The Church, Sexual Immorality, and Fake Christianity

Pleased with the efforts of his demonic protégé, Screwtape nevertheless cautioned Wormwood not to waken his waffling churchgoing “patient” to “a sense of his real position.” In chapter XII of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape further warns Wormwood that his patient “must not be allowed to suspect that he is now, however slowly, heading right away from the sun on a line which will carry him into the cold and dark of utmost space.”

Screwtape goes on to contend that the man’s church attendance could even be used as an advantage in their demonic schemes. He explains,

As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks ago [before he became a Christian]. And while he thinks that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognized, sin, but only with his vague, though uneasy, feeling that he hasn’t been doing very well lately.

After all, Screwtape concludes,

It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing…Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

Fewer and fewer Americans these days seem willing “to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognized, sin.” Of course, to a great extent, this is because fewer and fewer Americans are able to recognize what is sin—or, many Americans are simply becoming comfortable with their sin and are eagerly strolling along the “gentle slope” to hell.

In a foolish desire to be “relevant” or “tolerant,” churches across the world—especially mainline Protestant churches and the Catholic Church—have abandoned long-heeded truths for heresy. This is especially the case when it comes to matters in the sexual realm.

At this point in the moral wars, if you are a Christian, you almost certainly should well know where your church stands on the issues of homosexuality, same-sex “marriage,” and any other manifestation of sexual immorality. If your church’s position on such grave matters is unclear, you should be asking yourself and your church leadership why this is the case.

If your church is refusing to confront these grave matters bravely and truthfully, you should seek to change that. If they refuse, you should find another body of fellowship. Likewise, if you are a lover of the truth, any church you’ve attended that has already gone the way of the world on homosexuality, marriage, and the like should now be your former church.

In other words, there is a war raging within the church, and it is long past time to choose sides and get in the fight. Decades of fake Christians peddling fake Christianity—along with lazy, ignorant, lukewarm, and sometimes hypocritical congregations—have allowed the moral lines for what was and was not sin in the sexual realm to be blurred or altogether redrawn.

As a result, the battles over sex and sexuality in our culture have largely been lost. A wide array of sexually immoral behaviors is now deemed acceptable by significant portions of our culture. At least sixty percent of Americans view same-sex “marriage,” homosexuality, and fornication (sex outside of marriage) as morally acceptable. Our courts, corporations, schools, legislatures, and the like have taken notice. Most every significant institution in the U.S. now widely embraces evil. The church doesn’t seem far behind.

It should come as little surprise that so many who call themselves Christians want to go the way of the world on sexual matters. This is especially true of those under 30. Their teachers, professors, bosses, TV shows, movies, et al fully embrace the perverse LGBT agenda, so why shouldn’t their church? Some church leaders—those unequipped, misled, or with a corporate (as opposed to a biblical) mindset who hope that surrender on sex will grow their numbers—have agreed.

The sexual morality presented by Christianity stands in stark contrast to the sexual immorality proffered by the perverse LGBT agenda. In spite of the clear and unmistakable message of Scripture and centuries of church teachings on sex, family, and marriage, there is a growing movement among Christians to ignore or flat out deny what God has long said on these grave matters. As the body of Christ is supposed to be the first and last line of defense with such spiritual darkness, this capitulation has led to increased battle grounds in this war.

As many of us well know, these battles are all around us: in bakeries, flower shops, adoption agencies, track meets, libraries, the military, schools (see here for a shocking list of the perversions occurring in k-12 government schools), and yes, tragically, even in the church (Catholic, Protestant, and “born-again” former Presidents who teach Sunday school). Thus, whether we desire it or not, whether we are engaged or not, almost every single American has already been touched by this war.

Though many of us are now witnessing things we formerly thought sheer nonsense or impossible—and horrific—as with most things in the human condition, what we Christians are facing today in the sexual realm is not as new as it may seem. The scourge of sexual immorality that is so pervasive in the “City of Man” has long plagued God’s people.

Since very near the beginning of time human beings have sought to shed the tenets of our Creator and go our own way. This is especially true when it comes to our sexuality. Much of the history of ancient Israel, as described by the Old Testament, included the struggle of the Jewish people with idolatry, false gods, and sexual immorality. Whether Baal, Ashtoreth, Molech, or any other such demons, the people of God were often led into obscene sexual activities, along with other vile wickedness such as human—including infant—sacrifice (which some of today’s liberals defend).

