Politically Correct or Socially Aware?

I would like to propose a new word to use instead of the term "Politically Correct". I'd prefer be called "Socially Aware".

As the term implies, "Political Correctness" claims to define what's correct and incorrect. It screams at us if we say something wrong, or express the wrong opinion. "Socially Aware" invites us to look at what's really at the heart of the problem, and to respond with compassion, even if the wrong word accidentally slips out of our mouth.

I find the "Political Correct" mindset legalistic. It leads to polarisation. It insinuates that one is either in or out, and if one fails to be correct on one or two points, one is all the way out.

At its best, it's not the ideal way of showing compassion to the downtrodden and administering social justice. Too often, it's the façade which justifies hating the perpetrators of injustice more than we love the victims of it. Hate is never a good motivation for justice. While it might move the crowds more quickly, the fruit of it is never sweet. The only motive for social justice is to have compassion on the victims, while recognising that the perpetrators of the injustice are also its victims.

So, I don't claim to be "Politically Correct", but I do want to express how I feel about some of those injustices, while separating the true injustice from the ones artificially created by the name-calling. I also want to seek out helpful solutions to those injustices, ones that truly enable the marginalised people-groups without creating more problems; solutions not based on revenge, that don't idolise the victim, and that recognise that the perpetrators of injustice are often also the victims of previous injustice. I want to talk about solutions that look forward to the day when the wounded party can truly get on with life without being hindered by the pain of the past.

For-instance, I believe that Native Americans have not been dealt with fairly, and that we who claim a Christian heritage have a lot to answer for in regards to American history (some of my own ancestors on my mother's side were white settlers in Western Ohio during the Indian wars of the 1700s).

I believe that the Irish have been dealt with cruelly and unfairly by the British in our history, and that Protestant attitudes have added to the problem (some of my ancestors on my father's side signed the Ulster Covenant, declaring their stand as Protestants in opposition to a Catholic Ireland. I'm also an Ulster Scots on my mother's side).

I also believe that America has yet to fully come to terms with the slavery of Black people in their history, and that many black people are correct in their perception that they are not accepted wholeheartedly into white society -- even among whites that claim "political correctness". I've been among them long enough to know that, plus, I was raised as a minority (a white living among brown-skinned people). Also, my wife is Asian, and she often feels the same rejection. It's a fact.

I also believe that many many Moslems simply want to live peacefully among the communities of the nations of their adoption. They are caught between those in the general population who perceive them as possible terrorists, and the radical fringe groups within their own community who are trying to push them towards radicalisation.

And, I believe that Jesus' command to show compassion to the poor and to assist the downtrodden -- sic. the refugee -- takes precedence over our fear that there might be one or two terrorists among the refugee population. The mandate He gave His followers was to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, be hospitable to strangers and make disciples; not make the world a safe place for our own kind.

On the other hand, does being "Politically Correct" mean we're not allowed to acknowledge that certain problems exist? Can we recognise the needs of countries like Israel to take necessary measures to ensure security for their citizens (which includes Jews and Moslems)? Or, is it even politically correct to admit that Israel has a right to exist as a nation? What about recognising that Moslems and other groups in Israel are treated far better than Jews are in most Moslem countries?

Does being "Politically Correct" mean that one religion has the right to be offended, but another religion doesn't? Why does a borough council that allows a local mosque to broadcast their call to prayer over a p.a. system not allow nativity scenes and church bells because they offend the Moslem community? Mind you, I don't care that much about church bells and nativity scenes. I was raised in a country where I was a minority, and we didn't have those things. My Christian duty is to tolerate an offence directed at me rather than allow my lifestyle to offend others, except through the Cross of Christ. That, in itself, is already offensive enough. However, in my mind, Church bells and nativity scenes have very little to do with the Cross of Christ -- and for that matter, so do ornate gold crosses that we like to wear*. However, I can still recognise a double standard when it appears in the name of "political correctness".

So, for me, "politically correct" is an inadequate word. I'd prefer to call myself "socially aware".

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* I hope my Catholic and High Church brothers and sisters don't take offence. I'm not against gold crucifixes, but I'm sure that they also recognise that it's by the true Cross of Christ that we're saved by, which emanates from inside.

Israel had twins, their names were Christianity and Islam...

...perhaps not in the sense that we normally think; they were born 600 years apart. The elder twin, Christianity wasn't called by that name at first. It was the local street urchins and the bullies who began calling him that as a taunt. They kept it up for so long that soon he was calling himself that, and the name stuck.

At first, Christianity took after his mother, which meant he reflected the two divine attributes, Justice and Mercy -- also known as Holiness and Love. In fact, he reflected them so well that the mother became jealous, and he began to find it difficult to live in the same house with her. This was also due to the fact that Israel's husband had called, dressed as a beggar; and she, failing to recognise Him, had turned him away. However the son had recognised him, and they stayed in communication. He promised the child that one day, they would all be reunited.
As time went on, the son could no longer stand to live in the same house as his mother, and left home. About that time, the house was seized and the mother also had to leave. They became a broken family.

Cut off from his mother's influence, Christianity began to emphasise the divine attribute of Love and Mercy, neglecting that of Justice and Holiness -- receiving only the new and rejecting the old. He also began to emulate the neighbourhood boys in other ways, and was soon unrecognisable as the son of his mother.

This was truly sad, as the child had been destined to reign as a prince alongside his mother, a queen, and his father, King Messiah. This would bring perfect balance to the universe, however it couldn't happen, because the child who was to be prince was away from home, and his character was becoming increasingly unbalanced. Even as it was, the mantel of “Prince of the Universe” was still on the child, and as such, his imbalance also affected the universe.

What happened next was not the original plan of Him who was to reign as King, but it was as though nature were correcting the imbalance. He allowed it to happen, knowing that it would bring about his purpose in the end, and in the mean time, there would be a semblance of balance in the universe. So, because of the imbalance in the cosmos, a twin was born. Just as the older twin was the son of Abraham through faith, the younger was also a son, through Ishmael. That twin's name was Islam.

Everything that the elder twin rejected, the younger twin embraced. The elder child had clung to mercy at the expense of justice, so the younger twin clung to justice, but rejected mercy. The elder twin had become careless in describing the Holy Trinity, giving the impression that he believed in three gods instead of One God manifested as three persons. The younger twin responded with, “That's polytheism! There is only one God,” and rejected the Trinity. The elder child had begun to describe the doctrine of the Incarnation and Virgin Birth in a pagan sort of way, as though God had intimate relations with Mary to give birth to Messiah, thus His title, the “Son of God”. The younger brother was repulsed by this idea, and retorted, “No! God cannot have children!”

Never-the-less, the younger twin did believe in the Messiah, even acknowledging that He was the Word of God, not realising that that's what the term, “Son of God” really meant in the first place. But he didn't believe in the crucifixion and the resurrection, because those were the ultimate expressions of Mercy. In essence, he had rejected Mercy because his elder brother had so distorted it by divorcing it from Justice. However, his own understanding of Justice was likewise distorted.

It was truly a broken family, and all nature wept. The mother, having fled from her home and living wherever she could, was tormented and persecuted by both of her children – when they weren't too busy fighting each other.

Then, one day the first child had an awakening. He began to realise what a horrible son he had been, and began, by degrees, returning to his mother. The mother's heart also began to open to her son. The son asked her, “Please, remind me of the truths I've neglected this past 2000 years, like Justice the Fear of the Lord.”

As the mother began to open up to her child, her eyes also opened to King Messiah, whom she had once turned away from her door when he came dressed as a beggar. He had been communicating with the elder twin from a distance all along, but the child had not been very good at remembering all that he told him, and didn't know how to mix the new with the old. But now that the King was revealing Himself more directly, the elder son also began to think more clearly and understand the will of the King, and the divine attributes of Justice and Mercy.

Another thing began to happen: the more the older child embraced the more balanced view, his twin began to fade away as his soul began to merge with that of his older brother. Soon, they were no longer two separate twins, but one child. Only a shell of the younger twin's body remained, sort of like a zombie that continued to put up a fight until it disintegrated. There were also other zombies, clones of the mother and elder child that had spawned when the reunion came. For a short time, all the zombies joined forces in an attempt to devour the Queen and the Prince, trying to bring about a zombie apocalypse. That was short-lived, and soon total harmony was restored in the universe as King Messiah reigned with the Queen and the Prince for the rest of eternity.

Image: By William Fraser [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Israel, What Are Christians to Think?

Some good sound opinions at Derek Leman's website on the current uproar regarding Israel. On one side are the Christian Zionists, who would shout "Yeah Israel" no matter what they did, for good or for bad; on the other, those who won't ever give Israel the benefit of the doubt about anything, and even begrudge them the right to exist as a state.

Here's what Derek has to say:

Let me suggest a Jewish view, a biblical view of the situation:

1. Israel is the people elected freely and irrevocably by God, whose destiny and purpose serve as the forefront of God’s plan of world redemption.
2. Israel’s relationship with God is one of unconditional love and favor, but its temporal fortunes are tied to the covenant relationship through Torah.
3. The state of Israel is a secular government with little regard for Torah, which is obligated to follow the divine commandments and is not, and which is not guaranteed peace or success in any generation until there is renewal.

Read here for more...

Jewish Prophecy

For the last six or seven years, I've been on the list of a Yahoo Group called JewishClubMaoz@yahoogroups.com . I'm not sure how I got the invitation to join, but I got it and I did. Many on the list appear to be Zionist radicals of the non Messianic sort -- a few of them, militant. Now and then I've found a gem. I believe I've found one just now. It would be easy, of course, to take the following the wrong way, but I believe there's something there.

This is not the usual sort of thing that a nice Christian boy like me would post on a blog, but here goes:

Prophecy

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Many Jews talk about the need to make Israel an authentic Jewish state, and of course they know what is an authentic Jewish state. It's a state based on the Torah, on the Sinai Covenant. It's a state whose ultimate purpose is to sanctify the Name of God by revealing His infinite Wisdom, Power and Graciousness in every domain of existence.

But if we understand what an authentic Jewish state is, why don’t we have a road map to such state? The basic reason is because we have focused our attention and energies on the “Arab problem,” more precisely the “Palestinian problem.” This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not only is entire world is focused on the Palestinian problem, but Israel's Government is committed to the establishment of an Arab-Islamic state on Israel's own territory! Let's try to get to the bottom of this bizarre situation.

(1) Israeli governments have focused the world’s attention on the Palestinian problem because these foolish governments have failed to address Israel's most fundamental problem the Jewish problem!

(2) Stated another way, every Israeli government has been focused on the territorial-

cum-security issue. So lo and behold, Israel is losing territory and has never been more insecure!

Want more? Okay.

(3) Israel’s (paranoid) prime ministers are always preoccupied with Israel’s image in the media or among the nations. This is precisely why Israel has never had a more horrible image among the nations.

Are you getting the message? You all know that the Zionist enterprise had two basic goals: to provide for the security and restore the dignity of the Jewish people by establishing a Jewish state in Eretz Israel. Right?

But where was God in this scenario? Do you find God mentioned in Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State—Herzl, the only name mentioned in the document now called Israel’s Declaration of Independence?

So, instead of God, what does Israel look up to—because if a people have nothing to look up to, it’s on the way to looking down on its feet. Instead of looking up to God it will look up to man. It’s called "humanism." But inasmuch as biologists such as Richard Dawkins have shown that man is descended from the apes, an awful lot of Israelis have discovered that Israel has no statesman at the helm—just apes!

Let me put it another way. What do Israel’s decision-makers and opinion-makers exalt? But of course—DEMOCRACY! Everyone knows this. Everyone knows that the paramount concern of Israel’s ruling elites—politicians and judges, academics and journalists—is to secure Israel’s reputation as a Democracy. This is what gives Israel's government Legitimacy and Israel's elites with Respectability. Right? But notice that the nations are now seeking to delegitimize Israel despite its vaunted democracy! Sort of ironic, no?

But where is the Torah in this Israeli scenario? Wasn’t it the Torah that preserved the Jewish people and endowed them with personal and national dignity?

Will someone tell me what would have happened to the Jewish people after the destruction of the Second Temple without the Torah? Why they would have become as extinct as the dodo. Which means that had Israel been led by the likes of Yitzhak Rabin (read Shimon Peres), Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Binyamin Netanyahu—and let's add that "everything-is-justiciable" jurisprudent Aharon Barak—the Jews would have suffered the fate of the Neanderthals.

Poor Israel! Having abandoned the God of Israel and the Torah, various leaders of the so-called Jewish state are so desperate that they solicit the political support of Christians! Christians may think this is the fulfillment of prophecy.

But the Jewish sages knew that in the end of days, Israel would be ruled by paltry governments. That's where Israel is today. Like the foolish governments of Europe and the United States, they are succumbing to Allah and the Quran—to barbarians. But don't despair. The Jewish sages saw the current state of affairs as a preliminary to a renaissance of Hebraic civilization.