Cultural Trends

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 06 October 2025

It’s discouraging to me to hear that nurses are quitting their jobs because the public is so abusive – nurses, people trying to help. But this is the state of American culture.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #228 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.

The elder President George H.W. Bush, 41, is remembered for several pithy phrases, among them “voodoo economics,” “1,000 points of light,” and the one that got him in political trouble later when partisan budget wrangling forced him to renege on his promise, “Read my lips: No new taxes.”

But President Bush’s phrase that I’ve thought a lot about recently came out of his run for the presidency in 1988 and his vision for what he called “a kinder, gentler nation.” Later in his Inauguration speech, Jan. 20, 1989, Bush said, “America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.”

I thought of this phrase immediately as I watched the 45^th Ryder Cup matches played at the Black course, Bethpage State Park, Farmingdale, New York on Long Island. The European team won the Ryder Cup, 15-13.

Crowd behavior was relatively benign the first sessions but then chaos broke loose Saturday afternoon and Sunday as a small but extremely vocal percentage of the crowd let loose with abusive comments hurled at the Europeans, particularly the golf world’s number 2, Rory McIlroy. Oft-repeated f-bombs, “Rake out the Irish trash,” “Remember Pinehurst,” “Choker,” “Leprechaun,” “Overrated,” middle fingers held high, insults questioning manhood, a beer can thrown near McIlroy’s wife, at one tee box, a guy yelled “Rory, don't let your boyfriend down!” followed by three more gay slurs that cannot be shared. “By (one) reporter's count, 30-something f-bombs had been hurled at McIlroy in the first four holes alone.” More sexually explicit comments were made throughout the day aimed at various players’ wives.

American player Justin Thomas repeatedly tried to calm the crowd as did other American golfers from time to time to minimal cooperation and eventually a handful of spectators were identified and tossed off the property.

The next day, American golfing great Tom Watson said on social media, “I'd like to congratulate @RyderCupEurope on their victory. Your team play the first few days was sensational. More importantly, I'd like to apologize for the rude and mean-spirited behavior from our American crowd at Bethpage. As a former player, Captain and as an American, I am ashamed of what happened.”

Lack of civility, including use of profane language, is now publicly commonplace in American culture. Scholars and pundits often use the term “coarsening” to refer to the trend.

And this is also sadly true of political leaders. President Bush’s kinder, gentler “words stand in stark contrast to the incivility and name-calling that has come to define today’s politics.” This includes a growing trend of antagonistic, disrespectful rhetoric in politics, including ad hominem attacks and name-calling.

Leaving aside here any discussion of President Donald J. Trump’s politics and policies, it can be said without fear of exaggeration that Mr. Trump often critiques people he calls his “enemies” by using rather crass, at times harsh, attack-mode language.

President Richard M. Nixon’s infamous White House Watergate tapes provided audio evidence of his penchant for using ethnic slurs, foul language, and derogatory comments during meetings. Mr. Trump’s use of corrosive or caustic language is not reserved for private meetings because they make media coverage nearly every week.

Now I am not blaming Mr. Trump for the coarsening of American culture. Presidents are more often symptoms than causes of American trends. Nor am I suggesting Mr. Trump is worse than others. I’m just noting that Mr. Trump says things in what Teddy Roosevelt called “the bully pulpit” that no other president has ever said, and as the leader of the free world, he is heard and has influence.

American political leaders now regularly make videos using vulgarities, then post them on social media, or they use so-called “fighting words” or expletives in media interviews, I guess, in an effort to sound tough and sincere. No question President Joe Biden regularly used profanity when he became frustrated or wanted to sound forceful, but I thought he just sounded degraded. Democrats and the left or Progressives have been calling Mr. Trump “Hitler,” a Nazi, and a “fascist” since at least 2016, and now the same anti-Trump American political leaders have publicly labeled ICE officers “modern-day Gestapo,” “secret police,” “authoritarian,” “slave patrols,” “thugs,” and more.

Clearly, American politics has become increasingly polarized. Don Sipple, a veteran communications strategist who helped shape campaign messages for George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jerry Brown, among many others, said, “Everything’s a war. Everything’s a battle. There’s no collaboration, no coordination, no civic pride.”

And another trend is important to note, the increase in political violence. “Hateful demonization clearly played a role in the assassination of Charlie Kirk—a murder victim whom the left continues to smear and attack, even after his violent death at the hands of a leftist…When people are told, on repeat, that their opposition are authoritarian Hitler Nazis, some of them will act accordingly.”

Civilization is in part built upon civility, and this is what’s gone out the window. I can remember when men would use a four-letter word in the presence of women and say, “Oh, pardon my French.” Now maybe that was disingenuous or too cute, but at least there was some sense of what should be acceptable. No more.

“We've become a mean-spirited culture. We've become increasingly rude and cruel and abusive and violent.” And I haven’t even talked about the crude and lewd, or the manufactured anger paraded in reality shows, nor the nastiness on TV talk shows, the social distance and anonymity of social media, and much of pop music.

