The theme of the ROAD to EMMAUS==>> is "truth", which expressed in various ways, such as "Truth IS the strategy..." The following article is an example of "truth being the strategy" in THE Primary Area where the battle for truth is being fought in western culture -- human sexuality.
Winning is not a "bad" thing, as some people feel (because it creates
"losers"). God has a plan so that if He wins, we all win. An honest fight
is part of God's plan for wooing and winning the creation into His Kingdom.
The issue over which "winning" is contested needs to be framed clearly and persistently:
Church leadership has fallen into the "Stockholm syndrome", the tendency for captives to become enamored of their captors. The very people who are scientifically and spiritually abusing us have become our "darling". And we have for all practical purposes lost the capacity to resist their abuse -- in a bizarre sado-masochistic kind of drama.
The strategy has been to make spiritual warfare appear like polite debate by misleading slogans: "Collegiality is more important than truth." What might start as collegial discussion immediately become spiritual warfare when the common ground of truth and communication is tilted to one side.
Tilting is accomplished by imposing two inappropriate ground rules:
Problem: How to recover scientific, moral, and spiritual integrity?
God is not embarrassed about winning. Moses won over Pharaoh, Jesus over Satan, and the early Church over Caesar. And if we are followers of Jesus, God has won over us. God has a stated intention of winning back the whole creation. So winning is not bad.
Winning has gotten a bad rap by association with forcing one's opinion on others. God, however, says, "Come, let us reason together." Enemies of God rarely shows up because, lacking personal integrity, neither honest discussion nor living proof interest them. But when they do (e.g., Job), they learn that God is indeed right.
He wins.
God has no case other than the truth. Really honest discussion begins at the foot of the cross -- where I surrender my ego investment in "winning my position" and simply look for the truth -- the basis of personal integrity.
If we are not interested in the truth, God has no case for us. We will then not be persuaded that He is right. God will lose, and so will we. We will, as those hapless souls in C. S. Lewis's, THE GREAT DIVORCE, refuse the invitation to heaven, and trundle off back to hell because we have more important things to do.
But He wins the souls of those interested in truth. And into their hands, God places His power and authority to win the world, and yes, even Church conventions, for Him.
Interest in truth means also interest in the means of getting the truth -- i.e. honest rules of dialogue, debate, evidence gathering, etc., and a desire to hear both sides.
How do honest people win, then, in an arena which has lost integrity and been tilted to one side?
The battle becomes winnable when we adopt God's strategy. The strategy consists in maintaining at any cost to ourselves a level arena in which truth can be sought, tested, and spoken. We refuse to abide by dishonest ground rules.
If a healing process is needed in order to renew collegial commitment,
so be it. But the aim will always be to promote, not sidetrack, the weighing
of the real evidence for a position. Healing moves toward an adult capacity
to enter that arena of honest truth-testing, not toward the childish neutering
of that pursuit by misleading notions of collegiality or of relative truth
(each person's position is valid for that person).
Prior to 1988, no respected researcher any longer held to a genetic theory of homosexuality. Then suddenly in the early 1990's, we were "persuaded" that homosexuality was genetically caused.
In a competent discussion, it will be noted (1) that the claim is morally irrelevant because genetic causality does not imply rightness, and (2) that evidence for a genetic case does not exist, that indeed, the evidence points conclusively away from a purely genetic case.
E.g: in the hypothalamus case, the researcher himself (a man of apparent scientific integrity) publicly stated that his research has proven nothing because (a) there were too few samples, and (b) he did not know whether or not his control group of cadavers were from homo- or heterosexual persons.
E.g: in a study of identical twins, if one twin was homosexual, 52% of the time the other was also. With fraternal twins, the correspondence dropped to about 22%. With adopted brothers, the correspondence dropped further to about 11%. Conclusion: the more genetic the relation, the closer the correspondence, hence "a genetic cause".
However: identical twins have identical genes. That requires 100% correspondence -- unless someone can show that identical genes do not imply reasonably identical characteristics. At least 48% (and potentially all) of the incidence thus resulted from other than genetic causes. A similar British "twin study" concluded there is no link between genes and homosexuality.
Other alleged genetic evidence suffers the same fate when one looks behind the "case" constructed by the media and homosexual propaganda.
The tilt comes because the media and homosexual lobby successfully divert dealing with logical and factual evidence, chastising as "homophobic" any who bring forth contrary evidence. Guilt is a primary tool for diversion and subversion. One is made to feel guilty for merely raising the issue of homosexuality. One then must respond: The issue before us is not my personal psychology, but:
With the issue and facts under one's belt, one can then gently remind others that such and such a claim "does not correspond to the evidence", or, "That statement is inconsistent with the evidence." One can gently ask the other side for documented evidence, and whether a particular study has been verified by other researchers.
And one can then with gentleness and integrity present the mountain of documented evidence telling us that homosexuality is a psychological, medical, and spiritual abuse of society -- abusive most of all of homosexual persons themselves.
The victory becomes gentle because at the foot of the cross we surrender
ego-investment in "being right" and simply seek the truth. The warfare
is against falsehood, not against persons.
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