Lord willing, and if the crik don’t rise, I want to write a short series of posts to help Christians understand the nature of the bigotry-avalanche coming our way. Not only so, but I want to explain how the success of the bigotry depends upon us sharing certain key assumptions with our confused masters of bastinado. They wield the stick, but we hold our feet up for them. 
Not to be coy, I am writing about the impossibility of genuine secularism. Secularism only works as a veneer on a Christian culture. In short, “secularism” is fully capable of taking credit for the magnanimity shown by a Christian people, but when those Christians and their root assumptions are successfully herded into their assigned ghetto, and the central altar in the high cathedral really is an altar to that trousered ape called man, it is then that we discover how mean and petty and nasty the jackbooted totalitolerant actually are.
First, so that we have a little grist for our mill, let us take a look at what Airbnb is now doing. Excuse me—I meant to say the Airbnb community. Suppose you want to go stay somewhere, and you log on to their most welcoming website in order to make some reservations somewhere. You will now run into this.
“Before you continue
Whether it’s your first time using Airbnb or you’re one of our original travelers, please commit to respecting and including everyone in the Airbnb community.
I agree to treat everyone in the Airbnb community—regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age—with respect, and without judgment or bias”
Accept button Decline button
If you click on decline, you should be aware that you are not making reservations anywhere. If you click on decline, any previous reservations you had made will be canceled for you. You pathetic waste of skin.
Just in case the ironies were lost on you, they go on to explain how nice they are being . . .
“Why did Airbnb create this commitment?
This commitment is an important step towards creating a global community where everyone can truly belong. Discrimination prevents hosts, guests, and their families from feeling included and welcomed, and we have no tolerance for it . . .”
The italics are mine. The bold is also mine, and is meant to indicate a knowing chortle.
It continues on, into the fog. We must at least consider the possibility that you might not know what they meant by “regardless of . . . religion.” When they eventually publish a long list of religions that you may not discriminate against, you will find that your religion is not on that list. Why would it be? You troglodyte.
So then, I would now like to invite you to please notice what a screaming howler this is. A confession of faith is being required of all their customers.
At this juncture we will be reminded by our libertarian brethren that if Airbnb is a private business, then they should have the right to be as bigoted as they want to be. This is exactly correct. Airbnb has every right to refuse service to icky people, as they define icky people. The problem is our previous battles. Our problem is that they are doing this in a climate which simultaneously prohibits Christians from setting up a competitive business to theirs, one which would allow bed and breakfast operators to decline service to those who were going to engage in fornication. They have freedom of association, and we do not.
“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Rev. 13:17).
You may not do business on your own, in other words, and you must do business here with us, in additional other words, and you must sign this confession of faith before you continue.
Our previous battles involved evangelicals who were being pressured to perform services that went against their consciences. I have written about those issues elsewhere. But now a place of business is refusing to provide services to people on account of opinions that they were keeping entirely to themselves. Those views are being challenged at the door. An artificial situation is being created in order to flush out retrograde Christian conviction. We cannot tell by looking at you whether or not you have pure thoughts, and so every customer will now have to fill out the pure thoughts questionnaire.
If you flipped this around, the scenario would have to be something like an evangelical baker who refused to make a birthday cake for an agnostic because the agnostic would not sign a statement indicating his full-throated agreement with Leviticus 20:13.
And so here it is. We are not dealing with the sinfulness of neutrality, or the tawdriness of neutrality, or the immorality of neutrality. We are up against the impossibility of neutrality. We have gotten to the point where solemn judges are making you draw circles with five corners, and since you cannot do this anymore than they can, you are being required to confess to the desk clerk, at the top of your voice, “Lo! Look upon the pentagramic circle I have drawn? Look and adore!” He is required to agree with you that those are the finest corners he ever saw. You both nod solemnly for the surveillance cameras. “Thank you. Here is your key. We hope you enjoy your stay.”
As we consider the impossibility of neutrality, we should redirect a comment that C.S. Lewis made about a very similar kind of error.
“The fact that some people of scientific education cannot by any effort to be taught to see the difficulty, confirms one’s suspicion that we here touch a radical disease in their whole style of thought.”
That sums it up exactly. “A radical disease in their whole style of thought.” In our next installment, we need to consider how evangelicals are also afflicted with this same radical disease. The disease makes them behave this way, and the disease prevents us from answering it with the horse laugh it deserves.
So what would you say a Christian Airbnb member should do about that agreement? Accept it and refuse to view it as a legitimate oath or decline it and cancel membership?
Here is what I was thinking when I saw that, so give me your thoughts… I read through the statement, and thought it seemed rather vague like much of the Terms of Service agreements that we click through with Netflix, or iTunes. So I clicked agree. The only thing I’ve ever used AirBnB for is to rent whole Apt./Houses. And the only connection I have with the actual hosts/owner of the property is the few texts/emails we exchange to work out all the details. Now as you might expect, I take very good care of the place when I’m there.… Read more »
It’s a little amusing how pious that agreement is. Talk about smelly little orthodoxies.
Not to mention that pseudo-orthodoxies and some types of unorthodoxy smell even worse! ????
Good thing Son light is the best disinfectant!????????????????
As someone deep inside corporate culture, these types of statements are always tough. As a Christian, I have absolutely no problem saying I’ll treat every image of God with respect. That’s my duty due them as a Christian (what THEIR basis is for that requirement is another story). It’s that without judgment part that makes life dicey. I will treat them with no less and no more judgment than I treat anyone else I work with. Scripture is a straight line and all of our lives are curved….. but that’s probably not what they mean. I just wish they would… Read more »
I am with you in terms of life inside corporate cultures. At my work, they don’t push the gay agenda, but they are very into pushing female equality and greater leadership roles. I was asked to interview a couple of out of school girl engineers. I was asked my opinion on their qualifications for the jobs. They were qualified for the work, which I acknowledged. But I very much do not believe in equality, and believe that men should be engineers, and if there will be women in the engineering workplace, they should be answering the phones, administrative assistants and… Read more »
“I very much … believe that men should be engineers, and if there will be women in the engineering workplace, they should be answering the phones, administrative assistants and the like.”
