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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 21 October 2024

Have you ever tried to discuss a controversial issue with someone and, given their horrified reaction, simply given up?

Are there certain issues or points of view that you know to avoid – don’t go there – whenever you are with certain family or friends?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #175 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 the U.S. Presidential campaign, back in February 2016, I stopped posting political content on social media. I just quit cold turkey. 

Before then I’d tried to post about issues. I didn’t mention just one but always several candidates, attempted to be non-partisan, and in no way attacked Democrat or Republican candidates or otherwise use my social media to campaign. In retrospect, I guess I was naïve. I actually tried to conduct a discussion about important issues. Usually, it didn’t happen.

I found that people didn’t read the nuances of what I said, and they didn’t discuss the issue. Mostly, they reacted emotionally, defending their partisan view and/or candidate—who I had often not mentioned—and frequently did so with rancor not found in my posts. People used my nonpartisan social media post as a platform to rant or to proclaim the virtues of their candidate, even when this had nothing directly to do with the issue content of my post.

I also noticed that my comments about political issues, in part because they got hi-jacked for candidate campaigning or negative campaigning, divided my family, friends, and colleagues. People just couldn’t hang together for an issue discussion without quickly voting each other off the island.

At that point I decided political posting wasn’t worth dividing or losing friends. So, I stopped.

But recently, a friend said to me in a private exchange that while he had reached the same conclusion regarding no-more-political-posts, he felt badly because he struggled with knowing that silence in the face of evil (he was referring to an especially egregious issue) can make one an accessory.

My friend didn’t make the reference, but I will, a la the famous quote attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Perhaps not all political debates are good vs evil and not all issues, thankfully, involve evil as such, but some do, so where does that leave us?

A while back I broke my pattern. I didn’t use social media but privately texted several friends about the children at the border issue. I did not attack then President Trump but later commented in the text chain that I thought the President could alter what was currently taking place at the border. My friends split down the middle, not about whether children were at risk but in regard to the Administration’s responsibility for this issue. That’s OK. Disagreement is part of discussion. But as the text exchange continued, friends started requesting they be dropped from the group text.

I was reminded that even my friends, like the rest of the country are politically divided to the point of polarization. I understand my friends’ desire to opt out.

As I said, in some sense, I have done the same on social media. It wasn’t that they didn’t have opinions or that they didn’t care, though perhaps some may be less politically interested than others, but that they did not want to get into a back-and-forth of hardened positions on opposite ends of the teeter-totter.

Think so-called “panels” on major television news channels. Pretty much they’ve devolved into shout fests about who can talk overtop the other, not who can provide reasoned discourse. Think, for example, the “guns” vs. “gun control” issue. Pretty much this debate is a non-starter because people on all sides are loudly talking past each other, usually citing the extremes of whatever they consider the other position.

This same kind of phenomenon showed up when my wife and I attended an after-church home-gathering comprised of people from the same church—middle class Midwesterners, most of whom who’d grown up locally and graduated from the same high school and who otherwise had much in common.

It was a very nice evening. Then someone mentioned Trump, or maybe it was just a given political issue. Just like that the group divided, incredibly, to the point of yielding a couple of prickly comments and a few negative facial expressions that stayed that way until someone changed the subject. Amazing. Good friends suddenly turn edgy when politics came up. So, the old maxim stands: “Never talk about politics or religion in polite company.”

Years ago, I wrote a book called “Christian Liberty: Living for God in a Changing Culture” (Baker, 2003). I talked about God’s moral absolutes—not a long list by the way— for all times, countries, and cultures, which we ignore at our own peril. Things like don’t lie, murder, steal, worship idols.

In that book I talked about the enormous room for discretion, or better, discernment with which God charged us as a way of making good decisions about cultural matters (Phil. 1:9-11). As long as our attitudes, viewpoints, and actions do not violate the moral will of God—as revealed in the Bible—he gave us the liberty to decide and to be different.

But I said then and I still believe it today, Christian liberty is the least understood and least practiced doctrine of the Bible. I cannot prove this, but I experience it regularly.

