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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 31 August 2020

Racism qua social justice has become a front-and-center issue in American society. I’ve written on the topic before, attempting to apply a Christian worldview to the subject, but there’s more to the story.

American culture, at least if Big Media is to be believed, doesn’t seem to have made much progress in recent weeks. Tensions remain high and, sadly, new incidents of police actions involving white officers and black individuals have occurred, which fan the flame of frustration among black citizens in particular. 

And there’s another influence afoot. You don’t have to buy into conspiracy theories to conclude that certain groups, Left and Right, want to keep this issue raging because in their view it helps move them toward their political goals. This perhaps is especially the case in 2020, a presidential election year in the United States.

Insofar as the topic—race, racism, social justice—is raised, comments seem to be one-sided rather than conversations, which may generate more heat than light. Examples might be the broadsides now offered regularly by celebrities and sports figures, whether on social media or covered in “the news.” Some are just virtue signaling. Some hold deep convictions and make strong comments, which is their right to make in a free society, but not much give-and-take is encouraged or is yet possible.

A number of barriers stand in the way of conversations about race, racism, or social justice right. In no particular order:

• Nuance seems to have been lost. It’s all or none. You’re for me or against me. Either you agree with me or forget it, it’s not worth my time to talk with you. Cancel culturecan take over here.

• Feelings not facts rule the landscape. Much of what’s being promoted on Big Media, let alone Social Media, is about emotion, passion, or “righteous anger” rather than evidence or history (in fact some of the worst arguments are ahistorical, like the idea the USA was founded upon white supremacyand has been ipso facto about slavery from the beginning, which in this view was 1619 not 1776).

• Reductionism is the prime directive, meaning everything is now about race. This is the erroneous idea that everyone is a racist, and sooner or later racist ideas, generally white supremacy, are somehow involved in the structure and function of American society. 

• Arguing America, the least racist society in history, is about nothing but racism ignores progress. The USA did fight a Civil War to end slavery, Jim Crow segregation laws were largely ended by the Civil Rights Movement, and the USA elected to its highest office a person from a formerly rejected race. There is now plenty of case law and cultural support for black Americans, such that nothing really stands in the way of any given person working to pursue opportunities. 

• There is an enormous difference between the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement today and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Indeed, the BLM leaders today are not in the same league with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. BLM is an organization given to Marxist ideas, anti-American perspectives, and a comfort zone with violent protest, whereas Martin Luther King Jr’s approach was based upon peaceful resistance and nonviolence. Plus, he wanted black citizens to have access to all their civil liberties as American citizens. He did not want to destroy the American system. BLM does. BLM’s social justice does not ultimately offer justice for anyone.

For example, destroying property is not considered violence by some activists because it can be rebuilt. But what if it’s your house? Your business? A minority-owned business, like many that have been ruined in riots in American cities> 

It’s like state governors deeming some businesses “non-essential,” in their COVID-19 lockdowns. This may be fine for them, but these businesses are indeed essential to the people who own and/or work there and who depend upon them for their livelihoods. Same for property destroyed by riots. It’s violence to those owners.

• It’s now difficult and in some cases impossible to raise questions or provide perspective and analysis without being accused of not caring or of in essence denying racism. And you can’t even keep quiet because “Silence is violence,” or simply choose not to raise your fist in a BLM salute against white supremacy without being bulliedand threatened. 

• We've been hearing, or seeing on placards, "No justice, no peace." But there is a precursor to this that the wisest political philosophers understood. "No law and order, no justice no peace." It is impossible to have the latter without the former.

No less than Pope John Paul II said the American Founding Fathers “clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability."

So, people who work outside the law to tear down society tear down their opportunity for what George Washington called "ordered liberty," and thus for justice and peace.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters," Benjamin Franklin

Embrace lawlessness, jettison moral virtue for the "prevailing acceptable narrative" du jour, and risk losing liberty and justice for all.

• The black working and middle class do not want to defund the police. They value police protection and they want more police, and of course they want bad cops held accountable. Police are not hunting blacks, nor are they engaged in some kind of racist vendetta. Media reports to the contrary are simply propagandistic lies. Police go where the crime is, and sadly, this is disproportionately in minority neighborhoods.

