It Ain't Discrimination

Easter is over. And just like Christ, the chances of me writing the next blog post on time have resurrected. In the meantime, here's a rather late blog post from the Husbandman that Laboureth. 

Indiana has created a "new" law for their state to protect religious freedom. LGBTQ advocates everywhere are claiming that this law is discriminating against them. But this is silly for two reasons. 

First, it only allows private businesses to be able to conduct business in a way that they see fit. Christian businesses have very famously refused to conduct business if that business was directly related to a homosexual wedding. 

There is nothing wrong with the Indiana government affirming the businesses' rights to not engage in sinful behavior that is the homosexual weddings. 

Second, this big new law that threatens so much discrimination is virtually identical to the federal law Religious Freedom Reformation Act (commonly called RFRA, pronouced rifra). 

There has not been a huge backlash against the RFRA law since it was established, and it has only served to protect religious businesses, like Hobby Lobby from funding contraceptives and the like. 

It's a champion for the liberty of businesses to be able to conduct themselves in ways that do not conflict with their religious convictions. It is not a discriminatory law. 

In fact, it doesn't even allow for discrimination from businesses themselves. If businesses were to refuse business to homosexuals completely, that wouldn't as far as I understand the law, fall into the scope of the law. Instead, it would be labelled as discrimination, and everyone's life would continue. 

Indeed, no matter the consequences of this law, everyone's life will continue. 

Why State and Church should be Separated

I apparently can't count my weeks or know the difference between a politics post and an ethics post because I just did two ethics post in consecutive weeks. Whoops-a daisy. So I guess this leaves me answering the question three weeks after I promised to answer it in two weeks. My apologies.

So why does the state need protection from the church while the church needs protection from the state?

We shall once again look to history to see why. Let us begin with why the church needs protected from the state.

The year is 1547 and the country is England. Thirteen years prior, the Act of Supremacy had been passed. This act gave authority over the church (papal authority) to the monarch.

In 1547, under the reign of the first largely radical protestant monarch, Edward VI, the Act is used to make supreme changes to the official Church of England to make it more protestant. At which point, of course, protestants consider England to be a safe haven and openly worship there.

But then Edward VI dies. He is succeeded by Queen Mary I. If there is one word to describe Mary's religious leanings, it would be simply -  Catholic. Mary uses her new-found power over the church to drastically undo all of Edward's reforms. But most dreadfully of all, she uses her power to persecute and even kill protestants who would argue with Catholic doctrines.

At which point, we can see clearly two pitfalls of a state-dominated church, or put another way, two reasons why the church needs protected from the state. First the political whims of the state can easily destabilize the church. Second, free exercise of religion is not protected because the coercive power of the state is used to persecute religious minorities.

I'm hoping that with my audience, I don't need to argue that persecution of religious minorities is a bad thing, but if I do: dehumanization, tyranny, oppression, suffering, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, etc.

But perhaps we don't see a reason why state must be protected from the church. After all, the state is under the authority of God, so why shouldn't they also be under the authority of the church?

To see the pitfalls, we need look no further than the Middle East. (Note: many oversimplifications will emerge in this post as Middle Eastern politics is just simply complex.)

In the Middle East, many countries are controlled either officially or unofficially by the church within that country. Ultimately, most of the tension politically both within and between nations comes as a result of tension between the two major Islamic denominations: Sunni and Shiite.

And of course, one need not look far to see the persecution that Middle Eastern countries tend to place upon religious minorities, whether within the religion of Islam or not.

Thus, we see the problems with a church-dominated state as well. First, the whims of the church can destabilize the state. Second, free exercise of religion is not protected because the coercive power of the state is used to persecute religious minorities.

So yes, we need to protect both entities from each other because without that, we see no true stability. More importantly, we see no true protection for the freedom of religion.

In Case You Missed It...

Cue the confetti!! So, this is the fiftieth post on this little blog! I thought I would celebrate by giving a post of some of my best posts. (I swear this has nothing to do with how great this could be at promoting said blog to those who have not read it as a more approachable way of catching up...ok, fine, it has much to do with that.) But don't worry, I hope to make this post interesting for the committed reader as well.

I will examine five posts today. I wanted to include more, but that would make it less approachable to the new reader. Thus, I will not mention "The Story of Achan: Patience in the Lord," "Why Reading the Bible Makes Me More Libertarian," "Bastiat's Conundrum: Communication is Key to Engaging Society," or "Apologetics Series 7: Day of Rest/Reflection." These were some of the others in the running for today's best posts.

But before I do the countdown, I thought it would be beneficial to share a little bit about why this very blog exists in the first place.

The Beginning

As hopefully a lot of you know, this is not the first website I have run. I started out running a website called Human Scavengers, which highlighted the fact that certain companies were using aborted fetal cells in the manufacturing of their products. Due to no part of my efforts, this problem has largely become mute. But it doesn't matter that I was unsuccessful as long as the Lord found someone to be, right? 

My first post, "When Government is the Answer" was originally written for the Human Scavengers website. Several members of my family informed me that I should start writing more blog posts for the site. 

I thought about it and I saw the logic behind such a move. Without going to a college campus this year, I would not be getting much opportunity to write essays. I did not want to lose this skill set because of a lack of practice. Thus, I thought about writing more regularly on my Human Scavengers blog. However, there wasn't enough to say about this topic to keep a blog going. Thus, I started this blog with a broader purpose of teaching Biblical teachings about life, politics, and philosophy. 

