THAT GOOD OLD BAYLOR LINE

That good old Baylor line!
That good old Baylor line!
We'll march forever down the years,
As long as stars shall shine.
We'll fling our green and gold afar
To light the ways of time,
And guide us as we onward go;
That good old Baylor line!

Baylor is the oldest university in the state of Texas, established in 1845, whereas the University of Texas wasn't founded until 1881. (This would make a great Jeopardy answer, "The oldest school in the state of Texas.") It's the world's largest Baptist college with 16,000 students.

The words above are those of Baylor's school song penned in the fall of 1931. Up until recently, Baylor's football teams were a joke of Rodney Dangerfield proportions for decades. ("They don't get no respect.") But a recent change at Baylor is no joke. The change is a change in language, in the wording of the university's policy.

To understand the change, let's look at the way it was:

"Baylor will be guided by the understanding that human sexuality is a gift from the creator God and that the purposes of this gift included (1) the procreation of human life and (2) the uniting and strengthening of the marital bond in self-giving love. These purposes are to be achieved through heterosexual relationships within marriage. Misuses of God's gift will be understood to include, but not be limited to, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual assault, incest, adultery, fornication and homosexual acts."

The new statement, replacing the old one:

"Baylor will be guided by the biblical understanding that human sexuality is a gift from God and that physical sexual intimacy is to be expressed in the context of marital fidelity. Thus, it is expected that Baylor students, faculty and staff will engage in behaviors consistent with this understanding of human sexuality."

We can easily see the omissions: the specific naming of "sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual assault, incest, adultery, fornication and homosexual acts" as is the positive statement about "heterosexual relationships as fulfilling God's purposes for marriage." We note the addition which turns the old explicit statement into fog, one which raises a question, a big question: What do they mean by "the context of marital fidelity"?

The Supreme Court recently redefined marriage, so is the statement in line with the new definition? Is the statement calling for "marital fidelity" in the context of the redefinition of marriage? Is the statement a cave-in courtesy to the world? Was the statement born of fear because the university board of governors read about the case of the Oregon bakers? Is Baylor compromising and trying to head off troubled times in court? Is Baylor fearful of offending?

Lori Fogleman, Baylor’s assistant vice president for media communications, said in an e-mail to The Washington Post that the changes “were made because we didn’t believe the language reflected Baylor’s caring community.” She went on to say, "We are pleased with the recent changes to the policy language and that it states more plainly the expectations of the university."

In support of the new statement, Sophomore Jailyn Parnell told The Lariat (the Baylor campus newspaper), “It is saying that we are not going to pinpoint homosexuals. It is saying that homosexual acts are wrong but heterosexual acts committed outside of marriage are also wrong. It is making it more equal.”

Say what? "More equal?" "Pinpointing homosexuals?" How's that possible when six other sins are mentioned in the old statement? And where does the new statement say that homosexual acts are wrong?

Really? More plainly? Fogleman said the statement is good because it states things more plainly. If the statement is so plain, then why did those who hailed the Supreme Court decision in June, praise the Baylor statement as a touchdown for their side, and why did others say that the statement was a reaffirmation of the Bible's definition of marriage, a statement which showed Baylor to be a "caring community." (One might ask, "What does that mean?" Is it an act of caring to stop calling sin "sin?")

If the statement is so plain, why did the two groups read the same statement, examine its wording, and come to two opposite conclusions as to its meaning? If it's so plain, why are both sides pleased with it? The statement is like something we'd hear from a consummate politician, a statement so vague that both sides take it as a victory.

We could ask the question, "And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?" (I Cor. 14:8)

That good old Baylor line; in saying something, they said nothing. Or did they?

HANG DOWN YOUR HEAD, TOM DOOLEY

On July 4, 2002, a man shot a New York policeman 15 times, drove over him with a car, then shot the officer twice more, in his face. 

 

In 1997, a man kidnapped his former boss, 76, and then tortured, killed, and dismembered him — with a hacksaw. Later, he murdered a man in a bar fight. A detective described him as "the most cunning, evil, sadistic person that I ever investigated."

 

STILL LIVING?

In 2015, those two men shouldn't have been, but they were. And there they were, the object of a million dollars a day manhunt, with the final total at $21 million of the taxpayers' hard earned money. Not only that, but they were terrorizing law-abiding men, women, and children who were locking their doors day and night, keeping their children inside, and looking over their shoulders with fear that one or both of the men might be behind them. 1,300 men had to go gunning for those two for three weeks in the jungles of Upper New York State, taking them away from their families and regular duties as law enforcement officers.

Finally, the authorities killed one of them, shot and captured the other one who was running away, back towards the tangled woods from which he had come. The officer shot him right square in the back twice as he was fleeing. (A round of applause for the officer.)

HEAR THE SOBBING?

Wouldn't you know it: this raised a hue and cry from some who thought that shooting a man in the back was somehow not the way to handle the matter. But it's all well, good, and proper to shoot a fleeing felon in the head, chest, or back. What if he'd made it back into the dense woods of Upper New York State, and what if he'd killed more people after that? But no. For some, they must shed tears for a monster shot in the back.

Sane people would say that those two men earned the bullets that brought them down, and they'd be right, but a better comment would be, "They shouldn't have been."

This is one more classic example of how the farther away from the Bible a society gets, the higher the price that society has to pay. The manhunt, terror, and fear shouldn't have been because those two shouldn't have been. 

 

HANG DOWN YOUR HEAD, TOM DOOLEY

They should have been dead long ago, not serving "life terms with no possibility of parole." Genesis 9 says that they should have been dispatched with extreme prejudice way back when. Genesis 9 is the record of when God instituted government into the human race, giving it the authority to execute murderers. If any two people deserved to ride Old Sparky, face a firing squad, or a feel a noose tightening around their throats, those two did.

 

THE UNBEARABLE BEAR REPUBLIC

 

As an act of accumulating defiance against God, as of April, 2015, 746 people sit on death row in California awaiting execution because the powers that be are studying the issue of capital punishment. Included in those 746 are Charles Manson and Richard Davis, the killer of 12-yr. old Polly Klaas who was murdered 22 years ago. (!) Manson and Davis, along with the 744 others will die of boredom before they meet the needle or inhale the gas in the Bear Republic.

Those two New York murderers aren't the only two who have been spared the death penalty and escaped to wreak havoc, terror, and kill again. If you'd like to read the accounts of the many killers who escape from prison, go to ProDeathPenalty.com, but before you do, you need a great deal of time to read through the list. Then go and lock your doors and secure your windows.

 

THE DEFIANT ONES

 

Do not think this defiance of God is only an American aberration:

 

The UN voted to abolish the death penalty in 1994 and . . .

 

"Since 2007, the European Day against the Death Penalty is celebrated by the Council of Europe every year on October 10,  along with the World Day against the Death Penalty. The European Union has joined this initiative as from its second edition in 2008. 

 

"The aim of the European Day against the Death Penalty is to achieve a complete abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances in Europe, to support efforts by the international community to introduce a world-wide moratorium and, ultimately, universal abolition of the death penalty, to react against attempts to re-establish the death penalty, and to raise the awareness of the public about the fact that the death penalty is a travesty of justice. Every European and World Day against the Death penalty is marked by a joint declaration issued by the Council of Europe and the European Union."

 

As of February 2015, 99 countries have banned capital punishment, showing that this manifestation of defiance against God is one of Satan's worldwide strategies. 

 

In March 2015, Pope Francis issued a strong statement against the death penalty when he wrote: "Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed. Capital punishment contradicts God's plan for man and society and does not render justice to the victims, but rather fosters vengeance." (What Bible is he reading?)

 

WHY HAVE IT?

 

Capital punishment shows the value of human life. To kill a man is not like killing an animal or destroying  plant. Capital punishment is a statement that man is a special creation of God, a creation created in His image and likeness; therefore, his life is precious to God. 

 

Does the New Testament give the thumbs up to the death penalty. Yes, in Romans 13.  

We read the accounts of the manhunt for two men who shouldn't have been alive to escape. In California we read of 746 who shouldn't be. We look at the worldwide secular and religious demands to abolish the death penalty.

