Category: Political

Pokemon Go Avatars

What do I think about the recent Pokemon Go update? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Those of you not knowing about this might wonder how this is apologetics related. Trust me. It is. We are in a culture war with a cancerous movement trying to destroy everything it can and now, it has headed for the gaming industry with games trying to be more and more “Woke.” This is also part of the effects of a group known as Sweet Baby Inc.

Fortunately, a web site has been set up so gamers can know when games come out that are infected with DEI standards. Vote with your wallet. You can find that here.

And look what is on the list.

Pokemon Go.

I hate saying that because I loved Pokemon Go and I had been playing it since day one. I was out going to the park with others playing together and walking around my campus regularly. The game was highly beneficial for me.

But then this avatar update came out.

Now before, I didn’t really care about my avatar. Several people did. Some people spent money buying items so their avatar could look a certain way. I don’t really care for that spending, but if you have it and can do it and want to, who am I to say otherwise? I would only put free stuff on mine.

Then one morning recently, everyone woke up to find that their avatars had been changed. #1 group affected? Women.

If you look through the link, you can find pictures of women that have been changed to be more androgynous. Gone is anything that might look curvaceous on a woman. Hips are gone. Chests are flattened. Facial structure is destroyed.

That’s not even the worst of it. You also have avatars that clearly have a weight problem and are, well, revealing. Please do not look at this if you have small children present.

Checking the original file on Pokemon Go from DEI Detected, you might have noticed by now that part of the work they did was with a consulting group called Gaymer X.

No. That is not a typo.

By the way, a few years ago, the CEO had to step down due to reports of sexual misconduct. Who would have thought?

Well, after Matt Conn stepped down as CEO, he was quickly replaced by Toni Rocca and just a few days later, well wouldn’t you know it? The same thing happened again. What are the odds?

Keep in mind right now as DEI Detected says, this is just Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go. This is not Pokemon or Nintendo, but now is the time to send a message to these groups. Pokemon’s last big games, Scarlet and Violet, were not received well and now they face competition from a game called PalWorld. They do not want to lose a company base right now.

So there are several options.

First, Pokemon can remove all rights to their property from Niantic and give the same game to another company that cares about the players and what they want. Pokemon needs to be a family-friendly game. Niantic has done incredible damage to the brand of Pokemon by doing this.

The second option is not likely, but that is for Niantic to undo the changes, sever all ties with Gaymer X permanently, and profusely apologize to the players. They sadly have a history of not listening to their players. We need to show them the consequences of not listening to us are greater than the consequences of working with a company like Gaymer X. I have since this deleted the game from my phone. Until the changes are made, I am not coming back.

That being said, we need to always hold out the opportunity of forgiveness and reward it. We need to let companies know that if you honor the customers, the customers will honor you back. If we say under no circumstances will we change our minds, we are not giving these companies any incentive to change.

All of this matters because this is an erasure of femininity. If you decided to start playing the game now and had to create a new character, you cannot choose male or female. That is gone. You can only choose a body type.

Women were meant to be beautiful and removing beauty from women is an attack on women. Men and women are not interchangeable. We need to recognize and celebrate the distinct differences between the two sexes and the positive contributions both make.

Players. Vote with your wallets. That is the only language that is understood. I really hope this changes because I got a lot of joy out of playing the game and interacting with others. Either the Pokemon Company needs to grant the rights of Pokemon to someone who will actually honor the customers, or Niantic needs to honor the customers themselves. We, the players, must refuse to compromise on this because our opponents are never interested in compromise. We give an inch and they take a mile and it will keep going.

For now, I’m going to be playing other games instead. I wish it could be otherwise, but I would rather have my standards than sell them out to play a game.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Culture Of Death

Is hope found in death? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Her name is Zoraya Ter Beek. She’s a beautiful woman at a young age of 28. She has a boyfriend who is forty years old. She has a pair of cats.

She’s also due to die in May of this year.

She has Autism, Borderline Personality Disorder, and depression. Her psychiatrist has told her that it will never get better. She doesn’t want to bear with it anymore, so she’s going to be “Euthanized” in May.

I am on the spectrum as readers know. Since my divorce, I also take medication for anxiety and depression. So how do I approach this story?

First off, let’s say that I and many others understand being in a place where you are under the impression you’d be better off dead. I don’t care if you think it or feel it or both. I’ve been there, There were times of temptation after my divorce. It’s a pain that still hurts to this day, but I have also known if I did that, it would hurt everyone around me, and she would win.

I have been there because life is hard. We have never been promised a rose garden. There are times of suffering that we must all go through. Some times are worse than others. Some people have lives that are overall harder than others do. At least, that’s how it can look to us.

That being said, we live in a culture now that devalues life thinking that death is the answer. Rather than do the hard work of treating and/or curing a patient, it can be easier to just send them to their demise.

Easier does not mean right.

