I would like to alert you to brand new resource we have here at CRI. It's a book entitled Whose Ethics? Whose Morals? The Best of the Christian Research Journal. At first blush, reading a book like this might seem to be a little more than an academic exercise. In reality, it is a matter of survival. Imagine living in a country in which members of Congress could mandate researchers to either destroy embryos or risk imprisonment. Imagine a nation that not only permits the killing of the most vulnerable among us but mandates such mayhem for the purposes of research. Imagine no further--that day has arrived. As the former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork has well said in a book by the same moniker, we have began inexorably "slouching toward Gomorrah."[1]
Truth is the founders of our Republic could only in their darkest nightmares have imagined relativism trumping objective moral standards in a free society. Maybe the credo of Nazi Germany of "might makes right" is something we should look at again. Ethics and morals were not determined on the basis of an objective standard but on the basis of raw power and blind bigotry. With no enduring reference point, societal norms were quickly reduced to mere matters of preference and power.
As smoke from crematoriums wafted over steeples in the German countryside, another evil reared its ugly head. Pastors and their parishioners remained strangely silent. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, however, was not among them. "If we claim to be Christians," he said, "there is no room for expediency."[2] Thus he stood not only against the evils of the Nazi ware machine but against the confessional church more concerned with survival than moral and ethical realities on the ground. "When Christ calls a man, "said Bonhoeffer, "He bids him come and die."[3] On April 9, 1945, just days before liberation, Bonhoeffer experienced the ultimate "cost of discipleship."
Thankfully, most Christians in the twenty-first century have not had to make a comparable sacrifice for truth. Without the leavening power of a biblical worldview, fascism might well again hold sway. There is a razor thin edge between fascism and freedom. As such, I want you to consider engaging in three essentials.
First, pray. Without God's blessing we are impotent in the battle to restore a biblical perspective respecting morals and ethics.
Second, share what you have learned on the Bible Answer Man broadcast and through our ministry with your family members and friends. Share this book with some of them also. One of the greatest blights of the twenty-first century is that we seldom engage in meaningful conversations. Instead we have become masters at entertaining ourselves to death.
Finally, stand with a ministry that is making an impact in the battle for truth. Through a variety of ministry outreaches the Christian Research Institute is making a strategic difference while there is yet time. Each year growing numbers of men, women and children around the globe are jettisoning relativism for a relationship with a moral law-giver who has loved them with an everlasting love. Such abundant, abiding fruit is not harvested by accident. Outside the walls of CRI an army of saints stand with us as co-laborers in a one-of-a-kind ministry. If you are ready to join the ranks, give us a call at 1-888-700-0274 or visit our Website at www.equip.org
[1] Robert H. Bork, Slouching towards Gomorrah (New York: HarperCollins, 1996).
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Norwich, UK SCM Classic, SCM-Canterbury Press Ltd, a subsidiary of the Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1954), 25.
[3] Ibid. 44.
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2 comments:
Yes whose ethics indeed!
"Every one of us... has met criticism that in ethics we humanists live on Christian capital, that our moral attitudes are derived from Christianity. I believe this to be utterly wrong and that, on the contrary, what goes for modern Christian ethics is in fact derived from humanist values. For most of its history Christianity was red in tooth and claw... It is only in the last couple of centuries that Christian attitudes have gradually become 'civilized' and humane. Why? [Because of] the rise of humanism and skepticism. we have given Christianity its modern face, which often quotes the very nice things Jesus is reported to have said, and carefully omits the nasty sayings such as 'If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned'" - Sir Hermann Bondi (1919-2005)
At the heart of the Christian religion lies a disturbing hostility towards humanity's essential physicality. Though less stridently proclaimed today than in earlier eras, the circumspection, disdain and outright condemnation of human sexuality in the dogmas of the church has given rise, for two millennia, not only to the most monumental hypocrisy but to all manner of sexual-emotional disorders. In simple terms, sex was, and remains, a distraction, rival, and enemy of organized religion – and in private moments, an indulgence and reward of its high priests.
Repressed sexuality, on the other hand, can be channeled into a fierce piety and kill-joy religiosity, its uncompromising ardor harnessed for the purposes of the Church. But "inner conflict" is a predictable consequence, as is an obsessive preoccupation with other people's sexual predilections. The faith-based moralizer rages over private pleasures, such as homosexuality and the "sanctity of human life" – whilst condoning without embarrassment the slaughter of distant peoples who do not happen to share their own peculiar interpretation of the divine.
Christianity's anti-sexual, puritanical doctrines have inflicted untold damage on the mental, emotional and physical lives of countless millions of people. Through the course of centuries this malevolent faith has left a trail of emotionally and mentally disturbed people, people who have punished themselves and caused distress to others, in a life filled with guilt, shame and denial.
Self-hatred leading to suicide, frigid marriages leading to violence, years of loneliness, anger and regret, are some of the milder consequences of the psychosis. Misogyny, pedophilia, homophobia, rage against abortion, opposition to birth control, obsession with virgin purity, obstruction of stem cell research, morbid self-denial, flagellation, censorship of literature and art, intolerance of alternative lifestyles – Christianity's legacy runs as a foul stain across the human landscape. - Jesusneverexisted.com
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