In 2002, the British Broadcasting Corporation polled its viewers for the names of those they believed were the greatest Britons of all time. The BBC compiled the feedback and came up with a list of the top 100 greatest men and women in all British history. One of the names on that list, at number 73, was Aleister Crowley.

Crowley polled ahead of Robert the Bruce, J.K. Rowling, Chaucer, Henry II, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Richard Burton, among others. So, who is Aleister Crowley and why should we care?

There is no doubt Crowley had a significant impact on Great Briton, even the world. It is difficult to see, though, how anyone could view the impact he had as being great.

Crowley was born in 1875 to a wealthy English family. His father, an evangelist, raised Crowley as a Christian. If his father had not died when Crowley was 11, things might have turned out differently for Alister. Following his father’s death, Crowley became unmanageable for his mother. He began questioning Christian teachings and he completely turned away from his early moral upbringing. He started challenging his teachers, took up smoking and began to frequent prostitutes. He became so unruly his mother called him “the Beast,” a nickname he proudly retained for his whole life. After having a child, he insisted that his daughter call him by that name, and she did.

Crowley’s parents had named him Edward Alexander Crowley, but at 20 he changed it to Aleister since he loathed the nickname, Alec (in his biography Crowley spelled it Alick), that his mother called him.

While Crowley attended Cambridge University he engaged in torrid sexual relations with both men and women, was introduced to the occult through an organization called the Golden Dawn and became captivated by the practices. And he became involved with magic and with the ritual use of drugs.

Crowley later became disillusioned with Golden Dawn because the leadership found him to be too hedonistic. After graduating, Crowley travelled the world. He climbed mountains in Mexico and later in India. While in India he developed an interest in yoga and meditation.

After two years abroad, Crowley returned to Europe, to Paris, where he joined a friend from Cambridge, Gerard Kelly, who eventually became a famous painter. During his time in Paris, Crowley met and fell in love with Kelly’s younger sister, Rose. He married her initially to save her from an arranged marriage she did not want, but later they fell in love with each other.

Rose enthusiastically shared Aleister’s beliefs and bizarre sexual preferences. They traveled together and she helped create and develop Crowley’s new Religion, Thelema, which had been partially inspired by Golden Dawn. They wound up having two daughters, one of whom died of typhoid. Apparently because of grief from this loss, Rose started drinking heavily. A few years later, Crowley and Rose divorced and by 1911, Rose was institutionalized.

Crowley continued to develop his religion.

Around 1920 Crowley and several followers traveled to Sicily and set up his Abby of Thelema at Cefalu. He and his acolytes remained at the Abby engaging in their depraved sexual and occult practices until Benito Mussolini caught wind of what they were doing. Mussolini was so disgusted he ordered Crowley and his followers all deported.

After travelling in North Africa for a time, Crowley eventually returned to England where he concentrated on writing. In his books and articles he promoted the occult, sexual excess and sexual liberation, and a no limits anything goes lifestyle. Crowley believed in and engaged in unfettered sex with same and opposite sex partners, even with children and teens. His followers followed suit.

It was about this time that the British press labeled Crowley the “wickedest man in the world.” That’s pretty bad considering all the evil going on in the early 20^th century—the rise of organized crime, the emergence of Fascism, the slaughter of the Russian Revolution . . . the horrors perpetrated by the architects of World War I.

Undaunted, Crowley continued to promote his religion, Thelema, and pleasure seeking lifestyles that recognized none of the boundaries of civilized society. His followers were encouraged to do whatever they wanted which was the first principle of Thelema: “’Do What Thou Wilt’ is the whole of the law.” The original list of foundational obligations for Thelemites were:

• To discover and express one’s own Will.

• To abstain from knowingly restricting others from discovering and expressing their own Will.

• To attempt to eliminate those forces that restrict the discovery and expression of Will (i.e. Tyranny, Superstition, and Oppression).

There are dozens of Thelemic orders throughout the United States and Europe today. “Do What Thou Wilt” remains the first principle, but over the years the original “obligations” have been expanded and clarified as follows:

• Each individual has a Will (or ‘True Will’ to distinguish it from one’s wants, wishes, and desires), their purpose on Earth, a Nature to fulfill, and each person’s sole right and duty is to find that Will and to do it.

• Each individual is Divine, the center of their own universe. This is one central meaning of the phrase ‘Every man and every woman is a star.’

• Each individual therefore has their own unique Way in the world, with their own unique ‘good’ and ‘bad’ suitable to their Nature.

• Each individual has the right to be who they are, especially in terms of sexual and gender identity. There is no ‘preferred’ gender identity in Thelema except the one that is the best fulfillment of your nature. As it is said, ‘Take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will?’

• Thelemites engage in various spiritual practices, often those of Magick (sic) and Yoga, to try to deepen their understanding of their true nature and Will.

Prominent people took an interest in Crowley in increasing numbers after he died at age 72 in 1947. One of his admirers was Alfred Kinsey. After publishing his two earth changing books, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female,” Kinsey traveled to Crowley’s home, to locations of the orders of Thelema, and to the Abby of Thelema in Sicily. He was looking for original material on the sexual practices Crowley engaged in, especially for Crowley’s diaries on sex magic. Kinsey was unsuccessful.

Others, too, became enamored with Crowley’s teaching. The Beatles included a photo of Aleister Crowley on the cover of their album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and John Lennon said the Beatle’s philosophy was the same as Crowley’s, asserting “[t]he whole Beatle idea was to do what you want, right?  To take your own responsibility.” David Bowie, wrote Crowley into his song, Quicksand,

“I’m closer to the Golden Dawn, Immersed in Crowley’s uniform, I’m not a prophet or a stone age man, Just a mortal with potential of a superman”

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin bought Crowley’s former home in Scotland, and Timothy Leary was inspired by Crowley when he encouraged his 60’s followers to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Leary believed he was carrying on what Crowley started.

Even Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist who founded NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab was a devoted follower of Crowley. So it was not just members of the counter-culture who were enamored with Crowley’s vision of a hedonistic lifestyle.

Many of Crowley’s  books remain available on Amazon today. And his philosophy has become infused throughout Western culture.

Does this make him a great man? There is no objective measure by which he could be considered great. Yet he has had a profound influence on us, starting with the counter-culture of the 60’s and 70’s and extending right into the 21^st century. The occult, the new age religion, the bondage to pleasure, the desire to ever expanding sexual boundaries, his shadow envelopes it all.

No. He was not great. Evil is the more appropriate term.

But what does this say about us? How can a man go from being considered the wickedest man on earth, someone so depraved Mussolini couldn’t allow him to remain in Italy, to being considered one of the greatest men in the history of Great Briton, a nation whose empire once spanned the entire globe? How did this happen?

Darkness is now viewed as light. Evil is now seen as good.

Where is the church?

It is one thing to reject the authority of the Bible entirely, claiming that it is not the inspired Word of God. It is another thing to appeal to the authority of Scripture while at the same time claiming that the biblical writers didn’t understand certain aspects of human nature or spiritual truth. That makes no sense at all, yet it is a common practice of “progressive” Christians. (For my use of the term “progressive,” see here.)

Why even cite the Bible, as if it carried some kind of divine authority, while making yourself the arbiter of ultimate truth? Why quote Scripture if it can be trumped by the latest theories of psychology or sociology?

It is common to hear “progressive” Christians say things like, “Well, the biblical writers were inspired, but they didn’t know what we know today.” Or, “That teaching simply reflects the culture the ancient authors lived in.”

But what, then, do they mean by “inspiration”? And in what sense is the Bible the Word of God?

It is true that biblical writers used observational language, speaking of things like the rising and setting of the sun. (Most vividly, see Psalm 19:4-6; Ecclesiastes 1:5.) And it is certainly likely that the biblical writers believed that the sun went around the earth.

But this has nothing to do with how we are to conduct our lives or what the Lord requires of us or who He is in His very essence and nature.

It’s another thing entirely when we claim that the biblical writers called us to live a certain way in order to please God, but then argue that this was based on their limited cultural understanding.

In other words, we know better than they did.

Someone might protest, “Then why don’t the women in your church wear head coverings, as Paul mandated in 1 Corinthians 11? You’re guilty of the very thing of which you accuse us!”

That’s a fair question, but it is also a question that is easily answered.

In Paul’s day, it was customary for married women to cover their heads in public, whereas girls and unmarried women would not need to follow that practice. But what about a gathering of Christians in a home? In that setting, which was private in one sense but public in another sense, what would be appropriate? Should the married women cover their heads?

Paul said that they should cover their heads and that this would be a sign of their submission to their husbands. He also indicated that maintaining gender roles was important.

In our day, the customs have changed, so head coverings are not the issue. But the principles remain the same: gender distinctions are important and there are established authority structures in the home and in the church.

And note that Paul did not say, “Women who do not cover their heads will be excluded from the kingdom of God.” Not at all.

But he did say that people who practice adultery or drunkenness or homosexuality will be excluded (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). There is clearly no comparison between not wearing head coverings and indulging in the sins of the flesh.

When it comes to homosexual practice, progressive Christians argue that the biblical authors were not familiar with loving, same-sex relationships, otherwise they would have blessed them. Instead, it is claimed, they were familiar with abusive same-sex relationships, such as pederasty or prostitution or promiscuity.

But this argument breaks down on numerous levels:

First, are these progressive Christians claiming that loving, committed same-sex relationships did not exist throughout history? If so, what does that say about the fleshly and sinful nature of same-sex relationships? Was there no true, gay love in the ancient world? Is it only a recent phenomenon? That alone would be a bizarre and self-defeating argument.

