I had not intended to raise the controversy. The words on the page did that. They were so clear that nobody argued about what they meant. Where we differed was whether they should be understood literally or not. I said yes. Others said no. Each person in the Bible study had to choose one or the other and there was no middle ground.
Life is sometimes like that. The only way to avoid controversy is to never state one’s belief. People take that tack every day. Our culture teaches us to do so. But that really doesn’t make sense.
First, nobody in his right mind will deliberately and systematically conceal the truth from friends and acquaintances. If there is anything that I am willing to conceal from people I love, it is obviously something that I really don’t think is true.
Second, as the definition of “religious beliefs” grows ever more expansive, there are fewer and fewer things that we are allowed to say in public. The idea of God used to be common sense. We only argued about what He was like. Now, the very idea is deemed “religious.”
Prohibitions against murder and adultery also used to be common sense. Now, these same morals are chalked up to “religious fundamentalism.” What common ground that we hold today will become “religious,” tomorrow? God only knows.
Once my opinion was on the table, I supposed I could have lied. I could have retracted my words and claimed that I never really believed them. What kind of a person would that make me? Would anyone want such a person as a neighbor?
Thankfully, human beings have been disagreeing for a long time and we have learned to deal with it. We make a sharp distinction between what someone thinks, and who that person is. No matter what someone might believe, he or she remains a human being who legitimately claims my respect.
That’s how we have gotten along for millennia. You may hate my ideas. That’s okay as long as you don’t hate my person. We are still at peace. But if you stop caring about changing my mind and start attacking my person—whether by slander, theft, fines, incarceration, or murder—that’s a threat to my very existence, not just my ideas. The law must get involved to protect me. That’s how civilization and civil conversation works.
But this fundamental distinction between ideas and persons is under serious attack today.
Of course, civility has always been rejected by the immature--in playground quarrels and barroom fights. More recently, it has moved into social media where there is less face-to-face accountability. Our darker side loves to bypass civil conversation and attack people. That’s a sad reality.
But the more serious attack on civility is happening in public law itself. Whenever somebody is punished because of his or her ideas, or when those ideas are treated as though they were an attack on someone’s person, civilization is in jeopardy.
That is exactly what is happing with increasing frequency—through inept laws and malicious prosecutors who exploit them. We are seeing a good example of this onehundred miles south of us right now. Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, only recently concluded a six-year struggle to maintain the civil distinction between person and idea.
Since 2012 he has been pleading for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC) to recognize that his unwillingness to communicate false ideas is not at all the same as a personal attack on the people who wanted him to.
A baker—who demonstrably serves all people but who has a long and noble history of declining to express ideas that he does not believe—should not be attacked in his person. Declining to celebrate a divorce, or bake obscenities, or decorate a cake enthroning Satan should be praised, not punished.
Jack’s pleas were finally heard by the United States Supreme Court. On June 4, SCOTUS recognized the distinction between a person and an idea. It stipulated that “religious and philosophical objections” to an idea are protected by law, while maintaining that attacks on persons are not.
This put an end to a six-year-long attack on Jack’s person by the CCRC. But now they are at it again. Jack does not agree with the idea that maleness and femaleness are up to us. Neither do I. I doubt many of you do either. But the CCRC wants to run Jack out of business unless he says what he does not believe.
The irony is that the CCRC actually is attacking Jack’s person with loss of property while falsely accusing Jack of the same. Two months ago, we could have explained its actions as an honest mistake. But it is that no longer. The CCRC’s error of six years was publicly rebuked by the highest court in the land. Now it’s a malicious denial.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission is being anything but civil. In so doing, it is contributing to the breakdown of all civility. So also does anyone who refuses to acknowledge the difference between a person and an idea. It is foundational to all civilization.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Ideas Are Not Persons
Most Wednesdays the Bible studies come off without a hitch. We simply read the appointed verses and underscore their obvious meaning. This day had gone the same until suddenly the harmony of the previous hour was shattered. I had not intended to raise a controversy. The words themselves did that.
The words were so clear that nobody argued about what they meant. The point of controversy was whether they should be understood literally or not. I said yes. Others said no. And we were off to the races.
