Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 08 October 2020

Celebrities, politicians, and media use euphemisms as handy deflections to questions they don’t want to answer or don’t know how to answer or don’t want to answer in historically understood moral categories. These euphemisms pass for excuses or even erudition, but they don’t really offer anything substantive and can be misleading or downright wrong.

Consider these:

I was lucky.

This comment is regularly made by entertainment stars on late night TV talk shows or by sports figures when they are asked about their success. In an effort to sound, or maybe to give them the benefit of the doubt to actually be, humble, the accomplished star does not say, I am great (unless they are Muhammad Ali); I am enormously talented; I worked hard and by hook and crook clawed my way to the top; I am blessed – especially not this one because this implies there is a God who distributes talent and grace and admitting this in public media isn’t politically correct.

Problem is, taken at face value, this means that the star is saying I did nothing, I have no talent, did not work hard, and am not responsible for anything I’ve accomplished. Pretty bleak view of themselves, humanity, and existence. It’s all dumb, blind fate.

I just want her/him to be happy.

This comment usually comes when a former spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend has left the person behind. Or it comes when parents hear of their son or daughter’s decision to pursue some odd sexual expression.

Problem is, does the person’s happiness trump all other considerations?

I’m not really religious but I’m a very spiritual person.

The celebrity making this statement may be honest or may just be dodging the deeper meaning of a question, but either way, the idea is that it’s not really socially kosher anymore to be overtly religious, but it’s apparently OK to be “spiritual.”

Problem is, spiritual can mean anything and nothing.

He’s/She’s dealing with his/her demons.

This is a frequent media comment when some celebrity or politician has gone off the deep end but the media doesn’t want or know how to talk about the person’s choices in moral terms. Certainly, sin is not in the mix, so a reference is made to demons.

Problem is, demons can mean anything and in particular can mean that whatever is going awry in the person’s life, it’s not her or his fault. It’s the demons. So, this is a great way to duck accountability and blame something, anything but one’s own moral choices.

Mistakes were made.

This is the time-honored non-apology-apology. It’s a way of saying something so it sounds like you took responsibility but in actuality you did not take responsibility. Corporate CEOs say this when their company is struggling with a bad product; celebrities and especially politicians say this when they want to sort-of-own-but-not-own bad press.

Problem is, who made the mistakes? The person saying this rarely says I made mistakes. And if what happened was actually a mistake, then it perhaps was without intent or culpability, so you blame frail humanity. This may be accurate. Humans are frail and we make mistakes. But usually, this comment isn’t referencing actual mistakes. It is referencing premeditated choices. Someone acted and knew what and why they were doing what they were doing. This is not a mistake. It is willful forethought with intent.

Just have faith.

This comment is a favorite of celebrities on late night TV. It’s an all-purpose way of providing some kind of optimism and sometimes the full phrase is “Just have faith in yourself.”

Problem is, faith in what? Faith is as good as what it trusts. Faith in yourself may be good pop-psychology and perhaps helpful self-confidence, but as a religious or moral philosophy capable of dealing with life’s greatest challenges, it’s a non-starter.

I have to follow my heart.

This celebrity comment is sometimes presented as “You can’t help who you love,” which usually references some sexually progressive idea, i.e., I am pansexual, or I cheated on my wife because, well, I had to.

Problem is, once again, this comment seeks to side-step individual responsibility because it is saying that somehow the person is doing what they are doing and can’t help doing so.

Euphemisms may not all be bad or wrong. Saying someone “passed away” rather than he or she “died” is often used to soften the sad news. But euphemisms that obscure and deflect accountability ultimately do not serve the speaker well, let alone anyone else.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 07 October 2020

SAT-7, the largest Christian satellite broadcasting network in the Middle East and North Africa, often speaks of its “holistic” ministry.

Holistic means we believe our Christian faith requires us to actively care for the whole person: spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, social.

Yes, SAT-7 regularly shares the Gospel, the Good News of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

In addition, SAT-7 works to bless people in their everyday circumstances.

Programs address building marriages, nurturing children, adoption, women’s issues, substance abuse, freedom of religion and human rights, employment training. Other programs address children and youth issues like trauma healing, bullying, dating.

With some 15 million children out of school in the Middle East due to conflict or crisis, SAT-7 ACADEMY produces educational programs offering instruction in English, Arabic, Mathematics, and the Sciences.

Social concern is a means of loving our neighbors and demonstrating the Gospel.

SAT-7’s ministry is holistic, teaching the “whole counsel of God” for the whole person.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 October 2020

When culture rejects the idea of objective truth all that’s left is irrationality.

