I don’t think I ever expected my daily life to become such a fierce battle. I never imagined that I would come to feel as though I’d fallen through some bizarre looking glass, that society at large would resemble a Mad Hatter’s tea party.
I wanted something much different for my children. I didn’t want them to grow up in this insanity where wrong is suddenly right, and freedom is gladly traded in for empirical dictates, but so much for that. It’s time to face facts, and the fact is, hostility toward Christianity is increasing rapidly. We are no longer welcome in the culture. Christianity has always been the anti-culture in every age, but here in America, in this present age, it is now a targeted threat, a presence that will no longer be tolerated.
So be it.
I am sad for my country and for the world. I grieve for the immorality that has become so commonplace and celebrated. I grieve for the family—father, mother, and children—as I watch it crumble and be slowly erased from our collective understanding. I grieve for the innocence of our children that is snatched from them before they can even ride a bike.
I grieve for the death of romance and sacrificial love, which has been replaced by indiscriminate, sterile sex without commitment or obligation. I seethe with anger at the objectification of women and the so-called empowerment that is nothing more than vulgar, degrading, pornographic smut.
With every fiber of my being I reject a so-called feminism that says I can only have equality and freedom if I am willing and able to kill my children in the womb.
I grieve deeply for our profane and mercenary practice of manufacturing babies to suit our fancies. We treat children like accessories to be added to our lives whenever we choose, and to reject whenever we choose. We order them up the way we’d special-order an automobile. And we expect that if some defect shows itself, we are entitled to cancel the order and have the product-child destroyed.
Wombs are for rent, and babies must accept being denied a mother or father, depending on the adults’ sexual preferences. No one cares what the children need—only what the adults want. All that matters is affording the adults’ lifestyle the legitimacy and status they demand. The children are there to serve that end, period.
I grieve deeply for the slow death of marriage that has been coming for decades, and the lightning-fast speed at which the final blows are being delivered as we attempt to redefine marriage into meaninglessness and chaos. I shake my head at the blind stupidity and apathy which has taken over the consciousness of so many people.
And all of this must be celebrated and hailed as progress. It is utterly selfish and depraved, yet it must be codified as the new love. To oppose this desecration of life, sex, and marriage makes one now an enemy of the state.
So be it.
What you, the culture, fail to understand is that I am not motivated to please you or appease you. I will not be bullied into submission. I will not “adapt” my beliefs to suit you. It doesn’t matter that you have decided there is no sin in abortion, same-sex “marriage”, sex-on-demand, and the treatment of babies as commodities—I disagree because I know that God has said otherwise.
What you cannot accept is that I will not cease to worship the true God in favor of your gods. I will not abandon the Truth in favor of your empty, self-serving doctrines. It doesn’t matter how many names you call me, or how many insults you hurl in my direction, or how you may wish to ostracize and push me to the outer edges of society. It will not change anything.
Abortion will always be a grave evil and utterly unjust, no matter what the Supreme Court says. Marriage will always be the union of a man and woman, for life, for the benefit of their children, no matter what the Supreme Court or any government says.
Sex will always be designed to be life-giving and unitive, no matter how much you trivialize it or how much contraception you demand.
There will always be fundamental, inherent, and complementary differences between men and women. There will always be only two possible genders of the human person: male and female.
You see, you didn’t create the human person. You didn’t create marriage. You aren’t the author and giver of new life. You didn’t establish the human family.
You don’t have the power or authority to change what God has ordained from the foundation of the world.
You will try, nonetheless, and to a large degree it will seem you have succeeded. You will perhaps change civil laws, but you can never change the Moral law. You will be able to upend the natural order of things, but you will never undo the Natural law.
You will sow havoc and confusion into the very heart of our society, and we will all reap the destructive whirlwind.
As that happens more and more, as the carnage increases and the damage leaves no one untouched, then perhaps people will finally awaken from their deceived stupor and see that they eagerly bought a barrel of poisoned apples. Perhaps then they will look around for someone who can help restore the order, sanity, and morality that had been violently cast aside.
