Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
with Dr. Rex M. Rogers

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 20 December 2023

Have you ever felt like the world is upside down, or have you ever witnessed something so egregious you never thought you’d see it in your lifetime?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #124 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

In the early days of the pandemic in April 2020, I wrote a blog in entitled “Things I Never Thought Could Happen in America.” I noted things like governors issuing “orders” requiring citizens stay home, or governors determining a) there’s such a thing as essential and non-essential businesses, b) actually assigning businesses to these categories, or the absurdity of pet, marijuana, liquor stores, and abortion clinics considered essential while churches were considered non-essential, or mayors threatening churchgoers with fines and directing police to record the vehicle licenses of anyone attending a drive-in church service, or county officials mandating churches exclude singing from live stream programs, or police empowered to break up groups of more than three people.

Looking back, these developments still strike me as examples of government overreach and a threat to individual freedom.

And now, it’s happening the way many of us predicted it would, scholars are gradually demonstrating that much of the masking frenzy, forced shutdown of schools, and other fear-based control, did not prevent the spread of COVID.

Clearly, the pandemic accelerated big government trends that were already underway in the US. That was December 2010 to pick a date for end of the pandemic – Pres Biden declared the pandemic over Sept 18, 2022, then multiple sources tried to walk it back.

Then came the post-George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020, coupled with the rise of the organization Black Lives Matter, which spurred the rapid embrace of woke philosophies that literally took over education, corporations, government, even the military, leading to politically correct demands, victimhood, and the idolatry of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This, too, demonstrated and contributed to cultural moral breakdown and social upheaval.

Now, we’re experiencing more moral confusion in the aftermath of the Hamas Massacre in Israel, Oct. 7, 2023, which opened floodgates to the animosity grounding left-leaning philosophies, most especially antisemitism on campuses, in the streets, and in the halls of Congress.

These trends are all discouraging and threatening, and with the latest open hostility, even calling for genocide of Jews, it feels like we’ve crossed a critical Rubicon in our culture’s moral collapse.

And we don’t seem to have learned much from our earlier experiences, because things continue to occur in America that I never thought I’d see.

Some are utter silliness, much are irrational, and some are disruptive to the future of the body politic. Consider these developments:

Billionaire Bill Gates calling for developing new breeds of cows who do not burp as much methane so that we can save ourselves from climate change. With a straight face, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that bovine flatulence is a large contributor to global warming.
A Los Angeles freeway blockedby protestors demanding a cease-fire in Gaza. Progressive Jewish organization IfNotNow, a pro-Palestinian group which supports ending U.S. support for Israel, said it organized protests timed for Hanukkah.
Hundreds of people participating in a “Queers for Palestine” protest blocking the Manhattan Bridge in New York City. The protesters waved Pride flags while chanting slogans such as “queer, trans, no peace on stolen land.”

Pro-Hamas protesters threatening to kill Jewish attendees as they leave the Israeli Embassy's Hanukkah ceremony in Washington, DC. A woman screamed, "We will kill you all, occupiers."
A Seattle high schooler marked incorrect on a quiz for saying only women can get pregnant.
Concern about plagiarism is now declared illegitimate because such concern is part of the “white supremacist agenda.”
US soccer player Megan Rapinoe, a sexually out, in-your-face, perennial malcontent, hurt her leg and said it was “proof” there is no God. She later said that playing for United States Soccer was “the worst job in the world,” this after she became famous and made a very good living because of soccer yet played poorly in her final games.
A Senate staff member was arrested for filming a gay porno of himself having gay sex in a Senate Hearing Roomof the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Need I say more?

Here’s one you couldn’t imagine just a few years ago under any President, Republican or Democrat:

9. As of June 2023, approximately 16.8 million illegal aliens reside in the U.S. Since the beginning of the Biden Administration in Jan 2021, illegal immigrants coming across the nation’s open southern border with Mexico now stands at more than 3.8 million, including more than 1.7 million “gotaways” who crossed undetected,“the greatest number in historyand of any administration. Illegal aliens increased 16% during just two years of the Biden presidency such that the total is now more than the individual populations of 41 states.” The annual net cost of illegal migration was approximately $116 billion. This is not only astounding for the numbers involved, but also shocking when you consider this has happened because a given Administration simply chose to ignore the law, suspend policies, and in general thumb its nose at the safety and security of the American people.

