Intimidation from Radical Movements

Intimidation from Radical Movements

I was reflecting three events and in doing so I see a connection. The first was the recent decision of Chick Fil A to not donate to the Salvation Army, which is perhaps the greatest humanitarian organization in America. The second was Hallmark reversing its decision to not advertise gay and lesbian displays of affection in ads. They also committed to work with the LGBT organizations to increase LGBT positive programming. The final matter was a smaller issue, but this was an animal rights protest against the supermodel Kate Upton for promoting the company Canada Goose which uses goose down in their products and also uses Cayote fur. They called her a murderer for this. Animal rights activists wrongly elevate animals to a status equal or almost equal to human beings, though animals are important and the Bible does give guidelines on animal treatment. Using animals for food and fur is acceptable in Biblical law. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but if it continues Upton might give in. I would not be surprised. The activists might very well dog her every event. They will take away her freedom to support legal products.

Some Christians are despairing. They committed to support Chick Fil A after the leftist LGBT attacks on them. The came out in droves to Chick Fil A. They saw Hallmark as one channel where they did not have to face an assault on their belief system. Certainly, the number of Christians who are offended is much greater than the radical protestors. So why do these corporations, one a business and one a charity, give in? It is because of the intimidation tactics that were developed by Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals. But Alinsky used these tactics to give power to the truly poor and disposed, not for breaking down the Judeo-Christian consensus of society. Alinsky thought that the Judeo Christian consensus gave the society the conscience by which organized efforts could succeed. Now the radical protest is to marginalize and demonize all who don’t agree with the radical agendas that seek to destroy the Judeo Christian orientation. The reason they win is that the corporations make a pragmatic money calculation. They want these protests to go away. They think in the long run that Christians will eventually get over it. They do not intimidate. What will they do; leave their Chick Fil A restaurants and go to McDonalds or Berger King instead? So the calculation is that it is better to give in for the long term bottom line. The smaller groups of leftists seem to be winning battle after battle in the corporate sphere against those supporting classical Judeo Christian values. The freedom of Christians is also being attacked and in some jeopardy. We note that the cake baker who did not want to use his artistic talent to support a homosexual wedding. The battle continues to this day.

We are to depend on prayer. Yes, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. But note that in this famous text in II Cor. 10:4 passage, Paul described the public presentation of the truth, not just silent prayer in a closet. Christians are quiescent compared to the radicals. Sometimes I think, what if Christians organized and intimidated corporations for refusing to support moral organizations like the Salvation Army? What if there was a demand for greater fairness? What if they really showed up in mass at Hallmark’s offices and would not go away? What if they acted like Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel who protest in huge numbers when they think they see their rights threatened? I wonder. But this will only happen where there is stronger leadership, prophetic leadership. Yeshua was not only the meek and mild one, but the one who turned over the tables of the money changers and was accused of being a revolutionary. It was a false charge, but one that was based on some behaviors that were pretty intimidating. I think that God could raise prophets to lead us to engage culture at a whole different level. He could bring revival as well. I don’t have the answers, but things are doing downhill in the culture and fast. Remember it was only a few years ago that President Obama said he did not support homosexual marriage. Today that stand is dubbed hatred.

The Internet Problem Again

On a recent night, I was driving home from a discipleship class in Tel Aviv. The program is for recent Army grads and some who can get off from the Army for a few days. The administrator is a young woman of great spiritual quality. As a group of us rode home, I mentioned my concern that young adults do not seem concerned to seek and find the truth. Or they don’t think there is the truth to be found. What difference from my generation! Just before the Jesus movement, I recall that philosophy classes in universities were packed. Students had to be turned away. This was true at Wheaton. The Philosophy of Religion class of Dr. Stuart Hacket was full every semester. Wheaton was and is an Evangelical Christian Liberal Arts and Science School, but many students had become skeptical. Some took the course to bolster their faith and others to engage a fresh search for truth. What has happened to this generation?

