Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
With Dr Rex Rogers

Two New eBooks at Amazon Kindle!

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 07 June 2021

Christian organizations, including churches, have long worked with doctrinal statements clarifying their theological positions. Some also developed lifestyle statements or covenants for employees.

More recently, Christian organizations, especially churches or denominations, have felt the need to develop position papers or policy statements about specific issues, both to make public how they believe their biblical understanding applies to the issue and also, depending upon the concern, to put their perspectives in print regarding controversial issues to try to protect the Christian organization legally.

Examples of the former might be topics like use of alcoholic beverages during Christian organization activities or policies regarding green environmental stewardship.

Examples of the latter include child protection policies or whether a church will conduct marriages for same-sex couples.

Issues like abortion, LGBTQ, “woke” ideas about race, for example, existed in the past but not many people engaged in these behaviors or not many in the general public advanced them. Consequently, in a sense, these issues did not rise to a level requiring a Christian organization to address them in some formal statement.

This is what has changed. Now it seems a host of controversial “new” issues—several of them involving sexuality or the politics of race—are being embraced not simply by the public but by Christian organization personnel or church or denomination members. The more these issues are promoted, the more the Christian organization feels pressure to speak, to put some kind of position paper or policy statement in print.

A Christian organization’s doctrinal statement is still its most important expression of belief, and a Christian organization need not necessarily publish a statement or assume some “side” on every issue. But the politicization trend in American culture is increasing pressure upon Christian organizations to speak up in order to delineate their beliefs and to attempt to protect themselves.

In "Christian Organization Statements--Doctrinal, Lifestyle, Position--Then and Now," I address two of the most significant new concerns: SOGI, sexual orientation and gender identity, and CRT, critical race theory.

These issues divide--families and friends, churches, Christian organizations, country and culture. It behooves anyone who cares about living out a Christian worldview to become informed and to help the Christian organizations in which they are involved to prepare to speak the truth in love into contemporary culture.

*This 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.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 31 May 2021

I am blessed with freedom.

1–Political freedom because I was born in this country. I did nothing to earn it. Thousands sacrificed their lives so I could experience this freedom.

2–Spiritual freedom because I was born again. I did nothing to earn it. One Savior sacrificed his life so I could come to know him and experience temporal and eternal freedom.

Freedom is a profound gift, for which I am more grateful each year on earth. In this fallen world, freedom is not free but paid in blood. This is not morbid philosophy. It is truth...that can set you free.

Celebrating this Memorial Day is perhaps more important than any in recent memory.

Reason is we’re coming off months of centripetal forces, trends that push away from the center and tear us apart. We don’t just disagree. We’re questioning our national identity, history, and fundamental values.

We lived these centripetal forces: lockdowns, government overreach, racial and civil unrest, unemployment, Big Tech elitism, uncertainty regarding election integrity, nasty politicians, politicization of sports, medicine, and about everything else. The division has been brutal.

So pausing to celebrate e Pluribus Unum, to be grateful for our timeless ideals, to express patriotic appreciation for the great gift of opportunity all Americans have been given is a balm our nation needs.

What Lincoln said at Gettysburg applies today:

“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.”

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 27 May 2021

Memorial Day is coming, a time for remembering those who sacrificed for freedom.

Patriotism is 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.

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

But my love for my country does not mean I believe Americans are better than people from other countries, that we’ve always done everything right, or that our leaders past and present were always right. Critique is part of freedom of conscience and thought.

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

Sadly, in the past eighteen months or so in our country, people have critiqued, or rather I should say attacked, not just policy but the country’s founding ideals, i.e., they have questioned the country’s very legitimacy, and even besmirched the names and legacies of those who sacrificed for the freedom we now enjoy and the potential available to all including those who dismiss it.

This full-on rancor directed toward America’s founding and ideals has been difficult to endure, and it presents some great dangers going forward if the pendulum does not swing back in a corrective fashion.

Calling for racial reform and progress are one thing. Calling for the institution of racist ideas and practices in the name of “anti-racism” is another. So, too, is arguing America’s founding was not about freedom but about slavery and white supremacy and that new “woke” ways of dealing with human beings (“critical race theory”) must be instituted in every aspect of American life before racial progress can be made. These arguments are not only inaccurate and ahistorical, they are pernicious.

Calling for “equity” rather than “equality” before the law is a bait and switch that demands sameness, taking from those who have earned and giving to those who have not, suppression of creativity, and a new definition of tolerance and inclusiveness to mean anything goes, especially if it is racialized.

