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In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality of abortion, have you noticed the increasing heat aimed at Christianity and Christian? Has this ruling made it easier or more difficult for Christians to express their political views?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #35 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.
In the aftermath of the recent Supreme Court of the United States’ 6-3 decision in Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that reversed the 1973 Roe v Wade abortion decision, those who oppose the decision have had a field day naming all the culprits responsible for what they consider a horrible step back in women’s rights. Among the principals considered a source of this move toward the “wrong side of history” are, of course, Prolife groups, Republicans, and Conservatives.
Still, I’ve noticed a marked increase in the vitriol and vehemence aimed at Christians. Some writers claim an anti-abortion perspective is simply religious fanaticism, that the Court itself is now on some kind of conspiratorial path toward turning America into a theocracy.
Others cite the Christian Nationalism movement, suggesting this push to declare Christianity America’s religion, eliminate separation of church and state, and wrap the Bible in the flag is the real source of America’s backward trends.
One writer said, “The wave of forced-birth zealotry at the Supreme Court and in state legislatures exemplifies the Christian nationalist view that the government should impose religious values (e.g., personhood begins at conception) on others, regardless of decades of precedent and of modern America’s moral, social and political values…The country will head further down the road of Christian nationalism unless the American people reject this theocratic crusade.”
According to those who fear the worst, the Dobbs ruling will embolden Christian groups to pursue their moral viewpoints, all of which are apparently inimical to a free, pluralistic society.
Still others somehow equate the Dobbs decision as a win for White supremacy, which recent race theorists have said are rooted in U.S. Christianity.
And there is a growing resistance to what have been called traditional or family values and morality. These values are not looked upon anymore as a strengthening source of moral social order but as restrictions, denials of freedom, even ipso facto anti-civil rights.
This view that access to abortion is now a civil right, synonymous with women’s or human rights is not unique to the United States. For example, shortly after the Dobbs decision, the European Union Parliament “overwhelmingly condemned the end of constitutional protections for abortion in the United States and called for such safeguards to be enshrined in the EU’s fundamental rights charter.”
Abortion advocates want to make abortion integral to constitutional law in several countries so that it does “not fall victim to momentary changes in politics.”
Journalists on the Left argue there exists a “'dark money' global empire of the U.S. Christian right, which is exporting its legal strategy, army of lawyers, and resources overseas to forestall and reverse international progress on abortion access.” All of the supporting organizations they mention, e.g., Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, the Federalist Society, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and Focus on the Family are labeled Far Right or extremist organizations.
Rhetoric and political pushbacks are intensifying. The Dobbs case overruling Roe is something most abortion advocates never thought possible. They are frightened, shocked, and according to their views, righteously angry. So, their response is tapping every available tactic: exaggeration, deception, cancel culture, calls for protest and borderline calls for violent or at least aggressive acts against not only the Supreme Court as an institution but against individual Justices themselves, like recent stalking outside justices’ homes and harassment at dinner.
Lest I be guilty of a less than honest observation, though, I should add that prolife proponents have also, at times, been guilty of similar political excesses.
Several thoughts come to mind:
- Not all Christians who oppose abortion are involved with or otherwise support Christian nationalism or various forms of so-called Christian extremism. Indeed, many reject these movements as unwise, unbiblical, and unconstitutional. So, abortion advocates smearing everyone who opposes abortion with this affiliation are being disingenuous.
- It would be helpful if the public learned not to confuse Christians with Christianity. In other words, don’t make the mistake of thinking because Christians think or do something, including me, that this is representative of biblical Christianity. Lots of Christians, or those who nominally identify as such, hold a host of views and behave in ways that are not consistent with a biblically Christian worldview. So, the fact that some Christians have treated prochoice advocates in an egregious manner is sad and perhaps itself sinful. So, while Yes, it grieves me that Catholics President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi advocate abortion rights, still, Christians, including me, need to apply the words of Scripture: “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:5).
- Americans are increasingly and broadly supportive of abortion access. Multiple polls demonstrate this, and the support comes in all demographics, While discouraging this is not entirely unexpected because the American people are evidencing less understanding of biblical teaching and history, less interest in a Christian worldview, and less commitment to Judeo-Christian values each year.
- The abortion battle is part of a larger worldview civil war that I have mentioned before in this space. Our country is split between those who believe in God and the Judeo-Christian values upon which the country was founded and from which it flourished v. those who either believe in a distant, uninvolved God or no God at all, either way yielding a moral relativism with no right and wrong, no truth, just temporal do what makes you happy.