Second, there is plenty of evidence that at least some of the biblical authors would have been familiar with committed gay couples. Some scholars have even argued that the situations Paul dealt with in Corinth would be very similar to the situations we deal with today.

Third, Paul taught that homosexual practice was fundamentally wrong, a violation of nature (meaning, the way that God created men and women). This was a matter of natural law, of biology, of divinely intended function, not a matter of societal practices or preferences.

Fourth, Jesus certainly understood human nature, and He only reinforced biblical teaching about sexuality and marriage. Or are you telling me that He was unable to gaze into the hearts of LGBTQ people and see their struggles? (A professing gay Christian once used that very argument: Jesus really didn’t know what was in people’s hearts. So, this “gay Christian” chose to downgrade who Jesus was rather than recognize the error of his ways.) Since Scripture tells us plainly that Jesus did, in fact, know what was in every human heart (see John 2:24-25), we must accept His judgment on the matter. God established marriage as the union of one man and one woman for life (see Matthew 19:4-6), and all sexual acts committed outside of that union are sinful and defiling (see Matthew 15:19-20).

Fifth, the idea that the biblical authors simply didn’t understand same-sex attractions is to say that they were not inspired by God and that they did not have divine insight into human nature and the nature of sin. Again, this is a completely self-defeating argument, since, if you can succeed in proving that the biblical authors didn’t get these things right, then you have just undercut the authority of the Scriptures.

It is one thing, then, for a skeptic to say, “Who cares about what Paul had to say? He was obviously homophobic. The same goes for Moses and Jesus.” At least that would be consistent.

It is another thing to say, “Yes, Moses, Jesus, and Paul didn’t have full understanding of human sexuality, especially when it comes to same-sex attractions. We’re more enlightened today. But we still respect the Bible and believe it is God’s inspired Word.” Hardly!

Instead, in the words of Augustine, “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

If you’ve never heard of Jimmy Donaldson, more commonly known by the moniker Mr. Beast, ask your child who he is. He (or she) likely knows. Mr. Beast is a highly popular YouTuber with multiple channels dedicated to various things, such as friendly competitions, gaming, and philanthropy. He has 146 million subscribers on his main YouTube channel and anywhere between 12.8 million to 32 million on each of his spin-off channels.

Mr. Beast’s videos, which are designed to look like a group of friends hanging out and filming as they go along, generally revolve around giving away large sums of money. For example, a few of his videos are titled, “Survive 100 Days In Circle, Win 500,000,” “I Built Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory!” or “Last To Take Hand Off Jet, Keeps It!”

Mr. Beast is incredibly popular among youth, especially teenage boys. His videos have over 100 million views each.

The first time many adults heard of Mr. Beast was a couple of months ago when he received a lot of flak (mainly from the Left) for a video detailing how he paid for cataract surgery for 1,000 blind people. Now Mr. Beast is in the news again, but unfortunately, it’s for something a lot less philanthropic.

Chris Tyson is a member of Mr. Beast’s cast of friends. Over the past couple of months, viewers noticed that Tyson has started to look and act differently in videos. The reason why became clear when Tyson revealed on Twitter that he has been going through hormone treatments to try and ‘transition’ into a girl. What makes this even sadder is that Tyson has a wife and son, who now must deal with the inevitable fallout of Tyson’s decision.

Tyson’s transition can be directly linked to an apparent addiction to pedophilic anime pornography, illustrating just how powerful influences can be. Tyson went from a typical, regular man, to a confused-looking guy in girl’s clothing.

Parents will want to know that Mr. Beast has given his full support to Chris Tyson in the form of a tweet that uses foul language:

Unless something changes, Mr. Beast’s channel is now a wolf in sheep’s clothing; another place for the LGBTQ+ agenda to be normalized and funneled into your kids. The things you watch and read and listen to really do influence you. The catalyst for Chris Tyson’s change was the porn he is reportedly addicted to and watching.

This should serve as a warning for each of us individually, and especially for parents when it comes to what they let their children watch or have access to. Finding porn online is as easy as mistyping a web address, and even if what you watch is not as evil as porn, the things you fill yourself with – books, movies, TV shows, etc., – really do influence and change you.

Bad company ruins good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33), and if what you keep company with is sinful, you’ll find yourself warped by it. Mr. Beast is sending a message to millions of kids around the world through his acceptance of Tyson’s change. Even if he doesn’t make a big deal of it and simply keeps Tyson on the show, kids all around the world are going to see that someone they look up to, admire, and wish to be thinks this is okay and normal.

This news provides a great discussion opportunity for you and your kids. Sin is awful, especially sexual sin, and those who are caught in it become slaves to it. These are chains that are incredibly difficult to throw off.

Chris Tyson is bound by the chains of this sin. We need to pray for him, Mr. Beast, and the rest of the Mr. Beast crew to see the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(Picture of Tyson’s transition)

Many years ago, I asked a gentleman from Japan why he had come to the United States.  His reply startled me. He said that he had come to the U.S. to find Christianity because it is the religion of love and therefore had to be the right religion!  He saw a connection between Christianity, the love it manifested, and the United States.

America has never technically been a “Christian nation,” but was founded largely on Christian principles, making it the freest and most inviting place to live in world history, as witnessed by the millions who still desire to come here! There is only one reason for the hatred of the Left for this country, and it has to do primarily with power.  Leftists hunger for power, but America’s Constitution, political philosophy, and Christianity make tyranny difficult to implement here.

Christianity is probably their biggest obstacle. As poorly as we Christians have followed Christ, Christianity is still a visible representation of God, and God stands firmly with the “meek and humble,” not the totalitarian.  The optics of government crushing people known for compassion, sacrifice, and patience is not good!

Therefore, Leftists understand that Christianity must be weakened and corrupted in order to destroy its public image and reputation before they can gain the control they seek over the American people.  But how can that be accomplished when the public’s view of Christianity has been mostly positive for centuries?  It has been known as “the religion of love” worldwide!  Estimates put U.S. Christian charitable giving at fifty billion or more annually; so how do you turn the tide of public opinion against compassionate, loving, and law-abiding citizens?

Besides the obvious question of why anyone would want to destroy the greatest, freest, most generous country in history, is the question of how it would be possible to fool enough Americans to cause them to join in bringing their own country to its knees.  How does one turn a nation that has been considered “Christian” from its infancy, four hundred years ago, against itself?  How does one successfully malign a religious philosophy known for promoting kindness, love, generosity, patience, and “turning the other cheek?”

As we have seen, they did it by getting control of the nation’s cultural forums, normalizing lying and creating a false narrative about Christianity.  They invested heavily in magnifying individual Christian’s failures and glossing over and ignoring Christianity’s and the nation’s virtues and successes.  They have managed also, with help from a complicit, dishonest media, to turn good into evil and evil into good.

We will discover an amazing parallel situation in the Book of Daniel. That great Jewish man, Daniel, was taken as a teen to Babylon and trained to stand in the palace of the king. He was wiser than his age would suggest, and he became a trusted adviser not only to Nebuchadnezzar but also to subsequent rulers, so much so that not many years later, Darius the King was giving serious consideration to making him the second ruler over the entire Median empire.  This plan was not well received by other political leaders who had their own ambitions; so, they hatched a plot to destroy Daniel’s credibility and possibly end his life.

This is where we find an interesting connection to current politics.

In Daniel 6, we discover these conniving politicians gathered to discuss how they might undermine Daniel’s favor with Darius.  However, the text notes that concerning Daniel “they could find no charge or fault, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found against him. Then these men said, ‘We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.’”  They deduced that the only way to defeat Daniel was to place him in a situation where he had to choose between God and the king; and they knew what his choice would be!

Thereupon, these power-hungry politicians advanced their plan. Behind a façade of concern for the King, and under the guise of promoting unity and harmony in the kingdom, (Does their virtue signaling and flattery sound familiar?) they convinced Darius to sign a temporary law requiring everyone to pray only to him. This seemingly innocuous requirement, of course, put the Jehovah worshipping Daniel at odds with the law of the land! Instantly, the most faithful aid to the King had become a criminal facing punishment in a den of lions!

Did America’s Leftists read the book of Daniel to learn how to turn America’s most compassionate community into outcast “haters and bigots” virtually overnight?  Who knows, but if they did, they did not read far enough!  Regardless, their tactic is apparently working for the moment.  With the Left’s juggernaut of “wokeness” and “tolerance” for aberrant behavior they have temporarily placed anyone with Christian convictions in the position of appearing to be unloving and divisive!

And, like the Median politicians’ ploy of forcing everyone (specifically targeting Daniel, a worshipper of God) to accept idolatry or pay a price, the Left is creating a political landscape in America where failure to worship at their altar will also be costly.  (Interesting that nearly three-thousand years later the target of the Left is also worshippers of God; and like Daniel’s situation, a basis for accusing Christians must be created from nothing!)

In the same way that Daniel’s coworkers sought to force him to irrationally worship a mere man or face death, so Leftists today demand that Christians celebrate a number of destructive lies or suffer serious consequences.

Sadly, corrupt political ambition, like all sin, blinds those who are governed by it, and in Daniel’s situation the efforts of the corrupt politicians to destroy him came back to bite them, (no pun intended).  Their plan to have Daniel eaten by Lions became their own destiny!

