God’s Anointed Leader Isn’t Always Who We Expect

Much has been spoken and written lately regarding the evangelical community’s feelings toward President Trump, especially since the Christianity Today editorial calling for his removal from office was published last month. Many evangelicals continue to support him wholeheartedly because he has proven repeatedly that he can be trusted to keep his campaign promises and to govern faithfully and conservatively. Others vow never to support him because they feel that he “embodies the anti-Christian ethic.”

President Trump certainly has a “colorful” past, and that is the key reason that I did not support him in the republican presidential primary of 2016. I just couldn’t imagine a man of his moral failings representing this nation and becoming the leader of the free world. However, when it ultimately came down to a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on November 8, it was a no-brainer. I would have crawled on my hands and knees to the polls, if necessary, to vote against her. And that’s exactly what my vote was at that time—a vote against Hillary Clinton.

It turns out, however, that millions of us who held our noses and voted for Trump have been quite pleasantly surprised by his ardent support of the values and policies that we hold dear. He has been the most pro-life president in the history of our nation, and he was the first president ever to attend the annual March for Life on Capitol Hill. He has been a true friend to small business owners; he has appointed hundreds of wonderful federal judges; he is defending religious liberty; he is improving our international trade relationships; and among many other accomplishments, he is making our military stronger and our nation safer. Despite all of these successes, many persist in demanding the removal of President Trump because they dislike how he conducts himself.

For many evangelicals, the decision to vote for and to continue to support Donald Trump essentially boils down to this: he operates from the Republican Party platform, which represents life, liberty, and conservative, Judeo-Christian values. Whoever his Democrat opponent turns out to be in November, that person will stand on the Democrat Party platform, which is immoral, anti-Christian, anti-God, anti-life, and anti-freedom. Seems pretty clear and simple.

My church went through a study in 2019 called OT19, in which we read much of the Old Testament together. The very same week that the Christianity Today editorial calling for Trump’s removal was published, our assigned reading included Isaiah chapters 44 and 45. In these chapters, the Israelites were captives in Babylon, and God used a non-Israelite, a Persian king named Cyrus, to free His people from captivity and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

Speaking to Cyrus, God said,

For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know that there is none besides me (Isaiah 45:4-5) [emphasis mine].

I see some parallels between God’s anointing of the Persian King Cyrus and the election of President Donald Trump. Cyrus clearly was not a follower of God, but God anointed him and gave him a “title of honor.” Donald Trump has not historically been a follower of God either, yet God has also bestowed on him a title of honor and given him the role of shepherding the most influential and powerful nation in the history of the world.

There has been much debate about whether President Trump is truly a Christian and whether he is “morally fit” to lead our nation. He certainly has moral shortcomings, as we all have. It is true that only God can judge the hearts of men, but hundreds of trusted evangelical leaders all over the nation, who have spent time with President Trump and advised him and prayed over him, continue to defend and support him. Regardless of Trump’s true spiritual condition, which none of us can know with certainty, God has shown clearly in His Word that He can and will use both people who honor and serve Him and people who do not in order to accomplish His purposes on this earth. When God anointed the foreign, heathen Persian King Cyrus, He said about him, “He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please” (Isaiah 44:28).

Cyrus was the tool that God used to bring deliverance and restoration to the Jews thousands of years ago. God has continued to use all sorts of flawed and morally deficient people—Moses, Samson, Rahab, and Paul are just a few examples—down through the centuries, because He is God and He knows best.

God doesn’t need our permission or approval to put His choice of shepherd over us to accomplish His purposes. His ways are higher than our ways, and we can’t always understand with our finite minds what He is doing in this world. However, we can see when good and moral fruit is coming from the White House, as it certainly seems to be now. I, for one, am abundantly thankful for the shepherd who has been anointed to watch over our nation. Our responsibility is to continue to pray for our president to make wise decisions. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and we, like Aaron and Hur, should help to hold up his hands when he grows weary (Exodus 17:10-13).

(See this column at American Thinker and LifeSiteNews.)

Michelle Thomas is a Christ follower, wife to Trevor Thomas, and homeschooling mom of four. Her books include Lord, I Need You, Through Deep Waters, and Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. Her website is KingdomCrossing.com, and her email is michelle@kingdomcrossing.com.

Moral Relativism, the NBA, Pickens County, GA, et al

In a letter he wrote in 1953, C.S. Lewis lamented the “apostasy of the great part of Europe from the Christian faith.” This apostasy, Lewis warned, presented “very grave dangers.” If Lewis could see Europe today, he would rightly conclude that his warnings went almost completely unheeded.

Lewis continued,

For my part I believe we ought to work not only at spreading the Gospel (that certainly) but also at a certain preparation for the Gospel. It is necessary to recall many to the law of nature before we talk about God. For Christ promises forgiveness of sins: but what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know that they have sinned?…Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle Atheism.

If moral relativity was an “enemy” in 1950s Europe, I’m not sure of the correct noun to describe what it is in twenty-first century America. What’s a more definitive word than “enemy?” For, while atheism is still quite rare in the U.S., moral relativism is rampant—far more rampant than in 1953 Europe, I would wager. The National Basketball Association (NBA) provides the latest in a long line of recent examples.

Since so many of us pay little to no attention to the NBA, you may have forgotten their “principled” stand on the North Carolina “bathroom bill.” In late February of 2016, ignoring science and sound morality, liberals on the Charlotte City Council passed an ordinance that would allow men into women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and so on. As is typical with the left, the ordinance did not apply only to city-owned property, but to private businesses as well. In other words, Charlotte liberals “legislated morality,” and they did so to the point of forcing all of its citizens to adhere to perverse liberal dogma.

To correct this gross injustice, the North Carolina legislature passed a common sense law (HB2) that reversed the foolish Charlotte city ordinance. In opposition to HB2, later in 2016, ignoring the long-understood truths on sex and sexuality, and goose-stepping along with the rest of the liberal elite, the NBA decided to pull their All-Star game from the city of Charlotte. To justify their discrimination against the good people of North Carolina, an NBA spokesman declared, “We have been guided...by the long-standing core values of our league. These include not only diversity, inclusion, fairness and respect for others but also the willingness to listen and consider opposing points of view.”

Guess who doesn’t “consider opposing points of view?” The godless communists who run China. Because it has billions of dollars on the line, when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong—and the Chinese reacted as communists do in such situations— many in the NBA scrambled to grovel before the totalitarian state.

In other words, according to the “morals” of the NBA, allowing men into women’s restrooms and locker rooms is worth a “principled” stand, but supporting liberty in Hong Kong is a no-no. What’s more, it seems the NBA is willing to enthusiastically support political protests that are anti-American but cautiously rebuke protests that are anti-Chinese.

