Max Lucado’s Problematic Apology

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Christianity, Culture, Culture War, Emotivism, Epistemology, Language, LGBTQ+, Max Lucado, Postmodernity, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Rhetoric, Truth

            The furor over Max Lucado’s remote preaching for the Washington National Cathedral has caught a fair amount of attention lately.  That Lucado met disapproval from some in the Episcopal church for holding elements of a biblical sexual ethic is as expected; that he was allowed to speak at all is rather surprising, and that those responsible have come to regret it is unsurprising.  But probably the most troubling part of the whole episode is the apology letter Lucado issued afterward.

            His opening paragraph suggests already a misapprehension about the seriousness of defying God’s design for the human person and relationships.  An orthodox Christian preaching to the Washington National Cathedral is undertaking a prophetic task.  This is, indeed, a “high honor”, but not, I think, in the sense that Lucado intends.  Prophets aren’t supposed to hear with dismay that their presence has been “a cause of consternation” to people who reject God’s Word; they’re supposed to expect it.

            Lucado identifies the source of this consternation, a sermon from 2004, and proceeds to apologize.  It is a good apology in that it owns responsibility without making excuses.  But what is he apologizing for?  The hurtfulness of his sermon.

            Here I must allow for the possibility that Lucado has something to apologize for.  I don’t know; I haven’t seen the whole sermon.  He thinks he was disrespectful, and I respect a man regretting being disrespectful.

            On the other hand, it seems far more probable to me that the consternation towards Lucado resulted not from how he communicated the truth, but from the truth itself.  Looking at the snippets of the sermon available in the various articles about this kerfuffle, one finds that Lucado, if not entirely on point with his inferences, was at least significantly less severe in his remarks about homosexuality than the Scriptures are (see Lev. 18:22; Rom. 1:26-27).  Apologizing for oneself is one thing, but we must never apologize for what God has said.

            God has said that He created mankind male and female, distinct and complementary, intended for union in this complementary distinction in covenant sexuality (Gen. 1:27; 2:23-24).  Lucado perhaps apologizes for this, certainly obfuscates it.  He refers without qualification to “the LGBTQ community”, “LGBTQ individuals”, “LGBTQ families”, and “LGBTQ people”, accepting these significations that frame homosexuality et al as a legitimate and morally neutral identity category instead of a rejection for God’s design for humanity.

            “Faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about homosexuality,” Lucado says.  Granted that true Christians can misinterpret the Bible in all kinds of ways, his words in this context surely imply more than that.  If I said, “Faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about theft,” would I not be suggesting that the Bible’s teaching about theft is unclear?  So also the teaching of Scripture about human sexuality; the question is not whether it is possible for a true Christian to misunderstand, but whether God has spoken clearly.

God has spoken clearly.

            To his credit, Lucado does not himself reject the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality, and he is willing to say so here—here, where it will probably nullify his apology, because that biblical teaching is the very thing that so consternates those to whom he is apologizing.  But he includes that pesky adjective “traditional”; if he had only said ‘the biblical understanding of marriage’, and left it at that!  Christians must all come to realize that framing it as the ‘traditional’ understanding of marriage is a concession, a way of putting it positively while granting legitimacy to other understandings of marriage.  If you must put an adjective before marriage, ‘real’, ‘true’, or even ‘biblical’ are all acceptable qualifiers; ‘traditional’ gives too much away.

            All this obfuscation is wedded to the basic burden of the apology, addressing the ‘hurt’ his sermon of years ago has caused.  Here it is an exquisitely contemporary apology, of the kind we are used to seeing from a variety of public figures who have said something of real or perceived offense.  Whether what Lucado said was true or not, biblical or not, appears irrelevant; it was ‘hurtful’, and that is what matters.  For a telling comparison, just look at the similarity between Lucado’s apology and Dean Hollerith’s apology for inviting him to preach.  Both have feelings firmly behind the steering wheel, and truth in the back seat—politely observing the injunction against back-seat driving.  Both suggest a therapeutic model of truth—the kind of conceptual world in which the ubiquitous contemporary sentiment ‘my truth’ is, if not coherent, at least at home.  The locus of morality is not in the voice of God coming to us from without—‘what has God said?’—but in the inward response—‘how did it make me feel?’

