Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 12 October 2023

Hamas extremists demonstrated the evil of their worldview when they surprise-attacked unprepared Israeli villages, a concert, and families, indiscriminately slaughtering all in their path. How should we evaluate such tragedy?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #113 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 and Arabs have been in conflict since the earliest days of the Old Testament Israelites and their neighbors.

Clearly, some Jews—not all, but definitely some—hate Arabs. And some Arabs—not all, but definitely some—hate Jews.

I am not using the word “hate” as it is now used incessantly on social media to indicate anything anyone does not like or with which they disagree. I’m using the word “hate” in its original dictionary meaning—an intense negative emotional response towards certain people, things, or ideas. And I add the current dictionary, or I should say psychological definition of hate that includes an attitude that gives rise to open enmity, hostility, or aggression. So, in this contemporary social-psychological sense, hate is not just an emotion but an action.

This perpetual—terminal really—animosity is not so much a matter of politics or even demography as it is moral philosophy, a choice. It’s not inherited in DNA. It is modeled and taught.

October 7, 2023, about one thousand Hamas terrorists entered Southern Israel from Gaza, kidnapping, raping, and murdering innocent Israelis. In some cases, whole families were wiped out. Israel has responded with significant military action and fighting continues.

Several issues are worth discussing here.

Many have responded with calls for an immediate cessation of violence.

This is understandable and desirable on several levels. But it skips over a few serious considerations.

One point of view has been noted in major media, what about self-defense? Does Israel have any right to defend itself? Is the country attacked not justified in responding in like manner that it was attacked, at least for preservation of life if not justice or retribution?

Interestingly, most conservative commentators have said, yes, to this question, and so have most moderate to liberal political leaders, including the President of the United States and former president Barack Obama.

On the other hand, predictably, a long list of Progressives, i.e., those on the political Left, have not only called for an immediate cessation of military response by Israel but have indeed blamed Israel for Hamas’s unprovoked attack. These Progressives have also claimed Hamas’s actions were understandable, given the terrible living conditions extant in the Gaza Strip, and then they called for Israel to stand down—saying nothing about Hamas standing down, just Israel.

A second consideration regarding calls for an immediate cessation of violence includes the idea of self-defense but focuses even more specifically upon safety and security.

Think about this example: If your children were in a school invaded by gunmen, the first thing you’d want is not a cessation of violence. What you’d want is the police to do whatever was necessary, including violence on the perpetrators, in order to protect your children by re-establishing their safety and security. After that, then you could think about a cessation of violence.

So, there is a sense in which calling for an immediate cessation of violence is like gun control arguments. It makes the use of violence by the bad actors and that of those defending themselves morally equivalent. And it does not get us where we want to go. Do this and only the bad guys will have guns.

Again, calling for an immediate cessation of violence certainly seems logical, but it fails to account for the existence of sin and evil. It fails to acknowledge that one scriptural purpose of government is the right use of coercive force to protect life and liberty.

I’m not arguing here for violence. I’m not trying to justify all forms or unproportionate levels of violence. I’m just saying that in a fallen world, sometimes, “just use” of violence by law enforcement or military is essential and morally justifiable.

Now some have said that violence just results in more violence, but is this true? Actually, in a fallen world, legitimate uses of violence by law enforcement or military may be the only path to stop more violence.

Another comment made by many, including Christians, is to call for peace.

Again, is there something wrong with peace? Of course not. Then what is the problem? If you call for peace you must think about what kind of peace. Do you mean peace at any cost? This may be the result of immediately ceasing to use violence without first stopping the evildoers.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared “Peace for our time" in his September 30, 1938 remarks in London concerning the Munich Agreement. He was roundly criticized for this because it came across to the British people for what it was, naïve appeasement that allowed for the emergence of Adolf Hitler. In other words, Chamberlain’s “Peace for our time” was seen as peace at any cost.

What motivates people to pursue peace? Does calling for peace really cause people to change their minds and hearts? Will peace and justice ensue if we just reason with aggressors?

Peace, like love, must be grounded in something objective. John Lennon’s 1969 anti-war song, “Give Peace a Chance,” is an example of a vain wish. The lyrics of the song do not even make sense.

Peace of this nature has never happened because sin still exists. Only God’s peace, which is grounded in his character and available to us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, can truly change hearts.

Pundits on both sides—Left and Right—are basically calling for annihilation, genocide of either the Jewish or the Palestinian peoples.

It’s like Jonah’s attitude toward the Ninevites of old. Just nuke ‘em, Lord, and be done with it.

On a human level, we understand why reacting to rape and kidnapping and babies slaughtered might lead one to respond with revengeful calls to “smote the enemy hip and thigh with a great slaughter” (Judges 15:8, KJV). But then again, needless to say, I hope, this is not a Christian perspective.

First, there are many innocent civilians living in all parts of the Holy Land. They are not terrorists, nor are they per se an enemy of anyone. Second, Christians, isolated believers in Christ, also live in all regions of the Holy Land. There are underground churches in the Holy Land. Do these people deserve annihilation? No, they do not.

Third, some people have rather glibly said that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should just get out of there. But how do they do this? They do not have a recognized country and many of them have no legitimate passport, money, or connections needed to travel. Their overland routes are controlled by Israel or Egypt and internally controlled by Hamas, while naval routes are often blockaded.

With the exception of Jordan and Lebanon, Palestinians are not welcome in most of the Arab countries in the Middle East. So where do they go?

I believe Israel, like any nation, has a right to defend itself. Now what this looks like and what constitutes proportionate response in terms of Just War theory is open to debate.

I think the unprovoked and unprecedented Hamas attack upon civilians, villages, families, concertgoers, all non-military targets, was an act of terrorism. The fact that civilians were raped and kidnapped, and that this was widely reported on social media, is another example of how Hamas is creating terror.

I believe the Gaza Strip is a tragic historical and political development in that this region has become a trap for 2.4 million people living in an area the size of metro-Philadelphia.These Palestinians are victims of historic ethnic hatreds, international politics and war, false religion, and selfish, autocratic, self-imposed leaders.

I believe God loves Jews and Arabs, indeed all Gentiles, and that as Scripture speaks plainly, “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). This means God offers his grace, forgiveness, redemption, and hope to Palestinians and Israelis, Hamas terrorists, Iranian imams, and Afghan Taliban, everyone.

While the political and religious heritage of the people of the Middle East is incredibly complex, the answer to their problems, and to ours, is the same. It is simple: faith in Jesus Christ who makes all things new (Rev. 21:5).

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: 09 October 2023

American culture is on a fast-track decline into confusion, contentiousness, and chaos. We see it every day on what passes for the news. So, what does the world need now?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #112 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’ve spoken a lot about the sad, sorry, and potentially threatening state of American culture. I don’t like doing this because I am enough of a patriotic soul that I’d rather just celebrate the amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty. But then again, people who truly care, about others or about their culture and country, should speak truth, offer “watch out” warnings, and as much as possible work to protect and preserve and perpetuate that which they love.

So, I must note that American culture is in moral chaos, which produces political and social polarization, rancor, and increasingly, scattered social unrest.

We don’t agree on anything, not even what constitutes a man or woman.

E pluribus unum? That’s out the window. And maybe worse, we’re perpetually offended and angry, even raging.

Remember Psalm 2, verse 1? “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain?”

King David wondered aloud at how foolish, people, indeed entire nations, could be in the face of the reality, presence, and will of the Sovereign Creator God of the Universe.

At the end of that psalm, David said, “Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling. Kiss his son, or he will be angryand your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:10-12).

Peace and safety are to be found only in Christ.

So today, in our beloved land of the free and home of the brave, we face challenges, seemingly intractable, seemingly unending.

I’ll illustrate only a few. Debt—national and personal—is a siren’s call luring the unaware into a crash upon the rocks. What makes debt especially threatening today is that we, American culture, have lost our fear of it. Politicians certainly do not care about debt. They talk a good game, but even so-called fiscal conservatives have run up the national debt in recent years. For politicians, there is no accountability. Debt is someone else’s future problem, not theirs.

Sexual liberation…well, not liberation, sexual libertinism, dominates our media, entertainment, marketing, sports, and politics. Are we better off for this than, say, we were in the 1990s? “Don’t ask. Don’t tell” seemed cliched at the time, kind of like “Just say No,” but now these aphorisms sound better than the 24-hour-in-your-face self-indulgence we get on social media.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, abortion, on demand till birth, continues unabated in several states, and – I can’t believe I’m citing this – assisted suicide is being lobbied as a necessary state “service” for which people should have unrestricted access. This is already happening in Canada. Some people, and I agree with them, have been calling this trend a “culture of death,” since the previous leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, called it this in 1995.

The list goes on. Illegal immigration, street-level lawlessness and government officials who celebrate the victimizer rather than the victim, the demise of objective journalism, rejection of Judeo-Christian values, like integrity and honesty, work ethic, individual responsibility and accountability, righteousness as the basis of justice.

So, what do we need to do in the face of this amoral tsunami?

In his new book, Divided Nation, Culture in Chaos & A Conflicted Church, Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham recommends a detailed and a tad longer list:

Contend for the faith Jude 1:3. In other words, speak up, know what you believe and share it with others.

Proclaim the gospel Mark 16:15

Engage in business of King of Kings till he comes Luke 19:14

Equip people with answers 1 Pet 3:15. “Always be prepared to give an answerto everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

Call compromising people back to God’s Word Rev 3:16

Help raise up godly generations to be salt and light Matt 5, Mark 9

Be watchmen to warn people what is happening Ezekiel 33:6

Act with boldness. Acts 28:31. When the Apostle Paul was in Rome of all places, the Scripture says, “He proclaimed the kingdom of Godand taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!”

So, a culture being torn apart by centrifugal forces, which is to say human choices based on incorrect, even sinful, worldviews and values, what that culture needs most is a mooring, a solid rock, a centering point.

This is what our American Judeo-Christian consensus used to provide, what scholars called a “sacred canopy,” and what had been lost when scholars began to refer to the “naked public square.” It was a moral philosophy, what we believed about God, humanity, right and wrong, and society. Didn’t mean everybody was Christian. It just meant that the society generally acknowledged that Judeo-Christian thought was the source of right understanding about life. This moral consensus allowed us to function as a unified society even as it allowed for diversity of opinion and life choices, i.e., individual liberty. That is what has been lost.

What we need now is not some new religion, some new science or technology, or new self-aggrandizement.

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”

Now, is this all we need?

If you mean what the songwriter meant, love unbothered by right and wrong, then No, this is not the answer. It is a shallow and vain hope.

It’s a lot like this:

“Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Aaa haa

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
Yoo hoo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharin' all the world
Yoo hoo

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.”

What the world needs now is not utopian imaginings that offer no remedy for the presence of sin and evil. What the world needs now is truth.

What the world needs now is what is has always needed,

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 02 October 2023

I’ve been trying to rethink my approach to sharing what I believe. Will you join me in this?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #111 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’ve been thinking a lot about how I analyze current issues and events, and how then I apply a Christian worldview to these developments.

I suppose some might say, I hope, that I do a reasonably good job of identifying and detailing the problems, that I can tell you what’s happening, what’s wrong with it or threatening about it, maybe who’s behind it. I can describe the emerging worldview or rejection of historic Judeo-Christian values. Drawing on the scholarship and evaluations of many others, I can even predict what might happen next, that is, where this slippery slope is headed.

I can describe our American 21^st Century culture that’s constantly offended at anything and seemingly everything, the culture giving itself over to nihilism and perpetual rage. This culture is not a pretty picture.

All this is well and good, and I’d argue necessary if we are to understand the post-Christian culture in which we now live.

But if my assessment of my own abilities and track record are accurate, then OK, what’s the problem?

The problem is that I don’t think I am nearly as adept at providing or recommending solutions, in particular biblical remedies for the challenges we face in our post-Christian age. Or if I am, I don’t spend as much time on this part of the situation report, thus potentially leaving those who listen to me feeling down, discouraged, and God forbid, hopeless.

It’s easy to do this. In a speaking engagement, Sunday School class, blog, radio program or podcast, there is only so much time or words to configure a topic. You have to get in, say something meaningful, and get out. OK, but how does one use the available time and space?

Too much time on background and definitions, trends, and current stats—to set the scene, and viola, time’s up. No time for, “OK, what does God want us to do about this?”

I know I have done this, and God forgive me, it bothers me to think I’ve left people with a sense of the problem but beaten down or befuddled about how to respond.

For what became a 1976 best-selling book, the late Francis A. Schaeffer famously borrowed his title from the Old Testament passage, Ezek. 33:10, “How should we then live?”

That’s the point. How can I do differently in my analysis, such that I point listeners toward hope, not hopelessness, toward what God says about “How should we then live?” in this present post-Christian culture?

In his 2018 book, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness, theologian Erwin Lutzer says, “We have lost the culture war. The winners are drooling over the spoils. (Referring to the Jewish captivity in ancient Babylon, he said,) but we must remember that God didn’t abandon the Jews to random fate, nor does Jesus abandon us to our own foolishness.

Jesus promises us, ‘Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matt 28:20). Things are not what they appear. Temporary victories and defeats do not tell the whole story. The story will only be written when Jesus returns to settle forever who the winners and losers are.”

Then Lutzer goes on. “Babylon, the United States, the Middle East, China—God is not intimidated by humanism, Islam, or American leftists. He will lead us if we seek him. There is no combination of Satan along with his demons that can permanently defeat us if God thinks we have work to do.”

Lutzer noted that there is blessing in desperation—people turn to God when they find themselves in trouble, and there is encouragement in divine sovereignty—

Christians can be forever optimistic because we know the author of the story—“his-story”—and we know the end of the story. Our task is not to be winners or to be successful per se. Our task is to be faithful.

So, part of providing hope is to provide perspective, an accurate and truthful big picture, and that means answering the question as best we can, What is God doing?

Scripture is eminently clear, not necessarily about the details of the future, but who holds the future and how we should relate to him.

God is Sovereign, omniscient, and omnipotent. He is never surprised, never confused, never not in charge.
In his Word, God has given us “everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of himwho called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Pet 1:3).
Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and Jesus said, “Never will I leave you;never will I forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).
The Apostle Paul said, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).

Now, none of this means that we should ignore life challenges. We live in a real world with real challenges. God expects us to be “in the world” even as he expects us to be “not of the world” (Jn 17).

This does not mean we ignore current problems and pain. It means we look upon these things with perspective.

I want to do a better job of reminding people that God is there, and he is not silent, that God is God in the face of the world’s false ideological “isms” and in the midst of life’s trials. Indeed, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil,” Why? “Foryou are with me” (Ps 23:4).

I want to do a better job of reminding people that God is working…now.

For example, we know that God is doing more among Muslims than at any time in history. We know this because of what SAT-7, the ministry with which I serve, hears and sees on a daily basis and because of what other Middle East ministries tell us. We should find this encouraging and spiritually energizing.

We know God worked in ancient Babylon, and he is the same God today, so we know he will work and is working in our, so to speak, “Babylonian culture.”

We know that while people can mean things for evil, God can mean them, or use them, for good. As I noted in another podcast, there is no better illustration of this than the Roman cross, an instrument of pain, shame, and death that God turned into an international symbol of redemption and hope because of the work of Jesus Christ.

We know that things are not worse now in our post-Christian culture than they were for the early church in the First Century A.D. If God was faithful to the new believers then, he can be and he is faithful to believers now. If he could send revival into the prideful Roman Empire, he can send revival into our prideful culture today.

We know that for every sin there is a biblical remedy, a biblical solution provided by faith through grace in Christ.

We know there is nothing in this world, no circumstances, opportunities, and challenges of life beyond the ken of God’s Word. Consequently, we can seek to apply our Christian or biblical worldview to everything we experience.

What really does God want us to do and therefore, how should we then live? We can do this with everything in life. We can review, consider, and discern what does God want us to do and therefore, how should we then live?

We can do this with a pandemic, with sexual liberation issues, national security, education, race and racism, and business. God is there and he is not silent.

Our task – my task I think – is to share his voice of truth and hope.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 25 September 2023

We’ve heard about so-called “Woke” policies, but what we need is not more people woke; we need more people awake.

For some time now, reaching back before COVID, I have become increasingly concerned with the direction the United States and American culture have taken.

As I’ve noted before in other podcasts, if you are of a certain age, you could be forgiven if you say you don’t recognize your own country. Things have changed that much, and most of it for the worse.

As a believer trusting the sovereignty of God, these changes do not frighten me, but then again, I do not like them, and I believe these changes are a child of not simply wrong ideas but evil intent.

Another thing that bothers me is that I really don’t think that most people, i.e., the average person, however you want to define that phrase, is aware of how significantly and rapidly things have changed and are changing. I don’t state this observation in an arrogant way, meaning I know something no one else knows.

I don’t mean to imply that others are not smart, though they may be uninformed, just as I am uninformed about a host of things that do not happen to interest me or about which I haven’t heard. But still, I believe many hard-working, decent Americans, whatever their faith, may not be aware of the extensiveness of social change taking place and the threat it introduces.

To illustrate, let’s talk for a few minutes about politics and ideology.

When I write these podcasts, as I did long ago in blogs or writing content for a radio program that I voiced for Cornerstone University’s radio station WCSG, called “Making a Difference,” I try not to be intentionally partisan. I don’t want to write like another party hack, someone who thinks his or her political party and its leaders can do no wrong. Because for one, this is one of our problems today.

Too many if not most media outlets and most journalists if they can be called that anymore are simply partisan advocates. They do not seek truth, only political advantage, leverage, and like-minded listenership.

I don’t want to write more partisan drivel. I want to try to think critically, and I want to attempt to apply a Christian worldview to issues and events, which means I have to be free to critique not just the Democrats but also the Republicans, and Independents along with everyone else.

But things have changed markedly in just the few years since year 2000, and especially since COVID.

For one, the Democrat Party is now virtually entirely controlled by its most liberal or some would say, radical, wing.

Almost nothing leading Democrat politicians say or do, including especially President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris, and their Administration, presents anything but socialist policies enhancing big government and undermining personal property and free enterprise, then promoting immoral sexual libertinism, fear-mongering intended to increase their political power, climate change voodoo, authoritarian ideas dismissing freedom of speech, the press, or even religion, a promotion of irrational egalitarianism and victimhood, soft-on-crime lawlessness, globalist anti-Americanism, warped science, and abortion on demand as a civil right.

Well, you say, thank God for the Republican Party and its political leaders. Maybe, but mostly they are not much better. Not anymore.

Republicans, the supposedly fiscally conservative party, have participated in increasing the National Debt to its current level of $33 Trillion, run scared of end-of-the-world climate change lobbies, are just as susceptible as others to fear-mongering, ever-increasing taxes, immoral sexual practices, and a wishy-washiness on southern border security, and more.

Both party’s leaders have engaged in intentional prevarication, a fancy word for lying. Both party’s leading candidates for President in 2024 come with a long list of character flaws; neither is a paragon of virtue.

Worse than all this, I think most people do not realize America is no longer a two-party system, Democrat and Republican. No, now there is a group called Progressives, an inaccurate euphemism for The Left or Leftists or Leftism, an ideology wholly different from traditional conservatism or classical liberalism, an ideology promoting views that FDR, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr would not recognize.

Progressives lodge mostly in the Democrat Party, but they have plenty of allies within the Republican Party, especially among younger voices.

I’d rather call Progressives what they are – Socialist Leftists – but this is awkward wording, so I’ll stick with Progressives.

Progressives are not the same as Liberals. I’ve talked about this before in a podcasts called “Not Liberal But Left, That’s the Threat,” and “What the Left Believes.”

Progressives “hold that it is possible to improve human societies through political action.”Progressives are leftist, radical, secularist, socialist, Marxist, anti-American ideologues who are pushing an unrelenting attack on America’s history, culture, and core values. They are anti-Judeo-Christianity and its moral code, anti-meritocracy, pro-political correctness, anti-education in terms of critical thinking and objective truth while promoting indoctrination of their political narrative focusing upon what they call social justice.

Progressives have made climate change a religion and work to persecute anyone who disagrees with their views. Many of them would love China’s new social credit system that tracks how citizens behave and records demerits on their record for officials to reference later.

Progressives are anti-family, primarily because they are godless libertines who want the world to become non-binary and androgynous.

Let me repeat, Progressives or Leftists are not the same as Liberals. They embrace ideas and values – radical leftist ideologies – old fashioned Liberals would never have understood, not the least of which is anti-patriotism and anti-Americanism. Progressives are operating like a political party, but they are not organized as such and are therefore virtually unaccountable.

Progressives are masterful in making their message the prevailing acceptable narrative. “Progressives ask: ‘What is unfair?’ ‘What am I owed?’ ‘What has offended me today?’ ‘What must my country do for me?” They are not working in America’s best interest but in the service of a divisive, demoralizing, destructive political destination they market as an utopian heaven on earth.

Progressives promote racist “diversity seminars” in the name of, you guessed it, anti-racism. Their god is not equality before the law or equal opportunity, but DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, words, and initiatives used to bludgeon institutions into obeisance to woke rules, beginning with public schools and universities and working out to entertainment, sports, corporations, and government.

Progressives, or the Left, and the millions now in their thrall, are a perfect example of what the Apostle Paul talked about in 2 Thess. 2:9-12, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”

People are operating today under what the Bible calls a powerful or strong delusion. As the Apostle Peter said, people “deliberately forget” or in other Bible versions, are “willingly ignorant” (2 Pet. 3:5).

Deliberately, willingly believing a lie rather than the truth. There could not be a more apt description of American culture today.

Erwin Lutzer observed that “secular progressivism is a passion to profane what is sacred. Anything that dismantles Christian influence and enhances the Left’s power is progressive. It seeks to deconstruct American laws and systems to replace them with socialism and tyranny.”

What I fear is not Progressives. What I fear is that many Christians and the average American are asleep. We do not need to be “woke,” but we certainly need to be awake. We must recognize that the battle has long-since been joined, that Leftist Progressives have all but taken over American culture.

Every day, ideas and values contrary to American Judeo-Christian foundational values that allowed this country to grow and flourish, are being systematically taught in American public education, kindergarten through graduate school.

Every day, youth are taught not to sacrifice, work hard, delay gratification, control impulses, act with integrity and moral restraint, but rather to make demands about what they consider theirs by right.

Every day, Leftist Progressive values are integrated in television programming, including cartoons, and every day, these anti-biblical values are being repeatedly messaged in commercials.

The Left, so-called Progressives, are more in control, more influential, more threatening than Liberalism, Democrats or Republicans.

We need people to wake up, reject the woke, and recognize Leftist Progressives for what they are, the enemy within.

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

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

The cross, which humanity meant for evil, was a simple wooden construction, yet God meant it for good and it became a worldwide icon of sacrifice, Yes, but even more of Hope.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #109 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.

You remember the Old Testament story of Joseph and his brothers?

When Joseph was a youth, his older brothers became jealous at how their father favored him, and eventually, in an unbelievable pique of evil arrogance they plotted to kill him but then thought better of shedding blood and sold Joseph into slavery to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites heading down into Egypt (Gen. 37).

Over the next several years in servitude, then in prison, the Lord protected and blessed Joseph, positioning him for the time he’d be ready to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams about seven fat cows and seven skinny cows portending seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine in Egypt (Gen. 41).

Pharoah showed his gratitude by wisely promoting Joseph from prison to second-in-command of all Egypt, in charge of storing grain during the fat years to be ready for use during the coming seven lean years. In the midst of this regional scarcity, Joseph’s father, Jacob, sent his sons to Egypt to trade for grain, and you guessed it, they meet their long lost and presumed dead brother, Joseph, now one of the most powerful men in the world.

There’s more to the story, but eventually after Jacob dies, the brothers approach Joseph in abject fear, asking for forgiveness, “then came and threw themselves down before him, (and they said) ‘We are your slaves,’ (Gen. 50:18).

But Joseph said to them “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done,” (Gen. 50:19-20).

This is the key to this true story. What human beings mean for evil God can turn to good.

I can think of no better example of this biblical teaching than this than the crucifixion cross. This simple piece of carpentry was designed as a gruesome and horrific tool of excruciating suffering, torture, and shame leading to death. But in the case of the Savior Jesus’s cross, it has become an international symbol of redemption and hope.

“The cross is the central image or symbol of Christianity…Many Christians wear a cross around their neck or on their lapel as a badge that identifies them publicly as Christians. Some crosses are elaborate and expensive works of art, while others are very simple.”

Some wear crosses as identification, while some wear it as decoration, but wear it they do. In fact, in all likelihood there is not a day goes by in which there aren’t thousands wearing a cross in some manner, now even as tattoos.

“The startling transformation of the cross as a symbol came about through Jesus’ death and resurrection. We must remember always that the passion predictions in the Gospels are also resurrection predictions: each one ends with a mention of Jesus’ resurrection. Nevertheless, without the cross there would be no resurrection.

The cross as the central Christian symbol takes in the entire paschal mystery and issues in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus.”

I have known of people who see the cross only as an horrendous abomination, something so disgusting and threatening it should never be displayed, much less celebrated. I respect their point of view, though I do not agree.

To me, the cross is both a symbol of bloodshed, and a symbol of blood sacrificed for the sins of the world.

The cross is a symbol of death and defeat but also a symbol of resurrection and victory,

a symbol of punishment, but a symbol of redemption and reconciliation,

a symbol of destruction, and a symbol of life eternal,

a symbol of suffering, and a symbol of hope,

a symbol of hate or judgment, and a symbol of love and forgiveness,

a symbol of the worst news possible, and a symbol of the Gospel, the Good News,

a symbol of Christ himself and of the faith of Christians.

“Before the time of the emperor Constantine in the 4th century, Christians were extremely reticent about portraying the cross because too open a display of it might expose them to ridicule or danger.

After Constantine converted to Christianity, he abolished crucifixion as a death penalty and promoted, as symbols of the Christian faith, both the cross and the chi-rho monogram of the name of Christ. The symbols became immensely popular in Christian art and funerary monuments from c. 350.”

“The crucifix, a model of the Christian cross upon which is a depiction of the crucified Christ” has been popular for centuries, especially for the Roman Catholic Church. Early Christians avoided realistic portrayal of his suffering, while by the 9th Century, artists stressed realistic aspects of Christ’s suffering and death. “Reformed churches resisted such use of the cross until the 20th century, when ornamental crosses on church buildings and on communion tables began to appear.”

Now, I prefer the empty cross over the crucifix, primarily because it’s very emptiness is a loud proclamation of victorious and glorious hope, both now and eternally.

Remarkable things have occurred relative to the cross. “The original 9/11 cross—a perfectly proportioned cross formed from the steel girders of the previously standing Twin Towers—was found in the wreckage of the Twin Towers and subsequently mounted on the site Oct. 15, 2006, where it stayed until it was moved July 23, 2011, to the September 11 Memorial and Museum at the former World Trade Center site across the street.” It remains today a statement of hope.

What human beings mean for evil God can turn to good.

Consider the Diaspora. “The first use of the word diaspora is found in John 7:35 in reference to the dispersed Jews living among the Greeks. In Acts 8:1-4 it is the Jewish Christians who were scattered or dispersed as a result of the stoning of the first martyr Stephen. By Acts 11:19, we again find use of this term in connection with scattered Jewish Christians, with some beginning to share the gospel message with Gentiles. James is addressed "To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion" (James 1:1). However, in this context the audience consists of Jewish Christians who lived in a variety of locations. First Peter 1:1 also addresses scattered peoples: "To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." In Peter's case, he wrote to both Jewish and Gentile Christians living in these areas, revealing that in some cases this word was being used in a new sense to include the scattered people of God from a Christian perspective.”

Early Christians fled in the face of persecution, but while the persecution was intended to squelch the growth of Christianity, it had the opposite effect, scattering believers to the four corners of the earth. What human beings mean for evil God can turn to good.

What are we to think of America’s current social chaos? In the face of moral upheaval are we to hide in bunkers, withdraw to isolated Christian communes, throw in the towel? Or are we to go “into the world” while being “not of the world” as we are commanded in John 17? If the current culture’s pell-mell rush to nihilism is a result of self-absorption, sin, and Satan, is it also perhaps in the providence of God our opportunity to shine the Light brighter in the midst of darkness? What people meant for evil, God meant for good.

In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul reminded us, “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.”

Allow me to read that phrase again: “by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” Our task, our opportunity in the face of increasing false religions and moral decadence is that we can be ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:11-21). We can be truth-tellers.

The Apostle Paul continues: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ,” (2 Cor. 4).

The cross represents the Good News of Jesus Christ, and we get to communicate this Good News, knowing that what people mean for evil, God can turn to good.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 September 2023

Have you noticed how often mental health is now referenced by celebrities, sports figures, and politicians?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #108 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.

For a while now, reaching back at least into the COVID experience, I’ve noticed that mental health seems to have taken center stage, particularly among the young. Sports figures like Olympics swimming gold medalist Michael Phelps, Japanese professional tennis player Naomi Osaka, and Olympic gymnastics star Simone Biles have all revealed struggles with what they called mental health issues.

Actor Elizabeth Olsen addressed her mental health struggles, which she only experienced when she was living in New York at age 21. "I remember I would get [panic attacks] on the hour every hour," Olsen recalled. "I used to live on 13th Street between 6th and 7th. I was crossing 6th Avenue at 14th Street, and I realized I couldn't cross the street — I stood up against the wall, and I just thought I was going to drop dead at any moment."

Singer Selena Gomez, said, “Last year, I was suffering mentally and emotionally, and I wasn't able to stay all that kept together. I wasn't able to hold a smile or to keep things normal…It felt like all of my pain and anxiety washed over me all at once and it was one of the scariest moments of my life.”

These athletes and entertainers are people in peak physical condition, in their 20s and 30s, and they live with considerable resources and access to entire entourages of support. Yet they have struggled with mental health issues.

Of course, fame and fortune are no barriers to stress, emotional traumas, depression, and tragedy. I understand that these people are just human beings like the rest of us, and in no way am I expressing disrespect or making light of them or their struggles. I recognize, too, that mental health issues are real, and that people can experience an extensive variety of mental challenges, some rooted in their own earlier choices and behaviors, some traced to sources of no fault of their own, e.g., difficult a family upbringing or physiological imbalances. Whether Nature or Nurture, we live in a fallen world and many things can contribute to mental ill-health.

