As the Third Christian Millennium dawns, the Caribbean is at kairos: the nexus of opportunity and risk. In light of the Christocentric fulness theme of Ephesians 4:9 - 24, perspectives and counsel will be offered to support reformation, transformation and blessing towards a truly sustainable future under God.
Rabbi/Pastor Jonathan Cahn speaks in crystal clear tones in the US Capitol Building, April 29th, 2015, right across the road from the US Supreme Court building where it heard arguments seeking to homosexualise marriage just the previous day: [NB: Cf previous KF blog post here, and especially the footnoted list of earlier posts. Of these, this link on the gay gene myth will be particularly pivotal. Notice the solemn pledge to stand regardless of cost, here. Also notice that at least two justices seem to have already taken public stances in favour of homosexualisation.]
“The justices of the Supreme Court took up their seats [in a hearing]
on whether they should strike down the biblical and historic definition
of marriage,” he said. “That the event should even take place is a sign
this is America of [George] Washington’s warning … a nation at war
against its own foundation.”
Washington’s warning was the smiles of heaven can never be expected
on a nation “that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which
heaven itself hath ordained.”
He noted the Supreme Court opens sessions with the words, “God save the United States and this honorable court.”
“If this court should overrule the word of God and strike down the
eternal rules of order and right that heaven itself ordained, how then
will God save it?” he asked. “Justices, can you judge the ways of God?
There is another court and there another judge, where all men and all
judges will give account.
“If a nation’s high court should pass judgment on the Almighty,
should you then be surprised God will pass judgment on the court and
that nation? We are doing that which Israel did on the altars of Baal,”
he said.
“We are exchanging our light for darkness.”
Will we, as a civilisation seemingly Hell-bent on defying The Eternally Just God our Creator, Lord, Saviour and Judge, turn back before it is too late?
The following graphic in WaPo caught my eye, as it aptly captures a pattern of institutionally manipulated, agenda-driven imposition in defiance of the patent, morally tinged, naturally evident, Creation order for marriage and family . . . and, no, it is just as patently so that it is false that "My genes made me do it."
So, on rights of fair use and fair comment and also by dint of duty to blow the trumpet in clear warning:
It is obvious that the Courts of the USA are imposing an unnatural agenda, relying on the habitual tendency of people to respect lawful institutions to carry the day. But, they seem to be forgetting the counsel of our Lord (given in the context of divorce, but with much broader implications, per "how much more . . ." ):
Matt 19: 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
If divorce is already a hard-hearted violation of God's intent, inherently a second best solution, what more must we see about the pretence that Adam can "marry" Steve or Eve, Sue; in light of the following grim warning in the face of corrupt and perverted Roman elites:
Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,[g] in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
[--> In the old days, idols in temples surrounded by scandal-riddled myths:
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.29 They
were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness,
malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.
They are gossips,30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. [ESV]
In this context, we would be well advised to listen again to Russian-Australian Lesbian activist Masha Gessen:
. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out
. . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and
supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in
their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]. . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, thatwe are forced by oura priori adherence to material causes[[--> another major begging of the question . . . ]to
create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce
material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how
mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute[[--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for wecannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [ Harvard Biologist Richard Lewontin in “Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. If you have been misled to imagine the above is "Quote-mined," kindly cf. the linked fuller citation just above.]
. . . is now on a head-on collision course with God. Such madness will inevitably lose.
But much harm and much demonisation, stereotyping and scapegoating based persecution of those who stand up in the face of the determined march of folly, is predictable -- and has already begun. END
Watch: Read. (Then, read here for just how bad things can get. [And note here, how ISIS terrorists destroyed the church erected as a memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, at the 1915 equivalent of Auschwitz, Der Zor. Yes, exactly 100 years ago, the forgotten Genocide. One, of the very first nation to declare itself a Christian people; some 1700 years ago.]) And then ponder what can happen when ruthless, amoral agit-prop radical activism gets out of hand and into the hands of the fundamentally lawless. Including, office-holders. Where, we also have to ask, what bewitched the legislators into passing laws as potentially undermining of basic civil rights as that and led them to apparently leave out adequate safeguards? Don't say, no it cannot happen.
It already has.
