanism, namely, radical autonomy.[viii] Variously identified with “self-determinism,” “pleasure-seeking,” the “left-hand path,” or even the “Witch’s Rede” (Do what thou wilt), this radical autonomy is the beating heart of Satanism. As one source explains, “Satanists emphasize being your true self, personal achievement and living life to the fullest….with one of the key [tenets] being individuals are their own Gods.”[ix] In that way, Smith and Petra’s “Unholy” is satanic. It’s just not unique, since Satanism absorbs almost the entire pop music industry.

What wisdom can we glean from “Unholy”?

“There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9),[x] and “Unholy” is no exception. We do well to expect incendiary ploys, sexual depravity, and even blasphemy from the entertainment industry. St. Peter foresees in the first century that “many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed…Those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority… have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed” (2 Peter 2:2,10,14).

Since we know it’s coming, we can “brace for impact.” We can be prepared. That may be as simple as turning the channel, skipping a track, or just unplugging. Most everyone could benefit from more classical music and less screen time. Avoidance isn’t everything. But it is an important step toward a deliberate discerning approach to media. We can’t afford to be passive recipients, swallowing whatever is fed to us.

Sometimes we need a media fast. Maybe get rid of your TV. Or unsubscribe from a music or streaming service. Or maybe avoid genres of music or shows that, for the most part, aren’t glorifying God. The rest of the time, when we’re not fasting, we should still be dieting. The bewildering mass of trash and distraction doesn’t deserve near as much attention as we give it.[xi] Our money, time, and attention are all votes of support. So, we do well to support only those causes that we believe in.

But what about Sam Smith and Kim Petras?

Those mega stars are probably not in your immediate sphere of influence. They aren’t likely your “neighbors” in that sense. We can still pray for them. If we love like Christ, we can find encouraging truths to say about them. We shouldn’t mock or insult them. They’re created in God’s image just like you and me (Gen 1:26–28). Even when we criticize their behavior, beliefs, or their music, we should still speak from a position of love and compassion.

Meanwhile, we have an abiding responsibility to live and love like Christ in our home and our communities and to guard our hearts (Prov. 4:23; Eph. 5; 1 Tim. 5; Titus 2). Guarding our hearts includes handling music and other media with the discernment of a dietician. To use St. Paul’s language, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil 4:8).

Footnotes

[i] Curtis M. Wong, “Sam Smith and Kim Petras Take Grammys to Hell with Fiery Performance of ‘Unholy,’ HuffPost Entertainment, February 5, 2023, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sam-smith-kim-petras-grammys-2023-unholy-performance_n_63e06afae4b01a4363956e2a; “Satanic Smith: Watch Pop Singer Go Full Satan During Grammy Performance,” Sean Hannity, February 6, 2023, https://hannity.com/media-room/satanic-smith-watch-pop-singer-go-full-satan-during-grammy-performance/; Derrick Clifton, “Sam Smith’s They/Them Pronoun Backlash Highlights an Ongoing Cultural Disconnect,” Think, September 19, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/sam-smith-s-they-them-pronoun-backlash-highlights-ongoing-cultural-ncna1056136.

[ii] “Sex positivity” is defined as a permissive and nonjudgmental attitude toward all consensual sexual expression and sexual behaviors, regarding all of it as healthy. For more on this, see Hillary Ferrer and Amy Davison, Mama Bear Apologetics: Guide to Sexuality (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2021), 131–48.

[iii] Sam Smith identifies with “they/them” pronouns. Sophie Lewis, “Sam Smith Announces Their Pronouns,” CBS News, September 13. 2019, accessed February 10, 2023 at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sam-smith-pronouns-sam-smith-announces-their-pronouns-are-they-them-2019-09-13/. With no disrespect intended, I refer to Smith in conventional “he/him” pronouns for the sake of clarity. Being an individual biological male, Smith is not a biologically neutral plurality as suggested by “they/them” pronouns.

[iv] Lea Veloso, “Unholy’ by Sam Smith and Kim Petras Lyrics Are ‘Liberating’ — Here’s How They Explore ‘Queer Joy,’” Stylecaster, February 5, 2023, accessed February 8, 2023 at https://stylecaster.com/unholy-sam-smith-kim-petras-lyrics/.

[v] See “Church of Satan vs. Satanic Temple,” The Satanic Temple (c.2014), accessed February 10, 2023 at https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/church-of-satan-vs-satanic-temple.

