Month: May 2016

“This Is My Body”

How have we twisted the notion of self-sacrifice? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’d like to say I came up with this concept originally, but I heard someone, perhaps Peter Kreeft, speak on the words “This is my body” recently and made a contrast between two opposing positions. I actually thought of another position and I have just been mulling this over for some time. Therefore, I’d like to take my thoughts at this point and share them.

We’re familiar with the words from the Last Supper of “This is my body.” In this, Christ was preparing for His greatest act of self-sacrifice ever. He was preparing to face the tortures of the cross for the sins of the world. This was not something He had to do. This was the plan of God that He willingly submitted to. We find this displayed well in Philippians 2.

Some of you might be wondering about how I interpret the phrase. I really don’t. I have no strong case either way and prefer to see it as words of self-sacrifice. This is something I think could be seen by every viewpoint from a Christian perspective.

Now let’s take this over to marriage. Believe it or not, marriage is supposed to be about self-sacrifice and the epitome of that is to be found in the sexual relationship. This is where the ultimate trust is given by both partners, though I would say certainly the woman puts herself in a more vulnerable position. Each one can say “This is my body” and then say “And I give it to you. In a Biblical sense, your soul belongs to God, but when it comes to the physical relationship, you give your body to only one person. This person gets more of you than anyone else does.

In each of these, we have a beautiful picture of self-sacrifice. It is something powerful in each one and something divine in each one. Of course, since the second one is something we do, we can sadly twist it into something that it isn’t and we can use each person’s body as an apparatus of pleasure rather than that of a person to be loved. Still, something beautiful should not be judged by its misuse and we Christians are called to despite the misuse because we love the real deal so much.

Let’s look instead at another contrast. Do we ever hear the phrase “This is my body” elsewhere? Yes, we do, and in this contrast it is not self-sacrifice. It is in the case of abortion. We hear women speak about how it’s their body and they will then instead give up their children. The children who the body is designed to bring into the world will die for whatever reason the mother deems worthy.

I just find it so amazing that in this act, the concept of self-sacrifice is gone. Is nine months a long time sometimes? Yep. Is the period of childbearing painful? No doubt. Is giving birth painful? I am highly convinced every woman will want extensive pain killers in that time. It’s a shame that some women are not willing to face this time and instead choose to end another human life.

I also think this is worse than what the pagans did in the times of the Old Testament. Sure they sacrificed their children, but they didn’t do it for themselves individually but rather for the good of the harvest or something of that sort. Wicked and evil still? Absolutely, but our modern abortion is even more self-centered then that is.

I look forward to the day when the slaughter of the innocent is done. I look forward to when “This is my body” is always a reminder of self-sacrifice. I look forward to when virtue is restored to our people once again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

My Open Letter To Target

What do I have to say about the bathroom situation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

To those at Target who might read this someday, I must say I am incredibly disappointed by your recent actions. You see, I want to take my wife somewhere safe when we shop and now, I really can’t do that. Of course, my wife is a different case since she has PTSD and has been abused (Not by her own family!) and can have paranoia. Tie all of this together and your bathroom would be a nightmare for her as would your changing rooms.

In fact, I as her husband am on extra guard nowadays about this situation. Even if we go to a store like Wal-Mart or Kroger now, I fear that it is a matter of time and if my wife has to go to the restroom, I do not go at the same time or do my shopping then and have her meet me. I am watching outside.

Do you realize what could happen? Someone can come in and take a picture and before I can do anything about it, it is broadcast all over the internet. It can’t be removed. Now you can say some transgender people just want to pee. I don’t doubt that. I also don’t doubt that there are some scummy people who will want to take advantage of any loophole in the law to do evil.

You see, we know you want to be inclusive and diverse, but the truth is, you’ve made a mistake. One does not include everything by being inclusive any more than I could have an inclusive diet by including rat poison in mine. The question is what kinds of behaviors do we want to include. There is also nothing about diversity for the sake of diversity. If I go to a store with diverse products for sale, it’s because there are many options where I could find what I want. A sports store might sell a diverse range of sporting equipment, but I don’t shop there because I don’t care about sports and having them say “We have a diverse display of items” does not make me want to go. If you like Sports, that’s great for you, but the diversity is not itself.

