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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 12 June 2023

June Pride Month dates to the Clinton Administration. How is it that a month ostensibly dedicated to freedom is morphing into a month of demands, cultural repression, and even legal backlash?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #91 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life. 

June Pride month has become a cultural tour de force. Despite LGBTQ+ advocacy groups proclaiming people who choose this lifestyle are somehow at extreme risk, their interest and ideology is making seemingly unstoppable headway at every level of society across the country.

No field of human endeavor in American life is immune from pressure to participate without reservation in a celebration of a percentage of the population’s decision to pursue immoral behaviors.

We celebrate Mothers on a given day and Fathers on another day. We salute Veterans on their day and remember their courage and sacrifice on Memorial Day.

Even the country’s birthday, July 4^th, is, well, a day. LGBTQ+ lifestyle choices somehow rate an entire month of societal observance.

LGBTQ+ is the only group, or community, or movement, as its proponents now claim, that is rhapsodized for a decision to engage in sin. Think about it? Is there a day or month celebrating adulterers? The promiscuous? Pedophiles? No there is not. Only people who decide to express themselves sexually in an LGBTQ+ manner are socially celebrated.

We could say, “Pride, who cares? It’s a free country,” with the corollary that people already enjoy the liberty to choose any form of sexual expression, short of harming others. While Christians believe it is immoral, for example, to cheat on one’s spouse in an affair, or pursue sexual gratification outside of marriage, or engage in homosexuality, still, these behaviors are not illegal, and I am not arguing they should be.

But while “It’s a free country” may allow for individuals to pursue LGBTQ+ behaviors, including celebrating their own Pride parades or festivals—

it is another thing to turn that “free country” upside down by demanding unreserved, cult-like affirmation—no disagreement tolerated—of LGBTQ+ lifestyles, including Pride activities, transgender ideology in grade schools, blocking parents from being informed about their child’s trans choices, legally demanding transgender males be permitted to participate in female athletic events, and forcing social institutions to provide “non-binary” options in bathrooms, locker rooms, and much more. There is nothing “free” about any of these expectations, only authoritarian, tyrannical ultimatum.

“The concept of Pride Month has been heavily commercialized; many companies incorporate Pride Month imagery in packaging, commercials, press releases, social media, and so forth. Even within the LGBTQ community, some object to these developments, seeing them as insincere pandering.”

In Manhattan, surrounding the plaza at Rockefeller Center, 193 flagpoles each fly a “Pride” flag.

The US Army Military Police Corp issued a meme featuring a rainbow flag behind the symbols of each branch of the Armed Forces.

The Department of the Air Force published a social media meme saying, “Celebrate Pride Month,” featuring a rainbow background, the seal of the Air Force, and a soldier in silhouette saluting. No American flag is portrayed. What, one wonders, is the silhouette soldier saluting? It is illegal for an armed services member to salute anything but the American flag.

The U.S. Dept. of Education issued a Pride month rainbow colored meme saying, “Happy Pride Month.”

San Francisco Police raised a rainbow flag along with the American flag and stood at attention saluting both.

LGBTQ+ activists have been masterful in developing both their plan and their messaging, the latter of which often twists constitutional, political, and religious principles to make it nearly impossible to disagree without sounding like a so-called “hater.”

But Pride month is not a harmless expression of love, freedom, and happiness, as its proponents and sycophants contend. Pride is not about freedom or “see me,” or “you are welcome here.” All those who pursue LGBTQ+ lifestyles are already free, seen, and able to do whatever they wish in American society.

Rather, Pride is about disavowing moral restraint in the name of sexual liberation, more accurately described as licentiousness. Pride promotes an ideology that is anti-God, anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-morality, anti-sexual fulfillment, anti-humanity-made-in-the-image-of-God.

Pride Month is modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, and if this seems like an overstatement, I challenge anyone to watch video of a Pride parade in a major American city and tell me it is not a public orgy of vile wickedness far beyond anything Mardi Gras or Carnival have contemplated.

