Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Into the Porn-fields to Smoke the Greed

Into the Porn-fields to Smoke the Greed

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You’re Gonna Want the Men Around

My friend, Pastor Toby, recently wrote a great piece highlighting the admonition of Lemuel’s mother in Proverbs 31 that he not give his strength to women. Men are prone to abdicate their responsibility, and rather than truly lead and care for those who they are called to lay their lives down for, they bequeath their strength and pitifully forfeit leadership to the women in their lives. This leads to a whole world of iniquity for both the man, and the women in his life. Toby called men to be strong, and to lead. This exhortation though was received with numerous objections. “What about abusive men?” And such winning sentiments as “patriarchy itself is a form of abuse.” I’d already begun work on this post, and thought that some of Toby’s thoughts, as well as those of his interlocutors, would be useful to tie in here.

The 21st century is deeply confused over which end is up. For over a generation, the feminists have marched to “smash the patriarchy.” Cowardly men have muttered under their stale breath at how they just “disagree with how things are, they just ain’t right,” as they grab another beer, and settle into the couch. Wicked men, have been eager participants in cheering on the downfall of masculine leadership because it removes the inconvenience of facing the consequences which masculine leadership brings. Nothing intimidates wicked men more than righteous men, it is why the wicked plot the demise of the righteous (Ps. 37:32). The civil magistrate bears the sword to reward the righteous and restrain and punish the wicked. The sword is intrinsically masculine. You want righteous men representatively wielding the sword of justice.

Multiplying the Wicked

However, what we are currently observing is that when once you have allegedly smashed the patriarchy, what you get in its place is the sinister sneer of the perverts. History shows that when virtuous men fail to lead and protect, bad men are happy to rape and plunder. “When the wicked rise, men hide themselves,” as the proverb puts it (Pr. 28:28). And another proverb for good measure, “When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth (Pr. 29:16).” Masculine leadership is most certainly not the problem when it comes to the now endless stream of sexual abuse stories. What we have is a failure of masculine leadership. Remove righteous men from authority, you will not get a decrease in abusive men, you will get an increase and a multiplication of wicked men at all levels.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]Remove righteous men from authority, you will not get a decrease in abusive men, you will get an increase and a multiplication of wicked men at all levels.[/epq-quote]The solution to what the feminists are outraged over (and in many instances rightfully so) is found in submitting to and obeying God’s law. The best way to stop wicked, lecherous men, is to confront them with the hurdle of good men. The patriarchal system of Israel––with men set up over 10s, 50s, 100s etc.––insisted that a rapist be put to death (Deu. 22:25), and even adultery carried the death penalty (Lev. 20:10, cf. Ex. 20:14). It is the feminine sensibilities of nurture and charity which have been perverted to slacken the courage of righteous men in executing severe punishment on wrong-doers. You want justice served to the perverts, seek to place godly, fearless, courageous men in civic authority.

The Inescapability of Masculine Authority

The way God created the world is inescapable. We live in an age that is attempting to rebel against God and nature. Cultures throughout history have rebelled against God and nature before, and without fail their empires are now dust, haunted by jackals. God made man first, and the woman second. He set man as the head of the woman, and this is an inescapable fact. Men are designed to be initiators. If these men are submitted to God’s Word, they will, on the whole, initiate and lead virtuously. They will work hard, put food on the table, and chase away robbers in the middle of the night with their shotgun. They will take their families to church, discipline the foolishness out of their children, instill the importance and joy of hard work, and tell great stories after dinner. The majority of godly men in my acquaintance are like this, and their wives are happy to have it so and wouldn’t want it otherwise.

But conversely, if men are allowed to “define their own truth” (as feminists have insisted our culture do), these men will initiate and lead: viciously. When men are given over to their own heart’s desires, the wickedness of their heart will soon be ruled by every vice under the sun. They will be––in the older sense of the word––vicious. The guardrails of Christian virtues protect the whole society. However, tear these down, and lecherous men will immediately put they warty hands on the wheel and take the whole caravan off into the porn-fields to smoke the greed. These sort of men want ownership, without responsibility. They may own the trailer, but based on the height of the weeds, the smell of the place, and the half-dozen broken lawn mowers, they have taken no responsibility.