While my heart goes out to anyone struggling with mental health issues, I wonder why there is a significant increase of this challenge in the US, especially among female and also wealthier adolescents: mood swings, psychological distress, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, suicide-related outcomes, psychosis symptoms. Some say this is happening due to loneliness or frightening current events or social media isolation or drugs. In the U.S., this phenomenon is being called a mental health crisis.

I am also concerned when I hear Christian leaders, churches, or Christian ministries talk about mental health as the primary goal of their ministries. This is a relatively new thing, religious organizations suppressing, let’s call it spiritual vocabulary, in favor of psychological vocabulary, medicalizing spiritual issues. Theology is replaced by therapy.

This watering down trend that trades theology for therapy is part of a larger DIY religioun movement in the US – described with a ten-dollar phrase, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

The term, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism was first introduced in the 2005 book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by the sociologist Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton. The authors coined the term to “describe the (religious) system as being ‘about providing therapeutic benefits to its adherent’ as opposed to being about things like ‘repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of a sovereign divine, of steadfastly saying one's prayers, of faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through suffering…’ and further as ‘belief in a particular kind of God: one who exists, created the world, and defines our general moral order, but not one who is particularly personally involved in one's affairs – especially affairs in which one would prefer not to have God involved.’

The authors state that ‘a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity's misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

“A church has become therapeutic if the gospel is reduced, and reducible, to the premises and vocabulary, concepts and recommendations of therapy. A therapeutic church does not speak of sin, judgment, guilt, shame, wrath, hell, repentance, punishment, suffering, crucifixion, deliverance, salvation, Satan, demons, exorcism, and so forth.

It takes most or all of these to be in need of translation or elimination: the latter, because they are outmoded or harmful to mental health; the former, because they are applicable to contemporary life but only in psychological, not spiritual, terms. A therapeutic church speaks instead, therefore, of wellness, health, toxicity, self-care, harm, safety, balance, affirmation, holding space, and being well-adjusted.”

“The question is not whether mental health is real (it is), whether medication is sometimes worth prescribing (it is), or whether therapy can be helpful (it can be). The question is whether mental health is convertible with spiritual health. The question, that is, is whether the work of therapy is synonymous with the work of the gospel; whether the task of the counselor is one and the same as that of the pastor. Answer: It is not.”

The “therapeutic church is atheist because it has lost its raison d’être: it preaches a gospel without God.”

“A therapeutic church has, in way, lost its nerve. It simply does not believe what it says it believes, what it is supposed to be preaching. It does not believe that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the best possible news on planet earth, meant for every soul under heaven. It does not believe that the problems of people today, as at all times, have their final answer and ultimate fulfillment in the Word made flesh. Or, to the extent that it does believe this, it is scared to say so, because the folks in the pews do not want to hear that. They want to be affirmed in their identities, in their desires, in their blemishes and failures and foibles. They do not want to be judged by God. They do not want to be told they need saving by God. They do not want to learn that their plight is so dire that the God who created the universe had to die for their sins on a cross. They want to be told: I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay—so long as we accept our imperfections and refuse the siren songs of guilt and shame. They want, in a word, to be heard, to be seen, and to be accepted just as they are.”

But “God is not a therapist, and his principal goal in Christ is not to ensure a high degree of mental health in the context of a larger successful venture in upper-middle class professional/family life. God, rather, is in the business of holiness.”

“Does this mean that America is becoming more secularized? Not necessarily…Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith. This radical transformation of Christian theology and Christian belief replaces the sovereignty of God with the sovereignty of the self. In this therapeutic age, human problems are reduced to pathologies in need of a treatment plan. Sin is simply excluded from the picture, and doctrines as central as the wrath and justice of God are discarded as out of step with the times and unhelpful to the project of self-actualization.”

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

“As Barna noted, ‘It seems that most of these folks want to do the right thing; they simply have been led down the wrong paths toward achieving that end.’”

The “therapeutic gospel concerns itself with people’s ‘felt needs’: for love, significance, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-assertion, pleasure, and excitement. The therapeutic gospel gives people what they want. It makes them feel better—at least temporarily. It centers around the welfare of man and temporal happiness. But…it discards the glory of God in Christ. It forfeits the narrow, difficult road that brings deep human flourishing and eternal joy…(Yet it is) the gospel of Jesus Christ brings change through repentance, faith, and transformation into the image of the Son.”

Therapy asks us to change ourselves, something we cannot do.

Theology provides a way through the Word for God to change us.

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

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

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