At The Federalist, David Marcus was astounded by the NBA’s hypocrisy. He wrote,

The NBA has very consciously crafted an image as a woke corporation. While showing support for protests against the U.S. government, and even engaging in a protest such as their stunt in Charlotte, the NBA is trying to position itself as a moral entity. Even as an arbiter of what is morally acceptable.

Marcus concludes that, “This is cultural relativism at an astounding level.” I don’t think that we’re dealing with mere “cultural relativism” in this instance, but rather moral relativism “at an astounding level.” How askew must one’s moral compass be to conclude that communism—in which millions are unjustly imprisoned, and worse—is tolerable, but keeping men out of women’s restrooms is repugnant? As I’m sure C.S. Lewis would agree, such ignorance of sin is indeed “astounding”—and telling.

Another astounding and telling moral collapse—thanks to the Obama administration and organizations like the NBA—is the fact that we now must debate who is a male—even in one of the most conservative parts of the U.S.! As was the case in 2015, according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, my congressional district—the Georgia ninth (GA-9)—is the third most conservative district in the U.S. (Trump beat Hillary here 78% to 19%.)

Half of Pickens County, Georgia is in GA-9. The other half is in GA-14, the tenth most conservative district in the U.S. (Trump 75%, Hillary 22%). In 2016, Pickens County went for Trump over Hillary 74% to 21%. In spite of this, about a week ago, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution (AJC) reported that, per a directive from their misinformed school superintendent, Carlton Wilson, the Pickens County school system had decided “to allow transgender students to use their preferred bathroom.”

Pickens County residents were justly irate and demanded a hearing. They got one, and the school board rightly reversed the superintendent’s decision. The AJC, Georgia’s largest—and very liberal—newspaper was quick to show their disappointment and disapproval. Their headline on the news declared, “Pickens County school board no longer allows transgender students to use bathroom of their choice.”

The first sentence of the piece stated, “Bowing to pressure from parents and residents, the Pickens County Board of Education announced today that it will no longer allow transgender students to use restrooms of their choice.” Of course, “bowing to pressure” should’ve read “surrendering to science” or “kowtowing to the truth,” but liberals are so blinded by their efforts to undo any and every reminder of absolute truth that they will seemingly go to no end to spread their deceit. And again, note that this is happening in one of the most conservative parts of America.

In what should surprise no one—because psychology isn’t science and because the field is dominated by the godless—according to recent reports, the American Psychological Association (APA) “has published a guide that instructs graduate programs in psychology to end language that refers to biological differences among individuals.” Breitbart also reports that “The guide was authored by the APA’s Graduate Students (APAGS) subcommittee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.”

Breitbart also notes, “The guide contains an ‘Action Plan’ in which the APAGS committee instructs graduate programs to ‘include pronouns as part of class introductions’: ‘We don’t know someone’s gender pronouns from their appearance, so it’s important to ask.’” So graduate students in psychology are now going to be instructed to ignore biology further and grossly pervert the English language. Thus, future Americans seeking mental-health help from these fools will be driven even further from the truth.

Portland liberals are so far removed from the truth that they’ve decided to ban urinals in their $195 million remodel of the Portland Building, which houses the city’s administrative offices. In an email to city employees explaining this ignorant decision, Portland Chief Administrative Officer Tom Rinehart said, “I am convinced that this is the right way to ensure success as your employer, remove arbitrary barriers in our community, and provide leadership that is reflective of our shared values.”

Similar perverse “leadership” and “values” recently led insurance giant Kaiser Permanente to promote the evil “Drag Queen Story Time.” The television ad shows a grown man dressed as a woman laughing and dancing with small children. As Tyler O’Neil rightly notes, this is a “clear attempt to normalize Drag Queen Story Hour. The smiling, laughing children are a subliminal message that full-grown men dressing up like women and acting sexual around children is fun, not disturbing.”

The extent that moral relativism has corrupted our culture is most disturbing. America will never truly be “great” until our lives, families, and institutions—corporate, educational, medical, political, spiritual, and the like—are dominated by the truth.

(See this column at American Thinker and LifeSiteNews.)

Copyright 2019, 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

Rejection of Moral Absolutes Continues to Plague the Modern Left

If death—anyone’s death—brings you joy, you should intently re-examine your worldview. Even the just execution of a mass murderer—which I support in every case—should not bring anyone joy. As a Christian, I often find myself opposed—spiritually, politically, and otherwise—to those outside of my faith. However, I take no joy in anyone’s death, especially those outside of my faith. Christianity teaches that “each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” Any death that results in eternal separation from God is always particularly tragic.

However, for those who have put their faith in the things of this world, who are determined to rule their own world, death usually has no such significance. Thus, for such people, like the death of an “inconvenient” child, the death of an enemy is often something to celebrate. The most recent case in point is the death of the wealthy philanthropist David Koch. After Mr. Koch died, many on the left again found themselves in a celebratory mood. We shouldn’t be surprised that those who engage in or promote the evil “shout-your-abortion!” movement would celebrate the death of a political enemy.

Nor should we be surprised that the hate-filled American left would promise political—and perhaps other forms of—apocalypse if President Trump gets the opportunity to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with someone who will actually follow the Constitution. Liberals dancing with joy over the death of Mr. Koch were soon brought back to earth with the same-day news that Justice Ginsburg underwent a fresh round of treatment for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas.

Despite our political, legal, and moral differences, I admire Justice Ginsburg for her strength and determination to do her job. As another recently noted, she has survived pancreatic cancer twice, lung cancer once, and colon cancer once. And she’s 86 years old. Many Americans—no matter their political stripes—would be very interested in getting the names of her oncologists.

In an interesting bit of irony probably lost on Justice Ginsburg and her like-minded ideologues, if the U.S. had Medicare-for-all, or some other version of single-payer healthcare—a dream of the American left—almost certainly Mrs. Ginsburg would’ve long ago departed this world. Thank God for the U.S. medical industry, right libs? (The U.S. has the world’s best cancer survival rates.)

In their foolish efforts to create “heaven on earth”—Utopia—modern liberals have often relied on the courts to give them what they could not otherwise gain by actually winning elections and passing legislation. Of course, this is why the left in the mainstream media—I repeat myself—and the U.S. Senate engaged in media malpractice and political treachery in their evil efforts to derail the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.

Many have implied that if President Trump has the opportunity to name Ginsgurg’s replacement, the battle that would erupt would make the Kavanaugh confirmation look like the Mayberry City Council debate on whether to hold a Founder’s Day parade. This shouldn’t be the case—because, as long as Senate republicans have his back, there is simply nothing democrats can do to stop President Trump from nominating and having confirmed any judge he wishes.

However, today’s Democrat Party is as far from rational as they are from moral—which is totally unsurprising as those two extremes often go hand-in-hand. Even more so than the vengeful tweets over a dead philanthropist or the angry threats over a potential Supreme Court vacancy, few things illustrate this as well as the gender debate the modern left insists we have.

