Category: Political

Are Untruths Lies?

If someone tells something false repeatedly, are they lying? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was watching a video today where the subject was the recent lawsuit against Alex Jones and how he had to pay out for what he said about Sandy Hook. Someone with me who heard me watching it was telling me that what was really bad about Alex Jones was not just what he said but he had lied about it knowing otherwise. I then played a clip where I heard Alex Jones saying Sandy Hook was 100% real. When I asked the person with me where Jones said he lied he said, “You just heard him.”

Unfortunately for the person talking to me, that’s wrong.

This is not to defend Alex Jones at all. He was entirely wrong in what he said about Sandy Hook. It was a horrible thing to say. However, that being said, he was not lying. Why?

Because when he said that Sandy Hook was not real, he said it because he honestly believed that it was not real. If he had thought it was real and yet he was saying it was not real, he would be lying. If he thought it was not real, and was saying it was real, he would be lying.

This also means that someone could even tell you something that is true and at the same time be lying. Suppose you hear about someone being a flat-Earther and you go up to them and ask “Is the Earth flat?” Suppose that this person though is scared by you and is a rather timid person and is scared of an argument and just wants to appease you and says, “Absolutely not. The Earth is round.” This person has just lied to you. It’s not because they told you something untrue. It’s because they were not honest with their words in what they were saying and told you something that was contrary to what they really believe.

Why bring this up? Often in the worlds of politics and religion, which often do coincide together, it’s easy to have the word lie thrown around carelessly. We are not only accusing someone of having their facts wrong when they say this, but we are also accusing them of an immoral action. If just saying something that was wrong was a lie, then any time that a kid puts down the wrong answer on a math test, then he is guilty of lying.

In order to show a lie, one must show that a person said X is the case, when they really thought non-X was the case, or vice-versa. Often, I prefer to think not so much about lies that are commonly told, but myths that are commonly told. For instance, it is a myth that Columbus sailed to prove that the world was round. Everyone believed that it was. Many of us were taught otherwise in school, but that doesn’t mean our teachers necessarily lied. They could have passed on something they thought was true as well. It just means people collectively bought into a myth.

Be careful with the term lie, regardless of what you think of the person. I have plenty of people who are my intellectual opponents, but I do not call them liars lightly. That is not just making a statement about what is said, but about the character of the person saying it and should not be done lightly.

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

 

Book Plunge: All One In Christ

What do I think of Edward Feser’s book published by Ignatius Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Edward Feser is one of my favorite writers and this time he has taken up his pen to deal with Critical Race Theory. This might be surprising for a philosopher to write about, but at the same time, a philosopher is quite good at pointing out all the problems in logic that proponents of CRT use. While Feser does write from a Catholic perspective on responding to racism and CRT from that position, Protestants and Orthodox will greatly benefit from this work as well.

Feser starts with defining his terms and making a defense of the value and uniqueness of every human being out there regardless of their race. He looks at the stance that the church has taken historically on issues in relation to race as well. This then builds up easily into looking at slavery which he does next.

In this section, he talks about the way the church handled slavery in the past and how they saw it as an evil. Does this mean that all Catholics everywhere lived this way? No. Does this mean the Church has always been innocent in everything? No. If there was a weakness overall here, I would like to have seen him critique writers like Hector Avalos who has pointed out statements that one could think lend to the idea of the church having problems with racist attitudes in the past.

From here, he critiques Critical Race Theory, CRT for short, and looks especially at writers like DiAngelo and Kendi. If you worry that you will not understand because you are not a philosopher and do not speak in these academic terms, don’t worry about that. Feser writes just for a layman here and when he talks about a logical fallacy, he not only explains what the fallacy is, but he also tells why it is a fallacy. This book is definitely friendly to the person who is a layman in the area.

He also looks at the sociological critiques of CRT and here he relies, rightly and heavily, on writers like Thomas Sowell. For instance, the huge overwhelming majority of human beings in prison in America are men. Since this is a disparity, does this mean that the justice department is sexist against men? Not at all. It just means more men commit these kinds of crimes.