Smashing the patriarchy will not bring about an egalitarian utopia, it will only create a leadership vacuum that will inevitably be filled with men who are demon-worshippers. Such sons of Belial will always insist on having temple prostitutes readily available, and that the expediency of offering their offspring to the fires of Molech never be restrained. They will rape and feast, and the only way to stop them is to put the sword into the hand of righteous men.

The Sexpenses of Sexy

The Sexpenses of Sexy

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Oozing Something

The GQBLT gestapo informs me that congratulations are in order. Playboy has paved the way for all of us to someday become the Playmate of the month. Ines Rau is the first man to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to reshape, contort, twist and mangle his body into a mimicry of the female form and be rewarded with the coveted front cover of that bastion of dignity and respect for femininity. Playboy has built its brand on the basis that it will always ooze with sex appeal. Now, for the right price, any of us can ooze, too.

But Playboy airbrushes away the ugly reality. The horror stories of reality are anything but scintillating. We rarely hear about individuals who scraped together enough money to undergo some surgeries for so-called “sex change.” Years of bleeding genitals don’t make for a good centerfold. An endless roller coaster of hormonal therapy isn’t a recipe for a “sizzling hot” photoshoot.

We are being adjured by all that is spineless to affirm that “trans women are women, too.” This mantra, however, only opens the floodgates for womanhood and femininity to become entirely meaningless. To top off the madness, what is being normalized and glamorized only perpetuates the abusive objectification of women. Young girls have been told not to find their worth in trying to look like magazine covers. Ines Rau strikes the most cliché “come hither” pose which has conditioned a generation to treat women as objects. We now have men not only objectifying women, we have men posing as objectified women.

Trans Women Ain’t Women

The glorification of transgender “models” is nothing short of irresponsible. This is an age old sales tactic. Prey on peoples’ insecurities and discontentments. Convince them they shouldn’t be content with how they are, and persuade them to shell out money to obtain what they could be. What Playboy doesn’t glamorize is the small fortune that must be shelled out in order to “look the part.” On average we are talking tens of thousands for basic surgeries, and anywhere from $55k, to over $1,000,000 in some instances.

Feminists have complained for years about the media’s tendency to objectify women. Yet when it comes to transgenders, they get a pass. Ines Rau and Bruce Jenner might have the hundreds of thousands of dollars to get all the surgeries necessary to play out their fantasy. They are held up as the “role models” for all transgenders, but they don’t show the price tag. Being a sexy transgender is sexpensive.

It is true that sex sells. Hospitals, like the ones we have here locally (Grittman and Pullman Regional), love a steady stream of revenue. Sex change surgeries provide a great bottom line. Lust and greed are best of friends. Playboy has made its hay by taking advantage of the insatiable thirst of sexual lust. Collective, society-wide lust will never know when it has had enough, and will gladly watch others mutilate themselves for its own enjoyment.

Leeches Gonna Leech

Leeches don’t ever have enough (Pro. 30:15). Hollywood has objectified women for years, degrading them from glory to shame, from queens to harlots. Women are no longer enough to satiate the lusts of our erotic addictions; so it should be no surprise that our culture is now turning to lust after men who pay enough money to be sufficiently titillating. “It’s kind of kinky, I guess I could be turned on by that,” the bleary-eyed fellow engorged with decades of porn consumption mumbles. We have objectified and degraded women for decades in our entertainment, and it is clear that until God grants repentance or sends judgment we will happily objectify anyone in order to feed our lust and greed.

Christians must insist on the grotesque reality of transgender temptation. It isn’t time to be polite or nice. We must plead against the insanity and the impending harm that will be done to a generation of young people. The ratio of sex change surgeries is 75% men becoming women. Our entertainment industry, like a drug dealer giving away free samples, has hooked a generation on objectified women. Sin perpetuates sin. Thus, some of these young men are so obsessed with the feminine physique, they wouldn’t mind having it around 24/7. They can’t get enough, so they become their lust itself.

[epq-quote align=”align-left”]Sexual liberation, however, only brings sexual exploitation.[/epq-quote]Further, the suicide rate amongst trans is off the charts. Mind you, this is not because of bullying. Bullying is a sin (1 Pt. 3:9). However, discontentment is a far more deadly enemy because it kills you from within. It is not shocking that after shelling out all the money to become the “real you,” they find that they are still discontent. The truth of that folk proverb comes to mind, “Money can’t buy everything.” Godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:6), and ungodliness with discontentment is a recipe for earthy and eternal misery.

