Tag Archives: marriage

Christian living

Whoa — Pat Robertson gets one right!

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wedding-rings2.jpgI do not care for Pat Robertson and his many false claims, but he is right on this one: Pat Robertson Tells Christian Viewer to Dump Muslim Girlfriend.

Even a non-religious person should see that couples should agree on the foundations of how they view the world. Do people think they can disagree on who God is, what happens when you die, how to be reconciled to God, etc., and that it won’t have a radical impact on them and their children? They plan to find agreement on where to live, how many kids to have, where to vacation, etc., but not on the key questions of life?

The message to their children will come through loud and clear: The concept of God is so unimportant to us and irrelevant to life that we didn’t find it necessary to agree on it before committing to spend our lives together.

More importantly, for Christians to marry non-Christians is forbidden in scripture.  2 Corinthians 6:14 is often cited (Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?) but you can also see all of 1 Corinthians 7.

And while God might ultimately bless the union in his radical grace, what makes anyone think He is obliged to bless a union entered into via disobedience?

Christians should not date non-Christians.  Satan has used this countless times to draw people away from God.  Heck, Muslims should not date non-Muslims, for that matter.  And so on.

Here’s an example offered by Dan:

I was speaking with a co-worker who was having problems in his marriage, and their future as a couple was not looking good at all.  It seems that him (a “Christian”) and his wife (a Jew) saw their religious “diversity” as a great positive going into marriage.  Why not?  It’s the craze of the age… right?   But then a child came into the picture and all of a sudden their diversity was an insurmountable mountain.  The religions that they had both subjected to the wisdom of a bunch of pointy-headed Utopians had suddenly risen from its bottom self status to supreme importance when it came to raising their son.  This fellow could see the writing on the wall.  He knew his choice was to raise their child a Jew, or be reduced to a weekend Dad by the courts.  A loving person could have told him this if he’d been curious or humble enough to seek council about it before hand.  Why does man insists on being so short sighted?

Roundup

Roundup

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Sadly, pro-choicers think it is a good thing that we’ve reduced the cases of Down Syndrome outside the womb by killing 90% of those who have it when they are inside the womb.  And yet they think pro-lifers are the extremists.

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For you Reformed folks, please consider switching from TULIP to BACON.  Tulips are beautiful but bacon is tastier and more manly-sounding.

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Good, simple flowchart in responding to same-sex marriage arguments (click the link to embiggen and get the jpeg):

Marriage-Flow-Final-2.png (1024×563)

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Mainstreaming Bisexuality: ‘Captain Bisexual’ Marches in Chicago Pride Parade as Young Children Watch — the title says it all.

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Aussie Communists: ‘Strike blows’ against the Church and capitalism with same-sex ‘marriage’ — Hey, kudos to them for being honest about their agenda.  At least they didn’t peddle the lies about it being for “love,” which countless unthinking people reflexively repeat (as if not changing the definition of a timeless word would prevent people from loving each other).

Roundup

Roundup

3 Comments

In case you missed it — a great video on marriage — the story of Ian and Larissa.

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Courtesy of Duane from Facebook, the two tenets of the Tolerance and Diversity movement:

  1. We Support Free Speech.
  2. Shut Up.

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I thought this was a gag at first — Coming Next: ADA Lawsuits Over Shy Bladder Syndrome.  Sadly, it isn’t.  This is government out of control.

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Self-professed pro-choice ‘terrorist’ pleads guilty to issuing death threats: cyanide found in home — Did this make the mainstream news?  I assume not.  Rhetorical question: Would it have had more publicity if it had been a pro-lifer?

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Lifting the Lid on Censorship of Black on White Violence — just a little balance would be nice.

The establishment media serves one purpose in this country: to advance the liberal agenda. Neither public safety nor the duty to keep the public informed is allowed to get in the way.

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Will the media bother to tell Ohioans that Obama’s ad there is pure fiction?

All of which means that the actual message of the ad is “I had a job in the auto industry until about six years ago… and then I got a new job. Which is apparently one with a bad environmental and fiscal record, but that doesn’t matter! That’s because Barack Obama really, really needs me to get on the screen and tell you how great it is for me as a spectator to see the auto industry get bailed out. So I figure that I’m golden… oh, crud, Facebook. But… they promised me that Republicans couldn’t read!”