• Racism exists. Because it is rooted in the sinful heart of human beings it always will. It exists in American society. Is it systemic? That’s much more difficult to prove. In fact, a host of evidence says otherwise, including the fact that black immigrants, mostly African, have increased fivefold in the US since 1980. Why would they do so if this is a systemically racist society?

• But if racism exists, can’t we find ways to root out the actual source of racism without falsely accusing everyone of racist attitudes and without tearing down the American system of order and liberty that gives all races the best chance to succeed?

• Huge problems confront American society affecting all races: children born without a father in the home; female-headed households which in themselves are not the issue, the issue is an associated lack of education, undeveloped employment skills, and limited to no assistance from a spouse earning income; alcohol or substance abuse including prescription medications; poverty; mental illness; child abuse; domestic and sexual violence; human trafficking; pornography; gambling, and more. 

Each of these problems are unforced errors, self-inflicted wounds. Each involve human choices. Each can be avoided, yet they persist at overwhelming levels threatening thousands of families and millions of children. Racism exists. We should combat it based upon facts and time-tested religious values. But racism is not alone responsible for harming personal wellbeing and opportunity. 

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020    

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.    

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 31 August 2020

When I was a kid in Sunday School, we used to sing the chorus from the book of Nehemiah, “The joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh, the joy of the Lord is my strength.”

The Bible says, “Consider it pure joy…whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).

Trials like COVID-19, social unrest, hurricanes, rancorous politics, economic slowdowns, wildfires.

Sorrow, pain, fear, disappointment, discouragement or depression?  Joy in the face of this?

Yeah, right. I can’t do that.

But that’s the point. We can’t do that, not on our own. We need the Lord to deal with God-sized trials.

The Bible says, “Cast all your anxiety on him” (1 Pet. 5:7), and “find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb. 4:16). 

Then there’s this promise:

“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

One fruit of the Spirit is joy. God’s joy in us becomes our joy in him.

How do we survive and thrive even in the midst of trials? 

The joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10).

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020    

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.    

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 28 August 2020

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 26 August 2020

We’ve heard a lot of talk and watched protests and riots these past few weeks re race, injustice, and avoidable, senseless, and unnecessary police killing of Black people.

And indeed, there are serious racial issues in the US that warrant social discussion, and change.

But the preborn are the most forgotten, marginalized human beings today.

Since Roe vs Wade (1973), abortions continue at a pace that should boggle the mind and sicken the heart of any sane, moral person. 

Abortion infanticide, a redundant phrase, is a travesty of epic proportions in the US, “nearly 2,400 every day. Ninety-eight babies every hour. About one baby every twelve seconds. Innocent human beings are dismembered, poisoned, crushed, harvested for organs, put in trash cans, and disposed of in the name of ‘women’s rights’ and ‘the right to choose.’”

Since the legalization of abortion in the U.S., more than 61 million babies have been slaughtered.

“Reported abortions have been on the decrease, according to USAFacts, dropping from 817,906 in 2004 to 638,169 in 2015. The plurality of abortions – about 44% – occur in the first 8 weeks of pregnancy.” This is good news. It means the US is killing about 180,000 people fewer per year than it did. Still, hundreds of thousands of lives are being snuffed out.

“This happens day after day, week after week, and the church largely remains silent.”

One would think religious people, Christians in particular, would be demanding change. But “according to Pew Research, one third of evangelical protestants, sixty percent of mainline protestants, and forty eight percent of Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.” 

The Church, the religious, and avowed Christians, are largely silent. It’s what Francis A. Schaeffer warned us about before he passed in 1984, that people in the West would trade their liberties and just about anything else for “personal peace and affluence.” As long as abortion doesn’t affect us, then it doesn’t affect us. We go along our peaceful affluent way.

I should also note that Planned Parenthood continues its masquerade, killing babies, especially minority babies, in the name of women’s health. “Black babies are aborted at a higher rate than they are born. No other race comes close to the abortion rate of Black Americans.” 

