Dr. Beckwith Comment Jackpot! [Jay]

I sometimes wonder why I bother reading the comments at so many blogs and websites. Most are information dumping and silliness. I have personally ceased to comment on other sites after finding out through some considerable effort that people are not listening. Occasionally I will be moved to contribute, but only when I feel like the thread is so missing the point that a new thought needs to be introduced just so that it is there in the midst of the mess of argument. Then I find stuff like this at STR Blog and I remember all over again that you never know who you are going to run into.

Frank Beckwith decided to post a small rant in reference to this post and this story in Newsweek about a shift in the evangelical mindset toward a greater tolerance for homosexuals. The answer is pure gold and the type of comment searching jackpot that will keep me mining for intellectual gems.

This story is the secular equivalent of the naive, though well-meaning, white person who refers to his black friend as "well-spoken." It reveals, in other words, the latent bigotry harbored by secularists who have come to believe the stereotypes about Christians that they helped to perpetuate over the past thirty years.

Admittedly, we don't help ourselves, at times. Nevertheless, it is clearly the case that Christians are far more tolerant of their moral deviants than are secularists. Christians have ministries to those struggling with sexual identity; secularists have "sensitivity classes"--quasi-fascist re-education sessions--for those who challenge their orthodoxy. Christians can sit through college classes for 15 weeks hearing their faith attacked, and they pray for their professors, and often inquire with folks at places like STR on how to best address these attacks in a winsome manner. Secularists alert the thought-police and scream "hate crime," homophobe, intolerant, etc. Christians put up with incessant media attacks upon their virtue. We can't even get a soda or haircut or go to a doctor's appointment without being forced to listen to some trashy music or subjected to some ridiculous soap opera. In fact, I am at Starbucks right now with a coffee cup that includes some crazy "wise saying" by some pontificating half-wit. We are confronted by entertainment options that include scores of sit-coms and dramas where nobody goes to church and their are more homosexuals than southern Baptists, though in the real world it is quite different. We put up with some s**t that we should be put in the tolerance hall of fame (if there is one).

When was the last time you heard of a Christian group requiring the state to conduct church services in a gay bathhouse? Yet, if an elderly Christian couple does not want to rent a room to a an unmarried cohabiting same-sex couple, the PC police will scream discrimination and force these Christians to have sin take place under their roof. All in the name of "tolerance."

Rant over.

But it was not over, because another commenter jumped in where fools rush in and mistakenly challenged Frank on the rights of Christians to discriminate in the use of their private homes as rental property. It must be noted the commenter later claimed that he thought the discussion was over a public business and not a private home, but the response from Dr. Beckwith is classic none the less.

I didn't get the memo in which the secular society was given the metaphysical power to be the arbiter of the parameters of Christian belief.

The couple in my illustration own their home--their private domain; so private, in fact, that the Supreme Court has asserted that the government cannot tell them whether or not they can use contraceptive devices, engage in sodomy, or arrange for an abortion at the local clinic. And yet, if they want to exercise their religious liberty by forbidding the occurrence of sin on their property, the government will intervene and force them to disobey conscience.
It is beyond me how anyone cannot be disturbed by this state of affairs.

A brief postscript, I know it is superfluous in the pro-life movement to say that Dr. Beckwith has been influential in our thinking. That said, I consider it a privilege and an honor to be on the same side as such people as he and Dr. William Lane Craig, whom God has blessed me to know personally. The writings and presentations of those two men helped usher me into the modern Christian philosophical movement. I am constantly amazed that the Christian family has such as these that have dedicated their considerable intellectual resources to engaging the culture for the Kingdom. That they both freely interact on the Internet and field questions and comments is a testament to the tremendous hearts that God has given them to compliment their minds. This is not hero worship, but just honest appreciation for brothers in Christ who have helped make me more than what I was.

HT: Stand to Reason Blog