Straight paths through crooked roads

Necessity is the "Mother of belief": Reasons why we would want to believe - or not.

I believe that there are fundamental reasons why people choose to believe in God, in Jesus Christ, in another form of religious or philosophical belief.  A fundamental reason why people believe in the God of the Bible (Jehovah) and in Jesus Christ in particular is that they have a level of humility that will allow them to believe in something or Someone greater than they are.  That would also account for the sincere belief in another deity such as Allah or Hindu gods, etc.   This humility looks for one greater than itself so as to find strength, resource, reward, wisdom, even eternal life.  This is a necessity.

 

A fundamental reason why people, more and more of them in modern Western societies, are choosing to not put their faith in a deity is a pride that asserts itself in the concept:  "I am the master of my own fate, I am the captain of my own soul."  These folks will look to just about any form of belief that allows them to retain that sense of self determination.  These folks want to have no guilt for their choices to not believe in a God.  They must do away with a sense of accountability and do so in a logical and acceptible manner.  This, for them, is a necessity.

 

In fact, all of us choose what it is we choose to believe.  That way, we can be held accountable.  We have no grounds to say that our beliefs were forced upon us.  We have the choice to accept or to not accept what is presented to us.  The choice, however, is unavoidable.  Some choice will be made either actively or passively.  This creates necessities in choices as to what to believe.

 

There is no visible, tangible, undeniable deity standing on the mountain top saying, "Believe in me." That is, unless you subscribe to the modern day messiahs who self proclaim their deity.  There is likely going to be more of these creatures presenting themselves in the near future as the answer to great problems that are looming on the time horizon.  But, I digress.

 

The current society in the United States has and is fostering a sexual climate in which young girls are being socialized to believe that sexiness is a major key to social approval.  Young boys are being socialized to believe that the more sexual conquests of girls a boy can achieve the more "male" he is. These are being touted as positives in the media and even in academia in some quarters.  We have members of Congress parading about on social networking sites wearing tiger costumes or showing off their abs.  This is ludicrous.  It is also self destructive.  It is a necessity for society to deal with this.

 

To reverse this situation, rather than challenging what people believe, it may be more helpful to ask them why they would want to believe such a thing.  What if we could convince people that they don't have to give things up but rather trade them in.  That way, rather than making a sacrifice of something desirable but that has sorrows with it, instead, they can trade things in for other things that have benefit without the sorrow added.  

 

I know this is not a new idea.  However, it is an under-used idea.   If we could say to the young boy, rather than making new sexual conquests to prove your manhood, how about choosing one girl to cherish.  If she chooses you in return, you can then choose to lovingly devote yourself to her.  What you gain is the fulfillment as a man of receiving deep and obvious respect from the girl.  You gain the knowledge that you are now vitally important to someone besides yourself and thus you have grown in both stature and maturity.  You avoid sexual diseases, the responsibility of fathering a child that neither you nor the girl are prepared to raise, and the chains of habits you will regret for a lifetime. If you are choosing to be a faithful and devoted man, you are now genuinely being honored.  Being respected and even honored by a woman is, I believe, a fundamental need (now being dismissed by many).

 

If we could say to the young girl, rather than expose your most personal and intimate self to whoever is out there, rather than put up with all the undesirables who are going to respond to your exposure and put pressure on you to do things that are disgusting and unhealthy, how about trading in that attention from many for devoted attention from one special person?  You don't have to expose yourself to find him.  You can avoid attracting most of the undesirables and you can find the someone worth your devotion by being your attractive self and putting yourself in positive social activities where you will meet desirable men.  You can avoid the obvious risks of sexual diseases you may never be rid of, of giving conception to a life destined for great risks.  Being cherished by a faithful man is, I believe, in fact a woman's fundamental need (now being dismissed by many). 

 

This is only one example of many that need to be applied to the principle of "why should I believe" in something.  Necessity is called the "mother of invention".  I am suggesting that it is also the "mother of belief".

Mr. Knepper, what do you think of artificial inception?