[vi] I explain this characterization in greater length in “Satanic Lessons on Religious Freedom: A Review of Hail Satan?” Christian Research Journal, October 28, 2019 at https://www.equip.org/articles/satanic-lessons-on-religious-freedom/.

[vii] “Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ ‘Unholy’ Grammy Act Underwhelms Satanists,” TMZ, February 8, 2023, accessed February 10, 2023 at https://www.tmz.com/2023/02/08/sam-smith-kim-petras-unholy-grammy-performance-church-satan-underwhelmed/.

[viii] “There Are Seven Fundamental Tenets,” The Satanic Temple (2014), tenets 3-4, accessed February 10, 2023 at https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us.

[ix] “Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ ‘Unholy’ Grammy Act Underwhelms Satanists,” TMZ (8 Feb 2023).

[x] All Scripture quotations are from the ESV.

[xi] I discuss a lot of examples in John D. Ferrer, “Sabrina the Teenage Anti-Christ,” Christian Research Journal, July 11, 2019 at: https://www.equip.org/articles/sabrina-the-teenage-anti-christ/.

Satan at the Grammy’s?

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

J.R. Klein (Josh Klein)

The Grammy’s have long been a cultural symbol of transgression. The goal of the Grammy’s used to be to celebrate the best music artists in the world. It was an awards night. Or, at least, it used to be.

They have always been edgy and culturally progressive. For instance, in 1973 Helen Reddy thanked God for her award but referred to God as “she” while doing so.[i] The secular entertainment industry lends itself to this sort of subversive rhetoric.

But recently the Grammy’s have become more than a shocking cultural display while recognizing the best secular artists of the day. Long before 2023’s shocking performance by Sam Smith and Kim Petras[ii], they had shifted from shocking and transgressive to lewd and Satanic.

This is not a conspiratorial statement. You will hear no talk of Illuminati, MK Ultra, or Demon possession here, but what the Grammy’s has become, whether the people who are involved realize it or not, is a worship service to deeds of darkness and even Satan himself. This slide may have been overtly realized in 2023, but elements of Satanic worship have made their way into the Grammy’s for decades.

First, I want to explain what I mean by Satanic. I do not mean Occult, or the literal worship of Satan. There were, as far as I am aware, no literal virgin sacrifices or summoning of demons on February 5th. What I do mean is an unwitting plunge into the darkness of which the performers, actors, and producers are barely aware. As they dance in overtly Satanic gear they think they are shedding light on darkness through mockery, but they accomplish the opposite and open themselves up to demonic influence in the process.

Judge less, love more, they say,[iii] but love means affirmation in this realm. Reality pushes pack, love cannot affirm untruth.[iv]

I don't know who needs to hear this… But the Grammy's has been home to satanic rituals for years now, they're just bolder now.

— J.R. Klein (@JoshRKlein) February 7, 2023

The best trick Satan ever pulled was convincing the culture that he either does not exist or that following his ideals leads to power and pleasure without limits. Satan’s goal is not to be worshipped. He is not interested in that. His goal is simply to stop the worship of the one true God and destroy what is good. It could look overt, like it did on February 5^th, or, more often, it looks normal – the choice to commit to a sport over church, the choice to pursue a career at the expense of your marriage. Satan was once an angel of light, he understands how to deceive, but once the culture has bought the covert deceptions he will move in for the kill.

In John 10:10 Jesus gives us a behind the scenes look at Satan’s goals. He comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. A performance need not be invoking Satanic worship or summoning Demons to be considered a Satanic ritual – it need only be a full embrace of darkness, theft of light, death of good, and destruction of holiness.

Sam Smith’s performance accomplished all three in a single song. He declares darkness light, he mocks God’s created order (declaring himself as non-binary, and his co-performer is transgender), and he destroys holiness with a full-on plunge into radical self-autonomy and pleasure. The song he performs is literally entitled Unholy. It glorifies infidelity and promiscuity.

Once we recognize that Satanism, according to its forefathers Aleister Crowley and Anton Lavey, is not merely the worship of Satan, but first and foremost the worship of self we can begin to understand the influence it has had on the entertainment industry.

