New Flag for America – Super Bowl’s Gift

America made a sweeping brand statement during last night’s Super Bowl half time show.

In San Francisco, the LGBT capital of America, and with a viewing audience of over 100 million, we further cemented LGBT pride as an Amercian value and ushered in the rainbow flag to celebrate it.

Last night’s display screamed loud and clear for the rest of the world to see that, as a nation, we no longer view God’s order as suitable to us. It’s one thing that the courts have spoken. But Super Bowl 50 was our chance to party. A way to festively pronounce, celebrate and encourage sexual unions of all kinds, as well as the confusing gender identity shifts that the LGBT perversion breeds.

It was a beautiful ceremony. Twitter and Facebook lit up. Even Christian leaders applauded the performance. Bringing the ceremony to climax was a remarkable display of colors stretching around the stadium. People were smitten by the evening’s tag line: “Believe in Love.” There were even other companies joining in on the awareness event, whether they were affiliated with the NFL or not, gambling websites popular for placing Super Bowl bets similar to FanDuel held their own LGBT promotions as the Super Bowl erected the rainbow flag.

But what seemed to most as a warm, compassionate spirit of love and togetherness was really a fist-clenching, finger-pointing gesture toward the heavens (and not the kind that feels to God like worship).

Millions were fooled. Hundreds of millions.

So what’s my beef?

This isn’t a message to the LGBT community. I’m not a homophobe. And it’s not a message to politicians. I’m not bitter about the supreme court decision. I actually have sympathy for the confusion these choices have created for people and for the separation they’ve experienced.

I’m not even perplexed that not a single presidential candidate has addressed the issue in the campaign. It’s a done deal. The train has left the station.

But what I am doing is calling out families of the Christian faith that desire to lead children toward Biblical truth. Just because our nation has paved a wider path for immorality doesn’t mean you don’t have a story to tell.

Christians need to pull their heads out of the queso bowl and pay attention to what’s going on. Many folks have no clue what happened last night and you have responsibility to explain things appropriately to your families.

I’m calling out my many friends of faith who “liked” the show on social media and told the world how touching it was. I’m calling out known religious fathers who naively bathed in the feel-good campaign that serves merely to please man and displease God. I’m calling out myself because I’ve done too much sitting and not taking opportunity to speak my convictions of truth to my own family.

I’m not suggesting you ban the NFL. And I’m certainly not suggesting that we treat members of LGBT lifestyles with anything but respect and the kind of love that the scriptures teach.

But I am asking families of faith to step up, and wake up… from the deep stupor that caught so many of us sleeping during America’s biggest party in the city credited for giving birth to the rainbow flag.

Last night was just the after-party

As a father with four children (three teenagers), keeping the true biblical narrative alive and fresh in my household is important. This also involves keeping up with the secular worldview narrative as well.

Here’s a story line that may help you construct some events for your family.

• Football is America’s sport (sorry, baseball). And the Super Bowl is the ultimate party. Last night was a signature moment for the LGBT campaign. But the campaign really picked up momentum one year ago.
• On Valentine’s weekend 2015, 50 Shades of Grey hit the box office, whetting America’s appetite for more erotic expressions of deviant sexual behavior. For weeks bloggers could not stop talking about the movie and taking opportunity to make their cute points (“fifty reasons why this”… or “five shades of that.”
• By the time the NFL draft rolled around in May, media attention shifted to the kiss seen around the world – that of football’s first gay draft pick.
• One month later in June, our nation’s supreme court changed the marriage definition for all 50 states. It was a shocking hijacking of state authority by the courts. Meanwhile Facebook exploded with rainbows and smiles.
• One week later I had unique opportunity to explain to my children about a once-Olympic icon who was formerly a man but now a woman, and why a magazine would so desire the story for their cover.
• Less than another week later I was afforded another family conversation as the women’s U.S. soccer team competed for the World Cup on Sunday afternoon. The day before on Saturday July 4th, America’s birthday, the lineup of interviews featured openly gay soccer players celebrating the changing of the guard for America. What has historically been a day for red, white and blue, was celebrated as a day for the new rainbow flag. Those who are not ready to give up the traditional ideals of what the country stands for will likely resist the new wave of insistence that we give up our star-spangled banner or even army flags – instead, they’ll prominently display them with their own patriotic pride from the flagpoles of their homes.
• Less than two weeks later it was announced that the 2015 ESPY award, presented by ABC and ESPN to the year’s most courageous sportsman or sportswoman (or whatever), was being awarded to Caitlyn Jenner. And who was invited to present this distinguished award? Abby Wambach, world cup soccer star and LGBT icon.

You get the pattern don’t you?

You know the passage in Romans where God turns the people over to their shameful lusts (Romans 1)?

A writer or a movie producer couldn’t script a more delicious twelve month media runway to help a nation to trade in their colors as we have done in the past year.

We’re not that clever!

Events like these happen because God makes it happen. And yesterday’s Super Bowl, in San Francisco U.S.A, was the celebration event and venue God gave us to bask in our new love order.

While Lady Gaga did the anthem in red white and blue; Beyonce, Bruno and Coldplay showcased the new American flag at halftime.

Love is my language, too!

My family and I get to have discussions about how to show love in a world of wickedness and how the wickedest of sins are still forgivable (when the sinner repents). We’ll discuss the confusing origins of LGBT behavior and how it’s nothing new on the face of the planet.

I’ll probably retrieve the half-time video and watch it with my kids. I want them to see how subtle and clever the world can be. I’ll start at the very beginning as the Coldplay dude runs out of the tunnel handing people colored pride flags.

I’ll look for camera angles that pan in on the crowd, showing young children who will hold up their assigned placards to emit their section of the rainbow.

I do pray that in the final days when the mark of the beast becomes available that it does not happen so innocently as it did for families holding cards in the stadium.

Families of faith need to know that the American flag has been replaced with a new one. What used to be a red, white and blue flag, symbolizing fifty states, one nation, under God; is now a rainbow-colored flag, representing 50 states that have lost autonomy to the courts and now answer to man.

Friends, it’s time to wait wake up. History changes faster than ever and our children need our wisdom and perspective.

If you were caught on Super Bowl Sunday with meat balls in your lap while mesmerized by all the colors and the love, do your family a favor and give yourself a do-over. Tell them what it all really means.

God is still God. His order is still THE order. His ways will outlast man’s ways.