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Is What You Do More Important Than What You Believe? | with Alisa Childers and Natasha Crain

According to the New Testament, producing good fruit is being obedient to the commands of Christ. Jesus Himself even said, “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.” It seems that in order to behave the right way we first have to believe the right things–the revealed Word of God. The problem is, as Western society continues to grow hostile towards the biblical Christian worldview, many are embracing progressive “Christianity” as a more appealing alternative. But does this movement have the capacity to help its followers without causing harm?

On this week’s podcast episode, guest hosts Alisa Childers and Natasha Crain use popular memes from the internet to expose the inconsistencies found within the progressive Christian movement and defend the inerrancy of Scripture. They remind us why Christians should continue to view the Bible as the authoritative Word of God and address several important questions including:

- Does belief in Bible inerrancy equate to Bible worship?
- Why should we accept the Bible as God’s Word?
- Is it unloving to accept what the Bible teaches?
- What role does the Bible play in the life of progressive “Christians?”
- Are progressive Christians more loving than Christians who believe in biblical authority?
- Do ancient creeds still have a place in the modern church?

To view the entire VIDEO PODCAST, join our CrossExamined private community. It’s the perfect place to jump into great discussions with like-minded Christians while providing financial support for our ministry.

Alisa’s website: https://alisachilders.com/

Natasha’s website: https://natashacrain.com/

If you would like to submit a question to be answered on the show, please email your question to Hello@Crossexamined.org.

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March 10, 2023/by Frank Turek

He Gets Us, But Do We Get Him? The Case for Criticizing False Teachers

Theology and Christian Apologetics

I once got an angry email from a lady who didn’t like the fact that I criticized a false teacher on our I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist podcast. “You shouldn’t criticize other Christians!” she scolded me.

Do you see the problem with this? There she was criticizing me, another Christian, while claiming you ought not criticize other Christians. To paraphrase Elon Musk, if irony could kill, she’d be dead right now.

Jesus Called Out False Teachers

Apparently, she never considered that Jesus spent much of his time criticizing the false teachings and practices of the religious politicians known as the Pharisees whose hearts were far from God. He also warned people who led young believers astray, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea (Matt. 18:6).”

Paul exposed five false teachers by name in his letters to Timothy. He warned that “the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim. 4:3). He also told the Romans to “watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naïve people” (Rom 16:17-18). Notice that the people causing divisions are not those defending the truth, but those who are introducing the false teachings.

In fact, every writer of the New Testament warned against false teachers at some point. Peter said that “false teachers” would introduce “destructive heresies” that “promise people freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity” (2 Pet. 2:1,19). John wrote, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1John 4:1). The writer of Hebrews told us to “not be carried away by strange teachings” (Heb. 13:9). Jude said we need to “contend for the faith” because “ungodly people… pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 3-5). James cautioned us about becoming teachers because teachers will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). And the list goes on.

In one sense the entire Bible is one long warning to avoid false teachings and practices. Yet, somehow, modern people are under the impression that it is a bigger sin to warn people of false teaching than to actually be a false teacher!

I say all this because my friend Natasha Crain has taken a bunch of online heat from some fellow Christians for pointing out 7 problems with the “He Gets Us” Campaign, which included two 30 second commercials during this year’s Super Bowl. When you read Natasha’s piece—which has been shared on social media over 26,000 times—you realize that the “He Gets Us” campaign ironically doesn’t get Jesus.

It’s not just that their 30 second commercials leave out the most important truth about Jesus (that could be forgiven—after all it’s only 30 seconds!). But their website misleads people into thinking that Jesus was just a really good man whose primary mission was to achieve social justice. There’s nothing prominent about Him being God or our Savior.

Social Justice Warrior or Savior of the World?

As Natasha observes, the head of the marketing firm behind the campaign explicitly said, “Ultimately, the goal is inspiration, not recruitment or conversion.” That’s why Jesus isn’t being highlighted as our substitute. He’s merely presented as a good example of “peace and love.” A motivational speaker. A social justice warrior.

But that wasn’t Christ’s mission. How do we know? Because he stated his primary mission explicitly. Here are just a few of several statements by Jesus:

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45).”
“The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Lk. 19:10).
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).
“Now my soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour” (Jn. 12:27).
“Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46)

As Greg Koukl observes in “The Legend of the Social Justice Jesus”, “For Jesus, salvation was not economic prosperity, equal distribution of goods, or sexual liberty without judgment or shame. Instead, salvation came through belief in him, bringing forgiveness of sins and eternal life.”

God didn’t add humanity to his deity and suffer a brutal death to make sure everyone uses the right pronouns. He came to be the ransom who pays for our sins.

Of course, Jesus wants us to love our neighbor, but that’s not a new teaching—it was already the stated policy of Yahweh in the Old Testament (Lev. 19:18). Moreover, love in the Bible doesn’t mean approval as the “He Gets Us” campaign implies. Love seeks what’s best for people, and that requires us to oppose any evil a loved one wants to do. As Paul put it, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Cor. 13:6-7).

So contrary to the “He Gets Us” campaign, Jesus didn’t come to give some new ethical teaching. He came to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn. 1:29)—the ultimate sacrifice that the Old Testament sacrificial system foreshadowed.

So What’s the Big Deal?

Ok, so “He Gets Us” doesn’t get Him. So what? What’s the big deal?

Natasha writes, “’He Gets Us’ has the potential to actually harm the public understanding of Jesus. People need to know that Jesus is our Savior, not a compassionate buddy.” I would like to amplify and illustrate this excellent point.

“People need to know that Jesus is our Savior, not a compassionate buddy.”
Natasha Crain

Imagine you see a commercial for a place you know nothing about called St. Jude’s. The commercial only speaks of the good food that they serve children. When you go to the website highlighted on the commercial, you only see more about the food. Their mission statement says nothing about St. Jude’s being a hospital or the fact that their mission is to treat and try to heal children with childhood cancer free of charge. They only push the food angle. You come away thinking this is some kind of restaurant that caters to kids.

Who would think that’s an accurate commercial? Of course, they must serve food to the children, but that’s not their primary mission—it’s not why they exist. While a commercial can’t give complete information, it should at least give accurate information.

Instead of informing people, such a commercial would be misinforming people. The people who saw that and the website would first have to unlearn the misinformation fed them before they would be open to learn what St. Jude’s is actually about. And that could be deadly. If you had a child with cancer, you could miss out on having your child cured for free at St. Jude’s hospital because their campaign obscured that life-saving mission.

There is a similar danger to the “He Gets Us” campaign. While there may be some good that comes of it—like spurring conversations about Jesus—it’s outweighed by the fact that many unbelievers will be misled into thinking that Jesus came just to make our lives better here. That his primary mission was to achieve social justice on this earth. People will have to unlearn that false teaching after being led astray by the campaign. They risk missing a free life-saving cure for their sins by the great physician. They risk missing eternal life.

If only Christians would act like Jesus and the apostles to correct the “smooth talk” that “deceives the minds of naïve people.” If only they would “contend for the faith” instead of buying into whatever “their itching ears want to hear.”

Wait, that’s exactly what Natasha has done. And yet some Christians are mad at her! They should go back and read their Bibles. Jesus and the apostles didn’t hold their tongues because their goal wasn’t to be “nice.” Their goal was to love people by warning them of harmful misinformation and replacing it with the truth just like Natasha has done. (For more, click here.)

Will You Stand UNSHAKEN? | with Alisa Childers and Natasha Crain

Podcast

Who or what are we worshiping? Are we bowing to the one true God, or to the god of the self? We’ve all witnessed the Western world change quite dramatically, especially during the past few years. It goes from faith “deconstruction” to woke ideology to radical gender theory. Anti-Christian ideas haven’t just crept into our homes. They’ve kicked the door down and pulled a chair up to the table!

Christians feel immense pressure to bow down to these false idols as we watch the culture (and many of our loved ones) being shaken up all around us. Once you decide to take a stand for Christ and His authority, how do you hold your ground and live boldly in a world that is downright hostile to the idea of objective and Biblical truth?

That’s the BIG question Alisa Childers, Natasha Crain, and Frank will be tackling in the first-ever UNSHAKEN Conference which is set to take place in Dayton, Ohio on 1/28 along with three other locations later this year! In this podcast episode, Alisa and Natasha sit down with Frank to give us a glimpse into some of the content they’ll be sharing at the conference, which is set to be unlike any other apologetics conference you’ve ever seen before!

To view the entire VIDEO PODCAST, be sure to join our CrossExamined private community. It’s the perfect place to jump into some great discussions with like-minded Christians while simultaneously providing financial support for our ministry.

UNSHAKEN conference info + tickets: https://unshakenconference.com/

If you would like to submit a question to be answered on the show, please email your question to Hello@Crossexamined.org.

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January 13, 2023/by Frank Turek

7 Problems with the He Gets Us Campaign

Culture CrossExamined, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Natasha Crain

In case you haven’t seen it yet, there’s a $100 million advertising campaign that launched this year across the United States and is aimed at helping rescue Jesus’s reputation from the “damage” done by His followers. It features a website, billboards in major cities, and ads that have been viewed 300 million times. “He Gets Us[i],” as the campaign is known, is funded by anonymous donors. If you haven’t seen the ads yet, you likely will soon.