After (frequently) pointing out—and being far from alone—that the stupid, evil notion of “gender fluidity” most harms females—including young girls—I keep thinking that the left will soon abandon this wickedness. Silly me. I forget how blindly stupid those corrupted by evil can be.

Recently the GOP candidate in Louisiana’s governor’s race, Ralph Abraham, made headlines—headlines!—because he ran a 30 second ad that included the phrase “as a doctor, I can assure you, there are only two genders.” They were so aghast at MSNBC that host Chris Jansing declared that Abraham’s comments were “incendiary.” According to Newsbusters, Jansing’s guest—because, of course, the left must have their “experts” explain to us why there are not only two genders—went even further and said that to declare that there are only two genders is now “despicable” and “un-American.”

In other words, a statement that, just a few years ago, the vast majority of us would’ve considered so obvious that it was patronizing is now “incendiary” and “despicable.” Orwell was indeed a prophet.

Thus, it should come as little surprise that those who can’t tell the difference between who is a male and who is a female would choose to fight crime with euphemisms, still believes that “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” really happened, still thinks that man-made climate change is a real problem with a political solution, believes that widespread institutional racism still exists in America, and would conclude that “Seattle Has Figured Out How to End the War on Drugs.”

The latter bit of editorial “brilliance” was recently proffered by The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff. I guess Kristoff missed the fact that Seattle is Dying largely because of rampant drug abuse (and because, of course, “liberalism is killing it”). If he truly didn’t know this before, he does now because many of the 1300+ comments following his piece told him as much. Many of the comments were from Seattle residents.

SKM from Seattle wrote,

I live here and you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Downtown Seattle is a classic example of when inmates run the asylum. Downtown Seattle frequently feels like “Night of the Living Dead.” Quality of life issues here are outright dismissed, all in an effort to help drug addicted zombies that walk our streets. Sleeping in doorways, public defecation/urination, shooting up right in the open, blatant drug dealing w/ out any fear of incrimination, verbal abuse, etc. I can more easily get a summons for jaywalking here than dealing Fentanyl.

Another Seattle resident, “robofaust,” added,

As a 26 year resident of Seattle (and a x2 time voter for Ralph Nader and Obama), I couldn't disagree more. This city is littered with homeless drug addicts. Seattle’s choice to “decriminalize homelessness” is just another term for enabling the self-destruction of thousands of people… 

Every few days I come across people who are passed out, or worse yet, who are actively shooting up, at the foot of my home. Petty crime is rampant, and it is no longer possible to get the police to respond to a stolen bicycle or smashed car windows… 

The city’s drug addicts live in a parallel subculture that is disconnected from the lives of the locals who tolerate it in the name of social virtue. This subculture is a law unto itself, and is rife with predators who prey on the weak with violence, theft, and sexual abuse… 

There will be political reckoning in the city for this, sooner or later. Mr. Kristof’s analysis is deeply flawed.

In not just Seattle, but all over America, liberals have become “a law unto themselves.” Thus, the nastiness in Seattle is only the tip of the iceberg. Liberals think that Seattle is doing a good job with criminal drug users, that there are more than two genders, that marriage is whatever we define it to be, that killing the unborn is merely a “choice,” and so on, because the left in America long ago abandoned the idea that some things are settled for all time.

I certainly hope there is soon a political reckoning. There will certainly be a spiritual one.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2019, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Whose Truth? Whose Morality?

On my website, I have a “Quotable Quotes” page. The quotes are loosely grouped by topic, and at the top is this one by Winston Churchill:

Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is.

This has long been a favorite of mine, and several years ago I had a poster-size version of it printed so I could display it in my classroom. It cost me less than $10 to do this—a real bargain when one considers that The New York Times wants you to spend $300 to sport a t-shirt ($450 gets you the hoodie) that bears their new slogan (purportedly written by Churston Winchill, a transgender Times intern who majored in angry protesting and vulgar tweeting)—Truth. It’s more important now than ever.

This replaces the old slogan, which of course was, Shut Up, You Racist, Homophobic Bigot! T-shirts bearing this can now be found at a discount price of only $50 in the LGBT section of Target stores. At least I think so. We stopped shopping at Target years ago when they couldn’t seem to grasp the truth about males and females.

Only really smart people—such as those who read “all the ‘truth’ that’s fit to print”—would ever spend $300 for a t-shirt. And as one astute observer noted, if you’re a liar, you’ll want to wear it every day. This means we should be seeing them daily all across bastions of liberalism—college campuses, Hollywood, Planned Parenthood lobbies, same-sex “weddings,” the offices of the SPLC, Red Hen restaurants, and the like.

Instead of its pasta, Red Hen restaurants are now famous for partisanship—and, like most every liberal these days, “panic, ignorance, and malice.” Instead of angry politics, the Virginia location that turned away Sarah Sanders claimed they were doing so based on “moral convictions.” How absurd.

Of course, as most now well know, the “moral convictions” of modern liberalism allow for the killing of the most innocent and helpless among us, the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity, the attempted redefinition of gender, the embracing of virtually every sexual perversion imaginable, and so on. In other words, a modern liberal clamoring about “moral convictions” is like Larry Flynt complaining about adultery.

This so-called “moral conviction,” this so-called “truth” has nothing to do with morality or truth at all, but rather is something nearly as old as humanity itself: the desire to rule one’s own world. As Francis A. Schaeffer put it in chapter one—The Abolition of Truth and Morality—of his seminal book A Christian Manifesto, such a worldview has placed mankind “at the center of all things, and making him the measure of all things.” And those who live according to this worldview “have no sufficient base for either society or law,” and thus, they certainly have no business in any positions of power.

This humanistic view of reality led even a former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1946-1953), Frederick M. Vinson, to conclude, “Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes.” Vinson said this prior to 1950, and his ignorant proverb has indeed proven to be, as Al Mohler put it, a “dark prophecy” of things to come. For decades, liberals across the U.S. have embraced Vinson’s vision of a relativistic society.

Therefore, truth and morality are not eternal and from the One who made all things, but rather are merely a matter of taste. As the Humanist Manifesto II put it, “moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest.”

Thus, if one “needs” to kill her unborn child, or one is “interested” in “marrying” his homosexual partner, or if a man wants to “experience” what it’s like to live as a woman, so be it. If one “needs” to conduct an illegal investigation in order to win an election, or one has a vested “interest” in taking guns away from law abiding Americans, or one wants to “experience” college without having to pay for it, nothing or no one should stand in the way.

