Worldview

Discerning What Is Best
With Dr Rex Rogers

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Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 06 September 2023

Have you noticed that American culture seems to be drifting away from its founding Judeo-Christian values? Does this mean America is secularizing? Does it matter?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #107 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

When I was in grad school in the late 70s-early 80s, one of the issues we talked about was “secularization,” the “historical process in which religion declines in social and cultural significance. As a result of secularization the role of religion in modern societies becomes restricted. In secularized societies faith lacks cultural authority, and religious organizations have little social power.”

OK, fair enough. Many examples can be cited. But the mistake much of the scholarship made back then was to assume that people would move from religion to irreligion, from religion to religionlesness, that somehow human beings could and would reach a point of development in which faith in God and religious practices were no longer necessary to life. Those scholars envisioned a world without religion.

But it didn’t happen. While traditional religion has become publicly less important in the West, including in the United States, worldwide, religion is as great an influence, if not more so, than ever.

One of the problems with those secularization studies is that they were written with a bias. Many academics were themselves religiously non-practicing. They often came from religious homes but tossed this aside in college. So, they expected to find others doing the same, because for them this was the rational, reasonable, scientific thing to do.

But let’s offer a counter thesis: There are no religionless human beings. Since Adam and Eve, no individuals have ever existed who are not at their core a religious being.

By “religious” I do not mean adherents of traditional or institutional religion. Bureaucracies.

By religious, I mean one possesses an innate God consciousness, a moral capacity to reason about right and wrong, a desire to know who we are, what is our purpose, and what is our destiny, and with this to consider the existential questions, Is there a God? Does he know me? What is the source of evil or sin? What happens when I die?

I believe God instilled all this in human beings when he said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26-27).

Now many people claim to be religionless. But even atheists position themselves as not believing in what? God. They form a presupposition about the Almighty, which is an inherently religious action.

The Collins English Dictionary defines religionless as, “people lacking religious beliefs. Lacking or devoid of religion.” But this is colloquial not philosophical definition. No one is wholly lacking in religious beliefs.

Merriam-Webster gets closer, defining religionless as, “atheistical, lacking religious emotions, principles, or practices.”

OK, people who do not act religious. They exist, but they are still religious because to live in the world, every human being must make assumptions about God, humanity, life and being, purpose, truth, morality. It is impossible to live without making these judgments, whether consciously or subconsciously, and these assumptions determine one’s values and choices.

So, yes, there are many examples of people acting out in a manner that suggests they are without religious understanding. But still, as our thesis posits, at their core, they are religious.

In America today we are experiencing a downward trend in those who say they are religious and an upward trend in those who say, “No Religion,” now 30% of the population, a figure that has nearly doubled in the past 15 years. These are “people who self-describe as atheists, agnostics or ‘nothing in particular’ when asked about their religious identity” – the so-called “Nones.”

Now we could just write this social development off as, live and let live. It’s a free country. What someone else believes really doesn’t matter all that much to me, right?

But is this the case?

When a person rejects traditional religious understanding, which in the United States is Judeo-Christian principles, what he or she is doing is replacing one set of assumptions with another set of assumptions. These folks may be Nones in terms of engagement with institutional religion or Judeo-Christian outlooks on life,

but they are not Nones in terms of religious ideas. Remember our thesis – there are no religionless human beings.

So as Americans jettison Judeo-Christian religious affiliation a new religious persuasion, not secularism per se, is replacing it, and with this new persuasion, new values.

Christian social researcher George Barna calls the new DIY religious persuasion Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, a mouthful for sure, but it simply means belief in a God, no moral absolutes, doing the best you can, being nice meaning inclusive, and focusing upon your well-being.

Again, why does another person’s religious assumptions matter to you or me?

Well, because when a lot of people adopt views different from, even contrary to Judeo-Christian principles, then they act on their values, they create a chaotic culture. That’s what we are seeing today.

In contemporary culture, if you just watch social developments and read or watch social and legacy media, you’ll find incessant messaging arguing the following values define life:

Personal happiness is the end all, be all of life.

Such a culture embraces and promotes abortion on demand, prenuptial agreements and easy divorce that diminish marriage and family, and affluence as the measure of wellbeing, all of which are evident in programs like “Real Housewives” of name-the-city.

Sexual fulfillment is the greatest source of happiness.

Such a culture embraces sexual libertinism, equates lust with love, allows or promotes child sexual abuse in the form of transgenderism, even embraces perversion-as-normality, like “50 Shades of Grey.”