He says that colonialism is wrong, but also that on the other hand, when many people came to colonize, they also brought with them technological advances that even after the colonials were gone, those who were left behind benefitted. He also shows that even when a people have been a minority in a population, they have often had a sizable influence on that population because they take their culture with them often. Germans, for example, wherever they go, they tend to make the best beer. In this, he also looks at immigration pointing out that a country should welcome immigrants, but also do so reasonably in a way they can provide for them and there is no evil in a country having a border and defending it.

Definitely worth pointing out is the damage fatherlessness has had. The black community has been hit hardest by this with the Asian community getting hit least of all. Fatherlessness damages a society which in turn damages an economy and all of this traces back to the sexual revolution, but obviously, one cannot speak against that!

Finally, he points out the damage that has been done by CRT. If anything, emphasizing race more actually makes race more of an issue and tends to lead to more racism. Morgan Freeman one time said one of the best treatments of racism would be to stop talking about it. I entirely concur.

Also, this book is short so you can read it easily, and you should. Go out and get this whether you are Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. You’ll be glad you did.

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

What is a bigot?

What does it mean if someone is called a bigot? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

According to dictionary.com, the following is what is meant by a bigot.

A bigot is “a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.”

Nowadays, a bigot is seen more often as anyone who disagrees with a belief or doesn’t accept it. The irony is that so many people who are using this term are the ones who are the bigots themselves. Someone who is a bigot is so utterly intolerant that they are not open to changing their mind.

There are some beliefs in my life I would say I do not think I could possibly be wrong on and this even if I have no easy way of verification. I consider it absolutely certain that my parents are my biological parents. I have never done a test and I have never had to. I have accepted their word and lifestyle and the surrounding testimony of the community I grew up in. It’s possible everyone around me is involved in a massive conspiracy, but this is not likely and not something worth considering.

That being said, if you wanted to offer evidence to the contrary, I would be open to it. I would be skeptical, but I have no reason to not listen at all. Note that that is something important. I would be very unlikely to change my mind, but if the evidence was good enough, I would.

I get concerned when I meet people who say that they are Christian and that they will never change their mind. Now I certainly hope that they don’t, but I don’t want you to be in it in such a way that if there was ever given absolutely evidence to the contrary that you would still say, “Nope. Not changing my mind.” As a devout Christian, I have no real concerns I will ever find such evidence, but I also know that I don’t know everything.

If that seems problematic to you, keep in mind that if you do evangelism, you are asking people to do just that. You are asking them to change their mind and whole worldview entirely based on the evidence that you present to them. Why should they need to be open but you don’t? Because your belief is true?  They think the exact same thing about their belief.

In debates today, such as issues like homosexuality and abortion, many who are more conservative are often called bigots. The idea implicitly is that this is a done debate and there’s really no need to listen to the other side. If that is what you think, then that is actually being utterly intolerant of a creed different from yours which makes you the bigot in that case.

Yesterday, I wrote about charges like homophobia. What was rightly said in a comment on my Facebook is that this is a way of just shutting down debate. That’s entirely correct. The problem is that means that you really don’t care to know if you’re wrong on an issue if you go that route. Now I have no problem if you think it’s highly unlikely that you are wrong. All that’s recommended is to listen to the other side.

If someone opposes XYZ, it’s good to always ask why they oppose it. It’s easy to say something like “Republicans just want to see poor people die!” or “Democrats just only want to spread sinfulness!” Now both of those could be true, but you don’t know someone’s reason for opposing something until you ask them. I saw someone share something today about Republicans voting against a certain act. I wanted to look and see why they did so and find it in their own words. Too many articles I wrote were on the other side saying “Republicans hate XYZ!” I kept looking and found reasons that on the surface at least left me thinking, “That makes sense.” If I wanted to argue they were right, I would want to look more, but I at least decided I should see what was said first.

