Pages

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Fighting the culture wars with one hand tied behind your back


One handicap which many Christian culture warriors experience is that we pull our punches. We win the argument, but we lose the debate because we're afraid to correct the narrative since that would require us to get very graphic. 
There's this "love wins" meme that credulous supporters of SSM keep touting. But it's very naive to think that alternate sexual lifestyles center on love. 
Take sadomasochism. I recently posted a comment by Richard Carrier extolling sadomasochism. How many "progressive Christians" are even aware of that, except as an abstraction? 
People like Robert George and Ryan Anderson have these very high-minded discussions of SSM, and up to a point that's a good thing. But by never delving into the sordid details of alternate sexual lifestyles, like domestic violence, sadomasochism, and the medical conditions, it allows the "love wins" meme to go unchallenged. 
This is a dilemma at two levels. To begin with, a lot of Christians don't know much about alternate sexual lifestyles. And that's generally a good thing. Obviously, you shouldn't immerse yourself in that material. 
In addition, even if you do run across it, there's a natural inhibition about describing it. But if we avoid that altogether, we let the other side define itself. 
So we need to strike a balance. It's like the study of the occult. For instance, there's a difference between reading literature about the occult and reading occult literature. I've read things about Aleister Crowley, but I've never read Aleister Crowley. I've read things about the Marquis de Sade, but I've never read the Marquis de Sade. I've heard of slasher films like the Saw series, but I haven't seen it.
There are clearly things we need to avoid experiencing firsthand. If you dip into that world, it contaminates the imagination.
We need to know enough and say enough about homosexuality, polyamory, &c., to correct the Disney world propaganda. 

2 comments:

  1. Can you point us to reliable statistics on homosexual practices?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are public health organizations that document that sort of thing. Some of them are general, like the CDC. Some are specifically LGBT sites. Anyone can do a Google search.

      Delete