Category: sexual ethics

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 6

Does God go too far? Let’s plunge into the Deeper  Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Christopher tells us about how God goes too far sometimes in His judgment. Surely, I’m exaggerating that. Right?

If only I was.

God destroys in wrath, but God also repeatedly repents of his wrath. God changes his mind about his methods and decisions. Sometimes this takes the form of realizing after the fact that punishment has gone too far.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 91). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So we have then a story of a God who gets angry and then brings about destruction and then says “oopsie. I went too far that time.”

Excuse me. Why should I trust this god with anything? This doesn’t come across as the loving god that the Hayses want us to believe in. This comes across as a flippant god who will fly off on a whim and then want to say at the end, “Hey. A few lives lost. No harm done. Right?”

The idea that God does not foresee and control everything, and feels pity and regret even concerning his past judgments, is troubling for some theological views, but if we take the Bible seriously, it is hard to deny.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 92). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

It’s nice to know that Christopher has declared with one sentence that thousands of years of theologians and scholars didn’t take the Bible seriously. Where would we be without his magnificent wisdom to guide us? It would be bad enough to say that all of them were wrong. I am to believe that the church fathers, the medieval writers, and the reformers who held to classical doctrines didn’t take the Bible seriously?

Christopher brings up Calvin, who apparently didn’t take the Bible seriously. Whether you are a full-fledged 5-point Calvinist or a total devotee of Arminius, most all would agree at least that love his doctrine or hate it, Calvin took the Bible seriously. So what did Calvin say?

Calvin goes on to explain that “the change of mind is to be taken figuratively,” like every instance in which God is described in human terms. These descriptions of God are “accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it.”

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 95). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Which is a reasonable idea and what has been held for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it is also one Christopher doesn’t interact with. I remember when I was going through this book at first that I shared a quote on Facebook and someone said that the Bible says God doesn’t change His mind. Being humorous, I said “Well, maybe God changed His mind on if He changes His mind.” I thought it was funny.

And yet what do I soon see in the book itself?

All this tends to undermine the relevance of these statements. But in light of what we know about the Bible as a whole, it may be better to admit that there are indeed contrasting perspectives in dialogue with each other in the Bible. So if the Bible as a whole is the word of God, then perhaps we should say that God changes his mind about whether he changes his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 96). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Just even thinking about this leads to nonsense. God changes His mind on if He changes His mind? Did He forget His past apparently and that He had changed His mind? Did He say “I don’t change my mind” and then say “Oh. I do change my mind here” and then say “Well, I have changed my mind and now state that I never change my mind.” Do you need a Tylenol yet?

In the end of this chapter then, Christopher has written about a god who he says shows mercy. Unfortunately, we cannot trust this mercy since he could change his mind for all we know. Maybe tomorrow he will change his mind and decide to thoroughly punish all people who claim he changed his mind and that also say he is LGBTQ friendly.

The Hayses are an example of what happens when you fail to take seriously the history of the text and the tradition it came out of.

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

 

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 5

Did God change His mind on war? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Christopher Hays says there is no better example of God changing His mind in the text than on looking at the way the Bible presents war.

So there’s a history here of war in Israel and then Christopher drops this on us:

Why would Isaiah have been concerned about a reaction against Cyrus? Perhaps because his anointing as king was a violation of the Mosaic law, which said: “you may indeed set over you a king whom the LORD your God will choose. One of your brothers you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother” (Deut 17:15).10 That was the word of the Lord—but now the Lord has changed his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 88). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

I must have missed that part when Cyrus sat on the throne of David in Jerusalem…

Largely, what is in this chapter is an emotional appeal. If God’s plan was for the salvation of these people, why would He go to war against them? Well for starters, He did. Second, God’s plan was for things to come in the fullness of time. That would include having to protect Israel from those who wished to destroy her as well.

At this, many will go to the New Testament, which Christopher does not do, which is fine since he is focusing on the Old Testament. I personally do not think the New Testament is meant to give us instructions on warfare and when it is right to go to war or not. Most of us will never be in that position. Here in America, only 45 different people have ever been president and had to make the decision to send us into war or not.

The New Testament is more written to the average every day person. We do not know what foreign policy advice Jesus or Paul or any of the apostles would have given to a king if need be. We do know what rank and file people were instructed to do, but even then, instructions to turn the other cheek were not given in response to life-threatening violence, but to personal insults, meaning to stop the cycle of retaliation.

Ultimately, something that needs to be pointed out is that if God could change His covenants like Christopher says He did with Cyrus, how could anyone trust Him for salvation? He made a covenant promise with Israel and then broke it on His own? Why should I not think He won’t do the same with me someday if God changes His mind? If God can change His mind on what marriage is, then maybe God will change His mind and say you can marry your minor cousin someday and hey, who could say otherwise?

Christopher’s god is one that I do not recognize. I am thankful the God of Scripture is not like that.

