Category: Political

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Lately, we’ve been going through the doctrine of God but as many would suspect by now, today is a special day. Here in America, we are celebrating 234 years of existence as a nation and the freedom that we have. Today, I’d like to write out some thoughts to keep in mind on this special day and we can continue looking at the doctrine of God tomorrow.

I will begin by stating flatly that this is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. That does not mean that Christianity is an official religion, but that it is the dominant shaping force, or at least was, in America. It is because we’re Christian that we have freedom of worship. Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, and those of non-faith are free to exercise their religious beliefs here provided they do so in legal means. For those who want more information on the founding of America being Christian, I recommend visiting wallbuilders.com, the ministry of David Barton. I also recommend going to the following links all by my good friend J.P. Holding of Tektonics ministries:

http://www.classicapologetics.com/special/americaclassics.html

http://www.classicapologetics.com/special/4th.html

http://www.classicapologetics.com/special/godtrust.html

That having been said, I have a saying that the gospel does not need America, but America needs the gospel. This nation is founded on the principles of Jesus Christ and without those principles, we cannot survive. The further we move away from the gospel, the more our country will slide away towards oblivion as we become more and more self-focused. We have abortion now legal for instance, in which a mother may allowably take the life of the innocent child that is in her womb. A selfish act indeed and one of the most anti-feminine of all as it denies several women the right to exist and denies the woman the great privilege she has of being able to give birth.

We have homosexuals seeking to marry one another coming on the scene. Once again, we are dealing with a selfish act that says we need to change the very nature of marriage itself just in order to bring about the happiness of some people. I could writer further on my problems with the homosexual lifestyle, but that would be another blog. Needless to say, I share the Christian worldview that says that homosexual activity is immoral.

Our policies today are quick fixes designed to handle things for our generation and not looking ahead to what the future will hold. There are long-term consequences to all our actions and if we just look at how it affects us today without considering our children and our grandchildren, we will do them a disservice. We need to keep that in mind as this is their nation to, or at least we hope it will be.

That having been said, I am thankful however that this is a nation that I can enter my church freely on Sunday and worship. I can have a Bible in my home and I don’t need to fear the government coming in and taking that away from me. There are many nations where such a privilege doesn’t exist.

I truly believe we can still be a city on a hill, for whatever happens in America shapes the rest of the world. We have maintained a constitution for 234 years. In a class I was in recently after the health-care bill passed, a bill that I opposed and still do oppose, one student said “234 years. It was a good run.” I do believe that the bill is damaging to the fabric of our country, but I don’t believe it’s the end of it. America has not been about giving up. America has been about standing up in the face of opposition.

There is much in America and we have extreme potential to be a force for good in this world. Keep in mind like Esther that the gospel will survive just as the Jews would. However, if America doesn’t provide, help could come from another place and our nation could exist for such a time as this. Not only could it exist for such a time, you and I could exist for such a time.

If you are an American, what are you going to do today to return America to her principles? If you are not, celebrate for those who are and if possible, be proud of your own country and seek what you can do to bring the gospel to that country more and more. America can be an example of what can be done.

We shall continue our look at the doctrine of God tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. While here, we have been lately going through the doctrine of God, I’m going to take a break from that for today. Here in America, it’s Memorial Day. We are remembering those who have fallen in combat so that our country could be free. I admit that I don’t do as much as I should for Memorial Day, but I do hope my one blog here will suffice for a tribute.

Go by and graveyard and think about what you see. There are caskets underground. Sure, a lot of them have decayed and no doubt the bodies inside have as well, but each of those is there because of a person. A person has left this world. He will not be heard again to greet his family or make love to his wife or play with his children or greet you in the marketplace.

Some people leave this world pre-emptively. Some do so knowing the possibility of that happening. They’re the ones that put their lives on the line because they think their country is worth dying for. They will kiss their wives and children as they head onto a plane to go to another nation and do so knowing that they might never see those people again.

For them, there is something worth dying for. They are prepared to face death so their wives and children won’t have to. They are willing to die for complete strangers. Some will one day go out on a battlefield and they know that they are walking to certain death and will never come home again and yet they walk anyway. They leave with their comrades a request that they simply let their families know that they love them.

What are we doing to honor them? Do we consider how serious death is? If we do not, it could be because we do not take life itself seriously. If you do not have something worth dying for, it is quite likely that you also do not have something worth living for. Is there anything out there that is greater than you are that you are willing to say “Yes. For this I will live my life and die if need be.”