Ultimately, if you think it highly unlike you are wrong, that’s one thing, and that’s fine, but still listen to see what your opponent has to say and if it’s something new and you consider it important to your thinking, look into it. If you are convinced that you cannot possibly be wrong, then you are just a dogmatist and essentially you’re holding to a religious creed of sorts. If I meet someone who does not think they can be wrong in anything, I wonder why I should think they are right in anything. Ironically, as was said about, such a person is truly a bigot.

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

On Charges Like Homophobia

Does it really make a difference to say such claims? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I wrote about the failure of the movie Bros. One claim brought up by Billy Eichner who was behind the movie was that it failed because of homophobia. I could talk about just that claim today, but there are plenty of others.

Let’s go back in time and consider Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables” quote. She had said that half of Trump supporters could be placed in this basket. How did she describe these people? “They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.”

The sad thing is sometimes, techniques like this work. People get scared because they don’t want to be labeled this way and seen this way. Nowadays, the same people that used to tell us about how totes awesome tolerance was, are the ones that will go scouring through someone’s Twitter history and seeing if just one time a decade ago they said something mildly offensive to ruin their lives.

For my part, when I hear the claim about racism, sexism, or even a counterpart such as white supremacist, I tend to disregard it immediately. Why? Because I have heard it so many times that I just can’t take it seriously. It has become a story of the boy who cried wolf.

Homophobia is a particularly odd one to me. Consider if I came up to you and said “So have you given any thought lately to having sex with your mother?” Now if you act repulsed at that, could I go and say “Oh! You must be an incestophobe!” (My spell check is saying that word is not real, but give it time.) Are we going to move soon from an age where we talk more about pedophobes than we do about pedophiles? (The former is a word that doesn’t exist yet in spell check, but I suspect it could be there within a decade.)

If anything, consider that you are accusing someone of having a phobia, which is a mental condition, and your reply is to make fun of them for it? Phobias are incredibly serious things when they are real that can severely limit someone’s life. Somehow, many more often on the left have chosen to use this term regularly.

Tolerance is no longer totes awesome.

Disagreement with a position doesn’t mean that you are afraid of it, unless we want to say every non-Christian is a Christophobe. If anything, you could have a positive attitude towards something and still choose to avoid it. Consider someone who is recovering from addiction. You can find plenty of people in an Alcoholics Anonymous group who somewhere would likely still love to have alcohol. They’re not alcoholphobes either. They just know it’s not good for them and they have to avoid it because the effects of it on them are not good.

Right now, looking at racism, I live in a city where it is very much a melting pot of various cultures. At many of the businesses around here, I am a minority. Does this cause me any trouble? Nope. I’m still a Christian and everyone around me is still in the image of God.

Another problem with the approach of crying something like racism or homophobe is that it really doesn’t require you actually listen to the other person. If you did not, for example, want Obama to be president, it is possible it could be because you are a racist, but it could also be because of other reasons, such as you didn’t like his policies and approach.

If someone is called a homophobe, it could be they find homosexuality disgusting, but it could also be that they have a view of the family that doesn’t allow for that. They think, and I agree, that a man-woman monogamous unit is the foundation of a society and raising up the next generation. Now someone like myself could be wrong on that, but just throwing out homophobe doesn’t allow us to even discuss the issue.

Every time something like this is said, what is no longer being discussed is the issue, but rather the person. For someone who receives this charge, defending yourself is not really the way to go, at least primarily. That distracts from the issue. What really needs to be discussed is the belief in question.

So for those of us who have heard this, the ideal goal is really to just not pay attention to this unless there’s serious evidence behind it. For those who do use this kind of claim, really try something better. You might be further convincing the choir, but you really just cause the rest of us to roll our eyes and not take you seriously.

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

On Coffee and Slavery

What does one of the latest statements on slavery have to tell us about our knowledge of history? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Those who know me know I can’t stand coffee. I am a tea guy. I remain loyal to my beverage of choice. However, that doesn’t mean that anything said against coffee is right automatically. Consider this, one example of how ridiculous our culture is getting thinking they are making a powerful point by resisting something.

So let’s consider a few points here.