We make it a practice not to argue at these discussions. But neither could we move on. The difference of opinion was simply too profound. There was no way of reconciling the “yes” and the “no.” Each person around the table had to choose one or the other and there was no middle ground.
Self-Censorship Is NOT the Answer
I could have avoided the whole situation by never stating my belief. Many people take that tack every day. For years we have been enculturated to keep our beliefs to ourselves, only speaking them in the presence of people who believe the same. Not only does that defeat the whole point of being a preacher, but there are at least two problems for everyone else as well.
First, nobody in his right mind will deliberately and systematically conceal the truth from friends and acquaintances. If there is anything that I am willing to conceal from people I love, it is obviously something that I really don’t think is true.
Second, as the definition of “religious beliefs” grows ever more expansive, there are fewer and fewer things that we are allowed to say in public. At the founding of our country, nobody thought that phrases like “Nature’s God” and “Creator” were establishing any religion. They are simply common sense.
But today, the idea of a creator becomes less common and is now relegated to the realm of “religious belief.” Not only that, but there are some who would have you believe that male and female are “religious beliefs.” What next? What common ground that we hold today will become “religious,” and therefore taboo, a decade from now?
Once I uttered my belief and the disagreement was on the table, there was another way to end the argument. I could have simply lied. I could have deceitfully retracted my words and claimed that I never really believed them. What kind of a person would that make me? Would any of us want such a person for a friend, or even a fellow citizen?
We Know How To Do This
Thankfully, human beings have been disagreeing for a long time and we have ways to deal with it. We make a sharp and clear distinction between what someone thinks to be true, and who that person is. We know that no matter what someone might believe, he remains exactly who he is—a fellow human being whom I am privileged to love.That’s how we have gotten along for millennia. It is the foundation of all civilization that we not confuse persons with ideas. You may hate my ideas and think they are ridiculous. You may even spend all your waking hours trying to change my mind. I know that whatever effort you make to change my mind is solid proof that you really care about me.
So long as you don’t hate me as a person, we can live together in peace. But if you stop caring about changing my mind and start attacking my person, civility dissolves. Attacks on a person—whether turning others against him, or taking property and life from him—are a threat to his very existence, not just his ideas. The law must get involved to protect him.
That’s how civilization and civil conversation works. But this fundamental distinction is under serious attack today.
From the Playground to the Courtroom
Of course, it has always been rejected and ignored in childish fights on the playground and by hotheads—especially after a few too many. More recently, this incivility has moved into social media where there is less face-to-face accountability. Our darker side loves to bypass civil conversation and attack people. That’s a sad reality of our world and ourselves.
But the more serious attack on civility is happening in public law itself. Whenever somebody is punished because of his or her ideas, or when those ideas are punished as though they were an attack on someone’s person, civilization is in jeopardy.
That is exactly what is happing with increasing frequency—through inept laws and malicious prosecutors who exploit them. We are seeing a good example of this in Colorado right now. Baker, Jack Phillips, only recently concluded a six-year struggle to maintain the civil distinction between person and idea.
Since 2012 he has been pleading for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (CCRC) to recognize that his unwillingness to communicate false ideas is not at all the same as a personal attack on the people who wanted him to.
A baker—who demonstrably serves all people but who has a long and noble history of declining to express ideas that he does not believe—should not be attacked in his person. Declining to celebrate a divorce, or bake obscenities, or decorate a cake enthroning Satan should be praised, not punished.
SCOTUS Nailed It
Jack’s pleas were finally heard by the United States Supreme Court. On June 4, SCOTUS recognized the distinction between a person and an idea. It stipulated that “religious and philosophical objections” to an idea are protected by law, while maintaining that attacks on persons are not.This put an end to a six-year-long attack on Jack’s person and his business by the CCRC. But now they are at it again. Jack does not agree with the idea that maleness and femaleness are up to us. Neither do I. I sincerely doubt that you believe that either. But the CCRC wants to run Jack out of business unless he says what he does not believe.
