Written by Peter Heck

In mid-March, Politico ran a series of short essays from “experts” on how coronavirus would change the world permanently. If you’re curious why I designate them as “experts” rather than experts, the authorities they assembled consisted of a cadre of college professors, including commentator Tom Nichols. Predictably, Nichols spent the majority of his time taking hyperbolic hate shots at the president, like this:

The colossal failure of the Trump administration both to keep Americans healthy and to slow the pandemic-driven implosion of the economy might shock the public enough back to insisting on something from government other than emotional satisfaction.

As tempting as it might be, I encourage you not to roll your eyes and ignore those words, because buried inside that little treasure chest of rage is a very revealing assumption. Specifically look how Nichols blames the president and his administration for failing “to keep Americans healthy.” Are we content with accepting that as a reasonable expectation to place on the federal executive branch?

Others in the Politico feature would seem to be. Margaret O’Mara, a professor of history at the University of Washington, predicted,

Not only will America need a massive dose of big government to get out of this crisis…but we will need big, and wise, government more than ever in its aftermath.

And University of Maryland’s associate professor of government and politics could barely contain her glee at the prospect:

The Reagan era is over. The widely accepted idea that government is inherently bad won’t persist after coronavirus … It is no longer “terrifying” to hear the words “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” In fact, that is what most people are desperately hoping to hear right now.

Is it? I guess I’m skeptical. Though polls continue to show the majority of Americans are hesitant about lifting the lock-downs and returning to life as usual, the devil may be in the details. What does “as usual” mean, precisely?

Though hardly a representative sample, the majority of Americans I observe are content with accepting the advice and recommendations from government officials regarding hand-washing, face-touching, social distancing, and even face masks. But that contentment quickly runs out when advice and recommendations turn into lock-downs, stay-at-home orders, and forced business closures.

That’s why I think good sense would stop short of making hope-filled predictions like these left-leaning college professors are wont to do. What actually seems likely is that coronavirus is going to renew the civilization-old debate over the role that government should take in our lives.

Perhaps Americans will be enthralled with the sound wisdom of the CDC and their “don’t wear masks, wait, on second thought do wear masks, and actually, if you don’t wear a mask you’re a public enemy” advice. Maybe they’ll be convinced that our freedoms should be determined month-to-month by task-force-created predictive models. Possibly we will all go for a new cabinet-level executive department that will tell us where we can travel and when.

Or maybe all this big government in people’s faces will backfire on the left-wing planners. After all, it’s one thing to accept these kinds of intrusions and disruptions temporarily, when there’s an immediate, self-evident purpose. It’s quite another to adopt them as permanent changes to our way of life.

In the end, it’s possible that much to the chagrin of Politico’s panel, America will be drawn back to the wisdom of her founding, expressed articulately in a recent tweet from libertarian presidential hopeful, U.S. Congressman Justin Amash:

Written by Peter Heck

How he managed to say it without choking on his own tongue I will never know. As President Trump began to dress down the hostile press that was attempting to use his Monday White House briefing to smear him as negligent, CNN cut away immediately to anchor John King who managed to prattle out these words without even a sniff of irony:

“To play a propaganda video at taxpayer expense in the White House briefing room is a new — you can insert your favorite word here – in this administration.”

For anyone at CNN to feign objection over “propaganda” is as convincing a testimony you will ever see to the staggering lack of self-awareness capable by seemingly coherent human beings.

This is, after all, the network of Jake Tapper, who just days ago allowed socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to repeat without correction the now widely debunked rumor that President Trump called coronavirus a hoax. Tapper actually defended his own silence saying that while he knew it was a lie, he let it slide by because President Trump lies about other things. Seriously:

I guess that’s the problem with a politician who lies so often; while I agree that Democrats are mischaracterizing what he said, what he did say was also false so it’s tough to justify taking the time for a fact check when it’s not taking a stand defining the truth.