They will find the Church. They will find Christians, the very ones they scorned and sued, bankrupted and put in prison. They’ll find the Catholic Church, and the late Cardinal George’s prediction will come to pass:
“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”
Do not misunderstand me. This is not arrogant boasting or a finger-wagging “I told you so!” I don’t say this to you, the culture, out of spite or snickering glee, but with a heavy heart that longs to see such a dismal future averted. Yet I know that even if the darkness closing in on us is not lifted, then the Church will suffer through it, be purified by it, and will be there, still standing, when souls come in need of healing and hope again. God is not mocked, and He is not dead.
You may hate me and hate my Christian values; you may despise the Church and all Her teachings; you may be certain that if only the old-fashioned notions of marriage and sex could be jettisoned, and if God could be adapted to your enlightened, modern sensibilities, then “equality” would win the day and everyone would be free and happy.
But I know you are wrong. I know it because nothing good can possibly come from eviscerating marriage of its meaning, or of distorting and twisting human sexuality into a pretzel of fabricated varieties and initials, or of wrenching innocence and modesty from our children in the name of sexual freedom and autonomy. Nothing good will ever, ever come of the brutality of abortion.
Love will never be found in the sexless manufacture of children, or the selfish denial of their right to their mother and father.
Love is “willing the good of the other, as other” the great saint Thomas Aquinas said. If I love you, I will want and do only what is for your good, even if it costs me. If you love me, you will do the same.
The signs all along the road our culture is currently speeding down do not point to love at all. They point to hedonism, nihilism, and despair. When sacrificial love is no longer the guiding principle, we are hopelessly lost.
The plans and vision you wish to bring about in our country are loveless, empty, and hopeless. You may very well be gaining ground, and you may win a few battles, thanks to decades of a lackluster witness and worse, friendly cooperation from Christians who should have known better, and should have done better.
Even so, the Church will survive you. She has watched as every major world empire has ended up on the ash heap of history. She will survive you. But not arrogantly, and not due to any cleverness or merit of Her own, but only because Jesus Christ has promised that the gates of Hell shall not prevail.
As long as I have breath, I will battle to restore to America God’s vision of the human person, the human family, authentic freedom, and genuine equality of dignity. Nothing you can say or do will dissuade me or slow me down.
I just thought you should know.
87 thoughts on “I Will Not Be Dissuaded”
Oh to be so staggeringly entitled as to think that not being allowed to control everyone I see is the same as being under attack. Oh to be so deluded as to equate unquestioned domination for the last century with being a hold out for anti-culture. Oh to be such a nakedly corrupt and selfish person and still think myself a hero for never softening towards those I’ve grown so accustomed to bullying. You look so comfortable from out here in the real world where other people exist.
I hope you don’t mind Jennifer, but I quoted some of your best over at amazon–for rhetoric, yours is some of the best I’ve read in a long time
Is this James?
Spoken like a comparatively ignorant denizen of the 21st century
who didn’t even take time to get the right spelling.
James — pardon me — james, I don’t understand this deal with the lowercase “j”. Names are proper nouns and proper nouns begin with a capital letter. Ask any 2nd grader.
A few individuals have chosen not to use capitals in their names, such as k.d. lang and bell hooks. E. E. Cummings, whose name is often written without capitals, did not do so himself: the usage derives from the typography used on the cover of one of his books.
Modern weirdness I will never understand. Whatever.
And there’s another James on this site and I don’t necessarily want to
be associated with his theology.
I have had these same feelings for decades, Jennifer. You have expressed it far more powerfully than I ever could. I feel surrounded. But, I know that I have my path to freedom, on my knees and with my rosary and I will never give that up. Thank you for writing this.
Wow, another great article that i am saving to my Kindle for future reference. Thank you, Jennifer.