Socially determined gender, not biological sex, defines human reality.

Such a culture celebrates men identifying as women and cheating in sports, allows them access to women’s locker rooms and prisons (guess what assaults result from this) and parades twisted men or women as examples of bravery or achievement, like Bud Light tried to do putting a man trans woman on their beer cans, only to experience “Go Woke, Go Broke.”

Racial determinism means offenses based upon race are now found in virtually every experience of daily life.

Such a culture embraces so-called “anti-racism,” a philosophy tragically racist in values, attitudes, and impact. We see this in the activities of charlatan groups like Black Lives Matter and the Critical Race Theory taught in schools.

Truth is a matter of preference.

Such a culture allows gender, race, and ideology to trump truth. Consequently, laws are unenforceable, and order is at risk, organized looters steal at will in major cities, and criminal perpetrators go unprosecuted. Utterly irrational ideas are promoted, like defund the police, no prosecution for social statement crimes, which we see in how youthful looters and even those wielding weapons are ignored in Chicago.

Mental health is the definition of well-being.

Such cultures are built upon churches that have reduced the gospel to psychological conversations about wellness, self-care, safety, and affirmation. Sin, judgment, guilt, hell, forgiveness, repentance, and salvation are unwelcome topics, because people want to be told: I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay.

Our non-Christian neighbors are not secular. They are not religionless. They may think of themselves as Nones, but in their pursuit of happiness, they are following a false DIY religious worldview.

So, yes, if our neighbors embrace a surrogate, idolatrous religion, there will be, and there already has been, consequences for American culture. What someone else believes really does matter.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 17 July 2023

Have you stopped to think about what worldview motivates you? Is it a secular, religious, Christian, or some other philosophy of life?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #97 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

I was privileged to grow up in what we call a “Christian home,” in the best sense of the term. It means my parents were believers, serious about their Christian faith, introduced me to the Word of God and salvation by faith in Christ, took me to church every time the doors were open, and invested in my spiritual upbringing.

At church, in Sunday School, summer Daily Vacation Bible School, youth groups, and of course the services, I learned more about the Bible and its teachings, and I learned biblical stories and memorized verses.

So, no question I was hugely blessed with what might be called a Christian upbringing, including most importantly me making a personal commitment to faith in Christ when I was six years old, and later make the decision to be baptized. In other words, I owned the Christian faith as my own.

I learned that one should rightly divide the Word of Truth or as other Bible versions say, “correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

I wasn’t really encouraged to stop at memorizing verses, though a lot of churches did this, intentionally or otherwise, and thus people learned to do what we called “proof texting,” the idea that you learn a verse for a given topic and that’s it. You don’t learn much else about the Word or God’s purposes and sometimes you end up not being able to handle the more complex issues that now face us in our culture. Os Guinness called it being unprepared with “a Sunday School level faith for a university level society.”

Back in my other life as a university president, I used to talk about Christian college students who would show up on campus – good kids who knew the Lord—kids who could quote verses and tell Bible stories but many of whom could not tell you what Daniel and the Lions’ Den, for example, meant for them or us today. In other words, they knew biblical data, content, but they did not really understand how to apply it.

They did not understand theology. I called this lack of ability to go from content to application the “Christian missing link.”

One of the reasons some of these students arrived with a lot of Bible knowledge but little ability to think critically and apply it in the world around them, or even in their personal lives, is that their theologically conservative churches had offered them a form of Pietism and little more.

Pietism, especially when coupled with what’s been called Fundamentalism, emphasized the personal spiritual life over and above or separate from any real concern for the public expression of the Christian faith and living in the culture in which they live. In other words, in the vocabulary of John 17, pietistic, fundamentalist churches and adherents did a good job of being “not of the world,” but they tended to forget the other prepositional phrases in that chapter, being “in the world,” or the command to go “into the world.” By the same token, theologically liberal churches and adherents have historically done a fair job of being “in the world” while seeming to forget what it means to be “not of the world.”

I was exposed to some of this in a solid, Bible-believing, good Fundamentalist church as a kid we learned to “Don’t smoke and chew or go with girls who do.” We learned a lot of biblical teaching but did not always learn “Why” or how to connect it with other teachings in Scripture or how to apply it. I’m not biting the hand that fed me. I learned well in this home church and owe it a great deal spiritually. I’m just being honest about what I did not learn as well, and perhaps this was my doing, not the church.