Beauty is now something to be bought, not beheld. It is no longer objective, it is procedural. It isn’t transcendent, it is “whatevs.” We sought all this world could give, and found it cannot give what our heart truly seeks. We thirst and yet settle for sand. Our hearts will be forever restless, as Augustine might have put it, until they rest in God alone. Every other cistern is dry. Every false god demands your blood. Christ gives his blood.

While those who identify as transgender are somewhere in the ballpark of 0.3-0.6% of the population, we have convinced ourselves to bend society over backwards to not only accommodate, but to glamorize the whims of this segment of society. This is all part of the programme of sexual liberation. Our culture has been demanding sexual liberation for an entire generation or more. One form of God’s judgement is giving a nation exactly what it asks for. Sexual liberation, however, only brings sexual exploitation. We’ve weighed the cost, and deemed that endlessly consuming our fellow man is worth it for a burst of erotic pleasure. Cannibals would likely understand.

The Coherence Point

The Coherence Point

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For Christians here in the US, this is quite a moment to be alive. It is in cultural moments like this that we must be more convinced than ever that the Gospel is the only message which will cut through it all. Many of us have longed for the Church of the 21st century to “come out from among them and be separate” and now is a most wonderful opportunity for distinctives.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]Our entertainment industry is really a thinly veiled excuse for society-wide indulgence of our lust.[/epq-quote]The exposing of a powerful movie executive which used his position to prey upon aspiring actresses, confirms what god-fearing Christians have been decrying for years: our entertainment industry is really a thinly veiled excuse for society-wide indulgence of our lust.

In response to the Weinstein, Weiner, Clinton, Trump, Cosby sexual predation drama, feminists are coming closer and closer to trading in feminism for femininity as they see that the madness of gender fluidity and so called equality cannot liberate women into the glory of how God created them. Just google “feminist regret” to see what I’m talking about.

The mass shooting in Vegas, followed by all the outcry on both the left and right, exposes that we all really do believe there is something such as evil.

The NFL protests expose that lots of politicians talking about how they value liberty is not the same as  procuring or protecting liberty for all.

The NFL counter protests expose that we still want to worship something, sing the praise of something, reverence something.

So-called Pastors joining in celebrating and affirming the LGBT community provide an excellent watershed issue for whether the Bible is authoritative in toto, or whether they are closet Docetists, treating the Lord Jesus as simply a good example to follow rather than the King of the World to be worshipped and obeyed.

The modern Church has been at once grieved by the seemingly “slow decline” we see in our culture, while at the same time unwilling to stand their ground on distinctives. Well, like it or not, the time has come where Christians must either “play the man” or else cower into the muddled grey of postmodernist incoherence.

An incoherence that wants women to be glorious, but demands that men can be women too. An incoherence that insists that virtue signaling is evidence of systemic white privilege, but is trapped in a world where that statement itself is a virtue signal. An incoherence that wants so-called sexual liberty, but is aghast at the hydra-headed evils that accompany such libertine behavior. An incoherence that wants women to have no ceiling and choose their own course, but believes that a woman uterus should be guarded by the thugs of abortion clinics rather than be the sanctuary of new life that it is intended to be. An incoherence that wants evil (whether found in mass shooters, gangs, or police departments to be punished), but continues to insist that morality is subservient to self-discovery. An incoherence that wants to whine about the wickedness and atrocities of previous generations, while insisting that the calvarium of unborn babies should crushed on whim without any consequences. An incoherence that desires to be entertained at every turn, but is stunned when our academic institutions are ruins of failure. An incoherence that wants all the rewards and none of the responsibility.

Christ, the great point of coherence, must be preached with greater fervor and faithfulness. We have a wonderful evangelistic moment, and we must not fritter it away. The Gospel clarion call rings loudest in the cacophony of Hollywood & DC scandals, gunshots from Mandalay Bay, hurricanes, senate hearings, NFL protests, and social media threads. Now is not the time to be skittish. It is time for sober Christians to preach the Gospel though all the world be drunk on the wine of Babylon.