American culture is subjected to more centrifugal than centripetal forces, pulling us apart without much glue holding us together.

We are experiencing a "decline of the American sacred canopy." This is a term coined by sociologist Peter Berger, which describes the erosion of a shared, overarching religious framework that once provided common meaning and values to society. Since America’s founding and until the last fifty years, that sacred canopy was comprised of what scholars called a Judeo-Christian moral consensus.

Our laws, mores, and morality were rooted in biblical values, even if not everyone or even most Americans were themselves believing Christians. Our culture, indeed, Western Civilization, found sustenance in this moral outlook. It gave us definition, purpose, and vision.

“The decline of faith has left a void, and people have tried to fill it with politics, social media, gaming and countless other distractions. Yet none of these substitutes provides the deeper sense of purpose we were made to seek. Over the past few decades, the erosion of religion and the rise of political polarization have gone hand in hand. As faith receded, the longing for meaning, belonging and community did not disappear -- it was redirected. Too often, that hunger has been channeled into the far less healthy pursuit of politics.”

Along the way, apparently thinking Judeo-Christian principles are too sensitive or irrelevant for schools, scouts, even religious groups or families, we discarded moral formation. Now there is no self-restraint, no ethics, no respect, no truth, no direction, no hope. They aren’t taught.

“Any sense of an objective moral order is gone. Any sense of transcendent truth is gone. We now have little more than radical individualism.” If we don’t “train up a child” as Proverbs directed (22:6), then they’ll learn their morality in the streets or on social media where they are taught that they are gods who define their own moral compass. We do what’s right in our own eyes.

“We’ve become hyper-politicized. Ideology has replaced theology, even in the lives of Christians. Good and evil aren’t about the human heart—they’re about groups: us vs. them…Morality isn’t about personal conduct, but rather where you are on the political spectrum. Much of it fueled by resentment. And that is how we got so mean.”

We’re a long way from a kinder, gentler nation.

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. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

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 my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 07 July 2025

Have you ever wondered why an attractive person you see with multiple tattoos and piercings thought they needed these permanent body decorations?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #214 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.

Tattoo-less individuals are an endangered species fast nearing extinction, at least it seems so to me. Piercings are not quite as prevalent but are growing in popularity and visibility among Millennials, Gen Z, and the coming Gen Alpha.

I walked out of a grocery store in Maryland to be met by a young woman, I’m guessing about 25, who was wearing very little but tattoos. She had so many tattoos on one arm and shoulder the colors ran together in an amorphous blue. She wore fewer but still a lot of tattoos on her other arm, a large tattoo running up her neck, and tattoos on her fingers. Tattoos of differing sizes and design were scattered up to the bottom of her skirt on both of her legs. She even had a small tattoo on her face. I’ve seen men wear this many tattoos but never a woman. With all that, these tattoos painted what would be considered a very attractive woman I’m guessing by anyone’s judgment. Forgive me for not understanding what motivated this beautiful young woman to do this to herself for life.

Tattooing and piercings as a form of body modification date back about as far as reliable history goes. “The earliest evidence of a tattoo dates back to roughly 3100 BCE.” Decorating the body is as old, it seems, as human vanity. But now it’s made a comeback in American culture where “tats” and ever-more-creative (or shocking) metal adornments in the skin are evident in whatever direction you look. Seemingly everyone, at least under 45 years of age, is tattooed or pierced. Just check out the young people serving you at McDonalds.

“Tattoos have become a more common sight in workplaces around the United States, even making appearances among members of the U.S. House and Senate. Amid this shift, how many Americans have tattoos, why, and do they regret it? A large majority of U.S. adults say society has become more accepting of people with tattoos in recent decades, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. And 32% of adults have a tattoo themselves, including 22% who have more than one.

38% of women have at least one tattoo, compared with 27% of men.
39% of Black Americans have a tattoo, compared with 35% of Hispanic, 32% of White and 14% of Asian Americans.
37% of those with some college or less education have a tattoo, compared with 24% of those with a bachelor’s degree and 21% of those with a postgraduate degree.
41% of religiously unaffiliated adults have at least one tattoo, compared with 29% of those who are affiliated with a religion.
There are no major differences by political party.
The most commonly cited reason is to honor or remember someone or something: 69% of tattooed adults say this is either a major or minor reason they got any of their tattoos.
Just under half (47%) say they got a tattoo to make a statement about what they believe, and 32% say they got at least one to improve their personal appearance.”

As to piercings, “in the U.S., approximately 83% of the population has their earlobes pierced and 14% has a piercing outside the earlobe.”

“Members of biker or prison gangs, political fringe groups, or even straight-edge punk rockers and vegans might get certain tattoos as proud displays of their membership (official or unofficial) in these groups. People often get tattoos to defy cultural norms, family expectations, or push the envelope in professional settings.