Scripture, please?
A Scripture for only men being engineers? I don’t have a Scripture for that, do you? That doesn’t make it less rational. Scripture does say that women should be busy at home, but I am fine with my daughters being able to make money before they get married. It would seem weird to me to see a man answering phones or copying papers. But I think my reasoning would just be in the understanding of women as being helpers to their husbands. Obviously that is primarily to a husband wife application, but I think it is instructive for life and… Read more »
“It would seem weird to me to see a man answering phones or copying papers.”
That is a cultural expectation pretty much limited to Western (maybe even Anglophone?) culture since about World War I. Men were universally clerks and secretaries 150 years ago and for all time before that.
My dear father would not have female office employees because he did not want them exposed to bad language or disrespectful behavior from the men he supervised!
I think that once you get accustomed to male nurses, you stop even noticing by and large. I think there are some procedures that women are more comfortable having a female nurse do. But a lot of these things we just get used to over time. I don’t think that becoming an engineer involves a lack of femininity in the same way that becoming a marine does. If a woman is very bright and is not required at home, why should she take a subservient role that might not use her talents? I mean, would you really assign a woman… Read more »
No, I really don’t think there’s anything weird about a male nurse. The closest thing I had to a male role model growing up was a male nurse (and a military man, boy scout leader, and faithful believer).
“A Scripture for only men being engineers? I don’t have a Scripture for that, do you?”
You said you “very much believe” that men, and not women, should be engineers.
Seeing as how the Word of God is our only rule for faith (what we should believe) and life (what we should do), I think your argument should be supported by Scripture.
Now, if you would PREFER that men, and not women, be engineers, that’s a different matter.
Well, I’ll grant you that point. I very much believe God’s word and it’s on it that my faith and hope rests. I do think we have a responsibility to use what God has revealed in His word to order our lives and culture accordingly. He hasn’t told us everything, but He’s told us everything we need, and we have a responsibility as a culture to search out what is right and good in accordance with He has clearly revealed. I think this is an appropriate application, regardless of the fact that there are some bright and capable women in… Read more »
This site needs a facepalm emoticon.
As someone married to a woman who spent years in aerospace engineering, scored above-norms on company evaluations every year she worked (earning the resulting bonuses every time), and took on leadership roles in her last couple years….
Never mind, I really don’t need the personal example to highlight the inanity of this position.
Jesus says do not judge, that’s enough for me whether anyone else asks me not to judge in a statement or not. The only way it causes problems is if you think “Jesus said it but he didn’t really mean it” (a surprisingly common view), or if the person asking you not to judge goes on to define what they mean by that in such a way that is explicitly not the way Jesus is defining it.
Do you think when Jesus said do not judge, it meant we can’t recognize and declare certain things as sin–the same things Jesus said were sin?
No.
I mean, there’d certainly be ways to do it stupidly, ways to do it that would be counterproductive to the advancement of the Kingdom of God, but that could be said about anything. The basic idea, “You cannot ever recognize sinful acts as sinful acts” is certainly false.
I was standing at the intersection outside Disneyland a few years ago and a couple of protesters were standing with signs announcing–in vernacular terms–that God hates gays and will send them straight to hell. This was accompanied by yells of abuse at anyone who struck them as looking vaguely gay. This is example of a counterproductive way to advance the Kingdom. No gay was likely to hear this and think, “Gee, what I’m doing is wrong? I’d better go home and repent,” and, judging from the comments made back to the protesters, no bystanders were thinking “Wow, how wonderful of… Read more »
Except do you really think think the protesters were part of the kingdom?
If they were part of that wacko lawyer cult whose name escapes me at the moment, then I can see it being doubtful. But I’ve met unhelpfully offensive anti-gay street protesters who I certainly wouldn’t assume were working outside of the Kingdom in general, they just were misguided in this particular approach.
No, but they might have thought that they are.
Look on the bright side — what a business opportunity these people have created! They’ve proven a business model and then decided to give up a bunch of their customers. How long before someone decides to pick up the money they’ve left lying on the table?
My thoughts as well…
Doug, as a follow up question, where should we come down on clicking the Accept button? One way to look at these is like the terms and conditions on the iTunes store – no one reads it, no one cares, just let me buy my song. If I click on the Airbnb accept button, I have no problem doing so with a, “yeah, whatever,” and blithely going about doing my best to avoid renting from or to a homo – sort of the online equivalent of, “I don’t care what your sign says, I’m sitting at your lunch counter, anyway.”… Read more »
Perhaps we should ask what we should do (or have done) if “gender identity and sexual orientation” were removed from the requirements but the “religion” stayed in. Could we then agree to go forward with respect and without judgment or bias? The Bible is really clear on its disdain of other religions.
I wondered about that. Would some Christians have a problem with their house guests facing Mecca to pray, or lighting candles to Shiva?
“Satanists staying at this house are respectfully requested to refrain from making blood sacrifices while on the premises.”
>>> If you click on decline, any previous reservations you had made will be canceled for you.
Dear Doug,
Small correction: previous reservations you had made won’t be canceled. You can’t make new ones. From their sorry to see you go page:
Daniel, there is some kind of contradiction. One of the screen shots posted in the article says that future reservations will be cancelled (not declined), and a refund given.
This is a confusing post. Are you aware of what prompted this thing by AirBnB? It wasn’t anything about Christians, and had to do with bad press regarding various members who would cancel reservations when made by the wrong sort of people, usually black people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/travel/airbnb-discrimination-lawsuit.html?_r=0
Very interesting! Thanks for posting that.