 

 

 

 

One Note: Some Reflections on the NFL Anthem Protests

One Note: Some Reflections on the NFL Anthem Protests

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A National “Conversation”

The NFL “anthem protests” over the weekend, indicate a few things, and gives us plenty of food for thought. Our President so deftly defused the fire by pouring gasoline on it. What was once a solitary player, Kaepernick, protesting police brutality became a league-wide protest and a national conversation.

We’ve been having a lot of “conversations” recently, and none of them seem to go beyond tribal mudsligning and many of them descend into riots. The President’s statements about firing the players who silently protest during the national anthem may seem to have been just gasoline on the fire, and if he had left well enough alone it might not have blown up to the proportions it did.

However, as I’ve reflected on what Trump did, I’m inclined to think that once again he (perhaps) had a strategic goal in mind. He certainly encouraged the nationalism that got him elected, but one other thing it produced (and again, I’m not sure if this was intentional by Trump or not) a muddying of the messaging for those protesting.

Muddying the Message

While Kaepernick originally was intending to make this about police brutality against blacks, it has snowballed into a fruit salad of widely varying “protests.” Sure, race is one of the more prominent things being protested, but now we have whole teams in the locker room to show “solidarity,” we have other teams locking arms to display “unity,” some guys sitting on the bench, others kneeling, other guys standing solo in counter-protest to show “support to the troops.” But effectively, now no one really knows what the messaging IS for these protests.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]Trump made the protests about Trump.[/epq-quote]Trump’s statement didn’t draw attention to the issues we ought to be debating and addressing; instead he made the protests about Trump. That’s why I’m inclined to think he did this strategically. He hijacked the protests, and made himself be a part of the conversation. Say what you will about him, but one thing we have seen him do repeatedly is use the momentum of some current event, and leverage it for his own branding, mission, goal. Thus, the NFL, with the highest amount of viewership of any televised programming, is now forced to discuss and take a position on Trump. Regardless of what Trump’s intent is in inserting himself into this issue, he has ensured that we are talking about him, and I think I can safely say, that’s the way he likes it.

False Religions Have the Tastiest Potlucks

Conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, must be wary of the fact that the false religion of nationalism has some really appealing bait. It offers a sense of stability, respectability, and virtuousness. However, Conservatives’ outrage over “disrespecting” the flag shows that we have come to hold it sacred. We have not honored God as holy, as our worship and lifestyles show, so we have come to pay homage and reverence to the symbols of national religion. When nothing is holy, then everything is holy. We are currently seeing a frenzy over which god we will serve. Equality is the idol of the protestors, nationalism is the idol of conservatives, and the list could go on.

We opine about how this dishonors the “men who gave their lives.” Yet we forget that the flag has also flown over our Supreme Court’s rulings to “ok” the slaughter of babies, and referring to two dudes in bed together as marriage. The flag has flown over Congress’ repeated capitulation on overspending and increasing our debt to $20 trillion. It has flown over a White House that repeatedly lies through its teeth about sexual scandals, spying scandals, spending scandals, and every other stripe of scandal. It flew over slave fields. It flew over abortion clinics. It flew over soil that was not ours, claiming to make it ours by force.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]All this to remind us that our flag has flown over foul deeds and fair ones.[/epq-quote]All this to remind us that our flag has flown over foul deeds and fair ones. Virtuous ones and wicked ones. The problem is that we think that because we have historically valued the virtues of holding life and liberty as sacred, there is no problem with the fact that we lack national repentance. Conservative Americans have come to believe that our national righteousness covers all our fiendish deeds. In fact, they damn us all the more. We claim to stand for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, while we tolerate the slaughter of babies, the desecration of marriage, the ever-increasing tax behemoth, nation-building, police state, and many other unrepented sins.

One Note, Once More

If you’ve followed my blog at all, you likely know what note I’ll strike once more. Repentance. It is vastly different from protest. It is vastly different from national pride. It is vastly different from equality marches or white nationalist marches. It cuts us all down to size, and ought to bring us all to our knees.

The flag of our nation represents us as a nation. It is not holy, it is not sacred. It is an ensign that designates the nation. If we want it to stand for something glorious, and we should, we must repent of having put nation ahead of Jesus, national pride ahead of biblical humility, civic duty ahead of Christian charity, feelings ahead of faith, experience ahead of exegesis, the constitution ahead of Scripture, the head of state ahead of the Head of the Church.