Whether in their personal lives, their politics, and even their theology, today’s liberals are blind to the notion that some things are settled for all time, and they have written their own moral code. While hypocritically touting “tolerance,” they insist that the rest of us either submit to their rule or “get the hell out!” Only God, or those operating under His authority, has the right to such an ultimatum, and—in spite of the insistence by fools like Maxine Waters that “God’s on our side,”—most liberals long ago decided that they didn’t want to play by His rules.

“Truth makes the Devil blush” wrote English historian Thomas Fuller. As liberalism has created a culture that is nearly bereft of shame, and in spite of their increasingly unhinged and immoral behavior, and because they are mostly ignorant of the “incontrovertible” truth, today’s liberals rarely blush. This usually happens only when someone becomes a political liability and not because some proper moral standard has been violated.

Again, what we are really dealing with here is competing views of truth. As noted apologist William Lane Craig put it when writing about the Christian perspective on homosexuality, “Today so many people think of right and wrong, not as matters of fact, but as matters of taste.” And if taste determines truth, then we’re all at the mercy of whoever’s in charge, because, ultimately we’re all intolerant. It’s simply a matter of two things: who’s right, and who are Americans going to put in charge.

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

The Taxing Moral Waxing of Hollywood Hypocrites

This column is almost too easy to write. I mean seriously, how long does one have to examine the life and work of a Hollywood liberal to find immorality? Likewise, how long must anyone endure virtually any political or moral rant from a Hollywood liberal to spot his or her hypocrisy?

Donald Trump issued a substantively sound—though perhaps poorly executed—executive order on refugees attempting to enter the U.S., and liberals across America find another excuse to avoid work (or to avoid looking for work) and conduct a protest. I suppose we should be used to this by now, but somehow the modern left always seems to find some way to take their protests fits to new heights lows. Of course, leading the way into the verbal gutter is the Hollywood elite.

Of course, Hollywood liberals—perhaps better known as the “people-who-pretend-to-be-other-people” as Chicks on the Right describe them—are typically familiar with gutters of all forms, so no one should be surprised that they would drag down political discourse as well. The only thing that surpasses their stunning ignorance and immorality is their hypocrisy. (Perhaps they should have an awards show for these efforts.)

There are many examples from which to punctuate this piece (the recent actions by Madonna and Ashley Judd come to mind), but none is better than the Tweet fired off by pop-harlot Rihanna to her 69-plus million Twitter followers. (Does Twitter even have 69 million users?) In between creating albums that are most-deservedly adorned with the “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” label and performing in pornographic music videos (even the libs at the Daily Beast declared one of her recent efforts as “the most explicit music video in history”), Rihanna had time to declare herself “disgusted” at Trump’s refugee order.

She added, “The news is devastating! America is being ruined right before our eyes! What an immoral pig you have to be to implement such BS!!” Oh my, where to begin? First of all, when it comes to “disgusting” and the ruin of America, there are few in popular culture who have done more to heap moral devastation upon our culture than the “Duchess of Debauchery.” Reveling in her fame and fortune, Rihanna seems blind to the fact that in the realm of what might be called entertainment, only the vilest of pornographers has done more damage to American society than has she.

On the song—Needed Me—that spawned the above-mentioned video, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times writes that Rihanna “sings about using men for sex and disposing of them like tissues.” Lyrics such as “You was good on the low for a faded f**k,” verify Caramanica’s conclusion. (Along with their rampant vulgarities, why must such entertainers perpetuate an ignorant “Ebonics” form of the English language?) Along with multiple “f-bombs,” Needed Me is filled with other vulgarities, including offensive racial slurs.

Rihanna’s 2016 album containing Needed Me also contains a song entitled Sex with Me. (“Me” thinks there is a pattern here.) There’s no need to go into graphic details about the lyrics on that one. Your imagination is almost certainly correct. Not to be one-dimensional, along with her sexual filth and lies, Rihanna has also spewed many other forms of cultural garbage. In 2015, USA Today reported on public opinion related to Rihanna’s “dark, bloody, violent, and misogynistic” video B**ch Better Have My Money. In an op-ed on the video for The Daily Mail, Sarah Vine (the mother of a 12 year-old girl) wrote “By the time it had finished, I wondered whether I ought not to report (Rihanna) to the police. Charges: pornography, incitement to violence, racial hatred.”

Vine added that Rihanna “gesticulates incomprehensibly [a form of Ebonics sign language, no doubt] as though she were some genuine gangster (and not just a spoilt little rich popstar),” and spends much time with her “legs wide open.” So much so the latter that Vine concludes, “In fact, such is the frequency at which we get to view Rihanna’s gusset, I’m actually starting to wonder whether she might not have some kind of medical condition which prevents her from keeping her legs — as well as her stupid trap — shut.”

June Eric-Udorie of the New Statesman adds, “Of course what Rihanna has done is not new; you only have to do a quick YouTube search and you will find a multitude of music videos that just ooze misogyny.” Along with misogyny, graphic nudity, and drug use, B**ch Better Have My Money is graphically bloody, depicting torture, rape, and murder.

Of course, this is just a mere sampling of the vulgarities produced by Rihanna. (Sadder still, instead of being shunned and shamed—or even arrested—she’s appointed as “global ambassador to champion education.”) And likewise, Rihanna herself—though perhaps the leading candidate to be the poster child for the “nasty woman” title (my wife prefers “skank who needs Jesus”) so eagerly embraced by Ashley Judd and her liberal ilk—is far from alone in her cultural degradation. Virtually every movie, sit-com, cartoon, song, album, documentary, (in addition to most news broadcasts and lesson plans), and so on, produced from a liberal worldview (which is almost all of them) is morally corrupt.

There aren’t many other ways to say it: Hollywood is awash in immorality. Thus, for almost any Hollywood liberal to lament the actions of any so-called “immoral pig” is truly the height of hypocrisy. They should keep their mouths shut, but they won’t. Thus, whenever the likes of Rihanna attempts to provide moral instruction, it’s best just to turn off, tune out, and pray.

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The Law is Dying because Morality is Dying

Tuesday, after FBI Director James Comey spent about 15 minutes laying out the legal case against Hillary Clinton, and then spent about three minutes declaring that he was going to ignore the evidence and recommend no legal action against Mrs. Clinton, the Blaze’s Matt Walsh declared that “The Law is Dead.”

Walsh writes,

July 5, 2016. 11:15 a.m. One day after America’s 240th birthday. 

When historians conduct their autopsy on Lady Justice, that will be the time of death. That is the precise moment when Justice drew her last labored breath, cursed our ridiculous country and our hopelessly corrupt government, and collapsed. Sure, she’d been in bad shape for a while, but there was no surviving the final blow. When it is explicitly announced and made public that the wealthiest and most elite and most liberal are indeed above the law, the charade of “law” cannot continue. There is no law. We are living under the rule of men, not of law. We are subject to the whims of petty tyrants and bureaucrats. They are subject to no one on Earth.