I do not know the short or long term consequences of the Left’s efforts to normalize immorality and gain political supremacy in the United States, but I do know that God will bring every work of every man into judgment at some time; and the consequences of the Left’s deliberate destruction of so much that is good, and their obstinate rejection of truth and godliness will not go unnoticed by God.

As for us Christians?  By God’s grace we will grow in our convictions, in our numbers, and in our Christlikeness, and through grace and mercy reflect the holy, good, and righteous character of our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ to people who desperately need Him but have not yet recognized it!

Last December, we published an article about how American Girl went woke, pushing gender ideology and the LGBTQ agenda through their dolls and books. Sadly, American Girl isn’t the only generationally beloved toy company to have embraced the way of the world. The latest toy company to have gone full woke is Lego, and as in the case of American Girl, this isn’t a sudden switch.

In 2021, Lego released a set called, “Everyone Is Awesome.” Inspired by the LGBTQ flag, it was released in honor of pride month. (See the featured picture above.)

In 2022 they launched a campaign entitled “The A-Z of Awesome,” with the tagline stating, “This is the A-Z of Awesome, a colorful alphabet of identities built from LEGO bricks, created by our incredible LGBTQIA+ fans!”

This seems to have flown mostly under the radar until Lego posted it to their Instagram page about a week ago, sparking frustration in parents who don’t want their children exposed to the pervasion of the LGBTQ agenda.

For the campaign, Lego invited people who identify as LGBTQ+ (including a man pretending to be a woman) to build something related to a letter in the alphabet that they felt represented them and their “identity.” Among others, you will find “C for Coming Out,” “I for Intersex,” “L for Lesbian,” “N for Non-Binary,” and “Q for Queer” (see photos).

Lego also said they would be donating to “LGBTQIA+ charity partners” as part of the campaign.

It’s incredibly sad when yet another company – especially one that has touched so many childhoods – falls prey to the religion of the world. In Matthew 12:30, Jesus said, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Even though a secular company may appear to uphold Christian values for a time, the company is against Christ and will eventually show it.  Lego is following the world because it doesn’t have eyes to see what God’s law says.

“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” (Ephesians 4:18-19)

In short, Christians shouldn’t be surprised when a secular company goes the way of the world.

What makes Lego’s story more tragic is that Ole Kirk Kristiansen, Lego’s founder, was a Christian (and by some accounts a very devout one, praying with his employees before work and holding company-wide Bible studies). Even though the current owner of Lego is Ole Kirk Kristiansen’s grandson, the company didn’t retain its Christian heritage, evidence that it doesn’t take much for a family, organization, or country to lose faith. Parents must make a point of training their children up in the Lord, encouraging them in faith, and teaching them Christ. In a sin-dominated world, parents aren’t the only ones seeking to train their children.

Every time a secular company goes woke, it should serve as both a warning and a reminder. Christian, this world needs Jesus so desperately. We are going to stick out more and more as aliens in this world while companies that seemed trustworthy capitulate to godless ideologies. By God’s grace, let’s use our non-conformity to shine the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ into this present darkness with the hope and prayer that hearts turn back to Him.

When you’re trying to work through a major, difficult decision, one of the key questions to ask is: If I take this to its logical extreme, where will it end? Or, put another way: Am I heading in the right direction or the wrong direction?

Let’s start with something really simple and basic: our daily diet.

If I add to my diet one donut a day, what will I look like one year from now? Will I be fatter or thinner, less healthy or more healthy? What about 10 years from now?

Conversely, if I stop eating that donut and replace it with some organic berries, how will that affect me? What does the trajectory look like?

It’s the same principle with saving money or wasting money, as well with a host of other decisions we make. There may be some short-term gratification, but what are the long-term results?

Someone might say, “What’s the problem with watching a little porn here and there? I’m not hurting anyone, I’m not getting into any trouble, and it makes me feel better.”

Aside from the fact that, for a God-fearing, God-loving person, the very act of watching porn is sinful, what about the trajectory?

Will it produce freedom or bondage in your life?

A year from now, will you be watching it more often? (The answer is almost certainly yes.) Will you be drawn to harder, even more perverse forms of form? (Again, the answer is almost certainly yes.) And will it negatively impact other areas in your life, including your own sexual life and your ability to relate properly to others you find attractive? (One more big yes.)

How about getting a little too friendly with a co-worker that you’re not married to? Where might that lead if taken to its logical conclusion?

What’s the trajectory of texting and emailing and calling each other on non-business matters? What’s to stop it from turning into full-fledged adultery?

In which direction is this relationship going?

Many things can seem innocent and innocuous in their early stages, just like a rocket that is the slightest bit off target. Nothing to worry about! In the end, though, it will miss its target by many miles.

The wrong trajectory, however so slight, ends up with a major deviation from the original target and goal.

That’s one reason why I often use a full gamut of letters when speaking about gay and trans activism, namely, LGBTQ++. It’s a constant reminder of the trajectory, which originally started with just the G before quickly adding the L, then the B. Then it was T, then Q (which was part of the early foundation of, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”), then beyond.

That’s why websites answer questions such as, “What Does the Full LGBTQIA+ Acronym Stand For?” This same website has a section titled, “Understanding LGBTQ2S+ and other expanded acronyms.”

But of course.

Once you deviate from foundational, societal norms, the possibilities are endless.

Another site offers, “68 Terms That Describe Gender Identity and Expression.” And a non-binary reference page lists a number of multi-genders, including abigender, ambigender, bigender, demiflux, genderfluid, pangender, polygender, and trigender, all defined with the utmost seriousness.

Again, this is what happens when you deviate from “male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

That’s why the list of preferred gender pronouns has become absolutely (and sadly) laughable, yielding questions like this: “Is bun/bunself a valid pronoun? My friend was calling me a transphobe since I said it’s not valid.”

One responder answered, “I don’t understand neopronouns (for example, Someone said they prefer ‘bug/bugself’ as pronouns). Is this even respectful to the LGBTQ community?”

Seriously!

More broadly, the larger trajectory of gay activism has inevitably led to this current moment in history, which includes:

1.) The continued assault on our families and children, as Washington state has “passed a bill allowing children to legally be taken away from their parents for not consenting to gender transition procedures on their child.”

2.) The continued assault on our religious liberties, as “A restraining order has been issued against a street preacher threatening him with jail if over the next five years he offends someone by citing Bible verses that oppose the ideology of same-sex marriage.”

3.) The continued assault on our sensibilities, as the White House has vowed “that President Biden will veto a bill that would prevent biological males from participating in women’s sports should it pass both houses of Congress.”

But what else should we expect? This was the inevitable trajectory from the start.

Let’s always remember, then, that everything reproduces after its own kind.

What kind of fruit are we producing?

What is the trajectory of our own lives? In which direction are we going?

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

America is being turned upside down. As it is going, the country will soon be unrecognizable, with personal freedoms limited if not erased and our Christian heritage and principles obliterated. Despite the Leftists proclamations that they are the defenders of democracy, what they are promoting will eliminate democracy, for it destroys its foundation.

No one denies that America has been good for the majority of its citizens, but the Left declares that some have been held down or marginalized by design; therefore, radical change must be brought about for the benefit of those who have been marginalized. It may be wise to ask just who are these for whom the Left would undo America? Maybe we ought to take a look! If we are going to allow the destruction of the nation, I for one would like to know who is supposed to benefit from its destruction, and why destroying my country is the only way to accomplish that mission.

First, let us consider what they mean by “marginalized.” The Left uses the term to engender sympathy and compassion, as though society, or more specifically, traditional Americanism and Capitalism have “conspired” maliciously against them to keep them from enjoying what the majority experiences. The word implies that they are on the edge of society, and not participating in the general activities others enjoy. Though the percentage of Americans who might be termed as “marginalized” is small, they probably number in the millions, and cannot be easily categorized. They are marginalized, obviously, because they cannot or will not participate in society’s “mainstream.” The important question is why? And each one will have his or her own story as to why they do not fit into what one might generally term as “normal.”

Whoever they are, and whatever the reason for their marginalization, we must understand that the Left is using them to bludgeon the rest of society into making radical changes to the country. The issue is not whether one ought to have some sympathy for those who are “marginalized,” for they may well warrant sympathy. The question is what is to be done for them, and maybe more germane, is their situation amenable to outside intervention? Can anything substantive be done to improve their situation? And, at what cost? It should be noted that there have always been, and always will be some people who don’t fit into the majority culture. No society in history has had one hundred percent positive participation of its citizens. The federal government has spent trillions of dollars over the last six decades attempting to correct many of the social issues supposedly responsible for these people’s predicament to no avail. A wise person will look askance at anyone’s suggestion that they now have solutions that will truly fix these societal problems.

When you consider that these people represent an untold number of different problems: a variety of mental illness issues, drug use, broken homes, alcohol, physical and sexual abuse, criminal behavior, and so on, you will understand that trying to solve them is a staggering proposition, and explains why all attempts to date have been largely futile.

To suggest that socialism and communism will so certainly correct America’s inequities as to justify destroying America displays woeful ignorance! Do your homework and see what Communist countries always do with such people. It will bring no comfort to your heart!

Destroying America’s historical cultural norms to make nonconformists comfortable is like allowing anyone who claims to be a doctor practice medicine. These cultural norms did not come into existence arbitrarily, they were rooted in ancient truths, such as the Bible, and practical experience. It has been wisely stated that one should never take down a fence until he knows why it was erected in the first place.