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

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 4

Was the Law not good? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Remember how last time I said it gets worse?

Prepare yourselves. Here it comes.

In the midst of this speech, God says that because of the people’s disobedience, “I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the LORD” (Ezek 20:25–26).

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 68). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

It has been my contention that for the Hayses to defend same-sex romantic relationships from the text, they will have to demean God and/or the text. This is a prime example. Christopher especially should know better. If he wants to say the law and statutes of God were not good, I think a guy named Paul would have something to say about that.

No. What is going on here is God is saying “You don’t want to live by my laws and statutes? Deal. Enjoy Babylon. See how you like their laws!”

And yet, it gets worse.

The implication probably isn’t immediately clear to those who don’t live by the Mosaic law, but God’s comment refers clearly to Exod 22:29b–30: “The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.” And how did they give oxen and sheep to God? By blood sacrifice—as Exodus 22:31 makes clear with its reference to eating meat.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 69). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

The problem is, Christopher didn’t tell you all of what Exodus 22:29 said. If he had, you would have seen right through this.

“Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats.

“You must give me the firstborn of your sons.

This is about an offering of service more than anything else. It is certainly not human sacrifice! Even if we were unsure, it is best to read the text in a way of charity and the Israelites detested human sacrifice.

If the text has to be made to say this to justify what Christopher wants it to justify, then the mainstream reading is on good grounds.

He even takes this over to the story of Abraham and Isaac saying God doesn’t want human sacrifice, but wants people willing to sacrifice their children. Never mind the real historical context that this is seeing if Abraham trusts that Isaac will be the one who will fulfill the promise made.

The propagation of these Deuteronomic laws is generally associated with the reign of Josiah in the late seventh century BCE, which was also the time of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah goes farther than the other texts; in one of the book’s divine speeches, God similarly recounts “all the evil of the people of Israel and the people of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger” (Jer 32:32), including, “They built the high places of Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this abomination, causing Judah to sin” (32:35). He doesn’t simply forbid the practice; he denies that God ever commanded it. This is irreconcilable with Ezekiel 20:25, which says God did command it.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 72). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Look at that paragraph very carefully.

According to Christopher Hays, in the Old Testament, God commanded human sacrifice.

And what does Christopher draw from this in the end?

The harmful effects of social pressures on LGBTQ youth can be measured in various ways, but one of the most stark, tragic, and comparable is their rate of suicides and suicide attempts. A recent study endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association reported that 20.1 percent of sexual minority teens reported attempting suicide in 2017—3.8 times the rate of heterosexual teens.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 74). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

If these people are willing to kill themselves like this, there is something deeper going on. He is really just engaging in emotional blackmail here and saying “If you do not affirm them the way they want to be affirmed, then they will kill themselves and it will be on your head.”

No. No, it isn’t.

If anything, I think what Christopher is doing is the unloving thing. He is enabling them in a path of destruction that will result not just in a temporary death, but an eternal one.

If he is also wrong on this, he will have to give an account before God, the one who he says commanded human sacrifice and gave laws to His people that were not good, why he did what he did.

My stance is made. I will stick with what Jews and Christians have always said about what the Bible says about LGBTQ relationships. He who marries the spirit of the age is destined to be a widow.

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

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 3

Has justice widened? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter starts with the story of the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers. They say their father did not participate in a rebellion against YHWH, but he had no sons. Why should his inheritance disappear? Moses takes their case to the Lord who agrees with the daughters, although later they are restricted in who they can marry to make sure they don’t take another tribe’s portion, which they accept.

It’s an interesting and a simple story. So what’s the big deal? Why is it in this chapter?

Hays presents it as a change in the attitude of God. Why? We are not told. All readers of Numbers will know is that this wasn’t included in the Law and it was a unique situation. On those cases, Moses would go to God for that one.

Apparently, this is supposed to be an opening to show God changing His mind allegedly on other issues.

Hays says that 1 Samuel 15 is another example and claims that Samuel misrepresents God by saying God doesn’t change His mind. Am I misrepresenting Hays? If only I was.

Humans, however, really like to put God in a box. We have already seen how Samuel, in his frustration at the failure of the king he anointed, misrepresents God by saying that God does not change his mind.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 62). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So apparently, this is a part of Scripture where we are not presented with accurate information about God. This despite a prophet saying a clear prophecy that did indeed come true. It looks like to defend LGBTQ relationships from Scripture, you have to lower God.

Even looking at the case of Saul, it doesn’t argue what Hays claims. Had Saul been faithful, he would have had a lasting kingdom. Did God choose Saul knowing Saul would fall? Yes. God didn’t change His mind. Because the covenant was not argued, Saul was rejected. This didn’t surprise God at all.

There are passages of Scripture that on the surface do seem to indicate a change of mind. After reviewing this book, since it is an important topic, I do plan on writing on that one and showing why I think it’s anthropomorphic language. It’s meant to describe God to us in ways we can understand.

