I'm usually very suave with my writing. Even when I read the work of other writers, I notice that I am more taken by pieces that have a poetic, somewhat classic edge compared to pieces that appear to have a more thumping quality about them. If you like, I'm more the Beethoven classicist than the Crank music enthusiast.
This article will not have the typical mien of my writings. When I started penning it down, I tried to maintain that quality, however the issues this article will be addressing leave little room for unwarranted diplomacy.
Perhaps too much diplomacy in addressing the truly critical affairs of our time is what has landed us in the place we find ourselves in now as a generation. Too much of political correctness and too little of calling things as they are have shifted us into a quandary of double standards, low standards and ultimately a lack of standards. As a good friend of mine has often said paraphrasing Professor Walter Kotschnig, "We have become so open-minded that our brains are falling out." Let me quickly say that this article is written for the 21st century believer. The values and sentiments echoed in here will resonate with the truth planted within.
What is a deception? It is a trick or scheme used by one party to get the other to do what they want. The concept of a deception automatically births the idea of a deceiver. In scripture, we are told clearly who the deceiver is.
And the great dragon was thrown down, the age-old serpent who is called the devil and Satan, he who continually deceives and seduces the entire inhabited world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
REVELATION 12:9 AMP
Light and darkness, good and evil... These are not just concepts for marvel blockbusters. The big screen may have made the ideas more theatric, but the reality of the fundamental truth concerning them stands as significant now as it did in the first century AD when the apostles walked the earth.
There is a good God with an agenda for mankind, and there is a devil with an agenda also for mankind. Daily, the items that make the front pages of our newspapers and online news reviews are simply the playing out of either agenda upon the earth.
There are so many deceptions in our generation today, but I'll be touching on a few. This article will actually be a series and there will be at least 2 more instalments to complete it.
1. The Deception of Passivity in Morality.
Passivity is the acceptance of what happens without active response or resistance. Morality has long since been a subject of great debate. From the proponents of utilitarianism and hedonism, to the extremism of Niccolo Machiavelli, the concept of morality has always been a back and forth subject for our "free thinkers".
Perhaps now more than ever, the concept of morality has come under so much scrutiny and critique that majority of us would prefer to remain passive than to take a stance even on issues that scripture is unequivocal concerning. Take a moral stance on an issue today, be forthright about it, and you will be labeled a bigot.
Our society has become flooded by so-called "free thinkers" and brethren who "stay woke". They parade themselves as the non-conformists who have come to shake up the system and break the "power of the man" over our minds. We on the other hand are the sheep who plod around, unable to think for ourselves. We are weak in our minds because we subscribe to moral standards. They say everyone is right, because everyone has rights. Let's let everyone do what they want, as they want because they "feel" a certain way.
It's a slippery slope. We started off with LGBT. Along the line, it became LGBTQI. The most recent one I have come across is LGBTQIA+. People first started off with the sexual orientation argument... Sexual orientation is fluid they said. Why do you want to put people into a box and say to them that one orientation is the right one? They threw around big words like saying it is "arbitrary" to think that way. Then the argument came to gender. Why not? Gender is fluid too. We only take to a certain gender because it is what we have been told. Yes, we the sheep... We have been told by society that we are this gender or that gender, but why must it be so? No, let us decide that though when we need to use a bathroom in a public place, our reproductive organs tell us clearly which room we ought to enter, we feel differently and so we should choose what gender we feel like. Then, another group says, "hey, you guys make a great point! What about age? Age is pretty fluid too once you think about it." Age is a fairly arbitrary concept if you hold it by the same standards as sexual orientation and gender. After all, all our time measurements are solely based on things we observe around us, which are constantly changing. Age has been measured by these things. We should accept it IF a 45 year old man feels that he should actually be a 12 year old girl. We are not staying woke if we dare say this is wrong and that man needs help. It appears as though my argument is entering into a zone of absurdity does it not? Well... Perhaps... But that is exactly what it is: absurd! Then again, by these same arguments, who are we to call one group's claim absurd and the other's valid? Now therefore, Trans-age is a thing too. So, where will we draw the line? Trans-race? Trans-specie?
Then the argument of "but I was born this way, what am I supposed to do about it? Why should I do anything about it?" comes up. You'll find so many of us young believers especially, remaining silent on these issues when they crop up in our university dormitories, work places etc. We have chosen the stance of passivity. The argument of how one was born a certain way being a justification for a lifestyle choice is flawed on so many levels. We have children born with cleft lip, congenital heart anomalies and other anatomical variations. I don't hear anyone say, let's leave these children like that because they were born that way. Just because they were born a certain way does not eliminate the need for intervention to as it were, correct a certain congenital state.
Current scientific research holds the view that psychopaths are born that way. Psychopathy is currently believed to be physiological variation in human behaviour that results from under-development in the part of the brain responsible for impulse control and emotion.
Psychopathy is astonishingly common as mental disorders go. It is twice as common as schizophrenia, anorexia, bipolar disorder, and paranoia, and roughly as common as bulimia, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and narcissism (Kiehl et al, 2011). 16 % of institutionalised (imprisoned or on parole of some sort) males in the United States fit the criteria for psychopathy. Your average rapist, murderer and con artist is most likely a psychopath. He was born that way. Should we leave him also to choose his preferential lifestyle simply because he was born that way? One may argue that we shouldn't because his actions hurt other people. But what if he never hurts anyone... Only harbours the thoughts. Does he still not need any help?
We have to disabuse our minds of this concept that it is okay to behave a certain way or live a certain way simply because one was born that way. That we cannot say a certain lifestyle is wrong simply because a person was born with those tendencies is a fundamentally flawed argument.
People have tried to trivialise the weight of these issues moralists bring up to a matter of a power struggle. They float around the idea that one group has been in control for a long time and fears losing that control. Control for what and of what? What are we using that control for?
These issues of moral truths are critical because to dispense with them is as it were, to remove the seams in the fabric of our society. Alas the garment is already coming apart at the seams as we are obese with pride and pseudo-intellectualism. We are full of ourselves and now that we are at the brim, we can no longer cover our nakedness as we have ripped off the garment of our morality. We are now a spectacle of obscenity. Naked we stand. The worst part; we feel no shame.
Feel like this entire article is just one huge testament of bigotry? Far from it. I said in the beginning that this article is for the believer. Jesus does not teach us to hate or be intolerant of those whose actions we disapprove of. We however do reserve the right to disapprove of their actions. More than a right, it is our responsibility. Oh salt of the earth, where is your savour? Thou art no different from uncooked rice.
Our saviour went where no one else would go. He dined with those no one would dine with and embraced those everyone else shunned. He loved. Christianity teaches love. For those who might not be Christians but are reading this all the same, please don't take isolated verses out of scripture and begin splashing on a canvas, your accusations of intolerance of the Bible. The Bible teaches love for all men. My Jesus drew near to all men, and though with His arms stretched out in love, ready to embrace them if they would only receive His love, His mouth still declared the message of repentance, and the need to turn to the path of righteousness. Much in the same way, the heart of every believer ought to burn with love and great passion for all men. Arms stretched out and ready to embrace with love and acceptance, all the while the mouth declaring the truth of sincere repentance. In truth, it is impossible for a man to wholly and sincerely receive of this great, great love of God, and for it not to work out repentance in him.
I love the homosexual, the queer, the heterosexual, the pedophile, the mass murderer, the priest, the rapist, the Caucasian, the black, the Muslim, the Christian... I love them all. I love them because Jesus loves them. My love for them does not change the fact that I disapprove of their lifestyle choices because of the standards of the Word of God. You don't have to agree with me if you are not a believer... But if you are a believer, how do you pick and choose what in scripture governs your life, and what to kick to the curb?
There is a moral law, and a moral law giver. One who is Supreme and sovereign. We are His ambassadors upon the earth. He is the head in the heavens and we are His feet upon the earth by which He makes His mark daily in the lives of men. His will is executed because the feet move. But really, are the feet moving? His ambassadors no longer hoist high the banner of the kingdom. No... We will much rather cower behind funny videos and trending news than take a stance on issues of morality.
I am not asking you to become a social media activist or to take to the street with placards and pitchforks. I offer you no soapbox on which to stand upon to make lofty speeches. I simply ask that your heart be a convicted one concerning the things that please the Lord... To resonate on the same frequency as He does on issues of morality... And to be the transducer of His sentiment in whichever corner you find yourself.
I am asking you not to be passive on issues of morality.
I am asking you to stand for Jesus.
Dr. Eric Agyemfra,
Teleios Inc.