Sometimes, tattoos are used partly for cosmetic reasons. They can cover over or even incorporate certain imperfections in the skin (such as scars, stretch marks, varicose veins and cellulite) to make them less prominent and visible; and the fact that tattoos won’t be going out of style in the foreseeable future means that this permanent form of cover-up is an attractive proposition. Those who can’t even fathom getting a tattoo due to their fear of needles or because they blanch at the thought of how much pain would be involved (but interestingly) some people get tattoos precisely because they want those sensations.”

Same might be said for piercings. “Different types of body piercings have various symbolism for diverse groups of people. While a surface piercing may be nothing more than a sign of good looks to you, to others, it may have deeper cultural, spiritual, or social meanings…The primary meaning of (ear) lobe piercing (often encouraged among women and now some men) has been lost to time and culture integration. Nowadays, people mostly see lobe piercing as body aesthetics.”

Piercings have exploded in number but still have not achieved the popularity of tattoos. “Since the phenomenon of the mono earring; nose rings, eyebrow piercings, belly rings, and other piercings have become more accepted or tolerated, particularly within Gen Z, as they’re the most likely age group to have septum piercings.”

While not everyone who wears piercings or even nose rings are identifying with the LGBTQ persuasion, it is in some circles considered a signal. “Where identity is often policed or questioned, the septum piercing provides an unspoken understanding to communities falling under the LGBTQ2S+ and alternative umbrellas. This typical facial piercing offers a commonality and a sense of belonging to many who carry a horseshoe or circular ring under their noses.”

“Although newer generations have somewhat embraced overall body modifications, workplace dress code may not be as progressive with facial piercings nor tattoos. Employers are still allowed to ask their workers to hide or remove any piercings or tattoos at their own discretion.”

“The adoption of advanced materials like titanium and surgical steel is also on the rise. These materials reduce allergy risks and improve the safety of body piercings…The global body piercing jewelry market is projected to grow from USD 8.15 billion in 2024 to USD 10.89 billion by 2031, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.14%.”

From the beautiful to the bizarre tattoos and piercings tend to provoke emotional response.

When Christians ask questions about tattoos or piercings, someone cites the Old Testament book of Leviticus: “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD” (19:28).

Some people quote this verse as a statement outlawing tattoos or piercings, period. But this isn’t a valid interpretation. This verse commanded the Israelites to avoid certain funeral practices wherein bodies were marked in some pagan hope of attaining a good afterlife. This verse doesn’t really address present-day tattooing or piercing. So, we look to the New Testament, only to discover it says nothing about whether a person should or may acquire a tattoo or piercing.

While I am not a fan of most tattoos and certainly many piercings, I’ve always considered this kind of body modification a Christian liberty issue. In other words, God did not say “Thou shalt,” nor did he say “Thou shalt not” with respect to tattoos or piercings.

“Body piercing is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, leaving the morality of it open to interpretation.
Scripture offers guidance on inner beauty, modesty, and the importance of blessings that surpass outward adornment.”

He left these matters in the so-called “gray area,” so we must reckon what to do and “be fully convinced in (our) own minds” (Romans 14:5).

While God didn’t give us rules, he did give us principles to help us answer this “matter of conscience,” one of which is that not everything we can do we should do. In 1 Cor. 10:23 the Apostle Paul noted the core of the Christian liberty doctrine: “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.”

Whether we acquire tattoos or body piercings should lead us to careful spiritual discernment about what is best, what will honor God, what will allow us to serve him fully?

Certainly, I feel for people, like the young woman entering the Maryland grocery store, whose bodies are plastered with tattoos. It's their free choice, but I believe they've made an unwise, irrevocable one.

For those who may not like body art, it’s worth mentioning that tattooing and piercing are fads. When I was young, I wore bell bottom pants and longer hair.

I still like long hair but, well, no more flared leg pants. Tattoos and piercings will have their day and then will, someday, literally fade away. Fickle fashion fads are here today, gone tomorrow.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 16 April 2025

Ever meet someone who could not seem to speak a sentence without using profanity, and then wonder why they speak this way?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #202 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.

Profanity, swearing, cussing, cursing, obscenity, vulgarity, expletives and epithets have likely existed since the dawn of time. In ancient Sumerian (one of the earliest known written languages, c. 2400 BCE), there are inscriptions that contain insults and crude language. Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman texts include examples of vulgar or profane language. Roman graffiti in Pompeii is famously full of crude jokes, insults, and explicit language.

So, using “bad language” is nothing new. But social researchers, and our own sense of what’s happening, tell us the use of rude and crude language is increasing in American culture.

“Society norms towards profanity (sometimes referred to as vulgar, foul, or “street” language) have changed significantly since the initial audience shock of hearing Clark Gable say, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” in the 1939 film, Gone with the Wind.”