When I got to Christian college, I heard the terms “Christian theistic world life view” as we called it then, what later became better known as a Christian worldview or a biblical worldview.

A worldview is a way of looking at our place in the world. Simply put, it is a philosophy of life. Whether they realize it, or whether they can identify it, everyone possesses a worldview. Our worldview is the foundation and guide for every decision we make.

Our worldview helps us answer life’s existential questions: Who is God? What is truth and moral absolutes? Who is man and what is human nature? What is man’s purpose? What is good and evil? What is sin and morality? What is time and history? What happens when we die? Is God there, and does he care? Does he know me? How can I be loved, forgiven, redeemed? What hope can I have?

Not everyone, in fact most people, can even name their worldview, and most people do not think consistently in alignment with every precept of a given worldview, including Christians.

A Christian worldview is simply a Christian philosophy of life. Theologically, it involves Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.

What we need to do, what we are commanded by God to do, what Scripture in John 17 meant when it said we are to be in the world but not of the world and go into the world, is develop and live out a consistent, God-honoring Christian philosophy of life. We are to “think Christianly.”

In James Avery White’s book A Mind for God, Os Guinness is quoted, saying, “Thinking Christianly is thinking by Christians about anything and everything in a consistently Christian way – in a manner that is shaped, directed, and restrained by the truth of God’s Word and God’s Spirit.”

Christians are to walk as Jesus did. In 1 John 2:6, John said, “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” Or as the late Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer put it, we need to answer the biblical question from Ezekiel, “How should we then live?”

Now how do we answer this question?

Well, as Christians, we go to the Word of God, because,

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Tim. 3:16-17

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Pet. 1:3

We seek to integrate our faith and life by drawing on the principles of Scripture in order to proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all of life.

1 Cor. 10:31 says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

We must work to understand biblical teaching and theology so that we can discern – that’s the point of this podcast, “Discerning what is best” as drawn from Phil. 1:9-10 – and we work to understand biblical teaching and theology so that we can avoid error as we’re commanded in Col. 2:8:

If we do not Know the Truth, we cannot Speak the Truth. Therefore, Bible study, knowledge is imperative, especially in a post-Christian culture.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”

And also Rom. 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

For we know that God said to “keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” Josh. 1:8

We must speak because not to speak yields to the Devil by default.

And when we speak, i.e., define truth, we recognize that we will inevitably alienate.

Culture no longer aligns with or reinforces Christian life. The movement to stop “unacceptable views” now worldwide and popular.

We remember that Jesus never withdrew from sinners, but neither did he ever stop proclaiming the truth.

He ate with tax collectors, spoke with prostitutes. Jesus was “full of grace and truth.” Jn 1:14. He never compromised truth to avoid alienating people or to attract converts.

We are to walk as Jesus did.

We believe the window to speak truth is closing. Yet God said, “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” Jn 9:4

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Gal 6:9

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 27 March 2023

Was there a time in your life when you were more hopeful than you are now? Has the world gone so awry that hope no longer seems possible or reasonable? Is hope hopelessly dead?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #77 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

At the end of “Gond with the Wind,” after years of tragic Civil War, the starring character Scarlett O’Hara, devastated and seemingly defeated by the degradations of the war, said, “Tara. Home. I'll go home…After all, tomorrow is another day."

In “Annie,” Orphan Annie sang, “The sun will come out Tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar That tomorrow There'll be sun! Just thinking about Tomorrow Clears away the cobwebs, And the sorrow 'Til there's none! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya Tomorrow! You're always a day away”

In “Cast Away,” Tom Hanks-as-Chuck Noland, rescued after four years on the deserted island and in the process losing the one he considered the love of his life, wraps the film saying, “And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?”

All these fictional cinematic characters expressed hope, something that made these films powerful, but something that now seems part of a lost past.

Today’s movies, with a few exceptions, are usually not hopeful; they’re dark, deadly, and hopeless.

There was a time, on both sides of the aisle, when being upbeat in politics was considered admirable. Democrat Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was known as the "Happy Warrior." Republican President Ronald Reagan, the "Gipper," was widely recognized by friend and foe alike for his sunny, forever optimistic persona.

Now, it seems many Democrat and Republican politicians, activists, journalists, academicians, and beaucoup other pundits on social media, are terminally angry, perpetually offended, lacking in humility, at times fearful, or so convinced their view is correct that yours does not deserve hearing. And oh by the way, they’re nasty.

I don't think Humphrey or Reagan were clueless Pollyannas. I think they operated with a different worldview than most of the "elites" we endure today. Maybe I sound like an old guy, but I miss the forward-thinking energy you can hear in these statements by political leaders—

--FDR regarding the Depression and later World War II: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

--JFK on landing a person on the moon: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

--MLK Jr on his vision America would realize its founding principles: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

--George H. W. Bush on his lifelong belief in the American people: "I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the nation, doing good."

Like Humphrey and Reagan, these men weren’t silly utopians. They were men who expressed hope based upon their personal values and confidence in America’s transcendent ideals.

People place their hope in many things: themselves, their “inner strength,” other people—who alwaysfail and falter, talent—drive—wealth—education—beauty—success, false gods. But none of these things can ultimately provide hope in the face of hopelessness.

Hope, particularly hope in the future, must come from something outside ourselves, outside our experience. That’s what happened to the colonial era English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes who looked at nature and concluded life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Pretty dark view, and his solution wasn’t much better, a government of absolute power.

Non-Christian worldviews do not provide hope, or if they attempt to do so, they don’t know how to deal with the reality of evil. Sin, living in a fallen world, how do we escape our own sinfulness? We are indeed hopeless…until and unless we place our faith in the Creator God who provided a way out, who provided forgiveness and reconciliation and therefore hope. Christianity resolves the question of good and evil and gives people reason for optimism.

So, when you choose hope based upon the omnipotent Sovereign God, you are not irrational, emotional, or even mystical. Rather, you are rational, reasoning, and reasonable because you are opting for fact over fiction.

Our culture’s pell-mell rush during my lifetime to abandon Judeo-Christian values in favor of the latest humanistic, ideological “Ism” is what’s brought us to this point: elites with no optimism, no real hope.

The only way to get hope and optimism back is to embrace what God told us long ago: “But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

Christian hope is not like any other kind of hope. Christian hope is not a vain wish for what might be. Christian hope is a trust in what will be. Christian hope is based upon Christ's completed work, so our hope may be confident...not anxious, not arrogant, but confident.

This is very important. We're told by some people that the future is a matter of chance, fate, or luck. Some of these people think God doesn't exist, and some believe God can't do much even if He does exist. People who think like this end up in one of two extremes: hedonism or nihilism.

People faced with a pessimistic, hopeless future seek relief in substance abuse or some other emotional tranquilizer.

Hollywood celebrities—the ones who’ve lived life in full-on self-aggrandizement—who then get all that they’re after—fame and adulation, fortune and excess, libertine but vapid sex, banal success, materialistic things, finally discover what they wanted leaves them empty.

Remember Peggy Lee’s song in 1969? “If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing. Let’s break out the booze and have a ball. If that’s all there is.”

Does this help you understand why celebrities who “have it all” end their lives by their own hand, or they become victims of accidental overdose?

Christian hope is authentic, genuine, and balanced. It's never pessimistic, because Christians know the Creator and Savior.

We know the beginning and the end of the human story, and we know it's all in God's sovereign care. Christian hope is realistically optimistic. We acknowledge the presence of sin in the world—and in our own hearts, but we do not crash in an emotional death spiral, because we know the Lord, the author of hope.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast." For the Christian--hope really is eternal.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 13 March 2023

Has it ever seemed to you that the world we live in is topsy-turvy, inside out, upside down, not like you remember it was when you were a kid?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #75 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

It seems to me that we are experiencing spiritual warfare on nearly all fronts. Perhaps it has always been this way, or maybe it was like this at another time, but either way, it certainly seems like we are witnessing a new pagan onslaught every week, not just in so-called “spiritual matters” pertaining to religion but in every activity of our culture.

Let me illustrate with a few examples:

Same-sex marriage, recognized as legal by the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell v Hodgesin 2015. This direct attack on the God-ordained nuclear or traditional family plays an increasingly prominent role in American society with actors portraying same-sex couples on sit-coms, Pete Buttigieg, so-called “Mayor Pete,” married to a man since 2018 and serving as Secretary of Transportation for the Biden Administration, and even Christian adoption agencies now placing children with LGBTQ and same-sex couples.

LGBTQ, the idea human beings may select their sexuality as a matter of psychology and preference rather than biology, including the dangerous false ideology of transgenderism, continues to dominate public education from kindergarten to graduate school. This includes a direct attack on parental rights. Since sexual orientation is now increasingly considered a civil right, something that gives these lifestyle choices protected status in employment and other sectors of society, LGBTQ ideology has almost achieved normative status in American culture.

