THE IMPLICATIONS OF A FALSE MORAL EQUIVALENCE -

February 27, 2014 

            Should the LGBT rights movement be presented as equivalent to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s? In the propaganda delivered by the media on an almost hourly basis,  this is the ongoing comparison being made.  But is the LGBT movement, in reality, hijacking the moral imperative of non-discrimination on the basis of race by arguing a false moral equivalence to sexual orientation?

I believe it is.  I also believe the societal implications of this false equivalence have not been fairly explored.  They will reach far beyond the publicly proclaimed goals of non-discrimination against LGBT persons and same sex marriage. 

            Any balanced examination of this issue must recognize the blizzard of misinformation that has been churned out by an overwhelmingly pro-gay media.  For instance, the fact is THERE IS NO CONCRETE PROOF HOMOSEXUALITY IS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A CHOICE.  Read the available literature.  Look at the studies that have been published.  As much as the LGBT community would like to have you believe they are locked into their sexual orientation at birth, there is no proof!  Yet, that assertion is constantly being made.  What is happening today seems to absolutely confirm the assertion that if you simply repeat an untruth often enough as though it were true, it will be perceived as so.  Unfortunately, in the minds of the American public the growing consensus seems to be that sexual orientation, like race, is immutable.  Why?  Because it is asserted and asserted and asserted as though it were true.  Therefore, in the minds of many it is true.

            Allow me to share a couple of scientific, and for some, rather inconvenient, truths.  RACE IS IMMUTABLE.  It cannot be changed.  Period.  Black, Hispanic, Anglo, Native American, Asian, or some mixture thereof – genetically you are what you are.  DNA tests will deliver indisputable, and unchangeable, results for each of us as individuals. Along this same line, GENDER IS IMMUTABLE.  It also cannot be changed.  You are either male or female in every cell of your body.  Period.  All the shots and surgery in the world will not change a male into a female or vice versa.  You may alter the appearance of the package, but the contents will remain the same.

            Compare this to the completely different set of standards determining sexual orientation.  There is no scientific test to determine by DNA or any other physical factor one’s sexual orientation.  The only way to know whether a man feels like a woman, or a woman is sexually attracted to other women, is by self-assertion and action.  To equate sexual orientation with race or gender as though they were cut from the same cloth is blatantly untrue. You have no control over your race or gender.  You do have over your sexual orientation.

            Allow me to cite one example which exemplifies the hypocrisy involved in conflating race with sexual orientation.  Chirlane de Blasio is the wife of New York’s recently elected mayor, Bill de Blasio, who has been an outspoken supporter of LGBT “rights.”  Chirlane has been married to Bill for over twenty years.  They have two children.  She is Black and he is Anglo.  She was also a practicing lesbian prior to their relationship.  Chirlane cannot change her race, but she clearly has changed her sexual orientation.  How could this be?  Because race is fixed and immutable, sexual orientation a choice.  Yet, this mind boggling contradiction of the conventional wisdom has been completely ignored by the pro-gay press.

            As we blunder on blithely ignoring science in the name of “gay rights” and political correctness, our society is opening up Pandora’s box.  There are always consequences, whether PC thought chooses to ignore them or not, to blatantly ignoring real, physical, truths.  Here’s some of what’s coming folks, and it isn’t pretty…

            Because sexual orientation is being equated with race in legislation being written in various states, the courts are going to be forced to continue to rule in favor of homosexual rights.  Even though it is a false equivalence, it is an equivalence the courts will have no choice but to recognize as they rule on any LGBT issue.  Eric Holder has made no bones about where the department of justice stands, to the extent of urging attorneys general in various states to refuse to enforce anti-gay marriage legislation presently on the books.  There is no reason to believe court decisions and enforcement (or lack thereof) by attorneys general will not continue their present trend toward favoring LGBT “rights.” 

            Consider “gay” marriage to be a given: the same with gay adoption.