The reason diversity can be good is that there can be a greater amount of ways to make the people happy. If my wife and I want to go out to eat, it’s great that we can choose from so many places. We are limited in our diets due to Aspergers, but even in our limitations we have diversity. The places we can agree on easily are pizzerias, Mexican restaurants, some fast food places, Subway, and Smoothie King. Let’s suppose we want to go Mexican one night. We have many different restaurants nearby we can choose from. That diversity is good.

Yet when it comes to the bathrooms, I don’t want a diversity of people in there with my wife. You know who I want in there with her? Women. I don’t want people who feel like they’re women. I want people who are actual women.

I also think that if the goal of diversity is to please the most, then you’d realize that you’re doing it wrong since you’re not pleasing the most. Consider that this pledge is going around to boycott you and it has 1.1 million signatures on it. We both know that for every person who signs the petition, there are many more who don’t sign it at all. The nearest in the competition I have seen is from Moveon.org. With this, you have about a tenth of the signatures.

I’ll grant you that I never went to business school so maybe I’m speaking out of turn, but I would think that if you made a decision and it got 1.1 million people not wanting to shop at your store and go to your competitors and got a tenth of them to come (And how many of them might have already been shopping there anyway?) then it’s probably a bad business decision. It looks like you’ve just bought into the modern groupthink going on today.

Beyond safety, there is another reason I oppose the redefinition. I believe that being a man means something and being a woman means something. I believe you’re born one or the other for the most part and you should strive to be what you’re born as. I believe that if have the body of a man and think you’re a woman or vice-versa, that you are living with a delusional belief, much like the person who has Cotard’s Delusion and thinks that they are dead.

What I would ask is how can you truly tell that yes, someone is not the same sex as the body that they possess? I have asked this question several times in debate. I have never been given an answer. The only basis given is feelings and why should I base such a thing on feelings? If I felt like I was dead, you would say I was delusional, and you would be right. If I said I felt like I was a small girl, you would say I was delusional and you would be right. (Oh wait. Someone is already doing that.) If I said I was a dragon, you would say I was delusional. (Oh wait. Someone has also already done that.)

Do you realize we’re living in a crazy world nowadays? It’s like everyone around us is trying to top one another by how many ideas they’re willing to accept. Now we’re calling into question the very nature of men and women and based on what? A feeling? We see this around us. We happen to have this belief that has been around for ages that there is something different and unique about the union of a man and a woman in holy matrimony.

It amazes us that our disagreeing position is not welcomed with the idea of diversity and we are not treated with tolerance. This tolerance is a one way street and always has been. The point is if you say you are only going to tolerate ideas that agree with you, that is not tolerance. By all means, disagree with us. By all means, argue with us. By all means, tell us why you think we’re wrong. Still, let us have the freedom to hold to our beliefs without the strong arm of the government coming in.

You see, Bruce Springsteen and Cirque De Soleil and everyone else can boycott NC because they disagree with a law and refuse to provide goods and services there. I disagree with their stance but you know what? That’s their right. They have the freedom to do that. Meanwhile, you have a business that makes wedding cakes or provides flowers or takes pictures and as soon as they say no because of their deeply held belief on what marriage is, they are attacked and their livelihoods ruined so much so that they are bankrupt without outside support. In what universe is this being tolerant towards someone who disagrees with you?

This has been going on long enough and just as we think it can’t get any more bizarre, it does. Now we are expected to have men go into a women’s room and vice-versa. This would have been unthinkable a century ago. We’ve had these for decades and no one has thought a thing about it and yet now, it’s supposed to be different.

So for the people at Target, I’m a person who cares about true beliefs and I see no empirical evidence whatsoever to think that someone with the body of a man or a woman is really the other. I see it instead as a dangerous epistemology and a door opening Pandora’s Box to who knows what else. If you want to keep this up, that’s your freedom and your right, but you can do it without having my family and I shop there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters