Natural Marriage is Not Bigotry—It’s Biology

Written by 

Frank Turek | May 13, 2014

What reasons, other than religious reasons, might someone want to keep marriage defined as only the union of one man and one woman? There are actually thousands of reasons. They are born each day. Marriage must be protected to protect children.

How does that follow? How will children be affected by broadening the definition of marriage? To discover the actual truth about this complicated issue of same-sex marriage, it’s important to be correct rather than politically correct. 

Let’s start by identifying the main reason we have marriage laws in the first place. The main reason the government is involved in marriage is not to recognize that two people love one another or have a romantic affinity for one another. We don’t have marriage laws to recognize the fact that you get a tingle when Barbara wears that blouse. Why should the state care about just romantic feelings?

The real reason governments have an interest in promoting natural marriage because only natural marriage perpetuates and stabilizes society. Strong marriage laws encourage men and women to procreate and then stay together to mother and father their children. That benefits children and all of society because children raised in biological two-parent homes  tend to do better and cause society much less trouble than children raised in other situations.

Why is this so? Because men and women are different. Mothering and fathering are different. A mother brings unique benefits to her child that a father cannot provide and vice versa. Same sex couples always deny children in their care either a mother or a father. Only natural marriage can provide and protect the parenting unit that every child deserves—a mother and a father. That’s why limiting marriage to a man and a woman is not bigotry—it’s biology . It’s based in the biological facts of nature and the needs of children.

Homosexual activists inadvertently admit this in arguing for same-sex marriage. While they assert that men and women are the same—that there’s no difference between homosexual and heterosexual relationships so those relationships should be treated equally—their entire case denies that point. If men and women were really the same, the activists would simply marry someone of the opposite sex—which according to them is the same as someone of the same sex—and be done with it. The very reason they are demanding same-sex marriage is precisely because they know men and women are drastically different.

Since same sex and natural marriage are different behaviors that result in different outcomes, they should not be treated equally. The law must treat people equally (which it already does) but not their behaviors. When the law treats these different behaviors equally the cultural understanding of marriage changes and children get hurt.

The law is a great teacher. It shapes opinions and behaviors for generations to come. Wherever same sex marriage becomes law, the public doesn’t come to see two types of marriage—natural and same sex. It comes to understand that marriage is genderless. In other words, by dropping the gender requirement, the law helps teach society that marriage is a genderless institution merely about the romantic desires of adults and nothing about the needs of children. Well, if marriage isn’t about the needs of children, then what institution is about children? Do we really think we can divorce children from marriage and avoid negative consequences?

We can’t. In fact, we’ve been experiencing negative consequences since no-fault divorce laws passed in the 1970s. Those laws make dissolving a family too easy and should be repealed. They also help teach people that marriage is only about the desires of adults, not the needs of children. If marriage is all about my happiness and not the needs of children, then I should get divorced if I’m not “happy.” The law is teaching me that if the tingle is gone I should move on. No wonder families break up at alarming rates, and children are damaged in the process. Making marriage genderless through same sex marriage will further hurt children by annihilating their connection to marriage completely.

Making marriage genderless also impacts what we teach our children. In Massachusetts , for example, parents now have no right to even know when their kids as young as kindergarten are being taught about homosexuality, much less opt out of it. Why are we indoctrinating five year olds with any information about sex, especially homosexuality? And why is California now mandating that homosexuals must be identified in public school curriculum and only depicted in positive ways? Nothing negative can be said even if it’s true! That’s not education; that’s propaganda. Our education system is politicized and propagandized and our children are the victims.

Some states even dictate how parents educate and counsel their children outside the schoolroom. California, along with New Jersey, now make you a criminal for counseling your own child out of unwanted homosexual desires. Do you realize the totalitarian nature of this? The state has given itself the obligation to indoctrinate your children into homosexuality and taken away your parental right to counsel them out of it. Are you the parent of your own child or is the state? Is this still America?

If all of these observations make you mad, don’t blame me—I didn’t make up the facts of nature. I didn’t make up the fact that men were made for women and that babies only come from their unions. I didn’t make up the fact that mothers and fathers are different and bring unique parenting skills and benefits to their children. I didn’t make up the universe in such a way that children tend to turn out better when raised by a biological mom and dad. I didn’t make up the fact that we all have desires we ought not act on, regardless if we are born with those desires or acquire them in life. These aren’t “my” truths or my morality. They are self-evident truths. They are not hard to know—just sometimes hard to accept.

It can be summed up this way: Conservatives try to adjust their behavior to fit the facts of nature. Liberals try to adjust the facts of nature to fit their behavior. No matter how well intended, the latter is an impossible approach that often leads to tragic results .

If we truly love and care for people, we won’t abandon self-evident truths and celebrate destructive behavior. When we do, not only do children get hurt, so do many others..... 

The Incorrect Assumption of Transgenderism....by Elizabeth Prata

The following article is taken from a blog entitled, "The End Time".  The author of both the blog and article is Elizabeth Prata.  Thank you Elizabeth for a very informative and God honoring article on a very culturally divisive issue.

"...what is in the mind cannot be questioned."

The above statement was from Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the author of "Try to Remember: Psychiatry's Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind".

It is from an excerpt from an Opinion-Editorial article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week by Dr. Paul McHugh, formerly head psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University. [HTStand to Reason Blog] from which the above was taken. Their title was "Why the First Hospital to Do Sex-Reassignment Surgeries No Longer Does Them"

I thought Dr. McHugh's point about anorexia and bulimia was especially poignant. The comment about the 20-fold higher suicide rate of surgically transgendered patients in latter years having 'no explanation' was also poignant.

Christians have the explanation. The explanation is, the trans-gender seeker person is vigorously rebelling against God and denying His sovereignty over creation, including their own creation as a man or a woman. Rebellion against God and denying Him always leads to despair- because rebels have no hope.

