Why I Can Never Be Politically Correct

I can't be politically correct. I admit it. I am not even going to try.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a hater, not even of those with whom I passionately disagree.

But I can't pretend that all religions are the same and that they are all good.

I could talk about this from the viewpoint of Scripture, which I do regard as authoritative. But my experience bears out what the Scripture says about religions who turn from the creator to worship the creature. And right now, my heart is burning with my own experience.

I have shed so many tears over the children of Africa. Tears for a preschool girl whose eye teeth were sawed out of her jaw to make powerful medicine to enable someone to get rich. Traditional religion. Tears for a boy who at one day old had his testicles and penis cut off because the father believed the child was bad luck. Traditional religion. A girl who was forced to laugh while she watched their friends kill their parents in order to survive. LRA--Roots in traditional religion.
Another girl who was enslaved at a traditional shrine so young that her mother had to go back every day in order to nurse her. A shy young girl who was enslaved at a shrine at 13, stripped and forcibly raped by the priest. So many beautiful children, so many precious lives, so terribly torn asunder. All in the name of traditional religion.

I am supposed to speak kindly of all religions, as if they were all equal. That's political correctness, you know. Sorry, I can't do that. I have seen too much. I have shed too many tears. I have felt too much of the children's pain.

I am not saying, of course, that all the troubles of Africa's children are due to African Traditional Religion, but ATR surely plays a huge part in their pain. Neither am I saying that we as Christians are perfect and have always done what is right. We are human beings, and I am painfully aware of my own sins and shortcomings and many of those of my brothers and sisters.

Yet I face the evidence of this truth again and again. African traditional religion is a major abuser of Africa's children, causing untold pain and suffering. Think of the little boy who had his private parts removed. He was deprived of marriage and fatherhood. He was opened to ridicule and shame his whole life. To say nothing of the agony of the actual procedure.

In ancient religions, certain gods required the sacrifice of children. It seems to me that those same or similar spirits are at work in African Traditional Religion today, working constantly for the destruction of Africa's children.

At Every Child Ministries where I work we have a motto that I believe with all my heart. We say "Children are Africa's (and any nation's) greatest resource--A precious treasure from God." Oh, how I long to help Africa's families understand the preciousness of the treasures God gives them in their children!

No, I can never be politically correct. Too many tears have washed it completely out of my soul.

A New Journey

I've begun another new journey. I've seen so many devastated lives caused by modern-day slavery and I want to be able to help more than I have. After doing some enlightening reading about attachment disorder and similar topics, I have decided to start studying again. I'm closer to 66 than I am to 65, but I have started courses which will lead to my Ph.D. in Christian counseling. I don't remember things like I used to, but I am asking God to help me. I need to be able to offer more to those whose lives have been destroyed. I need to be able to write training materials for our workers who help them day by day, and to have credentials that everyone will recognize to enable me to do so. I also want to be able to evaluate counselors who come to Every Child Ministries with different backgrounds and who use different methods. I want to be sure about what methods we want to follow and which we don't.

It's not that I need another thing to do. My life is full and overflowing already. It's just another of those tasks for which God has tapped me on the shoulder and said, "This one has your name on it." I'm excited, & I'm on my way!