Let us take due warning before swallowing demonisation, stereotyping and scapegoating of politically incorrect groups. Such as, these days, Christians who take their faith seriously. END
This is a case where I find myself (yet again) duty-bound to blow a trumpet of warning and say things which will be very hard to bear, but I must plead with us to listen.
For, we must at all costs not allow ourselves to be caught up in a march of folly.
After fruitlessly beating against contrary winds, Paul's ship ran
to the lee side of Crete, ending at Fair Havens. Rejecting Paul's
advice at ship's counsel, the majority chose to run for Phoenix
if a seemingly favourable wind arose. Only to be caught in a
potentially deadly storm through following appealing but
utterly unwise manipulative advice (HT)
Cf. the longstanding warning on Ac 27 here, to understand my point of view on how democratic polities are too often prone to manipulated marches of folly that expose us needlessly to destructive storms because we want our itching ears tickled by those who tell us what they calculate that we want to hear.
And, if you have not yet seen this animation of Plato's Parable of the cave, I invite you to watch, pondering how shadow-shows projected on the wall for our benefit can mislead us into an utterly warped view of our world: Then, please ponder this outline analysis of how to come to a sounder, more balanced basis for our thinking and view of the world:
(I invite a slow, careful reading here on in context to elaborate this. That includes our overall geo-political view and its spiritual dimensions, given the warning in Romans 1.) Now, let me turn to the matter that stirs me just now. Iran. And, geostrategic moves by the US President, Mr Barak Hussein Obama.
Now, over the past week or so, leaders and people of the Caribbean waxed enthusiastic about US President Obama's recent visit to Jamaica, which involved a one day Caricom Summit. However, while it is appropriate for us to recognise the historic significance of the first black president of the USA, we must not allow this to blind us to seriously questionable policy agendas he has pursued across these six years that he has been President.
Yes, seriously questionable.
We need some context, before addressing the main headlined point. For instance, the pro homosexualism stance his administration has taken the lead on clearly threatens freedom of conscience and targets Christians, not only in the USA but in the wider world. The associated pushing of a counterfeit of marriage -- under false colours of "rights" -- as though it were not associated with inherently disordered and destructive behaviour undermines the very foundation of stable society. Deliberately so. (Cf this recent article, this one also, and the list of articles and links under the porn-perversion agenda in this blog's right hand column for more on this.) That is not irrelevant, for we can rest assured that such agendas will be written into any aid packages coming from the US Government to our region. For, in its eyes, we are backward homophobes. Indeed, that is a patent part of the backdrop for the UWI move to fire professor Brendan Bain, an AIDS treatment pioneer in our region because he dared speak the truth in an expert testimony given to a court in Belize. We must keep our eyes open and we must not be naive. That is the context in which I draw our attention to a recent TV news interview of US Senator Tom Cotton (cf. YouTube here), who earlier served as a US Army officer in Iraq and now serves on the US Senate Intelligence Committee: In essence, there is no agreement, proper, but it is quite clear that the US under this administration is leading the world in exceedingly dangerous concessions and sanction lifting . . . where sanctions pose the only brakes on the process short of military action (and where strong enough sanctions just might bring down the Mullahs). Within months on this track, Iran could openly have not only nuke weapons but the means to make more and more of them as it sees fit. Where, Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world, openly calls for the destruction of Israel and has built up its cats paws in Lebanon and Gaza for that purpose, and is engaging in extremely destabilising behaviour across the Middle East. At the same time -- and not coincidentally, Russia has announced intent to go ahead with a long stalled deal to sell S300 sophisticated anti aircraft missiles to Iran. Such would effectively take an Israeli air attack off the table, and would make a US Attack on nuke sites in Iran far more difficult and costly. (This effectively would force Israel to use cruise missiles and/or rely on ability to knock out the air defense network; which points to backing them into the corner of having to seriously consider going nuclear with Iran. We can rest assured that Israel will not sit idly by while Iran goes to open nuke power status and starts to exert blackmail and nuke backed terrorism.) Arab regimes across the Persian Gulf and in the wider Middle East (traditional enemies of the Persians), predictably, will feel strong pressure to go nuclear themselves; probably in partnership with Pakistan. Especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt; neither of which is particularly stable in the long term. All of this deeply compounds Israel's challenges, and points to a dangerous global escalation, a C21 nuke arms race associated with the predictable rise of nukes backed terrorism. The likely outcomes at this stage are all bad, ranging from merely horrific to unimaginably awful and bloody beyond belief. I know, I know, this sounds strange to our ears and cuts across our knee-jerk tendency to support The First Black President of the USA. We need to look beyond the handsome face and the historic achievement that marks the death of American Racism as a potent force, and realise that Mr Obama has put his face up as a front for a very radical agenda. An agenda, regarding which, we need to fearlessly ask and seek answers to some pointed questions. For instance: why would the Obama Administration act in so patently foolish a geostrategic fashion? Because of its deep rooted Alinsky-ite, neo-Marxian ideology.