Pride, “an ideology that triumphs human desire and power over a meaningful, embodied human nature eventually ends up targeting the most vulnerable: women and children. This is evident in the absurd and nihilistic way women are no longer able to be defined or defended in everything from athletics, to locker rooms, to Supreme Court confirmations.”

“The direct harm is also evident in Queer Theory’s calculus that exposing children to adult sexuality is a necessary part of social liberation. Videos went viral this week of provocatively dressed men dancing while young children pressed cash into their G-strings at a “Drag the Kids to Drag Pride” event. In the name of Pride, Kellogg’s put cartoon characters on their cereal box urging kids to pick their pronouns and reminding them that no matter who they love, they’re too awesome to fit in a box. Also taking a knee in obeisance to Pride, WaPo featured a salvo for why ‘kink’ is for kids too.”

This is resulting in “heart-breaking yet predictable chaos and disruption of childhood. The rapidly rising numbers of minors seeking to hormonally halt puberty and mutilate their bodies before they are old enough to drive a car should convince us that something has gone catastrophically wrong and that, regardless of any particular person’s good intentions, this is far from a benevolent movement.”

Pride “is a creed that reduces and redefines the human person and calls them by their sin.”

“Pride month is not about human dignity. It is about human deification.”

“We need to raise and influence children to be so secure in their identity in Christ that the world can scream at them, throw temptation in the path and subtly condition them… and it will all land on infertile soil. Because they know that they were created in the image of God.”

“At least four strikingly sinister ironies define the secular celebration of gay pride month.

First, is the false advertising that says we are devoting merely a month to the celebration of homosexuality when, in truth, our culture demands the near-constant celebration of homosexuality every day and every month of every year.

Second, is waving the banner of ‘pride’ over a lifestyle choice that is transparently sinful…

Third, is the insistence from our sinful culture that anyone who opposes the infinite manifestations of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is on the ‘wrong side of history.’…

Finally, the LGBTQ+ movement has attempted to steal from God himself, one of the most significant demonstrations of redemptive love in the Bible. When most people in our culture see a rainbow, they do not think of God’s patient determination to extend salvation to a sinful humanity but instead recognize a symbol of destructive sexuality.”

“The Christian responsibility in a confused culture…is to stand on the truth of the Word of God and on the grace of Jesus himself…The Bible says that Jesus came into this sinful world full of grace and truth (John 1:14). We must present ourselves to this sinful world in the same way.”

How can we respond to June Pride Month?

o   Don’t hate, don’t be hateful—ever. Don’t speak the truth with anything but love, but by all means speak the truth. Only the truth of God’s Word can transform a sexually confused culture.

o   Don’t participate. You need not attend Pride parades or festivals.

Certainly, do not take your children. If your workplace buys into Pride, you can opt for low key, polite and respectful ways to not participate.

o   Learn whereof you speak. In other words, don’t “Just say No,” but Know why you say No, why you disagree, why, how, and what God’s Word offers that is immeasurably more hopeful than the message of false ideology coming from Pride activists. Know how to respond to non sequiturs like “love is love” with biblical understanding.

o   Ultimately, Christians are called to be witnesses of the Way, the Truth, and Life (John 14:6; Acts 1:8).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 05 June 2023

Have you ever been asked who you are? Or maybe, where are you from? What is your identity is what people seem to be asking.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #90 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Identity politics argues that demography is destiny. Human beings are all reducible to our race, ethnicity, gender, and beyond this, our individuality nolonger matters, what matters is the group identity. This is identity politics.

Identity politics refers to the political movements and ideologies that focus on the interests and perspectives of specific social groups based on their shared characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or other aspects of their identity. It involves organizing and advocating for the rights, representation, and social equality of often self-defined marginalized or underrepresented groups. Identity politics argues that different groups experience social and political issues differently due to their differing historical, cultural, and systemic contexts.

Proponents argue that recognizing and addressing these differences is essential for achieving social justice and challenging systems of oppression.

