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Text File | 2014-12-11 | 13KB | 173 lines

     Christians today have entered an era of our church history that requires
us to define again for ourselves as well as to the secular world exactly who
we are.  America's history and foundation is so inextricably intertwined with
Christian church history that one literally can not exist without the other.
However, in a great retelling of history, second only to Russia's, America has
lost most of its historical knowledge and perspective that has been passed
early on to each generation until the children of the early 60's.  This
generation (mine) was the first to thouroghly question the spiritual grounding
of our society's institutions.  This is the same generation that, today, sits
by helplessly and, often, oblivious to the forces of Satan as they take over
our written word, our air waves and our governmental bodies.  We have
systematically capitulated the tools that have kept these influences at bay in
prior generations.
     It would seem that we, as the body of Christ, are again surrounded by
those who would 'have' us as did Lot in Sodom before his flight from the city.
We stand at our doors and shudder at the challenges that confront us.  Before
we had to seek them out.  Now they seek us and know where to find and hurt us
the most.  Any person can be a true Christian.  We must know this.  Any person
can be against us whether they know it or not.  Well intentioned people
throughout America who advocate what has been popularized as freedom and
personal liberty are joining the forces of darkness that seek to destroy
Christ's body.  Fortunately, as Christians, we know the final outcome of this
offensive.  However, too many of us are caught without our spiritual armor
intact.  We have failed to gird ourselves as we have been commanded.
     Our greatest problem is lack of biblical background, a problem I must
personally confess.  While the Bible is certainly a book of immense magnitude
(with more written between the lines than a typical insurance policy) it was
never intended to be digested in a single sitting or a month's or a year's
worth of reading.  It was fully intended to last - without apologies - for an
entire lifetime.  It is not an option.
     Today, we are opposed by a highly organized group appearing under many
guises that constantly chisel at our value system on a daily basis, even in
the sanctuaries of our own churches, with increasing frequency. The homosexual
movement that has gathered 30 years of momentum unto itself seeks to topple
Christ's Church which seems to be loosing the momentum of millennia.
Thankfully, it is not the movement that can topple us but we, ourselves, who
decide our fate. We must return to where our strength lies with daily prayer
and scripture reading to re-educate our own minds.
     The homosexual movement sees the Church as its main roadblock to popular
legitimacy which we, undoubtedly, are.  They have redefined and reworded their
identifying activities in ways that have worked for other truly legitimate
causes such as ethnic equality.  Instead of homosexuals they are 'gay';
homophobe and homophobic have become popularized; sexual orientation (an
important one) rather than sexual preference; alternate lifestyle; discovering
and exploring one's sexuality (as opposed to one having a choice in the
matter); family partner rather than the traditional family arrangement, etc.
Terms that have previously acquired insurmountable negative connotations are
merely avoided by the renaming of them.  In this way their cause is packaged
and sold to America as legitimate.  They have become the cause celebre of the
80's and 90's that the media has lusted for.
     They have targeted and overtook strategic national institutions by the
use of force and/or the threat of such not the least of which was the American
Psychiatric Association.  Psychologists and acadamicians not accustomed to
direct conflict on such a level of ferocity as was brought to bear against
them were not able to hold sway over the more militant factions that had
developed within their ranks.  Through that institution alone in the late 60's
and finally in 1973 they were able to destroy the main secular barrier to the
legitimacy of their lifestyle by redefining homosexuality as "normal" rather
than a "mental illness" as was contained in the "Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Psychiatric Disorders", the bible of psycopathology.  Pedophilia's
definition, as well, enjoyed the same treatment through the efforts of this
group now occupying the APA (as long as one has no feelings of guilt after an
experience it's not a bad thing).  As old textbooks were used up or thrown out
entirely new ones took their place with the altered definitions which allow
the homosexual community to define the "facts" in any arguments used against
them.  Thus, from that time on new classes of students with pliable minds have
been re-educated to more "politically correct" standards.  These students, of
course, go on to become our professional people that shape our society.  Who
needs a Constitutional Amendment to further this cause?  That comes after
America's new minds have been taken and is merely icing on the cake.
     Is this movement truly this sinister?  As part of Satan's activities upon
the earth these events would indicate an emphatic YES.  However, on an
individual basis we encounter the movement on an entirely different level.
We, as members of the body of Christ, come face to face with the members of
the homosexual community of our own cities and towns.  It is here that the
battle will be eventually won.
     In my formative years 'gay bashing' (another new term formulated to
offend the sensitive mind) was accepted - to a certain extent - as it applies
to verbal and other forms of NONviolent harassment.  If we as members of the
Christian church don't wince with some compassion at the slurs, jokes, and
exiling of these people - people who our Lord tells us are our brothers and
sisters - to a social no-man's land then we fail at our task here on earth.