Now, about 49.5 million people in the U.S. are foreign born, the largest in history.

I have long been in favor of legal immigration, and I still am. But this willful grab for political power perceived to lodge in these immigrants is illusory and dangerous.

1) We don’t know who these people are because they have not been vetted, 2) Many are military age males entering alone,

2) the fentanyl drug cartels are using this surge to bilk Americans,

3) children are being trafficked in the midst of this,

4) and while some of immigrants may truly wish for a better life, others are coming for nefarious reasons with no intention to assimilate – just look at what’s happening in Europe.

Many European articles now replace the word “immigrant” with the term “cultural enricher,”usually ironically or sarcastically. It refers to invasion or general violence caused by people of different cultures. The phrase has roots in Germany in WWI and was used by Hitler to refer to Jews.

The people who have been admitted en masse to European countries under the false philosophy of multiculturalism, in the hopes they’d provide a new workforce to make up for the low birthrate in these countries,

are not for the most part integrating. They are now acting out violently, making economic and religious demands, and otherwise have become a major problem across the continent. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the effort to bring foreign workers to a happy multi-cultural society, “has failed, utterly failed.” The U.S. should have long since taken note, but it may now be too late.

10. Given my long background in higher education and love for campus life, the rapid decline of American higher education has been hard for me to watch. In the past few years, it’s been a slippery slope embracing moral relativism, the re-emergence of racial segregation in the name of inclusiveness, the destruction of standards in the name of equity, the utter absurdity of gender pronoun madness, the development of “free speech zones” because elsewhere on campus speech is restricted for a list of politically correct reasons – that is, until this past month when antisemitism has been permitted, endorsed, and encouraged at the nation’s’ elite universities.

But you say, surely not every university is like this, nor every professor. Maybe not, at least among individual professors, but numerous incidents can be listed wherein professors were harassed, silenced, or lost their jobs because the dominant woke mentality takes no prisoners.

11. Abortion has been legal since I was in college, but a list of things I thought I’d never see in my own country still must include this travesty. Who would have predicted we’d get to a point that pro-choice advocates would refer to laws protecting the innocent unborn as “government-mandated pregnancies”? Any culture that so blithely dismisses the vitality and rights of babies is capable of any moral outrage.

There is in fact no end of ridiculous, irrational, or dangerous offshoots of humanity’s desire to avoid living as God intended. The late Christian philosopher Rousas Rushdoony observed a long time ago that there is no end to error. More recently, political philosopher Dennis Prager made a similar observation, saying in effect that the Left, major media, and the contemporary university constantly focuses upon made up “fake problems” rather than considering the real moral issues of good and evil in a real world. This seems to be the state of our union.

But as a Christian believer, our commission in life remains the same, to love God, to be ready always to give an answer of the hope that is within us, and to “let those who love the Lord hate evil,” Ps. 97:10.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast 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.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 18 December 2023

Are we living today what philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre observed, “If there is no God, then everything is permitted”?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #123 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Sociologists of religion, and other scholars of civilization, used to talk about a “Judeo-Christian consensus.” The phrase referred to a shared, broadly agreed-upon set of values about morality and civic virtue, based upon the theological understandings of Judaism and Christianity.

The scholars believed this Judeo-Christian consensus helped form the foundation upon which Western Civilization, then the United States of America, were built. This foundation made E Pluribus Unum possible.

Many earlier and conservative scholars said America’s founding was unique, giving rise to a perspective called “American exceptionalism,” a concept addressed in the 1830s by French social critic Alexis de Tocqueville in his seminal work, Democracy in America. While no doubt some individuals took this view to an extreme of arrogance, triumphalism, or manifest destiny, most citizens simply viewed it as a recognition that America’s founding was different, coalescing around values and a political system creating opportunities for life, liberty, enterprise, and well-being like no other country in history.