Prof Obama at the Chalk-board, teaching from Alinsky's Rules for Radicals framework for Community
Organizers (~ activists trained to harness grievances to
advance a radical, revolutionary solution based on
subverting and discrediting existing centres of influence
and power in the community, then becoming the new ones).
The focus here is corporations, banks, utilities and money.
An ideology that in effect assumes, implies and sometimes openly asserts, that the core thing wrong with the world is Eurocentric, White male dominated Western Civilisation -- so especially the USA -- and things associated with that. Including, the historic Christian Faith, deemed to be the root of evils inflicted on the world. After all, in earlier generations, Western Civilisation was called Christian Civilisation or Christendom. Leading Scholar Bernard Lewis, in his epochal 1990 essay, The Roots of Muslim Rage, summed up the issue and its underlying post hoc fallacies of improper causal focus:
.
. . The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of
sexism, racism, and imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and
slavery, tyranny and exploitation. To these charges, and to others as
heinous, we have no option but to plead guilty -- not as Americans,
nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human beings, as members of the
human race. In none of these sins are we the only sinners, and in
some of them we are very far from being the worst. The treatment of
women in the Western world, and more generally in Christendom, has
always been unequal and often oppressive, but even at its worst it was
rather better than the rule of polygamy and concubinage that has
otherwise been the almost universal lot of womankind on this planet .
. . .
In
having practiced sexism, racism, and imperialism, the West was merely
following the common practice of mankind through the millennia of
recorded history. Where it is distinct
from all other civilizations is in having recognized, named, and
tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases. And that is surely a matter for congratulation, not condemnation.
We do not hold Western medical science in general, or Dr. Parkinson
and Dr. Alzheimer in particular, responsible for the diseases they
diagnosed and to which they gave their names.
A more balanced reading of global history would tell us that several age-long abuses trace to our common moral struggle and hardness of heart [--> which, has often been softened through the influence of the gospel; leading to reformation], multiplied by the corrupting influences of unaccountable power. Duly, multiplied by plain old fashioned folly. For reasons tracing to our being finite, fallible, morally fallen and too often ill willed, we are ever so prone to marches of folly.
Often, such lemming-like marches over the cliff of disaster are driven by the attitude long since exposed by the prophet Isaiah 2,700 years ago when it cropped up in ancient Israel:
Isa 5:18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes, 19 who say: “Let him be quick, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it!”
20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!
24 Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them, and the mountains quaked; and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
26 He will raise a signal for nations far away, and whistle for them from the ends of the earth; and behold, quickly, speedily they come! 27 None is weary, none stumbles, none slumbers or sleeps, not a waistband is loose, not a sandal strap broken; 28 their arrows are sharp, all their bows bent, their horses' hoofs seem like flint, and their wheels like the whirlwind. 29 Their roaring is like a lion, like young lions they roar; they growl and seize their prey; they carry it off, and none can rescue. 30 They will growl over it on that day, like the growling of the sea. And if one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress; and the light is darkened by its clouds. [ESV]
Yes, military folly and defeat are part of the judgement of destructive consequences against nations that stubbornly insist on turning their backs on God and his counsel in Scripture or by his spokesmen; twisting wrong and deeming it right and right wrong. And that is exactly what we face today. There may be little that we can do in the face of a gathering global storm of unprecedented dimensions. But, we can prepare to take refuge, we can decline to join marches of folly, we can watch and pray. We can get busy about preparing ourselves for hard times and for our part in the enduring mission of the church in and from our region. And we can stop being naive in the face of manipulators and their clever shadow shows intended to invert our thinking so we imagine good is bad and bad good, wisdom is foolish and folly wise, God is evil and the devillish and demonised good, and more. It is time for us to stand even as spiritual and linked geostrategic tidal waves bear down on us:
It is time -- actually, we are very late as usual -- to prepare ourselves to be a global spiritual force to be reckoned with . . . especially across the 10/40 window from which so many of our ancestors came:
So, yet again in a Mordecai moment: why not now, why not here, why not us?END
PS: Discover the Networks has a summary of the Alinsky method that is well worth pondering:
In the Alinsky model, “organizing” is a euphemism for “revolution” -- a
wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is the systematic
acquisition of power by a purportedly oppressed segment of the
population, and the radical transformation of America’s social and
economic structure. The goal is to foment enough public discontent,
moral confusion, and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that
Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted -- a revolution whose foot soldiers
view the status quo as fatally flawed and wholly unworthy of salvation.