I don’t think Comey’s presser heralds the end of law in the U.S., but he surely did put another nail in the coffin. Like the Supreme Court rulings on abortion and marriage, few should be surprised at this outcome. America has been on a long ugly road when it comes to law and justice, reason and logic, morality and truth.

Two days prior to this year’s Independence Day, noted Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias asked, “Whatever happened to the American Soul?” He continued,

We are truly at the cliff’s precipitous edge and the fall could be long and deadly. Why? We have a deep crisis of the soul that is killing us morally and we have no recourse. We have no recourse because the only cure has been disparaged and mocked by the elite and the powerful. And those very ideologies are now presiding over the slaughter of our citizens while the abundance of speeches is inversely proportional to the wisdom they contain and Reason bleeds to death before our eyes… 

How many families will be shattered and offered up at the altar of our foolishness?...I propose to you that multiple killings have preceded the horrors with which we now live. Those killings prepared the ground for the literal burial of our own people.
Three killings in particular are as real as the carnage we see when suicide vests are detonated: the death of morality, the death of truth, and the death of reason.

To illustrate the death of morality, Dr. Zacharias recalls the comments of Robert Shapiro, the famous attorney who helped represent O.J. Simpson in Simpson’s murder trial. While being interviewed by Megyn Kelly, Shapiro was asked if justice had been served in the Simpson trial (Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman). Shapiro utters a “pathetic answer,” telling Kelly, “There is legal justice and moral justice. Legal justice was served.” Thus, as is common among those corrupted by liberalism, Shapiro divorces law from morality.

When it comes to the disconnect between morality and the law in the U.S., we have long been warned. As I pointed out years ago (and as I've suggested often), and as Ben Franklin declared, “Laws without morals are in vain.” Additionally, in 2003, after the Supreme Court foolishly reversed itself and legalized sodomy across the U.S. (Lawrence vs. Texas), the late, great Antonin Scalia warned, “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ (the 1986 Supreme Court decision upholding Georgia’s sodomy law) validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding.”

Scalia continued, “The Court embraces… the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.” He concluded that, “This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.”

In other words, over a decade ago, no less than a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court warned us that liberals were “amputating” (to borrow from Dr. Zacharias) the law from morality. However, instead of an “amputation” what we are really seeing is more of a transplant. On November 18, 2003, just four and a half months after the Lawrence decision, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled in favor of legalized same-sex marriage. Thus Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to grant marital rights to same-sex couples.

Writing for the majority, the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts court, Margaret Marshal, referenced Lawrence in the ruling: “Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.” But of course, the only way to redefine the oldest institution in the history of humanity is to “mandate our own moral code.”

The biggest obstacle to writing one’s own moral code is Christianity. As The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (of the Southern Baptist Convention) recently put it, “in the twentieth century, more and more people began to see Christian morality as standing in the way of a new moral code: the morality of self-fulfillment. Throwing off burdensome traditional mores, people began to imagine life without a bothersome God standing watch.”

Recent Barna research “highlights the extent to which Americans pledge allegiance to the new moral code.” As Barna summarizes, this “morality of self-fulfillment” can be summed up in six guiding principles:

As we sadly see, this “morality of self-fulfillment,” otherwise known—as I noted last August (referencing philosopher Michael Novak)—as the “theology of self,” has crept into the church. This “morality of self-fulfillment” or “theology of self” is nothing new. As Genesis chapter 3 reveals, the desire to “be like God”—to rule our world—is nearly as old as humanity itself.

What is new, at least for the United States of America, is that such a wicked philosophy has now become deeply embedded in U.S. law. Again, all law is rooted in someone's idea of morality. We either are going to be governed by the morality of the Law Giver or the “morality of self-fulfillment.” Americans must simply decide, by whose morality we wished to be governed.

(See this column at American Thinker and The Patriot Post.)

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Writing Our Own Moral Code (Redux)

At The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (of the Southern Baptist Convention), a recent blog post details the "Six principles of a Jesus-centered moral order." The post is an excerpt from a recent book co-authored by David Kinnaman, the president of Barna Group, a Christian research and communications company.

The piece notes that, "in the twentieth century, more and more people began to see Christian morality as standing in the way of a new moral code: the morality of self-fulfillment. Throwing off burdensome traditional mores, people began to imagine life without a bothersome God standing watch." The post also reveals new research that "highlights the extent to which Americans pledge allegiance to the new moral code, which can be summed up in six guiding principles."

Barna research reveals our "New Moral Code:" 

As we sadly see, this "morality of self fulfillment," otherwise known--as I noted last August (referencing philosopher Michael Novak)--as the "theology of self," has crept into the church. As I also pointed out, this "morality of self fulfillment" or "theology of self" is nothing new. As Genesis chapter 3 reveals, the desire to "be like God" is nearly as old as humanity itself. 

What is new, at least for the United States of America, is that such a wicked philosophy has now become deeply embedded in U.S. law. To a great extent, this is the result of the corrupt and foolish efforts of American courts. 

In Lawrence vs. Texas in 2003, while declaring state laws against homosexual behavior (sodomy) unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that, "The petitioners [Lawrence and Garner] are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."

In his dissent, Justice Scalia correctly concluded that, "Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.... [T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed."

On November 18, 2003, just four-and-a-half months after the Lawrence decision, the Judicial Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled in favor of legalized same-sex "marriage. Thus Massachusetts became the first state in the U.S. to grant marital rights to same-sex couples. In her majority decision, the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts court, Margaret Marshal, referenced Lawrence: "Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code."

As I wrote in March of 2013, "mandating our own moral code" is exactly what supporters of the homosexual agenda, and others like-minded, seek to do. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, ruling in favor of the "right" to kill children in the womb (Planned Parenthood v. Casey), Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." (Thus, no one should have been surprised at his perverse ruling on marriage.)

If Kennedy's above conclusion is not "mandating our own moral code" then nothing is.

What's more, as we debate the moral issues in our culture, in their lust to ignore the eternal truths of our Creator, liberals have long bemoaned the "legislating of morality." Such a conclusion foolishly ignores the fact that, all law is rooted in someone's idea of morality. We either going to be governed by the morality of God, or the "morality of self fulfillment." Americans must simply decide, by whose morality we wished to be governed. 

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Ferguson Again Erupts With Liberalism

When the news came down that the Ferguson grand jury had declined to indict police officer Darren Wilson, what ensued was sadly all too predictable. The burning, looting, shooting, and the like to "protest" unpopular police or government actions have become all too commonplace for those who are under the influence of liberalism.

As I noted in August of this year, after the surveillance video of Michael Brown robbing a convenience store was released--which set off more random acts of liberalism--Ferguson is and has been somewhat of a mess for the very same reasons virtually every other urban area in America is a mess: liberalism.