She was very pretty but her face seemed "hard".  It appeared that she had been through a lot of emotional trauma for a seventeen year old.  Her personality hinted that she was a "party" girl.  She was also my student for US history.  It was the last period of the day at our high school. It was a very warm spring afternoon.  And, my other students had just left the classroom.  She suddenly posed the question, "Mr. Knepper, what do you think of artificial inception?"

My response was a suprised but quick answer.  "I know what it is but not very much about it.  So, I don't really have much of an opinion.  Why do you ask?"  She said, "Well, I want to have a baby but I don't want anything to do with a man."

I have repeated that story to my US history students for about ten years. The idea is to not merely present a moral issue of contemporary society, but to use US history, an academic subject, to teach students about the important results of different ways of thinking, which I specify as paradigms.  Paradigms are simply ways of thinking we use to explain or predict.  We all have them. They help us form first impressions of other people.  We use them to shape our own behavior because we expect others to react to what we do in certain ways.

For the Christian teacher in a public school this concept of the paradigm offers ways of teaching in a Christian way of thinking without referring to scripture.  It is important and it is also legal because, while the laws attempt to separate church from state, it is impossible to separate faith from state.  This is necessarily true because everyone who teaches has some form of faith.  It may be agnosticism, or Bhuddhism, or Islam, or Judaism, or Christianity.  And these faiths all shape the way we look at our students, our society, and our way of teaching.  We cannot help but express who we are and what we think as we teach in a classroom.

So, in my situation as a teacher of 11th graders, I can refer to the content of the textbook when it tells us that the "hippies" espoused "love", "peace" and "freedom".  I can then say that today's society has accepted in large part the paradigm of the hippies that to them love means affection but not necessarily with commitment.  It is common today, I tell them, that something like the following happens to a girl of 11, 12, or 13.  She is going through changes in her body and emotions when a boy tells her that she is pretty.  She is suddenly obsessing about boys.  She wants to have a relationship with a boy.  Before long, some boy propositions her to have sex.  She will probably have inhibitions against having sex.  She may be told by her girl friends, who have already had sex, that "It isn't that big a deal." Or, "Don't be a virgin."  She may engage in sex with the boy so she can have a relationship with him.  However, the boy soon goes away.  The girl feels empty.  She is hurt.  But, she may again find herself in relationship with another boy and sex is now begining to be a regular event.  She finds herself feeling more and more empty.  Like the girl who was interested in artificial inception, she is deeply hurt and angry.

Then I tell the students that there was a society before the hippies came.  It was not perfect.  However, the paradigm that was common before went something like this.  Love between a man and a woman will involve sex but since this is how children are created, and since the woman is the one primarily at risk, then the male must respect her enough to not ask her to have sex until they are in a commited marriage.  I explain that the paradigm includes an understanding of the female's desire for being cherished and that sex is a natural aspect of this devotion.  The man needs respect from the woman, but being unfaithful to the woman to pursue other women destroys his wife's respect for him.  Thus, there is an exchange of commitments.  They voluntarily choose to devote themselves to one another in order to be fulfilled not only physically but emotionally with each other.

I asked my students what "husband" means.  They don't know.  I explain that it means "caretaker".  They are surprised.  I ask them, "What is a husband-man?"  They don't know.  I explain that this is another word for "gardener".  This helps to form a picture in their minds.  The man is to plant, fertilize, cultivate, prune, and harvest, while always caring for the garden.  This is the picture of what a man should be to his wife and his children.

So, if you look at the competing paradigms, the hippie paradigm of love is easy, gives pleasure to a certain level, but ends in emotional harm, and perhaps results in a pregnancy or STD's.  The traditional paradigm of love, delays the sexual pleasure but provides a father for the children, a cherishing for the woman, and respect for the man.

I also repeat often the reminder to my students that my job is not to tell them what to think, but it is my job to get them to think.  So, I am giving them these alternatives.  What they choose is ultimately their own.