Thus, the theory goes, the people will settle for nothing less than that
status quo’s complete collapse -- to be followed by the erection of an
entirely new system upon its ruins. Toward that end, they will be apt to
follow the lead of charismatic radical organizers who project an aura
of confidence and vision, and who profess to clearly understand what
types of societal “changes” are needed.
As Alinsky put it: “A
reformation means that the masses of our people have reached the point
of disillusionment with past ways and values. They don’t know what will
work but they do know that the prevailing system is self-defeating,
frustrating, and hopeless. They won’t act for change but won’t strongly
oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution.”[1]
. . . . Alinsky’s revolution promised that by changing the structure of
society’s institutions, it would rid the world of such vices as
socio-pathology and criminality. Arguing that these vices were caused
not by personal character flaws but rather by external societal
influences, Alinsky's worldview was thoroughly steeped in the socialist
left’s collectivist, class-based doctrine of economic determinism. “The
radical’s affection for people is not lessened,” said Alinsky, “… when
masses of them demonstrate a capacity for brutality, selfishness, hate,
greed, avarice, and disloyalty. It is not the people who must be judged
but the circumstances that made them that way.”[5] Chief among these circumstances, he said, were “the larcenous pressures of a materialistic society.”[6] . . . . Alinsky maintained that radicals, finding themselves “adrift in the stormy sea of capitalism,”[8] sought “to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization.”[9]
“They hope for a future,” he said, “where the means of production will
be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful.”[10] In short, they wanted socialism.
That is what we are dealing with, and we need to ponder how those who lead factions steeped in subversion, manipulation, radicalisation and ruthless discrediting of the other will rule once they attain power. The answer is, of course, with the same cynically manipulative and destructive ruthlessness.
As Rules for Radicals advocates:
"A Marxist begins with his prime truth
that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the
capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end
capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new
social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
and finally the
last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10. [And let us
note, Marxism has always been quite varied in form, so, the sort of
cultural/institutional subversion strategy advocated by Alinsky is not
sufficient to remove him from the general frame of thought, whatever
differences he may have had with say the Moscow orthodoxy. If you think Alinsky is not neo-marxian (which should be instantly recognisable from his vocabulary, controlling ideas and arguments), kindly cf. my response here.] . . . .
"The first step in community
organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the
present organization is the first step toward community organization.
Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displaced by
new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and
organization of the new." p.116
[Key Rules:]
5.
"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost
impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition,
which then reacts to your advantage." . . . .
13.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
[NB: Notice the evil counsel to find a way to attack the man, not the issue. The easiest way to do that, is to use the trifecta stratagem: distract, distort, demonise.] In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded]
as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as
the target and 'frozen.'...
"...any target can
always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame
as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these
[rational but distracting] arguments.... Then, as you zero in and
freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come
out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support
of the target...'
"One acts
decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on
one side and all the devils on the other."
Dr Alveda C King, a niece of the late Dr Martin Luther King,
Dr Alveda C King, pro-life advocate &
niece of Dr Martin Luther King
has a NewsMax column, and has commented on the recent Indiana case of media entrapment of the daughter of the owner of a Pizzeria used to feed a mob-rule media lynching frenzy and driving intimidation of the state legislature.