Profanity in all its taboo-breaking rebellion has now gone mainstream. And certainly, far worse than the standard “Four-letter” words, bad language now publicly features vulgarity, obscenity, scatological terms, and religious references to Jesus, Mary, and maybe the most-often used, “Oh my God,” an all-purpose phrase for shock, anger, happiness, startle reflex, or excitement.

And lazy language has become one of the “acceptable sins” in the Church. Christian people can be heard using the B-word, the S-word, and the A-word, along with a host of other crudities.

Years ago, men, especially around women, would attempt to mask verbal missteps with silly statements like, “Pardon my French.” I even heard that on Johnny Carson, but I don’t hear it anymore.

But I have heard Christians using what we used to call “bad language” on the golf course and at fancy dinners, or from the podium no less. I’ve heard it at church events, professional settings, and in restaurants and coffee cafes.

And please help me understand why some Christians, particularly from the South—sorry Southerners, but I've heard it too often—think it's OK to say "Lordy," "Oh God," "Oh my God," “Oh my Lord,” even "Jesus"? Or in case you missed it: “Lordy, Lordy, Lordy”?

One Southern friend of mine quite pointedly said “Jesus” when our mutual friend driving the car slammed the brakes at an intersection. I turned and said, “How can you say that?” His answer, “It was like a prayer.” Really? Maybe Grandma’s washing our mouth out with soap wasn’t such a bad idea.

I've challenged a couple of others along the way, and they say they "didn't mean it that way”; it’s just cultural. But sorry, I can't buy this. They use the words just like everyone else.

I’ve done a lot of media interviews. What I get in public settings never surprises me. But what I sometimes get in Christian radio and television settings still surprises me. I was talking to a Christian radio interviewer when he used God’s name in vain live on air.

Meanwhile, the Apostle Paul told us to avoid “obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place” and said, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths” (Ephesians 5:4; 4:29). Certainly, the Scripture says we should never use God’s name in vain, swearing or otherwise (Exodus 20:7; Matthew 5:34-37).

Social research and the experience of adults working with children indicate children are swearing more today than children swore in days gone by. “Cussing” is now an everyday, nearly every conversation experience, common to adolescents in all demographic subgroups.

And the intensity of children’s cussing also seems to be ramping up. “Hells” and “damns” are mundane. Elementary school children now casually and regularly use words far beyond entry-level profanity, words once voiced only by men—invective, graphic sexual imagery, scatological verbiage, expletives.

I understand why immature kids on social media input terms like OMG, meaning “Oh my God,” but I don’t understand when I see this abbreviation used in adult Christian blogs, texts, tweets, or social media. Does an abbreviation make the reference more palatable? That logic is lost on me.

Periodically, when I was a university president, I attended conferences for presidents and other upper-level academic administrators, usually held in nice hotels in other states. What never ceased to amaze me, and I witnessed it many, many times, is that the persons who used the most profanity were, sorry to say this, Catholic college and university presidents, mostly nuns but a few priests too. They even regularly used God’s name, not as prayers but as coarse, colorful emphasis that, I guess, supposedly made their comment more forceful. But how do you work for years to become a nun, then use God’s name as a curse word? I don’t get it.

A few years ago, I joined an all-male foursome playing the famed Pebble Beach golf course in California. Thinking it would please us and result in larger tips, halfway down the first fairway one of our caddies began telling really raw sex jokes. He continued onto the second green until one of our foursome pointed to me and said, “He’s a preacher.” Well, though I enjoy speaking periodically I’m not a preacher in the sense implied. But in the minds of the caddies, I apparently became the resident holy man. Because for the remaining sixteen holes I was called “Preacher,” and the caddies never told another off-color joke.

On a personal level I took language seriously years ago. It first hit me as a senior in college standing in front of an 8th grade class as a student teacher. I didn’t use harsh four-letter words or cursing, but I caught myself saying "Heck" and that was it. No more. That very day, I began to weed what some have called surrogate swear words out of my vocabulary because I wanted to model something else to students. This doesn’t make me holier-than-thou, but I’m glad I did it. There are too many good words in the English language to stoop to dumbed down pop culture.

Since then, I’ve heard Christians use other substitute coarse language, saying "Frickin" or "Freaking” or “Friggin.” They use these words in similar contexts as the real thing, even while cinema employs them as placeholders for the thus-far, X-rated term. Who are we fooling?

We all learned in 5th grade science class that water seeks its own level. Later in life we learned that people seek their own level too. With language, it can mean we pursue the lowest common denominator of communication until we sink into a verbal swamp, often just to fit into a peer group.

Cultural observation suggests that swearing in American culture has generally increased over the past several decades.

Movies and TV shows have gradually pushed the boundaries on profanity, a clear uptick in swearing.
Music, particularly in genres like hip-hop, punk, and rock, often includes explicit language—and while that's not new, it’s more mainstream now.
Streaming services (e.g., Netflix, HBO) have fewer content restrictions than network TV, allowing more profanity without censorship. “Netflix even has a series called The History of Swearing that premiered in 2021.”
The internet and social media have normalized more casual, explicit, and unfiltered language.
Society is more tolerant of informal or taboo language, especially in non-professional settings.

To be clear, using profanity is not what sends a person to hell and keeps them out of heaven. Only rejection of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ will do that.

But I suggest to you that in a culture given to coarseness, “not swearing” or “not using crude language” is one of the most powerful testimonies of faith available to us.

Our speech literally fills the air around us. If we speak differently, people will quickly recognize it.

Stating the obvious, language communicates. It speaks volumes about who we are and what we believe.

If you want to speak French, learn the real thing.

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. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 13 October 2024

When you’ve marveled at the Ancient Egyptians, the Pyramids, the incredible architecture, still here thousands of years later—have you thought, if their civilization can disappear, what will become of my civilization?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #174 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.

Civilizations come and go. It’s a historically demonstrable fact.

“Possible causes of a societal collapse include natural catastrophe, war, pestilence, famine, economic collapse, population decline or overshoot, mass migration, incompetent leaders, and sabotage by rival civilizations. A collapsed society may revert to a more primitive state, be absorbed into a stronger society, or completely disappear. Virtually all civilizations have suffered such a fate, regardless of their size or complexity. Most never recovered, such as the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the Maya civilization, and the Easter Island civilization. However, some of them later revived and transformed, such as China, Greece, and Egypt.”

It’s interesting that none of this list of dire reasons civilizations can collapse mentions religion or worldview or values, but this is the problem we now face.

“For many years now, prominent voices have claimed that Western civilization is foundering.” By Western Civilization, they mean Western Europe and North America where “commonly held beliefs such as individualism, democracy, and rationalism,” were embraced as the foundation stones of culture. While Western Civilization borrows from Ancient Greece and Rome, it also drew on the Renaissance, (14^th-17^th Century), and Enlightenment (17^th-19^th Century), which opened the doors to critical thinking. Much of its growth and vibrancy must also be attributed to the Reformation (16^th-17^th Century) and Christianity, which liberated the natural world from control of the church and empowered human reason, science, enterprise, and what became known as the Protestant Work Ethic.

For all it historical and current problems, Western Civilization built the most bountiful, free, economically successful, and future-oriented cultures in history. With all that going for it, why would it be declining?

Short answer, religion. Long answer, a gradual rejection of the Christian worldview that has undergirded Western culture, including belief in God to whom we are accountable, and belief in absolute truth and then also a parallel embrace of moral relativism, rejection of the biblical teaching that mankind is created in the image of God yet a sinner in need of grace, and a consequent loss of aspiration or belief in progress.

In his masterful, How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, the late Francis A. Schaeffer said, “The flow of history is determined by the world-view people hold.”

Schaeffer noted that “in the south, the Reformation was giving an opposite answer in the north: man could not begin with himself, he must start with the Bible. There, man could find ‘true things about God’ and ‘many true things about nature.’ It is Schaeffer’s thesis that this base led to a broad Christian consensus which produced the finest fruits of western civilization: the art of Rembrandt and Bach, the political freedoms consequent to the English and American Revolutions, and the rise of modern science.”

“The breakdown of this Christian consensus has brought western culture to its present crisis.”

Beginning in the late 20^th Century, “all the signs, (Schaeffer) warns, are pointing in the direction of totalitarian rule, either by one man or an elite of savants.”

What in the 20^th Century scholars thought to be an inexorable march toward secularization in modernity became a period of worldwide resurgence of ideological religion, particularly Islam, mixed with postmodernity’s religious apathy in the West. This new mix has yielded polarization, hate, extremism, nihilism.

This nihilism, this belief that life is meaningless has produced cynicism, pessimism, distrust, alienation, social disintegration, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and most recently, violence.

It has also produced what might be called a “culture of death.”

We see this in the celebration of abortion—killing one’s children and thus one’s future—as “reproductive health,” when ironically it is neither reproductive nor healthy.

We see this culture of death in sexual libertinism qua deviancy, the pursuit of personal significance in perverted sexuality, which yields disaffection, disease, destruction, and in more cases than may be realized, death.

We see a culture of death in the sexualization of children. Why by all that’s common sense, do Kindergarten children need to be given sex toys, read to by drag queens, encouraged to question their sex, and pushed toward made-up hybrid genders?

Why by all that’s common sense can’t our culture provide a definition of woman?

We see this culture of death in population decline. Some have observed, “population collapse is the biggest threat to civilization.” “The U.S.’ fertility rate for 2022 sits well below the level needed for the current generation to replace itself. Birth rates have consistently fallen beneath that threshold, termed the replacement rate, since 2007, the CDC said, and have generally been below it since 1971…2.1. That’s the replacement rate, meaning each woman would, on average, need to have 2.1 children for a generation to exactly replace itself. In 2022, the U.S.’ fertility rate (the average number of children a woman would have during her lifetime) was around 1.7 children per woman.”