Many years ago, driving with my parents and siblings to a picnic in the Colorado Rockies outside of Denver, a motorcyclist rocketed past us heading for who knows where. He disappeared around a bend, and we thought no more about him. Later, as we ascended toward Denver, we approached the area where that man had passed us to find an ambulance and police securing the site where he had apparently lost control and had flown off the road onto the rocks below. He was not satisfied to live by the “norms” of society and paid with his life!

There is now a concerted effort on the part of the Left to create a cynical sympathy for those who resist or reject biblical, cultural, and societal norms, as if they are being victimized by those norms. Wisdom would say that such standards are designed as guard rails to keep people safe, even alive! As young Americans die by the hundreds of thousands annually due to drug overdoses, suicide, and violence, and millions of others suffer the agony or lingering deaths from STDs, drugs, and the depression resulting from promiscuous sex, the Left makes no effort to hinder the foolish behavior behind it all, but rather encourages it! And worse, they label those who issue warnings against the foolishness as “haters!”

The vicious wolves, ironically regaled as the caring ones, sit in the seats of academia, hold the levers of power in state capitals and in D.C., and flaunt their poison from their perches of Hollywood popularity, and seem to relish the destruction their philosophy promotes.

But make no mistake: they must be judged not by their claims of compassion, but by the fruits of their wicked deeds!

We’re likely all familiar with the phrase, “there’s only two things you can’t avoid in life: construction in Illinois and car warranty calls.” No…wait. I think the answer is supposed to be death and taxes. Of course, in Illinois we love our taxes. We must. That’s why they keep finding new ones for us!

My wife Rhonda and I are in that stage of life where we generally get only one kind of mail: requests for money. There’s the bills that we are rightfully expected to pay. Then there are the infinite number of requests for donations. These arrive from every which, what, and who. There are also sales brochures with coupons to remodel your entire house.

I even get mailings asking for money after they send ME money! March of Dimes sends me a dime a couple of times a year—asking for 300 dimes in return. One pet care group recently sent me TWO dimes!

Then come requests with my name spelled wrong. My ego is not bothered by this. But what good are mailing labels with the wrong name?

And speaking of those mailing labels, I now have close to 22,000 saved up from the last 20 years at my home address. Some money requests arrive with “greeting cards” for birthdays, friendship, get well, and sympathy. I’m thankful I don’t need to use all those sympathy cards!

How does all this “junk” mail find me? Mailing lists. One group sells their mailing list to another. That’s how I get four different organizations that spell my name wrong.

This passing along of my name to other groups is easily tracked when it comes to my soft spot: caring for animals. I can barely stand it when I get a picture of some forlorn dog’s face on the envelope. I want to rip open the mailer and get to the reply envelope to send them money. Okay, a mild overstatement.

I think I now have seven different animal care groups sending me monthly mailings. One offered me a nice doggie t-shirt for my gift. It came in one size: too-small-for-me.

One animal care group I give to is the Anti-Cruelty Society based out of Chicago. They take in animals and provide them food, shelter, and even medical care for those that are suffering. They work to save the lives of animals.

Another group is the SPCA— the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.Their cause is noble. And they sent the two dimes.

I won’t give to PETA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It’s the largest animal rights group in the world. This group has not always been so ethical in their treatment of humans. Or pets. It’s reported they promote euthanasia. And to end zoos. No animal crates. I’m also not a vegetarian. I consider them extreme.

One might also say, PETA is a misrepresentation of truth. Sort of like groups that are ”pro choice.” Or “Planned Parenthood.” Anyone with third grade reading ability who reads the details of a partial birth abortion, would know that these abortionists and their followers would certainly not be called an “Anti Cruelty Society.”

Fortunately, in Illinois, we are blessed with several wonderful pro-life organizations. I’ve attended their banquets and fundraisers and am always impressed by the depth of care they provide. Never judgmental. Always supportive to both the mom-to-be and, if he’s open, the father-to-be. The Illinois Family Institute is a big supporter for pro-life organizations.

By God’s design, all creatures great and small have design and purpose. It begins in creation when, in Genesis 1:20-21, we read that what God made He “saw that it was good.” We’re told by the psalmist to know the condition “of your flocks and herds.” In Proverbs 12:10 we read, “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” (ESV)

Yet only one of God’s creative works is made in His image. The human being. For a refresher course, read Psalm 139.

If you want to save a life, put your money where your faith is. Support the pro-life cause. You’ll find groups to support at www.illinoisfamily.org.

And if you must know, I will accept more junk mail. Assuming they keep sending me dimes. Retirees need all the dimes we can get.

A recent episode of Dr. Albert Mohler’s “The Briefing” highlighted a study, published in the scientific journal “Global Epidemiology” on the effect of marriage on the physical and emotional health of a group of female nurses. The study, authored by two researchers from Harvard University’s Human Flourishing Program, revealed results that a) confirm what most believers already know about marriage and b) contradict (and would likely enrage) feminists and the many progressive forces now arrayed against a traditional understanding of sex, gender, and family.

The text of the study, which is titled “Marital transitions during earlier adulthood and subsequent health and well-being in mid- to late-life among female nurses: An
outcome-wide analysis” begins by quoting anthropologist Joseph Henrich as saying, “Marriage represents the keystone institution for most…societies, and may be the most primeval of human institutions.” For Bible-believing Christians, this is the most obvious of statements, as marriage is the FIRST social construct we find in Genesis, formed before the Fall of man (and therefore “good” in the eyes of God)!

Over millennia, we can see how local communities, societies, and even nations have been built on the institution of marriage. Families are, quite literally, communities in miniature. Not only does marriage call us to care for another person as we care for ourselves, but when that union includes the rearing of children, it is the place where future adults are formed as they learn the many facets of social responsibility and engagement.

In the study, controlling for other factors, the researchers compared the health of married, divorced, and never married women. In a related Wall Street Journal article, they gave this summary of the results:

“Our findings were striking. The women who got married in the initial time frame, including those who subsequently divorced, had a 35% lower risk of death for any reason over the follow-up period than those who did not marry in that period. Compared to those who didn’t marry, the married women also had lower risk of cardiovascular disease, less depression and loneliness, were happier and more optimistic, and had a greater sense of purpose and hope.”

In other words, marriage is objectively good for the physical and emotional health of women. Incredible!

In a previous life, I studied biology/pre-medicine and went on to complete a master’s degree in bioethics. I remember going into my college studies feeling that there was a tension between science and belief in Jesus. Though I never doubted my faith, I had learned to view many scientific theories as a threat to Biblical belief. Imagine my surprise when, over and over, I saw God’s design reflected in, rather than contradicted by scientific study. From psychology to biology, from physiology to mathematics, God’s intelligent design was on display.

There are those within the scientific community who, sadly, increasingly shirk the basic scientific method in favor of bending research subjects, observations, and results to fit their pet agendas. This is not science but rather a sophisticated way to lie. In recent years, we have increasingly seen this approach to promoting a disordered understanding of sexuality, marriage, and gender. These so-called researchers are motivated not by an unbiased search for the truth, but by their feelings.

That is what makes this study from Harvard so surprising and refreshing to see. It shouldn’t be a shock to learn that real subjects prove what those with an orthodox belief in God and His Word already know, but here we are. We don’t know the researchers’ faith or lack thereof, but that’s as it should be in this context. Regardless of their backgrounds, this study appears to hold up to expectations of academic rigor.

In light of our society’s shift away from valuing and prioritizing marriage, the study’s authors seek to sound the alarm, saying, “In view of marriage’s profound effects on our sample’s health and well-being, it is unsettling to consider its rapid displacement from American life.” They continue, “Our findings, added to an already extensive literature showing the value of marriage, ought to serve as a wake-up call for a society in significant denial about this crucial element of flourishing.”

As Dr. Mohler pointed out in his podcast, the results of this study should make Christians smile, because we already know this! Through academic work like this, even those who doubt the goodness of marriage—if they’re honest—must acknowledge that it is a societal good. I am thankful that all truth is God’s truth! What a beautiful witness to the world that this reflection of Christ and his Bride can be proven to positively impact those who enter into it.

My husband and I have been married for over six years, and in that time, we’ve been blessed with two kids. I personally experience the value of and benefit from my marriage every day. I see how it’s changed me by calling me to radical self-sacrifice, breaking down my selfishness and pride, softening my heart, and providing a stable place for my children to learn their identity in our family (and in Christ), what healthy adulthood looks like, and God’s good design for us.

I will be the first to admit I don’t function in marriage perfectly. I fail, I stumble, and I often have to seek forgiveness. But my husband and I have always acknowledged and returned to the truth that the beauty of marriage is not in fleeting emotion, but in the day-by-day, minute-by-minute choosing of one another. It’s by this commitment and hard work—and all the other associated goods, scientifically-proven and otherwise—that we proclaim to the world that marriage is, in and of itself, a good!

I, for one, appreciate the bravery of these researchers and their commitment to following the evidence. As Dr. Mohler closed the podcast segment on this topic, he commented, “They didn’t tell us what we didn’t as Christians already know, but it’s fascinating to know that they know this and have the courage to say the truth out loud.”

In the last decade or so the concept of “human flourishing” has been co-opted by a progressive lobby that can no more define “human” than it can words like “sex,” “woman,” or “family.” This study is a reminder that as believers in the One who defines them all, we can and should take back the conversation about human flourishing with joy and confidence. God’s design is still good, and science proves it.

