Mattera On Christ & Culture (Part 3)

Our evaluation of Mr. Mattera’s article continues.. 

8. Highlighting days and months of the year

Special emphasis is placed on certain days and months to saturate society with woke ideologies espoused by particular groups. 

For example:

Pride Month (June).

Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31).

International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (May 17).

National Coming Out Day (October 11).

LGBT History Month (October).

Transgender Awareness Week (2nd week of November).

Transgender Day of Remembrance (November 20).

This is just a laundry list of days of which Mr. Mattera disapproves.    It doesn’t seem  to register with him that he is part of a machine that has long indoctrinated Christians in a direction that has led them to fail LGBTQ people, legalized religiously based bigotry, & cloaked that bigotry in love.   He reminds me of people who objected to MLK Day in the late 20th Century. 

What does the Bible teach about the observance of days?  

(1) Galatians 4:8–11 (ESV):  Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. 

(2) Galatians 4:8–11 (ESV):  Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. 

On the one hand, Paul warns against the legalism associated with the observance of days, as if such observance is mandatory regardless of motive.  On the other, he warns against sitting in judgment of those who observe days, as if their observance is wrong regardless of motive. 

We ought to be in the business of understanding why people observe different days within their culture & subculture.   Why do LGBTQ people observe these days?  Instead of looking for ways to continue to fail them & to throw even more roadblocks between ourselves & them, we ought to listen to ourselves when we complain the way Mr. Mattera does.   He sounds exactly like people in the 1960’s who objected to slogans like “Black Power.”   

Incidentally, we could stand to do the same with respect to the liturgical calendars other religious traditions.  It’s time to learn to paraclete people other than our own & those of whom we generally approve ( Matt. 5:41 - 48) 

9. Through education

Schools and universities are increasingly becoming centers of ideological indoctrination rather than bastions of serious, ordered learning. From celebrating drag queen story hours for small children to teaching anti-American revisionist history in universities, woke ideology is rebranding reality and shaping the minds of the next generation of cultural elites. This shift in education prioritizes ideological conformity over critical thinking, undermining the foundational principles of education. 

Seriously?  In NC & FL there are laws that use neutral, at best semi-specific, language that bans teaching that intersects with gender identity & sexuality in early childhood education.   That sort of non-specific language, if taken to its logical conclusion, bans Dick & Jane books & Dr. Seuss.   Those characters are all cisgender & living out the traditional family narrative. 

I myself am old enough to remember the fight for abstinence only sexuality education in public school systems throughout the nation.  Evangelical Christians turned out at school board meetings & ran for office to make certain it happened. Local churches were saddled with purity culture.  Until just a few years ago, AL law was clear that teaching any view on homosexuality that disagreed with the state narrative that all but made it criminal was forbidden.  I remember working at the CDC National HIV/AIDS Hotline & hearing, yet again, rumors about the alleged ineffectiveness of latex condoms.  It’s as if nobody who was involved in those events ever bothered to ask themselves if this is the sort of human sexuality education that God licenses in the Bible. 

The same is true when it comes to the way we are handling abortion as a nation.  The GOP gave us Roe v. Wade & then Planned Parenthood v. Casey then 2 years ago threw the issue back to the states.  Is that the way God wants us to handle this issue?  What does the Bible teach?  Does it teach that states rights supercede federal law, or is there one Moral Law & one national law to which tribal law is to conform?  It’s amazing how many people’s eyes glaze over when asked where the Bible teaches that the early termination of a pregnancy is always murder & therefore a sin.  It says no such thing, but Ecclesiastical Tradition says otherwise.  It’s amazing how much authority Ecclesiastical Tradition wields over the hearts & minds of the People.  

In truth Mr. Mattera has no problem with ideological conformity.  His issue is with ideological conformity with which he disagrees.   If he really believed in critical thinking, he wouldn’t be the cipher for Ecclesiastical Tradition that he is.  A lack of critical thinking is one of the American Church’s major problems right now.  How else can we explain the large numbers of Evangelicals who are surrounding themselves in the echo chamber with buffoons like Mark Robinson, or fundamentalist anti-Calvinism, hyper-Calvinism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, Islamophobia, anti-guilt laws in response to racial tensions, systemic racial & ethnic divisions, and so on?  

John Piper is right when he says that moral problems & one’s understanding of the Word of God correctly exegeted, exposited, understood, & applied go together.   Mr. Mattera’s words are part of the problem, not the solution.  We are in need of a Second (Protestant) Reformation that answers Ecclesiastical Tradition & the growing revolutionary trend among the People of the United States. 

10. Through politics and law

The Biden administration has utilized taxpayer dollars to promote woke ideology both domestically and internationally. For example, the administration spent $4.6 million to support LGBT projects abroad, including organizing drag shows in Ecuador and funding advocacy groups in multiple countries to promote LGBT causes. For example, Your tax dollars at work: Biden admin spent $4.6 million on overseas LGBTQ activism, and Biden Spends Thousands On Ecuadorian Drag Shows. 

Additionally, the Department of Education has proposed grants that prioritize teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) and related themes, reshaping American history curricula to emphasize systemic oppression and racial biases. For more information: Biden Administration Prioritizes “Wokeism,” Critical Race Theory In Schools. 

President Eisenhower would probably remind us that $4.6M is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of dollars devoted to military spending & erecting border walls.   It’s doubtful that he would approve of the $12M the DeSantis administration in FL used to deport migrants to other states.   In addition, his people cased the joint in TX & trafficked migrants to CA on the People’s dime.  That’s called human trafficking. 

Why would the Biden Administration spend money on LGBTQ activism overseas?  Maybe it has something to do with the horrifying export of “family values” in the name of Christ abroad that has helped nurture the systematic destruction of LGBTQ people in Uganda, Ukraine, Russia, & elsewhere.  

These transformations represent a significant reclassification of societal norms and values, challenging long-standing biblical principles and profoundly reshaping civilization.

Our civilization needs reformation & reshaping, but it’s not the sort of which Mr. Mattera approves.   How little he really understands Apostolic Christianity. We are in need of a Second (Protestant) Reformation that answers Ecclesiastical Tradition & the growing revolutionary trend among the People of the United States. 

May God bless us all, each & every one.  Go & sin no more.