My young friend pointed to devices and the internet as part of the problem. In her view, there is something about the constant focus on devices that deadens people. They cannot give attention to serious reading, conversation. There is a self-focus in their Facebook engagements that does not pursue the outside realities that give meaning. Yes, there is something wrong when we see people not able to walk down the street without being on their devices. It is certainly an addiction.

But that is not all. Many are not capable of discerning when they use the internet. It can become a conduit of demons. How so? It seeds ideas that young people would never have thought of it. For example. Homosexuals have argued that their orientation is a genetic given. This was a reasonable argument though wrong. It has largely been given up since no scientific foundation can be found for it after years of seeking. However, transgenderism is even more far out. At least homosexuals claimed their normal genders of male and female and claimed to be attracted to the same sex. Every cell of one’s body is either an xx for a woman and xy for a man. A transgender cannot experience foundational experiences of the gender they choose in contradiction to their birth gender. The born male cannot become pregnant, have periods, nurse and have other foundational experiences of womanhood and vice versa. He can never have a female sexual experience. Now we also see some sectors of women’s sports destroyed as born men dominate the competition. (In reverse, no problem for the NFL!!). How has this spread? Where do young people get the idea that they are a woman in a man’s body or a man in a woman’s body if they did not have a teacher in school tell them this. The answer is that the internet speaks to young people who are not happy about their identity as men and women. One couple we had known for years had a daughter that was a born female, married and had children. She decided to be a male and is in a sexual relationship with a born male who wants to be a female. He did not get the castration surgery so they do have intercourse. You cannot make this up. I have shared on the philosophical roots of this radical gender choice theory (Frankfort School) But how does this spread so widely? And now it is politically correct to support it. Think of the child abuse when parents give drugs to pre-pubescent children to turn them into the opposite. The physical cost is high according to some leading doctors. In my view the internet should be off-limits to children and then only used with supervision and training on how to avoid sites and discern false information. What a challenge! We are also producing a population that is woefully ignorant. Some surveys in America show that many high school graduates do not know the three branches of the government in the United States. This is a population that can be easily controlled by tyranny. It is given to pleasure and dangerously cut off from truth.

Israel Government Failure

Unless something happens in just two days, Israel will have again failed to form a government. I see several reasons why. First the fault of Benjamin Netanyahu. Here are the reasons we cannot have a unity government.

He will not give up his Faustian bargain with the Ultra-Orthodox parties. I call it Faustian because I agree with many who see the present direction of this large and growing segment of Israel under the present arrangements as an existential danger to Israel. Most of the males are not trained for any profession, but only to study Talmud and Rabbinic texts. They do not serve in the army. This is a great contrast to the nationalist Orthodox who are a strong part of building Israel. The party under Liberman will not be in a government with them and he has the controlling vote.
Netanyahu has been indicted for bribery and other crimes. Blue and White under General Benny Gantz say they will not join a government under his leadership. Maybe if he promises to step down before six months and give Gantz the leadership. There would have to be compromises from the Ultra-Orthodox. Probably Netanyahu should step down with a promise he could run again for party leadership if he is cleared and wins the case.

So here is Gantz and blue and white to be faulted. He shares the blame here with Liberman. They could form a minority government with less than 61 votes (the required parliamentary majority) if he allows the Arab Israel parties to vote for his government but to not join the coalition government (members in the cabinet etc.) There are enough votes with them to carry him if Liberman would support this. But Gantz and Liberman find the support of the Arabs is so toxic politically that they will not accept their votes to put them in power even if they are not in the governing coalition. The reason is that these parties are anti-Zionist. Yet they are not like Hamas seeking to see the Jews not living in Israel. They want a one-state solution and equality for Arabs and Jews and for the descendants of Arabs to be able to return. This would probably be the end of the Jewish majority. So what? This will never pass parliament, so why not accept their votes. They really want to be treated equally to Jewish neighborhoods in housing permits, roads, and other infrastructure, hospitals, and schools. I don’t think they are treated fairly. But Liberman will not accept their vote and won’t join a minority government and Gantz probably thinks it is toxic. My thought this could happen in a post 8 weeks ago now seems like a fantasy. The other sad point is that if they could do this, then they could invite Likud into the coalition after Netanyahu is no longer leading Likud.

