December 18, 2021

Culture War: Readings for Christians

Leave a Comment / Christian Life / By Francis Szarejko / December 18, 2021

Weekly Reading for Christian Culture Warriors

Every week, I offer a curated selection of articles and posts of interest to Christians living in a hostile world. I hope to provide you with information that helps you stand firm in the faith as the culture wars raging around us.

This Supreme Court Case Could Take a ‘Wrecking Ball’ to Separation of Church and State

Here, the Supreme Court considers whether government funds may provide tuition help to a private Christian School.

The Carsons have lived in Glenburn, Maine, just outside Bangor, for 25 years. The roughly 4,500-person town sits in a region of rural Maine that doesn’t have a public high school. Instead, residents qualify for Maine’s tuition assistance program, meaning the state gives parents taxpayer money that can be spent to send their child to a different public school or an approved private school.

But parents can’t use the program to pay for Bangor Christian. Maine says it will not fund the attendance of schools that provide religious education—a rule aimed at preventing public funds from being used for religious activity. So, while Olivia, now 19, attended Bangor Christian from kindergarten through her high school graduation this May, this meant the Carsons paid entirely out of pocket for tuition, which costs $5,700 this school year for students in 6th through 12th grade.

This case holds significant implications for separation of church and state.

The court could “eviscerate” laws that restrict public funding of religious education and open the door for taxpayer dollars to go towards religious instruction, including instruction to discriminate against LGBTQ people or people of other faiths, argues Rachel Laser, the President and CEO of the nonprofit Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed a brief in support of Maine with other religious and civil rights organizations.

Orwell Was Right: Control the Language, Control the World

If you’ve read George Orwell’s 1984, you will recognize the theme of this article. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s a good idea to read it again if it’s been a while since you last encountered it. Originally published in 1948, much of Orwell’s writing seems almost prophetic in our Covid—Mandate crazy times.

The following glossary illustrates how changes to our vocabulary played a central role in making the world a more dangerous and frightening place.

Linguistic Violence

In this article, theologian Carl R. Trueman reflects on the negative and often violent results stemming from the linguistic changes punched at us by the progressive left and the LBGTQ alliance.

One thing that all of these acts of linguistic hubris have in common, beyond their defiance of reality, is the harm—the obvious harm—they do to the innocent and the vulnerable. Women rape victims are now told that their experience of being assaulted by a male is incorrect. We can only hope that those women who persist in the face of this vile stupidity do not end up being charged with hate crimes. Women athletes have a long, hard road ahead. And the horror of abortion, which particularly hurts the black community, is unlikely to come to an end even if Roe is overturned.

The Trend Toward Normalizing Pedophilia Must Be Halted

Only a sick and decadent society tolerates pedophilia. How much eviler is a culture that normalizes sex acts with children? I can think of only one word to describe such a society, REPULSIVE!

Until this past month, most of the public could only speculate where the institutionalized sexualization of our children would lead. In case you missed it, in November, we got a peek into some of the current academic discourse when a professor from Old Dominion University in Virginia, Allyn Walker, suggested that having sexual desire for children isn’t wrong. Rather, Walker suggested we should use a less stigmatizing term such as “Minor-Attracted People” (MAPS) instead of the word “pedophile.”

The COVID Scam: The Progressive Path to Power, and Tyranny

The author of this article, an MD, calls out a governmental overreaction to the Covid pandemic as a scam to grab tyrannical power.

Much of what he writes makes sense. However, I must reserve judgment on some of his conclusions.

I encourage you to read the article and draw your own conclusions. Even if you disagree, there is much of value in this piece.

The COVID “pandemic of fear” is a con, perpetrated by those in power to extend and expand their power. Their scheme is simple. Take a new flu-like respiratory virus created in China, COVID-19; tout it as a threat to all human life; suspend (temporarily, of course!) personal liberty and freedom; then justify their tyranny by asserting a need to protect all Americans from death by virus. When the threat recedes, redefine the terms, demand vaccine passports, and booster shots to maintain public fear. As new viral variants evolve such as Delta or Omicron, resume draconian measures including masks and lockdowns, more boosters, and loss of employment if unvaccinated.

Two Main Principles for Getting the Bible Right

Readers of this blog already know I am committed to the correct interpretation of the Bible and find it intolerable when people (usually innocently and ignorantly) take verses out of context.

This post provides excellent guidance to properly understanding the biblical text.

Joe Biden Nominates Radical Abortion Activist to Head Global Women’s Issues

Again, Roman Catholic President Biden submits to his progressive, pro-abortion controllers and ignores the clear teaching of his church and of the Bible.

Planned Parenthood is celebrating after President Joe Biden nominated another abortion activist to his administration, this time to the Office of Global Women’s Issues in the U.S. Department of State.

Why Do Church Leaders Fall? Because We’ve Placed Them on Unbiblical Pedestals

The Media is always quick to pick up the story of the moral failings of a celebrity pastor.

Yet, a number of well-known leaders in Christian ministries, including Carl Lentz, Jerry Falwell Jr and Bill Hybels have been the subject of scandals and allegations of inappropriate behavior in recent years. Why do so many well-informed priests and pastors talk-the-talk but fail to walk-the-walk? Why do church leaders fall and how should the Church respond?

However, this also happens in churches small, medium, and large, of different denominations. I’ve witnessed it first-hand in the past.

I’m including this article because all Christians need to know how they can help protect their pastors from moral failings.

I think one of the problems with the well-intentioned goals of those who want to lead people to Christ and shepherd a flock is that they adopt a secular rather than biblical leadership model. They measure success by the size of their facility, number of seats filled and amount of tithing. Sadly, their bottom line ends up looking more like a sales commission than a Great Commission.

You Heard It Here First: The Old CNN Is Dead

CNN’s ratings are in the toilet. This article tells you why. If you are a conservative, read and enjoy. If you are a liberal, read and weep.

The cause of death is not the forced departure of Chris Cuomo or Rachel Maddow’s act becoming so old she is moving to a weekly show. Nor is it that CNN’s jaundiced journalists conspired to be completely wrong about Kyle Rittenhouse, the false Russia collusion claim, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Jessie Smollett, Border Patrol whippings, and countless other “important” news stories. The reason is good old-fashioned free-market economics combined with Americans’ limited tolerance of CNN’s ultra-liberal BS (Bovine Secretions).

How to Remove Critical Race Theory from Our Schools

Great advice, read and learn.

State legislators know nothing about Critical Race Theory (CRT). Descended from Critical Theory (CT) created by the Marxist German Frankfurt School, CRT is the latest effort to divide Americans by race and create a hierarchy of victimhood to use in the war against America’s history and our free-market economy, with the goal of turning the United States into a Marxist state.