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{"id":1394,"date":"2015-02-22T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2015\/02\/what-tolkien-taught-me.html"},"modified":"2015-02-22T06:30:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T06:30:00","slug":"what-tolkien-taught-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2015\/02\/what-tolkien-taught-me.html","title":{"rendered":"What Tolkien taught me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So one of the many lessons I\u2019ve learned from Tolkien\u2019s works is that when there are failings or breakdowns in the Fellowship, you still don\u2019t leap over and join with Sauron\u2019s forces to hammer the culprit. \u00a0You might chastise, but you do so ever mindful of the dark power that grows in the East. \u00a0So when Boromir fails his test with Frodo and attempts to steal the ring, the appropriate response is not to join with the Orcs and pounce. \u00a0It is to attempt to undo the damage, ever mindful of what the enemy really is.<\/p>\n

I thought of that, as I read this post at CAEI<\/a>. \u00a0It\u2019s not hard to find this headline across the blogosphere, with many being anti-Christian and anti-religious blogs joining in, declaring that homophobes have no business being doctors, and that this is why we need laws punishing anyone who doesn\u2019t celebrate the gay juggernaut. <\/p>\n

Personally, I think it was a bad decision by the doctor in question and poorly handled. \u00a0But I also sympathize. \u00a0We are seeing homosexuality being used as a wedge issue to ramrod a new morality into society, using every trick in the book and seeing as its end the ultimate reduction of rights, especially the right to not embrace the post-Christian secular Left.<\/p>\n

Call it a culture war or not, but the results are the same. \u00a0And especially Catholics, who puddled the floor over the HHS mandate of the healthcare law that the Bishops otherwise fully supported, even though the Catholic Church had already reached such compromises on the state level in many cases anyway, ought not be so dismissive of those who see other fronts in this \u2018non-culture war\u2019 battle zone.<\/p>\n

Taking a stand, even badly done or in a wrong way, should not be cause for daggers in the back emblazoned with Christian symbols. \u00a0At worst, it should be an admonition that the decision was wrong, but understandable given the climate in which we live, in which sane people can see that there is a concerted effort on the part of a growing swath of our society that wants to redefine what freedom and rights are, and is prepared to do so with the crushing, iron gauntlet of the law if at all possible.<\/p>\n

Jumping on the side of the opposition (assuming it is still seen as the opposition), does little. \u00a0It won\u2019t stop those forces wishing to end liberty as previously understood, and it will silence those who may want to take a stand, for fear that the slightest deviation from perfection will be met with attacks, not from the forces arrayed against the Faith and its faithful, but from the very faithful we are supposed to be united with.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"