I wish I could say that it’s all going to get better soon, that a new day will dawn when Americans one and all celebrate and protect life from the womb to the tomb. But I don’t think this will happen.
I wish I could say that acrimony and animosity will give way to amity. But I don’t think this will happen.
I can say that Christians have lived in and stood firm in difficult times before. I can say that Christ is coming, but not yet. And I can say that in the now, it is our time to let our light shine in darkness.
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, 2022
*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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Have you wondered how in the world The Walt Disney Company, with its unsurpassed reputation for outstanding family entertainment, could come to believe its mission is to lead children to question their gender identity? Or how Disney determined that radically politicizing its image is somehow good for its “most admired company” bottom line?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #34 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.
Founded in 1923, the Walt Disney Company is an American institution. Children and adults alike worldwide have enjoyed its entertainment products from cartoons to long-running favorite TV programs to feature films creating some of the most notable film characters in history.
Disney was a family company, launched and operated by brothers Walt and Roy, and developing experiences for family enjoyment on film and in their famous parks, copied but never really equaled.
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Goofy, Cinderella, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Eyore, Pluto, and many more. The Mickey Mouse Club, Davy Crockett, Swiss Family Robinson, Old Yeller, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast. The list of shows and movies and beloved characters are a playback of our lives for the past century.
For the most part, what these productions had in common was their family-friendly content. If not always wholesome, certainly for the major part Disney programming was uplifting, morally suitable, patriotic, respectful, and classic Americana at its best.
But in recent days Disney has taken a hard left turn. What was once trusted family fare is now immorality masquerading as human rights.
For months, Disney incurred “a negative backlash for its choosing to enter the political fray of the Florida parental rights law…(and) Disney elected to spot-weld a same-sex kissing scene into “Lightyear” following the conflict in Florida, during the release.”
This didn’t just happen. It was not a mistake. Disney knew exactly what it was doing. The company followed the entertainment industry in which commercials now regularly feature same-sex couples in intimate arrangements, television programs and films portraying LGBTQ+ sexual relationships, and even comic books presenting characters whose sexuality is a topic in their stories.
Most of this entertainment media promotion of LGBTQ+ relationships is focused upon adults, but what makes Disney’s new emphasis especially egregious is its focus upon children.
Disney “executives recruited the company’s most intersectional employees, including (and these are their words) a “black, queer, and trans person,’ a ‘bi-romantic asexual,’ and ‘the mother of one transgender child and one pansexual child’ and announced ambitious new initiatives—seeking to change everything from gender pronouns at the company’s theme parks to the sexual orientation of background characters in the company’s films.”
“Executive producer Latoya Raveneau laid out Disney’s ideology in blunt terms. She said her team was implementing a ‘not-at-all-secret gay agenda’ and regularly “adding queerness’ to children’s programming.” Another speaker indicated Disney has created a “tracker” to ensure enough trans, asexual, and bisexual characters are created.
“Corporate president Karey Burke said she supported having ‘many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories’ and reaffirmed the company’s pledge to make at least 50 percent of its onscreen characters sexual and racial minorities.” (City Journal).
The latest illustration of this company vision is “a scene from ‘Baymax!’ a Walt Disney Animation Studios production…raising eyebrows for normalizing the radical notion that men can have periods.
As noted earlier, the animated film “Lightyear” features a kiss between a same-sex couple. “At least 14 Middle Eastern and Asian nations have refused to release the film, while China has not yet said whether it will allow the movie unless the kissing scene is cut, which so far producers have refused to do.”
“What’s more, Tim Allen was replaced as the voice of Buzz by Chris Evans, who called those objecting to the smooching scene ‘idiots.’”
Meanwhile, “The Walt Disney Co. is the worst-performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the past year. The stock plummeted 31 percent in the last 12 months. Disney has seen its stock drop the most on a percentage basis compared to the other 30 companies that comprise the Dow.”
Disney used to be a place of innocent fun, aspiration, a place where you could wish upon a star and lose yourself in a dreamworld of color and imagination. But no more.
Parents are interested in a safe place for their children, so much so we’ve coined the phrase “safetyism” to indicate just how far young parents are willing to go to isolate their children from any conceivable threat. But Disney is attuned to this trend only insofar as it fits their new woke prime directive.
