Morality
Orlando Massacre: The Two Sided Truth
My new book, The River of God, (which is currently being perused by a publisher), describes the worldview battle taking place in our time.
The Western Front of that war–primarily in Europe and the United States–is a titanic struggle between biblical faith (our heritage) and secularism (atheism) which is trying to topple it. On the Eastern Front, the Islamic worldview rules in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It’s at war with all infidels (non-Muslims).
That particular worldview inspired a man to kill fifty people in Orlando, Florida this week. And now proponents on the Western Front are spinning their solutions.
Here’s my two-sided take on the truth behind the Orlando Massacre.
I will focus predominantly on the battle between biblical faith and secular atheism. We understand the simple strategy of Islamic jihad: kill anybody who resists Mohammed and Allah.
But the Western World battle is more subtle and nuanced. After the horrific murders in Orlando by a killer I refuse to name, I want to shed some light on who is saying what, why they are saying it, and analyze where the truth lies. Knowing and living the truth should be the great goal of our lives. Truth brings freedom (John 8:32).
In the search for the truth, I will discuss the Orlando Massacre from four angles:
- Guns and National Security
- Sexual Lifestyles and Liberty
- Koranic and Cultural Islam
- The Depravity and Ideology of the Killer.
Guns and National Security
There have been a number of terrorism attacks under the current Administration. When most of them occurred, the voices of secular ideology–including that of the president–focused primarily on the need to limit or ban guns in the United States. The POTUS said so again emphatically this week.
Why do secularists always blame violence on guns and try to legislate gun control? Because the secular mind-set is all about control–liberal fascism is a fair term for their view of life. Fascists have always taught that the way you control societies is to take away their arms. A nation without guns is one that can be ruled by tyrants. This is the secular end-game though many refuse to admit it.
Biblical faith, on at least a governmental level, stresses self defense against evil (a concept the secularists don’t appear to understand). National security in all its forms is a legitimate response against evil forces, whether they be armies or the government itself. America’s 2nd Amendment concerning the right to bear arms was designed to protect Americans from all forms of tyranny.
So when terrorists strike, biblical voices say “We need to defeat evil and help people protect themselves!” Secularists say “We need more gun control and regulation of firearms!”
I believe the truth has two solutions here. The 2nd Amendment is a good idea and America’s military should destroy the terrorism source (currently Isis). Also, if we really want to protect lives, let’s use metal detectors in schools, security guards in other public places (retired police?), and ban no carry zones. If one person had possessed a gun at the club in Orlando, many lives would have been saved.
Congress should declare war on Isis and cut off the “head of the snake.” On the home front, we should act to protect more people with more fire arms for defensive purposes and more metal protectors–not less. Both of these would have stopped or hindered the Orlando murderer
Lifestyle and Liberty
Secular folks believe there is no God to whom we are accountable. They believe that all sexual activity is okay and God is not the author of marriage or healthy sexual relationships. Fornication, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality and pedophilia are simply “lifestyle choices.” There’s no right and wrong in sex.
On the other hand, faith folks believe God is wiser than people–that all sexual relations outside of a man and a woman in marriage are personally and corporately destructive. People of biblical faith cannot condone the sexual choices of those who rebel against their Creator. In that one regard, biblical faith and Islamic teaching are similar.
But that’s where the similarity ends. In the Old Testament period, God prescribed severe penalties for sexual sin (even death in some cases), but that’s because unleashing venereal diseases in a primitive world was a death sentence to whole societies. New Testament grace and modern medicine removed those penalties–but not the view of what is immoral.
Islam never changed. Practioners of the Koran still condemn sexual sin–they believe it should still be punished by death. This was apparently one of the motives of the evil Orlando killer.
Followers of Jesus do not. We condemn the sin but love the sinner. We believe in liberty–even for those who sexually sin. God will be the final judge. In the meantime, we must live and share the truth just as many Chick Filet outlets did in Orlando the day after the massacres.
Jihadists kill sinners. Followers of Christ serve them to bring them to salvation.
Koranic and Cultural Islam
Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton have all said that “we are not at war with Islam.” At the least, that is misleading. At the worst, it could get us all killed.
It’s true that many Muslims are not violent people. They’re normal human beings who want to live their lives in peace. In essence, these folks are nominal Muslims just like some Christians are nominal in their faith. This really means they don’t practice their religion–it’s just a thin cultural veneer.
Let’s call these “peaceful” folks cultural Muslims.
But the real strain of Islam–the historical one that was embodied in Mohammed and written about in the Koran–has never been peaceful for those who refuse to conform. The Koran contains over 100 war verses that motivate devout Muslims to hate all those who refuse their terms. These views are not “perverted” as President Obama tells us, or out of the Muslim mainstream.
Whereas cultural Muslims are the bigger group, the ones who take Mohammed and his Koran might number as many as sixty million. Not all will kill with impunity. But many are sympathetic to it.
Let’s call the jihadists Koranic Muslims–because it is from their holy book that their terror ideas derive.
Two things must happen to win the War on Terror. Just as the West united to defeat the Nazis seventy years ago, we must unite again to crush Isis and all its affiliates. Then we must convince he remaining peaceful Muslims of the world to reject the Koran and worship the true God in peace and civility.
The Depravity and Ideology of the Killer
The man who committed mass murder in Orlando was quickly labeled a terrorist because he identified with ISIS. Secularists tried to avoid that label because they have sympathy with diversity–even when it’s lethal. But the outlets with a more truthful biblical worldview saw it for what it was: he killed in the name of religion. He was a Koranic Muslim.
Many people said he specifically targeted the Pulse nightclub because Sharia Law pronounces death to homosexuals. That could have been part of his motivation.
But we later found out that he was either engaged in a homosexual lifestyle or at least had homosexual tendencies. Those tendencies indicated he’d given in to temptations we all face in different ways due to our human depravity–in this case, those of a sexual nature.
So, did he kill because as a jihadist he hated homosexuals, or because he hated himself or been rebuffed at the bar by other patrons?
Only God knows. But both human depravity and ideology are in play.
There are a few practical lessons to learn from the Orlando Massacre:
1) We must militarily defeat the Islamo Nazis–ISIS.
2) We must better protect ourselves from those who devalue life.
3) We should trust God and follow His wise commands regarding human sexuality.
4) We must report evil when we hear about it, and
We must fervently pray for a moral and spiritual awakening in our world to restore God’s blessings and protections.
I Finally Get President Obama
I followed closely and did my research on Senator Barack Obama during his ascent to power. It was important because he was a rising political star and eventually became the 44th president of the United States.
US presidents have a great influence on American life, the economy, cultural trends and also the state of freedom and liberty around the world.
The POTUS is the most influential political fugure on the planet.
Now that he is in the last year of his presidency, a light has gone on for me.
I finally get President Obama.
The first Revive America blog that I wrote detailed the 2008 presidential election and what I knew about both Barack Obama and then-challenger John McCain.
The genesis of that article came on a plane ride back from Asia in the summer of 2008. Whipping out a legal pad as I sat in coach on a Korean Airlines flight, I jotted down all that I knew about Barack Obama’s policy positions.
That article was published as “One Hundred Reasons I Will Not Vote for Barack Obama” and detailed his economic, social, and foreign affairs positions as I understood them at the time.
They proved to be quite accurate.
In 2008, I thought Barack Obama’s policies showed he was an ideological liberal and would govern from the left of the political spectrum. (He had run as a moderate.) Liberals generally favor government cronyism in economics, secular social values, and downplay America’s military role in the world.
That fits Barack Obama to a “T.”
I’d perused Mr. Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father. It revealed the strong anti-colonialism of Barack Obama Sr. that he passed down to his son. Much of President Obama’s foreign policy decisions seem to echo this call to down size America, especially in the Middle East and Africa.
That view of President Obama’s MO also makes sense.
I’d also studied the rise and evolution of progressive politics–the new, trendier name for American liberalism. Following in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt, progressives want to transform America into the image of a European social welfare state. Thus the need for wealth distribution by taxing the rich and giving out freebies to everybody else.
Check another box for under understanding the president.
But now after viewing his presidency through the prism of seven years of speeches, rhetoric, executive actions, court battles, legislative achievements and Supreme Court decisions, I believe I have a better understanding on what makes our current president tick.
I believe I understand the Obama Doctrine–his primary operating philosophy. It is this:
Don’t discriminate against anybody–with one exception.
If you reflect on what Barack Obama has done over the last seven years, his accomplishments, policies, and battles all come down to fighting discrimination as he sees it.
Here are some examples:
Health Care
His largest legislative success, what we call Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), was aimed at non-discrimination against the uninsured in the United States–those with existing pre-conditions (requiring more expensive healthcare), and the poor in general. He felt that the free enterprise system of health care (which was the best in the world at the time) discriminated against some folks.
So he “fixed it” and forced us down the path toward socialized medicine now being touted by Socialist Senator and Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Of course, nineteen million Americans still don’t have healthcare and costs are up and services are down. Socialism doesn’t work in any business domain. It just gives a “feel good” experience to those concerned about “medical discrimination.”
Immigration
The Obama Doctrine is equally clear in this area of not discriminating against those who come across our border illegally. They should be protected from the law in sanctuary cities, get jobs, work–and in some cases even vote. But they should never be called “illegal” but rather “undocumented.”
Sounds like they lost their visas somewhere. (Woops–they never had one because they entered the country illegally.)
The Administration’s encouragement of open borders, the mass migration of Central American children, and lax deportation reveal his desire to not discriminate against anybody who wants to come here.
I agree with one immigration decision made by this Administration: The Dream Act. Children of illegals should not be held accountable for the sins of their parents (Exekiel 18:20).
Women
President Obama based both of his election campaigns on a phony war about discriminating against women in the marketplace. He said that women made seventy cents on the dollar to men; That women were not promoted like men in the workplace; That women needed special rights for maternity leave, child care and other government programs.
Of course it wasn’t true. Woman have equal rights and opportunities in America that are the envy of the world. President Obama should have been speaking up for the rights of women in Muslim nations.
LGBT
Much of the Obama presidency has concentrated on diminishing the Christian vestiges of sexual morality in this country (such as marriage) and replacing it with the atheist/secularist version of non-discrimination against any form of sexual immorality.
Legalizing gay marriage was the big win in this anti-discrimination category and was celebrated by lighting up the White House with the colors of the rainbow.
The final thrust in this anti-discrimination crusade is trans gender acceptance–attempting to give .01 percent of the US population the “right” to have every public bathroom in America neutered. This allows a man or a woman who thinks they are the opposite to walk into a restroom or locker room and bare their private parts (to the horror of the other 99.99 percent).
So much for sexual sanity and democracy. Anti-discrimination will rule the lieus!
African Americans
I’m proud of the civil rights progress we’ve made in the United States. At a university class I taught last night, I showed the entire “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. There used to be institutional racial discrimination in this nation. God used MLK and others to eradicate most of it fifty years ago.
Not in Barack Obama’s eyes. From the Ferguson riots, to the burning of Baltimore, to the war on police, to inviting the head of Black Lives Matter to the State of the Union address, President Obama keeps insisting that blacks are systemically being discriminated against in the urban centers of the nation.
Not true. More blacks are incarcerated because they commit more crimes. They commit more crimes because 70% grow up without dads and live in poverty as a result. There’s no discrimination here–just a neglect in evangelism, discipleship and social incentives to strengthen the black family.
President Obama missed a great opportunity, as our first black president, to strengthen African-American families. Instead, he beat the drum of racial discrimination for votes and political pandering.
Muslims
The final aspect of President Obama’s Doctrine of no discrimination is seen in his prosecution of the War of Terror. He rarely uses that term. He calls Islam a religion of peace. He will unleash the American military to defeat ISIS and will not call the jihadists of the world what they are: terrorist Muslims that are following Mohammed’s example.
President Obama does not want the world discriminating against his father’s and step father’s religion. So he doesn’t weep when heads are cut off, and doesn’t say that terrorism comes from a traditional strain of Islam that goes back fourteen hundred years.
Meanwhile, the Middle East is on fire, millions of Muslim refugees are de-stabilizing Europe, and jihadists are emboldened kill Americans here.
I could give numerous other examples of our president’s non-discrimination mindset. It’s clear from looking at the full array of President Obama’s policies that his central operating ideology is:
Non-discrimination–with one exception.
It’s not making judgments on anything or anybody–with one exception. It’s celebrating cultural diversity–with only one exception.
That exception, which, in his view, should be discriminated against is biblical values and faith in Jesus Christ.
The evidence of President Obama’s war on biblical values is abundant:
- Forcing Catholic charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for condoms and abortions through the ACA.
- Persecuting non-profit organizations via the IRS for their faith and free market principles.
- Promoting freedom of worship (only in your building) instead of freedom of religion (everywhere in public life).
- Radically promoting abortion and the selling of aborted baby body parts (Planned Parenthood).
- Negating ala the Supreme Court the 5000 year definition of marriage (that comes from Genesis chapter 2).
- Not participating in the National Day of Prayer each May (the only president to do so).
- Welcoming thousands of Muslim refugees and refusing Christian ones.
- Persecuting Christian colleges and seminaries. (Right now 47 Christian colleges are suing the federal government over religious freedom).
And on and on.
President Obama, at his core, does not believe in making any moral judgments (discrimination) against anyone or anything–except the Christian faith.
Why the exception?
Because the spirit or mindset influencing him disdains America’s Judeo-Christian heritage, the true meaning of freedom which comes from right living, America’s role in world evangelization, and the protection the US provides against evil around the world.
That spirit wants to persecute and destroy Christ, his ways and his followers (Revelation 12: 13-17).
Under the guise of non-discrimination.
Get it?
Planned Parenthood and its Doctrine of Demons
There is a scary, prophetic word found in the Bible in 1 Timothy 4:1,2:
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.”
The phrase “doctrines of demons” in those verses really stands out to me. Do demonic spirits really have teachings just like groups or churches do? What do they teach–what is their doctrine? Read More