Suicide is automatically a way of saying that absolutely nothing in this world is worth it. Not her boyfriend. Not her family. Not her cats. Not beautiful sunsets or cool breezes in the afternoon or a favorite food. Nothing. It is an insult to all creation.

Also, I would love to know how this psychiatrist knows the future since I know several people who have thought their lives would never get better and lo and behold, they did. I also wonder about a boyfriend who is just fine apparently with letting a girlfriend kill herself. Warning women. Don’t date a guy who can tell you he let his last girlfriend kill herself knowingly.

Everyone involved in this story is guilty of a form of murder to some extent. You can say it is legal so it’s okay, but legal doesn’t mean right. This girl’s life is worth it. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just saying it is worth it. It is worth it because she is in the image of God and Jesus loves her and died for her.

Can someone introduce this girl to Jesus before it’s too late?

We live in a culture that seems to worship death and if a life becomes inconvenient to us, we snuff it out and call it compassion. “That child will grow up with a disability! That child will grow up in poverty! Better to have an abortion!” “That person is going through such sorrow! They’re better off dead!” Is it really thought that the person who is being murdered is helped or is it more that we are trying to lighten our burden by removing those that remind us of suffering and having to fight and struggle to succeed in life?

It doesn’t help that we have a one-size-fits-all approach to eschatology. Either everyone just becomes worm food, or everyone goes to Heaven because a God of grace would never do otherwise! Unfortunately, what if He does? What if the moment this girl dies, she dies without Jesus and is in a position where she would give anything to not have made this decision?

It’s a scary thought.

We can try to be nice with it and call it “Euthanasia” meaning a good death, but this is not a good death. This is murder. It is the wrongful taking of life when we have no business taking it. We are telling this woman she is a hopeless case and society will be better off. She has nothing to contribute then.

How much do you have to hate someone to tell them that?

It’s also strange that conservatives like myself are told we are responsible for the deaths of so many people who kill themselves, but when someone else like this kills themselves, well that’s met by cheers and shouts of bravery. It’s been said that people become what they worship. What happens if we treat death as the greatest good that there is? What will we become?

We will become a culture of death.

Or maybe we already have.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Gaming Doesn’t Need Sweet Babies

What happens when woke comes to gaming? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I was out sick last week and recovering, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos while resting. I am quite interested in politics and of course, in gaming. I have noticed that a lot of popular franchises have gone woke. I know it sounds heretical, but I never really got into Star Wars, and unfortunately now, the series is dead. Woke has destroyed it. What you grew up with is not what is being produced today.

All of this is done in the name of what the Critical Drinker calls

“THE MESSAGE!”

Now it has come to gaming with a company called Sweet Baby Inc. This is all about the whole sensitivity movement and equity and everything else. This is resulting in games where women are not allowed to look feminine lest they bring about “the male gaze” and men are turned into highly emotional creatures.

News flash. The male gaze as it is put is not going away. Men tend universally to like to look at beautiful women. That’s not a bug. It’s a feature. Not only that, but there are plenty of female gamers out there and they would prefer to play as an attractive woman.

The problem with the Woke movement is not that they want to have characters, movies, video games, TV shows, etc. that include characters that are LGBTQ. For me, that’s the thing with freedom. They are allowed to do things that I don’t delight in, but that’s the way the market works.

My problem is that generally, instead of doing the hard work of making their own characters and series and establishing them, they instead co-opt characters that have a history already and try to force them into the LGBTQ group. The woke crowd doesn’t just want to make material that they want made. They want others to not make material they deem offensive and they want to force others to make games according to their standards.

These people are not doing this also because they really care about making good games. Instead, they hate people like myself who are gamers. They want a purge from the community to remove all the people that they deem to be unfit for the community. Naturally, this will be all the people they deem to be homophobic, sexist, racist, transphobic, etc.

In reality, the gaming community is really one of the most open communities there is. We have had female heroes from the beginning, such a Samus Aran of Metroid. It was a major shock for many when at the end of the game, provided you played it well finishing it in x time, that you found out the character who you were playing all along was a woman.

Another video I saw made a claim about Barrett from Final Fantasy VII being a typical stereotypical black guy. Most people were saying “Thanks for telling us you never played the game.” Barrett is a rough and tough guy, but he’s also deeply sensitive taking care of his late friend’s daughter who he took in as his own and with a deep love for the planet in his missions.

Something amusing I like to point out with this is that group like Sweet Baby Inc, is that they want to go after a group of people that spend hours playing games where they took on hostile forces and evil empires and face impossible odds and think everything will work out fine.

It won’t.

Gamers are a dedicated group and we don’t just sit back and roll over when it comes to the games that we love. Gamers all over the world have teamed up to reach goals before. We’re prepared to do it again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Christianity and Modern Gods

What are the gods we deal with today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am reading through the church fathers, among other things, and something I am noticing with Tertullian who I am on now is that he has a vast array of knowledge about the gods of the Roman society he lives in. I grew up reading Greek mythology which was claimed by the Romans, but there is still a lot I don’t know about it. Tertullian is familiar with the ins and the outs of the great stories in addition to being familiar with the biblical topics he knows about and the history of Christianity and the Roman Empire.

Nowadays, most people do not believe in those gods. Many people would consider themselves secularists and even many Christians are largely secular in their thinking. That does not mean we are not without gods. Not by a long shot. We have several gods today and these are gods Christians need to know about as well to interact with worshippers of these gods, as there are plenty of such worshippers.

So what are they?

Let’s start with sex. Yes. We all know about sex. A goes into B and sometimes a baby can result. We all know how it works, but what about what it is. We have plenty of debates on this topic. What is the ultimate purpose of sex? Is it something reserved for marriage? Is it to be between a man and a woman?

Then this gets into our personal identity. What is orientation? Is there such a thing? Is there a difference between sex and gender? Is this something that is assigned at birth or is it something immutable that cannot be changed? On one level, we can say the question “What is a woman?” is simple, but on the other, it is something quite deep that we need to get more to an answer on.

Christians definitely need to have a message here. After all, if we aren’t sharing our views on this with our children, the world is and the world will speak loudly. If we do believe sex is reserved for a man and a woman in marriage, how can we tell children this is a great gift while at the same time saying it needs to be reserved for that state? (Something even difficult for we adults who are single again.)

Another god is money. For this, Christians need to study economics. Many of the debates we have in this country are because people are ignorant of economics. We think with our hearts alone and think “If our intentions are good, the results will follow.” Not at all. I am not saying to avoid compassion, but I am saying that to see if a policy works, you don’t ask “How compassionate is it?” but rather “How effective is it?”

Capitalism is often seen as encouraging greed. Is it? Marxism is seen as caring for the poor. Is it? Why did we go to war with Marxism so much in our history? Is Marxism necessarily linked with atheism? Were the early Christians socialist?

As for caring for the poor, what is the best way to help people who are poor? What method has the best results? How should individual Christians care for the poor? Is it wrong for you to buy something really nice for yourself when there are poor people in the world?

Power is another one and this gets into politics. This is definitely here when an election year is going on. Christians need to learn how their government works. Can we tell the three branches of the American government? What is the Constitution? The Bill of Rights? The Declaration of Independence?

How much power should the government have? Should the citizenry be able to have guns and if so, are there any limitations to that? What should we prohibit? What should we permit? What should we promote? What role do passages like Romans 13 play?

What about science? This seems to be the reigning authority today. What is science? Is science necessarily materialistic? Can it answer the God question? Can it answer questions of good and evil? Is it the only way to know anything?

What should we accept in science and what should we not? Is evolution true? If it is, what does this say about our beliefs on Scripture, inerrancy, the existing of God, and the resurrection of Jesus? Can you be a faithful Christian and accept evolution? Can you be a good scientist and reject evolution?

What about modern issues as well like climate change? Is the earth’s climate changing? If so, is that something that would happen anyway or is man responsible? Is there anything that can be done about it either way? What about our response to Covid? What did we get right? What did we get wrong? Can we trust the science or are we even more skeptical?

Christians interacting in our culture need some knowledge on all of this. In addition definitely understand other gods if you are interacting with other systems. We need Christians who understand cults, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism and any other belief system out there.

In all of this, yes, we need to know our Bibles and our history and what we believe and why, but we are interacting with people who speak of other gods. Like good missionaries, we need to know what those other gods are and how to address them. Christians throughout history have had something to say about more than just Christianity. We need to do the same to be effective witnesses in our culture.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Atheist Universe Part 13

Were the Founding Fathers Christians? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Imagine if I was telling you what a group of scientists believed, let’s say a group of 50+, but I did so by only picking out 3 of them. Suppose I went to the National Academy of Sciences, picked out the scientists that were theists, and then said “See? The NAS is a theistic society.” If you think that’s ridiculous, you have an idea of what it’s like to read David Mills on the founding of America.

To the extent that our Founding Fathers had any religious affiliation at all, it was a tepid embracing of the philosophy of Deism, a popular system of thought in the 18th century. Deism is the belief that a supernatural Power originally created the universe but does not currently manage its day-to-day operation or intervene personally into human affairs. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, among many others, held Deist, rather than Christian, religious beliefs. If one dismisses all preconceived historical inaccuracies and Christian propaganda, then an extraordinary and very revealing fact emerges: The two documents upon which our country was actually founded—i.e., the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States—contain not a single word about Christianity, Christian principles, the Bible or Jesus Christ. Neither is there any mention at all of the Ten Commandments, Heaven, Hell or being saved. Not a word! The phrase “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” was a reference to the Deist Creator, rather than the God of Christianity.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 205). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

For the former, when people want to talk about the founding fathers not being Christian, you can bet dollars to donuts that they will name the same three people every time. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin. MIlls finds it odd that the founding documents don’t mention explicitly Christian language. He gives us no reason why we should think that they would. The Constitution and Declaration were to be for all people, not just Christians.

Yet after saying that these aren’t found in these documents he says:

Witch burning and mandatory church affiliation, among other factors, led the Founding Fathers to establish a “Wall of Separation between Church and State,” allowing, at each citizen’s discretion, freedom of religion or freedom from religion.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 206). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

You know what else isn’t found in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution? The Wall of Separation between Church and State. However, that is something golden that obviously all the founders held. There is no mention on how government funds were used to evangelize the Native Americans in the area of the Louisiana Purchase. There is no mention that the wall mention was made to the Danbury Baptist Church to assure them the government would not infringe upon them. There is no mention that after writing that, the very next Sunday Jefferson let worship services take place in the House of Representatives.

The other thing you can be sure that will be mentioned is the Treaty of Tripoli.

In 1797 the United States ratified the Treaty of Tripoli, which was negotiated by George Washington himself and signed by his successor, John Adams. The treaty declared that “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Congress unanimously approved the text of this treaty.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 206). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

In other words, Mills is following the atheistic script accurately. Cite only the information that agrees with you. Ignore the rest. Never mind that it can be questioned if Article 11 where the phrase shows up even belongs in the treaty or not seeing as we have a version in two languages. There is no mention of the Treaty of Paris which uses explicit Christian language right in the intro in speaking of it being in the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.

Modern-day conservative propaganda about the “Christian birth of our nation” is therefore just as erroneous and self-serving as Christian pronouncements about the birth of our universe. In both cases, “men of God” completely ignore the actual evidence at hand and conjure up a fictitious tale. They then spread the myth, along with fabricated evidence, and repeat the myth so frequently that it is soon accepted uncritically by the citizenry.

Mills, David. Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (p. 207). Ulysses Press. Kindle Edition.

Oh, the irony.

But to be fair, have I provided positive evidence so far? Not too much. However, if you want to see a listing of such quotations with their sources, you can go here. Here are some that you can find there.

    “From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all acknowledged as the rules of their conduct. They were bound by the principles which they themselves had proclaimed in the declaration. They were bound by all those tender and endearing sympathies, the absence of which, in the British government and nation, towards them, was the primary cause of the distressing conflict in which they had been precipitated by the headlong rashness and unfeeling insolence of their oppressors. They were bound by all the beneficent laws and institutions, which their forefathers had brought with them from their mother country, not as servitudes but as rights. They were bound by habits of hardy industry, by frugal and hospitable manners, by the general sentiments of social equality, by pure and virtuous morals; and lastly they were bound by the grappling-hooks of common suffering under the scourge of oppression.”

————–John Quincy Adams

Letter to Mrs. Jane Mecom:
“I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have composed and wrote a whole book of devotions for my own use; and I imagine there are few if any in the world so weak as to imagine, that the little good we can do here can merit so vast a reward hereafter.”

————–Benjamin Franklin

“I do hereby appoint THURSDAY, the TWENTY-FIRST of NOVEMBER next, to be a day of Public THANKSGIVING, PRAISE, and PRAYER, throughout this Commonwealth; calling on and requesting the ministers and people of every religious denomination, to meet on that day in their respective sanctuaries, that with unanimity and fervor, we may present our unfeigned praises for all the mercies we have received of our Bountiful Creator, who has continued to us the inestimable blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ, blessings not confined to time, but extended to eternity, who has confirmed to us our federal and State constitutions, which secure the enjoyment of our lives, liberties and property, who continues to bless us with a National Government and Administration, whose wisdom, virtue, and firmness have not been circumvented, corrupted or appalled by the arts, seductions, or threats of foreign or domestic foes, but whose patriotic efforts have uniformly and manifestly resulted from an ardent desire to promote the public welfare and happiness, who has not punished our ungrateful murmurs, discontents and other crimes, as He has those of distant nations, by war and its dire effects; but has preserved to us peace, the greatest of national blessings, who has favored us with a Clergy, (with few exceptions,) whose conduct, is influenced by the mild, benign and benevolent principles of the Gospel; and whose example is a constant admonition to such pastors and professors of Christianity, as are too much under the guidance of passion, prejudice, and worldly delusion, Who has enabled us from unavoidable spoliations to derive permanent benefits, by gradually diminishing our dependence on foreign markets, for necessary supplies; by rapidly increasing our manufactures thereof; and by thus preventing in future the plunder of such property by avaricious nations, who has not visited us, as He has other countries, with plague, pestilence or famine; but has kindly preserved to us a great degree of health, and crowned with plenty the labors of our industrious husbandmen, Who has increased the martial ardor and discipline of our militia, and enables us to smile at the menaces of mighty potentates, Who continues to us the due administration of justice, the full and free exercise of our civil religious rights, and the numerous blessing which have resulted from them, Who has prospered in a remarkable degree our Schools, Academies and Colleges; those inestimable sources of public information and happiness, who has protected so great a portion of the property of our merchants, when exposed to the depredations of perfidious governments, Who has granted success to our enterprising fishermen, prospered our ingenious mechanics, and loaded us with His boundless munificence.”