Our world seems to be getting darker by the minute. At the time this article is being written, there have been 496 shootings and 19,375 overall violent crimes this year in the city of Chicago alone. These are simply staggering numbers. According to the Chicago Police crime statistics website, the violent crime rate in the city is up 45 percent from last year and 95 percent from the year before.

Our civilization is literally crumbling around us. We live on the very edge of civilization and it is giving way beneath our feet. It would be easy to despair in times like these where violence, wickedness, sexual immorality, divorce rates, abortions are all increasing at exponential rates. I say, it would be easy to despair were they not already foretold in the Scriptures and explained to us by the Lord Himself.

Jesus tells us what the end times will be like in his Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:10-14 and what our response as believers should be to it:

“And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.  And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Don’t we see these very things happening? Those crime statistics in Chicago are proof of the love of many growing cold. The world hates Truth more than ever before, even biological truth, and its response is to suppress it. It would be tempting for believers to despair over these things, but Jesus doesn’t tell us to despair. He tells us instead to proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom as a testimony to all nations! The response of Christians to ever-increasing evil is to be ever-increasing light in this dark world, knowing that the time is short and warning people to flee from the wrath which is to come by repenting and turning to our only hope, the Lord Jesus Christ. We must endure to the end. We must endure the hatred of those who despise Jesus and the Gospel and reply to that hatred with truth and love.

Someday soon, Jesus is going to return and bring all His holy angels with Him and he will conquer the nations and rule with an iron scepter from the Throne. He will in that Day comfort all who mourn by executing Judgment on evil and on evildoers. And it will be the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord! That Day has not yet come, but it is fast approaching.

And so, since we are still almost 2000 years after Christ’s Resurrection living in this time of God’s favor, we must not let it slip by! How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? Jesus says in John 3:18, “He who believes in Him is not judged…” Ah! Though we all were at one time running headlong into the pit at breakneck speed, God saved us in Christ, and so we need not be afraid because he who believes in Him is not judged! Though I deserved judgment, God gave me mercy and grace beyond measure.

Yet, look at what the text in John 3 says to those who do not believe, “he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” See that? Jesus declares that the world – that is, the unbelieving world, is ALREADY under the judgment of God. Anyone who does not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God is already under judgment!

We perhaps tend to think of the Judgment of God as purely eschatological (something that will occur at the end of the world), but we shouldn’t think of it that way. Instead, the declaration of Judgment has already been issued by God, but the execution of that Judgment is yet to come.

So, what should be our message?

“The time has come…the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Gospel!” (Mark 1:15).

We need to boldly proclaim the truth to sinners about their desperate condition and call them to repentance, trusting that God will do the rest by His Grace. The Grace of God is what breaks up the fallow ground of the sinner’s heart and causes him or her to cry:

“Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me Savior or I die!”

Only the true Christian can say that. Only the one who comes into the light in acknowledgement of their own sin and says, “yes Lord, I am a wretched man. Yes, I see my own filthiness, depravity and wretchedness, my absolute desperate need for Jesus and His Power in my life. I see my need for His atoning work on the Cross and for His Resurrection from the dead – because outside of that, I am already dead in my trespasses and sins. And if Christ does not revive and save me, a desperate man who does not even realize the depth of his own depravity, I would be utterly lost.”

Jesus only gives his blessing to those who acknowledge their sinfulness. To those who do not, Jesus says, “How shall you escape the fire of hell?” This should be terrifying, especially for those who know this message and reject it.

Let us be bold witnesses of Christ today. Let us go out into the fields – they are ripe for harvest.

Schools throughout Illinois have implemented rules that require students to be allowed to use the restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, but it is not clear exactly how many schools. So a trans boy, who is really a girl, is allowed to use the boys’ restroom and locker room. While a trans girl, who is really a boy, is allowed to use the girls’ facilities. The requirement is based on a guidance document from the Illinois State Board of Education.

The guidance document claims that the Illinois Human Rights Act requires schools to allow trans students to use the facilities based on their claimed identity.  The document points out the law specifically states “transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students have the right to use a school’s physical facilities consistent with their gender identity.” The general public is largely unaware of this legislation.

There are a couple of problems with this law, not the least of which is that there is no such thing as gender identity. That term is based on a fraudulent theory proposed in the 50’s by John Money. He theorized that our gender identity could be different than our biological sex, that it was independent and fluid. It remained a theory until he was given the opportunity to test it out on the Reimer twins. One twin, Bruce, had his penis catastrophically damaged by a horribly botched circumcision as an infant. His entire penis was burned off due to medical incompetence. The parents refused the procedure for the other twin.

Sometime later, the parents reached out to Dr. John Money, a psychologist from Johns Hopkins University, who had put forward the theory that any child born a boy could be raised as a girl, or vice versa. Nurture, not nature, determined a child’s gender identity, he claimed, and he convinced the parents that Bruce could have a normal life as a girl. Money enthusiastically took on the case and treated the boys for several years. He began writing articles about the case, underscoring how well the children were doing, pointing out that Bruce, being raised as a girl, had taken to her identity very well. The success of his experiment received international attention.

The real story was that the experiment was an utter failure. You can read about the case in a book by John Colapinto, “As Nature Made Him.” The bottom line is instead of proving gender identity was real, it proved the opposite. Money never acknowledged the failure and continued to pretend gender identity was real. One of the twins died of a drug overdose and Bruce committed suicide. I would say that was a failure, spectacularly so.

Despite this failure being made public in 2000, the psychological community ignored it. The idea that the theory of gender identity was real took on a life of its own and continued to gain adherents even with no evidence to support it and with two dead boys from the study that was used to confirm the theory. Who needs evidence, right?

Our Illinois State Board of Education and many of our local schools just roll over and conform to the fraud that is gender identity.

Some students at Waterloo High School in Waterloo, Illinois rebelled against this invasion of their privacy. Earlier this year, high school principal, Lori Costello, wife of Illinois Department of Agriculture Director, Jerry Costello II, allowed trans students to use the restroom of their choice.  According to Ryan Cunningham of the nonprofit organization, “Speak for Students,” several students at the school identify as trans, boys and girls. Students told him that one of the trans boys (a girl) regularly uses the boys restroom. She reportedly stands at the urinal and uses a funnel which she washes out in the common sink. At least one student claimed that was not true. Whether it is or not, many of the boys were uncomfortable using the restroom with girls being allowed free access to the facility.

The students were told if they felt uncomfortable, they should use the nurse’s restroom which is for one person at a time. On March 17^th approximately 150 students lined up to use it. The administration didn’t like that at all.

Brian Charron, the Superintendent of CUSD #5, issued instructions that any student in line who was late to class was to be marked tardy. If the protest continued, he directed that the students be disciplined. Reportedly, some students were. Cunningham said he helped several parents appeal and succeeded in having the discipline withdrawn. He is not sure what happened with the other students. However, to his knowledge the directive stands.

I sent a message to Charron asking the status, but so far have received no response.

The Biden Administration last summer proposed revisions to Title IX regulations which would redefine the meaning of the term “sex” to include gender identity. During the public comment stage over 240,000 comments were received. It is not known whether these comments will affect the final regulations. We will see in May, when the revised regulations are released publicly.

If the rules change the definition of sex to include gender identity, it is unlikely they will withstand a challenge which most certainly will be filed immediately. In West Virginia v. EPA the U.S. Supreme Court decided last summer that:

“Precedent teaches that there are ‘extraordinary cases’ in which the ‘history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] has asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political significance’ of that assertion, provide a ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant to confer such authority.”

In the case of redefining sex in Title IX to mean “gender identity,” Congress could not possibly have intended to give the Department of Education the power to redefine a foundational characteristic of all humanity since the dawn of time. This is exactly the same reasoning that the Illinois Human Rights Act is flawed.

Another case, in November last year, in Neese v. Becerra, a U.S. District court ruled that sex did not equal sexual orientation or gender identity. And in December, the 11^th Circuit Appellate Court ruled in Adams v. St. Johns County School Board that a school board policy requiring students to use the bathroom that corresponded to their biological sex did not violate Title IX.

Since the idea of “gender identity” emanated from the deranged mind of John Money, and has no science that supports the alleged identities, the most prudent course for all school boards would be to reject the guidance on this issue from the Illinois State Board of Education.

One stumbling block for school boards could be the lawyers they are selecting to advise them. It seems many lawyers are advising boards to cave to the guidance. Apparently, they are too timid to challenge the misguided Illinois Human Rights Act. That is a mistake. While it may save the boards money in the short term, in the long run these misguided rules are going to destroy the schools.

School boards, when choosing lawyers to advise them, would be better off if they followed J.P. Morgan’s philosophy. Reportedly, his position was: “I don’t hire a lawyer to tell me what I can’t do, I hire a lawyer to tell me how to do what I want to do.”

In this case school boards need lawyers who can tell them how to implement policies that align with common sense. Obviously, Waterloo High School does not have such a lawyer. It’s a quality that appears to be lacking in the school leadership and in the district administration as well.

Time to clean house.

Get your children & grandchildren OUT of government schools as soon as possible!

I was, for a short time during college, a volunteer fireman, and my responsibility was to operate the equipment while more experienced firemen entered the burning building.  Following a fire at one house, another student who had gone inside told me how he stood in the smoke-filled kitchen spraying water at the flames to no avail.  It wasn’t until he realized that he was facing a mirrored wall and that the flames were actually behind him that he turned and was able to extinguish the fire.  As long as he was sending water in the wrong direction the fire continued unabated.