The irony is that the CCRC actually is attacking Jack’s person while it falsely accuses Jack of the same. Two months ago we could have explained its actions as an honest mistake. But it is that no longer. What the CCRC failed to see for nearly six years was made plain to it by a 7-2 vote of the highest court in the land.
There is a big difference between an unfortunate failure to see and a deliberate denial. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission is being anything but civil. In so doing, it is contributing to the breakdown of all civility. So also does anyone who refuses to acknowledge the difference between a person and an idea. It is foundational to all civilization.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
For Better, for Worse, Till Death Us Do Part
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| Caleb & Bethany Stoever |
The old Bethany did not cease to exist. Rather, she was permanently united to another person. In this union, she did not become less, but more.
About a hundred people were present to hear the vows spoken, but they were truly spoken before the whole community—even the whole world. They were anything but private. So, I want to take this opportunity to let you hear them as well. In doing so, I want to reflect on their meaning both for Bethany and Caleb, as well as for our whole community.
Vows Are Open-Ended
The wedding vows, from time immemorial, invite the husband and the wife to repeat these words, “I, Bethany, take you, Caleb, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part, according to God’s holy will, and I pledge you my faithfulness.”
These words are so familiar that we barely give them any notice. It’s easy to treat them like some magical incantation that you have to recite to get married. But they didn’t have to recite them. They fervently wanted to say them.
These vows that we speak at weddings are not spoken under coercion or under duress. "There is something about being in love that induces us to make promises of everlasting fidelity.” That’s what Nathaniel Blake wrote in his article, The Romance of Ordinary Marriage. It’s “as if we know that such fidelity offers a better way of life, whatever the risks may be.”
It’s part of our human instinct that love wants to say, “forever.” You have never received a Valentine’s card with an expiration date. Hallmark couldn’t sell any cards that say, “I will love you until Friday.” That’s simply not the language of love.
Vows Make You a "Hostage"
Even more so the wedding vows. Far from mumbo jumbo, they express a willing and joyful commitment to stay with one’s husband or wife, “till death us do part.” Again, Blake wrote, “Loving another person means giving oneself as a hostage both to fortune and to an alien will.”
By “alien will” he means that, from here on out, neither husband or wife can simply do whatever he or she wants. Each is bound to consider the wants and needs of the other. In fact, each is bound not only to consider the other, but to put the other’s will above his own. Marriage is not a competition to get your own way. It is a competition to give way to the other.
Blake spoke not only of someone else’s will. He also said that marriage is making yourself hostage “to fortune.” By this he is talking about whatever may happen in the future. This aspect of the vows is utterly remarkable! Vows to love, cherish and remain faithful until death, are not in any way conditioned by expectations of the future.
There is no prenuptial escape clause. We do not merely promise to keep loving a person as long as he or she doesn’t change. We promise to keep loving no matter how he or she might change in the future and no matter how any uncontrollable circumstance might change. This is such an outlandish pledge, the vows even spell it out: “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”
It’s not only that we promise to love in spite of what changes might come down the pike. We should fully expect change. Your wedding day is the birth of wedded love. Just as surely as we expect an embryo to grow into a newborn, and newborn to grow into an adult, so also the irrevocable wedding vows set the stage for a lifetime of growth.
The Riskiness Is the Point!
It is this conscious and deliberate life-long commitment that allows the relationship to move on from the possibility of love to actual love. The uncertainty of the future is part of that commitment. “One can have pleasure while maintaining control and safety, but one cannot have love. And pleasure without love will grow stale,” says Blake.
The risk is real. The risk is necessary. In fact, we know going into marriage that we have a 50/50 chance of having our hearts broken. But the only way your heart can be broken at the death of your spouse, is if that heart truly loved. That’s the risk of love.
In spite of all these dangers, people still long to get married. This is more than a social custom. There are many good reasons for marriage.
Reasons to Risk It
One reason is for the sake of the children. Children have an innate need to see their father and their mother loving each other. No child ever sees this perfectly and fully, but all children feel this need in the deepest place of the soul. Governments don’t have any business caring about your hearts, but they have every business caring about your kids. That’s the reason the state is involved.