—- Elbridge Thomas Gerry

I, ——, do profess Faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine Inspiration.

—– George Read

“We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government, that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by the means of the Bible. For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul of republicanism.”

—– Benjamin Rush

But keep in mind, Mills says this is just fabricating evidence.

I can freely acknowledge that Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin did not hold Christian views, perhaps Franklin was the closest.

Can Mills accept the others?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Racism and Christianity are Incompatible.

Does racism work with Christianity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

With today being MLK Day, we think about a man who said he wants people to be judged by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin. The dream was to see black and white boys and girls playing together and being friends. There was to be no advantage or disadvantage to race.

Sadly, the church hasn’t had a perfect track record here. It could be a natural human tendency to look with suspicion at the other. We often treat slavery as if it was the worst evil and also uniquely American. It is a great evil indeed, though I think some are worse, such as mass genocide, but it is also not uniquely American. Most every other culture has enslaved a group and been enslaved themselves. Many groups have enslaved their own people and sold their own people to be slaves.

There were too many Christians who were defending slavery in America. I recognize that my own denomination’s history has a black mark here, one that I am thankful we have recognized the error of. I have a professor here who has said if he could ask Jonathan Edwards one question, it would be “Why did you keep slaves?”

Generally, we recognize racism as wrong today, but why? What makes it wrong? We can’t just take these ideas as if they are a given. After all, if you went back 2,000 years ago and asked the average person in the Roman Empire if slavery was wrong, they would look at you puzzled. Of course not. Why would you think such a thing? Oddly, many of the slaves could think the exact same thing.

As Tom Holland argues in his book Dominion, even as an agnostic, he finds his values are really Christian ones. Our culture has been so shaped by Christianity that we don’t see it. We tend to think “This is the way everyone thinks.” No. It isn’t. Our beliefs on morality are something that have been tinkered out over a long period of time. I also suspect we’re about to see how important they are as the major movement today is to avoid any idea of morality in many areas, especially sex.

In Christianity, mankind is created in the image of God. There is no distinction in that regard between male and female. Both are said to be equally in the image of God, despite them both being very different. (Hallelujah that women are so different, might I add.) Too many of us have this idea that if there are any differences between two things, then one is superior and the other is inferior. Not always.

Are men superior in any way? Yes. Absolutely. So are women. Men are superior at being men. Women are superior at being women. (Something our culture is trying to destroy the idea of. It’s amazing women are complaining about the patriarchy all the while supporting the transgender movement.) There are benefits to being a man and there are benefits to being a woman and there are downsides to both.

The same can apply to races. Can there be differences between the races besides appearance? Absolutely. Does this mean that any one race is superior or inferior? Not a bit. (I cannot recommend enough Thomas Sowell on these kinds of questions.)

What racism does is it treats the image of God, the main aspect of man in Christianity, as if it was of lesser importance than race. Taking any secondary characteristic of a person and treating it as a primary characteristic is demeaning. This is also the same when we treat the most important aspect of a person to be any of the aspects I mentioned above.

This does not mean that these secondary qualities are unimportant, but they should not be ranked above the most important. Each person you meet is in the image of God. If they are, then you are to love them as yourself. You can speak all you want against what a person does, because that can be wicked and evil, but humanity is a good still, a good regardless of any of the secondary characteristics.

Also, this racism is not just treating as someone lesser because of a secondary characteristic. It’s also treating them as greater because of it. James had a problem with special privileges being given to the rich. He would have just as much problem with special privileges being given based on the secondary characteristics as well. If you want to see racism die in a society, you have to get rid of privileges as well as disadvantages.

A truly Christian society will be a society that is without racism.

Let’s aim for that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Reply To Honestly By Tom Copeland Part 5

Are all relationships sinful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Paul writing to the church in Corinth.

So guys, I hear you’ve got a case where you have a man who’s sleeping with his stepmother. Gross! Am I right? But hey, all relationships are going to be hard in life. All relationships have struggles. I want to suggest that all of you just show your love and support to them. Don’t judge them by any means! God can redeem any relationship and He will redeem this one!

Or at least that’s what Copeland’s friend would likely say if he was in Paul’s shoes.

Copeland has a friend who grew up very conservative and now is an Anglican with no condemnation of same-sex relationships. This friend is described as someone who takes Scripture very seriously and knows the Bible very well. His proposal is that instead of looking at same-sex relationships as fine and wonderful, just realize all relationships are sinful. All of them have all of us acting in sinful ways. All of them are used to sanctify us.

Copeland uses an example of him being married to his wife for thirty years, and yet he has been a sinful man many times in that relationship. Anyone who is married can attest to that and anyone who has been married can be. Even if Jesus was married, He wouldn’t have had a perfect marriage because He would have been married to a sinful woman.

Except Scripture doesn’t say all relationships are sinful. It says all people in all relationships are sinners, but the relationships themselves are not always the problem. If all relationships are fallen and we just need grace in all of them, Paul would not have written what he wrote in 1 Cor. 5.

Copeland goes on to say to people in a same-sex relationship that:

The good news here is that even if the scripture does condemn your relationship (and as I’ve said, I’m not sure it does), it doesn’t condemn it any more than any other, and God redeems it.

Copeland, Tom. Honestly – A Book About Sex for Christians . Tom Copeland. Kindle Edition.

Because we know of all those passages that condemn opposite-sex relationships.

Now someone could say “Well what about the situation in 1 Cor. 5? Isn’t that such a relationship?

Indeed, it is, but the problem wasn’t it was opposite-sex. The problem was it was highly incestuous. Not all opposite-sex relationships are approved by Scripture, but not a single same-sex romantic relationship is. I would love to see Copeland try to back the statement he has made here.

Ultimately as Christians though, if Scripture condemns it, we have to as well. Now how we could do that could be wrong. We should realize that a person with same-sex attraction is experiencing a real loss and if they are willing to sacrifice this for the good of the kingdom, we should support them in that and praise them and help them with the struggle, just as we help a single person who is not married.

The rest of this section in this chapter is about the scientific research, which I cannot comment on. On the ethical, I find it all weak. Copeland does not interact with the best Scripture and violates on the ways he says liberals violate. It’s a shame because really, much of the rest of the book is quite good.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Reply To Honestly by Tom Copeland Part 4

What about wealth and divorce? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this part, Copeland decides to have us look at two different issues that he wants to use to draw an analogy to how we treat same-sex relationships. These are wealth and the question of divorce and remarriage. Let’s see how he fares.

At the start, he says we should not condemn rich people or divorced people. I agree. I would have said the same thing even before my own divorce. So what does he say instead?

In looking at wealth, he cites many common verses such as not laying up treasures in Heaven and no man can serve two masters. There’s examples of giving generously and of the early church in Acts and Luke 6 supposedly saying to not ask property back from the one who robs you.

Unfortunately, none of this is with any context whatsoever. In the last case, the ones who were doing this were likely the Roman soldiers themselves who were essentially the police force in this context. Rome, the biggest empire in the world, has a soldier who takes something from you. Who are you going to go to?

In the early church, there was certainly the case of people giving, but also we see in Acts that Ananias and Sapphira had sold their land and they had all right to keep some of it for themselves if they wanted. Instead, they lied and acted like they were giving it all away. Note also that if some people were selling, that means private property was existing. (Also, if you believe Jesus has pronounced doom on Jerusalem, why hold on to the land anyway?)

As for other warnings, having money is not the problem. Money having you is the problem. Money can indeed too easily become an idol and I do believe that if you have been blessed financially and know how to make money well, you should be giving some of that money away. See below on this blog if you want to consider this work as a means of giving.

Copeland goes on to say the Bible must not be really saying what it sounds like it’s saying, and indeed, to an extent, that’s true. Copeland is reading it apart from the social and historical context. He says the passages are easy to interpret, but we ignore that. Not really. We don’t need sermons condemning wealth, but greed is another thing altogether.

Now when it comes to the passages on same-sex relationship, those are also quite clear and even with the social and historical context, the meaning doesn’t change. Are we to brush that under the rug? Unfortunately, Copeland’s position looks to be that we should.

Copeland isn’t all down on wealth. He does think we need to look at questions we ask about retirement and are we really saving up just so we can live easily later on in life? I have no problem asking such questions. Do we give preference to rich people in our churches instead of poor? We do need to consider that. The problem is none of these make the analogy work.

With divorce, Copeland says that Jesus is clear. If you divorce your spouse for a reason other than adultery and you remarry another, you are guilty of adultery. I agree. I think this could also include reasons such as desertion as in 1 Cor. 7 and abusive relationships as these are people who have also betrayed and broken the covenant.

He says that divorced people walk down our aisles and sign our cards and join our churches without a question about their past sexual behavior. Unfortunately, this is not so. I know whenever I have talked about doing any ministry, I have had to explain my divorce and its circumstances and relive the pain all over again.

Copeland says that this should concern us because divorce and remarriage have done a lot more damage to the church than same-sex relationships have. I disagree. I contend that making divorce easy was the stepping stone to another redefinition of marriage. This in turn is the stepping stone to all the chaos resulting from transgenderism.

