Friday, November 14, 2008

The tolerance of the tolerant



In other news:

Worshippers at a Bible-teaching church in Lansing, Mich., were stunned Sunday when members of a pro-homosexual, pro-anarchy organization named Bash Back interrupted their service to fling propaganda and condoms around the sanctuary, drape a profane banner from the balcony and feature two lesbians making out at the pulpit.

According to a blog posting by Nick De Leeuw on Right Michigan, the Bash Back organization orchestrated a protest in front of Mount Hope Church to draw the church's security staff away from the sanctuary.

Then Bash Backers who had dressed up and mixed in with church worshippers took action.

According to De Leeuw, "Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony.

"'Jesus was gay,' they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss," he wrote.

He cited the Bash Back organization's own announcement of other items members brought into the church, including "a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric. ..."

According to the alternative Lansing City Pulse – which reported it was notified of the protest ahead of time and sent a reporter along instead of warning the church – the protesters also screamed at parishioners and pulled the church facility's fire alarm. Printed material protesters distributed said, "We specialize in confronting homophobia, transphobia and every and all other forms of oppression."...

De Leeuw reported "the 'open minded' and 'tolerant' liberals ran down the aisles and across the pews, hoping against hope to catch a 'right winger' on tape daring to push back (none did).

"This is what we're up against," De Leeuw wrote. "Amidst worshiping congregants and following unifying prayers that our president-elect be granted wisdom as he prepares to lead our nation through difficult global, social and economic challenges, the Michigan left declared open war on peaceful churchgoers...

In a statement posted on the Internet, Bash Back confirmed its "operatives" were in the service, "stood up, declared themselves fags, and began screaming loudly. … Another group threw over a thousand fliers to the entire … congregation. The fire alarm was pulled. Queers began making out in front of the pastor. And within a matter of minutes, everyone had evaded the guards and made their escapes."

The statement continued, "Let is be known: So long as bigots kill us in the streets, this pack of wolves will continue to BASH BACK!"

*Update on the Bash Back story, to be fair.

In yet more news:

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

"McCain Girl."

"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

"He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be "burned with her shirt on" for "being a filthy-rich Republican."

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election. And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn't want to jeopardize her experiment.

"I couldn't show people really what it was for. I really kind of wanted to laugh because they had no idea what I was doing," she said.

Only a few times did anyone say anything remotely positive about her McCain shirt. One girl pulled her aside in a corner, out of earshot of other students, and whispered, "I really like your shirt."

That's when you know America is truly supportive of diversity of opinion, when children must whisper for fear of being ostracized, heckled and crucifixed.

The next day, in part 2 of The Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment, she wore another T-shirt, this one with "Obama Girl" written in blue. And an amazing thing happened.

Catherine wasn't very stupid anymore. She grew brains.

"People liked my shirt. They said things like my brain had come back, and I had put the right shirt on today," Catherine said.

8 comments:

Kyle said...

Thanks for posting this.

The irony was so tangible to me when the pro-SSM crowd was shouting "Shame on you! Shame on you!" Apparently, it is OK to speak publicly to denounce people's shameful behavior. In that case, homosexuality, particularly the brazen, in your face variety, is sinful. God condemns it in the holy revelation of His word and I affirm God's view. Homosexuality is sinful and people who practice it OUGHT to be ashamed because it is immoral and wrong. Prayerfully, that sense of shame will lead them to the Savior who bore the ultimate shame on the cross for FULL payment of sins for anyone who believes in him.

Power to the preachers!
Peace,

Kyle

NAL said...

kyle:
Power to the preachers!

Just like communism, only the dogma is different.

Rhology said...

The dogma happens to be the very essence of what it is.
Might as well say "Like atheism, only the dogma is different."

Throwaway lines like that don't do anyone any good.

There's also that little matter of the millions that communism has murdered...

Matt said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt said...

Rhology,

Great post to bring these things to light. I had a few thoughts on the matter, and I think that what we are seeing here are the natural outworkings of a post-Christian society beginning to become an anti-Christian society. Or rather, a society that has deluded itself into believing God does not exist (or doesn't matter) into a society hell-bent on achieving total autonomy apart from God's laws. Of course, to rid oneself of God's laws, one must first marginalize, beat down, or somehow remove those who testify and bear witness to God's truth and His laws, for such, in their witness, bring to mind one's guilt and impending condemnation, and prick whatever is left of one's conscience. To be free and unrestrained to do whatever one's evil, depraved, mind desires (as their fantasy goes), one must remove both the legal obligation that society has imposed to obey God's laws, as well as the condemning witness of those who bear witness to them. Thus, Christians are opposed, especially by the homosexual community, and it will only get worse, unless God blesses us with an awakening of souls in this country to see the light.

With respect to Obama, I think that we're seeing something similar, with the ideology of democratic totalitarianism - that the will of the people (the majority, rather) should be embodied in an ever-growing, ever more-powerful State that can provide for our every want, opposed to the ideology that there is a Law, and that government is established for the sake of ruling according to that Law, for the establishment of a free and virtuous society under God. In short, a difference between an ideology that seeks for the people to come together and make a great name for themselves and provide for their every want and need autonomously and independently of God, versus that which seeks to establish a free and virtuous society under the authority of God's sovereignty, recognizing and depending upon His good providence. In a sense, I think that the prevailing spirit in America today is to create Babel all over again, and this is wound up in the progressive ideology of Obama, as well as others. Now this is not to say that the issue is so clearly demarcated, for there are other factors which often obfuscate and cloud the scene. But at the end of the day, I think that the hostility we see in so many against McCain supporters and conservatives is not so much political (though it may appear so on the surface), but spiritual - the desire to come together and make our destiny autonomously and independently of God, in opposition to those who would bear witness to our dependence upon Him.

In summary, the tolerance so highly praised by many secular people today is that of one man tolerating the autonomy of another. After all, if we are all autonomous, apart from God, then what right do I have to condemn or criticize anything that you do? But God's sovereignty is the end of human autonomy, and thus it cannot be tolerated by those who preach such indiscriminating tolerance. In fact, those who bear witness to God's rule and authority must be discriminated against and silenced, in order that the autonomy of man may be respected and upheld. But such struggles against God and His people are ultimately meaningless, for how can a creature ever seek to be independent of its creator? If God sustains all, then how foolish is it to seek to be independent of the One who sustains you? To be independent of God is to cease to exist, yet it is the warped sinfulness of man that seeks to be live in autonomous rebellion against the God who created him, while breathing the very air, drinking the very water, and eating the very food that He provides.

As the second Psalm so aptly says: "Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 'Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.' He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 'As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill'". And what of this King, to whom has is given the nations and the earth? He "shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." So to those who would be wise, it is written: "Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him."

May the Lord grant us the grace to remain faithful witnesses to Him and to His truth, no matter what times may lie ahead.

NAL said...

Rho:
Might as well say "Like atheism, only the dogma is different."

Atheism is not set of beliefs, it is simply the lack of belief in god(s), therefore, no dogma.

Rhology said...

You never quit, do you?

"Like naturalism, only the dogma is different."

"Like materialism, only the dogma is different."

"Like dense, close-minded secular humanism, only the dogma is different."

Anonymous said...

maybe we should start describing Christian theism as simply an articulated lack of belief in atheism. See, we don't have a dogma either!