First off, let’s be clear that slavery is wrong. I can’t believe I have to say this, but unfortunately, I do. If I don’t say it, someone is going to think that I am defending slavery. They’re going to think that anyway, but I fully agree with the wrongness of slavery.

However, that being said, it’s time to list other facts.

For one, if we were to eliminate anything that has anything to do with slavery at any point in time, we will have to likely eliminate nearly everything that there is. (Which could include those tennis shoes you’re wearing.) Pyramids of Egypt? Gone. Great Wall of China? Gone. How many other great monuments from history would vanish?

Second, slavery has happened with every race out there practically and every race has enslaved every race and every race has even enslaved their own race. The word slave itself comes from the Slavs. Who were they? White Europeans. Who were white Europeans and others buying slaves from in Africa? Other Africans.

Third, the only slavery most people know of today is the slavery in antebellum America. Outside of that, no clue. It’s ignored that it was the West that ultimately did so much to end slavery.

Fourth, many people today who are against slavery, and rightly so, could likely not give a good defense of why they are. If you went back to the Roman Empire and asked anyone if slavery was wrong, even the slaves themselves, they would likely look at you stunned as if society could be any other way. Today, it’s the exact opposite.

Fifth, no matter what we do today, we can never erase history. Not buying coffee today will not change that slavery took place. There is no need to punish the industry today for something that happened before anyone in the industry today was even born. We are living with a fool’s errand if we think we can redeem ourselves this way.

Sixth, we can be redeemed, but only by Jesus. Our nation can make things right best by turning to the God who bought all of humanity for a price in the person of His Son. We will not do it by any other action.

Finally, today, we need to learn history again. So many people think they’re being activists by not buying coffee or something like this. Want to do something about slavery? It still exists in some parts of the world. Go there and do something about slavery in those parts of the world. Our ignorance of history leads to repeating it. Learn instead from slavery that we do have scars in our past, but the good news is we have changed the way we used to do things and become a beacon of freedom for the world.

Real change will take more than this. Avoiding anything that has anything to do with slavery, even antebellum slavery in America, will not do anything. It will only hurt people today who had nothing to do with what happened and are just trying to provide for themselves and their families.

As a tea lover, there are plenty of good reasons for not buying coffee. This is not one of them.

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

Safe Christianity

How can you be safe in Christianity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As a resident of New Orleans, I imagine what I would think if I heard a couple together one day talking in their house if a major hurricane was coming.

Wife: Honey. There’s a level 5 hurricane heading towards New Orleans.

Husband: Predictions for us?

Wife: Likely to destroy the entire city and leave few survivors.

Husband: Sounds terrible. What do you want to do that evening?

Wife: Thought we’d stay home and watch TV.

Husband: That sounds good.

It seems nonsensical to think about it. If there is that disaster situation coming, shouldn’t you do something about it? I thought about that today reading J. Gresham Machen’s book Christianity and Culture. The book is inexpensive on Kindle and you can read it in less than an hour easily.

In the last section, he speaks about how the time might seem dark, but this is the time that we can shine the brightest and where we can rise up with excitement knowing the grand task before us and that God is with us. He has also spoken in the book about how you can be safe instead. Is it possible, for instance, to be a soldier and find a definite way to avoid dying in combat? Machen tells us that there definitely is.

Don’t go into combat.

Sure, you’ll be safe, but you won’t do anything to the enemy really. Now today, we understand someone could operate a drone from a distance or something of that sort, but we can all understand Machen’s point. The easiest way to stay safe is to just not do anything risky. That is how many of us approach Christianity.

How many of us talk about people who are dying without Christ and then go about our lives like it’s not a big deal. The atheist Penn Gillette even said that he encourages Christians to proselytize. After all, how much do you have to hate someone to know that there is an eternal judgment for them somehow and yet not want to do the work of evangelism?

Now keep in mind, I’m not saying our whole lives are 24/7 doing evangelism. Not even Jesus did that. I am saying that we should consider doing more for the lost and for our fellow Christians who need encouragement and yes, that means we are putting ourselves in dangerous situations at times.

