Posted on 04/16/2019 4:07:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
"(T)here is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," said Hamlet, who thereby raised some crucial questions:
Is moral truth subjective? Does it change with changing times and changing attitudes? Or is there a higher law, a permanent law, God's law, immutable and eternal, to which man's law should conform?
Are, for example, the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament, Christian teaching and natural law unchangeable and applicable to all men at all times? Or can some of the 10 be consigned to the dumpster of antiquated moral prohibitions?
This question has been brought straight into the presidential primaries by Pete Buttigieg, breakout star of the spring of 2019.
"Mayor Pete" is proudly gay and living happily with his husband.
He says God made him the way he is, and he is living the life God intended for him. Raising the same-sex marriage issue himself, the mayor defiantly taunted Mike Pence:
"Yes, Mr. Vice President ... it has moved me closer to God. ... That's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand: That if you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is not with me. ...Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator."
Buttigieg declared his candidacy Sunday, and his bid ensures that America's deepening moral divide will be front and center in 2020.
Our culture wars will not be ending anytime soon.
This weekend, General Social Survey data revealed that Americans who profess to have "no religion," 23.1%, now exceed Catholics, our largest religion with 23%, and Evangelicals at 22.5%. And the "nones" have grown by 266% since 1991.
As for the mainstream Protestant congregations, together, they are not half as numerous as those Americans who profess no religion.
Added to our racial and ethnic diversity, America is growing more diverse religiously, de-Christianizing with all deliberate speed.
We are becoming another people, and a post-Christian America appears to be our destiny well before the end of this century.
Consider what has changed already.
In the 19th century, blasphemy was a crime.
In the Roaring '20s the "vices" of booze and gambling were outlawed. Now they are major sources of state revenue.
Divorce was a rarity. Now half of all marriages are dissolved.
After the sexual revolution of the '60s, births out of wedlock rocketed to where 40 percent of all children are born without a father in the home, as are half of Hispanics and 70 percent of all black children.
Pornography, which used to bring a prison term, today dominates cable TV. Marijuana, once a social scourge, is the hot new product. And Sen. Kamala Harris wants prostitution legalized.
In the lifetime of many Americans, homosexuality and abortion were still scandalous crimes. They are now cherished constitutional rights.
Yet, Mayor Pete's assertion -- that God made him gay, and God intended that he live his life this way, and that this life is moral and good -- is another milestone on the road to a new America.
For what Buttigieg is saying is that either God changes his moral law to conform to the changing behavior of mankind or that, for 2,000 years, Christian preaching and practice toward homosexuals has been bigoted, injurious and morally indefensible.
If Pete is right, since the time of Christ, Christians have ostracized and persecuted gays simply for being and behaving as God intended.
And if that is true, what is the defense of Christianity?
Already, among a good slice of America, especially the young, the West is guilty of centuries of racism, imperialism, colonialism, slavery, sexism, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution and cultural genocide against indigenous peoples.
Now, according to Mayor Pete's logic, the West is also guilty of centuries of hateful homophobia toward people living as God made them and intended them to live.
What does this portend for 2020?
While Democrats defend Mayor Pete's same-sex marriage as moral, they will also insist that women's "reproductive rights" remain sacrosanct, and that unborn infants, 60 million of whom have been killed in the womb since Roe v. Wade in 1973, still have no rights at all, not even the right to life.
How does a nation so divided ever come together again?
How can a nation, many of whose elites are so ashamed of its history and heritage and deplorable other half -- as "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic ... and bigoted" -- credibly claim to be a shining city on a hill or a light unto the nations?
America is today as powerful, prosperous and free as any nation the world has ever seen. And we have used that wealth and freedom to create a culture and a society many of our own people and much of the world now see as dissolute and decadent.
Post-Christian America, in many ways, is beginning to mirror what we were once taught that the pre-Christian Roman Empire looked like.
Indeed, if the mayor's lifestyle is moral, Christianity got it wrong for 20 centuries.
A 69 lock?
We've killed our unborn for over 40 years!
Prepare for the whirlwind to come!
Wow, _Jim, Jim Robinson? First time in over 20 years I have gotten a comment from you on my comment, fun!
Aren’t many comments on Mayor Pete beyond the request:
“please remember to use common courtesy when posting and refrain from posting personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threats, racial or religious bigotry, or any other materials offensive or otherwise inappropriate for a conservative family audience.”
Homosexuality was a very marginal phenomenon for most of that time, wasn't it? For most Christians through most of the history of the Church it wasn't really a temptation. Those who did practice it were rare compared to today's gay population, and they could just as easily be condemned for their other sins.
Not Jim Robinson.
Pete has to contend with obvious Scripture condemning his lifestyle and it’s not ambiguous. My guess is that if he is confronted with it, he will treat Scripture like a vampire treats a crucifix.
When our Methodist Church held their “Gay Summit” to “dialogue” prior to General Conference, they invoked the caveat “No Scripture”.That was telling.
We are currently losing on this latest social trend, because of some churches for sure. My children think it unfair, even though raised their whole life knowing what God says about it. Sometimes to drive the point home, I describe why God says it is such an abomination. His life giving organ created to bring forth life, children, is used for the waste shoot, blasphemy not how God designed it.
Buttigieg lives 24/7 in a self-deceptive chosen fantasy and make-believe likely after years of extreme insecurity..... so it should be understandable why he chooses to defend the lie he’s living in by lying further. He is far from the truth.
Self-deception about gender is at the heart of the homosexual condition. A child who imagines that he or she can be the opposite sex — or be both sexes — is holding on to a fantasy solution to his or her confusion. This is a revolt against reality and a rebellion against the limits built into our created human natures.... Dr. Joseph Nicolosi
It doesn’t matter why. The Bible condemns it and that’s that. If they disagree, their quarrel is with my Creator.
A few thoughts:
1) In the Garden, man did eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil where man “decides” what is good and evil.
2) That doesn’t change what God’s standard is.
3) but this should give pause:
Deu 23:17 “No Israelite, whether man or woman, may become a temple prostitute.
Deu 23:18 When you are bringing an offering to fulfill a vow, you must not bring to the house of the LORD your God any offering from the earnings of a prostitute, whether a man or a woman, for both are detestable to the LORD your God.
It us under the heading of Misc Laws. Think about it, God made a special law. That means it was so common at the time. The whole economic system was built around perversity.
We are not even close to how bad it has been and is going to get...………………………………...
“We are not even close to how bad it has been and is going to get”
So true
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