Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: 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.

*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.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 18 March 2024

Does what a child learns stay with him or her for life?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #139 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 confess that all my life, I thought the verse, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it,” found in Prov. 22:6, provided a principle directly referencing Christian education and behavior – until last week.

And of course it does. The verse is used by countless churches, Sunday Schools, Daily Vacation Bible Schools, pastors, church camps, Christian universities, Christian schools, and Christian families as a reminder that God will bless children who are taught moral truth, who are encouraged and expected to live righteously, and who seek to live out their faith as a testimony to God’s purposes in the world. Yes, this verse means all that, and it is a wonderful promise – “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

But what hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks last week is that this verse does not specifically reference any of those good, Christian behavioral practices. What it says is that what a kid learns when he or she is young is going to stick with him or her for the rest of their lives and in all probability will define their character. That idea, train up a child and he will not depart from it, works for good and for bad, for righteousness and unrighteousness, for blessedness and evil. That’s what hit me.

I was thinking about the hundreds of American students and others who poured into the streets in the past few weeks, shouting antisemitic slurs, spouting diatribes against Jews, Israel, and often America too, and even siding with terrorist Hamas.

Where did these people come from? Where did they learn this hatred?

The short answer is they learned it, or at least the value basis for it, in public schools, or maybe online from internet influencers, or maybe from their often-fragmented families.

So, train up a child and when he is old, he won’t depart from it is a principle at work every day with millions of children and youth. The problem is the trainer and the trainer’s values are not always what they ought to be. And bad influences yield bad results.

All these shouting, virtue signaling, immature but loud voices letting rip chants, slogans, animosity toward Jews – me hearing things I never thought I’d hear in the U.S. – where did these people come from?

Short answer: they came from public schools that are far more anti-Christian, anti-learning or anti-critical thinking, and anti-patriotic than we thought. They came from families where right values were not modeled and right behavior was not demonstrated, or effectively demanded.

Now someone said recently, public education is not neutral.

“This surge of antisemitism in schools stems from a decade-long politicization of the education system, infiltrating every aspect from educational philosophy to curriculum and classroom discussions…We must understand its driving force: the new leftist dogma. At its core is “critical pedagogy,” an educational philosophy that fuels resentment, victimhood, and collectivism, while promoting hatred towards certain groups. It indoctrinates students to view the world through a lens of power dynamics and oppression. Cloaked in euphemisms such as "inclusivity" and "social justice," this ideology – like all aspects of woke education – contains a destructive mind virus.”

Yet for all this, “many young people believe all of this and conduct themselves accordingly, yet they’re not very happy. This decades-long bombardment of young people with anti-family, anti-religion and anti-personal responsibility messages is working, and the primary casualties are the people at whom it is directed. This is not happening by accident. Authoritarians (and this is not a conspiracy theory) have known for more than a century that it’s easier to subjugate a population when they are removed from allegiances higher than the government. That includes the family, the church, even their innate nature to strive. Americans under the age of 35 have been inundated by cultural and political messaging that paves the road to serfdom and the net is that many more of them are not very happy.”

Does this mean every teacher or professor in public education buys into leftist or radical or socially progressive philosophies contrary to a Christian worldview?

No, of course not. Many public school and university educators are dedicated to their task of teaching, appreciate and love students and learning, and work diligently to share not only subject content but character values that help young people mature.

While their numbers are dwindling, those conservative teachers and professors who remain active are a minority who themselves can experience harassment, professional peer pressure, silencing, threats of losing their jobs, and in some cases, actually being fired for refusing to embrace ideas like preferred pronouns, trans names, anti-America philosophies and attitudes, hostility towards free speech, or suppression of freedom of religion, specifically Christianity. Meanwhile, some of these same teachers and professors committed to teaching fall under immense social and professional pressure to embrace gender fluidity, America as a colonialist-settler nation that exists today solely because white supremacists took land from Indians, reaped bounty from the backs of Black slaves, is comprised of greedy capitalists and the materialistic middle class, and is an oppressor of one victim group after another.

Students are taught not to love their country and the freedom ideals upon which it was established but to distrust or despise their country as a place unworthy of its place in the world, and certainly not a country that has afforded them anything positive or good.

Students don’t know who Americans fought in order to win their freedoms or why, or what any of this means to them today. They think that capitalism is a synonym for raping the wilderness and stealing from the poor. They believe Abraham Lincoln was a racist. They don’t know what Americans and the Allies bequeathed to them via their ultimate sacrifice during WWII.

They’ve been given inflated grades, have been removed from any experience of competitiveness or earned accomplishment, have been led to believe they deserve more, more than whatever they have now, all of which has been handed to them, and they’ve consequently not learned a work ethic, to value punctuality, to honor authority, or to assume responsibility.

They’ve been led to believe various versions of pacifism is somehow higher order moral thinking that works in the real world and makes them feel superior for proclaiming it. They’ve been brainwashed to believe social activism, “by any means necessary,” including vandalism of property or assault upon innocent bystanders is somehow laudatory. Train up a child and when he or she is old they will not depart from it.

In 2018, Christian social analyst, George Barna, said his research on Gen Z (that’s people born mid-to-late 1990s as starting birth years to early 2010s as ending birth years) shows that they are the first truly post-Christian generation. And Gen Z is twice as likely to be atheist as any previous generation.

In other words, they are not given the truth of the Gospel or a Christian worldview and are allowed if not encouraged to grow up thinking, paradoxically, moral relativism is an absolute. There’s no better than, no right and wrong, other than what they prefer, a might makes right proposition. There’s no accountability to God, so there is nothing they won’t do. There’s no truth, so they get to decide what is “their truth,” and there’s no objective standard to which they compare anything, so anything goes.

This generation is sometimes called the “Connected Generation” because they are online as no cohort ever before, even more than Gen X and Millennials. Yet while they are connected to thousands, they also express feelings of loneliness, detachment, worry, disassociation with the family and an inclination not to have children in a world where climate change is going to kill us all, and depression and suicide.

These feelings of angst and anomie are being reinforced in public schools and in families. Train up a child.

How we train or what we train the child in has consequences. We’ve possibly lost a generation. In our post-Christian culture, we seem to believe that what kids learn doesn’t matter – a dangerous mistake.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 March 2024

Have you noticed that as soon as one traditional moral boundary falls, then another moral standard is touted as a dreadful oppression upon humanity that must be banished in the name of free expression?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #138 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 entitled this podcast “Satan’s Next Frontier,” meaning that the Devil is continually working his plan to counter God and Creation, Christ and the Gospel, and a biblically Christian worldview in general. So, what might be his next frontier?

Not so long ago when same-sex marriage was not yet legal in the United States, that is nationally pre-2015 when the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell v Hodges, “ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution,” there were people who observed – and I was one of them – that as soon as same-sex marriage was legalized, transgenderism would be next.

The idea that trans people should be extended not only basic civil liberties as U.S. citizens but now, special civil rights, literally took off after the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, all in the name of freedom, tolerance, and inclusion.

Gender identity, sex on birth certificates and medical documents or passports, gender as determined by children’s social inclinations, not biology or parents or doctors, transgender access to bathrooms and locker rooms and women’s sports, pronoun madness, gender identity in hiring as in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Supreme Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because of sexuality or gender identity, gender non-binary military policy, a wholesale revolution qua propagandistic indoctrination in public school sex education and, actually, across all academic disciplines, sex change or what are now called gender-affirming hormone and surgical procedures, hijacking and changing the meaning of words, attacks on womanhood or femineity, arguing children are a threat to female self-actualization, attacks on manhood or masculinity, arguing men can menstruate, get pregnant, breastfeed.

Do I need to go on?