What a great read. Pretty much what I have been thinking myself lately. God bless you
Bravo Jennifer! “Do not be afraid!” As long as we remain in Christ and love as He would have loved (remembering that He loved the sinner and then said, “Sin no more”), we have nothing to fear, because He has conquered the world.
You said it all perfectly! Thank you so much!
Jennifer, you nailed it. Every bit of it. Thank you.
I’m not a Catholic, but I think this message is important for all genuine Christian faiths. Every Christian needs to read and understand this.
I thoroughly agree and only wished I was as articulate!
“I disagree because I know that God has said otherwise.”
That is the problem right there. How did someone who started out as a fictional character become a real person (or three persons). Where did people get the idea that there exists a personal god that has told us how to live. If you read Genesis but know how it all started and that there never was a great flood, etc., then you should know that your god started out as a fictional character who somehow morphed into a real person or Trinity. When did your “God” become real? Was he real when he inflicted the curses on Egypt and parted the Red Sea or are those just fiction? Was he real when he wrote 10 commandments on stone tablets or was that fiction too?
Is that how your god told us how we should live. Or did civilizations and their laws evolve over time so that we now have moral values and civil laws to guide us in the way to get along with one another?
What proof do you have that God is a fictional character?
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti
That works both ways, Phil.
I (surprisingly) fully agree with you!!! Blessings…
Really like your honesty, openness, and respectfulness, Phil.
“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell
Truth is a very subjective reality and each of us has our own reality which needs to be respected. For example, most people would accept the reality of The Source, yet we perceive that Source in the way that it manifests to us in our lives, on our journeys.
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde sounds like a close relative of Pontius Pilate.
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus Christ
Pure and simple.
Despite the battle of quotes, you need to know that I have a deep respect for your sincere beliefs. It is a rarity that one runs across people who are not indifferent to themselves and their beliefs and maintain those beliefs despite opposition or even nuance.
Thank you, Phil. It’s rarer still anymore to encounter respectful opposition.
Your entire ideology pivots on your believing that quote from one of the four gospels. If the quote is wrong then you are wrong.
I used to be a virulent Atheist. I hated everything about religion. I was drinking and drugging, but when I sobered up I read this book “I Ain’t Much, But Baby I’m All I Got” by Jess Laird, a former alcoholic. On the first page he said that many alcoholics and drug abusers when they are using become Atheists because they think the whole world revolves around them. (I am certainly not saying that I think you are one). But when they sober up they become believers because they see that we are all like planets revolving around something much greater—God.
It made sense to me and in the course of one afternoon I become a believer. Now my life has meaning and purpose and hope. And a solid joy that none of the calamities on earth can shake. It’s just my little story that might give you something to think about. But keep asking questions. We’re happy to answer them. They’re some of the same questions I used to ask.
People who have these life reforming changes when they put their trust in God or Allah or Jesus, etc. exhibit classic signs of the placebo effect. You believe and you derive all the benefits that believing can bring. It doesn’t have to be true to work that way.
but it is truth…and you cannot determine truth because you have limited your view to a focal point of unreality which tarnishes everything from your world view to views on right and wrong. There is no placebo affect for you, you truly are without vision of truth.
You are quite right. And in this, you agree with St. Paul: I Corinthians 15:14. Christianity is an all or nothing religion: either it’s true, or it isn’t. As Flannery O’Connor once said, “If the Eucharist isn’t real, to hell with it.”
Yes. Well I don’t believe in the Ressurection or the Eucharist. To me they are just wishful thinking and a placebo effect.
I think everyone here gets that. (My original reply to you was in reply to your comment, “Your entire ideology pivots on your believing that quote from one of the four gospels. If the quote is wrong then you are wrong.” Don’t know why it doesn’t appear there….)
But if the quote is right, then there is resurrection.
And judgement, and heaven and hell.
Something to think about.
(SclrHmnst, I know you’re no longer on this site, but maybe this answer is for others).
