Thursday, February 9, 2023

Is it Time to Stop Fighting?

 

Is it Time to Stop Fighting?

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA), Dec. 17, 2022

            One trio of great world leaders who taught us to fight well and wisely was Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul, two western world politicians and a Polish pope. More than once this trio has been hailed for their part in bringing down the Berlin wall, thereby ushering in the demise of the Soviet Union.

            Everyone knows the back story. Reagan’s advisors urged him not to say the line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” before he delivered, with fervor, one of his most heralded speeches right at the western side of the wall. Unlike Reagan, his advisors were afraid of possible consequences. Unlike the prime ministers who have followed her, Thatcher was focused singly on keeping the power of tyrannical governments at bay. And unlike the present pope who so often dallies with the spirit of the age – wokeness, that is – John Paul was resolute.

            Happy we should be that these three leaders were contemporaries. Although the Eastern Europe portion of the Soviet Union was already cracking, Soviet power needed a final blow. These three leaders delivered it. Incredibly, Gorbachev relented. Soviet Union dissolution was underway.

            Compare these three to the western rulers of today. Currently the United Kingdom’s leadership is visibly shaky. America’s president and the leader at the Vatican are think-a-likes when it comes to cultural social issues. As recently as 2006 the president spoke strongly for traditional marriage. (Google Meet the Press/Biden/2006.) What a conversion Biden has undergone. Pope Francis is simply squishy, sounding like John Paul one day only to depart from orthodoxy the next.

            Today in America many conservatives are giving up. They are weary. I have a small handful of Christian friends who say they have stopped keeping up with the news because it is so “bleak,” “negative,” and “scary,” even though their Bible tells them to “fight the good fight,” and to “not be weary in well doing.”

            Such an outlook is defeatist and totally lacking in hope which scripture enjoins believers to hold to. The news has it that schools throughout the nation are grooming children to “understand” and accept drag queens, transgenderism, and sexual deviance and perversion. Are our children not worth fighting for?  Is there never a justification for righteous anger? Don’t throw the newspaper down because of the words “deviance” and “perversion.” This is no attack on anyone. It is simply a plea that we look at what’s happening. A deviance is a departure from the norm, which homosexuality certainly is. Perversion is not an opposite or an “alternate life style,” but a twist or aberration from what is natural and real. It is an intentional effort to sway or lead astray. Look up the words for yourself.

             Try this for a sign of the times. The Merriam-Webster dictionary as well as the Cambridge dictionary in their most recent editions have re-defined “woman.” M-W reads, “having a gender identity that is opposite the male” while Cambridge clumsily presents the following word salad: “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.” Note the use of the word identity, a usage that automatically denies what even 10th grade biology teaches about x and y chromosomes. As for “preferred pronouns,” they represent a detachment from biology that deserves nothing but ridicule.

            Beyond grooming, beyond the crazy, biology-denying left and its grip on our universities, corporations, entertainment, and sports (whose most woke crusader is Nick Saban), consider the increasing crime that is moving into suburbia and rural America. Consider the previously unthinkable attack on free speech and religious freedom, aimed solely at conservatives. Ponder the inordinate spending that Congress is now engaged in. Ask why the Detroit school system recently removed Ben Carson’s name from Ben Carson High School of Medicine and Science. Not a good time to leave the battle field.

            Since all of this is evil it must be resisted. If conservatives surrender to the fatigue of battle, we forsake our children and grandchildren. Scripture’s command to love our enemies doesn’t mean we should deny that our enemies exist, which is what timid Republicans – not all, but the timid – are doing. We delude ourselves to think things will be alright in time.

            As for the Respect for Marriage Act, with Republican help Democrats gave us not only a sterile revised view of marriage.  They smashed the traditional view. That alone should be enough to keep the fighting spirit alive. It would also put a smile on the faces of Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul.

 

Roger Hines

December 15, 2022

           

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