I live in America and I wake up free. I can read my Bible without fear of the government coming in and arresting me. I can go to a house of worship and enjoy the freedom of worship. I can speak as I fit. I can write this blog and not do so with fear. I have property and I can buy and sell in the marketplace. I am allowed to hold the opinions that I hold.

Why can I do this? Someone thought that freedom was worth dying for. Before you go to bed tonight, say a prayer to God to give thanks for those who came before us. It is because of the sacrifice of good men and women that you are free today. They were also people just like you and I. The only difference is in what they believed. They believed something truly good is worth dying for.

God bless those who are left behind. Today, your loved ones are saluted! Thank you for giving them to us.

Greetings everyone from Deeper Waters. We’re going to take a break from our Trinitarian commentary tonight to take some time to remember the events of today, Pearl Harbor Day. I ask, however, for your continued prayers. There has been a lot happening in my own life lately and I seem to be getting a grip on things. I also ask for prayers for my financial situation. Things are getting really tight around here. Finally, I ask for prayers for the continued situation going on in my life. There are a lot of events going on I do not wish to describe, but God knows them. For now, let’s talk about Pearl Harbor Day.

I know someone who is an older man in the apologetics world who talked to me and a few others one time about that day. He spoke of people walking in Hawaii and seeing the planes flying overhead and wondering what was going on. It wasn’t too long before they found out as the attack started and before we knew it, we were involved in a strike in a way that we had never been involved in. Our peace time had been interrupted by an attack from Japan.

The attack was said to rouse up America like a sleeping giant, and indeed it did. In an episode of Smallville, Lex Luthor tells a corrupt politician of Smallville that when Churchill heard that America had been attacked by the Japanese, he broke open a bottle of champagne and said “We’ve won the war!” His staff thought he was crazy. He told them that America is a sleeping giant. If you wake them up, they will be ready to fight.

One aspect I’d like us to remember is that while there is real warfare in the world with guns and tanks and planes and bombs, there is also spiritual warfare going on. When innocent people in our nation are attacked, we stand up and fight. When 9/11 happen, the military recruiters had several signing up who wanted to go and fight for this nation of ours.

Would that we had the same about innocent souls being attacked. We have the abortion movement destroying our children. We have the homosexual lobbyists wanting to destroy marriage. We have false teachings rising up in the church like the Word of Faith movement and cults like the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as the charge of the new atheists.

The church has just as much potential today and events like this should remind us. Men and women were willing to die for our great nation, and I applaud that, but who will stand up for the church? There is nothing wrong with wanting to give your life for your country, but I would hope more of us would want to give our lives for the gospel. Are we willing to stand up and be counted for?

Let us remember and honor those who died for our country, but let us never lose sight of the ones who are giving their lives for the gospel. We stand in an age where wolves are trying to invade the church. Too often we’re busy coddling to them instead of treating them as the threats to innocent souls that they are. We are in a much more serious war than any physical war is. Let’s live accordingly.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I know I said I’d go on with our Trinitarian Commentary today, but I really think it would be more proper today to salute our troops. There are several men and women overseas as I type this right now putting themselves in harm’s way. I can only think of one friend who is in the armed forces in some capacity, so most of them don’t even know what I’m doing here right now, but they’re willing to die so I can have the right to keep doing it.

Our country is here today because there have always been such men. There were men who saw freedom as a good thing and saw it as something worth dying for. They died not only for their families, but for the families they knew nothing about. They risked everything knowing that they would receive nothing in return in this life maybe. Now they could receive some honors spoken over their grave and they could survive and get medals and honor, but more than likely, they do it because it is simply the right thing to do.

These are the men and women who have no idea at times if they will ever see their loved ones again. These are people who have children at home who they might never see again. They might have children at home who they’ve never even got the chance to see. Why are they doing it? What makes someone leave the people he loves the most and go off and risk life and limb?

What is it? It’s something greater than just this lifetime. It’s the cause of freedom not only for their generation but the next. Because they are protecting our generation, the next one can live in freedom. Mothers are free to raise up daughters to be women. Dads are free to train up their sons to be men. Some of those sons could be the next generation of soldiers as well.

These people also believe in a right and a wrong. They believe that there are things worth living for and that there are things worth dying for. They want to live their lives for the good and want to be willing to eliminate that which is evil. They believe that there is something out there that is greater than themselves.

They believe in not just looking to themselves and their time but to the future. We are free because of wars that were fought even in this country two centuries ago. Today, we’ve reached the level we have partly due to the sacrifice of those men and women just like the ones that are fighting for our lives today.

