Before delving into political topics, I want to explore the idea of morality. Our personal moral code will determine most of our political stances. What determines right and wrong? Why do people change what they believe to be right and wrong?
As I've said, I grew up in church, so I was raised with a Christian view of morals. Over the years I've seen others who claim the same code suddenly shifting on certain topics. They switch sides so to speak. Did the Bible they believe in change? Is the Bible wrong? This has disturbed me, but I have begun to understand how it is happening.
A few years ago a friend asked me to watch a "documentary" called The Bible Told Me So. It was a series of stories about people who had come out as 'gay' and were then badly mistreated by their church or other Christians in their lives. They were truly awful, heartbreaking stories. Story after story pulling on the heartstrings of the viewer. At the conclusion, the film made the case for homosexuality being acceptable because these people were mistreated by the church. I found that to be faulty logic. It's like saying that if someone is abused by the police after being caught committing a crime, he's no longer guilty of the crime. That is an incorrect assessment. The crime is still a crime. (No, I'm not saying homosexuality is a crime.) They are two separate issues of wrongdoing.
I've watched as church after church publicly turn away from what the Bible says in order to be 'compassionate' or up to date with what the secular world is believing currently. I've seen stories of people leaving their church after a family member says they are gay. I get it. I wrote another blog a few years ago that looked at the idea of sin and how we seem to perceive it vs how the Bible talks about it. Click here to read I think this plays into this scenario. People often equate 'sinner' with 'bad person.' When someone you know and love says they are gay, and you know them to be a good person, it doesn't add up. The evidence is not convincing. You don't want to believe this person is now a bad person. That is all faulty reasoning. In this other blog I note that sin is often presented as an outside entity, an enemy of humanity. So what if we believed that?
Our emotions can be used to deceive us, to pull us away from our previously held moral code. Having a loved one become involved in a sin, something we believe to be wrong, can cause us to question what we think. That was the whole point of the documentary I watched. "Look at how hard life has been for these people. How can you tell them they're bad people? " The Bible talks about us being "slaves to sin." Would you call a slave a bad person? No, you wouldn't. So why do we let the devil convince us that sinners are bad people? They are not bad, they are being attacked and destroyed. That is the picture I get from the Bible. Sin destroys us and those around us. The enemy of our souls has been deceiving us into accepting slavery and celebrating it. I say no more! Sin is not our friend! Sin must be called sin, truth must reign over emotion. If we believe the Bible is the Word of God, we have to choose to believe it over our ever shifting emotions and experiences. Maybe our Creator knows best how we are to function. He wrote the owner's manual.
How about other areas of life. It is still generally accepted that you shouldn't cheat on your spouse. But it happens all the time. Attraction steps in and offers up a temptation. Society has been shifting away from solid morality and toward emotional leading. Therefore, if I'm attracted to someone, I should be totally fine to go after them, even if I'm already married. I'm pretty sure that most people are not going to be ok with that. Your spouse is going to be hurt. Some people are attracted to children apparently, yet we expect them to control that attraction or go to jail. Sin is sin because it hurts people. When you let emotion override morality, people get hurt.
Sometimes our kids can push us to the limit. Sometimes we want to strangle them. Sometimes a relentlessly crying baby makes us want to shake them and scream at them to stop! Those are emotions that are very real, but hopefully we have a moral foundation that stops us from hurting our child. Some people cross that line. Some people feel even justified that they abuse their kids or spouse. On the crime tv shows I watch, often the murderer gives a reason for killing the person that in their mind is completely ok. This is a dangerous road to walk. When emotions lead, we get into trouble and someone gets hurt.
The particular sins that an individual is tempted with seem to come with a lot of evidence and convincing arguments (lies) to get a person to step into the jail cell. Hey girl, you dress like a boy, you like sports, you've never had a boyfriend, maybe you're a lesbian.... I heard that one in high school. There was more to it than that, but the "evidence" I was being presented with seemed true. But... I knew what the Bible said. I knew this "evidence" couldn't be true. At the time I didn't have much understanding of the tactics of the devil, so this war for truth raged on for many years. It was almost 15 years later when I finally gained the tools to understand and fight this lie off. I needed to hear what God thought, I needed to be given another explanation for what I was seeing and feeling. I did finally get that freedom! Jesus has shown me truth that negated all the "evidence" that Satan had been throwing at me to keep me in prison. His illusion of truth crumbled in the face of real Truth.
I've seen it over and over in my life. Emotions, attractions, temptations... they all seem right and correct and truthful at first, but when I choose to remember what the Bible says about those topics, I have to look for another explanation. I have to choose what God says over what my emotions are saying. The enemy of our souls is prowling around looking for someone to devour. He is a liar. He has been growing his deception skills for a very long time, so it isn't surprising that his lies are convincing. This is why it is so important to know the Word of God. He created us, He loves us, and He laid out a way to live that will cause no harm to us or to others. Will we believe Him? Or will we believe our ever shifting emotions? The devil is a manipulator, but if we choose to stand on God's Word, believing He is right in spite of our current emotions and the pile of evidence, we will be set free. The Truth will set you free! I know this, because I have experienced it. The mountain of evidence melted in the light of The Truth of Jesus Christ.
"I freed a thousand slaves. I could've freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves."
-- attributed to Harriet Tubman, but evidence is lacking
Regardless of its authenticity, I believe this quote rings true. The deceiver has enslaved people without them even realizing they are slaves. When we choose to believe emotion or anything else over the Word of God, our morals begin to slip. Political circles use emotion driven narratives to convince us of their point of view. I was listening to Ben Shapiro recently as he discussed how television has been used for years to manipulate how we think. They have constantly pushed the moral boundaries, slowly boiling us into complacency. The way he put it, they give us characters that we like more than our own families, then they have them act in ways we wouldn't approve of, but since we like that character, we start to shift what we approve of. That is exactly my point. When we love someone, we don't want to label them as bad. I would like to point out that we all have both good and bad in us.
Ben Shapiro video - the long explanation
Doing one bad thing does not make us a bad person. But if we shift our view to see that sin is slavery or a prison, when we see someone we love acting in a way that we deem to be wrong, we can compassionately do our best to help them see what they're doing is hurting them or us. That's what Love does. We're being told that love accepts everyone for who they are and everything they do right now, but in reality, Love guides us to become the best version of ourselves. Yes, He loves us as we are, but He also loves us too much to leave us as we are.
So looping this all back around to my upcoming focus on politics, I've been thinking about how the culture shapers use emotion to shift how we think. I think it is important to be aware of this manipulation. We must know what our personal moral codes are and practice standing firm in the face of emotional manipulation. We need to base our beliefs on fact, not emotion. I like to think about things before I'm in the situation where I'll need to respond. Like they told us in youth group... decide how far you will go on a date before you are in the back seat making out. Once those emotions get stirred up, it's too late to decide what you believe in.
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