With All Due Respect...

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Can you believe that the conversation is STILL going on over Donald Trump’s vile comments about Megyn Kelly? Who’d have thought that, in this very SEN-N-N-SITIVE culture, it would EVER be possible for a Presidential candidate to call women “pigs” and worse, yet stay atop the national polls?

I believe this is indicative of a much larger problem we face as a nation. It’s more than just the coarsening of our national conversation. It’s WHY such trash talk is so acceptable to so many. Media types like Howard Stern and Bill Maher set the bar low, and people like Jon Stewart crawled under it. Yes, THAT Jon Stewart. I know we’re supposed to say nice things about him, as he retires from his Comedy Channel program, “The Daily Show.” Sure, that program captured a lot of millennial and Gen Y viewers, in fact: “The Daily Show” was the news source of choice for an entire generation. (That alone should send a chill up your spine!)  But what Jon Stewart and many of his contemporaries did was to make cynicism and sarcasm the leading cultural indicators of honesty. Huh? Track with me on this. Ask an unchurched member of the rising generation whom they believe is being more honest: a well-scrubbed pastor in a pulpit, or a cursing, free-wheeling comedian on TV. I’m betting most would say the COMEDIAN, because in their version of “reality,” people who swear and laugh at the expense of others are “real,” while people wearing ties that are saying things you don’t want to hear, are mere “phonies!” It’s twisted, for sure…but Donald Trump, to millions of Americans, is more “honest” because he says horrible or insulting things! It’s all part of what I call post-postmodernism. A generation rails against the institutions—the beliefs--of its parents and grandparents, before personally rejecting those institutions…THEN, intentionally takes the time to run those institutions into the ground. We see it happening with a generation of churched kids who reject, then eviscerate, the faith of their parents. And now, we see it in the mocking words of a so-called grownup whose personal ambitions outweigh the dignity of others, and the process of choosing the next leader of the free world.

So what is “real and honest” to you? If you’re a Christian, I dare say it should be whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—you should think about THOSE things. Sure, many will think you’re a hopeless Pollyanna, but… strive to be an encourager; speak of positive, uplifting things…reject the smarmy, nasty speech and attitude of this present age. You might not change the world, but you’ll know just a little bit more of the peace our Lord intends for His children to enjoy.