And sometimes it is blindingly obvious – as in two men cannot make a marriage.
In terms of Catholic sacramental matrimony, you are right. In the civil world of marriage in 37 states they can. The US is neither founded as a Christian nation or a theocracy. It is a constitutional republic and God is never mentioned once in the constitution, except in the convention AD at the end because CE wasn’t yet the accepted convention for dates.
No, in terms of Natural Law and every society since the dawn of mankind. Including atheist society. Marriage is not a “Catholic” invention. Ask Hillary Clinton, who defended marriage so well just a few years ago, and her history was sound. History and truth have not changed, but politics has.
Leila, check out the history of marriage from the pre-historical roots….it’s not what it looks like today, nor was it about love or God eons ago…things change and evolve…like Oscar said “The Truth is rarely plain and simple.” With the evolution of this union, it’s not natural law which does not change.
http://www.livescience.com/37777-history-of-marriage.html
Wait, are you claiming that marriage was not a conjugal union back then? Are you claiming that its nature was genderless/homosexual?
Because even your link does’t claim that. In fact, it confirms the position that marriage was always a conjugal union.
Customs surrounding marriage have changed over the centuries, but never its natural meaning.
Simply untrue, in the past 65000 years of behavioral normalcy of humans, there have been huge changes in natural associations. Your statement is without proof and hence can be rejected without proof. What source do you claim in the past 65000 years that this is true because it is not. It maybe true in the past 4000 since the myths of Genesis, but pre-history is evidence that it evolved.
Pre-history? That’s absurd. If it’s pre-history, it is by definition speculative and without evidence.
Artifacts…..
No, Phil. Calling an apple an orange doesn’t make it one. Forcibly using the word ‘marriage’ to describe something that isn’t marriage doesn’t change the reality that marriage is the exclusive and lifelong union of one man and one woman who join to live for one another and for any children who will naturally proceed from their union.
There is marriage (civil union) and sacramental matrimony (religious union). Civil union in the 65,000 years of behavioral normalcy of the human species was never always a life long union of a man and a woman. The agrarian and hunter gatherer clans, everything was shared and polygamy common, child rearing by the clan, etc. The history of marriage from the dawn of humanity has changed many times. We need look at 65,000 years not simply the last 4000. It’s basic anthriopology.
Right…and you know that, how? You’re talking about a period before history. And ‘anthriopology’ (I assume you mean anthropology) has no universal conclusion on this topic. Very recently, a few anthropologists have put forth speculations such as you cite, but they aren’t by any means accepted by the majority.
Oscar Wilde died a fully reconciled and devout Catholic. 🙂 Praise God! What a beautiful witness.
Your first sentence is pure and simple nonsense. Truth is not subjective; it is our feelings about assertions that are subjective. This sort of thing happens all the time. I may feel guilty about the Trail of Tears, for example, but the truth is that I have no real personal guilt regarding it.
Howard, it is impolite to refer to someone’s beliefs as “nonsense.” Truth is quite subjective as we receive and interpret data differently in the world which surrounds. It is often quite east to confuse belief with truth. Objective truth is a fact which is common to all peoples, in all places and at all times, ie 1 apple plus 1 apple equal two apples (that is if you subscribe to a common numeric system).
OK, it is nonsense with sugar on top, if that makes you happy; but no matter how saccharine my language, nonsense remains nonsense. Objective truth is a fact which is independent of whether anyone likes it or even has noticed it. Only our reception of objective truth is subjective. If you or I should say that Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh is in fact the Viking god Thor, this would be an objectively false statement, not because of how I feel about it or about how you feel about it but because of who they are. When I say that Jesus of Nazareth is the God Who created the universe, I am not making a statement about how I feel or what I think or how things look to me, I am making a claim about something outside myself. You can agree that I am right, or you can insist that I am wrong, or you can say that you do not know, but it is just nonsense to pretend that the issue at stake is my feelings or my perceptions, or even your feelings or your perceptions. If you say that due to human activity the average surface temperature of the Earth will continue to rise for decades to come, I may agree with you, or I may disagree with you, or I may say I am not sure, but if I respond that I feel chilly right now, or that the little flame burning waste gases on the top of a refinery thrills me, I have missed the point — the climate does not care how I feel about it.