We must repent. Repent of injustices overlooked. Repent of communities decimated by tax-incentives for fatherless homes. Repent of abortion mills. Repent of police-brutality. Repent of anarchy and socialism. Repent of hypocrisy. Repent of valuing entertainment more than fellowship. Repent of being more concerned with being comfortable than being charitable. Repent of putting the city hall in the center of town instead of the church. Repent of putting football as more important than Lord’s Day worship. Repent of putting on the appearance of Christianity without rending of our hearts in repentance.

 

Blood for Blood

Blood for Blood

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A Wreck of Follies

Solomon rightly warned us, “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly (Pro 17:12).” What we are witnessing in recent months is a wreck of follies. It is fools answering fools; mama bear vs. mama bear. We have tribes that have formed around unifying principles, and when those principles meet adversaries (as they must), the answer is broken windows, shouting matches, all gas, no brakes. To reason with the stampede is futile. The recent clash between warring factions displayed the extent to which we have lost the ability to reason and, in return, offer repartee.

As a society, we crave an explanation––a scapegoat––for why these things keep happening. For all the talk of living peaceably, we have found that moral relativism always ends in feuds. Truth is not the innocent exploration of the individual’s subjective reality; for, as ideas are formed, creeds are sure to follow, and creeds attract crowds, crowds arouse passions, and passions convince us that because we are all doing it, it must be right. Our conscience is ignored because surely thousands marching in the same direction can’t be wrong?

The blame, I believe, for these clashes factions of fools lies at the feet of fathers. This generation has been raised by single mothers in many cases, or else distant and aloof fathers. But, it all boils down to a generation of dads who left the task of instilling wisdom into their sons and daughters to a government that cannot balance its own budget, a secular education system that has at best taught moralistic deism, and at worse moral relativism.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]Relativism knows no atonement and forgiveness.[/epq-quote]The consequence is a generation who has more access to information than any generation before them, but for all that information have not received wisdom. Their vague deism coupled with moral relativism leaves these tribes with a lust for dad’s respect. When their turf is violated, as it was in Charlottesville, a fight for dominance breaks out, and what ensues is endless revenge. The only way they know how to argue is en masse. Blood has been drawn; now it is “one of theirs for one of ours.” Relativism knows no atonement and forgiveness.

Intimidation is Easier than Arguments

Our nation has formed the silly habit of organizing large groups of people in an attempt to change the culture of our entire nation. In the most recent “exchange of ideas” in Charlottesville, both groups were trying to create culture. Ironically, they were doing so while rioting, shouting, and either insisting on pulling down the statues of a bygone culture or ramming their Dodge Charger into the crowd. Negotiations went sour, you might say.

My dad often said, “What you recruit people to is what they are gonna continue to expect.” If you recruit to a mob of ruffians, you will not get well-reasoned arguments as the by-product. The modern impulse is to gather the biggest crowd possible, chant, march, and throw rocks if necessary as a means of changing culture. Reasoned, principled arguments be damned. What we see is that argument by means of intimidation is certain to produce flimsy arguments, ugly interactions, and more bad news.

Protests are never accompanied with glorious artistry, poetry, or music. What symphonies have these groups (White Supremacists, the alt-right, BLM, antifa, etc.) composed? What masterpieces have they painted? What soaring literature have they given us? Revolutionaries are bad artists, storytellers, and artisans. We are faced with revolution, and radicals on either end are clamoring for the steering wheel. Both sides waving the flags of totalitarian dictatorships which were toppled, and ironically arguing over whether a statue of a man who fought for limited government should be kept or canned. Revolutionaries are not good history students.

Confessing Our Forefather’s Sins, Whitewashing Ours

After Charlottesville, some pastors said that if your preacher did not preach against racism the Sunday after, you should leave your church. The problem is that condemning a sin that most of us are not guilty of is rather easy. It will get you retweets. It will not be popular to condemn the sins we are committing right now.

