These Are Not the Martyrs You Are Looking For

I am tired. I am tired of looking at the news and there being a new cause who picks the wrong martyr. For centuries mankind has had a peculiar issue with choosing martyrs for their causes who did not embody what that cause stood for. It would be like if the ASPCA stood up for a person who had a track record of abusing animals. Unfortunately it appears that Christianity is facing the same dilemma. Might I ask why we have chosen Kim Davis, a woman from 3 broken marriages, to bear the mantle of taking on equal marriage? Might I ask why we continue to seem to think that we, as Christians, must continue to force our beliefs upon people instead of changing their hearts through love and relationships as modeled by Christ? Might I just ask why this woman is being compared to the likes of Daniel, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? There is a glaring difference between the situation of Kim Davis and the situations of these four men. You see, these four men were not elected to a position; they were, by all intents and purposes, forced into it. These men were in a position where they had no other options in their respective scenarios but to refuse to do what the King had declared. So why, then, are we standing behind a woman who was elected to do a job and who refuses to do said job when she could just humbly resign? Don't you think that would have been the most Christ like thing to do? 

Please, please, please hear me. I am all for standing up for your beliefs. I believe it is every man's right to do so. I believe that if you are strongly convicted about something then you should speak up, and speak out if in fact what it is you are standing against is opposed to the word of God. So my question is why would you remain in a position that you know your conscience and beliefs are going to be violated, where you are practically expected to violate them, rather than resign? It would be like saying if a Christian is a bartender, they should refuse to serve alcoholic beverages because someone may get drunk, instead of just not being a bartender in the first place.

Do I think we are now seeing more contempt for Christians standing up for their beliefs in today's society? Yes, especially in the examples of the Christian bakeries and the couple in New York whose farm is used as a wedding venue. But I do not think that the case of Kim Davis it is a good example. The difference between these cases and that of Kim Davis is that these people were not elected to a position. These people built what they had with their own hands; they used their gifts and lives as a way to worship God. They should have the right as business owners to refuse service to any body, especially if their faith would be placed in a compromising scenario. I believe that we all should have the right of conscience. But what I don't believe is that an elected official whose job is to issue marriage licenses has the right to do what she has done. If she didn't want to be a part of it then resign; that is all she had to do! Now, I am no legal expert; do I believe jailing her was the answer? In short, no. I think forceful resignation would have been the better answer. 

When are we going to learn that we cannot force the United States of America down a path that they do not want to go down? You do not change a country until you change the hearts of man. Things will not change until we focus on sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a loving manner. Things will continue to get worse if all we seem to know how to do is stand on a street corner yelling at people that there is a hell, "turn or burn", or God hates ____.  Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Now, more than ever, I have trouble understanding why in the world he chose us to deliver his message. That is all he has asked us to do: deliver the message and to those who receive it, make them disciples. If you want to be a part of a religion that forces people to obey what it teaches there are others out there that might be better suited for you. If you truly believe what the Gospel teaches, that Christ suffered and died so that mankind may believe in him and receive salvation. Why must we feel compelled that everyone is to fall into step. Jesus did not actively involve himself in overthrowing the government, etc. which might I add is what the Jewish followers wanted him to do! Jesus spoke to the hearts of man, and that is how he changed the world.

A Cosmic Primordial Accident

This past week I started reading Richard Dawkins' book A River Out of Eden. Which is Dawkins' break down of how basically evolution works, and how through evolution one could explain away the need for creationism, and the need for God. I am aware that this is a very shallow explanation of Dawkins' book however, I am only 2 chapters in. Once I finish the book I am sure I will have much more to say on the matter. However there were things in the first chapter that he said and through trying to follow his train of thought that really jumped out at me.

For those of you who don't know who this Richard Dawkins character that I am talking about is, I will give a brief bio. Mr. Dawkins was a professor of zoology at Cal Berkeley and Oxford, he has been the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford since 1995. Dawkins has written numerous works his most famous being The God Delusion. I would also like to say that Mr. Dawkins is a brilliant thinker and one could learn a lot by reading his work.

