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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 29 June 2022

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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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 27 June 2022

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 21^st 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   

*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: 21 June 2022

In a secularizing culture, can Christian colleges and universities thrive?  Can they even survive?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #30 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. 

During April 2007, just before my time as president at Cornerstone University concluded, the campus was visited by an uninvited group of gay and lesbian students, along with other supporters, who called themselves Soulforce. 

Big money backers had recruited them and organized a national bus tour of Christian colleges and universities. Their intent, they said, was to protest and bring awareness to what was then called the Gay Rights movement. They lined the campus boundaries for a time, then spread out across campus walking into classrooms demanding access and dialogue. Clearly, the Soulforce students had been trained, and tried to force their way onto private property in the hopes of getting arrested and creating photo ops.

The next morning the group first disrupted, then basically tried to take over chapel. While I spoke with several Soulforce individuals, I had told their leaders the day before, “No thank you,” regarding their demand to enter our classrooms, and I got quoted that way in the local press. At the chapel, I walked to the front and dismissed everyone.

Other Christian colleges and universities at the time responded differently. 

Some invited the group for discussions, some treated them to refreshments, others like us said, No thank you. In my role as president, I never criticized or demeaned the students, though I thought their moral views and their methods were wrong, and I also thought they were being used by sophisticated national gay politicos and donors.

In the aftermath, I received about 150 cards and letters, the most I’d ever received referencing any controversy. Some 98% supported our respectful “No thank you” approach. Of the about 2% who criticized my approach, I found it amazing that, almost invariably, somewhere in the missive they mentioned a family member who had come out and who they loved, hence their point of view. 

LGBTQ+ is an issue—almost like no other—that seems to lead people to develop or even change their moral understanding or even their theology, not because they believe they hold a new insight to biblical interpretation, but because they love a family member or friend. 

Looking back, this all seems rather tame, because Christian schools are now in serious trouble, or at least they are under considerable and mounting pressure.

Harvard University was the original Christian institution of higher learning in the new world, founded in 1636, but it long ago left its Christian moorings. 

The same can be said for most of the colleges and universities east and many west of the Mississippi River, most of which were launched by religious organizations. 

Now, among nearly 4,000 post-secondary institutions of higher learning functioning in the U.S., only about 140 present themselves as avowedly Christian and maintain membership in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, along with perhaps 9 others that have chosen to withdraw from the CCCU. 

These are the colleges and universities now facing genuine threats to their survival. Why?

1. National drop in college age students, some estimates at 15%, due to abortion, changing attitudes toward higher education, higher costs, and more.

With the college age student pool declining year by year, competition becomes fiercer, costs of recruitment increases, and students place greater premiums upon perceived institutional prestige. None of this helps generally smaller, private Christian colleges and universities.

2. Decline in families with a Christian worldview who want a Christian education for their youth.

In 2020, Christian researcher George Barna found just 6% of American adults possess biblical worldview. And only 43% of them believe in absolute moral truth.

Among 18- to 29-year-olds, a mere 2% possess a biblical worldview. If you look at several other demographic subgroups, the percentage of individuals who deny the existence of absolute moral truth is much higher: LGBTQ adults (73%), political liberals (67%), Hispanics (65%), Blacks (63%), Democrats (63%), people under age 50 (62%).

If that is not enough, there’s more to this perfect storm.

3. American culture—especially education—has embraced ideologies promoting moral relativism, critical race theory and woke philosophies, and the sexual revolution, including same-sex marriage, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

While race politics, emphasizing diversity, equity, and inclusion, have created controversies for Christian colleges and universities, LGBTQ+ politics is the real point of the spear.

LGBTQ+ students, alumni, and associated activist organizations now have Christian colleges and universities in their crosshairs. They claim that Christian institution’s faith statements discriminate against them when such statements maintain biblical views considering homosexual behavior a sin and define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

LGBTQ+ students at Christian colleges and universities are increasing in number, forming campus organizations, becoming more open about their sexuality, 

and pressuring the boards and administrations of Christian institutions to change their doctrinal statements, student lifestyle policies, and personnel employment policies, in their vocabulary, “accepting and affirming,” LGBTQ+ individuals. 

In the CCCU, “Two member schools went on record to permit same-sex "marriage" couples on faculty and staff – Goshen College and Eastern Mennonite University,” which caused other schools in the CCCU to resign from the association.”