            Such a therapeutic model of truth is utterly opposed to the Christian faith.  Christianity has, at its center, the gospel: the wondrous message of the saving life, death, resurrection, ascension, reign, and return of Jesus Christ, and the offer of redemption to those who repent and believe.  This message comes with a conviction of the fiery holiness of God and the wickedness of our sin.  We dare not trade the clarion call of the gospel for a soothing affirmation of every man’s sense of self.

            Lucado allows for differing interpretations of the clear teaching of Scripture regarding human sexuality, adding, “but we agree that God’s holy Word must never be used as a weapon to wound others.”  We have met this before, this strange surprise that the sword of the Spirit might prove sharp and pointed.  Of course, we must not twist the Scriptures out of spite towards others.  But where the Word of God cuts truly, we must not attempt to blunt its edge.  The surgeon’s scalpel cuts to heal; the holy Scripture convicts to save. Some things ought not be apologized for.

A-woman Again

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Christianity, Culture, Feminism, Gender, God, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Sexual Revolution, Society, Theology

Representative Eric Swalwell has drawn a little attention from an incidental remark wherein he referred to God using the pronoun ‘herself.’ This sort of blasphemy is not surprising on the cultural left–and blasphemy it is, to willfully feminize God, who has always revealed Himself in masculine pronouns–but it is an instructive reminder of what lies at the bottom of the sexual revolution. This ideology is not, at the last, about freedom or love or individuality; it is about idolatry.

It’s easy to see the sort of logic that might push someone on the religious left towards feminized deity: it’s all about power dynamics, and deity is seen as the highest glass ceiling. How can any woman really get to the top if, ultimately, He is at the top? So feminist theology has, for some now, pursued the quest for a goddess. We see this in academia, in iconography, and, as in the present case, in popular culture.

This is all part of the project of self-actualization, self-centering of the sexual revolution. All obstacles to our freedom are to be abolished. With abortion, it manifests in the denial of responsibility for the life of the child which impinges on our freedom; with divorce, denial of the covenantal union which threatens to make us for-another and united-with-another instead of with and for ourselves; with promiscuity the barriers to self-centering are obvious, and so also with the whole LGBTQ+ alphabet. But feminism, remarkably enough, is what takes the project to its fullest extent.

By feminism, of course, I do not mean what feminism might have once meant (and still touches on in some ways): contending for the simple truth that women are fully human, equal in value and dignity, responsible moral agents. By feminism, I mean what mainstream feminism now is and has long been: a project of revolt against God’s good design for man and woman. In this sense, it is an arm of the sexual revolution, and plays a major role in the revolution’s cultural advance.

But a revolution revolts against some authority or power. Who is the sexual revolution in revolt against? Not ultimately, as its footsoldiers might believe, oppressive patriarchy or antiquated norms. It is in revolt against God, who created man and woman, who created human sexuality, and who has established its nature, purpose, and the good boundaries that allow for true freedom and flourishing. The sexual revolution is merely one particularly consuming aspect of mankind’s rebellion against the maker–and we see this, in stark clarity, with the feminist attempt to feminize God. For while the sexual revolution in its manifold aspects attacks the dignity and identity of men made in the image of God, this final expression of feminism goes after the God in whose image we are made.

All of this is sobering to observe. But do not lose heart. There is good news–very much, very good news.

In the first place, God is invincible. He cannot be disfigured. In His great forbearance, He permits blasphemy for awhile, but idolaters cannot tarnish the glory of the Holy One. God will vindicate His honor, in His time; at the last, every knee shall bend, every mouth declare the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

In the second place, God does forbear, and idolaters of every sort are invited to receive the amnesty of the Almighty. By faith in Jesus Christ, those who scorn God now may yet come to know Him as Father, and the wonderful privilege of adoption as His children. It is not too late.

A fundamental choice is laid before all of us, a call to repentance, with the wonderful promise of restoration, redemption, and resurrection. We may know God–not just abstractly, but personally; not just as the Father, but as our Father. But we may only know God on His terms, not on our own. We may only know Him as He has revealed Himself–as He truly is, not as we would have Him be.

Knowing Him a He truly is, we also come to know ourselves as we truly are, and in sanctification we embrace the selves that He has called, and empowered us, to be. This self is not self-centered but Christ-centered, renewed in the image of the Creator. There, unsurprisingly, lies the secret of creaturely joy.

