Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
With Dr Rex Rogers

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Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 04 August 2020

If you think woke culture or “Wokeism,” with its attendant cancel culture, isn’t going to bother Christians, the Church, Christianity, or Christ himself, you should think again.

“Woke” people often consider themselves or at least those they purport to represent, victims. Consequently, they seem to be offended by nearly everything. That’s bad enough, but the real problem begins with their penchant for wanting to silence or cancel everything and everyone with which or with whom they disagree, turning them into bullies.

In an incredibly short time, woke religiosity has garnered a wave of White guilt being confessed in religious forms: kneeling, washing feet, chanted mantras, weeping, lengthy impassioned confessions, white fragility, cash reparations, groveling, White people in general acting more offended than the victim, apologizing for mostly phantom offenses, new vocabulary like “I must do better,” “white privilege,” “systemic racism,” “white supremacy,” “allyship,” ritual chastisement, invented “cultural appropriation.”

Bullies are never satisfied, never placated. No amount of agreement, apology, acquiescence, or appeasement is enough. Bullies always demand more.

First it was Confederate statues, then any statue would do.

Now it’s burning Bibles and the American flag, attacking churches, Christianity, even Christ. Black Lives Matter activists vandalized churches. Bibles will not be the last of this.

Now we have a book claiming Christianity is at bottom about racism and was shaped by White supremacy.

This is barely scratching the surface, and it’s just beginning. There will be much more to come. But people throwing rocks at Christianity is nothing new.

Jesus said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also” (John 15:18-20).

Remember The Beatles’ John Lennon in 1966? He said, “We’re more popular than Jesus.” The remark spawned considerable reaction in the United States, but little ultimately came of it. Enormously talented, arrogant, and confused young men are part and parcel to rock and roll then and since. It’s a “chasing after the wind.”

What’s new in 2020, though, is not just a few “out-there” irreligious individuals attacking Christianity or the Church, it’s the degree to which this is becoming a new normal in American culture, often accepted if not promulgated by Big Media and/or Big Social Media and other cultural elites. Anti-Christian bias is growing.

And some within the Church are buying-in to woke culture. “‘Woke’ Christian leaders and pastors today are jumping on the ‘hype train’ of what culture is currently applauding. But they don't really look at what the hype train is connected to. For example, many of the things culture applauds are connected to relativism, abortion, transgenderism, the breakup of the nuclear family.” Woke-within the Church is more dangerous than Woke-without.

Woke culture stems from a non-Christian worldview. It’s a matter of pre-theoretical assumptions and values. So woke people have internalized their views. This isn’t just a political movement; it’s a cultural revolution.

Biblically Christian values regarding sexual morality and gender definition make Christians and the Church by definition enemies of Wokeism. Christian perspectives on race, work, property, and economics, liberty, family, law and order, education and culture, in part or in whole are at odds with woke philosophy. This means woke people will attempt to “cancel” aspects of the Church, Christian nonprofit organizations, and Christian colleges and universities. It’s going to happen. It is happening.

During March to August and continuing, First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion were already being trampled by overreaching state officials in the name of public health. Now these unalienable rights are beginning to be sacrificed to the new religion of woke orthodoxy that brooks no disagreement, operates without grace, offers no forgiveness, and provides no redemption, just condemnation and destruction of reputations, careers, lives.

How shall we then live? Christians and the Church need to be ready to give an answer of their hope (1 Peter 3:15), which means:

Be informed about the issues,
Be able to apply your Christian worldview to these issues,
Be humble in speaking the truth in love, with gentleness and respect,
Be forgiving as Christ forgave us,
Be aware that suffering, harassment, possibly persecution could come your way for what you believe,
Be confident and strong in the Lord, for He is Sovereign.

*This 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: 03 August 2020

While the Year 2020 has been and continues to be an annus horrilibus, a “horrible year,” Christians should be ready to give an answer of their hope.

We are living in chaotic times. Layered crises, one on the other,

the pandemic,
government-initiated economic lockdowns,
social unrest.

America’s ideals: life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the historic Judeo-Christian values that formed the basis of American morality, law, education, and economic opportunity – all are under attack.

It brings to mind for me the first time, as a university sophomore, I spoke in a church.

My text was 1 Peter 3:15:

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

We live in times when people need to hear the reason for our hope.

So you and I need to be prepared to give an answer – with gentleness and respect.

This means we must understand the issues, the questions, and we must confidently apply our Christian worldview in answering.

God is not disconcerted by breaking news. Neither should we be.

We have reason for hope.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 31 July 2020

1-If you question the science of climate change, you’re a “climate change denier,” a new category of unbeliever considered ignorant, even dangerous.

2-If you wonder about biased coronavirus data and the now extensive number of medical scientists who reject mask mandates, economic lockdowns, school shuttering, i.e. America Full Stop, you don’t care about people dying, you’re selfish, you’re the enemy.

