DON'T FENCE ME IN!
“The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!”” (Psalm 2:2–3)
God’s law forms a fence around our freedoms. We are not free to live as we please, to do whatever we want. In God’s universe, freedom is always enjoyed in paradox. The freeman lives in subjection, restraining his desire for autonomy, pleasure, and satisfaction, moderating his indulgence of any particular lawful yearning in order to maintain an overall balance to life, and determining to enjoy God’s gifts in God’s way at God’s time and for God’s glory.
The Spirit of our age couldn’t be more different. Postmodern man wants a freedom without limits, without moderation, without ever having to say “No!” to desire. His motto is: “Got Thirst? Quench it!” The very concept, therefore, of divine chains and fetters limiting his choices is despised (Psa 2:2-3). When God’s law faces him with a prohibition, he squirms like a spoilt child held on mother’s lap against its will.
The freedom he demands, however, is illusory. When you don’t want to say “No,” and you don’t have to say “No,” you inevitably lose the ability to say “No.” Such is the liberty of the crack addict; and it is the worst form of bondage.
Nothing illustrates this principle better than the Global Sexual Revolution we witness today. In her book by that name, Gabrielle Kuby says, in the name of freedom, we are destroying freedom. Her book is a cultural tour de force exposing this movement’s roots in the French Revolution (Remember its battle cry: liberty, egalité, fraternité), the Radical Feminist movement, the Free Love movement of the 1960’s, the Birth Control and Abortion industry of the 1960’s and 70’s, the LGBTQ&Q crusade from the 80’s to the current day, and the now just beginning campaign on the part of pedophiles to become the next special interest minority group on the block. There are already ivory tower scholars and social engineers making the argument that if a child wants to have sex, who are we to say that he can’t have sex! This is the next logical domino to fall, and fall it will if this ideology is not checked. When nothing is forbidden, all is permissible!
In one of her many brilliant insights, Kuby says, “Every culture penalizes violation of its sexual standards…Sexual norms are of the greatest public significance, because they powerfully influence the weal and woe of all society. As sex goes, so goes the family, as the family goes, so goes society. For this reason, all societies subject sexual norms to strict social and legal sanctions.” However, up until now, most of these sanctions have served to restrict sexual liberty in order to preserve the traditional family. In our day, by contrast, we are witnessing an unprecedented reversal of this trend, an unleashing of sexual liberty in order to destroy the traditional family.
Why all this contempt for the traditional family? The radical feminists hate it because it revolves around the patriarchal and ‘repressive’ concepts: husband, father, wife, mother, and homemaker. The LGBTQ&Q crowd hate it because families confront them with the inevitable and unnatural barrenness of their own unions. The secularist hates it because it rests upon the foundation of God and His right to define the terms of His creation. God cannot be rejected in part. If we reject Him in one area, we will inevitably reject Him in every area. This is why our society is having increasing difficulty in recognizing the very foundational building block of humanity: the gender binary of male and female. It’s all beginning to unravel.
The red headed step child in all this, of course, is the Christian Church. In a world devoted to the lie, Truth tellers cannot be tolerated. Already in Europe we are seeing children removed from families who persist in teaching religious “hate speech” (Read: Christian Truth). In America, too, we see the storm clouds beginning to form. As Kuby says, ”Totalitarianism has made a costume change and now appears in the mantle of freedom, tolerance, justice, equality, anit-discrimination, and diversity.”
Despite all this, there is room for encouragement. How so? First, facts are stubborn things. It is always hard to kick against the goads. Saul of Tarsus tried, and Paul was born. God is saving powerful figures out of the LGBTQ&Q movement like Rosaria Butterfield. Second, much more than in Europe, there is robust cohort of well taught, clear headed, earnest Christians in America. Our voice will not be easy to silence. Third, God is on the move and Christ will win the day. History is on our side. It’s only a matter of time.
In the meantime, we must steel our resolve. Right thinking and right arguments are important, but they will not provide the fortitude necessary to face the loss of everything — liberty, employment, money, property, son, daughter, wife! God help us to love Christ more than all these, or else we will not be able to stand. Being “right’ won’t be enough to keep us through the furnace. As I said in my recent article to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Only “those who know their God will have the strength to take action.” Whatever the case, this is our time on God’s stage of history. Now is not a time for weakness.