Ethics- Pagan vs. Christian

Posted on by metroupe

This is one of the most thought provoking articles I have read in a while. It has that effect of putting into words, with citations, the things you were suspecting. The author is not a Christian, and I don’t even agree with the whole thing. Yet, it is still very important to read and reflect on this. This makes me want to read her book “The Case Against The Sexual Revolution.”

Here is a taste:

“There’s a very short and very brutal poem by the Scottish poet Hollie McNish, written in 2019 and titled “Conversation with an archaeologist”:

he said they’d found a brothel
on the dig he did last night
I asked him how they know
he sighed:
a pit of babies’ bones
a pit of newborn babies’ bones was how to spot a brothel

“It’s true, you know,” said the writer and lawyer Helen Dale when we had lunch in London last year and I mentioned this poem, which I chose as one of the epigraphs to my book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.Helen was a classicist before she was a lawyer, and as a younger woman she had taken part in archaeological excavations of ancient Roman sites. “First you find the erotic statuary,” she went on, “and then you dig a bit more and you find the male infant skeletons.” Male, of course, because the males were of no use to the keepers of Roman brothels, whereas the female infants born to prostituted women were raised into prostitution themselves.”

The idea that all humans have value because of their humanity, regardless of their status or strength is rare in the history of the world, and it is distinctly Christian.

John Newton on Monasticism, Mission, and the Desert Fathers

Posted on by metroupe

I stumbled across a book of daily readings from John Newton and it has been great. He was an Anglican Pastor in the 18th Century. He is most famous for his hymns and testimony of being saved from a life of sin that included being the captain of a slave ship. Some consider him to be the premier English writer on pastoral subjects. He has such a simple and tender way of expressing deep truths. I came across this excerpt this morning on the topic of being avoiding conformity to the world, and he rightly talks about the false approach to this.

“It is not necessary, perhaps it is not lawful, wholly to renounce the society of the world. A mistake of this kind took place in the early ages of Christianity, and men (at first, perhaps, with a sincere desire of serving God without distraction) withdrew into deserts and uninhabited places, and wasted their lives at a distance from their fellow-creatures. But unless we could flee from ourselves likewise, this would afford us no advantage; so long as we carry our own wicked hearts with us, we shall be exposed to temptation, go where we will. Besides, this would be thwarting the end of our vocation. Christians are to be the salt and the lights of the world, conspicuous as cities set upon a hill; they are commanded to “let their light shine before men, that they, beholding their good works, may glorify their Father who is in heaven.” This injudicious deviation from the paths of nature and providence, gave occasion at length to the vilest abominations; and men who withdrew from the world, under pretense of retirement, became the more wicked and abandoned as they lived more out of public view and observation.

“Nor are we at liberty, much less are we enjoined, to renounce the duties of relative life, so as to become careless in the discharge of them. Allowances should, indeed, be made for the distresses of people newly awakened, or under the power of temptation, which may for a time so much engross their thoughts as greatly to indispose them for their bounded duty. But, in general, the proper evidence of true Christians is, not merely that they can talk about Divine things, but that, by the grace of God, they live and act agreeable to the rules of his word, in the state in which his providence has placed them, whether as masters or servants, husbands or wives, parents or children; bearing rule, or yielding obedience, as in his sight. Diligence and fidelity in the management of temporal concernments, though observable in the practice of many worldly men, may be maintained without a sinful conformity to the world.”

You can read the rest here. He goes on to talk about asceticism ( “A man may almost starve his body to feed his pride…”) and several other important topics. He summarizes that we must not conform to the spirit of the world, the maxims of the world, and the amusements of the world. As is so often the case, hearing someone talk about this while situated several centuries away is helpful.

A Few Observations On The Pandemic

Posted on by metroupe

I just spent several hours on the phone with people from our church. Checking in with folks and trying to Pastor them remotely. I was able to listen to them talk about themselves, their families and friends and their work. A few observations.

  1. I am so thankful I get to be a spectator in seeing how God’s grace sustains people through trials and lead them to selfless service. Faith and hope in Jesus are deeply practical.
  2. Even if serious measures have been called for, shutting down non-emergency healthcare is causing a real suffering and a separate disaster for many people and the healthcare system.
  3. One of the biggest elements of suffering is lack of face to face human contact. This is real. Digital fellowship is not as good as live friendship.
  4. One of the biggest groups that has been adversely, and unequally hurt are small business owners. For many, all of the financial “help” is non existent, to little, or too late. People don’t want handouts, they want to work. Many elements of the essential/nonessential distinctions are arbitrary, not rooted in science, and inconsistent. I hope the courts will settle some of this, and I hope that folks will remember this during future elections. But my ultimate hope is in the care and justice of God.

The Answers We Need vs The Answers We Want

Posted on by metroupe

This article is going around. Here is my first take. Wright is addressing some important problems in the Christian community. But his answer is anemic in my opinion. It is wholly untrue that “Christianity gives us NO answers.” It would be more accurate to say that Christianity gives us the answers we need, but not all, (and not always) the answers we want. And the answers don’t always remove the pain. If we study lament in the psalms we find the psalmists don’t just say “why” and “how long?” Indeed They do, and we need to be comfortable with that pain and uncertainty. But very often they turn to trusting the character of God and his promises and that is the opposite of saying we have “no answers.”

While trying to avoid rationalism, we shouldn’t ignore the many rational things God’s word says about suffering, and still make room for the mystery and pain of unanswered questions.

 

Source: Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus | Time 

It’s not supposed to

Discipleship in the “Age of Authenticity” | TGC

Posted on by metroupe

 

This is a very important article, in my opinion.

You should read it, maybe twice, if you want to gain some perspective about what is really happening in our culture. It is beyond left and right. And it is likely that you are aware of this as a problem existing in other people rather than yourself.

Personal expression as a moral virtue has become an unquestionable absolute. It is driving the bus. To suggest that it might not be a virtue is blasphemy. It rages against any other idea or obligation- historical, political, biological, familial, or religious. While it promises fulfillment it will leave a trail of broken promises that are an opportunity to speak about a better way.

 

Source: Discipleship in the “Age of Authenticity” | TGC

I Have Come to Indoctrinate Your Children Into My LGBTQ Agenda (And I’m Not a Bit Sorry)

Posted on by metroupe

shoes

Here are some thoughts on an older article from the Huffington post with the title above.

For a long time the sexual revolution has been advanced through the idea of tolerance. Once upon a time that seemed to mean: Please leave us alone, let us live the way we want. But that meaning has gradually morphed into something else. This article is a soft reveal that the LGBT agenda is not about tolerance, it is about transformation. It is about social  re-engineering disguised as tolerance. Because if you disagree, you shouldn’t be tolerated.  There are numerous examples of people within the LGBT community itself who have expressed dissent and are subsequently attacked in the name of tolerance. Here is one. Here is another. And another.  Here is another example of tolerance unleashed against your own team. These aren’t attacks on Christians, they involve hostility towards people who disagree with the LGBT agenda on one or two points.

Tolerance…

The article actually says a number of true things that I agree with. I don’t believe in demonizing people, and I am sad that this happens to anyone. Whether to transgender people, or to the religious folks that believe there is a God-designed physiological difference between boys and girls that is the basis for gender.  I am against bullying on both sides.  And make no mistake, there has been plenty of bullying going on in the name of tolerance.

What this author makes clear is that the present battle is a battle for the hearts and minds of children. He interacts with the idea that LGBT folks have to recruit and indoctrinate because many of them can’t reproduce through their romantic relationships. So the only option is converting people. And the author embraces this. Unashamedly. Since they can’t indoctrinate their own children, they are coming for yours.

True tolerance is a good thing. It involves respecting people that disagree with us. But I have come to believe, in large part because of articles like this, that the idea of tolerance in the present discussion is a Trojan horse for a larger sexual ethic. It is presented as simply “love and kindness to all,” but that is just the spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.  And here is why I say this: my beliefs are often criticized as intolerant. However, I am not criticized for hurling insults, committing acts of violence, trying to deprive LGBT folks of their rights, etc. I haven’t done any of these things. Simply disagreeing with the agenda is enough to earn the label of bigot.  This doesn’t bother me that much, I have another set of marching orders.  I have raised my children to love and respect their LGBT friends and classmates while at the same time maintaining a philosophy of sex and gender that excludes most elements of the LGBT agenda. And I do this because my allegiance is to Jesus and his teaching in all of life. His teaching confronts our sexual sin. His teaching confronts MY sexual sin. It is dishonest to claim to follow Christ but reject what he says in situations where I want something really bad.  You can’t follow Jesus and define right and wrong by your appetites or attractions. Gay or straight.

