Darrow Miller and Friends

Three Stories of Courageous Truth

  1. Three Stories of Courageous Truth
  2. Three Stories of Courageous Truth, part 2
  3. Courageous Truth: A Current Example

Truth is dying, our world unwinding. Multiculturalism, political correctness (civic relativism) and the delusion of personal relativism are undermining our identities, families, communities and nations.

Postmodernism has abandoned reality and reason and embraced narrative and emotions. This flight of fancy is quickly gaining the force of law. The pressure is coercive. More and more it is being propagated in schools, entertainment, businesses, city ordinances, and state and federal laws. We have written about this here and here.

Calvin Freiburger, writing in LifeSite News, summarizes the rolling tide of LGBT activism sweeping the USA, Europe and the developing world as well.

Both major parties effectively treat same-sex “marriage” as a settled issue, homosexuality is actively promoted with increasing regularity in pop culture and public education, businesses are afraid to do business in states that are insufficiently “LGBT-friendly,” respectfully declining to promote same-sex events is considered legally perilous and politically scandalous, and even churches are divided on whether to compromise their traditional teachings on the subject.[1]

One tactic is the rainbow flag. Who can forget the Obama White House celebrating the Supreme Court ruling Obama White House in LGBT colors where's the truth?granting homosexuals the right to “marry”?

Note the balloons proclaiming “Love Wins.” The implication? If you don’t support the redefinition of marriage you are a hater.

The US flag-Gay Pride flag pin is another demonstration that to be American is to embrace the LGBT agenda, LGBT paired with American flag does not represent truthan attempt to make the two flags synonymous.

What’s the message of the rainbow flag?

LGBT blogger sparklincyanide writes: “Rainbow stickers in business windows … what message do they send?”

Everytime I see a rainbow sticker on a business window, I ask myself ‘why do they have it? What message are they sending out to LGBT and the straight community?’

The obvious answer is, that particular business is letting people know that it is LGBT friendly. Which is a relief and all LGBT people can go there and shop, eat, drink or enjoy whatever service the business is offering. Pretty straight forward.

Sparklincyanide’s answer is straightforward but not entirely benign, as Baronelle Stutzman and Sweet Cakes by Melissa discovered. When LGBT customers (who were also friends of these shop owners) asked for services that violated the owners’ consciences, conflict arose. The customers could not “enjoy whatever service” these businesses offered. Severe consequences ensued … for the owners. Sweet Cakes lost their business and paid a $135,000 fine. Stutzman’s case is still pending after five years. Public pressure and government coercion to approve LGBT lifestyles will cost all who cannot affirm homosexuality.

Sparklincyanide considers a rainbow flag a relief. But what message does the flag send to the “straight community”? If the law can require a business to serve LGBT customers whatever they demand, what will stop the law from forcing a business to display a rainbow flag?

Rather than accepting the postmodern denial of revelation, reality and reason, we should refute their assertions and resist their civic relativism (multiculturalism and political correctness) and personal delusions (sexual identity adjustable by hormones and knives).

To live within the lie for the sake of peace is to promote falsehood

Victor Havel (1936–2011), Czech playwright, poet and dissident who helped lead the Velvet Revolution that overthrew communism in his nation in 1989, became the last president of Czechoslovakia and first president of the Czech Republic. In his essay, The Power of the Powerless, Havel argues that people who “live within a lie” (for example, gender identity and cultural relativism), who accommodate falsehood for the sake of peace, unwittingly support the system and compromise their humanity.

truth dimished by political correctnessHavel tells of a grocer during communism who put a sign in his window, “Workers of the World Unite.” He was afraid and chose to survive within the lie, ceding the dignity of his humanity and the power of his freedom to the state. What if he had defied the communists and removed the sign or displayed a resistance sign? Havel writes: “His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth – and it is going to cost him plenty.”

He has said that the emperor is naked. And because the emperor is in fact naked, something extremely dangerous has happened: by his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth.

When we forsake the truth and accommodate the lie we erode our humanity

We have written of Havel’s courage, of his admonition to live in truth and call out the lie of groupthink and political oppression. This post is a follow-up to that earlier article and was inspired by the avalanche of current events and the article in First Things,Choosing to Refuse, by the Irish writer, playwright and commentator John Waters.

People live within lies, Havel tells us, not because they have no choice, but because something makes it congenial to live this way. Human beings can accommodate themselves to the lie, including the lie that makes them less human. And this accommodation, he insists, is present in the mass-consumerist systems of the allegedly free West, where an unwillingness to sacrifice material benefits for the sake of spiritual and moral integrity results in the demoralization upon which the regime depends for its power. A person who has been seduced by the consumer value system, whose identity is dissolved in the accoutrements of mass civilization, and who, as Havel says, “has no roots in the order of being, no sense of responsibility for anything higher than his or her own personal survival,” is a demoralized person, a puppet of the regime.

A simple act of the will can break the lie

Of the consumer culture of the West, Waters says we sell our moral and spiritual birthright for a mess of things bought at the mall or on the internet. This seduction reduces our humanity, including the attribute of volition. Through social media, movies, algorithms (as per internet giants like Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon), or the state, we are easily manipulated. Personal responsibility is dying.

But the power of the lie, which is dependent on the collusion of the individual, can be broken by the individual’s choosing to refuse. To live within the truth requires just a short step, but its power is tremendous. Everyone who steps out of line with the lie “denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety.”

We are complicit with these forces by our action or inaction. We either choose to engage the lie, or we decide to be passive, to allow its power over us. We may seem trapped, but a simple act of the will can break the spell. Havel and Waters argue that we can deny the fundamental principle of the lie and break its power by turning off the television, laying down the video game, taking a different route home to avoid the bar.

  • Darrow Miller

to be continued

 

 

[1] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/study-almost-half-of-gay-men-abused-by-their-partners

print this page Print this page

Tagged in:, , ,
About 
Darrow is co-founder of the Disciple Nations Alliance and a featured author and teacher. For over 30 years, Darrow has been a popular conference speaker on topics that include Christianity and culture, apologetics, worldview, poverty, and the dignity of women. From 1981 to 2007 Darrow served with Food for the Hungry International (now FH association), and from 1994 as Vice President. Before joining FH, Darrow spent three years on staff at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland where he was discipled by Francis Schaeffer. He also served as a student pastor at Northern Arizona University and two years as a pastor of Sherman Street Fellowship in urban Denver, CO. In addition to earning his Master’s degree in Adult Education from Arizona State University, Darrow pursued graduate studies in philosophy, theology, Christian apologetics, biblical studies, and missions in the United States, Israel, and Switzerland. Darrow has authored numerous studies, articles, Bible studies and books, including Discipling Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Culture (YWAM Publishing, 1998), Nurturing the Nations: Reclaiming the Dignity of Women for Building Healthy Cultures (InterVarsity Press, 2008), LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day (YWAM, 2009), Rethinking Social Justice: Restoring Biblical Compassion (YWAM, 2015), and more. These resources along with links to free e-books, podcasts, online training programs and more can be found at Disciple Nations Alliance (https://disciplenations.org).
Shares