There is much more that could be said.  I wish a different way of thinking could have been taught and accepted by the party girl who wanted a baby.  Perhaps, younger teachers can provide such help for many others who are facing this part of life.

 

 

Faith into trust from gazing upon God.

Gazing into the face of God is the source of real joy, peace, and spiritual power.  If you are a committed believer in Christ, then, you know how giving your life to Christ brought you to spiritual life.  You, in your own way, found your spirit came alive in relationship to the Spirit of God. This involves the birth of faith that creates the relationship with the Savior.

Rev. Tozer, in his book, The Pursuit of God, defines the essence of faith as gazing upon God.  He relates this to the command by Moses for the people to gaze upon the serpent made of gold so that they could be cured of snake bites in the wilderness. Tozer then relates to the 11th chapter of Hebrews for further explanation.

When I then understood that this gazing was not only from me to God, but that His eyes were looking upon me as well, I then understood that this was the essence of knowing God.  Christ said that this was eternal life itself:  knowing God. (It is found in the 16th and 17th chapters of the Gospel of John.)

I prayed earnestly for the Holy Spirit to make this understanding an actual experience.  He did so.  It was overwhelming.  The sence of the presence of the Holy Spirit is very strong.  The ability to overcome temptation is multiplied. The earnestly in prayer is greatly strengthened. The development of hope into faith that becomes active trust and obedience is alive.  The victory over the crush of circumstanaces and tension is wonderful.

Going beyond hope to trust: an essential element of faith.

I have begun to explore the process of turning my hope for a eternal life in heaven into an active trust. This trust is a process of daily validation that God's Word is actually true.  I have begun to attack the nagging doubts that disturb my faith.  I have been actively pursuing a deeper peace with God.  This process leads to a faith that can be described as an active trust.  This trust helps me to be faithful to my faith. This means that my walk with Christ is evermore crystal clear. And, that results in victory.

It seems to me that I recall a famous televangelist saying that Christians were losing hope in specific things for their future.  That was a critical problem.  Not only is the object of the hope lost when people do not pursue the goal of that hope, but there is also a vital process that ceases to function.  That vital process is the daily walk in trust with the Holy Spirit.  Failure to pursue hope by this walk of faith results in weakness of Christians' maintaining their faithfulness to the Lord.  This would lead to depression and perhaps even falling away from relationship with the Savior.

I began to address this problem in my own life by going back to the testimonies of Peter and John in their epistles where they speak of their first hand experiences with Jesus Christ.  I read the account of St Paul who had tried to destroy the church and who had become its great apostle to the non-Jews.  I chose to believe their accounts.

It is interesting to hear that non-believers of all kinds, including athiests, and followers of other religions all seem to have their moments when they doubt their beliefs.  In the case of agnostics, they they are found to doubt their doubts.  But, these unfortunate souls have actually chosen to believe in the idea that they are the captains of their own soul, the masters of their own fate.  There is plenty of evidence in God's creation to tell them otherwise.  I have attended the funeral of one such person and have posted on this blog about watching the dead bury their dead.  Their confusion and doubts easily bubbled to the surface of their persona and were voiced to one and all at that funeral.

In contrast, there is a calm assurance that comes from the annointed reading of God's Word There is a presence of the Holy Spirit Who gives a sense of relief from the world and a joy toward loving the Savior. These are all blessings with no sorrow added.  These facts make it easy to tell others about what the Lord means to us.  

If we will apply these steps to our daily walk with God, they are our straight pathway through crooked roads to the realization of our hope in God.  We do have a right to rejoice.  We have a solid basis for our hope. We have motivation to be faithful to the One Who prepares our place for us.  It actually is "well with our soul."

The power of testimony, the mystery of 12, and the principle of "too late."

