Post Christian Era

This is a chaotic time. The Christian has been forced to think and rethink his or her deeply held beliefs and presuppositions regarding the many claims of systemic social injustice, sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.

Let’s get one thing straight: any clearly identifiable act of injustice is rightly opposed and condemned by the Christian, regardless of whether it was motivated by race, sex, religion, or other social background. The details of George Floyd’s death appear to indicate an act of cruel injustice.

But opposing individual acts of injustice is a different task than that of the Social Justice movement.

The Social Justice movement — that is, the academia and activist backed social and political movement that makes most of the noise — are the folks that have rewritten the playbook on civil rights and are using more radical definitions of racism to move the hearts and minds of the American public to specific ends.

It may surprise some Americans that the Social Justice cause is so widely accepted in media, schools, businesses, and much of the public square. It may also surprise Christians to learn that Social Justice is accepted in many churches and Christian institutions.

What I wish for you, dear brother or sister in Christ, is to see the Social Justice movement as more than a group of angry young people or a grassroots campaign that has emerged recently. It is more than a political movement wishing to change a few policies.

It is more than a call for people of different races and backgrounds to treat each other with the same love and respect that we treat our family and expect in return. It is a movement that no longer works at the micro or individual level, but has demands at the macro or institutional level because it sees race as the primary force driving the world’s problems.

Moreover, the Social Justice movement has become a religion that is thoroughly in opposition to basic tenets of the Christian faith. And Social Justice is not only a religion, it is the civic religion of our day.

The Religion of Social Justice

I feel the need to say again; there are well meaning individuals that have taken up the cause to bring peace among social classes and provide aide to those in need. These are not necessarily practitioners of the Religion of Social Justice.

Movements like Black Lives Matter, corporations like the New York Times, academic institutions like the Smithsonian Institute, and many prestigious universities are the ardent evangelists of the Religion of Social Justice.

Just turn on the news and you will see religious acts every night.

You will see the mass proselytizing on the streets of major cities in the United States.

You will see the iconoclasm of the Religion of Social Justice urging the removal of competing symbols.

You will see the raising of new icons of martyrs and symbols of the religion

You will see religious rites; symbolic or real gestures of religious significance.

More importantly, the Religion of Social Justice promotes an ideology. The ideology speaks to the minds and hearts of followers in religious and anthropological terms. The fact that dissenters of the ideology are punished so extremely turns the ideology into religious dogma.

First, the religion provides a framework for seeing the world, which traditional religions have always done for their adherents. In the case of Social Justice, it portrays the force driving the plight of humanity  as class struggle; and the salvation from that plight as a dismantling of classes so that humanity can flourish. For example, in this view, the reason why there is poverty and crime is because one group (whites, males, etc.) have more power than others. Salvation would be to ensure that all races have the same amount of power,

The itch is the most innate experience of human desire. It is so well understood that to say you want to “scratch an itch” is synonymous with fulfilling one’s desires exclusively for its gratification; despite the well-known consequences. “Don’t scratch!”, we warn our children – and sometimes ourselves – for we know that scratching accomplishes no long term benefit. At the same time, scratching an itch will not only fail to relieve the desire, but make the desire to scratch more intense.

Those of us that live in the 21st century post-Christian era need a reminder of the effects of “scratching an itch”.

Morality from Desire

Andrea Long Chu is a writer who specializes in gender theory. While born a male, he is transgender and considers himself a female. Last year, he wrote an article for the New York Times reflecting on his decision to have gender reassignment surgery, titled “My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy“. His opening paragraph summarizes his opinion of his desire to remove his penis and manufacture a vagina:

Next Thursday, I will get a vagina. The procedure will last around six hours, and I will be in recovery for at least three months. Until the day I die, my body will regard the vagina as a wound; as a result, it will require regular, painful attention to maintain. This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I don’t expect it to. That shouldn’t disqualify me from getting it.

The article argues that both conservative and liberal opinions on these medical treatments are erroneous. Conservatives say these surgeries shouldn’t happen because they feed a delusion and don’t heal the patient. Liberals say the surgeries should happen because affirming an individual’s convictions about their sexual identity is humane and leads to psychological healing. In Chu’s view, both approach a trans individual’s request as “little kings” over their bodies. So, Chu argues, both are wrong because they deny the individual the right to do what they want with their body.

In other words, a parent’s warning to their child, “don’t scratch that itch because it will damage your skin and make it itch more” is just as bad as encouraging “scratch the itch as much as you can, as often as you can, as hard as you can. You’ll feel better!” That’s because both deny the child the right to experience the itch in the way he or she chooses to experience it.

Chu’s argument is imbued with the spirit of our age. That is, the discussion about how an individual understands and lives with their desires no longer rests upon identifying and pursuing what is “good”; for both conservatives and liberals believe they are doing so. Chu argues that both are mistaken because their understanding of “good” does not include “desire” as a factor; to which Chu factors “desire” almost exclusively as that which is “good”

Although this argument is not mainstream, it has appeared on mainstream media and is being praised by the academics that maintain the ever evolving gender studies in modern academia.

More importantly, this view is born from a culture that has no connection to religion, which has historically been the institution that guides us toward the “good”, so it would be understandable that our culture as a whole will come to the same conclusion: what is Good is what I Desire.

Desire as Master

The 21st century Christian is at a major impasse. On the one hand, Jesus proclaims that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”. And St. Paul tells us that “all things are lawful”. So,

Father’s Day was last week, and I hope many of us took the time to show our fathers our appreciation for their contribution to our lives. One of those contributions to the family has long been a father’s expertise with common household tasks, lovingly called “Do It Yourself” (or “DIY”). You know, household tasks like unclogging a drain, changing the oil in your car, painting a room, etc. Apparently, that contribution is in decline.

According to a report by Alarm.com, millennials dads do not have the same DIY skills that their father’s generation had. In it, they report that:

Millennial Dads are less inclined than their fathers’ generation to roll up their sleeves and tackle traditional DIY tasks, preferring to call for professional help on tasks ranging from unclogging sinks to assembling furniture.

They also report that millennial dads don’t have the same tools as their fathers. Amazingly, more than 30% of millennial dads do not own a hammer!

The report gave some of the survey respondents “explanations” for the millennials diminished DIY skills, which I would like to take a quick second to debunk.

First, some respondents said that modern technology makes DIY tasks harder and in more need of support; like smart locks and doorbell cameras. While these technologies usually involve another company “hosting” certain parts of the service, like the recorded video on a camera system, they still involve technical and mechanical skills to install and operate.

Second, they say that “handiness” now includes technology, so I suppose that means that millennials really are DIYers because they can do technology. That’s all fine and good, but what about the non-tech things? Can they still swing a hammer? Install a light? Change the brakes on a car? I don’t think just because things get more digital, they excuse you from having mechanical skills. We can expand the definition of DIY, but not outright eliminate the need for certain skills.

Using technology as an excuse to say a father doesn’t need to have other mechanical skills is akin to saying a father doesn’t need to know about his car because he can put gas in it.

Lastly, the respondents said that priorities have changed in a father’s life, so that “today’s time-pressed Dads are also faster to outsource time-consuming home maintenance to professionals”. That just tells me that today’s dads are too busy, not that it is necessarily a reason to ditch “old-timer” skills. It also tells me that tomorrow’s dads are going to be worse DIYers.

Hire professionals so you can have time for “Life”

This last “explanation” also indicates that dads simply don’t value DIY skills. It speaks to what is valuable in our culture. I can see a father who hires a professional auto mechanic, let’s say, so that he can spend time with his family. But what is it he is doing with his family? Watching a movie? Going to Disneyland? Again, all fine and good, but there are plenty of fathers who spend time with their family doing DIY stuff; whether its common tasks or more complex hobbies. Contrary to contemporary thought, spending time with your family doesn’t always mean only doing things that are completely leisurely and passive. Some fathers and families actually enjoy doing things that require work. I know a father and daughter who spend time buying, restoring, and selling old furniture. So DIY activities do not always exclude family time.

This is the lie that usually gets sold with advances in technology. The argument sounds something like this: “buy this product/service/gadget so you spend less time doing task XYZ and more time enjoying life”. On the surface this sounds good,

My family has a small tradition on Good Friday where we take the train to Downtown Los Angeles and visit the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The cathedral is modern, but still spectacularly beautiful, with worship-inspiring art and architecture as well as a restful garden with reflective elements all around (my kids like the bronze animals they can play on).

While there yesterday, we stumbled on a display highlighting the story of Jose Sanchez Del Rio. Reading the story makes me think of the state of Christianity today, what us Christians may face in the future, and ask “will Christians be willing to suffer for their faith”?

