News Flash: Liberals Hate Christianity

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“And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
— I Corinthians 2:1-2 (KJV)

Jesse Lee Peterson’s WorldNetDaily column:

LGBT groups have been effective in linking their immoral cause to the noble civil rights movement. In reality, gays never wanted equality. They wanted society to accept their sinful lifestyle, or else. LGBT groups — to be blunt — act like fascists. Just like militant Islam demands Shariah law, homosexual pressure groups demand “sodomy law.”
So what’s so bad about discrimination anyway? Discrimination has always been a hallmark of freedom. The ability to discriminate is given to us by God so that we can make right choices.

Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch expects his liberal readers to be outraged by this. But all Jesse Lee Peterson is saying is that he, as a Christian, views homosexuality as a “sinful lifestyle” and considers the gay-rights movement an “immoral cause.”

What is Brian Tashman trying to say? He doesn’t make an argument, he just gives it the shock headline (“Right-Wing Pundit: America Under ‘Sodomy Law’”) with the evident expectation that Jesse Lee Peterson’s use of the word “sodomy” to describe homosexuality is sufficient to cause liberal outrage: “How dare he?”

Whence this certainty? Why is Brian Tashman so confident in the force of liberal indignation? Christians aren’t allowed to write opinion columns anymore? Nobody is allowed to criticize or oppose the gay-rights movement? Dissent is impermissible? Because if this is what Tashman is trying to say, isn’t he just proving Peterson right?

The recent controversy over Memories Pizza — “Try our new Supreme Homophobia Special!” — and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana has helped bring into focus the inherent problems with mandatory “equality.” If you read Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, it was apparent at the time that the majority’s “Emerging Awareness” Doctrine would have far-reaching effects in law, society and culture. These effects were not entirely predictable, because Lawrence amounted to a repudiation of many centuries of Anglo-American common law precedent. With this decision, America was setting sail into uncharted waters, voyaging toward that part of the ancient map marked “Here Be Dragons.”

What we are finding here is something like the “Sexual Anarchy” described by Matt Barber, a world without any moral truth beyond a fanatical certainty in the wrongness of “hate.” Yet if mere disapproval is “hate,” and thus subject to legal sanction, haven’t we instituted a regime of Compulsory Approval? Ideas Have Consequences, as we were warned long ago by Richard Weaver and, by making the idea of “equality” the first premise of our syllogism, we find ourselves unable to refute an argument leading us to the conclusion that the owners of Memories Pizza have no right to run their own business as they see fit, and Jesse Lee Peterson’s criticism of sodomy must be silenced.

What is at stake is liberty. Ace of Spades understands this:

I do not exist to appease your OCD need for Hierarchy, Structure, Order, Regularity, and Standard Procedures in all facets of life.
Some people continue to be wigged out at the idea that I can buy alcohol in one county but the next county over — get this! — it’s illegal to sell booze.
They just seem to have this baseline devotion to the ideal that we should all be the same. That each county should follow the same rules. That a traveler, moving from one county to the next, should not be surprised or bothered to discover there are Different Rules in effect, or a Different Culture.
That we should, in short, all have the Same Rules, and the Same Culture, with all Proud Nails pounded flat to the wood, so that there is no danger of snagging anyone’s clothing or giving anyone a cut.
Some find that comforting.
I find it creepy. . . .
It bothers Bill Quick that one bakery could have one set of policies, and yet a bakery down the street could, get this, have an entirely different set of policies.
That’s just wrong, he apparently thinks. . . .

You can read the whole thing, which is both powerful and hilarious (obligatory Strong Language Warning). Understand that Ace and his antagonist Bill Quick are both atheists and libertarian-leaning conservatives. Their argument is therefore instructive of how, once we step off the Solid Rock of biblical truth, we step into the shifting sands of doubt and confusion. The Christian knows what he believes and why he believes it — do I need to cite chapter and verse here? — and need not justify himself or prove his own case, because he does not offer his mere personal opinion. Rather the Christian relies on an eternal and transcendent Truth that exists beyond himself.

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
And to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”

Our elite intelligentsia are offended by the Christian’s child-like faith, because a simple Truth that can be known by all — “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” — puts the Ph.D. and the high-school dropout on the same moral plain. The university professor is no better in God’s eyes than the janitor mopping the hallway outside the professor’s classroom. Both of them will be judged by the same standard of righteousness and both are equally condemned by that standard. We are but “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” as Jonathan Edwards long ago warned, and it is only by God’s mercy and by the atonement of Christ that we have hope of anything other than the fiery destruction we deserve.

To which the liberal’s only answer is: “SHUT UP!”

How dare we question their right as Our Moral Superiors™ to tell us what to think? The Christian’s simple faith is tantamount to insulting liberals. To reject their Gospel of Secular Salvation is to call into question the Heaven-on-Earth promises that liberals have been making for at least the past hundred years. The Left is determined to immanentize the eschaton, and when Jesse Lee Peterson speaks disapprovingly of “sodomy,” he must be denounced and ridiculed, lest anyone else get the idea that dissent is permissible or socially acceptable. Why, if people are allowed to disagree with liberals, next thing you know, they might start questioning whether “Haven Monahan” and his frat buddies gang-raped a girl in Charlottesville. They may begin doubting the Gospel of Climate Change, or even lose faith in Keynesian economics!

If these Christians are allowed to call sin by its right name, you see, the entire fabric of liberal belief may begin to unravel, and the system of prestige by which Our Moral Superiors™ claim the right to tell us what to think could crumble into the ash-heap of history as suddenly as the Soviet Union collapsed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And so liberals keep shrieking: “SHUT UP!”

Are we obligated to obey their totalitarian command? I think not.

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself . . . she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1786



 

120 comments

  1. The inferior have always resented the superior. This is why Christians tolerate atheists, and why atheists have always hated Christians.

  5. […] More from American Power Blog And as usual Amanda Marcotte misses the point entirely Instapundit: Slandered and libeled fraternity pursues damages from Rolling Stone and UVA, from Watergate to the Pizza Wars, the curtain is pulled back, and to the left narratives matter way more than facts (even if it later blows up on them). Legal Insurrection: Students smeared by Rolling Stone and Jackie speak out Rush Limbaugh Instapundit: The only clear victims were the accused TOM: Liberals Hate Christianity […]

  8. “Nobody is allowed to criticize or oppose the gay-rights movement? Dissent is impermissible?”

    I presume you are simply being disingenuous here. The answers are yes, and yes.

  9. The Progressive/Liberal/Leftist mind can only abide a “god” who is an anthropomorphic Santa Claus character. That is, a god who pays lip service to being nice over naughty but gives us presents on December 25 no matter what. Such a god allows them to do what they wish with no consequences. They cannot abide a god who is just; who passes judgment on our actions. They love the mercy part and ignore the rest.

    Of course, what they fail to realize is that mercy is meaningless without prior judgment. And that judgment must be based upon something–some standard of behavior.

    At its root, the conflict is that. The proponents of these life choices know, yes know, that their choices are flawed. They believe that if no one tells them as much, that their choices will be validated and their inner demons will be quieted.

    Newsflash: They won’t. We have consciences for a reason.

  11. I’m not convinced they want us to think their way. They don’t care what we think as long they’re able to compel us to act and do as they wish. I believe they prefer that we are compelled to abandon our principles rather than adopt theirs. If the Baker relents and bakes the cake, fine then the Baker has been subdued. If the Baker refuses and is destroyed because of it, well that’s just icing on the cake.

  12. It’s the final horrifying scenes from 1984 where Winston sits down at his desk and continues working, convinced that as long as he still resists in the dark parts of his mind, they haven’t truly won.

  15. While I consider myself an atheist, I am not militant about it, I don’t begrudge the faithful their faith, and I’m certainly not foolish enough to put myself in the untenable position of having to prove a negative by declaring that there is no God. I will always be on good terms with people of faith who hold human liberty in high regard.

    That said, I lost my taste for religion because my mom had a penchant for tyrannical Southern Baptist fire-breathers when I was a boy (this almost broke up my family since my dad has never tolerated being shouted at very well). But, as bad as mom’s howlers got, I had the liberty to walk away without being hunted down and ground under their heel.

    Not so with the poisonous Stalinist toads who pursue what they call “social justice” in perfectly Orwellian fashion and utterly devoid of any sense of irony.

    SJWs make me want to, a la Mencken, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats. I am certain that I’m not the only one.