May the blessings of God be on our troops. They are out there taking a bullet so you and I don’t have to worry about taking one some day. These people deserve all the honor that we can give them. Before you go to bed tonight, make sure you’ve taken time to thank God for those people that have died and that are fighting now so that you can sleep comfortably tonight.

 

We’re still going to break from our talk on the Trinity in honor of the Fourth of July. Now I don’t go political on here often, but I did spend this morning at a tea party. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as enjoyable as the last ones were and my friends and I didn’t stay too long. However, I am pleased about how free our country is. We can gather and protest against our government. Do we stop to realize that there are many nations where you would get executed for that? If you don’t agree with the message of the tea parties, fine. Agree with this however. It is a good thing that they have the freedom to express their opinion and they should not be persecuted by the government for doing such.

As I traveled, I took the transit system since it has a cheaper round trip than paying for parking elsewhere. I consider it a great freedom that I can get on a vehicle like that safely and that I didn’t have to see guards with machine guns around and didn’t have to be searched thoroughly to make sure I was safe. As I say that, I am not against searches in other areas. I have been pulled out of line at the airport and I’m grateful for that. Airplanes no doubt can be more dangerous than the transit system, but even then, you have great freedom on an airplane and most of us don’t fear for our lives from terrorists. (If we have fear, it’s usually more a fear of flying than anything else.)

I also saw walking through a parking lot today police officers deailng with an incident that seemed to involve trouble with automobiles. I considered that later today and thought of how great it is to be living in a nation where I do not have to live in fear when I see the police force and can be thankful that they’re out there securing my freedom. I am not having to duck in back alleys in order to avoid coming in contact with a representative of the law.

I gathered with the church this evening at a family’s house to celebrate the 4th with a picnic. I’m thankful we can assemble as friends together in this nation and get to celebrate that we truly are a free nation. Freedom is a great gift and those of us who live in America should be thankful that we live in what I truly believe is the greatest nation on Earth.

This morning, I was free to read my Bible and I will be free to this evening. All around the world, there are people who would give anything to get to have a copy of Scripture. Some can be arrested and thrown in jail or even killed for the practice of the Christian religion. I don’t have to hide in this nation. In fact, my church is open to all.

I am doing this blog. I have the freedom to do that. I have the freedom to evangelize. I can look on the net and read anything on religion that I want to. I could write a book and get it published and get to spread the message of the gospel that way. I can own books others have written. That is a great privilege.

We are free, and let us not forget that we are free because men and women throughout history have given their lives up for a greater cause. As we celebrate today, let us not forget their sacrifice. Let us honor those who did and those who are making that sacrifice today. Freedom is not free as it has been said. We have a great gift.

Also, those of us who are Christians have another gift, the freedom from the penalty of sin. As we are being sanctified, we are free from its power. When we reach glory, we will be free from its very presence. Men and women died for a great freedom. Christ died for the greatest freedom of all. Government can try to stop the spread of the message of that freedom, but they cannot stop that freedom. Let us rejoice about that.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Sunday morning, an abortion doctor was shot and killed in his church. George Tiller was known for being one who did late-term abortions and was well known in the media. We will have to go somewhat political tonight, but there are issues here that must be raised.

To begin with, we are pro-life. We do not like the taking of life. There are some cases where we do believe it is morally justified. This is in self-defense and in the death penalty and for just war causes. Now I know some Christians disagree with me on those three, but I do hold to each one.

We do see the act of abortion as the taking of innocent life and there is no proper mandate for it. The concern that I see with some is that we will become those we disapprove of. We see murder taking place. The solution to it is not more murder. The solution is to do what we can to change the laws.

And I suspect the problem is that Christians just aren’t doing enough.

I’m including myself also.

Roe V. Wade happened because Christians were sitting on the sidelines. We lost our intellectual ground long ago without basis. Christianity has always been an intelligent faith but we fled from the fight and retreated to the area of emotion and feelings. When real political issues came up, emotions and feelings weren’t enough. After all, consider the sexual revolution. What does it take to have a “feeling” that Jesus rose from the dead in comparison to “raging hormones for that hot girl over there!”

I believe that most people here in America are pro-life. I also believe most of them are pro-marriage. Yet on both of these issues, we are acting like we’re on the defensive. Why? It is our opponents who should be on the defensive. Our opponents should have to tell us why they don’t think there’s a human life in the womb and why they’re willing to risk ending one if they’re not sure. Our opponents should tell us why they think marriage should be fundamentally altered.