I had one host come out and confess he just wanted to rent his place out to people for an upcoming football game, so he declined our reservation request. At the time I found this weird, as there was no extra charge for guests over 3. We were a different ethnic group, but I’m white. It might have been a case of discrimination, but I was really just left puzzled, and bemused.
Matt wrote:
Perhaps it is confusing if Matt thinks that being gay is the new black. (CRF will be hosting a talk on that very subject in Moscow).
Matt seems to have fallen, unwittingly, straight back into Wilson’s central argument that there is no neutrality. Being black is not sinful, but homosexual acts are. The attempt at neutrality can never arrive at that correct distinction, which is why AirBnB finds itself on the dispensing end of bigotry and intolerance toward Christians.
gay is the new black
And homo sapiens is the new niggardly
Oh I gotcha, AirBnB is discriminating against Christians who want to discriminate against gays. I guess that’s fair, this kind of 100% neutrality is not possible. We’ll have to settle for 95% neutrality. The good news is that no one actually believes in this ideological notion of pure neutrality anyway, so nothing is actually defeated here.
I think the larger point is that neutrality of any kind is impossible, not even the 95% variety. And that’s nothing new: Jesus Himself said you’re either with Him or against Him.
Matt wrote:
No one? Of course the secularists don’t actually believe in their vaunted neutrality and tolerance, that message is just for gullible Christians, and the like. But if their message didn’t work on anyone, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to sell it.
Which is why Wilson’s post was, far from confusing, quite refreshing in addressing gullible Christians.
I love your writing style and use of allusion but I hope for this next series you will be as straight forward as possible (or point us to someone who is saying the same thing) because it is too hard sometimes to get my mind around the “myth of neutrality.” I’ve been learning to think like a Christian for several years now and I still struggle against the deeply imbedded assumption that secularism is neutral.
Give us the truth like you take your whiskey.
Check out Bahnsen. No further qualifications necessary. https://youtu.be/vWKDF0TbfxQ
I have found Bahnsen helpful, especially Theonomy in Christian Ethics. I appreciate Wilson’s writing, very Lewis-esque, for some reason I have trouble wrapping my brain around this concept.
Just recognize that secularism really is a religion, with a creed, a “fall” and a savior. They can’t have heart problems, and they have to believe the people are mostly good, so what’s the answer? Education! If we could just teach them about the harmful effects of….
If they don’t bow the knee to Christ, then they are bowing it to something else. We are created to be worshipers, and that’s what we do.
Bahnsen was into tranny adoption.
What is tranny adoption??
Transracial adoption.
I thought you meant this.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/father-of-7-believes-hes-a-6-year-old-girl-152472/
Nope.
What a sick world we live in.
That one was truly appalling (not to be judgmental or anything). What troubled me was the adoptive grandparents’ willingness to have him play with their own grandchildren. Play doctor, more like it.
But if we hadn’t legalized tranny adoption and interracial marriage, we wouldn’t be dealing with all this other stuff.
If we had refused to pander to race-queers, the sex-queers would still be in the closet.
source?
It’s a well known fact.
http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php/10704-David-L-Bahnsen-speaks-at-the-10-year-memorial-for-his-late-father?s=c75aecb0b1b5b427ccef8d8077597f84&p=141587#post141587
That has absolutely nothing to do with “trannys.” It references that he has an adopted daughter. Not sure what you are talking about, but it’s starting to smell trollish.
It references that he has an adopted daughter.
An adopted Korean daughter.
If tranny can be short for transgender, it can also be short for transracial.
And I’m the troll.
LMAO
Good for him!
For those saying just sign the “EULA” ignoring the content, you may be correct but the issue is more complicated. If it is just a conscience (strong vs weak brother) issue then you are strong and need to be more gracious to the weak. But the question that is raised is: Is this a litmus test? Are Airbnb just trying to be inclusive (and failing because they have nothing to anchor their tolerance to), or are they a vanguard of the conscience refusing religion we will increasingly see? Regardless of what Airbnb is actually doing, the point of Doug’s post… Read more »
Speaking of litmus tests, the Amish are always a great litmus test of how far the secularists are willing to push. Unfortunately, since they aren’t too fond of online services, the Amish aren’t likely to challenge the new AirBnB customer agreement in court.
I’m sure they would be given an exception. Right? What do they know that we don’t? How come they are the only Christian group that actually gets to practice their religious freedom in this country?
I have often wondered about that, and although this sounds trivial, I think it is partly the clothing and the strictness of the lifestyle. If they are willing to give up zippers and most mod cons, we are willing to give them some space to be eccentric. I don’t think it is so much respect for their religion as tolerance for what we see as weirdness.
From what I’ve read, it really is about respect for their religion. Judges have noted that Amish don’t just say they hate worldliness, they actually take measures to keep themselves unspotted by it.
For instance, they don’t “keep the Sabbath day holy” by spending it cheering for a bunch of criminals and moral reprobates who go around siring children out of wedlock who are playing a child’s game, surrounded by a bunch of half naked cheerleaders, all organized and sponsored by groups and corporations that have essentially declared war on everything they claim to hold dear.
That is good. But I also think the clothing helps. We don’t regard them as people of this century but as kind of a living history museum. (Although I think bundling is asking for trouble–I was young once.)
Do you mean the Oscars?
That too. And the Emmys, the Tonys, the Grammies, and most of commercial television!
I’m pretty sure he was speaking about hockey or baseball. I’m not sure which one is on Sundays though, because I don’t watch either.
I am pretty sure he meant football and basketball. I’m not sure if hockey even has cheerleaders but they would find the arena intolerably cold if they were underdressed!