So we will go to a third election. As of now, Gideon Saar is challenging Netanyahu for party leadership. He is very conservative but has a good integrity reputation. Momentum is building for him but he is not there yet. A new election is predicted to lead to the same result. If Netanyahu again fails to have 61 votes to lead, finally he may step down. His court case could also be beginning. The majority of Israelis in the last polls say that Netanyahu is mostly to blame for no government forming.

The Annual Vilification of Christmas

Probably almost 2 billion Christians, whether nominal or really committed, celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Yeshua. They celebrate the meaning of the incarnation. We will soon be treated with internet writings, Youtube teachings, and Facebook posts telling us how awful it is that Christians celebrate Dec. 25 as the birth of Yeshua (and have in the Catholic Church a communion service, mass, celebrating his birth or Christ’s Mass). We will be told that this is pagan, a blot on the faith, syncretism. The attack against Christmas does not come from any of the mainstream Messianic Jewish organizations, not the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations in America, the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, Tikkun America, or the Messianic Jewish congregations in Israel, Ukraine, Russia, and South America. Where does it come from? It comes from gentiles who are embracing their interpretation of a return to Jewish roots. Many Messianic Jewish congregations do not make a big deal out of Christmas in their corporate celebrations. They allow members to celebrate according to their conscience, but because they are Jewish oriented and think that Yeshua was not actually born on Dec. 25th, they have not made it part of their religious year of celebrations.

Those on the attack claim that Dec. 25 was chosen due to pagan associations with the Sun, Mithraicism and more. I do think it is the wrong date. Besides, Jews celebrated miraculous events and not birthdays. Jewish people in the first century may have seen the conception by the Holy Spirit as the great miracle. I agree with the non-Catholic scholarship consensus of His birth in the Fall, maybe at Sukkot (Tabernacles). But as I have argued, the meaning of a practice is according to the definition of those who embrace it. That is the sum of it. The Church is not celebrating the gods or something pagan. Most of us as Messianic Jews are glad that the World celebrates the birth of the greatest Jew in history.

So here are a few points in response. First, Dr. John Fischer, one of the fathers of the Messianic Jewish Movement and the President of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations today, argues that Yeshua was really born on Dec. 25th. He has not convinced me, but his argument is credible. You can write and get his video on this from St. Petersburg Theological Seminary in Florida. That he would argue this should give us pause. Secondly, we have to distinguish between Protestant Church traditions and celebrations and the secular culture. I for one am hard-pressed to know any historic Protestant traditions that are pagan and not worthy of admiration. Can you list any? The tradition of the hymns for the season are wonderful, touching and biblical. Church tradition reenacts the events leading up to his birth and then the birth in the four weeks of Advent. All of the biblical passages on his birth and incarnation are read. Sermons are prepared on these themes. Choirs visit shut-ins and bring them cheer by singing the Christmas hymns. Without Christmas, it would be a much darker world. The only pagan thing that is noted is the date (this is in question) and the Christmas tree, which is interpreted by Christians as life coming into the world and the tree as a reminder that He would die on a tree. The Jeremiah 10 text on the tree, often quoted by these folks, has nothing to do with this. It is about a tree being cut and chiseled into an image of a god. Besides, the Christmas tree is a recent thing and not part of the historic Protestant Church tradition.

But there are troubling aspects in the larger culture. The secular celebrations and office parties to reach back to the winter pagan orgiastic gatherings. They rebel against the Christian tradition, and this is a more recent development. The materialism and buying sprees are certainly not part of the spirit of the Church tradition. Giving to the poor is. Mistletoe is also a faint reminder of pagan practices. Santa Clause is at best neutral but again not part of Church tradition. I am all for Christians making their traditions more truly biblical in accord with church tradition.

