The RIGHT stuff…Politically InCorrect

In a day where relationships don’t last, or any friendship with the other gender typically makes people think you’re “together”, it’s hard to maintain a pure relationship. With the peer pressure and “just do it” attitude of the American culture, we see people “hooking up” for all the wrong reasons. Often times the attraction between two people is largely physical over establishing a friendship and then seeking God on whether or not anything deeper is His will.

The interesting aspect of this is that the way you handle all of your relationships whether it be family, friends, or romance all boils down to your worldview.

A prominent ill in America is the high divorce rate. This is all due to an incorrect view of God. Instead of trying to serve the other person, your goal is to serve your own desires. The process before marriage becomes focused on fulfilling physical and emotional desires to please “self”.

This is where our view of God comes into play.

When all we’re trying to do is fulfill our own desires we are making ourselves the first priority and simply using the other person. The “love” that is then being felt is not a genuine love and concern for the other person and their wellbeing, but rather the feeling of a desire being temporarily filled. In a sense, we have taken God’s place as priority and ultimate authority.

On the other hand, if we have an accurate view of God, our focus will be on His will and not our personal desires. As a result, we will aim to keep ourselves and the other person from anything that could hurt or damage the purity in the relationship.

If a couple decides to get married and had an inaccurate view of God – or the “it’s all about me” worldview – when a hard time comes or the feelings go away, they will most likely end up in divorce.

If the couple who put God first in their relationship gets married than they will be able to go through the hard times and come out victoriously.

By putting God first in their relationship they gained a true relationship with each other – as friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. As a result, because they placed God first they became a “cord of three strands” that is not easily broken. Because of this, anything can come at them and they will be able to finish stronger and be closer together than before.

As we can see the results of the two relationships are as different as the worldviews each had.

However, the effect that our worldview has on our life does not stop at relationships. Our worldview determines every other aspect of life: what we say, how we act, what we think, who we interact with – it all goes back to how we view God.

If He is first in our life the rest of our actions and thoughts will inevitably follow, if we place ourselves first then we will become self serving. The question that remains is this:Will we keep our “it’s all about me” mentality? Or will we change and make God our priority?

A few years ago, Genarlow Wilson was given a 10 year jail sentence for being intimate with his girlfriend two years younger. Now the case has been brought back to the forefront. In the usual Georgian style, things have gone on in this case that make absolutely no sense at all.

Things like why the mother of the 15 year old and the 15 year old were contacted by the state and told to testify in a certain way or have the 15 year old thrown in jail with the 17 year old.
Or how come the state decided to prosecute this one set of teens and not go after all the other minors doing the same thing?
Who had the idea that two consenting teens is equivalent to child molestation?

Most importantly, why are people surprised by this?

If we’re sending off our kids to a school system that teaches them about and how to have intercourse with others, why are we surprised when they try it?

We shouldn’t be. Premarital sex is wrong and it has huge disadvantages after the fact, but we do have to take responsibility. If we aren’t giving our kids a good foundation and taking time to explain why they shouldn’t have relations before they’re married, we shouldn’t expect them to hold that conviction. Especially when the majority of their friends are doing the same thing.

At the same time, it isn’t the government’s role to intervene when it comes to two consenting minors. This is a classic example of the state usurping the parent’s role. The reason is simple, we’ve let the government control too much of our lives and we have grown lazy. If we don’t want the state to keep intervening than we need to stand up and take our responsibilities back.

Most of the people following the case, and even myself have seen this as an obstruction of justice. However, this really boils down to a consequence of avoiding the most important responsibility adults have - to train their children in the way they should go.

“It’s my constitutional RIGHT to have an abortion!” proclaims the media and the pro-choice crowd. Unfortunately all to often the American people are plagued by a misconception of their rights. Many people use the “it’s my right” mentality to justify killing their child or others. In a sense, they believe they have earned a right to slaughter, while in reality they have no such right. These people believe that they can justify murder because they have a “right” to. What they neglect is the simple fact that:

A right is a right so long as it doesn’t infringe on another person’s right.

One well known example is this:

You have a right to swing your arms but your right stops the moment it hits my nose.

In other words, once you use your right against another person to do them harm, the “right” or freedom you were using no longer exists in your case. For example, if someone were to go into an airport and start shooting people, they violated their right to own and bear arms by violating other people’s right to life. However, if someone started shooting at you, and you shot them in self defense you would be in the right because you were protecting your unalienable rights to life, liberty and property.

It is important to establish that a “right” is two-fold: Alienable and Unalienable. The difference is that an alienable right is a privilege that was granted by a governing source where as an unalienable right is something that can not be fully eliminated from the human race. Unalienable rights also supersede alienable rights. Like we saw in the example of a gunman in the airport. He was wrong to shoot people for no reason even though he was legally allowed to own and carry a gun. The right to own and bear arms is alienable. However, the right to protect and preserve your life, liberty, and property is a natural or unalienable right. The reason you would be right in shooting back in self defense is because you were trying to save life rather than eliminate it.

In America, we believe that everyone has an unalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness. Frederick Bastiat in his book The Law talked about unalienable rights being Life, Liberty, and Property. The question remains, what happens when someone does violate someone else’s right to life, liberty, or property?
A factor called Justice comes into play. The following excerpt is from a conversation I had with a friend of mine about the subject that will explain how justice works here:

Friend: freedom, haha

so complex

me: not really

Friend: oh, yes

you want freedom to do some things and freedom from other things

and in order to have freedom from something, you must restict someone else’s freedom to do something

me: not necessarily

Friend: most of the time

me: now a days.

only because people have a distorted veiw of freedom

freedom involves choice

you can choose to or not to listen to rap - but just because you don’t like rap does not mean that we should take our freedom to change the channel and instead of changing it, say “I hate rap so much, rap should be illegal”.

rap is not good music, but that doesn’t mean we should ban it - we can choose not to listen and if there’s no market for it, rap will go out of business. But we shouldn’t say, because I don’t like it, and because my friends don’t like it, we need to outlaw it.

Friend: I suppose in that sense

but you’re not looking for freedom from rap

unless you’re being forced to listen to it in the first place

me: right

what do you mean by freedom from something?

Friend:freedom from say theft

me: theft isn’t a right

and

you have the freedom to protect yourself

Friend:see, there we go back to rights

me: theft is a crime

Friend: but what makes it a crime?

me: It goes against God’s law, Con law, and Common law.

make sense?

Friend: it’s not so simple, my friend

me: depends on how you understand it I guess

it goes back to what I said earlier

a human law or right is justice, and when someone violates that, in order for justice to be served, there must be a restriction or limitation on the person who violated it.

As we can see, in order for a right to be insured, there must be justice. Without justice, there is no guard against people violating other people’s rights.

The misconception many people have is that as long as exercising their own rights doesn’t hurt themselves, that they have liberty to do it. Really, they don’t have a right to hurt anyone else, and when they do, the person effected has a right to defend themselves because of a very important detail called the justice factor.

As I was watching the local news this evening with my parents I noticed a particular trend in most of the stories presented. The majority had little to do with the goings on of the world, but rather had more to do with how people can look better, feel better, who’s going to win on American Idol, the latest fashion, newest trend and the buzz on what’s going on with the latest actors.

I generally block all that out and wait impatiently for news on the hostage situation in Iran, and the goings on of the US congress, and the State Legislature. Today was different however as I sat watching the “news” which gets more depressing by the day, I found myself sincerely hoping that we aren’t as decadent as is portrayed. I was hoping as I watched a segment called “The war on wrinkles” That we really aren’t so vain that we’ll actually spend 2k per needle to get rid of a wrinkle!

Unfortunately, the more I observe and interact with people in youth group, leadership positions, different events or just watching the nightly news, the more I find that we are indeed a shallow society. Often times I’ll bury my head in my hands and ask “are we really THAT shallow?” to be shown yet again, that we are.

The encouraging aspect is that there are a few who aren’t caught up in the hype of “me” that is so prevalent. America, if we want to remain the best and most powerful nation on earth, we can not focus only on “self”. No nation that is strong is shallow. If we wish to remain strong we must start making a difference and impacting the people around us. Our focus must be on The One who raises up nations, and The One who alone can deliver us.

America, if we wish to go out with a bang rather than a whimper, we must turn back to The Creator.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. ~ 2 Chronicles 7:14

Last Wednesday night my brother and I made a trip to church for Wednesday night youth group. Before we go on it is important to note that the only reason I go is to offer a different and more Biblical point of view when an opportunity presents itself.

This opportunity came about on Wednesday as I was talking to a 7th and 11th grader about anarchy, communism, the end times and why I wasn’t going to share my coke with the 11th grader.
During the conversation about sharing my coke, the 11th grader argued that I should share with him because he’s my “brother in Christ”. In response to my contention that I only share with my siblings. The conversation continued on towards politics and religion, but what stuck with me was his argument that he’s my brother in Christ.

While it is true that as Christians we are all part of God’s “family” so to speak, I realized that the reason I didn’t see him as my brother in Christ was because he, unlike my “big” brothers in Christ, doesn’t live a life that exemplifies Christ.

It is true we all stumble and fail. It is also true, however, that there is more to being a Christian than just saying a simple prayer. Being a Christian involves prayer, but it is also a walk and a relationship. Being a Christian means there is a change in your lifestyle - like in James where it says Faith without works is dead, or all throughout the new testament where it says “you will know them by their fruits”.

It’s simple to “talk the talk”, but are we really “walking the walk”?