If marriage is not meant to be permanent, then that is the first step. Then after that, it can easily become just another relationship and hey, why not let same-sex attracted people marry one another? With that, the male-female requirement is gone. If that is gone, well, why not do away with male and female altogether? I have no idea what comes next, but we’ve already descended into insanity.

What happens along the path? The further breakdown of the family unit. We have lost the meaning of sex, marriage, and family. Copeland’s approach will just keep us going further.

Copeland goes on to say that if we want to teach that same-sex relationships are wrong, he wants us to condemn just as much the accumulation of wealth and the divorce culture every time. Well first off, many people do condemn that. Second, Copeland doesn’t set the rules. Third, it’s interesting the conservatives have to change their ways, but the ones on the left do not.

Anyway, next time, we’ll look at what a friend of Copeland has to say about relationships.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

Reply To Honestly by Tom Copeland Part 3

What about interpretation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this part of the book, Copeland starts with examining the biblical data. He admits upfront he’s not a biblical languages scholar. That’s fine. Neither am I. We’re not going to get into any fancy use of Greek or Hebrew here. So let’s see first off what Copeland says is the standpoint of the positions.

He says that conservatives point to Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus, Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy mainly to offer passages they say offer indisputable proof that the bible condemns same-sex sexual behavior. Liberals dispute these and sometimes say that some of these passages could be about pederasty instead. They say that the Bible gives no condemnation of loving and consensual same-sex relationships.

Okay. Both sides could have some nuance, but they are generally a fair assessment. This is certainly something that is written about back and forth. So how does Copeland respond to these?

So which side is right? I’m not really sure, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter that much.

Copeland, Tom. Honestly – A Book About Sex for Christians . Tom Copeland. Kindle Edition.

I’m sorry. What?

I mean, this is only Scripture which we say is our authority. This is only what we say could be about the fate of countless souls for all eternity. This is a question that doesn’t matter that much?

Last time, I wrote about how the liberal side is reluctant to deal with passages if they think they hurt them or someone they care about. We have already seen that take place. I would have preferred at least some reason for thinking that the conservative side is wrong rather than a dismissal of the issue altogether.

He instead goes with an approach from Tillich saying that we are all dealing with our own interpretations and all sides have claimed biblical sanctions on various issues. It is certainly true that all sides have, but one side has been wrong and the other has been right, at least if you hold to a conservative view of Scripture. If we go this route, then we could easily say anything is okay. Moral relativism wins out.

He also says Rich Mullins said God knows what it means. The rest of us are just guessing. To an extent, but some guesses are also better than others. God knows what the disease is someone has, but odds are if they go to a doctor, he has a better guess than they do.

He also quotes Donald Miller and says we are more interested often in a propositional claim than a relational one. Interesting to note that that itself is a propositional claim. They’re unavoidable. We should make sure ours are rooted in truth. He then asks what if we’re wrong?

This is followed by asking if Christians should be passing radical anti-abortion laws to protect unborn children like the one in Texas.

Okay. This book was published in 2013, so I’m guessing that law was HB2. I looked up the measures of this radical law. I did find something from the UK on it here.

So what is so radical?

– Abortions doctors were required to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic.

– All abortions clinics were required to upgrade to become ambulatory surgical centres (ASCs).

– Abortions after 20-weeks were prohibited, except in the case of “severe fetal abnormalities” or to “avert the death or substantial and irreversible physical impairment … of the pregnant woman”.

– Women who take abortion-inducing pills, must do so under the supervision of a physician, requiring two trips to the clinic for each dosage.

– After the administration of the abortion-inducing pills, a woman must set a follow-up visit with the physician 14-days after the dosage.

In addition to the three visits required of those seeking abortions under HB2, Texas passed a law in 2011 requiring women to undergo an ultrasound procedure 24 hours prior to getting an abortion – resulting in a minimum of four visits to the clinic.

The article says that if this were upheld, 10 or fewer clinics would have served the state.

On that last part, might it not be best to say that if so many clinics can’t handle these requirements, maybe they shouldn’t be open? What is really so radical? Is it wanting an ultrasound so a woman can make an informed decision? Is it being near a hospital in case something goes wrong? Is it that except in cases like a fetal condition that could cause death to the woman abortions weren’t allowed after 20 weeks?

And this is radical?

Copeland asks if we should instead have healthy choices for women, particularly in cases of rape and incest.

The hugely overwhelming majority of cases of abortion are not for rape or incest.

Should Christians be in favor of the death penalty or opposed to it? He speaks no further on this, but I say, yes, we should be.

Should we be in favor of second amendment rights, even having people allowed to have concealed handguns at church? Well, considering how many bad guys with guns have shown up at churches, yes. I don’t live in fear of the majority of citizens having guns. Bad guys having guns without the majority having them? Yes. That’s fearful. Even more fearful, the government being armed while we’re not.