With every mass shooting in America there is a repetition of the same demands from the Left to take “substantive” action against guns and gun owners to stop such tragedies.  These demands go nowhere because sensible people understand that, like spraying water at a mirror instead of the fire, such actions will not and cannot make a difference.

You will never solve a problem so long as you are aiming at the wrong target.  We are not dealing with people who are under the control of God or law.  In other words, good people do not kill each other and do not need gun control!  As Paul wrote in I Timothy 1:9, the law is made “for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners. . . for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers. . . . “

Tragically, murder has been with us from the very beginning of human history.  I expect we are all familiar with Cain’s killing of Abel.  And in the approximately six thousand years since, things have not improved.  Cain did not need a firearm to kill his brother, and the absence of such weapons has never been an obstacle to those who are bent on killing someone.

So, is there a “Christian” view of guns?  Does the Bible give us any indication of what God might say about such things?  A former president mocked traditional Americans for relying on their “God and guns.”  Clearly, Leftists delight in throwing Scripture texts or generalities into our faces thinking they can embarrass us into yielding to their demands.

But their efforts are based upon twisted understandings of the Bible, passages taken out of context, or simply ignoring important relevant texts.  Superficially, one might think that God would frown on the existence and use of guns in general, but to conclude this would be to overlook a large body of Scripture.  And it is clear that the only people who would benefit from taking firearms from law abiding Americans would be criminals and tyrants.

A thorough examination of the subject would require writing a book, so the best we can do here is to hit a few high points.  God’s heart can be seen in the fact that the first environment He created for us was that of a garden, symbolizing both beauty and serenity.  It was mankind who introduced discord and violence to creation, and we learned immediately that God disapproved of that violence.

While allowing Cain to live following his killing of his brother, God, shortly thereafter (Gen. 9:6) instituted the death penalty for murder, declaring that murderers were to be executed.  Thus, God’s justice requires that violence be met with violence.

Interestingly, there is no evidence in Scripture for a wholesale surrender of peaceful people to violent people.  “Turning the other cheek,” which we read of in Matthew five applies in the context of Christ’s Kingdom (which was rejected then but will be established in the future) where God will take revenge for His people.  Therefore, if God approves of meeting violence with lethal force, if necessary, it only makes sense that guns are not forbidden by Him.

It is certainly applicable to the topic to consider that David, a “man after God’s own heart” used a high-velocity projectile (slingshot) to take out the giant, Goliath.  Modern studies suggest that a stone released from an ancient sling would have the approximate killing power of a  44 magnum!  David became the progenitor of the Davidic dynasty, from which Christ, the world’s future Ruler has come, and it was he who noted that God taught his “hands to make war.”

God is not anti-war when there is an evil, mortal enemy to fight.

Third, the Apostle Paul addressed the responsibility of a man to his family.  In I Timothy 5:8 he wrote that if a man does not provide the essentials for his family, “especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  The idea that providing for one’s family includes food and a roof over their heads but not their protection against intruders is ludicrous.

Virtually whatever a man needs to keep his family safe is legitimate, and with the weapons available to criminals, one has no alternative but to be able to meet force with force, if need be.  This would include firearms.

Finally, the US Constitution provides in its Second Amendment a protection of the individual’s God given right to own firearms for the express purpose of protecting “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and only the naïve would say that this amendment provides merely for hunting.  Rather, its intention was for the citizen to protect himself and his family from a tyrannical government, which the colonists had just defeated in a bloody war.

It is precisely for this reason that Leftists beat the drum for more gun control.  The most significant obstacle to their achieving a strangle hold on the American public is the citizens’ right to “keep and bear arms.”

Therefore, all who love liberty and life and understand that these are God given rights, will not yield an inch in the battle for the Second Amendment.  What we must understand is the Left’s willingness to allow and even create suffering for the nation’s citizens in their quest for power.  They cynically believe that if enough innocent people die, eventually tender-hearted citizens will change their minds and allow the government to disarm the public.  Once the public is sufficiently disarmed, our chains will be forged and we will be subjugated, just as they are in China, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, and other socialist countries.

Do we understand that the Left has no interest in stopping these killings?  There are substantial things that could be done to reduce the killings without violating the Constitution, but the Left fabricates reasons to oppose them all.  We who are truly concerned about the deaths of innocent people struggle to accept the fact that Leftists, whether politicians or academics, don’t care!  Every week in cities like Chicago there are killings equivalent to a mass shooting, yet those in charge do nothing.

There are also over one hundred thousand drug related deaths annually in America, and the Left’s response is to make those drugs more available and curtail efforts to interdict the narcotics crossing the southern border.  Their utter lack of concern for these tragedies underscores the fact that Leftists, regardless of their rhetoric, do not care for America’s citizens, even the children.

What can be done?  The evidence is that training and arming teachers and other staff at every school would be one quick and effective improvement.  But you will get no encouragement from the Left in this.  And there are other available options we won’t get into here because I would like to go to the two most important and effective tools in the tool chest, both of which are hated by the Left.

First, reintroduce students to God and the Bible.  “We can’t have a state church,” you say.  Well, we already do, it’s called Humanism, its priests are teachers, and its cathedrals are the public schools.  But, even at that, the expression “separation of church and state” is seriously misunderstood.  Few Christians want a state church, but all desire to see the principles of righteousness that are sourced in Christianity taught to the Nation’s children.

There is a great difference between a “state church” and teaching morality and goodness to children.  Under the guise of “protecting” children from a state church Leftists have thrown out the principles that are essential to a healthy culture, good citizenry, and safe neighborhoods.

Leftists hate Christianity so virulently that they would rather have the chaos and death across the culture than to hear someone proclaim, “Thus saith the Lord!”  They deeply resent being told that lying, cheating, stealing, and adultery are sinful, but they have no problem declaring that traditional values are evil!

They claim that children are “damaged” by being told about God and their accountability to Him.  Apparently, having a sense of guilt (for which Christianity also provides relief) is worse to Leftists than dying of violence or a drug overdose!   Regardless, the issue is not whether somethings are good and some evil, but rather, who decides what is good and what is evil!

The Left went public with its war on God and the Bible in the 1960s, and that war has only escalated over time.  The horrific violence witnessed daily across America is just one consequence.  One could ask, “America, how is this war on God working out for you?”  The best thing America could do to encourage a God-consciousness in young people.

The second thing we must do, which is related to the creation of a cultural God-consciousness, is to reinvigorate the traditional family.  The chaotic culture we now have is clearly the opposite of a safe, stable culture that would not produce these mass shootings.  The single most important factor in a safe, stable culture is intact, traditional families.  This is indisputable.  Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, chaos cannot exist in a stable society! Duh!  Only a brainwashed Leftist would seek to dispute this.  But it is in fact the very reason for the Leftists’ war against the family.

They understand that the public would never yield to their tyranny if we were experiencing a safe, stable, and prosperous culture.  Understand this: the violence, unrest, and destruction we have witnessed over the last several years are not the natural manifestations of a normal culture.  It has all been orchestrated to achieve a simple objective: the subjugation of the American people.

Opponents of liberty seek to shame those of us who love America’s freedoms with false narratives regarding love.  No, love is not tolerant toward those who would destroy that which is good and right.  A good man does not sit idly watching intruders victimize his family.  As long as predators exist, good men will protect those they love!

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,” is not merely a pleasant platitude.  It is the one most essential element for a peaceful, prosperous nation.  I again call on all Americans to repent and submit to the Holy, yet gracious Lord and God, Jesus Christ!

Sadly, so long as fallen mankind and tyrants run things here, weapons will be necessary to protect one’s life and liberties.  When Christ, the Prince of peace reigns, however, we will see such things come to an end and weapons will be repurposed into plows and pruning hooks!  Eden will be restored!

Will you be there?

America’s children are being targeted by sex predators. Their recruiters are already in our schools and libraries. These “transgender” people need your children as converts. Consider:

• Children returning from school carrying “gender unicorn lessons,” which teach strange ideas of sex and gender.
• Public libraries are conditioning your children through “drag queen readings” to get children familiar with these recruiters.
• Schools are hiding from parents that they’re giving puberty blocking drugs to their children.

The transgender people insist that they be allowed to access and recruit children, and that you accept them as being of their assumed sex – even in private places like separate-sex bathrooms. They claim, “trans rights are civil rights.”

If you oppose them, you’re charged with genocide- of mass murdering hordes of children. But, if you don’t oppose them, you’ll end up losing your rights as parents and all of the children will be prey to sexual and financial abuse. Read on to become aware of how the transgender agenda destroys parents’ oversight, age of consent, and causes bodily harm to their young victims.

Sexually flailing against God’s creation

People practicing homosexuality want to be accepted as normal by society. That is what the “love is love” campaign is all about. Likewise, people practicing transgender behaviors want us to affirm their choices. Why, then, do Christians actively oppose homosexuality and transgenderism? It’s not out of hate for these people, but because God hates these behaviors. Even if we wanted to affirm them, we couldn’t do that and also have a God-honoring society.

In Genesis, we read how God created everything, including Adam (a man) and Eve (a woman). God told Adam “from any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17, NASB). But Adam decided he didn’t trust God’s version of good and evil, and sought his own understanding. This was the sin of Adam– that he pursued his own version of right and wrong.

Homosexuality is a manifestation of Adam’s sin. God hates it because, at its root, it is rebellion against Him and rejecting His creation. They’ll have man-to-man, or woman-to-woman, sex and curse us if we tell them that this is wrong. An article from Got Questions calls it “shaking our fists at God.”