Which, admittedly, doesn’t really sing as a campaign message.

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The viciousness of the Darwin Lobby:

Evolution News writes about an eminent scientist who is under by professors and students at Emory University because of his disagreement with Darwinian orthodoxy and his assertion that morality isn’t possible on a materialistic worldview.

Here’s the first article from Evolution News, which explains what got Dr. Carson in trouble with the Darwoids.

Excerpt:

You can be a brilliant, innovative pediatric neurosurgeon at a sky-scraping top medical school, in addition to being a generous philanthropist with an inspirational up-from-dire-poverty personal story, plus a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, and a best-selling writer whose memoir was turned into a TV movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr.

All that, but if you once shared your critical thoughts on evolutionary science and its moral implications — everything else about you suddenly dwindles to very little.

Dr. Ben Carson of Johns Hopkins University is that man.

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This explains a lot about healthy eating and a proper diet:

400 Calories, by Volume

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Obama’s SSM stance looks to be hurting him with Independents.  I’d ignore the Republican less likely / Democrat more likely figures, as those would probably be the same regardless.  But the Independent gap is telling.

Politics, Sexuality

Yea for North Carolina!

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Once again, every state that has let the voters decide has stood up for real marriage.  See North Carolina voters ban gay marriage, civil unions.  This will help protect religious freedoms, among other things.  The only states that have recognized these unions did so through judges or elected officials.

North Carolinians voted to change the state constitution Tuesday to say that the only valid “domestic legal partnership” in the state is marriage between a man and a woman, according to the AP’s projection. The amendment passed 61 to 39 percent with most counties reporting, making North Carolina the 29th state with a gay marriage ban in its constitution.The state already outlawed gay marriage, but the constitutional amendment makes it more difficult for politicians to ever change the law.

Note the mistake in the title of the link: This didn’t “ban” “gay marriage,” it noted what the state recognizes as valid.  Gays can still go to all sorts of apostate churches and get “married,” set up house together, etc.  In other words, no one is stopping them from associating with those they love.

They won by a huge margin despite being wildly outspent by their opponents out-of-state funding.

Bonus link: A secular case against “same-sex marriage.”

This should make for an interesting location for the Democratic convention:

Whoever decided to put the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina should be given a lollipop by the GOP for the intense level of comedic schadenfreude we can all now watch. The Democrats will convene in a proudly right to work state whose state Democratic Party is imploding due to a gay sexual harassment scandal, the state itself just voted for marriage by a margin few statewide candidates in North Carolina get, and twenty percent of Democrats voted against Barack Obama in the North Carolina Democratic Primary.

On the bright side, North Carolina is not West Virginia where a felon in federal prison in Texas locked up 40% of the vote in the Democratic Primary against Barack Obama.

Courtesy of John, here is a list of all the results from other states.

Christian worldview, Politics, Pro-life

Satan is evil, not stupid

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And he doesn’t mind being a hypocrite.

Here’s an example that gets repeated hundreds, if not thousands of times per day: Via his useful idiots in media, education and apostate churches, Satan tempts women to get abortions by filling their minds with all sorts of lies about how killing their unwanted children will solve their problems.

Then right after the abortion he’ll be glad to tell them how awful and unforgivable they are for killing their own kids.  He’ll remind them of that as often as he can for the rest of their lives.  Hypocrisy?  Sure, but what does he care?  He has helped kill another human being made in the image of God and distanced another person from God.

He’ll even entice women to have a 2nd abortion even though they feel guilty about the first one.  Why?  Because they believe the lie that anyone who had an abortion doesn’t deserve to be a mother.  Illogical?  Yes, but again, he doesn’t care about consistency.

I heard of one couple who knew they had done wrong in having an abortion, but thought that meant they couldn’t go to church.  Whose idea was that?  By definition, churches should welcome lost sinners who want to repent and be healed.

But there is good news and hope: Even people who have been involved in abortions can get forgiveness and healing through Jesus.  One of the best things that Pregnancy Resource Centers do — besides savings lives today and for eternity — is offering post-abortion trauma counseling to women who desperately need it.  And they all need it, whether they know it or not.

