DEFINING THE DEVIANT

Something has happened to us and it’s not good. What’s happened is both profound and fundamental. Let’s call it an “inversion,” an inversion so drastic that, like Robert Heinlein wrote, “We’re strangers in a strange land, a land we don’t recognize.”

HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!

Let’s start with something personal that occurred in October 1999. My junior high school, now called a “middle school,” was, in my day, and since its founding in 1948, proud to call its 9^th, 8^th, and 7^th grade teams, “The Redskins,” “The Braves,” and the Papooses.” (As you might surmise, the “Papooses” were the 7^th graders and the noble “Redskins” were the 9^th graders as each team fought for gridiron basketball glory.) On those teams were one who would become a professional baseball player and one who would almost become a professional football player. (Although I give off an athletic aura, I was neither one.)  

You can guess where this is going: in October 1999, the Redskins ceased to exist and my alma mater’s mascot became “The Knights.” The change was strange because, as the superintendent of schools said, “There were no complaints about the former name.” But they changed the name to engage in, as principal Robert Guerrero admitted,  ''political correctness.'' He went on to say that the new name must be politically correct, so they settled on the “Knights.” This would have made Edgar Allen Poe happy, since he wrote about “Gaily bedight, A Gallant Knight,” in the poem, “El Dorado.” (I’m can recite this poem, and will do so upon request.)

In front of my junior high, stood a stone sign which read, “O. L. Slaton Redskins,” complete with a profile of an Indian’s head in full headdress. The drawing was a noble one and had class. When they changed the name, down came the sign and it’s now in a time capsule somewhere.  The principal noted that there would be some expense incurred in the name change—the dismantling of the sign and the uniforms that they must redo. But that’s what taxpayers are for.

Upon reading of the change, I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

CELEBRATE!

I’ve learned of another change in those hallowed halls of my education. In May, they celebrated Cinco de Mayo[1] with “Ballet Folklorico dancers” performing on stage in the auditorium along with mariachi musicians. Also, two O. L. Slaton teachers, Ana Montalvo and Daisy Ortega, explained the cultural significance of Mexican art at the assembly. I don’t know if Poe would have been pleased, but what are Ballet Folklorico dancers, and why are they in my auditorium? (I know, I know. Alex, the answer is “diversity.” But my question is, “When is there enough diversity?)

Upon reading of the celebration, the Ballet Folklorico dancers, and the explanation of the significance of Mexican art, I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

THE INVERSION

But that’s just a team mascot, one dismantled sign, and a celebration of an event in a foreign country. But the inversion is more serious.

We can’t let our children play unattended in a public park in broad daylight; we can’t let them walk home alone from the park without public censure and risking a citation and a court appearance; we can’t spank them when they misbehave; we can’t say, “Merry Christmas” without thinking about it; in some public circles, when a tragedy befalls, we can’t say, “Our prayers are with you,” we’re to say, “Our thoughts are with you.” In Oakland, California, schools, students may curse at a teacher without expulsion, because they might be hungry or tired from not having slept the night before.  On the college level, one Harvard student said that he was opposed to same sex marriage, but was afraid to say so on campus for fear of reprisals.

Recently a student newspaper reprimanded college a professor for discussing Ovid’s Metamorphoses in class which included the following famous myth:

As she [Persephone the daughter of Zeus, ] reached down to pluck  a flower from its resting place, her feet began to tremble and the earth was split in two. Life for Persephone would never be the same again.

From this gaping crevice in the ground emerged the awe-inspiring god of the Underworld, Hades, and before Persephone could even think to utter a word, she was whisked off her feet onto the god's golden chariot. As the crack of the whip upon his majestic horses brought her to her senses, she realized she was about to taken into the black depths from which he'd come. The thought of this brought terror to her heart, yet any screams of protest were soon lost within the darkness, as they descended quickly into the Underworld below.

This is such a famous myth that in the 17^th century, a sculpture was commissioned to depict it. The Italian state purchased the work and relocated it to the Galleria Borghese. It’s called “The Rape of Persephone.”[2] The sculptor is Bernini.

The professor’s discussion of that story caused a member of the class at Columbia feel unsafe, and the professor was publicly reprimanded in the university newspaper for being insensitive. The student needed a safe place in which she could discuss her traumatization at hearing the myth.

SOPHOMORIC

Immature students publicly criticizing their college professor in print?  Offended students demanding the replacing of a classic of Western Literature?  They know what’s best? Someone feels unsafe, endures trauma, and is offended at hearing a myth?

I feel like a stranger in a strange land.

THE LANGUAGE

We fawn over celebrities that assault us with language for which we would have thrown them out of our schools, houses, and public buildings not long ago. Our sports heroes cheat, and remain our heroes; our leaders look right in the camera and lie, know they’re lying, and when caught, we sigh a, “So?” In a sports world where soccer players theatrically feign injuries, where cyclists dope, and college recruiting violations persist, what’s happened to fair play?

Talk about being a stranger in a strange land: we prosecute, fine, shame, and ruin those who refuse to deny their biblical beliefs. We kill babies and have the arrogance to call it “women’s rights,” a part of  “reproductive health care.”

We submit to being the most taxed people in recorded history; our government takes more money away from us than any government ever, and we don’t seem to mind when it spends $7,000,000 a minute, claims it needs more and comes after more.

In Fairfax County Virginia, the school board made a decision: “Those males who think or feel they are girls (a newly discovered phenomenon called, “gender fluidity”) will be allowed to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex. If the board follows the example of Minnesota, schools would have to accommodate male transgendered students who want to spend nights at travel games in hotel rooms with female athletes.” (“The Federalist”)

I feel like I’m a stranger in a strange land where under the ozone layer is an insane asylum with the inmates in charge.

BUT WAIT . . . THERE’S MORE

It’s like Jonah Goldberg said: We’re in the movie, “Gaslight,” where a man whose wife is normal, decent, and good tries to drive her insane, and hounds her to the point where she thinks something is wrong with her, where she comes to the point that she thinks that she ought to be committed. She’s been “gaslighted.”

That’s the way it is today: If we oppose what’s evil, they make us think that there’s something wrong with us, not them.

That’s the real inversion. The real inversion is what Isaiah wrote: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

On May 27, 2015, Vice President Joe Biden was a spokesman for this inversion when he, advocating same-sex marriage, called it “progress,” and said, “I continue to believe that in every corner of the world, people want to do the right thing. “

No, according to the Bible, people in every corner of the world want to do the wrong thing. (Romans 1; Eph. 2:2-3) Progress? No, it’s a regression back to Sodom and Gomorrah and to the Canaanite immorality.

But according to our own vice-president, if we oppose same sex marriage, then there must be something wrong with us we’re not for “progress,” and we’re not with the rest of the world which wants to do the right thing.

We’ve been “gaslighted.”

That’s the inversion we’re seeing. In a society that’s rotting, the Bible-believing Christian is now declared the deviant!

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 Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.

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Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582

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[1] In 2014, Cinco de Mayo (or the nearest Friday, anyway) happened to be the biggest non-winter drinking day of the year, and it's in the top five drinking holidays in America in general.

[2] In Bernini's time the word "rape" signified "kidnapping;” our English word comes from the Latin, “rapere,” which means to “snatch away,” “to carry off,” thus, the sculpture represents the kidnapping of Persephone.