The Bible refers at one point to the power of the testimony of Christians.  And, there is something spiritually significant about the number of twelve.  Because there were twelve tribes of Israel, Joshua made a command that the Israelites place twelve stones, representing each tribe at the river of Jordan.  This was a memorial to the miracle that God made the Jordan river stand still as the people crossed over to the other side on the dry river bed.  This same number of twelve was used by Jesus to appoint twelve disciples.  This became a tradition in American law, that we have twelve members of a jury.  The unanimous vote of twelve jurors has the legal power to decide the fate of an accused person.  What if we combine the power of our Christian testimony with the power of 12? 

How?  In a small group meeting with a minimum of twelve seriously born again Christians, each in turn gives a testmony on exactly how they came to give themselves to Jesus Christ in salvation.  Salvation testimonies are powerful because they carry the witness to an actual miracle of the Spirit.  Each testimony then becomes an affirmation of the testimony of each of the others.  Each testimony is evidence of the spiritual, emotional, and even physical changes of believers. 

When each has given their salvation testimony of how they came to Christ, a second step follows.  Each one is challenged to think of as many instances as possible in which Christ has made a difference in their lives that they cannot account for in any other way.  This might include a forgiveness of a wrong suffered that would not have been forgiven except for the motivation of Christ and the Holy Spirit speaking into the spirit of the believer.  Or, it might be a miracle of healing.  It could be any number of things where the Holy Spirit was involved as He revealed the nature of Jesus Christ in a believer's life.  Each of these is a genuine miracle of God.

New believers may not have anything come to mind except their own conversion.  Others will have a whole string of events where God has revealed His divine character.  But, each one is a sort of testimonial stone that can be added up to a monument of personal faith. 

This validation of the faith each believer expresses is a wonderful building block of the confidence we can and need to have when the enemy of our souls, Satan, attacks us with reasons to doubt our salvation. 

One specific weapon we can use with our testimonial stones is the principle of "too late".  We all know that there is such a thing as "too late."  "Too late" is neither good nor bad, it just is a principle that we know works because we have at times been too late or we have seen others be too late. 

You see, we know that reasons to doubt the truth of our relationship with Christ will come.  However, if we have built a monument of testimonial miracles in our life, Satan will be too late. 

We will know in the deepest part of our being that the voice of the Holy Spirit is not our imagination.  We will know in the nearest and farthest part of our mind that our God is not just a spiritual teddy bear but that He is the worker of miracles that we have witnessed.  We will simply know Him, our spirit to His Holy Spirit.  Then, we will walk in confidence in the face of anything.  We will walk in the power of our own testimony of Christ in us, Who is the hope of our glory.  We will walk in the certainty that twelve witnesses bring a conclusive decision to place our trust in the Lover of our souls.  We will walk in the fact that there is such a thing as too late and that Satan is too late to have us. 

Just think.  We will have ruined Satan's plan for our eternity.  He is too late but we are right on time.

The Hippies were too late: the old faithfuls have survived and young faithfuls have arisen.

I'm older than the hippies.  I was already a young adult with a world view before they arrived in the mid to late 1960's.  Hippiedom was much more than style and music. It was a fundamental change in world view philosophy.  Since then the hippies have grown up and become our educators, politicians, business people, and mass media moguls.  They have largely replaced the previous world view with theirs and done this so completely that their perceptions seem to be reality.  But, they were too late to change my world view.  I remember quite clearly what it was like before they came.

Before the advent of American Hippiedom, the prevailing world view of American society was a judeo-christian view. The standards and the principles found in the Bible were the accepted standards by which society operated.  To be certain, there were many exceptions because society had many facets.  There were always a few and sometimes notable scoffers like the athiest Mark Twain.  There were always those who chose to ignore the standards for their own benefit, like greedy businessmen and corrupt politicians or power hungry bureaucrats.  However, society generally saw these as rebels against the established standards. 

The judeo-christian standards of the Ten Commandments, of love thy neighbor, of compassion for the needy were easily found in the court system, in the public schools, in the marriage vows.  That is not to say that these standards were kept with consistant integrity.  As a matter of fact, the scoffers grew in number in our colleges, in our legal system, in our mass media to challenge the standards because they were not consistently met. 