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Halifax, Canada: "The familiar stick figures remain, so as not to confuse anyone used to looking for them to point the way to a washroom. But now Capital Health has added a third figure to the signs on some of its single-stall bathrooms in Halifax to represent transgender people, in a move designed to signal a welcoming environment to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individual."

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Satan actively seeks moral decline. He seeks it in the individual and he seeks it in society. In attacking the family satan has had success in bringing about an acceptance of divorce, and an acceptance of homosexuality- at least as it's presented in the news and the media. The next frontier for acceptance of perversity is transgenderism, and polyamory (Multiple wives, or multiple partners under one roof.)  If satan can corrupt the marriage institution and pervert the nuclear family, thus normalizing terrible sin, he will have accomplished his goal, which is to rebel against God's holy standards. Getting an entire society to rebel is icing on the cake. (Romans 1:32).

Dr McHugh's information is of interest because transgenderism is the next frontier of satan's active battlefield. The cherry on top of the icing on the cake is that after getting individuals to fall, and after getting a culture to fall, is to get these perverted notions accepted by thechurch. It has been an onslaught lately.

Several weeks ago, a church identifying as Southern Baptist repudiated the biblical standard for sexuality and voted to keep a pastor who'd reversed his position on homosexuality as a sin. The reason for the pastor's change of heart? His son came out as gay, and rather than repudiate the sin in his son and go through the Matthew 18 process, the pastor chose to repudiate Jesus instead. His church voted to keep the gay-affiring pastor, thus the congregation repudiated Jesus also. In these cases I am reminded of Revelation 3:20. Jesus is outside the door of the church, knocking to come in.

The Presbyterian Church USA voted this week to change their constitution declaring marriage as a union between two people, rather than specifically between a man and a woman.

In the face of the swelling tide of gender role and sexual reversals, last week the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution stating in part, "The separation of one's gender identity from the physical reality of biological birth sex poses the harmful effect of engendering an understanding of sexuality and personhood that is fluid."

And this piece by Dr McHugh agrees, medically, biologically, and psychologically. Transgenderism is in the mind, it is a desire, an appetite. It is a disorder, not a biological reality.

Acknowledging transgenderism as a sin and not a disorder does not diminish the pain and anguish the gender confused individual possesses. However the glory of the Gospel is that Jesus died to pay for all sins, and to bring peace between Himself and sinners. Any and all sin, confusion, and anguish can be covered and helped by repentance and submission to the Great and Holy Comforter. He is a man of Sorrows Himself, understanding our pains and woes. He will help. Repentance, means a true rejection of one's sin, and in this case pleas to Jesus will be heard. It doesn't mean that one's anguish over sin will be immediately dissolved, but He sends a Helper in the Holy Spirit to aid us in resisting temptation. More than that He gives us HOPE, and changes our focus from self  to Him, that is always the greatest and most magnanimous place to start the path to true peace.

Here is Dr. McHugh

[P]olicy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.

The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight….

Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field….

We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription….

At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.

For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 1:4)

And yet, our gentle Lord encourages us with this verse,

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20-21)

Tony Miano talks to Janet Mefferd about his new book "Should She Preach?"

Co-ed Combat and Cultural Cowardice

                                                       by John Piper

If I were the last man on the planet to think so, I would want the honor of saying no woman should go before me into combat to defend my country. A man who endorses women in combat is not pro-woman; he’s a wimp. He should be ashamed. For most of history, in most cultures, he would have been utterly scorned as a coward to promote such an idea. Part of the meaning of manhood as God created us is the sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of our women.  Back in the seventies, when I taught in college, feminism was new and cool. So my ideas on manhood were viewed as the social construct of a dying chauvinistic era. I had not yet been enlightened that competencies, not divine wiring, governed the roles we assume. Unfazed, I said no.  Suppose, I said, a couple of you students, Jason and Sarah, were walking to McDonald’s after dark. And suppose a man with a knife jumped out of the bushes and threatened you. And suppose Jason knows that Sarah has a black belt in karate and could probably disarm the assailant better than he could. Should he step back and tell her to do it? No. He should step in front of her and be ready to lay down his life to protect her, irrespective of competency. It is written on his soul. That is what manhood does.  And collectively that is what society does—unless the men have all been emasculated by the suicidal songs of egalitarian folly. God created man first in order to say that man bears a primary burden for protection, provision, and leadership. And when man and woman rebelled against God’s ways, God came to the garden and said, Adam, where are you? (Genesis 3:9), not Eve, where are you? And when the apostle described the implications of being created male and female, the pattern he celebrates is: Save her, nourish her, cherish her, give her life (Ephesians 5:25-29).  God wrote manhood and womanhood on our hearts. Sin ruins the imprint without totally defacing it. It tells men to be heavy handed oafs or passive wimps. It tells women to be coquettes or controllers. That is not God’s imprint. Deeper down men and women know it.  When God is not in the picture, the truth crops up in strange forms. For example, Kingsley Browne, law professor at Wayne State University in Michigan, has written a new book called Co-Ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women Shouldn't Fight the Nation’s Wars. In an interview with Newsweek, he said, “The evidence comes from the field of evolutionary psychology. . . . Men don’t say, ‘This is a person I would follow through the gates of hell.’ Men aren’t hard-wired to follow women into danger.”  If you leave God out, the perceived “hard-wiring” appears to be “evolutionary psychology.” If God is in the picture, it has other names. We call it “the work of the law written on their hearts” (Romans 2:15). We call it true manhood as God meant it to be.  As usual, the truth that comes in the alien form of “evolutionary psychology” gets distorted. It is true that “men aren’t hard-wired to follow women into danger.” But that’s misleading. The issue is not that women are leading men into danger. The issue is that they are leading men. Men aren’t hard-wired to follow women, period. They are hard-wired to get in front of their women—between them and the bullets. They are hard-wired to lead their women out of danger and into safety. And women, at their deepest and most honest selves, give profound assent to this noble impulse in good men. That is why co-ed combat situations compromise men and women at their core and corrupt even further the foolhardy culture that put them there.  Consider where we have come. One promotion for Browne’s book states, “More than 155,000 female troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. And more than seventy of those women have died. . . . Those deaths exceed the number of military women who died in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War combined.”  What cowardly men do we thank for this collapse of chivalry? Browne suggests, “There are a lot of military people who think women in combat is a horrible idea, but it’s career suicide to say it.” In other words, let the women die. I still have my career. May God restore sanity and courage once again to our leading national defenders. And may he give you a voice.