I started this podcast referencing year 2016. It’s now several years later, and if anything, the polarization of American culture to the point of threatening e Pluribus Unum has gotten decidedly worse. We have woke activists pressing their divisive, anti-reality, anti-science race, class, and gender ideas upon us, including our school children. These are the ones who form the core of the “cancel culture” movement, meaning if you don’t agree with them, you have no right to speak, or maybe even to keep your job. How can we discuss if expressing our values and views leads to social ostracizing, or professional punishments of varying kinds?

The abortion debate has gone from one side saying pro-life and the other side saying, “Safe, legal, and rare” (remember Bill Clinton?) to the other side now saying abortion on demand all the way to birth and, for some, even after a birth.

For the pro-abortion view, abortion is now typically equated with women’s rights. Many consider abortion a human right. A human right, to kill your children? Where in this divide is there room for discussion?

We experienced the pandemic, which was a real disease and a real threat, but in the midst of it we had elected government officials dictating what was “misinformation” or “disinformation” and working with Big Social Media to silence any disagreement with the prevailing acceptable narrative. How can we discuss if we’re not allowed to discuss?

Growing numbers of people in our country and culture do not want people to speak if their views diverge from what the dominant group considers correct.

The answer to opposing views is not a free and open debate on the merits of the argument but to silence, somehow to keep the other view from being heard.

If it is heard, then the solution is to react with emotional diatribe, victim-claiming, accusations of political incorrectness, or attacks on the character of others who hold the “wrong view.” The First Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Speech is itself, dishearteningly, no longer considered a sacred political ideal for whom men and women have given the last full measure of devotion to protect.

We’ve come to a point in a so-called post-truth or fake news culture in which polarization is so pronounced we can no longer communicate, resulting in a virtual inability to discuss, much less debate, any social-political issue without becoming defensively partisan, ideological, or upset.

Don’t get me wrong. Social media is loaded with political commentary, but it’s usually one-sided, a way to get one’s view out there. OK, but is there room for consideration? Discussion, at least public discourse, is still dead-on-arrival.

One positive way to try to address this problem is to ask questions. Ask others what they believe and why? Do not make your own assertions, which invites pushback. Just ask questions, which signals respect. Then wait. Be quiet, which is hard for me to do, and see what comes back. This may open the door to a genuine discussion.

This said, I think the death of discussion is a real and a sad phenomenon, a capitulation to a disappearing understanding among the public of what Freedom of Speech means in a constitutional republic. The trend, whether from Left or Right, is not good for the future of this country.

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. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

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

©  Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2024.

*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 YouTube @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or x.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 18 July 2024

Is America becoming a banana republic, one where political opponents take shots with bullets not just words?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #159 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.

Saturday, July 13, at a Butler, PA campaign rally, a young man fired his rifle multiple times toward former President Donald J. Trump, injuring him and two others in the crowd, and sadly killing a firefighter attempting to shield his family.

It brought back memories of Mar 30. 1981, the last time a President was injured in an assassination attempt when President Ronald Reagan was shot at short range, rushed to a Washington, DC, hospital, and survived a bullet that had narrowly missed his heart.

Reagan looked at doctors in surgery and said, “I hope you all are Republicans.” Standing near the foot of the operating table was [chief of surgery] Joe Giordano, who happened to be a die-hard liberal. “Today, Mr. President,” Giordano said, “we are all Republicans.” Later, the President told his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

Trump’s in the moment, “Fight, Fight, Fight,” is reminiscent of this earlier time when a leader proved his mettle under duress. Some media coverage since have tried to make this comment, together with Trump’s raised fist, into some kind of fascist rallying cry. But “the crowd at the rally chanted ‘USA! USA! USA!’ in response, the sense of unity and determination was palpable. This intriguing reaction demonstrated the deep connection between Trump and his base, even in the face of violence and danger.”

While the first president, George Washington, was elected unanimously in 1789, American presidential political campaigns since have been rough and tumble affairs. These campaigns have sometimes been marked by vitriolic rhetoric and political violence:

1. Election of 1800 (Thomas Jefferson vs. John Adams):
   • Thomas Jefferson was labeled an atheist and accused of wanting to undermine the morality of America.
   • Though not directly related to the campaign itself, the charged political atmosphere contributed to the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr in 1804, resulting in Hamilton's death.
2. Election of 1828 (Andrew Jackson vs. John Quincy Adams):
   • Andrew Jackson was accused of being a "jackass" and a barbarian, with allegations regarding his inadvertently bigamous marriage to Rachel Donelson – Jackson and Rachel thought her former husband had secured a divorce when it turned out he had not. Rachel died just days after Jackson’s election, and she never served as First Lady. Jackson believed his political opposition’s cruel comments about his wife led to her early death and he never forgave them.
3. Election of 1860 (Abraham Lincoln vs. multiple candidates):
   • Abraham Lincoln was called a "black Republican" and was accused of being an abolitionist who would incite racial equality and violence.
   • Lincoln was ultimately assassinated by John Wilkes Booth shortly after his re-election in 1864.
4. Election of 1968 (Richard Nixon vs. Hubert Humphrey):
   • The year was marked by significant political violence, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
   • The Democratic National Convention in Chicago was marred by violentclashes between police and anti-war protesters. 
5. Election of 1972 (Richard Nixon vs. George McGovern):
   • The campaign included the Watergate scandal, leading to political turmoil and Nixon's eventual resignation.
   • On May 15, 1972, third party candidate George Wallace was shot while campaigning in Laurel, Maryland. One bullet lodged in his spinal column leaving him paralyzed from the waist down the rest of his life.

So American presidential politics has always been a raucous time, yet there is no question that the rhetoric and vitriol in the campaigns of the new millennium have gotten uglier. 

Can we change this?  I hope so, but as I said in a SAT-7 USA blog about the assassination attempt, I believe we’re dealing not so much with a political as a spiritual problem.

We live in a fallen world, and we know that since at least the 1960s, American culture has aggressively and rapidly secularized in many ways and paganized in others. 

Both Christian and conservative observers have been noting threatening developments, among them:

• rejection of the Sovereign God of the Bible, 
• embracing moral relativism, 
• emphasis upon feelings,
• celebrating cultish values regarding race, sexuality,
• promotion of happiness or the self as the ultimate measure of wellbeing in life, 
• trading a Christian for a utilitarian view of life, thus a baby may be discarded if not wanted,

These trends help to create a culture that is anxious, pessimistic, and looking for someone, i.e., others, to blame for our problems. Add to this a significant increase in end-of-the-world climate change alarmism, fear of global viruses, terrorism, and doomsday population projections, and one gets a culture that is confused, chaotic, backward, and characterized by an ill-defined rage.

Our political leaders reflect some of this. In an angry age, is it then any wonder that President Joe Biden and Former President Donald J. Trump can be rather nasty in their comments about their opponents? It’s not good, but it is predictable.

One interesting aftermath of the assassination attempt is the number of people, including Mr. Trump and members of his family, along with favorable media figures, who are saying the bullet missed because of the providence of God. 

People are saying God is not through with Donald J. Trump, that he was spared by a direct act of God in order to help restore America to its former ideals and bounty.

Now I have no problem with people, least of all the candidate and those around him, acknowledging God’s presence, blessings, and providence, because I believe the Sovereign God of the Universe is indeed involved in our daily lives. God was there in Butler, PA, and he was not surprised by what occurred. Yes, I believe he has a will and a plan for Mr. Trump, for America, for all of us.

I do have a problem, though, with some memes – images developed for sharing online – I’ve seen that, to me, cross over into what scholars call civil religion. These memes feature Mr. Trump in various god-like scenarios, perhaps being uplifted by angels or kneeling while wrapped in the US flag as divine light from above shines down on him. Some memes portray Mr. Trump as a savior, and sometimes seem to worship him. These memes look like and remind me of icons of saints that I’ve seen in churches.

So, God providentially protected Mr. Trump. OK, I then wonder what people would be saying if Mr. Trump had been slain. Would they then be talking about God’s providence? 