Transgender activism has worked a moral and social coup upon American culture.

More than other forms of sexual orientation symbolized by LGBQ, transgenderism is more divisive and more socially destructive, undermining the most basic of society’s mores, practices, and laws.

And trans activists know their argument can only succeed via the wholesale rejection of Christian teaching that men and women are made in the image of God and are intrinsically different from one another with unique purposes in Creation, the family, and the Will of God.

Yet for all its irrationality, transgenderism is winning. So, if transgenderism, from Bruce “Call me Caitlyn” Jenner to the latest celebrity to come out as nonbinary, if then trans is largely accepted, what’s next? What is Satan’s next moral frontier?

I suggest there are three possibilities, not necessarily in this order:

Euthanasia
Polyamory
Pedophilia

I. Euthanasia

“Euthanasia refers to deliberately ending someone’s life, usually to relieve suffering. Doctors sometimes perform euthanasia when it’s requested by people who have a terminal illness and are in a lot of pain.”

“In the United States, Physicians Assisted Suicide is legal in: Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Montana, Vermont, Washington, D.C., Hawaii.”

Different from euthanasia is “assisted suicide – alternately referred to as medical aid in dying (MAID) – means a procedure in which people take medications to end their own lives with the help of others, usually medical professionals.”

Euthanasia in its voluntary form, MAID, is widely practiced in Canada.

Euthanasia in one of its permutations is perhaps the most likely next frontier to be embraced, and soon, in the U.S. where it already has adherents, and some states have legalized forms of the practice. As “quality of life” continues to be redefined in terms of personal self-expression, and as people live longer into declining years, euthanasia will become more accepted.

II. Polyamory

“Consensual polyamory – having more than one sexual or emotional relationship at once – has become increasingly common in many countries in recent years. According to statistics published in 2021, 4 to 5 percent of the American population practices polyamory.”

“Today, there are a number of television shows and video games that have included the lifestyle in their plots, while mainstream dating sites and apps, including OkCupid, Tinder, and Hinge, now allow users to specify this type of relationship in their profiles.”

“Fifty-one per cent of adults younger than thirty told Pew Research, in 2023, that open marriage was “acceptable,” and twenty per cent of all Americans report experimenting with some form of non-monogamy.”

Polyamory involves so-called consenting adults and is already widely practiced in various ways, if not as outright adultery, then as agreed upon open marriage arrangements or simply accepted, sexual promiscuity in a culture much laxer about sexual mores than it was in the 1950s.

The likelihood polyamory will become more common is very high, as is the legalization of this form of marriage or family or social unit in local, state, and federal laws. Morality as defined in the Scripture, sexuality expressed in monogamous lifelong marriage will be dismissed as archaic and limiting.

III. Pedophilia

Pedophilia is also being presented in a positive light. Really, sex with minors, with children? Yes, sad to say it is so.

“Nov. 8, 2022, Old Dominion University sociology and criminology professor Allyn Walker gave an interview in which he asserted the need to destigmatize pedophiles by redefining them as ‘minor-attracted persons, (MAPs).’”

“The Walker incident is not a standalone event. In fact, his advocacy for pedophiles highlights the crisis that critical theory poses for higher education, as it attempts to dismantle every social taboo and normalize every form of immoral conduct.”

“Walker advocates for the inclusion of MAPs as part of the larger LGBT community by approaching attraction to minors as an orientation and stating that ‘the fact of children’s inability to consent to sex is irrelevant to the application of the term ‘sexual orientation’ towards attractions to minors.’”

“Academia’s ideological consensus has already shifted toward acceptance of pedophilia. K-12 schools already allow for depictions of child sexuality under the guise of equity, despite a considerable resistance by parents.”

“The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors and campaigns for the release of men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve what it considers coercion.”

A Kentucky State Senator recently suggested child sex dolls should be given to pedophile prisoners as a means to help them and reduce child abuse.