            A Christian’s right to express their faith and conviction in LGBT matters is going to be criminalized.  It’s already happening.  It’s only going to get worse.  Consider the fight which just took place in Arizona over a bill giving Christians the right to express their moral and spiritual convictions without criminal consequences.   Incredible political and financial pressure was brought on Governor Brewer to veto the bill, which she did.   The purpose of the bill had nothing to do with allowing Christians to discriminate against gays.  It came into being because conservative legislators recognized how threatened Christians are by what is happening nationwide.  They are being prosecuted because of their unwillingness to advocate the gay lifestyle.  The purpose of the bill was to protect Christians, not persecute gays.  However, the LGBT movement wants fundamentalist Christians shut up and shut down – period.  This law would have undermined their efforts in that regard.  Thus, they unleashed an unbelievable campaign of fury and pressure to destroy the bill, and were successful.

            Get ready for unisex public bathrooms.  Since sexual orientation is now determined by one’s personal inclinations and not science, there is no way male and female bathrooms are going to stand.  They have already been accused of traumatizing transgender children.  They are being likened to “colored” and “white” drinking fountains in the South in the l950’s.  Laws in California and court rulings in New Hampshire clearly favor allowing children to enter the restroom they feel most comfortable with, regardless of genitalia.  The days of boys and girls restrooms will be a thing of the past.

            Also prepare for some very interesting fighting over sports and the participation of transgender individuals.  Picture what is coming to the Olympics when men, who genetically test as men but claim to be women, want to throw the shot put or run track events as females.  Genetic testing, which has been used in the past to disqualify males seeking to participate as females, must logically now be disallowed as discriminatory. 

             The same thing holds true with beauty pageants.  What will they do when a transgender woman decides to compete for Miss America?  I see no way present laws and interpretations of those laws could prevent him/her from competing.

            Therapists and ministries working with gay and transgender men to change their sexual orientation to heterosexual are already being marginalized and even criminalized.  Any attempt to counsel a confused young person about their sexuality is going to be fraught with danger unless the counsel is determinedly gender neutral.

            Please understand that war has been declared on Judeo-Christian values in our society, and those who would hold to them.  LGBT groups are promulgating blatantly false assertions equating race and gender with sexual orientation in order to gain the sympathy and favor of the masses.  As a result, all over the country legislation and court decisions are now being written and rendered based upon lies presented as truth.  Every aspect of our society is going to be changed, and in the process soiled and demeaned, by what is going on.  This glorious new world of sexual freedom being advocated by these prophets of moral filth is going to make Sodom and Gomorrah look like play school.  And this country is going to be about as friendly to Christians as Sodom was to Lot.

            I genuinely fear what is coming.   

PHOBIAS

            I am acrophobic and claustrophobic – sort of.

Phobias are an odd lot.  Consider the Rouse version of acrophobia.  Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking down into its magnificent depths doesn’t bother me.  Flying in a passenger jet at 40,000 feet, I actually enjoy looking down at the clouds and the earth as its slides past far below.  However, just thinking about changing the lights that top the tower on the Empire State Building causes me to break out in a cold sweat.  I literally cannot even watch a video of construction workers walking the high steel of skyscrapers they’re building.  I know. It sounds weird, because it is.  My acrophobia is situational and inexplicable.  I’ve never fallen from a tower.  There’s no particular reason I can come up with as to why I’m terrified of certain types of heights, but that makes the fear no less overwhelming or real.  It’s rather embarrassing to start cringing when someone shows me a picture of construction workers casually eating their lunch on girders hundreds of feet above the ground, but believe me, it’s a toe curling experience.

The same holds true with my version of claustrophobia.  Folks have asked me about elevators and closets.  No, they really don’t bother me.  But the idea of spelunking in underground caves requiring me to squeeze through narrow places where I might get stuck – you can absolutely forget it.  Won’t happen.  Flying in a passenger jet is just fine, as long as I’m not sitting under the bulkhead with a three hundred pounder squeezing me against the window.  The old claustrophobia kicks in and all kinds of weird, panicky thoughts that have no basis in reality but are absolutely disabling start to overwhelm me.  I’ve learned to request an aisle seat when ordering my tickets.  There’s something about being squeezed into a tight place, even wearing tight clothes (I don’t), that can run the old claustro meter way up there real quick.  Once again, I have no idea as to why these selective times of terror occur.  I’ve never been caught in a tight place or shut up in a coffin.  I can’t blame genetics, to the best of my knowledge neither of my parents wrestled with either acrophobia or claustrophobia.  Did some “wires” in my brain randomly cross and produce these seemingly baseless fears?  My attempts to come up with a logical reason for these illogical moments of terror have been fruitless.  

It’s interesting that in talking about this with others, the same types of observations hold true.  Many phobias are about as irrational and illogical as we human beings are.  I watched a grown woman jump up on a kitchen table at the sight of a mouse.  There’s a dear friend who can’t sit in a booth at a restaurant.  Another who freaks out at the sight of a spider.  Several acquaintances of mine have varied issues with crowds of people.  One had a panic attack in a theatre and had to leave the movie.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve also noticed that my particular phobias, much to my chagrin, seem to have grown worse, not better.  Once again, I have no clue as to why.  Several other folks I’ve visited with, interestingly enough, have made the same observation.  One would think that with knowledge and awareness of the problem, a phobia could be addressed and cured.  Maybe mine could be if I dropped a ton of money on a psychiatrist.  But I wonder…

I’m sharing this because I’m fascinated with what this says about how our minds work and how much of whom we are is “hardwired” and how much of it is shaped by environment and all the other “stuff” that goes with trying to figure out why we are the complex creatures we are.  I know my own phobias have certainly made me more sympathetic and empathetic with others who labor under the sometimes debilitating effects of these fears.  There will be no stones quickly cast by me at someone who is struggling with a phobia.   It is an incredibly frustrating thing to deal with an overwhelming wash of emotion (read fear) that you know has no basis in logic, yet is absolutely consuming and perhaps disabling you at a moment’s notice.

As a “left-brained” person of long standing, it is also difficult to admit that applying a little “Spock-like” logic to an issue won’t necessarily solve it.  It certainly hasn’t in my case.  Squeeze me into the backseat of a compact car with two other people and the air conditioner off, and I’ll guarantee you all the logic and calming words in the world are not going to keep me from exiting that vehicle as quickly as possible.  Just thinking about that situation makes me draw up inside.

At the same time, while I never thought I would say this, I’ve come to view my phobias as something of a blessing (even if a mixed one).  They have forced me to confront my brokenness and weakness in ways that physical issues cannot. It is difficult to admit, but I can no more will myself not to be afraid in certain situations than I could will myself to walk if paralyzed.  There is a very real sense in which my fear exists out of my control.

 This has caused me to contemplate in a new light James urging us to “count it all joy” when we encounter various trials.  I had never considered, until recently, that those trials could include the phobias with which I occasionally wrestle.   I’m now convinced they are a “trial” that can teach me very important lessons if I’ll allow.

It also calls to mind Paul’s sharing of his struggles as recorded in 2 Corinthians 12.  He writes of his “thorn in the flesh” from which he begged God to deliver him.  I’d always assumed that thorn was a physical issue, agreeing with many commentators who lean toward a problem with his eyesight.  However, it is undeniable that it was in his struggle with that weakness, whatever it was, Paul made his life changing discoveries concerning the sufficiency of God’s grace and of power truly being perfected in weakness.

And so it is with weaknesses that are not necessarily physical, but perhaps just as debilitating.  We find our own power sadly insufficient to deal with them.  But at the same time, in the humbling realization of just how broken and helpless we are in the face of irrational and illogical fear, comes a deeper understanding of how dependent we are upon God to accomplish His purposes through us any way.  It drives home how very true is Paul’s observation that the treasure of the gospel is carried about in dirt jars (2 Cor 4:7). 

One last thought… I don’t know how these musings on phobias apply when it comes to addictions and compulsions.  But if the driving force behind them is as powerful as that which drives our fears, perhaps we should be far more patient and understanding with those who wrestle with them.  It could well be their pleadings of helplessness in the face of their addiction or compulsion is more a reflection of honesty than of the self-serving excuse which we so often attribute.      