“Europe is the continent with the oldest population. This is creating problems for healthcare and pensions.”

Not having children is not simply a biological phenomenon. People are choosing not to have children. In other words, they are making value choices.

Why?

they consider children a cost, not a benefit,
they have decided to focus on their own lives without the perceived “burden” of children,
and many decide not to have children because of their fear of climate change.

We also see civilizational decline in massive global debt, rejection of democracy and capitalism, and promotion of unsubstantiated climate alarmism by globalist, socialist, totalitarians like those at the annual World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. This includes Americans like Bill Gates, John Kerry, Al Gore, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, and many more.

These same people promote de-population of the earth in the name of climate alarmism. I am serious. Climate alarmists or global elitists like gorilla-lady Jane Goodall say the earth can best support maybe 1 billion people. According to them, this is the goal we should attain.

But wait, aren’t there 8 billion people in the world today? Yes? Then they are suggesting about 7 billion people need to be eradicated? Yes. Why? Well, to save the earth. For whom? People. So, we save the earth for people by killing off people?

And who and how are we going to accomplish this? Which of the climate change radicals will volunteer to be the first to get eliminated?

It’s an irrational culture of death, exactly what one would predict, Satan, the father of lies, to develop. People are willingly deluded. They celebrate lies – just like people in the streets and on university campuses who chant support for Hamas.

Even LGBTQ people do this? Really, do they not realize that Islam rejects homosexuality and related sexual perversion? Do they not realize that if they identified as queer in an Islamic society they would be killed? Are these people willingly deluded? Yes. They celebrate a culture of death.

We see civilizational decline in the irrational, hysterical promotion of “race absolutism,” identity politics, and mass immigration. Seeing the world through racial or gender or class lens is Marxism, and there is plenty of this on the Left today. They promote victimhood, chaos, and division because these conditions seem to beg for more government, which the Left worships.

Western Civilization still stands, but there are serious cracks in its foundation, particularly with respect to dismissing the Judeo-Christian moral consensus upon which it was founded and flourished.

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. Or check You Tube @DrRexRogers for more video and prodcasts.

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 rexmrogers.com or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at linkedin.com/rexmrogers or x.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 March 2024

Have you noticed that as soon as one traditional moral boundary falls, then another moral standard is touted as a dreadful oppression upon humanity that must be banished in the name of free expression?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #138 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 entitled this podcast “Satan’s Next Frontier,” meaning that the Devil is continually working his plan to counter God and Creation, Christ and the Gospel, and a biblically Christian worldview in general. So, what might be his next frontier?

Not so long ago when same-sex marriage was not yet legal in the United States, that is nationally pre-2015 when the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell v Hodges, “ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution,” there were people who observed – and I was one of them – that as soon as same-sex marriage was legalized, transgenderism would be next.

The idea that trans people should be extended not only basic civil liberties as U.S. citizens but now, special civil rights, literally took off after the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, all in the name of freedom, tolerance, and inclusion.

Gender identity, sex on birth certificates and medical documents or passports, gender as determined by children’s social inclinations, not biology or parents or doctors, transgender access to bathrooms and locker rooms and women’s sports, pronoun madness, gender identity in hiring as in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because of sexuality or gender identity, gender non-binary military policy, a wholesale revolution qua propagandistic indoctrination in public school sex education and, actually, across all academic disciplines, sex change or what are now called gender-affirming hormone and surgical procedures, hijacking and changing the meaning of words, attacks on womanhood or femineity, arguing children are a threat to female self-actualization, attacks on manhood or masculinity, arguing men can menstruate, get pregnant, breastfeed.

Do I need to go on?

Transgender activism has worked a moral and social coup upon American culture.

More than other forms of sexual orientation symbolized by LGBQ, transgenderism is more divisive and more socially destructive, undermining the most basic of society’s mores, practices, and laws.

And trans activists know their argument can only succeed via the wholesale rejection of Christian teaching that men and women are made in the image of God and are intrinsically different from one another with unique purposes in Creation, the family, and the Will of God.

Yet for all its irrationality, transgenderism is winning. So, if transgenderism, from Bruce “Call me Caitlyn” Jenner to the latest celebrity to come out as nonbinary, if then trans is largely accepted, what’s next? What is Satan’s next moral frontier?

I suggest there are three possibilities, not necessarily in this order:

Euthanasia
Polyamory
Pedophilia

I. Euthanasia

“Euthanasia refers to deliberately ending someone’s life, usually to relieve suffering. Doctors sometimes perform euthanasia when it’s requested by people who have a terminal illness and are in a lot of pain.”

“In the United States, Physicians Assisted Suicide is legal in: Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Montana, Vermont, Washington, D.C., Hawaii.”

Different from euthanasia is “assisted suicide – alternately referred to as medical aid in dying (MAID) – means a procedure in which people take medications to end their own lives with the help of others, usually medical professionals.”

Euthanasia in its voluntary form, MAID, is widely practiced in Canada.

Euthanasia in one of its permutations is perhaps the most likely next frontier to be embraced, and soon, in the U.S. where it already has adherents, and some states have legalized forms of the practice. As “quality of life” continues to be redefined in terms of personal self-expression, and as people live longer into declining years, euthanasia will become more accepted.

II. Polyamory

“Consensual polyamory – having more than one sexual or emotional relationship at once – has become increasingly common in many countries in recent years. According to statistics published in 2021, 4 to 5 percent of the American population practices polyamory.”

“Today, there are a number of television shows and video games that have included the lifestyle in their plots, while mainstream dating sites and apps, including OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge, now allow users to specify this type of relationship in their profiles.”

“Fifty-one per cent of adults younger than thirty told Pew Research, in 2023, that open marriage was “acceptable,” and twenty per cent of all Americans report experimenting with some form of non-monogamy.”

Polyamory involves so-called consenting adults and is already widely practiced in various ways, if not as outright adultery, then as agreed upon open marriage arrangements or simply accepted, sexual promiscuity in a culture much laxer about sexual mores than it was in the 1950s.

The likelihood polyamory will become more common is very high, as is the legalization of this form of marriage or family or social unit in local, state, and federal laws. Morality as defined in the Scripture, sexuality expressed in monogamous lifelong marriage will be dismissed as archaic and limiting.

III. Pedophilia

Pedophilia is also being presented in a positive light. Really, sex with minors, with children? Yes, sad to say it is so.

“Nov. 8, 2022, Old Dominion University sociology and criminology professor Allyn Walker gave an interview in which he asserted the need to destigmatize pedophiles by redefining them as ‘minor-attracted persons, (MAPs).’”

“The Walker incident is not a standalone event. In fact, his advocacy for pedophiles highlights the crisis that critical theory poses for higher education, as it attempts to dismantle every social taboo and normalize every form of immoral conduct.”

“Walker advocates for the inclusion of MAPs as part of the larger LGBT community by approaching attraction to minors as an orientation and stating that ‘the fact of children’s inability to consent to sex is irrelevant to the application of the term ‘sexual orientation’ towards attractions to minors.’”

“Academia’s ideological consensus has already shifted toward acceptance of pedophilia. K-12 schools already allow for depictions of child sexuality under the guise of equity, despite a considerable resistance by parents.”

“The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors and campaigns for the release of men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve what it considers coercion.”

A Kentucky State Senator recently suggested child sex dolls should be given to pedophile prisoners as a means to help them and reduce child abuse.

Meanwhile, the Left, as usual promoting and protecting the worst forms of human attitudes and behaviors, is now accusing anyone who raises concerns about pedophilia to be nothing more than a “new Red scare,” a new conspiracy among conservatives.

Pedophilia is yet, we hope, a less likely moral change on the horizon than euthanasia or polyamory, but pedophilia is already practiced in rampant kiddie pornography, child sex trafficking and abuse in the U.S., also now in avant-garde sexual liberation circles, and it is being promoted as somehow not psychologically damaging to children and in some weird way, good for them.

If abortion can be embraced as a human right, and if sexual identity is now considered the highest level of human expression, then is it too much to believe that normalization of pedophilia is far behind?

The problem with each of these trends is that none of them – euthanasia, polyamory, pedophilia – align with the values of biblical Christianity – which one could suggest is exactly why they may be Satan’s next frontier of moral change. God forbid.

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 or https://twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 19 February 2024

Ever wonder why, in the face of evil, pain, and suffering that God does not return now? Why does he seemingly delay the Rapture and Resurrection, and hence his later Second Coming?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #133 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 recently wrote a blog for the ministry with which I serve, SAT-7 USA, called “Living in the Worst of Times.” The title is borrowed from Charles Dickens’s introduction to his 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, in which he famously wrote:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”

Dickens tells us about a time of chaos, conflicts, and despair, as well as some happiness and progress, but mostly contrast and futility, two steps forward, three steps back.

If you were to think about our current time you could draw your own conclusion. Is this the best of times, or is it the worst of times?

I confess that several social developments have occurred in the past few years that I never expected, and not only that, which surprised, maybe shocked, even discouraged me.

It does not take rocket-science intellect to note things like US government overreach in response to the pandemic, i.e., the willingness of political leaders and bureaucrats to take unconstitutional actions, and the willingness of much of the public to accept it.

In 2020, following the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, a summer of lawlessness broke out in cities across the country. Then came the nonsensical “defund the police” movement.

Maybe this was predictable, but what discouraged me was the “soft on crime” approach of governors, mayors, and district attorneys, because supposedly the looters deserved to steal and destroy because they were poor or minorities or because discrimination exists.

This refusal to enforce the law continues in California, Portland, Chicago, New York, and many other cities, even as police are at times told to stand down.