Critics of identity politics argue that it leads to a narrow focus on individual group interests at the expense of broader unity and shared goals. They argue, with considerable evidence, that emphasizing group identities can contribute to polarization, exclusion, and a fragmentation of society. Critics also contend that identity politics perpetuates divisions and hinders constructive dialogue between different groups.

Identity politics asserts identity is wholly socially determined. We are products of our sex, race, and something socially invented called gender identity.

But Christians believe we are made in God’s image. “The Bible affirms the importance of every individual.”

In Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice, Scott David Allen says, “The groups we belong to shape us. They do not define us. The bedrock of human identity is found in our common creation (we are all created in God’s image and likeness, with equal value and dignity) and in God’s gracious open door to redemption.”

Identity politics, and its intellectual suite mate, critical race theory, teaches a person’s identity cannot be separated from your group. No individuality. These ideas are antithetical to Christianity.

For identity politics, redemption is separating a person from oppressors not being freed from sin. Salvation in the radical view of identity politics is to gain power over your oppressors. 

In his book, We Will Not Be Silenced, Erwin Lutzer observed, “The Gospel does what critical race theory (and identity politics) can’t do…We believe the root cause of evil is not only external systems, but rather, the sin that lies within every human heart. Therefore, we strive for commonality among the races, not accentuating our differences. At the foot of the cross we confess that there is common ground between all the racial and ethnic diversity in the world. We stand together as sinners confessing our common need of personal redemption. We see the source of evil not outside us, but within us. We acknowledge, as someone has said, that we don’t have a skin problem, but a sin problem.”

Identity politics has contributed to race division, hatred, and confusion. But worse, identity politics, and its supporting cast in critical race theory and the sexual liberation movement, have turned the world upside down for children.

“Perhaps nowhere do we see the work of Satan in America as clearly as we do in the specialization of children—destroying their identity, confusing their gender, and creating unresolved guilt and self-hatred.”

Focusing upon ones “identity,” self-defined or socially determined, rather than understanding who we are created in the image of God, leads, sometimes in stages but inevitably, to narcissism, neurotic self-indulgence, increased anxiety, fear, detachment, alienation, suicidal actions, and nihilism.

The emotional/psychological/spiritual impact of celebrating ones “identity” to the exclusion of other values and considerations, is one of several reasons we’re seeing a developing mental health epidemic, one of several reasons we’re seeing more young men reacting in killing sprees of emptiness, loneliness, and rage, and one reason we’re seeing young people hammer themselves with toxic drugs.

Meanwhile, Scripture offers an entirely different formula, one that actually fits the reality God created and therefore meets the need of the human heart. We are to find our identity in Christ.

The biblical view of identity in Christ is rooted in the teachings of the New Testament, particularly in the letters written by the apostle Paul. According to the Bible, when a person becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, they experience a profound transformation and their identity is fundamentally changed.

Christian believers are made and called a New Creation: In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul writes, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" This verse emphasizes that when a person embraces Christ, they are spiritually reborn and given a new identity. The old sinful nature is replaced by a new nature that is aligned with God's righteousness. There is nothing. Let me repeat that, there is nothing that a person can do—short of deciding to reject Christ—that can place a person beyond the power of the Holy Spirit of God. There is nothing we can get ourselves into that is too big a mess for God to fix. There is nothing we face or may face in this world, no circumstance, no persons or power, no sin on our part, that makes it impossible for God to make us a new creation in him.

Think about what the Scripture promises—a “new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here.”

That, my friends, is reconciliation and hope writ large.

Christian believers are made and called a Child of God: In John 1:12, it is written, "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." Through faith in Christ, believers are adopted into God's family and become His children. This identity as a child of God brings with it the privileges, responsibilities, and assurance of God's love and care.

Christian believers are united with Christ: Paul often speaks of believers being united with Christ. In Romans 6:5, he says, "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his." This union with Christ means that believers are connected to Him in a profound and inseparable way. They share in His death, burial, and resurrection, experiencing the power of His victory over sin and death.

Christian believers are made and called Ambassadors of Christ: In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul describes believers as ambassadors for Christ, saying, "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us." As ambassadors, believers represent Christ to the world, carrying His message of reconciliation and demonstrating His character in their lives.