SOME THOUGHTS ON SUICIDE

February 10, 2014

I’ve been asked to share some thoughts on suicide.  This is an incredibly painful and difficult subject.  Suicide is a tragedy on multiple levels.  Not only is a person’s life taken by their own hand, but loved ones and friends left behind must deal with the sorrow, and often guilt and anger, associated with that loss.  While it is viewed as an escape by the perpetrator, it is anything but that for those who must deal with the aftermath.  It is, in many ways, one of the most selfish of acts.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, on average 38,000 people a year take their life by suicide in the United States.  To quote the NIMH, “More people die each year by suicide than by homicide.”  According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the last year for which we have formal data (2010).  Here’s a statistic, again from the CDC, which really illustrates the scope of this ongoing tragedy.  In 2010 464,995 people received hospital care due to attempts at self-harm.  That means that for every person who successfully took their own life, more than twelve made an unsuccessful attempt.  Or to put it a different way, over a half million people tried to kill themselves in this country in 2010!

All this data and much more has been mined and analyzed.  A quick perusal of the internet will tell you white people and Native Americans are more likely to take their own lives than black folks or Hispanics.  Middle aged people and those over the age of 85 have the highest rate of suicide.  Men take their own lives at four times the rate of women.  Half the suicides are accomplished with a firearm.   People living in the Intermountain West are more likely to end their own lives than those living in the Northeast.

None of these facts and statistics answers the real question of “Why?”  What causes someone to reach the point in their life where ending their existence prematurely by their own hand is preferable to remaining here?  In perusing articles on the subject it quickly becomes apparent that there are no simple answers.  Age, ill health, chronic pain, economic adversity, family and personal problems, drug addiction, bullying, depression, and loneliness are just some of the causative factors put forth. 

I would like to argue that while all these factors are real and relevant, they ignore two that are of overwhelming importance:  A systematic destruction of Christian faith and, its close fellow, hopelessness.

In this brave new world it seems our culture is determined to do everything it can to destroy, in the name of freedom, Christian faith.  The existence of God and the truth and relevance of Scripture are under constant, and vicious, attack.  From the ACLU to the Freedom from Religion Foundation there are groups dedicated to ridiculing and destroying anything related to the Christian faith.

Here’s the problem.  Philosophically and morally they are creating a vacuum in lives and hearts but supplying absolutely nothing to fill it.  They seek to tear to shreds, in the name of science and rationality, faith.  But they have no alternative to offer except empty platitudes about somehow determining your own meaning and value in life.  It’s one thing to stare into the blackness of darkness that is chance and nothingness (which is at the core of atheism) from some academic ivory tower, it is another for a broken-hearted teenager to find a reason to endure his or her pain in Nietzsche or nihilism.  In the name of freedom we are chaining our population in dungeons of darkness while offering neither a light nor a key. We are leaving them nothing to believe in.  

Which brings me to hopelessness.  I have never dealt with a suicide in which hopelessness was not a factor.  One loses the will and desire to go on when there is no hope of something better.  When Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 13:13 of the great triad of faith, hope, and love, hope is not there accidentally.  It is hope that gives us the strength and will to persevere, to endure.  Strip one of hope, and you have stripped them of the will to live.  Read the memoirs of prisoners of war and those who endured concentration camps.  Universal among them is the conviction that hope played a critical part in their survival.  The belief that one day the horror would end, one day they would be free, gave them the strength to go on.

It is when one is battling a broken heart, or broken health, or broken dreams that hope becomes of incredible importance. It is, in those times of great pain and difficulty, as essential to life as oxygen.  It is what provides the energy to go on.  If hope is not there to sustain, if hope is gone, there is little or no incentive to continue the battle.  Why not fall on one’s sword and end the misery?

If we genuinely wish to end the epidemic of suicide in this country, we must take seriously the strengthening, not the destruction, of our citizens’ faith.  We must seek, on every hand, to create and strengthen and hold out hope, not destroy it with cynicism and sophistry. I believe we who claim a relationship with the risen Christ offer, if it will only be accepted by those in desperate need, reasons to continue on in this sometimes cold and cruel world.  The faith we share and the hope we cherish are not just platitudes, they are the heart of life itself.

Having said that, please allow me to make a couple of theological and practical observations about suicide.