I do not support the action against the doctor because I do not support us being vigilantes. I believe it would only end with each of us being a law unto himself. I do believe we can change things through the legal process and we are not doing enough. I believe we are not doing enough because we do not see what is at stake.

There are times I wonder something. I am single now. I wonder how many beautiful girls there could have been I could have married but I never got the chance to know them and neither did anyone else. Someone took their life. We can think of several instances like this. Was a cure for a disease lost? Was a new invention forgot? Was a great diplomat discarded? The only reason abortion has been allowed is because it has to do with sex. 

What is the Christian to do? I believe we must recover the truth of morality and Scripture. We must recover the truth of sexuality. We must recover the truth of Christianity. We must recover the truth of what it means to be human and once we find these, embrace them, bury them deep in our hearts, and live by them each and every day.

The world will not be changed by military conquest. It will be changed by the conquest of the kingdom of Heaven through the preaching of the gospel. Let’s get started.

We’re going to continue our brief break again from the Trinity topic to remember what today is here in America, Memorial Day. Our society today has a huge disconnect with the past. I remember growing up and thinking in many ways that the life I lived was the way people around me always remembered life. Today’s children growing up will find it hard to realize that there was a time when you couldn’t find answers immediately on the internet and where you actually had to go home and pick up your phone if you wanted to call someone rather than reach in your pocket. In fact, many kids are pressuring their parents to get them cell phones where they just endlessly text each other.

Not that I’m against technology. I’m all for it. I just think too many times we can take it for granted and not realize that it is something that is meant to serve us and not to dominate us. I am quite pleased with my IPhone for example and like having a Wii nearby. I try to realize however that the age of technology was not always here. There was a time when life was much harder.

But throughout each time, there have been people who have stood for a greater cause. Our danger today is not so much the technology we have but that the technology will make us focus only on us today and not realize who all went before us so we could enjoy the benefits we have. The benefit I have of sitting down in the evening and watching an episode of Smallville, for instance, is not something that popped up out of nowhere. It’s something someone died for.

Today, we honor those who went before us. We honor the soldiers who died and often went into battle knowing that they would die. We think of the soldiers who climbed walls on D-Day knowing that they were fodder for machine guns only in the hopes that those coming behind them would be able to wear them down. They went knowing they would never see their wives and children again, and yet they kept going.

War today knows no season. We remember those who aren’t there when Christmas and Thanksgiving roll around. We remember those who aren’t there to see their children being born. We remember those who are over there now in that they may never come back and they are well aware of this. Yes. I know that this is Memorial Day and not Veterans’ Day, but one must be of the latter before being of the former.

We Christians should be especially mindful. Freedom is not cheap. We have freedom from sin through Christ, but there are places that do not have the freedom of worship like we do. There is a persecuted church all around the world. I can go into my bedroom and reach for a number of books I have. I have several versions of the Bible for study around here. Many a Christian around the world would love nothing more than to have a copy of the Bible.

Life is a precious thing and we take it for granted. We have a cavalier attitude towards it and do we really sit back and think about it? To be honest, I haven’t done so enough today. It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the day that you just forget that. We can look at today as a holiday we get off from work. I was on vacation this weekend, which I arranged before realizing it was Memorial Day and before knowing I had that day off, and I’m sure many see today as just a weekend with one more day in it.

Those who went before us died for a whole lot more than our enjoying an extended weekend.

Before you go to bed tonight, be sure to take some time to remember those who have gone before, and if you know someone in the service today, thank them.

I am going to be putting on hold for tonight our usually Trinity series again because I have been pondering more the situation involving the Miss USA pageant between Miss California and Perez Hilton, which I did blog about Monday night. I spoke to an official in this town yesterday on the problem being that of what is called Political Correctness. The answers given are supposed to fall into that category.

There was a time when truth mattered. There was a real world out there and you could know something about that world and what you said about that world mattered. What you said would either be true or false, but it would be one or the other. The goal was to find truth about that world.

A number of things changed over time. Descartes made man the focus of reality first with his idea of “I think, therefore I am.” Man wanting to find truth began with himself then. Would it not be better to say that because man exists, he thinks? After all, there was still reality before I came along and if I got snuffed out of existence, that would not  mean the end of reality. In the end, it leaves man creating the reality as Descartes went by what he thought of as clear and distinct ideas. I have had many clear and distinct ideas in my time. Many of them turned out to be wrong also.