“Somewhere along the line Disney executives decided family values weren’t cool anymore. While they’ve been slowly purging those trusted values, we’ve grasped at anything good there was left to hold onto. But there is little to hold on to when Disney executives are no longer just purging family values, but aggressively attacking them altogether…They have been ill-advised, bullied, and intimidated into believing abandoning their core mission and alienating their consumer base is the “cool” thing to do.”
Disney’s eagerness to embrace identity politics and to virtue signal its views with moral superiority are writ large. It seems Disney executives believe they know better than parents or the public what’s best for children.
Disney leaders even admit they are trying to groom children. They have yielded to pressure from LGBTQ activists arguing that discussing detailed sexuality with children 5 to 9 years old is somehow a human rights issue.
And what Disney leaders want, like so many in media, is the accolades of their peers, most of whom have long since demonstrated they live by an areligious, amoral, “Do what’s right in your own eyes” worldview.
Disney’s Magical Pride Days and LGBTQ Pride March are other examples of the company’s wholesale embrace of LGBTQ orthodoxy.
“Disney World and Disneyland have decided to ban the use of "gender greetings" within their parks — so the terms "boys and girls" and "ladies and gentlemen" will no longer be uttered by employees on Disney grounds.”
The company suggests that it must thread a needle of extreme political polarization of its staff and its customers. But this is only because it has bought into the idea it must speak on all matters of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and that all sexual identity matters are civil rights issues. But once a company takes this fork in the road, it is no longer able to please everyone or anyone. Disney would be better off if it adopted the non-political stance most corporations and business tycoons historically observed, including Walt Disney himself.
Disney should “learn from the sports industry and realize American consumers don’t want agendasshoved down their throats, they just want to enjoy a good game and have fun at a park.”
Disney is the highest profile casualty so far in the worldview civil war. The company’s actions and continuing defensiveness aligns it with those who promote a worldview thoroughly at odds with the Judeo-Christian values upon which America was founded and flourished.
Disney is no longer a safe place for your children. It proselytizes for a set of values that are more about a kind of religious fervor for the sexual revolution than politics or civil rights.
In the end, though, it may be good to remind us all that Disney, like politics in general, is downstream of culture. What Disney is becoming, American culture already is.
So, while boycotting Disney films or parks may be a defensible, even a good or wise option for some, this action won’t fix the problem. What we really require is revival in American culture.
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, 2022
*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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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live during what the Scripture calls “the Last Days”? Well, you may know more about this than you think.
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #33 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.
Maybe every generation facing some dark development of history thought it was facing what Scripture calls the Last Days. I don’t know because I didn’t live during those times.
I do know people honestly considered whether the End Times was upon them when the sadly named “War to End All Wars,” WWI, stagnated in the muddy trenches of Western Europe. I know, too, that more than a few people seriously believed Adolph Hitler was the Anti-Christ himself, heralding events leading to the end of the Age.
But what about now, 2022? Are we actually living in the Last Days?
I’ve noted before in this space that my 90-year-old Mother thinks we are living in the Last Days, and I’ve begun to agree with her. She knows, and I know, that the Bible warns us about setting dates, but it also gives us a heads up on the conditions human beings will experience during the Last Days.
Think of 2 Tim. 3:1-5: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
Does that sound like the early 21st Century?
Or how about Romans 1, where the Apostle Paul tells us why humanity behaves the way we do in the latter days, and why we need salvation:
- suppress the truth by our wickedness,
- since creation God’s invisible qualities clearly seen, so people are without excuse,
- thinking became futile and foolish hearts were darkened.
- claimed to be wise, but became fools,
- sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
- exchanged the truth about God for a lie,
- women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
- filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful,
- disobey their parents,
- have no understanding, no fidelity, no love,no mercy,
- invent ways of doing evil.
Again in 2 Tim. 3:12-13,
- everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
- evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse.
Luke 21:
- nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
- great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
- when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.
- nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.
- people will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
So, the Last Days is not a cakewalk. Things go from bad to worse, and it feels like this has accelerated in the past few years. But again, I don’t want to suggest I have an insider knowledge of God’s timetable, nor that we are living in the Tribulation Period, which will be much worse than we’ve so far witnessed.
But still, social conditions are worsening.
Once people embrace the idea there is no God to whom we are accountable and no truth standard to live by, which American culture has done, we’re left with moral and behavioral chaos. That’s what we see today.
