TGIF? : Ministry of Truth, Elon Buys Twitter, Disney and the Christian Dilemma
This isn’t an exegesis (obviously) on these cultural issues of speech governance, gender politics, nor anything remotely comprehensive but rather a smorgasbord of my observations and thoughts on this week’s information and also a call to my brothers and sisters in Christ to get intentional; more descriptively probably articulated as the abstraction I know as my mind.
(for those that would prefer to listen than read, click here)
What isn't going on these days?
We have a billionaire who has purchased the largest social media communication platform, Twitter, for $44 billion. We have the Biden administration announcing it is developing the Disinformation Governance Board, aka “Ministry of Truth.” War ramping up in Ukraine where the U.S. taxpayer is giving BILLIONS to Ukraine.
If you do not know where that name Ministry of Truth comes from by the way, it’s time for you to get educated my friend.
And of course the Disney battle in Florida continues on, which is just symbolic of the larger culture war between the far secular left and the more traditional-family oriented political right.
We can only anticipate the degree and frequency of these polarizing acts will continue as we get closer to the midterm elections here in the United States which is merely an appetizer for the trash buffet that is the presidential election happening in 2024.
For the Christian though, the Christ follower, these are certainly challenging times to navigate and even more so being a parent of a child in school these days. I count it as a blessing every day that my kids have yet to be contaminated by the lie that gender is subjective and fluid.
I know there will come a day when they will come to me and my wife and say something like, "is it true people can be born in the wrong body?". And I hope that we are able to prepare and equip them with the countercultural truth that God created man to be man and woman to be woman and that gender isn’t a choice, it is biological.
I never could have imagined growing up that our society would get to a place where the beginning of the book of Genesis when it says, "in the beginning God created them male and female (Genesis 5:2),” would be such a countercultural statement and magnet of manipulation as an example of “hate speech.”
These people are so far from God, and it is not anything I celebrate. I hurt for these people who advocate such depravity. We are living out what the Apostle Paul experienced in Rome.
21For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools,… (23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.)
24Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.
26For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.
28And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. 29They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. 32Although they know God’s just sentence — that those who practice such things deserve to die — they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.
-Romans 1:21-32
How shall we then live?
This is the question we must be discussing in the church. We cannot follow the cultural way of doing things on our own, and this includes making Biblical decisions. We must rely on one another, and be willing to interact with each other by intentionally discussing these topics.
At the same time it should not catch us, the church, entirely off guard. These things are described by God in the Bible. My hope is that the church will awaken and stay committed to God by reading the Bible, daily. It is called “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church.