One, I do not believe suicide to be the unforgiveable sin.  That is certainly for God to judge.  His grace and mercy must always be taken into account when life comes to an end by whatever cause.  If one is lost or saved, I don’t believe it is attributable to a single act at the end of life.  Rather, it is a matter of one’s relationship with the Lord and how that relationship has been reflected in life to that point. 

Two, the law has long since recognized the nuances of homicide.  There is first degree murder.  It is planned, pre-meditated and cold-blooded.  Such an act is harshly punished.  There is also second degree murder.  In it life is taken from another, and while designated as murder, it is not punished to the same degree.  Why?  Because it is viewed as having occurred in the heat of the moment absent pre-meditation.  But we go even further in the serious matter of taking another’s life.  We also recognize what we term manslaughter.  We nuance it as well, dividing it into voluntary and involuntary categories.  In each of these cases an innocent life has been taken, yet we recognize that motive and circumstance are critical in determining the degree of guilt of the perpetrator.

Should we not view suicide in the same way?  Is it right or fair to equate all cases in the same manner?  Is a person’s ending by suicide years of unendurable pain due to accident or injury to be seen as equivalent to the impulsive drunken, dramatic gesture of a jilted lover?  If a person has eaten or smoked themselves to death over a period of thirty years, is it any less a taking of his or her life than gulping handfuls of pills over a period of thirty seconds?

I would ask you to consider this real life case with me.  Last year I preached the funeral of a woman who hanged herself.  She had suffered for years from a debilitating illness that left her in chronic pain.  Her husband was gone for a few hours one day and came back to find she had ended her life.  She had lost hope.  She could not face the pain another day.

I am not condoning what she did.  But I would ask those quick to judge this question:  What of the hundreds of days she quietly endured her pain?  What of the fact that morning after morning, for years, she awoke to another day of suffering and, that day, she didn’t take her life.  That day, she continued on.  That day she endured and lived and loved.  What of all those days?  Do we give her no credit for the courage and faith it took to quietly, courageously endure them?  Why do we only remember the day she broke, the day she could take it no more?  How is that fair or just or right? 

Suicide is a horrible tragedy.  It always involves far more victims than just the one taking his or her own life.  It is, undeniably, a selfish act.  But, as with other tragedies that come, we must view it, as best we can, from a perspective that recognizes our own ignorance, weaknesses, and inabilities.  May we seek to bear one another’s burdens (as Paul urges in Galatians 6:2), for without help, sometimes those burdens can crush and destroy hope and life.  May we strive to be a people who bring hope and light and life to what can sometimes appear to be an overwhelmingly dark world.    

 

        

WHO IS GOING TO DETERMINE WHAT IS MORAL???

February 7, 2014

 

There is now an obvious and overt move to drive religion, particularly Christianity, from the public square, to silence its voice and squelch its influence.  Amendment one of the Bill of Rights has been reinterpreted to declare freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion.  I say reinterpreted, and deliberately so, because how can “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” possibly be seen as prohibiting a nativity scene in a public park or a reproduction of the ten commandments in a courthouse?  I am certainly no Constitutional scholar, but I can read.  The language contained in Amendment one seems deliberately simple and clear.  What is prohibited by Amendment One is the government passing a law establishing some type of national religion.  Question: Have you read of a single law recently passed anywhere in this country seeking to enforce some form of Christianity, or any religion, as our national faith?  I haven’t.  Nativity scenes and crosses are simply a reflection of the roots of our culture in Judeo-Christian beliefs – no more.  Somehow equating their presence with laws forcing the citizenry to worship them or what they represent is a step of legal sophistry.  The establishment clause is being misused by some as a club to pound into fragments “the free exercise thereof” of religion that citizens are guaranteed in Amendment One.  Amendment One declares no physical sphere for the free exercise of our religion.  Yet, there is a determined, and successful, effort to drive any exercise of religion to within the four walls of a church building or the privacy of a home.  What more effective way is there to destroy the influence of Christianity, and its inherent morals and values, than to strip it entirely from public view in the name of separation of Church and State? 

