Christian Slogans Pt. 4

I’ve received multiple lists of requests for more of my slogan takedowns. Some of them I haven’t heard before, so I honestly can’t say anything about them. But I did find some gems. Here they are. 

“What’s more important: being right or being unified?” Unless I’m wrong, it’s being right. Isn’t that obvious? What floors me is that the person posing this question is doing so against someone who is arguing for a certain proposition, and this person doesn’t feel like dealing with it, so by asking the question, they are implicitly, rhetorically, saying that it is more important to be unified. The question, as phrased, has made the two mutually exclusive as one must be superior to the other. They cannot be equal. They can both be important, but one carries more weight than the other, and we are supposed to believe it is being unified that is the superior choice. This is false. It is self defeating. The person who trots out this slogan believes it is right to be unified, but if so, then firstly, being unified gets its justification from being right, or, you need to be unified in truth for unity to have any meaning, and secondly, if it does, then this slogan is self refuting and boils down to saying “You need to be unified with me than with anybody or anything else.” But why? What if you’re wrong? Shouldn’t we figure that out? “What’s more important? Being right or being unified?” Ah, now we see, this is censorship. This is shutting down the possibility that this person is wrong. What Orwell warned us about in his novel 1984 some people see as a handbook! But maybe that’s too harsh? Well then, let me quote from the play “A Man For All Seasons.” In this scene, Sir Thomas Moore (later to be Saint Thomas Moore in honor of his martyrdom) is held in prison. As a faithful Christian, he cannot say that the divorce of King Henry VIII was valid, even though Henry made it punishable by law (death) to say otherwise. Moore’s friend Norfolk pleads with him, “Oh, confound all this…I’m not a scholar, as Master Cromwell never tires of pointing out, and frankly, I don’t know if the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas, look at those names…You know those men! Can’t you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?” Moore is moved, and responds, “And when we stand before God, and you are sent to paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?” 

“That’s just your conviction.” And that’s just your conviction that it’s my conviction, so there. Where do we go from here? Nowhere, because that’s all this does, it get’s us nowhere. So stop it! This is just the religious translation of, “That’s just your opinion.” It is meant, as slogans usually are designed to do, to stop conversation. What matters is, is my opinion correct? I believe a X, or I am convicted X, and if X happens to be true, then it is not mere opinion, it is fact. So, instead of saying “conviction“, let’s call it a “fact.” “Well, that’s just a fact.” Huh, doesn’t sound the same, does it? By saying X is just my conviction or opinion, you are attempting to strip it of any credibility so you have nothing to deal with. When you are dealt facts, you must deal with them. But you know, conviction is a lot worse than opinion. I may be of the opinion that strawberries are better than bananas, but it can hardly be said such a thing is my conviction. Conviction seems much stronger. Conviction has behind it thought out reasons and rigor. But if so, then they have facts behind them, reasons which you must deal with. 

“Jesus wasn’t a Republican.” Well no duh, Dick Tracy. Jesus wasn’t a lot of things. Jesus wasn’t Mexican, he wasn’t married, he wasn’t an Olympic athlete, he wasn’t the Father, he wasn’t in America, but that by no means Jesus disapproves of any of these things. Let’s say Mexicans make some bomb burritos, as they certainly do. And I praise these burritos. It’s like freaking manna in the desert or something. And I’m like, “Man, God bless those Mexican’s and their burritos. They’ve certainly made the country a better place. I’m sure if they sold their burritos to every place in the world, the entire world would be a better place.” Then imagine some guy said, “But Jesus wasn’t Mexican!” In the same way, I could look at a demographic of people like a Republican demographic, and I look at their work, like their work to end abortion, and I say, “Man, God bless those Mexican’s and their pro-life work. They’ve certainly made the country a better place. I’m sure if they got their pro-life work to every place in the world, the entire world would be a better place.” Jesus supports pro-life work, and that task has been taken up by the Republican Party. In contrast, abortion is promoted by another group of people, the Democrats. They are promoting the death of millions of children. God does not approve of the work of this demographic. So, Jesus is not a Republican, heck no. Jesus is a monarch. He is king. But according to Romans 13, he gave worldly governments legitimate authority, so Jesus is something akin to a constitutional monarch. We must use these God given powers responsibly to do good works. In the political world, what does look like? Looks a lot like the Republican Party to me.