The late political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset argued, “this ideology, which Lipset called Americanism…is based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics.

The idea of an exceptional society has a long history traced to the ideas espoused by the Founding Fathers of the United States during the American Revolution. This uniqueness or exceptionalism did not just happen. “America’s uniqueness is based in the Christian consensus of the Founding Fathers, who penned documents guaranteeing religious and personal freedom for all. This nation was not founded by atheists, secularizers, or monarchists who thought the elite educated class should rule over the common people.

America’s founding was based more on biblical principles than any other nation’s on Earth—and that’s the main reason this country has been more blessed by God than any other nation in history. No other nation has enjoyed freedom of religion, freedom of electoral choice, and freedom of vocational pursuits for a longer period of time than the United States.”

But things are changing, and indeed have been changing for some time.

Since at least the 1960s, what’s been happening, first gradually, now rapidly, is an intentional rejection of Judeo-Christian values of morality and society, followed by a replacement of these traditional values, first by secularism, then by radical so-called “progressive,” Marxist values based on irreligion if not atheism, along with an idolatry of race, sex, class, diversity, equity, and inclusion, victimhood, and statism.

This means that the culture and society in which many of us as older adults grew up, is no more. What we are experiencing now, the culture in which we live, is fundamentally different from the culture in which we came of age.

Judeo-Christian values once were enshrined in our cultural mores, defining criminal justice, meritocracy, education, commercial enterprise, and freedom.

The late Francis A. Schaeffer called them, “borrowed Christian values.” These values were the glue that helped hold Western culture together.

Christian values helped define American vision, purpose, and meaning. Christian ideas about the future, about progress, and about social change helped Americans craft a forward-thinking, optimistic, can-do, confidence that encouraged innovation, risk-taking, investment, and work ethic. This is why America became one of the most productive engines of abundance the world has ever seen.

As these values have been lost—or I should say, tossed aside, openness to false ideas and values increased, because, like nature, the heart abhors a vacuum. Human hearts cannot exist without something to worship and give purpose.

In this vacuum, this moral collapse resulting from the dechristianization of postmodern society, individuals increasingly embraced a godless, Marxist ideology that appeals to the sinful nature.

As Judeo-Christian values were rejected, so was the idea of objective truth, the understanding that regardless of what any given person concludes, there is real truth, real facts, in a real world. Now, we hear about the oxymoron “alternative facts,” or “your truth and my truth,” which is to say no standard of truth at all.

We heard this recently when Harvard University President Claudine Gay apologized for her widely condemned congressional testimony on campus antisemitism, in which she said, "I failed to convey what is my truth."

“My truth”? This from the president of a university whose 387-year-old motto is Veritas, which is Latin for Truth. Harvard originally adopted the Latin phrase, “Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae,” as its motto in 1692, which means “Truth for Christ and the Church.” But this was reduced to just “Veritas” in 1836. Discovering truth these days is an exercise in, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

Judeo-Christian values are being replaced by a godless sense of no responsibility and no accountability, and Judeo-Christian values are being replaced by fear, distrust, dishonesty, lack of confidence, loss of patriotism, then the inevitable disillusionment, despair, alienation, anomie, hopelessness, and nihilism.

The practical outgrowth of this shift in values is extensive.

Education from kindergarten to grad school has become a vast wasteland where teaching and learning are dumbed down and activism is the new holy grail.

As parents have “parented” less, or as parents have rejected traditional values for their brave new world values, or as the family unit itself has come under attack as something unnecessary or limiting, and as children have increasingly come of age spending more than one third to one-half of their day on screens, mental illness and anxiety have soared among youth, as has sexual promiscuity.

Political leaders promote the killing of the nation’s progeny as a matter of women’s healthcare and a human right. Think of that, a human right to kill other humans. This is perversity.

Political leaders promote the physical mutilation of children in the name of sexual liberation. And oh, by the way, no need to inform their parents. This is not freedom but enslavement to debauchery and a lifetime of drugs and regret.