We know this in our own lives when we or a loved one is very ill. We pray for their healing, and sometimes God answers that prayer affirmatively. But sometimes God answers that prayer negatively and we or our loved one advances in the illness, at times even unto death. Did God love and protect us when he healed but not love and protect us when he did not heal?

Again, I am not against acknowledging God’s engagement in American culture and politics. Nor am I knocking, much less making fun of, those who praise God for his providence in sparing Mr. Trump’s life. During his recovery, Mr. Reagan made similar observations about God’s will, and Mr. Reagan’s life and purpose. If anything, we should obey more of the Lord’s Word and seek his engagement. I am simply cautioning us not to baptize any political figure as other than the man or woman that they are.

Like us, American presidents are not perfect. We are commanded to pray for our leaders: “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim 2:1-2).

But Scripture also reminds us who really is in charge of our future, saying, “Put not your trust in princes,in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish” (Ps. 146:3-4).

May God grant the USA and its political leaders providence, protection, peace, and prosperity.

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, 2024     

*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 or https://twitter.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 03 June 2024

Why, and how is it possible, that decades-old and influential American institutions are now in the process of destroying themselves?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #152 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.

Referring to institutions in the West and specifically in the United States, writer and scientist Alan Joseph Bauer recently noted, “One institution after another is destroying itself, its credibility, and its influence.” 

It’s like American institutions are on a bender, rapidly adopting wrong, injurious ideas and practices based upon evil values diametrically opposed to what America has stood for since its founding.

For example, “the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to stop its offensive in Rafah. Israel will not stop its offensive in Rafah…By demanding that Israel stop fighting a critical part of its campaign to destroy Hamas, the ICJ has shown that it cannot stop Israel and is a paper tiger.”

“This empty ICJ order is one more step in the decline of the post-war major institutions that for seventy years have played outsized roles in world affairs…the FBI and DoJ have beclowned themselves to the point where nobody believes them any longer.”

“What we are witnessing is the self-destruction of major institutions, national and international. The UN, through its billion-dollar (United Nations Relief and Works Agency or) UNRWA office, was an active part of Hamas’ activities in Gaza. Their staff and facilities provided Hamas with a large part of their manpower and infrastructure.”

“The universities have made complete fools of themselves. Professors, once highly respected scholars…run interference for their demented students. Those students, after four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, don’t know which river to which sea, could not find Gaza on a map, and are completely clueless as to what actually happened on 10/7.”

Given the number of public-school boards now dominated by woke ideologues, the rabid commitment of public educators to LGBTQ and specifically trans activism, declining productivity in learning, increases in school violence and safety concerns, and curricula given over to critical race theory racism, and the indisputable fact that while universities tout diversity, equity, and inclusion, there is a decided lack of conservative voices, i.e. intellectual diversity, allowed on campus, the public is losing confidence in all levels of public education.

The medical profession, once sitting atop the totem pole of respect in American culture, is increasingly seen as a vast bureaucracy given over to dependency on government funding, overpriced medical insurance, declining scientific rigor in assessing disease, and increasing politicization seen in the COVID-19 and vaccination experience, the willingness to mutilate children in the name of trans affirmation, and an unhealthy inclination to prescribe addictive drugs.

Mainstream media lie about political matters and candidates every day, so much so that media has suffered enormous drops in credibility and for some, even viability, going out of business.

Social media, though it has grown in number of users, has declined in credibility. About 59% of American adults do not trust news on social media. Too many stories, with documentation, of Big Social Media intentionally peddling disinformation about C-19, masks, vaxxes; too many stories, with documentation, demonstrating how Big Social Media intentionally shut down conservative websites and accounts – most prominently when then-named Twitter discontinued Pres. Donald Trump’s account for what they said was a “risk of further incitement to violence” – and then evidence of Big Social Media liberal bias, anti-free speech policies, and arrogance all combined to reduce the public’s trust of social media.

“Hollywood used to be the source of American entertainment. Hollywood made the movies and later TV shows that kept Americans busy and entertained. Those days are mostly behind us. Today, movie studios insist on lecturing or looking down on the audience.” The studios seem to want to virtue signal by being the studio that speaks the loudest about an alphabet of sexual proclivities. One movie after another is going woke, then going broke. This includes Disney, and this includes the video gaming industry.

