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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 04 September 2010

Child pornography has got to be one of the more despicable crimes an individual can commit. Frankly, it makes me sick to write about it. But it’s real.

In an article in the February 19, 2006 issue of Parade magazine, attorney Andrew Vachss, notes that child pornography is one of the fastest growing “businesses” on the Internet. He observes that the production of child pornography is incredibly inexpensive and easy, requiring only the equipment on can purchase in any discount store. Once a picture is taken and posted in cyberspace that picture lives forever. As Vachss says, “Images on the Internet can never be destroyed. The only things ‘used up’ in the child pornography business are its victims.”

Pornography of all kinds is more available, accessible, and affordable than ever before. Literally, anytime you get on the Internet you are just two clicks away from some of the most morally reprehensible material ever produced. Pornography of any kind is about presumed pleasure and profit. But for the victim it’s about exploitation, abuse, enslavement, violation, emotional destruction, and sometimes physical death. Child pornography simply takes all these tragic outcomes to an even deeper level of debasement.

As Vachss puts it, “No child is capable, emotionally or legally, of consenting to being photographed for sexual purposes. Thus, every image of a sexually displayed child—be it a photograph, a tape or a DVD—records both the rape of the child and an act against humanity.” So called Kiddie porn is egregiously named. There’s nothing cute about it.

As gambling is driven by compulsive gamblers, yet it sucks money from many casual gamblers as well, so child pornography is driven by pedophiles, yet it entices the curious and the emotionally crippled too. Certainly it attracts the corrupt—those who demand the product and those who profit from it. Men are primarily responsible, of course, but women are also participating as purchasers and purveyors, sometimes using their feminine personas to attract and reassure the victims.

Other than pedophiles, probably no one but the most extreme libertarian or maybe no more than a very few members of the American Civil Liberties Union would defend child pornography. It is a heinous crime.

Resources are available for those wanting to help. The National Association to PROTECT Children is one such nonprofit agency.  This organization offers assistance to victims of childhood sexual abuse as well as knowledge and contacts for those wishing to work the political process on behalf of children.

This is admittedly a very ugly subject, but it seems to me that Christians ought to be talking more about it, perhaps even leading the charge for appropriate legal, social, and ministerial response. Obviously we care about child victims. We can also demonstrate care for pedophiles as human beings tragically in the grip of horrendous sin.

I don’t think it is self-contradictory to push for more stringent laws and consistently applied criminal justice for child porn perpetrators even as we work spiritually to reach their hearts. Accountability and forgiveness are twin themes in Scripture from which I and every other believer have benefited. So it can be for those who seem the worst among us.

© Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2006

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/rexmrogers.

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 04 September 2010

The defining characteristic of a Christian university is its Christian personnel—faculty and staff members who know Jesus Christ as Savior, who live dedicated Christian lives, who hold biblical doctrines in common, who have learned and can articulate a biblical worldview, and who can apply that biblical worldview to academic disciplines and professional activities.

Without this individual day by day commitment, no doctrinal statement, no set of policies or handbooks, no covenants or lifestyle statements, no rules or standards, no denominational affiliation, no historic affirmations can guarantee that a Christian university will remain truly Christian. What matters is people.

Cornerstone University is blessed with 285 people who fit this definition. I am proud of them and proud to be associated with them. They are intellectually energetic, hard working, dedicated, friendly, and professional. They are careful and critical thinkers. They love the Lord, love their disciplines and professions, love scholarship, love higher education, and love their students—or radio listeners as the case may be.

After nearly 15 years at CU, I know these people well. They are an outstanding body of people. That’s why I sometimes get a little testy when people periodically impugn our faculty and staff members’ integrity or their spiritual maturity or their dedication or their Christian commitment or their academic capability. None of these imputations are fair or accurate.

This outstanding body of people is also why I revel in their accolades. No part of my job is more fun than recognizing the accomplishments of our personnel. Presidents typically get more blame and more kudos than they deserve. I’d rather talk about what our people are achieving, for it’s a great story. God has blessed us with real Christians doing real work for him.