Messianic Jews and their scholars are fighting serious issues. They include replacement theology, the election of Israel, the special calling of Messianic Jews, the right understanding of law and grace, the prophetic understanding of Israel’s restoration in our ancient Land and more. However, fighting the Church and its traditions of Christmas is not one of these battles. It is more like tilting at windmills Don Quixote style. It really hinders us in our work of building John 17:21 unity with believers. It is a foolish battle. Rather, let’s visit churches during this season and bring them more of the Jewish context of the coming of Yeshua, especially the Jewish aspects of Luke 1, 2, and Matthew 1, 2. I am thankful that this is not the orientation of the mainstream of the Messianic Jewish Movement in the world. Those who pursue this look cultic, narrow and sectarian.

Making Psychological Sense; The History of Evaluating LGBTQ Orientations

I am not speaking here about a biblical approach to the issues raised by the LGBTQ movement. I think my readers know that my basic stand is that God sets sexual direction for human beings as part of his creation order and intent. However, the issue of sexual orientation has a long history in psychology and psychiatry. There has been a progression in the history of the arguments concerning how to understand and approach gay and LGBTQ orientations.

Historic psychiatry and behavioral psychology (two opposing approaches) both saw gay and lesbian orientations as from environmental influences. It was considered a behavior problem to be corrected, healed or straightened out. Psychiatry would look into the family dynamics and the wrong relationship between the parents and the child growing up. They pointed to unhealthy patterns that could produce gay orientations. The analysis would enable understanding and overcoming. Behavioral theory interpreted all behavior as rooted in the conditioning of the subject. The reward/ punishment system produces a right or wrong orientation. This tends to be more deterministic than psychiatry. Generally, people are determined to be how they are due to the conditioning in their growing up years. As one practitioner said, sexual orientation is very flexible, and one can be conditioned to get sexually excited by a lamp post. Of course, there is in behaviorism a biological basis for attraction to the opposite sex, but sufficient conditioning can stifle this and create the aberrant orientation. The answer is to place the person who is wrongly oriented into a course of re-conditioning. The basic biological realities would give the behaviorist the view that heterosexuality was normative. Due to much political pressure associations of both Psychologists and Psychiatrists in counseling gave up these views and voted to accept gay orientations as normal variations to be accepted. Counseling should be to enable one to adjust and live a good life within a gay lifestyle. This is now the consensus of counseling.

Following this previous dominant history, the argument was put forth that gays and lesbians were determined to be according to their orientations by their physical makeup. It is a genetic matter or a brain issue. After many studies failed to prove any such basis for the orientations, many gay writers gave up on this. Within their own counsels they admitted that, though physical determination is a good argument to get straights to accept their gay orientation, it really is a proclivity they could not explain, is partly chosen and should be accepted never the less.

Post-modernism, based in existentialism has a totally different approach. Going back to some in the Frankfurt Germany school of Philosophy, a doctrine of radical freedom and self-definition is taught. There is a rejection of any essence of a person as given by God (since His existence is denied) or given by nature or biology. Once the conscious ego arises, radical freedom to choose becomes understood. One can, therefore, choose any orientation sexually. The one value maintained is that sexual involvement has to be with consenting adults. The one absolute is that one must not do violence to others. So not only can one be gay or lesbian, but one can be transsexual or consider themselves a man in a woman’s body or a woman in a man’s body. One can be bi-sexual or polyamorous (multiple partners). It is of the highest ethical stand in such a philosophy that sexual self-definition is an absolute right of human freedom. Any assertion of traditional morality as incumbent upon human beings is a rejection of the right of self-definition and therefore is hate speech. This yields such new orientations as a pregnant man (woman’s body) or a man in a woman’s body marrying a woman in a man’s body and having normal intercourse while thinking they are the opposite sex. It also opens up the choice of surgery to make the body on the outside more like what one thinks of oneself on the inside. The woman in a man’s body will cut off the male sexual organs and create a woman like vagina, or the women will cut off breasts and as much as possible create male organs. Such surgery is terribly partial since the surgically changed male to a woman can never bear a baby, nurse a baby, or have the kind of sexual pleasure that a woman would have. The women who changes to a male can never have a real male erection or experience of male orgasm (there is no prostate gland). In addition, every cell of the body will still be xx for a biologically born woman and xy for a man. Hormonal therapy can cause a male to develop breasts and can give a woman a deeper male voice. The evidence is that surgery and hormonal therapy can be very damaging physically. It contradicts the body’s total cellular being. The recent leader from Johns Hopkins University and chief of the Psychiatry department and expert on sexual dysfunctions, Dr. Paul McHugh, argued and still argues that hormonal and surgical re-assignment are health-threatening. But the LGBTQ movement is a full-blown world view ideology. The right to choose must override health concerns. However, some argue that to practice these things with children who have not the maturity to choose and before puberty have no certainty on an orientation, is child abuse.