Many Christians immediately have a problem with the idea that Jesus would in some way be “marketed.” As a former marketing executive and adjunct market research professor, I don’t necessarily think such a marketing campaign is inherently problematic. Marketing is simply the discipline of effectively getting a given message to a given audience. If your church has a website, you’re “marketing.” If you have a board in front of your church that announces the weekly sermon subject, you’re “marketing.” If you pass out tracts about Jesus, you’re “marketing.”

In other words, if donors are paying to tell the world about Jesus on a grand scale so that more people may come to a saving knowledge of Him, praise God.

But the message shared better be an accurate message about Jesus, lest you’re actually leading people away from Him in some way.

And therein lies the problem with He Gets Us. The Jesus of this campaign is nothing more than an inspiring human who relates to our problems and cares a whole lot about a culturally palatable version of social justice.

Since many people will be discussing the campaign in coming months, I want to highlight seven significant problems to watch out for and to share with friends who may be misled by what they see.

1. The fact that Jesus “gets us,” stripped from the context of His identity, is meaningless.

The name of the campaign alone should raise at least a preliminary red flag for Christians. Generally speaking, when people or churches focus on the humanity of Jesus—an emphasis on the idea that “He was just like us!”—it’s to the exclusion of His divinity. But Jesus matters not primarily because He understands what it’s like to be human, but because of who He is. In other words, it’s only His identity as God Himself that makes the fact that He “gets us” even relevant.

Why?

If Jesus wasn’t God, it doesn’t matter that He understands what it’s like to be human. Literally every other human has experienced humanity as well! Who cares that this Jesus fellow “gets” humanity like everyone else? But if Jesus was God, the incarnation becomes an amazing truth, because the God of the universe also experienced the nature of humanity.

Of course, if the campaign simply had a title which lacked clarity but its execution was something very different, there wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Read on.

2. Jesus is presented as an example, not a Savior.

There’s nothing I’ve seen or read in the campaign that presents Jesus as God Himself or a Savior for humanity. The questions asked and answered on the site include things like: Was Jesus ever lonely? Was Jesus ever stressed? Did Jesus have fun? Did Jesus face criticism?

But again, if Jesus was nothing more than a human, why are we even asking these questions? We could just as well be asking, Was George Washington ever lonely? Was George Washington ever stressed? Did George Washington have fun? Did George Washington face criticism?

The campaign wants you to care about Jesus because He’s a great moral example. They say, for instance, “No matter what we think of Christianity, most people can agree on one thing. During his lifetime, Jesus set a pretty good example of peace and love.”

But if that’s all Jesus is—a good example—don’t spend millions on a campaign to tell people about Him. We can find good human examples all over the place. Jesus is a good example—the ultimate example—but most importantly, He’s the Son of God. That’s why His example matters.

3. The campaign reinforces the problematic idea that Jesus’s followers have Jesus all wrong.

Jon Lee, one of the chief architects of the campaign, says the team wanted to start a movement of people who want to tell a better story about Jesus [ii] and act like him. Lee states, “Our goal is to give voice to the pent-up energy of like-minded Jesus followers, those who are in the pews and the ones that aren’t, who are ready to reclaim the name of Jesus from those who abuse it to judge, harm and divide people.”

For 2,000 years, people have done terrible things in the name of Christ—things that Jesus Himself would never have approved of. There’s no question in that sense that people have “abused” the name of Jesus for their own evil purposes.

But in today’s culture, there’s a popular notion that Jesus was the embodiment of love and all things warm and fuzzy, whereas His followers who talk about judgment, sin, objective morality, the authority of Scripture, and so on, are hopelessly at odds with what He taught. The He Gets Us campaign plays straight into that misconceived dichotomy.

Christians who adhere to clear biblical teachings on hot topics like the sanctity of life, gender identity, and sexuality, for example, are consistently accused of “harming” others by even holding those beliefs. Those who speak the truth about what God has already judged to be right and wrong are accused of being “judgmental” themselves. Those who understand Jesus to be the Son of God—the embodiment of truth, not warm fuzzies—are accused of being divisive when rightly seeking to divide truth from error as the Bible teaches (1 John 4:6).

So the question is, when Lee says that he wants to rescue the name of Jesus from those who “abuse it to judge, harm and divide people,” does he mean that he wants to give people a more biblical understanding of Jesus, or does he want to rescue an unbiblical, culturally palatable version of Jesus from followers who proclaim truth that people don’t want to hear?

I think the answer is clear from my next point.

4. The campaign reinforces what culture wants to believe about Jesus while leaving out what culture doesn’t want to believe.

Whereas the campaign is seeking to give people a fresh picture of Jesus, all it really does is reinforce the feel-good image culture already has. A representative web page[iii], for example, talks about how Jesus “invited everyone to sit at his table.” The text talks about how “inclusive” Jesus was, how the “religious do-gooders began to whisper behind his back,” and how “the name of Jesus has been used to harm and divide, but if you look at how he lived, you see how backward that really is. Jesus was not exclusive. He was radically inclusive.”

Of course Jesus welcomed everyone around His table. And surely people need to hear that. But He welcomed everyone because everyone needs to hear His message about people’s need for repentance and salvation! Meanwhile, He Gets Us presents Jesus’s actions as though they merely represented an example of how to get along well with others: “Strangers eating together and becoming friends. What a simple concept, and yet, we’re pretty sure it would turn our own modern world upside down the same way Jesus turned his around 2,000 years ago.”

Of course, if you’re nothing more than a human (see point 1), there’s not much more to take from Jesus’s actions than a social example of playing well with others.

5. The campaign characterizes the so-called culture war in terms of secular social justice rather than underlying worldview differences.

On a page titled, “Jesus was fed up with politics, too,” it says, “Jesus lived in the middle of a culture war…And though the political systems were different (not exactly a representative democracy), the greed, hypocrisy, and oppression different groups used to get their way were very similar.” The page, like many others on the site, has hashtags “#Activist#Justice#RealLife.”

For those familiar with Critical Theory and how it roots secular social justice ideas, this a pretty clear statement of the mindset from which He Gets Us is coming.

If you’re not familiar with how secular social justice ideas and manifestations differ from those of biblical justice, please see chapter 10 in my book, Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture;[iv] I don’t have the space here to fully reiterate how opposed they are. But the bottom line is that secular social justice is rooted in the idea that the world should be viewed through the lens of placing people in “oppressor” and “oppressed” groups based on social power dynamics. The problems we have in society, according to this view, are that societal structures have produced norms that oppress certain groups, and those groups must be liberated. For example, in such a framework, those who feel oppressed by the gender binary need to be freed from society’s norms of “male and female.” Women whose access to abortion is limited need to be freed from constraints on “reproductive justice.”

The fact that He Gets Us believes culture wars are about the “oppression” different groups use to get their way presupposes a (secular) Critical Theory understanding of the world. In reality, it’s the opposing worldviews in culture that lead to such fundamental disagreement. As I explain throughout Faithfully Different, cultural “wars” over things like the sanctity of life and sexuality are ultimately rooted in disagreements between those who believe in the moral authority of the individual (the secular view) and those who believe in the moral authority of God and His Word (the biblical view).

6. The campaign’s stated goal is about inspiration, not a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The president of the marketing agency behind He Gets Us has explicitly said[v], “Ultimately, the goal is inspiration, not recruitment or conversion.”

Now, as someone with a professional marketing background myself, I very much understand the fact that not every campaign has the goal of getting someone to “purchase” (or, in this case, “convert”). Marketers know that people generally go through preliminary phases of awareness, then interest, and then desire before committing to action. So if this campaign were only working at generating more and deeper awareness of or interest in a biblically faithful Jesus, that would be no problem. But if your goal is inspiration, you’re going to generate an awareness of and interest in a Jesus completely detached from the one a person should be giving their life to.

If it’s not immediately clear why, you can see the outcome of such a problematic goal on the page that asks, “Is this a campaign to get me to go to church?” Their answer is, “No. He Gets Us simply invites all to consider the story of a man who created a radical love movement that continues to impact the world thousands of years later. Many churches focus on Jesus’ experiences, but you don’t have to go to church or even believe in Christianity to find value in them. Whether you consider yourself a Christian, a believer in another faith, a spiritual explorer, or not religious or spiritual in any way, we invite you to hear about Jesus and be inspired by his example.”

Jesus is God of the universe and the exclusive path to salvation (John 14:6). He’s not just a nice guy relevant for “inspiring” people regardless of whatever errant worldview they happen to hold.

Some people reading this may try to be charitable in suggesting that if the campaign were more explicitly about Jesus’s divinity and the need for salvation up front, not as many would get interested in learning more. In other words, maybe the campaign funnels people to places that can deepen and clarify their understanding of Jesus. If that were the case, it would be a horrible, misleading approach. Every marketer knows that the goal is to generate accurate awareness. He Gets Us presents not just an incomplete Jesus, but the wrong one.

