Open Theism

Anti-Christian Discrimination? It's Getting Hot Out There
by Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr.
October 16, 2003

A poster on the wall of my high school psychology class read: "Just Because You're Paranoid doesn't Mean They're Not All Out to Get You." It is beginning to feel that way in post-Christian America.

Out of Whatcom County, Washington comes a report of a man who was turned down as a mentor in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program because of his Christian moral standards. Dan Pritchett works for a company that makes Bible software and, as a matter of Christian responsibility, wanted to mentor a needy child in the Big Brothers program. He says he was turned down because of his moral principles. [see Family News in Focus]

As would be expected, candidates for the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor program are required to undergo an interview. In the course of his interview, Pritchett reported that he abstains from premarital sex and holds to biblical sexual morality. Evidently, this makes him unacceptable for the Big Brothers program.

Pritchett said: "They gave me the impression that they were looking for mentors with low morals. If my morals are too high, the alternative would be lower morals." Well, that would make moral sense to everyone but those who are inverting morality to stand on its head.

The Big Brothers Big Sisters organization has been in the news lately because of its decision not to discriminate against homosexuals as mentors for children involved in the program. As a matter of fact, parents of boys are not even to be told of the sexual orientation of their son's proposed mentor.

Christian leaders including Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family have called for a boycott against Big Brothers Big Sisters of America [BBBSA] due to the organization's surrender to the homosexual agenda. In response to the BBBSA decision, the Family Research Council issued a statement with a straightforward warning: "Exposing vulnerable and impressionable young boys to homosexuality, not to mention the risks of potential abuse, is simply unconscionable."

The Whatcom County Big Brothers Big Sisters organization refused to comment about the particulars of this case, but did say that the organization looks for persons of high morality. It would certainly appear that the problem is the organization's definition of morality.

Of course, it's not just the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America organization that is discriminating against Christians at the demand of the homosexual movement. California Governor Gray Davis signed a bill earlier this year that requires foster parents in that state to encourage and promote homosexuality, trans-sexuality, and cross-dressing to children received for their care. Randy Thomasson of Campaign for California Families says that this new law will prevent conservative Christians from being foster parents. "This bill goes against Christians. Christians are going to drop out of foster care, or not sign up in the first place, because they are not going to allow the state to invade their home with sexual indoctrination."

In San Francisco, Superior Court judges are now saddled with a policy that prohibits judges from membership in any organization that "discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation by excluding members on the grounds that their sexual orientation renders them unclean, immoral, or unfit." The San Francisco policy appears to be directed primarily at the Boy Scouts of America and that organization's policy of excluding homosexuals from serving as scoutmasters.

Of course, most Americans would consider any organization that would allow homosexuals direct access to young boys in the intimate context of camping and other activities to be out of its mind and irresponsible. Here again we see morality turned on its head. According to this policy of the San Francisco Superior Court, those who believe homosexuality is wrong are now silenced or excluded. Those who will serve the homosexual agenda are considered to be the paragons of virtue.

A closer look at the San Francisco policy would imply that judges cannot be members of Roman Catholic or evangelical churches--for those also discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and consider all homosexual activity to be immoral. Whatever happened to the First Amendment? Of course, the policy is probably not intended to cover churches--at least not yet.

According to other reports, homosexual activists are now pressing for the San Francisco policy to be extended to the entire state. David Limbaugh comments: "In the name of tolerance, the groups seek to deny the constitutional right of California judges to associate with groups whose policies reflect values with which they disagree."

The attack on the Boy Scouts of America also continues from coast to coast. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are now filing lawsuits against the Boy Scouts on a regular basis. The Scouts' narrow victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 did not put the matter to rest. Homosexual activists will not rest until the Boy Scouts of America joins the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America organization in allowing homosexuals full access to children through these programs.

Most homosexuals are not child abusers. Homosexual activists claim that concern about homosexual men working with boys is misplaced and prejudicial. But one need not argue that every homosexual scoutmaster would sexually molest boys to understand that the situation is fraught with danger. In reality, it is a form of moral insanity. These same persons would surely be in an uproar if a man demanded to be allowed to lead a Girl Scout troop on a camping trip.

The homosexual agenda has pressed its advance with record speed. What they have not yet won in the courts, they seek to win in the court of public opinion. Their public relations strategy is obvious to all who will open their eyes. The homosexual movement intends to press those who hold to a biblical sexual morality into the stereotype of an extremist and hate-monger. They will use any method available to get public attention and press their case.

This is yet another reminder that the church is the last island of moral sanity in the midst of post-Christian America. Christians may soon be prevented from participation in many dimensions of our cultural life. Christianity is the great resistance movement against the moral collapse of the age. Holding to the sexual morality revealed in the Bible, Christians are now a cognitive minority, for the church cannot accept the inverted morality of the postmodern age.

We are now living in a world in which the cultural elite, the courts, and the entertainment industry, are convinced that homophobia is a sin and homosexuality is fully legitimate. Those who hold to the biblical model of marriage and sex are considered to be threats to the regime of moral relativism and sexual libertinism.

Christians in this generation had better wake up fast to the realization that we must construct an alternative culture where biblical morality is prized and God's truth is obeyed. Unless the tide is turned, the likelihood is that we will lose most if not all of the critical fronts in the culture war over time. This will effectively determine the shape of the culture in which we live. But the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is called to be a culture unto itself, even as it addresses the world with the gospel.

The church may be the last refuge of moral sanity and we may be the last people on earth who understand why a homosexual man should not be allowed to mentor boys and why foster parents should not be required to have their children indoctrinated in the homosexual agenda.

This leaves the church with the inescapable responsibility of teaching the comprehensive revelation of God found in Holy Scripture and applying God's Word to every dimension of life. At the same time, love and concern for those who are threatened by these new policies require that we do everything within our power to call the culture back to its moral senses.

What the church needs at this hour is not a retreat into paranoia, but an eyes-open boldness of confrontation. That's not to suggest that they're not out to get us.