Your choice

For the last blog of the year, you choose the topic. Find a newsworthy story and relate it to history, faith, and/or culture. Provide the link and embed it for easy access for the reader. Explain why this interested you and include an evaluation or opinion.

Your post should be made by June 1. Then you should review the posts of others and comment to at least two other student articles.

This assignment is due on June 8 and is worth 20 points.

Dancing in the streets

After the special chapel dealing with the addiction to pornography, I was discussing this topic with some junior high teachers. One said that the chapel’s message was a good place to start in combating Satan’s temptation, and that we should also honestly and openly discuss homosexuality. Just comparing statistics, I would adjudge the temptation to pornography as a greater threat than that of becoming homosexual (yes, I know they will say “I was born this way” or “God made me this way”). Even the gay community will acknowledge that only 1 in 10 humans are homosexual/bisexual, and that dubious statistic is based largely on the flawed and biased research of the Kinsey report from two generations ago.

But then I saw the headline that Ellen DeGeneres was getting married. At first I thought that the lesbian actress had somehow changed, but, no, she was marrying her lesbian lover because California’s Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional and discriminatory to restrict marriage only to heterosexual couples. This picture of gay couples celebrating in the street even appeared in the Daily Telegram.

Although states like Michigan do not have to recognize marriages of gay couples performed in California or Massachusetts, eventually someone will file suit in federal court to force states to recognize the marriages performed in every state of the union, presumably on the basis of the 14^th amendment. This amendment, intended to protect newly freed slaves from being mistreated through discriminatory legislation in the unrepentant south, declares that no citizen shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property by the states without due process of law. Eventually, the case will find its way to the Supreme Court. Eventually, the person who nominates justices for the Supreme Court will play the single most influential role in shaping American culture for the rest of our lifetimes.

Think about that next time someone says how great it would be for a “change.” We may be over and done with a president in 4 years, but we can be stuck with his Supreme Court nominees for a lifetime. Compare the judicial record of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Clinton nominee) with that of John Roberts or Samuel Alito (Bush nominees) and then say that it doesn’t matter who wins the upcoming election.

By the way, God does not create sin. But if every new person is God’s creature, and every new person is totally depraved, isn’t that a contradiction? Remember that God uses existing sinful material (the genetic substance we inherit from our sinful parents) when knitting the new little life together in the mother’s womb. Both the homosexual and the porn addict offend against God’s gift of sexuality, and neither can shift the blame for sin to God by saying “That’s how God made me.”

(Waiting to see if the Dudley Sharpe of the gay community strikes…)

Evangelicals for Obama?!

On Sunday, the news flashed across the AP wire..."Evangelicals abandoning GOP." That didn't seem to ring true to me, since the beliefs of evangelical Christians are routinely held in derision by the political left, and Obama's pro-abortion stance is so radical that he could not bring himself to vote for a bill that would recognize a baby in a "failed" abortion attempt as a living human being with the constitutional guarantee of life.

I followed the link to this story, which turned out to be from a Seattle newspaper. In it, the author discusses a bipartisan forum held at Seattle Pacific University and a poll from September 2007 in which it was estimated that 15% of white evangelicals between the ages of 18-29 no longer identify with the Republican party. So follow the footprints...A survey taken long before anyone really knew Barack Obama leads to a bunch of left-coast college kids talking politics leads to a Seattle paper saying that some young white evangelicals support Obama which leads to a national wire service headline "Evangelicals abandoning GOP."

Use the comment section to react to some of the reasons given in the article by young college students for their choice in the upcoming election, particularly:

• I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for

• Most of us would never blindly follow the old Christian Right anymore. James Dobson has nothing to do with us. A lot of us are taking apart the issues, and thinking, 'OK, well, [none of the candidates] fits what I'm looking for exactly.' But if you're going to vote, you've got to take your pros with your cons
• While the issue of abortion — the sanctity of life — must always be a hugely important issue, we must juxtapose that with other issues that are also very important
• It's changed our perspective. ... Each generation chooses their cause, and ours is AIDs in Africa, or poverty or social justice

• Tyler Braun, 23, a Portland seminary student who opposes abortion and gay rights, said he'll probably vote for Obama because, since he'd would like to see U.S. troops leave Iraq

Another Disney Girl shocks the world

Miley Cyrus, 15-year-old star of the Disney Channel’s hit show “Hannah Montana,” is viewed as a role model for the pre-teen and “tween” set. So it came as quite a shock to the entertainment world when provocative photos of Miss Cyrus appeared in Vanity Fair magazine. Although the offending picture only showed the bare skin of Miley’s back, the suggestion that she was nude with satin sheets was widely viewed as borderline child pornography.

I wasn’t going to comment on this story, but then I read this column in Sunday’s newspaper and, together with this week’s presentation by the Dramatic ministries team in chapel, led me to consider giving you a forum to express yourselves. In the column I referenced, there is a mention of girls as young as 11 showing themselves off in their underwear on the hood of a sports car and then posting it on Myspace (which is supposed to be prohibited to anyone under 14). And “role models” like Linsday Lohan, Brittney Spears, Christina Aquilera, and Miley Cyrus only encourage young girls to even more exhibitionism.

When I was recently in Utah, there was a big story breaking about middle school kids exchanging nude photos taken with their cell phones. In fact, the Christian School to which I am headed even had to expel a boy who had been involved with this type of activity. From the sounds of police reports, this sort of behavior is considered routine at the junior high level, and obviously Christian young people are not immune to temptation.

The numbers are staggering. When 90% of 8-16 year olds have viewed pornography on line, it is no longer a problem only for losers who can’t get a date. It appears that our fight against the culture is not going well. But, as God’s word says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:12-13)