I was being sarcastic. 40 acres’ race obsession was showing through again. The vast majority of professional athletes are not criminals. The arrest rates of NFL and NBA players are far, far below the population at large for men of their age – somewhere around 2-5 times lower, depending on whose numbers you believe. The only people who think that NFL/NBA players get arrested more than most people are ones who inanely try to compare their arrest rates to the general population (which includes children, women, and senior citizens, all of whom obviously get arrested at far far lower rates… Read more »
You apparently haven’t met any Pennsylvania Amish. Cigarette in one hand, cell phone in the other. It wouldn’t surprise me if they caught a little bit of the game on a Sunday.
It really depends on the community. Some are stricter than others.
“How come they are the only Christian group that actually gets to practice their religious freedom in this country?”
Because they’re the kind of people who aren’t too fond of things like online services. Neither am I, all that much, come to think of it. This is the first time I’d ever heard AirBnB.
The Amish also aren’t trying to change or prevent anything in the mainstream society.
I have trouble imagining how this would even work. Doug mentions not wanting to rent rooms to people who plan to engage in fornication under their roof. But would any B&B host feel entitled to ask for proof of marriage? Should a Catholic host feel entitled to ask if this was a second marriage, and if so, were the previous spouses dead because otherwise they are living in sin? Would you feel free to ask two nice middle aged ladies if they planned any lesbian high jinks?
They used to turn away unmarried people
They did, but that just caused people to use aliases for the “wife.” No one actually checked any further.
jillybean’s question goes down a completely different path than that of the AirBnB situation. The direction of the discrimination and intolerance is in the opposite direction. However, discrimination against guests that are known to be using your accommodations to engage in sinful or criminal activities is legitimate, and falls under that principle of not being neutral, which Wilson referred to in his post. jillybean imagines the need for some kind of background check, beyond the guest merely clicking “I Accept” on a touch screen at check-in time. However, Scripture does address this principle in the case of eating meat sacrificed… Read more »
jillybean’s questions suppose that AirBnB’s user agreement is only for hosts. Is there anything to suggest that AirBnB’s ideology is not being imposed on guests as well?
Ironically, the one who feels entitled to grill, and exclude, potential guests is AirBnB. (And they are interested in the guests’ ideology, no less, let alone their intended actions as guests.)
I can see that, but how is that different from a small hotel which is expected not to investigate guests’ marital backgrounds or to assume what same sex people might get up to in the night? A person who does not any exposure to gay people could not assume that any hotel will shelter him from this. Why should his expectation of AirBnB be different?
What expectation? I’m afraid I don’t follow. Who is in what role?
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. You mentioned that AirBnB’s ideology is being imposed on guests as well, and I can see that. But, when a family travels and stays in a small hotel, they have no expectation that they will not be exposed to people who are fornicating or committing adultery or having gay sex behind closed doors. So the only way the guest is being imposed on is indicating a theoretical willingness to encounter other guests who might be doing some of these things. And, if the guest is renting the whole house, I don’t see how he could object… Read more »
The issue is not about my expectations of other guests, or being exposed to sin in the world, especially if I choose to stay in a place that doesn’t make any sin distinctions. The issue is that AirBnB is openly promoting the normalization of sexual sin and discriminating against those hosts (and guests) who hold a negative view of sexual sin. The goal is to further stigmatize them and exclude them from participation in their service. I was hoping that jillybean would interact with the fact that AirBnB expressly states that they are instituting this click wall in order to… Read more »
jillybean, If I read Doug’s article correctly, this isn’t quite the point he’s making. He is saying, if I read him correctly, that if Airbnb is allowed to exclude people who don’t meet their standards of “morality” (however defined), – WHICH HE THINKS THEY HAVE “EVERY RIGHT” TO DO, then why should Christian hosts not be free to similarly make the requirement that couples staying at their B&B be married? As for requiring proof of marriage? It is not really that odd…. I have run marriage retreats in the military as a chaplain, where part of the deal was that… Read more »
That is not quite what he is saying.
I see your point, I think. But the difference is that the military has actual laws about adultery and so on that civilian people don’t. Here in California it would be illegal for me to advertise that I have rooms for rent, and then refuse to rent them on the grounds of a couple’s marital status. If that was really important to me, I would have to find my tenants informally through church friends, etc. But I could not legally take out a classified ad saying Room for Rent, no fornicating, adulterous, or gay couples allowed. Now, isn’t going on… Read more »
Not at all. Why can’t I put up and ad saying I want to meet like minded people. Come and stay at my spare beach house with our family for the summer. We are looking for a family with girls between 5 and 12 who like biking.
Is it a commercial transaction? Will they be paying rent? And are you posting this in a church magazine or in the Los Angeles Times? If you are charging rent and putting it in the Times, you still have a legal problem. For example, I might one day have a room to rent. Of course, I would prefer a quiet female student who is not likely to have parties or young men sleeping over. I can go to a Catholic college nearby and ask them if they know a young lady,preferably Asian and Catholic, who is looking for a room.… Read more »
It may well be illegal. My point is that we are so used to hearing about non-discrimination we don’t realise how stupid it is. My example is perfectly reasonable and that it would be illegal anywhere shows how stupid secularists are.
Not at all. Why can’t I put up and ad saying I want to meet like minded people. Come and stay at my spare beach house with our family for the summer. We are looking for a family with girls between 5 and 12 who like biking. Because if we allow you to indulge your preferences to rent to some people and not to others, then white people who would prefer not to rent to black people might demand the same right. And we simply can’t have that. So too bad, so sad. Judeochristians should either insist that everyone should… Read more »
We operate from different premises but I think we reach the same conclusion. If gay sex under their roof is an abomination Christians can’t tolerate, is it any less of an abomination if people they rent to are praying to Shiva or lighting Wiccan candles? If people want the right to rent spaces only to Christians whose morals are okay, they can do that–but not on a public forum.
