This might be an apocryphal saying of Abe Lincoln, but if the legends are true, he once said, “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” I think that aphorism is right, on the whole. But I’d like to take it and apply it more broadly.
Since the Obergefell ruling, we’ve now endured roughly 6 annual “Pride Months”. Each one is successively more gaudy. And, if you still have eyes in your head, they’ve gotten uglier. As corporations, governments, and sports teams sought to outdo one another in their pandering, their Pride tributes have increasingly displayed the chaos which they’ve brought down upon themselves. Take the Brooklyn Nets as a prime example:
This logo is the embodiment of incoherent chaos. But the madness hasn’t stopped there. “Christian” publishing houses, and various other formerly evangelical entities have also capitulated. It took five years, but Conservative political figures and organizations, as well as evangelical Christians are arriving where the Progressives were a handful of years ago. Eerdmans, Guideposts, prominent Christian musicians, FoxNews, and various conservative politicians/PACs have all gotten the wobblies.
Which brings me back to the Abe Lincoln quote. At the first sniff of an entity softening, whether it be your local church, political club, publishing house, private school, or para-church organization, you must make them push it further than they are currently comfortable with. Is it a bad law? Then reveal how bad by making them enforce it. In the same spirit, if an organization is about to jump down the black hole of rainbow pandering, make them go the whole way down. They want to ordain a deaconess (not of the NT variety)? Ask why not make her a pastor instead. They want a rainbow logo? Suggest that they host a drag queen story hour for children’s church. They want to talk about the problem of white privilege? Make a motion to fund a few genital mutilation surgeries.
In other words, be like Solomon and insist on cutting the baby in half. Or be like Moses and give Pharoah an opportunity to harden his heart yet more. Be like Paul and invite the Judaizers to cut the whole privy member off. Be like Jesus and offer them a millstone necklace.
We will not have revival until Christians stop seeing sin as a cute rainbow clothing line display at the entrance to Target. Or fun packaging on the Oreos. We will have revival when we repent. When we turn away from all the capitulations, both small and great. An organization (whether church, school, etc.) that is teetering, has likely already tottered in principle. Your job is to see whether there be 10 righteous in Sodom. If not, you must flee. And of course, don’t look back with wistful fondness.
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