Perhaps another time we can do a deep dive into the history of both Crowley and Lavey, but suffice it to say that the modern Satanic movements are built on their ideology. Crowley was a much more religious figure than Lavey. Lavey[v] sought to popularize Satanism by tying it to an atheistic framework, Crowley[vi], on the other hand, bought into the spiritual realm. One strand of thought that extending from Crowley to influence the Laveyan popularization[vii] of Satanism, however, was a quote from Crowley himself, “Do What Thou Wilt.”[viii]

Lavey would often scoff at the idea that his group worshiped a literal Satan (as would Crowley to some degree) but that the Church of Satan stood for what Satan symbolized in Paradise Lost. A 17^th century poem by John Milton[ix]. Radical self-autonomy, including the ability to choose what is right and wrong rather than simply to recognize the difference between right and wrong, stood at the heart of Laveyan Satanism.

The irony of the Satanic church is, while their Satanic worship is supposedly tongue-in-cheek, their worship of self and desire to choose for themselves what is right and wrong is, in fact, the very same thing Satan used in the garden to entice Eve. In essence, they worship the literal Satan without even realizing that is what they are doing, and Satan would have it no other way.

So, what does this have to do with the Grammy’s?

Within the backdrop of this form of Satanism we find the rise of the modern entertainment industry. The worship of self-gratification and self-actualization transgresses the Christian belief of self-sacrifice and holy living (Matthew 16; Rom. 12, Col. 3:5-10). Whether intentional or not, the worship of self leads to deeds of darkness and the glorification thereof.

One need not perform a literal Black Mass to worship the Devil. Simply look in the mirror and whisper, “I am a god.”

The Grammy’s, in that sense, have been a bastion of Satanic ritual for decades. Hedonism, Paganism, and Satanism are mostly all sides of the same coin and rewards season in Hollywood, specifically the Grammy’s, has become a once-a-year ritual of worship that slips from naturalism to hedonism to Satanism in the blink of an eye.

But don’t take my word for it, CBS allegedly tweeted as much before the Grammy’s:

Gotta love @CBS openly admitting that they, alongside Sam Smith, "WORSHIP" (their words, not mine) the devil… #GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/IDtb7O5ruX

— Shawn Farash (@Shawn_Farash) February 6, 2023

How quickly we forget that the last ten years have seen a steady increase of Satanic boldness at the Grammy’s. Smith’s performance was not new or edgy, it was simply more in a pattern of self-worship from the power brokers of the entertainment industry.

In 2012, Nicki Manaj performed a mock exorcism on stage[x]. The Washington Post was shocked. But the Post lauded Smith and Petras’ performance of Unholy only a decade later[xi] as one of the top four performances of the night.

In 2014, Katy Perry performed an enigmatic and dark song called Dark Horse. In the song she emerged from a crystal ball with shadowy figures summoning her to a black altar when a red cross appeared on her chest, she danced with a broom and ended the performance being burnt at the stake.[xii] Seemed a bit on the nose at the time, but 2023 takes the cake in that regard. This same year the Grammy’s held a mass “wedding ceremony” for gay couples as well, explicitly mocking a church service in the process[xiii].

In 2015, Madonna (who also introduced Smith in 2023) performed a song called Living for Love with background dancers clad in demonic garb[xiv].

In 2017, A pregnant Beyoncé performed what looked like an ode to her goddess-self giving birth to a child. But, again, you do not have to take my word for it[xv].

In 2019, a metal band called Ghost won a Grammy. The band is known for its Satanic imagery. Its lead man often dons clothing associated with the Occult and riddled with references to Satan, darkness, upside down crosses and demonic imagery[xvi]. Leading man Tobias Forge says this of their message:

“I think it’s sad that people are wasting their time thinking that we’re bad for people, when actually what we’re really trying to do is make people happy and make people feel good about themselves when they come to our show and have a good time.”

Do what thou wilt, one might say.

2021 and 2022 had similarly eerie performances, one by Post Malone[xvii] in which he was surrounded by darkly hooded monks as he wrestled with the hopelessness he felt in Hollywood’s grips and one by Lil Nas X who performed his song Montero that featured a lap dance on the devil in the music video.

These odes to darkness are not outright Wiccan ritual or Occult sacrifices, but they can often stand in for something just as insidious and more subversive. The point is the destruction of norms, reclaiming of a new morality, and recasting of darkness disguised as light. Make no mistake – the Devil smiles at such displays, not because he is worshipped but because that which is being worshipped is not, in fact, the one true God.

This brings us to the most recent spectacle. At the 2023 Grammy’s, self-proclaimed non-binary performer Sam Smith and transgender performer Kim Petras combined to present the most brazen tribute to modern day Satanism to date, with their presentation of the song Unholy.

Kim (born Tim), a transgender woman who had gender reassignment surgery at the age of 16[xviii] writhed around in a cage guarded by demonic strippers while Sam Smith gyrated with and performed with transgender strippers dressed in demonic costumes. The whole display lacked subtlety and imagination. You were seeing, in full display, a desire to embrace darkness for the very fact that reality is offensive to our fleshly desires. We can make our own reality, where gender is a matter of opinion and sexes can change through the miracle of modern medicine. We can choose for ourselves what is good and what is evil and be damned if you disagree.

Petras had this to say about the performance:

“I think a lot of people, honestly, have kind of labeled what I stand for and what Sam stands for as religiously not cool, and I personally grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it but slowly realizing it didn’t want me to be a part of it… So it’s a take on not being able to choose religion. And not being able to live the way that people might want you to live, because as a trans person I’m already not kind of wanted in religion. So we were doing a take on that and I was kind of hell-keeper Kim.”[xix]

There is a lot to break down in this quote. It gives a glimpse into the slippery slope from individual autonomy to the embrace of evil itself. At first glance one might empathize with the apparent ostracization of Petras, but the admission here is not that religion would not have him, it is that he would not have religion. Whatever god Petras would willingly serve must first bend the knee at his own self-actualization.

The Christian life, though, is about dying to self and rising with Christ, remade, a new creation (Matt. 16:24-26, Rom 12:1-3; 1 Cor. 6:19-20) and being transformed into obedience to truth which is Jesus himself. The problem was not that Kim could not choose religion, it is that religion, Christianity in particular, required a change in identity for Kim. It meant not looking inward for validation hope, or truth but looking upward.

Ironically, Kim’s own performance shows the truth of his commitment, the self-actualization into radical autonomy left him writhing in a cage, unfree, trapped in Hell. What promises as freedom is bondage but what looks like constraint is freedom (John 8:32; 10:10). Had Kim or Sam chosen Jesus they might find that they would not need to seek applause and shock to remain relevant, whole and fulfilled. Our culture’s promise that sexual pleasure is the highest pursuit, and victimhood the highest virtue only leads to hopelessness and irrelevance.

Is it worth it in the long run?

“Age does not matter to me… I’m never going to stop fully clubbing and loving gay clubs and going to them. That’s just who I am.”[xx]

Kim Petras

But what about when age does matter? What about when the fame fades? What then?

If the Enemy can keep us focused on the here and now rather than the there and then he has won half the battle. This game is endless, exhausting, and boring all at the same time. Always having to look for the next shocking display, the next transgressive cause to burn down the norms of history. It seems like a high calling because of the cultural plaudits, but it is meaningless and empty of value. There’s a reason Madonna, at 64, can’t let go of her 1980s self and must always insert herself into these moments.

The culture of transgression is fleeting, being a sex symbol only lasts for a few years before you are cast aside for the next and hottest new thing. The worship of self, pleasure, and identity only gives meaning for a short time, but it is long enough to waste a lifetime. Satan knows this and his desire to amplify this meaningless self-worship has eternal consequences.

So, what is the Christian’s response to things like this?

First, I believe our role is to expose the darkness for what it is (John 1:5) and to avoid loving what it stands for (1 John 2:15) but we must also pray for those that are mired in it to be exposed to the light. May they find true hope, peace, and purpose. I do not hate Sam Smith or Kim Petras, on the contrary, I love them deeply. I want them to know and understand the deep and abiding love that Christ has for them. I want them to experience a rest from their pursuit of relevance, acceptance, fame, and pleasure.

Our goal should be similar to what Jesus revealed to Paul as he was sent among the hedonistic and pagan nations of the gentiles:

“…To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me (Acts:26:18).”

We must recognize, as Paul did, that the world is, whether they realize it or not, under the power of Satan. This sort of darkness, this worship of self, certainly opens individuals and cultures up to the influence of the spiritual realm. Satan is the prince of this world (Eph. 2:1-2) and they serve him whether they realize it or not. The enemy, however, is not Sam Smith or Kim Petras but the dark and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12).

We cannot be naïve about these things, but we also must not overreact out of fear either. We must be sober-minded and watchful (1 Peter 5:8) prepared to engage with the boldness of love and truth.