Ferguson has long been (Update, 5/17/15, as a regular commentator (Kiev) notes here, the politics of Ferguson is not quite the same as the politics of St. Louis County. Prior to the Michael Brown incident, Ferguson had a significant republican government. However, as is noted here, this is not due to some nefarious conservative plot.) dominated politically by Democrats. St. Louis County Prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, who took the evidence to the grand jury, is a Democrat. In the past election, which saw Republicans make gains all over the country at every level, Democrat County Councilman Steve Stenger won the race for St. Louis County executive. This is in spite of the perceived close ties Stenger had (and, I presume, still has) with the increasingly unpopular McCulloch.

Of course, it is exclusively liberals who are stoking the racial tensions in Ferguson. Liberals all across the U.S. are attempting to make political hay out of the grand jury's decision. President Obama again decided to interject himself into the Ferguson situation, giving veiled cover to the Ferguson rioters, saying that reacting in anger is "understandable." He also carefully managed to throw the police under the bus, calling on them to "show care and restraint" and "work with the community, not against the community," and amazingly concluded that those rioting and destroying property amounted to only "a handful of people."

Attorney General Eric Holder has declared that civil rights charges are still possible. The professional race-pimps and publicity prostitutes like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who make their living off of situations like what is occurring in Ferguson, will almost certainly again be on the scene. Missouri State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal proudly declared on MSNBC that what was happening in Ferguson was "St. Louis' race war."

As Dennis Prager rightly points out, what is happening in Ferguson is not due to a racial divide, but a moral one. Of course, liberalism is rooted in moral relativism, and thus, while killing children in the womb, redefining marriage, sexual perversions of every kind imaginable, "redistribution" of wealth, and wanton destruction of other people's property can be justified, defending oneself from a violent, high-on-drugs thief is, no matter the physical evidence, an unjust act that requires vengeance. Sadly, today's liberals are all too willing to comply.

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

America: I Wish She Were "Hot or Cold"

I live in the northeast Georgia area. I’ve spoken often—to God and man—of how blessed and thankful I am to have been born in the greatest nation the world has ever known. Not only that, but I’ve also been extremely blessed to have grown up in one of the most conservative and one of the most Christ-influenced areas in the United States.

My political district is the Georgia ninth. According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Georgia’s ninth is currently the third most republican district in the U.S. Yes, republican doesn’t always imply conservative (and certainly doesn’t imply Christian), but of course, conservative—especially conservative Christian—almost always equals strongly republican. Thus, whatever political madness America must endure, I can usually take solace in the fact that my area of the country will be somewhat shielded from the fallout. Thank God and the Founders for the vertical separation of powers!

Of course, such “political madness” is especially prevalent when the realms of politics and faith collide. A recent case in point involves a public high school, Chestatee High School (CHS) in Hall County Georgia, which is about 15 minutes from my home. Along with writing and maintaining a website, I currently teach mathematics at another high school within the same district. Thus I became very curious when my lovely wife approached me the evening of August 12 with the news of the spiritual and potential legal conflict that was brewing at CHS.

Just after we got our four children to bed, Michelle informed me that Hall County School district, due to prayers and references to Scripture involving the football program at CHS, was under threat of a lawsuit by the American Humanist Association. My reply: “Good!”

As lawsuit after lawsuit results in courts across America tossing out the marriage amendments passed (usually overwhelmingly) by dozens of states; as nudists seek to exercise their “right” to be naked; as San Francisco politicians export their home-grown perversions (warning: graphic) to other parts of the country; as corporation after corporation pays homage to the (tiny) homosexual community; as self-identifying “Christians” kill unborn children “in the name of Jesus;” as so-called “evangelical” pastors “come out” in support of homosexuality; more and more Americans, whether they like it or not, are being forced to make difficult moral decisions. In other words, many Americans, who would prefer to remain on the sidelines as we continue to debate the moral issues in America, are being forced to declare with whom they stand.

As Screwtape cautioned Wormwood, just as warfare with bullets and bombs renders one of the best weapons of Satan (“contented worldliness”) useless, the mounting moral conflicts in America are pushing many of us out of a contented and willful ignorance and complacence and into a place that the enemy of all mankind really doesn’t want us to go: a place where we are forced to confront the social, political, and spiritual consequences of our beliefs and behaviors; a place where we also must examine why we believe what we believe—and, determine if what we believe is really the truth.

This is why I say….let’s have it out. As I noted on the Redskins nonsense, let’s debate the morality and the justness of all these matters. Let us each loudly and clearly cast our moral standards before the American people, the courts, and most importantly, the Creator and see where we stand. This is certainly not to imply that, at least when it comes to the American people and the courts, such a confrontation will produce results that you or I will like. However, as Christ warned the Church at Laodicea, let us not be “lukewarm!”

If America is to stem her descent into a spiritual and moral winter, then Christians across the country must do their best to ignite fires of faith in their families, churches, communities, schools, places of work, and so on, and be the light we are called to be. We do not need Christians who see compromise (with Scripture) as the way forward. Neither do we need Christian monasteries or compounds where biblical values and truths are hoarded and hidden from our nation.

What we need are communities full of faithful families led by fathers and mothers who want to work hard, raise children, attend church, and pass on their biblical values to the next generation, and the next, and so on. As Psalm 78 implores the rebellious nation of Israel: fathers teach your children, so that they will in turn teach their children—so it should be with every nation that wants to walk in the truth.

Such communities need to be “cities on a hill,” welcoming all those who want to join, so that the American people can clearly contrast the ways of those who are “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” with those who seek to live the “godly life in Christ Jesus.” Thus Americans can clearly choose whether to be part of, as Augustine put it, the “City of God” or the “City of Man.”

And we need more communities to react like the Hall County community did once word of the lawsuit became public knowledge. On Friday, August 15, The Gainesville Times reported that after the Hall County School system received the threat from the atheist group, “at least three prayer events were organized on school (CHS) grounds.” In addition, a Facebook page—to facilitate and encourage the prayer groups—was started that received over 11,000 “likes” in just over a day. Other high schools in Hall County, including my own, Johnson High, joined the prayer movement.

Perhaps most encouraging, as Todd Starnes noted in his piece on the issue, was the response of Hall County School superintendent Will Schofield. “Unfortunately when school systems get letters like this and people start rattling sabers, usually the first reaction by a lot of school districts is, ‘Oh my goodness, we don’t want to be in the news. We don’t want to be sued, so we better stop doing whatever we are doing,’” Schofield said. He added, “I don’t think that will be the first reaction of the Hall County School Board.”

Such should be the reaction, not only on matters concerning public expressions of faith, but on the definition of marriage, on abortion, on sexual perversions, on the breakdown of the family, on postings of the Ten Commandments, and on each and every moral issue that we face. In other words, America is in the midst of a battle for her soul and it’s time that more Christians started acting like it.