Christian believers are made and called part of the Body of Christ: The Bible also teaches that believers are members of the body of Christ, with Christ as the head. In 1 Corinthians 12:27, Paul states, "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." This imagery emphasizes the interconnectedness of believers and the importance of each person's unique role and contribution to the functioning of the body.

The biblical view of identity in Christ emphasizes that believers are new creations, children of God, united with Christ, ambassadors for Him, and part of the body of Christ. This identity shapes their worldview, purpose, and behavior, as they seek to live in accordance with God's will and bring glory to Him.

Identity politics advances our sex, race, ethnicity – to what end? Perceived political gain that in the end is nothing but a path to power for those who promote it. There is no ultimate meaning or satisfaction, only disappointment.

A Christian sociologist once said that all human beings, living in a fallen world as sinners in need of grace, are beset with a “relational dilemma.” Like Adam and Eve being sent from the Garden, we are cut off from God. Accepting Christ immediately addresses that relational dilemma by establishing our identity in Christ. We are a new creation. 

We are not without trials and troubles in this old world, but we are loved, forgiven, blessed. We are sons and daughters of God, part of the family of God, the Body of Christ.

Your identity in Christ is forever.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 29 May 2023

What does Memorial Day mean to you? What does it mean to your children?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #89 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Memorial Day became an official holiday in 1950, just two years before I came into the world. It was intended, and still should be, as a patriotic time for remembering those who sacrificed for freedom. Remembering, even caring, it sometimes seems, is a greater challenge in a time when only a small percentage of Americans ever serve in the military, and when it seems that history, especially anything touting America’s goodness, is passe, something to be apathetically ignored.

But the value of remembrance is great, as is patriotism rightly understood.

In the USA, patriotism has suffered ebbs and flows in recent years, but it still exists. Indeed, patriotism is a global phenomenon, one of the world’s most powerful emotions. It comes from the Greek word patrios, “of one’s father,” meaning love of one’s home or fatherland. 

Patriotism is love of one’s homeland—about geography, Yes, “home” for sure, but more importantly, patriotism is about ideals, culture. 

Patriotism is not the same as nationalism, the former involving values and aspirations, the latter involving a political order and power. Patriotism and religion are not the same, though one may be engaged, even co-opted by the other. But patriotic people may not be religious and religious people may not be patriotic. 

I was blessed to be born an American, I am red, white, and blue patriotic, and I deeply appreciate the founding ideals that defined America, i.e., life, liberty, freedom of religion, speech, mobility, and enterprise, and the rule of law.

My love for my country does not mean I believe Americans are better people than people from other countries, that we’ve always done everything right, or that our leaders past and present were always right. Clearly, Americans have not always done the right thing and leaders have not always been upstanding and correct in their moral outlook. But saying so does not diminish genuine patriotic feeling, for critique is part of freedom of conscience and thought, one blessing of liberty.

Patriotism is an emotion much maligned today by the cynical, (many captured by the intellectual cul-de-sacs of ideology or identity politics). Some now reject all expressions of appreciation or heroes past. But no time, country, or culture, much less people are without failures, or worse. And as we admitted, the USA is no different.

Despite our flaws and in recent years American political leaders have made a list of poor, unwise, immoral, and politically dangerous decisions that make our perfect Union less perfect. Yet while acknowledging flaws we can, and we should, always respectfully remember those who gave the last full measure of devotion.

And we can be patriotic about ideals, the values to which we aspire:  freedom of religion, speech, assembly and association, life, liberty, and justice for all. For all its struggles, the land of the free and the home of the brave is a blessed place to live. 

“God loves people from every nation, race, language, and tribe. Having said that, however, I believe the United States is a unique representation of the grace and mercy of God…(Yes, I believe in what’s called American exceptionalism – not triumphalism but beneficiaries of a blessed endowment.)