Meanwhile, the Left, as usual promoting and protecting the worst forms of human attitudes and behaviors, is now accusing anyone who raises concerns about pedophilia to be nothing more than a “new Red scare,” a new conspiracy among conservatives.

Pedophilia is yet, we hope, a less likely moral change on the horizon than euthanasia or polyamory, but pedophilia is already practiced in rampant kiddie pornography, child sex trafficking and abuse in the U.S., also now in avant-garde sexual liberation circles, and it is being promoted as somehow not psychologically damaging to children and in some weird way, good for them.

If abortion can be embraced as a human right, and if sexual identity is now considered the highest level of human expression, then is it too much to believe that normalization of pedophilia is far behind?

The problem with each of these trends is that none of them – euthanasia, polyamory, pedophilia – align with the values of biblical Christianity – which one could suggest is exactly why they may be Satan’s next frontier of moral change. God forbid.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 08 March 2024

I read “Israel is bad” or “Hamas is bad” arguments, one-sided with little nuance or consideration of issues faced by the opposition or by civilians.

I read “Ceasefire Now” arguments with no explanation of what can happen next.

I read “Two State Solution” arguments that seem to ignore the history of this diplomatic idea.

For the “Israel is bad” faction:

What resolutions to this war, do they recommend?
How should Hamas be held accountable for 10/7?
If Israel embraced a ceasefire now, what do they believe Hamas will do?
How do they suggest Israel get the remaining hostages returned?
How would they fight an enemy ensconced in tunnels under an urban civilian landscape?
Where in this approach is any responsibility, blame, accountability assigned to Hamas?

For the “Hamas is bad” faction:

Do they believe all Palestinians are evil, culpable for 10/7, and thus should be destroyed, or at least are of no concern should they become collateral damage?
Do they believe Hamas’s self-articulated mission, rejecting Israel’s right to exist, or the evil facts of 10/7, justify any Israeli response?
Do they believe Israel is free to seek justice, revenge, retribution, genocide, or none of these goals?
Do they believe that if Hamas is annihilated there will be no more terror attacks upon Israel?

For those calling for “Ceasefire now,” including several hostage families:

Do they believe Hamas will return the remaining hostages simply due to a ceasefire?
Do they believe a ceasefire would end the war?
Do they equate ceasefire with peace?
Is a ceasefire the same as justice?

For those calling for a “Two State Solution”:

Why are people continuing to propose this political “solution,” which has been discussed since 1937, when people in the MENA do not own it and many do not want it?
How can a two-state arrangement be set up when one, if not both, people groups believe the other holds no right to even exist – as a people group, much less as a nation state?

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 March 2024

Have you heard of SAT-7, the Christian media ministry with which I serve that shares the Gospel throughout the Middle East and North Africa?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #137 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.

SAT-7 exists to “Make the Gospel visible throughout the Middle East and North Africa,” and “to see a growing Church in the Middle East and North Africa, confident in Christian faith and witness, serving the community and contributing to the good of society and culture.”

Founded in 1995, on air in 1996, SAT-7 is a Christian media ministry headquartered on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. SAT-7 began as a satellite television enterprise, broadcasting 24/7 in Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish via virtually un-censorable satellite delivery in the Middle East and North Africa—what is abbreviated as the MENA—and this is still its principal endeavor. Today, SAT-7 also produces video-on-demand in all three languages, available worldwide on the web on its SAT-7 PLUS app.

When I first got involved with SAT-7 in 2009, I was blown away, and still am, when I discovered that satellite technology was as close to un-censorable as we could hope to get. It literally beams from a satellite orbiting the earth to a satellite television receiver in the safety of the person’s home or hovel or palace.

SAT-7 can beam – uninterrupted, uncorrupted – biblical teaching and truth directly to hungry hearts and minds in places controlled by rulers, religions, and regimes that do not want religious liberty and do what they can to curtail it.