 

That's the way it is on this, the defiant planet.

THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL

"Are you crying? Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying. There's no crying in baseball." (Baseball manager Jimmy Dugan, in "A League of Their Own," 1992)

When Tom Hanks said that now-famous line to one of his players on an all-female baseball team, the audience laughed. But that was 1992, and 1992 is long gone, ancient history. Sir Richard Hunt and his wife learned that lesson, big-time. 

Hunt is a septuagenarian, a British biochemist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the division of cells. He's a cancer research scientist, a heavyweight. Or, at least he was a big-time researcher. He's in the past tense because of a joke he told while making a speech. He said:
 
"It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys and girls?

"Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt, an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles . . ."

WHAT'S YOUR FIRST CLUE, SHERLOCK?

It's obvious (the first clue is, "Now seriously") to any sane reader that Sir Hunt was doing what many speakers do--beginning with a joke. But when ONLY the first paragraph was reported, the high-tech lynch mob that is the Internet went crazy. Long story short: Hunt was promptly fired from his positions at University College London, the Royal Society’s Biological Sciences Awards Committee, and the European Research Center. One might debate the merits of the joke for its humor content, but failed jokes are a dime a dozen and every speaker has told a joke that falls flat, Johnny Carson was no exception.

LET ME GUESS, WHAT DID HE DO NEXT?

We could have predicted Hunt's reaction. Unlike Julius Caesar who majestically wrote, "I came. I saw. I conquered," Hunt would have to admit: "I apologized." "I grovelled." "I confessed." He didn't exhibit any righteous anger; he didn't follow Paul's dictum, "Be angry and sin not." Public shaming had done its work; a cancer researcher was ruined. In a high tech world, all the mob has to do is label someone a sexist, bigot, or racist, and he's toast. Who knows? Hunt might have found the cure, but the mob deemed his joke an affront to political correctness. He's gone.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

However, is there more going on with political correctness than meets the eye? What's the big deal? If you're asking, "So?" read the following accounts from around the world:

"Officials who failed to stop gangs of males from Pakistan [now living in England] preying on young girls for fear of being branded racist are set to cost taxpayers up to £200million. At least 1,400 girls aged as young as 11 are believed to have been sexually abused in Rotherham, South Yorks, for 16 years by men who viewed them as 'white trash'. But it is feared the real number could be more than 2,000." What? The authorities failed to stop crime for fear of being called what?

"In October 2004, the European Parliament attacked Italian European Union commissioner Rocco Buttiglione for . . . the fact that he sees homosexuality as a sin. . . . he was denied an important post due to his politically incorrect ideas on homosexuality."

"The Defense Department runs schools for dependents of servicemen overseas and of these is the American high school at RAF Lakenheath (near Cambridge if you know your UK geography). In the same month as the Buttiglione fiasco, the new principal stated that if any students were overheard using the common expression, 'That's really gay,' they would have legal charges brought against them." (Not reprimands, or even suspension or expulsion, but actual charges.)

"Douglas Wood, an Australian, was held by Islamic terrorists in Iraq. During his ordeal, while blindfolded, he had to listen to the murder of two of his colleagues. Luckily he was released. Subsequently, in a statement, he called his captors a vulgar term. . . the editor of a Melbourne, Australia newspaper, Mr. Andrew Jaspan, took offense and said that Wood's comments were 'insensitive.'" What? We're supposed to be sensitive to murderers? Tell that to the parents who lost their child to the Boston marathon bombers.

"In 2007, certain British schools have been advised not to teach students about the Holocaust because it may offend Muslim students who are taught by their imams that the Holocaust did not happen." What? If you don't like history, rewrite it?

"Some banks in the UK have banned leaving piggy banks around their offices as the sight of a pig, however whimsical, may offend Muslims." One author, in facetious mode, suggested goat banks.

"Some police in the UK have been reluctant to investigate so-called honor killings because it could be construed as being politically incorrect. Fathers, mothers, and uncles are butchering young girls in their own families merely because they wore 'indecent' clothing or dated the wrong boy." (The official rationale for this is that you can't investigate the killings because they are part of their culture.)