These faculty and staff members join me in affirming these Plumb Line Principles, our university core values:

Biblically Christian – An educational ministry committed to the principles of biblical Christianity, nothing more, and nothing less.

Theologically Conservative – A belief that the Bible is the Word of God in its entirety – inspired, infallible, and inerrant.

Christian Worldview – A Christian philosophy of life and learning forming the basis of the university’s approach to the world, history, and culture.

Intentional Spiritual Formation – A vigorous student spiritual formation program encouraging students to develop their understanding of the biblical faith and their desire to serve God.

Committed Christian Personnel – We want to attract, retain, and develop personnel who are Christians of character, credentials, competence, commitment, and creativity. We want people who look upon and perform their calling with the highest possible professional standards. We expect a Biblical work ethic, and we believe that our people’s talent is God’s greatest blessing upon Cornerstone University.

Quality – We believe that we serve a holy and perfect Creator God Who expects quality as our reasonable service unto Him. We therefore work to create quality in everything we do.

Stewardship – We wish to administer resources, financial, human, and physical, with the clearest expression of integrity, accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness. We believe that our decisions are a sacred trust before God, our students and parents, our personnel, our friends, and the public.

Higher Education – In the university we work to challenge, stimulate, stretch, inform, and motivate our students to serve. We consider teaching and learning a two-way street, with professors and students responsible for their academic work as a form of worship unto God.

Leadership – Christian leadership is not an option but an opportunity. Leaders with character can provide godly direction in a declining culture with no moral vision for its future.

(c) Cornerstone University 2001

Each Cornerstone University faculty and staff members is a born again believer in Jesus Christ, each one annually affirms the university’s doctrinal statement, The Cornerstone Confession, and each one is faithfully involved in an evangelical and biblical church.

© Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2006

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/rexmrogers.

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 03 September 2010

Cornerstone University is reviewing its Personnel Lifestyle Statement. The point of the review is to assure the university is positioned to fulfill its mission “to enable individuals to apply unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world.”

In fall, 2004, I appointed a Personnel Lifestyle Statement Team comprised of five faculty and staff members, charging this team with reviewing the statement and recommending possible revisions in wording that would ground the statement in the university’s biblical worldview philosophy. This Team has modeled spiritual maturity, provided theological, philosophic, practical, and experiential insight, and conducted its work with the highest standards of professionalism.

The Team (with the input of colleagues provided electronically or in open forums) has taken four slightly disjunctive current statements (the discovery that the university was working with four existing similar-but-not-identical statements is reason enough to develop one new statement) and used them as a starting point to craft a new, beautifully written draft. The new draft calls upon each university trustee and employee to live a life of personal holiness and Christian cultural contribution to the glory of God.

In January, 2006, the Team discussed the new lifestyle statement draft with the university’s Board of Trustees. No vote on the draft was solicited or balloted at that time. The Team is now moving to the next step in its very thorough process.

Throughout spring, 2006, the Team will lead university personnel in evaluating the current policy listing three historic prohibitions: use of alcohol or tobacco and participation in gambling. These prohibitions are being reviewed for several reasons:

a) To determine whether the mission of the university requires additional agreed upon limits to employee Christian liberty;

b) To determine whether these prohibitions should be maintained but placed within personnel handbooks rather than the lifestyle statement—and if they are maintained to develop current rationale for the importance of such prohibitions;

c) To determine whether these prohibitions should be discontinued.

Once this review is complete, the Team will make its recommendations to the president and I in turn will report to the Board of Trustees. The current review is a conversation. Whether the Board of Trustees will ultimately add, alter, or discontinue these policies is still an open question. The university is genuinely seeking to understand what is best for its mission.

For all of its 65 year existence, the university has asked trustees and faculty and staff members to sign the school’s doctrinal statement (since 1999 called “The Cornerstone Confession”) and to agree to abide by a lifestyle statement listing community covenants wherein individuals agreed to abstain from certain behaviors. Trustees and professors have always signed the doctrinal statement annually, while staff members signed it at the point of hiring. In the past few years, staff members have also signed doctrinal statement annually. This university practice of annually reaffirming commitment to “The Cornerstone Confession” will continue.

