"Progress," they call it. They even term an ideology "progressive" and those who follow it "progressives." Because we're progressing ... right? Or, are we?
Throughout the entire history of mankind from beginning to the 21st century we always knew what marriage was. We varied in its outworking, its modes, its rules, but we never varied in its basic definition: A man and a woman joined for life for the purposes of mutual support and for procreation. Some cultures embraced marriage in multiples -- we call it polygamy -- but even in a polygamous society if one man and one woman are married, they're married. Even in polygamous societies the man only married one woman; the "wives" (plural) never married each other. Marriage has always been the same thing. Enter "progress." In a push for "marriage equity," our "progressive" society did not redefine it; they undefined it. It is now some vague "two of us" for unclear purposes and no definition of why only two. By golly, that's progress. No. It's not even regress. We aren't going backward. We've left the road entirely.
There has never been any question about the sexes. In 1946's Annie Get Your Gun Ethel Merman sings Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, a song about how you can get along in life without serious schooling. One example in the song says, "My little baby brother, who's never read a book, knows one sex from the other, all he had to do was look." You'd think. All of human history and science prior to the 21st century has been certain that "binary gender" is a biological fact. Couldn't get around it. What idiot would think otherwise? There are things that only males do and there are things that only females do and never the twain shall meet. But we've progressed since then. We've figured out that men can be women and women men and there is a spectrum -- a movable one -- in which humans can move. So we've progressed to 50+ genders that make no sense and can't be backed by actual science and don't even actually work out in everyday life. While no male-to-female transgender has ever been able to get pregnant and no female-to-male transgender has ever been able to impregnate (just a couple of biological functions unique to the two genders), we're pretty sure that they are not set and you can be whatever you feel like. Oh, in gender, of course. Not race or anything else. And if you decide you were born one gender and are actually another, you are never allowed to change your mind and say you were wrong. That's "progress."
They tell me we're getting better. I heard it just the other day. Better education, better healthcare, more women empowered (this was the list they actually gave me). Better. We do it at the cost of rationality. We do it by denying fundamental biology, by denying basic definitions that have existed since the beginning of time, by ignoring basic ideas. For instance, America was founded on the premise that people had the right to the free exercise of their religious beliefs and the government didn't get to tell them what to believe. It was foundational. It was the primary reason why many of those who first came to this continent came at all. When it wasn't addressed in the Constitution, they made sure it was addressed in the Bill of Rights because it was important. To them. Not to us. We've transitioned from "free exercise of religion" to "separation of Church and State" (not contained anywhere in our Constitution or Bill of Rights) to "limited exercise of religion" to being arrested and fined for exercising that right. This is "progress." Deconstructing marriage and family is "progress". Denying basic biology and embracing a "feel like it" biology is "progress".
And we're not done. We're moving farther away. We're moving away from the religious moorings, the economic principles, the basic concept of God-given rights. We're moving without braking or correction. We're not getting better.
13 comments:
The progressive movement is based on false premises.
First that “progress” is always a good, positive thing.
Second, that human nature is fundamentally good and that progress is always based on this fundamental goodness getting better.
Third, that better is something that can be objectively measured and achieved.
Like so many things the gender dilemma is more theoretical than real. Or at least it’s only real when in benefits the narrative being advanced.
Science is s wonderful friend, until it doesn’t support your agenda, then it just gets ignored.
Frankly, most of what progressives claim to want (if not all) are not progressive at all, but poorly rehashed proposals of that which has failed repeatedly throughout history. There's certainly nothing progressive about abortion or the sexually immoral practices they champion. Those things have been around since ancient times. "Progressive" taxation is just theft. More government is socialism.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't your point that progress doesn't equal better and that sometimes equals worse?
Certainly no one is suggesting that we are not better off today than we were a hundred years ago, but just because that's true doesn't mean that everything that has progressed is beneficial.
It also seems like there is an Kingdom perspective to this. Anything that has changed that violates Gods standards would (by definition) not be progress, correct?
It seems as though any defense of "progress" hinges on a flawed view of humanity as intrinsically good, and humanity having a predisposition towards good that seems contrary to what scripture tells us. It also seems that any attempt to tie the progressive political philosophy to the improvement in many areas of existence is a false equivalency.
The example that seems relevant to this is the fact that rates of teen sexual activity and pregnancy have been dropping lately. The reason for this appears to be the fact that screens have replaced human contact. Why go try to persuade a girl to have sex with you, when you can sit in your parents basement and watch porn on your iphone? Whole this recent situation might represent some sort of "progress", I'm not sure that it really does.
It seems as if this is one more area where folx are trying to place themselves in the position of God and to decide what is good and what is evil.
As you said, Craig, it is a mistake to believe that "'better' is something that can be objectively measured and achieved." We are not good as a race at determining either "beneficial" or "harmful". We know this, given our own common term, "unexpected consequences." It can be argued that we're "better off today than 100 years ago because we can harvest crops more efficiently," but the other side argues, "That efficient harvesting of crops is causing all sorts of damage to the environment," so who's right?
So, yes, that's what I'm saying. "Progress" is not always "better," and "better" is not defined in terms of what we call "progress." God gets to decide what "good" is (and, therefore, what "better" is). Not us. And to the extent that we do not align with God's version of "good", we are not "better," regardless of our social norms and improved technology.
I do think that part of the problem is reducing “better” to something that is divorced from the source of what is good. Clearly there really isn’t much room to improve “Thou shall not murdet.”, but I’m guessing some folx would argue otherwise.
If God is good, then better should be moving closer to a God.
One further problem is that the folx who we hear talk about this the most are coming from a presumption that better is defined by western culture. We clearly have clashes between cultures who hold that their position is better. On the one side it seems better if people aren’t killed for their sexual activities, yet a significant portion of the world would suggest that sex outside of certain rigid parameters should be punished with death. They’d argue that such was good. Absent on objective standard of good and evil, we have no clear way to determine better.
Whether folk are honest about this or not, what is being proposed is essentially “We can improve on what God created and ordained.”.
Lastly, this notion that Christian conservatives want to impose anything is absolutely ridiculous. Sure Islam is built on “convert or die”, but the very nature of following Jesus precludes force, coercion, or imposition. An unwilling follower of Jesus is not a follower of Jesus.
I’d also add this wisdom from TobyMac, “I don’t want to gain the whole world and lose my soul.”. That’s what the Faustian bargain seems to be. Trade “progress” for your soul.
Yes, Craig, even the wisdom from TobyMac (who, of course, got it from Someone else).
Yet, it’s still good wisdom and probably won’t be supplanted by something better.
I think it's important to acknowledge that the term better is being used in a couple of ways in this context. The first, which is not controversial, is to simply compare one state of being to another. The second is more the sense that following Jesus is a better option than not. It's not so much a comparison, or based on utility, as it is on the premise that if Jesus is God, and He wants what's best for His kingdom, then following Him is orders of magnitude better than anything else. Or it's like saying believing the Truth is better than believing a lie.
I don't think anyone disagrees that conditions are superficially better, than they were a hundred years ago, but at what cost? Is this progress worth our souls?
It's ironic that much of the progress that the (secular, liberal, socialist leaning) political progressives crow about is because of Christians and capitalism, two things they're not fond of.
The critical aspect of "better" is the standard by which it is measured. Let's see if I can illustrate. A person who cleans houses works hard. Then they discover a new device that will clean the house for them. Now they've "progressed" and things are "better" because they have more leisure time. But are they really? This person becomes lazy, their health declines, they become obese, die of a heart attack ... that kind of thing. The labor-saving device was "progress" in that it changed the way they worked and made things easier, but "better" is harder to define. That's a silly example. Imagine more current and real ones like "the Sexual Revolution" and "Women's Liberation" and the emasculation of men that are "progress" in the perception that things have changed ... moved on ... but not necessarily gotten better. The question is answered by the standard of "better" that is applied.
You’re exactly right. If only God is good, then progress towards anything but God is by definition not better.
The classic example is when “modern” farm equipment is introduced into 3rd world agriculture situations and it costs people jobs.
As I pointed out with my earlier illustration, “better” can end up being worse. Especially when you consider the mental health ramifications from addiction to screens.
I just saw something posted that men are drifting away from marriage because “women aren’t women anymore “. Given the person who posted it, I’m pretty sure this isn’t from a Christian/Conservative point of view. I’ll post it somewhere.
As long as the assumption is that progress (with no goal) usually means better, we’ll see that in many cases the opposite might be true.
If the goal is "I will be like the Most High" and "What I want", then I suppose the assumption is those are "better" and we are seeing "progress."
I know it’s repetitive, but those two quotes encompass pretty much all sin. Yet some folx totally buy into it. Unfortunately, some christians.
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