— Jake Tapper, long-suffering Philly sports fan (@jaketapper) March 22, 2020

Tapper also allowed Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi to accuse Trump of “fiddling” without ever holding her to account for “fiddling” herself when she single-handedly delayed the coronavirus relief bill for a week.

This is the network of Brian Stelter who anchors a program unironically called “Reliable Sources,” and utilizes that platform to peddle misinformation on behalf of the Democrat Party:

I RT’ed a former LA Times reporter who had tweeted pics that mistakenly ran on the ABC local news broadcast. When I found out the story was erroneous, I deleted the tweet. Gosh, Brian, why does your tweet omit the MSM error that started it? Or does CNN only exist to attack GOP? https://t.co/ehvPHPMrGh

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 13, 2020

It is also Stelter who turned disgraced lawyer and convicted felon Michael Avenatti into a mainstay on his program in order to attack Trump, and even encouraged the Stormy Daniels attorney to think about running for president himself. With Avenatti in jail now, Stelter fills his time regularly attempting “gotcha” moments with President Trump that end just about as well. Like this:

Admin officials "say the White House has made a deliberate political calculation that it will better serve Trump’s interest to put the onus on governors — rather than the federal government — to figure out how to move ahead."

Let that quote sink in… https://t.co/v2QVZBXslD

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 11, 2020

Yes, let it. Because there’s a name for the concept articulated in that quote, of course. It’s called “federalism,” the central pillar around which our constitutional order and system is constructed. Let the fact that CNN’s chief media corresponded didn’t realize that sink in for a minute.

Besides, it isn’t too difficult to figure out what Stelter and company would be saying if Trump had seized power and claimed emergency authority to dictate nationalized policies to “move ahead.”

This is the network of Don Lemon, an activist masquerading as a newsman who is so sharply partisan that long-time journos cringe at the damage he continues to do not only to CNN’s credibility, but the industry itself.

This is the network that breathlessly covered every potential angle of every perceived accusation against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, yet now remains the only major news organization that has not even mentioned the credible allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden by one of his former employees.

This is the network that at the very same press briefing that John King couldn’t bear to air another second of, allowed a staffer manning the chyron machine to post these on-screen Democrat talking points with the apparent blessing of both editors and producers:

I’m almost impressed with how hard the CNN chyron writers of my former network effort to get their revulsion for Pres Trump just right!

I don’t miss it… pic.twitter.com/FLQr2Nwz8a

— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) April 14, 2020

Incredible. As in, lacking in all credibility.

After recently surviving a bout with COVID-19, CNN host Christopher Cuomo made some startling remarks, indicating that he was re-evaluating his career at the network. Among other things, Cuomo called out CNN for trafficking in “ridiculous things.”

He not wrong in that assessment, even though I’d choose a different, more precise term for what this low-rated televised rumor mill peddles: propaganda.

This article was originally published at Disrn.com.

Written by Peter Heck

Until I saw a brilliant interpretation and explanation of it a few years ago, I was always confused by this Biblical proverb:

“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” (Proverbs 26:4-5)

On the surface, obedience to those principles seem contradictory – I’m not to answer a fool according to the folly on the one hand, but I am to answer a fool according to his folly on the other. So, which is it?

In order to give them the credit they deserve, I truly wish I could remember whose commentary I was reading that brought this passage to light. But even though I can’t do that, I can pass along their wisdom.

In the first sense, a fool looks only to mock and deride. Their mind is closed and they are uninterested in any serious discussion of their illogic or mistake. They’ve made up their mind and it isn’t changing. Trying to engage such a person in an earnest way simply subjects you and your position to unnecessary ridicule. You get into an unproductive and unnecessary tit for tat that profits no one. The Bible says that willfully acquiescing to such is the behavior of a fool.

So how do you handle that kind of confrontation wisely? That’s the second part of the proverb. Rather than being drug into a cesspool of contempt, simply turn the fool’s foolishness against them. Wield as a weapon that which they attempt to wield against you, thus shaming their contempt for wisdom and truth.

