Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 18 December 2023

Are we living today what philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre observed, “If there is no God, then everything is permitted”?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #123 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.

Sociologists of religion, and other scholars of civilization, used to talk about a “Judeo-Christian consensus.” The phrase referred to a shared, broadly agreed-upon set of values about morality and civic virtue, based upon the theological understandings of Judaism and Christianity.

The scholars believed this Judeo-Christian consensus helped form the foundation upon which Western Civilization, then the United States of America, were built. This foundation made E Pluribus Unum possible.

Many earlier and conservative scholars said America’s founding was unique, giving rise to a perspective called “American exceptionalism,” a concept addressed in the 1830s by French social critic Alexis de Tocqueville in his seminal work, Democracy in America. While no doubt some individuals took this view to an extreme of arrogance, triumphalism, or manifest destiny, most citizens simply viewed it as a recognition that America’s founding was different, coalescing around values and a political system creating opportunities for life, liberty, enterprise, and well-being like no other country in history.

The late political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset argued, “this ideology, which Lipset called Americanism…is based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics.

The idea of an exceptional society has a long history traced to the ideas espoused by the Founding Fathers of the United States during the American Revolution. This uniqueness or exceptionalism did not just happen. “America’s uniqueness is based in the Christian consensus of the Founding Fathers, who penned documents guaranteeing religious and personal freedom for all. This nation was not founded by atheists, secularizers, or monarchists who thought the elite educated class should rule over the common people.

America’s founding was based more on biblical principles than any other nation’s on Earth—and that’s the main reason this country has been more blessed by God than any other nation in history. No other nation has enjoyed freedom of religion, freedom of electoral choice, and freedom of vocational pursuits for a longer period of time than the United States.”

But things are changing, and indeed have been changing for some time.

Since at least the 1960s, what’s been happening, first gradually, now rapidly, is an intentional rejection of Judeo-Christian values of morality and society, followed by a replacement of these traditional values, first by secularism, then by radical so-called “progressive,” Marxist values based on irreligion if not atheism, along with an idolatry of race, sex, class, diversity, equity, and inclusion, victimhood, and statism.

This means that the culture and society in which many of us as older adults grew up, is no more. What we are experiencing now, the culture in which we live, is fundamentally different from the culture in which we came of age.

Judeo-Christian values once were enshrined in our cultural mores, defining criminal justice, meritocracy, education, commercial enterprise, and freedom.

The late Francis A. Schaeffer called them, “borrowed Christian values.” These values were the glue that helped hold Western culture together.

Christian values helped define American vision, purpose, and meaning. Christian ideas about the future, about progress, and about social change helped Americans craft a forward-thinking, optimistic, can-do, confidence that encouraged innovation, risk-taking, investment, and work ethic. This is why America became one of the most productive engines of abundance the world has ever seen.

As these values have been lost—or I should say, tossed aside, openness to false ideas and values increased, because, like nature, the heart abhors a vacuum. Human hearts cannot exist without something to worship and give purpose.

In this vacuum, this moral collapse resulting from the dechristianization of postmodern society, individuals increasingly embraced a godless, Marxist ideology that appeals to the sinful nature.

As Judeo-Christian values were rejected, so was the idea of objective truth, the understanding that regardless of what any given person concludes, there is real truth, real facts, in a real world. Now, we hear about the oxymoron “alternative facts,” or “your truth and my truth,” which is to say no standard of truth at all.

We heard this recently when Harvard University President Claudine Gay apologized for her widely condemned congressional testimony on campus antisemitism, in which she said, "I failed to convey what is my truth."

“My truth”? This from the president of a university whose 387-year-old motto is Veritas, which is Latin for Truth. Harvard originally adopted the Latin phrase, “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae,” as its motto in 1692, which means “Truth for Christ and the Church.” But this was reduced to just “Veritas” in 1836. Discovering truth these days is an exercise in, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

Judeo-Christian values are being replaced by a godless sense of no responsibility and no accountability, and Judeo-Christian values are being replaced by fear, distrust, dishonesty, lack of confidence, loss of patriotism, then the inevitable disillusionment, despair, alienation, anomie, hopelessness, and nihilism.