Homosexuality is not the cause of a society’s decline, but it is a symptom of it; it is the result of people making themselves the final authorities. Romans 1 gives the natural digression of a society that has chosen idolatry and sinful pleasure instead of obedience to God. The downward spiral begins with denying that God has absolute authority over His creation (Romans 1:21-23).

The result of a society’s rejection of God’s rule in their lives is that God gives “them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:24-25). Verses 26 and 27 say, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” The phrase “God gave them over” means that, when we insist on shaking our fists at God, He finally lets us have the perversion we demand. And that is a judgment in itself. Homosexual behavior is the result of ignoring God and trying to create our own truth. When we defy God’s clear instruction, we reap the “due penalty” of our disobedience (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Revelation 21:8).

Transgenderism is a variant of homosexuality. The important difference between them is that a man or woman claims to be of the other sex – an assertion in defiance of the facts. It’s another claim of godhood, that someone can declare their own sex and it becomes true because they say so. We’re all supposed to chime in and affirm this claim, much like throwing a pinch of incense to Caesar. Frequently, but not always, transgender behavior also includes surgical removal of a person’s sex organs.

A key thing about transgenderism is how you can’t just ignore it. People are in your face about you acknowledging the sex assertion, and about you using “preferred pronouns.” Woe to you if you disagree with them. Walter Hudson, a state legislator from Minnesota, commented about this:

We used to take our differences a lot more seriously. But we eventually settled on a social contract rooted in classical liberalism, the notion that neighbors should be able to peacefully co-exist without demanding renunciation of sacred belief. The transgender community has not received that memo. Despite individual exceptions, the general rule among the dominant trans culture is an illiberal insistence upon affirmation. It’s not enough for them to believe that “transgender women are women.” You must believe it too. You must confess it with your mouth upon every social interaction. You must call a guy cosmetically altered to appear as a woman “she,” or you will be found guilty of heresy and summarily convicted in the court of public opinion. At the very least, your sentence will be social censure and condemnation. More likely, you will lose your job or face other grave consequences that hobble your capacity to live…

The dominant trans culture has successfully employed a repressive cultural strategy of social censure and unearned indignation to enforce a code of conduct that “affirms” their beliefs. Of course, it amounts to gaslighting. No one believes that the man cosmetically altered to appear as a woman has become a woman. But you’re expected to “affirm” that lie with every use of a “preferred pronoun” as an act of fealty and submission. It’s enforced with severe social censure for violations of trans decorum, which typically involves being treated as beneath contempt.

Christians aspire to proclaim the gospel, and to build a Christian society (Matt. 13:33, 28:18-20). America still has a strong Christian influence, and our standards of right and wrong are measured by what the Bible says. God hates homosexuality, in either form, and judges a society that approves of it (Gen. 19:15-26; Rom. 1:26-27). This means that building a Christian society includes opposing homosexuality and transgenderism.

Transgenderism brings unwelcome surprises

Are Christians being meanies, not letting an “oppressed minority” experience full acceptance into American society? No, we’re trying to protect our society from predators, who would use this acceptance to exploit and hurt children. After everything is said and done, this conflict is over recruiting children into transgenderism.

Consider the rage over a  Texas bill, which would ban sexual transition surgery on minors. And look at the concern about a Florida bill that, only modestly, regulates when transgender concepts could be taught in public schools. It certainly is about the children.

If America gives these advocates what they demand, if they convince us that it’s fair and just to yield to their claims, then look at the life-changing surprises awaiting us.

Surprise #1: Transgender education is already in American schools

Of the things a people can expect of society, perhaps protecting the vulnerable is its most important task. And children are its most vulnerable group, because they’re innocent of how the world might mistreat them. American society provides them special protection through concepts like “age of consent,” and by the understanding that their parents are their legal guardians. This has been consistently confirmed, most famously in the Wisconsin v. Yoder Supreme Court case:

The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.

However, teaching children about transgender behaviors has already been forced into public schools, without seeking parents’ consent and usually without notice. It’s done because  teachers believe that the students belong to them. In practice, teachers, administrators, and school boards act like they can they can do as they please with their students.

They approve, not merely permit, teaching transgenderism, and seek to indocrinate students even in kindergarten. They teach propaganda like “assigned sex at birth”and “gender unicorns.” They even seek to reach three-year-old children with these lessons! To evade parental oversight, they counsel children in secret, and deny what they’re doing.

Don’t be fooled in thinking that your “excellent school district” doesn’t do that stuff. They probably do already, for so much of their agenda is set by state bureaucracies. Remember what Ronald Reagan said: “Trust, but verify.”

Surprise #2: Transgender agenda overrules “age of consent”

The point of the “age of consent” is that the parents protect a child from making uninformed or immature decisions. The child increasingly learns how the world works, and his or her parents give increased personal control.

Young children know nothing about how “gender-affirming” therapy changes the body’s development. Even drug therapy has permanent consequences. If you stop taking the drugs the body doesn’t play “catch-up” for the years of missed development. No youth of nine or ten has the wisdom, or skepticism, to understand the implications of tampering with puberty.

Non-parental counselors are conflicted, having self-interests to not tell the youth of any potential problems. We used to call people like this “predators” and “child exploiters.” Yet transgender advocates demand that youth be allowed to make these decisions without parental approval. For example, the Minnesota Lt. Governor said, “when our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them,” she added. “That’s what it means to be a good parent.” Not true, because a good parent looks for the best interests of a child, and much of love means saying “no.”

Surprise #3: All ages of consent could be nullified

If a child can consent, without having parental approval, to body-altering procedures, even surgery, then the “age of consent” is nullified. Perhaps some advocate will then petition a judge that the sexual age of consent should also be nullified. A similar argument exists for removing the minimum age for entering into financial contracts. This results in many exploiters, and many hurt children.

Surprise #4: Parental oversight would effectively be abolished

In a transgender-affirming world, a child can ask for, and expect to get, body-altering treatments without parental permission. And the schools can effectively ignore the parents, teaching things and transitioning youth without their parents’ knowledge. After all of that, what is left of parental oversight?

In Minnesota, the enmity towards parents is so strong that the legislature passed a law, making the state a sanctuary for children who want to run away and get transgender treatment there. And the state will fight the parents when they ask for the return of their child. By the way, isn’t it a crime for an adult to help a child make that journey across state lines?

Let’s take this farther. If parental oversight isn’t respected, then what purpose is served by a family? Why should society, or the law, honor it? In 1920 the socialists in Soviet Russia asked this question, and decided that abolishing the family was a good idea. That turned out horribly, and families were again honored – but only after many lives were ruined.

Affirming transgender behavior opens a big box of trouble

As you see, we can’t simply say “let them have their way” and we all live happily together. A decision to normalize, to affirm, transgender behavior, in the scope they want it for, will soon lead to widespread child exploitation and neutering of the protective family environment. This would be a major change in American society. Decisions like this shouldn’t be made by manipulating some judges, or through bureaucracy. It is a major deal, and demands public debate.

Opposing transgender agenda is not genocide

We’ve seen how submitting to transgender demands would cause much harm to American children. A Christian culture ought to prevent this harm by rejecting their assertions, and not changing society to suit these demands. At minimum this means:

• A man might claim to be a woman, or a woman a man. But that doesn’t grant any rights or privileges other than those of the person’s biological sex.
• A person doesn’t have any legal right to require others to recognize him or her as their claimed, non-biological, sex.
• Civil rights laws don’t favor someone’s pretending to his or her non-biological sex.

However, transgender activists claim that opposing them amounts to genocide. Here’s the advocacy site, OutFront Magazine, claiming that denying transitioning drugs or surgery amounts to a crime against humanity:

While, of course, this convention, passed by the Third United Nations General Assembly in 1948, does not specifically mention sexual orientation, gender identity, romantic orientation, etcetera, the objects of the oppression of the queer community, including the trans community, such communities should obviously be included under such a definition.

The sentiment of the opening clause is that, in short, genocide is the purposeful destruction of an oppressed societal out-group on the basis that they are that group, and such unequivocally includes the entirety of the queer community.

Regarding the transgender community specifically, many enacted policies, or policies attempting to be enacted, in the modern-day meet such a definition. The aforementioned policies of banning transgender healthcare for trans youths are potentially the most egregious instances of violation of this definition of genocide.

Puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, the topics of these policies, have been shown to drastically reduce the horrifically high suicide rate of transgender youths, saving lives. To block trans youth from such a treatment manufactures a higher suicide rate and thus manufacture more suicides, more deaths within the transgender community, specifically amongst youth.

That is, it’s genocide because they wish it were so. But they are preying on our youth, and blaming us when their targets despair. It seems far more likely that the children are hanging out with the wrong adults, “groomers” if you will. And according to the articles I provided earlier, our public school teachers and employees seem to be at the forefront of transgender recruitment.

On the Dr. Phil show, a transgender man (biological female) named Reece explains her decision process. Note that she thinks that using transitioning drugs at age eight is a really fine and normal thing. And if you should deny these drugs, she thinks that this would be genocide.

One of Dr. Phil’s guests not only defended trans medical procedures for minors but claimed that it is absolutely vital for their mental health.

“Being able to start my transition at 11 was just so overwhelming and scary, but exciting, and I feel grateful. Say that a trans person came out at 8, and they had to wait till they were 18 to start hormone replacement therapy and not even able to get puberty blockers so their body has to fully now go through puberty,” Reece, a trans man, said. “That now makes transitioning 10 times more hard and traumatizing.”