As one well known tele-evangelist put it "The church gossip and the liar will
walk in the same Hell as the homosexual".  Homosexuality has garnered a stigma
that, while quite possibly accurate, has been used by many to achieve the same
social leverage as those who at one time delighted in ridiculing another's
ethnic background.  The Bible, at one time or another, has been misused to
support everything from slavery to wife beating.  Our own desire to elevate
ourselves over our fellows in life has led us to separate ourselves from these
who are as much in need of God's love as we ourselves.  Truly, many who follow
the homosexual lifestyle don't have the desire to know God's love as He offers
it and these we must give up to their own desires as did God in Sodom.  But
there are many who yearn in their human hearts for the love they seek in their
own sordid activities.  To turn from these people only forces them deeper into
the burgeoning ranks of the militant factions that seek to destroy us.  So you
see, in the end, while God holds sway over all things, we have the power to
determine our own demise.  Unless He intervenes directly our own hatred of our
brothers and sisters in Christ will destroy us, not the other way around.
     In the years to come before the next election we will hear much about
this and other subjects that affect the moral fiber of our nation.  During
this time we must develop to a very high degree the perspective Paul had when
he wrote Ephesians 6:12 saying: "For our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of
this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly
places" (NAS).  We must relearn what it means to be 'soldiers of Christ' and
we must understand exactly what the homosexual community is asking us to give
up in our faith in order to make room for them.  While not forsaking all the
other armaments of the Lord we must learn how to use the greatest weapon in
our arsenal which is love, search ourselves to find what keeps us from it and,
through growth in the Christian walk, eradicate these barriers from our lives.
These can be the best of times to refine ourselves and the worst of times to
fail our Lord for our own sakes.  We must learn the true meaning, and thus the
true value, of humility.
     Struggle is as much a part of life as breathing. Perhaps that is a
partial reason for why we almost prefer to make war than searching for
peaceful existence with each other.  Our God wages war too and His enemies
are, inevitably, utterly destroyed.  However, His methods are vastly different
from our own.  He gives us His rules of spiritual warfare and it is amazing to
see them in action.  "Love your enemies and pray for them who deceitfully use
you" goes against the natural man's grain.  But our help is in His name as
long as we put our pride to one side and let Him fight our battles on His
terms.  NO person or force can prevail against us as long as we rest in Him.
We must, once again, reclaim His values and turn our backs on the excesses of
this world that separate us from Him.  NO one can claim our hearts and minds
unless we give them first.  We must first give them to Christ before we go out
to do battle in this world.
     It goes without saying that the rising tide of homosexual advocacy has
taken a very violent attitude toward the detractors of this lifestyle. The
account of the takeover of the American Psychiatric Association in the early
70's is a prime example of this and has set the stage for further changes
through methods other than those which involve calm, logical discussion.
Essentially, as I said before, the official secular barriers to declaring
homosexuality a 'normal' lifestyle have all but been destroyed.  This leaves
the church as the final barrier to their accessing this status in our society.
Interestingly, the laws passed and ordinances changed have often taken place
without much public discussion indicating a situation most distressing to
those of us who value the original intent of our country's founders in
fighting for true representation of all in matters affecting society as a
whole.  The more the average person turns a deaf ear to legislative activities
at all levels the more swiftly this country will fall prey to the whims of the
groups who wage war through PACs and other lobbyists and those who prefer to
govern and legislate by extremes.  Hopefully, when this situation becomes bad
enough, the general public's awareness of the undermining of our value system
will cause us to rise up to correct the situation.
     The book "Shadow in the Land" by Congressman Wm. Dannemeyer of California
while being slightly dated, is also very important in our search to understand
not only the history of how the homosexual movement has achieved its political
success but it is also revealing in its discussion of the homosexual
condition.  This latter concern is one that bears some time spent honestly
studying the situation.  Congressman Dannemeyer holds that homosexuality
is definitely a choice one makes.  However, I do slightly differ from this
assumption in that the choosing of it has some complicated psychological
patterns and pathologies that make it easy to confuse a natural, inborn trait
with outside influences impacting one's self image.  Even given the latest
findings that call for researchers to pin "objective" interpretations on DNA
studies of homosexual men and physiological interpretations of brain anomalies
they have, so far, failed to do so irregardless of the hopeful press releases
that would try to lead us to that conclusion.
     Nevertheless, it is inconceivable to me how a group of people who have
been left to live their lives as they choose with little intervention except
in cases where their activities degenerated into some particularly deviant
behavior shared by both theirs as well as the heterosexual community can
become so militant in furthering their cause in a country such as America.
Perhaps our country has metamorphosed into a thing none of the founders could
have foreseen in their time.  Certainly, ill advised legislation and judicial
decisions of the past have snowballed to a point that they must now run their
course, no one can stop them.  Our legal system, through litigation and
judicial activism, is replete with new laws based on earlier decisions and
mere opinions that, while not intending to do so, already give homosexuals the
rights of privileged people in our society. Their ultimate goal is a written
law or Constitutional Amendment explicitly stating such.  After that, all they
want is the hearts and minds of our children.