-By Rev Michael Bresciani
Surprise comes from just about everywhere in today’s American setting and unparalleled moral decline. It is amazing to see just how far and how fast the decline is taking place and perhaps even more amazing is to see, just who is part of it, and who is resisting and decrying the great national slide into the shadowy regions of reprobation.
Recently Raquel Welch, who was once a sex symbol herself, said Americans are a bunch of “sex addicts.” Coming from Raquel this assessment makes the most resistant left wing proponent of pulling out all the stops, pause to ponder.
Wallace Henley, writer for the Christian Post, has likened Rush Limbaugh who recently apologized for calling a Georgetown University student a ‘slut,’ to a rock that is only crying out because others were too afraid to speak up.
In an article entitled “Rush Limbaugh: A Crying Stone in Place of Mute Prophetic Voices?” Henley said, “There are no doubt better, more loving ways to say it than Rush did. However, the episode brings to mind the words of Jesus when Pharisees tried to get Him to muzzle His followers. “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” Jesus said. (Luke 19:40)
Top radio host Rush Limbaugh has made his apologies but the left has not finished spending their usual week or two lambasting Rush for his indiscretion. Calls for sponsors to quit Rush and for Rush to quit radio have followed as expected. On the positive side Rush’s comments have helped to bring to the front the well-known slurs and comments about Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum and others made by such notables as Bill Maher.
In the New Testament which was written totally in Greek are two words which are juxtaposed to each other but by no means are found to be subjacent as abiding naturally in the same neighborhood.
The first is the Greek word for sacred, which is hieros. Sacred things are deemed so, not by their intrinsic value, but because they have been dedicated to the service of God. Under such a definition almost anything can be deemed sacred.
The opposite of sacred is profane and is defined by the Greek, bebelos. The meaning of this word is highly unusual because fundamentally it indicates that someone or everyone has crossed a threshold. It is wanton disregard for the sacred and a bullish invasion of profanity against and in some cases deep into the territory of the sacred.
Rush had the good sense to apologize for his excursion into the profane so, perhaps now, we can expect an apology from the student who testified to congress with an eye to convincing representatives that the indemnifiers of the Catholic university ought to pay for her contraceptives. Has a threshold been crossed here?
The perception that God’s ministers, preachers and prophets are holier than thou milquetoast loudmouths from the land of the inexperienced life, is far from the truth. The mildest of the God’s mouthpieces will not mince words if they are from among those who are well grounded in Biblical theology and a good helping of common sense. If for some reason they choose to remain silent then God is perfectly willing to get the rocks to cry out even if it turns out they are radio talk show hosts.
It is obvious that Rush took a brief flight from his own better discretionary guide and Ms. Fluke really did deserve an apology, but what is also clear is that what Ms. Fluke was asking the congress to consider is likewise reprehensible. While not asking the Catholic Church to pay for contraceptives directly the premiums for their insurance carriers come directly from the church coffers. Even as some say, that Ms. Fluke may have been using the contraceptives for other purposes by the time the story of her address to congress was made known, perception had already become the better part of reality.
This is a day when the demand for our rights often is at odds with the rights of others. This is not a war against women’s rights but a question about the rights of the unborn, the church and anyone else who must be disregarded to gain a bit of help from the fed. Talk like this flies over the heads of most Americans and most of those in the political class, but down in the trenches, the work place, the schools and the streets there is a different way of looking at things.
Every reality known to man says that any red blooded male from Bangor to Los Angeles would probably think (Even if they did not say it) exactly the same way Rush did after hearing the news. Pitching the congress to shake $3,000.00 from Catholic insurers for contraceptives has got to invoke some response. Rush’s choice of words would be mild if the truth were known.
In a nation of free men we need not listen to God, the Bible, preachers, Rush, Raquel, Henley or yours truly. Listen or not, these rocks will not be moved even if the whole nation flies headlong across the bebelos, at the same time making request of the taxpayers, to pay for the flight.
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Rev. Michael Bresciani is the chief steward of http://www.americanprophet.org. The website has since 2005 featured the articles of columnist Rev Michael Bresciani along with news and reviews that have earned this site the title of The Website for Insight. Millions have read his timely reports and articles in online journals and print publications across the nation and the globe.