Current Events – Gregory Scott Blog

What Christians and LGBTQers Must Agree On

It is becoming clear the defining moral issue of the younger generation is sexual identity. It is also clear that Evangelicals are finding themselves increasingly marginalized on this issue. Their resistance is equated with intolerance, and their opinions are increasingly reserved for hushed conversations with other Evangelicals.

The reality is there is common ground for conversation, though I doubt either side recognizes it. That common ground is found when one recognizes that even most in the LGBTQ community believe pederasty, pedophilia, and bestiality are wrong. In other words, like Evangelicals, the LGBTQ community believes there should be limits on sexuality.

The difference between the two is a disagreement over where to draw the line. Thus, for the LGBTQ community to insist that only they could be right about where to draw that line makes them as intolerant as they accuse Evangelicals of being.

On Feeling God’s Pleasure

Eric Liddell – 1924 Olympics Gold Medalist

This year is the 100th anniversary of Eric Liddell’s 1924 gold medal performance in the Paris Olympics, later memorialized in the 1981 Academy Award winning movie, Chariots of Fire.

There are a number of memorable lines in the movie but none better than when Liddell is explaining to his sister why he must temporarily put off the mission field to participate in the olympics:

God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.
Chariots of Fire (1981)

The thing is, apparently Eric Liddell never said this. These are the words of screenwriter Colin Welland. There’s not much about Welland’s religious beliefs on the internet. He was married though for 53 years before his death from Alzheimers, which is a good indication of something more at his core than secular humanism.

Still, I believe the line above was truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. It captures better than just about any single statement I have heard two components of God-inspired work.

The first is the teleological component: “God made me fast.” It’s unstated implication is inescapable: “Therefore He made me to run.” It was the implicit argument in what Liddell (fictionally) says to his sister in Chariots of Fire to explain why he should run, and it is a sound one.

A Kingdom View of Memorial Day

As I’ve gotten older and deeper into the kingdom of God, I’ve become more conflicted about Memorial Day.

It is not the acceptance or sometimes glorification of war we see on Memorial Day; In a fallen world war is sometimes necessary, and once one accepts that boundaries will be crossed. That is to be expected.

What has bothered me more is the hyper nationalism Memorial Day seems to inspire, particularly in Evangelical Christians. I wonder what my foreign brothers and sisters living here think when they witness it? I wonder what the Lord thinks.

Anytime we are tempted to elevate cause or country over the Kingdom we should be concerned. The savior of the world is not the United States of America but King Jesus, and the answer to the world’s problems is not democracy or a republican form of government but the Gospel.

Instead we should consider the Lord’s instructions to those living in exile in Jerusalem:

Movie Review: Ferrari

I should probably start by making it clear that I have nothing against Ferraris. In fact, I would love to own one. I’m also partial to the Ferrari F1 team. But all that aside, my enthusiasm for the brand does not extend to the movie of the same name, directed by Michael Mann.

This movie is a modern biopic more than a narrative, which is fine, but if you are going to do a character study, at least find a character who is interesting or inspirational. Unfortunately, all Ferrari inspires is encouragement for aspiring polygamists.

Despite my interest in Ferraris I did not realize Enzo Ferrari had a second family on the side and a child he did not publicly acknowledge until after his wife died. Much of the movie focuses on this part of Ferrari’s life.

C.S Lewis on Politics and His Ministry

We are in the middle of a political season, and I already feel sick to my stomach.

When I went to the polls to vote in the primary a few weeks ago, I was so disappointed with the choices I was given I jokingly told my wife I felt disenfranchised. In reality, I was just sick of politics, I didn’t like being drawn into it, even for the ostensibly virtuous act of voting.

The current rancor though in politics is nothing new. I recently read biographies on Cato and Cicero and was shocked at how vitriolic the political debate of first century B.C. Roman politics had been. Personal attacks on one’s political opponent and the demonizing of an opponent’s policies was all par for the course.

When I recently read Aristotle’s Rhetoric, I should not have been surprised to find he advocated ad hominem arguments in politics; apparently, anything to win was justified when it came to political argument.

What disappoints me is that we are nearly two thousand years into the manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth, and the rancor and demonization of one’s opponents so popular amongst pagan Romans seems to be alive and well amongst Christian Americans.