Month: May 2014
Roundup: Supreme Court Upholds Public Prayer
Posted on May 7, 2014 in Religious Freedom by Nathan Cherry
Already this landmark decision is being called controversial by both opponents of public prayer and advocates. That might sound strange, but some are wondering if the fact that the court ruled on public prayer at all is a sign that our religious freedoms are being viewed as government granted rather than God-given, as our Founders believed. It is a valid thought to consider as increasing government intrusion on individual liberty and religious freedom has reached historic proportions.
But, for the moment we do need to celebrate what is potentially one of the most critical victories regarding religious freedom in our country in quite a while. Under one of the most religiously oppressive administrations in recent history we should celebrate every victory and be thankful for the freedoms that continue to shape America. Here’s a few of the articles commenting on the recent decision by the Supreme Court.
RIP American Free Speech. Next Up Religious Freedom
Posted on May 7, 2014 in Religious Freedom by Nathan Cherry
Let’s stop pretending that America believes in free speech. I know we all want to believe we still believe in it, we want to scream desperately from the roof tops that America still practices and believes in free speech. The truth is that we don’t.
If America believed in free speech former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich would still have a job. He shared his opinion on the topic of marriage via a monetary donation, a form of speech, and was ousted. Eich “let his voice be heard” by contributing to a cause he believed in and Mozilla, along with the most intolerant and hateful gay activists demanded that he be fired.
If America believe in free speech Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, would not have been banned from the NBA and fined $2.5 million for making racists remarks. Sterling simply shared his own personal views and as a result a media firestorm and public outcry has been overwhelming against him. Some have even demanded the NBA force him to sell the Clippers. (How exactly do you ban an owner of a team? How do you force someone to sell something they own?)
Before anyone gets the impression I’m defending racist comments let me be clear: racism is an immoral sinful practice. Oh, you didn’t know it was a moral problem or sinful? Rejecting a person created in the image of God is certainly a moral issue. Open discrimination against such a person is nothing short of sinful. (By the way, why was the NAACP set to give Sterling an award, again, if he had a record of racism?)
MUST READ: This Is What the “World’s Best Mom” Looks Like
Posted on May 6, 2014 in Life by Nathan Cherry
For all the moms that have endured the loss of a child, this true story is for you. No doubt there is many “world’s best moms” out there right now. And to those ladies that will one day be wives and mothers, I hope this account inspires you to be the “world’s best mom.”
“World’s Best Mom”
by Matt Wessell
Original article posted here.
That’s a lofty title, I know. And believe it or not, I know her. Even more amazing (to me) is that I’m married to her.
One might think the world’s best mom would be someone with years of motherly experience and a number of kids — someone who has been doing it for a long time. My wife, Katie, doesn’t come close to qualifying under those terms.
You see, we’re new parents. Our first son, Randol Thomas, was born on Thursday at 12:56 a.m. at the incredibly young gestational age of 25 weeks and 4 days. That happy moment had a sad ending when our baby boy lost his life later that morning at 5:20 a.m. after struggling for hours to try and breathe with what we knew were severely underdeveloped lungs — something we knew would be an issue after my wife’s water broke at just 18 weeks.
So how could she possibly be crowned ‘world’s best mom’ when she has only had one child, who only lived for a few hours? Allow me to explain…
Marriage Redefinition Seeks to Remove God from Our Understanding of Gender, Sexuality, and Marriage.
Posted on May 6, 2014 in Marriage, Sexuality by Nathan Cherry
Is it possible that there is a deliberate anti-Bible element to the effort to redefine marriage and sexuality? More than just some cultural shift or some desire for equality, what if this effort is really about destroying a vital aspect of biblical doctrine.
Central to the biblical teaching on sexuality and gender is the belief that men and women are “equal but different.” Within this teaching is the very simple concept that men and women are inherently different in their physical, emotional, and sexual construct, but are equal in their worth and value. That’s not a hard concept to understand when looking at a man and a woman.
Liberal ideology however is rapidly opposed to this concept and is seeking to replace it with the belief that there is no difference between men and women. Now, to be fair, the idea that there is no difference between men and women is logically absurd. One look at a man and woman will quickly reveal the obvious physical differences, the emotional differences are well documented, and the sexual differences go hand in hand with the physical differences. But, that doesn’t stop the effort to erase those inherent differences.
What, if any biblical teachings would be harmed in the effort to erase the differences between men and women?
The Trouble With Throuples is That Throuples Are Troublesome Things
Posted on May 5, 2014 in Marriage, Sexuality by Nathan Cherry
Let me make a statement I have been making for several years:
If the government redefines marriage for homosexuals ti was necessarily have to continue redefining marriage for any other group or be guilty of the same “discrimination” it now accuses traditional marriage supporters of.
Try as they may to deny it, every advocate of marriage redefinition knows intuitively that if the arguments currently winning the day to legalize same-sex “marriage” are successful, they will also be successful for polygamists, polyamorists, and even pedophiles and bestiality advocates.