The liberty and freedom we know today has emerged from a Christian worldview. Ideas like equality before the law, women’s rights, children’s rights, fair labor practices, tolerance, and civil rights—all of those have emerged from a Judeo-Christian worldview. We act as if all of the world knows the liberties and freedoms that we do, and this simply isn’t true. We are unique. The liberties, freedoms, and opportunities we have, have come to us as an inheritance, and are not to be rested upon and gobbled up as we stamp our feet like petulant children, demanding the government provide something else for us. They are a heritage to be protected, guarded, and extended to one another, and handed down to the generation who follows us.”

“America’s democratic experiment, though bruised and struggling, continues and deserves to be celebrated – especially amidst the grave political divisions and growing despair of the present.”

I sometimes think about the fact that I did nothing to secure the blessings of liberty and abundance that are my birthright as an American citizen. In the providence of God, I was born here to American parents. So, my access to life, liberty, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, law and order, all are simply a gift to me from those who served and sacrificed to protect and preserve these freedoms – Remembering them is what Memorial Day is all about.

That I did nothing to earn or deserve my blessings can be said regarding my status as a Christian believer, as a person who has accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, and who God promises an eternity with him. God gives me immeasurable benefits, and promises more, for which—there it is again—I did nothing. I did not work for my salvation and was not awarded it because of some special character or achievement on my part. No, it is a free gift, by grace through faith in Christ. Sola gratia, sola fide, sola Christus, soli Deo gloria.

So, think about this with me. I enjoy a political birthright as a result of being born into an American family, and I enjoy a spiritual birthright as a result of choosing to trust in Christ’s sacrificial shedding of blood and death on the cross, so that I can be reborn or born again into the Body of Christ. My birth and my rebirth have bestowed upon me blessedness beyond words. Should I not remember and be grateful?

I feel this way about my American citizenship.

Memorial Day is a time to reflect on what is good and precious about this country.

The ideals the Founding Fathers embraced and upon which this country was established still, praise God, exist:

• While an increasing number of Americans reject God and absolute moral truth, there yet remain many who acknowledge the God who is there and who affirm Judeo-Christian values that made this country strong in its first 200 years.

• Immigrants from around the world still want to come to America. Why? Because they know this is yet the freest, most generous, most abundantly materially blessed country in the world, as Lincoln called it, “last best hope of earth.”

• America is a place wherein each individual is free to choose how to worship God, or for that matter whether to worship at all. 

• America respects not only the rule of law but the right to create value from one’s work, to own property, and to develop personal wealth. 

• Americans are free to move about the country without showing their internal passports to armed guards demanding to “see your papers.” 

• America’s history is characterized by peaceful transfers of power based upon free elections and a secret ballot box. 

• Repeated war-time experience convincingly demonstrates that America really is the “home of the brave.” The Civil Rights Movement illustrates that America is capable of growing even through pain. 

For me, celebrating Memorial Day is a form of gratitude. Freedom is a most precious gift, one easily lost.

“There is no more fitting way to end this than with the treasured final words of Lincoln on the fields of Gettysburg in November of 1863. ‘The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.’”

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 24 May 2023

Have you at times thought the world is simply gone off the deep end? Are things happening that make no sense, at least based upon how you’ve always understood the world?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #88 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Contemporary culture seems bent upon embracing ideas, attitudes, values, and practices earlier cultures considered lacking in common sense. I call this phenomenon a celebration of irrationality.

It goes right to worldview. What you believe about God, life, and truth determines how you evaluate and what ideas, attitudes, values, and practices you embrace.

The prime reason contemporary culture celebrates irrationality is that the current cultural zeitgeist, or spirit of the age jettisoned the idea of moral absolutes for moral relativism.

“There is no truth.” No God, but no truth. Or, we hear, “It may be true for you but not true for me.” 

Since we can know nothing for sure, we cannot believe anything for sure.

The result is an increase in moral depravity—overall cultural degradation, death of conscience—rage in the streets, mass shooters, loss of meaning of life—with a consequent uptick in nihilism, loss of definition of happiness and contentment—American society possesses more material abundance, is healthier, and lives longer than any society in history, yet we are the most unhappy, loss of common purpose, common cause, common sense.