Abortion is the number one killer of African Americans in the US. This is injustice. This is racism. This is sin. 

Partial birth abortion and post-delivery or born-alive abortions continue, as does “abortion on demand.” Oregon became the first state to offer free abortions to all, including illegal aliens.

Abortion is not about women’s rights or health. Both can be thoroughly and effectively addressed without taking another person’s life, and of course babies come from somewhere, which is to say the sex in which a woman and man chose to engage – that’s where I am “pro-choice.”

Abortion is barbaric, no less so simply because we don’t see pictures of the body dismemberment or baby-in-the-womb writhing away from the suction device. 

Abortion is a direct rebuke of the fundamental constitutional value of a person’s right to Life, in this case an innocent and helpless baby. This is the quintessential definition of injustice.

Abortion is systematically and disproportionately killing Black Americans. This is the definition of racism.

Abortion ruthlessly kills human beings made in the image of God. This is sin.

Every adult who can vote should vote for candidates who support and protect life, who are consistently and without apology anti-abortion, who will work to overturn Roe vs Wade, who believe in the precious and ultimate value of Life.

If unborn lives don’t matter, no lives matter. 

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020    

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.    

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 25 August 2020

Since 2015, Drag Queen Story Hour, DQSH, has been offered at public libraries for children ages 3-11. Local Drag Queens dress in their regalia and read stories to children, ostensibly for the purpose of encouraging a love of reading, self-love, and respect for others different from themselves. 

DQSH events are now being scheduled across the country. Australia and the UK have their own versions.

The DQSH founder in the US, Michele Tea, launched the initiative because she felt local libraries were “heteronormative.” 

As another leader described it, “The program strives to “instill the imagination and play of gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.” In NYC, the purpose included being sure the queens could talk effectively about gender identity.

A Tennessee organizer said, “There is no hidden agenda or meaning behind it. We are not trying to breed drag kids.” But you’d be hard-pressed to believe that if you read DQSH’s own words.

Drag Queen Story Hour has its own website. They say its purpose “captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.” 

Promoters of this immoral child sex abuse can be found in the mental health profession. One sex therapist said, “The real problem, as I see it, lies not in exposing children to the reality of diverse sexualities and gender identities—those who do not fit the typical definitions of masculinity or femininity—but rather not providing gender-nonconforming kids with other templates as they begin to sort out their feelings about who they authentically are.” For him, the real reason some people do not want these kinds of events to occur is simply their homophobia or misogyny, their desire to bully, or that somehow their masculinity is threatened. He believes Drag Queen costumes are no more harmful than Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and other Disney characters.

DQSH is unbelievable and offensive on the face of it, yet the events are being embraced by library directors and boards even in the face of sometime local opposition. One question is why do these professionals and boards believe this is necessary, appropriate, and good? Another greater question is why would parents send their little children to hear stories read by Drag Queens? 

I do not hate Drag Queens or any other LGBTQ+ person. I don’t want to deny them jobs or their civil liberties as American citizens. I don’t endorse or support in any way the bullying and assaults some of them have at times endured. I don’t wish them ill and harm.

I do, however, strongly disagree with their moral choices regarding their lifestyle. The same way I disagree with heterosexuals who participate in affairs or adultery outside of marriage. In fact, I don’t believe one kind of sexual sin is any more egregious than any other kind of sexual sin. Sin is sin. Sexual sin is sexual sin. 

I know the Church responded poorly to the early Gay Rights Movement, often with condemnation based upon truth but absent any love or offer of God’s forgiveness and reconciliation. But this does not change the moral truths taught in Scripture. LGBTQ lifestyle choices, Drag Queens included, are not something Christians who believe the Word of God can support much less promote.

Gender fluidity is a social construct, not biological sex. God created male and female (Genesis 1:26-27). There is no sexually, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically happy ending for LGBTQ lifestyles.

So, I see DQSH as a morally unwise, indeed immoral, development being foisted upon innocent little children incapable of processing any of it. Whatever the motive claimed, this is child abuse.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020    

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.