Posted on 10/22/2014 12:38:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Let’s hope we don’t put Calvin’s words to the test.
That must begin with honesty from our side. It used to be that liberals were the pie-in-the-sky wishful-thinking types who only saw the world as they wanted it to be, and were inevitably disappointed. But somehow we’ve changed places with them, selling ourselves lies about “un-skewing” polls and telling each other that the country was secretly right in lockstep with us. Until the returns stated coming in. Which we met with more self-delusions. Liberals, meanwhile, got steely-eyed, saw the world as it actually was and decided to change it.
Now we need to reclaim our former strength to begin changing it back. Repeating more falsehoods only gets in our way and makes our opponents stronger by our weakness.
Love your username, by the way. Because it’s exactly what we’ve lost, and what we so desperately need.
Everyone must act as they see fit. My point is simply that we live in a time when the difficult choices will rebound against each of us. Those who seek solace in uncompromising adherence to their faith will still find themselves at odds with their children. Some of those children may eventually come home. Many will not. It is a very sad state of affairs for everyone. It furthers the dissolution of the family, as well. Everyone loses something. Even within traditionalist families, the parents will often not agree, nor will the other siblings and ancillary family members. It is a tragedy of our time.
The thing is, if family is an overarching value, then the child’s deviation from the parental values is not simply the child’s business. The concept of sin varies even among co-religionists. Unconditional love is a hallmark of Christianity. The rejected child sees hypocrisy in the withdrawal of that love in the name of sin vs. virtue. It is the classic case of the irresistible object and the immoveable force, on both sides. Everyone involved has arguments they deem irrefutable, while refuting the opposing POV. There is no chance of reconciliation without one side caving to other. Compromise is, by definition, impossible. I find it very sad and I don’t see where anyone’s best interests are served.
YMMV
Your post brings to mind Patrick Henry’s immortal words:
“Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
— Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death
“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace— but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
— Patrick Henry
Bravo, sir. Bravo.
All the gay people I know spend like drunken sailors. That’s why so much advertising is pushed at them.
You can't change a grown child's heart, anyway -- the time for molding their behavior is over and your job as a parent is done. There is a difference between a small child with same-sex attraction or an atheist rebellion and those conditions in a grown son or daughter who is seeking to introduce conflict in his or her parents' conscience. Therefore, my remarks below will focus on grown children who are in rebellion against reasonable parental religious values.
Shunning and excommunication may have once worked in small closed societies where the person choosing a different path could be bullied with the prospect of being alone and without group protection.
Your reformation, reformedliberal, is incomplete. Your post jumps to the immediate negative assumptions about religious conservatives that such parents would shun, disown or cut off a sexual or religious profligate completely, or do so with anger, shaming and vengeance rather than sorrow, dialogue and the hope of reconciliation. This need not be the case. But as many of us have had to do with gay friends or grown hetero children who want to sleep over with their partners, or to discuss politics, religion or sexuality over dinner in front of small children, there should be no hesitation to set limits. Many of us do not permit our heterosexual grown children to stay in the same room until married, for instance, or to parade sexual displays or conversation. Why should gay relatives be any different? But often the gay children will be the ones to make themselves the martyrs because what they really want is not just inclusion, but the conversion of their parents and their parents' renunciation of the religion that makes gays' consciences uncomfortable. It is they who are the bigots, for not realizing that mature adults make reasonable compassionate compromises to maintain mutual respect when conflicting values are present.
The world is different today. Name your most previously forbidden behavior and there are support communities eager to embrace the prodigal, providing a sanctioned substitute.
If a prodigal is able to get along without the deepest, truest love that, generally speaking, only family can provide to a young adult, it's on them. For some people who lack imagination, a hard experience with the limits of romance and even of friendship can be the only wake-up call.
Friends and family may refuse acceptance and then find that they are the ones now isolated from the general society. Prevalent culture is predominate.
So, everyone else should roll over and die? Progressive culture is unAmerican, unconstitutional in many respects, fascist, immoral and fundamentally regressive towards the mean, the animalistic and the primitive. It would be better to be alone and to work for a restoration of true values than to embrace hedonism. Many adults who take personal responsibility for their lives and don't blame God if they have bad breaks with their toxic relatives form a "family of choice" in their place of worship or with community groups. Ask any single or widowed old person who really looks out for them.
Coerced values are not values at all. They are simply perceived as jack-booted thuggery and the general society will close ranks against them.
You just got done explaining how secular society encroaches on all traditional families, so who exactly is doing the coercion? I'd agree with you that the State is inserting itself inappropriately, and research has shown that destroying traditional religious and family ties are long-established goals and objectives of the left for the past 150 years. There are times when enough people have had enough of leftist nihilism and finally throw the fascists out of office. That time is coming again here in America. Europe is already having a conservative resurgence. They may be too late; we may be as well. But all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
I’ve known martyrs. They can be as unpleasant to be around as the most profligate rebel. Quoting religious texts to the unbelievers is as profitable as trying to teach pigs to sing.
You have known the wrong class of martyrs. Nobody enjoys hypocrisy. In Christianity, the rule is love, not condemnation of the person; but it's love the sinner, hate the sin. Behavior may be rightly discussed as to its relative merits and the likelihood of poor future outcomes when that behavior presents a problem in the relationship. Ultimately, all grown children must make their own choices, and wise parents know this about every topic, including finances, recreational activities, drug and alcohol use, and parenting the grandchildren. Parents who would allow no drinking in their house due to a family history of alcoholism, for instance, are not expected to roll over for a child into a sex cult like homosexuality; but many do, as a post above related: "they folded like deck chairs." Pity.