This larger public agenda explains why these discussions almost always include a discussion violent persecution. The author mentions the murder of trans women, which I abhor, as his motivation for writing children’s books. Ironically, the group that is opposed to “the binary,” have framed this issue in a binary way. If you do not celebrate the LGBT program, then you obviously agree with gay-bashers. There are only two options. Anyone who disagrees with the sex and gender revolution must be depicted as sick. They are sick with the virus of hatred and bigotry. This is the same virus that leads people to murder. Perhaps the infection hasn’t advanced that far, but just wait. If you think this is hyperbole you aren’t reading enough from LGBT advocates in mainstream magazines like Salon, HuffPost, Vox, etc.  And even if a well-respected progressive author in the New York Times suggests that maybe his team is being, perhaps, a tinsy-weensie intolerant, the response is venom. Read the comments.

Ironically, this perspective advances the same kind of ignorant bigotry that it seeks to decry.  There is a certain kind of intolerance that grows when you don’t have any real LGBT friends. What is the answer? “Get to know them, they are nice people.”  The same thing is true in the gender debate. I know hundreds, if not thousands of Christians that hold to strong religious beliefs about gender and sexuality. And these people hold no hatred or violence toward members of the LGBT community.   The options are NOT limited to A: Celebrate, or B: Hate. The reality is much more complicated. (Even the Onion picked up on this one) It it involves the shocking idea that you can disagree with someone without hating them. But that perspective isn’t useful for the revolution. And you probably won’t find it in any LGBT children’s books.

Reader be warned: The author has admitted his purpose for your children. Take note that he is not only telling a story about LGBT folks, he is telling a story about YOU as well.  That story is not loving or peaceful. And in my experience that story is not true.

Source: I Have Come to Indoctrinate Your Children Into My LGBTQ Agenda (And I’m Not a Bit Sorry) | The Huffington Post

A Secular Defense of REAL Faith

Posted on by metroupe

 

Beware – I would say to believers – the patronage of unbelievers

bible-pic-for-fb

This author rails against the notion that because faith has social benefits, believers shouldn’t worry about the truth of what they believe. While I disagree on many points, I appreciate his candor. He warns us against unbelievers speaking glibly about the social benefits of religion without addressing the truth of the claims. And even though this may feel good, believers should beware of it as well. Useful lies are still lies. And truth is truth even if it doesn’t appear victorious in the moment.

“One of the reasons we can be pretty sure Jesus actually existed is that if He had not, the Church would never have invented Him. He stands so passionately, resolutely and inconveniently against everything an established church stands for. Continuity? Tradition? Christ had nothing to do with stability. He came to break up families, to smash routines, to cast aside the human superstructures, to teach abandonment of earthly concerns and a throwing of ourselves upon God’s mercy.”

And again

“As I get older the sharpness of my faculties begins to dull. But what I will not do is sink into a mellow blur of acceptance of the things I railed against in my youth. ‘Familiar’ be damned. ‘Comforting’ be damned. ‘Useful’ be damned. Is it true? — that is the question. It was the question when I was 12 and the question when I was 22. Forty years later it is still the question. It is the only question.”

 

Source: Beware – I would say to believers – the patronage of unbelievers | The Spectator

Why Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 Word of the Year Matters

Posted on by metroupe

Another great contribution by Ravi Zacharias. What comes through so clearly is the irony of scholars and media personalities who will insist there is no truth and then complain about lies. It shows the emptiness of postmodernism and its self defeating attempt to destroy the truth by denying its existence. I have said it before, but it bears repeating, people who deny the existence of rules only want that privilege for themselves.

Ravi writes:

“We now live in a “post-truth” culture where misremembering is normal. (Not surprisingly, within hours of the American elections, a French television network baptized our culture as “post-logic.”) These two bastions of values, the academy and the media—where relativism flows in their veins—have become the town criers of this new word. Castigating the politicians, they untruthfully predicted the destination of the untruthful. Excoriating an electorate gone amuck, they wondered how people could be duped into a lie. Having themselves swallowed a camel, they strained a gnat. They are the primary carriers of word manipulation, repeating distortions often enough to make them into truths. Caring not for truth but for effect and for the manipulation of all thinking, their victory is pyrrhic.”

Again:

“It used to be said, “If a Cretan tells you all Cretans are liars, can you believe him?” Now we have to ask ourselves if we can believe it when a post-truth culture tells us it is a post-truth culture.”

