STORY: Here are the positions pushed by an organization: oppose any form of praying in schools and colleges, oppose tough punishment for criminals, oppose hate speech in general yet encourage hate speech against Christians, oppose any discussion of health consequences of abortions, oppose teaching abstinence in sex education, oppose curfew laws for students, oppose drug test for employees; yet on the other hand, support the use of illegal drugs, support abortion-on-demand, support the cruel and horrific partial birth abortion, support all homosexual rights including homosexual marriage, support government grants and public display of obscene arts with sexual themes and anti-Christian themes, support providing condoms to students, support radical feminism. Which organization do you think this is? /// American Civil Liberties Union
Background:
· “Rights” are privileges. Once recognized and legislated, it will be illegal for anyone to do anything to stop the exercise of those rights. In other words, a “right” has legislative force behind it and everyone is compelled to allow the free exercise of that right.
· A different term related to rights is “freedom”. It refers to an individual’s freedom of choice. While no one can actively restrict another person to exercise that choice, no one is compelled to yield to it either.
· For example, one has the “freedom of association” so one can try to attend any church one likes but the church can refuse admittance. But if it is the “right of association”, the church will not be able to refuse admittance; otherwise, the church can be prosecuted for not allowing that person to exercise the right of association. While the distinction of the two terms is a fine but an important one in legal terms, rights and freedoms are usually referred to together.
o Basis of right to life; freedom to profess, practise and propagate religion; freedom of worship, of conscience, of thought and speech
o Basis of sanctity of sex, marriage and family; freedom of peaceful assembly; right to receive respect, whatever gender, age, race or rank
o Basis of right to work and rest; freedom to share in the earth’s resources; freedom to food, clothing and shelter; freedom to health and self-preservation; freedom from poverty, hunger and disease
Clarification on rights vs. freedoms
The right to work is not equal to the right to employment. The right to work means that no one can stop another person from working (or not working), that is, a striking worker cannot stop another person from going to work by crossing the picket line, even if they belong to the same union. But if it is the right to employment, one must have the chance to be employed. If one could not find employment, then it is up to the government to ensure an employment. Otherwise, the government will have deprived one’s right to employment.
Similarly, if the government legislate the right to same-sex marriage. It willl mean that anyone who obstructs a homosexual couple to obtain a marriage licence will violate the law. In other words, any homosexual couple who desires to have the pastor of an evangelical church to bless their union must be accommodated as pastors are given the responsibility and the authority by the government to officiate marriages. Any pastor who refuses such request will have violated the law.
Secularists’ new commandments that Christians should oppose
1. You shall have the right and power of self-government. The emphasis is on autonomy, narcissism (extreme egoism, love of self), choice (but see Dt 12:8), and the replacement of God with our own will. The result is the widespread selfishness.
2. You shall keep your private life separate from your public life. The result is hypocrisy.
3. You shall be accepting the beliefs of others. This is moral pluralism which puts equal value on all beliefs. Pluralism may work in ethnic and political arenas but it does not work in arena of morality. The idea that there is more than one kind of ultimate reality is dangerous. It turns our society in to one that demands tolerance of all kinds of conflicting ideals, morals, and values. Yet unfortunately, many Christians do not contest this permissiveness.
4. You shall be tolerate of the behaviour of others. The assumption is that in order to love and care for someone, we must tolerate his/her moral choices – even if these choices are destructive or offensive. G.K. Chesterton says: “Tolerance is the attitude of those who don’t believe in anything.” Jesus did not always condone others’ lifestyle choices. He said, “Go and sin no more.” God is most definitely a judgmental God. When those differences are moral, tolerance and acceptance must end.
5. You shall not place burdensome limits on individuality. “If it feels good, do it.” Virtually everything is permissible. [Note that liberals talk about “feeling” while Conservatives talk about “reasoning”.] Today is a “rights-based” culture that is drenched in pleasure and drowned in materialism. But rights must necessarily come with responsibilities.
6. You shall honour the moral interpretations of others. The society and liberal “Christians” decided that God’s laws as recorded in the Bible are outdated and incompatible with the realities of modern culture. They reinterpret it in a way that is more agreeable to their own way of thinking, living and feeling. They will be seriously judged by God in the end.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982)
It specifies 4 fundamental freedoms (conscience and religion; thought, belief, opinion and expression; peaceful assembly; association) and 4 types of rights (democratic rights, mobility rights, legal rights, equality rights).
· Equality is taught in the Bible (Acts 10:34-35). It is important that there should not be discrimination on the basis of characteristics that an individual was born with and cannot escape from, such as race and sex.
· But the right to equality is now interpreted as meaning every distinct human charateristic is equal in value and must be accepted and treated equally (based on pluralism).
· It is impossible to treat every group as completely equal. For example, should a Christian church be forced to employ an atheist as office worker? Non-Christians are welcome to attend Christian worship services but should they be allowed to participate in the holy communion?
· Equality is certainly not applied to moral areas. This is particularly true for demands of equality based on the fabricated term of “sexual orientation” which is never legally defined. It is commonly used today to mean homosexuality. But secular humanists could use this term to justify all kinds of sexual perversions, such as polygamy, pedophilia, bestiality, etc.
Right to Privacy
One of the pillars of the culture of death is right to privacy. It is actually not in the US Constitution. It is a long-distance extension of the 4th Amendment which is “against unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government. The right to privacy, once recognized, is then again extended to mean the right to kill yourself (suicide) and the right to kill your preborn baby (abortion). This is again a good example of the slippery slope argument.
· Example: Every driver has the responsibility to follow some rules while driving, such as stopping at the STOP sign. If everyone insists that he/she has the liberty to drive the car in whatever way he/she likes, there will be disorder, conflicts, and disaster.
· Charles Colson: ‘Rights divorced from responsibilities are the seeds of destruction.”
· Today’s society uses verbal and mental gymnastics to avoid responsibility and accountability. For example, criminals and even murderers use excuses of poor upbringing or family violence to explain away their individual responsibilities and blame the society for their crimes.
· Some Christians think that ethics should speak only of responsibilities and not of rights. They correctly remind us that modern society provide excessive encouragement for people to exercise their individual rights. Our culture does not understand the Biblical ideal of a community of people (the church) who willingly give up their own rights to serve others.
o Christians should carefully distinguish what is classified as hate literature. This is a particularly vital question at the present time because homosexual people in Canada are trying to pass laws to classify anything that opposes homosexuality as hate literature. The draft legislation Bill C-250 has already been passed by the House of Commons. Although the legislation was halted because Parliament was prorogued. The Liberal government revived the Bill again. If the Bill is passed by the Senate, it will become law. Eventually, the Bible will be classified as hate literature. Any preaching against homosexuality will be classified at hate speech.
o Hate literature is written material that directly promotes hate against particular individuals or a group of individuals, e.g. Ku Klux Klan publishes materials against blacks and Jews.
o Hate literature can cause social problems because it may encourage discrimination or physical violence against the targetted group. Therefore, such literature should be prohibited.
o Homosexual people try to use the same argument against the Bible. Christians can use the following arguments to reject it.
~ The Bible does not promote hate against any person.
~ The Bible simply points out that homosexuality is a sin (just like adultery is a sin). The Bible is against the sin but not the sinner (although homosexuals reject such distinction). In fact, Jesus loves the sinner. But He asked the sinner to repent.
~ The Bible is against any violence, including violence against homosexuals. Yet, even sinners within the church are disciplined, though not with violence.
Further debate on hate speech
Is the exclusion of non-Christians from the holy communion a discrimination? Yes, it is based on the policy of governance in the church and teaching in the Bible. In any case, no reasonable non-Christian would want to join in the holy communion except for someone who aims to disrupt the service.
Is saying someone is sinful hate speech? No. Talking about the wrong of sinning is not hate speech. Hate speech must be directed to particular persons.
Can you really hate the sin yet not hate the sinner? Yes, Christians can still respect a person who sins. Whether the person is a homosexual or an adulterer, he/she is still respected as a person made in God’s image. God still loves him/her as a person even though God hates how he/she sins. Take for example the procedure of how a church treats a member who sins (say adultery). First, the person is called to repent (to admit the mistake and to stop sinning). If the person repents, he/she is accepted fully, although sometimes disciplinary action may be necessary. If the person does not repent, his/her membership will be terminated and he/she will be treated like non-Christians. Even under this situation, he/she is still welcome to join in the worship service.
Is the restriction against hate speech a violation against the freedom of expression? In a way yes. But there is limit to any kinds of freedom. If one’s freedom of speech directly lead to a greater evil, such freedom should be stopped. For example, if somone publicly advocates illegal activities, he/she should be stopped.
o Members of a cult have religious freedom too. An uncommon religion should not be prohibited simply because it is uncommon or newly organized.
o If a cult advocates unlawful practice, they should be prohibited because of the violation of laws, not because of their religious belief.
o However, the church should caution Christians about the danger of cults and those involved with demonic spirits.
o Those associations often advocate unrestrained pursuit of rights and freedom based on secular humanism.
o The majority of things they support are contrary to the Biblical position. They should be exposed for what they are. A Christian who joins those associations need to be questioned about their true faith.
· free to publicly express our beliefs and our celebrations
· free to distribute the Bible and proclaim the gospel in public
· free to restrict the employment of church workers to people with the same beliefs
· free to exclude unrepentent sinners from church membership
· free from coercion by the government to change our Biblical moral standard
An example of judicial activism
The law in California (passed by a referendum) clearly states that marriage is for a man and a woman only. In 2004, the mayor of San Francisco decided on his own to issue marriage licences for same-sex marriages. An application to the court to stop such clear violation of the law was rejected three times by judges in California courts. It was eventually stopped by the court not because such action violated the law but in order for the courts to study whether the law is legitimate. This is a clear case of wanton disregard of existing laws and a trend of judges writing new laws, in effect a power grab to replace the legislature.