Incredible. “Making God’s love visible throughout the Middle East and North Africa,” and no one can stop the truth. In the providence of God, satellite television is a technology for such a time as this.

When the ministry was launched, people said it wouldn’t make it because Christian Middle Easterners would be afraid to appear on air. But the pessimism was largely unwarranted because God empowered and encouraged believers, and they in turn wanted to be on air to share their faith with their country and region.

What many in the U.S. do not understand is that the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, though speaking dialects of Arabic, differ markedly in culture, national interest, social practices, and sometimes religious expression. On air, SAT-7 uses what’s called “pan-Arabic,” which allows for words that are understood from Morocco to Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula countries.

SAT-7 has worked to establish its reputation as a non-denominational, non-political, non-partisan, culturally sensitive voice of Christian believers across the region. Because the Middle East North Africa is dominated by Islam, few Christian churches exist, but they do exist. Countries vary in whether churches are allowed to maintain physical facilities, meet for worship, or publicly identify with the Christian faith. What the religious cultures in most of these countries do agree upon is that proselytizing or evangelizing on behalf of Christianity is forbidden. Suppression and oppression of religious minorities exists, and periodically, Christians and other religious minorities are persecuted for their faith.

It is difficult for Christians to communicate with one another within their own countries and certainly across the region. This is where SAT-7 makes a powerful contribution – giving voice to Christian minorities, some of whom exist in areas where no other Christians live, no churches are available, even secret or house churches, and no access to Bibles and other Christian materials is available. SAT-7 communicates, teaches, encourages, educates, edifies, and offers fellowship to these isolated believers wherever they may be.

Sometimes in the MENA, Christians are referred to as “Christian believers.” This sounds redundant to American ears, but with a little reflection, it is not.

Think how many people in the US, even in our churches, who are really “nominal Christians” or “cultural Christians,” meaning what Scripture calls “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:5). They masquerade as Christians.

And also in Scripture, the scary description of such people: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matt. 7:21-23). So, it is possible to pretend to be Christians but not really be Christians.

Now back to the MENA. Many countries in the region issue national identification cards, some at birth, some at age 16 years, etc. Most countries require religion be listed on the ID cards, and if not on the card itself, then in other government documents. These cards are used for administrative purposes, proof of citizenship, access to driver’s license, and more.

There is a movement to get religion dropped from national ID cards, but this varies by country. In the past, religious designations on IDs have gotten people persecuted, even killed on the spot if the “wrong” religion was listed, and such designations have been something of a deterrent to changing one’s religious convictions.

The point here is to note how church and state are not separated in most MENA countries, that one’s religion is publicly identifiable on documents, and that one can therefore be born to Christian – meaning non-Muslim – families or be born to Muslim families and thus be labeled as such on one’s ID card for life.

So, who really are Christians? Bible believers would say, those who acknowledge their sin, ask God to forgive their sins by trusting in Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, and then by grace through faith becoming a true believer – a Christian believer.

So, in US churches there are people who are likely Christians-in-name-only and there are people who are indeed Christian believers. And in MENA countries and churches, there are people born into Christian, meaning non-Muslim families, and there are actual followers of Christ, “Christian believers.” In any event, Christian believers exist in the MENA, they may be few, but their faith is resilient.

SAT-7’s satellite television broadcasts, and online video and posts, offers Christian content to these isolated believers in ways many of them cannot access in any other way. Supported financially and through prayer by Christians around the world, SAT-7 works “to provide the churches and Christians of the Middle East and North Africa an opportunity to witness to Jesus Christ through inspirational, informative, and educational television and digital media services.”

As a media ministry, SAT-7 is for the most part not working “on the ground,” so to speak, like other Christian and humanitarian agencies do, particularly in the aftermath of crises like the Türkiye-Syria, Afghanistan, or Moroccan earthquakes, Libyan floods, or MENA pandemic, the now multi-year Syrian Civil War and Yemen Civil War, protests in Iran, and since Oct 7, 2023, the Israel-Hamas War.