And this one wins the day:

“And we have so extinguished the light of truth in our halls of learning that it is possible for a Harvard student to say, “I can believe anything I want, so long as I don’t claim it to be true.”

Source: Why Oxford Dictionary’s 2016 Word of the Year Matters

Peace or No Peace? Which Is It? — Free Grace Church

Posted on by metroupe

Here is a post I wrote on our Church blog at Freegracefresno.com

Jesus says “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” (Luke 12:51).

After discussing how sin reveals itself in social structures I discuss the way that Jesus calls us to stand against the current around us. But that is still expensive. How could anyone be joyfully willing to pay that price?

“Here is the good news. Every other group that demands your allegiance will take advantage of you. They will use you for their own ends. They will expect you to sacrifice yourself for the good of the group. But Jesus is different. Just before he says that he did not come to bring peace, he says this, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished?” (Luke 12:50). What is this baptism? It is referring to his death on the cross (Mark 10:38).  Every other group is a kind of vampire. They will use you for their own ends.  And if you fail them, they will disown you. But Jesus, the only one worthy of your complete devotion, laid down his life for yours.  And he had to do that because of your misplaced loyalties.   And it is this love and sacrifice that is the power that moves us. It allows us to suffer the loss of relationships, respect, and approval that comes from standing with Christ against the world.”

Source: Peace or No Peace? Which Is It? — Free Grace Church

What’s Wrong With Teaching 9 Year Olds To Murder?

Posted on by metroupe

beasts-of-no-nation-1140x641

I recently watched the movie “The Beasts of No Nation” on Netflix. The movie was recommended on several critic top movie lists and so I was lured in. The film is about child soldiers in Africa. It is extremely violent, very graphic, and vulgar language seeps throughout the script like water from a clogged toilet. It is absolutely not for children, and in general I cannot recommend it. I had to turn my eyes away several times. For instance there is a scene in which a child is pressured to kill an unarmed prisoner with a machete while he begs for mercy.  It frustrates me when directors make movies this way. There seems to be a loss of subtlety and no concern for the imagination of the audience.

Why would the film’s creators make the movie this way? Why would they produce a film with so much gore and graphic bloodshed? I do have a little sympathy in this case because I think they were trying to reveal something of the depravity of a situation that has been hidden out of site. They were trying to open the door for the rest of the world to see what is actually happening. Simply put, armies in Africa are recruiting orphans to become members of death squads.

I spend a lot of time in my life thinking about morality and ethics. Movies like this can be a challenge for Christians because it brings up the problem of evil. How could a good God allow such things? And in my opinion this is an important question that has compelling answers. My intent is not to provide answers here, but to suggest that the people that use such questions to dismiss Christianity need to provide an explanation as well.  In my experience people of faith are the only ones that blush when faced with such questions.   But they shouldn’t be.

The atheist that uses the problem of evil to undermine Christianity (or any other religion) is also in a difficult spot. In order to shoot at theists like this he has to walk out on the quicksand. I say this because they have to assume that evil actually exists in order to use it as an argument against God. Then after they “win” the argument and the embarrassed Christian goes home, the honest atheist must face the world he has tried to articulate. It is a world in which there is no consistent reason to believe in the existence of good or evil as anything other than a cultural construct. That means that good an evil don’t really exist in the world. They are a matter of human perception much like our hatred of brussel sprouts.

I don’t mean to suggest that atheists don’t really believe in good and evil. They do. In fact they get angry if you suggest that there is any problem with their morality.  Further, they behave in ways that are often moral and virtuous, and I applaud this. I don’t mean to imply that every atheist is a monster. My point here is more subtle. At the risk of over simplifying things (I realize there is a broad spectrum of beliefs out there), the atheist narrative provides no compelling reason to believe in the existence of evil. It says there is nothing but matter in the universe. We are nothing more than complex systems of electrons colliding according to the laws of physics. From the standpoint of physics, the murder of children is no different from the killing of a rhino or a rose bush.  Just matter in motion.  A world without an absolute, immaterial standard of ethics provides a weak protest against the kind of evil in the “Beasts of No Nation.”