"Azusa Pacific University specifically removed language that barred LGBTQ relationships as part of a standing ban on pre-marital sex" from its student handbook, according to media reports.”

Protesting students at Seattle Pacific University recently handed a rainbow flag to the President as they marched across the platform to receive their diploma. This took place as students staged a sit-in in university facilities demanding the Board reverse its decision to maintain a commitment to biblical views of human sexuality. 

The Christian Reformed Church recently affirmed its understanding of the Scripture and its creeds and doctrinal statements to mean a prohibition of homosexual activity and other sexual behavior outside the bonds of monogamous heterosexual marriage. Students at Calvin College and some personnel reacted with disappointment, suggesting the CRC’s and the school’s policies are homophobic and discriminatory. 

In 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Bostock v Clayton County that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This means conservative religious institutions may be subject to legal challenge if they cannot show that they are entitled to a ministerial exception under the law.

“Thirty-three LGBTQ students are suing the Department of Education in a class-action lawsuit. The students allege that they faced discrimination at 25 federally funded Christian colleges and universities in 18 states,” including Liberty University. “The ultimate goal of the lawsuit is to strike down Title IX’s religious exemption.”

In 2021, Fresno Pacific University administration denied LGBTQ+ students the ability to form their own Pride club on campus. Students filed a formal Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation complaint against the school and called for a formal investigation to take place. 

Regional and state accrediting agencies, without whose accreditation schools cannot offer recognized degrees, are putting increasing pressure upon Christian institutions to align their policies with LGBTQ orthodoxy, what is now considered the only acceptable narrative, embracing all expressions of sexual orientation.

“The Human Rights Campaign, America's largest and most powerful LGBT lobby organization, is pushing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to target Christian educational institutions, demanding that the Biden Administration strip colleges that adhere to rules and positions opposing homosexuality of their accreditation.” This activist group is pressuring President Biden to advance a proposal to eliminate nondiscrimination exemptions for religious colleges if the institutions support biblical definitions of marriage or fail to offer "scientific curriculum requirements."

In other words, LGBTQ+ demands, increasing cast by activists and the courts as civil rights issues, are now going head-to-head with First Amendment religious freedom guarantees.

And it’s not just Christian institutions. 

A NY County Supreme Court judge recently handed down a ruling saying Yeshiva University, despite its Jewish religious convictions, must recognize an LGBTQ Pride club on campus.

So, it appears some Christian colleges or universities are changing, some would say capitulating, their moral views in an effort to survive, fearing possible loss of accreditation, tax-exempt status, and access to federal funds. Others are thus far standing firm. 

No one knows where this is going. But it is certain the next five years are going to make or break some Christian colleges and universities.

What we are watching here is the frontlines of the now intensifying “Second American civil war,” a worldview war pitting an ascendant non-biblical worldview vs the Judeo-Christian values upon which this country was founded. It’s a battle for America’s soul and its future.

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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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 14 June 2022

With all the recent concern about guns in the wake of another gut-wrenching mass shooting, have you ever wondered whether there is a Christian position regarding guns, gun laws, or gun control?  

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #29 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.

Guns are part of the American experience. Indeed, we’ve been described as a gun culture.

"Americans made up 4 percent of the world's population (in 2018) but owned about 46 percent of the entire global stock of 857 million civilian firearms. U.S civilians own 393 million guns. American civilians own more guns "than those held by civilians in the other top 25 countries combined."

In my experience, I find people relate to these facts in widely divergent manners.

A lot, it seems to me, depends upon whether a person has grown up in a family that owned or used guns for sport or hunting, whether the person then has actually been around guns, and whether they understand much about them. People whose background has not included guns, again in my experience, often can’t comprehend why anyone would want a gun, much less use it. So it may be easier for them to embrace a no-gun or gun control perspective.

Now I know this is a generalization, but I’m suggesting this hypothesis holds water. I’m notsuggesting, though, that people who adopt a no-gun or some manner of gun control perspective are prima facie “wrong.” The judgment of right and wrong is something I’ll come back to later.

In the wake of mass shootings, especially ones involving children, the public understandably wants to do something, do anything that will stop this nightmare and make it such that a mass shooting will never happen again. As I said, understandable. No one wants shootings and the injury or death of innocents. But how to “fix” the problem is more complex than any easy or obvious solution available, including perhaps reducing access to guns.

I’ve read commentary and discussed guns and gun control with Christians who support gun laws restricting access. Many argue their recommendations are “the Christian thing to do.” In other words, they say their position is the Christian position.