The practical outgrowth of this shift in values is extensive.

Education from kindergarten to grad school has become a vast wasteland where teaching and learning are dumbed down and activism is the new holy grail.

As parents have “parented” less, or as parents have rejected traditional values for their brave new world values, or as the family unit itself has come under attack as something unnecessary or limiting, and as children have increasingly come of age spending more than one third to one-half of their day on screens, mental illness and anxiety have soared among youth, as has sexual promiscuity.

Political leaders promote the killing of the nation’s progeny as a matter of women’s healthcare and a human right. Think of that, a human right to kill other humans. This is perversity.

Political leaders promote the physical mutilation of children in the name of sexual liberation. And oh, by the way, no need to inform their parents. This is not freedom but enslavement to debauchery and a lifetime of drugs and regret.

Educators, medical professionals, celebrities, journalists, and of course political sycophants, claim men can menstruate, breast feed, and have children. These are supposedly sophisticated individuals, but if so, it is sophisticated ignorance. This is “the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). It is the result of the rejection of timeless values, the rejection of virtue.

City streets and retail stores are now fair game to “smash and grab” gangs, thugs, and thieves who know they will not be prosecuted and who have such little fear, they no longer wear masks and look directly into security cameras.

America is no longer a “kinder, gentler nation” and is instead an everyone for themselves “do what’s right in your own eyes” nation.

In business, making an excellent product has been replaced with a decline in quality in almost every industry. And the old aphorism, “the business of America is business,” has been replaced by the business of America is advocacy.

Since the internet became functional, every form of evil has increased, led by pornography and gambling.

Historian Mark Lewis reminds us, what Edmund Burke said, “But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint...Men are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.”

Further, James Madison said, “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [fanciful] idea.”

“According to Madison (and all our Founders), virtue (goodness, self-control, godly morality, responsible behavior, unselfishness) is absolutely essential to true liberty.”

Today in America, people are denying the existence of virtue, in the name of freedom. But instead of freedom, we’re getting lawlessness, licentiousness, and chaos, none of which sound much like freedom.

Yes, there is a direct link between rejecting God, truth, morality, and virtue, and the breakdown of American culture. It’s not good out there, and it’s going to get worse.

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: 11 December 2023

Jews are known for many things, not least of which is as survivors. What can we learn about God’s purposes by studying the Jewish people?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #122 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.

Jews are in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. Not that it’s their fault. But in the wake of the Israel/Hamas war, antisemitism, i.e., hostility, prejudice, or discrimination, a form of racism – has become a plague throughout Europe, Australia, and in North and South America.

“We know from history that Jew-hatred, the world's oldest and once again most fashionable form of bigotry, is the chameleon of all hates – forever taking on new hues to suit the scapegoating needs of the day. It has always been thus, and it will always be thus.”

Antisemitic incidents in the United States rose nearly 400% in just two weeks after 10/7, this after such incidents reached their highest ever recorded in the U.S. in year 2022.

In a recent congressional hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray “noted in his testimony that while Jews account for less than 3% of the U.S. population, around 60% of religious-based hate crimes target Jews.

Jews are, sadly, no stranger to antisemitism, or more bluntly stated, “Jew hate.”

In the Middle Ages, Jews were called “Christ’s enemies” or “Christ-killers.” They’ve been the victim of what’s called “blood libel,” an antisemitic canard which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christians in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. In Russia, Jews were massacred in periodic, systematic pogroms, a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.”

And worst of all, beginning with Kristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass” in 1938, Hitler and the Nazis killed about 6 million Jews in what they called the Final Solution and history calls the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, a list of notable American Jews is astoundingly lengthy – in every field of human endeavor. And this can be repeated in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

So why, then, are Jews hated historically and globally? Perhaps the principal reason is “because God has a special plan for the nation of Israel, and Satan wants to defeat that plan. Satanically influenced hatred of Israel—and especially Israel’s God—is the reason Israel’s neighbors have always wanted to see Israel destroyed,” and it is the reason why Jews have been despised and persecuted their entire existence.