Vain Aspirations and Kingdom Culture

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Abortion, America, Christ, Christianity, Culture, Culture War, God, Idolatry, Pluralism, Poetry, Prophecy, Religious Left, Secularism, Society

            For the inauguration of President Biden a few weeks ago, a poem was read by Amanda Gorman, Youth Poet Laureate, entitled, “The Hill We Climb.”  Leaving literary criticism to others, I wish to reflect upon a single line in the poem: “Scripture tells us to envision that, ‘everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.’”

            The Scripture is Micah 4:4.  Here the prophet is describing divine deliverance in the last days, and the context is extremely significant: what the “Scripture tells us to envision” is the exaltation of the one true God, figured in the elevation of His holy mountain (v.1), and the universal dissemination of the knowledge of God (v.2), and—in such context—universal peace and prosperity (vv.3-4).  It is, indeed, a wonderful eschatological vision, and we would do well to envision it.

            But it is not a vision consonant with the cultural headwinds of contemporary America.  The glories of the prophesied epoch are both consummated by and built upon the exaltation of the one true God; God’s glory founds, surmounts, and surrounds all the delights of the age to come.  The prophesied peace and prosperity does not crown a culture of pluralistic idolatry—there are other prophecies for that (e.g. Micah 5:10-15).  Sitting under one’s own vine and fig tree (v.4) comes together with a universal pursuit of God’s will, “that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths” (v.2).  It is absurd to envision this future while—to allude to just a couple of policy objectives of the incoming administration—denying God’s design for humanity and destroying innocent human life in the womb.

            That is the great dissonance that echoes behind the selective appropriation (?!) of the divine promises in the context of idolatry and immorality.  As reported by Alexandra Desanctis in National Review, “Sponsoring a Flag at Today’s Inaugeration Sends a Donation to Planned Parenthood.”  Does a civics that alludes to the worship of Molech reasonably expect the blessing of Yahweh?

            The proper application of this observation is to remember that eschatological vision prescribes present faithfulness.  Micah 4:4 in the context of America today is a call to repentance.  The age to come comes by the glorious work of the child born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), not by any labors of ours, and certainly not by secular pluralistic ideologies.  There is a present foretaste and an ultimate fulfillment of this promised peace and prosperity—for all who will have it.  But, for a culture chasing idols, all such aspirations are vain.

            For those who will have it, there is another culture, within and without the cultures of this world; there is a kingdom ever advancing, life-giving, loyal and good.  For those who belong to that kingdom, and hope to inherit its promises, it is imperative to live in its culture.  Without withdrawing from the world, while still pragmatic in politics and active in society, the people of God can inhabit the culture they long for in the present.  That, I suggest, is the way forward in 2021 and beyond.

Broken Censors

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America, Big Tech, Censorship, Christianity, Culture, Culture War, Freedom, Hope, LGBTQ+, Media, Morality, Secularism, Sexual Immorality, Social Media, Society

The fallout from the despicable Capitol storming continues, in the social sphere as well as the explicitly political.  Tech corporations have silenced not only certain social media accounts, but the platform Parler, an alternative to Twitter.

In principle, these communication giants are just trying to stop people from using their platforms to promote violence; but, accusations of selective enforcement of such policies call this into question.  More significantly, this is only a ramping up of a pattern of technocratic suppression of conservative and Christian speech.  What can we observe from what the tech giants censor, and what they permit?

Because, of course, there has always been censorship.  That is to say, societies have mores, and they tend to enforce those mores in some way and to some degree.  I was reading the other day Francis Schaeffer’s Escape from Reason.  Writing about the Marquis de Sade, Schaeffer observes that “Twenty or thirty years ago [from 1968], if anyone was found with one of his books in England he was liable to have difficulties with the law” (38).  Now, Schaeffer is talking about shifting moral standards, for he goes on to say, “Today, he has become a great name in drama, in philosophy, in literature.”  But I just wish to remind people that there was a time when sadistic ‘literature’ was censored—and such censorship is good for society, not only because sadism hurts people but because it appears that the (natural?) result of failing to censor immorality is that eighty years down the road you end up censoring morality.  In the early 20^th century in the west you could get into trouble for advocating pagan sexual morality; in the 21^st, for advocating Christian sexual morality.

The call for a society free of moral censorship was a transitional stage in imposing a new (im)morality, just as feminism was a transitional stage to the abolition of gender.  I am not saying there is a mastermind behind these things, but that when you kick out the foundation the house will continue to crumble.