But getting back to Zelophehad….

The story of Zelophehad’s daughters suggests that the diversity and disagreements within the biblical laws are not an accident or an embarrassing error caught by pesky scholars. This story shows God himself taking part in reinterpreting and outright revising existing practices. In the Bible, God seems less troubled by change than his spokesmen are.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 64). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

So apparently God was ignorant when He gave the Law and hadn’t considered all the ramifications. At points like this, I don’t know what God the Hayses are presenting. He sure isn’t any that I recognize as the supreme being of YHWH revealed in Christ.

Later he says about the daughters that

The passage continues with a midrash on the women and their extraordinary faith: “They said, ‘God’s mercy is not like that of flesh and blood. The latter’s mercy is for the males more than for the females, but He who spoke and the world came into being is not that way. His mercy is for males and females.’” Paul seems also to have understood this when he wrote, “there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28), but clearly he still had to make the case in his time. In our time, new groups are asking for God’s mercy and asking to be accepted.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 67). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Yet even within the Pauline corpus, there is a distinction between male and female. What is Paul talking about in that passage? He’s talking about that when it comes to salvation, there is no distinction. All are saved the same way and all are in Christ the same way.

Are others asking for God’s mercy? Yes. They can also get it, but they must repent. The problem is Hays is saying they don’t need to repent. He has left out that Zelophehad’s daughters are asking on behalf of a man who died for his own sins and did not participate in a rebellion against God.

Alas, it gets even worse.

Next time.

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

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 2

Did God second guess Himself? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was expecting that in a book such as this one, to defend same-sex intercourse, I would come across some interesting ways of interpreting texts like Leviticus and other passages. I figured Genesis 1 and 2 would be interpreted in ways that didn’t rely on a male-female relationship. Unfortunately, I was wrong in all of that. Early on in chapter two, I got this and I was stunned as I read it.

Yet we see here the emergence of a God who is already changing his mind in response to the reality of the world he has created, and especially to humankind. The first indications of this are very subtle, and are easily overlooked; they seem to fall into unspoken seams in the story. In Genesis 2:17, God warns the humans: “You shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”1 Of course, they go on to do just that. And yet, they do not die on that day.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 46). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Hays is not a philosopher. He does not understand the ramifications of what it means to say God changes His mind. This means that in some sense, God is limited. By what? God somehow gains new knowledge. From where? How can God be the God of all truth if all truth is not known?

Not only that, but this is on matters of morality. Did God decide that it would be wrong for Him to kill Adam and Eve on that day? If so, then there is a moral standard outside of God that God has to follow. God is not ultimate. God’s goodness is subservient to something outside of Himself. Hays isn’t really arguing about God. He’s arguing about Superman. God is just a really big man.

Still, the passage needs to be addressed. I contend that they did die that day, in that they fail away from everlasting life from being in covenant with God. I do not think man and woman were created immortal because they needed the tree of life to survive. They could have lived forever had they ate of it, but that was blocked off from them.

Yet it was at this point, I had hoped that this would be a one-off thing on the part of Christopher. I hoped I would not see this language often. As I went through the book, I saw that I hoped in vain.

Not only that, it gets worse. Hear what Christopher says when describing the flood.

After the auspicious start to creation, things have not worked out the way they were supposed to. The whole thing has been a mistake.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 49). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

God made a mistake?

If these are the lengths you have to go to to defend LGBTQ behavior from a Christian standpoint, then the case should be rock-solid that Scripture cannot be used to defend it. In order to justify man in this case, you have to lower God. That is what is consistently done in this book. God is lowered while the creation is exalted.

In describing the story of Hagar, he says:

The second theme is God’s propensity to relent from punishment, to show mercy even at the cost of changing his mind and bending his principles of justice.

Hays, Christopher B; Hays, Richard B. The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story (p. 56). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

God bends principles of justice?

If you are part of the LGBTQ community, the Hayses have not done you any favors here. They have shown how much they have to change God for their argument to work. I can only wonder if this is something that Christopher just noticed in his work when he wants to justify LGBTQ lifestyles that he somehow missed all these years.

Something is being widened here, but it isn’t God’s mercy.

And yet this is just the start.

I wish I could tell you it will get better, but no. It will not.

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

 

Book Plunge: The Widening of God’s Mercy Chapter 1

Has God’s mercy widened? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This book was made required reading for my first PhD seminar which starts next Monday. I suppose they want us to read something controversial we can respond to. Normally, I don’t try to use class books for my blog, but this was one that was so bad that I just had to say something on it.

Richard Hays wrote this with his son Christopher, hence I will at times be using first names in this blog to make it clear who I am speaking about. In it, they say they have changed their mind on what God has to say about same-sex romantic relationships. I thought for a bit on how to phrase that because I couldn’t say that they changed their mind on what Scripture says. As we go through the book, it will become clear what Scripture says doesn’t really matter much. Christopher takes the Old Testament and Richard the New Testament.

That being said, the first chapter is not really that disagreeable. You are going through and you really don’t see much. That makes sense as this is an introductory chapter. It is mainly introducing us to the character of God in the book and the role of man.

Christopher does talk about Calvinism some, but I’m quite sure not a single Calvinist will like this book. I’ll go further and say that not a single person who holds to classical theism at all will like this book. When writers talk about the nature of God, they should try to tun their ideas by some philosophical friends and ask “Do you think I’m opening myself up to any potential land mines by saying this?”

Unfortunately, this was not done.

Still, I will give credit that the first chapter was not entirely wrong. If anything, we could say this part was a more pleasant read than most. Christopher speaks about that it is because of the love of God that we even exist at all. I have no beef with that statement. He does treat Edwards as a negative in church history with the Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God sermon. From it, one would think that God utterly despised humanity and wanted to finish them off. If that is all you know about Jonathan Edwards that would be a shame, much like how I said in a post recently that if all you know about Pascal is his wager, you are misinformed.

He also does remind us in the end that people remember when they feel accepted and loved at a church. They also remember when they do not. While we do not need to go light on sin at all, we need to remember that those people who need healing from sin need to know that the church is a place that they can go to to get what they need. The church should be a hospital for the wounded and not a place where we shoot our wounded.

So everything sounds good. Right?

Just wait….

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

Book Plunge: Irreligion: An Anecdote on Emotional Need

Why don’t I trust John Paulos? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I hated reading this section. I suspect Paulos wrote it to show that he is an understanding guy. If anything, it showed me that he is the exact opposite. It showed me Paulos is willing to engage in lying that intentionally harms others and do so for pure enjoyment.

He starts with talking about being in Thailand in an internet cafe. In the cafe are three girls and they are being coached by another woman who was their English expert. The women are communicating with men online and going from man to man playing someone who is totally lovesick each time.

The women see that Paulos is interested in what they are doing and so he starts explaining to them the phrases that they are using and what they mean. They would say these things to these men and then laugh hysterically and thank Paulos. He kept on helping them to learn what they needed to say to these men.

Am I justifying what these men are doing? Not a bit. These men are being suckered by women overseas and getting their money taken from them. However, I have a much bigger problem with what Paulos is doing. Paulos himself says:

It was great fun helping them dupe farangs on three continents out of their money via a Western Union office down the block. (Perhaps “dupe” is the wrong word since I think the bargain was a fair one and inexpensive at that: a Christmas fantasy for a few dollars.)

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 72). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Paulos enjoyed this. He knew he was tricking people ouf of money and enjoyed it. Not only that, but these women could have been part of sex trafficking for all we know. Paulos was enabling what they were doing which could mean that he was unknowingly participating in sex trafficking.

Paulos says he tells this story because of how so many people want to believe in God despite what he describes as gaping holes in their arguments. (Unfortunately for Paulos, the gaping holes are all in his understanding of them.) He says these people want to believe in God just like these men overseas want to believe these women desperately love them.

And what of my role, which, despite my rationale above, remains slightly problematic? I was doing the opposite of what I’m attempting to do in this book. I was facilitating an illusion, albeit an emotional one with which I have more sympathy than its religio-intellectual analogue.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 73). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

So Paulos has now written a book where he explicitly talks about coaching women in lying to dupe men out of money, and then he expects us to trust him on anything? Not going to happen here. Paulos is the kind of guy based on this that if he told me it wasn’t raining outside, I would get an umbrella.

I encourage the new atheist movement to distance yourself from people like this who will openly confess to lying to dupe others and enjoy it. Accept him and you have no grounds upon which to condemn the person you view as the lying televangelist. I condemn both of them. Paulos apparently only condemns if it’s the other side.

Have nothing to do with people like this. When someone tells you who they really are, believe them.

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

A Woman’s Worth

How should a woman view herself? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“I don’t understand why she’s living the way she is. She seems to just get all of her joy from being with different men. What could I say to her?”

So someone asked me about someone they knew. It’s easy to say speak of such a person in negative terms, but I don’t want to go that route. The condemnation route from Christians is already known.

I thought back in reflecting on this question to a time I went to visit some friends from church when I lived in Georgia and their daughter came down to talk to me in the midst of a group conversation. She told me about a guy she was with and I asked if they were going to get married. She said not yet because he said he wanted to travel first.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

If a guy is really interested in a girl, you have to wonder why he would put off wanting to be with her until after he “travels.” Besides, wouldn’t it be better to have a wife and go on those travels with someone? Wouldn’t the relationship come before one’s fun?

The parents were thrilled this was happening. I made it clear to this young lady that the guy was not really committed to her. She was good for some entertainment, but if he was committed to her, she would come first.

So we come now to the case of a young woman who is sleeping with men thinking that that is where her joy comes from. Is she seeking value? Is she seeking love? Does she think this is her purpose?

Now none of this is to say women shouldn’t enjoy sex. They absolutely should. However, like any good thing that can be enjoyed, it should be enjoyed in the proper place and context. It’s fine to enjoy a sweet every now and then, but if you make sweets your whole diet, you will suffer for it.

So what I would say to this woman is what is she worth?

If a woman wants to know if a man she is dating is really interested in her, there’s a simple way. Don’t have sex. Yes. I know that sounds revolutionary, but hear me out on this.

Men tend to be very self-sufficient. If it wasn’t for sex and also children, we would not really bother pursuing a romantic relationship. It’s not that we don’t care, but you can marry a girl and then she can divorce you and the state will back her and you could lose half of what you have and wind up paying alimony and child support for life.

What would be ideal for a man? A sexual relationship with a woman where he doesn’t have to risk everything. In other words, one where he doesn’t have to make a commitment. He can leave any time he wants and there’s nothing the woman can do about it. If he doesn’t want her to have children and protection fails, just get an abortion.

It’s a shame the way the feminist model has played right into the hands of the men they have such a problem with.

Suppose though a woman wants to be more than just a toy to him. Suppose she does want a commitment. Suppose she does want someone she can count on? Suppose she wants someone she can grow old with.

Then don’t have sex.

And yes, women are in charge of that one.

The question of when a woman has sex shows how much a man has to do to get her. A simple date? Three dates? Dinner and a movie? A month? Three months? A year? Engagement?

What if you say you have to make a lifelong commitment and it can only be me until death do us part?

If the man says “No,” then he’s not really interested in you. That’s good. You’ve eliminated a poser. However, if he says “Deal,” and then he works and works to get to that point for you, you know how much worth you have in his eyes. He is willing to go the extra mile and if a man really loves a woman, he wants to pursue her. He will climb mountains for the chance to demonstrate his commitment to her.

Not only that, but the man wins in the end to. A man gets a relationship that he has fought for. He gets to know that he has proven himself worthy of the girl he is with, although ask him later and he still will say he married a girl out of his league. The woman gets the lifelong relationship. She also in the end gets the sex too, just like the man does. In the end, both parties win. Both parties put the relationship first and then both parties get all of the benefits.

As it is, in the end, women are the big losers in the dating game today. Men don’t have to commit to them. They don’t have to step up and be actual men. They can come to the woman when they want to have some fun and then it’s off to do whatever they want to do.

Women deserve better. They deserve the best. They deserve a man, not a boy.

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

 

 

A Response To Kilted Cajun On Censorship

Can the religious right speak on issues of culture? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I watch a lot of gaming videos on YouTube being the Gaming Theologian on there. (Looking for a video editor by the way, if you’re interested.) One of the channels I watch is the Kilted Cajun as I love it when the DEI nonsense is exposed. However, recently I watched a video I agreed with on some levels, but my disagreements were quite serious, so I left him a reply and told him I would be writing this.

So at the start, KC (As I will call him for short) says that he one hundred percent opposes censorship. For the most part, I agree. I say that as someone who also detests the porn industry. I want to see them defeated because people have their hearts changed. (And not Phantom Thief style per Persona, but because they come to their own conclusions about pornography)

He then talks about a game where a lady’s posterior is clearly shown. Now it was nothing that really got me riled up as I agree with KC that I could also see that across most any beach in America from a woman in a tight bikini. At the same time, I know many of my readers might object to seeing such, so I won’t show any pictures, but know that this is what has started this whole discussion.

There are some people who are complaining and objecting about this. Okay. I get it. At the same time, I also want to hear it. Why? Because that’s how we as a society work. We all come together and express our viewpoints. I want to see the Woke and DEI crowd lose tremendously, but I also want them to say what they really think and do so freely. The left has gotten people to be scared to say what they think lest they be called a name like a racist, bigot, sexist, or any term ending in -phobe.

Generally, my thinking is if my opponent is saying something really stupid, I want to get out of the way. Let him speak. Let him say it. If the woke really think conservatives have all those negative traits, let them speak so it can be apparent to all. Strangely, it doesn’t work that way.

Yet this is the way freedom really works. Freedom means you have the freedom to hold different opinions. I remember a debate on TheologyWeb years ago where someone claimed bigotry is not a right and the response was “Yes it is.” Yes. You are free to be a bigot if you want to. You are free to hold any negative opinion you want to. If you think people like myself are idiot Christians who should have no place in society, then you are absolutely 100% free to have that opinion.

I have had times where my Dad has called me before. I am a man in my 40’s, but I still keep in close contact with my parents. (They’re here this week for me getting my Master’s.) My Dad has called to talk about things like a satanic statue being built or a service from them or a church building from them.

