Pastor Bo: Sour grapes and custom cakes

Stained glass Jesus
Stained glass Jesus
photo Pastor Bo Wagner

"Is there only one bakery in Colorado?" - Bill Maher, "Real Time"

The answer to Bill Maher's succinct question is, "No, there are actually plenty of them." But you cannot really tell that to the anti-Christian activists who have their very tiny hearts set on destroying Jack Phillips and the Masterpiece Cakeshop.

Phillips, as you may remember, is the baker who recently won his case before the Supreme Court. He would not design a custom wedding cake for two gay men; to do so would violate his religious convictions. He would sell them anything in the store, including already finished cakes.

He did not bar them from his business or treat them unkindly; he simply would not make that cake. Nor would he make other cakes that violate his convictions, such as a Halloween cake or a cake that celebrates divorce.

Religious bigot? Hardly; he also will not make cakes that disparage LGBT individuals.

The Supreme Court found for him 7 to 2, and ruled against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in the process, finding that they had exhibited animus against him and against his beliefs.

One would think that would settle the issue.

But now he is being targeted yet again. This time a Colorado attorney has "requested" that Phillips design a custom cake to celebrate a gender transition. There never really was any question as to how Phillips would respond to such a request. Anyone not living in a cave, not a cave on Earth, mind you, but a cave on Mars or farther, knows he will not do such a thing.

That being the case, Maher's question really does answer itself. The fact that any of a number of other bakeries would do so without hesitation, yet Masterpiece is the baker the attorney chose, says that this is an intentional assault on Phillips. Till the day he capitulates or dies, these "requests" will keep on coming, with the full blessing of the utterly misnamed Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

Michael Farris, writing in the Denver Post, says, "It defies reasonable belief that the attorney was anything less than fully aware of Jack Phillips' religious convictions. Not merely because the attorney called the shop on the day the media announced that the case was accepted by the Supreme Court, or because the attorney lives and works in Colorado. But because the attorney admittedly "take[s] great pride" in suing businesses that allegedly "discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and serving them their just desserts" (www.denverpost.com/2018/08/19/colorados-against-masterpiece- cakeshop-jack-phillips).

In other words, we have a clear case of sour grapes and custom cakes.

In Romans 12:18, Paul said, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." It is abundantly clear, though, that some vocal and aggressive activists have no thoughts of or desire for peace. If they did, they could easily achieve that goal simply by leaving Jack Phillips alone and going to any of a thousand other cake shops to get their cakes.

In other words, the political and societal left seems to have a bit of a bully problem in their midst.

I would surmise that each side of politics and society does; bullies somehow seem to pop up during junior high school, and some of them never grow out of that tendency. So how exactly should they be dealt with? If my dim recollections of junior high serve me correctly, I believe that the victims of bullying generally eventually banded together, formed a pimple-laden vigilante group and delivered a nuclear wedgie to the offender. This generally served as enough of a deterrent to discourage the bully from stealing anyone else's lunch money or giving some helpless kid any more toilet swirlies.

But, alas, I am told that giving bullies nuclear wedgies is generally frowned upon in the adult world. The good news, I suppose, is that questions like "Is there only one bakery in Colorado?" from people like Bill Maher serve much the same purpose. Public shaming over bullying, I suspect, will do far more to deter anti-Christian bullies than any wedgie, noogie or swirlie would ever do, and no one gets hurt in the process, a true win/win.

And so I, a Christian, send my sincere thanks to Bill Maher, and my prayers and best wishes to Jack Phillips. And I also pray that anyone continuing to bully him gets junior-high-level pimples to go along with their junior-high-level behavior. Bless their hearts

Bo Wagner is pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, North Carolina, a widely traveled evangelist and author of several books available on Amazon and at www.wordofhismouth.com. Email him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.

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