By John Piper. ©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

This article was published in World Magazine. See also Piper’s short follow-up post “More on Women in Combat.”

Women Should Not Serve in Military Combat

By Phyllis Schlafly

The push to repeal the laws that exempt women from military combat duty must be the strangest of all aberrations indulged in by the women’s liberation or feminist movement. The very idea of women serving in military combat is so unnatural that it almost sounds like a death wish for our species.

Has our nation sunk so low that we are willing to send our daughters and young mothers into battle? Is chivalry completely dead? Breathes there a man with soul so dead that he will not rise up and defend his wife, his sweetheart, his mother and his daughter, against those who want to wound or capture them, whoever they may be?

Most Americans were shocked to learn that at least one American woman is a Prisoner of War in the clutches of Saddam Hussein (and a couple of other servicewomen are missing), but the feminists see this as proof that women are advancing toward equality with men on the battlefield. In point of fact, women under Saddam Hussein are not equal, whether they are Iraqi women or U.S. POWs.

Shoshana Johnson, age 30, of El Paso, Texas, the single mother of a two-year-old daughter, was part of a U.S. Army maintenance unit ambushed and captured after the convoy made a wrong turn. She had signed up to be an Army cook and never dreamed she would be sent into a situation where she could be captured by an evil regime.

This is not only a tragedy for Shoshana, it's a humiliation for America and a step backward for civilization. No crisis or threat requires our government to send mothers of two-year-old babies across the seas to fight the most brutal terrorists in the world.

The feminists, however, view Shoshana as a pioneer for women’s rights. A New York Times editorial brags that Shoshana’s capture shows how the American military has “evolved” and “the case for equal footing is gaining ground.” But, the Times bemoans, the military is “a laggard on the topic of women in combat” and still retains “glass ceilings” that bar women from direct combat. That is the kind of equality the feminist movement has always sought.

Army regulations have always exempted women from direct ground combat, but the Clinton feminists opened up more “career opportunities” for women in 1994 by getting the Pentagon to eliminate the then-existing “Risk Rule,” a regulation that had exempted women in non-combat positions from assignment where they faced the “inherent risk of capture.”

There is no evidence in all history for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to advance women’s rights, promote national security, improve combat readiness, or win wars. Indeed, the entire experience of recorded history teaches us that battles are not won by coed armies or coed navies. Of the thousands of books written about World War II, no one ever wrote that Hitler or the Japanese should have solved their manpower shortage problem by using women in combat.

Every country that has experimented with women in combat has abandoned the idea. The notion that Israel uses women in combat is a feminist myth. Women are treated very differently from men in the Israeli armed forces. They serve only about half as long; they are housed in separate barracks; they have an automatic exemption if they marry or have a baby. Commenting on the sex-integration practices of the U.S. Armed Services, one Israeli general said, “We do not do what you do in the United States because, unfortunately, we have to take war seriously.”

Women, on the average, have only 60 percent of the physical strength of men. This truism, so self-evident to those with eyes to see, has been confirmed by many studies, but under pressure from militant feminists, the brave men with medals decorating their chests are defensive about the obvious. The U.S. Comptroller General reported, “If as the Air Force Surgeon General has concluded, females are only 60 percent as strong as males, it seems there are some jobs that males, on the average, can do better than females.” (emphasis added)

When General Douglas MacArthur delivered his great “Duty, Honor, Country” speech at West Point on May 12, 1962, he gave it to them straight. “Your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars.” MacArthur explained that defending America requires real men who, whether they are “slogging ankle deep through mire of shell-pocked roads, . . . blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain,” or in “the filth of dirty foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts,” in “the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails,” can be relied on to muster the strength and courage to kill the enemy.

Weapons have changed, but the mission of the U.S. Armed Services is the same. It is a mission for tough, tenacious and courageous men who can endure the most primitive and uncivilized circumstances and pain in order to survive in combat against enemies who are just as tough, tenacious and courageous, and often vicious and sadistic, too. The armies and navies of every potential enemy are exclusively male and no women diminish their combat readiness.

Another reason for the unanimous verdict of history that the armed forces demand different roles for men and women is that women get pregnant. When young men and women in the age group of 18 to 25 are required to live in close proximity, often doing unpleasant tasks and suffering from loneliness away from home, the inevitable happens. The pregnancy rate is at least 10 percent among servicewomen. Another five percent have had their babies and brought them back to the post. Why is anyone surprised?

How did we get into our present situation, in which our military officers are issuing maternity uniforms, opening nurseries on army posts, and pretending that women can do anything that men can do? For the answer to that, we must look at two feminist fantasies.

The first is that there really is no difference between the sexes (except those obvious ones we need not discuss) and that all those other differences you think you see are not inherent, but are due merely to cultural stereotyping which can and must be erased by sex-neutral education, laws, and changed attitudes.

