One of the psalmists wrote: “The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men” (Psalm 12:8).  Never has this been any truer than it is in the United States today.  However, we must all take credit for that and not pass the blame off on the “liberals” or Hollywood stars or humanists (you watch any “Desperate Housewives” lately?)  We must first look in the mirror at just what kinds of things and people we ourselves hold in honor.  You got any heroes or idols that aren’t exactly “Christian”?

Most of us Christians are aghast at the audacity that the world would impose on us homosexual marriage as normal and good when the Scriptures clearly stand against it (contrary to what some with extreme bias may want to make of it).  And, then they accuse us of being judgmental and ignorant on top of that.  We’re aghast at the audacity of the world to consider us evil somehow because we don’t like babies being sucked out of the womb in little pieces as they wince in their painful deaths.  How dare we question whether a mother ought to have the right not only over her own body, but the body of her unborn child?  What about the child’s rights?  Next, I suppose, we’ll be questioned because we don’t think it’s a good idea to let mothers go ahead and euthanize their infant children if they’ve become an imposition to the mother’s alleged well-being and right to choose.  We’re told that we can’t legislate morality and that it’s none of our business.  Well, why do so many deem murder, pedophilia, and lying wrong.  I think we’ve legislated against those moral issues.

We’re seen as selfish and closed-minded if we don’t give our voices of approval to promiscuity, adultery, drunkenness, obscenity, and so forth.  We’re seen as prudish that we think that marriage ought to be one man and one woman for life and that both males and females ought to remain celibate until marriage.  We just can’t seem to get that practice-runs and cohabitation ought to be the norm!  Stupid us (regardless what honest research says).  We are perceived as dogmatic and even cruel that we insist that one ought to keep one’s marriage vows instead of collecting ex-es like so many of our modern icons do.  We’re also seen as whiners when we suggest that many of our social ills are brought on by the American quest for a materialistic dream at the unbelievable costs of children left alone physically, morally and spiritual.  But, hey, let’s just burden ourselves with more government debt to try to put salve on the social wounds that are so deeply infected and that are proving so socially deadly rather than address the real underlying issue that character must first, and primarily, be modeled and taught in the home by parents.  We just don’t seem to get it that character development should be delegated to schools and social programs that are then prohibited from practicing any real discipline.  Stupid us, again!

Recently, we all painfully witnessed (over and over and over again “ad nauseum”) a pitiful music icon who lived an unbelievably sad life of questionable behavior with children, of gross drug abuse, and who turned himself into a monster-look-alike, and yet was purported to be almost deity before, during, and after his memorial.  It was disgusting watching people “worship” him.  He was said to be a role model of love and goodness, right?   I’m sure he had some redeeming good qualities as he too was made in God’s image.  But my gosh, if a “normal” person had lived in such a way, or if a member of the majority race had done such, the press would have crucified them, and even many among the minorities would have scorned them as spoiled icons of decadence and racism.  

We have a NFL Most-Valuable-Player quarterback who is murdered by his girlfriend of an adulterous relationship because she thought he might be having another adulterous affair with another girlfriend, all while his wife was taking care of the kids (was this just a Soap Opera?), and he’s buried as an outstanding Christian person and community leader.  With all due respect, are you kidding?  Yet, we Christians are pummeled if we simply exercise our rights of free speech and have the audacity to point out the duplicity in how patronizing the press, and society in general, are to minorities and fringe social segments while being so harsh and judgmental to mainstream American Christians and others of moral conviction.  Remember when Miss California expressed her opinion on gay marriage?  How dare her?!  Only homosexual advocates should get to bash those who disagree with them!  Right?  How dare we question others’ wicked behaviors?!

We are supposed to be “accepting” and embracing of Muslims who otherwise demonize us.  Our country has spent billions of dollars of workers’ taxes trying to help and protect so many of Muslims and other non-Christian religions.  We have welcomed them to our country and given them complete freedom of religious expression.  Yet, many of them hate us, want to destroy us, and make atrociously ridiculous accusations against us as a society.  Their countries ban our religion with laws against converting to Christianity.  But, we’re not only suppose to be hospitable and loving to them; we’re supposed to compromise our own beliefs in order to embrace theirs.  They are okay in being condemnatory and exclusive, but we have no right to have any convictions of our own.  And, it doesn’t matter that the Lord of our religion said, “No one comes to the Father but through me” (John 14:6) or “Unless you believe I am the one I claim to be (the only Son of God) you will die in your sins” (John 8:24).  We’re expected to just ignore our own Lord and Holy Book while suffering long in allowing everyone else to hold tenaciously to their own often crazy beliefs that include calling us evil and perhaps even pledging to kill us as “infidels”.  How about Christians’ religious rights?

See Part II in next blog entry.