  16. IMO, the biggest impediment on the right to reform is our reflexive respect for the law and tradition.
    That is an appropriate feeling for a country at peace, but dangerous for a country at war; in this case, culturally.
    The right has too much talk, and not nearly enough action.
    A public display of civil disobedience on a large scale is what’s needed. This, of course, will need to be backed up by the right to bear arms.
    I would like to see citizens openly flouting court rulings like the sort that overturned proposition 8.
    …either that, or maybe just lynch some judges.

  17. Yes. That’s capitulation, followed by rationalization.
    If you aren’t free to ACT on your beliefs, then you aren’t really free.

  19. Please.

    There are Christians here who regularly attack anyone who dares dissent.

    Same strategy, different silly hat.

    Could we possibly try something besides either/or?

    Could we have a public policy that neither helps nor hinders any belief system, so long as no one’s person or property is threatened?

    I don’t care what you believe. It’s when you think your beliefs should be given the force of law and govern me that I have a problem.

    It’s the same problem I have with progressives.

  21. Wow. I’m not sure which article you should read first, this one by Stacy, or John Nolte’s article at Breitbart about BuzzFeed. Both of them should be read in the same window of time, though, because they show how comfortable these totalitarian control freaks have become with mobbing people who are just minding their own business.

    John Nolte (Breitbart): How Ben Smith Turned Buzzfeed Into a Hate Site

    The sheets and pointy hats may be rainbow-colored now, but the left’s KKK-style behavior is still the same shade of fascism.

  22. Moral equivalence is a fallacy for good reason.

    Find one Christian group today that has targeted an innocent person–someone who was not speaking out or being an activist–and then hounded them into bankruptcy, job loss, or worse.

    Right now, anonymous online bullies are showing the world exactly how so many regular German Citizens became part of the vicious side of the totalitarian underbelly. I’m guessing many of these uncouth slanderers and death-threat makers are just regular, ordinary barristas, produce section workers, bartenders, and other sorts of people who you’d never suspect of harboring such intense hatred.

    If you think it’s the same problem, you aren’t really thinking at all.

  23. This is a great representation of what John Effing Kerry and Hitlery are talking about when they substitute the phrase “freedom of worship” for what is supposed to be the idea of Freedom of Religion that is contained in our founding documents.
    so-called freedom of worship=do NOT preach the gospel to all nations, hide the light of Christ under a bushel basket … you can “worship” however you want just STFU outside of your place of worship

  24. I had similar experiences, although never with the real hardcore fire and brimstone types (other than some elder family members born at the tail end of the1800’s). As much as I felt somewhat driven away by the constant reminders that I was probably going to hell, I found myself coming to their defense more and more as I grew older.

    After all, they only cared because they loved me. And when you understand them, they feel we’re all in constant danger of going to hell. Even the most righteous.

    So while I’m barely what anyone would call religious, I completely reject the constant calls by the progressive Republicans and atheists to rid themselves of the “social” conservatives.

    That’s like being annoyed with your heart because of that irritating “thumping” sound it makes.

  28. Exactly which laws are helping Christianity’s advance? Meanwhile the lavender mafia insists everyone bow at the altar of deviancy and uses the courts like a sledgehammer to enforce their sick creed.

  30. Even before I returned to the Church, I thought that the belief that everyone, even the poorest, most miserable beggar, has an immortal soul and is loved by God was the most beautiful idea Christianity introduced to the world. (And the most radical – the Romans and Greeks would have thought such a notion insane.)
    It honestly never occurred to that what I find most inspiring and moving about the Faith is the same thing that disgusts the prog elites. Oh of course, I’ve known for forever they don’t think unborn babies are human. But until I read this post, I didn’t imagine an atheist snob being so appalled by the idea of having to rub metaphoric elbows with the declasse in Heaven that he would prefer being reduced to nothing but a pile of ashes. However, it makes perfect sense given everything else I know about progs.

    Pride is at the root of all sins.

  31. So nobody is allowed to question or challenge your beliefs? If they do, that constitutes an “attack?”
    Goodness, yet another one of the Easily Offended.
    Please name a theocratic Christian government in today’s world (besides the Vatican), one which is forcing everyone to accept Christian beliefs and laws.

  33. “Find one Christian group today…”

    Lots of qualifiers there. So I guess I’m not “allowed” to mention all the issues with interracial marriage. Nor am I allowed to mention a certain Governor of California.