And, to extend the metaphor, other people may come along and try to build something new out of the rubble, according to their own designs and with very unsound architectural principles.  A morally neutral society—secular, in that sense—is an illusion.  You can maintain that illusion for a while, living off the (appropriated?) social capital of residual Christendom even while denouncing it.  But man is a moral animal.  A new morality emerges, and it may yet prove as heavy-handed as it is immoral.

Consider this: Planned Parenthood has a Twitter account.  Yes, that unabashed destroyer of innocent life tweets freely.  Promoting violence is, apparently, quite acceptable to Twitter.  The recent social media purges, then, merely highlight the instability and double-mindedness of a society in rebellion against the Lord of Life.

But the Lord is King, and His Kingdom stands in the midst of this dark world, and His victory is unstoppable.  The Word of God cannot be silenced.  He is exalted, and “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Php. 2:10-11, ESV).

We do not need to fret or fear the turmoil around us.  We do need to focus on Christ and His kingdom.  The tremors in our society are an ominous but useful reminder to live as kingdom citizens in this world and in our nation: as men and women, to live lives of true discipleship; as families, to raise our children in the knowledge of the truth and the fear of the Lord; as churches, to operate as outposts of the kingdom of God, and cultivate a Christian counter-culture that has the kingship of Christ at the center.  If the church did that, we might get to be the ones rebuilding the crumbled house of western civilization.  Who knows?  With God all things are possible.

But, more importantly, our perspective must remain eternal.  Nations and civilizations come and go.  God is King forever, and His children persevere in this life because in the life to come they shall be with their Lord in the new heavens and new earth, where “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

Another Warning

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America, Culture, God, Hope, Repentance, Salvation

Albert Mohler offers some good reflections on the evil of the riot in our nation’s capitol yesterday. It was a grim and tragic moment in American history.

Freedom is good for humanity, and anarchy is just as much an enemy of freedom as is totalitarianism. The corruption of our democratic institutions is no excuse for desecrating them, and assaulting democracy does not lead to human flourishing.

The headlines are one more call to repentance and revival, if we will read them right. Jesus is Lord. The Prince of Peace offers hope, life, and healing. Without Him, we are lost.

“In the Name of…”

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America, Christianity, Culture, God, Government, Idolatry, Pluralism, Progressive Christianity, Religious Left, Secularism, Society, Truth, United Methodists

            I mentioned a couple of days ago the silliness with which Rep. Cleaver ended his prayer for the opening of congress on Sunday, and I certainly wasn’t alone in observing the nonsense of it.  But that little detail has gotten more attention than the fact that the prayer was problematic in more significant ways.  How we end our prayers matters, but may not matter as much as the basic question of who we are praying to.

            I am no connoisseur of congressional prayers, and would be unsurprised if they were blasphemous as a matter of course; I make no claim that Cleaver’s prayer stands out from the pack (though it might, for all I know).  But the ending has claimed so much attention that we might as well draw people’s eyes up a few lines from “amen and awoman.”

            You can view the whole prayer on C-Span (there’s also a transcript, but it is both incomplete and unreliable).  And the prayer is not all bad, as concerns its content: there is humility, and an expressed desire for unity (if rendered somewhat incredible by the prayer’s conclusion).  But the question of great concern is, to whom is he praying?

            Towards the beginning, he invokes, “Eternal God,” which is an acceptable, if not explicit, Christian address.  He says, “The members of this august body acknowledge your sacred supremacy,” which seems to me unlikely, but we shall return to that.  Various phrases biblical and Christian phrases suggest that it is the one true God whom Cleaver addresses—without ever bringing in any of the key terms, such as “Jesus,” “Holy Spirit,” or “Trinity,” that might really seal the deal.  Nonetheless, one is left with the impression that he might actually be praying to the actual God—and making the audacious claim that the U.S. congress operates in submission to the Holy One.

            But, at the end, he concludes, “We ask it in the name of the monotheistic god, Brahma, and god known by many names, by many different faiths.”

            Beg pardon?

            It would appear that Cleaver has been praying to a hypothetical shared god of the world’s religions.  He conflates “the monotheistic god”—an inadequate catchall that could conceivably have reference to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, “Brahma”—the Hindu creator god, and a general reference to the gods of other religions.  In this secularized, pluralistic prayer, Cleaver seems to be trying to include everyone—thus effectively excluding most people.