  "A gentleman in the UK lost his job in 2009 for saying in a private conversation that he was against allowing homosexual Church of England vicars marrying their 'partners.'" This means someone turned him in to the authorities. What? Friends, families, and neighbors reporting on friends, families, and neighbors?

 "In 1997, a Canadian newspaper was fined as was the purchaser of an ad (1,500 Canadian dollars each) because it contained four Biblical references: Romans 1:26, Leviticus 19:22 and 20:13, and 1 Corinthians 6:9." If you wanted to know what those verses said, you had to look it up. At least three people did and sued.The charge was "inciting hatred." What? The Bible is now "hate literature?"

And for the sake of the silly: "The government of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, voted to replace the term 'manhole covers' with 'personhole covers.'" (They relented because of the laughter.) 

COULD RICHARD HUNT HAVE BEEN RIGHT?

But back to Nobel prize winner Richard Hunt. Could it be that what he said is true? Romance does bloom in the workplace, doesn't it? He met his wife in the lab. Women do cry in the workplace, don't they? How many men have you seen shedding tears at work? How many women? Could we at least discuss it or ignore it, instead of running someone out of his profession in disgrace? One author wrote that, in all her working years, she's seen only one man cry at the office, but she can't count the large number of women she's seen tearing up at their desks.

HERE'S THE RUB

The point: political correctness hides the truth. The truth is that honor killings are murders, but political correctness hides the truth. (Here is an example of multiculturalism as an extension of relativism--murder is deemed OK in one society because it's part of the culture. Had relativism ruled the day, there would have been no Nuremberg Trials, since killing Jews was "part of the culture.") The truth says that honor killings need to be investigated and the murderers punished. The truth is that certain Bible references do condemn homosexuality, whether one agrees with them or not. The truth is that whoever preys on young girls is a criminal and should be tried, convicted, and sentenced. The truth is that the Holocaust did occur.

What happens in a family when the members can't or won't tell the truth to each other? That family is ripped asunder. When the members of a society can't tell the truth to each other, the fabric of that society rips apart. 

We are in living in Orwell's nightmare: a society in which you cannot say 2 +2 = 4.

A DESCENT INTO HELL

I'm in a large, a very large room, sitting with 40 or so people, all of us forced to be there and no way out. Many of the 40 had feet, legs, and minds missing. One lies on a conveyance completely wrapped, head to toe, in a sheet. Who's underneath that sheet? Male? Female? Young? Old? I have no idea. A 400+ pound man lies on a conveyance, just looking around. A woman is semi-lying in a recliner staring straight ahead with large, unblinking eyes that reveal no soul, just a blank stare that never stops, looking off in the distance. I wonder, "What's she looking at?"

The woman sitting next to me in the large room had no left foot. She maneuvered her wheelchair to get into position to use the computer nearby. She went to some music website, and all of a sudden, Phil Harris was singing from 1947, "Smoke! Smoke! That Cigarette" for all ears in the large room to hear.  All heard, but nobody paid any attention.

A woman about 15 feet from me begins to yell, "Somebody help me! Somebody help me!" Another woman shouts at her, "Shut up!" Undeterred, she continues to yell; she's becoming more agitated, loud, and bellicose. She asks for a bottle of water. A member of the staff gives her one. She finishes it or half finishes it and demands a staff member come and take it. The staff member, busy with others, says "No." The woman asks three more times, each time the answer is, "No." The woman starts yelling again. In her disgust, she hurls the bottle several yards. There were so many people, I couldn't see where it landed.

A man walks by. He has no idea who he is or where he is. He sits down at a table in the large room and periodically raises his hand like he's in school. He never says anything, asks for anything, he just raises his hand from time to time.

The woman who's been yelling sees a member of the staff walking by and grabs her by the bottom of her shirt. The staff member tells her, "Let me go!" She grips more tightly. The staff member tells her, "Let me go." The woman holds on. The girl takes the woman's hand and pries her fingers from her shirt, one by one, and, now released, moves on. I'm beginning to think that even Mother Teresa would slap this woman and tell her, "Shut up!"

