Avalanche toward Gomorrah

You remember the late Robert Bork's book, Slouching toward Gomorrah.  I'm thinking now he was a tad optimistic.  It seems he wanted to say, sliding, but he wrote, slouching, perhaps to offer hope, but I think we can say now that it was an avalanche.  We're not stopping anything.  We're not getting away from anything.  Now we're digging ourselves out.

Do you hear anyone asking, "How did we get here so fast?"  Even the liberals can't believe it.

Very often on Sunday afternoon I watch the panel discussions from the Sunday talk shows at RCP.  On Meet the Press, there was this brief exchange between Tina Brown and David Gregory:

TINA BROWN:  It's almost as if Putin is brilliant, really. I mean, he's sort of outfoxing Obama all the time. He's very clear. And the reason that he wins in a way is that he's the only one who knows what he thinks. He's utterly clear. He's clear, he wants to increase Russian power.
DAVID GREGORY:  He doesn't care what other people think.
TINA BROWN:  He doesn't care.
DAVID GREGORY:  That's the--
TINA BROWN:  (over talk) And he doesn't care what other people think. I mean, we say, "Well, we can't do that. I mean, that's not the way people in the real, sophisticated, foreign-policy world behave." Well guess what, he's not that guy.
DAVID GREGORY:  Unfortunately, it's not Match.com.

What does this have anything to do with an avalanche toward Gomorrah?  I sense a groundswell popularity of Putin in the United States that is anti-Obama.  I know there are a lot of men, who are more impressed with Vladimir Putin than Barack Obama.  Because Putin is white, liberals would pejoratively marginalize it as a racial component.  No.  It is a recognition of manhood, of traits of manhood.  Some would say the propaganda of Putin is working.

No.  The comment of Brown.  Putin knows what he thinks.  He's clear.  Putin, I believe, knows something Obama doesn't (read this article).  The weaknesses of the Soviet Union and now of Russia are unrelated to the form of government, but due to the absence of self-government arising from a formerly godless world view.  You can't slap on a republic or a democracy and expect an improved culture and society.  I think that's dawned on Putin.  Putin is a man of absolutes.  Obama is not.  Obama is a selective relativist, who chooses his absolutes based upon his own discrimination.

Some might contend:  "But you don't know Putin." He's ruthless.  He's corrupt.  Uh-huh.  But I do know better our leaders, and then there's also a lot I don't know that's even worse.  My point, however, is that Putin is winning his conflicts with Obama because he sees a world of absolutes and Obama of nuance.  A world of absolutes is the only Christian world view, one totally eschewed by President Obama.

The United States went to the Winter Olympics and flaunted what?  It's queer, Johnny Weir.  In the face of Russian rejection and imprisonment of P***y Riot, a Russian feminist rock group, we flew our rainbow flag high.  In Russia, you could go to jail for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," but in the U. S., you go to jail or at least the poorhouse for refusing to arrange flowers for a same-sex wedding.  Anyone who wouldn't do the latter is "ignorant."  Have you read that?  "Ignorant" is the usual description of someone who rejects same-sex marriage.  The label for the one who applauds it is "courageous."

Could Johnny Weir really help NBC's Olympic ratings?  Management thought this a helpful move.  How many of the viewers could have been comfortable with his antics?  I didn't see the Olympics, except for a few replays online here and there, but I saw the pictures of his outfits.  I'd guess that far more than 50% hated seeing him, and 30% were totally repulsed.  People might say so in their homes, but they are not free outside of there.

A man in our church works in computer security with about 40 others in his building in Berkeley.  His boss got all the workers together last week on work time to announce that one of the employees was coming out as a transvestite.  Yes, I got it right.  Not LGBT.  A transvestite.  She exalted the transvestite's "courage."  Everyone in the room applauded, except for the man in our church.  But there was great pressure to do so.  Great pressure.  Employers can find reasons to fire other than not applauding.  Not applauding is only the real reason.
  

Studies show that only 5% of the population claims LGBT.  So how can they wield so much power?   There is not enough political will to stop the government from prosecuting private business owners who refuse to participate or associate with a same-sex wedding.  You hear the same reason again and again.  Young people.  Young people will punish politicians at the voting booth who are intolerant of homosexuality.  Most of the evangelical hipsters of the church growth movement deal with this subject in different terms.  They speak a moral ambivalence to expand their tent.

I'm not going to offer every explanation, just this one.  Toleration of homosexuality has been accepted as a superior virtue for young people.  They're proud of their toleration.  It's a kind of righteousness to them even like abolition of slavery and the elimination of racial discrimination.  It's an easy replacement for true righteousness and there is applause that comes with it.

For good measure, you're not ignorant anymore.  You don't accept same-sex marriage; you're ignorant.  What are you ignorant of?   Human evolution produces variations.  People are born that way.  This is enlightened thinking approved by a societal norm.  Most people who reject this are older than 50.  They haven't been educated in the correct way.  They don't know it, because they haven't learned.

The fundamental view that leads to acceptance of homosexuality has already been welcomed by young people in the new therapy of redemption.  Toleration is a cause bigger than themselves, that they can live for.  And it's a virtue to be paid forward.  If you want toleration, you've got to give some.  While you're at it, just call it love.  You love your neighbor.  You're not high and mighty and judgmental.  You're humble.  You're now humble and loving and righteous.  Anyone, who won't tolerate, isn't those three.

But you're not.  You're proud.  And your toleration is self-centered.  It's about fitting in and being accepted by people.  You're defying God.  Many root explanations exist for the bases of this toleration.  All of them are theological and can be blamed on churches and their leadership, not our government.  We've not been vigilant in teaching and executing the truth in our churches.  Numerical growth became more important than true conversion.  Professing Christians no longer know God.  They don't believe or defend a consistent view of the world, fitting of God's nature.

We should start by getting our own thinking straight, then our family, then our church.  Once we've got that done, then maybe something could be done about the country.