Then we move on through time with man trying to find what is true and we get to Kant who tells us that it is not our knowledge that conforms to the world but the world that conforms to our knowledge. We do not know the world as it is, the noumena. Instead, we know the world as it appears, the phenomena. 

At this point, I believe the idea of truth out there started to die and the seeds of postmodernism was born. God was jettisoned through higher criticism, anti-supernaturalism, and Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Man was left alone in a cosmos and it was a dangerous one. 

Yet if we cannot know the world, then what are we to seek to do? If there is no truth out there, then there must only be truth that is for me and truth that is for you. There can only be my truth and your truth. 

If truth does not ultimately matter, then what are we to say matters? It must be our feelings. Thus, it is no longer giving an answer to a question that describes the way the world really is in the eyes of the person who is asked. Instead, it is about giving an answer that does not offend people. After all, there is no truth to the answer that matters. 

Suppose someone does believe something truly hideous, such as the idea that *shudders* marriage is meant for a man and a woman. That is fine. Just keep it to yourself. After all, it is your truth. You should by no means make it binding on everyone else. It is personal. It is your world. 

In this way, science also becomes the main authority. Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying there are no areas where science is an authority. When I go to see a doctor, I want that doctor to be a scientist of medicine. When I fly on a plane, I want it to be the brainchild of a man who understands the science of flight and how to make a plane that can fly. 

Science can tell me how much my body weighs, but it cannot tell me if I am my body. Science can tell me what reactions occur when a man encounters poison in his system, but it cannot tell me if I ought to have put the poison in that man’s system. Science can tell me how life arose, but it cannot tell me if life is good.

Religion is seen as none of that as it is seen as that which we cannot know. God is included in the noumena. If you want to have a religious belief, that is fine, but it is your religious belief and it is true for you. It must be something subjective as there is not truth out there in the matter that can be known.

This is the kind of thinking going on behind people who say “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” It is akin to saying “Don’t like murder? Don’t commit one.” It is as if morality is a personal taste and we do something just because we don’t like it. Why yes. That is why I live a life of chastity. I just get such a great thrill out of it every single day. 

It is the reason we dare not offend someone. In the past, if you called someone a fool, it could be because they truly were a fool and it might have been the best thing you could do to point that out. Debate opponents in the past did not hesitate to let their opinions be known of the ideas they were debating and the persons they were debating. Let’s not forget that our Lord had strong words as well both for his opponents and his own disciples. 

If there is no truth that can be known however and only feelings matter, then such talk cannot be allowed. Do not dare call the heretic a heretic! The ideas that he holds are not what matters. It is how he feels about himself that matters. 

We live in a world of subjectivism then and as long as we live in this world, we might as well try to get along. Do not think of the good, the true, and the beautiful. The good is not out there when moral relativism holds the day. We speak of progress but not in any particular direction. We do not ask what anything is any more and especially not if it is good. Truth is a weapon that is used to bludgeon others and truth claims are seen as oppressive and arrogant. As for beauty, it simply lies in the eyes of the beholder. If you see something as beautiful, then to you it is beautiful, but there can be no beauty in the thing itself.

Hence Political Correctness. Do not say what offends. Say what people want to hear. Do not try to make your ideas conform to the world. Instead, try to conform the world to your ideas. There can be no rational discussion. If someone is against homosexuality, it is for purely religious reasons. There can be no other reasons and religion is something that cannot make a claim of truth. Thus, you are being oppressive and trying to push your truth on other people.

If it is purely subjective, then there is nothing to discuss. Instead, point to the person’s character in each case. Try to paint them as a villain being oppressive to the world around them. Try to have them be seen as tyrants with the truth. How dare you impose your morality on me! Who are you to judge?

Enter an area without proper study. After all, it is simply your truth vs. another person’s truth. Do not seek to learn for there is nothing out there to learn. There is only experience. Naturally, we do not question another person’s experience normally. I do not question that the Mormons have a burning in the bosom. I question the proposition they wish to see affirmed by that burning in the bosom. 

What’s the solution to this madness?

I suggest we start with what most of us realize before so-called higher-thinking gets a hold of us. That there is a real world out there and that we can know things about it. We do not know it exhaustively, but there are things that we can know. If we are wrong, we find out through the appropriate method be it science, history, philosophy, theology, or any branch thereof. 