Gender confusion, which includes not only transgenderism but androgyny, radical feminism, macho male chauvinism and toxic masculinity. When a nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States cannot answer the question, “Can you define the word ‘woman’?” then you know the culture is in trouble. How else can any logical person interpret the Biden Administration recently presenting an “International Women Of Courage Award” to a biological male who identifies as female? This gender confusion includes gender fluidity resulting in more than 100 genders now catalogued as possible and real. This includes not simply the polite expectation but the demand often backed by corporate or governmental authority that public servants like teachers must use the gender-neutral pronouns non-binary people select. This includes trans men or trans women demandingaccess to public-facility male or female bathrooms in concert with their trans identity, not their actual biology. This includes trans athletes, specifically men posing as trans women, be permitted to compete in girl’s and women’s sports events. States that have pushed back on this movement, in an attempt to protect girls and women, are regularly labeled in the press, not as defenders of Title IX, fairness, or female athletes, but rather as “anti-trans.” Since we no longer know what a man or woman is and since some believe that men can become pregnant, then we no longer have a basis for truth or reality. We do not have anything to pass on to our children but hellish disorder.

Black Lives Matter, LGTBQ activists, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, and others promoting progressive leftist philosophy are on record opposed to the traditional, nuclear family. They seek to undermine the nuclear family of father and mother married in a lifelong monogamous relationship because this divine biblical ideal cannot be allowed to stand if they are to be successful promoting their sexually perverted, emotionally twisted, libertine options. This includes a promotion of the Marxist ideas promoting race and class conflict, which are imbedded in critical race theory, an attempt to rewrite the nation’s history to obliterate from the record America’s original Judeo-Christian foundation.

Abortion, legal since Roe v Wade(1973) and now altered by the Supreme Court of the United States in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Organization (2022), saying no right to abortion is found in the United States Constitution, abortion is now being curtailed in various ways in several states. The immediate effect was to make abortion an even more divisive political issue. We’re rightfully disturbed by 60 million killed in WWII, 30 million ruthlessly slain under Russia’s Stalin, and the 50 million eliminated under China’s Mao.Yet in the US alone since 1973, abortion goes on with more than 64.6 million killed in the womb. We are literally using infanticide to eradicate our future. This is the height of nihilism.

Illegal narcotics, a pandemic-like impact via which “more than 106,000 persons in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdose in 2021, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids.” This annual figure is almost twice the number who died in the 10-year Viet Nam War. Fentanyl is the primary driver now, a cheap, made-in-Mexico product, the deadliest form of opioid. While people who take drugs talk of getting “high,” what they get over time is “low,” lower than low because drugs are nothing more than an attempt to deaden spiritual pain. Drugs are hopelessness used as a medicine for hopelessness.

There are many other cultural endeavors imbued with an anti-biblical set of values and goals.

Scienceis no longer a search for truth based upon hypotheses, unbiased measurement of reality, and conclusions rooted in evidence. Now, science is just another place for leftists to play God, demanding we believe them, not our own eyes, logic, history, or nature. Entertainment is dominated by non-Christian, humanistic, materialistic values worshipping celebrity, fame, and fortune, all presented with what’s become a near wall-to-wall use of the F-word. The law, once the realm of giants like Chief Justice John Marshall, or even fictional barristers committed to truth like Perry Mason, is now the playground of soft-on-crime, politically correct, ideologically driven, do-nothing District Attorneys whose claim to fame is how many criminals they did not prosecute. Consequently, when our legal system does not hold perpetrators accountable, the bad actors win, returning to the streets to loot and wreak havoc again. This is the source of increasing incidences of random violence in the country.

The fact that these kinds of activities are now commonplace in American society is due to the culture’s rejection of God, or at least the idea of absolute truth, morality, and consequently, accountability. We’re engaged in moral chaos and moral freefall.

We can no longer define right and wrong, have lost the ability to recognize goodness and beauty so the arts are falling apart, lost the importance and value of children, lost integrating truth without which we get the chaos, diversity run amok, and centrifugal forces we see at work throughout society, lost what it means to be made in the image of God wherein there is no hierarchy or better race within created humanity, lost our responsibility and role within the nuclear family so we live lives of expressive individualism and selfishness, and lost the meaning and source of forgiveness, therefore also of transformation, change, and hope.