The new ideology is based on the idea of radical freedom, not as much on determined proclivities. It is also said that people may change and choose differently in the future. Surgical and hormonal treatment might preclude later choices. One can assert a personal preference for a traditional sexual orientation in marriage but any assertion of right and wrong in orientation is hate speech since it contradicts the absolute radical freedom of each person to choose. It should be noted that post-modern ethics is not rooted in anything. The ethic itself is actually an anti-ethic since its foundation is a raw choice of what will count as their foundational ethical ideas. It is not a norm outside of ourselves to which we are to conform since there are no objective norms outside ourselves. Hence it is an anti-ethic ethic.

Down the Memory Hole

One of the big differences between the Jewish majority in the United States and the Jewish majority in Israel is how they perceive the Palestinian Arabs. In the United States the majority Jewish leadership, Reform, Conservative and secular are all for a two-state solution. Somehow, they think Israel and the settlements are the problem. The majority of the Israelis believe that the Palestinians have been profoundly dishonest and never had any intention of making real peace with a realistic solution. When they rejected the Clinton-Barak plan and then the Olmert-Bush plan, Israelis drew the conclusion of their insincerity. The last proposal was probably way too generous and gave away too much. Since that time, Israel has turned to right-wing governments and the left has lost almost all its power in Israel. Blue and White is a centrist party with many conservatives.

About 10 days ago, the Palestinian Authority, the supposed moderates passed a resolution declaring that the Jewish people never were even in the Land of Israel. They have no roots here. It has always been Palestinian. This is even beyond the claim that the Temple Mount is not the Temple Mount. So where was the Jewish War with Rome fought? In Spain? What happens to Josephus the historian and Roman historians or other records. History to the P. A. means nothing. Can we in any way believe that if the P. A. will put out such position papers that they have any real intention of a real and lasting peace with the Jewish state? Then they name their squares and streets after terrorists and pay terrorist families high incomes. Israelis mostly believe that a Palestinian state will be a terrorist state as a base to attack Israel. When one lives in Israel, one has access to so much more information on the situation. It is quite clear to me that the Israeli position is the right one!! George Orwell wrote about the Communists simply making up history and putting real historical records down a hole to be destroyed since it was not germane to their communist goals. The Palestinians have a huge memory hole!

Thanksgiving; The Most Biblical American Holiday

By Daniel Juster

I write from Israel just before many will sit down for their Thanksgiving dinner in the United States.

The Pilgrims who saw themselves as living out a spiritual journey analogous to Israel, celebrated the first and second Thanksgivings. They saw themselves as going through the sea like Israel and entering the promised land. The native Americans, after the Pilgrims suffered terrible losses, helped them to survive. They had a great feast, I think I remember for three days. They celebrated with the Native Americans. If my memory serves me right, they did this one more time, but it was not continued.