American culture is now not just embracing but celebrating irrationality. What else explains abortion-on-demand all the way through even post-birth, gender fluidity, freedom of speech only if we agree, rejection of evidentiary rule of law in favor of rule by feelings?

Our irrationality is rooted in our embrace of moral relativism, which is now the basis of American culture’s worldview. This is perhaps most obvious in matters of human sexuality.

Doing what’s right in your own eyes sexually, that is, with public approval, cannot happen as long as religion, specifically biblical Christianity, is influential in people’s hearts and minds. So sexual progressivism in all its forms has become the point of the spear pushing total rejection of Judeo-Christian values as the historic basis of American public morality and culture. This push is organized, aggressive, and in the name of tolerance the most intolerant silence-opposing-views movement at work today.

This moral chaos shows up in, among other things:

Abortion
Huge percentage of homes with no father in the home, i.e. kids growing up without male parental influence
LGBTQ+, same sex marriage
Debt complacency- Living not just beyond our means; living beyond our children’s means
Dividing walls of hostility between groups: gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, culture
Loss of civility, morality, optimism replaced by a coarse and obscene culture, hysterical politics

Francis A. Schaeffer’s phrase “true truth” foresaw our current “your truth vs my truth,” subjectivism and relativism, “truthiness,” feelings-the-measure-of-all-things, and the mess we have now with “fake news” and “alternative facts.”

Along with the phrase “celebrating irrationality” to describe our culture I’ve used the phrase “sophisticated ignorance,” like Athens in Acts 17. The superstition and D.I.Y. religion is evident in rejection of moral absolutes and the idea of objective truth, then an embrace of chance, feelings, and subjectivity over reason, and an inclination toward new forms of paganism.

If you think abortion is “life-sustaining” as does the governor of Michigan, so it is. If a baby in the womb or even born alive is not wanted, it’s not a human baby.

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Celebration of irrationality.

Irrationality is now a way of life for more and more people.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 03 October 2020

One year ago today I had my heart attack. I had a stent procedure, changed my diet and began walking a few miles each morning, lost weight, and otherwise returned to my life, family, and calling.

Heart attacks get your attention, though. “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

I am grateful to the Lord for his protection and blessing, to the Drs and nurses for their expertise, and to my Good Wife for her decision in the wee hours of that night: “We’re going to the E.R. Now.”

So, I’ll quote a verse my Mother quoted to me many times as I was growing up, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24).

And I’ll cite my favorite chorus, “God is so good. God is so good. God is so good to me.”

He’s good to you too.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 02 October 2020

Race, racism, and racial politics continue to bedevil America.

I’ve shared my views of race and racism, and on race, racism, and social justice, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s Civil Rights Movement. I’ve talked about re-establishing order in urban streets and the Defund the Police movement. I’ve been particularly vocal about the danger of “Woke” ideas for American culture, the threat of “Wokeness” upon education, and the growing influence of “Woke” philosophy upon the Church.

I tried to develop a Christian worldview perspective—though I do not claim to be a philosopher or a theologian or anything other than a person who sees through a glass darkly—to avoid partisan views, which I find singularly unmotivating and inconsistent on both sides of the aisle, or even to buy-in to any ideological philosophy, though anyone who actually reads my writing will know I am conservative, little “c”.

For all this, I find it frustrating that some people seem to think they know what I believe, yet apparently have never read my writing, and others who presume to know what I believe based upon some portion of what I’ve said, or, they simply disagree and therefore find my point of view uncompelling.

A number of things bother me, here in no particular order:

When I listen to conservative friends, liberal friends, and a few black friends whatever their ideology, it seems to me they are not listening to one another. By this I mean, for example, that I hear different concerns and the same words used with different meanings.

I don’t like it when people use social media in an in-your-face fashion, posting “Blue lives matter” or “All lives matter,” both of which I affirm, not alongside but seemingly in opposition to “Black lives matter,” which I also affirm. Why must these value statements be set up as “versus” rather than “both/and”?

There are extremists on both the Left and the Right who seemed to have gained an outsized voice, who are shouting their vitriolic messages so loudly, and who have been given so much airtime in Big Media as well as Big Social Media that other moderate, i.e. reasonable, voices are drowned in the cacophony. This includes groups like Black Lives Matter or Antifa on the Left and Proud Boys or KKK on the Right, along with various white supremacists, militias, anarchists, and others promoting overthrow of the American political system.

