TWO THINGS LIBERALS WILL NEVER TOLERATE

Whether it be political or theological liberalism, there are two things liberalism in both camps will not tolerate.

INTOLERABLE 1

The first of the intolerables is the truth that human nature can't be changed; we are as Paul said, "by nature the children of wrath." We are as David wrote, "We go forth estranged from the womb" and "in sin did my mother conceive me."

The liberal position is that what man needs is information and, based on reason and logic he will make the "right" and "moral" decision. This leads to getting people educated, so the "right" information is distributed to the schools and the schools will be the conduit to carry the information to the students, and, armed with that information, they will turn out to make the proper decisions.

The examples are numerous, but one will suffice: drug addiction, membership in gangs, and violence are seen as the problems, so in 1983, the Los Angeles Police Dept., in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified School District, founded D. A. R. E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education).

The result of the program: Researchers at Indiana University, commissioned by Indiana school officials in 1992, found that those who completed the D.A.R.E. program subsequently had significantly higher rates of hallucinogenic drug use than those not exposed to the program. Wait. What? Yes, you read that correctly.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

Indiana University didn't stand alone in their conclusion: In 1995, a report to the California Dept. of Education, Dr. Joel Brown stated that none of California's drug education programs worked, including D.A.R.E.

The  report concluded, "California's drug education programs, D.A.R.E. being the largest of them, simply don't work. More than 40 percent of the students told researchers they were 'not at all' influenced by drug educators or programs. Nearly 70 percent reported neutral to negative feelings about those delivering the antidrug [sic] message. While only 10 percent of elementary students responded to drug education negatively or indifferently, this figure grew to 33 percent of middle school students and topped 90 percent at the high school level."

In some circles educators and administrators have admitted that DARE increased students' exposure and knowledge of unknown drugs and controlled substances, resulting in experimentation and consumption of narcotics at a much younger age. Criticism focused on failure and misuse of tax-payer dollars, with either ineffective or negative results state-wide.

To summarize the reports, they were official statements saying, "Oops. We're sorry we wasted the students' time and your money."

WRONG STARTING POINT

The political liberal and the theological liberal will turn, every time, to the government and to education to solve whatever it is that they deem as the problem, but, in reality, their presupposition that human nature is malleable and improvable is flawed from the start. Their stating point causes them to treat the with symptoms, not the cause, man's innate fallen nature. The solution isn't education. Paul wrote that human nature is such that, even when we realize what's wrong, sinful, and even hurtful, and we swear we won't do it, that's exactly what we do. (Rom. 7) Human nature can't be educated away. If it could, universities wouldn't need campus police.

INTOLERABLE 2

The second thing that both political liberalism and theological liberalism won't tolerate is authority. Liberals in both areas have a problem with keeping established rules if things don't go to suit them. We see this almost weekly, yea, albeit daily, in our society. If the results of an election don't go their way, then it's time to riot, loot, burn things down, and break stuff. If things don't go their way, demand to change the rules, eliminate the electoral college.

In school, we learned that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. But, liberalism says, "If it gets in the way of we want, we'll ignore it."

If theological liberalism doesn't like what the Bible says, it changes the interpretation to one more preferred. If one doesn't like God's plan for marriage: change its definition. If one doesn't like hell, eliminate it. If Jesus words offend, then say that He never said them, author made them up.

Political liberals don't like the Constitution if it gets in their way, ignore or change it by saying it's "a living document" and changes with the times. Theological liberals do the same thing with the Bible.

THE COMMIES

Ever wonder why communists and dictators of all stripes loathe and try to destroy the Bible and the church? It's because both the Bible and the church stand firm on the fact that there is an authority higher than the dictator and higher than the government and that's intolerable. For the dictator, there can be no higher authority than the  government; he is the government.

Yet, there is the Christian, there is the church saying, "The beginning of wisdom is the fear [a postitive response] to the [authority of] the Lord."

MADNESS

The closing scene in "The Bridge On the River Kwai" leads to the last line of the movie. A British officer and his men are prisoners of war in a Japanese camp. By means of a series of events, the British officer offers to build a bridge over the river in order to show the Japanese the can-do spirit and discipline of the English military. He doesn't seem to realize or care that he's helping the enemy.

In the climactic scene, the officer winds up blowing up the bridge he's spent time, energy, and men to build. The inaugural train ride is crossing the bridge and plunges into the river as the structure collapses.

The prison camp doctor, observing the scene, says the last line of the movie, "Madness! Madness!"

The Western World is in the grip of madness as evidenced by a statement by the commissioner of London Metropolitan Police,  after the massacre on the London Bridge by Islamic terrorists. The chief, Cressida Dick, said,

"It's desperately sad and poignant but among those who died is someone who's British, there are French, Australian, Canadian, Spanish."

"In terms of our witnesses that we've spoken to so far, out of the 300-odd people, there are about 20 different countries of origin. And the London British population comes from all kinds of backgrounds and every kind of faith and ethnicity."

"We believe of course that that's what makes our city so great. It's a place where the vast majority of time it's incredibly integrated and that diversity gives us strength."

Here's a chief of police taking pride in the various nationalities of those innocent civilians who were slaughtered by having their throats cut in a terror attack. This is madness.