Satan, our adversary the Devil, is the roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He is the father of lies and the chief promoter of division. If we believe a lie and Satan can divide us, he makes us, the Church, weaker.

I don’t know when or where demonic activity takes place in the US, and I cannot necessarily tell when evident evil is sourced in demonic influence or simply the darkness in the person(s) involved. But whether we pinpoint demonic activity as such, I do believe it exits and that demons—Satan’s stormtroopers—are enjoying more and more freedom to spread their diabolic influence.

But we should not fear. We should work to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have in Christ, and Scripture says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then” (Eph 6:10-14).

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 16 January 2023

Has it dawned on you that 21^st Century American culture is not unlike the Roman culture of the 1^st Century Church, dominated by idolatrous pseudoreligion and pagan ideas antithetical to Christianity?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #64 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

There are those who describe American religion today as a combination of beliefs they label Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. And certainly, a case can be made for this. Moralistic therapeutic deism is a made-up worldview with which many Americans operate, whether consciously or not.

Its primary beliefs include:

God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other.
The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about yourself.
God is not really involved in our lives except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
Good people go to heaven when they die.

According to the veteran researcher George Barna, “Practitioners of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism are not anti-religion or anti-Christianity. They just are not willing to surrender themselves to authentic Christianity’s demands—or to believe that a real faith would even make such demands of them.”

Overlapping Moralistic Therapeutic Deism are a set of radical leftist ideas called Woke philosophy. This is an “Ism” rooted in Marxist thought. It focuses on oppression and victimhood, class, race, and gender conflict. It rejects Judeo-Christian beliefs and values, especially moral absolutes and teachings regarding sexuality and the family, and it seeks to erase everything about America’s past because America is considered bad or even evil.

Woke philosophy, also known as Social Justice Ideology or Critical Race Theory – Yes, I know these terms are used distinctively and have their own definitions, but the overlap is so extensive as to blur the lines between these false ideas. In practice, the terms are used interchangeably.

I called Woke philosophy a pseudoreligion because its proponents, and they are now legion, look not to traditional religion but promote Wokeism as the overarching narrative or worldview that explains all of life. They place their blind faith in Woke assumptions and theories and argue these views must be adopted in civic society. Further, they believe everyone who disagrees is not simply wrong but intolerant bigots, people whose ideas or voice must be “cancelled.”

For example, University of Southern California Social Work department just announced it will remove the word “field” from its academic administrative vocabulary, that is, it will convert its Office of Field Education to the Office of Practicum Education because the word “field” somehow has racist connotations—“going into the field” or doing “field work.” Apparently, the university is concerned this word will trigger certain ethnic students and make it impossible for them to function on the campus.

Odd thing is, back on Grandpa Rogers’ farm in Ohio I earned my first dollar going into the field and doing field work. None of us considered it racist.

The computer sciences at many universities are ditching terms like "master" and "slave" for similar reasons. And in some housing designs and architecture there will no longer be a “master bedroom,” which apparently smacks of patriarchy and racism.

Standford University is encouraging students and faculty—I said encouraging but this is administration policy—not to call themselves American. According to the Stanford University Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, (this is a mouthful in itself – think about it. This committee is going to eliminate harmful language, something no culture has done since Adam and Eve). Anyway, according to this committee “the term ‘American’ often refers to people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the US is the most important country in the Americas (which is actually made up of 42 countries)."

So, a term that’s been used since the 1500s on maps, was used in the Declaration of Independence July 1776, was declared official by the Continental Congress in September 1776, and is today the actual name of the United States of America is suddenly no longer acceptable on this learned campus.

Professors and staff members who disagree with these mandates, particularly if they dare to push back, are in danger of losing their positions. The same is true for university, government, military, and increasingly corporate policies that require employees to use whatever gender pronouns any staff member, student, or customer wishes to use. Refuse, and you will attract investigation; you may lose your job.

Wokeism argues a person’s identity cannot be separated from the group, usually race or ethnicity. There is no individuality, an idea that is antithetical to Christianity. In Wokeism, the only sin is the sin of the oppressor. Victims get a free pass. In Wokeism, what matters is power.