On top of this, marriage also protects spouses. Love is vulnerable enough as it is. Nobody should have to endure the additional vulnerability of a spouse that breaks the vow. Think of it this way. If someone promised only to love you for seven years, would you marry him at all?
But ultimately, it is not just for the children and for protection that people get married. It is for the sake of our own humanity. Not all people want or need to marry to fulfill their human need to love. But for those drawn to married love, there is no other way to have it.
Promises Make Us Human
In the very act of making a vow, you are asserting yourself against all the forces of the world, even all the forces of hell itself. The ultimate human freedom is not simply to do whatever you feel like doing at any given moment. That is the freedom of the animals.
No. The ultimate human freedom is the freedom to make a promise and to keep it, to do what we said we were going to do. It is the victory of your true humanity when you resist the lusts of the flesh, when you ignore the allure of worldly fortune and defy every force—internal or external—that would have you break that vow.
Blake says, “In the making and keeping of promises, we assert ourselves against the world and the future as acting agents, not mere reactive beings responding to circumstance. The power of oaths in legend, literature, and law is due to their assertion of free human choice and will within the cosmos.”
To defy our own baseness, to defy all the forces of the universe and to defy Satan himself is an impossible task, except for one thing. God Himself has made a vow as well. God has promised to keep and sustain everyone who enters into this holy estate. With God, nothing is impossible.
Friday, August 17, 2018
WTE: Religious Freedom Protects All People’s Humanity
“The freedom to live out one’s faith is a God-given human right that belongs to everyone. The freedom to seek the divine and act accordingly—including the right of an individual to act consistently with his or her conscience—is at the heart of the human experience.”
These are “the views of the United States government,” according to the U.S. State Department’s recently-published “Potomac Declaration.” It was rolled out on the final day of a recent Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, hosted by the State Department on July 24-26.
This first-ever such event gathered delegations from more than 80 countries around the world. They heard testimony from victims of religious persecution, discussed ways of making U.S. aid more effective, and boldly confronted some of the world’s most unjust regimes.
Globally there is growing violence against minority religions. Entire Christian villages are being wiped out in Nigeria. The Rohingya sect in Burma is being exterminated. In Iraq, Yazidis and Christians are being brutalized by ISIS. Turkey denies their genocide of Christians while continuing to hold an American Christian pastor under arrest. China sends Muslims to re-education camps, restricts Tibetan Buddhists and imprisons pastors of Christian churches that seek independence from state control of their doctrine.
When Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, named all these countries in his opening remarks to the Ministerial, they were put on notice that America will be silent no more. Vice President, Mike Pence, kept up the pressure by officially threatening sanctions against Turkey if Pastor Andrew Brunson is not released. He called out Nicaragua for “waging war on the Catholic Church,” and turned up the heat on North Korea and Iran.
All of this is a breath of fresh air from the State Department. Billions of human beings across the globe will benefit from this new initiative. A stunning 83 percent of the world’s population live in countries where religious freedom is either threatened or banned. America’s attention to their plight will save untold lives.
The State Department’s renewed focus will not only help our brothers and sisters in foreign countries. It will also help us here at home. Conscience rights and free speech rights are too often dismissed as “the right to discriminate.”
Such thoughtless slogans may seem like a great way to put down the opponents, but it is extremely short-sighted. Make laws against someone’s religious speech and exercise today, and those same laws will be used against you tomorrow.
Part of the problem is that fewer and fewer citizens know the real meaning of “faith.”
Religious faith has to do with the biggest and most important questions in life. Who am I? Why am I here? How do I relate to those around me? The way you answer such questions impacts your whole life—everything you say and do.
If I believe that I am merely a two-legged animal, differing from the ape only because my brain is bigger, I will behave like a smart ape. But if I believe that I am fundamentally different from every other animal, that I am uniquely created in the image of God, my entire understanding of self will depend upon my understanding of God.
Faith is neither an opinion nor an act of the will. I can’t decide to believe anymore than I can decide that two and two are four. Belief is conviction, it is a certainty that you cannot dismiss.
