Dr. Ron Sumners
August 9, 2009
Words matter! Jesus knew this and therefore was always careful to speak wisely. If we wish to win the war for the culture, we must heed the words of Jesus to be “as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16)
It is no secret that Christians consistently are criticized by the secular media on cultural, ethical, social and spiritual issues. In fact, the negative press is so bad that if I were a young adult today, who grew up outside the church, I would probably believe that Christians are opposed to just about everything including, tolerance, diversity, choice, separation of church and state – and maybe even happiness itself!
Herein lays the problem. The broad culture perceives us as opposing just about everything, which prevents us from communicating what we actually believe. In fact, I think we often perceive ourselves as opposing just about everything, which shows that we are not the ones in control of the cultural rhetorical playing field. We are on defense not offense. We have bought into the culture’s perception of us. We spend the bulk of our efforts pulling up the “tares” (weeds, the sins of the world) when we should be helping the wheat to grow! I think that it is time for Christians to be advocates for the way of Christ and not simply objectionists. It is not enough to simply be against stuff. The question that is begged by the world is, “What are you for?!”
We need to become advocates for the things that Jesus advocated: diversity, tolerance, free speech, separation of church and state and many other issues where we are currently viewed as obstructionists. It is time for us to stop reacting and start reframing.
We must learn to aggressively reframe the rhetoric of the opposition, just as Jesus did. We must seize the opposition’s rhetoric and give it new meaning. In fact, we must become better at redefining the meaning of words than the modern day revisionist themselves.
Under Bill Clinton, the phrase “family values” was expanded to be something other than the traditional nuclear family. It is also what the militant homosexuals have done to the term “diversity.” They have broadened it beyond ethnicity and gender to include sexual behavior. They have literally hijacked the civil rights movement!
If we truly wish to win the cultural debate, being intellectually correct is not enough. We have been right for a long time and are still losing ground. How the culture perceives our words is just as important as being right. If those around us fail to understand our message, then being right does the cause of Christ absolutely no good! And it is not OK to respond to this issue by a callous, “Let them go to hell!” response by the Church. We deny our commission from Christ to “go and make disciples,” if we do that.
Today, I want to talk about several issues that have been battle grounds for the Church and the culture. This list is not definitive but is representative of all the issues we debate with society.
Violence in Public Schools
For a long time, there has been an escalation in violence in public schools. It has become a major vehicle for supporting stricter gun control by culture and some in government. We can and should turn this issue to our own cause. All parents are concerned for their children’s safety. Violence is a symptom of a person’s view of God, not a symptom of owning a gun. Children are merely acting out what they have been taught by our silence about God. Noah Webster, the great educator said, “Education is useless without the Bible!” Our culture has done everything possible in the last 50 years to make sure God and the Bible are taken from public schools. We are reaping the harvest of that foolishness!
Both pro-gun and anti-gun lobbies have missed the point. Arming law-abiding citizens will not prevent another tragedy like Columbine High School. Conversely, disarming the citizens will not prevent it either. In Erfurt, Germany on April 26, 2002, an expelled student named Robert Steinhauser gunned down thirteen students, two teachers and a police officer in his former school. It was the fourth such incident of violence in two years in Germany. And this happened despite the fact that Germany imposes very strict gun control.
It could be argued that the horrific scenes at Columbine or Virginia Tech were caused because of the censorship of religious speech, not guns. The morality of faith has been removed. We reap the consequences!
When the average parent in America comes to sincerely believe that the safety of their children is not as seriously at risk, if God is part of the education, then the opposition will be hard pressed to exclude God from schools.
Hate Crimes
When the world talks about hate crimes, we should talk about hate crimes against the people of faith. At Columbine High School, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris targeted Christian students in their rampage that left 12 students dead and 21 wounded. There are more hate crimes perpetrated against Christians in the world than on any other group!
Although hate crimes legislation often includes crimes against people of faith, it is rarely the focus of the debate. Indeed, hate crimes against Christians are tolerated and seldom seen as real crime. If a mosque or synagogue were the target of such crimes, justice would be swift. A couple of years ago, how much more effort would have been expended if it had been Jewish synagogues or Moslem mosques burned down than insignificant rural Christian Churches? Either is reprehensible, but the crime against Christians is put on the back burner.
Should not people of faith enjoy the same constitutional protections that the society demands for itself? If the world clamors for freedom of speech and no censorship, is that not true for Christians as well?
Additionally, we need to remind the world that hate crimes are symptoms. They are no different from any other crime in that they are symptoms of a disease. The disease is a society that has attempted to remove God from daily affairs. As a result of this, there is no rational basis for practicing respect instead of hate. Hate crimes are symptoms of teaching moral relativism, of teaching that people are not morally accountable because there is no source of moral obligation in the universe. They are symptoms of teaching that human life has no inherent value and merely is the product of randomness and chance plus time, rather than the concern of a creator God.
We should no longer let anyone talk about hate crimes without raising the issue of hate crimes against people of faith, and then using it as a springboard to talk about the necessity of a wise God who is the only logical source of all moral obligations in the universe.
