Articles
What is Your Month?
It appears that eight out of twelve months have been dedicated to some special interest, and/or causes: “heritage months that are celebrated by units across campus and Inclusive Excellence community partners,” can be accessed online (should the reader have an interest): June is being “celebrated” as LBGTQ+ “Pride Month.”
Politicians are in a vicarious situation when it comes to putting a stamp of approval on any controversial cause that divides a city, state, or nation. The mayor of OKC declared such, saying, “This is my fifth year to proclaim Pride here in Oklahoma City,” Holt told The Oklahoman. “I think that’s just a reflection and a symbol to the LGBTQ+ community, as well as all communities in Oklahoma City, that everyone is welcome in our city. Other people can work out their disagreements, but we have to understand that Oklahoma City is a welcoming and inclusive place.” When viewed from a humanistic perspective life is a “live and let live journey.” As opposed to the Law of Moses, which was both civil and religious, state and national laws are primarily civil.
On the flip side, Governor Stitt (Oklahoma) claimed the OETA (Public Broadcasting Station) "overly sexualizes" children and indoctrinates them. He pointed to news programs that discussed transgender issues and scripted programming that acknowledges the existence of LGBTQ people. As a result, he vetoed a bill that “renewed the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority.” The state Lawmakers overrode Governor Stitt’s veto.
It is evident, even to a casual observer, that the moral compass of society is moving to remove moral and ethical responsibility from the public mind. Interview after interview has been conducted on both sides of the issue: this is not intended to add another. The question of both “sides of the isle” is, “What can be done?” either to promote or oppose certain conduct. When same-sex-marriages were legalized, one individual said, with same sex marriages being “legal, now you have to respect us.”
If the issues were limited to a humanistic context, then individuals may see DEI philosophy, i.e., Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as simply a way of doing business: Target Corporation as a prime example. But, as it was once said, “In good negotiations both parties leave angry.” Maybe someone can unravel the ups and downs, and twists and turns of the end results. However, that these issues have existed for thousands of years, i.e., Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:16-19:29; Jude 7); Levite and Gibeah (Judg. 19); Corinth (1 Cor. 6:9-11), is without contradiction.
The concern raised here is not how the ungodly react, but those who are influenced by godliness and righteousness: millennial to the Alpha generation (1965-2020), who have parents reared during the boomer and generation X era.
When Paul identified the life of the Gentiles, of whom God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, i.e., a mind which God cannot approve, Paul said, “who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practice them” (Rom. 1:32).
When Paul confronted the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:2), concerning fornication among them, he said, “ye are puffed up, and did not rather mourn, that he that had done this deed might be taken away from among you.” They “did not rather mourn.” They were not concerned with the man thus engaged, nor the affects their lack of action would create within the body of Christ. Had they become numb to the situation?
There is a phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” There is also a matter when “Familiarity breeds complacency.” When a society adopts, religiously, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” little, if anything, can be said without being labeled with some sort of phobia. As a result, children, and/or young adults, are discouraged from taking a moral stance, and that’s not speaking of the religious world “generally,” but the children, and/or young adults, of brethren. They are in a vicarious position, no doubt.
In a writing depicting the endgame of attempts to sway society to accept any and all alternate lifestyles, there is an effort to sedate society to take a neutral ground: calling evil good, and good evil: Lev. 19:17 – “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.” In the realm of good and evil, there is no neutral ground, Rom. 1:32.
There is a book: The Marketing of Evil (David Kupelian, 2005), that outlines the marketing of the LBGTQ+ “until Christians, and other traditionalist opposing homosexuality are shut up, discredited and utterly silenced” (pg. 35). Within the marketing strategy, a reference is made to “an old Arabian fable where a camel, after poking his nose into a tent, was allowed in to seek warmth, then (as camel’s are stubborn) wouldn’t leave! The phrase has a few forms: The camel’s nose is in the tent, is under the tent, is under the tent too far… and so on. Either way they all refer to a situation where permitting a small, seemingly innocent act will lead to a larger, undesirable result” (hotidioms.com). Society has moved from closet, live and let live, and don’t ask don’t tell, and equal rights to a “total jamming of criticism with the force of law” (Marketing, pg. 35). In short, submit or assimilate until you do not have to.
This is seen in the reign of the kings of Israel: good king — the people would follow the laws of God; bad king — the people would turn to their idols. Concerning Jehoash, king of Judah, he “did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah all his days wherein Jehoiada the priest instructed him” (2 Kgs. 12:2) “And Jehoiada made a covenant between himself, and all the people, and the king, that they should be Jehovah's people. And all the people went to the house of Baal, and brake it down, and brake his altars and his images in pieces, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars” (2 Chron. 23:16-17), but “after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them. And they forsook the house of Jehovah, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their guiltiness.” (2 Chron. 24:17-18). Before Jehoash and Jehoiada , “Athaliah became queen of Judah. She inherited her mother's strength of will, and like her developed a fanatical devotion to the cult of the Zidonian Baal” (ISBE). After the death of Jehoiada, the people “served the Asherim and the idols.
During the reign of Hezekiah: “he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that David his father had done. He removed the high places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the Asherah: and he brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. He trusted in Jehovah, the God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among them that were before him. For he clave to Jehovah; he departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses” (2 Kgs. 18:3-6). After the death of Hezekiah, his son Manasseh began to reign and “Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, that were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols; therefore thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, Behold, I bring such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle” (2 Kgs. 21:11-12).
Solomon said, “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint; But he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Prov. 29:18).
Without law, and the proper support thereof, “people cast off restraint.” When the nation, through its representatives, “call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5:20), the end result is inevitable: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11).
Historically and Biblically, “we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully, as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for abusers of themselves with men, for menstealers, for liars, for false swearers, and if there be any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine; according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God…” (1 Tim. 1:8-11). The lawless will only be restrained when the law is upheld. When it is not, the people “cast off restraint” (ibid), and the truth of these factors are being realized in the nation within which we live.
- What_is_your_month.pdf (63.91 kB)
