News Snippets From All Beats

Psychologists aim for solving conflicts by adjusting relational dynamics, and the easiest solution is to promote the goal of finding common ground. This would include finding something that both sides can agree on in order to create a collaborative union. The reason for this is that it is easier to persuade one organism to cease opposing itself than to find harmony between two opposing forces. It is something that works well for football teams and cheer squads, but should never be used to manipulate young Christians so that they may learn to compromise their faith. Michael Frey, Director for College Ministries with Campus Crusade for Christ, has yet to learn this valuable lesson.

On April 25, students across the nation are being asked by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to remain silent during the school day to protest the “silence” faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students in schools,¹ or something other than the accolades and celebratory recognition going on now.

In another example of psychoheresy, Frey, it appears, has been persuaded by psychology professor Dr. Warren Throckmorton to co-sponsor a complimentary campaign using Christian students. “We propose that Christian kids join gay students,” writes Throckmorton, “by pledging to abide by Christ’s teaching in the Golden Rule.”² The idea is to encourage them to yoke themselves together with the homosexual students in activism in order to both accept and promote the sin. The “Golden Rule Initiative,” also approved by Bob Stith, a Southern Baptist Convention Gender Issues think-tanker,³ would have Christian students join homosexuals and their supporters in GLSEN’s “Day of Silence,” thus giving GLSEN another flag of sponsorship to wave in their parade.

Dr. Throckmorton is selling this psychotherapy to Campus Crusade, and the SBC, on grounds that Christian students will gain a “teachable moment,”⁴ and emerge as the leaders in a campaign for safe school environments. There is, however, a distinct difference between a safe environment, which should exist for all students, and a welcoming environment within Christianity for students avowing sinful behavior. Hopefully, this will turn out to be Campus Crusade Frey’s learnable moment.

Notes:

^1. Alexander J. Sheffrin, “Christians Find Alternatives to Pro-Gay ‘Day of Silence’,” Christian Post. April 22, 2008.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080422/32060_Christians

_Find_Alternatives_to_Pro-Gay_%27Day_of_Silence%27.htm

^2. Warren Throckmorton, “Golden Rule Pledge - How about something really different?” Crosswalk.com, April 22, 2008. http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/EWThrockmorton/.

^3. Sheffrin, “Christians Find Alternatives”.

^4. Throckmorton, “Golden Rule Pledge”.

At the Campus Crusade for Christ International global students missions conference, speakers showed an alarming use of the new communitarian catch phrases and terminology that are infiltrating Christian circles. Words like “collaboration,” “cooperation,” and “justice” were banded about by speakers with an emphasis on the secular religious quest of finding “common ground.” This is the language of circle-jerk control meetings, or small groups, where members are guided through a process of shedding diverse and conflicting beliefs to arrive at the vaulted, and hallowed, plateau of “common ground.”

The problem in adapted these phrases is that it lends acceptance to the actual processes they represent. These exercises are antithetical to the gospel message, and open Christians to being susceptible to these methods designed, not to circumvent prejudice, but to suspend rendering a righteous judgment based on existing knowledge of God’s word (or at least knowledge of a subject that is already possessed). Such a confidence in facts is too dogmatic for the process of sustained malleability requisite for continual change; the state in which one must be suspended in order to be easily diverted, absent any friction generated from being grounded to a rock of truth.

The cause for this disease is often too much interaction with the world on pretense of being relevant to the extent of becoming unequally yoked together. Cures include: reading more scripture, and concentrating on spreading more salvation message and far less “justice” message. The time is fast approaching when justice is exactly what is going to be meted out, and only the salvation in Jesus Christ will save men from having to receive it.

(read about it in The Christian Post)

This is a News Service of TheNewsBeats.com, All Rights Reserved