My topic, if you could not guess from the cryptic title, is religious liberty. Vanity Fair, if you have not guessed, does not celebrate the Fourth of July. That’s a problem.

Lots of Americans still celebrate it, but because we are now governed by non-elected functionaries from Vanity Fair, the celebrations are merely impressive displays of light, noise, and little else. Among our other liberties, we still celebrate our putative religious liberty on the Fourth, but we do this in lieu of actually being able to practice it anymore. It is kind of like religious liberty without the religious part, and without the liberty part either, come to think of it. If we had some ham, we could make a ham and cheese sandwich, if we had some cheese.

Celebrating religious liberty is way easier than defending it, or exercising it. Setting off a squib or a firecracker is much to be preferred, because much easier, than acting like you don’t need permission from the government to live like a free Christian. You don’t, incidentally.

LEST YOU THINK I OVERSTATE . . .

Scarcely a day goes by without some reeking testimony to the official kind of contempt directed at religious liberty by aficionados of the totalitolerant state. Just this last week I read about the Virginia governor vetoing a bill that would allow ministers to opt out of sodomite ceremonies, another story about a judge insisting that Christian Mingles, a Christian dating site, start matching up folks what actually don’t go together because the pieces don’t fit, and I also read some more about that noxious bill in California that would require Christian colleges to abandon their Christian convictions in order to function legally. The secularist commitment to religious liberty resembles the rabbinical commitment to the ham and cheese sandwiches mentioned earlier.

VANITY FAIR HAS NO TRADITION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

“Therefore they took them and beat them, and besmeared them with dirt, and then put them into the Cage, that they might be made a Spectacle to all the men of the Fair” (The Pilgrim’s Progress).

But because Christian and Faithful responded to the persecution with grace, “some men in the Fair that were more observing, and less prejudiced than the rest, began to check and blame the baser sort for their continual abuses done by them to the men.”

Religious liberty comes from intractable Christians, and from some unbelievers who are favorably impressed by those intractable Christians.

So what kind of society produces religious liberty? What are the preconditions of religious liberty? The answer is “not our kind.” The kind of society we have become would be entirely incapable of creating a respect for religious liberty, and is rapidly proving that it is not even capable of sustaining it.

This is because we are Vanity Fair. We are Babylon the great, and so naturally we traffic in the souls of men (Rev. 18:13).

In order to get back to a true respect for religious liberty, we have to recover something. Even the millions of Christians who live here in the Fair have to recover something — I should say especially the Christians have to recover something. The first thing they have to grasp is the realization that they have been had.

THE ROOT OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The doctrine of religious liberty is itself a religious doctrine. There is no neutrality, and this reality is especially pronounced when it comes to this subject. The doctrines of religious liberty can be derived from the realization that Jesus is Lord. They cannot be derived from the realization that we are all the mindless end product of so many aeons of a blind and groping evolutionary process. They can be derived from the Christian faith, and cannot be derived from secularism.

A society that allows for no transcendent court of appeals is a society that cannot allow for religious liberty. In other words, on its own terms, because a secular state cannot come under judgment from outside it cannot allow for its citizens to act as though it could ever come under judgment from outside.

The living God is the giver of all rights. Man can give certain privileges, but we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. This includes our right to worship Him as His Word requires. Our right to worship Him includes not only the right to worship Him in weekly religious services, but also to worship Him with our bodies and vocations every day of the week. We are called to present our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1-2), and this is a 24-7 religious obligation. It means that we not only have the religious duty not to engage in sexual uncleanness ourselves, but that we have the corresponding duty not to applaud or celebrate it in others.

And so it is that Christian bakers, florists, and wedding planners have the religious obligation before God and consequent right before man to abstain from any such celebrations. The owners of a Christian dating site have the obligation before God and consequent right before man to refrain from acting as a pimp or procuress. Christian colleges have the obligation before God and consequent right before man to teach foundational Christian morality, and act in their admissions and discipline policies as though they actually believed what they taught.

Without that word consequent, we have no rights whatever.

But if God has bestowed these obligations upon us, as He most certainly has, then it is not possible for any parliament or congress or assembly of men to take the consequent rights away. It is not up to the rulers of men. It is not within their jurisdiction. They have no authority in this whatever. And this leads us to . . .

PIOUS DISOBEDIENCE

So the ultimate cause of religious liberty is the will of God. But the proximate, intermediate cause of religious liberty in history has been the firm and cheerful disobedience of Christians. The idolatrous state requires certain things, and Christians, because they know what the will of God is as outlined above, say no.

They do not bow before the statue of Nebuchadnezzar. They do not kill the Hebrew children as Pharaoh required. They hide their crops from the Midianites. They ignore the arrest warrant issued by Saul the tyrant. They refuse to bow to Haman. They pray facing Jerusalem with their windows open. King Aretas sets up a roadblock and they run that roadblock. They preach in the name of Jesus. They just say no.

Let me cut to the chase. There can be no religious liberty unless and until certain Christians are hard enough and tough enough simply to disobey. And they will not exhibit that kind of hardness toward tyrants unless and until they are soft toward God. When men recognize the sovereignty of God, they simultaneously realize that man does not possess that sovereignty. Resistance to tyrants is therefore submission to God. And without that submission to God, resistance to tyrants is futile. With it, liberty is inevitable.

Given the nature of the encroachments being made by the secular state, the clash between Christians and the secular state will not be a narrow one. It will extend across the board, touching on every area of life. Of course, when they say we must not preach the gospel, we must continue to preach the gospel. But this is an all-encompassing collision. It involves everything. It is a clash of worlds.

They do not simply say not to preach the gospel. They also say that if we do not take the mark of their beast, wearing it proudly on the forehead or right hand, we cannot buy or sell from any of their federally regulated outlets (Rev. 13:17). What do we do then? Well, we refuse the mark, and head on out to buy and sell from unregulated outlets. We have a religious duty and right to function in the black market.

Christian photographers go underground. They do a wedding “for a friend,” and take a token of gratitude in cash. Wedding cakes are sold out the back door, after hours. Christian colleges become unauthorized study centers, offering online certificates issued from servers located somewhere in the Caribbean. And when I am finally shut down here at Mablog for being an “enemy of mankind,” along with my other bad deeds, you can head on over to the dark web, and try to find me there. Perhaps you might say, “but that’s illegal,” and I would reply by inviting you to ask me if I care. The catacombs were illegal too.

Religious liberty is not something we have to get a permit for.
It is not something we possess if they agree to it.

THE THEOLOGIC OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The Christian faith is therefore source of religious liberty, and secularism cannot be that source.

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it” (Matt. 7:24–27).

Too many Christian advocates for Christians retaining their religious liberties are actually theologically compromised. They want the secular storm to help prop the house up. But secularism is the storm, not part of the foundation. Christ is the foundation. The words of Christ are the foundation. Without Jesus, we cannot have the house. With Jesus, we can withstand this current storm, not to mention the next one.

When we appeal to the secularists to respect our liberties, they can simply respond with “why should we?” We must either appeal to an ultimate standard that they reject, or to a humanistic standard that we ought to reject. If we apply to their humanistic standard, and they say, “no,” what then?

We need to work it out in our hearts and minds first. We need to be prepared to say to them, along with the friends of Daniel, that our God is able to deliver us. But even if He does not, we are not going to comply. This includes private individuals like Gideon not complying and government officials like Daniel not complying. It includes John Q. Citizen not complying and Chief Justice Roy Moore not complying.

Wherever you are, just say no. Bloom where you are planted.

ONE FINAL THING

These are not new issues. We have been here before. For those Christians who want to read up on these themes, there is a long and inspiring story. I would recommend starting with The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World by Douglas Kelly.

This has all been done before, and it most certainly can be done again.

…

If you intend to be part of that movement, as you certainly ought to be, then a few anticipatory fireworks tonight would not be out of place at all.

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This article was originally posted at the Blog & Mablog

The foulmouthed comedian and talk show host Chelsea Handler has written an essay—appropriately for Playboy Magazine—rationalizing the intentional killing of her two preborn babies when she was 16 years old. She was not pregnant with twins. She became pregnant twice when she was 16.

Handler characterizes her parents’ offer to help her dispose of her offspring as good parenting: “They acted like parents for one of the very first times in my life and took me to Planned Parenthood.  I felt parented, ironically, while I was getting an abortion.”

Perhaps Handler’s pitiable revelations about her childhood in Vanity Fair help explain not only her hard edges but her antipathy toward marriage and children:

On her childhood, and absent parents:

“I grew up in New Jersey, and I was the youngest of six kids, and I had a father who was a used-car dealer and a mother who was a Mormon, and they slept a lot, kind of like cats. And they just never planned on having me, and I had five older brothers and sisters that were in college, and they said, ‘Oh, you know, I guess you can raise yourself.’ And they were serious.

“And I started to go through life, and you know, like, I heard kids around the neighborhood talking about nursery school. I said, ‘What’s that? Nursery school sounds cool.’ And I remember charging into my parents’ bedroom, I’m like, ‘What’s everybody’s talking about nursery school? Am I going? Am I going?’ They were, like, ‘No, no.’ Meanwhile, I was still in diapers, because they hadn’t bothered to potty train me. I was five. I’m like, ‘And why am I wearing a diaper?’

“So they said, ‘No, no. Nursery school is not important. We’ll get you started when you have to go to kindergarten.’ And I go, ‘No, I don’t think so. I want to go to nursery school. It sounds very important to me. I could get a big break in nursery school; I don’t know what could happen.’ And my parents were, like, ‘No, just wait for kindergarten,’ because that was in walking distance to my house, so they were, like, ‘At least you can get yourself there, we don’t have to be responsible for you.’ And they were so not participating in my childhood.”