The outcomes of this morally relativistic zeitgeist are many and all of them are negative:

1. Anxiety – uncertainty, fear, national mental health crisis, increasing youth suicides.
2. Abortion – icy indifference toward human life. If children are an inconvenience, just get rid of them. Kill off our future. It’s heartless, ruthless, senseless.
3. “Woke” ideology – In name of tolerance yields intolerance. It promotes racism, lawlessness, victimhood, cancel culture, suppression free speech, neurotic self-righteousness, totalitarian attitudes. Yet universities, entertainment, corporations, and now government are embracing it. It’s dangerous, because it kills everything it touches.

4. LGBTQ+ – gender fluidity, which does not actually exist, yet we embrace it. Utter pronoun nuttiness. The LGBTQ+ “movement” decries Creator God, denies science and biology, and destroys humanity.
5. Substance Abuse – now a fentanyl epidemic, with narcotics becoming more toxic every year, and yet we keep wanting more to fill the emptiness within. It does not work, and it is irrational, but we keep hammering ourselves with hard drugs.
6. Debt – In the late 1980s, we legalized commercial gambling, and now, worse by far, we’ve decriminalized and are now promoting sports gambling, the worst kind of gambling.

And in Washington, DC, we run up the National Debt to (at this moment) over $31.8T. We spend beyond our means and we spend beyond other peoples’ means (our children and grandchildren).

There’s no piper to be paid, no reckoning, or so we choose to believe. It’s irrational.

Our culture cannot sustain itself indefinitely with this kind of pell-mell rush to celebrate irrationality, to bury ourselves.

So, what do we do?

Scripture says, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth” (Eph. 6:13-14).

In the face of untruth, Christians share truth and the Truth. In the face of irrationality, Christians share the rationality of biblical teaching.

Stand firm with the belt of truth.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 22 May 2023

Have you had a personal experience with Artificial Intelligence (AI) yet?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #87 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

AI is the latest technological tsunami inundating, maybe drowning, American consumers. AI is developing so fast that government regulation, if indeed there should be any at all, is woefully behind the curve. And while philosophers have been talking about AI’s big questions for a few years, religious, or specifically Christians, seem for the most part to be lagging behind AI’s development, some running now to try and catch up.

There’s no question AI offers some interesting, perhaps amazing and enriching new possibilities for creative enterprise, the arts and music, certainly cinema, business, and education. But there are also potential minefields, huge minefields.

Let’s review a few in what might be considered most threatening to least threatening – and full disclosure, those labels most and least threatening are subjective:

1. AI’s machine learning capabilities will empower robots to become sentient and self-aware, develop purpose, maybe even a soul with moral reasoning capacity, and, inevitably, work to take over the world.

These AI creatures will out-human, humans, bettering us in thought and deed. This has been the plot of many books and films, some of them quite engaging and fun to watch from the safety of our lazy boy where no robot can find us. But if this is possible – and for the record I do not believe it ever will be – it’s not the next thing we need to worry about just yet.

Terminators are still futuristic.

“Google is developing “artificial moral reasoning” so that its driverless cars can make decisions about potential accidents.”

“Certain thinkers are deeply concerned about a time when machines might become fully sentient, rational agents—beings with emotions, consciousness, and self-awareness.

‘The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Stephen Hawking told the BBC in 2014. ‘Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it would take off on its own, and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded."

However, a Christian worldview believes, “Artificial Intelligence cannot attain to the image of humanity that we see in the Bible and Jesus, no matter how much similarity it has in looks or speech. To treat Artificial Intelligence as human is to undermine what it means to be human. To think that we can design and create our own human equivalent is actually quite a proud thought process. When we attempt to imitate the power of God to create life, we are attempting to raise ourselves to the same level as God.”

2. Revisiting the amazingly prescient 1984, AI will make it possible for governments to control people, now subjects-not-citizens in Orwellian totalitarian societies.

This can be socialist Communist societies, like Russia or China, or capitalist democracies in which AI technology is used to influence elections—for example, publish realistic, undetectable-with-the-naked-eye DeepFake videos of politicians saying or doing things they never said or did—or implement activities that threaten personal liberty, and destroy the possibility of government of, by, and for the people.

