Tuesday night was a rough night. And I believe things are going to only get rougher from here on out for a while. Tuesday night reminded me that we live in enemy territory. I think sometimes we forget that. The world is fallen. And we’ve fashioned a fallen man-made empire from the shards.
How fallen we all are is evident every day in the cruel way people treat each other, the way babies are aborted, the way so many marriages end in casual cruelty.
I think many Christians feel like we’re losing ground. Abortion on demand, same sex “marriage,” and restrictions on religious freedom weigh heavily on our minds and we fear we’ve squandered a grand inheritance from our forefathers. I believe we have. But here’s the thing though – I don’t think we were ever winning. Christians have always been called to battle against larger forces.
We are called not to rule but as CS Lewis said, to sabotage. We are not promised earthly victory. We are simply called to battle.
November 8, 2012 at 10:10 pm
So can we consider this a retraction for your ridiculous post (https://creativeminorityreport.com/2012/10/why-pro-lifers-fail.html) from a few weeks ago about how throwing politically inconvenient babies under the bus is a "tactic" and that concessions like this are how we are gradually approaching victory?
If there's anything to be gained from Tuesday night's debacle (and don't get me wrong–I voted for Romney), it should be that there has been NO meaningful legislative progress on building a culture of life. The progress has been all in the realms of education, prayer, crisis pregnancy centers, etc.
November 8, 2012 at 11:52 pm
Your friends and neighbors who have gay family members they love and want to see protected by a civil marriage? Enemies, really?
Providing birth control to a Jewish nurse who happens to work at a Catholic hospital that accepts public funds? This nurse? An enemy?
Abortion rates are falling, violent crime has been generally trending downward for the past two decades. Why the alarmist, sky is falling stuff?
It is divisive, vitriolic language like yours that divides us. Your diatribes add nothing to the debate.
November 9, 2012 at 12:26 am
Anon, the enemy is a dominant culture that is openly hostile to many of the values we hold dear. The enemy is that which forces us to acquiesce to that which we believe to be morally abhorrent. The individual who works in the hospital is not the enemy; rather, it is the entity which forces us to provide that individual with something we strongly and devoutly oppose. The individual who feels same sex attraction is not the enemy; rather, it is the government which forces us to validate their lifestyle through the institution of marriage.
Like it or not, we are in enemy territory, strangers and unwelcome in or own country. Alarmist? Hardly. Our society, aware or not, is complicit in countless ways with evil. And the Church will fight with the power of heaven, and the Church will prevail.
November 9, 2012 at 1:38 am
After further review, my first comment was probably a bit out of line and bordered on uncharitable. I apologize.
November 9, 2012 at 4:50 am
Anon at 6:52 – what's your source that abortion rates are coming down? The CDC website doesn't show data more recent than 2008.
Btw, that year, there were 825,564 abortions performed in the USA.
825,564.
November 9, 2012 at 11:43 am
I presume the above figure for babies massacred includes only those killed by knife, suction, saline, etc. and not the growing number killed by poisonous chemicals injested by their mothers.
November 9, 2012 at 10:49 pm
Matthew, what do you and Patrick think about the idea of trying to bring about the rise of a viable third party that can take over and kick the GOP aside? Herman Caine is apparently calling for a third party. And GOPers are on a very lackluster team, here.
Before you brush this suggestion aside, consider this: Political parties have come and gone in the past, so why not again?
November 11, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Please check out the last two of the cartoons, as they relate directly to your post. http://www.meandfolly.blogspot.com