This includes truths about things other than the physical world. This means that theology is a science. That there are truth claims that can be made about God as he is seen in a religious belief and some of these claims could actually be true and we can use the minds that we have, and that he maybe even gave us, to try to figure this out.

Let each field learn its own place. I believe philosophy is great for finding philosophical truths and science is great for scientific truths. Now of course there can be overlapping as each helps the other. Science can show me the universe had a cause. Philosophy can tell me the nature of causality. Theology can tell me the nature of the cause. History can tell me how that cause revealed himself in the space-time continuum. These are not fields opposed to each other as truth cannot contradict. If there is truth in one field, it will not contradict truth in another field. They are simply different tools with the same goal.

If we offend people, we offend them, but we must remember that the goal is to correct their faulty thinking. It is not most important how a man feels about his ideas. It is most important whether those ideas are true. We Christians are to be people of the truth. If an idea is true, we need to affirm it. If we have to call a spade a spade in order to get them to the truth, then so be it. Our Lord did after all.

I look forward to the day when man again begins a quest for the good, the true, and the beautiful and this time does not look within him but outside of him. All of these things are greater than he is. He is the servant of them. They are not the servant of him.

We’ve been looking through the New Testament and last night we finished going through the gospel of Matthew. I’d like to thank those who left comments also. It’s always good to know that people are reading the blog. We’re going to take a break today based on a news story that I heard earlier today.

Now readers know that I consider myself conservative and do vote accordingly, so I was quite interested when I heard the story that Bristol Palin, daughter of VP candidate Sarah Palin believes that abstinence is best, but it’s unrealistic.

A story with the interview done can be found here:

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2009/02/bristol_palin_abstinence_is_no.php

Some of you might be surprised to hear that I agree with her.

But I do not believe the problem is with abstinence. Abstinence definitely does work. The problem is that abstinence is not being taught within a certain worldview. I do not believe abstinence teaching works as it is because of the worldview that Americans live with.

Let’s consider this. Most of us are hedonistic, we want everything now, we believe that we are invincible as a nation practically, we believe that things will always work for us, we believe that we can always beat the odds, and we believe morality is outdated and that pleasure is the greatest good.

Now if even most of that is believed, do we see a reason why it could be that abstinence might not be realistic?

How can it be realistic if on a very limited basis, we’re told that it’s best to practice abstinence, and at the same time told in the media that sexaul intercourse is always going to result in pleasure. Movies and TV shows don’t tend to show the realities of unplanned pregnancies, STDs, or damaged relationships.

It’s doubtful any of us have escaped unscathed. I’d say most of us have mistakes in the area of sex somewhere in our lives even if we’re virgins. We have a false view of it. Many men and women struggle with various sexual sins. Everything in culture says “Go!” Men struggle with masculinity and think “If I sleep with a girl, that means that I’m a man.” Many a woman can think that if she gets pregnant or gets the love of a man, then she is a woman. If getting love is what she wants, well why not use her body to get that?

We’re told methods to help prevent this and they include birth control and condoms. How many are actually using such precautions? We also know that many have presented the problems with condoms. I once worked in retail and saw several men without wedding rings buying condoms. It angered me. It saddened me to see women doing such. One can imagine that in the heat of a moment, the condom can be forgotten but geez, who wants to wait to put one on?

In the midst of this, students are told to wait and why?

Well geez, we’ve jettisoned morality. We consider religion obsolete. These are the main places that we get this teaching. Now if I didn’t believe there was a God, if I believed morality was relative, if I believed pleasure was the highest good, and if I thought I was the center of all things and the measure of all things, then I can say, “Why the heck shouldn’t I go ahead?”

The problem with abstinence is that it’s been divorced from the proper worldview. Abstinence makes no sense in a secular society that has jettisoned religion and morality. It is not the teaching. It is that the worldview that goes with the teaching is not there.

In that case, Bristol Palin is right. Considering the worldview we are teaching, it’s unrealistic to think teenagers will listen. What needs to be done is not just abstinence. We need to teach moral principles grounded in God. We need to have people realize that sexual intercourse is more than just pleasure. It’s an act of unique love between a man and a woman.

Until we do such, I do not believe we will see a drop in teen pregnancy or STDs. I also believe that until we do such, we will see a high divorce rate and rate of illegitimacy due to unwed mothers.

I also believe we can do it though, but it will require the church in America to stand up and educate itself on a Christian view of sexuality and make a difference. Considering how we’re more and mroe endorsing homosexuality in the church even, I realize it’s a tough battle, but I believe it is one that is winnable and worth winning.