Once I see that two and two make four, I can have no opinion about it. No force in the universe can change that conviction. Faith may be changed by a better understanding of the truth, but it cannot be coerced any more than love can. Coercive attempts to conform a person to the faith of the community is inhumane, and a form of torture.
That is why conscience protections are so important. They treat us as the human beings that we are. They forbid us from using coercion—financial, social or physical—to change anybody’s convictions or faith.
Religious freedom does not pretend that every religion is the same, or that every religion is true. It only claims that every religious person is a human being. America was based on this idea. It permeates the US Constitution forbidding any religious test for public office. It is also reinforced in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The “Potomac Declaration” means that religious freedom, both foreign and domestic, will be defended by the U.S. Department of State. This is good news for every human being. May God grant them success.
These are “the views of the United States government,” according to the U.S. State Department’s recently-published “Potomac Declaration.” It was rolled out on the final day of a recent Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, hosted by the State Department on July 24-26.
This first-ever such event gathered delegations from more than 80 countries around the world. They heard testimony from victims of religious persecution, discussed ways of making U.S. aid more effective, and boldly confronted some of the world’s most unjust regimes.
Globally there is growing violence against minority religions. Entire Christian villages are being wiped out in Nigeria. The Rohingya sect in Burma is being exterminated. In Iraq, Yazidis and Christians are being brutalized by ISIS. Turkey denies their genocide of Christians while continuing to hold an American Christian pastor under arrest. China sends Muslims to re-education camps, restricts Tibetan Buddhists and imprisons pastors of Christian churches that seek independence from state control of their doctrine.
When Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, named all these countries in his opening remarks to the Ministerial, they were put on notice that America will be silent no more. Vice President, Mike Pence, kept up the pressure by officially threatening sanctions against Turkey if Pastor Andrew Brunson is not released. He called out Nicaragua for “waging war on the Catholic Church,” and turned up the heat on North Korea and Iran.
All of this is a breath of fresh air from the State Department. Billions of human beings across the globe will benefit from this new initiative. A stunning 83 percent of the world’s population live in countries where religious freedom is either threatened or banned. America’s attention to their plight will save untold lives.
The State Department’s renewed focus will not only help our brothers and sisters in foreign countries. It will also help us here at home. Conscience rights and free speech rights are too often dismissed as “the right to discriminate.”
Such thoughtless slogans may seem like a great way to put down the opponents, but it is extremely short-sighted. Make laws against someone’s religious speech and exercise today, and those same laws will be used against you tomorrow.
Part of the problem is that fewer and fewer citizens know the real meaning of “faith.”
Religious faith has to do with the biggest and most important questions in life. Who am I? Why am I here? How do I relate to those around me? The way you answer such questions impacts your whole life—everything you say and do.
If I believe that I am merely a two-legged animal, differing from the ape only because my brain is bigger, I will behave like a smart ape. But if I believe that I am fundamentally different from every other animal, that I am uniquely created in the image of God, my entire understanding of self will depend upon my understanding of God.
Faith is neither an opinion nor an act of the will. I can’t decide to believe anymore than I can decide that two and two are four. Belief is conviction, it is a certainty that you cannot dismiss.
Once I see that two and two make four, I can have no opinion about it. No force in the universe can change that conviction. Faith may be changed by a better understanding of the truth, but it cannot be coerced any more than love can. Coercive attempts to conform a person to the faith of the community is inhumane, and a form of torture.
That is why conscience protections are so important. They treat us as the human beings that we are. They forbid us from using coercion—financial, social or physical—to change anybody’s convictions or faith.
Religious freedom does not pretend that every religion is the same, or that every religion is true. It only claims that every religious person is a human being. America was based on this idea. It permeates the US Constitution forbidding any religious test for public office. It is also reinforced in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The “Potomac Declaration” means that religious freedom, both foreign and domestic, will be defended by the U.S. Department of State. This is good news for every human being. May God grant them success.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Religious Freedom Protects All People’s Humanity
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| Participants at the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom |
“The freedom to live out one’s faith is a God-given human right that belongs to everyone. The freedom to seek the divine and act accordingly—including the right of an individual to act consistently with his or her conscience—is at the heart of the human experience. Governments cannot justly take it away. Rather, every nation shares the solemn responsibility to defend and protect religious freedom.”
