The curse of political correctness is swamping the West, and is a main feature of the culture wars we find ourselves in. If we had no political correctness, there would be far fewer battles in the culture wars, and perhaps my site would not even exist.
But we do have the PC agenda big time causing maximum damage, so it is part of my job description to report on this and stand against it. And a very big part of the culture wars we find ourselves in involve anti-Christian bigotry. Hatred of all things Christian is driving much of the PC looniness, and is heavily feeding the culture wars.
I have documented hundreds of cases here, and will likely do so for decades to come. Three more – of many – which have just occurred can be mentioned here. The first is just another incredibly idiotic case of PC, while the other two certainly are part of the bigger war against Christianity. And this first case is really stupid indeed:
In another case of school officials adhering to ridiculous zero tolerance policies, a student from South Carolina was suspended and arrested by police recently after writing an imaginative story about using a gun to shoot a dinosaur. The offender, 16-year-old Alex Stone of Summerville High School in a suburb of Charleston was in the course of completing an assignment where students were asked to write something brief about themselves, much like Facebook status updates.
Stone told reporters that he found himself in hot water with teachers for being over imaginative and mentioning the word ‘gun’. “I killed my neighbor’s pet dinosaur, and then, in the next status, I said I bought the gun to take care of the business.” the student said. A 65 million year gap between the story and reality didn’t seem to matter to teachers who immediately suspended Stone for a week, searched his bookbag and locker – finding nothing – and then inexplicably called the police. When the cops paid a visit to the student, he reportedly became “irate”, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, all before the boy’s parents were informed anything was going on.
Mindboggling. My second case is just as dumb, but clearly involves anti-Christian animus. Read it and weep:
Kendra Turner was brought up right. She’s the kind of kid who says “yes sir” and “no ma’am.” She was “raised up right,” with good manners as they are prone to say around Dyersburg, Tennessee. So it was not out of character for Kendra to say “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed. But that common courtesy landed the 18-year-old in hot water.
Kendra said she was rebuked by her teacher at Dyer County High School and thrown out of class for violating the teacher’s ban on the words “bless you.” The school would have us believe that a child telling a classmate “bless you” after a sneeze somehow caused a classroom commotion so severe it warranted a punishment? It’s a good thing Kendra didn’t offer her classmate a tissue.
I guess she would have been on much safer ground if she simply said, “damn you”. And given – as Gary DeMar notes – that the word blessing is found in the US Constitution, what is the beef here? “If the Constitution is OK with ‘godly speaking,’ then so should Kendra’s teacher.”
My last case of appalling anti-Christian bigotry comes at the hands of the militant homosexual lobby. No surprises there. The story runs as follows:
New York farm owners who rent their facilities for birthday parties and wedding ceremonies have been fined thousands of dollars for refusing to host a lesbian wedding. Cynthia and Robert Gifford were fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution to the lesbian couple after they refused to hold the wedding at their Liberty Ridge Farm near Albany, Religion News Service reported.
When Jennifer McCarthy and Melisa Erwin asked the Giffords to use the facility for a 2012 wedding, Mrs. Gifford, a Christian, said she could only host their reception on the farm, but not the wedding. Weddings typically are conducted on the first floor of the Giffords’ home, and Mrs. Gifford argued the lesbian wedding would “literally hit too close to home,” RNSreported.
In my new book Dangerous Relations I offer 165 such cases which have taken place over a 30 month period. This is now becoming routine: whenever special rights are granted to homosexuals, everyone else pays a very heavy price. This is especially the case when homosexual marriage is legalised.
Dangerous Relations: The Threat of Homosexualityby Muehlenberg, Bill (Author)
Yet incredibly far too many Christians think we shouldn’t be worried about any of this, and we should just concentrate on “gospel” matters. Well, guess what? God’s intentions for human sexuality and marriage and family is a gospel matter.
God’s concern about the slaughter of the unborn is a gospel matter. God’s concern about the persecution of his people is a gospel matter. Even if an individual Christian may not be specifically called to engage in the culture wars, he should nonetheless appreciate those who are called to enter into such battles.
After all, even if they say they are focused on evangelism, it is very hard to evangelise when Christianity increasingly becomes illegal. We see that in places like North Korea and Muslim-majority countries, but more and more we find the West heading in the same direction.