Now that you know a little more about the man we are discussing it is time to dive into what I have found to be a glaring problem in his logic which began to arise in the first chapter of A River Out of Eden. Dawkins starts off in the first chapter explaining the basic gist of how evolution works, comparing generations and genes to a sieve or a filter, the good, strong, genes make it through the sieve and the weak, faulty, genes get filtered out. He then goes on to explain how speciation (the origin of new species) occurs. "The feature that defines a species is that all members of one species have the same river of genes flowing through them, and all the genes in a species have to be prepared to be good companions to one another. A new Species comes into existence when an existing species divides into two." Then he says something that is in my opinion the achilles heel of his position on evolution. "Why would two species divide? What initiates the long goodbye of their genes? What provokes a river to split and the two branches to drift apart, never to meet again? ...accidental geographical separation." Now I would like to note here that Mr. Dawkins failed to answer the why, he did succeed however in answering the how. But take a minute to think about what he has said here. We, as human beings, are essentially nothing more than an accidental geographic separation from a distant ancestor whom of which we share in common with chimpanzee's and bonobos. 

He then goes on to explain some more about this accidental geographic separation in which he begins to explain the complexity of genetic code. "The odds of arriving at the same 64:21 mapping (this is the mapping of a genome 64 possibilities out of 21 amino acids) twice by chance are less than one in a million million million million million. Yet the genetic code is in fact literally identical in all animals, plants and bacteria that have ever been looked at." This is a point at which I start having my doubts about what Dawkins is trying to sell me. He states that species occur as accidents, and that the odds of all animals sharing traces of the same genome is extremely unlikely almost un-imaginable even, yet the fact that we are all made of essentially the same stuff means we are descended from a common ancestor through evolution. Even though human beings share more DNA with bananas than anything else...

Eventually after more explaining of this process through metaphor and parables he tells one parable which I believe to be the ultimate flaw in his reasoning. Dawkins tells the story of a scientist who is captured and charged with creating a biological weapon. Being that the scientist cannot communicate with the outside world he resorts to coding a message into the DNA of the virus he is charged with spreading. He begins his message with a flag sequence of prime numbers because he knows when scientists begin mapping the DNA of this virus they will see the prime numbers and know that this was not by accident because they could not occur naturally.

By now there is a major issue glaring you directly in the face, at least it was for me. How is it Mr. Dawkins, that you could say that a sequence of prime numbers encoded in DNA is not accidental then stare at the whole of creation and say that it is all an accident? I truly struggle to understand this. Even if evolution is true it doesn't hinder my belief in God nor should it hinder any of you reading this post. We do need to think critically about this theory though. First you want to say the universe started by accident, then life began by accident, then evolution began by accident, all of these incredibly unlikely events potentially even more unlikely than prime numbers occurring naturally in a sequence in DNA are accidents. Yet, this sequence of numbers could not have been an accident? Where is your logic? Where is your reason?

Perhaps this post came off as a rant, but I hope it goes to show you all that even in the face of great adversity, that we should keep a hold of our faith. So many at this very moment are beginning to attend university and you will be challenged greatly in your faith. I urge you to hold strong. There are several resources available to you. I would suggest researching Dr. William Lane Craig, and even going to his website reasonablefaith.com and even listen to some of his podcasts. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect." Romans 12:2

Sources:

Dawkins, Richard. River Out of Eden: a Darwinian View of Life (Science Masters Series). Reprint ed. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1996.

Bad Tattoos and Bad Theology

"Only God can judge me." Surely if you live in the United States you have seen someone with this tattooed on their skin if not across their chest. The great banner and buffer for many nominal Christians that they use to hide behind and shield themselves from those other "judgmental" Christians. While it is true that, yes, only God can ultimately judge you, I wonder if they have ever stopped and actually thought about the fact that God will judge them. There can be no doubt that they, in fact, have not put any thought what-so-ever into the matter and before those of you reading begin pointing the finger and slinging the word judgmental around like girl scouts and boxes of cookies let's actually look at the issue at hand here.