It's always interesting to me that as soon as a crisis occurs, SAT-7 USA gets calls from Christian radio to do interviews. During those interviews by Christian hosts from around the country, the questions I’m asked invariably reference what’s called physical relief. How many blankets, how much food, what kind of medical supplies are we providing for those in need? Now of course, there is nothing wrong and a lot right with supplying such forms of physical relief to suffering people, especially in the midst of danger and tragedy. And there are American ministries, like for example Samaritans’ Purse, that are very good at this.

But as a media ministry, SAT-7 broadcasts. We have no real means to provide physical relief. What SAT-7 provides is spiritual relief, Christian teaching and encouragement that helps suffering people answer the existential questions that crises always generate: Where is God? Does He care? Does He know we are suffering? Why did he allow this to happen? What happened to my friend who died?

Christian medical professionals working in what amount to MASH hospitals near ground zero circumstances tell us the first two or three waves of people to come to them need help with broken arms, bleeding wounds, battered bodies, i.e., they need physical relief in the form of medicine, food, clothing, shelter, security.

Then the medical professionals tell us that the next waves of people begin asking the existential questions. They need what SAT-7 can provide, spiritual relief, what the Word of God says about love, what God promises, and the hope found only in the living God.

In many ways, SAT-7 might be described by that old phrase, “It’s a God thing.” Only God could put together a multi-country, multi-continent, multi-cultural, multi-language, multi-denominational ministry that embraces and operates well with a unity of the faith revealed in the Bible.

Not a week goes by that the MENA is not in international news. As the Bible says, that part of the world will be important till Jesus comes again. SAT-7’s mission to share the Gospel throughout the MENA is today more vital than ever.

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

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 04 March 2024

Do you realize the rate of growth of the world’s population is declining, that there are not as many babies as their used to be, and, oh yes, why does this matter?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #136 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.

Today, countries in the European Union, Canada, the U.S. – Japan and China too – are experiencing a birth rate below what is needed for natural population replacement. For example, the U.S. fertility rate, is 1.78 – the average number of children born to a woman over her reproductive lifetime – while the needed replacement rate is 2.08. If nothing changed in this trend, in a matter of decades the U.S. population would shrink out of existence.

For some perspective, consider that “the global population grew only very slowly up to 1700 – only 0.04% per year. In the many millennia up to that point in history very high mortality of children counteracted high fertility. Once health improved, and mortality declined things changed quickly.” In the past two centuries, world population has increased 7-fold.

Another way of grasping the numbers is to realize that “in 1800, there were one billion people. Today there are more than 8 billion.”

Population scholars predict world population will “reach a peak of around 10.4 billion people during the 2080s.”

Meanwhile, while 10.4 billion sounds astronomical, “the global population is (actually) growing at its slowest rate since 1950, having fallen to less than one per cent in 2020. Fertility…has fallen markedly in recent decades for many countries:

today, two-thirds of the global population lives in a country or area where lifetime fertility is below 2.1 births per woman, roughly the level required for zero growth in the long run, for a population with low mortality.

In 61 countries or areas, the population is expected to decrease by at least one per cent over the next three decades, as a result of sustained low levels of fertility and, in some cases, elevated rates of emigration.”

“More than half of the projected increase in the global population up to 2050 will be concentrated in (just) eight countries (most in sub-Saharan Africa): the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, the United Republic of Tanzania, (then) India, Pakistan, and the Philippines.”

Meanwhile, “the world should expect to see far more grey hairs by 2050: by then, it is expected that the number of persons aged 65 years or over worldwide will be more than twice the number of children under the age of five.”

“Europe is the continent with the oldest population. This is creating problems for healthcare and pensions.”