Educators, medical professionals, celebrities, journalists, and of course political sycophants, claim men can menstruate, breast feed, and have children. These are supposedly sophisticated individuals, but if so, it is sophisticated ignorance. This is “the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom. 1:18). It is the result of the rejection of timeless values, the rejection of virtue.

City streets and retail stores are now fair game to “smash and grab” gangs, thugs, and thieves who know they will not be prosecuted and who have such little fear, they no longer wear masks and look directly into security cameras.

America is no longer a “kinder, gentler nation” and is instead an everyone for themselves “do what’s right in your own eyes” nation.

In business, making an excellent product has been replaced with a decline in quality in almost every industry. And the old aphorism, “the business of America is business,” has been replaced by the business of America is advocacy.

Since the internet became functional, every form of evil has increased, led by pornography and gambling.

Historian Mark Lewis reminds us, what Edmund Burke said, “But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint...Men are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.”

Further, James Madison said, “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical [fanciful] idea.”

“According to Madison (and all our Founders), virtue (goodness, self-control, godly morality, responsible behavior, unselfishness) is absolutely essential to true liberty.”

Today in America, people are denying the existence of virtue, in the name of freedom. But instead of freedom, we’re getting lawlessness, licentiousness, and chaos, none of which sound much like freedom.

Yes, there is a direct link between rejecting God, truth, morality, and virtue, and the breakdown of American culture. It’s not good out there, and it’s going to get worse.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 11 December 2023

Jews are known for many things, not least of which is as survivors. What can we learn about God’s purposes by studying the Jewish people?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #122 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Jews are in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. Not that it’s their fault. But in the wake of the Israel/Hamas war, antisemitism, i.e., hostility, prejudice, or discrimination, a form of racism – has become a plague throughout Europe, Australia, and in North and South America.

“We know from history that Jew-hatred, the world's oldest and once again most fashionable form of bigotry, is the chameleon of all hates – forever taking on new hues to suit the scapegoating needs of the day. It has always been thus, and it will always be thus.”

Antisemitic incidents in the United States rose nearly 400% in just two weeks after 10/7, this after such incidents reached their highest ever recorded in the U.S. in year 2022.

In a recent congressional hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray “noted in his testimony that while Jews account for less than 3% of the U.S. population, around 60% of religious-based hate crimes target Jews.

Jews are, sadly, no stranger to antisemitism, or more bluntly stated, “Jew hate.”

In the Middle Ages, Jews were called “Christ’s enemies” or “Christ-killers.” They’ve been the victim of what’s called “blood libel,” an antisemitic canard which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christians in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. In Russia, Jews were massacred in periodic, systematic pogroms, a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.”

And worst of all, beginning with Kristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass” in 1938, Hitler and the Nazis killed about 6 million Jews in what they called the Final Solution and history calls the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, a list of notable American Jews is astoundingly lengthy – in every field of human endeavor. And this can be repeated in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

So why, then, are Jews hated historically and globally? Perhaps the principal reason is “because God has a special plan for the nation of Israel, and Satan wants to defeat that plan. Satanically influenced hatred of Israel—and especially Israel’s God—is the reason Israel’s neighbors have always wanted to see Israel destroyed,” and it is the reason why Jews have been despised and persecuted their entire existence.

Ostensibly, the current outbreak of antisemitism on college campuses, in the streets, and, unbelievably, in Congress, is due to opposition to Israel’s policies regarding Palestinians and Gaza and in particular how Israel is prosecuting the war to eradicate Hamas as just retribution for Hamas’s pre-civilizational atrocities against innocent Israelis Oct. 7. But the immediacy and intensity of venom aimed at Jews who had nothing to do with what is taking place in the Holy Land indicates this is an indiscriminate broad-brush racist attack with deep roots in Western Civilization’s ongoing moral collapse.

Yet Jewish people have set a high standard, making contributions in virtually every sector of American society and Western Civilization. Consider these names:

Emma Lazarus, Levi Strauss, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Benny Goodman, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Seinfeld, Mark Zuckerberg, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Henry Kissinger, Sandy Koufax, Wolf Blitzer, Stephen Spielberg, Bernie Sanders, Monica Lewinsky, Natalie Portman, Gal Gadot, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elena Kagan, Doug Emhoff.

This is a small sampling of names quickly grabbed off the internet.The number of notable Jewish Americans who have made our lives immeasurably better is legion.

Prior to World War II, the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million. Then the Holocaust occurred. Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021, was estimated to be at 15.2–19.9 million. Today, Israel’s population (including disputed territories) – 9,000,000. And in the United States – 7,600,000.

Certain biblical teachings and subsequent political developments relative to the Jewish people, descendants of the Old Testament Abraham and Israelites, have given rise to misinterpretations, false accusations, jealousy, and recriminations.

Jews are called God’s chosen people (Gen 12:1-3; 13:14-15). People misinterpret this in several ways, including thinking Jews are given some special spiritual pass to heaven. But this doesn’t make Israel more special; it makes God more special because he keeps his promises. God was setting up the lineage through which Jesus would come. This really is the crux of why God chose Israel to be his chosen people.

God gave Abraham’s descendants the land of Israel (Gen 13:14-15).

The Jewish Diaspora resulted in Jewish populations the world over, most subject to persecution, followed in the 19^thC with Zionism and a beginning return to the land. To this day, Arabs, or Palestinians, and others fight what are now called Israelis over Israel’s right to exist on the land as the modern nation-state was established in May 1948. So, who owns the Holy Land? If Palestinians are not allowed to live in the land of Israel, what should be done with these hundreds of thousands of people whose ancestors lived in the land?

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim Jerusalem as a holy place. Who has claim?

New Testament Church Age teachings re Israel vs the Church, including Replacement Theology, which “affirms that the Church has completely replaced Israeland will inherit God’s promises to Israel; the covenants, then, will be fulfilled only in a spiritual sense. In other words, replacement theology teaches that Israel will not inherit the actual land of Israel; the Church is the “new Israel,” and ethnic Israel is forever excluded from the promises—the Jews will not inherit the Promised Land as Jews per se.” This theological debate occurs within conservative evangelical Christendom.

What lessons can we learn?

“The persecutors of Israelwill come and go, but the persecution will remain until the second coming of Christ. As a result, conflict in Israel is not a reliable indicator of the soon arrival of the end times.”

Scripture makes it clear that “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” Rom 10:12. Or the Bible states it another way: “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too” Rom 3:29.

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” Gal 3:28.

Also in Scripture, the Apostle Paul reminded us that “we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” 1 Cor 12:13.

And in heaven one day, the Word says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language,standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands” – Revelation 12:9.

Jewish people are just that, people, human beings made in the image of God, like all human beings loved by God, and like all human beings, Jews are sinners in need of grace or sinners saved by grace.

If you are Jewish, God bless you and may you be safe, surrounded by support, and given every opportunity of liberty and happiness.

If you are not Jewish, as I am not, then we need to remember that Jewish people, like all humanity including Arabs, Palestinians, Iranians, Russians, you name it, are our neighbors, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Clearly, the Lord is not finished with this world. No climate change, no wars or rumors of wars, no natural cataclysms like the sunspot archipelago releasing solar storms, no nuclear nightmare, no genocidal mania perpetrated by any demonically driven people, no end of the world scenario is ever actually going to end the world until God determines the End Times have come.

And throughout the history yet to come, Jewish people will remain, at times under duress, but remain and flourish because the Lord of Heaven deems it so.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 04 December 2023

Have you noticed that we live in and Us against Them world? Should I care about “them,” or is it every one for himself?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #121 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Who or which human beings should we care about? White people or Black people, or maybe some other race?

I ask because there are certain ideologies today that are reductionist, meaning they reduce everything to a lowest common denominator. Race is one of those denominators. Many people, if we’re to believe their social media posts or their actions in the street, reduce everything in life to racial or maybe ethnic parameters.

This happened recently when a young boy dressed for a home game as an Indian and painted his face half black, half red, the colors of his team the Kansas City Chiefs. A sports journalist immersed in racist categories accused the boy of insultingly coming to a game in “blackface.” So, an innocent 9-year-old fan was summarily condemned for “hating black people and Native Americans.” The absurdity of this attack is noteworthy for its all-too-common frequency in contemporary culture.

