I'm Confused

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I’ve been following the news for many years, and I’m trying to figure out the correct position on several matters. However, the more I read, the more confused I get. Let me tell you where I’m struggling and perhaps you can help me out.

Dress codes are bad.

Hardly a week goes by without a story about some student who was sent home because her clothing was in violation of school policy. Howls of indignation can be heard across the land! Most of these incidents take place in public high schools, though from time to time, a private school shows up as well.

In every story, the reporter is outraged that someone in authority would have the gall to tell anyone else how they ought to dress. This is America, where everyone should be allowed to determine for herself what is appropriate, and nobody has any business passing judgment. Whether the outfit seems provocative or offensive to others is irrelevant. Clothing styles, we are told, are extensions of individual personality and must be defended as freedom of expression. To force somebody else’s concept of appropriate attire upon another comes dangerously close to violating the constitutionally protected right to free speech. Dress codes are bad, very bad, and should be abolished immediately in any self-respecting free society.

Dress codes are good.

But recently, we’re reading supportive stories of schools dictating dress codes for their students. What? I thought dress codes were bad! These accounts usually involve universities and generally refer to costumes for Halloween or similar festivities. These colleges, which have long prided themselves as bastions of freedom of expression, are now severely restricting the costumes students are permitted to wear. Detailed dress codes are issued from school offices and the list of forbidden attire is continually expanding.

The problem seems to be that some costumes might offend another individual, and therefore cannot be allowed. Just when I’m getting the hang of the principle that dress codes are bad, I’m told to reverse my thinking and understand that dress codes are good, even necessary. School authorities not only may, but absolutely must dictate standards of dress for students. Freedom of expression in certain situations is too dangerous to allow.

Now don’t get the wrong impression. It’s not nudity that’s dangerous. No, that’s the kind of individual expression that must be defended at all costs. But when it comes to cultural insensitivity, it is imperative that those who are wiser dictate what is and is not appropriate clothing. Dress codes are good, very good!

I’m confused. I thought dress codes, imposed by authority figures must not be tolerated. So why are dress codes for costumes tolerated? Which is it? Are dress codes bad or good? Perhaps someone can help make sense of this seeming contradiction.

Smoking is bad.

We’ve been told for years now that smoking is an unspeakable evil. Because tobacco is hazardous to your health, others must intervene to protect you from your individual choices. Although I have never been an advocate of smoking, I’ve long considered use of tobacco a personal decision. If you are foolish enough to take the risk, you will have to accept the consequences for your own bad choices. Now, however, we’re told we must allow others to dictate what personal risks we may take. You not only may not smoke in public buildings, but smoking must be banned from outdoor spaces as well, since the very sight of someone lighting a cigarette may cause trauma to others. Your personal freedom has to be severely restricted. The risk of offending others is just too great.

Smoking is good.

But, when it comes to smoking marijuana, that’s an entirely different matter. That kind of smoking is good, not bad, you see. Is it potentially harmful to your health? A number of studies indicate that it is, but why should somebody else be allowed to make that decision for you? It’s up to each individual to decide if he wants to engage in an activity that may be harmful to his health. Individual freedom, not authoritarian imposition is the American way.

But what if you get stoned and cause an accident that injures or kills others? That’s simply the risk we must all be prepared to take in a free society. Surely we can’t have others dictating how we ought to live our lives! When it comes to marijuana, everyone has the right to decide for himself, and those who choose to smoke weed should be applauded for the exercise of individual expression, not castigated as if they are doing something shameful. Smoking, you see, is good, not bad, if it’s the right kind of smoking. Confused? Perhaps you need to attend your local university so that they can help you sort this out.

Religion is bad.

You may be under the mistaken impression that the Christian religion is a good thing, and should be encouraged throughout American society. Wherever did you get a notion like that? You may even believe that most of the American Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and that biblical morality and Christian truth are the primary reasons why America stands out among the nations of the world.