These are “the views of the United States government on the importance of promoting religious freedom, a universal human right,” according to the U.S. State Department’s recently-published “Potomac Declaration.” The Declaration is accompanied by the “Potomac Plan of Action” which addresses specific foreign policy actions that the US government will be taking to address religious freedom.
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| Sec. State, Mike Pompeo |
"Potomac" the First of Its Kind
The “Potomac Declaration” was rolled out on the final day of a recent Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, hosted by the State Department on July 24-26. This first-ever such event gathered delegations from more than 80 countries around the world, including countries that the State Department rates as least respectful of religious freedom. They heard testimony from victims of religious persecution, discussed ways of making U.S. aid more effective, and boldly confronted some of today’s most egregious offenders.
Over the past several years we have seen growing violence against minority religions around the world. Christians are being killed every day in Nigeria. The Rohingya sect in Burma is being exterminated. In Iraq, Yazidis and Christians both are being brutalized by ISIS. Turkey has never publicly acknowledged their part in the Armenian Genocide, and even today is holding an American Christian pastor under arrest for preaching the Gospel.
The Chinese communist regime sends Muslims to re-education camps, restricts the rights of Tibetan Buddhists and imprisons pastors of Christian churches that seek independence from state control of their doctrine. Many of us have watched as one of the largest Christian churches in China was demolished because its cross was higher than regulations allow.
We have watched all these atrocities across the globe and have seen very little meaningful response from our leaders. When Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, named all these countries in his opening remarks, they were put on notice that America will be silent no more.
Then Vice President, Mike Pence, came to the podium. He returned the focus to Pastor Andrew Brunson in Turkey and threatened sanctions if he is not released to return to America. He called out the Ortega administration in Nicaragua for “waging war on the Catholic Church.” He turned up the heat on North Korea and Iran for their persecution of religious minorities.
Saving Lives Abroad While Helping At Home
All of this is a breath of fresh air from the State Department. Billions of human beings across the globe will benefit from this new initiative. A stunning 83 percent of the world’s population live in countries where religious freedom is either threatened or banned. America’s attention to their plight will save untold lives.
The State Department’s renewed focus will not only help our brothers and sisters in foreign countries. It will also help us here at home. Today we have a great opportunity to think more deeply about religious freedom and why it’s important to a thriving republic.
In America’s own public discourse, conscience rights and free speech rights are regularly dismissed as “the right to discriminate.” Such thoughtless slogans may seem like a great way to put down the religious opposition, but it is like dropping a grenade on the floor in order to win a quarrel.
It will certainly kill your opponent, but it will kill you at the same time. Make laws against someone’s religious speech and exercise today, and those same laws will be used against you tomorrow. That’s the law of the jungle.
Faith Is Way More Than Opinion
Part of the problem is that the very notion of “faith” is not very well understood. When people say things like, “I believe it’s going to rain today,” faith is cast as a personal opinion that may, or may not, be true. It is also a statement of so little concern that it doesn’t much matter whether it’s true or not.
But real faith is not like this at all. Religious faith has to do with the biggest and most important questions in life. Who am I? Why am I here? How do I relate to those around me? The way you answer such questions impacts your whole life—everything you say and do.
If I believe that I am merely a two-legged animal, differing from the ape only because my brain is bigger, I will behave like a smart ape. But if I believe that I am fundamentally different from every other animal, that I am uniquely created in the image of God, my entire understanding of self will depend upon my understanding of God. That’s a lot different than “believing it’s going to rain.”
A second thing about faith that is little understood is that it is neither an opinion nor an act of the will. I can’t decide to believe anymore than I can decide that two and two are four. Belief is conviction, it is a certainty that you cannot dismiss.
Once I see that two and two make four, I can have no opinion about it. There is no going back. No force in the universe can change that conviction. I may be tortured, like Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984, I may even scream out a false answer to escape the torture. But I cannot stop knowing what I know.