They say, for example, if Christians believe in life, are pro-life if you will, then how can they not embrace policies restricting access to guns?

If Christians are non-violent, and believe God abhors violence, shouldn’t they embrace policies that restrict if not eliminate access to guns?

If Christians are peaceful, even pacifist, aren’t they compelled to promote policies restricting access to guns?

If Christians want to maintain a credible public testimony in a time when conservative Christianity is increasingly blamed for adherents’ commitment to blind patriotism, isn’t gun control one way we can demonstrate we’re relevant?

If Christians are about loving our neighbor, even our enemies, how can they make statements like “I have a God-given right to own guns”?

Then I have read, and I’ve enjoyed more than a few discussions with Christians who do not support more gun control.

They say, for example, Yes, Christians are pro-life, and in dangerous situations it is often a gun that saves lives.

Think about the two-year call to “Defund the Police.” OK, that’s a point of view. But it’s ironic, is it not, that when a situation arises where children are under direct threat from a ruthless gunman, what do people want to happen? They want police, officers with guns, to go in and stop the deranged killer. I’m not sure how you defund the police and demean the police, then in threat circumstances want police with guns to do more.

So, that said, some Christians argue that properly used guns are a means to peace and non-violence.

As to arguing it’s a “God-given right to own guns,” I’m not sure what Bible these folks are reading. 

In fact, the Word of God says nothing about guns, gun laws, or gun control. It talks about weapons, war, murder, self-defense, but not guns.

This alone should not lead us to think God’s Word offers no guidance for our questions.

• Scripture reminds us in 2 Peter 1:3, “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life.”
• In Philippians 1:9-10, the foundation for this podcast, the Apostle Paul said, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” 
• And finally, in Romans 14, again the Apostle Paul reminds us God has given to us Christian liberty, that we “should be fully convinced in their own mind” what is right and righteous before God.

There are “Dos and Don’ts” in Scripture that we ignore at our own peril, but not that many do this or don’t do that. The rest God leaves to our discernment and our decision making.

The Bible never outlaws guns, nor does it condemn a person for carrying a weapon. In fact, in several passages, the Bible supports self-defense (Neh. 4:15-23; Ezek. 33:1-9; Lk 22:35-38).

So, debates about guns and gun control are more philosophic and political than moral.

But as I said, because God did not speak directly to guns or gun control does not mean we cannot discern and develop our moral perspective on the issue.

Think about this:  the Word of God never condemned human slavery, does not speak to hard drugs or narcotics, offers no 11^th Commandment proscribing gambling, but do any of us believe these are worthy activities? No. We have developed our perspective based upon other principles found in Scripture.

We can do the same with guns and gun control. We can honor others’ Christian liberty, recognizing each person can embrace, even passionately, their own convictions about guns and gun control, as long as we don’t violate the other person’s liberty by arguing our view is the only moral view.

What did God say?

1. God made it clear in Scripture that human beings are made in his image, eternally valuable.
2. He said murder is always wrong.
3. God said we are to be good stewards, accountable to him for our behavior, including regarding life, work, safety.
4. He said the problems in this world are not our toys and our tools but our sinful hearts.
5. God is not violent and hateful, why do we patronize or purchase increasingly violent movies and video games?

You see, this only scratches the surface of scriptural principles that can be brought to bear on whether and why we buy guns, how we use them, and how as a society we might curtail access to certain kinds of guns.

My point in all this is not to take a position For or Against some form of gun control, much less guns, though I’ve hinted they’re not the only source of our social struggle.

My point is to say that we should develop our perspectives based upon good information and make our arguments on the merits of our ideas, not simply on emotion.

And my point is to say God has given us wide latitude – Christian liberty – to discern what is best when we develop our guns and gun control views…and he expects us to respect those whose views differ from our own.

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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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 07 June 2022

Have you seen rainbow flags in windows, on lawns, or on bumper stickers, especially during June?  It’s Pride Month, which raises some interesting questions for Christians. 

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #28 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.

It’s June, so we’re seeing rainbow flags everywhere we look, and Gay Pride events including parades in large cities are scheduled throughout the country.

The rainbow flag was created by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco activist, and the flag was first flown as a symbol of LGBTQ+ pride at the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day.

Initially, Pride Month began as Gay Pride Day, held on the last Sunday in June. 

As the number of events proliferated the recognitions morphed into Pride Month. In 1999, President Bill Clinton declared June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. 