During what is considered by many scholars Jesus' most profound and important teaching, The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus outlines exactly what it means to live out a Christian lifestyle. It is from this sermon that we derive the basis of most of our Christian ethic.  In Matthew 7:1 Jesus is addressing the crowds, but more particularly the group of Torah scholars known as the Pharisees. The passage reads like this: "Do not judge, so that you won't be judged. For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you..." I am sure most of you know how this passage continues on so, for the sake of brevity, I will not list the rest. What is key about this portion of the teaching is obviously judgment. The pharisees were casting judgment on people. They were condemning and ridiculing the Jewish people for not upholding the law, and not just the laws established by God, but also the laws that they had conceived themselves over the years. Now that that has been established, what we need to do now is underscore: what does it mean to actually cast judgment? I think it is important to note that for many of the laws that had been established the punishments would be considered extreme by today's standards; for example when Jesus stopped the stoning of the prostitute in the street, her punishment was going to be being stoned to death. It becomes clear quite quickly that judgment is not the act of telling someone that they are in the wrong, but it means telling someone they are in the wrong and then to pass sentence on them. This is what is meant by judgment.

So what then does it mean for Christians in the realm of accountability if someone claims to be a Christian but is doing things and living a lifestyle contradictory to what Jesus established as normative to be one of his disciples? Should we just tend to our proverbial knitting? Or should we be looking out for our brother's and sisters and try to help them out if we notice that they are getting into a tight spot? Paul actually addresses this issue multiple times.

1. Galatians 6:1 "Brothers, if someone is caught in any wrong doing, you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit.."
2. 1 Thesselonians 5:14 "And we exhort you brothers: warn those who are irresponsible, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone." 
3. 2 Thesselonians 3:14 "And if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take note of that person; don't associate with him, so that he may be ashamed. Yet don't treat him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
4. 2 Timothy 2:24-26 "The Lord's slave must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth. Then they may come to their senses and escape the Devil's trap, having been captured by him to do his will."

One thing that becomes quite clear from Paul's teachings is that we as Christians should actively be correcting one another, and that when we do this we should endeavor to be as gentle as possible and showing love to the best of our abilities. 

Perhaps what is my largest pet-peeve is when people say that they are being judged when someone simply points out that they are making a mis-step. Have we really become so sensitive that we cannot handle being told we are in the wrong? The reason Paul teaches that we should correct one another in gentleness and love is so that we can endure together until the end, not to point fingers and make people feel inadequate and cast condemnation. What we have created for ourselves in western Christianity is what is referred to as "functional atheism." Functional atheism is a way of saying that you are a Christian yet living as if God doesn't really exist and that the actions and choices you make bear little to no consequence. This also ties into the commandment of not taking the Lord's name in vain. What is taking His name more in vain: using it in a derogatory fashion or slapping his name upon yourself yet living a life that is not honoring to Him? All one has to do is read through the sermon on the mount to realize that Christ expects at least some effort out of us. The reason that he died was so that when we make mistakes (note that I didn't say if) that his grace covers us. Yet many of us continue living our lives as if this grace is cheap, and we forget that it is in fact costly.

One of the worst things I think that we can do as Christians is take it upon ourselves to be the morality police for the rest of the world. No where in the New Testament do we see Jesus take on the role of the moral police officer. The majority of his efforts were focused on getting the Jewish people, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, awake and back on track. Many of his encounters with sinners, we see him dining with them and frequently engaging them in a manner that seemingly drew them to him. But like the story of when we see Jesus interacting with the prostitute who is about to be stoned, and the end of the encounter He leaves her with a commandment "go and sin no more." Jesus shows her great undeserving grace, but he commands her to stop her sinful ways. Paul even echo's this in his letter to the Romans. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?." He continues explaining this and then says that we are to walk in the newness of life.

One thing we can never do as Christians is think that we have come to a place where we are incapable of sin, John says that if we say we are without sin that we lie and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). We also as Christians should never forget that we are human beings and where what is human is intermingled with the divine there is going to be some messiness. So we then should accept the messiness, spur one another along in grace and love, and share the good news of Christ.

Mad World

There are few things that drive me to prayer more than the current state of affairs that we as a society have found ourselves. For many people in Western society the words of Friedrich Nietzsche proclaiming God to be dead ring true. Unfortunately for Nietzsche he heralded the wrong person's death. God, is still very much alive and well but there is another who has died and he goes by the name of Common Sense. 

It is nearly impossible to turn on the news, open up Yahoo, or go anywhere without seeing or hearing about the complete state of madness our society is in. I am not saying that we should all read the Four Blood Moons or that we should be listening with intent for trumpets sounding (although we should always be prepared for the immanent return of the Christ Jesus). I have always taken issue with the belief that the book of revelation was for the 21st century United States, and with the belief that we are somehow culturally worse off than the Greeks, Romans, and Babylonians. I do however believe that we are witnessing a distressing time in our culture, and  the decisions that are being made today will alter the course of our future in ways that I do not believe will play out well.