Reece went on to say that legal regulations to prevent these procedures being done to minors is akin to mass-murder.

“It’s extremely important for trans youth to be able to transition at puberty, I think, without that, all of these kids who know who they are deep down inside would never get the opportunity to live their childhood as their truth. And I think that’s just horrendous. And I think it’s just transgender genocide. If I was not able to transition at the age I was, I would not have made it to 18. I do not think the government should be denying trans health care. It’s life-saving healthcare,” Reece said.

The guest went on to contradict themselves when describing hesitation to actually go through with a double mastectomy at a young age and deciding to “wait till I’m older.”

Reece then said, “I didn’t want to wait. I was eligible at 15. I went to get it at 15 and I just was too young to go through with it at that age for myself personally, but someone who has a bigger chest who is also that age would definitely need it if they felt like they did and I think they should be able to get it.”

These two articles underline that the transgender community wants your children. After all, it’s hard to assume the appearance of the other sex after you already have adult genitals. So they evangelize the children early, before puberty, especially before they’ve got the wisdom to resist.

In a more general sense, stopping this agenda will indeed shut down the transgender community. Without getting easy converts, it won’t be much fun for them to do their role playing. But it’s not genocide. By that logic, you may as well claim that enforcing traffic laws is “genocide against speeders.” So saying “genocide” is just using a scary word. Why not also call us “fascists” and “racists,” to get full value out of using scary sounding, but no longer meaningful, words.

Don’t be afraid to eliminate child abuse, and child maiming, by opposing the transgender agenda. But this agenda would be implemented not through legislation, but by top politicians changing bureaucratic rules, such as the words in the Civil Rights Act. We must be loud and persistent in getting our politicians to behave, because we really do care.

For the last century, the United States of America has engaged in a great secular experiment: what if we pretended that God was irrelevant? What if we pretended that we could make laws that ignored God? Could the ‘public square’ be a place of free, rational discourse—free from claims about the implications of Christian theism on public life? This pretended neutrality has served to reveal one thing: that the line between secularism and paganism is dangerously thin. I’ll revisit that point later, but let’s first take a brief diversion into the hazy world of Cannabis and Constitutionalism.

The International Church of Cannabis (yes, you read that right) is in the midst of a battle with the city of Denver, Colorado, over what the ‘church’ claims to be its First Amendment rights to religious freedom. The battle began after the ‘church’ was ordered to remove an eleven-foot, bright pink statue that it erected on their property, a street corner in a residential area.

Striking, isn’t it? A religious group dedicated to smoking weed is appealing to the U.S. Constitution on the grounds of the First Amendment, an amendment designed to protect the Christian conscience. Now, without getting into debates about originalism versus living Constitutionalism, what does this tells us about the state of our nation? More than anything else, it indicates that the Constitution is no longer fit for the American people. Or perhaps it is more appropriate to put it the other way: the American people are no longer fit for the Constitution.

The Constitution has very little to say about God—it only mentions God indirectly, noting that the document was drafted ‘in the year of our Lord, 1787.’ While some might want to read this as a latent atheism in the Founders (or at least an etiolated deism), there is another way to explain the apparent lack of God. As John Adams famously said, “the Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people, and is wholly inadequate for any other.” That is to say, the Constitution presupposes widespread belief in God and the accompanying Christian social behaviors that stabilize a society.

Nevertheless, the lack of explicitly Christian language in the Constitution has been exploited as a ‘get out of morality free’ card by progressives for the last 150 years. And that’s just how we find the International Church of Cannabis appealing to their ‘Constitutionally-protected’ religious freedoms. Because our nation—Christians included—has gone along with the belief that the Constitution, and consequently all law, can exist and preserve social order without a Christian foundation, we now find ourselves confronted with open paganism.

Why is this the case? Why does a silent secularism end up manifesting itself as open paganism? Because nature abhors a vacuum. If there is a moral vacuum, something has to fill it. Man is homo adorans, he was created to worship something, so when God is stripped of his public relevance, the public will find other things to worship, like cannabis, or himself, or whatever that thing on the courthouse in New York is.

Secularism is never truly secular. There is always a god of the system. In a liberal democracy such as our own, the god is demos, the people. Just listen to any political pundit invoking Omniscient Polls and Almighty Consensus—such things are imbued with godlike characteristics, and everyone must fall down and worship before demos.

Christians must reclaim the public square, not ceding an inch to secularism. We must not buy into the notion that laws can be value-neutral. Law, morality, and social order have no rational basis other than the Triune God of Scripture.

I’ve often heard the term “worldview” compared to a pair of glasses—your worldview is the lens that sits right in front of your spiritual eyes and affects the way you see everything. If your glasses are scratched, the whole world will look scratched. If your glasses are smudged, the whole world will look smudged. And if your glasses are pink-tinted, the whole world will look pink. And so, the best way to deal with someone who insists the world is pink is not to endlessly debate back and forth about any particular object whose color you disagree about, but rather to change out their glasses for a pair that lets them see the world as it really is.

But your worldview is similar to your glasses in another way—both require intentional effort to maintain. Give someone a new pair of lenses, and they can quickly become scratched and smudged if they aren’t consciously taken care of and maintained. And in our fallen world, we encounter scratches and smudges in our culture every day.

The same is true of our worldview. Our fundamental beliefs about God, creation, man, sin, redemption, and the trajectory of history all prompt us to bend the information we receive in one way or another. Using the wrong worldview, we’ll see the world in a distorted, discolored, or downright smudgy manner. Using the correct worldview, we’ll see the world clearly as God sees it. But—just like with your physical glasses—merely starting off with a correct worldview does not guarantee a lifetime of wisdom. Your worldview must be guarded against the scratches of half-truths and compromises that will cause it to deteriorate over time. Such seems to be the case in America today.

A recent poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC) reveals saddening trends in the American worldview. Although the study was not explicitly a “worldview survey”—it covered a wide variety of topics ranging from the economy to childbearing—a few of the poll’s questions shed light on how Americans’ deep worldview principles have changed over recent years.

Of today’s Americans, only 39% say that religion is very important to them, as opposed to 62% in 1998. Even as recently as 2019, approximately 50% of Americans affirmed this. Further, only 30% of today’s Americans say that having children is very important to them, a sharp decline from 1998’s count of approximately 60%. And since 2019’s percentage was still in the low 40’s, much of this decline appears to have happened just over the last three years. These declining numbers point to a decline in major tenets of the Christian worldview—God is the center of life and the most important focal point of it, and man is called to be fruitful and multiply.

Other factors, which are not as directly tied to one’s spiritual worldview, but important nonetheless, have declined as well: patriotism is “very important” to just under 40% of Americans (as opposed to almost 70% of 1998 America), and community involvement is approaching a meager 20% (contrasting with almost 50% in 1998).

Why are such principles—historically assumed to be “American values”—now on the decline? WSJ offers a possible explanation:

A number of events have shaken and in some ways fractured the nation since the Journal first asked about unifying values, among them the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent economic downturn and the rise of former President Donald Trump.

Well, that seems to be a decent partial explanation, especially for factors such as community involvement in the post-Covid world. However, it’s important not to take such materialistic explanations too far and think that as long as the country is clipping along in relative peace and prosperity, then Americans will begin to seek God again. One of the most repeated messages in the history of the Old Testament is that prosperity is actually a pitfall for godliness—when a nation is prosperous, she tends to forget God, because she assumes He is now unnecessary. And if a nation truly fears God, hardship will prompt her to call on Him in her distress. America’s declining Christian worldview is not merely a product of troublesome times. It is a symptom of spiritual decay.

So what is the spiritual solution? How do you restore something as fundamental as a nation’s worldview? Only the work of the almighty God can do that, but thankfully, God tends to leave the same sorts of fingerprints where He works. Dr. George Barna and Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center have identified seven basic beliefs strongly correlated with a biblical worldview; 80% of adults who adhere to them are classified as having a biblical worldview. As ACU puts it, they are:

1) An orthodox, biblical understanding of God.
2) All human beings are sinful by nature; every choice we make has moral considerations and consequences.
3) Knowing Jesus Christ is the only means to salvation, through our confession of sin and reliance on His forgiveness.
4) The entire Bible is true, reliable, and relevant, making it the best moral guide for every person, in all situations.
5) Absolute moral truth exists—and those truths are defined by God, described in the Bible, and are unchanging across time and cultures.
6) The ultimate purpose of human life is to know, love, and serve God with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul.
7) Success on earth is best understood as consistent obedience to God—in thoughts, words, and actions.

On the one hand, none of these should be surprising. Didn’t I just list 7 biblical teachings? So am I not just basically saying “if you want a biblical worldview, you need to believe the Bible?” In a way, yes—the answer doesn’t get much more simple than that. God offers no substitute for repentance, and He offers no alternative framework for reality than His own inspired Word. If America is going to recover a Christian worldview, it will simply have to start believing the Word of God again, and it doesn’t get much simpler than that.

On the other hand, however, these seven tenets do provide us with a clarified look at the problem we face. The generalized and slightly nebulous question, “how well does my family/community/government believe the Bible?” can mean many different things to many different people. But these seven principles help us examine the specific ways in which our community is falling short, and thus specific directions for preaching the truth to those who need to hear it. Once we identify the individual scratches in a pair of glasses, it’s a lot easier to deal with them.

With these specific cornerstones of a biblical worldview identified, ACU found that only 3% of adults currently adhere to all seven. This means that 97% of adults have a sub-Biblical worldview. We have a lot of work to do.