There is an army of moderate-to-liberal Christians, who may be committed to the traditional teaching on human sexuality, but they somehow think that by some combination of political activity and meanness, some earlier generation of Christians forfeited the moral authority to speak to certain groups of people with the words of Jesus, and credibly to the reality of the human person.
Such an idea is not completely without foundation, but sooner or later, we come back to the truth about human sexuality, the purposes of our reproductive system, and the limits of self-definition. There is no way that the truth of an authentic human anthropology will survive in the ghetto of private Christian devotion. Much if not all of it is public truth, accessible to reason alone. Do some of these Christians actually believe that the decisions of the secular state about what constitutes a family has no impact upon how ordinary people think about their sexuality? Do you actually think you will be able to convert most of the world, to convince them of the way Jesus intends us to live, if every cultural institution remains against us? No; the West was a Christian society, because we transformed it from the inside. And it wasn't simply Christian dominance in the proper sense; it was the harmony of right reason, and revealed truth.
Let me summarize: the idea that we should pay no attention to the secular kingdoms of the earth, and to the values they espouse, while we attempt to save souls from within our enclaves, is utter and complete foolishness.
You might have to endure the sting of being called a bigot, and just stand there and take it. If we have the truth, why are we afraid of it?
Such an idea is not completely without foundation, but sooner or later, we come back to the truth about human sexuality, the purposes of our reproductive system, and the limits of self-definition. There is no way that the truth of an authentic human anthropology will survive in the ghetto of private Christian devotion. Much if not all of it is public truth, accessible to reason alone. Do some of these Christians actually believe that the decisions of the secular state about what constitutes a family has no impact upon how ordinary people think about their sexuality? Do you actually think you will be able to convert most of the world, to convince them of the way Jesus intends us to live, if every cultural institution remains against us? No; the West was a Christian society, because we transformed it from the inside. And it wasn't simply Christian dominance in the proper sense; it was the harmony of right reason, and revealed truth.
Let me summarize: the idea that we should pay no attention to the secular kingdoms of the earth, and to the values they espouse, while we attempt to save souls from within our enclaves, is utter and complete foolishness.
You might have to endure the sting of being called a bigot, and just stand there and take it. If we have the truth, why are we afraid of it?
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