Popular culture has been infected with a philosophy of progressivism, post modernism, and atheism that have produced a deadly cocktail, which has poisoned Common Sense and laid him to rest in the grave that Nietzsche meant to bury God. There are other harmful side effects to this cocktail that is being dished out by academia and politicians on both sides of the aisle. One side effect in particular being double minded. This double-mindedness causes, hypocrisy, and insanity. One of the most saddening things about this hybrid philosophy that is being shoved down the throats of every one in our culture is that it manipulates the mind into believing that everyone believes this way. This could not be further from the truth. One statistic which proves this is that in a recent poll Americans were asked what percent of the world's population they believed to be LGBT, the answer 20-25% when in reality at it's lowest it is only about 1.5% to at the highest 8%. I am not taking a swipe at the LGBT community but what I am doing is trying to show just how deceiving those pushing this philosophy have actually become.

The hypocrisies of those who further this twisted agenda are increasingly blatant and unbearable. If you agree with them you are open minded and praised, if you have a different opinion your mind is closed and are lambasted as a bigot and attacked. If you are for lower taxes and limited government, that some how makes you a racist and hate minorities. They claim that there are no absolutes and they are absolutely sure of this. They claim that there is no truth, and that this is a true story. In an attempt to never be told they are wrong, they have embraced relativism They claim that there is no race and we are all equal, but are continually divisive in the areas of race. They preach truth and love, but are responsible for violent protests and praise extremists. They view all religions as equals unless it is Christianity. They shamed Micheal Jackson for turning himself white, but applaud an ex NAACP president for being white and wanting to be an African American. Sex is held in little regard, yet they want severe punishment for rapists (which I don't disagree with but I find sex to be sacred). They claim that they are for the rights of women, homosexuals, christians (in their weird twisted way), and those of other faiths, all the while they conspire and make dealings with countries in which these people are gunned down, thrown off of buildings, and crucified. They have built their foundation upon the ever shifting sands of the Sciences. Proclaim that doing whatever makes you happy is to be applauded and the ultimate good unless that which makes you happy is murder or rape. They claim to hate slavery, yet enslave the less fortunate to their social welfare programs... The list unfortunately could go on and on.

No one thinks anymore. Everyone has a philosophy yet they refuse to consider what their philosophy entails. Everyone hates being challenged about their worldview because they have not challenged it themselves. When will the madness stop? When will people truly become open minded, when will people truly question everything? The only things that are being questioned in the 21st century are traditions and the past, yet we somehow forget to put all of our progress and "enlightened" ideals under the same microscope.

Skin Deep

Due to a culmination of tragic events the issue of race has been raised now in our country over these last several months. Race is a great thing that should be talked about, unfortunately there are far to many people who wish to use this issue in order to achieve goals politically. Perhaps what is even more disheartening than the exploitation of race is the fact that so many people of all colors and creed fall into the trap of being herded into separate pins like sheep. Sheep, is that what we have become as western citizens? Black sheep, white sheep, brown sheep, red sheep, yellow sheep, never thinking for ourselves and allowing the wolves and false shepherds place us all into separate groups and lead us blindly and dare I say willingly into the slaughterhouse.

I would say that my political leanings would make me a liberty minded conservative. That is one who believes that everyone should have equal rights, and that progress is not a good thing if it seeks to undermine age old institutions that have helped shape this country into what it was. Contrary to popular belief conservatism and racism are not two sides of the same coin. As far as the media and the left would have you believe this should not be the case. To them I should hate them, wave my confederate and neo-Nazi flags high, and yell racial slurs in the face of anyone who's skin is a different shade. Unfortunately for them the one thing that they believe should make me racist is the one thing that keeps me from it. My Judeo-Christian values and worldview are in reality diametrically opposed to everything that they would have you believe about me. Now those on the left, who are so much more intellectual, and far more brilliant to those dumb, dim-witted, ignorant, and bigoted Conservatives have every reason to BE racist. Something that they don't tell you is that their great champion of evolution (the man who even in his later life questioned his own theory) Charles Darwin titled his book originally "On the Origin of Species, by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle of Life." How ironic is it that the "bible" if you will, of the secular humanists should beget such an idea as favored races, yet the Bible begets the idea that all men and women are created equally. Perhaps this is why so many on the left are constantly stoking the race fire, blaming it on the conservatives and Christians. They need a scape-goat and we standing around twiddling our thumbs were the perfect candidates.