If you were part of the abortion process, don’t let Satan win and keep you from God.  Help is out there from people who truly care.

Christian worldview

More mainstream church rebellion

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The Methodist Book of Discipline has a biblical view of homosexuality, but there are too many people willing to break the rules because they are tired of losing in their efforts to have it changed.  Via Methodist Liberals: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Rules:

For several decades now, the liberal formula for forcing through unpopular changes in the mainline churches has been to deliberately break the rules of the targeted denomination, and then daring the authorities to enforce discipline. This practice was spectacularly successful in the Episcopal Church, where women’s ordination became a reality after this kind of blackmail. It now looks like liberal United Methodist clergy have decided that this approach might force the denomination to accept same-sex marriage. According to Pamela Lightsey, Dean of Students at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary (Rosemary Reuther’s old haunt):

Across the country, clergy members in the United Methodist Church are now being faced with the stark reality that public policy is far more prophetic and just than our current church polity as they witness the increasing passing of laws that support marriage rights and civil unions of LGBTQ persons. What are loving clergy to say to those persons whom they have had the honor of watching grow as faithful members of our church when asked to officiate and bless them in a ceremony (whether it be marriage, civil union, or commitment) that honors their desire to be in lifelong relationships with loving partners?

Here’s an option: Tell them the biblical truth that homosexual behavior is a sin.  They are welcome to have non-sexual life long relationships.  We even have a special name for those relationships: Friendships.

Last week, 70 United Methodist Clergy in Minnesota pledged to defy church polity against performing such ceremonies. This week, as of Thursday, 134 clergy in the Northern Illinois Conference have pledged the same. If they follow through with their pledge, they face the possibility of losing their clergy orders. It should be noted that losing one’s credentials is not simply losing the ability to continue your called vocation as clergy but with it, takes away their authorization to preside over the sacred rituals of baptism and Holy Eucharist. I should also mention, it includes a host of practical entitlements such as health benefits, clergy housing allowance (a tax benefit), parsonages, and fellowship within several clergy peer groups. Sufficeth to say, their commitment is a boldly courageous posture….

What we are doing is in fact challenging our church to keep its word and be an “open,” inclusive and loving member of the body of Christ. We are committed to this risk-taking ministry. I trust our Episcopal leaders will know that we are praying for them and that this action is our faithful witness “to do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.” (Micah 6:8)

They are walking with their god — the one of their own making.

So just add dishonesty to their list of traits (technically it was already there — they either lied at their ordination vows or changed their minds later and didn’t have the integrity to leave).

It applies to all churches, though.  The blame ultimately falls on wimpy conservatives who liked their popularity more than they liked exercising church discipline.  We should have kicked out these apostates long ago, but rationalized that we were being more “civil” by letting them stay.

I’m a fan of real civility, but I don’t apologize for stepping on wolf toes.

Bible, Christian living, Christian worldview, Sexuality

Sex is like duct tape

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Work with me here, people.

The truth that people who have sex create a bond isn’t just biblical (“one flesh”), it is scientific.  Anyone supporting “comprehensive” sex education should be teaching this.

J. Budziszewski is a philosophy professor at the University of Texas.  He shares the following illustration, summarized well by Chuck Colson when describing Budziszewski’s book, Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students:

My favorite question is why “sowing your wild oats” never works out the way it’s supposed to.  Sexuality, he says, is like duct tape. The first time you use it, it sticks you to whomever it touches. But just like that duct tape, if you rip it off and then touch it to someone else, it isn’t as sticky as it was before. So what happens when you pull it loose from one partner after another?  Budziszewski explains: You just don’t stick anymore, your sexual partners seem like strangers, and you stop feeling anything.

Ripping the duct tape off is extremely painful as well, especially the first time – just as the break-up of a sexual relationship can be more painful than a regular one.  It may seem progressively easier to “tear off” with subsequent partners, but you can’t make it stick on command when you finally decide to commit.

Here’s an article from the Boundless Webzine that describes it in more detail.

“But how do you know if you have a commitment?” he asked.

“Easy,” I said. “If you’re married, you’ve got one. If you’re not married, you don’t.”