[epq-quote align=”align-right”]The real travesty is the millions of black babies which will be aborted this year. [/epq-quote]The real travesty is the millions of black babies which will be aborted this year. Our tax dollars will pay for this racism, and our government-run healthcare system has enshrined this genocide in our legislation. Racism of a bygone generation is easy to rail against. The racism of the today looks a lot like welfare programs which incentivizes fatherlessness in the black community, and thus perpetuates the slaughter of unborn black babies. As a Christian, if you believe abortion is wrong, but you voted for pro-choice candidates, do not undertake to lecture on the systemic racism of two hundred years ago. We are killing black people at levels that dwarf the slave trade.

A Noble Opponent

One other observation before I bring this in for a landing. The reason there are Robert E. Lee memorials is because at one point we, as a nation, understood there was such a thing as a worthy enemy. We have now come to the point of being unable to recognize a noble opponent. We’ve lost all nobility as a result of our disavowal of absolute truth. Nowadays, the only truth that matters is the individual’s.

Yet we are designed to be social creatures, so we, by necessity, seek out allies who will coddle and reinforce our subjective moralism. When the inevitable disagreement over truth, ethics or what something means arises (a Robert E. Lee Statue, for instance), we can only push and shove and draw blood. There’s no basis for why something is good, true, or beautiful. We only have deeply held feelings, and the heated passion that those guys disagree with me.

The reason we tolerated Confederate Flags and Memorials for so long as a country was precisely because of the bitter rift which the Civil War produced. It was American fighting American. After all the musket balls had landed, we realized how riven our country was. Brother was fighting brother in more than one instance. Robert E. Lee came to embody the best of the South, and honoring him was not condoning slavery, it was a noblesse oblige towards our fellow citizens.

A Propitiate

Finally, love God and love Thy neighbor is the sum of the Christian Gospel. The only ground for man to have peace with man, is for man to make peace with God. But for us to make peace with God we need a mediator who can stand before a Holy God. This is why we need Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. Blood for blood is the only ethical system which moralism can produce. The feuds and wars will continue on as long as it is simply us versus them. It isn’t until we realize that all of Adam’s kids are under God’s wrath, and then turn and receive the mediatorial peace which Christ’s blood obtained that we can have fellowship with our brother (1 Jn. 1:5-10).

Thus, when we look at the folly of these clashing groups it must not be far from our mind that Christ’s substitutionary atonement is the answer. The fatherlessness that afflicts this generation and leads them to “take up arms” is a hunger to be something, fight for something, and––at its root––to hear a father’s “good job, son.” We want a father’s favor. It will only be found in Jesus Christ, the Advocate with our Heavenly Father.

 

Appropriating Christian Culture

Appropriating Christian Culture

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When I was scrolling through my newsfeed the other day, I ran across this picture of the Ark exhibit that Answers in Genesis built. For a second, I was going to roll my eyes, thinking, “Oh great, AIG is going along with the whole GQBLT non-sense.” Forgive me, I am sometimes slow on the uptake, and when it dawned upon me what AIG was doing; the rainbow was a covenant sign to Noah of course, so how fitting to light it up the Ark with a rainbow.

It is amazing, though, how the GQBLT movement has quite successfully linked their cause with the rainbow, to the point where folks like me have to do a mental “double-take”. One of the cardinal sins for the tolerance-movement is cultural appropriation. It is why they don’t want you to dress up like an Indian for Halloween. Or why two white women can’t run a taco truck, because: cultural appropriation.

So, the Ark Encounter exhibit has marvelously trolled this deep conviction of the GQBLT tolerance crowd. Do they really have respect for all cultures, including Christian culture? If so, why have they appropriated Christian culture and used it contrary to our “deeply held beliefs”? If dressing up in a hijab, or blackface, or warbonnets, or gangster garb is so offensive, shouldn’t they show more respect to such a sacred component of Christian culture, doctrine, and symbolism?

The answer, of course, is obvious. They’ve wrapped themselves in the sign of God’s judgment upon sin and promise of grace. By invoking it they display the irony that their fight for normalizing their sinful lifestyle and rebellion against God’s Word will inevitably end in either God’s wrath upon their sin, or God’s grace in granting them repentance from their sins. They’ve chosen their flag wisely. God will judge their sin either in the fire of hell, or in the fire of His wrath outpoured in Christ. They’ve embraced the sign of judgment and promise…their repentance shall determine which they receive.

Ben Zornes