While I do not think that use of alcohol or tobacco in moderation is intrinsically evil, in other words a sin, I do believe these commodities are dangerous to many and deadly for some. I am also on record via my book, Gambling: Don’t Bet On It, contending that gambling violates at least five doctrines of Scripture and is, thus, intrinsically evil. Not every Christian agrees with my perspective of alcohol/tobacco or of gambling.

I also believe that it is entirely appropriate for a Christian institution of higher learning to determine what “preferences” it wishes to embrace as organizational policy—beyond its doctrinal convictions. Historically, such preferences have run the gamut of virtually every conceivable issue from length of hair to music styles to movies to art to dance to fashions, and on and on. While institutions can act prudishly or legalistically in applying their preferences, the mere existence of such preferences does not ipso facto mean an institution is acting improperly. Institutions that establish preferences can simply be distinctive, and this can be a very good thing.

The same may be said for those Christian institutions of higher learning that have jettisoned certain preferences. This act is not in itself a signal the university is losing its faith. It may simply mean the university is being a careful steward of its responsibility to help students understand how to live “In the World” while being “Not of the World,” even as it encourages students to go “Into the World” as Christ’s ambassadors.

If you wish to read more on this subject, see my book, Christian Liberty:  Living for God in a Changing Culture. God gave us a limited but very important short-list of moral absolutes, any of which we ignore at our peril. Beyond these few moral absolutes, God gave us the doctrine of Christian liberty.

**No changes in the university’s student policies on these matters (i.e., No use of alcohol or tobacco; no participation in gambling) and no change in campus or university event practices (i.e., Alcohol and tobacco-free and gambling-free) are being considered.

© Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2006

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/rexmrogers.

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 03 September 2010

Virtually every time an incident occurs in a local college or university related to homosexuality, a media personality visits our campus and asks me, “Do you kick out gay students?” If I say, “Yes,” than the university may be portrayed, at a minimum, as old-fashioned or intolerant, or at worst, as gay-bashers or homophobes. If I say, “No,” than perhaps the public will think that the university winks at such matters or maybe even endorses homosexuality in some way.

So I say this: “Cornerstone University affirms biblical views of human sexuality and, therefore, we teach and promote abstinence from any and all sexual activity or expression outside the boundaries and the bonds of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. Consequently, all forms of sexual expression outside the marital relationship are immoral.”

For those who want more than a sound-bite and are willing to read the university’s “Statement on Human Sexuality,” we observe that “in a biblical view, God defines one’s gender at conception prior to birth. One is either a male or a female. Sexuality, however, while a gift of God, is often perverted to sinful ends by both men and women. Sexual expression is a moral choice. According to the Bible, God defines all forms of sexual immorality as sin, and God condemns any and all alternatives to monogamous, heterosexual marriage.

Christian colleges and universities around the country are struggling with what has become “the homosexuality issue.” Why?

1) Homosexuality has become a key, unavoidable moral debate of our times.

2) In some states, gay individuals have targeted Christian institutions of higher learning as a battleground.

3) Some colleges and universities that still wish to foster some form of Christian commitment no longer employ a confession of faith or other policy statements requiring personnel to affirm the institution’s understanding of Christian values and practice.

4) Some Christian colleges and universities have been challenged by personnel who have in one manner or another publicly endorsed homosexual expression in same-sex marriages, etc.

5) Media sources periodically probe Christian college and university attitudes and practices regarding homosexuality whenever gay issues develop in area educational institutions.

6) For many people, homosexuality has become a political not a moral issue, so Christian colleges and universities wishing to maintain biblical injunctions regarding homosexual expression are increasingly portrayed as biased, discriminatory, “intolerant,” or hateful.

7) With the continuing collapse of cultural barriers, homosexual practice is increasing, so more Christian students are struggling with homosexuality.