Even so, let’s look at where the campaign eventually takes people.

7. The next steps offered by He Gets Us could lead someone far away from truth rather than toward it.

When people become interested in learning more about Jesus, they’re directed to a “Connect” page.

Hundreds of churches have signed up to respond to people who fill out that connect form. Clearly, an important question is where those people are directed. However, there is no theological criteria or statement of faith that churches must adhere to in order to take part. The president of the marketing agency says, [vi]“We hope that all churches that are aligned with the He Gets Us campaign will participate…This includes multiple denominational and nondenominational church affiliations, Catholic and Protestant, churches of various sizes, ethnicities, languages, and geography.”

As I explain in Faithfully Different (and discuss with Dr. George Barna in my recent podcast[vii]), 65% of Americans identify as Christian while only about 6% have a worldview consistent with what the Bible teaches. Dr. Barna’s research has also shown that a dismal percent of pastors have a biblical worldview. If you have no theological criteria for where you’re sending people, you’re actually more likely than not—based on statistics—to be sending them to a church whose teachings don’t line up with those of the Bible.

In other words, you’re sending unsuspecting truth seekers to places where they won’t hear truth.

Yes, Jesus was fully human, but He was also fully God. When you remove half the picture of His identity (as this campaign does), you give people the understanding they want but not the fuller understanding they need. Because of this, He Gets Us has the potential to actually harm the public understanding of Jesus. People need to know that Jesus is our Savior, not a compassionate buddy.

Footnotes

[i] https://hegetsus.com/en

[ii] https://churchleaders.com/news/435958-he-gets-us-campaign-jon-lee-rns.html

[iii] https://hegetsus.com/en/jesus-invited-everyone-to-sit-at-his-table

[iv] https://www.amazon.com/Faithfully-Different-Regaining-Biblical-Clarity/dp/0736984291

[v] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/march/he-gets-us-ad-campaign-branding-jesus-church-marketing.html

[vi] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/march/he-gets-us-ad-campaign-branding-jesus-church-marketing.html

[vii] https://natashacrain.com/what-is-a-biblical-worldview-with-george-barna/

These Viral Pro-Choice Memes Miss the Point and Fail the Test of Logic

Culture CrossExamined, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics

By Natasha Crain

With the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion potentially pointing to Roe v. Wade being overturned, social media is on fire with pro-choice advocates sharing memes intended to portray abortion “rights” as necessary, important, and even morally good.

For those of us who believe intentionally killing preborn human beings is murder (the unjustified taking of innocent human life), it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see so many people passionately advocating for the right to commit such an act. In response, many Christians have taken to private social media groups to share examples of pro-choice memes and discuss how best to respond.

While it’s not necessary to respond to every post you come across (there aren’t enough hours in the day!), I’m heartened to see so many Christians wanting to address what they’re seeing. That said, I’ve noticed that many people’s responses are missing the key point of the debate as much as the memes themselves are.

As such, I wanted to write this article to respond to several viral pro-choice memes and show how to maintain focus on the core issue without getting pulled into irrelevant other subjects. But first, a critical distinction must be understood.

Distinguishing Worldview Disagreements from Logically Fallacious Red Herrings

Imagine that you come across someone posting the following on social media: “I’m an atheist. I do not believe anything exists beyond the natural world, and therefore I do not believe in the existence of objective morality. Nothing is morally right or wrong, so I’m pro-choice because I believe there’s nothing wrong with ending the life of an unborn baby.”

In this case, the pro-choice advocate is merely being consistent within their own naturalistic worldview. They believe morality is only a matter of opinion, given their view of the nature of the universe. If a Christian is pro-life as a logical outworking of their biblical worldview and an atheist is pro-choice as a logical outworking of their naturalistic worldview, the ensuing conversation isn’t so much about abortion as it is about their respective underlying worldview assumptions.

Worldview-level discussions about the nature of the universe, the nature of humanity, and the corresponding rights (or lack of rights) held by preborn humans certainly transpire in some circles. And these worldview-level questions are ultimately what the debate comes down to.

But this is rarely the level of conversation floating to the top of social media.

In fact, I’ve seen virtually no pro-choice social media posts addressing these questions in popular discourse. Rather, emotion-driven memes carry the day—memes that are nearly always logically fallacious red herrings. In other words, they distract from the real issue with points completely irrelevant to the core (worldview) question at hand:

Is it morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being?

That’s it. That’s what the debate comes down to.

For clarity, the logic behind the answer for Christians with a biblical worldview is as follows:

It’s morally wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being.
Abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings.
Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.

With this in mind, let’s look at brief responses to eight of the most popular pro-choice memes circulating right now to see how to highlight the red herring and point back to the real issue. As we’ll see, they all fail to address the core question: Is it morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being?

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 1: If you really care about babies, you should be working to provide extensive government and/or business support for their lives (and their families’ lives) after birth (and for much longer).

Social media example:

If intentionally killing a preborn baby is morally wrong, whatever a person does or does not do to support a child and/or their parents does not change the morality of the action itself.

Virtually everyone, for example, would agree that rape is morally wrong. If a person opposed to rape does absolutely nothing for rape victims, we still acknowledge that their opposition to rape is the morally correct position to hold. Logically speaking, the morality of an action must be evaluated on its own basis. The core question remains: Is it morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being?

[Avoid the trap: Don’t try to prove your motivations in response to the wording “if it was about babies…” If someone wants to question your motivations, they’re unlikely to be convinced otherwise by your words. The morality of abortion has nothing to do with any individual’s motivation for holding a given position. Also, don’t start breaking down each good we should supposedly provide (formula, diapers, etc.) to show why it’s unnecessary, unfeasible, or already sufficiently provided. All you’re doing is playing into the red herring.]

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 2: Being “pro-life” means you should agree to a bundle of other social/moral positions assumed to be the best for human beings.

Social media example:

This is logically quite similar to the first meme, but with a twist that often confuses people: equivocation on the term “pro-life” (equivocation is the use of ambiguous language—typically using the same word with two different meanings).

Pro-life, in the context of the abortion debate, means that a person is opposed to abortion. Here the writer wants to make the political point that if you really care about “life,” you’ll agree with a bundle of other positions (ones they assume to be the best life-sustaining positions). But Roe v. Wade is not about a bundle of issues related to human life. This is a question of one specific human life issue.

Again, intentionally killing preborn babies is either morally wrong or it’s not. Whether someone takes a morally right or wrong position on any other issue is irrelevant to whether they’ve taken a morally right or wrong position on abortion.

[Avoid the trap: Don’t start trying to defend that you really are pro “all life,” but that being pro “all life” doesn’t translate into supporting each of the particular positions listed. If you start trying to prove your pro “all life” credentials by getting into detailed discussions on all these other issues, you’re simply playing into the red herring.]

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 3: Caring about unborn babies is easier than caring about people already born.

Social media example:

The logic here is similar to that of the first two memes, but I wanted to include it because this one is especially popular, and it has a slightly different framing: It’s a “Christian” pastor presumably chastising fellow Christians for only caring about who is easiest to advocate for. Non-Christians of course like this because the accusation is coming from one of “our own.”

But regardless of who it’s coming from and regardless of how relatively easy or uneasy it is to advocate for any particular group, the morality of actions against that group remains the same.

That’s it. Even if advocating for the preborn were the easiest thing on earth relative to advocating for other groups, it doesn’t change whether intentionally killing those babies is morally wrong or not. If we’re talking about abortion laws, that’s the question that matters.

[Avoid the trap: Don’t get caught up in showing that this pastor is progressive and doesn’t hold a biblical view. That’s true, but the source of the comment is irrelevant. Also avoid debating how easy or uneasy it is to advocate for different groups—as I’ve shown here, that too is irrelevant.]

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 4: Babies born to parents who can’t afford them, don’t want them, or otherwise are unready for them are better off being aborted.

Social media example:

The basic logic here is that it’s better to kill a preborn human than to allow that human to be born into bad circumstances, ranging from poverty to abuse. But many humans live in and always have lived in bad—often terrible—circumstances regardless of whether their parents wanted them. The pro-choice advocate would almost certainly not say that we should kill every human who lives in or will live in a set of circumstances deemed to be insufficiently pleasant. Imagine the outrage if our society started pulling toddlers out of the homes of poor families to kill them! The only difference between that scenario and the one in the meme is that the child is already born.

Again, it’s either morally wrong or it’s not to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Whether a given human’s parents want to or are able to raise that human according to certain standards has nothing to do with whether killing them is right or wrong. We wouldn’t apply that logic to humans who are already born; there’s no logical reason to apply it before birth either.

[Avoid the trap: Don’t enter into debate about how good a child’s life can be even in bad circumstances. The morality of abortion doesn’t depend on how good or bad a child’s life turns out to be. That’s another red herring.]

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 5: Men have no right to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do with her body.