Then, too, we’ve endured months of government overreach in the name of public health, restrictions on personal freedoms, even efforts to undermine the freedoms guaranteed to Americans in the First Amendment. Thankfully, some of this is beginning not only to abate but to be retracted.

So, in the face of all this it becomes both more difficult – sad and disillusioning – to celebrate Memorial Day patriotism, and it becomes all the more important to celebrate Memorial Day patriotism because the ideals, the fundamental freedoms and those who sacrificed for them, that this day commemorates are as important as ever.

Thank you, those who gave the last full measure. Long may freedom reign.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 16 May 2021

One of many recollections from staying the night at Grandpa and Grandma Rogers’s farm as a kid was awakening in the morning to a glorious bird chorus. There seemed to be more birds and more variety in the country. This is still my favorite music.

Their farm was just five minutes outside of the small village in which I grew up in southeastern Ohio. It's where I earned my first dollar "putting up hay" and mucking stalls, where I rode ponies, watched butchering, fed the chickens and pigs, hunted squirrels and rabbits, and milked the cow. I value these experiences at the top of my memories.

This came to me in the predawn this Maryland morning when I awakened to silence, then heard one bird sing one note. Not much but he was first. Soon another then another, a slow symphony.

Both grandparents and a simpler time came to mind.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 15 May 2021

Religious freedom is experiencing a global crisis.

Restrictions on the freedom to choose a religion or to choose no religion at all are under serious threat or are already restricted. So, also, is the free exercise of religion in manifest worship or practice, not only in autocratic regimes like North Korea, China, or several Middle Eastern countries, but increasingly also in Western democracies.

Globally, “40 percent of world countries suffer high restrictions to religious freedom or freedom of belief. Since many of them are populous nations, however, this adds up to 5.9 billion of the world population.” And among Christians, “more than 300 people are murdered monthly throughout the world because of their religious faith.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Christianity is “the most persecuted religion in the world.” Some 215 million Christians are being persecuted due to their faith, according to Open Doors, about 1 in 12 Christians worldwide.

While Christians may be the most persecuted religion in the world, they are followed closely by Muslims, Jews, and other religious minorities.

In the U.S., “according to Pew Research, more than a third of all Americans born after 1980 identify with no religion. That is the highest percentage ever. In a recent Gallup Poll, only 47% of American adults said they were members of a church, mosque or synagogue. It was the first time since Gallup began asking Americans about religious membership in the 1930s that a majority of Americans said they were not members of a church, mosque or synagogue.” What this means for the future of religious freedom in the US is uncertain, but it does not appear to be a positive trend.

Religious freedom in the West, or what we call “free societies,” is becoming politicized. Now, religious freedom or religious liberty are even being denigrated as just code words, or worse, “dog whistles.” For example, in 2016 the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, created by Congress to protect the civil rights of all Americans, issued the following statement: “[t]he phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ [are…] code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, [and] Christian supremacy….” Such attitudes would have been unheard of just a few short years ago.

America’s Founders considered the fact of and practice of religion the best means of maintaining personal responsibility, social order, and self-government. Without the moral compass religion provides, they believed, there is no restraint. Men and women do what’s right in their own eyes, which is to say, chaos.

So, the need to protect the precious God-given unalienable right is not just something to worry about in authoritarian countries elsewhere in the world but right here at home.

Recently it was my privilege to host a webinar for SAT-7 called “Collaboration for HOPE: Religious Freedom, the Most Precious God-given Right.” Our guests were Shirin Taber, Director of Empower Women Media, Rita El-Mounayer and Phil Hilditch, both of SAT-7 International. It was an enjoyable learning experience and can be accessed here:

Religious freedom is the bedrock freedom. To lose religious freedom is to lose our foundation and potential as a free and open society. Without religious freedom, the liberty to think, decide, worship as one’s convictions direct, how can we say we are truly free?

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 May 2021

Periodically, I hear someone claim the American Church is experiencing “persecution.” With due respect, I don’t use that term for the US because, frankly, while churches in the US have been harassed by government or other entities, and while perhaps someday genuine persecution will actually come to this country, it’s not now.

Meanwhile, persecution of the Church, Christians, Muslims, Jews, or religious minorities is rampant elsewhere in the world. Indeed, restrictions on religious freedom is now a global crisis, in autocratic and religiously dominated regimes and also in democratic countries.

Christians should defend and promote religious freedom, the “first freedom,” for all human beings, whatever their religion or no religion at all. It’s part of Love your neighbor as yourself.

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Two New eBooks at Amazon Kindle!

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