Wokeism promotes: Pol correctness and a psychological triggering category called micro-aggressions, LGBTQ sexuality including drag queens, the idea sex is not binary but something socially or individually constructed called gender, sex education, or rather, sexualizing of children via explicit curricula in public schools, the politicization and racialization of sports, anti-racism via critical race theory, which in practice reinforces racism with concepts like white supremacy, defunding the police, officials telling police to stand down, prosecutors not prosecuting crimes, looting, or arson, abortion on demand, a concept called “equity,” which means equality of results or outcomes based not on merit but race or gender and perceived oppression, rejects science, reason, history, and biology, and even attempts to curtail or silence freedom of speech because opinions different from the Woke holy list are forbidden.

This means Wokeism is inherently authoritarian; if individuals are lost into the group, and contrary ideas are verboten, the only way to accomplish this is through the coercive power of the state.

Wokeism also advocates for so-called inclusive religion—again a racial/ethnic categorization—and works to suppress religious liberty in favor of its secular left utopian vision.

Wokeism is nauseating in its drive to defeat the traditional and moral in favor of the irrational. Those who embrace these ideas are cultish in their worldview.

This is the pseudoreligion that motivated the people a few months ago who demanded decades or even century-old public statues be torn down if somehow the statue violated their new sensibilities.

This is the pseudoreligion that compels people to sanitize public life and discourse of anything that is remotely Judeo-Christian in character, including holidays, public prayers, even the Pledge of Allegiance.

The pseudoreligion of Woke philosophy, alongside Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, is now the dominant and demanding legalistic false religion of American culture.

Christianity still has a seat at the table but not the head of the table and in many cases is muzzled. This trend will continue.

Politics offers no effective solutions to our cultural problems because what we face today are spiritual problems.

In his book, Strange New World, Carl Trueman makes this powerful observation on how we should then live in the face of a dominant pseudoreligion:

“The Psalms present a view of the Christian life that is marked by joy but that also knows sorrow and loss. They set the struggles of the present in the context of God’s great actions in times past and promises for the future.”

“By setting forth a grand picture of God and the promise of future rest, they help us to keep perspective—theological and emotional—on the events of the present.”

Trueman’s point is that the psalmist, the shepherd king David, faced all manner of threatening circumstances during his life. He shared them all with the Lord, but he didn’t stop there.

David then rehearsed the past works of God in creation and God’s promises of future presence in our lives.

David found hope and peace and strength to fight the good fight, by acknowledging God walked beside and before him.

So should we.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 03 June 2022

Have your heard American politics described as Left and Right? Or perhaps Liberal and Conservative, but now there is this new designation, Left or Progressive? What does all this mean?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #27 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

American culture and therefore politics is divided. Actually, more than divided, it is polarized. We don’t just disagree. We disagree vehemently, sad to say, often hatefully.

This polarization has affected every corner of our culture, including education, entertainment, sports, and religion. On every issue, people line up on one of two sides, what is called the Right or what is called the Left.

The Right is generally considered synonymous with Conservative, and maybe Republican, but not all Republicans are Conservative and not all Conservatives are Republican.

The Right tends to believe in God and country, the existence of absolute truth, personal initiative and responsibility, individual liberty and freedom of religion and speech, national identity and patriotism, capitalism or free enterprise along with equal opportunity, the traditional family, and justice based upon objective and equal law and order.

There was a time not long ago when we typically did not say, Left, but said Liberal.

Interestingly, now forgotten, those who embraced a Liberal point of view were not that different from those who embraced the Right or a Conservative point of view. Sure, Liberal and Conservative differed on the extent of government involvement, but Liberals then and, actually now, tend to believe in God and country, the idea of truth, liberty and freedom of religion and speech, national identity and patriotism, the traditional family, even free enterprise and certainly blind justice based upon identifiable principles of law and order.

Sound familiar? Both Conservatives and Liberals acknowledged America had made terrible mistakes in its past, for no country comprised of sinful people is perfect. But both also celebrated the historical fact that America had made sacrifices and progress toward realizing its founding ideals, that it was the home of the brave and the land of the free.

Then along about the time of the 1960s things began to change. Something called the Left, and more recently Progressives, began to emerge with a set of beliefs diametrically opposed to what the Right or Conservatives believe.

And though media still often uses the terms Liberal and Left interchangeably, this is misleading at best and does not recognize the profoundly different values promoted by the Left, not the least of which is rejection of their own country.

The Left now represents a set of beliefs sharply distinguishable from Liberals and certainly of Conservatives or the Right.