Social media example:

This idea comes in many different meme forms, but the basic logic is that men have no right to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do with her body because men can’t get pregnant. (As an aside, I’m not sure how long this argument can go unchecked today given that trans activists claim trans men–biological women–can be pregnant. Will feminists declare that there really are differences between trans men and biological men and allow trans men alone to speak, given their reproductive capabilities? Only time will tell.)

Once again, this avoids the question of the morality of abortion with an emotional red herring. Our society has laws against murder because we’ve collectively agreed that it’s wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being; our laws unashamedly restrain the freedom of citizens to kill one another. It’s no more “controlling,” therefore, to have restrictions on what would-be murderers do with their bodies to kill others than it is to have restrictions on what pregnant women do with their bodies to kill others. The only relevant question is whether it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being, and the morality of an action doesn’t depend on the gender of who makes the law. (As many people have pointed out, it was an all-male Supreme Court that passed Roe v. Wade in the first place, so by this logic, pro-choice people should reject that court decision as well.)

[Avoid the trap: Don’t get distracted by the claim that “conservative Christianity” is about controlling bodies. That’s just a jab at Christians. Focus on the “my body, my choice” logic, which quickly fails for the above reasons.]

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 6: No one has a right to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do with her body.

Social media example:

The logic here is identical to that of the last meme except it takes out the gender-specific language. Rather than “men have no right to tell women what to do with their body,” it’s “no one has a right to tell women what to do with their body.” Once again, we have all kinds of laws in society that restrict the use of one’s body to intentionally hurt or kill other humans. Abortion laws are not unique in telling someone what they can or can’t do with their body when it comes to other human lives.

The relevant question is whether it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being, not whether society is in a place to tell someone what they can or cannot do with their body. We already do that in all kinds of ways.

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 7: Legally restricting abortion is classist and racist.

Social media example:

I’m always shocked that someone would make this argument, but it always comes up, so let’s look at the logic: We should keep the intentional killing of preborn human beings legal because if we don’t, certain racial and economic groups will be better able to find illegal ways to kill babies than others. In other words, poor people and people of color won’t have equal opportunity to kill.

We simply do not apply this kind of thinking in other cases—we don’t make actions legal because some groups of people are better able to skirt the law! If we did that, we’d probably have no laws at all. As a society, we work to provide equal opportunity for good not for bad.

The question, therefore, remains: Is it morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being? If it is, there’s no need to give people equal opportunity to do what’s wrong.

[Avoid the trap: Don’t go down the rabbit hole of discussing which groups of people do or do not need abortion “access”—no one needs access to a moral wrong.]

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 8: There are all kinds of bad circumstances leading women to seek abortion, so we can’t and/or shouldn’t make blanket restrictions on it.

Social media example (this is a copy and paste post that is viral around Facebook):

I’m not pro-murdering babies.

I’m pro-Becky who found out at her 20 week anatomy scan that the infant she had been so excited to bring into this world had developed without life sustaining organs.

I’m pro-Susan who was sexually assaulted on her way home from work, only to come to the horrific realization that her assailant planted his seed in her when she got a positive pregnancy test result a month later.

I’m pro-Theresa who hemorrhaged due to a placental abruption, causing her parents, spouse, and children to have to make the impossible decision on whether to save her or her unborn child.

I’m pro-little Cathy who had her innocence ripped away from her by someone she should have been able to trust and her 11 year old body isn’t mature enough to bear the consequence of that betrayal.

I’m pro-Melissa who’s working two jobs just to make ends meet and has to choose between bringing another child into poverty or feeding the children she already has because her spouse walked out on her.

I’m pro-Brittany who realizes that she is in no way financially, emotionally, or physically able to raise a child.

I’m pro-Emily who went through IVF, ending up with SIX viable implanted eggs requiring selective reduction in order to ensure the safety of her and a SAFE amount of fetuses.

I’m pro-Christina who doesn’t want to be a mother, but birth control methods sometimes fail.

I’m pro-Jessica who is FINALLY getting the strength to get away from her physically abusive spouse only to find out that she is carrying the monster’s child.

I’m pro-Vanessa who went into her confirmation appointment after YEARS of trying to conceive only to hear silence where there should be a heartbeat.

I’m pro-Lindsay who lost her virginity in her sophomore year with a broken condom and now has to choose whether to be a teenage mom or just a teenager.

I’m pro-Courtney who just found out she’s already 13 weeks along, but the egg never made it out of her fallopian tube so either she terminates the pregnancy or risks dying from internal bleeding.

You can argue and say that I’m pro-choice all you want, but the truth is:

I’m pro-life.

Their lives.

Women’s lives.

You don’t get to pick and choose which scenarios should be accepted.

Women’s rights are meant to protect ALL women, regardless of their situation!

I’ve saved this one for last because it’s like a capstone example for this article. I’ve seen so many Christians ask how to respond to this post, presumably because it looks so overwhelming. There are a dozen different types of cases given here, and the intent is clearly to confront the reader with too much to respond to. The writer wants to show that there are just too many difficult circumstances leading to a woman’s desire for abortion, so we shouldn’t make blanket restrictions; too many bad things exist that make abortion access necessary.

While the logical problems could be pointed out with each individual case (and I’ve seen people do that well), I think this is more simply and effectively dealt with by sticking with the high level logic the post is using: If difficult circumstances result in or from a human life being created, a woman needs the right to kill that preborn baby. To see the logical problem, apply that thinking to a human being already born…if difficult circumstances lead to one human wanting to kill another human, should we legalize that murder due to their difficult circumstances? As with an earlier meme, we don’t apply that logic in such cases. There’s no reason to apply it to the preborn either.

As one other logic point, to say that you’re not “pro-murdering babies” but are pro-women who want to be able to is a fallacy called distinction without difference. In other words, if you’re for women being able to kill a preborn baby, you’re “pro-(the ability to) murder babies.” Drawing a cursory distinction via word choice does not change the central issue of whether it’s morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being.

[Avoid the trap: There are certainly nuances to some of the cases listed here that could warrant further points. For example, in the case of Vanessa, the baby has already died; that’s not about abortion at all. However, most people posting this aren’t looking to get into conversation about the details. Their whole point is that there are too many considerations that warrant conversation, so we should leave the choice to women. In general, I’d recommend avoiding the trap of replying to each case and stick with the overall points of logic I described here.]

Christians are called to speak truth, but sometimes before we can even speak truth about the sanctity of life, we need to help people see the flawed logic of popular claims. Once we sweep away logical errors so we can clearly see the core question (Is it morally wrong to intentionally kill a preborn human being?), we of course need to be prepared to make the case for life. For help in doing so, I highly recommend Scott Klusendorf’s book The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture.

¿Son los cristianos los nuevos extremistas? Sí, y está bien

Español

By Natasha Crain

My blog and podcast have been on hiatus as I finish writing my new book, Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture.

Faithfully Different is about the fact that Christians with a biblical worldview are a minority in North America these days and how the secular worldview around us is putting increasing pressure on what we believe, how we think, and how we live. I wrote it to help Christians gain greater clarity in understanding the fundamental differences between the secular and biblical worldviews, both to strengthen our faith and our ability to be salt and light to others. I’m so excited to share it with you! Faithfully Different comes out in February and I’ll be announcing pre-order details here in the coming weeks.

As you read this, you may be wondering if Christians are really a “minority” in America. I talk about this at length in the first chapter, but here’s the bottom line. About 65 percent of Americans self-identify as Christians—certainly not a minority. But when researchers ask specific questions about beliefs and behaviors, about 10 percent of Americans have what would be considered a “biblical worldview” (they hold core beliefs consistent with the historic Christian faith and display consistent behavior). Furthermore, researchers have found that those who hold a biblical worldview are not only a minority in America, they are also a minority in the church .

Now, there are many minority groups that are not relevant to people. I’m sure there are a few who, for example, eat pickles for breakfast every morning. Nobody cares . But it’s clear to Christians who have a biblical worldview that secular culture does care about our existence… because it hates everything we stand for.

In a very real sense, we are increasingly seen as a small, extremist faction of society.

Understanding Christian “Extremism”

Read or listen to any popular media outlet that talks about “conservative Christians” and you will immediately know by the tone of that term that it is not being used as a neutral description. It is now offensive and is accompanied by a shaking of the head and eyes among the supposedly more enlightened culture. (Note that I am not necessarily talking about conservatives in a political sense; in secular usage “conservative” is a generic label referring to Christians who disagree with popular secular views. A political correlation is common, but it is not exclusively that.)

The implication is that we are those people — the rebels who don’t go along with the rest of society in the direction it wants to go. We are seen as an obstacle to what has been culturally defined as progress because of how different our visions are from the popular secular mainstream of today.

The result is that secularists now view us with varying degrees of indignation. Strange as it may sound to many Christians, we are the new extremists —a minority group whose views are regarded as 1) fundamentally different from the “average” views of secular culture and 2) troubling to the rest of society.

When you sense that culture views us this way, it can seem pretty bizarre. After all, Christianity has been the most influential religion in North America for the past 400 years, but now it’s extremist (and worrying) to believe that the Bible is the Word of God?