My response is “Okay. And?”

Our Constitution in America guarantees freedom of religion in America and not just freedom of the religion I hold. If I say “Christians are free to build churches, but Muslims are not free to build mosques, then I do not really hold to freedom of religion. I only hold to it if it benefits me. If I accept freedom, I have to accept people will use it in ways that I do not like.

As we go along in the video though he asks why decency is being brought up about a woman’s butt being shown and says “are you judging people’s morals based on your own personal morals” about the person complaining about it.

The answer to that one is “yes”, but that’s because who else’s morals are you going to judge them based on? We all do this every day. We agree with behavior X because of our moral beliefs and we disagree with Y because of our moral beliefs. KC opposes censorship, which I also happen to oppose, but that is a moral belief. To say “censorship is wrong” is a moral belief. That doesn’t mean it’s false, nor does it mean it’s true. We can only know if a belief is true if it corresponds with reality, if there are really objective moral principles out there that we all are to follow. If there is no objective morality, then it’s just personal tastes. If there is, then one of us is right and one of us is wrong.

Note in saying this I am not saying KC is a moral relativist. I have no reason to think he is and all the reason to think he is not. I am saying his viewpoint relies on moral objectivity.

This would apply in other areas as well. In science, did man evolve from lesser animals or not? He either did or he didn’t. It’s not both. Having a belief on one side or the other doesn’t make it right or wrong. It is whether or not that belief matches with reality.

Did Jesus rise from the dead? I say yes. An atheist says no. Both of us can freely have our belief. What matters is reality and that is where we must look. We can’t just say “That’s our belief.”

So when it comes to moral judgments, that is what we judge behaviors on. We judge them by our own personal beliefs and those could be right or wrong. Let’s suppose I was sent an advance demo copy of the game in question. To be fair, I decided to play through it and let’s suppose I really liked it and I enjoyed a story with it. Here is something I would say and I say this as someone who I think is viewed as a Christian leader.

“Game X is a really fun game with a great story that really draws you in. (Describe some bits of the story without spoiling it.) I do want parents to know though that it does have XYZ in it. (Statements about the butt in question) Then add “Make your own decisions when it comes to you and your children.” Some people might say “I am not bothered by that, and I really want to experience the story so I will buy that.” I also know that since I think I have a position of trust with parents, I don’t want to violate that. I don’t want to have a parent come to me and say “I bought this for my 11 year-old child and I had no idea this was in it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I really don’t think KC would have a problem with that. That would be me just saying let the buyer beware in a sense. If you don’t like this in your games, don’t buy it. If you live with children and you don’t want them to see this or see you playing it, then don’t buy it. All of this is assuming the game is good. If it’s awful, I will tell you that it’s awful outright, but if you want to subject yourself to it, be warned also about XYZ.

I might make statements on more extreme cases. If I saw something in a game that I considered blasphemous towards Jesus, I could say “I really encourage you to not buy this game.” I know that I can’t make that decision for you. You decide for yourself.

KC then goes on to say that the reviewer, Dread Roberts, is pushing his views on others. We don’t want the left doing that and we don’t want the right doing it either. The problem is that first off, Dread Roberts is not doing that. He is stating his belief.

The second problem though is that KC in saying this is doing what he condemns. He is saying “It is my moral belief that you shouldn’t push your moral beliefs on other people.” He can hold that, but as soon as he says that DR is wrong for pushing his views on others, then KC is implicitly pushing a view that you shouldn’t push views.

I propose a better way to look at it. I think KC would be better saying “Thank you for your opinion on what should be allowed and not allowed. I 100% disagree and here is why.” The thing with freedom of speech is it applies to everyone and that includes hearing moral opinions I do not like. At the same time, when they are shared, I want them expressed in the best way possible. I don’t want to tell my opponent not to share them. I want false beliefs shared so I can publicly show them to be wrong.

KC then points out that DR says that this is not where the future of gaming should be heading. KC says that it’s not up for DR to decide but for the market to decide. The problem is both of those statements could be true. Hypothetically, let’s suppose DR is right. He has full freedom to express that opinion, but at the same time, he’s not saying to hijack the market, which is impossible anyway, and make it be that no one can buy the game. I don’t think DR is being asked to be a gaming csar to get to decide what is and isn’t released. He is simply saying what he wants to see. He doesn’t want to see games with this material in it and thinks it would be bad for gaming. Fine. That’s his view. He is not calling for it to be a federal crime or something of that sort. I do agree. It’s up to the market to decide. It’s like an election. I never liked it when Obama won, but it was up to the electorate to decide. I didn’t want anyone to vote for him, but I would completely defend their freedom to vote for him.