However, that’s part of the deal of Christianity. We have Christians who are afraid to share the gospel because they might hurt someone’s feelings or someone might make fun of them. Our earlier ancestors would not be afraid to go to the lions for Jesus and in Muslim nations today, as just one example, getting baptized can practically be a death sentence, and they do it anyway.

If you want to know why our country is the way it is, it’s because we are a people who value safety so much that we don’t do anything. Picture the semis on the interstate that say “Safety is my goal.” No, it isn’t. If safety was your goal, you wouldn’t even be out here driving. The surest way to stay safe is to not drive. Your goal is to get your goods to their destination. The means you want to do is a safe means, but your goal is not to be safe.

This doesn’t mean that we knowingly go into dangerous situations just because they’re dangerous. If a hurricane is heading towards you and is likely to kill you if you stay, it is just foolish to not move. You can’t reason with the hurricane after all. Even those skilled in martial arts are told to only use it as a last resort.

Being safe hasn’t even kept us safe in the long run. It’s put us even more on the defensive. Why does the world listen so much to Muslims and to the LGBTQ community? Because they know these people have power and will speak out and go after them if they disagree. They know they can’t run roughshod over these people. What do they know about us? They can say whatever we want and we’ll just stay there and take it. No. This is not what turning the other cheek is about. It’s not about being a doormat. It’s about not escalating tension in the private sphere, not the public one.

Years ago, before the 2016 election, my former father-in-law asked me what I think it will take to change America. My answer has always been the same. The church has to be the church. The gospel doesn’t need America, but America needs the gospel. If we believe Jesus is the only one who can change society and save the souls of men and we do nothing, we either do not care about Jesus, the souls of men, or both.

Choose where you want to go. You can play it safe or live dangerously. If you play it safe, you might be safe indeed, but you sure won’t do anything to make a difference in the world.

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

Forgiving Sins and Forgiving Student Loans

Are these the same? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The big news now is student loans and who is going to have to pay for them. Sadly, I see a lot of Christians trying to compare this to the atonement. Jesus forgave me of my sins! Should i not rejoice in getting to forgive student loans?

There are three possibilities I see here.

Someone does not understand the economics of the situation.

Someone does not understand the atonement.

Or both.

Let’s consider an example with credit cards. A credit card is not a blank check such that if I want something, I whip out the card and use it and someone else pays for it. I am essentially telling the company “If you give them this money now, I will pay you back for it at the end of the month.” (I always do. No carrying over a balance.)

Suppose I wasn’t like that. Suppose I went out and bought a PS5 and a bunch of games and bought all the books I wanted and wanted to take a girl out on a fancy date and when the bill came, I just made any minimal payments. Over time, that escalates more and more. I have built up a debt and you could say that debt is “forgiven”, but you could also have grounds for saying I did not handle the card properly and wasted it and now am seeking more of a bailout.

Suppose though I have a really rich friend who says “I think you can turn your life around and get your debt under control and I am going to give you a start by paying your bill for you.” He pays it off. Now in a sense, my debt is cancelled, but he has still taken a hit in some way. If he can afford it and do so, great. If not, he and those he cares for will suffer. In either case, he has done so voluntarily.

What is going on in this situation is that this is being called forgiveness, but that doesn’t make it forgiveness. In the news, one must always watch what words are being used. He who controls the meaning of the language will have a hand-up in the game. Being opposed to what is going on can sound like you are opposed to forgiveness. What Christian would be opposed to that?

This is not forgiveness. This is transference. The government, which already has a huge deficit in a country with intense inflation, is taking on the hit. They will respond by doing nothing, which is not likely, or by increasing taxes, or increasing the price of goods and services somehow, or by decreasing benefits in other areas. Keep in mind that 80,000+ IRS agents have just been added who are told to carry a gun with them.

Also, we don’t have exhaustive records, but true forgiveness also requires repentance. If there was someone who made a mistake in taking out a loan and wasted their money and time and realized they made a mistake in that and needed help, I think the church should be willing to help. That could entail paying the debt, but not necessarily. Sometimes, one of the worst things you can do to help someone is give a handout. You can be enabling.