I very recently was writing a paper on abortion, and do you know what I discovered? The founder of planned parenthood was not some great champion of women's rights. Margaret Sanger was vehemently racist and believed that through abortion that she would be able to eventually kill off the African American race. A woman who has been canonized as a saint in the eyes of the progressives and those who are so open minded sought to systematically end the African American culture through abortions. Why is it that this woman is praised yet the founders of our country are so detested? Yes, it is true that many of our founders had their short comings, and no I am not saying that the ends justify the means, but we cannot continue throw the baby out with the bathwater. (Well, if you are pro-choice at least not before they have exited the womb.)

Some may ask if conservatives are not racist then why are they so against immigration? How asinine of a perception is this? The fact that I believe people of other countries should seek citizenship and gain entrance to this country legally through the system that we currently have does not make me a racist! I don't care if you are an Anglo from England, if you want to become a citizen do it the right way. How anyone can come to the conclusion that everyone has some sort of right to become an American citizen is beyond me! And heaven forbid if you do become a citizen that we ask you to assimilate to our society, God knows other countries would never ask us to do such a thing.

The issue of race has become a tool used by the progressive left as a way to be divisive, cause friction, and make racism look like a nation wide issue instead of identifying where it actually lies, on the fringes of our society. My generation, the one so many have "fondly" named the Millinials that sends shudders down the spines of our for fathers is quite possibly the best anti-thesis to this assumption that claims racism is still a deep running issue in our culture. Two of my closest friends are of different race one is a Native American, one is African American, I have Hispanic and Asian friends and family. My generation, I believe, is the first generation taught not to judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. The dream that Martin Luther King had for this country over half a century ago was birthed in the children of the 90's. Race has never been something at least for myself that I have ever questioned in another person. I spent two months in Africa serving the Kenyan people and I felt nothing but love for them, as my brothers and sisters.

Another issue that has arisen lately deals with the Confederate flag. Should the Confederate flag be flown over statehouses or even at all other than for historical reasons? I don't know, should we fly the flags of other countries who were enemies to the united states, make that flag into bumper stickers, etc.? My answer to this is probably not, but do people have the constitutional right to do so? Yes, right or wrong they have the right to do so. Being from the south it has been my experience that the Confederate flag is mostly (key word mostly) not used as a way to promote racism but as a way to celebrate Southern Agrarian culture. It seems to be that many forget that the main reasons Civil War was fought was not over the issue of slavery. As a matter of fact some of the cruelest slave owners of the south, a group of people who made up over 1/3 of slave owners, were freed slaves! It would be easy to say that being from the south that my family probably owned slaves. In reality this is not the case, I am a descendant of cajun share croppers who worked side by side with slaves and were treated just as poorly. Something I have never understood is how slavery is an issue of race, the ancient Romans had slaves that had the same color of skin, slavery still continues today and the most prized possession of these slave traffickers today are young anglo American girls.

Now the symbol of the fleur-de-lis is being called into question because in Louisiana sometimes slaves were marked with that symbol. Based on this logic should be ban the star of David because the Jews were marked with it by the Nazis? Should we ban our number system and find a new one since slaves were marked by numbers? Perhaps we should even just close off the Southern States and have everyone move North because the south was the home of the Confederacy? Maybe we should ban the English language because that is what the evil white oppressors spoke,
and make everyone learn and speak Swahili? When will the madness stop?

If we as Americans want the issue of racism to die then we need to do just that and let it! We cannot continue to live our lives as sheep people; believing everything that the politicians and media tell us we are supposed to believe. It is time we shrug off the burdens of the past and approach the world unencumbered by prejudice. It is time that we refuse to be sheep and think for ourselves. If we are to separate ourselves by race then let us join together in celebration our differences in culture and beliefs, and not let these differences be reasons to segregate ourselves from one another. Martin Luther King and others like him sacrificed far to much for us to continue on like this. Jesus Christ died on the cross so that everyone would now be placed on a level playing field, further edifying the truth that God created all men equally. Not equally in that we have no differences because we do, but equally in that we are all marked by His image. Slavery was an ugly part of our past, but it is time we stare it in the face and move on as Americans and members of the human race.