In spite of the widespread embrace of the left’s lies on sex, as was the case with Israel, a remnant of truth-tellers will remain. The size of that remnant will, to a great extent, be determined by the willingness of the church to fight for the truth. Those who’ve made a god of sex already own the Democrat Party, Hollywood, social media, the drive-by media, the government schools, and so on. We can’t afford to give away any more ground, certainly not within the church.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2018, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

When Will the Catholic Church Learn?

As a writer, little is more flattering than to have someone (especially another good writer) examine your work and say, “That’s exactly what I would have written.” Or even better, “I wish I had written that.”

Not that any professional writer would be very flattered to receive my praise (I mostly get paid to teach mathematics), but after all of the recent hoopla over the second major teaching document issued by Pope Francis (but the first written by him), Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”), I sat down to pen my thoughts on the matter. Then I came across this piece by David Harsanyi of The Federalist. “No need for me to continue,” was my thought after reading his take on the Pope’s criticisms of modern capitalism.

Some of my favorite lines: “As fascinating as the context of [the] Pope’s message might be, there is—or seems to be—something new about this rhetoric. You could always detect a pinch of socialistic seasoning in the Church’s theological stew…In this case, the Pope didn’t simply point out that the wealthy weren’t doing enough to help alleviate poverty. He used the recognizable rhetoric of the Left to accuse free-market systems of generating and nurturing that poverty. And these platitudes—things that run wild in the liberal imagination like unfettered capitalism and ‘trickle-down’ economics—were clearly aimed at the United States.”

And: “[I]s it really true that ‘absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation’ are the driving reasons for poverty and inequality? People in places like Congo, Burundi, Eritrea, Malawi, or Mozambique live under corrupt authoritarian regimes where crippling poverty has a thousand fathers — none of them named capitalism. The people of Togo do not suffer in destitution because of some derivative scheme on Wall Street or the fallout from a tech IPO.”

There are many other good points in Harsanyi’s piece (on trickle-down economic theory, federal economic regulation, abortion, and more), and a full read of the piece is well worth your time. There is one thing in particular that I would have added.

As a part of his solution for addressing the “economy of exclusion and inequality,” Pope Francis bemoans the rejection of “the right of states” to exercise properly “any form of control” over financial markets. While criticizing trickle-down economics, the Pope also expresses frustration in what he perceives as a “crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

The Pontiff later adds that, “A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determi­nation and an eye to the future…” Besides the blatant falseness of “any form of control” in U.S. markets (As Harsanyi notes, “The Federal Registry of the United States regularly comes in over 60,000 pages.”), why does the Pope express such “crude and naïve trust” in our secular government to regulate properly U.S. markets? When will the Catholic Church learn its lesson? Big Government can never fix immorality.

Was Obamacare not lesson enough? The Catholic Church teaches that health care is “a basic human right,” and true to the Pope’s Big Government ideas on financial reform, has been very supportive of efforts in the U.S. to implement universal healthcare. Enter Obamacare. For months leading up to the final passage of Obamacare, Catholic Bishops lobbied heavily for its passage—minus federal funding of abortion. Once House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to add the Stupak amendment to the House version of Obamacare, the Bishops were onboard.

Though the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed the version of Obamacare that passed (because of the removal of the Stupak amendment), they did not support GOP efforts to repeal it once republicans took control of congress. Also, some Catholic leaders supported Obamacare in spite of the lack of the Stupak amendment.

Of course, it wasn’t long before the Catholic Church was in an all out war with the Obama administration over contraception. Again, why the “crude and naïve trust”? Why does the Pope lament the lack of angels in the boardrooms of large corporations but ignore the demons patrolling the halls of Big Government?

In other words, as is typical with almost every elected liberal in the U.S. government, there was no reason to believe that Obama was going to be anything other than a radical liberal on social issues. The time for “war” with Obama was BEFORE he was elected leader of the free world. However, in partnering with democrats and liberals, it seems that many within the leadership of the Catholic Church have for far too long been willing to violate my proverb that, “It is no act of charity to be generous with someone else’s money.”

Or, as Paul Rahe put it in early 2012, the American Catholic Church decades ago “fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States—the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity—and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor.”

The contraception mandate is a classic example of “state paternalism.” It is exactly what one gets when the people surrender that kind of power to a secular government led by those determined to ignore God’s laws. If such liberals remain in power, the result will be no different when the issue comes to economics or marriage or any other matter precious to Christians and other like-minded Americans.

Left unfettered, the slow creep of liberalism knows no bounds. Elections have consequences. If the Catholic Church continues to preach a willingness to surrender more liberty in order to receive another entitlement, or to “spread the wealth around,” we will even further embolden those, who, while claiming to serve us, are seeking to become our masters.

Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com