- Increasingly rootless, anxious, alienated, sometimes rage-filled youth, resulting in a long list of personal and social pathologies, including mass shootings,
- not just a growing bias against but direct harassment, possibly persecution, of the Christian Church,
- sin and moral choices are medicalized, and the resulting emotional ripple effects are labeled mental illness,
- more pestilence, like pandemics, more wars, like Ukraine, more economic pain, including inflation, unemployment, lack of resources, supply chain problems.
Now what is the Christian response to all this genuine doom and gloom?
- Do we withdraw and hide? Live in our own churchy cocoon?
- Do we attack, attempting to slay the dragon, the Prince of the Power of the Air, Luther himself, and all his minions?
- Or do we sally forth with knowledge of the Sovereign God, the Word, and what he says about the end of history, then live out our life proclaiming the Lordship of Christ in all of life?
I like option #3, know the Word, proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all of life.
How do we do this?
- Well, we understand and share that we don’t have all the answers, but we have the answer, so, we place our hope in Christ, not politics, not political parties, not ideology, not politicians, which means we studiously avoid what a lot of conservative Christians seem to have done in recent years.
- We speak the truth in love, with gentleness and respect (2 Pet. 3:15). And we recognize that people around us, including family and friends, may not always want to hear the truth, and thus associate those who speak truth with something intolerant, holier than thou, or unloving.
- We demonstrate an attitude not of despair but of optimistic realism– recognizing the reality of sin in a fallen world but acknowledging that our Sovereign God is there, and he is not silent.
- We live not in fear but in hope – not a vain wish, like I hope my team wins this Saturday, but real hope in an event—the Parousia—already accomplished on the Cross and the empty tomb two millennia ago.
We live as unto the Lord. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).
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, 2022
*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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In the wake of the Dobbs v Jackson SCOTUS decision last Fri overturning Roe v Wade, celebrities, politicians, corporations, and sports associations have rushed to out-outrage one another.
Dick's, Target, Adobe, Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, American Express, Bank of America, CVS Health, Door Dash, Expedia, Ford, Intel, Kroger, Mastercard, Lyft, Netflix, PayPal, Nike, Salesforce, Starbucks, Tesla, Walt Disney, Wells Fargo, Yelp and many more are virtue signaling their pledge to pay for pregnant employees' out of state travel to gain abortions where they are legal. This is an H.R. and an insurance nightmare happening before your eyes.
NBA and WNBA, perhaps the most Woke of sports associations, issued a joint statement in which the word "abortion" is never mentioned, only "reproductive health care”: “The NBA and WNBA believe that women should be able to make their own decisions concerning their health and future, and we believe that freedom must be protected. We will continue to advocate for gender and health equity, including ensuring our employees have access to reproductive health care, regardless of their location.”
NSWL Player's Association criticized the ruling for in their view it is "a decision that effectively takes away a person's rights to make decisions about their own body," failing to mention that the unborn person gets no vote over a decision about his or her body: "The NWSL Players Association strongly condemns today's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — a decision that effectively takes away a person's rights to make decisions about their own body, a basic human right at the core of every aspect of life."
If you are an NBA, WNBA, NSWL player who likes this pro-life decision, your association just removed your voice, speaking for you.
The NFL, MLB, NHL have so far not released statements.
Three cheers for the LPGA which released the kind of statement that preserves the right of its members to speak:
“As the best female golfers in the world compete for the third major championship of the year against the backdrop of the US capital, we are concerned by the issues facing the country in the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court decision," the statement read.
"We are a diverse membership organization committed to equality and empowering women, and we encourage and support our employees and members in exercising their individual constitutional right to voice their opinions and vote, as this decision now places important women's rights in the hands of state lawmakers.”
"The LPGA is committed to this conversation and hopes we all strive for outcomes that ensure equality for all women."
“Notice the other three major professional sports leagues issued no statements about this topic. Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League stayed silent. There is no reason for a professional sports league to talk about abortion. These leagues have fans on both sides of divisive political issues.”
Given the politicization tsunami that has inundated professional sports in the past three years, it is surprising indeed, but a bit encouraging, to see the NFL, MLB, NHL, LPGA exercise restraint. Their non-actions do not imply their leadership is pro-life, but at least on this occasion they are wise enough to leave room for players, coaches, supporting staff to exercise their own freedom of speech.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022
*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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How are you processing the Supreme Court of the United State’s decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the court overruled Roe v Wade?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #32 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.
