Saturday, August 19, 2017

# 184 Gender Soup

Smoky Mountain Reflections #184

            Live and let live, that is the siren cry of our society today as the oppressive rainbow descends on every aspect of our lives. “Mind your own business and don’t go around forcing your morals on others.” “I am not a part of your club so I do not have to follow your rules.” Speaking the truth in love is not a walk in the park these days. If you dare say anything that can be construed as derogatory about the LGBTQ….LMNOP agenda, be prepared to feel their wrath. They tell us to live and let live, but are themselves doing anything but. If you do not give at least tacit approval of their message you become a target.

            They claim to want to be left alone but it is not Christians who are trying to force their views, rather, it is quite the other way around. Donate a few dollars to a campaign to legally uphold the traditional and historical definition of marriage, and you’ll be hunted down and fired like CEO Brenden Eich. Ask not to be involved in celebrating their unions with your artistic talents, and you’ll be seen in court! Unless we decorate their cakes, arrange their flowers, and sing a loud song of approval in word and deed, we are shut down, prosecuted by the local and state governments, and pressured by every available “news” medium and market means. I ask you then, who is forcing their views on whom???

            The word “discrimination” gets a bad rap these days. Let’s first define the root word; to discriminate is to discern and recognize a difference and to decide or differentiate. Each of us discriminate every time we make a decision. Discrimination has come to carry a negative connotation when that discrimination is based on race, age, sex, or now, sexual preference. Our constitution speaks only of created beings, but the idea of protected groups is a legitimate development from our court system due to injustices perpetrated by the majority on a minority part of the population in the past. That being said, “We the people” are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, which means that the government does not give them to us, they are ours by virtue of our existence.

            Those of us seeking to live our lives in accord with scripture and God’s help are feeling a bit oppressed by a new social super-clause that seems to override the rights of some citizens to a simple good conscience and self-determination. If you follow most of the wedding service issues, those businesses are not refusing services. They actually do business with and have sold cakes, flowers etc. to the people who are suing them. They are simply asking not to be forced to use their creative and artistic gifts to affirm and celebrate something they disagree with.

            Healthy societies make and enforce laws that protect the innocent, the weak, and the family unit as defined by simple biology. History has shown that when societies abandon the family as their building block, they go the way of all the other PAST civilizations, into decline and eventually destruction. I am not a “chicken little”, the sky is not falling, but we need to speak the truth in love even when we are labeled as bigots for doing so, because it is or duty to love and serve our neighbors.

            As the summer wears on, take a little time to pray for our country and our confused neighbors who think that standing by while the consciences and beliefs of others are railroaded is actually the open-minded and civil thing to do. In the words of Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We are called to speak the truth in love, keep calm, press on, and share and live our faith as a bold witness to His Gospel.

In Christ,

Pastor Portier