Tolerance
Similarly, when those who want to justify their immoral behavior talk about tolerance, we should reframe and broaden the focus of the dialogue to include tolerance of all speech, including religious speech! We should wrap ourselves in the mantle of love for all people and acceptance of all forms of legitimate speech, clearly implying that their position is “selective” and therefore promotes censorship (which it does). Anyone who claims to be tolerant but seeks to exclude speech with which they personally disagree is anything but tolerant. What the “tolerant” of the secular world are actually saying is: “You must accept us, but we do not have to accept you.” In the book 1984, George Orwell referred to such two-faced talk as “doublespeak.”
Within this context, the secularists will likely accuse us of intolerance and censorship when it comes to pornography. We should readily plead guilty to trying to protect the innocence of our children from being harmed – something that our opposition does not seem to highly value. If someone is foolish enough to argue that freedom of speech is more important than protecting our children, then give them all the rope that want to rhetorically hang themselves.
We must redefine tolerance as being synonymous with free speech. If we are truly tolerant we will support free speech for all who do not do harm. This has to mean free religious speech or their argument holds no water, which, of course it doesn’t!
Diversity
We should all promote ethnic and religious diversity every chance we get. We should take this issue away from the other side by pouring our meaning into it. By adding the terms “ethnic and religious” every single time the word “diversity” comes out of our mouth. We should do this for several reasons:
First, it allows us to potentially co-opt the word “diversity” which our culture has come to widely accept. The other side has worked hard to mainstream the term with their meaning. Let’s redefine it and give it new meaning!
Second, it allows us to isolate and expose what is primarily a sexually motivated agenda. So far, we have allowed them to piggyback sexual perversity on their back of legitimate diversity.
Third, it allows us to get out front in the issue of combating racism. This is what God would have us do.
Fourth, it allows us to inject religion (and therefore God) into the diversity debate.
Terrorism
Many among the secular media are attempting to create linkage between theological conservative Christians and the Islamic fundamentalists/terrorists. We should counter with the charge that a person’s view of God will determine how he treats others.
If we believe in a god who says, “Kill the infidel,” we will likely hate those who do not believe as we do.
If we believe there is no God, then we are not obliged to treat anyone with kindness or tolerance because there is no rational source for moral obligation in the universe!
If we believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and His Son, Jesus Christ, we will heed His instruction, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” This is so far from the philosophy and theology of fundamentalist Muslims that it’s laughable that anyone could seriously believe it!
Corporate Greed
Enron! AIG! Countrywide Mortgage! HEALTHSOUTH! Bernie Madoff and Richard Schrushy. People express shock and dismay over the way many corporations blatantly lied to cover up mismanagement and outright greed. I fail to understand why people are shocked.
For the past forty years, our universities have taught a form of ethics and morality that excludes God, who is the only rational source of moral obligation. Our popular culture, movies and novels, have set a value system that promotes moral relativism. Michael Douglas’ character in the movie “Wall Street” says, “Greed is good!” Therefore, we should expect greedy, self-serving behavior to be the norm, not the exception. If a person does not believe that God will hold him accountable for his actions, and if he believes it is not in his best interest to act morally; why should he do so?
Unless the corporate executive becomes convinced God holds him morally accountable for his business decisions, we will continue to breed new “Bernie Madoffs” and “Richard Schrushy’s” every day.
Abortion and Euthanasia
There are two potentially effective approaches we can use on this issue. The first is to aggressively make the case that most Americans believe the Bible when it says that man is made in God’s image. Therefore, we should be very reluctant to destroy that image. Aborting the image should be very rare because we make it rare. We do not have the right to cover sin or a mistake with destroying a being made in the image of God
Euthanasia is the logical outcome of a society that condones and supports abortion. If life is insignificant before it becomes viable outside the womb, then it is logical to reason that life has no value when age and disease decrease our viability. Most who would support abortion would probably not condone euthanasia. But what about in fifty years when abortion has been legal for almost 100 years?
Separation of Church and State
Christians will inevitably be accused of trying to violate the so-called doctrine of “separation of church and state.” Most people have no idea what they are talking about when they express this protest. The founding fathers never intended to exclude faith from the governmental process. Their intent was to prevent the state from interfering with the church, or establishing a state church.
Christians have never championed anything but the separation of church from state. We do believe that faith and religion should have a role in the decision making of government, as individuals, in their commitment to almighty God, make decisions to govern this country.
We agree with Thomas Jefferson who believed that the government should have no jurisdiction over religion or religious speech. In 1798 he wrote, “No power over the freedom of religion… is delegated to the United States by the constitution.”
Groups like the ACLU seem to agitate for the “segregation” of church and state. Jefferson and our forefathers believed in freedom of religion; the ACLU and others promote the freedom from religion and even the abolishment of religion. John Lennon expressed this sentiment in his song “Imagine.” He dreamed of a world with no religion. Segregation of church and state is the phrase that we need to drive home. That is exactly what our opponents are proposing.
All the preceding examples have one purpose: to demonstrate how we can confront American culture with the God of the Bible. Our response to the culture should always intentionally move us away from arguments we cannot win within the current cultural context, to a place where we can reframe the rhetoric. Once God becomes the watershed issue, we can then, and only then, begin to speak effectively in the culture we live in.
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