First, the story of Jose Sanchez Del Rio. He was a 14 year old boy from Mexico who wanted to fight in the Cristero Wars, a struggle in the early 20th century between faithful Catholics and the Mexican government who wished to reduce the Church’s influence on its people. A poster in the display in the cathedral in LA writes this about him:

On February 5, 1928, the young boy was captured during a battle and imporisoned in the sacristy of the church in which he had been baptized. In order to terrorize him, soldiers made him watch the hanging of one of the other captured Cristeros. But Jose encouraged the man, saying, “You will be in Heaven before me. Prepare a place for me. Tell Christ the King that I shall be with him soon”

On February 10, 1928, the young man was brutally tortured. They sheered off the skins of his feet, and he was forced to walk on salt through the town to the cemetery, while being struck continuously. The young man screamed in pain but did not give up. The soldiers wanted to force him to renounce his faith, but they did not succeed. They continously stopped him and said, “If you shout: Death to Christ the King, we will forgive your life.” But he answered, “Long live Christ the King!”

Once he arrived at the cemetery, he asked where his grave was, and in heroic fashion, he stood at the edge of his own grave, to save the executioners the work of transporting his body. As he continued to refuse to renounce his faith, the soldiers rushed at him and began to stab him. With each stab, the faith-filled fourteen your old shouted: “Long live Christ the King! Long live our Lady of Guadalupe!” The captain then shot him in the head, and his body was thrown into the grave, bathed in blood, while his soul soared into heaven.

When we stumbled on this story, I seriously considered letting my children read through it; its pretty frightening. But I think it is important that our Christian communities hold up heroes of the faith like this young man. They are inspiring, and also force us to reflect on our own faith.

Not every Christian will be asked to sacrifice in the same way Jose Sanchez did. In fact, the martyrs of the early Church at the hands of the Roman Empire often felt as though dying in the Colosseum was there life’s calling; and not for everyone. But what are we willing to sacrifice? How much safety and security are we willing to give up to be faithful. We often talk about Christ as the King, focusing on His power to help and redeem us. But how often do we consider living in the kingdom a life of sacrifice in service of the King who is often time despised?

Mexican Religious Persecution of the 20th Century

We may think about Communist Europe in the 20th century or modern day China and the Middle-East as places where Christians have been persecuted, but there are countries like Mexico who saw their own persecution. And they all follow the some fairly similar patterns. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 forced a rebellion because several articles were used in an anti-Church manner.

Whew! Quite a saga at Azusa Pacific University over the last 6 months. You can read about the previous events here, but the latest development is that APU has, again, removed a ban on same-sex romantic relationships; the latest in a series of flip flops for the self-proclaimed Evangelical Christian university. This is what activists, like Brave Commons, a group dedicated to pressuring Christian universities to approve of homosexual and transgendered lifestyles, had been pushing for since last year.

Some, like university Provost, Mark Stanton, point to the re-removal of the ban as a commitment to “uniform standards of behavior for all students”. I suppose that’s because if a heterosexual couple can hold hands on campus, a homosexual couple should be able as well. Still others, like Franklin Graham and Brett Kunkle, have questioned APU’s commitment to Biblical truth, and have advised that Christians “steer clear of Azusa Pacific University“.

What to make of the turmoil?

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a current employee and Seminary graduate of APU. Having grown up in the area, and now that my family is growing, having the privilege of getting to know many new families and friends in the community, I see that APU has a big impact on the Christian community of the San Gabriel Valley and southern California. There are a lot of ties, dependence, and hope in this academic community. So I am certain that I am not alone in caring for the direction of Azusa Pacific University.

What the flip flopping of APU tells me is that this is an institution experiencing an identity crisis of sorts. The history of APU is one of shifting and repositioning itself within Christendom. The simple Training School for Christian Workers, which was a Bible school training missionaries, has become a liberal arts university with over 100 types of degrees that does not require its students to profess a belief in Christianity.

As living expectations and campus policies have evolved, this fork in the road has been approaching. What I mean is that APU’s ethos may be inherently susceptible to polarization. Its service to its Christian student body may be compromised by its service to its non-Christian student body; or vice versa. It all depends on what APU ultimately seeks to foster.

What is a Christian Liberal Arts University?