Abraham Lincoln connected to this meaning and called for its celebration in a time of Civil War. It was amazing for him to call for a Thanksgiving Day while the War was not yet over. It was being won by the north. From that time the day was etched deeply into the conscience of Americans. Thanksgiving was a harvest thanksgiving festival. The Pilgrims connected it to the parallel Biblical celebration of Sukkot or Tabernacles. Thanking God for his protection, survival and provision as individuals and as a nation were the central themes.

Today, the far left seeks to pretty much destroy all that is good in the American heritage. Now there are native Americans who say that the day should not be celebrated because the coming of the Pilgrims led to displacement and genocide. Yet how sad to lose a day that joined Americans together as a people and to dismiss one day that showed native American and Pilgrim (white English people) celebrating together. How sad to also forget Lincoln and the fight against slavery and his enjoining of this holiday Can nothing in the American heritage be left as good and not trashed by the radical left? If people who came later committed crimes against the native Americans, and they did indeed, that does not invalidate the Pilgrims and Lincolns call for the Holiday.

Many American Israelis celebrate the Feast of Thanksgiving here. Lots of Turkeys are sold. It is not a public national celebration. Yet amazingly the stores in the malls advertise black Friday sales. Would that Israel would be more conscious of the tie of American’s to the Jewish Biblical Feast and how relevant both are to all of us.

The Prime Minister Indicted, What Now?

This is an update on the very painful situation in Israel. After two elections due to the rigid stand of Prime Minister Netanyahu who wants to keep the ultra-Orthodox in his corner, there is no government. Now there are 21 days for any Knesset (Parliament) Member to gain 61 votes to form a government. But on top of all this, Prime Minister Netanyahu, the longest-serving Prime Minister ever, is under indictment for fraud and bribery. It is not worthwhile for me to recount the case. Readers can easily use their search engine to find out. It does seem credible to me though he is innocent until proven guilty. But the general consensus is that though not legally required a Prime Minister should step down, concentrate on his defense and not weigh down the state. Instead, the Prime Minister doubles down, accuses the police of being corrupt in their pursuit of the evidence, the lead prosecutor as a leftist, and the conservative Orthodox Jewish Attorney General as being weak and pressured. He was appointed by Benjamin Netanyahu.

I do believe that another Likud leader (Netanyahu’s conservative party) could pick another good leader to form a government with Blue and White. But only one prominent member has called for new Likud Party primaries to pick someone, Gideon Saar, who by all accounts would be a capable leader. I think that the longer it goes on the weaker Israel becomes. He could step down and gain a commitment from Likud to run again if cleared. This is a nightmare. I have already noted that the ultra-Orthodox bring tyranny to the government and oppress Messianic Jews and Russian Jews who cannot prove their Jewishness by ultra-Orthodox standards. It really is time for a change and for a government without the Ultra-Orthodox.

Drugs and World Views

There has been a battle between Mexico and the United States over who to blame for the Drug problem that is wreaking havoc in both countries. The United States wants to go after the drug cartels, but despite many years of effort, it seems that the battle against the supply side is not working well. Mexico claims that the real problem is the demand side. The huge demand for drugs in the United States makes this a most lucrative temptation for crime. Huge amounts of money are made. Supplying drugs that will kill and destroy many lives is a serious gross sin and will land people who do not repent into eternal Hell judgment. However, I want to speak on the other side, the side of demand.

First, I want to exclude those who are addicted through pain and post-traumatic stress from war. Such folks need help and empathy. I am personally very connected to this issue due to a close relative who due to great physical pain became addicted. Managing pain medication is a major issue that needs addressing. There are no easy answers.

However, the big problem with demand is due in large part of the departure from the Judea Christian consensus and its concomitant beliefs and values, including the fear of God, the commands of God and the sacred worth of each individual. When these values are firmly established in a person’s life they live on the basis of their own worth before God and do not seek to demean that worth by abusing their bodies through drugs or seeking destructive pleasures. Secondly, they believe in the judgment of God and knowing God’s commands against abusing the body and seeking destructive pleasures, there is a fear of God that checks destructive behavior. This is a matter of a robust conscience. This is before attaining to the higher motivation of loving God and seeking to please God.