Let me give an example. A few years ago, an overly brash attorney working for the grossly unserious Freedom From Religion Foundation, Andrew Seidel, made a remark on Twitter meant to inflame and enrage believers:

Now, what did Andrew really want here? He wanted believers to argue with him and tell him how the Bible isn’t immoral, how it’s wonderful, how it’s changed them, how it’s liberating, how it’s God’s Word, so on and so forth. And Andrew would be ready to ridicule and mock anyone who climbed down into the mud with him. I chose not to because Proverbs tells me not to answer a fool according to his folly.

Instead, I chose to answer him in a way that pointed out his folly while not allowing him to be haughty and wise in his own eyes. Like this:

Rather than being able to mock believers for their faith, Seidel was forced into a, “Well, but, no, I didn’t mean” defense. This is the wisdom of the proverb.

And to that end, this is precisely why I’ve come to adore the Babylon Bee. The Christian satire site does it the right way – being willing to poke fun at our own Christian culture and its eccentricities, but also chiding the absurdity of a world in rebellion to God by using absurdity.

And how do you know it’s effective? How do you know it’s obeying the Proverbs principle? Just look at the reactions of those who are no longer being left “wise in their own eyes.”

Snopes has been brilliantly exposed as nothing more than a left-wing propaganda machine, progressive activists posing as CNN reporters rage against the Bee for “misleading people” with their satire, notorious race-baiters fume at them, and even activists at leftist Christian outlets like RELEVANT magazine get worked into a lather when the Bee satirically points out the foolishness of rebellion to God.

They’re making the right people uncomfortable, a point that caught the attention of Tucker Carlson on Fox News the other night:

I’ll stop short of calling sarcasm and satire a spiritual gift, but there’s no question that answering fools according to their folly is doing the Lord’s work. Not because I say so, but because God did in Proverbs.

This article was originally published at DISRN.com. 

Written by Peter Heck

As I read the enraged responses from professing Christians at the news that Vice President Mike Pence would be the commencement speaker for Taylor University (a leading private, Christian institution located in tiny Upland, Indiana) I realized something.

Keep in mind that Pence has been one of the most outspoken Christian public servants in recent decades.  He makes no effort to hide his faith, acknowledging himself as, “A Christian, a conservative, and a Republican…in that order.”  Therefore, it is completely logical that a Christian institution would invite him to speak, in addition to the fact that he was a long-time Congressman from the Hoosier state, as well as its Governor, before ascending to the second highest office in the land.

The odds of students at Taylor University getting the opportunity to have a sitting U.S. Vice President deliver their commencement speech are minuscule at best.  To say this was a coup for University President Lowell Haines and the rest of his administration would be a gross understatement.  Haines announced the news by posting:

“Mr. Pence has been a good friend to the University over many years, and is a Christian brother whose life and values have exemplified what we strive to instill in our graduates.”

And that, the fact that a professing Christian, native Hoosier, and sitting Vice President would give the inaugural address at their school gave a number of alumni and current students the shakes.  No, seriously:

“I have never been made to feel so physically ill by an email before. Taylor University, you should be ashamed of yourselves,” Claire Hadley, who graduated from Taylor in 2015, began in a long Facebook post. “I am physically shaking. The fact that the school who claims to love and support me, and each of it’s [sic] students and alum, would invite such a vile individual to speak on the most important day of the year??”

“The fact that Taylor would invite Pence as a speaker honestly kills me a little bit,” Austin Linder wrote on the petition. “I can’t imagine what it must feel like for lgbt students to have to see this man’s harmful bulls**t be honored on the Taylor stage. Really disgusting stuff, Taylor. Really ashamed to be an alum right now.”

Claire and Austin weren’t alone.  A few thousand signed a Change.org petition calling on the university to rescind its invitation.  And that’s when it dawned on me – when the criminalization of Christianity comes to this land (and it is coming), it will be championed by and met with the fanfare of many professing Christians.

