Truth Isn't Enough ... You Must Weep
Emotions play a role in the debate for the hearts and minds of the nation. Get used to it.
posted by Matt Friedeman @ 4:02 PM
5 comments
Monday, January 30, 2006
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'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world. (William Booth)
5 Comments:
Mr. Friedeman's observations are on target.
Making matters worse, postmodernism is ever-present so that even in the increasingly rare event that emotion is not "necessary" to win the day, "truth" remains a moving target.
Of course, Truth is a Person and not an idea or set of ideas, and He has given us guidelines for engaging our culture.
Rather than play to emotions or intellect, we are to address the conscience - our God-given ally in the fight.
Whereas the intellect is at enmity with God and not subject to the things of God, and the emotions are flimsy and too easily manipulated, the human conscience agrees with the Moral Law of God - the Ten Commandments - and it is there, into the conscience, where we must compassionately thrust the Sword.
Also, we are not required to win. We are required to faithfully sow the seeds of Truth and pray that they find good ground and return a manifold harvest.
Well, one thing is for sure, those people who came after the dull and boring Ultra Right Wing conservative christian were telling the truth. The stem cell bill would had killed them.
WTG Mississippi, maybe that state is about to throw off the cage of conservativism and become a good liberal state.
Anonymous -
You make Mr. Friedeman's point beautifully by completely ignoring the facts.
The facts are that there is no indication whatever that embryonic stem cell research has any promise whatever.
On the other hand, adult stem cells have already yielded results.
You were right about one thing - the bill will certainly result in the deaths of many people - embryonic people.
The true "emotional" sad fact is that the true "emotional" ones that we could "march" in to weep and cry at the testimonies are being slaughtered before they see the light of day. The only ones left to speak for them are those who have been numbed from the 47,000,000 (and counting) aborted babies in this country. Jeremiah weeped when he left the valley of slaughter. Our tears have longed dried. And it goes on......
Anonymous -
Great points.
And think of this - if we were to appeal to the emotions by forcing people to confront the reality of abortion in the form of photographs of dead and dismembered babies, we wouldn't be heralded as the side with the most convincing argument. No, we'd be labeled as "hateful," as we already are labeled.
We cannot win this argument, though we must continue to try. The battle is not for the minds of men and women, for in their minds they are enemies of God and are not subject to the things of God.
The battle, rather, is for the conscience, for there the battle can be won. The conscience is our God-given ally, and it agrees with the dictates of God's Moral Law.
Only new hearts in new creatures will result in new thinking concerning abortion.
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