The Trump trials are shredding what was left of respect for the criminal justice system. This follows the post-George Floyd riots of 2020, the so-called “Summer of love” featuring demonstrations laughably described in media coverage as “mostly peaceful” as fires raged behind the reporter, which destroyed billions of dollars of property, a significant portion belonging to minorities.

Then came the advent of what’s been called “rogue prosecutors,” which is to say, city, county, and state elected law enforcement officials who refuse to enforce the law. “Progressive” prosecutors sabotage the rule of law, raise crime rates, and ignore victims.”

“They believe the entire criminal justice system is racist. It’s absurd, but they believe it.”

The U.S. military, once considered the greatest and best in world history, is becoming a pale reflection of itself, thanks largely to Biden Administration policies emphasizing DEI over preparedness. “Today's American military has fully embraced the social imperatives of the Left and the most progressive aspects of American society. The U.S. Air Force selects officers based on a race- and sex-based quota system for officer applicants—an affirmative action program that would make the Ivy League blush.”

Over-commitment to woke social goals, including vigorous promotion of trans ideology, alongside decreasing and under-commitment to patriotism, readiness, and excellence, has translated to the US military failing to meet its annual recruiting needs. Young Americans don’t see opportunity, patriotic pride, and esprit de corps but rather division, rancor in the ranks, absence of earned stature, and dead-end.

Churches, or religion, is also suffering a decline in credibility. Many churches are shooting themselves in the foot, going woke, then, like entertainment, inevitably, going broke. These churches think the way to save the world is not by sharing the Gospel but by blowing with whatever new wind is passing.

If it’s a new idea, if it is not traditional Christianity, it must be good, so let’s jump on that bandwagon. 

Climate change is one of those new winds blowing. Churches in Europe and now in the U.S. are drinking the Kool-Aid of this latest culture of death. Soon, the church offers nothing different from the world, for the church is the world.

American institutions are in decline. Actually, they are one by one committing suicide through their own, active efforts to advance ideas and values contrary to and directly undermining the historic ideals that made America strong in the first place.

Our culture now “believe(s) in an ever-evolving world where moral standards are not constant, not absolute, are to be defined by the individual (or government), where there is no God to provide a fixed, final answer for mankind’s reason for existence, for mankind’s hopes, for mankind’s guidance. We live in a world today where the zeitgeist is defined by Darwinian, Marxian, naturalistic, materialistic atheism—no God will save us, we must save ourselves. Our “god” thus becomes whatever each individual wants him (or her) to be. Everybody defines their own purpose for existence, their own carnal lifestyle, their own personal moral code.”

This all sounds so liberating, so nice to do what’s right in our own eyes with no one to whom we report or are held accountable.

It sounds like, at last, humanity has evolved to a level of self-sufficient pleasantry wherein life is one long bacchanalia.

Charles Darwin thought humanity would evolve without God. But we’re devolving. No God, no truth, no morality, no accountability equals no sense of purpose, progress, or hope – just meaninglessness, which human beings can’t endure so we strike out in anarchistic nihilism. Chaos. 

Look what’s happening in American and European cities, everyday in the streets. Look what’s happening to our social institutions.

You’ve heard it said that ideas have consequences. Embrace the wrong ideas and reap negative results.

America needs a spiritual awakening, and soon.

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, 2024   

*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 or https://twitter.com/RexMRogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 25 March 2024

From what source do we receive our civil liberties and civil rights, and what is the difference?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #140 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.

We hear a lot on social media about rights and sometimes liberties. Generally, the trend is to argue for more perceived rights for one group or another, but rarely is the word “rights” defined and even more rarely is the word “liberties” understood or distinguished.

A cornucopia of new rights—or should I say demands?—are now promoted, all in the name of addressing some perceived discriminatory wrong, or increasing the quality of life, or living our best life now, but most often, simply trying to liberate us from traditional moral standards now considered restrictive and oppressive.

People put their faith in government to provide these rights, to give us our narcissistic due by the power of legal coercion or protection, perhaps not realizing that if indeed government can give us certain rights than government can also take them away.

“The terms "civil rights" and "civil liberties" are often used synonymously or interchangeably, but their meanings are distinct.” Both words are used in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution. But they are different. 

Civil liberties are identified in the Bill of the Rights, here called rights. They are similar to what is referred to as human rights or natural rights, those that adhere to human beings as gifts of God or designations of nature. 

Civil liberties are inviolable or in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Civil liberties, called rights in the Declaration, are “unalienable,” meaning they cannot justly be taken away by some human power, and government is designed “to secure these rights” – not to grant them but to secure them. This is a critical distinction lost on contemporary politics.

Civil liberties “are freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution to protect us from tyranny (think: our freedom of speech), while civil rights are the legal rights that protect individuals from discrimination (think: employment discrimination).” 

Civil liberties “concern the actual basic freedoms; civil rights concern the treatment of an individual regarding certain rights.”

Civil liberties are not granted by government but are guarantees against government taking them away. 

Civil liberties are protections against government action. Civil liberties restrain governments; they list what governments cannot do. The United States federal, state, or local governments did not give us our civil liberties. They are gifts of God, natural or human rights, ours by birthright.

Civil liberties as enumerated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence include life, liberty. In the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers expanded on these unalienable rights to include freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly or to petition the government for redress of grievances, the 14^th Amendment’s due process, the 6^thAmendment’s right to a fair trial, equal treatment under the law, and right to own property. 

Unlike Civil liberties that are guarantors against government, Civil rights are actions governments may institute to extend additional protections to citizens. 

Civil rights list what governments must do and have been expanded over time through “positive actions” of government, for example the 13^th Amendment ending slavery in 1865, the 15^thAmendment granting male citizens the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” the 19^th Amendment of the US Constitution in 1920 giving women the right to vote, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, attempts a comprehensive list.

Civil rights include the right to vote, right to public education, or right to access public facilities, employment, housing.

More recently, a right to privacy and the legalization of same-sex marriage have been added to American understanding of basic rights.

Citizens’ civil liberties may never lawfully be abridged without due process of law, while citizens’ civil rights may change over time according to new legislation enacted into law as interpreted by the courts.

In liberal democracies, civil liberties or natural rights predate and are a priori to governments. It is enormously important to recognize and remember this, particularly in this time when a number of “Big Government” philosophies are ascendent and people frequently call for government to alter basic liberties according to their proclivities. And it’s also a time, like the 2020s pandemic panic, in which state governments via overreaching governors issued “orders”-upon-orders, telling citizens what to do and in a number of cases limiting their civil liberties.

People argue for more government to create more of what they consider rights.

Several countries now make abortion on demand a right protected their constitutions: Canada, South Africa, Uruguay, Nepal, India to name a few.

Today, a newer set of perceived rights are being vigorously promoted by leftist, progressives or so-called social justice warriors, including right to be free from pain, right to die, right to food, education, work, health, right not to be hungry, right to dignity, right to safety, right to fair rent, right to asylum, right to cultural and minority rights of indigenous peoples, right to housing – even if a squatter who has moved into someone else’s property and now is protected and legally cannot be evicted, right of criminally convicted men identifying as women to be placed in women’s prisons, right to transgender surgery, right to water and sanitation, immigrant rights, and many more. Indeed, the list is endless because every time someone thinks of something he or she does not have but desires, argues it is their right, i.e., demands, government grant it.

It’s not that all of these things are necessarily bad or wrong, though some are clearly unbiblical, but it is that the idea is lost that because something is desired does not make it a “right” that must be guaranteed by government.

Any of us would wish to be free from pain, and some among us suffer miserably, but is it a “right” to be free from pain? Where does God’s providence fit into this idea? 

Equality before the law or equal opportunity are one thing, meaning all stand on their own merits, talent, vision, and work ethic. But equity of condition in society, i.e., the contemporary definition of “fair,” means that all must be the same, leveled. 

