Dr. Michael Rucker - Polarized, Paralyzed, and Politicized: An Awakening for Christians and Non-Christians

Chapter 1

Polarization of Christians and Non-Christians Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

There are several issues or preferences our culture provides, which polarize Christians and non-Christians. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is promoting the Equality Act, now in Congress, to enshrine sexual orientation and gender identity (or SOGI) ideologies/policies to place sexual orientation and gender identity on par with race and religion as protected classes under the Civil Rights Act. The ramifications, if enshrined into law, would impact schools, libraries, public and private restrooms, homeless shelters, and havens for victims of abuse. Such social pressure would apply to all individuals and businesses and further divide believers from nonbelievers, also dividing believers among believers and nonbelievers among nonbelievers. Social and corporate professionals would lose the ability to live out their faith in their work. Christian organizations that provide public services, like foster care facilities and adoption agencies, would be forced to choose between their convictions and their existence. This type of social pressure can leverage political bodies to take legal action against individuals who refuse to advocate for and/or accept LGBTQ equalities ( Prophecy News Watch [ PNW ] February 24, 2020).

Additionally, in America, same-sex marriage is recognized by the federal government and has been legalized in thirty-six US states. These states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, including the Washington, DC, and twenty-two Native American tribal jurisdictions. More than 70 percent of the population live in jurisdictions where same-sex couples can legally marry.

Findings from Public Religion Research Institutes (PRRI) American Values Atlas , which drew on forty thousand interviews among a random sample of Americans, provided an in-depth portrait of attitudes on same-sex marriage by religious affiliation. They reported that most supportive major religious groups of same-sex marriage are Buddhists (84 percent), Jews (77 percent), and Americans who select Other religion (75 percent); additionally, more than three quarters (77 percent) of the religiously unaffiliated also support same-sex marriage. More than six in ten (62 percent) White mainline Protestants support same-sex marriage. Among White mainline Protestant denominations, support ranges from 69 percent support among White mainline Presbyterians and 68 percent among both White Episcopalians and White Congregationalists / United Church of Christ members, to lower support among White mainline Baptists (53 percent) and White mainline Church of Christ / Disciples (50 percent). And while the Catholic Church officially opposes the legalization of same-sex marriage, about six in ten White (61 percent), Hispanic (60 percent), and other non-White Catholics (60 percent) support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. A majority of Orthodox Christians (56 percent) also support same-sex marriage.

On the other side of the debate, majorities of Jehovahs Witnesses (75 percent), Mormons (68 percent), White evangelical Protestants (66 percent), Hispanic Protestants (58 percent), and Black Protestants (54 percent) oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. Among White evangelical Protestant denominations, White evangelical Baptists are the most opposed (72 percent) while White evangelical Lutherans are nearly evenly divided (45 percent favor, 48 percent opposed). Among all religiously affiliated Americans, 47 percent favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, compared to 45 percent who oppose. Support among all religious Americans has jumped nearly 20 percentage points, up from 28 percent in 2003.

The law was not meant for the righteous but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and irreverentfor the sexually immoral and homosexualsfor whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms the gospel. Thus, we should not condone those behaviors or demonize, mistreat or abuse same-sex couples/marriages and LGBTQ, but must show them the love of God, which has the power to change their hearts, minds, and behavior. John 15:12 tells us to love one another as Christ loved us. As Christians, we must passionately, righteously, responsibly, and sacrificially seek the well-being of others. By this, they will know we are Christians by our love.

Abortion

Another polarizing issue is abortion / Planned Parenthood. In the December 1921 issue of PNW , Womens Rights Activist and Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, stated, The feeble-minded and physically and mentally unfit should not be allowed to propagate their kind. A comment made in a personal letter in 1939 underscores the racial component of Sangers work: We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. She was an advocate of eugenics (i.e., controlled selective breeding of human populations). Sangers eugenic legacy lives on today at Planned Parenthood, the nations largest abortion provider. Nearly 80 percent of Planned Parenthoods facilities are within walking distance of minority communities. According to the latest census data, just over 12 percent of the US population is African American, and yet over 30 percent of abortions were committed on Black babies. Thus, as Christians and non-Christians reflect on the present conversation surrounding eugenics, we must always remember the history and legacy of this harmful ideology, one steeped in a worldview that fundamentally denies the dignity of entire groups of people based on the presence or absence of secondary or superficial characteristics. Such a worldview is fundamentally incompatible with a Christian worldview, which declares that all peopleborn and unborn, abled and disabled, desirable or undesirable, etc.are made in Gods image, possess inherent value, and deserve respect.

Roe v. Wade has polarized Christians and non-Christians to this day.

In a 2019 survey, most Americans (70 percent) who said they oppose overturning Roe v. Wade are much more likely to say they want the high court to completely overturn Roe v. Wade than the Catholics (28 percent), White Protestants who are not evangelical (26 percent), and religious nones (10 percent).

Before the 2016 presidential election, 65 percent of US registered voters said that Supreme Court appointments were very important to their vote, a higher share than those who said this about trade policy (57 percent) and the environment (52 percent) but a lower share than those who cited the economy (84 percent) and terrorism (80 percent). Registered voters in many religious groups mentioned Supreme Court nominations as a top-voting issue, including 70 percent of White evangelical Protestants, 66 percent of Catholics, 61 percent of White Protestants who are not evangelical, and 58 percent of religious nones. Supreme Court appointments also mattered to a majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters (70 percent), as well as to Democrats and Democratic leaners (62 percent). A substantial minority (40 percent) says abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, and within some US denominations and religious groups, this figure is much higher. Most Jehovahs Witnesses (75 percent) and Mormons (70 percent) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the 2014 Religious Landscape Study, a survey of more than thirty-five thousand Americans in all fifty states. The same holds true for members of some evangelical churches, including the Pentecostal denominations Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) (77 percent) and Assemblies of God (71 percent), as well as Americas largest evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (66 percent). Nearly twice as many say they oppose legal abortion as support it (63 percent to 33 percent).