A staff member puts a movie into the VCR so people can watch something to take their minds off where they are and the heat that's building up in the room. Think of a mindless comedy, one that's loud, stupid, insipid, silly, sophomoric, and insulting. This one is worse. Nobody watches it, but it continues to run and yell it's way through the dumb script.

Another staff member starts the popcorn machine next to me; the heat builds. When the popcorn is ready, she begins to distribute it. I refuse her offer. The woman who grabbed the staff member gets a bag, devours it, and asks for more. She gets it. She consumes it, demands more. They tell her, "No more, you've had two."

What I've described went on for not one, not two, but for 4 hours, 58 minutes, and 29 seconds. I timed it with the stopwatch on my phone. All I wanted to do was to get out and get out fast.

While I was sitting there, trying endure without complaint, I thought about Genesis 3 and how the Fall of man bought all this chaos, pain, and sorrow to the planet. What I was looking at in that room was a microcosm of the earth with its overwhelming pain, grief, incessant yelling, constant demands, and those never satisfied.

What could the staff do? They couldn't make it "work." No one could. That's the way the fallen world is. It doesn't "work." It's broken. Yet year after year, we actually believe that the Republicans or the Democrats are going to fix it. That's what fallen politics is--an attempt on man's part, by man's efforts to fix the unfixable. Politics is the art of trying to fool the people into  believing that my party will lead us to Utopia because we'll fix it. We promise.

In Genesis 3, as God delineates the various curses sin has brought into the world; the implication is, "It's broken. You can't fix it." But there is the promise, "One day," God says, "My Son will fix it."(Gen. 3:15; Ps. 2; Rev. 20)

But back to the question: what can the staff do to fix it?

Play a silly movie and serve popcorn! I'm not trying to advise them; they were overwhelmed too. But I am pointing out that it's a picture of the world with all of its sin-sick fallenness--the two things the world thinks of to fix it are entertainment and popcorn, or as Roman historians call it, "Bread and circuses." What that meant was free entertainment in the Colosseum and free food, all at public expense. What a deal! "See how much your politicians love you," It was merely the government's attempt to keep the people fat, happy, and distracted.

But let's not jump all over the world and leave the church unscathed. In the face of all the brokenness, what popcorn are many churches distributing to the masses? They serve sermons, books, and CDs, all masquerading as  "Bible studies," on how to fix it--get wealthy, get promoted, get the life of your dreams, a Rolex, and a private jet for 65 million dollars. They distribute self-help popcorn; tell us to think positive, give us packaged popcorn slogans, with the reinforcement, "You can do it!" They promote the idea, "You can fix it, yes you can!" Their sermons are formulaic. If you've heard one, you've heard them all. They have the gullible repeat "Yes, I can," over and over again until they become mindless. "I can fix it! Yes, I can!"

Yeah, right.

Once out in the world with that philosophy, we find that the fallen world chews us up and spits us out. Have you seen those martial arts experts who can crack a board with their hand? That's what the world does to the gullible, the simpleton, and the fool. The self help sermons are edifying until you leave the church building, enter the parking lot, and get on the Interstate. The very real and very fallen world quickly untickles our tickled ears.

On a planet we can't fix, we need to emphasize God's promises for the believer: Christ is coming for us. There is a glory waiting for us. To be absent from the body is to be face to face with the Lord. We will rule and reign with Him. Where Christ is, there we will be. In My house are many mansions.

What we need is a good strong dose of premillennial, dispensational, biblical prophecy. That's what fortifies us to take the aggressive grace of the gospel into the unfixable world around us.

THE EGGHEAD

Adlai Stevenson ran for president twice against Dwight Eisenhower, losing big-time, both times, in his attempt to live in the White House. When he ran the second time, he lost the Electoral College 457-73 and the popular vote by 35,590,472 to 26,022,752.

Upon his death in 1965, The New York Times euologized Stevenson as being "cultivated, urbane, witty, and articulate." People lauded him for his diction, his eloquence; they said his words flowed easily, precisely, and steadily. Adlai could chew up a dictionary and spit out vocabulary; he liked to use big words.