Has multiculturalism and the obsession for diversity taken us that far? Few of our leaders seem to be asking how a nation can find any point of unity if it's obsessed with diversity to the point of celebrating the murders of people from five different countries. A nation must find unity or its fabric will rip apart. That's what caused America's Civil War--it came to a point to where there was no point of unity, not the Constitution and not the Declaration of Independence, not anything. 

During the dispensation of the Mosaic Law, God commanded that at various times the nation would gather together to celebrate and sacrifice according to the Law that was to unify them. Psalm 133 alluded to this unity of the nation. There were the feasts, the covenants, and the Temple, all combined were to keep the unity of the nation.

In England has long since abandoned the Bible. Their churches stand both hollow and vacant. The Word of God has been covered with dust for a long time now. This has produced a vacuum. And what does nature do? Nature abhors a vacuum and therefore secularism (“Now is all there is”) is sucked into that vacuum. Because of this, like a juggernaut, things began to happen as decreed by Romans 1: “their foolish heart was darkened,” and “Professing to be wise, they became fools.”

How is it possible to be looking at five slaughtered people, with their blood running in the streets of the city you were sworn to protect, and think of how strong your city is to have such diverse corpses? How could any officer take pride in that? In only one way—such a pride comes from a darkened heart which produces a fool.

THE MANIPULATOR

1962: a novel sees the light of print. The author, hostile to Christianity, will begin to manipulate the reader. He tells the story of a Roman emperor set in the 4^th century A. D. The writer is an atheist; he’s not writing as an impartial observer. As Christ said, “He that is not with Me is against me. We see his hostility from the start—he refuses to capitalize “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” along with “Old Testament” and “New Testament.”

His hostility to Christianity begins on page one, so he immediately gets into it. But the way he begins to manipulate the reader may not be noticeable to the average person. To begin the molding of the reader’s mind to get him to find Christianity odious is to begin his 400-page book with a chance meeting of a teacher and his student.

The teacher is writing a letter to a friend in which he describes the chance encounter. The teacher writes, “I was stopped by a Christian student who asked me in a voice eager with malice . . .”

Thus our first introduction to a Christian is to one who is rude; he interrupts the instructor who’s on his way to a meeting and stops with a conversation in a voice which is eagerly malicious in tone. The reader is to understand that this student is not only rude, he has a secret agenda.

The book describes the student as “speaking slowly, watching me all the while.” Not only is he rude; he’s also sinister.

Then, still on page one the teacher, still writing his friend, says, “the bishops arrived like vultures to pray over [a powerful man who’s sick].” Then he adds, “I knew that if he recovers, they wold take full credit for having saved him.” The student is overly joyous because an inquisitor has been appointed to determine the faith of others and because “the days of toleration [of non-Christians are over.” Now, Christians are intolerant.]

The bishops become “vultures” who pray in hopes of bringing glory to themselves. So now, we have the author’s first insults to Christianity, one in the form of a rude believer, the other from glory and power hungry bishops. Then there’s the charge of not being tolerant, which he later details as the Emperor’s appointment of an Inquisitor to examine a person’s faith, along with the student’s saying, “The days of toleration are over.”

Not satisfied with the above, the author has the teacher write, “. . . that pernicious doctrine which asserts that a sprinkling of water (and a small donation) will wash away sin again and again and again.” {Now we get a further glimpse of what he’s reacting against.

The teacher charges the Emperor’s edict against the pagans as being composed of crude Greek like the bishops use, showing a confusion of thought. [Now Christianity is made up of ignorant people.] He laments that if things keep going the way they are, if they don’t strike back at these Christians, these Galileans will destroy the world they love. [For God’s verdict on the world they love, read Romans 1:18-32.

Writing of a eulogy he wrote, he says, “I was able to bring tears even hard Christian eyes.” [Now he portrays Christians as without compassion.] Going on, the takes a sarcastic swipe at the Resurrection: “My head is a tomb quite as empty as the one Jesus is supposed to have walked away from.”

He can’t leave the bishops alone, writing that they are ferocious in hunting heresy, which the professor defines as any opinion contrary to their own. His pen continues to insult as he writes, “They are as ignorant as all mankind.”

He portrays Christians as burning people alive, stoning people, and nailing them up to a church door. To summarize his hatred he writes, “They are as inconsistent, as logic has never been a strong point of the Christians faith.” [The author of the book is as many atheists—proud, feeling superior to others, judgmental. I Cor. 2:14]

He portrays the main character’s education by a Christian teacher as tedious, boring, as his instructor makes him recite for four hours and forced to pray three times a day.

All of this diatribe against Christianity is in the first chapter. The author’s vitriol is just beginning. He’s used stereotypes, erected a straw man—he’s charged Christians with being rude, ignorant, intolerant, and fierce.

What’s going on? What’s happening is that the author is reacting, not against Christianity, but against Roman Catholicism. Even a cursory reading of the Gospel of John would show him that biblical Christianity doesn’t teach that a sprinkling of water and a small donation cleanse one of sin. His is a common error—many take the abuses and false doctrines of the Roman church and shout, “There’s Christianity for you! “

By the time the reader finishes the first chapter, he’s been set up.

Who is this author and what’s the name of his book? An interesting question, but I’ll give him no publicity, only to say that he passed into a Christless eternity in 2012, and God wept.