Morality

One of the more absurd myths of our age is that "you can't legislate morality." Nothing could be further from the truth. All law is a legislated morality.

The world may laugh at "right" and "wrong",
Assuming it's a joke,
As Simpsons change the golden rule
To "Brother's eye I'll poke",
Many are the clever ways
To package corporate greed
So lemming-like consumers feel
Like dashing knights on steeds.
Bigger houses, bigger cars
Disguising psyches bearing scars,
Depression rates, divorces soar
But no one cares about the score.

Sometimes I wonder when this building wave
Will crash and spawn
A new appreciation for
The path we're really on,
Life is more than grabbing for
The latest, greatest buzz,
All the while enriching those
Who fill our brains with fuzz.
Bring the dawning, let it come,
Lord we sorely need the Son
Of Righteousness to heal our wounds,
Eclipse the madness, breach the tomb.

Pastor Oliver “Buzz” Thomas’s article seeking moral justification for homosexuality based on science and the Bible appeared in USA Today (November 20, 2006) under the title “When religion loses its credibility.” He argued that science, like the science that Galileo proposed to support his theory of a restructured cosmos, is overwhelmingly in favor of the claim that homosexuality is genetically determined. Even if we suppose that it is, this does not mean homosexual behavior is morally equivalent to heterosexuality. First, heterosexuality results in the creation of offspring; homosexuality does not. On scientific grounds, a substantial case could be made that homosexuality is abnormal and not beneficial to the species.

In yesterday’s article, I pointed out that the history of Harvard’s slide into theological liberalism and moral libertinism was gradual but methodological. Those holding the minority and opposing worldview were willing to bide their time as conservatives set the stage for their own self-destruction. Conservatives believed that “playing nice” and inviting the opposition to the party in terms of “dialog” and “civil discourse” would lead to acceptance and good will. Don’t believe it; don’t ever believe it!

It seems the only way to get a religious book published by a secular press these days is to write some outrageous things about what the Bible claims to teach and how conservative Christians are evil, stupid, misguided, and just downright hateful. The most recent example is Pastor Oliver “Buzz” Thomas who has written 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job). In an article in USA Today (November 20, 2006), we’re told that it’s “an upcoming book.” I hope so, since it’s filled with so many logical, historical, biblical, and commonsense errors that it’s going to need a time consuming rewrite if his article “When religion loses its credibility” is any indication of how he argues for these “10 things.”

Like many of us on the path to recovery I was the ultimate party girl as a teenager. When I reached my late teens-early twenties friends started saying things like, "you're fun when you've had a few but not when you've had a few too many." Eventually, my friends stopped asking me out to the bars with them. Once in while a brave heart would invite me along and then proceed to "keep an eye on me" throughout the night. They feared I would do something atrocious to embarrass them or I would do something incredibly stupid to hurt myself. These people really loved me and genuinely wanted to enjoy my company. They were ever so hopeful this time would be different. It rarely, if ever, was. At the age of 21 I was introduced to crack cocaine and I incorporated that into my partying as well.

It's really easy to get trapped by the frenetic mindset of the world, to believe that the ultimate goal of life is to win or to acquire or to succeed.

It isn't.

We lose so much when we think that what we gain now, that what we rule now, that what we control now somehow has meaning. We lose because we fail to see the horizon. We are so caught up with the temporary demands of the now we don?t remember that life continues (and continues long) after this day of life is over.

Part 1 | Part 2

In an interview on CNN, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, had this to say when asked if she believed homosexuality is a sin.

"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said. "Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."

I am convinced that God never ceases to form, reform, and transform all of creation.

Pornography addiction is playing with fire. If your marriage means anything to you at all then you are playing with fire every time you think about or view porn.