The Twilight Zone weird world in which we live presents us with wave after wave of challenge to our worldview as Christians. That’s to be expected to some extent, of course. Even so, the sheer speed and trajectory of our culture’s decline at present, combined with the quantity of symptoms now seeming to come into full bloom all at once, can be a bit overwhelming.
Just a decade a go, if someone had forecast that we would be dealing with the threats of ISIS and Ebola from without while progressive agents from within were poised on the verge of stamping out the objective truth and beauty of family and marriage, they would have been written off as nuts, or at least a bit on the paranoid side. Maybe a “conspiracy theorist”.. Yet here we are…the “forces of tolerance” are rolling from apparent victory to apparent victory from within a culture proudly detached from the Nature of God as revealed in His Word, and everything from the pestilence of Ebola to the sword of Islam is being raised against a rebellious America. And to top it all off, this is going on with our southern border swung wide open courtesy of the wicked leadership that we have earned as yet another telltale sign of God’s wrath pouring out upon us.
Ouch.
In this “given over”, “debased” culture (see: Romans 1), the sheer insanity of our rebellion reveals itself in sometimes comically tragic moments and events.
We are told that raising the debt limit doesn’t necessarily raise our debt by our rightfully assigned wicked leader of the moment.
We are told that stopping flights into America from West Africa, where the Ebola outbreak began and is ravaging many nations, would be a bad idea because it would hamper our ability to prevent a similar Ebola outbreak from happening in America.
We are told that the “slippery slope” argument against redefining marriage to allow for homosexual couples to participate is a silly, silly thing…even as the “slippery slope” becomes the “slippery cliff” before our eyes and proud advocates of every form of perverted union imaginable seek to stake their claim to “marriage equality”…a claim that we no longer have any solid basis to deny.
In sort, we are insane.
We’ve gone mad.
We’ve been given over to a debased mind.
We find ourselves to be quite brilliant and enlightened, of course, but we are, as Scripture proclaims, fools.
That is where we are in America.
We can easily and understandably find our heads spinning and aching from the ongoing cultural whiplash that seems to only get worse and worse with each passing day and Drudge Report headline.
It’s in this surreal context that certain hypotheticals come to mind. As we ask ourselves questions like, “What are people thinking?” and “What will it take to wake them up?”, we can find ourselves trying to play out certain scenarios in order to try and figure out what might be coming next or better understand what has just happened.
One of the main problems with this is that what we are dealing with and called to struggle against in this culture is not sane. It is not rational. It is quite literally detached from the source and object of all truth. As such, we will never “understand” it.
When we interpret these things in light of the nature of God, man, sin, pride, and rebellion as detailed in Scripture, we will not worry inappropriately and we will not be “shocked” by behavior that should really be quite expected and predictable. Then we will be able to pose and contemplate rhetorical questions and theoretical scenarios in a much more fruitful manner.
With that in mind, I was recently wondering what the reaction of the media and culture would be to a hard core Muslim decapitating a flamboyant homosexual or two in America.
Of course, I knew the answer before I’d even really finished formulating the question in my mind, but, still, I do think that this sort of contemplation is important and useful.
Before even getting into that any deeper or explaining why it is important or useful, please let me be plain: Such an event would horrify me. It would be terribly sad and tragic. Any points considered in relation to this theoretical scenario should be considered with a full understanding that the scenario – theoretical or not – is a very tragic and terrible thing to even imagine, much less possibly deal with as an actual event in the future.
Yet such an event sure does seem likely, does it not?
That alone should give us some inclination to think through and ask the natural, obvious questions that follow.
Would this be a “hate crime”?
Would it be more likely to be a “hate crime” than if the imagined Muslim in question decapitated, say, 100 straight people?
Would it receive more, less, or the same level of “outraged” coverage from the media and elites as if the imaginary Muslim in question had decapitated a Christian (or two) instead of a flamboyant homosexual (or two)?
Would decapitating Christians be as quickly labeled a “hate crime”?
The answers to these questions are telling, and that makes them important and useful. The answers are also mostly very obvious, too, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t entertain them or think them through. Far from it.
At the end of the more obvious Q&A bit, we find a natural opportunity to consider some slightly trickier questions and issues. For example: “Why is the ‘tolerance’ of Islam and its description as a ‘religion of peace’ such a theme in a pop-culture that adores and cherishes the homosexual movement and agenda?”
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Clash of the Protected Anti-Christian Titans
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And this is where we get to a very simple wartime strategic maxim: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Or ally.
The Progressive movement defends and enables Islam because they have a shared, hated enemy: Christ the King.
In their rage against Him, they have been given over to madness.
That single, simple, yet profound truth explains pretty much everything that they do and nearly everything that we are watching unfold around us.
The only cure – the only solution – is the supernatural transformation from insanity and death to truth and light accomplished through broken submission to the Gospel command to repent, believe, and be saved.
That Gospel proclamation and the Great Commission mandate to “make disciples of the nations” and teach everyone everywhere to do everything that Christ the King has commanded in His perfect, loving Word, is the most hated and the most beautiful message ever to come to the ears of men.
It is beautiful to those who are saved by God’s grace through that matchless message of hope and power…and it is despised by those who cling to their rebellion against the King commanding them to surrender to His authority.
That disdain for His lordship is what fuels every incoherent, insane, and murderous that self-centered people do…even when they do it to one another.
May God grace His people with the desire, power, and opportunity to proclaim and apply that Gospel and Great Commission right here and right now…while there is yet time…
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© 2015 Scott Alan Buss – All Rights Reserved.
Soli Deo Gloria!