While there is no reason to agree with secularists about how troubling our views are, there is every reason to agree that our worldview is extremely different from the dominant secular worldview in the culture today. We are certainly “extreme” in that sense—and we should gladly accept that fact if we fully understand the nature of the biblical worldview.

Specifically, we are extremists in three main areas.

First of all, we are extremists in our source of authority.

The fundamental difference between those with a biblical worldview and those with a secular one is the source of authority. Each person, as part of their worldview, has an ultimate authority that they believe speaks the truth when it speaks about the world and the right way to act in it. For Christians with a biblical worldview, that source of authority is God, and we believe that He has revealed these truths in the Bible.

In secularism, the source of a person’s authority is one’s own self . Secularism is not what is left when you simply strip away what are known as a person’s religious beliefs from their worldview. When you throw away the authority of God, you are not left without authority—you are left with authority over yourself .

This difference in authority is found at the root of almost every difference between the biblical and secular worldviews.

When for the vast majority the authority for truth is themselves, it should not be surprising that Christians come to very different conclusions about the nature of reality than the culture will arrive at. Even the phrase “The Bible says…” with the assumption that what follows is objective truth that supersedes personal opinion is extreme compared to the current average view where the individual rules supreme.

And for those who regard the Bible as merely the written record of man’s thoughts about God (and nothing more), such extremism is troubling . How can Christians be compelled to follow new social norms if they do not see truth as subject to change? With fellow secularists whose feelings determine what is truth, society can “progress” through the push and pull of shifting popular consensus. But what about Christians who believe they have an authority that does not change over time? That is an infuriating barrier that infuriates secularists.

Secondly, we are extremists in our understanding of morality.

From the first point it follows that Christians with a biblical worldview are going to have great differences with secularists when it comes to morality.

For those whose authority is God and who believe that He has revealed Himself and made His will known in the Bible, the Bible will have the final say in what is right or wrong… no matter what we think, no matter what anyone thinks, and no matter what society thinks. From a secular perspective, what an obstinate view !

When your authority is yourself, there is no objective basis for defining morality for all people. In essence, each person is his or her own God. What is right or wrong does not depend on what someone else has said—whether God or not—it depends on what you have said.

But wait! Wouldn’t that imply that secularists should accept the Christian perspective on morality as another valid perspective?

Absolutely.

But they don’t. And that’s where secularists fail to live consistently with their own self-authority-based worldview.

If they were consistent, they would say this: “Hey, we understand that your Christian perspective is just as valid as anyone else’s because each individual is his or her own authority and there is no objective basis for claiming that something must be right or wrong for all people. But some of us have a (fill in the blank) view about (fill in the blank), and we want to try to convince you to change your mind! But if you don’t want to change, that’s okay because everyone’s perspective is just as valid. Have a nice day.”

But instead, they say this : “The (fill in the blank) view about (fill in the blank) is the objectively correct perspective for all people, and if you disagree, you are wrong …and you are evil .”

Without an objective basis for morality that comes from a moral legislator higher than humans, the closest thing secularists can come to a moral standard that applies to all people is popular consensus . That is why it is so important for secular culture to continually push its perspectives on morality into every possible channel—education, media, entertainment, business, and so on. The more people buy into a particular moral perspective, the more popular consensus is achieved, and the more secularists have a new standard for saying what is right.

But again, Christians with a biblical worldview are not bound by such changes. No matter how popular a new idea of morality is, if it conflicts with what Christians believe God himself has said, the popular consensus will not become our new standard. And that “extreme” perspective relative to the average culture is immensely frustrating to nonbelievers.

Third, we are extremists for believing that judgment can be objectively valid.

This point follows from the previous two. Because Christians view God and His Word as the source of authority for their lives, and because their views on morality are a consequence of those beliefs, Christians believe that judgment on matters of truth can be objectively valid—and not merely an opinion.

In Faithfully Different, I describe the tenets of the secular worldview this way: Feelings are the primary guide, happiness is the primary goal, judging is the primary sin, and God is the primary imagination. Judging is the greatest sin in secularism because when feelings are your guide and happiness is your goal, no one has the authority or right to tell you what only you can know (how you feel and what makes you happiest). In the self-authority worldview, it is absurd and insulting for someone else to come and observe another person’s life journey and claim to know more than that person how they should or should not live.

But that implies that there is no God who has provided a reliable and authoritative source of information.

From a biblical worldview, God has granted that in the Bible. And if the God of the universe has told us what is true about reality, it is not absurd or offensive to share what He has said—it is literally the only reasonable thing to do since the God who created everything surely knows more than any human.

Jesus never said the world would understand us. To a large extent, this is to be expected from secular cultural perspectives. What concerns me most is when Christians fail to understand how extremely different the biblical worldview must be from the secular one. In many ways, secularists who think those with a biblical worldview are extremists relative to the average society understand this more than self-proclaimed Christians who see only minimal differences.

When we truly have a biblical worldview, we should understand that we are indeed “extremists” for today’s culture…and accept it. It’s not only okay to be extremist in this, it’s beautiful—because it’s what God Himself calls us to be.

Recommended resources in Spanish:

Stealing from God ( Paperback ), ( Teacher Study Guide ), and ( Student Study Guide ) by Dr. Frank Turek

Why I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist ( Complete DVD Series ), ( Teacher’s Workbook ), and ( Student’s Handbook ) by Dr. Frank Turek

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Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their children with an understanding of how to make a case and defend their faith in the midst of an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two parenting apologetics books: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha holds an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and is certified in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. She has worked as a marketing executive and adjunct professor and lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog: https://bit.ly/3iTHIzc

Translated by Gustavo Camarillo

Edited by Elenita Romero

April 1, 2022/by Guest

Faithfully Different and 4 False Beliefs

Podcast

What are four major false beliefs that many people in our culture believe and are now creeping into the church? Beliefs that are so pervasive, you might not even recognize that you believe them!

Natasha Crain joins Frank to reveal those four false beliefs and to unpack her very practical new book, 𝙁𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙛𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝘿𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩: 𝙍𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘽𝙞𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘾𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙎𝙚𝙘𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝘾𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚. Frank and Natasha have a wide-ranging discussion that will help you think, believe, and live biblically in a culture that is becoming more anti-Christian. Check out more of Natasha’s work at NatashaCrain.com.

February 11, 2022/by Frank Turek

How Culture Got to the Point Where Saturday Night Live is Promoting Abortion in a Clown Outfit

Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Natasha Crain

This weekend, Saturday Night Live cast member Cecily Strong played a character called Goober the Clown who had an abortion when she was 23 and now talks to people about how normal abortion is in between clown jokes.

Goober explains that it’s a “rough” subject, so she does fun clown stuff to make it more “palatable.” In the context of her skit, saying that it’s a rough subject wasn’t a tacit admission that abortion is in some way wrong; it was a condemnation of those who make it rough to talk about because they have a problem with it.

If you can stomach it, you can watch the 4 minute clip here.

Yes, the intentional killing of preborn babies has become fodder for a comedy skit—something literally worth clowning around about.

Every single one of us should be asking how on earth we, as a culture, have arrived at such a moment.

If we’re not asking that question, we’ve become completely desensitized to evil.

In one sense, the question of how we got “here” is a complex one worth hundreds of pages of historical, philosophical, political, and theological history. (And if you’re looking for something of that nature, I can think of no better resource than Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.)

But in another sense, the question is far more straightforward when you understand the nature of the secular worldview that dominates our culture.

In Chapter 8 of my upcoming book Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture, I talk about “Reaffirming Biblical Morality (Under the Pressure of Secular Virtue Signaling).” As I explain in that chapter, there are a lot of nuances to what people popularly call “virtue signaling,” but my objective was quite simple: to take the moral statements people and institutions publicly make at face value and assume 1) they truly believe the position they’re stating is the morally good position to have, and 2) they believe there’s some kind of value in stating that position publicly (otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered to say anything at all).

What I show is that these bare bones aspects of virtue signaling play an important role in promoting the secular moral consensus over and against a biblical view of morality.

To do that, I break down the psychological process of moral buy-in that secular culture must go through to gain acceptance of a changed moral position: awareness, normalization, then celebration.

While in the chapter I take a more detailed look at each stage, for my current purpose I just want to highlight key points for understanding the normalization part of the process. Goober the Clown clearly wanted us to all feel just how normal abortion is with her skit, and it’s important to understand just how culturally strategic—and predictable—that is.

The focus on portraying abortion as normal and therefore good is no accident.

Why is normalization in particular so important for gaining secular moral buy-in?

As I explain in chapter 8, “To understand why, we need to return to three of our secular worldview foundations [discussed earlier in Faithfully Different]: Feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal, and judging is the ultimate sin. On the one hand, secularism is all about the individual defining their own journey. On the other hand, if there’s a negative prevailing societal judgment about the morality of certain choices, it can make people question the validity of their journey…whether they want that gut check or not. Yes, the secular ideal is to live in a self-contained judgment-free zone, but when the reality is that there’s a holy God who defines morality and gives humankind an inner sense of right and wrong, there will be a battle fought with the conscience.

