I’ve got a lot of links on Denial to read this week (via Patri), and not in a good way. For as Peter denied Christ, so are we being commanded to do so.
66While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant-girls of the high priest came by. 67When she saw Peter warming himself, she stared at him and said, “You also were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth.” 68But he denied it, saying, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about.” And he went out into the forecourt. Then the cock crowed. 69And the servant-girl, on seeing him, began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” 70But again he denied it. Then after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.” 71But he began to curse, and he swore an oath, “I do not know this man you are talking about.” 72At that moment the cock crowed for the second time. Then Peter remembered that Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.
Now the application — consider this
We live in post revolutionary America. Not that revolution, the one that we slept through. Well, most of us anyway. Francis Schaeffer didn’t. A few others. But most of us did. Unquestionable evidence of this reality was offered by Richard C. Bosson of the New Mexico Supreme Court. His words should send chills down the spine of anyone who thinks the Constitution is a protection for Christians in the United States.
Let me summarize for now, and expand upon this on the Dividing Line (or, if time allows, follow up articles here on the blog).
The primary problem with the New Mexico case (where Christian photographers have now been forced to photograph the profaning of a Christian ordinance, marriage itself, or face massive financial penalties) is the law of New Mexico itself, an immoral law. Yes, immoral. That is, not only does it violate Christian morality, it removes moral issues from the realm of morality itself. It says you cannot engage in “discrimination” regarding sexual orientation—and, of course, that is why it is immoral. We all must engage in “discrimination” in such areas. We all do! We discriminate against pedophiles and all sorts of people who engage in sexual perversity. Discrimination simply means making decisions, choosing one behavior over another. But in post-revolutionary America, homosexuality is morally good, unquestionable. No discussion, and if you even ask to have the discussion, even ask to talk about nature, what is life-producing, etc., you are dismissed as a bigot immediately. This is the new moral reality of post-revolutionary America.
Second, in this new immoral land, thought and action are now distinct. You can think what you want, but you cannot act upon your moral convictions. Well, this only goes one direction. It is for Christians, for people of morality. For those on the left, the sky is the limit. They can act on anything they can think of, and we are all simply to give them the space to act out their desires.
Now, part of my ethic, at work, is that I will see anybody, work with any patient. I don’t select. I can work with those who I don’t like — pagans are easy, try working with homosexual rapists when you are in the demographic they pray on. (Yes. I. Have).
All people have dignity, and all people can make choices. The gay couple who choose to NOT get married or committed in a church and use the most camp photographer for their party have more respect: they are damned, but they are consistent in that.
In NZ gay marriage is legal: it may be that if churches hire out their facilities they cannot discriminate. (Does that mean the Satanists can hire a church for a Black Mass?) But the answer to that is simple — marriages in the church for those of the church — for the others there are parks and halls aplenty.
For we cannot deny Christ, and denying Christ means we will discriminate and we will judge.
But the civil rights movement has mutated. We are no longer free in our private capacity. The state accounts all assets as part of the state, and is functionally fascistic.
A public accommodation cannot be any business (or other operation) that provides services to the public. On such a definition no business is really private property. If civil freedom is the relative absence of restraint, then when a business owner cannot decide whom she will serve then she is no longer free.
A public accommodation should be defined as a thing that is publicly financed through tax dollars. Homosexuals pay taxes and have a natural right to travel public roads and use public bridges but private property, by definition, cannot be a public accommodation. Further, it is far from clear that homosexual acts are equivalent to race and sex.
If a business owner is no longer free to decide whom she will serve, if she must violate her conscience by photographing a homosexual wedding or baking cakes for a homosexual wedding, then all convictions have been privatized by judicial fiat. By privatized I mean that, as the court said, she’s allowed (for now) to think and say as she will but she’s not free to act according to her convictions. In that case citizens are no longer free. The eschatology of absolute and immediate equality of outcomes and access has wiped out basic civil freedoms.
This is where the servant girl comes in. Consider for a second the reason for the civil rights act or breaking Apartheid. People were refused service — accommodation, meals in public bars, even marriage — because of their skin colour or ethnicity. (I’m half Irish. My kids are half Chinese. Both have been discriminated against. It’s not just Blacks or Gays or Jews. If you go back far enough, everyone has been discriminated against, somewhere at sometime).
The Civil Rights movement said that not only was such discrimination illegal, but that we must make accommodation — hence the term public accommodation in the second quote — to undo such acts and such wrong.
This now has led to people saying you cannot discriminate good from evil. For Homosexuality is, for this, not the state of desiring one’s own sex, but a political symbol that is being used by those who hate the gospel and hate the law to destroy the same in the name of tolerance and civil rights. And, since we have all been discriminated against, we all face the temptation of claiming victim status, and being the servant girl.
But victim-hood is a status to avoid. (In real life, most homosexual couples I know do exactly that). Don’t do it. Do not plead to the state to rescue you. It is a false God, an empty nullity. Instead, look to the living one.
We are called to pickup our crosses and to follow Jesus. Unfortunately, too many of us want the label Christian, but do not want to do the heavy lifting. Until Christians state that they will not obey the laws, will not pay the fines imposed, but will go to jail, and so cost the state money instead of give it money, we will continue to be oppressed. We need to be innocent as doves while being as wily as serpents, so we need to get our best legal brains on to this so that Christians’ working tools and property are held by trusts which allow the Christians to use those tools and that property at cost, i.e. get it out of the reach of the state. The powers and authorities can make us bankrupt, they can put us in jail, but what will they get: more cost, more hassle and less revenue. Can anyone tell me where Jesus said life would be a bed of roses for His followers?
Fred, Jesus NEVER promised that life would be easy. In fact, he said it would be anything but easy, and that the world would hate us.
Christianity involves heavy lifting. And when our society does not accept that the church, as universal, will allow the world to interact with it on their terms (and this has been a point of conflict — consider that the Anglican Articles of Faith have the Queen as the head of the Church deliberately, something the Papists, Presbyterians and nonconformists reject).
I should add that sometimes we are placed in the victim role against our will, by people who have other agendas. The Servant Girl did ask fair questions — but in this corrupt age we have these questions placed in our mouths when we never said them.
Absolutely agreed, Chris.
I am concerned about the numbers in the church, those that some call “churchians” who do not expect there to be any trouble and opposition. When I recall some sermons I have heard, one in particular where the preacher was more concerned that we should be sensitive to our hearers feelings than we should communicate the Gospel, I sometimes wonder if the lunatics have taken over the asylum.