I happen to think that religious freedom is very important, as is freedom of conscience. Those Christians who are either too craven or too clueless to see the importance of being involved in the culture wars and resisting runaway PC, may soon find themselves evangelising stone walls – in their prison cells.
These people dare not presume upon religious freedom in the West. It is disappearing rapidly. That is why I and others have chosen to engage: we will fight the religious freedom battles so that the evangelists and other Christian workers can do their thing. I love how David Limbaugh recently expressed this:
The “tolerant” left has zero tolerance for Christianity, and all Christians and all lovers of liberty would be well advised to be vigilant against this societal assault on Christianity that uses the Constitution as an excuse.
To those Christians who casually dismiss all this as beneath them because they want to focus on evangelizing and not politics, please understand that your ability to evangelize would evaporate in the absence of political freedoms. So if you want to be removed from the fight, I won’t object, but please don’t condemn those who willingly engage in this struggle so that you can continue to focus on evangelism.
10 Replies to “Political Correctness, Culture Wars, and the Assault On Faith”
I just heard Bernard Gaynor give a talk, and the crazy thing is, it`s all happening here. The written defence bylaws are on his side, but P.C overrides them. Some of his biggest objectionists call themselves Christian, but they too are bowing down to Political Correctness over Truth.
The law granting same sex marriage should be repealed. It is a bad law granting powers to persecute Christians who do not agree with it and who do not wish to participate in any celebrations of it.
It was Lenin who invented political correctness in the early years of the 20th century. He used it to get his own way & was quite capable of reversing what was ‘politically correct’ if it was expedient for him to do so. It is totalitarian in principle and should be abolished because it is a direct attack on the right to free speech and religious belief, which are universal rights in a democracy.
Well said Bill, Thank you
Bill,
I cannot believe that anyone that is involved in evangelism could really discount the importance of cultural issues like homosexuallity, abortion, Islam, euthanasia etc (the list is really getting quite long these days).
I am involved in evangelism regularly and there is not a single time that I engage with people that there is not a question raised about these issues. Along with the creation/evolution debate, cultural issues form the biggest objections to the Christian faith that I hear.
If we are not willing to engage frequently, honestly, kindly and loudly on these matters then not only will we become an irrelevance but we will be soon unable to speak the gospel at all as you have all too rightly said.
I have been threatened with arrest more times than I care to mention due to me “having no right so say that”! Do we really believe that we will be safe if we stick to preaching in our churches? The experiences of pastors in Canada should show the folly of that thinking.
Keep plugging and typing and speaking brother, we regular joe Christians are relying on you and those like you.
I cannot believe that anyone that is involved in evangelism could really discount the importance of cultural issues like homosexuality, abortion, Islam, euthanasia etc (the list is really getting quite long these days).
David, there is a stream of theology mainly in the independent churches which tend to down-play the role of “establishment, mainline” churches, to the effect that “render to Caesar…” and similar verses of dis-engagement from the world, means that Christians should have almost nothing to do with politics and public life, but should “just preach and live the gospel”. Some go so far as to register as conscientious objectors and are excused from voting.
In New Zealand, (at the request of Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, the first RC bishop), a “Fourth Article” was specifically added to the Maori version of our nation’s foundational “Treaty of Waitangi” to guarantee Religious Freedom: “E mea ana te Kawana ko nga whakapono katoa o Ingarani, o nga Weteriana, o Roma, me te ritenga Maori hoki e tiakina ngatahitia e ia” = “The Governor says that the several faiths (beliefs) of England, of the Wesleyans, of Rome and also of Maori custom shall alike be protected by him”.
Yet, notwithstanding this official policy, political correctness and an increasingly ascendant liberalism is NOW undermining the Christian and Democratic principles upon which our nation was initially founded then in 1840 as a British colony. For now we are (somewhat “come of age”, as an independent nation), such wisdom is incessantly maligned, and instead we are in the thrall of a godless atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, and cynicism which subverts that which Christianity once boldly asserted and enshrined in law – – and all this in the name of fairness, equality and political correctness generally…!
The restriction of the freedom to speak out against evil is directly connected to the freedom to preach the gospel just as it is in Matthew 28 where “teaching them to observe all the things I have taught you” is directly preceded by “make disciples of all the nations”. To separate the 2 is to say Jesus can be our saviour but does not have to be our Lord, which, I believe sadly appears to be taught in some churches today.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
I think the satanic war against Christianity in the West by government machinery and institutions is because Christians with voice don’t want to speak up against the persecution for fear of losing their self-acquired dignity and status. It is high time Christians stood up and organized strong demonstrations in Western countries against the taking away of Christian religious freedom and speech. If peaceful demonstrations don’t yield any results, I don’t think the Lord Jesus will be angry if a bit of “fundamentalism” is demonstrated. The nonsense against Christian speech and freedom in the West must stop.