On realizing she had to raise herself, and the worst school lunch possible:

“And I did go to nursery school, I went and found a popup nursery school in my neighborhood, and I registered. I didn’t listen to my parents, because I knew I had to create a life for myself. And it became more and more obvious to me as I grew up a little bit more. You know, they would forget to pack me lunch for school. They never packed me lunch, and I would go to school and everybody had a lunch, and I would want to sit with the cool girls, with the cool lunchboxes, and, I had to get a lunchbox used. And I came home one day, and I said, ‘Mom, you never pack me lunches, like the other girls. Dad, you never drive me to school.’ And my mom said, ‘O.K., I’ll pack you lunch.’ And I went to school that day, and I sat at the cool girls’ table, and I took out my lunch, and I was so excited my parents made it for me, and it was two hardboiled eggs wrapped in tinfoil. It was like the most uncool lunch you could ever imagine in your life. And I looked at these hardboiled eggs, and I tried to maintain my coolness, I said, ‘Oh, this is fine.’ And I went to crack them, and they were raw eggs, and they splattered everywhere.

“And I went home to my parents, and I said, ‘What the f**k is going on here? I am a child, and you guys need to raise me, O.K.? Where was I supposed to cook those eggs? On a skillet that I don’t have? On the blacktop at school?’ And that’s when I just started to think, Oh god, my life is all about being responsible for me. No one is going to take care of me. I want to be beholden to no one….if these are the people that are in charge of me, then I want to be in charge of me.”

On realizing that she didn’t want to be somebody’s wife:

“I remember looking through my parents’ financial records, and confronting them and saying, ‘Why isn’t Mom’s name on the deed to this house?”…And he said, ‘Oh, shut up. You ask too many questions. You’re always asking questions. You’re not elegant at all.’

“And I looked at my father, ‘Well, maybe I’m not here to be elegant, O.K.?’ And he goes, ‘Well, you’re not going to make anybody a very good wife.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not planning on being anyone’s wife.’ And I wasn’t. And my mom and I talked a lot about children, and she just had this kind, anachronistic idea of what it was like to raise a family. And I just thought, Oh my God, I don’t ever want to have kids—well, I don’t ever want to have a kid—but I don’t ever want to send my daughter to school with two raw eggs. I didn’t want to do that, and I didn’t want to ever not have my name on the deed of the house. How silly it sounds, it was an important kind of notion for me; it was one of those moments.”

Though Handler’s far less than ideal upbringing explains her feelings and beliefs about childlessness, abortion, and marriage, it doesn’t justify her moral conclusions or her odd moral imperatives.

Getting unintentionally pregnant more than once is irresponsible, but it’s still necessary to make a thoughtful decision. We all make mistakes all the time. I happened to f**k up twice at the age of 16. I’m grateful that I came to my senses and was able to get an abortion legally without risking my health or bankrupting myself or my family. I’m 41 now. I don’t ever look back and think, God, I wish I’d had that baby.”

It seems that to Handler it is morally imperative to be “thoughtful” about whether to abort her babies but not “necessary to make thoughtful decisions” about having sex or having unprotected sex. It seems that a “thoughtful” decision for Handler encompasses primarily her feelings and little about the moral status of the incipient lives growing within her. Why is it more thoughtful to intentionally end the life of her child than to give birth to him or her and allow others to provide what Handler could not?

Handler prognosticates on the fate of Roe v. Wade:

I don’t buy that Roe v. Wade is in danger. We’re too far ahead of the game. Once you go forward in history, you don’t go backward….You can’t introduce a black person and be like, “Oh, I just got a slave!” That era is over. It’s similar to what’s happening in Mississippi and some other states with gay-marriage discrimination—marriage equality is going to take. You can’t stop that. We’ve already made the decision, and now we’re moving on to transgender rights. And it’s a wrap on men deciding what women can do with their bodies.

What would “progressives” do without slavery to exploit? How would they frame their moral arguments without race to compare to everything? How would archdefenders of the indefensible continue their  assaults on unborn babies and sexual sanity had there been no Jim Crow laws? How would social Darwinists who falsely believe that history moves inevitably toward truth and justice—as, of course, defined by them—argue their positions if they couldn’t hitch their abattoirs, bathhouses, and co-ed showers to the backs of the enslaved? Godwin’s law should be revised to accommodate “progressive” argumentation: “If a discussion on sexual matters goes on long enough, sooner or later a “progressive” will compare someone or something to a racist or racism.”

Handler concludes her essay with more foolishness:

We have 7.3 billion people on this planet. Anybody who carefully decides not to become a parent—let alone a bad parent, which is what I would have become—should be applauded for making a smart and sustainable decision.

I’d love for somebody to try to tell me what to do with my body. I dare them.

Someone should tell Handler that no one—literally no one—is saying she or any other woman who does not want to be a parent should become one. Many are saying, however, that her lack of desire to be a parent does not give her the moral right to deny life to another. Those who value all human lives are not trying to tell her what to do with her body. They’re trying to tell her what she ought not do with the body of another. And in case she hasn’t noticed, it’s not just men defending the lives of the unborn. There is an army of women—including young women—bending the arc of moral universe toward justice for the unborn.

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