Homosexuality: The Major Impetus for Impending Religious Persecution
A physical education teacher at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio has lost her job as an educator because she is a lesbian. Carla Hale has been a teacher at the school for approximately 19 years now. Recently, the school discovered that Ms. Hale was a practicing lesbian. After an investigation in the matter, Bishop Watterson High School gave her her walking papers. You can read the story HERE.
I have been arguing for some time that the homosexual movement will be the likely impetus for religious persecution in America. The world needs to pay close attention to how this goes. For years America has been the champion of liberty and freedom around the world. But when something as basic as religious freedom is removed from the culture, the dominoes are sure to fall fast and the rest of the world should be very nervous about the consequences. You see, Americans have been willing to die for the greater good. A man has been willing to lay his life on the line, not only for this country, but for others from foreign countries as well. Up to now, Americans have had a higher value system instilled in them from childhood years. They have been raised with the conviction that these values are greater and more important than all of us individually and even collectively. These values are so important and sacred that we have been willing to die to protect them here and abroad.
Stand up and pay attention. With the pervasive crumbling and collapse of American morality, and the destruction of her age-old value system comes an entirely different set of values. And those values are not transcendent. They are the values of the individual. This value system erodes freedom at the foundation. There is no freedom more basic than the freedom to worship God as the individual sees fit. But American culture is on the brink of abolishing that freedom in the name of homosexual tolerance. Imagine that! So that 2% of the population can engage in unnatural sexual desires we are on the verge of destroying the religious freedom of hundreds of millions. In order to promulgate the sexually deviant behavior of approximately 7 million people, we are willing to take away the religious freedom of over 200 million. Somehow, in the American mindset, that makes sense.
A petition has been signed by nearly 55,000 people on behalf of Ms. Hale. The community is demanding she be reinstated. The problem is that Ms. Hale has known all along that she could not be gay and teach at a Catholic High School. She has know that if the truth ever came out, she would be fired. The school's policy on the subject is not ambiguous. It is not honorable nor noble to make a conscious decision to deceive your employer. Yet Ms. Hale has for done so for some 19 years now. Yet, even though she has lied and been dishonorable and lived in breach of contract for 19 years, she is being defended as an honorable person and the school vilified as an intolerant, bigoted institution. Who knows where this will go, but this is precisely the kind of thing I have been talking about for a while now.
Religious institutions are on the verge of being persecuted for their religious beliefs in the name of discrimination. Sooner or later we will begin losing our tax exempt status. Eventually our seminaries will have to forfeit their accreditation if they refuse to admit gay students and hire gay faculty. It is merely a matter of time.
What should the church do? What can she do? She should refuse to change course. She should continue to preach the gospel, love the unbeliever, obey the civil authorities where she can, and never compromise. She should NOT get side-tracked with gay marriage politics. She has a gospel to publish, people to disciple, missionaries to send out and service to render. She should busy herself with these sacred chores, waiting and watching for the return of her blessed Savior, the hope of all humanity. Even so, come Lord Jesus!
No comments:
Post a Comment