It is the classic Marxist perspective of the haves vs the have nots, oppressor and oppressed, a philosophy based not upon freedom of honest enterprise but upon envy, entitlement, coercion, and legalized theft. 

Once God is tossed from the equation, anything goes, and American culture has done just this in my lifetime.

G.K. Chesterton reputedly said, “When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, but in anything.” This is what we have now, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6).

For example, immigrant rights have absorbed criminal rights resulting in illegal aliens pursuing whatever lawlessness they please, then claiming rights that protect them against prosecution and justice. One flaw in this argument is that if they are illegal, then they have no U.S. civil liberties or civil rights because they are not citizens of this country.

Rights, plucked from the air, are the currency of American politics and culture, with little or no consideration of responsibility or liberty.

The U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights may not be perfect, but no other civil documents create a governmental system more protective and more supportive of individual liberty. This is a precious heritage we are fast losing in the chaos currently allowed by the ruling class.

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, 2024   

*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 or https://twitter.com/RexMRogers. 

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 20 December 2023

Have you ever felt like the world is upside down, or have you ever witnessed something so egregious you never thought you’d see it in your lifetime?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #124 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 early days of the pandemic in April 2020, I wrote a blog in entitled “Things I Never Thought Could Happen in America.” I noted things like governors issuing “orders” requiring citizens stay home, or governors determining a) there’s such a thing as essential and non-essential businesses, b) actually assigning businesses to these categories, or the absurdity of pet, marijuana, liquor stores, and abortion clinics considered essential while churches were considered non-essential, or mayors threatening churchgoers with fines and directing police to record the vehicle licenses of anyone attending a drive-in church service, or county officials mandating churches exclude singing from live stream programs, or police empowered to break up groups of more than three people.

Looking back, these developments still strike me as examples of government overreach and a threat to individual freedom.

And now, it’s happening the way many of us predicted it would, scholars are gradually demonstrating that much of the masking frenzy, forced shutdown of schools, and other fear-based control, did not prevent the spread of COVID.

Clearly, the pandemic accelerated big government trends that were already underway in the US. That was December 2010 to pick a date for end of the pandemic – Pres Biden declared the pandemic over Sept 18, 2022, then multiple sources tried to walk it back.

Then came the post-George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020, coupled with the rise of the organization Black Lives Matter, which spurred the rapid embrace of woke philosophies that literally took over education, corporations, government, even the military, leading to politically correct demands, victimhood, and the idolatry of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This, too, demonstrated and contributed to cultural moral breakdown and social upheaval.

Now, we’re experiencing more moral confusion in the aftermath of the Hamas Massacre in Israel, Oct. 7, 2023, which opened floodgates to the animosity grounding left-leaning philosophies, most especially antisemitism on campuses, in the streets, and in the halls of Congress.

These trends are all discouraging and threatening, and with the latest open hostility, even calling for genocide of Jews, it feels like we’ve crossed a critical Rubicon in our culture’s moral collapse.

And we don’t seem to have learned much from our earlier experiences, because things continue to occur in America that I never thought I’d see. 

Some are utter silliness, much are irrational, and some are disruptive to the future of the body politic. Consider these developments:

1. Billionaire Bill Gates calling for developing new breeds of cows who do not burp as much methane so that we can save ourselves from climate change. With a straight face, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that bovine flatulence is a large contributor to global warming.
2. A Los Angeles freeway blockedby protestors demanding a cease-fire in Gaza. Progressive Jewish organization IfNotNow, a pro-Palestinian group which supports ending U.S. support for Israel, said it organized protests timed for Hanukkah.
3. Hundreds of people participating in a “Queers for Palestine” protest blocking the Manhattan Bridge in New York City. The protesters waved Pride flags while chanting slogans such as “queer, trans, no peace on stolen land.” 