Conscience Is About Humanity Itself
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| Winston Smith being forced to say 4 is 5 |
That is why conscience protections are so important. They treat us as the human beings that we are. They forbid us from using coercion—financial, social or physical—to change anybody’s convictions or faith. The only power capable of changing faith is the power of the truth itself. Any other attempts to conform a person to the faith of the community is inhumane, and a form of torture.
Religious freedom does not pretend that every religion is the same, or that every religion is true. It only claims that every religious person is a human being. You didn’t choose to be a human being; you were made that way. And part of being a human being is that we have this quality in us called “faith.” It is a “conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Faith may be changed by a better understanding of the truth, but it cannot be coerced any more than love can be coerced. America was based on this idea. It permeates the US Constitution forbidding any religious test for public office. It is also reinforced in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The United Nations “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” drawn up in 1948, proclaims in Article 18, “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion: this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or believe in teaching, in practice, worship and observance.”
Now the U.S. State Department has joined the Department of Justice in making this fundamental right a focus of their efforts. They were right to do so. God grant them success.
Friday, August 10, 2018
WTE: Humanae Vitae at Fifty
The 50th anniversary Humanae Vitae was marked on July 25th. As a Lutheran pastor, I don’t make a habit of reading papal documents, but this one deserves some attention and comment.
It was issued in the middle of one of the most turbulent times in our history. We were at the start of the Sexual Revolution. It was the beginning of a war on marriage, the most fundamental building block of society. It is still raging.
Under the slogan of “Free Love,” true love was attacked. The love that bound husband and wife in a permanent union to care for the children who were conceived by their love was replaced by an “anything goes” attitude that was enslaved to feelings and urges run amok.
The hot-button issue of the day was “birth control.” The Pill had come out in 1960 and Griswold v. Connecticut had recently been decided in favor of granting the right of married couples to use it. In this context, it was easy to dismiss Humanae Vitae as a weird “Catholic thing.”
Most protestants did just that. Even Catholics, in alarming numbers, privately dismissed it as the opinion of an out-of-touch pope. Secularists made fun of it and used it as one more reason to marginalize religion in the public square.
But Humanae Vitae was never just about “birth control.” It is about the very nature of human life. It is about the relationship between male and female. It is about marriage and family, children and the true nature of love. If you are interested in these things—and who isn’t?—you should at least familiarize yourself with this thoughtful encyclical.
In it you will find some remarkable predictions. For one, it foresaw increased “marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.” At the time of its writing, the divorce rate in America had been pretty steady for years. In little more than a decade it doubled. Now we live in a culture pervaded by pornography were fewer children than ever live with their mother and father.
Another prediction was that men would “forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires.” Listen to most hip-hop artists, or consult the #MeToo movement to see how that prediction was right on the money.
Third, the Pope Paul VI predicted that unscrupulous government authorities would be tempted to use the levers of power to impose birth control on the unwilling. Unknown to most, this prediction was already being fulfilled. Already in the mid-sixties USAID began forcing foreign governments to implement birth control and sterilization policies as a condition of receiving food and medicine.
Foreign governments hungry for American money, but unbridled by Christian ethics, did horrible things to their citizens as a result. The resulting pain and injustice inflicted on foreign women from India to Africa should make America blush.
Finally, the encyclical foresaw that separating the begetting of children from marriage would lead to unlimited attempts to suppress and alter the human body. As predicted, today we see both medicine and science driving a wedge between the human body and the human mind.
When you treat people as if they were nothing but a mind carried around in a meaningless body the temptation to use drugs and scalpel to alter the body knows no bounds.
How could Pope Paul VI so accurately predict the future? Was he some sort of prophet? No. He was simply right about human nature. His predictions were based on simple facts. At the heart of Humanae Vitae are two basic facts. First, marriage is about the total gift of yourself—body and soul—to the other. Second, that total self-giving is intrinsically related to children.
You can observe these truths for yourself. They are at work in your own life and in the lives of your friends and family. You can see them in world history by noting which societies flourished and which societies floundered.
You can observe these principles through the lens of the social sciences. Hundreds of research studies have demonstrated the principles of Humanae Vitae. You can also observe these principles taught in the Christian Scriptures.