The rush to legalize pot for recreation is a case in point. We know that its usage is bad for health, yet the drug is politically correct and the consensus of it being bad for human beings is just not having its warranted effect. What are people being raised to believe in regard to their worth before God, self-respect, and respect for others? The issue of the demand side is world view conviction and without the self-respect that comes from those convictions, people can not seem to resist pleasures that destroy them. Mexico has a point. Border security is a good and important thing, but no amount of border security will be enough when the demand is so high. The poor in our cities that are dying due to drug wars can be won to faith and discipled to a Biblical world view.

We could give the same analysis of the claim by feminist claim of toxic masculinity. Maleness is not toxic when young people are discipled in respect for women and themselves. I know of no young person raised in our high school youth group who sexually abused women. We were taught to respect and even revere women. It was called being a gentleman. So much of our culture is sick due to rejecting the God of the Bible and the Biblical world view that so influenced our culture. No, we were not an explicitly Bible-based nation, but the influence of that world view on our culture was amazing.

The Sad Situation of the American Church

I am only speaking here of profound failures of the church streams and independent churches that claim to believe the Bible as fully true and confess the classic biblical confessions. I ask one question. How is it that the United States counts so many Evangelicals (all stripes), has been key in electing the present President and yet the culture is in step decline to very destructive directions? This culture decline is noted by very profound commentators like Dennis Prager, Victor David Hanson, Jordan Peterson. I could name so many others. The universities, entertainment media, the pre-university educational establishment, and the news media all embrace the most destructive causes. I won’t describe them. My readers can well describe them. Why is the Church quiescent as a minority fosters discrimination against believers, undercutting religious liberty, and requiring believers to endorse sinful lifestyles? Those who speak out are banned from social media! And why is the Church losing its next generation massively? I note three among many reasons all based in spiritual dullness and lack of discernment.

The first major indication of the bankrupt condition of most Christians is that most send their children to the public schools and to secular colleges. In such schools they will be indoctrinated to the LGBTQ etc. agenda and the rejection of the traditional binary ideas of the sexes and the centrality of marriage. Inclusiveness excludes those with traditional morals. 40 years ago, we started a school and realized that we needed to take our children out. Children will be taught naturalistic evolution and prepared for unbelief. Jonny will become Joan. Parents are responsible to see their children see all through a Biblical world view. This cannot be done today in the secular schools. A few years ago, I read the biography of Rabbi Schneerson, the late leader of the Orthodox Chabad Jewish movement. I don’t agree with many of their views, but through his leadership they disciple their children and lose almost none! We simply do not disciple our children with depth and in a biblical world view. This is a profound manifestation of taking the easy way out among believers.

The second failure is the lack of mass mobilization to push back. The gays bring out masses to promote their agendas. We bring out none or almost none. Where are those protesting the removal of Christian organizations form our universities because they do not allow members who reject their beliefs? Where is the massive protest against those promoting the legality of abortion to the ninth month of pregnancy. We are glad for 30,000 in the annual protest in Washington and there should be a million every year. Where is the massive protest against requiring Christians to give themselves to promote through their businesses lifestyles that they consider sinful? Where is the protest against the attempt of marginalization? We are largely with few exceptions quiescent.

The third failure is to address systematic poverty. The emphasis of the New Covenant Scripture is on first preaching the Good News to the poor. The key to the poor is not just financial support, enterprise zones and other government programs. The real answer to the poor, restoring marriage and family among the poor and more is the Gospel which is the most powerful answer to poverty. Where is the Church members that should be walking on-masse in the ghettos of drug dealing and murder and making it impossible? Some could be martyred, but the price should be paid. Winning the masses of poor to the Lord and then discipling them is the one program that can really work. Yes, some are involved, but it is too few. The failure of the Church to be involved and effectively deal with systematic poverty is one of the greatest blots on the credibility of the American Church.