“In China, the government is using AI based tools to increase the power of the authoritarian state. ‘With millions of cameras and billions of lines of code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future,’ writes Paul Mozur in The New York Times. ‘Beijing is embracing technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to identify and track 1.4 billion people. It wants to assemble a vast and unprecedented national surveillance system, with crucial help from its thriving technology industry.’”

3. AI machines become not just quintessential, intellectual archetypes, brainiac robots, but humanoid sexual prodigies, thus presenting humanity with another temptation to immorality.

Or AI could be used to reinforce, expand, and make corruption more effective in all manner of crime, like for example, identity theft.

An example is how AI technology could be used in sex dolls or sex robots. Although sex dolls have been available in the United States since at least the late 1960s, advances in technology have led to the creation of sex robots that can move, express emotions, and even carry-on simple conversations. The result is that such AI enhanced sex dolls could reduce male empathy by teaching men to treat women (and sometimes children) as objects and blank canvases on which to enact their sexual fantasies.”

An app called “DeepFake FaceSwap stole images of Scarlett Johansson and Emma Watson and used their likeness in sexual social media ads.”

“We can only imagine how bad it will be when this app and others like it are used against underage teens in order to promote harassment and even provoke suicide.”

“While we might wish to remain ignorant about trends such as sex robots and virtual reality-based pornography, we need to begin preparing today to respond to the challenges they will cause for our families and church congregations.”

4. Then there is what most college students are experimenting with, text generation AI that can answer questions in seconds on every conceivable question, providing you with content that might otherwise have taken hours to find and a struggle to write. 

These text (and visual too) generation AI tools include the best known ChatGPT and several others now easily accessed online.

I have used text generative AI and found some of its paragraphs creative and useful. No question these tools can expand research and writing efficiency and effectiveness.

But there are cautions. For example, I asked ChatGPT who I was and what I had written. About half of what I received was accurate. The chatbot got my podcast title wrong and listed 3-4 books I never wrote. So ChatGPT is not infallible or inerrant.

Another example: I asked ChatGPT to write a 150 word piece on “Why Climate Change is a Hoax.” In seconds, the chatbot came back with this:

“I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I cannot generate content that promotes misinformation or false claims. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is a real and pressing issue that poses significant threats to our planet and its inhabitants. Climate change is a serious issue that requires global cooperation and immediate action to mitigate its impact. Denying its existence or dismissing it as a hoax only serves to delay necessary action and puts future generations at risk.”

In other words, ChatGPT could not help me write an alternative view.

Now, I’m not sharing this to argue for or against climate change, just demonstrating that ChatGPT is not amoral, non-ideological, or without programmed assumptions and biases. 

Unlike a hammer or a drill or a pencil, or a handgun for that matter, all tools that can be used for good or for evil depending upon the will of the human actor, ChatGPT is already programmed with certain biases, the “pre-theoretical commitments” of its owners, which is to say, human beings.

“Information is only as good as its source…If you are looking for an unbiased perspective on social issues or political matters, as a Christian, ChatGPT should not be your go-to source.”

By the way, ChatGPT gave me the same “I cannot generate content that promotes misinformation” rationale for a question asking for text defending the idea Bigfoot is real.

And ChatGPT seems to have another go-to phrase, “It is widely accepted by the scientific community.”

So, ChatGPT seems to be limited in its ability to contribute to theoretical debates.

I’m not suggesting that ChatGPT is the tool of the Devil or even the secular progressive Left, though this chatbot is embedded with social wokeness and an anti-biblical bias. I’m just noting that even this text generative AI tool, amazing though it may be, must be considered with discernment, just like everything else.

Spiritual discernment is the premise of my podcasts.

Same for ChatGPT or similar AI tools that come with gift-wrapped biases and likely non-Christian values. I’m not saying, don’t use ChatGPT or other AI. I’m saying, keep your mind and your spiritual discernment in gear when you do.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.