See this column on American Thinker.

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

Liberals Prefer the Land of Make Believe

Life is much easier for a liberal. This is certainly the case when it comes to politics, since (as I noted recently) for liberalism, the moral demands are few. Thus, governing becomes a matter of seeking and even manufacturing what is popular, not what is right.

When you operate in the realm of fantasy, it is much easier not only to ignore the truth, but also to manufacture crises and perpetuate false injustices so as to paint oneself as the savior for what needs (or will need) fixing. Thus, “never let a crisis go to waste” is a frequent means by which political power is obtained and kept. Many people are willing to cast their votes for those who promise to “protect” them—from the climate, from the corporations, from the Christians, from the employers, and even from the consequences of their own bad decisions. “Pajama Boy” is the poster child here.

When manufacturing crises, the media—both news and entertainment—are necessary and effective tools. Whether racism, climate change, reproductive “rights,” marriage “rights,” gender “rights,” (How can so much wrong come from so many “rights?”) economic justice, and so on, today’s mainstream media has partnered with the Democratic Party to ensure that the myths live on and liberals continue to get elected.

A case in point is the recent revelation that for several years now, ABC and CBS have completely ignored scientific views that contradict the liberal meme on climate change. Thus, not only do we get the repeated doom-and-gloom forecasts of the warmists, but we are also (directly or indirectly) told that the debate is over. In the State of the Union, no less, President Obama declared, “[T]he debate is over. Climate Change is a fact.”

Along with ABC and CBS, other media outlets got the memo from Obama and the democrats. Late last year, the L.A. Times announced that it no longer would publish letters to the editor from man-made global warming skeptics. The popular website Reddit later made a similar decision. Such is the verdict when useful myths must be protected.

This would be only alarming instead of tragic if billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars were not at stake, and if the U.S. Secretary of State (along with the Pentagon) did not think that climate change was an increasing threat to our national security. Battling the make-believe crisis of climate change is much preferable to a real menace such as Vladimir Putin and a nuclear-armed Russia.

When it comes to dealing with Putin and Russia, as Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard remarks, the Obama administration’s foreign policy is an amazingly “transparent case of pretending the world is what we wish it to be, rather than seeing it as it is.” It’s a lot easier to win battles that are fought in the arena of public opinion than those that employ planes, tanks, and aircraft carriers.

However, it is possible that we will shame the Russians into submission. After all, for a nation stuck using 19^th century tactics, it is very doubtful that the Russians, unlike American liberals, are committed to using women on the front lines. An Obama speech on the matter should rile up enough world outrage that the Russians will tuck tail and pull out of Crimea.

If this doesn’t work, the media will still have Obama’s back. If not, phone calls will be made, as they were to the left-wing think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP). It turns out that when CAP bloggers became critical of the Obama administration’s military actions in Afghanistan, senior officials at CAP were contacted by the White House. The bloggers were called on the carpet and “berated for opposing the Afghan war and creating daylight between us and Obama.” Again, no debate will be tolerated.

Adding to the real crisis, the U.S., led by Obama, is basing everything from crippling emissions standards of the EPA to rejection of the job-creating and energy-building Keystone pipeline on the myth of man-made global warming. After all, if elections are to be won based on myth, then sometimes real policy, no matter how devastating, must be pursued.

Also, low, or at least easily lowered, moral standards combined with powerful propaganda weapons make deception much less complicated. This has proven successful since Satan uttered, “Did God really say…” along with “You will not surely die…and you will be like God.”

Without the burden of absolute truth, liberals have been able to convince tens-of-millions of Americans that killing a child in the womb is not only permissible under virtually every circumstance, but a “God-given right.” Such deceit is still common today, even though with modern ultrasound technology and the like, the march of science has revealed what common sense and decent morality already told us: abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.

In the fantasy world put forth by liberalism, abortion isn’t the taking of a human life but merely the choice of a woman to do with her body as she pleases. In addition, this makes it easier to promote promiscuity onto young minds and bodies that are eagerly looking for justification to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and as often as they want sexually.

Such sexual “freedom” has also turned marriage into a farce. Thus, in the liberal land of fantasy, marriage can be defined to be whatever a culture wants it to be, as long as the definition is politically popular. Any attempt to limit marriage to a union of one man and one woman can then be labeled as “discrimination,” because liberals prefer the fantasy world of no “discrimination” to the real world where such things must be defined based on some real moral standard.

A world without such “discrimination” also means that we are not to differentiate stereotypically between humans born with a y-chromosome and those born without one. In other words, to require boys to look, act, and behave as boys (and likewise with girls) is “discrimination.” Young boys, then, who want to dress as girls, play girl sports, and use girl restrooms and locker rooms are expected to receive the full support of every institution and person they encounter.

There is no need for real victims of such “discrimination.” They can be manufactured as well. Anyone who has had his same-sex “wedding” ceremony shunned by businesses that don’t want to participate in something they deem sinful can claim “discrimination.” If enough “victims” to sell the myth can’t be found, they can just be completely made up.

“Hate-crime” hoaxes abound with liberals. Whether Matthew Shepherd, the latest campus racial incident, or the new “victims” of transphobia (in the fantasy world occupied by liberals, along with made-up crimes and victims, you need made-up words to help with the preferred narrative), the left can’t seem to help itself as they try to convince us just how corrupt traditional American values are.

Again, if only we could just shake our heads and get on our knees in prayer. However, laws are being passed and lawsuits are being filed. This isn’t about live and let live. This is black and white, right and wrong, myth and reality. Americans need to decide in which world they want to live.

Copyright 2014, 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

Yes Bill Maher, Sluts Should be Ashamed

Bill Maher is upset. In his pagan mind, now that a significant number of Americans are comfortable with same-sex marriage and legalized marijuana, he recently concluded, “it's time we knocked over the next social domino, Puritanism.”

So, according to Maher, what exactly is “Puritanism?” It seems that anyone or anything that would stand in the way of the sexual desires of any consenting adult would be guilty of Puritanism. For example, France has been in the headlines recently because “the boring guy they elected president last year turns out not to be so boring” (Maher’s words).

It turns out that President François Hollande never married the mother of his four children. He broke up with her a few years ago for a younger woman. As happens so often (amazing that so many first-time “mistresses” don’t figure this out—because if a man will leave the mother of his children, why wouldn’t he leave the next woman) in these matters, the younger woman was then dumped for an actress.

So what? concludes Maher, “the French just shrug and go back to eating snails.” Maher wonders why America can’t be more like France as he then gets to the point of his rant. He points out that newly elected Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio was shamed into firing Lis Smith, who was in line to become de Blasio’s communications director.