In the 1950's there came a number of people known as "Beatniks".  They had an agnostic philosophy contrary to the judeo-christian view that was not simply a negative scoffing but had something of an integrity to it that performed as an alternative way of thinking.  These general ideas were picked up and added to existentialist philosophy in which the person becomes the center of reality rather than God being the center of reality.

This philosophy was incorporated into the general thinking of the young generation during the 1960's.  This was done through literature, music, and theater.  This way of emphasizing the individual's rights to be free from interference went beyond the previously accepted limits of judeo-christian principles.  Now, people were to be free to do harm to themselves in use of drugs, pre-marital sex, etc. because the impacts of these were perceived to be primarily on the individual and not upon others. 

While the use of drugs is now seen to have definite impact upon others, so that drug use is not necessarily accepted, neither is it socially reprehensible.  That is because drug use is not seen as a moral failure but rather as an "illness".  This individual issue is a symptom of a much larger change in how our society views right and wrong.

The change of view from drug use from being a moral imperative to being a health issue indicates a change that reduces guilt while retaining a reason to deal with the problem.  This is one bit of evidence that Hippiedom became shaped into a new world view. 

This new world view attempts to maintain self-esteem above all else while trying to be socially viable.  That is to say, the cultural leaders in the universities, in the media, in politics who were of the Hippie culture, came to the conclusion that they needed institutions guided by the alternative to judeo-christian principles.  This was needed in their view because they no longer wished to be accountable to an almighty Creator God.  They wished to be tbe captian of their own soul, the master of their own fate.  The judeo-christian standards had denied them the right to be such.  Now, they were in positions of authority where they could institute changes in culture.  Now they could establish their own standards, their own "values." 

So, to have a society without guilt, they made the subjective feelings of the individual the center of the philosophy but rationalized how the individual could be responsible to oneself first and then to others.  They erased all obvious evidence of the judeo-christian culture from public schools, from the courts, from marriage vows, etc.  They promoted the view that judeo-christian "values" were obsolete, uneducated, and perhaps quaint. 

The agnostic philosophy has largely been successfully institutionalized by the old hippies.  But, they do have a few problems.  These are the youth that are connecting with the genuine power of God found in the Scriptures.  These young faithfuls are connecting with old faithfuls like myself.  They are finding that the Holy Spirit is ageless and not subject to distruction by people or ideas. 

So, you see, the Hippies were too late to influence us old faithfuls away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And we have every intention of passing the presence of the Holy Spirit to the young faithfuls.

I enjoy being a rebel against the god (small g) of this world.

It's fun to be rebellious, especially when you get away with it.  The problem is that if you are rebelling against the God of the Bible, you will be doing genuine evil and evil is self destructive.  But, if you are rebelling against the god of this world (Satan), then you will find reward that is lasting with minimum if any sorrow added to it. 

I have about 160 students, ages 16 and 17, in my history classes.  They enjoy sneaking a look at their portable play stations, listening to their ipods, texting on their cell phones, when they think that I'm not looking.  But, to a large extent, that is self-destructive.  Not only are they cutting back on their achievement in class, they are creating a habit of escape. 

I asked them if they agreed to the following idea. Lots of students are playing with their electronic gadgets rather than doing the assignment well.  They are therefore escaping rather than first achieving and then using their gadgets as a reward for a job well done.  So, what is happening is that kids are not doing for themselves what they need to do.  Often, they ask for help from a friend for the answers.  They become dependent upon their friends rather than indpendent thinkers and achievers.  They then lose confidence in themselves not because they can not do a task, but because they have no proof that they actually do achieve the task.  This is a cause of some anxiety about facing new tasks.  So, they escape once more into their electronic devices, deepening the problem for them.  This creates personal weakness.  My students agreed by a large majority that this is true. 