More than 63 million babies have been aborted in the U.S. since Roe v Wade (1973). That’s more than the total population of California and New York combined.
The total dead in all wars in which the United States participated from the American Revolutionary War in 1775 through 2017 is 1,354,664. 63 million abortions : 1.35 million war dead.
In the U.S in year 2020, total abortions came to 930,160, and by the way, Planned Parenthood performs 40% of all abortions in the U.S.
Despite the constant harangue of the Left and of media, a pro-life decision and approach are not a discriminatory disservice to Black Americans. In fact, abortions disproportionately harm Black Americans. “Black babies are aborted at more than three times the rate of white babies and constitute more than one-third of all abortions (38 percent)” in a Black demographic that comprises 13% of the total American population.
63 million and counting. The numbers are simply staggering, and this is true worldwide.
“Every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day.” That’s about 87 babies every minute.
Meanwhile, the world’s biggest killer is heart disease, responsible for 16% of the world’s total deaths each year, or about 8.9 million deaths in 2019.
So the most deadly disease in the world, the #1 reason for deaths worldwide, accounts for less than 9 million deaths per year, while abortion accounts for 40-50 million deaths per year globally.
As a moral issue, abortion knows no peer.
Yet in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling June 24, 2022, various Americans are going apoplectic.
Pro-choice advocates keep listing social reasons they consider abortion essential. They talk about the marginalized, about race, poverty, the young, rural women, privilege. They say this is just political, that this push to overrule Roe is a political power grab by the Right. Those who present themselves as Christians like to point out that abortion is not specifically referenced in the Bible.
But very few of these pro-choice proponents answer the question, is the pre-born a human life or not? Most of them do not talk about the baby at all.
They employ scare tactics, like claiming the Court is now going to reverse Obergefell, the same-sex marriage ruling. Or they say the government is “forcing” women to have children. I don’t claim to know everything about the birds and the bees, but I have trouble understanding how a prolife decision like Dobbs is “forcing” women to have children. The decision didn’t even say, No abortions. It only said there is no right to abortion written or embedded in the United States Constitution and that States should decide what to do about abortion. So abortion has not gone away.
Still, pro-choice advocates escalate fear, saying the Dobbs decision threatens “all women.” Really? “All” women?
They use obscurantist phrases like bodily autonomy, women’s health, or reproductive health. Women’s rights has become a synonym for abortion on demand.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is warning about something she calls “fetal personhood,” saying, “A fetal personhood case could be their vehicle to impose a nationwide ban on abortion, on the order of the United States Supreme Court."
Corporations are now tripping over themselves to virtue signal their support of their vision of women’s health by saying they will pay for pregnant employees to travel out of state to get abortions. But these kneejerk responses may cause legal challenges later.
California wants to promote abortion tourism and be a sanctuary state for those seeking abortions. “Abortion tourism.” Can you imagine a more callous phrase?
California’s political leaders seem to believe the only way women matter is if they have the right to kill their unborn. Is this really the American dream? Even primitive cultures protected their pregnant mothers and children.
We should recognize that the real issue is not political but the different worldviews embraced by abortion supporters, like the woman writer in Manhattan who called the high court a “refuge of conservative religious lunacy.”
She said, “The price religion puts on the idea of children above women's lives has always been infuriating to me. I have been lucky never to have gotten pregnant, but if I had, having an abortion wouldn't be a difficult choice.”
She went on to say, “Because as of now, virtually overnight, all women in the United States, both those living in red or blue states, have become second class citizens. The decision puts every one of us in our place, treated as incubators for babies, our personal choices and freedoms considered secondary to someone’s theoretical conception of 'life.'”
Clearly, this Manhattan woman is bitter, because, oh my, as she noted, her mother hoped she’d one day have children and people sometimes ask her about her decision. Yet unlike previous generations, she has numerous birth control methods available to her. But rather than be content in her own decision not to have children, she demands the universal right for all women to be able to abort children at any or all times. Only this constitutes full womanhood.
She’s a good example of what columnist Michael Brown meant when he said, “Abortion has become a pseudo-religious rite; it was never a moral right.”
But as believing Christians, you and I know differently because God has told us so. We know that each, and every human being, male and female created he them, is made in the image of God. We know they are significant in this life and eternally valuable. They matter.