3-If you point out that rioters, looters, arsonists, anarchists (who are mostly white) are using race to advance their goals to destroy (including minority-owned) property, capitalism, and the American system that provides more freedom than any country in the history of the world, you don’t care about George Floyd and you support “stormtroopers” and Gestapo tactics.

4-If you support the Second Amendment or question the wisdom of gun control, you’re a militia freako.

5-If you say athletes should be able to stand for the National Anthem, i.e. his/her freedom of speech (a while ago we debated one guy kneeling; now we’re debating one standing), you’re insensitive and white privileged like Drew Brees and just don’t get it.

6-If you want to review factual police shooting data, look at real numbers rather than a narrative, or examine Black on Black killings in Chicago, you don’t care about police brutality.

7-If you point to the whole of human history as to why you think “Defund the Police” is the most irrational idea ever to gain traction, you are anti-Black.

8-If you express a Judeo-Christian moral perspective, thus rejecting the idea boys-who-identify-as-female being allowed to participate in girls’ high school sports competition (see Connecticut), you are a hater and a bigot.

9-If you question the legitimacy of public funds being used to paint “Black Lives Matter” on public streets, or really any political message, you are a victim of white fragility and a racist by definition because “everyone is racist.”

10-If you just aren’t the politically emotive type, don’t like social-political discussions, and want to live your life focused on your interests, your “Silence is violence,” which is to say you don’t care about racial injustice.

There is now no unbiased science, no free inquiry, no way for the best ideas to rise to the top based on their merits. Everything is now “trumped,” no pun intended, by politics.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 30 July 2020

What do you believe?

Deep down, what really do you believe?

And what are you willing to stand by, come what may?

Turbulent times, serious adversity, put us in figurative if not actual foxholes where fake doesn’t cut it.

Trying times are coming.

But Christians in the Middle East have lived this for centuries. We can learn from them.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 28 July 2020

American professional sports are morphing into just another segment from cable news.

If you’re like most people I know, you watch sports for the love of the game, the excitement of competition, the entertainment, and the escape from everyday pressures. Given the increasing politicization of American professional sports, that last one about escaping everyday news is not going to happen, at least not in 2020.

Consider these recent developments so far:

“The NFL pledged to spend $250 million over the next decade to combat systemic racism and fight injustices against African-Americans.”
“NFL is planning to play"Lift Every Voice and Sing," also known as the Black national anthem, before is expected to be performed live or played before every Week 1 NFL game,
NFL is considering social justice patches on uniforms, helmets.
NFL will stencil “End Racism” in end zones as part of its social justice effort for 2020 home openers.
“WNBA revealed the "Black Lives Matter" decals it placed on its court prior to the start of the 2020 season.”
Sports leagues will place “Black Lives Matter” messaging on attire.
MLB will donate over $1M to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and several other social justice charities.
Many MLB players, but not all, will kneel during the National Anthem.
WNBA warm-up jerseys will feature social justice messages.
NBA will paint “Black Lives Matter” murals on the courts at Walt Disney World in Orlando, and players will be permitted to wear personal messages on their jerseys.
The Premier Lacrosse League will permit players to wear message patches on shooting shirts or leg sleeves or arm bands.
New Jersey Devils install “Black Lives Matter” on their ice as part of their commitment to racial equality.
The Washington Redskins changing their name to an interim Washington Football Team.

Drew Brees, long-time star quarterback for the New Orleans Saints and reputed all around nice guy, said in an interview that he “will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country,” then after enormous criticism from other players, Black and White, he apologized profusely for his “insensitive” remarks, as did his wife, repeatedly.

My point here is not that Brees said what he did, which a majority of Americans agree with, or that some people didn’t like it. My point is that he got ostracized for expressing the “wrong view,” i.e. he made what at one time was considered a patriotic statement and then was blasted for not aligning with the social justice views of multiple other players. Beyond that, he was not accorded his own freedom of speech and he chose to retract his statements, likely so he can play another year in the league.

Who now, in the NFL or any league, assuming they disagree with the direction the leagues are going, is going to speak up?

Perhaps it is U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, part owner of the Atlanta Dream WNBA team, who penned a letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert decrying the league's association with the "BLM" movement and suggested wearing American flag jerseys instead. Loeffler later appeared on Fox News to say "Black Lives Matter " is "based on Marxist principles" that could "destroy" the country.

She told ESPN. "I think we all agree the life of every African American is important. There's no room for racism in this country, and we have to root it out where it exists. But there's a political organization called Black Lives Matter that I think is very important to make the distinction between their aim and where we are as a country at this moment. The Black Lives Matter political organization advocates things like defunding and abolishing the police, abolishing our military, emptying our prisons, destroying the nuclear family. It promotes violence and antisemitism. To me, this is not what our league stands for."