Did the understanding of the students help them overcome this habit of escape?  Not at all.  They are as involved with this escape as much as ever.  This is not surprising, however.  The nature of evil is that it creates a taste for self-destruction.  The carnal nature within us humans needs redemption and overcoming only available through Jesus Christ.  We are incapable of overcoming it by ourselves.  We can reform some habits but we cannot overcome our own natures that lead us in a variety of rebellious behaviors.

No, I'm not saying that I am perfect.  I suffer from my own weaknesses just like anyone else.  But, I do have the Holy Spirit to help me.  He leads me to repentence.  He enables me to overcome temptations.  He provides motivation from His nature to replace and overcome the motivations that my own carnal nature would have used to drive my actions.  He is the Friend of my soul.

The Holy Spirit also helps me to enjoy a moment when I have overcome a temptation.  In that moment I have just rebelled against the god of this world, Satan.  The Holy Spirit motivates me to not hold grudges, not try to get even, not throw people away.  Then, I watch over the months of the school year as a  few of my students show changes in attitude from being rebellious against me to becoming cooperative and even supportive of me in the class environment.  Once again, I have evidence of a successful raid on the evil god of this world.  What fun!

How about you?  Do you have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit?  The only way to have one is by genuinely accepting responsibility for your sins, to ask Jesus Christ to forgive you, to ask Him to be the king of your life, to trust Him with your soul, and to believe that He will do what He has said, that is, send the Holy Spirit to be your companion.  If you do, everything will change. 

What you love will change.  What you want will change.  What seems important will change.  And, everthing bad you have done your whole life long will have been forgiven.  You will find that you somehow actually love God.  You will find a peace when it comes to your eternal future. You will find a source of hope for your future in this life.  You will find a new confidence in facing your tasks.  You wil find an ability to love others with a love that God gives you to share with others. 

When you pursue this new life, you will be ruining the future Satan had for you.  Isn't that a kick in the pants? 

Conversations with a teenage girl

As a high school teacher, I have had a number of conversations with teens.  I especially enjoy talking with girls even though I am now considered elderly.  I am fascinated with how they mature as compared to how boys mature.  Girls sure are more  complicated.  Boys are relatively simple.  (Aren't they, girls?)

I did not understand female humans very well in spite of being related to my mother and having a younger sister.  After all, they weren't really girls, you know? 

Having been married gets you up close and personal with the opposite sex.  As I studied my wife, I fell in love with not just her as an individual, but with her femininity.  When we had a daughter, I felt a special father-daughter bond that I have never lost.  (Amy is 31 years old right now.)

Well, just the other day my history class was about over and three of my female students started asking me about my years as a teenager.  They wanted to know about what decade it was:  the 1970's ?, the 1960's?, the 1950's?, the 1850's?

They wanted to know if I had enjoyed such artists as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, etc....I assured them that I knew of all of these but that I was not that familiar with their music.  These girls did not understand how I could be so naive, so culturally unaware, so disconnected with reality. 

In public school I am legally bound to not share my Christian testimony.  I could not tell them that these artists did not share my principles and values.  I could not tell them about the miracles of prayer in Christ's name for the healing of my wife and children, about the saving of our marriage, about the overwhelming fulfillment of a daily life in connection with the Holy Spirit, about the peace of mind about having peace with God.

No, I could not legally express that.  And, I can only hope that I give to my students enough evidence to convict me of being a genuine Christian.

Would our society today choose Barabbas over Christ?

Unfortunately, the world prefers self-destruction due to the consequences of evil choices over the humbling of self before the God Who loves them.

There He is, standing beside Pilate at the top of the steps in the Praetorium.  Christ is bloody from the beating he has recieved at the hands of the Romans.  This scourging is the first step in the sacrifice Jesus makes for you, me, and the rest of the human race.  Pilate wishes to release Christ but offers the crowd before him a choice to either receive Jesus who loves them sacrificially, or to receive Barabbas, one who is a convicted murderer and is most certainly going to harm others if released to them.  The crowd chooses Barabbas.

If we have studied the Biblical account found in Mark chapter 15, we know that the leadership of the Jewish priesthood wanted Christ crucified so as to end His threat to their position in that society.  But, why would the crowd agree with them?  Why would they accept a convicted murderer to be released from captivity into their midst where he is certain to kill again? 

What did the priesthood have to offer the crowd for accepting a killer?  My conclusion is that the crowd chose Barabbas because essentially they agreed with the Jewish priesthood on this principle:  they preferred the consequences of their own self willed decisions to humbling themselves before the God Who loves them. 

The world today still prefers self-destruction from the consequences of their own evil decisions rather than choosing to place their faith in the principles of truth in God's Word that would redeem their lives.  People today say that if they have nothing but a garden of weeds, at least it is still their own weeds.  They choose to be the captian of their own souls, the masters of their own fate, even if it is a garden of weeds and thorns.  If only they would trust the eternal Husbandman who cares for His garden, they would find fulfillment and peace, health and prosperity without such sorrow. 

It is the blessing of our God that He gives benefit to us and He adds no sorrow to it.  His blood that was shed in the scourging and on the cross of Calvary is His supreme blessing to us.  That gift has purchased our salvation from eternal destruction:  redemption of our souls from what should have been the fate of our evil choices.  Instead, He gives us the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to guide us through life to an eternal home of love and peace.

The world may choose Barabbas today.  I choose Christ today.  What is your response?

Is it bigotry or accountability: separating the act from the actor.

In some parts of the U. S. a moral person would be considered a bigot.  That is because sexual conduct is a subject of morality.  If a person believes that the Bible is correct and tries to live by its teachings, then they may be considered moral.  However, if they go to the Castro district of San Francisco, they may be accosted by a resident and told to get off of the streets because they are a "breeder".  Breeder is a term used by some homosexuals in the "Castro" to refer to "straight" people, that is to say, heterosexual people.  The assumption seems to be that "breeders" may look down on "gays" as less human than themselves.  Looking down upon another person that one deems to be less of a person than they are is an act of bigotry.

Biblically moral people in California supported the passage of Proposition 8 in 2008.  There was a great controversy over whether or not homosexual people had the "right" to be "married" in the eyes of the law.  The homosexuals and their supporters said that every person should be treated the same in the eyes of the law and therefore to deny gays the right to be married was unconstitutional.  Biblically moral people held that law related to marriage comes from some moral source and therefore that the laws related to marriage needed to protect the sanctity of a normal heterosexual relationship of one man and one woman.

Homosexuals and their supporters see this thinking as bigotry.  Biblically moral people see it as wholesome normalcy.  How can this controversy be understood? 

If a person assumes that what one does is the very same thing as who a person is, then it would be logical to say that some people think that they are above others in classes among human beings.  This is how you get a caste system in a society.  However, the Bible says that God is no respecter of persons.  That is to say, no one human being is greater than another because of such things as wealth, social position, birth into a certain family, etc.  Jesus Christ did not come to save the superior people, he came to save all people.  Jesus Christ did not come to save sin.  He came to save people out of and from the power of their sinful natures and their sinful acts.

Under Biblical truth, we have all sinned because we are all by nature inclined to sin.  Once a person accepts Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, has been forgiven of sin and been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to overcome the burden of the sinful nature, that person is not a superior person, or a greater human being than another  person who is still caught in sin.  The redeemed person is simply redeemed by the acts of God.  These same acts of Godly redemption are available to the homosexual, to the thief, to the gossip, to the liar, even to a politician.  God separates the sin from the sinner.  He redeems the sinner but condemns the sin, that is if and only if the person is willing to repent from their sin.

If a person says, "No, you Bible beaters are just bigots who are trying to get me to be like you are," then, the person is refusing to acknowledge sin as real to themselves.  They are choosing to believe that they have no such guilt.  They are justifying themselves by claiming that they are not bigots like the Bible beater is.  Therefore, they are superior as human beings to the bigot.  Then, they have themselves become the bigot.  Now, they say, "Get off of the street, you breeder."

By the way, the Bible also offers salvation to a bigot.