Science tells anyone willing to listen with an unbiased ear that “an unborn child within a mother has a genetic code that is completely distinct from the mother. The unborn child may also have a different blood type.” The baby is not part of the mother’s body, so the “My body, my choice” mantra makes no scientific sense.
That “birthing tissue” as one abortion advocate described babies is a living human being, loved by God and should be loved by each of us.
It bears repeating. Abortion has not gone away. If anything, the politics of this issue is going to become more intense.
But remember, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).
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, 2022
*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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Patriotism is one of the strongest emotions human beings express, but it seems to come and go. What does patriotism mean in a more skeptical, jaded age? Should we express patriotism at all? And what does it mean when we do?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #31 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.
I grew up in the 1950s and 60s. In the wake of WWII and the Korean War, the 50s was a decade of peace, prosperity, and patriotism. It was like a national take-a-break breather in which families freely celebrated their lives and loved ones. It was “Leave It To Beaver.”
Even though the Civil Rights Movement that benefited Black citizens did not occur until the mid-1960s, yet African Americans en masse were able to in-migrate from the Deep South to the industrial opportunities of northern cities like Detroit.
I remember watching “Adventures of Superman” starring George Reeves on black and white TV – “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Superman! Battling for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”
It seems that we aren’t sure any more about “the American Way.” In 2011, a Superman comic featured the “Man of Steel” renouncing his American citizenship to become a citizen of the world, ostensibly so his actions wouldn’t be viewed as a tool of American policy. More recently in 2021, DC Comics announced that the “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” motto would be changed to the rather lame “Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow.” So much for patriotism.
The 1960s weathered the Counter-culture movement, the beginning so the sexual revolution, assassinations, and of course, Viet Nam, producing rioting in the streets. Sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Make love, not war. One huge ripple from all this was a culture that no longer trusted political authority, questioned its country’s values, and laughed at what was once called the American Dream.
Fast forward to 2022, and after a relatively brief resurgence of patriotism in the awful aftermath of 9/11, we now find an American culture less apt to express patriotism than ever before.
Yes, the national anthem is still played at sports events and yes, politicians, still acknowledge American ideals, and yes, many Americans are still deeply patriotic – as are internationals with respect to their own countries – but a profound social tension exists in the 21st Century between those historically expressed American ideals and what people consider their incomplete fulfillment.
Some Americans hear talk about “justice for all,” or “all are created equal” and roll their eyes. They consider America a fraud, a source of systemic injustice. Their anti-American vitriol seems to believe that the U.S. has done nothing right, nor can it, that it is prima facie guilty, and worst of all, cannot be salvaged, indeed should be “reset,” which means overthrown.
Certainly, we must recognize that America now faces certain cultural acids, genuine threats to its historic defining ideals, that is, ideologies that promote moral relativism, bias against Judeo-Christian values, and an unfettered extension of the sexual revolution.
And while some have reacted to these developments with uncritical hyper-patriotism, including ill-advised and unbiblical Christian nationalists, it’s nevertheless the case that we live once again during a less patriotic age.
One clear reason for this is that America was founded by people who not only believed in religious liberty and the existence of religious faith,
but believed this religious understanding was essential to the foundation of a free society. In other words, we need religious faith to survive as a free culture and country. Without it, or with it in decline as we’re witnessing now, we see the logical outcomes, reduced shared values, lower sense of community, lack of vision or a sense of moral destiny, alienation, envy, and terminal unhappiness in the endless pursuit of happiness.
But I still believe not only in my Christian faith but in the timeless ideals upon which the American Experiment was founded. I believe because I’ve seen the evidence of the truth and power of these ideas, the consequences of which has been the freest and most productive society in history.
I believe America is still capable of moral ambition as an example of how to provide freedom and justice for all, of being in Lincoln’s immortal words, the “last best hope on earth.”
America’s progress toward fulfillment of its ideals has come in fits and starts, valleys and mountaintops, because we are human. This is the human experience. We are not perfect and never will be, but we strive for the glory of God and the wellbeing of our families. We remain committed to God-given liberty, to truth and justice for all, to firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.
So, I am still patriotic. I am proud to be an American. I am still grateful for what God has done in this nation called America. I believe in our defining creed, and I want to reinforce the nation’s character for the future and my own grandchildren.
The best way I can do this is to live a morally responsible and upstanding life as a Christian and as an American citizen. Same for you. Be patriotic.
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, 2022
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