As an example, when I worked at Wal-Mart, I sometimes worked in the money center. I remember a customer coming in and wanting to transfer money and I could tell he was upset. I asked why and he said he doesn’t have a lot of money, but he has to keep sending money to his son. This son was constantly making mistakes and if he didn’t get the money, he would go to jail.

I told the father bluntly that one of the best things to do would be to let the son fail.

“Then he’ll go to jail.”

“So he’ll go to jail.”

What the father was doing was just enabling and the son had no reason to change his life and not live off of his parents who were eating away at all they had while their son took advantage of them. This father was not really helping the son in that case. He was telling the son by his actions to keep squandering the money and if there was a problem, he would bail him out. The father was willing to because going to jail would just be awful. In reality, it might have been just what the kid needed. Perhaps he needed to hit rock bottom so he could really examine his life.

Now there is not to be joy in that at all. However, proper boundaries means not rescuing people every time they make mistakes. Love sometimes has to be tough.

There are plenty of people also who did the hard work of paying back their loans. Why? They made an agreement to do that. Everyone of them has been slapped in the face. Good behavior has been shown to be not worth it. Bad behavior has been punished.

Of course, this will be on a case-by-case basis. Suppose someone gets a student loan and gets a degree and yet gets in a car accident and can’t work to pay off the loan. I have no problem with the church showing compassion and helping out.

In the atonement, God doesn’t transfer our debt to other people who can’t afford it. He takes it on Himself in Christ and pays it in full. He alone has infinite resources. He can do that. However, unless you are a universalist, you will agree that the only people who it applies to are those who really submit to Christ. (Those who never heard is a separate issue, though I think some of them can be saved by the light they have.)

Are Christians supposed to be people of charity? Yes, but as said, charity can be less than beneficial sometimes. Good motives does not mean good results. I recommend a book such as When Helping Hurts. This is where wisdom comes in. Are you giving to someone who will really use what you give them wisely or someone who will be enabled with a handout?

How do we personally respond? As Christians, we can still rejoice in all things because we know Jesus is still in charge of the story. If we are wronged, which most of us have been with this, we can take it and realize God will give justice someday and He still has infinite resources to provide for us. As a seminary student now, I am living out what it means to believe God can provide as is said in the Sermon on the Mount.

Ultimately, to say this is just the same as the atonement is an insult to the atonement. Something more akin would be if God took the sins of His chosen people, the Jews, and made all the Gentiles suffer judgment to pay for them. Thankfully, He did not. The debt was not transferred. It was paid.

Thanks be to God.

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

Book Plunge: Cynical Theories

What do I think of James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose’s book published by Pitchstone? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Woke is a word that has shown up regularly in the past few years. Now we regularly hear about social justice warriors and of course, constant cries of racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and fat phobia. Our world has become more divided than ever as everyone is assumed to be a closet racist and if you deny that, well, you’re a bigot and that just demonstrates what a racist you are.

I was eager to get this book to see what Lindsay and Pluckrose had to say about the topic. They do bring a lot of excellent academic work here, but the problem is they also seem to be fighting battles on two fronts. Their main emphasis is on the Woke and how that hurts scholarship and academia, but there’s a dose of mild scientism as well as any chance to take a jab at religious people.

That’s ultimately unhelpful for their work. After all, if they want to reach Americans and a large number of Americans are still religious, this will turn a lot of them off, which would be a shame. I kept seeing my position as a religious believer being misrepresented. I am able to see past that, but how many people out there will not?

The scientism is also a problem as too many times, the impression comes across that science is the only way to know truth. Science is a great way of knowing some truth, but not all truth. There are plenty of things we all believe that do not come through science. While I am an empiricist, I hold that while all scientific knowledge is empirical, not all empirical knowledge is scientific.

Another problem is the way that they talk about progress and liberalism. Much of what they call liberalism looks nothing like liberals I see today. I also definitely disagree with them on the approach to the LGBTQ+ community. I am not opposed to progress, but too often we get to a place and say “This is progress” when in many cases, I can see it as regression.

