Category Archives: Current Events

“Defining Decency Down”

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[On his blog “the Constructive Curmudgeon” Dr Doug Groothuis speaks some sense on the whole flap over Ms California… (excerpted below, emphasis added); just what I’ve been thinking – pdb]

The New Town, Lucerne

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. – Proverbs 31:10

Christians are foolish to sing the praises of Miss California, Carrie Prejean, simply because she uttered some inarticulate opinions against same-sex marriage and speaks of God. To find a heroine in her is to define decency down, just as social science defined deviancy down decades ago…

This young woman is a beauty queen, both ensnared by and loving that sad and silly skin game. However, the category should not exist. American society has created an unreal and cruel standard for women to reach: the beauty queen–a woman known for curves and perfect skin, heavenly hair and preternatural teeth. They prance and pose and preen; the cameras churn and burn; the media salivates and speculates. My stomach turns. It is all sinful a waste of the short time we have on this fallen planet. Moreover, in addition to the intrinsic immodesty and vanity of the beauty queen persona, this woman apparently posed for even more indecent photographs. This model is no model (of character).

Carrie Prejean is no heroine. She does not deserve any more attention. To give it to her, whether you are James Dobson or Sean Hannity, reveals the paucity of both real virtue and Christian discernment today. We have defined decency down. Perhaps we should lift some prayers up.

Amen. (pdb)

Respecting other religions?

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It seems to me there is public pressure to respect (and tolerate) just about everyone and everything. In recent headlines the Roman Catholic Pope was being challenged to declare some “respect” for Islam — a worldwide religion, but a false religion. In an online article, Dr Al Mohler discusses this.

mosque5079792thbLet me raise the question here for individual Christians: should we ‘respect’ Islam — or how should we properly respond to Muslims? Here is an excerpt from Dr Mohler that I find most helpful….

In this light, any belief system that pulls persons away from the Gospel of Christ, denies and subverts Christian truth, and blinds sinners from seeing Christ as the only hope of salvation is, by biblical definition, a way that leads to destruction. Islam, like every other rival to the Christian gospel, takes persons captive and is devoid of genuine hope for salvation.

Thus, evangelical Christians may respect the sincerity with which Muslims hold their beliefs, but we cannot respect the beliefs themselves. We can respect Muslim people for their contributions to human welfare, scholarship, and culture. We can respect the brilliance of Muslim scholarship in the medieval era and the wonders of Islamic art and architecture. But we cannot respect a belief system that denies the truth of the gospel, insists that Jesus was not God’s Son, and takes millions of souls captive.

I’m so thankful for Dr Al Mohler, and the clarity of his writing and thinking (and the abundance of it). If you do not check his online postings — especially to gain a biblical view of news and events — you should.

pdb