Another example of racial overkill is, in my view, what’s called “cultural appropriation.” I mean, how dare someone, who is not Latino, wear a sombrero or celebrate Cinco De Mayo? Or how offensive one should name their team the “Braves.” But what about cowboy boots or tweed? Is it cultural appropriation to wear this clothing? What about putting cornrows in your hair? Is this cultural appropriation?

Question is, where does this stop? Are non-Native Americans not allowed to ride horses? Are non-Italians not allowed to eat pasta? Are non-Scots prohibited from wearing tartan fashions?

One of the beauties of the historic American “melting pot” is that all nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, and eventually all races could become part of the abundant opportunities and blessings of E Pluribus Unum, and that included fashion, entertainment, food, language, and more.

Remember Emma Lazarus’s immortal words on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The idea was that there is an American Dream, that people came come from all over the globe to this free country and be given an opportunity to live out their lives in freedom and flourishing. In the 19^thand 20^th Century, once the Irish arrived from the potato famine, then came Germans, Italians, and manifold others, who could work to achieve their dreams. They could become Americans by adopting culture they found here, by adapting their own cultures, and by assimilating in the melting pot.

I am entirely in favor of immigrants, even in the face of today’s highly charged immigration politics. I just want immigrants to come legally and participate in a legal process toward citizenship, not arrive via the invasion going on now on the US southern border.

By the way, Emma Lazarus was Jewish. So was the recently deceased statesman Henry Kissinger, who with his family escaped from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Later, young Kissinger became a naturalized American citizen, joined the US Army, and eventually came home from Europe with a Bronze Star.

Who or which human being should we care about?

If we assume a prolife position, does this mean we must leave behind care and concern for what’s called “women’s health”?

If we are “pro-Israel” does this mean we cannot or should not care about Palestinians, or Arabs in general? If you care about Jews, does this mean you must not care about Greeks, as others were called in the Bible, or about Arabs? About Gentiles the world over?

If you affirm biblical views of human sexuality, and thus reject the expression of human sexuality embraced by people who say they are LGBTQ+, does this mean you must not care or express concern for people who choose to identify as LGBTQ+?

If you root for this team, does this mean, in the language of our times, that you must “hate” the other team?

If we believe in the American dream, does this mean we have unavoidably and irrevocably become “settler” colonialists, cultural imperialists, or adopted an oppressor mindset that always takes advantage of anyone who is considered marginalized?

Polarized politics, now, not only “affects” but “infects” every sector of American society. Much of what’s marketed as discussion these days has been captured by polarized politics. Same thing when it comes to answering the question, who or which human beings should we care about?

If you begin with an a priori commitment to ideology, like for example cultural Marxism, the “ism du jour” of leftism, you will inevitably reduce all things to oppressor vs oppressed, have’s vs have nots, and you will support whatever gives you power.

If you listen to people in the street or on university campuses who are promoting “woke” views, you will hear how you must fight for the marginalized, i.e., the oppressed against the oppressor. In other words, you are not allowed to care about the perceived oppressor.

So, this means pro-Black or Brown…anti-White. It means pro-LGBTQ, especially transgender…anti-heteronormativity. pro-Palestinian…anti-Israel; pro-the latest perceived downtrodden state…anti-American.

But the problem is, “the woke cult is inherently racist/bigoted. It believes if you are White (or straight, or male), you are automatically morally inferior to non-White people (or non-straight or male, depending).”

“This is the main reason why so many non-Arab progressives/leftists are now anti-Jewish. It's often not that they are originally anti-Semitic --- it's that they are anti-White, i.e., they think that Jews are White, and thus privileged oppressors, and Palestinians or Arabs are Brown, thus the oppressed.” (cited from Based Latinos on X)

For the left, “all the past narratives were absolute – white people are racist, police are racist, America is homophobic and transphobic, America is Islamophobic, etc.

No gray area. They treated it like they treat the climate change hoax – no legitimate ‘two sides,’ only those who agree with them, and evil…The left views everything, ultimately, through a lens of victim and oppressor… when it comes to Israel, they view Palestinians as perpetual victims.”