The number of supposedly Christian individuals whose moral compasses are calibrated to the spirit of the age rather than the authority of Scripture has become astounding.  Leaning on their own understanding they choose the attributes of a god they want to worship, one who seems “worthy” of their worship, and they bow to it.  The God of Scripture is too narrow-minded.

When another Christian actually clings to the words of Scripture, not only are they reviled by the world, but a sense of guilt triggered by conviction prompts the culturally compromised Christians to react with bitterness, condemnation, and (ironically) a judgmental contempt.  I say ironically given that being judgmental is the go-to condemnation heaped upon Bible-believers by this crowd. All this leads to a surreal spectacle of Christians attacking other Christians as terror-inducing, vile, and stomach-churning.  And that’s just at Taylor University; Chick-fil-A could tell you a bit about this as well.

A couple years ago when my local city council was preparing to enact a non-discrimination law for sexual orientation and gender identity, several Christians in the community spoke out against the unintended consequences – everything from opening up girl bathroom facilities to the grown men, to the potential violation of the conscience rights of Christian florists, bakers, and photographers.

When I stood for my public comment, I asked the council a simple question.  “Your ordinance exempts ministers from this non-discrimination policy, ostensibly meaning that if a minister doesn’t want to participate in a gay wedding, he doesn’t have to.  I’m curious as to why you’ve done that?  What makes a Christian minister’s right to conscience any less offensive, bigoted, or discriminatory than a Christian baker’s?”

While no councilman could or would answer my question, it sparked a conversation in which a culturally compromising Christian journalist in the town admitted on Twitter that he thinks ministers should have to perform such weddings.  And if they don’t?  “Government fines, jail, and/or loss of tax-exempt status for the church.”

That’s why I often tell fellow Christians that when the day comes that the government is telling them how they can and can’t exercise their faith, the kind of beliefs that are acceptable and the kinds that aren’t, and the type of public expression that will be allowed and the type that won’t, don’t be surprised when it comes accompanied by the raucous cheers of many wearing the name of Jesus.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com

Written by Peter Heck

The Social Justice church continues embarrassing itself.  And while I continue praying for unity within the church of Christ, for the diminishment of manufactured schisms and the futile exaltation of man-made schemes for worldly reconciliation, it’s getting to the point where I’m convinced that this movement is just going to have to burn itself out by butchering its own credibility amongst the brethren.

Commentaries like the one offered recently by social justice theologian Timothy Isaiah Cho convince me the credibility-butchering has commenced in earnest.  Check out this masterpiece:

Timothy Isaiah Cho

“If the references in your pastor’s sermons, the books used in small groups, the resources passed between the laity, the music sung in worship, & even the reflection quotes in your worship bulletins are predominantly by White men, your church is promoting a truncated Christianity.

This communicates to those in the church that the real gatekeepers of orthodoxy – and those who are the only ones worth listening to – are White men. It says that authentic worship – and that which we should rightly emulate – originates from White men.  It declares that the church property belongs to, is led by, and influenced by White men. It says that women and people of color are properly always to be listeners, submitters, and passive bystanders in the church who should be grateful for the place they’ve been allotted by White men.

In contrast, Jesus’ church is the epicenter of equity and diversity. Each part of the body is weak and incomplete in faith without all of the other parts, and we are called to mutually submit one to another while exercising our respective gifts in service to one another.”

Apparently, Cho has determined that his “gift” is sowing division in the body along the lines of man-made, social constructs like race.  Offering no exegetical evidence for his position, it’s just a stunningly tone-deaf statement in light of the reconciling work of the Holy Spirit, and it stands in flagrant contrast of the command Jesus gives His disciples, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

In other words, while Christ is instructing His disciples to test all things against the perfect standard of His word alone, social justice theologians like Cho would discard that benchmark in favor of a skin melanin quota system.

It’s as absurd as it sounds.

