In 1975 my
family was moving from Hawaii to Missouri.
The car still had Hawaii license plates.
On our drive from California to Missouri, we went through Oklahoma. My dad was driving more than 55, which at the
time was the national speed limit and he was pulled over by an Oklahoma state
trooper whose last name was Tremble. I
remember that episode because Trooper Tremble reminded my dad that the speed
limit “here in the United States is 55”
then let him go with a warning after my dad explained our move to
Missouri because of his military obligations.
My sisters and I had a good laugh at the Trooper’s expense, although
given that Hawaii had been a state for less than twenty years, perhaps the
Trooper could be forgiven his faux pas.
Our
constitution is now over 200 years old.
The First Amendment’s religious liberty clause was part of the original
ten amendments which were spawned by a fear that the national government might
get too powerful and trample on people’s liberties. Yet, like Trooper Tremble, it seems that many
“here in the United States” have forgotten their history. All across the country religious liberty, and liberty generally, is
falling on hard times.
At this
point, any effort, no matter how timid, or even sensible, to protect matters of
religious conscience, particularly Christian religious conscience, is seen as
not simply morally suspect, but morally evil.
The states of Mississippi, North Carolina and Georgia have all dealt
recently with national attention for efforts to protect religious liberty in
various ways. I haven’t read the
specific legislation in any of these states and my point here isn’t to defend
or condemn the specific statutes in question, nor to defend or condemn those on
either side of these statutes. What I
want to address is the incredibly ironic lack of compassion amongst those who
now seem to be engaged in a “to the victor goes the spoils” mentality of social
justice. Beware of pressing too hard, or
you may just find you have seriously overplayed your hand.
You see,
religious liberty isn’t the only liberty protected by the first ten amendments
to our constitution. Right now, the
LGBTQ crowd and its adherents are pushing their advantage as far as
possible. Having couched any objection
to their goals and their lifestyle as bigotry and hatred, they have won the
public relations war and successfully vilified Christians who read the Bible to
say that such behavior falls outside that which God permits. As a result, Coke, Disney and the NFL pressured
the Georgia governor to veto a recent religious liberty bill. Pay Pal won’t set up shop in North Carolina,
and Bruce Springsteen and others have cancelled recent concerts there (oh, the
agony, the pain, the vital loss of moral and spiritual elevation that surely
accompanies the missing of a Bruce Springsteen concert) because of a recently passed North Carolina
law. Mississippi is suffering similar derision for a law passed there.
So the
LGBTQ crowd march onward and forward, oblivious of the precedent they are
setting. If you can so easily and
quickly manipulate the public into vilifying Christian beliefs, who’s to say
you aren’t next? What if some other group
comes along and determines that it is you who need a moral kick in the
pants? Unfortunately for you, you’ve
done your job too well and now, instead of showing some restraint, you’ve
decided that absolute destruction is the only acceptable goal to Christian
beliefs about your behavior. In trying
to crush Christian resistance, you are setting a precedent that liberty as
defined by the Constitution no longer matters.
We are free to ignore the wording of the Constitution in order to get
rid of anything deemed offensive, intolerant or lacking “diversity.” Such a liberty is no liberty at all, since it
really becomes a raw majoritarian determination. If the mob says so, it becomes so. How do you know that the LGBTQ position will
still be deemed acceptable in 10, 20, 30 or 50 years?
More
importantly, if my faith in Christ matters and God is real and there are consequences
to our actions then ultimately crushing Christian “liberty” serves you no
purpose. I remain free because the God
of the universe says so. This freedom
remains unbound by your laws, by your social derision, by your efforts to
malign and crush me. You cannot hurt me
because my fate was sealed 2.000 years ago by a Jewish carpenter-king on a
Roman cross.
But here’s
the problem for you. Trooper Tremble
forgot Hawaii was an actual state. It’s
easy for us to forget even what should be clear in our minds. But when you forget that liberty is precious
and always endangered and you treat it as something to be used to crush your
enemies, then you’ve already lost it. Be
warned, Christians are the least of your worries. In twenty years the Trooper Trembles of the
world might well forget it is bigoted and immoral to despise you. And you will have set the precedent that
liberty is a matter for the mob, not the Constitution. To whom will you turn for help?
Ironically, the only help you will find is from Christians. We'll still love you and still be compassionate towards your plight because such is the nature of what it means to be a Christ follower. Oh, we'll still tell you your lifestyle is wrong, but only after we've commiserated with you and made sure you have something to eat and somewhere to sleep. We'll still treat you well even when your liberty is destroyed and even though you did your best to destroy ours. Will it take such destruction before you see why what you're doing now makes no sense? I hope not.
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