To alter this scenario, Finland is now paying families $10,970 per child. Other European countries are also trying to reverse the continent’s falling birthrate. Greece is offering cash incentives of $2,235 per birth. “Hungary’s Prime Minister…has described fertility clinics as a strategic priority for his country…All young families in Hungary are offered a loan, but that loan will be written off if they have a third child. While a woman who has four children will be permanently exempt from paying income tax.”

Migration (was at one time considered an answer to depopulation, but) has also proved to be a source of political tension in some countries.”

Now the question becomes, why is this happening? Why are people all over the world, except in a few Sub-Saharan and Far Eastern countries, having fewer children, so much fewer the populations of their countries are declining?

Why, after centuries of slow growth, then two centuries of astounding growth, are families across the globe having fewer children?

A few proximate causes come to mind:

Greater availability of birth control, the pill, various contraceptives, chemical, IUD, and other means,
Abortion on demand
Disease
Famine
War

While these variables may act as proximate causes of depopulation, none of these variables are really global. Most are regional if not local occurrences.

So why are most countries of the world declining in population? Well, they are having fewer births than deaths.

OK, but why? Well, they have access to birth control, etc. Yes, but these are a means to an end.

Why are people choosing to have fewer children? What is the ultimate cause of people from disparate cultures having fewer children? Have they forgotten how to make babies?

No, the root cause for family’s choosing to have fewer children is that they now look upon children, family, responsibility, sacrifice, and the idea of progeny much different than they did in the past.

Family was once a given in virtually everyone’s experience. Family was considered a key ingredient not only to a person’s healthy coming of age, but also as an essential building block to the maintenance and flourishing of a free society.

One basis for the well-being of given families, and a primary reason that families were considered indispensable for strong and healthy societies, is because religion—certainly Christianity—blessed and provided values necessary for family function, meaning, and efficacy.

Not so anymore.

Now, in post-Christian culture in America, and postmodern culture worldwide,

two-parent families are often treated as one option among many,
nuclear families are not regarded as critical to children’s balanced upbringing,
children are themselves considered a luxury, a nuisance, an economic burden, obstacles to adults’ self-fulfillment.
and children, i.e., population growth, are viewed as a threat to controlling climate change.

For example, “climate doomsday cult member claims it is immoral and selfish to have children due to the amount of "carbon" they will emit over their lifetimes…Every single child in an industrial country like ours is around 500 tons of carbon over their lifetime. That's the equivalent of 1000 years.”

Postmodern couples worldwide are choosing to have fewer children because they:

hold religious views that diminish the idea of children or family,
look upon children as commodities or consumer choices rather than gifts from God,
value self-fulfillment, i.e., personal sexual liberation, professional advance, income, and travel more than they value children,
believe mass and social media proclamations about how dangerous it is to have children in the face of climate change,
have adopted pessimistic, fearful worldviews re the future – and perhaps understandably so, given these worldviews are rooted in non-Christian, unbiblical, ahistorical, and inaccurate understandings of life,

Meanwhile, population reduction is promoted by globalist elites, who by the way, also promote culture of death ideas like euthanasia, now being referred to by the acronym MAID or “Medical Assistance In Dying,” a philosophy and policy for which Canada is out in front of the U.S.

At genesis of the earth, time, and humanity, God created human beings, male and female, commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, and then reinforced the idea of family and children in other passages throughout the Scripture.

This does not mean that couples who choose not to have children or to have fewer children, for a variety of reasons including circumstances, health, and more, are somehow ipso facto out of the will of God or in some way second class citizens in God’s eyes. The commandments in Genesis 1 were made for all humanity and its wellbeing, not as a detailed plan for every person (Gen 1:27-28).

But the principle remains: children are an heritage of the Lord (Ps 127:3-5). Societies that try to play God as the Chinese did with their one-child policy, now reversed, will find they are not very good at being God.

Children, youth, young adults are needed not only to perpetuate humanity but to provide energy, innovativeness, work and productivity, strength and protection, care for children and the elderly, optimism, and hope. Children are a blessing.

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

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