4. Pro-Hamas protesters threatening to kill Jewish attendees as they leave the Israeli Embassy's Hanukkah ceremony in Washington, DC. A woman screamed, "We will kill you all, occupiers."
5. A Seattle high schooler marked incorrect on a quiz for saying only women can get pregnant.
6. Concern about plagiarism is now declared illegitimate because such concern is part of the “white supremacist agenda.”
7. US soccer player Megan Rapinoe, a sexually out, in-your-face, perennial malcontent, hurt her leg and said it was “proof” there is no God. She later said that playing for United States Soccer was “the worst job in the world,” this after she became famous and made a very good living because of soccer yet played poorly in her final games.
8. A Senate staff member was arrested for filming a gay porno of himself having gay sex in a Senate Hearing Roomof the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Need I say more?

Here’s one you couldn’t imagine just a few years ago under any President, Republican or Democrat:

9. As of June 2023, approximately 16.8 million illegal aliens reside in the U.S. Since the beginning of the Biden Administration in Jan 2021, illegal immigrants coming across the nation’s open southern border with Mexico now stands at more than 3.8 million, including more than 1.7 million “gotaways” who crossed undetected,“the greatest number in historyand of any administration. Illegal aliens increased 16% during just two years of the Biden presidency such that the total is now more than the individual populations of 41 states.” The annual net cost of illegal migration was approximately $116 billion. This is not only astounding for the numbers involved, but also shocking when          you consider  this has happened because a given Administration simply chose to ignore the law, suspend policies, and in general thumb its nose at the safety and security of the American people. 

Now, about 49.5 million people in the U.S. are foreign born, the largest in history.

I have long been in favor of legal immigration, and I still am. But this willful grab for political power perceived to lodge in these immigrants is illusory and dangerous. 

    1) We don’t know who these people are because they have not been vetted, 2) Many are military age males entering alone, 

    2) the fentanyl drug cartels are using this surge to bilk Americans, 

    3) children are being trafficked in the midst of this,

    4) and while some of immigrants may truly wish for a better life, others are coming for nefarious reasons with no intention to assimilate – just look at what’s happening  in Europe.

Many European articles now replace the word “immigrant” with the term “cultural enricher,”usually ironically or sarcastically. It refers to invasion or general violence caused by people of different cultures. The phrase has roots in Germany in WWI and was used by Hitler to refer to Jews. 

The people who have been admitted en masse to European countries under the false philosophy of multiculturalism, in the hopes they’d provide a new workforce to make up for the low birthrate in these countries, 

are not for the most part integrating. They are now acting out violently, making economic and religious demands, and otherwise have become a major problem across the continent. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the effort to bring foreign workers to a happy multi-cultural society, “has failed, utterly failed.” The U.S. should have long since taken note, but it may now be too late.

10. Given my long background in higher education and love for campus life, the rapid decline of American higher education has been hard for me to watch. In the past few years, it’s been a slippery slope embracing moral relativism, the re-emergence of racial segregation in the name of inclusiveness, the destruction of standards in the name of equity, the utter absurdity of gender pronoun madness, the development of “free speech zones” because elsewhere on campus speech is restricted for a list of politically correct reasons – that is, until this past month when antisemitism has been permitted, endorsed, and encouraged at the nation’s’ elite universities. 

But you say, surely not every university is like this, nor every professor. Maybe not, at least among individual professors, but numerous incidents can be listed wherein professors were harassed, silenced, or lost their jobs because the dominant woke mentality takes no prisoners.

11. Abortion has been legal since I was in college, but a list of things I thought I’d never see in my own country still must include this travesty. Who would have predicted we’d get to a point that pro-choice advocates would refer to laws protecting the innocent unborn as “government-mandated pregnancies”? Any culture that so blithely dismisses the vitality and rights of babies is capable of any moral outrage.

There is in fact no end of ridiculous, irrational, or dangerous offshoots of humanity’s desire to avoid living as God intended. The late Christian philosopher Rousas Rushdoony observed a long time ago that there is no end to error. More recently, political philosopher Dennis Prager made a similar observation, saying in effect that the Left, major media, and the contemporary university constantly focuses upon made up “fake problems” rather than considering the real moral issues of good and evil in a real world. This seems to be the state of our union.

But as a Christian believer, our commission in life remains the same, to love God, to be ready always to give an answer of the hope that is within us, and to “let those who love the Lord hate evil,” Ps. 97:10.

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

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

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023     

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