The feminists’ chief legal authority prior to Ruth Bader Ginsburg was Yale Law School Professor Thomas I. Emerson. He explained the feminist view in a 100-page, widely quoted article about the Equal Rights Amendment in the Yale Law Journal (April 1971). “As between brutalizing our young men and brutalizing our young women,” he wrote, “there is little to choose. . . Women will serve in all kinds of units, and they will be eligible for combat duty.”

The second false dogma of the women’s liberation movement is that we must be neutral as between morality and immorality, and as between the institution of the family and alternate lifestyles. As the national conference on International Women’s Year at Houston in 1977 proved, the feminists demand that government policy accord the same dignity to lesbians and prostitutes as to wives, to illegitimate births as to legitimate, to abortions as to live births, and that we support immoral and anti-family practices with public funds.

The great and powerful U.S. military has been pretending there is no difference between men and women, even if they are mothers, and that giving birth to a baby is only a temporary disability like breaking a leg. To carry on this pretense, official U.S. military policy has been ignoring common sense, family integrity, and the American culture. The deception appeared to some to be satisfactory in the peacetime military when women were pursuing their career opportunities for upward social mobility, as the feminists like to say. Then came a real war.

The politicians have brought this embarrassment on our nation because they allowed themselves to be henpecked by the militant feminists. The whole idea of men sending women, including mothers, out to fight the enemy is uncivilized, degrading, barbaric, and embarrassing. It’s contrary to our culture, to our respect for men and women, and to our belief in the importance of the family and motherhood. No one respects a man who would let a woman do his fighting for him.

We hear the constant refrain that “times have changed,” but there is no change whatsoever in obvious facts of human nature such as that men and women differ in so many important ways, that healthy young women are apt to get pregnant, and that there is a profound difference between male-to-male bonding and male-to-female bonding — a factor that can make the difference between life and death on the battlefield. No matter what social changes are alleged to have taken place, the policies of our U.S. Armed Forces should respect the dignity and value of marriage and motherhood.

Women serve our country admirably, both on the home front and in many positions in the U.S. Armed Forces. But they should not be assigned to military combat or to “combat support” areas where they have the “inherent risk of capture.”

Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo. She has been a leader of the pro-family movement since 1972, when she started her national volunteer organization now called Eagle Forum. In a ten-year battle, Mrs. Schlafly led the pro-family movement to victory over the principal legislative goal of the radical feminists, called the Equal Rights Amendment. An articulate and successful opponent of the radical feminist movement, she appears in debate on college campuses more frequently than any other conservative. She was recently named one of the 100 most important women of the 20th century by the Ladies' Home Journal. Her latest book is Feminist Fantasies (Spence Publishing Co).

Why women can't be head pastors by C. Michael Patton

I don’t know of many more controversial issues in the church than issues regarding women in ministry. It is not controversial whether or not women can do ministry or be effective in ministry, but whether or not they can teach and preside in positions of authority over men. The most controversial issue aspect of this issue, of course, is whether or not women can hold the position of head pastor or elder in a local church.

There are two primary positions in this debate; those who believe that women can teach men and hold positions of authority over men in the church and those that do not. Those that do, normally go by the name “Egalitarians.” Those that do not, go by the name “Complementarians.” 

I am a complementarian but I understand and appreciate the egalitarian position. In fact, the church I serve at most often is an egalitarian church. (However, I don’t want you to think that my complementarianism is not important to me. There is much more to complementarianism than whether or not a woman can preach!)

There are a lot of passages of Scripture which contribute to the debate, but one stands out more than all the others. 1 Tim. 2:11-15:

“A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.”

I don’t want to debate whether or not this passage teaches either position. I am simply going to assume the complementarian position and attempt to deal with the sting of “I don’t allow a woman to teach.” It does have quite a bit of sting. I like to make the Scripture pragmatically understandable. In other words, I want to not only understand what it says, but to rationally understand why it says what it says. Why does God give this instruction or that? What practical rationale might be behind the instruction of God? I know that we cannot always find it and our obligation to obey transcends our understanding but, in my experience, more often than not, our understanding of the command can accompany our obedience so that we are not so blind.

“I do not allow a woman to teach.” We think of this as coming from God. God says, “I do not allow a woman to teach.” Teaching is something that requires _________ therefore, women are not qualified. You fill in the blank:

1. Intelligence

2. Wisdom

3. Love

4. Concern

5. Rational

6. Persuasiveness

While I think the sting of this passage assumes that Paul is speaking about one of these, I don’t choose any of them. I think Paul (and God) has something different in mind. The other night, at 3am there was a sound in our living room. Kristie woke up, but I did not. She was looking out there and saw the lights go on. She got scared.

Pop quiz: What did she do next?

a. Got a bat and quietly tip toed out there to see who it was.

b. Got a gun and peeked around the corner.

c. Woke me up and had me go out there.

Those of you who choose “c” are both right and wise. You are right because that is what happened. (It was my 2 year old Zach who decided it was time to get up.) You are wise because that is what normally happens and is typically, for those of you who have a man in the house, the best move. Why? Because men are better equipped to deal with these sort of situations. There is an aggression that men have, both physical and mental, that is more able to handle situations that might become combative. That is the way we are made.

Now, let me give my short and sweet answer as to why Paul did not allow women to teach. Paul did not let women teach due to the often aggressive and combative nature that teaching must entail concerning the confrontation of false doctrine. Men must be the teachers when combating false teaching. However, because the role of a teacher in the church is so often to combat false doctrine, and because false doctrine is always a problem, generally speaking, the principles are always applicable. The “exercising of authority” is inherently tied to teaching and its necessary condemnation of false doctrine.

The combative nature of teaching is particularly relevant to a broader understanding of the characteristics of men and women. The best illustration in the real world that I could use to help you understand what I am saying is that of a military commander in charge of leading troops into battle. Of course there might be an exception here and there, but do a study and you will find that no matter what the time or culture, men are always leading here. Why? Because men are simply better equipped and more followed. There are certian areas where men and women have a unique stature. I believe, like in military, the position of head pastor is the same. Not only are they better equipped for the issues that will arise, but they are followed more readily.

Let me give you another example: Two years ago, my wife was confronted by another couple who did not believe that she was doing what was right. She used to do princess parties where she would dress up as a princess (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty) and go to little girls’ homes and entertain them for an hour or so. She was really good at this. After we moved from Frisco to Oklahoma, she still had one party on the schedule. She called her boss and let her know that she could not do it since we had already moved. Her boss became very angry and began to threaten her. She also said that she was going to bring in her husband (who was a lawyer) and sue Kristie. Kristie became very scared and did not know how to handle this situation, especially since her boss was now using her husband as part of the threat. She told me about this and I told her not to speak to her boss anymore, but to let me handle it. I did. I stepped in and confronted both her boss and her husband’s threats concerning the issue. In the end, they backed off.

I felt that it was my duty and obligation to step in and be strong on behalf of my wife as the situation became confrontational. Kristie is both tender, gentle, and, in those situations, frightened. She was going to give in and travel back to Texas to perform this last party even though she would lose money in the gas it took to go there and back. Her boss refused to pay her mileage.

My point is that men are conditioned to handle confrontation better than women. It is not that Kristie could not have done the same thing as me, it is just that this was not her bent. Women, generally speaking, are not bent to deal with confrontation the same way as men. Teaching in the church involves, more often than not, confronting false understanding.

Can women teach? Absolutely! Can women understand and think as well as men? Most certainly. But the bent of a man is better able to handle the type of teaching that is always necessary in the church.

Would I let a woman teach from the pulpit from time to time? Yes. Paul is not restricting women teachers over men in the absolute sense. The infinitive here, “to teach” is in the present tense which suggests the perpetual role of teaching which exercises authority (confrontation).

The role of head pastor, I believe requires confrontation. That is not all there is, but it is there and it is very important. It is because of this, I believe, Paul said that women cannot teach or exercise authority over men.

(This post was copied from the blog, "Parchment and pen" a ministry of Credo House ministries ,Feb, 15th, 2010)

COLUMN: Homosexuality, Abortion, and Martin Luther King

COLUMN: Homosexuality, Abortion, and Martin Luther King

Evangelism encounter: Myles

I've mentioned before that I currently work as a Security Officer here in North Carolina.  I work in an office building and have opportunity each day to intersect with many kinds of people.  Yesterday, I had the chance to talk to a fellow that I've seen several times in the past.  His name is Miles.  He is a good looking guy who could be a Hollywood actor.  Miles works as a transport driver for disabled patients and about a month ago while waiting on a patient we got into an interesting conversation.  He shared with me that at one point in his life, he was a drug addict, suffered from ADHD, and experienced a tough divorce several years earlier but had an experience several years ago that totally delivered him.  Of course I'm all ears but my shift was over and I had to leave.  I told him that the next time he was in the building he would have to tell me more of his story.  Well that next time was yesterday.  Miles and I sat down and he began to pick up where he left off.  He credited his "miraculous" deliverance to "God" who he say's speaks to him on a regular basis.  This was my first clue that something was off in his theology.  He told me that "God" was the author of both good and evil therefore it's up to man to choose the "best" options.  Of course if man consistently chooses the good over evil, when he dies he will be rewarded with "Heaven".  He also told me that he doesn't believe in organized religion because "religion" divides and he also denied Scripture as  God's word because of course it was written by evil men who corrupted it.  Now here is the straw that broke the camel's hump (is that how it goes?)  He stated that because God is the author of BOTH evil and good there is "NO" sin.  In fact he said that He no longer sins since his "religious" experience.  At this point I could stands no more and I jumped in and asked, "Miles since your experience, how does your life now line up with the 10 commandments?  "Have you lied? he said, "No". I asked, "Have you lusted in your heart after women?  He said, "Nope".  I finally asked, "have you loved God with all your being?  He stated, "absolutely".  The thing I love about using the 10 commandments in evangelism is because like a good diagnostic machine they expose the sinful heart for what it is. Miles may not admit it, but he violated the first commandment which states, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3).  Because of his rejection of the Bible, Miles had created or given himself to a "god"  other than the God of the Bible.  Miles was an Idolater who if he didn't repent would spend eternity not in Heaven, but in Hell.  I attempted to expose Miles to the virtues of Jesus' person and work on the cross, but he was fixed on his own ideas.  I pray that Miles will repent before it's too late.

For His Glory,
Todd

Men, whatever happened to "Women and Children First"?

I just recieved by way of "snail mail" the newest catalog (2012) from, "The Vision Forum Family". Vision Forum is a ministry committed to, "...promoting courageous fatherhood, noble motherhood, virtuous boyhood and girlhood through vision-casting discipleship tools that teach, equip, and inspire...." .   
    On page two of the Catalog is a note from Vision's President and founder Douglas W. Phillips entitled, "Does "Women & Children First" Still Matter?  This note was so good, I thought I would reprint it for your edification (www.visionforum.com).

"One hundred years ago, the second-most famous ship in the history of the world sank. What makes the story of the R.M.S. Titanic so important is the men who lived out the expression “women and children first.” From first class gentlemen to 16-year-old cabin boys, from boiler room workers to Wallace Hartley and his musicians—all perished for women and children.
Three days after Titanic sank, churchman Henry Van Dyke (author of the lyrics to “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee”) offered this:

Where did this rule which prevailed in the sinking of the Titanic come from? It comes from God through faith of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the ideal of self-sacrifice. It is the rule that the strong ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak. It is the divine revelation which is summed up in the words: Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. . . . Only through the belief that the strong are bound to protect and save the weak because God wills it so, can we hope to keep self-sacrifice, and love and heroism, and all the things that make us glad to live and not afraid to die.

For one thousand years, the doctrine of “women and children first” has guided Western civilization. We see this in the fields of Scotland in the seventh century when evangelist Adomnan authored the “Law of the Innocents.” We see it on board the sinking H.M.S. Birkenhead in the nineteenth century. These men, and the men of the Titanic, recognized their duty because they had been raised in a Christian culture that implicitly embraced this principle. Ours is the first generation to reject it.

How do we reconcile “women and children first” with the spirit of feminism? We do not. Today, many are confused. They have a quaint appreciation for “women and children first” while misunderstanding the application to the duties of manhood and the distinctions between the sexes.

As we progress through the twenty-first century, Christians need to understand the choice before them. It makes no sense to speak of women and children first in one breath, and place our daughters in harm’s way in military combat in another. If men are no longer the defenders of women, why hold the door for a lady or perform other acts of deference which once defined the meaning of “gentleman”? Today, Christians need to see exactly where feminism and evolution have taken us—into a world where it is every person for themselves in a struggle for the survival of the fittest.

One hundred years after the sinking of the Titanic, this message is more relevant than ever. It is a reminder of what separates Christian civilization from everything else.

Does “women and children first” still matter? You bet it does!".


Men, just some thoughts in closing.  This article was extremely interesting and challenging to me.  Imagine if we REALLY believed this, "Women and Children First" ethic.  What would happen to the Divorce rate?  What would happen to the Abortion rate?  What would happen to the Ponography industry?  What would happen to the spousal and child abuse rate?  Would families be larger than the modern 1.2 kids?
                                                                       
                                                            
                                        
Just wondering!!!
                                                
                                       
Thanks Doug for a great article.



For His Glory
Todd

Where Are The African American Evangelists? - Tom Skinner

I AM AWED AND INSPIRED BY THE SPIRIT THAT was at work in the Apostle Paul. He was so much in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, with the gospel and with his own Jewish people that he could say, "If it were possible for me to go to hell that Israel might be saved, I would be prepared to do that.”  

I believe that, in our generation, there must arise young African American men and women with that kind of intensity—committed Christians who are so in love with Jesus and with African American people that they'd say, "If my going to hell could lead to the salvation of my people, I am prepared to go." Now is the time for African American Christians in this country to rise up and take their rightful place in the body of Jesus Christ—to open up and receive all that God intends for us to have as a people.

I also believe, however, that it's crucial to go to any people in the right spirit of evangelism. But before we consider what that means, we must examine a more basic question: Why has evangelism to African Americans been largely ignored in America ?

 

MISS LIBERTY TURNED HER BACK
I must place my statements in an historical context.  

America , we must recall, was founded to be a haven, a place of refuge for people who were escaping all sorts of oppression in other parts of the world. Miss Liberty stands in New York harbor as a glaring, testimony to the commitment of America 's early fathers to be available to those people seeking freedom from religious and political oppression. She stands there as a promise that America is a land where these people would be offered hope.

But what remains unnoticed—as Miss Liberty has stood there in New York harbor, facing towards Europe , welcoming all those European immigrants who came to America seeking refuge—to this day, her back is conspicuously turned to Harlem . Her promises apparently have not included certain people who were already here, whose backs were broken to build this new world.

Now these people—not immigrants, but slaves—brought the man-muscle energy that fueled America 's Industrial Revolution. While white immigrants from Europe were moving into northern port cities, slaves from Africa were being sold in the South, to develop cotton fiber. It was this all-important fiber that was shipped to those northern ports to be finished off and exported to Europe. This system allowed a balance of trade to develop that would make America a great economic power.

You may well say, "That's history. What's that got to do with winning African American people to Christ today?"

Everything! Because we must understand how we came to the position we are in today if we are to escape it.

The fourth and fifth generations of those European immigrants who built the northern cities began to accumulate wealth and power. But the descendents of the slaves did not. And as African Americans migrated north, the wealthier whites moved out to the suburbs and the country, leaving behind the urban ghetto.

It's urgent that we understand what happened to the churches of these cities as whites moved out.

THE SHIFT FROM URBAN TO SUBURBAN
Earlier in this century, we still had in our cities what was known as the parish church. By definition it was simply a church that ministered to a defined community. Its leaders chose a community where they would locate to exalt Jesus and to meet the needs of the people. The parishioners lived in the surrounding community, and thus they walked to these places of worship.

But slowly, as the century progresses—just as African Americans were migrating from the South—whites were beginning to move farther and farther out from the center city. Integration began to be defined as that period of time between when the African American family moved into this city and the last white family moved out.

Still, for several decades, suburbanites continued to use the old places of worship. They would drive from suburban communities into the downtown neighborhoods they’d left, to worship on Sunday morning. Now they needed a parking lot, and so it was appropriated in the church budget to build around the church building a parking lot that would accommodate the people who were now driving great to worship on Sunday.

And when the service was over, there would be the announcement: “Immediately following this morning’s service we will retire to the fellowship hall for a time of fellowship”—which meant tea, coffee and cookies. Then immediately after that, everyone moved into the parking lot and began to drive out—with no contact at all with the new residents of the neighborhood.

And the people who had moved into the old neighborhood never saw the commuters because they were still asleep when the commuters drove in to worship, and they were just rising when they left. There was no relationship between them.

Now, if this downtown church was a wealthy church, it was able to hire a special staff whose ministry during the week was to try to do something to reach these people in the surrounding neighborhood. But the church itself had no relationship and no contact.

Finally, everyone decided it was too inconvenient and too expensive to be driving back and forth. “Why not build a worship sanctuary in the neighborhoods where we are?” Thus the churches packed and left, leaving avoid as far as the witness of the Christian church to the inner-city. Eventually, the city would become a symbol of abandonment, guilt—a “problem.”

EVANGELISM AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS—A CRACK IN OUR LEGACY
In the meantime, among those people migrating into northern cities were my own parents who, during World War II, came up from Greenville , South Carolina , and settled in Harlem . They discovered that the patterns of segregation were not that different from the south, and they were faced with enormous problems in adjusting to these urban centers. As Christians, the question for them and many others became: “What of the Christian witness in our cities?”

Not that our community was devoid of churches. We had them. But somehow the issue of evangelism—that is, reaching out and declaring the Good News in word and deed so as to influence people to put their absolute trust in the person of Jesus Christ—was gone.

In African America, we were not devoid of churches, and we were not devoid of preaching, but we were weak on spiritual witness—this throwing out of the net, this calling people forth to a personal encounter and relationship with Jesus Christ. Evangelism was occasional, not permanent among us.

In fact, the gift of the evangelist was not widely known or understood. Or else it was somewhat distrusted. Generally, all preaching was done by pastors, and then only gift we knew was the gift of the pastor. When I was growing up, whenever we had what might have been termed “evangelistic campaigns”, it required that my father—who was a pastor—send for another pastor from another city to preach that meeting. The reason for this was that evangelists were thought of as sheep stealers. They were men who came to town, pitched a tent, stole people from the churches and started their own church.

Anybody who was called an evangelist was suspect and not to be trusted. So the gift of the evangelist did not thrive and develop among us. And even as you examine great preaching which came from the African American minister—who is the great preacher symbol of our time—there is one crack in our legacy. That crack was always the ability, after a magnificent preaching, to cast the net out and call people home to the person of Jesus Christ.

Rather, we opened the doors of the church. We called people to membership in the institution, but we had difficulty calling people to Jesus.

ON THE OTHER HAND…
Meanwhile, our white brothers and sisters ensured that from the cradle to the grave, the gospel would be heard by their children. Along with strong, local churches, they developed parachurch ministries.

Child Evangelism grabbed those young white kids when they were preschoolers and evangelized them. When they got to school, they had Bible Clubs. In high school they had Young Life and Youth for Christ. When they got to college, Campus Crusade, InterVarsity or the Navigators picked them up. After college, they were grabbed by Women's Aglow, the Christian Businessmen's Committee, or the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship or the Executive Christian Ministries .

But—do you know that I went through Harlem looking for these groups? And I went through the south side of Chicago , through the hill district of Pittsburgh, through the south side of Philadelphia , and I went to Watts to see if I could locate these ministries. And they were nowhere to be found!

Now I know a lot Of African, American Christians who get mad at these organizations for not reaching out to our people. But I don’t hold this them failure against them. They were doing what they were supposed to do—reaching their generation and their people with the gospel. It just didn't include us.

What is sadder, from my viewpoint, is that some young African American evangelists have come along—but they felt the only way they could have credentials and authentically do the work of evangelism was to hope that some of those white agencies would hire them. And they never saw that they could reach their own people with the claims of Christ.

And so, my brothers and sisters, there's a lot of catching up to be done in our generation if the truth of the gospel and the kingdom is going to become alive for our people.

FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT
What is the work of evangelism that we have to be about? Who is going to do evangelism among the African American community? Who are the people who are going to spread the Good News concerning Jesus Christ in such a way—by word and by deed—so as to influence more of our people to put their absolute trust in the person of Jesus Christ?

Scripture makes it very clear that all of us are called to the work of evangelism. All of us are called to have a passion for the lost. But who are evangelists—the called ones? By what signs will we recognize them?

I suggest to you, first of all, that effective evangelism requires that a person be filled with the Spirit.

There is a lot of discussion, even debate in some circles about this and about what the manifestation of the fullness of the Spirit would look like. I won’t enter that debate here, but when I read scripture, the Bible tells me that an evidence of the Spirit’s fullness is this: “They spoke the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31 )

Whenever people were filled with the Spirit they were fearless in their proclamation of the Good News. And whenever they were filled with the Spirit, others immediately identified them with Jesus. In fact, it became unmistakable when a person is filled with the Spirit that there is a relationship between them and Jesus.

This was true of the apostles—and it was mind-blowing to the Jewish leaders to witness the spirit of the apostles because they thought they had gotten rid of Jesus. They’d nailed him to a cross, buried him in a tomb, and rolled a stone over his grave. They were sure Jesus was dead.

But suddenly they were confronted by a new, bold Peter—and they saw Jesus. They looked at John, and they saw Jesus. They looked at the other disciples, and they saw Jesus.

Our greatest argument for the resurrection of Christ is not our ability to argue it from an exegetical point of view. No, it is that the world should look at us and say, “These people have been with Jesus.”

Today, if you’re going to do the work of the evangelist, your first qualification should be that you have been with Him.

GIFTS OR FRUITS?
I hasten to add that there is a distinction between the fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. We need also to understand this as it pertains to the evangelist.

Quite often we become enamored with gifted people. And we often assume that because they are gifted, that they are also spiritual. We say, “Wow, that sister can really sing. She’s a great woman of God!” But the fact that she can sing does not make her a woman of God. We say, “Boy, that brother can preach!” He is not a man of God because he can preach. The Bible says God gives gifts as he pleases.

For 28 years, I have been preaching the gospel on every continent. I am gifted to preach. But I recognize it is a gift from God. It has nothing to do with me. If you judge my spirituality by my preaching, I will snow you—because there is no relationship between my gift to preach and my spirituality.

If you want to find out whether I am a spiritual person, if you want to find out whether I am filled with the Spirit, you have to wait until I finish preaching and hang out with me.

The fullness of the Spirit is not a state of perfection; it is a state of surrender. It is not a state of sinlessness; it is a state of abandonment to Jesus Christ—when a person simply says, “I renounce all rights to myself and I give Jesus the right to do with me whatever he pleases.”

NEEDED: A MATURE MESSAGE
What is the content of the evangelist’s message? Let me suggest that at the basis of the Good News lies the matter of sin. People are not sinners because they sin.

We say, “We need to get out there and evangelize our African American communities because there’s so much alcoholism.” But I’ve got some upsetting news for you. There are professionals who don’t know Jesus who are curing people of alcoholism better than some of us Christians.

And we say, “We need to get the message out to our African American communities because there is so much drug addition.”

It’s true, alcoholics and drug addicts need Christ—but they don’t need Christ because they’re drug addicts. People are not sinners because they commit sins. Sin is the absence of the life of Jesus; sin is the failure to put one’s absolute trust in the Lordship and the authority of Jesus. Sin is unbelief. It only shows its results as alcoholism, drug addiction, stealing, murder and so on.

This point is crucial when it comes to evangelism—because what are you going to do with the people who don't commit overt, ugly identifiable “sins”? Who don’t snort coke, fornicate, or go to pornographic movies?

The message we convey to "good” people is that they don’t need Jesus because they don’t do those terrible things any more.

It has become clear to me why most Christians are always having an up-and-down spiritual life. It is our failure to preach a mature evangelistic message.

A TWO STAGE GOSPEL
You see, there is a two-stage gospel preached in America .

Stage one: You accept Jesus as your personal Savior. You collect fire insurance; you get a passport to heaven, along with the guarantee that if you die you won't go to hell.

Second stage: Sometime after that—a week, a year, or 20 years later—you go to a "Deeper Life Conference" and really get into Jesus.

Now the problem is that you don't see that pattern in scripture. The apostles preached, "If you will confess with your mouth and believe in your heart the Lord Jesus” (not Jesus as personal Savior, but the Lord Jesus) "that God hath raised him from the dead, you will be saved." In other words, they made it very clear at the outset that salvation means abandoning yourself to the Lord of a new kingdom. One who demands total abandonment of all that you are and all that you have to him. That was the evangel.

Tell the truth, you Christian leaders who are reading this, don't you watch too many people go up and down, up and down? They come to dedicate themselves—and rededicate, and re-rededicate, and re-re-rededicate themselves. They never enter in.

The problem is, these well-meaning people never heard at the outset the truth: You can’t be a Christian. You can’t live the Christian life. You have no capability to be what God wants you to be.

But the Good News is that God, in Christ, has borne on his own body your sin. He alone has all power given unto him. He alone is able to be himself in you.

AFRAID OF "WORLDLINESS"
Where does that get preached? Historically, we have stood on the doorsteps of the church and waved people in to hear our preachers. We have invited people to come to our revival meetings and our evangelistic meetings—in church.

The most wonderful testimonies I’ve ever heard were in church. And I often wondered, wouldn’t it be wonderful if somebody could hear that testimony at the 21 Club? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that mighty message could be preached down in the red light district outside a house of prostitution? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that testimony could be given in the local beer joint?

But you see, we restrict evangelism. The fact is, we haven't allowed it to burst out of the four walls of our church. We are limited by this thing called worldliness, because we don't want to go to the places of the world.

Historically, we Christians have been afraid of the world. Maybe it is the false interpretation of all those scriptures we were quoted. "Come out from among them." "Be separate from them and touch not the unclean thing."

What the Bible is talking about is to come out in your conversation, come out in the way you walk, come out in the way you live, come out in your conduct. But you have to physically be in the world.

When the first deacons were chosen in the Bible, the apostles said, "Look among you and find seven men filled with the Holy Ghost and of good report in the community” (Acts 6:3). In other words, they were to be men filled with the Spirit, of whom the neighbors say, "These men have been with Jesus."

MONEY FOR EVANGELISM
Finally, if African American people are going to reach African American people, where is the money going to come from?

Part of what has created such tremendous jealousy and conflict among African American Christians who want to do evangelism is competition for this thing called the dollar. The perception is this: There is only a small group of "enlightened” white Christians who are willing to give some of their money to support African American evangelism.

Now here’s what happens. In order to get that small pot, I must appear to be the only one who is really doing the job. So when somebody asks me about the evangelistic ministry of so-and-so, I say, "Well, you know, he’s a good brother, but ... He doesn't have a real high view of Scripture." Or I say, "He’s a nice brother—talented and gifted and everything. But we should pray for him."

I say it is time that we free ourselves from this nonsense. We are called to reach our generation. We have to pay for it.

Can I talk to you about something? African Americans last year drank $2.1 billion worth of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. African Americans last year spent $653 million on candy bars. Candy bars! African Americans last year spent $2.8 billion on domestic beer—not counting imported beers, just domestic.

We have gone too long with this nonsense that African Americans don’t have the money and we can't fund ourselves. We do have it.

EVANGELISM IS WARFARE
Finally, an exhortation. Be strong in the Lord, because evangelism is a warfare! You must equip yourself in the Spirit to tread on Satan’s territory and stand there in the name of Jesus.

Paul said, "Because there’s going to be a fight, put on the whole armor, put on the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness—which is the character of Jesus."

We are not putting on armor to fight each other—the armor is for our warfare in the world. There are going to be discouragements. But if you have a passion for the lost, a passion to see people won to Jesus no matter what the setbacks, then don't give up! If you put the armor on, and if you stay faithful, and if you love Jesus, your message will break through the darkness!  

Tom Skinner

 

© 1989 BridgeBuilder. This is a reprint of an article originally featured in BridgeBuilder Magazine, published in Washington, DC.