Ostensibly, the current outbreak of antisemitism on college campuses, in the streets, and, unbelievably, in Congress, is due to opposition to Israel’s policies regarding Palestinians and Gaza and in particular how Israel is prosecuting the war to eradicate Hamas as just retribution for Hamas’s pre-civilizational atrocities against innocent Israelis Oct. 7. But the immediacy and intensity of venom aimed at Jews who had nothing to do with what is taking place in the Holy Land indicates this is an indiscriminate broad-brush racist attack with deep roots in Western Civilization’s ongoing moral collapse.

Yet Jewish people have set a high standard, making contributions in virtually every sector of American society and Western Civilization. Consider these names:

Emma Lazarus, Levi Strauss, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Benny Goodman, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Seinfeld, Mark Zuckerberg, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Henry Kissinger, Sandy Koufax, Wolf Blitzer, Stephen Spielberg, Bernie Sanders, Monica Lewinsky, Natalie Portman, Gal Gadot, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elena Kagan, Doug Emhoff.

This is a small sampling of names quickly grabbed off the internet.The number of notable Jewish Americans who have made our lives immeasurably better is legion.

Prior to World War II, the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million. Then the Holocaust occurred. Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021, was estimated to be at 15.2–19.9 million. Today, Israel’s population (including disputed territories) – 9,000,000. And in the United States – 7,600,000.

Certain biblical teachings and subsequent political developments relative to the Jewish people, descendants of the Old Testament Abraham and Israelites, have given rise to misinterpretations, false accusations, jealousy, and recriminations.

Jews are called God’s chosen people (Gen 12:1-3; 13:14-15). People misinterpret this in several ways, including thinking Jews are given some special spiritual pass to heaven. But this doesn’t make Israel more special; it makes God more special because he keeps his promises. God was setting up the lineage through which Jesus would come. This really is the crux of why God chose Israel to be his chosen people.

God gave Abraham’s descendants the land of Israel (Gen 13:14-15).

The Jewish Diaspora resulted in Jewish populations the world over, most subject to persecution, followed in the 19^thC with Zionism and a beginning return to the land. To this day, Arabs, or Palestinians, and others fight what are now called Israelis over Israel’s right to exist on the land as the modern nation-state was established in May 1948. So, who owns the Holy Land? If Palestinians are not allowed to live in the land of Israel, what should be done with these hundreds of thousands of people whose ancestors lived in the land?

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim Jerusalem as a holy place. Who has claim?

New Testament Church Age teachings re Israel vs the Church, including Replacement Theology, which “affirms that the Church has completely replaced Israeland will inherit God’s promises to Israel; the covenants, then, will be fulfilled only in a spiritual sense. In other words, replacement theology teaches that Israel will not inherit the actual land of Israel; the Church is the “new Israel,” and ethnic Israel is forever excluded from the promises—the Jews will not inherit the Promised Land as Jews per se.” This theological debate occurs within conservative evangelical Christendom.

What lessons can we learn?

“The persecutors of Israelwill come and go, but the persecution will remain until the second coming of Christ. As a result, conflict in Israel is not a reliable indicator of the soon arrival of the end times.”

Scripture makes it clear that “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” Rom 10:12. Or the Bible states it another way: “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too” Rom 3:29.

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” Gal 3:28.

Also in Scripture, the Apostle Paul reminded us that “we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” 1 Cor 12:13.

And in heaven one day, the Word says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language,standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands” – Revelation 12:9.

Jewish people are just that, people, human beings made in the image of God, like all human beings loved by God, and like all human beings, Jews are sinners in need of grace or sinners saved by grace.

If you are Jewish, God bless you and may you be safe, surrounded by support, and given every opportunity of liberty and happiness.

If you are not Jewish, as I am not, then we need to remember that Jewish people, like all humanity including Arabs, Palestinians, Iranians, Russians, you name it, are our neighbors, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Clearly, the Lord is not finished with this world. No climate change, no wars or rumors of wars, no natural cataclysms like the sunspot archipelago releasing solar storms, no nuclear nightmare, no genocidal mania perpetrated by any demonically driven people, no end of the world scenario is ever actually going to end the world until God determines the End Times have come.

And throughout the history yet to come, Jewish people will remain, at times under duress, but remain and flourish because the Lord of Heaven deems it so.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 04 December 2023

Have you noticed that we live in and Us against Them world? Should I care about “them,” or is it every one for himself?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #121 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.

Who or which human beings should we care about? White people or Black people, or maybe some other race?

I ask because there are certain ideologies today that are reductionist, meaning they reduce everything to a lowest common denominator. Race is one of those denominators. Many people, if we’re to believe their social media posts or their actions in the street, reduce everything in life to racial or maybe ethnic parameters.

This happened recently when a young boy dressed for a home game as an Indian and painted his face half black, half red, the colors of his team the Kansas City Chiefs. A sports journalist immersed in racist categories accused the boy of insultingly coming to a game in “blackface.” So, an innocent 9-year-old fan was summarily condemned for “hating black people and Native Americans.” The absurdity of this attack is noteworthy for its all-too-common frequency in contemporary culture.

Another example of racial overkill is, in my view, what’s called “cultural appropriation.” I mean, how dare someone, who is not Latino, wear a sombrero or celebrate Cinco De Mayo? Or how offensive one should name their team the “Braves.” But what about cowboy boots or tweed? Is it cultural appropriation to wear this clothing? What about putting cornrows in your hair? Is this cultural appropriation?

Question is, where does this stop? Are non-Native Americans not allowed to ride horses? Are non-Italians not allowed to eat pasta? Are non-Scots prohibited from wearing tartan fashions?

One of the beauties of the historic American “melting pot” is that all nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, and eventually all races could become part of the abundant opportunities and blessings of E Pluribus Unum, and that included fashion, entertainment, food, language, and more.

Remember Emma Lazarus’s immortal words on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The idea was that there is an American Dream, that people came come from all over the globe to this free country and be given an opportunity to live out their lives in freedom and flourishing. In the 19^thand 20^th Century, once the Irish arrived from the potato famine, then came Germans, Italians, and manifold others, who could work to achieve their dreams. They could become Americans by adopting culture they found here, by adapting their own cultures, and by assimilating in the melting pot.

I am entirely in favor of immigrants, even in the face of today’s highly charged immigration politics. I just want immigrants to come legally and participate in a legal process toward citizenship, not arrive via the invasion going on now on the US southern border.

By the way, Emma Lazarus was Jewish. So was the recently deceased statesman Henry Kissinger, who with his family escaped from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Later, young Kissinger became a naturalized American citizen, joined the US Army, and eventually came home from Europe with a Bronze Star.

Who or which human being should we care about?

If we assume a prolife position, does this mean we must leave behind care and concern for what’s called “women’s health”?

If we are “pro-Israel” does this mean we cannot or should not care about Palestinians, or Arabs in general? If you care about Jews, does this mean you must not care about Greeks, as others were called in the Bible, or about Arabs? About Gentiles the world over?

If you affirm biblical views of human sexuality, and thus reject the expression of human sexuality embraced by people who say they are LGBTQ+, does this mean you must not care or express concern for people who choose to identify as LGBTQ+?

If you root for this team, does this mean, in the language of our times, that you must “hate” the other team?

If we believe in the American dream, does this mean we have unavoidably and irrevocably become “settler” colonialists, cultural imperialists, or adopted an oppressor mindset that always takes advantage of anyone who is considered marginalized?

Polarized politics, now, not only “affects” but “infects” every sector of American society. Much of what’s marketed as discussion these days has been captured by polarized politics. Same thing when it comes to answering the question, who or which human beings should we care about?

If you begin with an a priori commitment to ideology, like for example cultural Marxism, the “ism du jour” of leftism, you will inevitably reduce all things to oppressor vs oppressed, have’s vs have nots, and you will support whatever gives you power.

If you listen to people in the street or on university campuses who are promoting “woke” views, you will hear how you must fight for the marginalized, i.e., the oppressed against the oppressor. In other words, you are not allowed to care about the perceived oppressor.

So, this means pro-Black or Brown…anti-White. It means pro-LGBTQ, especially transgender…anti-heteronormativity. pro-Palestinian…anti-Israel; pro-the latest perceived downtrodden state…anti-American.

But the problem is, “the woke cult is inherently racist/bigoted. It believes if you are White (or straight, or male), you are automatically morally inferior to non-White people (or non-straight or male, depending).”

“This is the main reason why so many non-Arab progressives/leftists are now anti-Jewish. It's often not that they are originally anti-Semitic --- it's that they are anti-White, i.e., they think that Jews are White, and thus privileged oppressors, and Palestinians or Arabs are Brown, thus the oppressed.” (cited from Based Latinos on X)

For the left, “all the past narratives were absolute – white people are racist, police are racist, America is homophobic and transphobic, America is Islamophobic, etc.

No gray area. They treated it like they treat the climate change hoax – no legitimate ‘two sides,’ only those who agree with them, and evil…The left views everything, ultimately, through a lens of victim and oppressor… when it comes to Israel, they view Palestinians as perpetual victims.”

“Leftist academics see the world through the prism of race, and history as a struggle between oppressive white colonialists and settlers versus the indigenous and nonwhite multitudes, who are portrayed as the oppressed. Any violence self-appointed representatives of the oppressed wreak on those identified as oppressor colonialists or settlers is justified.”

Who or which human being should we care about?

Scripture answers first with the statement that every human being is made in the image of God and is both temporally and eternally significant. There are no human beings God did not create and does not know.

Then God said to “‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39). Everyone is our neighbor.

God even said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:43-47).

Scripture says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Who or which human being should we care about? All of them.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 30 November 2023

Mrs. Rosalynn Carter was laid to rest this week at 96 years of age. She was an admirable woman whose 77-year marriage and partnership with former President Jimmy Carter is downright remarkable.

Mr. Carter is 99 years and has been in hospice for some months, yet he attended his wife’s funeral.

I did not agree with a lot of Mr. Carter’s politics, but I respected his Christian faith, his willingness even at the risk of loss of supporters to work toward a two-state solution in the Holy Land, and his disciplined work ethic. Indeed, his body of work surpassed the prolific Teddy Roosevelt as the most-published former president.

Mr. Carter’s idealism got him in trouble. His hope that if people could dialogue, they’d agree to live peaceably, failed to account for the deceitful nature of the human heart. He was taken off guard by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in the 444-day hostage crisis of 1979-1980.

Leaders must recognize that evil exists in the world. Evil is why George Washington said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace,” why Nobel Peace Prize winner T.R. said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” and why Ronald Reagan said, “Peace through strength” and “Trust, but verify.” Hopefully, today’s leaders do not make Mr. Carter’s error as they calculate how to deal with Hamas.

I wish Mr. Carter well but I do not think he will live much longer now that Rosalynn has passed, which is a good thing, soon to meet the Lord and see Rosalynn again.

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

If you’ve lived a few years as an adult, you’ve likely noted how many things once considered wrong, are now considered acceptable. So, what is contributing to this redefinition of poor choices?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #120 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.

Defining Deviancy Down is “an expression coined by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1993…The senator applied his slogan to the ‘moral deregulation’ that had eroded families, increased crime, and produced the mentally ill ‘homeless’ population” people were observing in America.

“We are getting used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us,” said (Senator) Moynihan, a Harvard professor of education and sociology and then U.S. senator, in his celebrated 1993 American Scholar essay “Defining Deviancy Down.” The nation had been “redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard.”

Senator Moynihan’s “thesis was that American society since the 1960s had undergone a shift in what it understood as deviant behavior. As a result, society was beginning to excuse actions, attitudes, and lifestyles once understood to be bad for social cohesion. Thirty years later, the refusal to define deviancy is as strong in progressive circles as it was in Moynihan’s time. But now, there are almost no Moynihans on the left willing to heed his obvious lessons. The results have been predictable.”

“The insane and wayward—increasingly freed from stigma and shame—today terrify functional America even more so than in his time, on account of their shamelessness as well as increasing prevalence.”

“Violent music, video games, and depraved entertainment are cash machines. Electronic tools provide America’s youth—and their parents—with easy, possibly irresistible portals to the dark side. The weakening of families and religion-based communities contribute to the void. So do social media and porn.

Unstable adolescents, if they are identified and treated, get medicated on the chance that anti-depressants or uppers will do their mood magic. Drugs—legal and illegal and everything in between—are palliatives for Americans of all ages.”

Think about this short list of behaviors once considered morally deviant:

1973, the US Supreme Court approved abortion in Roe v Wade. In 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, contrary to what the prochoice lobby says, the Court did not make abortion illegal but simply turned it back to the states to decide. America continues to eliminate its future in the name of privacy, women’s freedom or healthcare, convenience, or simply sex without consequences.

Gambling had been decriminalized, beginning in 1988 with the Federal Indian Gaming Act, then in 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States allowed national sports betting in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. The result: professional sports have invested significantly in gambling so that now you can’t watch an NFL game without being periodically reminded to get on Fan Duel to place your bets.

In 2015, the US Supreme Court said in Obergefell v Hodgesthat same-sex marriage was a fundamental right found in the US Constitution. Also in 2015, former Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner came out on the cover of Vanity Fair, “Call me Caitlyn,” as transgender. I’ve often thought that Satan could not have chosen a better poster child for transgender ideology than Bruce Call-me-Caitlyn Jenner. Think about it, a gold medalist in the decathlon so he’s considered the “world’s greatest athlete,” a handsome, “hunk” kind of guy who dated models and eventually married Kris Kardashian. Then he’s part of the “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” TV reality program, fathering two of the younger sisters, making a total of five Kardashian-Jenner clan who along with their mother are now worth multiple billions of dollars and count among the highest social media followers. Then there’s Bruce in the middle of this, increasingly emasculated, a caricature of his former self, deluded, emotionally twisted, and finally coming out as a trans woman. Why did Satan use him? Worldwide fame.

Marijuana has been gradually decriminalized. “Voters in Colorado and Washington legalized marijuanafor recreational use in November 2012…Other states have since followed their lead. This includes Alaska and Oregon (both in 2014) and California and Massachusetts (both in 2016). Now, at this time, 23 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have legalized recreational marijuana possession in small amounts. Each state sets the age for recreational possession and use at 21.”

Politics has always been rancorous, but like standards in the 50s-60s for what could be said or acted on television, there were certain political mores or parameters beyond which most politicians would not go. Now, like television where almost anything goes, so too in politics where elected officials lie with impunity, unilaterally ignore the law or don’t do their jobs, act with an increasing hubris or narcissism, demagogically make reckless speeches aimed at advancing themselves at the expense of democratic institutions, or simply serve not the people but ideology. And the populace puts up with this in both political parties.

If we had time, we could talk about more than changes relative to sexuality or We could talk about mainstream media that no longer presents objective reports on “the news,” but rather have given themselves over to advocacy, partisanship, ideology, and an ends justify the means mentality that allows them to lie or misrepresent and feel good about doing it. We could talk about how with COVID and the subsequent Black Lives Matter-juiced reaction to the death of George Floyd, we got a societal disavowal of law and order and criminal justice, and a rejection of police in the foolish “Defund the police” movement.

“Deviancies defined down aren’t only in the realm of criminal behavior. In Senator Moynihan’s original report, he noted that the proportion of white children born to a single mother had increased from one in 40 in 1962 to one-fifth 30 years later. For black children, the increase was from one-fifth to two-thirds. Today, one-fourth of white children and two-thirds of black children are born to single parents. Yet outside of conservative circles, there is little push to reduce the number of single-parent households. Instead, the solution since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs has remained the same: more federal subsidies.”

“There are some differences in the deviancies discussed…but the root of each is that some cultural understanding is being changed.” Localities and states changing their criminal codes reveal a willingness to tolerate crime by trying to redefine it away.

A line must be drawn. There is virtue in defining what is and isn’t deviant behavior. It allows us to highlight what is truly good. Preserving civilization requires us to be able to define what it is, and what it isn’t. It is not cruel to say that, (for example), carjackers should be punished, or that drug users should not be tolerated; it is a statement of social understanding that those who do not carjack or abuse drugs are better than those that do. It is not wrong to say that single-parenthood is a social problem, or that government policy should favor two-parent households; it is just, because it recognizes that two-parent households are the best model for families, the core unit of all societies. Without a shared set of social standards, civilization cannot continue. Whether it is being sympathetic to crime or ignoring the virtues of marriage, the Left is determined to undermine those social standards by refusing to define deviancy. Daniel Patrick Moynihan understood the problems of this approach in his time and argued against it.”

Christian Scripture tells us human beings are created in God’s image with moral agency. We have the capacity and the opportunity to choose. Since we live in a fallen world and we have deceitful hearts, we often choose sin. A culture that rejects God and the idea of sin is on the broad road to destruction.

We now see or hear something every day in which deviancy has been defined down.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20).

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 20 November 2023

Ever wonder or maybe observe how the occurrence of bad things, even wicked, debased things, can cause people to ask moral questions they’d never before asked?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #119 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 remember when then President Bill Clinton got involved with a Whitehouse intern during the mid-1990s. Suddenly in our secularizing, morally relativistic culture, national news anchors like Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Ted Koppel, started using terms like “adultery,” “morality,” “lying,” and “marital fidelity.”

Then, Sept 17, 2001, just days after the horrible 9/11 death and destruction that was visited upon New York City, Washington, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania,

I remember watching Dan Rather and David Letterman discussing this terrorist attack on Letterman’s late-night show. What struck me at the time was that these two celebrities, one known for his toughness, who’d been in war zones all over the world, and the other known for his irreverent take on life, were genuinely scared.

I’m not making this up. They admitted it on air and spoke in tones not typical of their demeanor. Dan Rather became overcome with emotion on air because this thing had gotten their attention like few other circumstances could have. 9/11 literally rocked their world.

Not long after this, Sept 23, 2001, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities helped organize a huge service in Yankee Stadium called “Prayer for America.”

This was a multi-faith program in which leaders from many different religious denominations prayed or spoke. Then country singer Lee Greenwood performed "God Bless the USA."

After 9/11, in some ways like the response to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, media elites suddenly talked non-stop—understandably—about betrayal, treachery, religion, and other moral categories.

The point is, both these very different national crises caused people to ask deep, existential questions that prior to these experiences, people pretty much ignored.

Since Oct 7, 2023, we are living in a post-Hamas-massacre world. Suddenly, with regularity I am seeing these phrases in articles or hear them intoned on air: moral clarity, moral equivalency, moral litmus test, moral pretzel logic, moral bankruptcy, moral hypocrisy, moral collapse, moral cowardice, moral reckoning, moral imperative.

Now, is it odd that these kinds of phrases are used? Depends on how you look at it.

If you think about the evil incarnate that rained down on innocent Israelis Oct 7, then no, these phrases are not odd or unexpected.

If you think about the dilemmas faced by the Israeli response, the commitment and the need to bring Hamas to justice and to eradicate forever their capacity to support terrorism, yet with a desire to minimize civilian noncombatant injury and death, then no, these phrases are not odd or unexpected.

If you think about the 242 innocent hostages from at least 27 countries, then no, these phrases are not odd or unexpected.

But if you think about American culture’s pell-mell rush into nihilism, its rejection of God in favor of Do-It-Yourself religion, its rejection of truth and moral absolutes by embracing moral relativism – with, ironically, an absolutist zeal – its celebration of all thing’s material, hedonistic, and vain at the expense of time-tested verities, its unfettered embrace of unfettered sexual dissolution, it’s utter disdain for any discussion of right and wrong, i.e., morality, then yes, these phrases incorporating moral considerations are indeed odd and unexpected.

People ask, why would God allow something like the Israel-Hamas war? I don’t know, for I am not God. But I do know something about God’s character and will, as he reveals them in the Bible.

God is not the source of evil, but he allows human beings to choose, and he knows our evil choices result in emotional and physical trauma that causes men and women to seek solace and to think about moral categories.

For example, one result of the evil work of ISIS in which Muslims killed muslims, in fact killed more Muslims than Christians, is that this suffering caused Muslims to ask questions like, what is this, Muslims killing Muslims in the name of our common god? This question, getting to the heart of their indoctrinated faith, allowed them to think new thoughts, to wonder about other faiths, and for some, to ask, to seek, and to find Christ in the Gospel.

This could be one providential result of the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war—severe adversity, then agonizing ethical considerations causing people to seek answers, including in the Christian faith.

Our current circumstances bring the ethical naivete of street protesters into bold relief. For example, I have trouble considering protesters calling for peace credible who harass uninvolved citizens, vandalize property, or destroy flags, threaten police, and turn violent. This happened Nov 15 in front of the Democrat National Headquarters in Washington, DC.

I have trouble with protesters who accuse Israel of holding Palestinians to a “collective responsibility,” i.e., collective punishment of the many for the wrongdoing of the few, who then turn around and harass, even physically and verbally accost American Jewish students heading to the dining hall, or a Jewish professor in his classroom, or a Jewish person walking the street, as if these American citizens who happen to be Jewish have anything whatsoever to do with the Israeli leadership and the IDF. Who’s assigning collective responsibility now? In racial overtones no less.

I have trouble with protesters who chant antisemitic slurs against Jews, and those who express hate of Palestinians, in American or in Europe, as if either the one or the other of these people are responsible for what’s happening in the Holy Land.

And what happened to the hostages? It’s as if they’ve been written off, out of sight, out of mind. I'd like to see a Pro-Hostages demonstration.

This did finally happen. Nov. 14, some 290,000 marched on the Washington, DC, Mall for Israel, for the hostages, and for peace, making this “one of the largest gatherings of Jews in U.S. history at a time when an ongoing war in Gaza has sharply divided public opinion around the world. An additional 250,000 people watched the event through a live stream.”

What we need in the USA is both a revival and an awakening.

“The words revival and awakening are often used interchangeably, but there is a distinction. An awakening takes place when God sovereignly pours out his Spirit and it impacts a culture. That is what happened during the Jesus Revolution (in the late 1960s, early 1970s), and it’s what happened in multiple spiritual awakenings in the history of the United States, predating its establishment as a nation. A revival, on the other hand, is what the church must experience. It’s when the church comes back to life, when the church becomes what it was always meant to be. It’s a return to passion.”

“Revival is when God releases a special work of grace that reveals His power and presence amongst Christians. The word “revive” means to bring back to life. Hence, it cannot be talking about reaching the lost because they were never alive to begin with.

Renewal is when committed Christians are worn out from laboring in the Lord, and God sends a spirit of refreshment that restores them to vibrancy. Awakening is when a revival spills over and begins affecting the surrounding communities.”

“R.A. Torrey, a friend of Dwight L. Moody, was a great preacher and evangelist in his own right. He gave this prescription for revival during a February 1917 address at Moody Bible Institute. He said to “1) Get right with God, 2) get together with other Christians and pray for revival, and 3) make yourself available to God, especially in winning souls.”

“Revivals don’t last forever. They have a beginning, a middle and an end…Someone once asked the evangelist Billy Sunday whether his revivals lasted. He replied, “No, neither does a bath. But it’s good to have one occasionally.” The American Church needs revival.

A “spiritual awakening, that outpouring of the Spirit, is up to God. We can’t organize it, but we can agonize for it in prayer and call upon God to send it.” America needs an awakening.

Pray to God that he will pour out his blessings upon our nation. We need his grace.

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

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