And that, my friends, is why we are here: to allow me to collect my thoughts and keep my writing in practice. I'm glad you've come along for the ride, and I hope you have enjoyed it. 

5. It Pleased The Lord

As I say in the post, this post is not for the faint of heart. It was definitely the most  distressing and emotional post I have written for this post. My intention with the post was simple enough. I had found from the teachings of one of my Sunday School teachers (10th grade) that when you heard all that transpired on the cross, it was convicting. I knew this had convicted me, and I expected it would do the same to others. Thus, all I wanted to do was show the torture that occurred, and let God take care of the rest. Writing about the torture was still no easy task as you know, it's torture. Even when I read it now, tears threaten to release themselves. I need to remind myself of the contents of this post often as I go through my life.

4. Love Is Deeper than Chocolate

A much more mild depiction of the sacrifice Jesus made and what that means to us. This is a very simple and straightforward piece. In fact, it took two people commenting on how they liked it for me to understand that it actually held more power in it than I first thought. This truly has nothing to do with me.

You see, when I wrote this post, I was a little sad that I had decided to follow the mold of actually talking about a holiday in posts as the holiday came by. Thus, I started with a lot of odd jokes. I had no intention of using those jokes as a specific avenue of discussion of something deeper, but the Lord allowed me to write a transition that made everything seem so purposeful. It really is quite dramatic and makes for one interesting post with a nice hook and follow through.

3. Ignorance isn't Bliss, It's Carlisle

This is the pride and joy of my political posts. Some may have better analysis; others better communication, but this one expresses a topic that we all need to hear. It is a call to all Christians to stay informed on politics and educate themselves on what proper political philosophy is. If there is one post that illustrates what the purpose of my politics posts is in general, it is this one.

Did I mention it discusses Doctor Who? You know that makes it absolutely fantastic in and of itself. This truly was the hook that I would hope would bring more people into reading this post and then be trapped into feeling guilty for their apathy! Mwahahahaha!

More seriously, we as Christians need to be more interested in what goes on in the world because at any moment, we could lose our religious freedom. That would make witnessing opportunities more scarce. While it is certainly true that God could work through such a situation as well as any other, we cannot look to God to bail us out when we don't fulfill our obligations to be educated citizens of the populace and fight for the Lord in politics as much as we do in other areas of life.

2. Micah and His Levite: Progression of Idolatry

The most recent post on this here list is also one of the best organized. Although I typically just write out what I wish to say as if I was in a middle of a conversation (my outlining skills therefore might be the ones I still lose despite this blog), this one had a more specific structure (some posts in the Apologetics series also required such structure).

This post explores a problem many people in the Christian walk have, including me myself. They decide they will serve the Lord with their own devices. The story of Micah from Judges 17-18 provides an intriguing study into how in order to serve God, we have to die to ourselves completely. Yes, it sounds generic, but trust me, it is worth your time.

1. Joseph, Levites, and Vows: God's Will for My Life

The top two blog posts do indeed both have the name, "Levite" in them. Thanks for noticing. 

This is a complete coincidence, I can assure you. 

The weakness of the title in general doesn't change the fact this was a difficult post to decide to write. Once the decision was made, it flowed relatively smoothly (except I kept getting ahead of myself). 

This is the most important post I have ever written with information about my personal walk with the Lord taken from my Sermon Notes Journal, my Sermon Preparation Journal, and my Devotional Journal (I keep a lot of journals). Unlike most devotional posts, it doesn't leave you with some convicting message because it is about me answering to a conviction more than anything else. It really was a wonderful blessing to share what the Lord was doing in my life with my readers.

New Year's Resolutions for Christian Advancement of Politics and Culture

With this last post of 2013, I would like to establish some resolutions that every Christian in America should adopt to improve our country's political and social structure. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, nor does it necessarily indicate the most important things for Christians to focus on.

1. Witness

It is no surprise that witnessing is sure to help out with any social decline. When we discuss social problems after all, we are usually referring to the increase of certain immorality. We all know that God transforms lives. Thus, a society based on Christianity would naturally have fewer social issues. Of course, that is all from a Christian perspective. Non-Christians would likely view these social issues as no concern at all. That is exactly the reason why witnessing can impact social structure so positively. 

So we see that as the Bible says, 

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."

This is obviously not the most important reason to witness. The most important reason to witness is not any mere practical consequence in this earth, but rather for eternity. This though goes without saying. 

2. Stay Informed

Here's the thing about having Christians to influence politics and culture. It's absolutely fantastic, but it doesn't actually happen if Christians live like hermits in caves, completely unaware of what is going on in the world. We shouldn't obsess over any social, cultural, or political crisis. We are after all called as the cliche says to be in this world, but not of this world. But sometimes, I think Christians forget that we still need to be IN the world. 

You may think it doesn't matter what happens in the world, but we know that the politics of this nation could threaten the right of people in this country to worship the Lord freely. Right now, we are already seeing attacks on prayer in schools and other similar items. We need to be informed about threats to every one of our rights because every right protects the others. 

3. Engage

So we're informed. Christianity now allows our society and politics to advance, right? Not exactly. It does little good to be informed if we don't use that information for good. We must be willing to engage with the society, with the government, with the courts. We need to be prepared to act. There is a quotation attributed to Samuel Adams that goes, 

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

If we manage to witness effectively and strengthen a Christian majority in this country, a majority that is now informed about the troubles facing our country, we have accomplished nothing if we don't actively pursue change. Knowing the plagues and issues in our country only will serve to depress us if we don't do something about preventing them. That is the final step for Christians to positively influence America.