DR then says that he thinks people who say they want to save gaming really don’t. With this, I disagree with DR. I want to give the benefit of the doubt. I agree 100% with KC that wokeness and DEI is bad for games. At the same time, I want producers of games to have the freedom to put as much wokeness and DEI in a game as possible. Let it fail at the marketplace. While saying that, it doesn’t mean everything is beneficial for gaming. Companies can be free to put into their games things that I thoroughly disagree with that I too think can be bad for gaming, but again, that is what freedom means.

KC goes on to say that players should have the choice to buy what they want and play what they want and see what they want. I agree. If anything, I think something like DR’s post could lead to the Barbara Streisand Effect. I would have recommended had he wanted to post on this to say “Yeah. This is just something in the game and I want you to make a fully-informed decision, especially if you’re a parent, and let’s move on.” After all, it was when people started talking about “Hot Coffee” in a Grand Theft Auto game that sales started to soar and the scene wasn’t even easy to find in regular gameplay and I think you needed a special code for it. KC even says that you have to go out of your way to make this option available for this female character and if that’s true, and I have no reason to think otherwise, then yes, DR is promoting the Barbara Streisand effect and will likely see more sales of the game.

Now let’s briefly say something about female characters in video games. They are usually made to be beautiful and at times, this can mean what seem to be exaggerated proportions, especially in the butts and the breasts of these characters. Think of the original Lara Croft and the original Tifa Lockhart. I never played the Tomb Raider games, but I did play Final Fantasy VII that had Tifa in it. When I heard the remake was coming out, I was thankful that Tifa was not flattened in it. Because I am a perv? No. Because that is the way the original character looked and I did not want to see game producers bend a knee to this ideology that says women cannot be beautiful lest the male gaze come along. Women are made to be beautiful.

That being said, it is up to the man watching Tifa what he does with her. If you are someone who struggles with that kind of thing and says “I just don’t want to play that because my mind will go places I don’t want it to go”, then you do you. I don’t have a problem with that. That is you properly using self-control. We do no service to women if we make them purposely unattractive to men. Women are meant to be beautiful and that is part of their glory.

I also agree with KC 100% when he says that mostly, all we want is fun games. Yes. Of course, in my fun games, I like a lot more as well which I think is well in line with what KC is saying. I am thoroughly enjoying Persona 5 Royal because of the story and the mix of the real world with the metaverse. As someone on the spectrum also, I am watching what I say to other characters and getting to see when I gave what the game says is an appropriate answer, showing empathy. It has me looking at my relationships outside of the game and thinking “What bonds am I building with my fellow man?” I am actually going through a second time because I got a bad ending the first time because I did not build bonds properly thinking that the best route to go was power up my character as much as possible. I really learned something from that.

KC says he has no problem with what DR believes, but with him pushing it on other people who don’t want to hear it. The problem is, if sharing a belief is the same as pushing it, then KC is pushing his belief that you shouldn’t push a belief. Maybe some people don’t want to hear what KC says. Okay. He has a right to say it. It’s the same with scrolling through Facebook or X. I see people saying stupid things on there. Okay. They say them. I disagree, but I want them to be free to say them. That’s why it’s called the marketplace of ideas. We all share our ideas and debate which ideas are right and which are wrong.

He then refers to Melanie Mac who shows up in the comments. I really like Melanie and why wouldn’t I? A Christian girl who loves to play video games? Awesome. Anyway, she says she wouldn’t want to play such a game with nudity thrust in her face. KC says then don’t buy it. That’s fine. Vote with your wallet like everyone else does. I agree with KC here. MM has her opinion and she’s free to share it and she’s free to vote with her wallet. The marketplace of ideas and freedom allows for everything.

MM goes on to say that she would feel like a loser playing a character like that. KC goes on to say that that’s a sort of passive-aggressive slap to everyone who wants to play a character like that, but is it? MM is saying “She would feel like a loser.” Okay. That’s her opinion. We couldn’t say she was wrong. That would be like me saying “I feel sad” and you say “You don’t feel sad! You feel great!” You could think I shouldn’t feel sad and think of a thousand reasons why I should feel great, but you could not deny that I feel sad.

KC then asks how MM could do such a thing and she should keep her religious views out of it. The problem is this is actually censorship of a kind. I don’t care if someone expresses an opinion if their views come from religion or not. Suppose someone says “I think murder is wrong because the Ten Commandments forbid it.” That’s a religious view, but it is also one I think is right. I could give you plenty of reasons outside of the Bible that I think marriage should be between one man and one woman, but what matters is if that belief is true. The fact that it is also a view backed by religion doesn’t matter. If that was the case, then we should eliminate laws against murder because religions also view murder as wrong. KC is implicitly saying “Religious views should be kept to yourself, but secular views can be shared everywhere.” That’s not what freedom is. Let all views be expressed and let the best case win.

KC then refers to Bible Thumpers. It is not clear what this means. Would I be a Bible thumper even though I am entirely open to evolution, don’t believe in Young-Earth creationism, am not a dispensationalism at all, etc.? I fully hold to many of the orthodox creeds and can easily sign an orthodox statement of faith.

