You may have heard the term “postmodern” and wondered just what exactly was meant by the word.  “Post” means “after” and when coupled with the word “modern” refers to a time and manner of thinking that comes after the modern era. It is the time many say we are living in.

This time we live in has generated a generally skeptical perspective of any subject you can imagine: literature, the arts, politics, and even religion. Truth is not objective, but is the subjective interpretation of one’s own experiences and circumstances. The postmodernist questions those things traditionally thought to be true.

This way of thinking appeals to the rugged individualism of Americans, we revel in being free to choose what we do, what we think, and what we believe. The postmodern viewpoint is intoxicating; it is exhilarating to be free.  We like this godlike ability to choose.

It may surprise some to know this mindset is not modern at all, much less postmodern. It has been around for at least two millennia, actually longer. You see ultimate, universal truth is something man may deny, but has deep down yearned to know, and he has instinctively searched for it through the ages.

When Jesus stood before Pilate to be tried, Pilate questioned Him. In response to one of Pilate’s questions Jesus said, in part, “I have come into the world, to testify to the truth,” John 18:37. Pilate responded, “What is truth?”

You see, when we embrace the skepticism that truth does not exist, it generates a pessimism that it cannot be found and we abandon the search. We then live as we please, but soon discover a truth we cannot deny, our choices have consequences. The consequences of our choices not only affect us, but they affect others around us with the greatest impact being on our family and friends, those closest to us.

So then we ask ourselves if the search for truth was abandoned too soon. Is there some objective, transcendent truth on which our decisions can be based? If we are going to have to live with the consequences of our decisions, is there a better way of making them, a greater truth, a better life? Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me,” John 14:6.

You have the freedom to choose, but you will never be free from the consequences of your choices, either in this life or the next. I do not know if Pilate was parroting the philosophy of his day, was simply skeptical, or had found truth to be elusive. You may feel the way he did. All I know is when he asked, “What is truth,” he failed to see it was the Man who stood before him.

Have you abandoned the search for truth too soon?

This past July I turned 70 years old. In my short life I have witnessed cultural changes that distress the righteous soul. Typically my articles address the many events occurring in our nation from a biblical perspective. But not this week, as we looking forward to Thanksgiving this year I wanted to take time to share some things for which I am thankful.

My wife and I are retired and are very blessed. All of our material needs are well met and we live in a rural community and enjoy a slow paced, bucolic lifestyle. We live on five acres and my wife can garden as much as she wants, and I can read and study my Bible to my heart’s content and my prayer life is growing. I am grateful for this.

One would have to be a recluse to not know our world is racked with conflict. As Jesus predicted there are “wars and rumors of wars,” something at the moment from which I am spared. As a Vietnam veteran I have experienced war firsthand and to live in peace when surrounded by so much turmoil, I am thankful.

I am thankful for all of these things, but they are not what I am most thankful for.

I turned 8 during the summer of 1960. Though I do not remember the specific date, during a Sunday morning service I became convicted of my sin and need for a Savior. My mother took me to meet with our pastor, Rev. Hugh Walters, before the Sunday evening service. After counseling with me brother Walters said if I was serious about trusting Christ I should come forward during the closing invitation.

I remember purposely sitting next to the center aisle to be ready when the time came. When the congregation began to sing the invitation hymn there was a struggle in my young heart. Fear of walking to the front of the auditorium and confessing I was a sinner in front of so many adults was intimidating.

But I remember reasoning within my heart and mind that I did not want to go to hell because I was afraid of what others thought whoever they were. As I stepped into the aisle something happened that to this day I cannot fully explain. The Holy Spirit met my step of faith and I experienced what theologians call regeneration, and Jesus called being born again.

I thank God for my salvation and knowing my future is secure in Christ. We do indeed live in troubled times, but my heart during this thanksgiving season echoes the words of another who lived during troubled times:

“Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength,” Habakkuk 3:17-19a.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

There is a new documentary soon to be released titled, “1946, The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture,” and supposedly questions the introduction of the word “homosexual” in biblical translations. The documentary says the use of the word “homosexual” in modern translations is a mistranslation.

There are two criticisms levied against the use of “homosexual” in the Scriptures. The first questions the integrity of the Scriptures because of several millennia of transcription and translation; how do we know what was written then is what we read now?

It is a perennial attack on the Scriptures and has been addressed repeatedly for its lack of any genuine substance, and I wrote about in an article titled “Providential Preservation” dated August 6 of this year and archived on my blog. I will not waste the reader’s time by repeating that point again.

The other issue regards the use of the word “homosexual” as a mistranslation of the Greek text. And that according to this documentary has created a “Biblical assertion that homosexuality is a sin—the catalyst for an entire shift in culture, with political repercussions, religious implications, consequences for LGBT rights and acceptance, and, frankly, deadly results.”

I disagree with the idea the Bible has been mistranslated. I believe the LGBTQ community misinterprets the Scriptures to justify their sinful lifestyle, and that misinterpretation has indeed created a catalyst for an entire shift in culture, with political repercussions, religious implications, and consequences with deadly results.

I use the New American Standard Bible (1995), which if you ‘Google’ it is considered by scholars to be the most accurate English translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts. It translates the Greek plural word that appears in First Corinthians 6:9 and First Timothy 1:10, ἀρσενοκοίτης, transliterated into English as arsenokoítēs, with the plural English word homosexuals.

The majority of modern translation teams translate these two verses with similar terminology, such as, them that defile themselves with mankind (a man who defiles himself sexually with another man), sodomites, the practice of homosexuality, those practicing homosexuality, men who practice homosexuality, and sexually immoral and homosexuals. Clearly a host of translation teams interpret the Greek text as a denunciation of homosexuality.

There are more than 100 English translations of the Bible. Every modern English version or translation that is credible is accomplished by a team of translators familiar with ancient languages and linguistics. Their claim is based on one translation team’s assertion that the Greek text is mistranslated when the word homosexual appears in any version of the English Bible, that is ridiculous. Every other translation team is wrong and theirs is right.

I went to an online modern Greek to English translator and cut and pasted the Greek word, ἀρσενοκοίτης, into the translator. The translator said the English equivalent of this Greek word is “queer.” In English the word queer means “strange; odd,” and “denoting or relating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms.” This means the etymology of the modern Greek word for queer had not changed from its ancient origin.

Those who embrace and agree with the homosexual lifestyle are ever seeking to justify their homosexuality. They misinterpret the clear meaning of Scripture and subsequently misapply the Scriptures’ teaching. They seek to change what the Scriptures say to accommodate their sin, rather than repenting and trusting Christ to comply with the Scriptures.

Moses warned, “You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you,” Deuteronomy 4:2, and is repeated by John, “and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book,” Revelation 22:19.

Nicolas Cruz, the gunman in the Marjory Stoneman High School massacre in 2018, had his life spared by the jurors who sentenced him to life in prison. In the sentencing phase of a capital case in Florida the jury most vote unanimously for a murderer to be sentenced to death. Three of the twelve jurors refused to return a death sentence.

This very real murderous rampage and the trial that came to a close four years later has brought into specific relief the tension that exist between the biblical principles of justice and forgiveness.

Those family members whose children and loved ones were among the 17 victims who were murdered that day were outraged and felt they had been victimized by the criminal justice system. When the victims’ family members were given the opportunity to address Cruz at the close of the trial several delivered bitter invectives. One said, “I hope your ever-breathing moment here on Earth is miserable, … burn in hell.”

Such acrimony is in one sense understandable, but it is unpleasant to witness. I think it is unpleasant to witness because such unbridled hatred is as much a reflection of man’s depravity as murder is. If words could kill, Nicolas Cruz would have died that day.

Many of those who spoke were equally unsparing in their contempt and condemnation of the attorneys on Cruz’ defense team. They believed the defense team collaborated to deny them the justice of the death penalty.

From what I have read, America probably has one of the finest criminal justice systems in the world, but it is not perfect. I worked for the Florida Department of Corrections for 26 years. I was a chaplain when I retired, but I did serve a stint as a sergeant on death row at Union Correctional Institution, in Raiford, Florida.

One of the inmates I supervised while there was Gary Alvord. Alvord served the longest time on death row of any inmate in America. He was on death row for 39 years before dying of a brain tumor. An inmate on death row is more likely to die from old age or an illness before being executed. While it may have been emotionally satisfying for Cruz to have been sentenced to death there is the distinct possibility he would have never died on the gurney.

There came a time in the history of man that “the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” Genesis 6:5. This is an accurate description of a society completely corrupted by the absence of law and order. It was this cultural climate that precipitated the flood.

Emerging from the ark Noah and his family were tasked with repopulating the earth and restoring the civilization that had succumbed to anarchy. To do that God gave mankind its first law, “Whoever shed’s man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man,” Genesis 9:6.

If mankind were to survive as a civilized society, it would only be possible established on a sense of right and wrong founded on the principle of justice. So the Father took the most serious of human offenses, murder, to lay a foundation of justice from which all other lesser offenses could be patterned (a just penalty commensurate to the offense).

God’s reasoning is when a man takes another man’s life without justification; he is destroying the image of God in another person needlessly, and justly forfeits the right to continue bearing that image himself. And He tasked mankind with the prosecution of justice, “by man his blood shall be shed.”

God initiated capital punishment as a just penalty when a man murders another. That is clear from the wording of Genesis 6:9. God did not institute the death penalty as a deterrent; He did so to establish societal justice.

If society forsakes the practice of justice we may find ourselves sliding down a very slippery slope to the precipice of anarchy. Nothing so inclines people to take the law into their own hands as a legal system that refuses to administer justice.

Forgiveness addresses different issues and has a different purpose. Jesus tells us to forgive so we will be free of the bitterness and vengeance that can consume us, thwarting His purpose for each of us.  Forgiveness emulates the example of our Lord who on the cross died to forgive all. Forgiving those who have wronged us frees us from the revenge and vindictiveness that can consume us and keep us from following Him and doing His bidding.

Sadly, it is my experience that only those who have found forgiveness in Christ can manage to forgive others, especially in such difficult circumstances. We are enjoined, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions,” Matthew 11:25.

Society has a responsibility to pursue justice to preserve the welfare of society, individuals are told to forgive to preserve our relationship with God.

I wrote about the Supreme Court case won by Coach Joseph Kennedy back in July (July 16, 2022). He is back in the news; after winning his case he is to be reinstated to his former position with the Bremerton School District by March of 2023.

To reacquaint my readers with the case, Kennedy “lost his job as a high school football coach in the Bremerton School District after he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet personal prayer.” Though no student was required to pray with him, some did, and the school district thought his praying might be viewed as “passive coercion,” (Passive coercion is an oxymoron; there is nothing passive about coercion) and a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

At least one recent article said the Court’s decision in the Kennedy case was a “game-changer” when it came to school prayer, but that is because the ruling in Abington v. Schempp taking prayer and Bible reading out of public schools has been misunderstood.

Abington v. Schempp’s basic ruling was that a government employee, such as a school teacher, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment if they led public school students, who are minors, in prayer or Bible reading. There was no language in that 1963 decision that prevented a teacher on their own time, such as a planning period, or a student on their own time, such as a study hall, from their right to the Free Exercise of their religion, such as prayer or Bible reading.

One of my daughters called me and said my granddaughter had been asked by a classmate something about Jesus and my granddaughter was answering her question when the teacher told her she could not talk about religion in class. I told my daughter that was not true; students are at liberty to discuss religion as long as it does not interfere with classroom instruction.

In one sense, I applaud the decision of the Court to allow Coach Kennedy the right to pray. Students on either sideline and parents were free to join or not to join with him in what Justice Neil Gorsuch in his majority opinion characterized as “quiet personal prayer.” This was not a game-changer in school prayer. This decision allows a government employee the same right to exercise his freedom of religion appropriately as any other citizen is allowed.

In another sense, I am concerned. Why did Coach Kennedy feel the need to pray at midfield, why the need for ostentation? Why did he need to publicly challenge the Bremerton School District’s order?

Jesus clearly enjoined us, “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you,” Matthew 6:5-6.

I pray Coach Kennedy’s heart and prayer were in the right place, meaning his attitude was to offer heartfelt prayer to God on behalf of all involved, and not to merely challenge or humiliate the school district. I simply want to remind us as believers, we prevail on a higher plane when we take our petitions before the real Supreme Court as Daniel did. It does not convene down here.