Maher, oblivious to his moral ignorance and hypocrisy, asks, “Was it that she lied on her résumé? Or accepted gifts from a lobbyist? Or injected Alex Rodriguez with steroids? Nope. It's that she's dating Eliot Spitzer, America's evilest, horniest man.” Evidently in Maher’s perverted world, lying on a résumé, illegal gifts from lobbyists, and steroid use are bad things; but abandoning the mother of your children, whoring around with whatever is your current fancy, same-sex marriage, pot use, and the like are okay.

I wonder what moral code Maher and his like-minded pagan friends are using to reach these bizarre conclusions. (Actually, I don’t wonder at all, but I want you to think about it.) I also wonder how Maher would have felt if his father took the path of Hollande and abandoned him and his mother and sister during his youth. Or are such things okay only when they happen to someone else?

Maher’s morality is not only illogical and inconsistent, but is a great example of what happens when morality is defined by infallible (and ignorant, and foolish) humans. When it comes to de Blasio’s former aid, Maher asks, “[W]hat exactly is the sin here? She's an adult in a consensual relationship with another adult who’s in the process of divorcing his spouse.”

Well, the sins are fornication and adultery, for starters. I suppose at least it is encouraging that the word “sin” is still in Maher’s vocabulary. Of course, if we follow Maher’s morality (that whatever is done between “consenting adults” is okay) to its logical conclusion, prostitution, gambling of almost every form, polygamy and polyandry, pornography, almost every form of drug abuse, illegal payments—political and otherwise, and the like, should be not only legal, but moral as well.

Most of today’s liberals, at least those who craft and coach modern progressivism, are little more than present-day pagans. They are fulfilling well what occultist, bisexual, and habitual drug user Aleister Crowley described as the creed of modern paganism: “Do What Thou Wilt.”

Much to the thrill of today’s liberal, the great lure of paganism is that the moral demands are few. Such demands are decided by each individual, and thus we have the chaos that stems from moral relativism. What was once deemed shameful is now celebrated. Tragically, the secularism that is the fruit of modern liberalism has given us a culture that is bereft of shame. 

Thus it is a bit of a wonder that Maher and his pagan liberal friends have a problem with “slut shaming.” In fact, given today’s American culture, it’s a wonder that any form of “shaming” has an effect at all. Also, just like a “twerking” Miley Cyrus, males such as French President Hollande, or the NFL star with multiple children by multiple women, or the nice looking college boy out to hook-up as often as possible, should have their slutty behavior called out for what it is as well.

What’s more, not only can Maher be described as a pagan, but like his editorial friends at The New York Times, he is a fool. And I mean a fool in the Old Testament book of Proverbs sense of the word. In this sense, liberals like Maher are not feebleminded idiots; instead, they are morally corrupt and despise true wisdom. Being wise in their own eyes, in almost every way possible they have rebelled against God and His Word.

Such liberals have knowledge, and they crave the political power necessary to put it into practice. Sadly, too many Americans have given them this opportunity. Thus, many of us have learned the hard way what a British rock band (horribly) sang over 15 years ago, “Knowledge is a deadly friend, when no one sets the rules. The fate of all mankind I see is in the hands of fools.”

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2014, 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

The Laughable Liberal "Moral Imperative"

Here liberals go again. Trying with all their might to prop up an increasingly unpopular piece of legislation, no less than Robert Reich (note the lengthy liberal bio at the end) has now attempted to take the “moral” high-road and claim that there is a “moral imperative” to Obamacare.

Reich noted that recently he heard a young man express that he would rather pay a penalty than be forced by law to purchase health insurance. According to Reich, the young man asked “why should I pay for the sick and the old?” Reich’s answer is telling: “The answer is he has a responsibility to do so, as a member the same society they inhabit.”

When explaining why “richer people” have to pay higher taxes to finance health insurance for lower income Americans, Reich concludes “It’s only just that those with higher incomes bear some responsibility for maintaining the health of Americans who are less fortunate.” Did you catch that? A liberal exclaiming that “it’s only just” when explaining his plans for wealth redistribution.

Reich complains that Democrats have not properly made the argument in favor of redistribution. “This is a profoundly moral argument about who we are and what we owe each other as Americans,” he declares. Reich even goes so far as to lament that redistribution has become so “unfashionable” that it’s just easier to say “everyone comes out ahead.”

So redistribution of wealth by our benevolent federal government is not only moral but “profoundly moral.” So much so, that it’s okay to deceive the public at large about what is really happening. (Democrats are getting quite good at that.) Because, you see, as Reich puts it, “there would be no reason to reform and extend health insurance to begin with if we did not have moral obligations to one another as members of the same society.”

As you see, multiple times Reich makes a moral (almost desperate it seems) appeal in favor of Obamacare and the redistribution of wealth that it requires. I love it when liberals attempt to make moral arguments to support their Big Government programs. It opens up so many possibilities. To begin with, to what moral code is Reich appealing?

As is typical with so many liberals and their similar arguments, he never does say. I suppose it’s just assumed that everyone thinks that providing health care for those in need is the “just” or “responsible” thing to do as “members of the same society.” However, not so long ago the “responsible” thing to do was for men and women to get married before they decided to make babies.

Not so long ago, to kill a child in the womb was considered a terrible act of injustice. Now the “responsible” thing is to allow people to end the lives of all those unwanted children.

Not so long ago, no sane person would have thought that marriage was anything but a union of one man and one woman. And for that matter, not so long ago, homosexual behavior was considered immoral and something that needed to be cured. Today the “just” thing to do is to allow people to live their lives any way they choose, no matter the old moral standards or the consequences, because “love is love.”

Whether Reich, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid, or Jim Wallis, or Obama himself; and whether the issue is health care, marriage, abortion, climate change, education, and the like, time and again liberals attempt to make moral arguments in favor of their Big Government liberal worldview.

Yet, if conservatives attempt the same, we are “forcing our morality” on others, or we are attempting to “legislate morality.” In fact, such accusation has been leveled so often that even some conservatives have started to believe it. Speaking to young libertarians earlier this year, GOP representative Justin Amash said, “We can’t legislate morality and force everyone to agree with us.”

Bill O’Reilly called those of us who oppose same-sex marriage on biblical grounds Bible thumpers. He went so far as to say, “If you’re going to stand up for heterosexual marriage, and exclude gay marriage if you’re going to do that, you’ve gotta do it outside the Bible. You can’t cite the Bible, because you’ll lose if you do.” Yet, as I have noted before (see the links above), liberals will often cite the Bible to further their Big Government agenda, and the media barely bats an eye.

It’s time for the moral double standard to stop. It’s time for the media and pundits across the political spectrum to see that both sides—liberal and conservative—are making moral arguments when pushing their respective agendas. All that needs to be decided is by whose morality we want to be governed: a morality that is rooted and grounded in absolute truth or one that is guided by whatever political winds seem to be prevalent at the time.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

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