    You’re not objecting to it happening, you’re objecting to it happening to Christians.

    I want to do away with the means to do it at all.

  36. Of course people can question or challenge my beliefs.

    But my belief shouldn’t be THE law. Nor should it be against the law.

    Neither help nor hinder.

    At the same time, I can question or challenge your beliefs. I just shouldn’t be able to use the law to help me do it.

    Parity. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

    I’ll take a stand against the progressive “agenda” as long as it doesn’t mean enshrining the conservative “agenda.”

  37. “…until I changed all my teachings to better fit with the zeitgeist and make sure nobody felt judged. Then the world loved me again.” #thingsjesusneversaid

  38. “But until I read this post, I didn’t imagine an atheist snob being so appalled by the idea of having to rub metaphoric elbows with the declasse in Heaven that he would prefer being reduced to nothing but a pile of ashes.”

    Have you ever read Boswell’s account of the last hours of David Hume? One of the reasons Hume gave for disbelieving in immortality was that “immortality, if it were at all, must be general; that a great proportion of the human race has hardly any intellectual qualities; that a great proportion dies in infancy before being possessed of reason; yet all these must be immortal; that a porter who gets drunk by ten o’clock with gin must be immortal; that the trash of every age must be preserved, and that new universes must be created to contain such infinite numbers”. Elsewhere he says, in essence, “How could I possibly be humble, when I was so clearly more intelligent than everybody else?”

  39. Today’s liberalism is basically an anti-Christian religion. I think we under-estimate the religious nature of it.

  40. Alas, someone’s morality (or immorality) will become law. That is not a choice, and it doesn’t matter if you are under Stalin, Hitler, or a Christian. There are things that MUST be law, like it or not. The left, and any other fascist will make sure you care about what they care about. Government is all about force, as the founders pointed out rather strongly.

  41. You repeatedly engage people by trying to use to use Tu Quoque arguments. Like it or not, that is a logical fallacy. It is not an issue that Christians have made mistakes, they have, and they will. Your mistake is caused by a lack of understanding of what Christianity is, and what the duties of a Christian are.

    A second problem you have is you want a lawless regime, or anarchy. If this isn’t what you desire, then you need to leave here and think through what you are saying, but what you have posted above is nothing short of anarchy.

    What people like you refuse to understand, no matter how many times history shoves it down your ignorant throat, that someone’s morality WILL be law. It doesn’t matter if it is under an absolute monarch, such as the Tsar, or a pure Democracy such as ancient Athens. Once can point to Calvin’s Geneva, which was a pretty grim place for as much as 150 years after his death, and attempt to make a case against Christians in positions of rule. You may not realize it, but there are serious indications that Calvin may not have been a Christian, and his regime was not workable in the long run. The Reconstructionist is a very small minority among supposed Christians, and most of us have no udes either for their unbiblical ideology as well as their unbiblical theology.

    The choice is yours, but you are basically in a rut, and it is your choice to either get out of it, and really engage intellectually, or stay in that rut, and simply be regarded as the idiot you seem to wish to be known as.

  42. That was cruel of the Wombat, was it not? I guess we can forgive him since he keeps the trolls in check around here.

  43. Gedenken sind frei, is just the rationalizing Hamster running on his wheel at high velocity.

  45. Catholicism teaches that it’s turning away from God that sends us to hell, so it’s on us not on Him.

    I don’t mean that as an indictment of your atheism but as an alternate explanation to the fire and brimstone stuff.

  46. It’s about agreeing on the rules.

    There are things that we agree on. Murder is bad. Theft and vandalism are bad. Honoring your promise is good.

    I don’t need to have any special understanding of your beliefs for that. And you don’t need to have any special understanding of mine.

    It’s not anarchy when I stand in front of you and say requiring Christian morality in law is a really terrible idea. Anymore than when I tell the global warming crowd that controlling the carbon footprint by law is a really terrible idea.

  47. How about a morality that we hold in common rather than one that a select group has decided we should have?

    Isn’t that what the argument is?

    You don’t want to forced into another’s belief system. Nor do they.

    Rather than either/or, let’s work on something that is practical for everyone.

  49. What greater proof of his divinity could there be than the fact that Christ is still resisted, even hated, after 2,000 years?

  50. Truth and mortality is not found by consensus. And history has shown us that a truly free and healthy society have always been Christians ones.

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