“Leftist academics see the world through the prism of race, and history as a struggle between oppressive white colonialists and settlers versus the indigenous and nonwhite multitudes, who are portrayed as the oppressed. Any violence self-appointed representatives of the oppressed wreak on those identified as oppressor colonialists or settlers is justified.”

Who or which human being should we care about?

Scripture answers first with the statement that every human being is made in the image of God and is both temporally and eternally significant. There are no human beings God did not create and does not know.

Then God said to “‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39). Everyone is our neighbor.

God even said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5:43-47).

Scripture says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Who or which human being should we care about? All of them.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 30 November 2023

Mrs. Rosalynn Carter was laid to rest this week at 96 years of age. She was an admirable woman whose 77-year marriage and partnership with former President Jimmy Carter is downright remarkable.

Mr. Carter is 99 years and has been in hospice for some months, yet he attended his wife’s funeral.

I did not agree with a lot of Mr. Carter’s politics, but I respected his Christian faith, his willingness even at the risk of loss of supporters to work toward a two-state solution in the Holy Land, and his disciplined work ethic. Indeed, his body of work surpassed the prolific Teddy Roosevelt as the most-published former president.

Mr. Carter’s idealism got him in trouble. His hope that if people could dialogue, they’d agree to live peaceably, failed to account for the deceitful nature of the human heart. He was taken off guard by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in the 444-day hostage crisis of 1979-1980.

Leaders must recognize that evil exists in the world. Evil is why George Washington said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace,” why Nobel Peace Prize winner T.R. said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” and why Ronald Reagan said, “Peace through strength” and “Trust, but verify.” Hopefully, today’s leaders do not make Mr. Carter’s error as they calculate how to deal with Hamas.

I wish Mr. Carter well but I do not think he will live much longer now that Rosalynn has passed, which is a good thing, soon to meet the Lord and see Rosalynn again.

Details: Written by: Rex M. Rogers; Published: 27 November 2023

If you’ve lived a few years as an adult, you’ve likely noted how many things once considered wrong, are now considered acceptable. So, what is contributing to this redefinition of poor choices?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #120 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Defining Deviancy Down is “an expression coined by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1993…The senator applied his slogan to the ‘moral deregulation’ that had eroded families, increased crime, and produced the mentally ill ‘homeless’ population” people were observing in America.

“We are getting used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us,” said (Senator) Moynihan, a Harvard professor of education and sociology and then U.S. senator, in his celebrated 1993 American Scholar essay “Defining Deviancy Down.” The nation had been “redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard.”

Senator Moynihan’s “thesis was that American society since the 1960s had undergone a shift in what it understood as deviant behavior. As a result, society was beginning to excuse actions, attitudes, and lifestyles once understood to be bad for social cohesion. Thirty years later, the refusal to define deviancy is as strong in progressive circles as it was in Moynihan’s time. But now, there are almost no Moynihans on the left willing to heed his obvious lessons. The results have been predictable.”

“The insane and wayward—increasingly freed from stigma and shame—today terrify functional America even more so than in his time, on account of their shamelessness as well as increasing prevalence.”

“Violent music, video games, and depraved entertainment are cash machines. Electronic tools provide America’s youth—and their parents—with easy, possibly irresistible portals to the dark side. The weakening of families and religion-based communities contribute to the void. So do social media and porn.

Unstable adolescents, if they are identified and treated, get medicated on the chance that anti-depressants or uppers will do their mood magic. Drugs—legal and illegal and everything in between—are palliatives for Americans of all ages.”

Think about this short list of behaviors once considered morally deviant:

1973, the US Supreme Court approved abortion in Roe v Wade. In 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, contrary to what the prochoice lobby says, the Court did not make abortion illegal but simply turned it back to the states to decide. America continues to eliminate its future in the name of privacy, women’s freedom or healthcare, convenience, or simply sex without consequences.

Gambling had been decriminalized, beginning in 1988 with the Federal Indian Gaming Act, then in 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States allowed national sports betting in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. The result: professional sports have invested significantly in gambling so that now you can’t watch an NFL game without being periodically reminded to get on Fan Duel to place your bets.