Through virtue signaling—publicly proclaiming the moral good of an action—people are fighting this inner battle in the public sphere.

The battle commonly takes three steps.

1. Publicly proclaim that the action leads to the holy secular grail of happiness (if it makes you happy, how could it possibly be wrong?). For those who believe that happiness is the ultimate goal, it makes a powerful statement to juxtapose a morally questionable action with the achievement of secularism’s greatest good. Abortion, for example, is commonly portrayed as the means through which a woman became free to happily pursue the life she wanted and the goals she had.

2. Proclaim it with as many people as possible to demonstrate that there’s no shame in the action (if everyone’s willing to tell the world they’ve done it, clearly there’s nothing to be ashamed of). Here’s perhaps the most important thing you can take away from this article: Given that secularism doesn’t defer to an objective higher authority, the closest thing it has to a moral standard is the popular consensus. Read that again multiple times—it’s the key to understanding a vast array of activism we see today. Increasing the number of people who share a positive moral judgment of an action is a proxy for transforming that action into a moral good for those who otherwise have no objective, external standard. Goober the Clown talks about how once a woman goes out on a limb in a social group to say she’s had an abortion, several more will say, “Me too!” The message is clear, and it sounds like something out of a bad 1980’s commercial portraying peer pressure to do drugs: “Everybody’s doing it, so it’s fine if you do, too.”

3. Remind everyone that life is all about self-authority anyway. Sure, you’ve shown it’s possible to justify your moral choice in steps 1 and 2, but this reminds people you never really had to anyway. Goober the Clown says right up front that it should all just be part of her “clown business,” but people keep talking about it, so she has to as well.

Normalization is ultimately a process of publicly signaling to society that an action is so commonplace, it’s unnecessarily taboo. Normal is the social validation secularism needs to minimize conflict with the conscience.

Perhaps nowhere has that been so on display as in this skit. If we can show that a subject is so unnecessarily taboo that we can discuss it in a clown outfit, surely it must not be a bad thing… right?

Christians, don’t be surprised. Secular culture will undoubtedly continue to “clown around” with evil. It’s actually quite predictable.

It’s the modus operandi for suppressing truth in unrighteousness.

The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book)

Defending Absolutes in a Relativistic World (Mp3) by Frank Turek

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Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3DxEvht

November 24, 2021/by Guest

The Fast But Quiet Creeping of Everyday Cancel Culture: 3 Things Christians Need to Know

Apologetics for Parents, Culture CrossExamined

By Natasha Crain

Last month, the CEO of video game maker Tripwire Interactive was made to step down from his job just 53 hours after he tweeted support for the new Texas abortion law (which banned abortion after the baby’s heartbeat can be detected). Here’s the offensive tweet that apparently warranted the loss of his job:

“Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat. As an entertainer I don’t get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer.”

That’s it.

That’s it.

He merely stated his view that he supports protecting unborn babies from being killed. But having a different view was too much for cancel culture to handle. The pressure came quickly. A co-developer, Shipwright Studios, tweeted a statement the next day in which they said they would be canceling any existing contracts with Tripwire Interactive because they could not in “good conscience continue to work with Tripwire under the current leadership structure”:

Almost unbelievably, Shipwright Studios’ About Us page has a section called “Moral Compass.” It states:

“STEM fields are notoriously unwelcoming for many demographics, but women and minorities are notably underrepresented in game industry as a whole, and game programming in particular. As a small business owned by three white men, we are not blind to the luxury of being able to keep our ‘politics’ separate from our work, as well as personal lives. But for many of our friends and colleagues, ‘politics’ are not some easily ignorable distraction.

As an industry, we can do better and we must.

While we don’t have the power to change the industry as a whole, we do have the power to change the way we conduct our business with it. We are ready to put our money where our mouth is and lend our voice to further causes that promote diversity and inclusion, preferring to work with clients working towards the same goals which only serve to enrich the industry to which we have devoted the entirety of our careers.”

I’m guessing you didn’t hear about this particular story, or if you did, you shook your head and moved on with your day. Maybe that’s what you’re doing right now.

But that’s the point of this article.

Similar actions are taking place every day across nearly every (if not every) industry. People are losing jobs for publicly sharing views that differ from what’s been deemed acceptable by secular culture.

This also happens in academia.

And Hollywood.

And in the press.

And even—if not especially—in personal relationships. Numerous people have been canceled by friends or family in the last couple of years simply because of what they believe (including myself).

You might collectively call all this “everyday cancel culture.”

Yes, there are still high profile cancel culture examples that grab sustained public attention, but it’s the everyday cancel culture that picks off person after person without national attention that’s far more insidious because the cumulative seriousness of what’s happening isn’t obvious to many people.

Meanwhile, everyday cancel culture rolls on with major implications that Christians need to understand. Here are three important things to know.

1. Cancel culture is deeply rooted in today’s pervasive secular social justice ideology, so it’s not going away any time soon.

It might be tempting to chalk all this up to mere social hysteria—a “this too shall pass” phenomenon. But that’s a really dangerous and incorrect assumption to have.

To see why, you have to understand that cancel culture’s major ideological roots grow several decades deep; this isn’t something freshly springing out of society’s top soil. And those roots are called Critical Theory.

Critical Theory as an academic subject is quite complex, but in its popular manifestations, here’s the basic idea (which is a worldview unto itself). The world is divided into two groups: those who are oppressed (the powerless) and those who are oppressors (the powerful). Those who are in the identity groups considered to be oppressed—for example, women, people of color, and the LGBT community—are victims of the social structure that has empowered the oppressors. You’ve probably heard quite a bit in the media, at least in passing, about Critical Race Theory in particular, but that’s just one Theory in the Critical Theory family—the one that deals with race-based oppression specifically. (For more on Critical Theory and its relationship to Christianity, see my article here.) The basic ideological structure of Critical Theory has become the de facto lens through which secularists view social justice, and it’s becoming entrenched in nearly every major cultural institution.

So what does that have to do with cancel culture?

In the context of Critical Theory, canceling is seen as a tool of the oppressed to deal with the sins of the oppressors.

That brings us to an important second point. But the bottom line in this one is that Critical Theory and cancel culture are integrally related concepts, and because Critical Theory is becoming firmly entrenched in society, cancel culture is likely here to stay as well.

2. Cancel culture sees itself as taking the moral high ground.

Those who aren’t steeped in the views of Critical Theory typically see cancel culture as a bad thing; it’s a dictatorial shutting down of opposing viewpoints. But if you understand it in the context of Critical Theory, it suddenly makes sense why proponents of cancel culture see it as a good thing:

The harsh actions involved with canceling people are assumed to be morally justified because they’re thought to be taken on behalf of the oppressed.

When everything is framed either implicitly or explicitly in terms of a fight against evil oppression, a lot of leeway will be given to what’s considered to be acceptable action.

The problem is how one defines oppression. Note that Shipwright Studios—the company that “canceled” Tripwire for having a pro-life CEO—said in their so-called “Moral Compass” statement that they want to lend their “voice to further causes that promote diversity and inclusion.” From a Christian perspective, it’s hard to imagine how they can’t see the irony in claiming they champion diversity and inclusion while canceling a relationship with a company whose CEO has a different view on the sanctity of life.

But once again, understanding cancel culture’s Critical Theory roots sheds light on why people like the Shipwright leadership don’t see it as ironic at all. They believe they have the moral high ground on this issue because they see it as a matter of reproductive justice. Within the framework of Feminist (Critical) Theory, it’s unjust for a woman to not have the choice to have an abortion.

In other words, the pro-life view is seen as oppressive to women.

Shipwright and others like them literally see themselves as the moral heroes and moral protectors of society, based on their own secular standard of justice (clearly, they don’t consider the injustice done to the preborn infant who is killed). When they say in their statement that they cannot “in good conscience” continue to work with Tripwire, they’re making it clear they believe they’re the good guys. And when they say would be doing the industry a disservice to “allow” a fellow industry CEO to have a public pro-life viewpoint, they’re making it clear they think canceling people for so-called oppressive views is actually a moral obligation.

3. Cancel culture will ultimately be at odds with Christianity because it has a different standard of justice.

Cancel culture proponents can make it sound like a good thing given the Critical Theory-based train of thought we just looked at. But Christians need to understand that it will continually be at odds with Christianity because secular culture has a different standard of justice (as we began to see in the last point).

Take, for example, these words from an article by progressive Vox writer Aja Romano: “The idea of canceling began as a tool for marginalized communities to assert their values against public figures who retained power and authority even after committing wrongdoing…In similar ways, both ‘wokeness’ and ‘canceling’ are tied to collectivized demands for more accountability from social systems that have long failed marginalized people and communities…Taken in good faith, the concept of ‘canceling’ a person is really about questions of accountability.”

Some people have tried to recast cancel culture as “consequence culture” to emphasize this idea of mere accountability. But accountability assumes a standard to be accountable to, and therein lies the problem.