Ask yourself when is the last time you heard a same-sex “marriage” advocate standing up for the rights of polygamists and polyamorists? If their goal is based on “love” and “equality” then surely they would desire the same love and equality for every other minority group hiding in the shadows, right?
But you won’t see these groups standing together or hosting town hall meetings on bus tours across the states. Why? Simply because if every day America knew that redefining marriage for one group meant doing so for every other group the wheels of the political machine churning in favor of homosexuals would come to a screeching halt.
Rand Paul and Moral Leadership on Abortion
Posted on May 3, 2014 in Life by Derick Dickens
When William Wilberforce began his quest to end slavery, public opinion and the political forces were against him. In his greatest legal victory, years before they outlawed slavery, he achieved it knowing it was contrary to the majority of people in England and expected the law to bankrupt the nation.
Moral stands are some of the most difficult stands to take when you are facing headwinds. It is easy to think that moral issues are less important than economic or scientific, but as Christians we know they are not only as important, they are more important.
So, when Rand Paul (or any politician) says he believes life begins at conception, but pushes off any legislation until “we can get consensus”, he shows cowardliness not leadership. (Video below)
The LGBT Master Plan Began 30 Years Ago. And You Had No Idea
Posted on May 2, 2014 in Marriage, Sexuality by Nathan Cherry
What if I told you a plan was put in place nearly 30 years ago to normalize homosexuality in America? And that the blueprint for the plan was written in plain sight for anyone to see and yet most people have never heard it, read it, or know it exists?
The average person, myself included, would be tempted to believe that what we are seeing from LGBT activists today is a recently developed plan to normalize homosexuality. We would also be tempted to believe that the demonization of anyone that opposes the homosexual lifestyle, most notably Christians, is just an unfortunate casualty of this culture war.
We would be absolutely wrong.
In 1987 an article was written for Guide Magazine in which the authors, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, published their PR blueprint for normalizing homosexuality. The article ‘The Overhauling of Straight America,’ was later expanded into a book and published by one of America’s largest publishing houses where it became a bestseller.
The article opens with this statement:
The Gospel Coalition: 9 Things You Should Know About the National Day of Prayer
Posted on May 1, 2014 in Religious Freedom by Nathan Cherry
Today is the National Day of Prayer, an annual day of observance celebrated by Americans of various faiths. Here are nine things you should know about the day when people are asked “to turn to God in prayer and meditation.”
1. The National Day of Prayer is an annual observance held on the first Thursday of May, inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman.
So you say you are a Christian but don’t believe all the Bible?
Posted on May 1, 2014 in Theology by Derick Dickens
From my first days at Marshall University, I met people who said they were Christians, but that they did not believe all of the Bible. This view has never made sense to me. How do they know which parts are true? How do they know which parts are reliable? For some odd reason, they feel they can hold to a proper view of Jesus Christ without ever believing what the Bible teaches us about Jesus. For them, they approach the Bible with scissors and “snip and cut” away things they do not like.
These people are creating their own religion, not embracing the true religion of Christianity.
Eliminating parts of the Bible started by people who used very broad strokes to divide the Bible into parts. First, they said the New Testament is trustworthy, but the Old Testament is not and is “done away with.” These scholars want to talk about the “love” of the New Testament and somehow feel it is incompatible with the law giving, holy God of the Old.
First rule of thumb, when you don’t understand God and you start eliminating attributes of God based upon your misunderstanding, then you are in trouble.
High Profile Christians Continue Embracing Sin Because – Culture?
Posted on May 1, 2014 in Marriage by Nathan Cherry
When the average, every day Christian decides to support something the Bible clearly calls sin, no one cares. That’s because no one knows except the small circle that person influences. That’s not to say it isn’t a problem, but only that it’s not nearly as egregious an abuse of influence. But when a Christian singer or major book publisher decides to support those same unbiblical positions, things gets weightier.
In this case a major book publisher known for such authors as Kay Arthur and David Jeremiah has decided to publish a book supporting same-sex “marriage.” Add to that the recent revelation that Jars of Clay front man Dan Haseltine has decided to also support homosexual “marriage” and one has to wonder if these Christians understand the weight of their decisions.
First, a recent article reports:
“WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group is planning to release, through its liberal sister imprint Convergent Books, a manuscript paradoxically titled God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships…The book’s author, Matthew Vines, is a homosexual activist and Bible revisionist known for manipulating Christian terminology to advance the counter-Christian homosexualist agenda. Despite his frequent use of a Christian-like lexicon, Vines surprisingly admits to running an apostate enterprise that he calls The Reformation Project. An unabashed denier of Biblical teaching on sexual morality, Vines has publicly acknowledged that his goal is to ‘reform church teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity.’”
Really? Do we have to go through this again?
Yes, what the world needs now is another so-called “Christian” trying desperately to convince the evangelical world that the current and historical majority understanding of biblical sexuality is all wrong and his “enlightened” view is correct. Not only has every conservative evangelical scholar since recorded time – such as Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wayne Grudem and Albert Mohler – been completely wrong in their life time of study regarding biblical sexuality. But, so has the majority of Christians throughout history that has affirmed the understanding that homosexual behavior is sin.