Why not on a public forum?
AirBnB did just that, didn’t they?
No, I see a real difference. AirBnB is asking people to agree not to discriminate. Period. Their asking this comports with civil law in a great many places. Christians are asking to be able to use an organization which does not care about people’s sexual behavior, but then to add a proviso that they care about people’s sexual behavior. If you want to advertise your room through an organization which says you can’t discriminate on marital status, how can you then reasonably demand that you be allowed to discriminate on those grounds?
AirBnB is asking people to agree not to discriminate
Except for those who do discriminate. All men are equal but some are more equal than others.
Totalitolirants!
I see the education is nearing completion.
Did you ever see the Fawlty Towers episode where Basil gets obsessed with the notion that people are having illicit sex in his hotel? That is what I keep snickering about as I read this.
I think it is much simpler than that.
AirBNB is declaring who they will and won’t do business with.
Christians want to also declare who they will and won’t do business with.
Why is it okay for one and not the other?
Because Air BnB is not imposing a burden specifically on Christians. They are also preventing everyone else who wants to register with them from discriminating on the stated grounds. If I were a Muslim, it might be equally important to me not to have gays or dog owners or pork eaters on my premises. Would AirBnB be guilty of discrimination against me if they asked me to sign their agreement? The point is that while nobody can force you to invite gays into your private home, you may have to give up some of your rights when you offer accommodation… Read more »
I think we are talking at cross purposes. I don’t advocate that AirBnB bow to Christian demands.
I’m saying if AirBnB can descriminate against Christians, why can’t Christian business owners descriminate also? It’s terribly inconsistent and arbitrary.
I’m saying if AirBnB can descriminate against Christians, why can’t Christian business owners descriminate also? It’s terribly inconsistent and arbitrary. No, it’s not. It’s not inconsistent or arbitrary at all. Whether “discrimination” is good or bad depends entirely on who’s being discriminated against. If bad people are being discriminated against, it’s fine. If good people are being discriminated against, it can’t be allowed. Ever since these anti-discrimination laws became the greatest thing since sliced bread, there have been two kinds of people. Good people against whom it was illegal to discriminate, and bad people, who had no rights the government… Read more »
Whether “discrimination” is good or bad depends entirely on who’s being discriminated against.
No, it depends entirely on who makes the laws. I entirely agree that legislation based on skin color was wrong 50 years ago.
40, do you believe that blacks are made from the image of God?
40, do you believe that blacks are made from the image of God?
No, I don’t. In fact, I’ve never heard the term “from the image of God” before.
If you mean “in the image of God”, then yes, I do.
But not in the same way whites are.
Just as women are made in the image of God, but not in the same way men are.
I’ve never seen ‘from’ either. I’m still not 100% settled in my mind on what it means when Scripture says that Adam was created in the image of God, but that Adam’s sons were created in Adam’s image. So in a fallen world without the redemption of the new Adam, I’m not convinced we’re actually ‘in’ the image of God anymore. I think it’s more likely that fallen man is ‘from’ the image of God, meaning originated from God. Those of us in Christ are now ‘in’ the image of Christ and therefore in the image of God. Does that… Read more »
40 ACRES wrote:
Some animals on his 40 acre farm are more equal than others.
I think what 40 ACRES is trying to say is that his view of discrimination is human-centric and inherently arbitrary, because he is not appealing to Scripture as a standard.
Well, I think that with the best will in the world, we are probably talking at cross purposes so we should stop! I would just say that I don’t see what they are doing as discrimination against Christians. That would only be true if they were making special demands on Christians but not on anyone else. But we will probably not agree and that is okay because we both have Welsh great-grandmothers! Peace!
The thing is, I agree with what you said. Christians have no leverage to demand anything of AirBNB. If we don’t like their demand to kowtow to their orthodoxy, then we can say, “Sorry, we are content with ours,” and then not participate. My point, and I do have one, is that if a Christian company were to create a competitor to AirBnB that had its own set of rules for who could participate, the same people who have no problem with AirBnB would be up in arms (not real arms of course because guns are bad) and claim the… Read more »
JL wrote:
Very well said. It’s unfortunate that jillybean can’t see the inherent discrimination.
jillybean wrote:
Would it help jillybean to see the discrimination if, instead of Christians, we said that AirBnB’s policy is discriminatory against a range of religions and groups that have sexual scruples (including Christians), while advancing the cause of pluralistic, secularist, progressives who don’t have such moral scruples?
jillybean wrote: Because Air BnB is not imposing a burden specifically on Christians. I have to say how underwhelmed I am with jillybean’s reasoning here. She acknowledges that a burden is being imposed, but somehow she is unable to identify where any fault lines are. She needs to open her eyes a bit wider. jillybean wrote: … you may have to give up some of your rights when you offer accommodation to the public. Notice how casually jillybean suggests that we should give up some rights. Jillybean seems to be describing a right that is not a right. Which is… Read more »
I can understand non-discrimination if one has a hotel.
When one is renting out one’s private residence, however, I personally would very much like to be able to pick and choose to whom I rent.
The new terms and conditions make it very difficult to do that.