Academic types, those who lived in their ivory towers in the groves of academe` loved him. They liked his erudition, because he, a politician, was one of their own, their golden boy. He was as they, the intellectual elite. Birds of a feather vote together.

During the campaign, Richard Nixon, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, called Stevenson an "egghead," as people were wont to call those in the academic world back then. (His balding head was shaped like an egg.) An egghead was an intellectual, a person considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and lacking in common sense on account of their intellectual interests. It would be like someone devoting himself to the study and use of the cognate accusative, but who couldn't hammer a nail into a 2x4. We'd call them "elitists" today.

The schools Stevenson attended were the upper tier institutions of the day. The list of the universities of Adlai's matriculation would choke a horse: Choate Rosemary Hall, Harvard, Harvard Law School, Northwestern, Northwestern School of Law, and Princeton. The only elite school he missed was Texas Tech.

WHERE DID HE "DO CHURCH?"

In his day, people considered him a liberal, just as they would label him today, a liberal both politically and when it came to "church," because Adlai Stevenson was a Unitarian Universalist, which is, biblically speaking, no church at all, but a heretical group that denies the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, the Resurrection, the inspiration of Scripture, the Second Coming, and any other cardinal doctrine of the faith you'd care to name. Neither did it help his presidential chances that he was small ("vertically challenged" at 5' 10") and divorced, a marital status not nearly as socially acceptable in the 1950's as it is today.

BUT, AT LEAST ON ONE OCCASION

When I was investing inordinate hours at the Baptist Student Union in the pursuit of ping-pong excellence, on those (rare) occasions when I might lose a game, I'd say of my opponent, "Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while." Stevenson was off base politically and spiriturally on almost everything, but on October 7, 1952, Stevenson, the egghead academic, did get something right when he said, "My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

Are Christians and Christianity safe? Read on:

"For all their cries for equality and the right to assemble in peaceful protest, liberal college students and their like minded professors are banding together to attack Christians and push them off campuses across the country.

"Colleges like Vanderbilt University marginalize Christian groups and make it harder for them to organize and recruit members by banning them from using email, not allowing Christians to advertise at the college, refusing them funding for speakers and not allowing Christian groups to cosponsor events. Now the college is banning the use of the word 'Easter' saying it offends non-christian students attending the college. (How did this happen--it's unsafe to say "Easter"?)

"The University of Michigan kicked an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter off campus because the college is not happy that the group requires it’s leaders to be Christians." (Medford CitySearch, March 29, 2013)

"At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that will not pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders." (Ibid. June 30, 2014) 

They did so in September of that year. To show how absurd all this is getting, one university official said that if a s wants to join the chess club, the club must approve his membership or lose their status. But the stakes are higher in the Inter-Varsity situation because, were an atheist, agnostic, or a communist were to get into a position of leadership, the organization is destroyed.

"Similar situations [attacks on Christian groups] have occurred on other campuses like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Rutgers University, Marquette University, and the list goes on."(The College Conservative," Elena Reynolds, March 23, 2013)

ARE JEWS SAFE?

Are Jewish students safe? Read on:

"Over the last several years, Jewish students on campuses across the country have been physically, emotionally, and intellectually harassed, intimidated, threatened, and bullied, not only by their fellow students but also by some of their professors.

"Anti-Israel student activists at the University of Michigan last month hurled death threats at Jewish student council members and called them “dirty Jew” and “kike.” At University of California, Berkeley, a Jewish girl holding an “Israel Wants Peace” sign was ramrodded with a shopping cart by the head of Students for Justice in Palestine.

"At Harvard University, the Palestine Security Committee frightened Jewish students by placing mock eviction notices on their dormitory rooms. At Northeastern University in Boston, Students for Justice in Palestine vandalized a menorah and disrupted Jewish events.

"At San Francisco State University this past fall, the General Union of Palestine Students hosted an all-day event where participants could make posters and t-shirts that said, “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers,” meaning Jews. And just last week, at New York University, pro-Palestinian students slipped “eviction notices” under the doors of 2,000 undergrads, scaring Jewish students and parents.

"The official response to these episodes has been silence." ("Independent Sentinel," by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, May 5, 2014)

ARE YOU SAFE?

A barbaric enemy who has burned a condemned man alive in a cage and who has televised beheadings of military personnel as well as journalists threatens America. Not only that, but also for drawing a cartoon, they have invaded offices and massacred employees. Yet, our mass and social media see two Christian bakers as a more sinister threat.

On a moment's notice, a media storm erupts to insist upon and get their way about the firing of a CEO who made a contribution to a cause with which he was in agreement, but a cause which they opposed.

When savages decapitate people for their faith, our leaders try hard to stifle a yawn, while those same politicians rush to microphones and TV cameras to denounce and demonize Christian florists. Somewhere, somehow, we've lost our way.

AND YOU?

Are you safe? Would you draw a cartoon like they did in France? Would you speak up in a business training seminar on diversity and multiculturalism with a differing opinion than the approved one? Are there unpopular viewpoints or words you won't utter because you're afraid you'll come under attack, lose your job, be written up, or be shamed.

"A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." We do not live in that society. Not any more.

DON'T SHOW THEM THE MONEY

People need to rethink their donations to universities where all this stuff is incubated, then hatched. Christian parents need to consider their options, instead of putting their tuition and their students into such asylums for four years only to see their children for whom they've sacrificed graduating and returning home to hate them and all they stand for.

Churches need to realize that it's time to cultivate and mentor more Luke 14:25-33 and Acts 4:20 disciples. The America in which we're living needs more disciples, not more church socials. Yet, instead of making robust disciples, we find ourselves creating more business meetings so we can fight over the color of the auditorium carpet.

GOLDEN-AGING-IT

"The only thing new to you is the history you don't know."

I thought about that quote when I recalled a tendency we have to glorify certain periods in history, casting them as a "Golden Age."

LONGING FOR LUTHER

We're "Golden-Aging It" when we think, "Man, it would have been great to live during the Reformation; that was a time when they nailed it." But the Reformation wasn't a Golden Age--there was in-fighting, jealousy, anti-Antisemitism, and even violence (including destruction of property) on the part of the Reformers.

Although Luther didn't start out anti-Semitic, he became that way. Listen to him rage against the Jews:

“Set fire to their synagogues or schools, Raze and destroy their homes. Seize their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, Forbid their rabbis to teach on pain of loss of life and limb. Abolish safe-conduct on the highways completely for the Jews and take all cash and treasure of silver and gold from them. Let them have a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade put into their hands so young, strong Jews and Jewesses can earn their bread in the sweat of their brow.”

Luther's anti-Antisemitism wasn't like that of his native Germany in the 1930's and 40's. His wasn't  racial; he didn't believe gentiles were racially superior to Jews. Luther's rage against the Jews was theological, but still inexcusable. He gave up on the Jews, saw them as hardened against the gospel, unable to be converted, and a people God had abandoned. It's obvious Luther wasn't a dispensational premillennialist. Had he been, he would have never turned against the Jews.

WHEN IT CAME TO PROPHECY

"Augustine became the model for the Reformers who accepted his amillennialism along with his other teachings. It is quite clear from the literature of the Reformation that the millennial issue was never handled fairly or given any considered study. The basic issues of the Reformation involved the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures, the individual priesthood of all believers, the doctrine of justification by faith, and similar truths." (Dr. John F. Walvoord)

Calvin, Luther, and Melanchthon all adopted the Roman Catholic hermeneutic of spiritualizing the prophecies of the Bible, following the lead of Augustine. That made them card-carrying amillennialists.

THE COLONIES

Others who "Golden-Age-It" point to the American colonial days as their shining era on a hill and think it would be great to have lived back then. "Those were the days, the days when rugged men and women came to America to breathe the pure air of freedom, when they lived free and worshiped the same way," some think. Yes, the colonial days, that's when they nailed it.