Black Lives Matter has pulled off an amazing and unprecedented coup gaining alignment and hundreds of millions of dollars from American corporations, universities, public schools, and professional sports associations and leagues. The group has done this in part due to the tragic death of Georg Floyd at the hands of police officers and in part because of the genius of their name. Who can or wants to speak against “black lives matter”? Of course, they matter, but the organization is anything but a simple racial justice advocacy group. It is thoroughly grounded in Marxist theory, promotes anti-biblical values and goals, and whether intentional or not, in much that it does advances a new racism in the name of anti-racism. What’s enormously concerning and frustrating about this is that the supportive corporations, educational, and entertainment organizations noted above are all diving in with both feet, afraid of being labeled anything but supportive, and seemingly doing this uncritically, thus embracing values that can or will undermine their very existence in a free, democratic, and capitalist society.

Critical Race Theory, now promoted by BLM and being taught in universities and until recently the federal government, is a dangerous and damaging set of ideas that undermines potential for racial reconciliation. There is no redemption or forgiveness in CRT. No dissent, only submission. MLK, Jr. would not recognize and I don’t think support much of what claims to be heir to the Civil Rights Movement. Support for Black individuals realizing the full measure of their citizenship, for sure. Peaceful nonviolent protest, absolutely. Rejection of American constitutional ideals and free enterprise, No. Promotion of Black justice vs objective, truthful justice as such, No. Violence in the name of justice, No. Identifying race as the end-all-be-all of life, No.

“Defund the Police” makes no empirical or even common sense, yet it is being embraced by cities across the country. But it was not long ago that the Clinton Administration touted its effort to put 100,000 more police officers on the streets. What happened to this? School teachers have long been told, “Don’t punish the class because one kid misbehaves.” Yes, bad or rogue or evil cops exist, and they should be discovered and removed if not put in prison for their own crimes. Yes, sad incidents have occurred in which a black person has been killed by a police officer, only later to discover that this was not a “righteous shoot.” But the number of times this has occurred per capita and accounting for the number of incidents and shootings that take place is very small. This is not to minimize or trivialize the loss of life. It is not to argue that racism does not exist in the criminal justice process. It is simply to say that criminal justice reform and accountability for bad cops can happen without defunding police departments. This is an emotional, unwise over-reaction.

I do not agree that “silence is violence,” nor do I agree that all white people are by definition racist any more than I think all black people are racist or possess some other negative characteristic. To argue this is itself racist because it condemns an entire category of people based on an assumption, based on the sin of given individuals.

Race politics in America is in a bad place to say the least. Right now, it’s extremists with the loudest voices screaming at each other on the opposite end of the teeter-totter. No real change will take place until right values are identified and embraced:

--That all individuals are created equal and loved by God. No one race is better much less supreme. No one race is entitled.

--What people of all races hold in common as human beings is more and greater than what our minds determine divides us.

The Church needs to speak to the moment, not touting Right or Left but applying the whole counsel of God.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 01 October 2020

In a time when belief in objective truth, i.e., to say something is true whatever you or I may think about it, the Bible has come under increasing suspicion.

Why? It claims to be the Word of God, revelation once delivered. It claims to be truth and to present the Truth and Christians have for two millennia consider the Bible inerrant and infallible, the source from which we develop a Christian worldview and proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all of life.

What then do we believe and know?

The Bible, the Word of God, was written for all times, countries, and cultures.

Without contextualizing or modifying or revising, much less updating, whatever that means, the Bible is permanently contemporary.

The Bible gives us propositional statements, absolutes, about (a rather short list but one we ignore at our peril) moral issues, sometimes called non-negotiables.

The Bible gives us principles from which we can learn to discern, developing our convictions and preferences on matters the Bible does not directly address, by which we can become “fully convinced in our own mind” and apply based upon our Christian liberty.

The Bible is trustworthy on all matters of life and culture.

Christian liberty may be the least understood and least practiced doctrine in the Bible.

Christians give others room to be different in food choices or maybe clothing. Rarely do they seem to do so regarding politics, yet this in our age is a primary sensitivity.

This does not mean we cannot disagree. Respectful disagreement promotes critical thinking or spiritual discernment and wise decisions. Nor is this an argument for the moral equivalency of all issues, because the Bible speaks directly to the morality of some issues, while providing principles upon which we can draw to decide our stance regarding other issues. But no one’s viewpoint is non-debatable, non-negotiable, unimpeachable, inviolable.

Christians in America, or anywhere else, cannot wrap the Bible in their flag and claim the Word was given as if only to them. No, the Bible is for the Church Universal, the Body of Christ across nations, across cultures, across time.

How shall we then live?

Affirm biblical values, by developing our Christian worldview, spiritual discernment (Phil. 1:9-11).

Embrace Christian liberty and allow for differences of conscience (Rom 14).

Speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15).

Exercise grace with humility, knowing we all see through a glass darkly.

We must honor others above ourselves…even and especially those with whom we disagree.

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Col. 3:12).

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