Many things are subjective, Phil, but objective truth does exist. I hope you find Him.
Yes, there is objective truth. 1+1=2, our DNA determines eye color, the earth revolves around the sun, etc. I am in union with the Source constantly but I am sure that Source is not your anthropomorphization of “Him”. That distinction is subjective and experiential. Always remember that that which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. There are many gods, there is one source and no religion can claim to be in sole possession of that Source.
Nonsense, Phil. There is one Source and that Source is by definition God. He has revealed Himself to us, and that’s the only valid religion possible.
So, Buddhists, Sufis, Taoists, First Nations people, Protestants, Shintoists, etc. etc. ALL worship false gods? You are only right in that there is one God, one Source, but God has many names and one name is not Him! God the Source has revealed essence in many ways to those who have eyes and reason beyond what they have been told.
Which Mr. Wilde implicitly repudiated later, as he became a Catholic.
Oh?
“Author and wit Oscar Wilde allegedly converted to Catholicism during his final illness. His friend Robert Ross and only witness to have stated this to have happened wrote that “He was conscious that people were in the room, and raised his hand when I asked him whether he understood. He pressed our hands. I then sent in search of a priest, and after great difficulty found Father Cuthbert Dunne … who came with me at once and administered Baptism and Extreme Unction. – Oscar could not take the Eucharist”.[4] While Wilde’s conversion may have come as a surprise, he had long maintained an interest in the Catholic Church, having met with Pope Pius IX in 1877 and describing the Roman Catholic Church as “for saints and sinners alone – for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do”. However, how much of a believer in all the tenets of Catholicism Wilde ever was is arguable: in particular, against Robert Ross’s insistence on the truth of Catholicism, Wilde’s insistence “No, Robbie, it isn’t true.”(wiki on Deathbed conversions) One biased witness and a man in the throws of cerebral menningitis…quite conscious and in tact to repudiate what?
People should be afraid of the total destruction of the institution of marriage. Once it becomes redefined, there simply is nothing to sustain society, Once marriage is no longer about children, and no longer about monogamy, it is an empty shell.
Fredx2…I live in Massachusetts and same sex marriage has been legal here since 2004; our state is thriving. It has the 2nd highest concentration of Catholics in the US, employment is up, medical care is available to all. high tech industry is booming, the population’s happiness index is high, has a very low divorce rate 42 lowest out of 50 states,medical marijuana is legal and the sun shines. This is hardly a picture of doom and a failure of sustinence.
You represent our state well, Phil.
I have friends in Massachusetts and they paint a very different picture.
Well,there are malcontents in every state…
As well as people who are delusional about how wonderful things are.
JoAnna, having friends in MA is very different from living there one’s whole life in many areas of the state and looking at the data also….
I’m sure. But my friends in MA live there, pay taxes there, and are quite unhappy about the state of affairs.
Even Sodom and Gomorrah went by on a seemingly merry and sun shiny period until fire rained from the sky and destroyed all. Make no mistake that the wheat and the chaff are being sifted even if some intellectual types will tell you “prosperity and wealth”! Only for a time!
Sodom and Gomorrah….a text without a context is a pretext for having it say what YOU want. Sodom is not a literal story about what you perceive it to be….
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hombibg193.htm
Phil, I looked at the link and there’s something that astonished me: Cherry-picking.
In commenting theory #1, the article makes no mention of bisexuality, only offering heterosexuality and homosexuality as mutually exclusive. It also said that the percentage of homosexual men in any group is ~5%. Which is astonishing because homosexual marriage proponents usually treat Kinsey Report as gospel. He established a 7-step sliding scale from fully heterosexual to fully homosexual and his report found nearly no individuals on either extreme of the scale. So it seems people throw down the full weight of Kinsey when it suits them, but then throw it away when inconvenient?
I don’t even want to go into commenting Bible passages. Cherry-picking, making rather bold statements that Jude disagreed with Jesus, not to mention gratuitous reconciliation of English and Greek. Yes, “hetero” is the root of both words mentioned. It logically follows that I should ask: Does drinking homogenized milk make me gay? Do gays and lesbians need to drink homogenized milk, or are they allowed to drink raw?
Frankly, I think that raw milk is the healthiest for all people because none of the natural ingredients are processed away, caveat that cows, goats are feed a non GMO, organic, non antibiotic. You are right that Alfred Kinsey did determine that the range of human sexuality lies on a normal curve,,,that heterosexuality and homosexuality are on the further ends of the continuum and that bisexuality is actually the norm. They didn’t have these details 4000 years ago or more when Genesis was developed. Maybe today the myth would have been differently posed….
Alfred Kinsey was a pervert. His theories on human sexuality are worth the same consideration that I would give a terrorist’s theories on kindness and mercy. Sadly, his “work” is having the same continued effect on our culture as the terrorists’ brutality and death.
Jennifer, I just want to add that I agree, but I wanted to make the point that proponents of Kinsey’s Report conveniently forget about it when it doesn’t suit their current agenda.
It is fine to personally disapprove of data from the Kinsey Institute over the years and it is fine to disapprove of theories about human sexuality from the Kinsey Institute….a persons character flaws do not disprove data nor does your interpretation of how the Institutes data affects society. Focus purely on data and the scientific method, that is the crux of the issue.
No, Phil, the crux of the issue, the crux of every issue, is morality and the extent to which all the studies and data lead society by the nose (or in this case by the zipper) down a degenerate path that corrupts the human person and elevates sexual perversion to the height of celebratory status. Kinsey was thoroughly depraved.
Data, proof of your assertions is absent. “That which can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” C Hitchens
Phil, Kinsey’s conclusions have been thoroughly debunked. His population consisted almost exclusively of long-term prisoners and acknowledged homosexuals who volunteered to take part. Hardly a valid representation of the American population.
http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/about/kinseybio.html
Way to miss the point, Phil. Let me spell it out for you. The assertion in the link you provided was that the sin of Sodom was not likely to be homosexual acts, because the proportion of homosexuals in a population is about 5%. It didn’t account for bisexuals in the crowd and Kinsey asserted that everyone is bisexual, as you say yourself.
It’s meaningless whether they had those details 4000 years ago or not.
I suppose this fancy new age name means he is right? – wrong! How dare you hide behind some phony clown’s esteemed wisdom. You insult people of faith – and I’d bet you were raised Catholic once. Yours is a snotty anti-Catholic comment. Pride.
Thank you for your kind reply filled with respect and dignity!
You must be fearful then also because you are also constantly asserting your beliefs……however misguided.
Pingback: THURSDAY AFTERNOON EDITION - Big Pulpit
Dear Jennifer, when I read this I almost wanted to cry, this article is so good, decent and true, so well written and so perfectly said. I can’t thank you enough for your courage, your heart and your very brave soul! I pray God will bless you and keep you and your family!
“Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep, it starts when your always afraid,
step out of line, men come, and take you away …”
For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield
I’m sorry you feel paranoid, James, but don’t be afraid. With God, there is only freedom and eternal safety.
james is the star of my last post, the guy who said that the Church will change… just you wait and see! 😉
tick…tock…tick…tock…tick…tock… Haven’t folks been waiting for a couple millennia now? Some people just can’t take a hint. 😉
If the Church refuses to change, what will change is its influence in world affairs. It has very little now. Throngs of crowds adore the pope and all the regal splendor that surrounds him the way they do the Queen of England but the influence of both is now largely ceremonial.
Methinks the troll doth protest too much. 🙂