"Them Are the Bases"
Don't overlook the basics.
One of my favorite things to do when I get a few spare moments is to read a few pages from my small collection of baseball books.
I recently added “Bunts” by George F. Will. It’s a book full of Will’s articles about baseball from the mid-70s to the mid-90s.
One of his articles made me laugh as he discussed the importance of the basics.
In 1962, at the New York Mets’ first spring training, manager Casey Stengel took his ragged squad - it would lose 120 games that season - for a walk around the diamond. “Them are the bases,” he explained.
Stengel sometimes muffed details, such as the name of his team. “It’s a great honor for me to be joining the Knickerbockers,” he said when announced as the Mets’ manager. But he got basics right, as when he explained why the first Met drafted was Hobie Landrith, an undistinguished catcher: “You have to have a catcher, because if you don’t you’re likely to have a lot of passed balls.” - George F. Will, Bunts, 292
Our world today has veered entirely off course regarding some of the basics - such as a person’s gender. Science declares there are only two genders - even renowned biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins has publically stated this.
The Bible also proclaims there are only two genders.
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)
Our world desperately needs to remember the basics. Because our culture has abandoned the idea of absolute truth and has embraced such foolishness as “everyone has their own truth,” - we have lost sight of the basics.
And they're not content to simply keep their views - or their “truth” - to themselves, but they have to convince others to accept it. And then, when they experience pushback against their ideas, they look at everyone else like they’re the crazy ones.
It’s like these folks are trying to convince you that baseball is actually played with a basketball, and rather than being played on a baseball field it’s supposed to be played on a racquetball court. And then, if you try to correct them, they accuse you of being hateful and closed-minded.
No, it’s just - that’s not the way this works.
Them’s not the bases.
Imagine that.
In a world where absolute truth has been rejected, no one knows what’s right and wrong anymore. Everyone is free to do what’s right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25).
So what’s the solution?
It’s time for our culture to go “back to the basics.” It’s time to remind ourselves that there is such a thing as truth - as right and wrong.
“Them are the bases.”
Love this Article
Caution is needed here. To say that Dawkins claimed that science says there are only two _genders_ and that Dawkins has stated this is a misquote. From the above linked article:
"He then said, 'There are two sexes. You can talk about gender if you wish, and that’s subjective.' Morgan asked him about people who claim there are "a hundred genders," though Dawkins claimed, 'I’m not interested in that.'
"He said bluntly, 'As a biologist, there are two sexes, and that’s all there is to it.'"
God's design incorporates two human sexes, male and female. In this broken world, now drenched in technological "progress" that promotes disease and death everywhere, sexual development can go wrong at any number of stages, from genetic recombination resulting in chromosomal abnormalities to genetic mutations that inhibit synthesis of critical enzymes to systemic damage from endocrine disruptors and other poisons (some of them being prescribed pharmaceuticals).
All of the variations of which I am aware are pathological in nature, made possible due to sin but not strictly part of God's design. In Matthew 19:12a Jesus referred to a class of variations known to the ancient world. He did this in the context of explaining about divorce and about who should not seek to marry. Was He then contradicting Gen. 2:24? No, of course not. This world is fallen. That's Genesis 3.
I am acutely aware of this because I am one so affected, and I failed to heed Jesus' warning. I didn't even understand it -- I've never heard that passage preached and no wonder, since what He said there about divorce is rejected by much of the church. The way I live is certainly not the way we were meant to live, but then everyone can make that claim for other reasons. By the way, I did receive other clear warnings about marrying, which I ignored.
To be clear, however, I don't understand the gender confusion being promoted now to represent any kind of truth, nor do I think it is coming from the trans community as any kind of real movement. They were infiltrated and deceived, as has happened with other communities as well. That would include many churches.
Matt. 24:3-4: Now as He sat [or, 'when he was seated'] on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you."
Deception is the first sign.