As I explain in my upcoming book Faithfully Different (in which I have two chapters on social justice and cancel culture):

“One of the biggest problems with secular social justice from a biblical perspective is that it lacks an objective standard for defining justice in the first place. In secular social justice, oppression is often defined with respect to how people feel about dominant groups imposing their norms, values, and expectations on society as a whole, and that doesn’t necessarily correspond with what would be considered oppressive from a biblical perspective. As a result, people today are often being canceled for stating ideas that are wrong in the eyes of the world but not wrong in the eyes of God. When a person like Romano states that cancel culture is really just about accountability for when people ‘say or do bad things,’ it sounds reasonable on the surface, but it’s actually a very dangerous idea. It implies people are accountable to a mob that’s ready to take action as soon as someone’s words or actions stray from the mob’s own standard of justice.”

The mob’s standard will never be the same as God’s standard.

So where does all this leave Christians?

Given the factors discussed here, we can expect cancel culture to affect us personally and indefinitely. This mentality isn’t going away. We should just expect to be canceled in some way for stating what we believe because we’re seen as the bad guys now.

But that doesn’t mean we should be silent.

In fact, it means the opposite.

We need to be bolder than ever.

Bold enough to speak when people call us oppressors (by their own standard) and cut us off from relationships, positions, and opportunities.

Bold enough to act when people move to stop us in every way.

Bold enough to love according to what God wants for people rather than what they want for themselves.

It’s time for “salt and light” to really mean something. It’s not a cutesy phrase to put on the back of a t-shirt. It’s our calling to preserve truth in a decaying culture and shine light in a dark world. Let’s be sure we fear God more than we fear the temporal cancelation weapons of man.

For more on my upcoming book, Faithfully Different, check out pre-order details here! I wrote it to help Christians gain clarity about what it means to believe, think, and live differently as a worldview minority in a secular culture. Cancel culture and secular social justice are two of many subjects covered.

10 señales de que los autores cristianos que sigues están enseñando (sutilmente) ideas anti bíblicas

Español

Por Natasha Crain

Mi amiga, Alisa Childers, escribió recientemente una reseña del libro más vendido, Girl, Wash Your Face (Chica, lávate la cara), de Rachel Hollis. Esto inició una tormenta de discusiones en línea sobre lo que hace que alguien sea un autor “cristiano”, la responsabilidad que tiene un autor que se identifica como cristiano en la promoción de ideas coherentes con la fe bíblica, y el daño que puede haber para los cristianos que leen libros que contienen ideas no bíblicas.

Personalmente no he leído el libro, así que no voy a comentar sobre el mismo específicamente. Pero sí diré que me decepcionó y entristeció mucho ver el tipo de comentarios que escribieron los partidarios del libro:

“No pretendía ser un devocional”.

“Ella no está enseñando teología”.

“Nuestro trabajo no es perseguir a la gente y odiarla”.

“¡Dejen de competir! ¡Imagínense lo que los no cristianos piensan de los Super Jueces! Tenemos que centrarnos en nuestro interior porque el proyecto dentro de nosotros mismos es el trabajo más importante que vamos a realizar. No utilices tu blog para hundir a alguien”.

Desafortunadamente, estos comentarios son representativos de la falta de discernimiento que es común en la iglesia de hoy. Si Alisa caracterizó con justicia las afirmaciones del libro de Hollis, éste está promoviendo ideas que entran en conflicto con una cosmovisión bíblica. Y cuando existe la preocupación de que millones de mujeres están consumiendo contenido de un autor cristiano que puede llevarlas a abrazar ideas no bíblicas, deberíamos levantar una bandera de advertencia y hacer un llamado al discernimiento en el cuerpo de Cristo.

No se trata de ser un “Super Juez”.

Se trata de discernir la verdad bíblica de lo que no lo es… algo que la Biblia nos dice constantemente que hagamos.

Aunque este artículo no está directamente relacionado con la crianza de los hijos (sobre lo que normalmente escribo), es algo que afecta a la crianza de los hijos. Cuando los padres incorporan fácilmente ideas populares pero no bíblicas en su cosmovisión, esas ideas afectarán la forma en que crían a sus hijos y la naturaleza de la cosmovisión que transmiten.

Las siguientes son 10 señales de que los autores cristianos que sigues pueden estar enseñando sutilmente ideas no bíblicas. Digo “sutilmente” porque creo que la mayoría de la gente detectaría un problema inmediatamente si un cristiano dijera que no cree en la Trinidad. Pero es igualmente importante identificar cuando se presentan señales de advertencia menos obvias, como las siguientes.

1. Dicen: “Amo a Jesús pero…”

Se ha hecho popular que los escritores pregonen que aman a Jesús pero (rellene el espacio en blanco). Cuando veas que una frase empieza así, prepárate para una de estas dos cosas.

En primer lugar, puede ser algo que el autor sabe que es contrario a lo que Jesús habría aprobado. Por ejemplo, si buscas en Google “Amo a Jesús pero”, encontrarás toda una industria de camisetas, tazas y otras cosas que dicen “Amo a Jesús, pero me gusta maldecir”. ¿Es esto realmente algo que glorifica al Dios que dices amar? Si tienes que usar “pero” como palabra de contraste entre amar a Jesús y hacer una declaración sobre lo que haces y/o dices, probablemente no es algo de lo que estar orgulloso. Cuando los autores hacen esto para ser más agradables a su audiencia, a menudo es una señal de que seguirán otras ideas no bíblicas.

En segundo lugar, puede ser algo que no está en contraste con amar a Jesús en absoluto, pero el autor quiere que pienses que son diferentes al estereotipo negativo de los cristianos. Por ejemplo, dirán algo como: “Amo a Jesús, pero nunca afirmaré que tengo todas las respuestas”… implicando, por supuesto, que los cristianos normalmente afirman que tienen todas las respuestas. Los no creyentes pueden pensar que los cristianos se sienten así porque los cristianos creen que el cristianismo es una cuestión de verdad objetiva, pero eso no significa que los cristianos afirman tener todas las respuestas o que la aceptación de la verdad objetiva sea problemática.

2. Se empeñan en separar la relación con Jesús de la religión

Desafortunadamente, la idea de que Jesús de alguna manera odia la religión se ha hecho popular incluso entre los cristianos que, por lo demás, tienen creencias bíblicamente sólidas. Si Jesús realmente odiara la religión, la popularidad de esta idea no sería un problema. El problema es que Jesús no odia la religión. Él odia la falsa religión. Sin escribir un artículo entero sobre esto (hay un capítulo entero en mi próximo libro sobre esto), la conclusión es que no hay necesidad de separar a Jesús de la religión que es verdadera. El cristianismo es simplemente el nombre de la religión cuyo conjunto de creencias se centra en quién es Jesús y que nos llama a conocerlo, adorarlo, servirlo y obedecerlo. En otras palabras, el cristianismo es una religión centrada en una relación.

Cuando los autores empiezan a escribir negativamente sobre la “religión organizada” en general, y la ponen en oposición a su propia relación personal con Jesús, a menudo es porque van a 1) desafiar la idea de la verdad objetiva (sugiriendo así que la creencia religiosa uniforme que se encuentra en la “religión organizada” es mala) y/o 2) valorar sus percepciones espirituales personales por encima de la revelación de Dios a la humanidad a través de la Biblia (la experiencia personal se convierte en autoridad).

La verdadera religión glorifica a Dios (Santiago 1:27) y no es algo que los cristianos deban denunciar.

3. Hay mucho de qué hablar sobre la autenticidad y el desorden

Autenticidad significa simplemente honestidad. A primera vista, no parece que eso tenga nada que ver con la Biblia y, en todo caso, parece que debería ir de la mano de la Biblia. Sin embargo, en la práctica, los autores que enfatizan lo “desordenadas” que son sus vidas y lo “auténticos” que van a ser con usted acerca de ese desorden, a menudo aprovechan la oportunidad para normalizar el pecado.

Como con varios de estos puntos, no siempre es así. Algunos autores que hablan en estos términos lo utilizan como una oportunidad para volver hacia Dios. Pero he visto que la mayoría de las veces es al revés, por lo que entra en la lista.

4. Promueven el valor de las preguntas por encima del valor de las respuestas

Otro enfoque de la “espiritualidad” que se ha puesto de moda es centrarse más en plantear preguntas sobre la fe que en compartir respuestas bíblicas. Los autores que se identifican como cristianos progresistas a veces llegan a acusar a otros cristianos de tener miedo a las preguntas y miran con escepticismo a cualquiera que intente responder a las preguntas que ellos plantean.

Ahora bien, si has leído mi blog durante algún tiempo (o mis libros, en realidad), sabes que estoy a favor de plantear preguntas difíciles sobre la fe con tus hijos… las preguntas son extremadamente importantes. Pero las preguntas también deben ser abordadas en la medida de lo posible, teniendo en cuenta lo que la Biblia nos dice.