In the end though, we must remember that Satan’s greatest weapon against the church is not a dark cultural display at the Grammy’s but in false gospels, fear, and ineffectiveness. So while we ought to be aware of these things, we should be more concerned about our own churches, neighborhoods, and Bible studies lest we get distracted by things like the Grammy’s at the expense of real and true discipleship.

Footnotes

[i] https://www.insider.com/most-shocking-moments-grammys-history#long-before-ariana-grande-sang-god-is-a-woman-helen-reddy-made-that-proclamation-during-her-1973-acceptance-speech-1

[ii] https://variety.com/2023/music/news/sam-smith-kim-petras-unholy-grammys-1235510990/

[iii] https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/kim-petras-2023-grammys-judge-less-speech-1235213820/

[iv] https://freethinkingministries.com/of-truth-and-empathy/

[v] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anton-LaVey

[vi] Aleister-Crowley-s-Satanism.pdf

[vii] https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/satanism

[viii] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123653.The_Book_of_the_Law

[ix] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Paradise-Lost-epic-poem-by-Milton

[x] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/click-track/post/grammys-2012-the-last-exorcism-of-nicki-minaj-what-went-wrong-and-what-almost-went-right/2012/02/13/gIQAzAxMBR_blog.html

[xi] https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/02/05/grammy-awards/

[xii] https://youtu.be/jDuL_3TsdZE

[xiii] https://variety.com/2014/music/news/madonna-marries-gay-couples-at-the-grammys-2-1201072143/

[xiv] https://www.salon.com/2015/02/09/see_madonnas_demonic_grammy_performance_of_living_for_love/

[xv] https://www.self.com/story/beyonce-grammys-2017

[xvi] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/grammy-nominated-metal-band-ghost-addresses-satanic-accusations-music-styles-promote-way-worse-lifestyle-175537647.html

[xvii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNBDjJosK74

[xviii] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9832006/kim-petras-transition-clarity-fame/

[xix] https://variety.com/2023/music/news/ted-cruz-slams-sam-smith-kim-petras-grammys-evil-performance-1235514438/

[xx] https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/kim-petras-talks-religion-trans-community-ahead-grammys-96847838

Book Review: The Magna Carta Of Humanity

Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Luke Nix

The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai’s Revolutionary Faith and The Future of Freedom

In today’s world it is difficult to be online, at parties, with family, at work, or even just in public without hearing about the current cultural and political climate in the United States. Even if the Christian case-maker tries to avoid politics, they still confront culture and will be challenged with the hypocrisies of the Church and those who claimed to be members of the Church who just happened to also have founded The United States of America. And it is rare that challenges stop there.

People are passionate about one political view (or party) or another. Extremes on the different sides constantly accuse opposing sides of trying to destroy democracy, the Constitution, and even freedom itself. The rhetoric and apparent goals of different politicians can get our heads spinning out of control as we try to make sense of what is going on, how it affects us (and our future), what we can do about it to bring some measure of sanity in the conversations we inevitably get sucked into, and how we can respond logically with both gentleness and respect when the challenges come.

That is where I have found great value in Os Guinness’ “The Magna Carta of Humanity” (Hard copy, audiobook, Kindle). Guinness digs into the foundations, principles, and histories of the cultural and political divide in America. He compares and contrasts them in such a way that brings crystal clarity to the current situation. He points out that before we can even talk about “make America great again” (MAGA), we must truly understand what made America great in the first place. And before anyone wishes to reject the ideals that founded America, they must first truly understand those ideals and truly understand the implications of the ideals they are trading them for.

In my effort to help you determine if this is a book that is worth your time (and I believe it is), I will include a few of the skeletal points of the book, several of my favorite quotes (mainly from the Introduction- I don’t want to spoil too much), and my more specific recommendations.

My Awareness

I have to start with the podcast that drew my attention to this excellent book. Alisa Childers interviewed Dr. Os Guinness on her podcast (a great podcast that I highly recommend on its own, by the way) about whether or not Christians should be involved in politics. He not only answered in the affirmative but answered why that is the case and how America (and the world) has reached the point that such action is necessary. Here is the video:

Upon completing the podcast, I immediately purchased the audiobook and listened to it twice then picked up the hard copy to do a more analytical reading. This helped me to better grasp, understand, and appreciate the case presented by Guinness. It was definitely worth the additional time and effort spent.