Some people question whether Loeffler, who has seemingly evidenced support for progressive causes in the past, may be using this recent sports controversy to prop up her senatorial campaign.

Since this time, several players and others associated with the league or the team have tried to get Loeffler ousted from ownership. Why? For expressing “the wrong views.”

In October 2019, Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey tweeted on his personal account, "Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong. The NBA wants the China market, so when the Chinese government reacted negatively to the tweet a firestorm broke out resulting in Morey apologizing, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver offering a weak recognition of Morey’s free speech rights while all the while condemning the incident, Houston Rocket’s star James Harden apologizing to China, and NBA king LeBron James coming off looking like he endorsed China more than American values.

Why was this incident such an issue? It was the first national level story featuring personal social media privileges/rights vs corporate interests and accountability, and it involved freedom of speech, international politics, and money. Free speech lost the game. Follow the money.

“In the end, it will be money that dictates the future of political expression in professional sports.”

These are but a few illustrations. The rush-to-political-correctness boulder is rolling down the mountain faster than anyone could have imagined. Major corporations, not least the sports leagues and teams, are turning into pretzels trying to assuage the woke-culture-bully.

They say this is about racial justice and police brutality, and undoubtedly for some athletes and executives it is just that. They hold sincere concerns, they work in a league comprised of majority Black athletes, they care, and I give them kudos for this.

I also salute and defend any athletes’ right to his or her freedom of speech, to say whatever and to use their sports fame to advance ideas they believe in. Back when, I wrote in support of Colin Kaepernick’s right to his views, even though I thought is method of conveying them by kneeling during the National Anthem was a mistake, and I did not like the imagery. I recognized that for him, this was not about the military or veterans or even the flag per se, yet for millions of others it was and still is, and he and subsequent players know this. Now he is being touted as a hero, yet Drew Brees, a far and away more talented and more important player in the league, is being tossed aside.

What I don’t think is wise, even if legal and within the leagues’ or teams’ rights to freedom of speech, is:

a wholesale embrace of the organization Black Lives Matter, which is about many things other than Black lives, nearly all of them dangerous to the social fabric, including promoting abortion, “queer affirming” lifestyles, destruction of the family structure, dismantling of the current political system, even attacking Christianity.

The danger for the leagues is viewers who disagree with this ideology may choose to skip television coverage, much less paying exorbitant ticket prices, to see professional sports.

the sudden not-thoroughly-considered groveling to the new woke doctrine that brooks no disagreement, then pushing it on their viewers. There is racism, and there are incidents of police brutality, but the level of purge this movement has attracted is not warranted by reality. Check the evidence.

Plus, the primary leadership of the movement can in no way be compared to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. That movement sought to achieve liberty and justice for all including Black people. Many within the Black Lives Matter movement today are working to destroy the system, the country, the values that make America and made America a land of opportunity, including for all races and ethnicities.

The danger for the leagues is that viewers will vote with their feet and walk away from the political propaganda.

I hope the politicization of professional sports tops out, but I am not optimistic. Right now, every professional sports league is trying to outdo the other one in its we-are-more-woke-than-thou. So they aren’t selling competition. They’re selling their version of social justice. I can watch that on cable news.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 26 July 2020

“Supreme Court denies Nevada church's appeal of attendance restriction amid coronavirus pandemic”

You can add Nevada alongside California, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, to name a few, as another state discriminating against churches, which is to say religion, in the name of public health. And in this latest instance the Supreme Court of the United States backed Nevada’s constitutionally overreaching state officials.

I’ve been pointing to state government overreach in the name of public health vis-a-vis a percentage of the population at risk short term, i.e., people who contract the coronavirus and need to take precautions.

And I’ve noted a rapidly growing threat to the First Amendment – not just religion but also the suppression of freedom of speech.

This brief “Wall Street Journal” piece, including an excellent short video herein, addresses the onslaught on freedom of speech we’re now seeing nearly every day, often not just from “protesters” but from the lips of foolish opportunistic politicians.

While the virus is serious and deserves reasonable response—I am not contending otherwise. I just don’t think medical and health evidence indicates the coronavirus pandemic, though clearly a virulent illness, is ultimately any more threatening than the flu or pneumonia. Certainly, it does not justify lockdowns, shuttering businesses and torpedoing economies, creating rampant unemployment and collateral suffering, all while forcing healthy people to quarantine themselves or otherwise live in hysteria.

That said, the demonstrably evident and increasing willingness of state and local political leaders to take actions, i.e. “executive orders,” undermining the first freedoms, including religion, speech, assembly, is a much greater plague that affects not just a portion of the population but 100% of the population now and future.

This is not a peripheral issue. It is not alarmist. The First Amendment has never been more threatened than it now is. If we lose what the First Amendment protects tyranny wins.

The First Amendment, the foundational and distinctive American ideal for all citizens has never been at greater risk.