I just heard Bernard Gaynor give a talk, and the crazy thing is, it`s all happening here. The written defence bylaws are on his side, but P.C overrides them. Some of his biggest objectionists call themselves Christian, but they too are bowing down to Political Correctness over Truth.
The law granting same sex marriage should be repealed. It is a bad law granting powers to persecute Christians who do not agree with it and who do not wish to participate in any celebrations of it.
It was Lenin who invented political correctness in the early years of the 20th century. He used it to get his own way & was quite capable of reversing what was ‘politically correct’ if it was expedient for him to do so. It is totalitarian in principle and should be abolished because it is a direct attack on the right to free speech and religious belief, which are universal rights in a democracy.
Well said Bill, Thank you
Bill,
I cannot believe that anyone that is involved in evangelism could really discount the importance of cultural issues like homosexuallity, abortion, Islam, euthanasia etc (the list is really getting quite long these days).
I am involved in evangelism regularly and there is not a single time that I engage with people that there is not a question raised about these issues. Along with the creation/evolution debate, cultural issues form the biggest objections to the Christian faith that I hear.
If we are not willing to engage frequently, honestly, kindly and loudly on these matters then not only will we become an irrelevance but we will be soon unable to speak the gospel at all as you have all too rightly said.
I have been threatened with arrest more times than I care to mention due to me “having no right so say that”! Do we really believe that we will be safe if we stick to preaching in our churches? The experiences of pastors in Canada should show the folly of that thinking.
Keep plugging and typing and speaking brother, we regular joe Christians are relying on you and those like you.
God Bless,
David
And in Tasmania……
http://www.themercury.com.au/…/working-to-make-it-safe-to-come-out/story-fnj...
Sorry – incomplete link. Here is the correct one, I hope.
http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/working-to-make-it-safe-to-come-out/story-fnj4f7k1-1227033429309
David Gee 24.8.14 / 7am
David, there is a stream of theology mainly in the independent churches which tend to down-play the role of “establishment, mainline” churches, to the effect that “render to Caesar…” and similar verses of dis-engagement from the world, means that Christians should have almost nothing to do with politics and public life, but should “just preach and live the gospel”. Some go so far as to register as conscientious objectors and are excused from voting.
In New Zealand, (at the request of Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, the first RC bishop), a “Fourth Article” was specifically added to the Maori version of our nation’s foundational “Treaty of Waitangi” to guarantee Religious Freedom: “E mea ana te Kawana ko nga whakapono katoa o Ingarani, o nga Weteriana, o Roma, me te ritenga Maori hoki e tiakina ngatahitia e ia” = “The Governor says that the several faiths (beliefs) of England, of the Wesleyans, of Rome and also of Maori custom shall alike be protected by him”.
Yet, notwithstanding this official policy, political correctness and an increasingly ascendant liberalism is NOW undermining the Christian and Democratic principles upon which our nation was initially founded then in 1840 as a British colony. For now we are (somewhat “come of age”, as an independent nation), such wisdom is incessantly maligned, and instead we are in the thrall of a godless atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, and cynicism which subverts that which Christianity once boldly asserted and enshrined in law – – and all this in the name of fairness, equality and political correctness generally…!
The restriction of the freedom to speak out against evil is directly connected to the freedom to preach the gospel just as it is in Matthew 28 where “teaching them to observe all the things I have taught you” is directly preceded by “make disciples of all the nations”. To separate the 2 is to say Jesus can be our saviour but does not have to be our Lord, which, I believe sadly appears to be taught in some churches today.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
I think the satanic war against Christianity in the West by government machinery and institutions is because Christians with voice don’t want to speak up against the persecution for fear of losing their self-acquired dignity and status. It is high time Christians stood up and organized strong demonstrations in Western countries against the taking away of Christian religious freedom and speech. If peaceful demonstrations don’t yield any results, I don’t think the Lord Jesus will be angry if a bit of “fundamentalism” is demonstrated. The nonsense against Christian speech and freedom in the West must stop.