Sunday, September 28, 2003
(1:47 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
The Left-Handed Agenda
[Note: Don't waste your time reading this! Read my latest full-length essay instead!]
Left-handedness is one of the primary scourges of our society today. Universally reviled by every society up to our present depraved generation, the unnatural practice of left-handedness is an affront to our most cherished values. Yet the shift toward social acceptance of left-handedness in recent years has been overwhelming. Many of our teachers, our doctors, our politicians, our priests, and even our Scout leaders are unrepentant practicioners of left-handedness, using their positions of influence to teach children that left-handedness is not only acceptable but normal. Even worse are those who seek to cloud the boundaries between the perversion of left-handedness and the truth of right-handedness, writing with their right hand, pitching with their left, and basically allowing their passions to direct their hands to ever greater confusion of the categories that God gave us.
How many children, themselves wondering whether they might be left-handed, have been cast into this pit by witnessing an admired authority figure unashamedly writing, pitching, batting, or playing paddleball with his left hand? Many of our professional baseball players even go so far as to openly advertise their left-handedness, touting it as a supposed benefit to their team! In addition, left-handedness is actively promoted even on children's cartoons, a clear attempt on the part of the left-handed agenda to circumvent the efforts of parents to train their children in right-handed ways. The best known example of a left-handed cartoon character is Ned Flanders, who goes so far as to open a left-handed-oriented store in the effort to shove his left-handedness in the face of everyone he meets. The most shameful part of this particular example is that Flanders is supposedly a Christian, but this wolf in sheep's clothing should not fool the attentive believer. In one of the first episodes in which he plays a prominent role, he shows himself to be a raging alcoholic and encourages Homer Simpson's own habit. He has also had extra-marital sexual relations and has been portrayed as questioning his faith and as being a huge fan of the Beatles. Thus Flanders' left-handedness is just one more example of the ways that the producers of The Simpsons are attempting to subvert true Christian morals.
Some of these left-handed advocates have even gone so far as to twist Scripture in order to advance their divisive agenda. Ehud, a character who appears in the third chapter of the Old Testament book of Judges, is portrayed as being left-handed, and in the context of the story, his left-handedness is supposedly (according to these interpreters) what allows him to sneak his knife into the inner sanctum of a pagan king and murder him, thus "saving" the Israelites. What these left-handites fail to recognize is that the book of Judges portrays a wide variety of negative behaviors to illustrate what happens when there is not a strong central government that spends all its resources enforcing moral commandments. One of the supposed "heroes," Samson, even hires a prostitute, another behavior that has been universally condemned throughout history in every nation except the Netherlands (that perfidious nation is a topic for another scathing blog-based critique). Clearly we need to be more sophistocated interpreters of Scripture than those who allow their left-handed agenda to obscure right reason.
Sadly, many Christian parents, wanting to be "understanding" and "tolerant of difference," actually encourage left-handed practices from a very early age, based simply on their children's perceived proclivity for them. Their children's graphite-smeared hands speak of the depravity of such laxity -- surely the discomfort of writing left-handed shows that God intended us to write with our right hands. Yet fathers are fed the insidious lie that trying to "force" a "naturally" left-handed child into the appropriate right-handedness will actually keep the child from reaching his full potential as an athlete! As if we have the right to transgress the boundaries that God has mercifully revealed to us, simply for our own pleasure!
Surely we believers should be merciful and understanding toward those who have long been trained to regard left-handedness as a normal or even desirable condition. We must be gentle, but firm. Left-handed people can change, albeit through a long process, fraught with dangers. The conversion process has been most successful among those who identify themselves as right-handed or as "ambidexterous" and simply occasionally flirt with left-handedness. The easiest method of conversion is usually to encourage them to avoid those behaviors that most tempt them to indulge in left-handed practice (pitching, catching, javelin-throwing, etc.). But for those who seem to be congenitally left-handed, for whom no degree of counselling or therapy can train to walk in the way God has set out for us, there is only one possible solution: these people simply must renounce writing altogether. If they need to produce a printed message, they can simply type it. If they cannot get used to using the mouse right-handed, the Lord has provided us with keyboard shortcuts. If they feel they cannot live without playing baseball in some form, churches have the sacred duty to form kickball leagues.
This problem, though deeply entrenched in our society and in our churches, can be overcome. Let us pray that our Christian leaders will be able to keep their priorities in order as we wage this front of the ongoing culture wars.