Luckily, as I alluded to earlier, this kind of conspicuous nonsense is increasingly being exposed.  That’s good for Christendom.  For instance, by Cho’s standard, if the preaching of your church featured the writings of predominantly Jewish men, it would be promoting a truncated Christianity.  Given that predominantly Jewish men were the authors God selected to write His Word, the accusation would seem to have some inherent flaws.  It’s almost as though the real test of the references, quotes, and perspectives offered in a church service should be their fidelity and faithfulness to the text.

But again, what is most unflattering about Cho’s social justice gospel is that it masquerades as a path towards reconciliation while flying in the face of the testimony of inerrant Scripture.  Writing on the ministry of reconciliation himself, the Apostle Paul penned these words inspired from the Holy Spirit:

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”

Truncated Christianity is the kind that doesn’t offer the full counsel of God; the kind that falls short of God’s declared Word to man, or worse, the kind that undermines or conflicts with it.  Regrettably, that’s the kind being peddled so fervently by social justice activists like Timothy Isaiah Cho.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com.

Written by Peter Heck

It can’t continue.  It won’t continue.  Jesus said it, Lincoln plagiarized it, and it’s still true: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

It was always a foregone conclusion that the left’s cultural revolution was never going to end well for society.  But what so many people who consider themselves progressive never paused to consider, apparently, was that revolutions rarely end well for the revolutionaries.  It’s almost axiomatic that as a revolution unfolds, even if it meets with initial successes, various factions will form and begin devouring one another.

Just days ago this story broke – one that is almost too stupid to even take time to comment on (I say almost because obviously I found value in pointing to it as a case study in the very phenomenon I’m addressing):

Organizers of a Women’s March rally slated for Northern California next month have canceled the event, saying they were concerned that participants would have been “overwhelmingly white.”

In a news release, organizers for the march in Eureka – about 270 miles north of San Francisco – said Friday the “decision was made after many conversations between local social-change organizers and supporters of the march.”

“Up to this point, the participants have been overwhelmingly white, lacking representation from several perspectives in our community,” the news release continued.

So here we see a march supposedly dedicated to addressing concerns of “women” being shut down because it didn’t sufficiently meet some woke criteria for racial and ethnic diversity.  White women aren’t quite women enough apparently.  The left eats itself.

This woke cannibalism is occurring in the progressive church movement as well.  I recently came across this stunningly absurd challenge to pastors by Kaitlin Curtice, a contributor to progressive Christian organizations Sojourners and the Red Letter Christians:

“Pastors, In 2019, do you think you could quote 52 non-white-dudes in your sermons, especially if you’re a white dude?”

Apparently it didn’t dawn on Kaitlin – a contributor to pseudo-Christian organizations, no less – that any pastor who quotes the Bible in his sermons is quoting non-white-dudes…every week.  But regardless, notice again what is important isn’t the soundness of one’s theology, it’s a diversity component, the “woke quotient” that matters.

But it gets worse than the wokeness.  Take the intellectually vapid, morally rudderless, and ethically confused blind crusade towards sexual anarchy and you’re set for a doozy of an implosion.  The foundational acronym LGBT spells disaster from the start, after all.

Homosexual dogma (the L’s and the G’s) have imposed by cultural fiat the assumption that sexual orientation and attraction is innate, unchangeable, and fixed.  This “born that way” philosophy was the basis and justification for the claims to marriage rights, adoption rights, and more.

But transgender dogma (the T’s) are attempting to impose by cultural fiat the assumption that sexual identity is a social construct.  If you don’t see a scientific inconsistency between “your attractions can’t ever change but your sex can change daily” then you’re not paying attention.

And let’s not leave out the often-overlooked bisexual dogma (the B’s).  Their very identifier implies that there are two genders.  Meanwhile, transgender dogma is currently battling that proposition as bigoted and dehumanizing.  In other words, the very acronym upon which the movement is predicated (LGBT) is, by their own definition, transphobic.

Ka-boom.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com