Las personas que valoran más las preguntas que las respuestas suelen sentirse incómodas con la idea de la verdad objetiva, es decir, que existe una verdad independiente de nuestra experiencia personal. Todo lo que Jesús enseñó asumió que existe una verdad independiente de nuestra experiencia personal y que Él es esa verdad. Si un autor se siente incómodo con la idea de la verdad objetiva, se siente incómodo con Jesús.

5. Confunden declaraciones incontrovertibles con posiciones morales

Una autora muy popular escribió hace poco en su página de Facebook que quería dejar muy clara su posición en temas sociales. Aclarar estas cosas incluía hacer una declaración completamente incontrovertible para cualquier cristiano: ella “aprecia la humanidad de la comunidad LGBT”.

Todos los cristianos deberían apreciar la humanidad de cada comunidad porque todos estamos hechos a imagen de Dios.

Eso nunca se ha cuestionado.

Pero, por supuesto, ella dijo esto implicando que cualquiera que sostenga una visión bíblica del matrimonio de alguna manera no aprecia la humanidad de la comunidad LGBT. Es un movimiento muy engañoso hacer una afirmación con la que ningún cristiano debería estar en desacuerdo con el fin de sugerir que es algo con lo que no estarían de acuerdo quienes adoptan una posición diferente a la de la autora en una cuestión moral.

6. Se centran casi por completo en la acción cristiana, excluyendo la creencia

Alguien recientemente me dijo que la gente de su denominación no valora la apologética (por qué hay buenas razones para creer que el cristianismo es verdadero) porque su apologética está en sus acciones. Esta actitud, efectivamente, es la que se ve con muchos autores cristianos populares hoy en día, incluso cuando no dicen nada sobre la apologética específicamente. Para ellos, el cristianismo tiene que ver con lo que uno hace en el mundo; ya no se trata de creer en Jesús como Señor y llegar a un conocimiento salvador de Él. Este tipo de cristianismo apenas se diferencia del humanismo secular. Sólo viene con un aprecio por Jesús, cariñoso pero relativamente leve, en la parte de arriba… como una cereza caramelizada en un helado de buenas obras que se puede quitar fácilmente.

La Biblia es clara en cuanto a que la creencia importa… de una manera eternamente significativa. Para más información sobre esto, vea mi artículo, Is How We Live More Important Than What We Believe? (¿Es más importante cómo vivimos que lo que creemos?)

7. Utilizan la palabra “fe” para referirse a una especie de sistema de creencias sin límites sobre Dios

Una autora cristiana exitosa en ventas compartió recientemente la siguiente cita en las redes sociales: “La fe no es una creencia. La fe es lo que queda cuando todas tus creencias se han ido al infierno”. Esto, tristemente, fue recibido con miles de me gusta, me encanta y compartidos. También es una definición bíblica inexacta de la fe.

La Biblia no presenta la fe como una creencia ciega o como creer a pesar de la evidencia. La Biblia muestra repetidamente que la fe es creer en lo que tienes buenas razones para creer que es verdad.

La fe bíblica no son los pedazos rotos que quedan cuando has perdido un montón de otras creencias, como sugiere esta cita. Cada vez que veas que un autor promueve una idea inexacta de la fe, debería ser una bandera de advertencia. En este caso, la autora es conocida por escribir libros sobre sus luchas con la Biblia. No es de extrañar que comparta una cita de este tipo.

8. Regularmente te animan a “ser fiel a ti mismo”

Si escuchas con frecuencia de un autor que debes ser fiel a ti mismo, puedes apostar a que está en un terreno teológico inestable. Como dijo mi hija de 9 años cuando le pregunté si creía que la gente debería ser fiel a sí misma: “No deberías ser siempre fiel a ti mismo, porque si quieres ser un asesino eso estaría muy mal” #lógicabásica

Sencillamente, este tipo de sabiduría secular de “valerse por sí mismo” es solo eso… secular. No es muy inspirador ser más fiel a uno mismo. Como cristianos, deberíamos inspirarnos en ser menos como nuestra naturaleza pecadora y más como Jesús.

9. Consideran que juzgar a los demás es el pecado máximo

Para muchas personas hoy en día, el pecado máximo es juzgar a otro. Jesús no nos dice que no juzguemos… Nos dice que no juzguemos hipócritamente y que juzguemos con juicio justo (por ejemplo, Juan 7:24). Amigos, ¡tenemos que discernir! Discernir entre la verdad y la que no lo es no significa que se esté condenando espiritualmente a una persona, como la gente suele creer. Sólo Dios conoce el corazón humano, y de seguro no estamos llamados a determinar si otra persona es salva. Pero sí podemos y debemos abordar lo que dice la Biblia sobre la creencia correcta y la acción correcta. Si sigues a alguien que dice cosas como: “¡No te quedes si quieres juzgar a otros!” “¡Nuestro trabajo no es juzgar, es amar!” o “¡Esta es una zona libre de juicios!” aléjate. Es probable que signifique algo muy diferente de lo que crees.

10. Hacen afirmaciones sobre lo que significa amar a los demás sin abordar lo que significa amar a Dios

Cuando seguimos el mayor mandamiento -amar a Dios-, esto informa lo que significa seguir el segundo mandamiento -amar a los demás-. No nos corresponde a nosotros definir la palabra. Hay muchos autores (que se identifican a sí mismos como cristianos) hoy en día que defienden ideas no bíblicas de lo que significa amar a los demás, y está arraigado en la ignorancia del mandamiento de amar primero a Dios. Esta semana vi a uno de estos autores decir que los cristianos no tienen amor por oponerse al aborto, por ejemplo. Pero cuando amamos primero a Dios y comprendemos que estamos hechos a su imagen y que cada ser humano, por lo tanto, tiene un valor extraordinario, simplemente no podemos llegar a la conclusión de que amar a los demás significa permitirles quitar la vida a otro ser humano, sin importar la circunstancia.

Velen. Pónganlo todo a prueba. Y aférrense a lo que es bueno y verdadero.

Recursos recomendados en Español:

Robándole a Dios (tapa blanda), (Guía de estudio para el profesor) y (Guía de estudio del estudiante) por el Dr. Frank Turek

Por qué no tengo suficiente fe para ser un ateo (serie de DVD completa), (Manual de trabajo del profesor) y (Manual del estudiante) del Dr. Frank Turek

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Natasha Crain es una bloguera, autora y oradora nacional que siente pasión por equipar a los padres cristianos para educar a sus hijos en la comprensión de cómo presentar un caso y defender su fe en un mundo cada vez más secular. Es autora de dos libros de apologética para padres: Talking with Your Kids about God (Hablando con tus hijos sobre Dios) (2017) y Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (Manteniendo a tus hijos del lado de Dios) (2016). Natasha tiene un Maestría en marketing y estadísticas en la UCLA y un certificado en apologética cristiana de la Universidad de Biola. Ex ejecutiva de mercadotecnia y profesora adjunta, vive en el sur de California con su esposo y sus tres hijos.

Blog Original: https://cutt.ly/PET5lk1

Traducido por Yatniel Vega García

Editado por Elenita Romero

October 1, 2021/by Guest

Tag Archive for: Natasha Crain

Jesus Called Out False Teachers

Social Justice Warrior or Savior of the World?

So What’s the Big Deal?

Recommended resources related to the topic:

1. The fact that Jesus “gets us,” stripped from the context of His identity, is meaningless.

2. Jesus is presented as an example, not a Savior.

3. The campaign reinforces the problematic idea that Jesus’s followers have Jesus all wrong.

4. The campaign reinforces what culture wants to believe about Jesus while leaving out what culture doesn’t want to believe.

5. The campaign characterizes the so-called culture war in terms of secular social justice rather than underlying worldview differences.

6. The campaign’s stated goal is about inspiration, not a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

7. The next steps offered by He Gets Us could lead someone far away from truth rather than toward it.

Footnotes

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Distinguishing Worldview Disagreements from Logically Fallacious Red Herrings

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 1: If you really care about babies, you should be working to provide extensive government and/or business support for their lives (and their families’ lives) after birth (and for much longer).

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 2: Being “pro-life” means you should agree to a bundle of other social/moral positions assumed to be the best for human beings.

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 3: Caring about unborn babies is easier than caring about people already born.

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 4: Babies born to parents who can’t afford them, don’t want them, or otherwise are unready for them are better off being aborted.

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 5: Men have no right to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do with her body.

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 6: No one has a right to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t do with her body.

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 7: Legally restricting abortion is classist and racist.

POPULAR PRO-CHOICE IDEA 8: There are all kinds of bad circumstances leading women to seek abortion, so we can’t and/or shouldn’t make blanket restrictions on it.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Understanding Christian “Extremism”

First of all, we are extremists in our source of authority.

Secondly, we are extremists in our understanding of morality.

Third, we are extremists for believing that judgment can be objectively valid.

Recommended resources in Spanish:

Recommended resources related to the topic:

The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek

1. Cancel culture is deeply rooted in today’s pervasive secular social justice ideology, so it’s not going away any time soon.

2. Cancel culture sees itself as taking the moral high ground.

3. Cancel culture will ultimately be at odds with Christianity because it has a different standard of justice.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Recursos recomendados en Español: