Jerry Falwell and Ellen DeGeneres: Ghosts of Culture Wars Past

“Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:1-6)

“Marley was dead, to begin with – there’s no doubt about that. He was as dead as a doornail. Marley and Scrooge were business partners once. But then Marley died and now their firm belonged to Scrooge, who was a stingy and heartless old man.”  The opening lines of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

I’m going to pilfer a portion of Dickens’ prose to make an observation on this Oscar Night 2014:

Fallwell is dead, to begin with – there’s no doubt about that. He is as dead as a doornail.

Most everyone reading this likely knows at least these two things about Ellen DeGeneres: (1) She’s very funny and (2) She’s a lesbian.  I wonder, though, how many people among the readership remember when Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet in 1997.  When Ellen announced she was a homosexual, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the self-appointed leader of the moral majority, responded with name-calling.  He called her “Ellen Degenerate” Ellen just blew Farwell’s comments off. “Really? He called me that?” she said. “I’ve been getting that since the fourth grade.”

Tonight, Ellen DeGeneres will host the Oscars.  Jerry Falwell is dead.  Tonight, my Sunday school teacher, via Twitter, wondered out loud to the Pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock:

I, for one, don’t care to count the ways;  I won’t be watching the Oscars.  I just wonder how many ways there would be if what consisted of “the moral majority” when I was younger had spent more time and money sharing the gospel to lost people and teaching biblical ethics to the church instead of trying to shape a world controlled by Satan via the media and lobbying the government…and name-calling.

Make no mistake; I do believe that homosexual acts and their acceptance as normative are degenerate.  I just don’t believe name-calling in the media is going to make homosexuals come to Christ.  I don’t believe the church can expect pats on the back for sharing the gospel in the same way that people receive gold statuettes for making profane movies.

Falwell, like Marley, is dead. We, like Scrooge, are still alive.  Tonight, as we are visited by the Ghost of Culture Wars Past, let us turn to God in repentance as Ebeneezer Scrooge turned from his greedy ways.  Let us seek to actively and intentionally share the gospel of Jesus Christ, which can change hearts and minds.  It is only the gospel that can save homosexual offenders like Ellen DeGeneres from their sin.  Without the gospel, Ellen DeGenres is going to spend an eternity in Hell.  There will be no moral minority in the New Jerusalem. It is only the power of Christ that will allow a resurrected Jerry Falwell and a resurrected Ellen DeGeneres to stroll, hand-in-hand as brother and sister, the glory road of the Holy City.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  (John 3:16-18)