In other words, how can a university be open to all, yet foster the Christian faith more than any other non-Christian school. In APU’s words, they promote “curriculum across academic disciplines (that) explores topics infused by faith”. I’m not sure what the means, but I can only see two options:

Does APU want to foster an unabashedly Christian community whose goal is to build the faith of its Christian students through community and scholarship, while allowing non-Christian students to taste the beauty and goodness of God and the Gospel?

Or does APU want to be a prestigious academic institution that draws students of all religious backgrounds, yet somehow expects to force aspects of Christianity into its curriculum and community activity?

The former appears to be the most faithful to APU’s commitment to Evangelicalism. The latter appears to be one that would only call for more and more aspects of the Christian faith to be compromised or trivialized for the sake of “inclusivity” and “fair tr...

If you are like me and did not grow up in a Christian tradition that follows the liturgical seasons, Lent might seem like a ritualistic form of spiritual discipline. And Lent usually brings to mind simply abstaining from certain foods for 40 days. But I would like to argue that Lent is a necessary spiritual discipline for all the Church to participate.

Let’s start by unpacking what Lent is. Lent is the season of preparation for Easter. Easter celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the most important event in the history of the Church. Although Easter is a time of celebration of the blessing of forgiveness, healing, and adoption, those themes lack importance unless we understand — and experience — their necessity. Therefore, the season of Lent is the practice of bringing to our hearts, minds, and bodies, the experience of sin and suffering of our broken world.

Now one might argue, “Must I bring to heart, mind, and body the experience of sin and suffering? Doesn’t our world show us enough of those?” I would argue that it does not. We do experience sin and suffering, but it is often in a curated fashion. We know that we sin, but we find excuses (“I gossiped because she is so cruel”), or we trivialize it (“its just a small lie”), or we focus on forgiveness rather than repentance. Worse yet, we might even find ourselves sanctifying our sin (“God wants me to be wealthy/popular/successful/etc.”). The most disconcerting aspect of our post-Christian era is its ability to turn sin completely around and call it holy. This is how many Christian churches and denomination have turned sexual sin into activity to be celebrated.

Likewise, the world’s suffering is often experienced in a curated fashion. We are inundated with news about suffering as a result of violence , natural disasters, and political turmoil. But this often is trivialized into matters of policy or public welfare (i.e. “how do we stop gun violence?”); a talking point for talking heads. And we typically experience suffering through a type of media (television, radio, internet, etc.). Especially for us in the United States, the degree of suffering the average person experiences is particularly low. And we may be hurting from the blessing of well-being.

You see, without experiencing the brokenness of our world, our dependence on Christ weakens.

Living in arguably the most comfortable time and place in history, we grow accustomed to being taken care of, having our burdens removed, and having our desires fulfilled. And rather than recognizing this and realizing that it is only by the grace of God that we experience any amount of comfort and relief from suffering, we look inward and cling faster to our successes we foolishly believe are our own, our independence we believe we have obtained, and our pleasures we regard so highly.

A Christian may wonder when they are desperately asking for God to fix some aspect of their life, why it is so hard for the Christian heart to change. The answer lies partly in the self-absorption we have fostered in our hearts by our comfort-filled lives.

This is why the Church needs Lent.

For 40 days leading up to Easter, the observer of Lent enters an awareness of our finitude, our mortality, and our unrighteousness. This for the purpose of growing our dependence on Christ. The recipe for Lent is fairly simple and has been consistent throughout time. As the Book of Common Prayer states, the believer observes Lent,

“by self-examination and repentance;

by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;

and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word”

By reading Scripture, we can focus on God’s word that convicts us of our sin, reveals the inmost working of our heart, and reminds us of God’s promise of restoration.

“Evangelical” is a term that describes a branch of a branch of Christianity, encompassing many denominations and traditions, over hundreds of years. Today, there is a group of ex-evangelicals, calling themselves “Exvangelicals”, whose goal is to undermine this historic tradition of the Church.

Their dispute with evangelicalism is that it is not only false, but harmful. Following their Twitter hashtag, #Exvangelicals, reveals many stories of those who say they have been harmed by the teachings and actions done within evangelical churches and homes.

CBS Religion recently did a story on the movement. The video is only about a half an hour, but paints a fairly clear picture of the Exvangelicals’ gripes with evangelicalism. When you get a moment, go ahead and watch it; its part of a series titled “Deconstructing My Religion” .