Key Points:

The division in the USA today is due to two mutually exclusive views of freedom.
The first originates from the Exodus and was the foundation of the American Revolution of 1776. This view understands freedom as the individuals possessing the power to do what they ought to do. (“Sinai”)
The second view of freedom originates with ancient atheists and was the foundation of the French Revolution in 1789. This view understands freedom as individuals possessing complete autonomy. (“Paris”)
Paris, along with its many offshoots, have all proved disastrous for human life and liberty. Whereas Sinai (even when applied inconsistently) has been the only one that has resulted in true liberty.
Paris fails (and will continue to fail) because it has a false understanding of both the dignity and fallenness of humanity. On the contrary, Sinai recognizes these realities at its core.
The freedom of Sinai, though, is not self-sustaining. It requires individual self-awareness and focused and intentional dedication of each succeeding generation if it is to be maintained for future generations.
America must recognize the sins of its past and move forward. The way forward proposed by Paris (and the progressive left) is that of hate and revenge. While the way forward proposed by Sinai and Jesus (and even Martin Luther King Jr.) is that of love and forgiveness.
Because freedom is incompatible with hate and revenge, the way of Paris necessarily offers no hope of true freedom now or in the future. It pays lip service to the term while insisting on a contradictory concept.
America is currently in the process of switching from the ideals of 1776 to the ideals of 1789, and it, along with its citizens, will suffer the same fate as all the other nations that have tried its numerous versions (including Russia, China, and North Korea).
There is still time for America to stop the current trajectory and reclaim the love and forgiveness that is required of true freedom and reject the hate and revenge that has done nothing but prove disastrous.

Favorite Quotes:

“The great American republic is as deeply divided today as at any moment since just before the Civil War. Yet this time no Abraham Lincoln has stepped forward to address the evils, appeal to the Declaration of Independence, defend the better angel of the American character, demonstrate the magnificence of ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ in our time, and call for a ‘new birth of freedom.'”

“America appears to be abandoning the ideals of the American Revolution or ideas that are disastrous not only to America but to freedom and to the future of humanity.”

“The American crisis is a crisis of freedom and must be understood as such…The present crisis stems from the fact that over the last fifty years, major spheres of American society have shifted their loyalties and now support ideas that are closer to the French Revolution and its heirs rather than the American Revolution.”

“Such current movements as postmodernism, political correctness, tribal and identity politics, the sexual revolution, critical theory (or grievance studies), and socialism all come down from 1789 and have nothing to do with the ideas of 1776…They are the *dramatis personae* without which the drama of America’s current crisis cannot be understood or resolved.”

“The United States is suffering from profound philosophical cynicism, moral corruption, and serious social collapse…And too many Americans, especially those who are younger, have already been bewitched by the ideas coming from the other revolution, 1789, and not 1776…they now appear hell-bent on rejecting ideas from their past, which they have not tried to understand, even as they embrace ideas from the other revolution, which they have not examined as closely as they need to. Many in America see only their ancestors’ errors and at once think that makes them wiser and better than their ancestors. Yet they do not try to understand what their ancestors thought and why, let alone ask where the alternative ideas will lead them.”

“The Russian and Chinese revolutions represented the first successful establishment of secularist regimes in history; the Russian doing so in Europe and the Chinese in Asia. Along with Hitler’s Germany, the Russian and Chinese revolutions were also the first regimes to produce genuine totalitarianism. With the horrendous quartet of their total ideology, total mobilization, and total surveillance, and total repression, these totalitarian regimes became the epitome of oppressive evil and the complete denial of liberty.”

“Far from ushering in the final form of freedom and representing a second coming of Epicurus, [the French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions]’ claims to be the true and reliable source of human freedom have been left in tatters by the history of their repressive secularist regimes in the twentieth century and the slaughter of millions of their own citizens.”

“Is it still possible in the advanced modern world to build societies with both freedom and order at the same time? To build and sustain communities and nations that demonstrate the highest values of human dignity, freedom, justice, equality, compassion, peace, and stability?”

“Historically, it was the Exodus Revolution and not the French Revolution, that lay behind the genius of America’s ordered freedom or covenantal and constitutional freedom. A rediscovery of the foundational principles of the Exodus Revolution is therefore the once and future secret of true revolutionary faith and a sure path to freedom, justice, equality, and peace.”

“The…American Revolution [is] decisively different from the French Revolution, and the future of freedom depends on appreciating the differences and choosing between them.”