This goes on to questions of war and wealth. Copeland asks who we usually say is right. The answer is us. Of course, that’s not a major claim. If I did not think my position was right, why would I hold it? However, if I hold a position, I have reasons for it.

He goes on to say that he doesn’t know and he has this thing called faith which requires not knowing. I have written on faith more here. Based on this, you might as well say that we should strive to know less so that we can have more faith. This doesn’t fit anyway. “I don’t know which side is right, so I have faith?”

He then says he can’t make life-altering decisions for someone else based on passages that only show up in the Old Testament and Paul and are mentioned nowhere in the Gospels or any other New Testament writer. (Ignore for the point Jude could say something about it.) Unfortunately, Copeland has already done this. Saying he won’t condemn the behavior is itself making a life-altering judgment and if he is wrong, then his advice could condemn numerous souls for eternity.

Never mind that James 3:1 says teachers will be held to greater account. Will he stand before God and say “I decided it really didn’t matter what your Word said about the issue.”? As for Jesus, Jesus never said anything about the death penalty or abortion or guns either, but yet Copeland sure asks about those. Jesus talked about questions that were relevant debate topics in Israel. We have no reason to think same-sex relationships were one of them.

After this, Copeland says:

The stakes are real. The stakes are people. Depending on the research you read, between 25-40% of non-heterosexual teenagers have attempted suicide and as many as 75% report having had suicidal thoughts. The rate is as much as five times higher for teens who identify themselves as gay than for heterosexual teens. For the church to do anything that could possibly contribute to that is unacceptable.

Copeland, Tom. Honestly – A Book About Sex for Christians . Tom Copeland. Kindle Edition.

I agree that the stakes are real and are people and we need to do something, but notice this. If someone is having suicidal thoughts based on whatsoever issue, the first thing to deal with primarily is what in them is making them have suicidal thoughts. Having gone through divorce, I sometimes pondered the question of suicide and I understand that most people who go through divorce, particularly those wrongfully divorced, do. Now if I was at a point of acting, is the thing to do to change everyone else and force my ex to take me back, or is it to change my own thinking on how I see myself regardless? Wouldn’t it be best to deal with the underlying mental health issue?

In the end, Copeland might say he doesn’t want to really take a side, but the reality is he has. He can say he doesn’t want to make life-altering judgments, but he has. He can say he doesn’t want to make judgments on the holiness of certain actions, but in reality, he has. They are unavoidable.

I think he’s wrong entirely.

We’ll each have to stand before God and give reasons for our answers someday.

I hope we’re both prepared.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Reply To Honestly by Tom Copeland Part 2

What mistakes can liberals make in interpretation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Tom Copeland’s book Honestly, like I said yesterday, is for the most part quite good, but I really disagreed with his statements on sexual orientation. Last time, I discussed his concerns with a conservative schema for interpreting Scripture. I appreciate that he was fair and said liberals have some problems as well. Let’s look at those and then when we get to what he says, I will see if he does fall under any of those concerns.

The first one is that liberals can be reluctant to deal honestly with difficult passages if they think they hurt them or someone they care about. In many cases, that’s something all of us are prone to. “Well, the Bible doesn’t really say much about my sin here, but check out everything it says about my neighbor’s!” Michael Brown wrote a book on overcoming a food addiction and noted how many pastors are obese and that you never hear a sermon on gluttony. I wonder why.

The second danger is like this. If an interpretation doesn’t match how we think God is or how Christ is, we discount it. Surely a God of love would never do XYZ! Well, there’s a lot of things a God of love would do that we don’t understand. This is also something common with internet atheists and others. “Look at what God did! That’s not loving!”

The next is a lack of consistency or structure in interpreting Scripture. If much of our interpretation of Scripture is based on experiences and on what is going on in culture at the time, it is easy to get caught up in an idea because it is new. This is something that happens regularly in politics where people will suddenly show up and embrace what is obviously true despite it not being believed by anyone for thousands of years beforehand.

The last he mentions is a focus on tolerance and grace at the expense of truth. I had Gregory Quinian on my podcast once who describes himself as an ex-homosexual and he has said that we are to speak the truth in love, but if it’s not the truth, it’s not love. There are too many in our society that will not tell someone the truth for fear that it will hurt them. Many Christians often talk about loving someone into the kingdom. You can also love someone out of the kingdom.

I definitely appreciate all of these as I want to give the benefit of the doubt and think that Copeland is trying to give both sides of the coin to the best of his ability. In the end as you will see, I do not think he has made a really strong case from the Bible for his position. If you are one who doesn’t hold to Scripture, that won’t matter to you, but as I said last time, this is a book by a Christian for a Christian so we are seeing how it stacks up with a Christian worldview.

We shall continue next time.