He goes on to say that the right were the ones that raised the outcry about games like Dungeons and Dragons and the satanic panic. Yep. The satanic panic went way too far and many criticisms of D&D and video games and anime and many other things do not really understand them. I have done a lot of reading on the satanic panic and I consider it ridiculous. While I do think real Satanism exists, I also am quite hesitant to call something satanic. Make it too all encompassing and you then include things like Tolkien and Lewis.

I also do think that you can enjoy a series even if you disagree with the moral viewpoints. Star Trek is highly secularist. Star Wars was made with New Age and Buddhist thinking in mind. I have several friends who are devout Christians who enjoy both. I personally don’t, but not for those reasons. I just never got into them. I can freely enjoy a James Bond movie even though I think Bond is doing something wrong in the way he casually sleeps with other women. You take the good and you spit out the bad.

So in the end, I fully agree with KC that I do not want to see censorship. That being said, I think his way of approaching MM and DR is itself leaning into censorship. Let us come together and say “I think this is good for gaming and here’s why” or “I think this is bad for gaming and here’s why.” Let the cases present themselves and let the marketplace of ideas decide when they go to the marketplace of gaming.

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

 

 

Is Masculinity Bad?

Is it bad to be a man?

Recently, I was still going through The Bully Society and I was reading about the bully economy. While the book has a lot to say about the problem of bullying, it fails a lot in the area of solutions, and in this case tying the problem in with capitalism. Am I to think that if we went to socialism, all the kids in the world would join hands and sing Kum-Bu-Yah together?

Anyway, the author notes that some of the attributes given to masculinity are also similar to capitalism. Those are aggressive, competitive, and powerful. That is the way the market is seen sometimes. I could defend capitalism here, but I have done that in other posts.

For now, I notice that it seems that being aggressive, powerful, and competitive are bad things inherently. There is no doubt these can be used for evil purposes, but that does not mean that they are evil. I can use my car in my apartment parking lot to drive to work and church. I can also use it to drive over little old ladies crossing the street. The car is not the issue. The person is the issue.

You can think it wrong for a man to be powerful, but if a man is going to make a positive change, he needs some power. You can think it is wrong for him to be aggressive, but if he is going to go forward in pursuit of a goal and stand up to evil, he needs to be powerful. You can think it is wrong for him to be competitive, but if he is going to want to excel, he needs to want to be better than those who don’t.

I can say on my end that while I do not see myself as aggressive or powerful, competitive does ring true, but that is what has caused me to study academically far more. It is wanting to be the best at what I do that has got me here. Had I not had this kind of spirit in me, I would have heard the doom and gloom about a diagnosis of autism and said “Oh well. Guess I’ll never amount to anything.”

What would be better is to ask the question of what a man is instead of saying that those ideas of masculinity are bad, or at least implying that they are. This is part of the problem. We do not know what men are, but usually it is assumed that whatever they are, they are bad.

If society does not know what men and women are, it should not be a shock that we have issues like failing to understand marriage and relationships or that we have debates over transgenderism. I acknowledge that in some ways, the question of what a man or a woman is is a simple question. In another way, it is a complex question. It gets to a question of essences, which I consider a problem for a purely materialistic position.

So if a man does not have any indicator that he is a man, then what will he do? He will try to seek it elsewhere. He could do so by being powerful in a gang. He could do so by being competitive in sports or even video games. He could do so by being aggressive in business or with women. Some of these are fine, but some aren’t. It is fine to be competitive on the athletic field, provided you are not wronging the others out there. It is not fine to be powerful in a gang and seek to do wrong to other men and women. It is fine to be confident with women. It is not fine to be so aggressive that you force your way onto them.

If a man doesn’t know if he is a man, he could still try harmful ways. He could think he has to sleep with as many women as possible, highly persuasive since sex often leaves a man feeling like a man. He could be willing to cheat to get ahead in sports, say by taking steroids. He could seek power by trying to beat up other men or even kill them. He could try to get material possessions as a status symbol to everyone else.

By the way, women will also try counterparts, but seeing as I am a man, I am talking about them.

What he likely will not try is to try to build up character and be a man of virtue. We have lost sight of virtue as what builds up a person and ultimately a society. A society cannot last if goodness is not one of the goals of society. If all a society cares about is going for all that you can get and the vapid pursuit of pleasure, it will fail.

Unfortunately, not much is said about that. Everything else is blamed. It’s the video games. It’s the guns. It’s the schools. It’s capitalism.

No. The problem is us.

We need to change.

We need a return to virtue and men being virtuous men and women being virtuous women. Unfortunately, with moral relativism, we don’t really know what virtue is either. The more we blame everything else, the less we will care about virtue.

Masculinity is not bad, but anything we do without virtue will taint everything else. We must return to that and I contend only Christianity can truly give us the virtue we need.

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