            This notion, that all religions (or at least certain religions) really worship the same god under different names is not at all unique.  It is unsurprising to see it on the religious left, and perhaps the only safe course on the political left.  It is also blasphemous.

            When we read the Scriptures, we do not find God regarding worship of other gods as really being worship of Himself.  We find God profoundly distinguishing Himself from the gods of the pagans, “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens” (Ps. 96:5, ESV).  God declares the idols worthless (Jer. 10:15), and the worship of such idols futile (Isa. 42:17).  We find not that God may be sought by any name, but that there is one name we must confess, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

            To whom, then, was Representative Cleaver praying?  Whose “sacred supremacy” does he (and, he presumes, the rest of congress) acknowledge?  Not, apparently, the one true God.

            And that is the real problem behind all the other problems.  If our leaders submitted to the true God, our nation would not advance legislation that defies God and denigrates, devastates, and destroys people made in His image.  Idolatry is the problem, and as long as we worship idols we will harm image-bearers.  All hopes grounded in idolatry are vain.

            But there is a light in the darkness, and hope for any who will have it.  When we acknowledge the one true God, when we confess the name of our Savior, then we find the path of life.  “Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9).  He is the true hope, light, and life eternal.

A-bsurdity

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Christianity, Culture, Culture War, Gender, God, Gospel, Government, Idolatry, LGBTQ+, Religious Left, Secularism, Sexual Revolution, Society

Apparently, Representative Emanuel Cleaver, who holds ordination with the UMC, closed his prayer before congress Sunday, “Amen and awoman,” in what appears to bring an attempt at gender equity.  The problem, of course, is that the word “amen” has no reference, etymologically or in contemporary usage, to the masculine gender.  “Amen” is a Hebrew word meaning “truly,” and is used at the end of prayers as an affirmation, in a tradition built from the word’s biblical usage.  That anyone should make it into a masculine term and construct a corresponding feminine term is, to be charitable, utter silliness.  That a member of congress should do so is a telling commentary on our social situation.

In fact, given the context, we may find Rep. Cleaver’s silliness comparatively innocuous.  The U.S. House of Representatives, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, is advancing the dehumanizing ideology of the sexual revolution in ways so farcical that they may obscure the dangers represented.  Madam Speaker (if that continues to be an acceptable reference under her leadership) has an ‘inclusive’ agenda to remove gendered language.  Paulina Enck, writing in The Federalist:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to excise all references to either sex in House business to “honor all gender identities” and “promote inclusion and diversity.” On Monday, the House of Representatives is set to vote on a Rules Package for the 117th Congress, which Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern promise will be “the most inclusive in history.”

Removing references to men and women?  What does that look like?  Enck elaborates:

This would mean replacing any instance of “he or she” with the grammatically incorrect colloquialism of “they” as a singular, or the unnecessarily long “such Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner.” Further, “himself” or “herself” becomes “themself,” a word not recognized by several dictionaries, and acknowledged by the New Oxford Dictionary as “not widely accepted in standard English.”

Words such as “mother” and “father” would be replaced with “parent,” “aunt” and “uncle” with the awkward “parent’s sibling,” and “grandmother” and “grandfather” becomes “grandparent.” I wonder if Pelosi will bring her commitment to language policing to Twitter and remove “mother, grandmother” from her bio.

Next to this agenda, Rep. Cleaver’s bizarre inclusivity appears rather behind-the-times.  “Amen and awoman?” one might ask, “and what about the myriads of other genders we have constructed for ourselves?”  Feminism was an early step in the revolution, and has now been left behind and labeled one of the oppressors; it held onto the notion that there were such things as men and women, real and immutable identities that inhibited our ability to define ourselves.

But, in Pelosi’s effort, we see the inescapable conflict that underlies so much of our social strife.  Rapidly, the pursuit of autonomy turns from defense to offense, and one’s own self-actualization is achieved only by oppressing others.  “Inclusion” is advanced by denying the reality of man and woman; including our self-constructed identities involves neutering all mankind.  Our pursuit of self-defined dignity follows a path that is, quite naturally, dehumanizing.  I say ‘naturally’ because there is a logic at work, which is theological in the end.

Rejecting the Lordship of God—personally and as a society—we seek to remake ourselves in the image of our choosing.  But we are not made in that image.  We are made in the image of God—thus, idolatry leads readily to self-effacement.  The drive to be our own gods fails, and fails spectacularly.  Not only do we fail to become gods, but we disfigure our own humanity.  The whole sexual revolution—pornography, divorce, abortion, promiscuity, homosexuality, transgenderism, and on and on—absurd and devastating as it all is, flows naturally from the rejection of God.