I remember my first day of college chemistry class.  My professor stood up and pointed to the periodic table of elements on the wall. He said, “Everything that exists is on that table. Can anyone name anything that exists that is not on that table?” The class was silent (except for me).  But if he is right, then our actions are just a bunch of chemical reactions from the periodic table. Our thoughts are just the chemical depolarization of neurons in the brain. This is true for all thoughts. Bloodthirsty ones as much as altruistic ones.  Evil and good are the same thing: matter in motion. Nothing more than that. And when we logically analyze the common atheist protests against injustice (things like wealth inequality, rape culture, or the recruitment of children into death squads) the logic sounds a lot like, “I don’t like it,” or “we don’t like it.”  Or maybe, “the brain isn’t wired to work that way.” Which of course is not true, the brains of those child soldiers and their recruiters definitely ARE wired that way. But that point aside, for a system of ethics to be meaningful it must provide a compelling reason for people to live in a certain way. It must tell the bad person why they MUST not be bad. It must tell the person that wants to rebel against the moral conventions of our society why they MUST conform.  What in the universe compels the killer not to kill? Especially when the darker dimensions of human psychology and culture seem to be compelling them to kill and rewarding them for it?

The movie was obviously intended to create outrage. And that is exactly what it has done. There is nothing quite like staring directly in the face of evil at close range to bring out our inner moralist. How could anyone teach children to be so violent and bloodthirsty?   It is hard to watch a movie like this and then conclude that your revulsion is nothing more than a personal or cultural preference.

The great question for the atheist is this: What is wrong with teaching nine-year-olds to maim and murder? If we are just animals, and there is no absolute moral authority, if there is no objective ethical standard that applies to everyone… Then what is wrong with that?

If we are simply the product of time and chance acting on matter… if we are nothing more than biology, what is wrong with people acting like animals?  This is the significance of the movie’s title. The main actor makes a statement at the end of the movie that he has become like an animal. And he’s right. Most of us don’t like it. But what is wrong with it in any absolute sense? Isn’t our outrage just an example of a ethnocentric perspective that wants to tell other people how to live?

In a material world isn’t all of this just a matter of cause and effect? Aren’t we just reactants in a global test tube? If a poor child watches his family murdered by an invading army, isn’t it predictable that he will get snatched up by a violent militia looking for recruits? Isn’t this predictable? If it is nothing more than cause and effect at work, how could we protest? Dogs hate cats. Lions kill hyenas. Humans hate other tribes of humans.  It’s all the result of DNA at work in an unfeeling and uncaring world. It can be nothing more, because nothing more exists.

We could say that people shouldn’t act like animals, that human societies have evolved social norms and mores to control our behavior.  But if we mean by that, that there are no human beings that act like animals, we would be wrong. In fact the truth is exactly the opposite.  The real problem is that a great many humans very frequently act like animals in just this sense.  And its not just Africa. Arguably, European history is far more beastly than anyone other. But why should it be any different?  To say that these things threaten our existence, or cause  psychological pain really begs the question. Of course animals engage in behavior that threatens their own existence, and causes them harm?   The history of the world is a history of extinction.

What is wrong with herds, and packs, and tribes fighting against one another for resources? What is wrong with one organism killing another organism in order to survive? Watch any nature show, this is the way of the world.  And no one ever watches animal behavior and then makes a moral protest.  We don’t say, “sharks shouldn’t kill fish.” To the contrary, in the evolutionary/atheist view of the world it is precisely that kind violence which has helped successful species (like humans) adapt and unsuccessful ones to evolve or become extinct. That kind of behavior has actually helped us to survive.

Social pundits, college professors, and cultural revolutionaries like to tell us that there is no such thing as morality. They often do this in an attempt to normalize their own deviant sexual behavior. When they say, “there are no rules,”  too often they mean “there are no rules for me.”  But if they are right, they have proven too much. “Normal” isn’t a concept that only applies to their preferred version of wickedness, it applies to all behavior. It applies to child abuse and child nurture.  Freedom and tyranny.  Gay marriage and gay bashing.  It is all common and normal.  Of course, there are a few statistical anomalies. But isn’t that the way of nature as well?

Sadly there aren’t enough voices to point out the failings of this kind of moral relativism. These ideas are only seen for what they are in the face of extreme wickedness.  And a movie like “The Beasts of No Nation” has once again reminded me of this. Christians may have trouble finding an answer for why God would allow such evil and suffering in the world.  But the atheist or philosophical materialist has a much greater problem in my opinion.

What is wrong with teaching nine year-olds to murder?