Homosexuality, or gay and lesbianism, is as old as humanity but it is a particularly bold and central issue of the new millennium. Christian colleges and universities, therefore, cannot and should not ignore the issue. Christian schools must and should engage the issue. “Engage” in my book does not mean embrace or endorse. “Engage” means to know applicable biblical principles, to be informed about social developments, to participate in public debate, and to seek to influence public morality based upon biblical morality.

I believe Christian colleges and universities must continue to affirm biblical truth regarding homosexuality and then exercise moral leadership on behalf of the Christian Church. Homosexuality is a question for which God is the answer, and Christian campuses are in the business of providing answers. No other response qualifies as faithfulness to God and his Word.

© Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2006

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/rexmrogers.

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 03 September 2010

You don’t have to watch the Olympics very long to understand why they’re the best reality show on television. Jaded sports pundits say the games are boring, but what do they know? The 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy have demonstrated once again why the games enjoy such enduring allure.

My family and I have avidly watched the games every cycle for thirty years, thrilling at victory and agonizing at defeat. There’s something incredibly pure and compelling about athletes giving their all for a chance to reach the international pinnacle of their sport.

The Olympics are a spectacle of pageantry, patriotism, world class talent, desire, discipline, and “heart.” The games are a showcase for athletically gifted individuals whose emotions are as real and as raw as the winter snow. Olympic athletes provide us with incredibly heroic efforts, not just to win the gold or even to honor the homeland, but to fulfill the Olympic spirit, to compete, to leave every ounce of effort on the field of play.

Ice skaters fall, hurt themselves then finish their routines. Downhill skiers forced outside the course by the treacherous nature of the mountain still finish the run. Cross country skiers without the talent to ever win a medal slide to the finish with as much emotion as any gold medalist has ever felt. Teenage athletes excitedly look into cameras and say into microphones whatever is on their minds, totally unaffected, honest—laughter, tears, shouts of utter joy or frustration. How can you not appreciate this unscripted drama?

But despite all the best efforts of the International Olympic Committee to protect the integrity of sport and to affirm sportsmanship, still, the Olympics are comprised of people and people do not always do the right thing. Athletes and coaches are dismissed for doping. Athletes are disqualified for cheating or for some other infraction of the rules of competition. Coaches have been known to improperly award points to athletes from theirs or a favored country. Fans sometimes commit unsportsmanlike acts. These are sad developments, but even these instances offer spectators worldwide a chance once again to celebrate the beauty of fair competition.

Then there are individuals who are a morality play all their own. Before nearly every Olympics at least one athlete is heralded as the world’s greatest in his or her sport. They’re touted by media as “bad boys” or “bad girls” because of their devil-may-care attitudes or rebel-like lifestyle. Then the get to the Olympics and don’t win anything, partly if not largely because they’ve squandered their talent and their opportunity on arrogance. They believed the media hype and thought they didn’t have to sacrifice, only to watch some underdog with arguably less talent take their place on the medal podium.

This year’s poster boy for flippancy might be American downhill skier Bode Miller, who made the cover of Newsweek before the games due in part to earlier athletic achievements and due in part to his “I’ll do it my way” attitude that the media loves so much. He still has a chance at this writing, but so far he is 0 for Olympics, wiping out in three of his five events. Meanwhile, his hard partying lifestyle apparently continues.

On the flip side is American speed skater Joey Cheek, who has donated his $25,000 Gold medal money for the 500 m and his $15,000 Silver medal bonus from the 1000 m to a charity called Right to Play. The money is designated to help Sudanese refugee children in Chad. Cheek is winning accolades on and off the ice for his attitude, humility, and generosity.

But that’s the Olympics, the good and the not so good right alongside the excellent. So despite fawning media and over-hyped people and products, every two years the Olympics still offer us a seat at the greatest of all games. I’ll be watching, I’ll cheer for the USA, and I’ll cheer for the underdog, whoever he or she may be.

© Rex M. Rogers - All Rights Reserved, 2006

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/rexmrogers.