You poor naïve simpleton, you’ve got it all wrong. Actually, the American Founders were intent on protecting America from the dangers of Christianity. That’s why they added the First Amendment to the Constitution. They built a strong wall of separation between Church and State because they understood that religion is a bad influence upon society.

Perhaps you have read reliable historical documents that seem to demonstrate the opposite? That the Founders believed the Christian religion was a good influence, even a necessary one if representative government could endure without destroying itself? It may seem that way to those who study history, but if you would just listen to the right people, you would understand that religion is a very bad thing, and must not be taught or encouraged in any public forum. Religion must be confined to churches and not allowed in the public square.

Religion is good.

When it comes to Islam or one of the Eastern Religions, that’s a different story. Students must be exposed to these religions in school. It is an absolute necessity. How else will they understand the great diversity which is the heart of the American experiment? So, if your child reports that he is being taught the tenants of Islam in his school classroom, rejoice that he is being broadly educated. If your daughter develops a greater interest in Hinduism than Christianity because of her public school instruction, be thankful that she has been given opportunity to learn about one of the great world religions.

Are you uncomfortable that your tax dollars are promoting religions contrary to Christianity? You need to understand that this is essential to an inclusive society. After all, you don’t run the schools, that job is assigned to experts. Just be quiet and pay your taxes. You ask what happened to the wall of separation between Church and State? Silly you, don’t you realize that only applies to Christianity? When it comes to other faith traditions, religion is good, not bad. This might seem contradictory at first, but with the passing of time, I’m sure you will agree that this newly discovered wisdom is exactly what is needed to develop a strong society in the twenty-first century.

Now do you understand why I’m confused? It seems that most forbidden items now are those that encourage Christian teaching and morality, and that the favored activities are those that undermine biblical Christianity. But perhaps I’m missing something. If you can help me understand what’s going on, I’d appreciate it, because right now, it appears to be an orchestrated attack on everything Christian. How else to account for such glaring contradictions, other than the biblical explanation? “Professing to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22).

Greg Barkman Bio

G. N. Barkman received his BA and MA from BJU and later founded Beacon Baptist Church in Burlington, NC where has pastored for over 40 years. In addition, Pastor Barkman broadcasts over several radio stations in NC, VA, TN, and the island of Granada and conducts annual pastors’ training seminars in Zimbabwe, Africa. He and his wife, Marti have been blessed with four daughters and six grandchildren.

Discussion

All we need to do now, Bro. Barkman, is meet up at our favorite pub to discuss these important issues …

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

1 Corinthians 1:25 and countless other passages tell us the answer. Man’s wisdom is foolishness.

What about alcohol? Why has tobacco been vilified, but not alcohol? Alcohol causes far more damage than tobacco products. The majority of sex crimes and domestic violence involve alcohol, and about half of all automobile-related deaths involve alcohol. Only a fool would think tobacco is worse, and only a fool would vilify one and not the other.

It is also only a fool who believes a baby is not a human being until it leaves the womb. That is what Doug Jones, the new senator from LA believes - he stated that he would only advocate for the child “once that baby is born.” He is a murder-promoting fool.

Our world is full of fools. It has from the point where Eve listened to the lies of the serpent and Adam went along with it. And, up until that point, the two of them had a relationship with God. What hope do those who lack the regenerative work of the Spirit have?

Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)

is unstable in all his ways.

Plus, critical thinking is pretty much a thing of the past. I think we’ve died and gone to 4th grade.

I find it discombobulating that when you mention creationism, the outcry is “But Science!” However, over issues of sex and gender, you can’t find a scientific principle with a search and rescue team and a pack of bloodhounds.

We can debate certain things, but all in all, I think Susan has it right; we’ve abandoned logic and the use of evidence in favor of a postmodern ethic of trying to establish truth by political power. I anticipate that it will work out about as well this time as it has all the other times it’s been tried, which is obviously a quite cynical comment on my part.

Regarding some of the numbers, tobacco is said to kill about half a million Americans each year, while the toll of alcohol is a “mere” 88000. The only thing that compares to tobacco in lethality is the “standard American diet” plus inactivity—we could call it the “Baptist potluck syndrome”—which kills apparently about 687,000 Americans each year. That noted, it’s also worth noting that about 2.6 million Americans died last year, which leaves a lot of room for other hazards, “hazards we don’t understand”, and “generic consequences of the sin nature”.

We might joke that for each hour spent on denouncing the abuse of alcohol, we ought to spend six hours denouncing tobacco, eight hours denouncing the standard american diet and lack of exercise, and then another fifteen to twenty hours denouncing nothing in particular.

But seriously, it strikes me that while science can be informative, in the church we are theoretically supposed to use Biblical categories, not CDC data, no? Let us be careful that we do not lose sight of what’s important because of what’s shocking to us at the time.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

The only objective foundation secular society can be certain of … is that Christianity is bad, and God-honoring morals are oppressive and harmful. As Os Guinness said, the Western world is now a “cut-flower” society. It’s deliberately severed itself from an objective moral foundation in God, and it’s withering on the vine as its officials struggle to find another foundation. I included an excerpt from Guinness, and a short discussion here. Of course, they won’t find one.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

David, I was joking. Please, not another alcohol thread …

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Now while the worldlings are going to generally tend to eschew the claims of Christ simply because they are of the world, I think we can have a good witness by presenting our case in each of there areas. We can start, really, by making a good “gut check” of our cultural tendency towards prohibitionism. Really, 80 years after the names “Capone” and “Dillinger” became household names, shouldn’t we be cluing in to the fact that there is indeed a downside to reflexive prohibitionism?

Along these lines, we ought to have a gut check in terms of what we hope to achieve. For example, given that certain hemlines and bodice lines work very differently, visually speaking, on women of different sizes and proportions, do we even want to have a dress code in terms of “four fingers” or “fingertip length”, or do we specify simply what we hope to conceal from view, and justify that Biblically? If we are talking about tobacco vs. marijuana, we have a stimulant vs. a compount (THC) that causes lethargy and sometimes hallucinations. Is it even really the same category? Do we want to try to compare the tars (cancer causing ingredients) of both, or go from the Biblical proscription of severe intoxication?

And regarding religion, why should we refuse to point out that Islam has led to 14 centuries of war, and Christianity has led to peaceful republics? It seems that with a bit of logic, we can climb out of the rhetorical boxes the secularists build for us.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Where we live in NorCal we have pot culture. I have heard matted-haired people here discussing the moral imperative of imposing non-GMO’s for the health of the people while, of course, growing and smoking pot. Yet cannabis is about 7 times more carcinogenic than tobacco. Pot growers steal water by redirecting it for their grow. They leave their nets over the land for small animals to get trapped in and die. Yet, it is unethical to grow GMO’s!

I have to agree that the decline in critical thinking and training in simple logic is at the root of the problem.

Dr. Paul Henebury

I am Founder of Telos Ministries, and Senior Pastor at Agape Bible Church in N. Ca.

Paul, the question in my mind is what you do to deal with ‘em. My take is that you allow the owners of water rights to “rent them out” year by year and decide for themselves whether they want to have the water delivered, or whether they want to sell it and profit that way.

Assess a fee for maintenance of the system—my brother in Mountain View tells me the annual subsidy is in the billions—and you’ve given a kick in the teeth to doper water pirates right along with rice growers in the desert.

And for things like lung cancer? Just refuse to cover cases of lung cancer for smokers of either tobacco or dope from Medicare and Medicaid. GMOs? End grain subsidies and the ethanol mandate.

Not holding my breath, as this is too sensible for it to actually happen, especially in California, but it is a series of brilliant illustrations of “what should we really think about this, and how ought we go about achieving it?”

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.