First she sets key context:
God said: "Be fruitful and procreate." From a biblical perspective, both
abortion and homosexual sexual unions are deterrents to God's mandate
on the sustainability of the human family. So the battle over who is
right and who is wrong rages . . . .
Everybody, unconditionally, needs love. Many people desire, not
necessarily need, sex. The sexual drive is a primal instinct. There is a
difference between need and want.
In this super hyper-sexual environment we live in, much of it
artificially manufactured, people are crossing all types of lines,
barriers and boundaries, sometimes without knowing or understanding what
is happening. Breaking natural rules not considering consequences.
In other words, people are dying for lack of knowledge. Not knowing or
agreeing with the purpose of things like marriage and sex. So in the
name of lust, divorce, adultery, abortion, clandestine sexual
encounters, gender confusion, and human abuse abound.
Human beings, in general, have a hard time seeing beyond our own
desires. Yes, that’s a very selfish yet human attitude. What's the
solution?
She then focusses:
. . . hatred is not the reason Christians turn down offers of money to
participate in gay weddings — love is. Christ gives his children two
commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” and, “Love
your neighbor as yourself.” Repeatedly, the Bible instructs us to
share our love for God by obeying Christ's teachings.
So how does our love for God conflict with gay marriage?
God's word is clear. God ordained marriage between one man and one
woman. For a Christian to contradict this teaching by participating in a
ceremony that goes against God’s word would not only be disobedient, it
would be to mock God.
When Christian are asked to share our God-given talents to create a cake
or floral arrangement or photograph for a gay wedding, it’s important
to realize what is being demanded. Because no matter how much a merchant
loves his or her customers, he cannot be expected to choose them over
the Lord of his life . . . .
If we are asked to deny Jesus for a sale or even for the threat of
financial and professional ruin, we know what — and who — is more
important. God.
She asks for a reasonable position:
So, if someone is disappointed that a business owner will not serve a
wedding because of religious beliefs, let's hope that more tolerance,
common courtesy, and respect for that businessperson’s love for God
would win the day. Instead of running to the courthouse to file a
lawsuit to destroy someone’s business, maybe just walking across the
street to another merchant would show grace and tolerance. It's a
two-way street.
I would add, that we need to ponder:
He who would rob me of means to bread, would rob me of my life; He who would rob me of my children, would rob me of my posterity; He who would rob me of my conscience, would rob me of my soul.
Is the sort of good-neighbourly consideration Dr Alveda C King calls for, likely to be the case? (Remember, we are talking of cake bake shops, photographers, videographers, pizzerias and guest houses here.) Not, when there is a rage-driven polarisation and deep-rooted contempt leading to unwillingness to respect the Christian and historic view on marriage and family, backed up by a demand to affirm one's twisted (and demonstrably, patently unhealthy and even insanitary) behaviour in the teeth of thousands upon thousands of years of civilised consensus across the whole world on a matter pivotal to social stability, human thriving and the future of the race: marriage and stable family. An historic view, that, by the way is also naturally pretty obvious . . . and arguably, perhaps even a self-evident moral truth (i/l/o patent consequences and the undeniable XY-XX chromosome driven facts of our human, sexual nature) . . . through the biological complementarity of maleness and femaleness as well as the need for sustained child nurture.
Things are so bad that it is worth excerptinga book-length summary of relevant evidence by Neil and Briar Whitehead that deserves to be far better known than it is. Clipping the introduction and summary:
The West has been subject to such a
campaign of misinformation and disinformation in the last 20-30 years
that its public institutions, from legislatures and judiciaries to the
church and mental health professions widely believe that the homosexual
orientation is innate—in the sense of biologically imprinted—and
therefore unchangeable. The implications of this are that
anyone who makes the scientifically true statements below is considered
the one who is misinformed.
• sexual orientation is not inborn but
develops over some years in response to an individual’s response to life
events— as many human predicaments do • homosexual orientation can
change, i.e half the homosexual population naturally moves towards
heterosexuality over time (without any therapeutic interventions), and
further and faster with counselling and support • The same-sex attracted are not 10% of the population but (including bisexuals) much closer to 2.5%
The West has lost its way on this issue, and today we are seeing the outcome . . .