I agree with you,and I can’t imagine letting a bunch of strangers into my house. I think there is no real way to make it safe or palatable. Which is why I would never do it. If I rented, I would want people vouched for by people I know and whose judgment I trust.
jillybean wrote: AirBnB is asking people to agree not to discriminate. Period. In her defense of the myth of neutrality, jillybean seems to be completely oblivious to the point Wilson made that there is no such thing as imposed non-discrimination. If it has to be imposed, it is necessarily discriminating against someone’s position. There is no such thing as neutrality. Second, AirBnB is not asking anything. They are imposing upon, and withholding service (discriminating), against certain groups that may wish to retain their particular freedom to discriminate in another area (rightly or wrongly). Jillybean seeks to obscure the obvious discrimination… Read more »
quit bellyaching that they’re not allowed to discriminate
The courts need to be as neutral as possible
The courts need to be as neutral as possible Well, it’s kind of late to be discovering that principle. For 50 years, the courts have been the exact opposite of neutral when it comes to banning discrimination by owners of private property. And Judeochristians have either sat silently by, or actively cheered these rulings. For 50 years. But now that they’re starting to lose their rights, suddenly they’re up in arms about “freedom” and “rights” and “tyranny”, etc. Kind of like when they spent 50 years praising the Supreme Court for trampling states’ rights and ignoring the will of 80%… Read more »
40 ACRES presents his tired false-dichotomy again, saying: Kind of like when they spent 50 years praising the Supreme Court for trampling states’ rights and ignoring the will of 80% of Americans by tossing out laws against interracial marriage. Fortunately, the righteous thing to do is not a matter of majority vote, so the 80% statistic is irrelevant to anything. 40 ACRES likes to compare the legalization of interracial marriage with laws requiring recognition (and glorification) of homosexual marriage. The reason this comparison fails is because 40 ACRES is appealing to a human standard of freedom rather than a biblical… Read more »
Do you think your ad (above) should be allowed to say “We are looking for a white, preferably Protestant family to stay with us?”
I think it should be allowed to say anything. I don’t mind if they write: we are a Chinese family and believe in Asian supremacy and don’t want any crackers applying.
At least I know that I wouldn’t be welcome.
What I am saying is that even reasonable options end up being excluded.
From my perspective, I think that relationships between people who don’t get on are best when they trade, not when they are forced to mix. And I think the church does better than the government at blending cultures.
Okay, that is a consistent position. But then we couldn’t be upset with any organization discriminating against people on any grounds. Your view would require a complete reversal of anti-discrimination laws (except, perhaps, those that apply to government rather than private individuals). I could probably be persuaded into this. But it probably would not help Christians in the long run. Any publicly available facility in California which discriminated against gays would be out of business in weeks.
It is true, I think your civil rights era made a mistake
I sort of think this is true as well. In my experience, social norms that need to change (and I do believe that racism was a norm that needed to change) do best via social pressure and personal decisions, and worst by court decisions. I think the Civil Rights Movement was doing some impressive work at several levels in changing people’s minds, in exerting social pressures on communities, and had won victories at the local level in occasions where no new “law” was even passed. But I wonder (and do’t believe it an easy question) whether the federal laws may… Read more »
I think we needed to distinguish between government discrimination (which is wrong) and private discrimination. If somebody in a blue state opened a hotel which refused to accommodate gays, minorities, or interracial couples, social pressure on the net would likely run him out of business. He would have protesters outside the facility; no convention would book his hotel; vendors would likely refuse to deal with him. This, I think,is better than government fiat. But I don’t think anyone who takes money from the government to run a business ought to be free to discriminate.
I think you’re right. But I doubt government policy forces the public’s hand, it can often be a positive measure. I’ve read several accounts that suggest that integration at various points in the military (Specifically the Civil War and WWII) had a meaningful positive effect on integration more broadly. But that’s very different from forcing it on someone who has not chosen to accept a federal job.
It gets murkier when you’re talking about government schools, but which are not federal schools.
jillybean wrote: But I don’t think anyone who takes money from the government to run a business ought to be free to discriminate. Jillybean still seems to be laboring under the notion that her proposal for government supported organizations is neutral, and doesn’t discriminate against someone. Note her own words saying that no one “ought to be free” in a certain respect. If someone is not free to do something, their view is being discriminated against in some fashion, right? I’m not sure how many more ways Wilson can say it, but there is no such thing as imposed non-discrimination.… Read more »
Aye, but there’s the rub, katecho. Who decides what is objective? There is no neutral ground. Therefore, the frame of reference for objectivity at the human level is decided by … popularity? Overton window? Whoever is in power? For Christians it comes down to what we think our job is. Do we want to set the standard for objectivity? Then we must take control of the government, not by force but by voice and willingness to participate both as governed and governor. If we feel we must set ourselves apart from the world and cannot hold the reigns of power,… Read more »
The fact that imposed neutrality still discriminates against some is not a reason, in my opinion, to abandon it when it comes to the government’s dealings with individuals. I worked for a defense contractor which sold radar to the armed forces. Much of the work was subcontracted out, and subcontractors had to agree to abide by government laws about discrimination (this was prior to any laws about gays/transgendered, etc.) Some of those laws would conceivably have discriminated against religious people who, for example, refused to hire women or blacks or Hindu engineers. But isn’t this preferable to using government money… Read more »
“imposed neutrality”
How would one do that?
Jonathan wrote: In my experience, social norms that need to change (and I do believe that racism was a norm that needed to change) do best via social pressure and personal decisions, and worst by court decisions. … But I wonder (and do’t believe it an easy question) whether the federal laws may have caused certain kinds of backfire that were unhelpful in the long run. This observation is at the heart of most of Wilson’s writing on the topic of slavery in the old South. The anti-slavery movement (not abolitionism) was very much alive and active in the South… Read more »
The fact that the Civil War was not the best way to end slavery and led to much evil is one of the very, very few points on which I agree with Pastor Wilson on that topic. Besides the 650,000 dead, you have that lasting racial bitterness you mention, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws and the replication of aspects of slavery in sharecropping and prison. Though I think it’s obviously clear that the perpetrators of slavery were kicking against the goads, and that slavery would have ended more slowly without war (if the absence… Read more »
It really is not clear that that slavery would have ended without the Civil War, but that is beside the point as the Civil War was not a way to end slavery but a way to preserve the Union.
In one sense, that’s completely true. No one in any level of power had shown any serious will to go to war to end slavery. Stating that the North was going to war to end slavery would certainly be a twisting of history, even if they began to take on this motivation deeper into the war and in its aftermath. But the North went to war to preserve the Union after the South seceded from the union, and the South certainly seceded from the Union in order to preserve slavery, and the Civil War certainly did end slavery in the… Read more »
Katecho, John M brings up a better point than me. You suggest that there should have been a more peaceful and Biblical approach to ending slavery than a bloody civil war. But no one (certainly not at the beginning at least) started the Civil War to end slavery. Since the first meaningful shots, as far as I’m aware, were fired by the South, and since Pastor Wilson and many others on this site view the South as “us”, the true representatives of Christianity in the conflict, isn’t it a more meaningful question to ask whether seceding from the Union and… Read more »
Efforts in that direction got us to where we are now.
40 ACRES wrote: Judeochristians should either insist that everyone should be allowed to discriminate, on whatever grounds they choose, or quit bellyaching that they’re not allowed to discriminate. It’s difficult to tell if 40 ACRES is just lobbing pot shots, or if he is actually trying to take a stance on something, but in any case he is offering a false dichotomy. “Judeochristians” don’t have to insist on pretend neutrality, or open free-for-all discrimination. Those aren’t the only two options. This goes back to Wilson’s point that, because we don’t accept pretend neutrality, we can actually, you know, appeal to… Read more »
For clarification – the military has laws against adultery, but not against fornication. Yet the policy of only allowing married couples to attend the retreats was in effect curtailing fornication, not simply adultery.
Thus the question is – why can the military provide taxpayer-funded relationship-enhancing retreats with a big “married couples only” sign, but a private Christian B&B finds that they are prohibited by law from making a similar requirement?
I could make a good case for why the military restricted the retreats to married couples. Presumably they were in demand, and that they were intended to help people who were seriously committed to each other. It would seem reasonable to me to exclude a resource from people who are just shack-ups and have not shown enough commitment to each other to get married. A Christian B&B is entitled to demand that nobody under its roof be committing any sexual sins, as long as they operate in a state that does not have anti-discrimination laws focused on marital status or… Read more »
jillybean wrote: A Christian B&B is entitled to demand that nobody under its roof be committing any sexual sins, as long as they operate in a state that does not have anti-discrimination laws focused on marital status or gays. But they don’t have the right to advertise through Air BnB. Jillybean appears to be simply restating the double-standard, and then restating the current situation of pretend neutrality that is imposed on Christians by the secular culture. Jillybean appealed to what is, but didn’t actually engage the question of what ought to be. In other words, jillybean offered to “make a… Read more »
My case was that the armed forces could restrict a service intended to strengthen marriages to those who are actually married, in the same way that they could restrict a prenatal class to those who are actually pregnant or a parenting class to those who actually have children. This would not be the same as restricting use of the PX to those who are actually married. Although now I wonder what the armed forces would do about a gay couple in the military, legally married in the eyes of the state, who want to attend a course to strengthen their… Read more »
Again, jillybean has restated herself by acknowledging that the military restricts services intended to promote marriage against those who are just shacked up together, but she has made no case for why the government ought to be allowed to do this while Christians are forbidden from doing so.
Good observation, and I’d guess Doug would take no issue with an organization laying out its guiding principles, and saying that its “franchises” can participate so long as they agree with the business rules, otherwise they need to find another organization or set up an independent operation. But for clarity in the discussion – the specific issue Doug brought up would be analogous (to borrow from your illustration) to requiring the **customers** to sign a statement agreeing that they concur with the Protestant understanding of marriage and divorce (and thus to disavow the Catholic understanding) if they want to be… Read more »
I recognize what it appears Airbnb is trying to communicate here, but they are being a bit vague and nonspecific in their language regarding their request for respect and inclusion – they’re not spelling out clearly and specifically what they really mean. Given that, should there be any issue with any Christian happily agreeing to their statement as written? We unapologetically affirm that we respect every person made in God’s image. Yet we would happily share the truth of God’s eternal moral standard, his (not our) eternal judgment against sin, and the only hope for salvation in Jesus… and do… Read more »
I think your last paragraph nailed it.
The problem is that what we consider the respect and love of the Gospel they consider evil. It’s funny how the left’s definition of evil changes from decade to decade, but somehow Christianity is always included.
I said “Merry Christmas” to liberal girl the other day. Her sour mug told me I was being highly disrespectful.
Did I disrespect her by wishing her Merry Christmas?
Should I care? (About her soul? Yes. That I hurt her ethics du jour? Nope.)
Being ‘respectful’ and wishing happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas is denying Christ.
Would you say it to a Jewish person or a Muslim?
Yes
Would you be offended if they said Happy Hannukah to you?
Not at all. Not in the slightest. Why would I? I might even say Happy Hannukah to you too.
Now if a group invented a holiday to coincide with Christmas in order to destroy Christmas I might get annoyed.
Yes. I don’t mind in the least what anyone wishes me. My Jewish and Muslim friends usually wish me Merry Christmas and I wish them the appropriate greeting right back. But I have sympathy for store clerks acting on orders from above.
Now if a group invented a holiday to coincide with Christmas in order to destroy Christmas I might get annoyed.
Um, I hate to break it to you, but that’s basically what Hanukkah is.
It’s a fake holiday. It was an obscure day hardly any Jews had ever heard of until about 100 years ago, when it started being promoted as a rival to Christmas.
Hanukkah is why virtually every public reference to Christmas was replaced with “holidays.”
It wasn’t because of Kwanzaa.
It wasn’t because of Ramadan.
It was because of Hanukkah.
Which is basically a fake holiday.
It was mostly hyped up to give Jewish children something to celebrate at Christmas. Most Jews without any children do not make a big deal out of it.
Read them Isaiah 53 and tell them they can celebrate the Messiah that they thought they were waiting for!
So the haters who invented the holiday may have something to answer for, but why do I need to care if some Jew innocently says it to me?
So the haters who invented the holiday may have something to answer for, but why do I need to care if some Jew innocently says it to me?
Did I say you do?
No, but the reply is as much to Jill.
There is nearly no record of people celebrating Hanukkah just a couple of centuries ago. But it began to be an important Jewish holiday in the second half of the 19th century when two rabbis in Cincinnati noticed their Jewish children didn’t have much connection to the synagogue. They didn’t see Christmas as something they could do easily because it’s Christian, but they did want to do something like that because it was American. Dianne Ashton, professor of American Studies at Rowan University in New Jersey The rabbis developed a new celebration for children during Hanukkah that was held in… Read more »
Yes, exactly. Hence, the Hanukkah Bush! The children who really clean up are the children of interfaith couples. We made a policy decision that our Snowflake would get presents only on Christian holidays. Which was largely undone by my Christian family sending her Hanukkah presents as well!
Yes, absolutely. It’s a great opportunity to share the Gospel, which is one way to show respect. These people were made from the image of God and deserve to know the truth.
I think I see your point, but I am not sure that it really is an effective way to share the Gospel. If it concludes a transaction in a store, for example, you don’t have time to witness to that person and, chances are that when you say it to someone who is clearly not Christian, they will not see it as an opportunity to learn about your faith.
That’s true. However, there are different ways to be a witness for Christ. Another way to witness about Christ is to claim the “ground” for him. In other words, wherever I am standing, that is Christ’s territory. (Actually it all is his, but for his good reasons, he uses us.) If I cede that ground through my words or actions, woe is me! Perhaps it seems like a small thing to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. It is not a small thing at all. It is, in my mind at least, a very very big thing. I know… Read more »
Denying Christ has nothing to do with whether or not a person says “happy holidays” or “Merry Christmas”.
How did it become okay and even preferable for Christians to replace “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays”? What did we give up when we did that?
If your answer is, “Nothing. We are just showing respect for other cultures and religions,” then you didn’t get the point of Pastor Wilson’s article (IMHO of course).
If I ever move back to Wales and open a pub, I’m calling it ‘The Trousered Ape’.
Great insightful blog post. Thank you.
Wales is so beautiful!
I love the lame graphic and the dumb caption.
Even as he’s complaining about liberals hating Christians for discriminating, Doug can’t help reflexively signaling that he hates evil, stupid white people for discriminating.
Of course, it won’t help.
I am having trouble wrapping my mind around the distinction between going to your married gay neighbors’ barbecue and refusing to let them temporarily rent a room in your house. Neither is endorsing the gay lifestyle, it seems to me. Having lunch with a Muslim friend doesn’t mean I like her religion. If the objection is that two people who ought not to be having sex with each other are going to disport themselves unbecomingly under your roof, then it seems to me that you have a duty to be checking marriage certificates. Nobody is going to want to do… Read more »
It seems basic to give business the right to not offer rooms up to the local hooker and her john, pizzagate parties and the occasional three way. Let the comments and reviews section sort it out. Heck, some joints may even get more business if folks don’t have to sleep on “those” sheets. The market will sort it out.
I’ve never heard tranny related to transracial, and if you have a problem with transracial adoption then yes, you are a troll.
Typical Judeochristian hypocrisy:
“I know that some people say “tranny” is a slur, but it’s fine for me to call transgender people trannies, because I don’t approve of that sort of thing.
But it’s wicked to refer to transracial adoptees as trannies, because I do approve of that sort of thing.”
When did you hear me say it’s ok to refer to transgendered people as trannys? What’s it like making things up to argue about?
When did you hear me say it’s ok to refer to transgendered people as trannys?
Exactly whom were you referring to in this sentence if not transgendered people?
That has absolutely nothing to do with “trannys.”
So, I used these curly things called quotes. They look like this ” “. They mean I’m citing someone. In this case, I was citing you. Now, when did I say it was ok to refer to transgendered people as (wait for it!) “trannys?”
LMAO Yes, you were citing me. But I was calling the adopted Korean girl a tranny. You said the article had nothing to do with trannies, so you couldn’t have had my definition in mind. Keep digging that hole. BTW, people call transgendered people “trannies” on here every day. Including the proprietor, Doug Wilson. I oppose malice in public discourse for the same reason I oppose the Annual March for Tranny Justice in the public square. Thus it has come to pass that the advocates of “safe spaces” on college campuses—defined as spaces sufficiently insulated from opinions that are contrary… Read more »
You are awesome. You’re some sort of weird racist throw-back and you want to put me on the defensive? Just because I’ve heard a word used, slur, slang, epithet, or otherwise, and have an idea to the meaning, does not mean I suggest people use it. You’re trying to convict me for merely knowing the common meaning of a word and then assuming you were using the common meaning. Shoot, maybe you want to find some totally awful slang term for someone of a different race, create a new meaning for that word, and then try to accuse me for… Read more »
Your phrenologist called – he and your proctologist are getting gay married.
You’re some sort of weird racist throw-back
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
Alright 40, I don’t feel any need to continue down this path with you. Man, you have some hate in your heart. I do too. I have all sorts of problems. In fact, I’m a wretched human being. And Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is sufficient for me.
40, you and I, we need to repent of trying to think the way WE want to think, and act the way WE want to act. Jesus is King. We both need to bow to our King, repent from our sins, and accept Christ’s forgiveness, and follow his lead.
Goodnight.
Later, gator!
You are awesome. You’re some sort of weird racist throw-back
If we hadn’t legalized tranny adoption and interracial marriage all those years ago, we wouldn’t be dealing with all this other sick stuff.
If we had refused to pander to race-queers, the sex-queers would still be in the closet.
plenty of alternatives to AirBnB. HomeAway, VRBO, etc…