J. Matt Barber
The coming Christian revolt
By J. Matt Barber
From behind a smoking sniper rifle high atop his ivory tower peers the secular-"progressive." He surveys his many victims, strewn across the American landscape below and mockingly sneers, "War on Christianity? What war on Christianity?"
He then resumes shooting, all the while insisting that those uncooperative Christians who scatter for cover behind the word of God and the U.S. Constitution somehow suffer from a "persecution complex" (the baker, the photographer, the florist, the innkeeper, the Christian school administrator, etc.).
Though there are many, it is plain for all to see that abortion and "sexual liberation" remain the two principal theaters in the ongoing culture war battlefront.
To fully advance the causes of radical feminism, abortion-on-demand, unfettered sexual license, "gay marriage" and the like, the pagan left must do away with religious free exercise altogether. Under the guise of "anti-discrimination," Christians today face discrimination at unprecedented levels.
Let's see if we can make this abundantly clear. Christians, true Christians – regenerate, Bible-believing Christians who strive their level best to maintain fidelity to the word of God and honor His commands – will not, indeed cannot, participate in, approve of, facilitate or encourage certain behaviors deemed by the Holy Scriptures to be immoral or sinful.
This is both our constitutionally affirmed human right and our Christian duty.
It is not done from hate. It is not done from bigotry. It is done neither from a position of superiority nor a desire to "impose our beliefs" upon others.
It is done from both obedience to Christ and compassion for our fellow fallen who yet wallow in folly.
Central to Christianity, and clearly delineated throughout both the Old and New Testaments, is the unambiguous and timeless proposition that any sexual practice outside the bonds of true man-woman marriage constitutes sexual immorality and results in separation from God. This, of course, includes sexual acting out between members of the same sex, whether or not such acting out is tied to the novel notion of so-called "same-sex marriage."
Likewise central to Christianity is the relatively easy-to-understand concept that a Christ follower must neither take the life of a pre-born child nor aid and abet, in any way, the taking of such life.
It is not so much that Christians wish, willy-nilly, to call abortion, homosexual behavior, fornication, adultery, bestiality, incest or any other disordered sexual proclivity "sinful." It is, rather, that we must. For the true Christian, God's objective truths will always trump man's subjective desires.
Newton's Third Law states: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
For every law, regulation, activist court ruling or presidential edict that demands Christians violate their sincerely held religious beliefs and adopt a postmodern, moral relativist way of life, there increases, in exact proportion, the likelihood of widespread civil disobedience – disobedience of the sort we haven't seen since the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and '60s.
Indeed, if, in the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., we, his fellow Christian travelers, must again face the water hoses, then face them we shall.
As the recent Hobby Lobby decision reaffirmed, the government cannot legislate away religious free exercise. Where your desire, intense though it may be, for me to employ you despite your antagonistic values system, pay for your abortion, or host, photograph or otherwise bake a rainbow cake for your faux "wedding," comes into conflict with my absolute right to religious liberty, the result is a forgone conclusion.
I win, you lose.
We have seen and will continue to see an exponential increase in Christian business owners refusing to violate God's commands by complying with unconstitutional, immoral and unjust government dictates.
For 2,000 years, whenever such conflicts have arisen, Christians have placed the laws of God above the laws of man.
What makes you think we're about to change now?
As many in the early church refused to bow a knee to Caesar in worship, so, too, will many modern Christians refuse, under any circumstances, to obey any law that presumes to make sin obligatory.
If the ancient church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, was able to face the lions in hopeful anticipation of joining Jesus, then we, too, under the same Spirit, will face anything today's pagan left can threaten.
In the ongoing culture war, it seems there are no rules of engagement. The secular left will accept nothing short of unconditional surrender. That is to say, the pagans demand that we Christians abandon the biblical worldview altogether, and adopt their own.
This will never happen.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared, "One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
In 2012, after the Obama administration unilaterally issued its now gutted HHS contraception/abortion mandate, Catholic priests from across the nation, to their great credit, read from the pulpit a letter that contained the following declaration: "We cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law."
As our secularist government increasingly imposes similar laws, so, too, increases the certitude of civil disobedience.
While there are those who will give way out of fear, weakness or a desire to conform to the world, there are many others who will not. Christians must peacefully come together, lock arms and redouble our resistance to evil.
Even when that evil is adorned with the presidential seal and signature.