Those are quite strong words, but they are backed up by facts; facts, that are too often suppressed. Clipping the summary from Ch 1 in the 2010 online downloadable version (and of course, there is much more, with a lot of details; especially note the rebuttals to common myths):
No mainstream geneticist is happy with the idea that genes dictate behaviour, particularly homosexual behaviour. • Genetically dictated behaviour is something that has so far been discovered only in very simple organisms. •
From an understanding of gene structure and function there are no
plausible means by which genes could inescapably force SSA or other
behaviours on a person. Genes create proteins not preferences. • No
genetically determined human behaviour has yet been found. The most
closely genetically-related behaviour yet discovered (aggression in
Dutch males) has shown itself remarkably responsive to counselling. •
If SSA were genetically dictated, it would have bred itself out of the
population in only several generations, and wouldn’t be around today. •
Generally, geneticists settle for some genetic influence of rather
undefined degree, most agreeing that many genes (from at least five or
six to many hundreds) contribute to any particular human behaviour. •
A genetically dominated SSA caused by such a cluster of genes could not
suddenly appear and disappear in families the way it does. It would
stay around for many generations. So SSA is not produced by many genes. •
The occurrence of SSA in the population is too frequent to be caused by
a chance mutation in a single gene. So a single gene is not responsible
for SSA. Nor would many genes all mutate at once. • SSA occurs too frequently to be caused by a faulty pre-natal developmental process, so it is not innate in that sense either. •
The widespread age-range of first homosexual attraction is very unlike
the narrow time-spread of genetically driven phases of human life, e.g
gestation time, puberty, menopause, making homosexuality very unlikely
to be genetically driven.
The histone system which controls
genetic expression is strongly affected by the environment, e.g
nurturing, making searches for individual genes responsible for certain
behaviours, mostly pointless. • Same-sex attraction could be about
10% genetically influenced and opposite sex attraction about 15%. But
this is weak and indirect, e.g genes making a man tall don’t also
produce basketball players. • SSA falls more naturally into the category of a psychological trait
A is A.
Yes, A is A.
Even, when every rooftop is trumpeting the opposite and raging mobs roam the street demanding that we affirm the opposite.
Sometimes, when truth is obscured and driven out, one of the most powerful things is to state the truth: A is A -- yes, A.
The obvious thing, is A is A.
Namely, that Christians
in our civilisation today, are being targetted because of our
Bible-anchored belief that homosexual behaviour is inherently sinful,
and onwards, that we do not get to define or redefine marriage, it is
part of the God-given and naturally evident creation order for humanity.
In
Jesus' words -- in the face of a very similar situation of being
challenged with loaded questions publicly posed by opponents:
Matt. 19:1 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.2 And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered,
“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
8 He said to them,
“Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” [ESV]
Whose report will we believe?
But in the end, it is going to take some courage and sacrifice to stand up to intimidation and bullying, to make it clear that there is such a thing as an uncrossable line of conscience under God. That is why I went on to say:
We can hardly plead that we were not warned about the consequences of clutching an asp of sinful perversity to our bosoms.
Now,
there patently is no credible threat to the core human rights of
homosexuals to life, liberty, proper fulfillment of oneself -- and no,
the so called "my genes made me do it" concept has long since collapsed -- or property, etc.
No,
this is a brazen latterday witch-hunt that targets the indisputable
fundamental rights of Christians to freedom of conscience, association
and expression; with an activist in false clothes of a reporter of news
pushing for targets for a media lynching . . .
I am confident (I lived to see the collapse of Marxism!) that, at some point, as the ugliness that is going on becomes more evident, people are going to wake up from the homosexualist agenda spell and realise that there is no real sound basis for the persecution -- and blame- the- victim- by- smearing- him- or- her- as- a- bigot does not change that reality. That is going to take time and courage and sacrifice on our part. And so, it is time to stand unflinchingly in the face of intimidation and threat, out of simple respect for our Lord and concern to avert a catastrophe triggered by the irreparable harm done to the foundations of stable society, marriage and family across our civilisation.
It is time to stand. END
PS: As there is a stronghold of rhetoric trumpeted far and wide to promote a nexus of linked agendas, let me again list this blog's response:
