Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has a powerful essay at Touchstone entitled The Pagan Public Square. He argues,

“Today little effort is made by secular liberals (or “progressives,” as many prefer to be labeled) to maintain the pretense of neutrality. Having gained the advantage, and in many cases having prevailed (at least for now), on battle front after battle front in the modern culture war, and having achieved hegemony in elite sectors of the culture (for example, in education at every level, in the news and entertainment media, in the professions, in corporate America, and even in much of religion—including making inroads into the Catholic Church), there is no longer any need to pretend.“

George goes on to accurately define what is enveloping our culture as “paganism”, pointing out that “contemporary social liberalism (“progressivism”) reflects certain core (and constitutive) ideas and beliefs—ideas and beliefs that partially defined the traditions of paganism that were dominant in the ancient Mediterranean world and in certain other places up until the point at which they were defeated, though never quite destroyed, by the Jewish sect that came to be known as Christianity.“

George hits the bullseye with his assertion that the central area of pagan focus is sexual in nature reminding us that “sexuality “came to mark the great divide between Christians and the world” in early Christianity. That, of course, is precisely what is happening now as the culture descends into full-blown paganism engaging in virtually every form of perverse sexuality that early Christianity decried.

Why is sex a primary area of activity for the demonic? Why does Satan expend so much time and energy on seeking destruction via sexual depravity? 1 Cor 6:18 reveals that sexual sin is in a category unto itself, marking it more ruinous in a way that no other sin is. Scripture is emphatic that God designed sex between a husband and wife to symbolize the intimacy between Christ and his church (Eph 5:31-32). In destroying sexual purity, Satan seeks to annihilate a most precious and symbolic gift that God graced his image-bearers with – a gift that also produces new life, i.e., new image-bearers. Ultimately, in inducing and fostering sexual immorality, Satan is mocking the intimate relationship between Christ and his church.

Diocletian (284-305) was a Roman emperor who enacted empire-wide brutal persecution against Christians in an attempt to force a universal return to paganism. George refers to our present age as a new “Diocletianic age”. George warns that “The neo-pagans are in no mood to be “accommodating.” Christians and others who dissent from progressive orthodoxy can expect “the hard-line approach.” He concludes soberingly that “We have no choice but to fight. And it is, and will continue to be, hard. There will be casualties. Lots of them . . . The days of comfortable Christianity are over.” Yet he potently reminds us that “God’s grace is superabundant. No one who asks for the courage to bear faithful witness will be denied it. No one who is prepared to take up his cross and follow Jesus will find the burden too great to bear.”

George concludes “So, shall we flee from the battle? No. Quite the opposite. Onward, Christian soldiers.”

Amen.