More recently we’ve witnessed the President of the US intentionally refuse to enforce the law and therefore has allowed millions of illegal migrants to flow across the southern border, unvetted and unknown. Yes, some are indeed actual asylum-seeking families. But many others are not refugees, but like in Europe, fake refugees, mostly younger men of military age seeking handouts – which again amazingly, so-called sanctuary cities are providing, supported by American taxpayers: cell phones, cash, food vouchers, free rooms, free healthcare.

More mind bending is the President recently saying he’s done everything he can do to stem the tide, forgive me, an outright lie that any attorney can demonstrate. It’s willful dereliction of duty and degradation of American society in the interest of perceived political power.

Last example, and this one really did shock me: Even though I spent my early years in higher education, and even though I have followed the philosophic and moral freefall in public universities and the neo-Marxist ideology promoted in those universities, I still was caught off-guard by the widespread antisemitism, pro-Hamas rallies, and blatant hatred of Jews expressed by American university students in the streets and on campuses – and they had the audacity to yell their antisemitic attitudes not just at a people group half a world away but at fellow students, professors, and others who are Americans, but also Jewish. It’s still happening.

One additional amazing thing is how many of these students or others in the street have no idea what they are protesting or why. Some do, of course, but many are clueless, simply following the maddening crowd.

This made me think of two Scripture passages that detail city riots protesting the Apostle Paul’s ministry:

In Acts 19, “the assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there” Acts 19:32.

Then again in Acts 21, “Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks” Acts 21:34.

Nearly 3,000 years ago, King Solomon summarized this human issue in a principle, saying, “What has been, will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” Ecc. 1:9.

This kind of mass hysteria has been evident in cities across the globe. Some say they are protesting for human rights, some because the US or Israel are supposedly “colonialist” or “settler” states – and these people, in particular, don’t know their history.

It’s not unlike the “person in the street” interviews you’ve seen wherein young adults cannot name the country the US fought to win its independence, or whether the North or South won the Civil War, or who is the current Vice President, or even that Hamas radicals butchered innocent Israelis of all ages, and perpetrated even worse, graphic and gross crimes against humanity that I’ll spare you from listing here.

Despite the fact that some Hamas terrorists wore GoPro cameras filming their atrocities, video now released to the public, some protesters deny 10/7 ever happened.

These protesters try to stop traffic on major highways, attempt to shut down LAX, or block vehicle tunnels, risking their lives perhaps in some instances, and certainly not engaging in legal peaceful assembly, yet many don’t know why they are there.

Is this mass hysteria as I mentioned? Maybe. Is this the product of indoctrination, i.e., certainly not critical thinking and not liberal learning, but more like the misled Muslim men we see chanting in the streets not only in Tehran but now in Berlin or London or Paris?

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, he witnessed something like this. In Matthew 9, it says, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” Matt. 9:35-36.

Americans, or if you wish Westerners in general, despite the vast religious, educational, and political blessings of Western civilization, are today harassed and helpless. We’ve created our own “worst of times.”

Our culture is looking for answers everywhere except in the old, over-sized Bible that nearly every American family maintained during the 1800s and much of the 1900s.

Our culture has been on a 60-year bender rejecting or redefining the religious and philosophic roots that made it possible for Western civilization and specifically the United States to flourish in the first place.

“In God We Trust”? No. God is dead, or at least inconsequential until it’s time to hope “the man upstairs” decides we’ve done enough good things to get into heaven.

Sin is medicalized, redefined as disease, or maybe described in media as “He struggled with his demons,” but either way, set aside is any need to own our moral choices, to take responsibility, and then to seek help outside ourselves in the person of God himself. No, we are told to “trust your heart” and “seek your own truth.”

We’re told to blame the environment, our upbringing, our race or ethnicity or our biological sex – these are the source of our problems, not us and not our heart. The solution is psychology and therapist, not theology and pastor, much less the love and accountability of a nuclear family.

In our contempt for truth, we embrace mendacity, not moral right and wrong.

Crime has decreased only because we now define certain formerly illegal acts as acceptable. Police are turned into social workers. As my friend says, “We’re told to follow the science, political science that is.”

It is not a stretch, not an exaggeration, to describe our culture as “harassed and helpless,” and it will remain hopeless if we continue to jettison Judeo-Christian values, the Church, and most importantly the Gospel of Christ.

So, with all that, why doesn’t Jesus return now?

2 Peter gives us the answer:

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:8-9.

God created freedom of religion, freedom of choice. God waits, allowing more helpless and harassed to hear the Word of Truth and come to Christ.

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 or https://twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Page 1 of 13

Why American Culture Seems So Rude, Crude, Lewd, Mean

To Tattoo or Pierce, or Not to Tattoo or Pierce?

Profanity Dumbing Down American Culture

The Decline of Western Civilization

Satan's Next Frontier

Harassed and Helpless But Not Hopeless