At the same time, there is a determined and effective effort to remove from our country laws rooted in our Judeo-Christian tradition.  Laws based not only in the Ten Commandments, but also in the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as spoken of in the Declaration of Independence, are being legislated out of existence or summarily overturned by judges.  Laws prohibiting sodomy, prostitution, drug use, gambling, polygamy, and obscenity are being wiped off the books supposedly in the name of equality and freedom.  But the venomous attacks against these laws are very much about their religious foundations.  They are being viciously attacked because they are rooted in a belief in the transcendent, divine law of a Higher Power.  If those roots are seen as valid, the State is answerable to those laws and that power.  However, if those laws and the assumptions that underlie them can be uprooted and destroyed, the State is left not only free from answering to a transcendent moral standard, but is empowered to establish an alternate moral standard of its own creation.  The State is able to take the place of God in determining what is moral and what is not.

Evidence of the success of this effort is all around us.  Not only have laws prohibiting sodomy been wiped off the books, but gay marriage is being legalized in state after state and promoted by the federal government.  Now stripped of its Biblical moral framework as being between a man and a woman, the creative reinterpretations of marriage by an amoral at best, and immoral at worst, government sees the door already being opened to polygamy and other polyamorous relationships.  Not only that, but moral outrage at such reinterpretations and desecrations of marriage is now prosecutable.  The tables have been completely turned by the government.  What was once illegal and immoral is now deemed both legal and moral, and what was once seen as moral and beneficial is attacked and prosecuted as immoral and intolerant.  In these matters the State has successfully supplanted God as the arbiter of what is moral and right.  With its inherent power of coercion, the State is also now able to enforce this new moral code with threats of fines and even jail time.

It is of utmost importance to see this not merely as a battle between Christianity and secular humanism.  It is that.  But it is far more than that.  It is about the State deliberately replacing God as having the right to decree what is moral and acceptable.  The State is, by definition, comprised of human beings.  Thus, this is really about humans seizing the power to play God.  This is a conflict for control that goes back to the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. 

While this is frightening upon multiple levels, allow me to share what frightens me most.  Human beings may choose to rebel against the moral imperatives of God, but there are always consequences when they do so.  In the name of freedom and tolerance, under the guise of freeing us from ancient moral guidelines no longer valid in this brave new world, the State is unleashing forces of destruction upon us far more fearsome than many external threats.      

Allow me to cite two examples:

The State’s embrace of, and support for, sexual immorality has resulted in a rate of illegitimacy that approaches forty percent in the white population and seventy percent in the black.  Households of single mothers are mired in poverty at a far higher rate than married households.  As our national debt spirals out of control, the State is forced to borrow more and more money, much of which is being spent on entitlements to subsidize these single parent households.  The cost of illegitimacy is crippling and destroying the future for our children.

As more states legalize marijuana, and the federal government chooses to turn a blind eye to its usage, we are legitimizing the usage of a drug whose sole purpose is to produce a “high.”  It neither ennobles nor strengthens.  It is proven to arrest development in adolescents.  It has long since been recognized as a “gateway” drug opening the doors to the usage of even more harmful substances.  It demonstrably and undeniably impairs one’s dexterity on the job or behind the wheel of a car.  The social and financial costs of legalization have not even begun to be felt.  Yet the State, in its reflexive revolt against any restraint that smacks of a divine moral prohibition, will clasp yet another asp to its bosom in the name of pragmatism and freedom.

History is replete with lessons, if we’ll only pay attention, of the dangers of an atheistic, secular State determining what is moral and legal.  Nazi Germany decided eugenics made sense, and set out upon a path to destroy those mentally or physically disabled.  The German State also set itself up as the arbiter of the value of human beings and decided, among others, that Jews, Gypsies, and the disabled had no “right to life.”  The result was State sponsored “legal” genocide and the execution of over 13,000,000 human beings.  In communist China it has been a longstanding policy that married couples limit their family size to one child.  A second child will be destroyed by abortion or otherwise, by order of the State.  That policy has been ruthlessly enforced.

This is the kind of monstrous abuse one encounters when human beings, running a secular state unimpeded by transcendent moral values, determine to develop and enforce their own code of morality.  It is wrongheaded and naïve to think such cannot, and will not, happen here.              

           

 

SOME SOBERING, AND REVEALING, STATISTICS

February 4, 2014

A study was released by Gallup on February 3^rd indicating which states were the most and least religious.  The survey classified as “very religious” those who took their religion seriously on a day to day basis and attended religious services every week or almost every week – 41% of Americans fell into that category.  Those classified as “nonreligious” said religion was not an important part of their lives and they did not attend religious services – 29% of Americans were categorized in that fashion.  Another 29% fell somewhere between these two categories and were classified as “moderately religious.”

A breakdown of the most and least religious states was also shared by the Gallup Poll.  Those states considered to be most religious included Mississippi, Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Kentucky.  The percentage of “very religious” people in these states varied from 61% in Mississippi to Oklahoma and Kentucky tying with 49%.  Those states which came in as the least religious were Vermont (with only 22% very religious), New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Connecticut, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia (the last four states and the District of Columbia all surveyed 32% of their population as “very religious”).

Even a cursory observation of these numbers reveals some fascinating insights into where we are religiously, politically, and values wise as a country…

Only four out of ten people, a distinct minority, are “very religious.”  Since religious would cover everything from Muslim and Buddhist to Christian and Jew, it seems clear we are no longer a “Christian” nation.  The once dominate Christian voice and influence is no more.

We are becoming a nation with a significant portion of our population who consider themselves to be nonreligious – almost three in ten.  When combined with those who basically could take religion or leave it, another three in ten, the majority of our population is now non or irreligious.  The impact of this on values and morals is enormous.

The states where the population is most religious are found in the South, with the exception of Utah, with its high percentage of practicing Mormons.  The states that are least religious are centered in the Northeast and Northwest with the exceptions of Hawaii and Nevada (which should be no surprise).  Religious convictions are becoming more and more regionalized.  This is being reflected in “red” and “blue” state divisions.

Every state considered to be most religious voted Republican in the 2012 election.  Every state considered to be least religious voted Democrat.  Obviously, deep religious convictions, or a lack thereof, affect political affiliations and voting patterns.  There is an undeniable 100% correlation. 

The seat of our government is one of the least religious places in the country.  The District of Columbia underrepresents the average religious convictions of the general populace by nearly ten percent.  How has it come about that the religious viewpoint of over forty percent of the population is not reflected by at least a similar percentage in our nation’s capital?  Is it any wonder that laws and decisions are emanating from there which are in direct conflict with God’s will?  Satan knows how important seats of power are.  Remember the angelic battles alluded to in the book of Daniel?  This should be deeply troubling to all believers.

“Values” voting is going to continue to be an area of more and more verbal, legal, and legislative warfare.  This conflict of values directly correlates to the divided nature of our country religiously.  Those with deep religious convictions concerning matters such as abortion and same sex marriage are not going to be willing to compromise in those areas.  Based upon their convictions, they can’t.  On the other hand, the nonreligious, whose moral scruples are unaffected by Biblical teaching, will be, and are, disdainful and dismissive of, if not openly hostile and critical to, Biblically based moral standards.  As the nonreligious continue to advocate for equally intractable positions in support of both abortion and same sex marriage, based upon their humanistic values, open conflict is inevitable.

In conclusion, Christians can no longer assume that government legislation and legal decisions, particularly on a federal level, are going to be based on traditional Judeo-Christian values.  This survey, and present political and judicial reality, indicates the opposite. On a state level, the contrast between those which are categorized as “very religious” and “nonreligious”, and the moral, or immoral, character of the laws passed in those states, will only become more marked.  We are a deeply divided nation not only politically, but morally as well.

Ours is now a minority voice.  Christians no longer enjoy cultural support and endorsement.  We have surrendered the cultural megaphone.  We will have to shout to be heard.  However, I would observe that minority voices markedly smaller than ours have been out there screaming for years, railing against traditional Christian moral values, and they have been heard and exerted great influence.  That tells me it is no time to be discouraged or give up the fight.  Quite the opposite.  More than ever, the voice of God’s people needs to be heard.  The destiny of millions of souls, and of a nation, is at stake.