But hold on, Sparky. In Puritan New England:

"Church attendance was mandatory. Those that missed church regularly were fined. The church was sometimes patrolled by a man who held a long pole. On one end was a collection of feathers to tickle the chins of old men who fell asleep. On the other was a hard wooden knob to alert children who giggled or slept. Church was serious business.

"The Puritans believed they were doing God's work. Hence, there was little room for compromise. Harsh punishment was inflicted on those who were seen as straying from God's work. There were cases when individuals of differing faiths were hanged in Boston Common. (Too bad there was no First Amendment in the Colonies.)

"At least two known adulterers were executed in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Public whippings were commonplace. The stockade forced the humiliated guilty person to sit in the public square, while onlookers spat or laughed at them. Puritans felt no remorse about administering punishment. They believed in Old Testament methods." (They weren't dispensationalists either.)

Not only that, but also the Puritans executed 19 (by hanging) and 1 (by being pressed to death) for being witches. (They never burned a witch at the stake, a common misconception.) Altogether, they accused 140 of the crime and as many as 13 sentenced to prison may have died during their incarceration.

IT DEPENDS ON WHOSE OX IS BEING GORED

The First Amendment wasn't in the Puritan vocabulary, any more than "tolerance" was. In 1638, the Puritan authorities brought Anne Hutchinson before the court on charges of criticizing the Puritan pastors and teaching that people were saved by faith and not by deeds. In spite of her argumentation during the trial, they found her guilty; her punishment: banishment. In the spring of that year, the Puritans forced her, her husband, and their 15 children out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They moved to Rhode Island and after the death of her husband, Anne relocated to New Amsterdam.

There, in 1643, Anne and 5 of her children were killed in an Indian raid. A Puritan minister, upon hearing of her violent death, said that she deserved it. Those Puritans were a harsh and unforgiving bunch.

[In 1922, the state of Massachusetts erected a statue of Anne Hutchinson on the grounds of the State House. In 1945, the legislature voted to revoke her banishment. Puritan wrongs had finally been righted.]

GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION

But surely the times of the Apostles, the first century AD, ah, that was the Golden Age. Was it? We think of the brave martyrs who went to their deaths singing rather than denying our Lord. True. But not all. The Roman governor of Turkey, Pliny the Younger, wrote to the Emperor Trajan in 112 AD concerning those who were under accusation of being in the "mad sect:" 

"Others, accused by an informer, first said that they were Christians and afterwards denied it. They said that they had indeed been Christians, but stopped. Some said three years, some several years, and one even twenty years before. All of them adored your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ."

Not all were faithful unto death, which shouldn't surprise us; we know human nature.

A Golden Age? Wait, to read Revelation 2-3 is to see that the first century church, far from being idyllic, was rife with sins and problems. Acts,  I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Philippians, the epistlels to Timothy, and Galatians expose divisions, factions, the observance of the Lord's Supper a disgrace, gross immorality, marriages falling apart, lying about giving, one Apostle lapsing from grace, in-church opposition to Paul, racial divisions, heresies, two Christian women at odds with each other, and false teachers cavorting over the map.

We read of believers who made shipwreck of the faith, of Demas who abandoned Paul, "having loved this present world." We hear Paul's warning about "Alexander the coppersmith [who] did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching. We weep over an abandoned Paul, who wrote, "At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me." Hardly a golden age.

To look for a Golden Age in human history is to forget Genesis 3: in a fallen world, there is no golden age. The Golden Age awaits the Millennial Kingdom predicted in the Old Testament and confirmed in the New in Revelation 20.

In every era since Genesis 3, God is at work in amazing ways, weaving events so as to bring about the revelation of His Son Jesus Christ to rule and reign over the earth.

The search for a Golden Age in a fallen world yields the same result we see in"Eldorado" by Edgar Allen Poe:

Gaily bedight,

   A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,   

   Had journeyed long,   

   Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

   But he grew old—

   This knight so bold—   

And o’er his heart a shadow—   

   Fell as he found

   No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

   And, as his strength   

   Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—   

   ‘Shadow,’ said he,   

   ‘Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?’

   ‘Over the Mountains

   Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,   

   Ride, boldly ride,’

   The shade replied,—

‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

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!

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 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.

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

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.