Taking Every Thought Captive

Julaine Appling

2020 | Week of June 15 | Radio Transcript #1364

Scripture tells us we are to destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

To be faithful to Scripture, we dare not just respond to any thing in life, including cultural happenings emotionally. While emotions are part of God’s good design for us as humans and as His image bearers, Scripture does not direct us to act and react based on emotions. To the contrary, we are told to think, to use our minds, to allow our minds to guide our actions and reactions—to control our emotions, if you will.

Does that truth admonition have any relevance for us today as we observe and think about and respond to the current Black Lives Matter protests and riots that have happened following the death of George Floyd?

Using our minds, let’s explore Black Lives Matter, Inc., the group that is spearheading the Black Lives Matter activity and movement across the country.  Two primary groups are apparently speaking for the movement, Black Lives Matter Global Network and the Movement for Black Lives. Both claim to be civil rights organizations, which today is popular to be—and since so many are hyper-sensitive on this issue, makes most people believe they are good and well intentioned.

However, both of these organizations are extremely radical.  Gary Bauer with Our American Values goes so far as to say they “despise Western Civilization.”

The Movement for Black Lives’ website is instructive, declaring, they believe “that prisons, police and all other institutions that inflict violence on Black people must be abolished,” and that “the current systems we live inside of need to be radically transformed, which includes a realignment of global power,” along with saying they are “anti-capitalist,” believing and understanding “that Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system.”

This group even goes so far as saying, “We believe in centering the experiences and leadership of the most marginalized Black people, including but not limited to those who are trans and queer, women and femmes, currently and formerly incarcerated, immigrants, disabled, working class, and poor.”

The Black Lives Matters Global Network attacks the traditional, nuclear family and, of course, heterosexuality, the nexus of the traditional family unit. From the group’s website we learn they “are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender (heterosexual) privilege and uplift Black trans folk,” “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement,” and “foster a queer-affirming network.” “When we gather,” they say, “we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.”

Let’s put all this in a biblical construct. God created two distinct sexes: male and female. He uniquely designed them as complementary to one another and included procreative capability. Marriage and family is His idea and creation, not man’s. The Creator knows what is best for the creation—and that is one man and one woman married to each other in a lifelong, monogamous relationship. Family by God’s design includes biological and adopted children. That’s not just the “Gold Standard”; it’s God’s standard. And that’s what these organizations behind the Black Lives Matter protests are not just rejecting but seeking to destroy.

Ironically, one of the main contributors to much of what Black Americans are enduring today is directly related to the breakdown and non-formation of traditional, nuclear families, which has resulted in pandemic fatherlessness in those communities.

Does knowing the agenda and mission of the groups organizing and pushing the protests make a difference in how you view what is happening in our country right now?  How does their agenda square up with the clear teaching of the Bible? Is their effort to achieve justice in line with God’s view of justice? God’s justice doesn’t use one group of people to try to advance an agenda that ultimately hurts everyone.

Christians must think biblically. That’s true all the time, but never more so than when our culture is spiraling out of control. What the groups pushing Black Lives Matter espouse seem to me to qualify as arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God. Those arguments and opinions the Apostle Paul says we are to destroy, in other words to dismantle, to expose them for the destructive lies they are. That can only be done as we bring every thought captive in obedience to Christ. In so doing, we can have a proper, helpful reaction and response to cultural moments.

This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

Julaine Appling has taught on the junior high, high school, and college levels, and for five years was the administrator of a private school. In 1998 she was asked to become the Executive Director of Wisconsin Family Council, where her mission is to advance Judeo-Christian principles and values in Wisconsin by strengthening, preserving, and promoting marriage, family, life and liberty. In addition to regularly being interviewed for Wisconsin television, radio, and newspapers, she is the host of "Wisconsin Family Connection," aired weekly on almost 50 radio stations in Wisconsin including the VCY America radio network.

Learn more at WIFamilyCouncil.org

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