In 2015, the US Supreme Court said in Obergefell v Hodgesthat same-sex marriage was a fundamental right found in the US Constitution. Also in 2015, former Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner came out on the cover of Vanity Fair, “Call me Caitlyn,” as transgender. I’ve often thought that Satan could not have chosen a better poster child for transgender ideology than Bruce Call-me-Caitlyn Jenner. Think about it, a gold medalist in the decathlon so he’s considered the “world’s greatest athlete,” a handsome, “hunk” kind of guy who dated models and eventually married Kris Kardashian. Then he’s part of the “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” TV reality program, fathering two of the younger sisters, making a total of five Kardashian-Jenner clan who along with their mother are now worth multiple billions of dollars and count among the highest social media followers. Then there’s Bruce in the middle of this, increasingly emasculated, a caricature of his former self, deluded, emotionally twisted, and finally coming out as a trans woman. Why did Satan use him? Worldwide fame.

Marijuana has been gradually decriminalized. “Voters in Colorado and Washington legalized marijuanafor recreational use in November 2012…Other states have since followed their lead. This includes Alaska and Oregon (both in 2014) and California and Massachusetts (both in 2016). Now, at this time, 23 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have legalized recreational marijuana possession in small amounts. Each state sets the age for recreational possession and use at 21.”

Politics has always been rancorous, but like standards in the 50s-60s for what could be said or acted on television, there were certain political mores or parameters beyond which most politicians would not go. Now, like television where almost anything goes, so too in politics where elected officials lie with impunity, unilaterally ignore the law or don’t do their jobs, act with an increasing hubris or narcissism, demagogically make reckless speeches aimed at advancing themselves at the expense of democratic institutions, or simply serve not the people but ideology. And the populace puts up with this in both political parties.

If we had time, we could talk about more than changes relative to sexuality or We could talk about mainstream media that no longer presents objective reports on “the news,” but rather have given themselves over to advocacy, partisanship, ideology, and an ends justify the means mentality that allows them to lie or misrepresent and feel good about doing it. We could talk about how with COVID and the subsequent Black Lives Matter-juiced reaction to the death of George Floyd, we got a societal disavowal of law and order and criminal justice, and a rejection of police in the foolish “Defund the police” movement.

“Deviancies defined down aren’t only in the realm of criminal behavior. In Senator Moynihan’s original report, he noted that the proportion of white children born to a single mother had increased from one in 40 in 1962 to one-fifth 30 years later. For black children, the increase was from one-fifth to two-thirds. Today, one-fourth of white children and two-thirds of black children are born to single parents. Yet outside of conservative circles, there is little push to reduce the number of single-parent households. Instead, the solution since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs has remained the same: more federal subsidies.”

“There are some differences in the deviancies discussed…but the root of each is that some cultural understanding is being changed.” Localities and states changing their criminal codes reveal a willingness to tolerate crime by trying to redefine it away.

A line must be drawn. There is virtue in defining what is and isn’t deviant behavior. It allows us to highlight what is truly good. Preserving civilization requires us to be able to define what it is, and what it isn’t. It is not cruel to say that, (for example), carjackers should be punished, or that drug users should not be tolerated; it is a statement of social understanding that those who do not carjack or abuse drugs are better than those that do. It is not wrong to say that single-parenthood is a social problem, or that government policy should favor two-parent households; it is just, because it recognizes that two-parent households are the best model for families, the core unit of all societies. Without a shared set of social standards, civilization cannot continue. Whether it is being sympathetic to crime or ignoring the virtues of marriage, the Left is determined to undermine those social standards by refusing to define deviancy. Daniel Patrick Moynihan understood the problems of this approach in his time and argued against it.”

Christian Scripture tells us human beings are created in God’s image with moral agency. We have the capacity and the opportunity to choose. Since we live in a fallen world and we have deceitful hearts, we often choose sin. A culture that rejects God and the idea of sin is on the broad road to destruction.

We now see or hear something every day in which deviancy has been defined down.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20).

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

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