Sunspots 695

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Relevant, and other sources, report that China is attacking Christians and churches, and other religions, too. In another report, China is blocking on-line Christian services.

Richard Mouw, in Sojourners, argues against uncritical support for Israel, and claims that the Bible does not teach such support.

Some prominent Christians have recently argued that Christians have no business trying to work for social justice. Russell Moore, of the Southern Baptist Convention, begs to differ.


Food: Listverse has posted 10 little-known facts about Avocados.

In case you didn't know it, cacao (the plant that chocolate comes from) is susceptible to plant diseases. Scientific American reports on attempts to find resistant cacao plants.

Gizmodo on whether breakfast cereal is good for us or not.

Politics: Not a surprise. Scientific American reports that more people are killed by active shooters when they are using semi-automatic weapons.

Earther reports that, as Hurricane Florence neared landfall, President Trump called the government's response to Hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico, an "unsung success," in spite of plenty of contrary evidence. Then, later, he claimed that the death toll, about 3,000, was a figure made up by Democrats, to make him look bad.

The Trump administration is in process of relaxing regulations on institutions that lend money to military personnel, and has done so without consulting the Pentagon, which is opposed to these changes, according to National Public Radio.

Relevant reports that the number of Christian refugees entering the US has fallen sharply under the Trump administration.

(Not really politics, I hope) Gizmodo reports that a system is being developed to allow the President to send a warning text message to every cell phone in the US, in case of terrorist attacks, weather disasters, and the like.

Science: Barrier islands in the Atlantic Ocean, which protect North and South Carolina from some hurricane damage, are disappearing, says Scientific American.

Gizmodo reports that there is a plan in place to sequence the DNA of all living vertebrate species, about 66,000.

Earther reports on a typhoon that was stronger than Florence, at about the same time.

Scientific American reports on a study that indicates that people who are new to us dislike us less than we think they do.

Thanks for looking!

Homosexual activism and public opinion - what about adultery?

I recently read an article, entitled "The six ways homosexual activists manipulate public opinion." (The article was published in 2012.) The "six ways" included "claim victim status." The article concentrated on that, and discussed hate crimes against homosexuals, and how homosexuality is treated in college campus discourse and regulations. There is documentation for these two ideas, in particular. In the first place, the author claims that most crimes against homosexuals are perpetrated by other homosexuals, and that there are also more crimes by homosexuals against heterosexuals than the reverse. In the second place, university policies often seem to suppress any suggestion that homosexual activity might be sinful, and students, and sometimes faculty, are sometimes punished for saying so. Christian student groups have been severely penalized for refusing to allow practicing homosexuals to be group officers.

I don't doubt either of these claims, although I have no easy way to check them. I have seen other documentation of the second claim, and, expanding it, believe that speaking about what the Bible says about homosexuality is coming to lead to disagreement, and even legal penalties, in society at large. (See my post on how "hate speech" is coming to include merely saying that I think homosexual activity is condemned in the Bible.)

OK. Suppose these claims are true. One thing that would have been expected to happen is that homosexuals would appear more often in films, books and TV programs, and other media. Does anyone doubt that this has happened?

But the alarmism seems a bit odd, or at least not broad enough. It is doubtful that most homosexuals have agreed to adopt a particular agenda towards achieving acceptance and suppressing resistance to acceptance, even though they usually seem to want acceptance of their behavior. It's hard to organize any group that large. 

But, more important, where is the alarm over adultery and various forms of heterosexual sex outside of marriage, which have gradually become more "acceptable" over the past decades? Adulterers, and sexual partners without marriage, have made great inroads into popular culture, and, currently, there doesn't seem to be much said about that. Most of the sexual activity, implied, or actually shown, on network television, and, apparently, on pay-for-view sources such as HBO, is between heterosexual people who aren't married. I'm guessing that most pornography is heterosexual in nature, not homosexual. People who have committed adultery, or had sexual relations without marriage, are accepted, even sometimes put forward as role models. For an obvious example, few people, or none, seem to have been bothered by the adultery committed by the current President of the US (before he was a serious candidate). This is not to attack Mr. Trump, or to deny the possibility that he has been forgiven of that sin, but to indicate the widespread acceptance of adultery in our society, even by many so-called conservative Christians. In Mr. Trump's case, especially by conservative Christians.

To put it another way, Democrats often seem to accept, even glorify, homosexual behavior. Republicans are less likely to, but they seem to accept heterosexual sins, including adultery, which, after all, is forbidden by one of the Ten Commandments. At least as long as the heterosexual sinners claim to be against big government.

I quote from a previous post:
Is homosexual activity the worst sin? No. See what Jesus said in comparing Sodom to the people of his day, in Matthew 11:20-24, and Luke 10:1-12. Romans 1 indicates that homosexual behavior is a symptom of a worse sin, idolatry or unbelief.

Homosexual activity is not even the worst sexual sin -- it's not part of the 10 commandments. There's a list of curses for sinful activity in Deuteronomy 27:15-26. Four such were curses for sexual misconduct, and they didn't include homosexual activity. (That does not, of course, make homosexual activity acceptable for Christians. [Or anyone else])

Thanks for reading. This post was edited on March 27, 2017.

Is your church ready to have a child molester attend?

A church in San Diego County, California, has gotten a lot of media attention (if this link doesn't work any more, and you want to know more about this particular situation, try a search for "Mark Pliska," the man in question, or for "Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Carlsbad, California," or for "Madison Shockley," the pastor) recently, because a convicted (and released) sex offender has attended Pilgrim Church of Christ, and apparently wished to do so with the congregation being aware of his past.

I heard an interview with the pastor, and another pastor who has worked with several congregations on such matters. You can listen to that interview, and read some explanatory material here. Currently, the church is working on policies to cover the situation.

There are two major questions for churches:

1) How willing is the church to accept repentant criminals and other "outsiders?" It might be well for a church congregation, board, pastoral staff, or all of these, to consider this. What would happen if someone with AIDS, or, in churches with ethnic or language homogeneity, if someone from another ethnic group wanted to attend? What would Jesus do? What should we do? If we/I are reluctant to accept such people, why, and what should we do about it? This would probably be a healthy discussion best held before such an event occurred.

2) Does the church have policies or understandings in place to protect children? Most child molestation is done by family members, but too much of it happens from teachers, pastors, children and youth workers, and the like. Are there rules such that adults are never alone with children? This protects children, and also would protect the adult from false accusations.

I don't like to even think about such things, but I think I should.

Thanks for reading.

(Some editorial changes were made on March 26, 2007)

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On May 6, 2007, this church adopted a policy on safety, which would allow a sex offender who met certain requirements to attend, and should also go far to protect children against offenses committed by church workers and others, while they are attending a church function.