Humanae Vitae’s predictions were not based on some secret prophecy. They were based on the simple truth that marriage and children belong together. There is only one relationship that can lead to the procreation of children. Because it can, and often does, God has placed a wall of protection around marriage.
It is the responsibility of society to honor and support it. When we fail to do that, people are hurt. It is as simple as that. That wall of protection is for all three persons involved. The father, the mother, and the child all have unique vulnerabilities in a family. The institution of marriage protects all three.
Humanae Vitae remains a remarkable document. It’s not what you think it is. Fifty years later, it still speaks the wisdom of the ages. Even a Lutheran can admit that.
It was issued in the middle of one of the most turbulent times in our history. We were at the start of the Sexual Revolution. It was the beginning of a war on marriage, the most fundamental building block of society. It is still raging.
Under the slogan of “Free Love,” true love was attacked. The love that bound husband and wife in a permanent union to care for the children who were conceived by their love was replaced by an “anything goes” attitude that was enslaved to feelings and urges run amok.
The hot-button issue of the day was “birth control.” The Pill had come out in 1960 and Griswold v. Connecticut had recently been decided in favor of granting the right of married couples to use it. In this context, it was easy to dismiss Humanae Vitae as a weird “Catholic thing.”
Most protestants did just that. Even Catholics, in alarming numbers, privately dismissed it as the opinion of an out-of-touch pope. Secularists made fun of it and used it as one more reason to marginalize religion in the public square.
But Humanae Vitae was never just about “birth control.” It is about the very nature of human life. It is about the relationship between male and female. It is about marriage and family, children and the true nature of love. If you are interested in these things—and who isn’t?—you should at least familiarize yourself with this thoughtful encyclical.
In it you will find some remarkable predictions. For one, it foresaw increased “marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.” At the time of its writing, the divorce rate in America had been pretty steady for years. In little more than a decade it doubled. Now we live in a culture pervaded by pornography were fewer children than ever live with their mother and father.
Another prediction was that men would “forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires.” Listen to most hip-hop artists, or consult the #MeToo movement to see how that prediction was right on the money.
Third, the Pope Paul VI predicted that unscrupulous government authorities would be tempted to use the levers of power to impose birth control on the unwilling. Unknown to most, this prediction was already being fulfilled. Already in the mid-sixties USAID began forcing foreign governments to implement birth control and sterilization policies as a condition of receiving food and medicine.
Foreign governments hungry for American money, but unbridled by Christian ethics, did horrible things to their citizens as a result. The resulting pain and injustice inflicted on foreign women from India to Africa should make America blush.
Finally, the encyclical foresaw that separating the begetting of children from marriage would lead to unlimited attempts to suppress and alter the human body. As predicted, today we see both medicine and science driving a wedge between the human body and the human mind.
When you treat people as if they were nothing but a mind carried around in a meaningless body the temptation to use drugs and scalpel to alter the body knows no bounds.
How could Pope Paul VI so accurately predict the future? Was he some sort of prophet? No. He was simply right about human nature. His predictions were based on simple facts. At the heart of Humanae Vitae are two basic facts. First, marriage is about the total gift of yourself—body and soul—to the other. Second, that total self-giving is intrinsically related to children.
You can observe these truths for yourself. They are at work in your own life and in the lives of your friends and family. You can see them in world history by noting which societies flourished and which societies floundered.
You can observe these principles through the lens of the social sciences. Hundreds of research studies have demonstrated the principles of Humanae Vitae. You can also observe these principles taught in the Christian Scriptures.
Humanae Vitae’s predictions were not based on some secret prophecy. They were based on the simple truth that marriage and children belong together. There is only one relationship that can lead to the procreation of children. Because it can, and often does, God has placed a wall of protection around marriage.
It is the responsibility of society to honor and support it. When we fail to do that, people are hurt. It is as simple as that. That wall of protection is for all three persons involved. The father, the mother, and the child all have unique vulnerabilities in a family. The institution of marriage protects all three.
Humanae Vitae remains a remarkable document. It’s not what you think it is. Fifty years later, it still speaks the wisdom of the ages. Even a Lutheran can admit that.