In 2012, then President Barack Obama changed his lifelong position and said he believed same-sex couples should be able to marry. In 2015, the United States Supreme Court, ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges, that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples. Also in 2015, Bruce Jenner, 1976 Olympic decathlon gold medalist, said, “Call me, Caitlyn,” and went public on the cover of “Vanity Fair,” with his transition to declaring himself a woman. 

With these unprecedented events, the sexual revolution launched in the 60s captured American culture, same-sex issues became de rigueur and almost boring old news, and transgenderism became the next frontier advancing sexual liberation.

Pride Month is now gone culturally mainstream. Professional sports teams and corporations trumpet their support of all things LGBTQ+ seemingly without regard for the fact there is another moral point of view.

The reasons are easy to identify:

1. Embraced the morally relativistic paradigm of our day.
2. Want to virtue signal that they are on board, in part to avoid litigation.
3. Believe their support of Pride Month helps them sell their product.

LGBTQ+ individuals are now visible in every subsection of society, including religion. 

In my lifetime, homosexuality has become a point of divisiveness in the Church. The turning point for the debate gets back to something called hermeneutics, how one interprets the Bible. Many individuals no longer acknowledge the authority or divine character of the Bible, so they do not look to it for moral direction.

Others believe God’s Word may be found in the Bible but do not believe the Bible is trustworthy in all its propositions. This perspective leads them to conclude that verses referencing homosexuality are culturally dated and thus not morally applicable in today’s more sophisticated environment. In this approach, experience trumps revelation.

Finally, Christians who adopt a different hermeneutic, those who believe the Bible is God’s inspired Word, therefore also believe that the Bible’s propositions are as morally applicable now as the day they were written. This is my view.

If you believe the Bible is God’s moral will for all times, countries, and cultures, then you’ll embrace these beliefs about human sexuality:

1. God defines one’s sex, biologically, at birth as either male or a female (Gen. 1:27); consequently, gender is not fluid.
2. Sexuality is a gift of God that is often perverted to sinful ends (Gen. 2:24; 1 Thess. 4:3-8), 
3. Sexual expression is a moral choice (1 Cor. 6:18-20),
4. Godly or moral sexual expression is assigned to the boundaries and bonds of monogamous heterosexual marriage (1 Cor. 7:2-5). 
5. Sexual immorality, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is sin and therefore indistinguishable morally in the eyes of God (Heb. 13:4).

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.

By the way, it’s a good reminder to note that far more Christians, as well as the public, struggle with heterosexual immorality than homosexual immorality.  

If we could count noses, heterosexual immorality—adultery, affairs—would be the bigger sin in the Christian Church. So, focusing upon homosexuality as worse than heterosexual immorality is socially naïve and morally indefensible.

Ofttimes, it is the nuance of our message that’s important, disagreeing with a moral choice while loving and reaching out to a person. Christ most famously did this in his interaction with the Samaritan Woman at the well (Jn. 4:4-30). He did not condone or endorse her checkered moral history, but he did not reject her either. In fact, he simply spoke the truth with love. 

Pride Month is not a time for Christian condemnation or condescension. It’s a time for Christian communication of God’s message of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

Think about these practical ways to live our Christian worldview during Pride Month:

1. Christians should never be the ones creating environments in which people want to or must hide in closets. 

2. Teaching biblical doctrines of sin, or specifically not condoning same-sex relationships, is not necessarily homophobia, insensitive, or intolerant. Such teaching could be presented in unloving, condemning ways but need not be. God defines sin but always offers love, forgiveness, redemption, and hope. 

3. There is no biblical or logical justification for bigotry, hatred, gay bashing, bullying, or violence toward LGBTQ+ individuals. Such acts are expressions of fear, not love nor faith. 

4. Christians should support LGBTQ+ people in their basic civil liberties and civil rights as Americans.

5. Christians should recognize that no sin, other than the ultimate and final rejection of Christ, is an unpardonable sin or an unalterable condition. In my view, LGBTQ+ persons are not defined by their sexual orientation or behavior. The Spirit of God always offers and can enable another Way.

6. Christians should understand that speaking the truth, which we must do in love, does not necessarily mean this truth will be well received or that we will be appreciated for our faith and our values. But how can we be loving if we do not speak?

7. Christians can and should be openly friendly toward LGBTQ+ persons. Remember, “They won’t care what you know until they know that you care.” It’s simply “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or 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.