Science confirms that this isn’t just a clever illustration.  Consider oxytocin, a chemical that, among other things, encourages bonding of mates.  More about it here.  It is no wonder why people form sexual addictions and why encouraging people to experiment with any sexual behavior will lead to problems.

Do these “experts” pushing to normalize fornication and homosexuality not understand the psychological and physiological implications of such behavior?  Or is the problem that they understand them too well?  Teaching the sex without consequences myth (“just use condoms and everything will be ok!”) is cruel and stupid.

I like this duct tape example because it is provocative, accurate and helpful in exposing the lies of the sex-as-recreation crowd.  Regardless of what Planned Parenthood and the rest tell you, sex outside of a one man, one woman marriage will always hurt you.  No amount of birth control and abortions can change that.

This concept is right out of the Bible:

1 Corinthians 6:16-18 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”  But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.  Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

Once again, God’s way is the best way.  When God described the union of a man and a woman as “one flesh,” He meant it.  You become one.  When your flesh is joined and you tear it apart it will be extremely painful.

Yet as He shows again and again, redemption and healing are possible with him.  He loves to forgive and help people out of bondage.  Today is a great day to stop the cycle and educate people about the truth.  Here’s a book designed to help (I haven’t read it but heard the author on a radio show) – The Invisible Bond: How to Break Free from Your Sexual Past.

Note: This is a somewhat edited repeat from 2008.

Favorites, Politics, Sexuality

A secular case against “same-sex marriage”

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Roxeanne asked socially conservative bloggers to write a non-religious case against same-sex marriage.  I’ll make a few points here, but the good news is that the Wintery Knight did a more thorough and masterful job in A secular case against gay marriage.  I highly encourage you to read and bookmark it.  The case against oxymoronic “same-sex marriage” is not that hard to make, but sadly too many conservatives don’t prepare themselves and fall prey to soundbites.  It is their fault that places like New York voted this in.

First, my basic points.  These are not complicated, folks.

1. By nature and design, one man / one woman unions produce the next generation.  That is why the government is involved in these relationships.  Just because some marriages don’t produce children doesn’t mean that the government doesn’t have an interest in encouraging the relationships that by nature and design do produce children.

2. Only one man / one woman unions can provide a mother and a father to a child, the ideal for any child.  This should be self-evident to any observer.

3.  “Marriage” was a word created to describe these unions.  LGBTQX people have a right to live as they choose, but they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for society.  Please note: These people are welcome to get “married” in any number of apostate churches.  They can set up house and live together.  We are just saying that the government has no reason to affirm or regulate these relationships.

4. Saying that “marriage” applies to gays and lesbians isn’t a little different than the real definition of “a union of  a man and a woman,” it is the opposite.  It is saying that marriage is not just the union of a man and a woman, it is the union of anything we want it to be.

5. The arguments used to justify “same-sex marriage” support polygamy as well.  It isn’t a slippery slope argument, it is a cliff argument, where all the reasoning is already in place to justify other perversions of marriage.

6. “Same-sex marriage” has already impacted religious freedoms and will continue to do so.  This isn’t a religious argument per se, in that it isn’t saying “The Bible says ____,” but it is an argument about how government recognition of these unions pits the government against religions.

This is very important.  As noted here, the bill specifically says that “marriage is a fundamental human right,” but then goes on to give exemptions to religious organizations for having to recognize that right.  But how can that be?  What religion could have its views trump other fundamental human rights and justify, say, slavery in the U.S.?

Prediction: The law will stand but the religious exemption will get cut out.  The people who held out for the exemption behaved foolishly and naively.

7. These unions are bad for kids in many ways.  They inevitably result in 4-5 year olds being told how “normal” these relationships are.  They lead to adoption agencies closing rather than have to place children with gay or lesbian couples (that is premeditated child abuse).

8. Common sound bites about hospital visitation, estate taxes, etc. can be dealt with without undermining marriage.  For example, estate taxes are ghoulish.  You do not want the government to profit when you die!  So abolish them for everyone.

9. Don’t let them get away with sloppy slogans about “rights.”  They have the same rights as everyone else: To marry someone of the opposite sex.  I’m not trying to be cute here, I’m just pointing out that if they don’t want to exercise that right we don’t have to make up a new one for them.