However, time should be spent on the positives. One of the biggest walkaways you should get from this book is that for the Woke, disagreement is not allowed. Yes. You are allowed to ask questions and you should ask to understand, but not to challenge. Theory, their name for anything like Critical Race Theory or any idea that goes with a political identity, cannot be questioned.

This is no way to do academia. Questions and challenges should always be welcome, even if a theory has stood the test of time for hundreds of years. Questioning allows us to grow and shows cracks where a belief needs to be examined. Perhaps in some cases, it could show the whole paradigm is flawed and we have to move to a new paradigm.

Also, there are health consequences in many cases. Consider the idea that being fat is not a risk to one’s health. Yes. This is being taught and some people can even find doctors that won’t treat obesity like a problem. As I write this, MonkeyPox is something big and yet many of us are noticing that while Covid was around, people were told they had to shut down gathering places, including churches, but no one is saying that about bathhouses. Everyone is just being told “Act responsibly.” Would that we had all been told that during Covid.

I can also remember that when 9/11 happened, one of the first matters of importance to get out there was that this did not represent true Islam. After all, we had to deal with Islamophobia. We have become a culture that wants to protect peoples’ feelings more than the people themselves.

So this is a book with a lot of important material, but keep in mind the caveats. Take the wheat and throw away the chaff. Get the good and embrace it and use it. We are in a real battle with Woke.

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

Book Plunge: Live Not By Lies

What do I think of Rod Dreher’s book published by Sentinel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Dreher’s book is asking the question of what Christians in the West are meant to do in an age of increasing totalitarianism. Now this does not mean anything like what happens today in China or what happened in the Gulag, but it could be likely to happen in the form of a soft totalitarianism where control comes through social means more than government means. As I write this though, it is about a week after the raid of Trump’s place in Florida and a lot of questions are being raised.

The theme of the book comes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn who said that one thing we have to do is even if we don’t go out with a megahorn shouting the truth everywhere, we can choose to not believe the lies. For us today, these lies are being placed on us regularly by a culture calling into question truths we never would have dreamed being called into question a few years ago and too many people go along for the ride easily. I was stunned enough when I realized I had to defend that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. Today, I have to defend the idea of what a man and a woman is. We have a woman sitting on the Supreme Court who couldn’t answer the question of what a woman is.

More and more, if you disagree with this ideology, you can be shut down. How many people do we know who have been removed from Twitter because of this? How often have we seen cancel culture dig up something someone said ten years ago and shut them down because of it? Keep in mind that before these people were culturally on top, they also insisted on tolerance. That didn’t last long.

Dreher’s book looks at people who went through the rise of Communism and survived in countries where it was. Their examples are often powerful and convicting. These aren’t superhuman people. These are simple ordinary people who did something unique. They lived out their faith in a world where it was condemned.

The repeated advice in the book is to see, judge, and act. Christianity when lived out can overcome any evil that is brought to bear against it. As our country comes closer and closer to more and more government control and government going in a war against reality, this is something we should all keep in mind.

Governments can push control in many ways, but we are in control of our minds and our attitudes. We can make it a point to say that we will live not by lies. We will choose to live the path that Jesus lived.

If I had any criticism of the book, it would be that the book is long on examples, but not long on suggestions. This is how people lived in hard totalitarianism, but I would have liked more that could be done by those of us in a soft totalitarianism or at least a growing one. I recommend Christians read this one and read it along side either Strange New World or The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman.

And live not by lies.

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

Of Marriages And Diets

Is this a valid reason to abandon marriage? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As I was writing yesterday’s blogpost, I had a number of people tag me on Facebook and ask “What do you think of this?” and this was the very picture I was writing about. Today, I’d like to tackle another one that has been making the rounds. It’s another one that sadly convinces me those on the left in this debate really don’t bother to listen to what their opponents say.