Now before we get into the details of this movement, let me just start by saying that this stuff is important because if our youth and children leave the faith, it will be from ideas and attitudes of movements like these. This is not because their arguments are succinct or even logical; but only because they know how to speak the persuasive language of the day. Older people are not swayed by these ridiculous sob stories, but younger people are taught that anyone who claims to be oppressed are indeed victims; victims that society should avenge.

They use words like “shame”, the most egregious sin in our culture. They promote sexual freedom, the most prized idea in our era. And they connect evangelicalism to conservative politics, the most polarizing topic since 2016. The modern Christian would do well to become acquainted with these rhetorical devices of popular culture. If you pay attention, you will see these tactics everywhere.

The Case Against Evangelicalism

The Exvangelicals follow the cultural playbook to demonize Evangelicalism. We start with the “shame” angle. The Exvangelicals bemoan the “shame” and anxiety they experienced in evangelical settings. As we will see, their shame is typically regarding Christian sexual morals.

Most people realize the benefits of shame — for instructing children, maintaining civility in culture, or to just convict someone of their guilt (I assume we would want a pedophile, for example, to feel shame about his feelings). And most of us understand the inherent nature of shame — that it is part of the human psyche to experience a break from positive feelings in response to one’s actions. Being unable to understand and respond to the consequences of your actions is the legal definition of insanity.

But today, to “shame” someone by disagreeing with their lifestyle is xenophobic, intolerant, and damaging to their mental well-being. You are supposed to accept everyone and every lifestyle as though all are good.

It is obvious why these people take such offense to evangelical Christianity. The evangelical tradition was born in the 17th century as a movement against nominal Christians who were only affiliated with the Church through family or region. The early evangelicals implored Christians to seek a “true religion”, where one’s lifestyle is deeply affected by one’s beliefs, and vice versa. The very essence of Christ’s evangelism was to “turn from your sin”, even at the expense of one’s shame.

The Exvangelicals will cry “the shame I experienced is hurtful and damaging!” Well, I would agree that shame never feels good. And I am sure that there are a number of Christians who utilize shame in a tyrannical way. But this is not Christianity. The Christian view of shame is that it is indeed a teache...

The old discussion point about when life begins — at conception, viability, a certain trimester — appears to be resolved by some politicians. Apparently, life begins when they say it does.

Senators were not able to pass a bill that would make abortion illegal in the “4th trimester”. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act was meant to protect babies that somehow had survived an abortion attempt by compelling doctors to provide care for these patients as they would any other patient.

But far be it for anyone who has a commitment to the ideology of uninhibited sexual freedom to let surviving babies ruin their access to “reproductive health” and abortions at any stage. From The Federalist’s David Harsanyi:

Senate Democrats unsurprisingly struggled to find an effective way to lie about opposing a bill that prohibits abortion in the fourth trimester. Some of them maintained that Sasse’s bill was superfluous because all the things in it were already illegal. Others claimed the bill would “restrict doctors from making case-by-case decisions about what is best for infants and mothers.” Still others claimed the practice never ever happens. Other Democrats, who support government intervention in every nook and cranny of human existence, argued that tough choices should only be the domain of women and their doctors, not the state. Many of them saw no conflict between these ideas and argued all these things at the very same time.

Sen. Patty Murray claimed the bill was “clearly anti-doctor, anti-woman and anti-family” and that “proponents claim it would make something illegal that is already illegal.” This is untrue, regardless of a full-court press from Democrats and the media. As bills in both Virginia and New York clearly illustrate, the practice isn’t illegal. Both bills specifically provide legal protections for doctors who terminate babies who survive abortion attempts.

Honestly, what the hell is wrong with these people?

Political causes are real, and often worthy of their effort. But let’s be honest, this is ludicrous. This is an ideology’s ridiculous conclusion being absolutely ignored. My best guess is that voting against this bill is being used to gain political clout (notice how many presidential hopefuls voted against it!). This is being done to be able to later say, “You see! I’m on the side of women’s rights!” Even though in my mind, I can’t understand how a child that is born, survived an abortion, and is living and breathing on their own is still the “right” of woman.

We have unfortunately given our government so much power and looked to them for so much “assistance” that they now have a firm grasp on many of the most important aspects of our life.

