Angela Chininin Buele

When you dare to put something in writing, you are subject to a variety of consequences if your words come back to bite you.  You might face severe ridicule if you get your facts jumbled; or you could face legal action if you have committed libel against another person.

But sometimes, to my bewilderment, no one interjects to cry foul on some pretty clear cut matters.  This is what happens when we – yes, me, too – speak (or listen) to serve our own purposes instead of our Maker’s.

One of these reckless rhetoric lines is that someone is “unqualified to be President” because of his or her character flaws.  As agreeable as this standard would be, all it takes to be a qualified candidate is: being a natural born U.S. citizen, who is at least 35 years of age and who has resided a minimum of 14 years in the United States.  That’s it.  If you can get enough people to vote for you, intelligence, ethics, and manners are admirable qualities that are not constitutionally mandated.

Another, painfully common claim is that someone’s perspective or position on an issue (usually a hot topic) has “evolved.”  The term evolve has become a common replacement for both “develop” (slow transition in the same general direction) and “switch” (complete turn-around, often abrupt).  When used in the context of switching from the former standard of acceptable practice to the new wave of culture, this term can communicate compliance and spare the “evolved” party from social rejection.  However, hypocrisy is glaring when one says he/she has “evolved” on a certain issue but then accuses an adversary of having “flip-flopped” on something else.

Oddly enough, I recall having been quite sad upon hearing of the murder of Matthew Shepherd when many of my high school classmates were casually slinging around words like “f*g” and “q*eer” as the highest of insults.  Some of those old classmates, however, have testified today to their personal evolution and have been pardoned, records expunged and all.  This might flow seamlessly in many social circles, but is it really the best way forward to loosely hold to positions that bend in time with the whims of public opinion?

And then there is the statement that “the unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.”  Reviewing the U.S. Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and The Declaration of Independence shows that the Ninth Amendment leaves room for understood and unspoken human rights.  The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny the equal protection of the law.  The judicial maneuvers led by Justice Blackmun to redefine the meaning of a person do not make the Roe decision any less wrong.  Period.

Key Question: Are we willing to hold high the standard of truth in our words and our deeds?

Unshakable Truth: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry”  (2 Timothy 4:3-5).

The Real Choice: Do you want the truth?