© J. Matt Barber
July 20, 2014
From behind a smoking sniper rifle high atop his ivory tower peers the secular-"progressive." He surveys his many victims, strewn across the American landscape below and mockingly sneers, "War on Christianity? What war on Christianity?"
He then resumes shooting, all the while insisting that those uncooperative Christians who scatter for cover behind the word of God and the U.S. Constitution somehow suffer from a "persecution complex" (the baker, the photographer, the florist, the innkeeper, the Christian school administrator, etc.).
Though there are many, it is plain for all to see that abortion and "sexual liberation" remain the two principal theaters in the ongoing culture war battlefront.
To fully advance the causes of radical feminism, abortion-on-demand, unfettered sexual license, "gay marriage" and the like, the pagan left must do away with religious free exercise altogether. Under the guise of "anti-discrimination," Christians today face discrimination at unprecedented levels.
Let's see if we can make this abundantly clear. Christians, true Christians – regenerate, Bible-believing Christians who strive their level best to maintain fidelity to the word of God and honor His commands – will not, indeed cannot, participate in, approve of, facilitate or encourage certain behaviors deemed by the Holy Scriptures to be immoral or sinful.
This is both our constitutionally affirmed human right and our Christian duty.
It is not done from hate. It is not done from bigotry. It is done neither from a position of superiority nor a desire to "impose our beliefs" upon others.
It is done from both obedience to Christ and compassion for our fellow fallen who yet wallow in folly.
Central to Christianity, and clearly delineated throughout both the Old and New Testaments, is the unambiguous and timeless proposition that any sexual practice outside the bonds of true man-woman marriage constitutes sexual immorality and results in separation from God. This, of course, includes sexual acting out between members of the same sex, whether or not such acting out is tied to the novel notion of so-called "same-sex marriage."
Likewise central to Christianity is the relatively easy-to-understand concept that a Christ follower must neither take the life of a pre-born child nor aid and abet, in any way, the taking of such life.
It is not so much that Christians wish, willy-nilly, to call abortion, homosexual behavior, fornication, adultery, bestiality, incest or any other disordered sexual proclivity "sinful." It is, rather, that we must. For the true Christian, God's objective truths will always trump man's subjective desires.
Newton's Third Law states: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
For every law, regulation, activist court ruling or presidential edict that demands Christians violate their sincerely held religious beliefs and adopt a postmodern, moral relativist way of life, there increases, in exact proportion, the likelihood of widespread civil disobedience – disobedience of the sort we haven't seen since the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and '60s.
Indeed, if, in the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., we, his fellow Christian travelers, must again face the water hoses, then face them we shall.
As the recent Hobby Lobby decision reaffirmed, the government cannot legislate away religious free exercise. Where your desire, intense though it may be, for me to employ you despite your antagonistic values system, pay for your abortion, or host, photograph or otherwise bake a rainbow cake for your faux "wedding," comes into conflict with my absolute right to religious liberty, the result is a forgone conclusion.
I win, you lose.
We have seen and will continue to see an exponential increase in Christian business owners refusing to violate God's commands by complying with unconstitutional, immoral and unjust government dictates.
For 2,000 years, whenever such conflicts have arisen, Christians have placed the laws of God above the laws of man.
What makes you think we're about to change now?
As many in the early church refused to bow a knee to Caesar in worship, so, too, will many modern Christians refuse, under any circumstances, to obey any law that presumes to make sin obligatory.
If the ancient church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, was able to face the lions in hopeful anticipation of joining Jesus, then we, too, under the same Spirit, will face anything today's pagan left can threaten.
In the ongoing culture war, it seems there are no rules of engagement. The secular left will accept nothing short of unconditional surrender. That is to say, the pagans demand that we Christians abandon the biblical worldview altogether, and adopt their own.
This will never happen.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared, "One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
In 2012, after the Obama administration unilaterally issued its now gutted HHS contraception/abortion mandate, Catholic priests from across the nation, to their great credit, read from the pulpit a letter that contained the following declaration: "We cannot – we will not – comply with this unjust law."
As our secularist government increasingly imposes similar laws, so, too, increases the certitude of civil disobedience.
While there are those who will give way out of fear, weakness or a desire to conform to the world, there are many others who will not. Christians must peacefully come together, lock arms and redouble our resistance to evil.
Even when that evil is adorned with the presidential seal and signature.
© J. Matt Barber
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