The Cross and The Rainbow

What is there that I can say about this weekend? For those of you who live under rocks the Supreme Court has made a decision that will affect the very fabric of America as a society. The decision the court made was to legalize same sex marriage across the US in all 50 states. Not only did they legalize same sex marriage, in doing so they have now made marriage a constitutional right. All of the  while the constitution being a document that doesn’t address marriage whatsoever.

For a person such as myself I take issue with the court's decision on the grounds that instead of the government staying out of the business of marriage in the first place, they have now directly inserted themselves inside of the issue. Now, please hear me out I am not saying that I am directly opposed to gay marriage. Being a Christian I do not support it in the sense that I won't vote for it at the ballot box, but the other side of my Christianity teaches me that my goal is not to dictate and reign in a society and force it to see the world the way that I see it. I believe in the sanctity of peoples free will, and that they are able to do what they will, until they surrender to Christ. Jesus told us to go out and make disciples of all of the nations, he didn’t tell us to go and subdue the nations. There is a major difference. There is also a difference between not supporting something and tolerating something. Two people who are near and dear to my heart are members of the LGBT community, both of them know where I stand personally, but they know that those fundamental beliefs do not mean that I hate them.

Unfortunately for many people in both camps (the LGBT community, and my brothers and sisters in Christ) have very skewed views on what it means to love something and someone, and tolerate something and someone. The best example of love that I can think of that applies to  members of both the LGBT and Christian worldview would be that of their parents. Your parents loved you and nurtured you as you grew up, but they had rules I am sure. And if you did not follow those rules there were consequences. There are also I am sure some things that you did in your childhood that your parents did not support. But that does not mean that they did not love you! As a Christian we are taught to love, but just because we do not support certain things does that mean that we do not love you.

The United States was started by a few groups of Christian pilgrims who traveled across the ocean in order to practice Christianity the way that they saw fit outside of the rule of the Church of England. Throughout the years relations between the colonies and England grew ever more strained, and a revolution occurred. These men who found themselves framing this new country were not all Christians, but they did establish and make decisions based off of a Judaeo Christian worldview. To deny the Christian roots of the United States of America would be an injustice and create a lack of understanding on what this country was founded upon. It could not exist as it is today if it was founded on a Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, etc. worldview.

I think for many people the reason for so much of the upheaval about the supreme courts decision is that they ruled in favor for a group of people who makes up 2% at the lowest and 8% at the highest of the population, over a group that makes up at least 95% percent of the population. A reason that so many Christians find themselves in a conundrum is because now the government has sanctioned something that many feel is diametrically opposed to their faith. That being said there is a fear that the government can now force Churches and pastors to participate in same sex nuptials. Some will ask “well wouldn’t the first amendment protect from that?” Well let me ask you a question. Has the government in the last 15-40 years seemed the least bit concerned with the constitution period?

For us American Christians this is the first time that we have found ourselves in a truly pluralistic society and it scares us! But should it? The world of the prophets was pluralistic, the world of Jesus Christ was pluralistic, and the world of the apostles was pluralistic. The Church throughout history has thrived in pluralistic societies, in the face of persecution, and even when all hope seems lost. Look at the Church in China for instance, it is illegal to even own a Bible yet against all odds the Church is exploding! The Bible teaches us that it is a blessing to find ourselves in the face of persecution, and that we should remain joyful at all times.

There are few times I can say that I am ashamed of America and it is coming to a time where I feel that I am and here is why. We are more concerned about the way that murderers who have ruined their lives die, than protecting the life of one who has yet to live it. We are more concerned about the government enforcing gay marriage, than the fact that ISIS, Islamic Countries, and Russia are killing homosexuals. We are more concerned with the fact that for the first time ever in America Christianity is facing a bump in the road than the fact that Christians and Jews are being crucified and slaughtered daily at the hands of ISIS. The issue of homosexual marriage is not the biggest issue facing the Church and the world today, yet we treat it as if it is the only thing that matters. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed for blatantly ignoring the heinous crimes and atrocities occurring all in the name of Islam, while being so quick to lambast Christians as bigoted and intolerant  because they don't agree with gay marriage. Are Christians killing people? Are Christians crucifying people? Are Christians throwing homosexuals off of rooftops? Do not be tempted to use the crusades as a scapegoat, because Jesus was no part of the crusades. As Christians we should be ashamed for spewing so much hate and anger, it is high time we take a good hard look in the mirror and ask if the face staring back at us is that of Jesus, and if it isn't then get to work.