In Canada, when a 13-year old student started to believe she was a male, a psychologists recommended hormone therapy to accompany her gender dysphoric feelings. While both parents were coming to terms with their daughter’s feelings, they both were against hormones. However, their daughter’s doctors decided that in this case, their daughter’s treatment was not up to them. From

Lessons from Screwtape is a series of posts based on C.S. Lewis’ book, The Screwtape Letters, in which a principle demon, Screwtape, converses with a lower demon about their tactics to prey on humans.

Don’t worry, todays post is not suggesting that God’s goodness is limited; not in the least. But it will address why God’s goodness often appears to be limited from our vantage point. Think about it, why is it that we speak of a God of unlimited power, but only see His power in limited intervals? Why not simply reveal the completeness of His power unendingly for all the world to see? The answer has to do with God’s purpose in revealing Himself to Humans at all. Screwtape (C.S. Lewis’s fictional demon) helps us understand this as he trains Wormwood (another demon) how to use the changing perception of God’s presence in the lives of Christians; what he calls the “troughs and peaks”.

The “troughs” are times in which God’s goodness is only faintly observable by the Christian. When tragedy strikes, when our hearts are shaken, when needs are not met, or when evil triumphs. The Christian life is full of instances and even phases where it seems that God’s goodness is faint. Its barely getting us by. We want the intense brightness of the sun to shine on us, but all we feel is a nightlight in the middle of dark times. Screwtape examines why these “troughs” are so important to the Christian:

Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.

Lewis, C. S.. The Screwtape Letters (pp. 38-39). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

The reason for these troughs, these times where God’s goodness seems limited, has to do with the nature of God’s desired relationship with His people. Screwtape loathsomely admits that God’s desires are different than his own and his Father Below (the devil). Whereas all demonic creatures want to consume and annihilate humans, God’s intention is to grow them into beings who share a life similar to His own. Adoption into his royalty is how the Bible puts it. The book of Romans tells us:

“All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8.14-15)

But how does God use these “troughs” to grow us into beings that can share in His glory? Would it not make more sense to make His presence overwhelmingly known to us? Would he not secure every soul if He would just be fully and eternally present? Not so fast.

We often forget that God is working with the human will. If it were God’s desire to simply have humans follow a set of rules, compulsion is simple; just ask any tyrant or dictator. And compulsion is what the fullest degree of His presence ...

Its no secret that our culture wishes to dismantle Christian institutions; its been trying to bring down churches and Christian colleges and universities for years. You might think that Christian K-12 schools and homeschools are exempt from this attack; that smaller communities of faith would be understood to have more leniency with raising their children, but you would be wrong.

The latest way in which Christian institutions are being held up in our culture as institutions of hate and anti-science is through the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools. If you or your family have had the privilege of benefiting from a Christian primary school – be it Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Homeschool, or whatever background – this is toward you.

It was started by Chris Stoop, responding to Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen, for her decision to teach at a K-8 school that can refuse to hire employees that are homosexual and enroll children whose parents are homosexual. This, of course, was an egregious act toward the American people that spawned the outrage of many that alleged Christian schools are harmful to our culture.

Hey fellow Christian school grads, let’s tell @VP and @DavidAFrench how traumatizing those bastions of bigotry are. Use the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools @amandablount2 @300ZXNA @TheCheekyGinger @msnbc#ChristianAltFacts #EmptyThePews #Exvangelical #LGBTQ #FaithfullyLGBT

— Chris Stroop (@C_Stroop) January 18, 2019

The goal of #ExposeChristianSchools is to show that these educational institutions are plagued with the stuff that our culture most vigorously despises. Go ahead and check Twitter for yourself. You’ll find many people tweeting about being oppressed, or sheltered, or shamed by Christian schools, but it all comes down to the same charges that we’ve heard before.

They say: Christian schools promote hate; hate against homosexuals, transgendered, anyone who is not white, anyone who is not rich, and anyone who is not Christian.

They say: Christian schools promote anti-science; teaching about Creationism, Intelligent Design, a spiritual world, religious stories as history, and a law discoverable in nature.

Let’s be fair, there are some things that happen in a private Christian school, or homeschool, that are awful. Just like every institution, Christianity can abuse its authority. But let’s not pretend that the #ExposeChristianSchools movement has in mind the academic success or even personal safety of young students. They are after the ideas. They want to demonize, what just a few years ago, was completely rational thinking. If you don’t promote homosexuality and transgenderism, you are hateful. If you don’t denounce white people and American history as oppressive, you are hateful.