“America cannot endure permanently half 1776 and half 1789. The compromises, contradictions, hypocricies, inequities, and evils have built up unaddressed. The grapes of wrath have ripened again, and the choice before America is plain. Either America goes forward best by going back first, or America is about to reap a future in which the worst will once again be the corruption of the best.“

“Will the coming generation return to faith in God and to humility or continue to trust in the all-sufficiency of reason, punditry, and technocracy and the transformative power of politics?”

“The future for freedom and humanity is in the balance, as Sinai spells freedom for the future whereas Paris has so far spelled out freedom betrayed and the coming of a long night of expanding statism, surveillance, and repression.”

“This is not a plea for some special protection or exemption for faith. It is time and past time to set out the debate in its fullest terms and to recognize that the sequel to this generation’s choices will be consequential and historic.”

Recommendations:

While I believe that every reader, who takes the time to read the book seriously, would have much to gain from it, I do believe this book is of special interest for several groups:

Anyone who is involved in political discussions online or in person. Having a firm grasp on the sources of disagreement will guide us in how to address those disagreements. Recognizing areas of agreement will build a bridge that those we disagree with can cross to accepting the truth that we wish to communicate. Having those of these in our minds will help keep us calm, respectful, loving, and confident in discussion and will keep the discussion focused and productive.
Any scientist. When untrained and unlearned politicians sense a threat to their power, they will censor scientific research and the scientists (even if the research doesn’t legitimately provide a threat). Scientists will not be permitted to do research freely nor will they even be able to pretend to (much less, actually) follow the evidence where it leads. This is the way of Paris and 1789. All these naturalists and New Atheists who think that “science” is the end-all/be-all: they are about to reap a world that will destroy everything they have worked for, everything they are working towards, and everything they cherish. Not because they conceded to belief in God and man’s sinfulness, but because they explicitly rejected God and his moral authority over all individuals including those in government who have power over them. Let’s also not forget that this is not limited to politicians; it extends to corporations and those in power there as well. This similarly applies to any educator, researcher, and creative.
Anyone who supports the views of postmodernism, Critical Theory, tribal politics, identity politics, Marxism, socialism, and/or communism. Dr. Guinness shows how hate and revenge are at the core of these ideas and that history demonstrates that each of these ends in disaster for the individual who holds to them and nations that rule by them, no matter how they are applied; and any “new” ideas of how to apply them are doomed to fail as well.
Private and Home Educators. It is important that American and World history be taught with an eye to its application to the children we are teaching. We teach history not merely for trivial information, but so that our children will not make the same mistakes of the past. Freedom is not self-sufficient. It must be taught and applied to the world around our children so they can see the importance of this part of their education and what will happen is they too become “bewitched” by the glitter of Paris. Also, if there ever was a time to teach students the evidence for Christianity, it is today (see Christian apologists and theologians below).
Christian apologists and theologians. Os Guinness’ discussions and case depend highly upon the truth of several ideas that Christian apologists commonly (and maybe not so commonly) defend, thus he gives renewed urgency in showing these to be true to the world. They include: Obviously, God’s existence, but also man being created in the Image of God, human fallenness, trust (biblical faith and not blind faith), objective morality, human dignity, human equality, libertarian free will (properly understood, of course), the historicity of the exodus, truth, knowledge, and numerous more that I’m sure you will see as you come across topics you frequently address. Also, the utopian promises of Paris cannot ever be fulfilled by anyone or any government because they are false and do not reflect reality. It is important to show others that these are false so that they do not continue to trust the claims of Paris and its off-shoots and reap its consequences. Ultimately, this book can serve as a highlight several strong, basic human desires- freedom and justice that cannot ever be fully and perpetually fulfilled in this life because of sin; it is only through the atonement of Jesus Christ and the truth of his resurrection that there is ultimate hope for love and forgiveness now perpetually the future when He returns.
Pastors and Church Leaders. In today’s culture that is accepting a “progressive” and false gospel that is often grounded in postmodernism and is focused on social justice and politics, it is important to see the differences between those ideas that are sneaking into the Church, how they differ from Scripture and the world we live in, and the disastrous results if your congregation accepts them. You do not have to have a bent towards the political in your church, just a passion for truth and defending it (see Christian apologists and theologians, above)

They’re Coming for Your Children…

For the Crime of Christianity…

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KGB/Gestapo Tactics

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Footnotes

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Footnotes

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**Are Guilt Feelings only Guilt Feelings?**