First off, the opening claim is just false. Even if you are a skeptic, it should be easy to accept that a redefined marriage of two men or two women is against someone else’s religion is a fact. That doesn’t say anything about the emotional state of the person who holds that religion. The anger is already imposed. (This happens all too often as those of us who are conservative are often accused of having hate towards the other side.)

I don’t go to bed at night steaming about homosexual couples. The issue matters to me, but I have many other things to think about. It’s on the other side unfortunately that if we are told we don’t agree, well here come the hounds out to shut down our businesses and demand our freedom to operate be taken away.

That’s only the start of the problem.

The majority of the real argumentation on the right is not going “The Bible says X, therefore Y should be forbidden.” Most of us are making arguments based on the nature of marriage and a natural law understanding of marriage. Yes. I am sure Pastor Bob down at the local Southern Baptist Church is getting up in the pulpit screaming about what the Bible says and doesn’t have a clue about these natural law arguments, but note I stated the real argumentation. I am not against the Bible, but if one side doesn’t believe it, it has no authority for them, at least in the sense that it doesn’t change their thinking.

Ultimately, when I have seen this debated online, it comes down to what a marriage is. It has always before been understood as two adults of the opposite sex coming together in a union generally with the goal of bringing about and raising children. Now we are told that it doesn’t matter what two consenting adults do.

But why should this be the case?

First off, consider the case of Armin Meiwes. He was a cannibal who was convicted for eating someone. Here’s the relevant part. This person wanted to be eaten. He fully consented to everything. Thus, we have an action between two consenting adults. To make this wrong, you will need another qualifier then. Two consenting adults is not sufficient.

Second, what exactly is an adult? In Biblical times, as was much of the world back then, as soon as the kids hit puberty, it was time to marry them off to someone else. Teenagers in the past would be forming families. Today, having a relationship with a teenager can get you hit with a statutory rape charge. There is nothing magical about the age of 18 that makes someone an adult. We’ve all known adults well over 18 who are essentially children and we’ve all known children younger than 18 who have been forced through circumstances to grow up early and practically function as adults. Also, consider how many children who commit crimes can be tried as adults.

Consent is also not good enough. This is supposed to protect it from applying to children as well, but we constantly make children do things without their consent that is for their good. They go to school, do chores, go to bed, eat healthy, and get vaccinations and medical treatment they don’t like, without their consent. Loving parents who genuinely love their children do this.

Third, we might as well ask about the number two. Why should marriage be limited to two people? The Mormons held to polygamy for some time and were brought before the government for that one. If we are removing the requirement that the people be of the opposite sex, it would be far easier to remove the number. Not only that, there is a much greater historical basis for polygamy than for the redefinition of marriage.

What is being asked is what marriage is and what is the purpose of it. It is not just a union for the happiness of two adults. It is a nation building institution in the sense that these people are the ones capable of bringing about the next generation. The state has all reason to want to promote that as it kind of needs new people to survive. Hypothetically, imagine how much damage we could do to China and Russia if we could launch a biological attack somehow over those entire nations that would sterilize everyone in those nations.

And if marriage is about the continuing of the species, then the state has an interest in promoting the type of union that can do that job. The state has no interest in promoting a same-sex couple as they can never do that. Marriage is not to be meant about the affirming of the people involved, but why the people are coming together in the first place.

Now suppose someone says “Well, Christians can really say that these are the reasons, but we know the real reason is what the Bible says!” Let’s suppose 100% that that’s true for the sake of argument. That doesn’t change the fact that the natural law based arguments are on the table. Those still have to be addressed.

Suppose someone makes a powerful argument to me for atheism and I don’t know how to answer it. It does not work to say, “You only make that argument because you want to be free to live your life sexually however you want.” That could even be 100% true. I am sure there are Christians who hold to Christianity just for the benefits they want to receive and I am sure there are some atheists who hold to atheism because of the sexual freedom.

The argument still has to be addressed.

This meme is not addressing any real arguments. It is not even making one. It is just pointing to motives and trying to read emotions into the other side.

It’s a shame so much has to be written to deal with something because so many do take it seriously.

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