10. Don’t let them get away with sloppy slogans about loving whomever they want.  Again, no one is saying they can’t love anyone they like.  Sadly, sound bites like that are repeated ad nauseum by people who should know better.We’re the ones staying out of their relationships.  They are the ones asking for government affirmation.

11. Don’t let them get away with comparisons to interracial marriages.  Skin color is moral neutral.  Sexual behavior is not.

Summary: While LGBTQX people are free to have these relationships, we are merely saying the government has no need to affirm or validate them.

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Aside from the secular arguments, if anyone wants to know what God says about marriage and these relationships, it is very clear.  He invented marriage.  Any church that disagrees with this isn’t a church, it is an organization trying to destroy the real church (that is, those who authentically follow Jesus).  They are actually doing you a favor in being so obvious.  Churches that promote same-sex unions are merely wolves in sheep’s clothing who took off the sheep’s clothing.  Hey, maybe they were getting too warm or something.

  • 100% of the verses addressing homosexual behavior denounce it as sin in the clearest and strongest possible terms.
  • 100% of the verses referring to God’s ideal for marriage involve one man and one woman.
  • 100% of the verses referencing parenting involve moms and dads with unique roles (or at least a set of male and female parents guiding the children).
  • 0% of 31,173 Bible verses refer to homosexual behavior in a positive or even benign way or even hint at the acceptability of homosexual unions.

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Now, a few tidbits from Wintery’s piece (again, read it all!).  There are sources for all of this.   Emphasis added.

Claim: about 58% of traditional marriages last longer than 20 years.

Claim: about 5% of same-sex unions last longer than 20 years.

Claim: 85% of married women and 75.5% of married men report being faithful to their spouses. For homosexual males, the number is 4.5%

Look at the rates of violence in these relationships!  If these were anything other than politically correct relationships the media would be all over this.  I’d wager that these are a far bigger problem than “hate crimes.”

Rates of intimate partner violence

Intimate Partner Violence

Any advocates of SSM should be required to read these links:

Here are a few more examples of this infringement on civil society and business:

Consider the health problems it causes, such as 40+ times higher rates of HIV and syphilis for gay men.  Again, if this was any other group it would be non-stop news.   But it doesn’t fit with the mainstream media messaging.

Students who report being gay or bisexual are more likely than heterosexual students to engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual risk behaviors, suicidal behaviors, and violence, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Note that the previous facts were about students, yet the schools go overboard encouraging this behavior in kids.

The study reported: “the prevalence among gay or lesbian students was higher than the prevalence among heterosexual students for a median of 63.8% of all the risk behaviors measured, and the prevalence among bisexual students was higher than the prevalence among heterosexual students for a median of 76.0% of all the risk behaviors measured.”

But they are “born that way,” right?

The footnotes she mentions are in the original article. That article also debunks the “gay gene” myth using identical twin studies, which show that only 10-11% of identical twins have the same sexual orientation.

What?!  You mean Lady Gaga was wrong?!

Christian worldview, Politics, Sexuality

Do Planned Parenthood and “comprehensive” sex ed programs teach this?

7 Comments

See New study finds that teens who lose their virginity are more likely to divorce.  Read the stats at the link.  It is quite compelling.  Somehow I doubt that the answer to the title question is “yes.”  So you better tell your kids, and kids, you should tell your friends.

Divorce is very costly, very painful and very avoidable.  Out-of-wedlock sex also leads to more divorce, diseases, unplanned pregnancies and abortions.  If groups like Planned Parenthood, public schools, false religious teachers and the media really had your long-term best interests at heart they would put this on the front page for weeks.  But that isn’t their agenda.  They are too busy telling kids not to have sex until they are ready — which, shockingly enough, is right about the time they really want to have sex!

From the commentary there (emphasis added):

This dovetails nicely with the previous studies that Mysterious C sent me that showed that, for men and women, the more sexual partners you have before marriage, the more unstable your marriage will be. See the related posts for more. If you’re still a virgin, like me, (and I’m in my mid-thirties now, and I’m saving my first kiss for my engagement), then there is nothing wrong with you. If you want a stable marriage, then you don’t have sex before you’re married. There are tons of virgins out there, and there is a huge difference in the quality of romantic relationships when both parties exercise self-control with physical touching.