Think of the comedian Bill Maher, a self-avowed Liberal in the classical sense, an atheist or at least agnostic, a brilliant mind and talent capable of hilarious observations and comebacks. He is a Liberal, a late-night talk show host you’d think would embrace the Left and its so-called progressive ideas. But he does not. In fact, he has repeatedly and incisively skewered the illogic, arrogance, and utter lack of realism of the Left, labeling them a threat to liberalism and a free society. He thinks the Left is, well, Nuts, and he’s a Liberal.

What’s ironic if maybe sad is that the best critic of the Left is not someone on the Right but a Liberal, Bill Maher. His monologues on the Left’s excesses are a call to sanity, something the Left with its pell-mell rush to embrace of Woke philosophy does not understand.

The Left tends to eat its own if anyone dares to question basic ideas. This is what cancel culture is about.

J.K. Rowling, the incredibly successful British author of the Harry Potter books, is and always has been a Liberal, clearly and unapologetically. But now she has been systematically vilified, disinvited from a celebration of one of her own movies, criticized by the young actors her books help to make rich and famous, and in general, cancelled. Except she is so wealthy, smart, and therefore powerful, she can push back.

What was J.K. Rowling’s grave offense? She believes in biology. She thinks men are men and women are women, and she argues transgender ideology is a threat to girls and women. Interestingly, she’s not opposed to LGB, nor does she moralize on any of this, she just thinks science is real and gender is not fluid. That’s it.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

So, what does the Left believe?

Secular – no creed or Scripture, hostile to religion, no God, generally supports secularizationand total separation of church and state.
Since God did not create human beings in his image, we are socially constructed, either through some social determinism as if we are animals, or through a humanist belief we can make ourselves anything we want to be.
Reject the moral categories of Judeo-Christianity and believe truth is not identified or received but created.
The Left’s compass is guided by power, race, and class.
Since there is no Sovereign God there is no personal sin, so our problems are not moral but social and economics explains most behaviors.
Human beings define their own existence based upon their feelings, subjective, so we end up with rollercoaster emotions and a mentality of endless victimhood.
The Left’s view of humanity promotes a sense of entitlement and a lack of gratitude, hence we are forever unhappy.
The source of improvement is inside us, thus we need to know ourselves and to “dialogue” with others because through dialogue, not debate that implies disagreement or antithesis, but discussion that always must end in a synthesis of ideas, for no idea is wrong or bad.
The Left affirms a strong centrist government and distrusts freedom of speech.
The Left tends to reject national identity and patriotism, then proclaims we are world citizens, typically anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Western Civilization, which for the Left’s is an euphemisms for White Supremacy.
Sexual liberation including LGBTQ+, new socially defined gender identity, so biology is irrelevant.
The Left promotes fear and hysteria, anxiety, hence safetyism, for all this increases its power.

From a Christian worldview point of view, the Left is wrong in its pre-theoretical assumptions top to bottom. Once any philosophy rejects God and truth, there’s nothing left but power, which is the Left’s stock in trade.

Sadly, Leftist ideas have hugely and maybe surreptitiously influenced Christian churches and Christian nonprofit organizations in both Europe and the United States, meaning these churches and organizations offer a message little different from the culture around them. Of worse, are often presenting a view contrary to the Word of God as one that advances it.

The Left’s views are morally unsustainable. No human beings can live long and certainly not in a healthy or joyful manner based upon Leftist unbiblical philosophy.

The results of Leftism include: ennui, loss of sense of purpose and creativity or intellectual curiosity and excitement, declining industrial innovation, loss of hope including a desire to marry or have children, fear rather than risk-taking, division, disillusionment, anxiety, despair, a culture of death, an existentialism that gives way to secular nihilism, and…hopelessness.

The Left is now promoting social justice ideology in schools, entertainment, business, and churches. This ideology rejects transcendent biblical morality in favor of an arbitrary, ever-changing “do what’s right in our own eyes” ethic that is sexually licentious and racially divisive. While this is done in the name of advancing what the Left calls the oppressed, what really happens is it creates power for a new set of Leftist oppressors who do not believe in God, grace, or forgiveness.

The Left is godless, irrational, and seductive.

There is no room for Christian compromise with the Left.

Our task in this moment is both great and strategic. Believers must learn to articulate biblical theology. We must learn how to apply our faith in a rapidly changing world, and we must stand for truth in the face of error.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

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Two New eBooks at Amazon Kindle!

There Are No Religionless Human Beings

Developing and Applying a Christian Worldview

Hope in a Hopeless World

Spiritual Warfare on All Fronts

The New Secular, Legalistic Pseudoreligion

What the Left Believes