The main thing about martyrdom is the sincerity and purity of it, and whether it is truly a result of a struggle of conscience undertaken prayerfully with the Holy Spirit, or whether it is a battle of wills paraded as martyrdom. Nobody likes the latter. But mankind would have destroyed itself long ages ago without the former.
There are cultures, such as Islam,that prescribe torture and death for anyone breaking their commandments. Even that does not work with everyone.
Duh-- no, killing people to make them Jewish or Christian does not work! -- to my point that even under Islam's boot, some children are just lost to their parents' wishes because each human being has his or her own inborn conscience. But it is your attempt to make moral equivalence between Islam and JudeoChristianity that is wildly inaccurate. When is the last time you heard of a Jewish or Christian religious authority recommending death for apostasy? Islam and Western values are not the same at all; in many critical ways they are directly opposite. Therefore the same behavior (rebelling against parents' religion) cannot be judged as if the rebellion were the same. It cannot be. There is one true polarity, one true function of gravity, one true direction of the earth's orbit, one truth underlying physics and all creation. Islam is not truth. As a matter of history, the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, at his trial before Pontius Pilate, said, "I came to bring truth, to those who can hear the truth." In other words, he taught, and some listened, heard and followed. Others did not. He gave them their choice as adults. That is freedom. That is Christ, and that is what Christ expects and on that assumption, Western societies had based their concept of freedom -- personal choice, personal responsibility.
Castigate parents who choose to have a relationship with their child, regardless of lifestyle, if you wish. Those families are faced with choices most of us would not want to make. If blame must be placed, then a case could be made for the traditional values failing to offer attractive alternatives. If it is to be “My way or the highway”, one must be prepared for the hard road of rejection.
Not castigating. Encouraging parents to see the situation clearly and make the righteous choice, calmly and with moral serenity. Sincerely religious parents understand that they did not invent the rules of family, God did, in the same way He invented physics, polarity, tides, planetary orbits, et cetera. Jesus knew that a conflict between family relationships (among adults) and righteousness would happen to many people, and spoke about it twice (in Luke 14:26 that I linked to above, and in Matthew 10:34-39, below), encouraging people to choose righteousness. By righteousness I mean acting in love, charity and moral clarity, even if their relatives try to use their family relationship to blackmail the parents into accepting immorality. This type of hard choice is not the same as self-righteousness and the angry manipulation of which you are justly afraid.
Quoting religious texts to the unbelievers is as profitable as trying to teach pigs to sing.
I quoted religious texts to you in my former post to which you have replied; but it is not clear if you are saying that you are an unbeliever and were offended by those texts, or if you are merely commenting on what you perceive to be the uselessness of quoting religious texts to unbelievers. My discussion above supports the idea that quoting scripture with self-righteousness does not work. People's hearts change when and if they are ready. On this we agree.
However, in the context of FR where we can debate ideas, and since many people wrongly interpret the Jewish and Christian scriptures by the hypocrisies they single out, ignoring the beneficial intent of the scriptures, I am posting below two relevant passages that illustrate why 1) Christian parents may feel it incumbent on them to make the difficult choice to set firm limits on a profligate offspring; and why 2) they are not bothered by accusations of a selective, non-liberal point of view as applied their own choices, including how to relate to their grown children.
*Matthew 10:34 Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
Matthew 7:13 Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
You post a reasoned reply. I read it. I understand it. I even agree with much of it.
I simply posted my observations of the world as it is. I am always amused when a poster here mentions my handle and states or implies that I am not reformed because I am not in complete agreement, usually on some cultural issue, often a religious one.
I suppose that after I experienced first hand the illiberal actions of the progressive left, my personal ideology was more of the Classical Liberal type. Today, while I believe in God, I cannot relate to religious legalism or to Sola Scriptura. Which denomination? Which version of the Book? By which translator in which original language? It is possible to find a path that threads between all the divisions, but that path is found by each of us, individually, in our personal relationship with God and our interactions with other human beings.
So, I have no personal quarrel with those who would sever familial ties in accordance with their personal faith. It is on them. Likewise, I understand those who cannot do so and cannot find it in my heart to condemn them or to place blame. There is too much blame to go around, IMO. I am saddened by the present state of our American society. I personally pray for strength and peace, but I do not see it manifested, in general. Once in a while I do see it in specific individuals in specific situations. Rarely is it undiluted.
If seeing a gray scale is being a liberal, then I suppose I am guilty. So be it.
“Unconditional love is a hallmark of Christianity. The rejected child sees hypocrisy in the withdrawal of that love in the name of sin vs. virtue.”
Unconditional love is NOT unconditional acceptance. There is a huge difference - enough that it takes the blood of Jesus to bridge that gap. There is nothing loving about enabling sin or accepting it. I would not let a self-professed and proud adulterer join us for dinner, nor would I accept it by my kids.
We all sin, but we do not all rejoice in being sinners.
“There is no chance of reconciliation without one side caving to other. Compromise is, by definition, impossible.”
God’s nature defines morality. He isn’t going to change. We must be changed to become like Him, rather than pretending He will change to join us.
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