If we can learn anything from the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles is that Christianity is terrible at affecting the society from the top down, but is extraordinarily powerful at affecting society beginning with the individual. Quite frankly if we as the church had been doing our jobs all along, we may not be where we are today. For better or worse this is where we are. To my Christian brothers and sisters, I love you. To those of you in the LGBT community, I love you, I may not agree with you, and you may not agree with me, but that is okay I am not asking you to agree with me, I would just ask for the same respect and understanding that you ask of me. I would also ask that the next time you throw around the term bigot that you take a look at yourself and ask are you also not willing to be open to other options and opinions because if not, you have become the very monster you have set out to defeat.

Moral Accountability

In today's Western society, there are few philosophies as aggressive to those who adhere to the Christian faith as what many philosophers and theologians have named "The New Atheism." This New Atheism owes much of it's increase in popularity to those intellectuals in the upper echelons of many academic institutions. People like Richard Dawkins, Laurence Krauss, Bill Maher, and the late Christopher Hitchens have done more to further the new atheism and have aided in promoting it's more aggressive nature. It is this aggressive side of the new atheism that I want to address in this post.

There are several issues with many of the attacks on religion from the new atheistic point of view because they tend to make assumptions and claims that just are not true. Here are a few examples, along with counter arguments.

• Religion does not promote and even harms scientific progress.
• This claim is just down right not true. Historically speaking many of the greatest early scientists and mathematicians were religious. Isaac Newton was a Christian, René DesCartes was a Christian, and many of the earliest advancements in Astronomy were made by Islamic astronomers.
• Religion is responsible for much of the death and war in the world.
• This claim is an over-generalization and is an attempt to reach into the past and assign the blame of the horrors of the Crusades on Christianity, when in all actuality the crusades spawned from the greed and human depravity that wormed its way into the early Catholic Church. The Crusades had nothing to do with the actual teachings of Christ and true Christianity. Perhaps a better argument against this claim is the fact that most wars and conflicts are due to resources, or in the case of Hitler and WWII the annihilation of a religious group among many other things.
• Religion no longer benefits society.
• My argument for this would simply be to point at just about any hospital and the fact that they all either have Saint, Methodist, or Baptist somewhere in the name.
• Religion (particularly Christianity) is an opiate to the masses used for control.
• Anyone who knows anything of Christianity knows that at its heart, it strips all control of the believer from any worldly person and hands it over to God. Standing up to the rulers of the world is a common theme from the Old Testament to the New. This is one of the many reasons that fueled the American Revolution. Christianity teaches that a man's life is not governed by other men, nor is it governed by themselves rather submitted to God alone.

Perhaps what is more frustrating than these claims is what I have found to be an underlying reason why the new atheism seeks to remove Christianity from the forefront of western culture and it is because Christianity offers a form of moral accountability. This is one of the main reasons that you see Christianity attacked over other religions such as Buddhism. Buddhism, at its core, is atheistic. The source of moral accountability comes from within. Therefore Buddhism is not a threat to the humanistic "do what thou wilt" mentality. The same can be true for the current "spiritualism" movement that teaches that the source of truth comes from within, taking God from transcendence and applying the divine to oneself. This is the tragedy of new atheism; to make man his own God, removing any form of moral accountability, therefore making all things permissible.

Many Atheists will disagree with me, and that is fine but it is the truth. As I stated in my last post, if all that we are as humans is the result of time, matter, and chance, just another link in the food chain, then morality is arbitrary. Survival of the fittest, if we are not in some way part of a bigger story, completely justifies, murder, thievery, lust, etc.

The world needs moral accountability that is transcendent from humanity. If man can create his own morality, then it would be ever changing, constantly molded and shaped in order to fit the mindset of any particular culture. The issue with this is just that. Without any transcendent moral accountability we become lost in the unnavigable waters of relativism without any point of reference. We become sailors without the north star to guide us home in the night.

I leave you today with the first portion of a hymn by Edward Mote:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus' name
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand