10 Guidelines for Churches Considering Reopening

1. Make a full plan and ACTUALLY GET all necessary supplies before going public with it.  First of all, if you make a good plan, go public with it, and then find that you can’t get any of the gloves or Purell your plan depends on for another four weeks, your good plan just evaporated.  Furthermore, if you can’t get masks, then there’s a chance your dentist can’t either.  If you can’t get Clorox wipes, then there’s a chance the Dermatology office is also waiting in line.  If you can’t find hand sanitizer, then think about the local restaurant owner that you appreciate so much.  Only these peoples’ very lives depend on the speed at which they can get back up and running.
2. Know the plan for businesses/activities in your area… you are not a modern-day Martin Luther [or MLK Jr] if you have not taken the time to hear the other side.  Ignorant antinomianism is not civil disobedience in the cause of justice.  Know the criteria that are being used by your Governor, Mayor, or County authorities.  Take the time necessary to hear their thoughts and understand their approach.  It may not be as crackpot or Draconian as that guy on Facebook made it out to be.  Have you done your due diligence?  Start with the Johns Hopkins Guidelines to Governors for Phased Reopenings.  It’s a great, reasonable resource.
3. Know the plan of other churches in your area … don’t be slavishly bound to it, but don’t be too proud to be aware of and informed by what others are doing.  Like me, you might learn a thing or two from others in Christ’s body nearby.  There is also a strong possibility of an increased testimony from Christian unity as well as potential legal protection if you are able to act in concert with other churches in your local community.
4. Continue livestreaming – it is either disingenuous or unkind or both to give your high-risk folks “permission” to stay home during the uncertain transition-back period, and not continue to livestream for them during that time.
5. Consider Polling – finally a good reason for a congregational poll! … I’m almost always against church member polls, but in this case, there is a lot of value that can come to Church leaders by knowing where folks are – how many are comfortable returning?  How many would prefer to stay home another month?  How many would wear PPE?  How many would insist upon it?  How many would object to it?  This is really good information for those whose planning depends on willing participation from their folks.
6. Take Attendance – if you have multiple services, be specific.  The doctors are telling us a ‘cure’ is likely a long way away.  If someone in your church tests positive four months from now, it would be helpful to know which service they attended that week and who was near them.  For some techie churches, it may be as simple as a mid-service, wide-angle snapshot.
7. Eliminate high-touch surfaces as much as possible.  Passing offertory plates or communion trays from row to row, each touched by a hundred hands before making its way into yours… that shouldn’t be happening right now.  Consider going to bulletins or a projector as opposed to hymnals and prayerbooks [the traditionalist in me cringes to say it, but as a temporary measure, it’s worth considering.]  Put bulletins on chairs, rather than on a common pick-up table/basket.  Most churches don’t have automatic doors.  Consider propping doors open at start/close of services.  Our deacons are forming cleaning teams to wipe down arm rests, door handles, light switches, thermostats, bathrooms, etc. between services.  And our facilities manager just purchased an HVAC air purifier.  Lots of churches are investing in hand sanitizer dispensers by entry/exit points.  Don’t forget trashcans.  There will be lots more wipes, tissues, masks, and gloves than normal.  Where are these going to end up?
8. Think in terms of households.  Hey, it’s a category all over the New Testament! :-)  Medical guidelines suggest at least 6 feet of separation [more if singing btw] between households, not individual members.  The assumption being, everyone in the same household already shares the same level of exposure.  They don’t need to be separated from one another.  This may or may not help with seating.  Many reopening guidelines are based off of seating capacity, rather than a total number anyway.  Lots of churches are temporarily resuming service attendance on a sign-up basis.  Once the sign up list is full, assigned seating is arranged according to households.  A strange but effective approach for this unusual season.  Whatever your plan, be sure to have something in mind for those who might show up without signing up first [the same for those who arrive visibly sick or symptomatic.]  Even the most callous Calvinists among us would have a hard time turning away visitors at the door. :-)
9. Children’s ministries are in a different category – kids have zero concept of personal space and social distancing.  You know this.  So do our authorities and policymakers.  Kids’ activities are the last to resume.  If your church operations are interdependent so that you can’t restart regular worship services without children’s church going simultaneously, reopening will take longer.  In other words, the bigger your church, the slower your restart will likely need to be.
10. Expect big changes – Lowes, Walmart, McDonalds have all had to make big changes.  So will you.  Going out in public feels different now.  Church will not be an exception. Remember to manage expectations [theirs and yours] by communicating this.


One extra – if I may humbly suggest:
11. Make vital mental distinctions – Brothers, remember that this is not the Church being persecuted or singled out unnecessarily.  Again, read the Hopkins Guidelines. Church activities are being reviewed alongside every other community activity and rated according to very rational criteria for risk vs modifiability.  Church services are potential superspreader events.  It’s just a fact.  Be patient as our authorities try to reopen the right way.  Good grief – they are talking about cancelling the NFL.  If that doesn’t show you how serious this thing is across the board, nothing will!  Be willing to wait in line and recognize that there are lots of folks in line ahead of us whose lives and livelihoods depend on them restarting before we do.  We are not being told to stop preaching in Jesus’ name [Acts 4.18].  We are being asked to continue doing so online for some number of weeks more.  Recognize that while we are doing this, everyone else around us is sacrificing.
Also, be willing to do the nearly impossible work of mentally distinguishing personal political philosophies you hold from truly Scriptural Convictions based on plain Scriptural Commands  [IOW, do not confuse the traditions of men, even good, Conservative, Christian men, with God’s Words and God’s Commands!]  As much as we may hold them dear, “don’t tread on me”; “no king but Jesus”; “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; or “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble” are not phrases we got from the Bible.  They are political concepts we might hold, I hope for good reason, but I also hope not with the same degree of zeal or affection that we do the tenets of our most holy faith and commands of Scripture.  Be self-aware enough to recognize this.  And for Pete’s sake – stop the spread of misinformation and specious arguments!  There are reasons Walmart and liquor stores are allowed to stay open in times of public crisis while church buildings are closed.  It’s textbook civic management.  Be patient with your authorities.  It is no easy thing to run a city [let alone a county, state, or nation!].

photo credit: Vatican News

The Main Problem with the Media ... [might not be what you think]

"I think that the main problem with the press is not bias.  The complaint of those on the left and conservatives is that it is.  I think the main problem with the press, rather, is superficiality.  Their inability to go beyond the narrative structure of antagonist and protagonist; who's up and who's down; their inability to understand, frame, and report on issues that are not simply political.  The tendency is to force these kinds of cultural issues onto a political frame of reference; to see them only as struggles of power."

James Davison Hunter
in a Mars Hill Audio Journal interview with Ken Myers [ from 1994!]

... don't you want to keep reading???? [below]

Prayer to End Abortion on the 44th Anniversary of Roe v Wade

  Heavenly Father, rise up to protect every unborn child in our land.  We pray to you for them with confidence 
and firm trust knowing that it is your Holy Will to remove the scourge of abortion from off the face of Your 
earth. Thank you that, on this, the 44th anniversary of our Supreme Court’s infamous decision about these 
things, You have helped Your people and given many victories in defense of unborn life since then.  Continue 
these victories by Your mercy.  Change the minds and melt the hearts of all who promote this evil, or who 
seek abortion as a remedy for the troubles of their lives, which troubles are – for many – very great. Make 
us – in our lives – a testimony of sexual purity; those who cherish human life, love and help our neighbors,
 guard and adopt the fatherless and unwanted, honor Your holy image wherever it is found in mankind, and 
willingly sacrifice of ourselves, our comforts and possessions, so that we might truly be your servants and in practical ways, bring about Your Kingdom and Your righteousness. Heavenly Father, we ask you this in the 
name of Jesus, Your Son.  
Amen.

Why NOT to pray and fast on Election Day

Yesterday I preached what was probably the hardest sermon of my ministry career.  I told my congregation that - while I am all for things like prayer and fasting - I think there are important reasons NOT to do so tomorrow, in attachment with election day.  That was a shocking comment, and not one I made lightly.  I attempted to explain it and would like to elaborate here.

The entire sermon was an attack on the ways we make an idol of politics.  My community is a military community and we, of all people, in our closeness to the activities of the state, are tempted in the direction of political idolatry.  I fear that I made too little of the anguish that my parishioners feel as they watch our country arrive at this new low point.  Many of them have given their lives in service to our nation, and the heartache that is their current portion is significant and warranted.  It was not my intention to make light of it.
But where that heartache means total despair, it reveals the presence of an idol.  This is what I find so alarming about the way American Christians are calling for prayers and fastings in association with the voting process.   On the very day when the impotence of our idol is being exposed, we still cling to it with our eyes tightly shut refusing to acknowledge the judgment and truth.  We can pray and fast and hope it ain't so.  But there it is.  Our politics cannot save us.  We are not going to vote ourselves out of this mess.

Politics is very limited institution, mostly negative in it's power of enforcement and authority.  Law brings guilt, as the Apostle says, not life.  To look for solutions or lifegiving power from a political swordbearer is to put our trust and hope in a prince, which Scripture famously warns against.  It is like giving a farmer a hundred plowed acres, but only allowing him to use pesticide and a machete while expecting a bumper crop.  These are tools of excision, not growth.

A call to fast and pray is usually regarded as a call to repent.  Yet, at the top of the list of the sins we need to repent of nationally, are our political idolatry and our childish hunt for quick fixes to profound problems.  Yet, paradoxically, connecting a call to pray and fast with a political election will mostly likely simply reinforce and perpetuate both of those sins!

Our nation is like a morbidly obese man who is seeking relief from a peddler of pills.  The problem is that his own living throughout the decades of his life is what is killing him, and no pill will cure him of his own behavior.
Furthermore, I fear that calling for prayer and fasting on the day of elections is like that obese man calling his family to pray and fast on the day of his doctor's examination.  But the damage has already been done.  He ought to call them to pray and fast as he is driving to the grocery store, or as he is looking to join the membership of a gym, or pulling into the parkinglot of a buffet.  On the morning of the doctor's exam, it is too late.  Abraham told Dives, your time is up.  You had your fun.  The season of prayer has come to an end.

And this gets at the point.  Civil Government is not intended to solve our problems.  So stop praying that God would use it in that way.  We need to repent of thinking that our social problems have political solutions.

If you want to pray and fast for our country on a level that matters and on the day that counts - pray and fast on the first day of Christian school year - and then on the first day of summer break.  Pray and fast when your children are baptized or when a church building is under construction or when a neighbor moves in next to you, or a nursing home closes.  Pray and fast during Advent, Lent, and Holy Week - and repent of your own sins with the same zeal that you bring to bear when discussing taxation policies, illegal immigration, or gun rights.

Further thoughts ...

Our Hitler; Our Holocaust

There has been a lot said from both sides about the importance of the current election cycle.  There has been a lot said from both sides about the similarities of Trump to Hitler.  To be honest, I don't believe these are unfounded.  He strikes me as an obviously ego-centric, unstable, and generally untrustworthy person.  He certainly does remind one of the Furor and make one shudder to wonder what sort of holocaust might follow his election as a worst-case scenario.

But what if we're getting the analogy wrong?  What if the holocaust has already long-since begun?  What if we are already living with it and our Goerings, and Goebbels, and Eichmanns are nothing more than mainstream politicians reasonably proposing to maintain the status quo?  What if - for over a full generation now - the incinerators have been quietly humming in our midst and we - like so many nice German people - have turned a blind eye to them, refusing to believe that atrocities like these could ever actually be taking place in a land such as ours?

How then should we vote?

[photo: www.wsj.com] 

Islam: Mirror of Christendom

An abridged essay by Dr Peter J Leithart; the full essay is available here.

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.”

—The Epistle of James, 1:23-24

Deep in the pit of hell, the pilgrim Dante came across Mohammed, walking with his torso split open from chin to groin.  The surprise in this scene is not the gruesomeness of Mohammed’s punishment, but the place where this scene occurs: the ninth Bolgia of Malebolgia, in the subcircle of hell reserved for schismatics. Mohammed is not among the idolaters or the pagans, but among sinners being punished for breaking off from the Christian Church, all of whom, appropriately enough, have their bodies rent as retribution for rending the body of Christ.

In treating Mohammed as a Christian schismatic, Dante was not inventing a new perspective (he rarely did), but presenting views widespread in his time. Many in the Western medieval world believed that Mohammed himself had apostatized from Christianity.  Centuries before Dante, John of Damascus (675-749) treated Islam in the final section of his treatise de Haeresibus, calling it the “heresy of the Ishmaelites.”

God's Finger, My Forehead, and Her Intricate, Perfect Ears

[More than 10 years ago, in a seminary workshop outside of Greenville, SC, I heard a speaker read this passage.  Since then I've ruminated on it scores of times, though never remembering its author.  This morning, in a Ken Myers interview of Mary Eberstadt, I was delighted to hear it referred to again - with the author's name attached - Whittaker Chambers!  Enjoy.]

“It was shortly before we moved to Alger Hiss's apartment in Washington. My daughter was in her high chair. I was watching her eat. She was the most miraculous thing that had ever happened in my life. I liked to watch her even when she smeared porridge on her face or dropped it meditatively on the floor. My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear — those intricate, perfect ears.

The thought passed through my mind: 'No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature. They could have been created only by immense design.'

The thought was involuntary and unwanted. I crowded it out of my mind. But I never wholly forgot it or the occasion. I had to crowd it out of my mind. If I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God. I did not then know that, at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.”

- Whittaker Chambers, Introduction, Witness

Book List

You are what your mind eats …

Book List

You are what your mind eats …

The Redemption of Bernard Nathanson

Few people, if any, did more than Bernard Nathanson to undermine the right to life of unborn children by turning abortion from an unspeakable crime into a constitutionally protected liberty. [And] someday, when our law is reformed to honor the dignity and protect the right to life of every member of the human family, including children in the womb, historians will observe that few people did more than Bernard Nathanson to achieve that reversal.

Dr. Nathanson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, had his first involvement with abortion arranging an illegal abortion for his girlfriend. Many years later, he [called it] his “introductory excursion into the satanic world of abortion.”

Nathanson became a nearly monomaniacal crusader for abortion. As Director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, he presided over more than 60,000 abortions and performed 5,000 himself [one of which included his own son or daughter inconveniently conceived out of wedlock]. 

Judges as Umpires

[Folks, here's an old piece I wrote for my students several years ago when we were studying government and history.  I'd probably nuance differently today, but the basic thesis holds true and is quite timely.]


Thurgood Marshall once admitted that his judicial philosophy boiled down to “do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”

This is exactly what we mean by the phrase ‘judicial activism’. A man [or woman] in a black robe takes it upon himself to change a state or country whether or not the Constitution gives him that authority.  It's a quiet coup.

This is the heart of the issue. We all want to change the country, but the ultimate question is this: which side is attempting to do so illegally? It’s that simple. The Constitution lays out what our judges are and are not authorized to do. Any actions they take beyond those found in that document are, properly-speaking, illegal.  As Justice Scalia helpfully points out, if you want to change the nation, pass a law.  Don't appeal to the Constitution or its interpreters [judges] because Constitutions are adopted to impede change, not facilitate it.  Stability is their whole purpose.

He uses the analogy of being a referee or umpire in the legal system.  A judge is umpire.  He doesn’t agonize about whether the rules are fair or right or good for the future of the game.  He makes the call to the best of his ability by applying the rules. That’s all. He doesn’t have the power to make or alter the rules based on a preferred outcome! He’s just an umpire. They’re just judges.

"In the system which says that the Constitution changes and it’s up to the judges to say what it means – they really have no answers. There is no criterion for when it changes and how it changes. Every day is a new day. Some of my collegues have said that they agonize a lot. I don’t agonize at all. Sometimes it’s hard to follow and find the record in history, but you know, I don’t agonize if there’s a right to this or that. But with these guys – every day’s a new day. Last year the death penalty was constitutional and I’ll have to worry about whether it’s still constitutional next year."

The Power of Presuppositions

"Education is a series of religious acts partly because the power of assumption is so great. Assumptions are even more powerful than assertions because they bypass a persons critical faculty and thereby create prejudice. Government education assumes God to be irrelevant to the educational process when, in fact, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7). Such false assumptions by the government schools can then be combined with arguments that prove the truth of what is false. These false assumptions are particularly beguiling because they appeal to one of our worst instincts - the desire to be fashionable or at least to avoid being associated with the unfashionable or unpopular." 

- Herbert Schlossberg,  (Idols for Destruction, 1983, p. 210)

The above quotation was found in Randy Booth's chapter "Family and Education" in The Church-Friendly Family, edited by Uri Brito.  In about a dozen pages, Pastor Booth articulates the best content summary of Christian Education that I have ever heard or read in my life.  I cannot recommend it to you highly enough.

So many kindly old ladies ask in exasperation, "How could anyone look at the hummingbird in flight or the sun setting over the ocean, or the elegant double helix of a DNA strand and not recognize God's glory on display?"

Book List [What I've been reading lately...]

You are what your mind eats ...

10 More from RC Jr - Non-Fiction for Teens

What are ten books your teenagers read as part of their homeschool education?

• April 15, 2014

• By: Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr.
• Fiction & Literature, Homeschooling

One of the weaknesses of the school model of education is that it squeezes out great books that don’t fit neatly into one or another of those artificial divisions of learning we call “subjects.” We don’t start with, “What books have had a deep impact in shaping what I am?” But with “What subjects am I supposed to be teaching, and which books will help me teach them?” I don’t teach my children subjects—I seek to instill in them wisdom. Which means I have them read the books that gave me wisdom.

All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: The Christian and Pop Culture by Ken Myers. This book was a genuine wake up call to me, alerting me to the more subtle ways the broader culture has influenced not just what I think, but how I think. It was for me the beginning of seeking to live a more deliberate life.

The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis.  A thoughtful yet accessible prophetic exposition of the then coming post-modernism.

The Holiness of God. We often, as parents, struggle with fear that our children are more eager to please us than their heavenly Father, that they see their faith as a familial thing, but that they don’t quite own it personally. This classic exploration of the character of God is deeply helpful. It reminds my children that God is for real, and that they must deal with Him, one at a time.

Monsters from the Id by E. Michael Jones. Jones, editor of Culture Warsmagazine, traces the history of horror fiction from Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein to Aliens. Why would I want my teens to read that? Because Jones, as is his habit, masterfully weaves the private lives of the creators of these stories with their ideologies and the stories themselves. Reading Jones is like reading Romans 1 unfold before your very eyes as you watch minds given over to depravity bear bitter fruit.

10 from RC Jr - the Fiction List for Teens

What are ten fiction books you recommend for homeschool teenagers?

• May 29, 2014

• By: Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr.
• Fiction & Literature, Homeschooling

A while back you published a list of the ten books your teenagers read as part of the homeschool education. They were all non-fiction. What fiction do you have your children read?

I was honestly surprised when this was pointed out to me. I would guess over the course of my life I’ve read two works of fiction for every work of non-fiction. I hadn’t planned at all to make the list all non-fiction, and so am happy to add here fiction. As with before I am not here arguing that these are the ten best fiction works ever, only that they are the ten that I genuinely want my children to read. Here they are, in no particular order:

The Scarlet Letter — Hawthorne is no friend of the Bible or the Christian faith, but like so many great authors he is haunted by it. He has no grasp of the Puritans, but, ironically, a decent grasp of our sinfulness. While the townspeople are merely clownishly wicked, his exploration especially of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are both chilling and worthy.

A Clockwork Orange — Anthony Burgess is among my favorite writers of the 20^th century. While Kubrick’s adaptation of the novel is not at all for the faint at heart, the book shows us Burgess’ genius without showing things best left unseen. A fascinating exploration of the folly of behaviorism, a philological romp, and a genuinely intriguing exploration of the rise and fall of civilizations, well, that’s quite a lot for a slim volume.

A Tale of Two Cities — Dickens starts slow, reminding us what happens when we are paid by the word. But the final third of this close-up in the midst of cultural devastation reminds us of the One Great Hero.

The Great Santini — Not one you expected, right? Pat Conroy is likely not in anyone’s canon, save perhaps the Sproul family canon. Conroy, like his thinly veiled father, manages to stir together charm and pathos, evil, and family unity. The result is somehow both disturbing and moving.

Marriage Gospel

"Half of our marriages end in divorce." No they do not. The real numbers are in and it seems that little more than half of half end in divorce.

As a homeschool dad, I often refer to the “smell test” when reviewing math assignments with my sons.  ‘Okay, if you multiply a big number by another big number, the answer is not going to be a small number, right?’

Well, perhaps we can do the same here.  How many married people do you know?  Okay, now how many divorced?  This is a difficult thing to get our minds around, but try.  Think about the sheer staggering number of married adults you know.  It is far easier to list the unmarried adults than the married.  Now think about the divorces.  Do they even begin to approach half?

Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn are Christian marriage counselors, popular conference speakers, and family enrichment authors.  This month Shaunti released The Good News About Marriage reporting the findings of an 8-year research project reviewing the statistical data on marriage and divorce in America.  Her conclusions are shattering many of our most common conjugal clichés. 

Among her more noteworthy findings were:

-          The divorce rate in America has never even been close to half.  While the actual divorce rate is impossible to establish, [the Census Bureau stopped trying in 1996] realistic estimates put the societal divorce rate as low as 27% with almost every source reporting a decline in divorces for the last 30 years!

One of the Many Lies Surrounding Divorce in America ...

Book List [what I've been reading lately] ... 4 biographies

Since It's been ages since I've posted one of these ... I did recently just finish this latest set of 4.
You are what your mind eats ...

DOMA & Gay "Marriage" - a Christian Evaluation Part 2

In the aftermath of the SCOTUS DOMA ruling, here are 7 points to help us understand why we are where we are and 7 things Christians should do about it.

1. Heterosexual couples destroyed the sanctity of marriage long before the gay rights movement hit the mainstream. "I have two dads, you know." This is what a young boy I know recently told me. His words struck me. I knew they were true. But I'd never thought of it ... like THAT before. His birth parents divorced while he was an infant [for what I believe were sound, Biblical reasons]. His mother went on to remarry a fine Christian man and so, like so many other boys around, he has "two dads". Today this trend continues, though now with the ruthless efficiency of eliminating the mother altogether. A long time ago, our society began to deliberately streamline the process by which a man or woman can dissolve the oath they had previously made before God, church, family, community, and state, to stay united until death.  And for decades, the process of oath-breaking has been made more and more convenient.  At this point in our history, "the sanctity of marriage" is a hollow-sounding string of words that used to mean something.

2. It was heterosexual promiscuity that paved the yellow-brick road on which gay rights activists now march.  What young people really mean when they say "Don't tell THEM what THEY can't do in THEIR bedroom" is "Don't tell ME what I can't do in MY bedroom".  This is what 'the pill' is all about. What we see today is the fruiting of seeds that were planted fifty years ago and have been faithfully watered and fertilized ever since. Pulling levers and pushing buttons isn't going to change that or stop what has been in motion for so long. But being faithful will... eventually. This is a bitter fruit, but the story is far from over.  As a society, we seem to have lost the ability to to make even the most basic moral judgments and distinctions.  Just open up your iTunes store and watch the scrolling "what's hot now" banner at the top.  By and large, we are daily consumers of the obscene.

3. The black church is crucial in our culture wars. They have been the sleeping giant that has been roused in the recent cultural reversal of popular-level abortion views. They will be crucial in courageously speaking out to reject FALSE equivocations between civil rights struggles and the campaign to make sodomy a socially-acceptable sexual practice. One of my best friends in the world was born with very, very dark black skin.  His ethnic background is Nigerian.  He was black last year as a Ph.D. student in Seattle.  He is black today as an entrepreneur in Charleston.  He will die black.  None of this has the slightest thing to do with extraneous cultural influences or his own behavior and personal choice.  He is a black man, pure and simple.  To equate his blackness with another man's decision to engage in sodomy is false and wrong, and there is no amount of voice-raising or finger wagging that will change that fact.  But my voice here isn't the one that matters.  Those belong to my brothers of color, [many of whom are speaking out] such as Voddie Baucham, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ken Jones, Jemar Tisby, Philip Holmes, Reddit Andrews, Mike Campbell, Anthony Carter, LaCrae, Shai Linne, Curtis Allen, and others.

4.  Gay is cool.  Let's face it.  Well, perhaps it would be better to say it this way -  the gay cause is the cool side.  For the general public actually being gay is not the cool thing [see the horrifying long-term health statistics below], but it is most definitely cool to have gay friends.  It is cool to support them vocally and frequently.  It is cool to be passionate for their cause.  And the gay rights movement has found a way to morally tap into the fashion sense of the American public.  Many have wisely noted that in current public opinion, image trumps character.  The average Joe arrives at his ethical views in large part the same way he chooses his shoes, skinny jeans, and coffee brand.  Designer ethics is part of a designer lifestyle.  Pro-gay is chic and fashionable.  But as we've seen with fanny packs, disco, and eugenics, trends change and fashions - material and ideological - alter.

5.  This is an experiment - a cultural experiment.  I'll admit, I'mm an optimist, not a henny-penny kind of guy.  I probably wouldn't run around like my hair was on fire if my hair were actually on fire. And here is one of the reasons. This is an experiment. Will state-sanctioned gay marriage result in a happier, healthier society?  The answer is 'no'. This experiment is doomed to NOT work. Our great, great grandchildren will look back on this sort of thing and scratch their heads. You cannot rebel against a creational pattern as deep as gender and think things will just keep rolling forward. So stay faithful and keep on keepin' on. Roe was hardly the end of the abortion debate, and we are not even close to the end of this discussion either. There are plenty of people paying attention and taking notes. The numbers are being counted.

6. And this brings us to a separate societal trend which is set on a direct collision course with the Gay Rights Agenda: that of fully-socialized medicine. We've already heard it loudly suggested that lawmakers ban soft drinks because of this conflict.

Marriage, Divorce, and Gay Rights

"Under the new arrangement, a mutual pledge made by two people ... has been transformed by law into a pledge which can be revoked at will by one party.  And the party who wishes to maintain the marriage and to stick by the original vows can - in the end - be dragged, under threat of prison, from the family home."
-Peter Hitchens ...
...on how divorce "reform" laws undermined the sanctity of marriage a long time before anyone thought to legalize homosexual marriage.