The solution is the gospel.  The antidote to revolution is revival.  Christmas is the offer of dignity, and Easter the hope of renewed humanity.  We cannot ‘identify’ ourselves into anything truly fulfilling; but, if we find our identity in Christ by faith, we will “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10, ESV).  Then we will know true inclusion, the joy of true unity, for “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (v.11).

Proclaiming the Light

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Christianity, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, Education, Pluralism, Relativism, Religion, Religious Left, Secularism, Society, Spirituality, Truth, Universities

            Advent is a season of expectation, and therefore also a season of proclamation: light has come, and all may draw near to the Light of the world, Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.  This is a message of joy and hope, the gracious gift of God, “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Lk. 2:10, ESV).  But, of course, even the joyful message of light meets resistance by a world of darkness; “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (Jn. 3:19).  Our challenge is particularly pointed because we live in a culture than has, in many ways, rejected the light.  That is why our society is so saturated with absurdity, death, and despair.  Rejecting Christ, you will have chaos.

            Consider this opinion article on RNS, written by Simran Jeet Singh, lamenting the closure of religion studies programs at various secular universities.  On one level, it’s not hard to sympathize with his basic contention: learning about world religions ought to be part of higher education.  It is good to understand what other people believe, and why, and how that affects the way they live their lives.  But, while that argument is all well and good, Singh’s opinion also showcases the basic and crippling flaw in secular education—i.e., the fact that it is secular.

            Singh assumes that higher education should “shape our moral and ethical outlooks”, yet he thinks that shaping ought happen precisely through the lens of pluralism, which is a little like saying that giving people a number of perspectives on whether or not it is good to steal is the best way to teach them not to steal.

            His experience with education was one of embracing relativism, framed as humility: “What expanded my mind in college, more than anything else, was coming to terms with the reality that my way wasn’t the only way, or the best way.  Learning about others’ faiths and cultures challenges our self-centered chauvinism and helps us meet others where they are.”  Well, that is a reasonable statement in a secular world, where there is no real spiritual truth; but it fares rather poorly in a world where there is one true God and one true way of salvation, the worldview of Jesus, who said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:16).

            A fundamental relativism lies at the heart of Singh’s concept of religious studies, and I suspect he is right in his evaluation of secular religious studies across the board.  “While many worry about being accused of proselytizing, religion scholars aim to understand historical developments in context. We’re scholars with an interest in religion; not in imposing our views on religion.”  Here is the secular view of proclaiming religious truth: “proselytizing”, “imposing our views on religion”; these derogatory descriptions seem to be, in Singh’s mind, the same thing as when he says “I’m not in it to seek conversions”.

            Such an approach is inconsistent with a world in which there is real spiritual truth.  Imagine if the geology department taught a variety of views, incorporated flat earth studies into the curriculum, and operated with a decided attitude against proselytizing their round earth views!  They don’t, because they’re interested in teaching the truth.  They may respectfully acknowledge that there are people who believe the earth is flat, and even offer some understanding of why they believe that, but, in the end, they want all their students to understand that the world is round.  They want to do this because they have a basic commitment against propagating lies, and because the consequences of believing things that are not true can sometimes be rather significant.

            Our secular universities, at the point at which they became secular, have operated with a basic framework that denies spiritual truth.  The consequences have been severe.  Denying the knowledge of God, we have lost knowledge of mankind; refusing to tell the truth about God, they now tell a variety of lies about humanity.

            But let us come back to Christmas.  The solution is the Light of the world.  God sent His Son so that we may know the truth and be saved.  In a culture that has rejected the light, we proclaim it anew.  A Savior has been born for us, who walked among us and died in our place and rose to bring us life, who Himself declared, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn. 8:12).

            The promise remains, the offer of hope, the gift of Christmas—that we may turn to Christ, receive the light, and be saved.

Matrimony (II)

Tags

America, Christianity, Church, Culture, Culture War, Marriage, Society, Theology, Truth

            I recently wrote a little essay on the meaning of matrimony, and want to follow that up with a few thoughts about its significance in terms of human culture.  If, as Scripture teaches and history bears out, marriage is the fundamental human society, the health and solidity of the institution of marriage will have a profound influence on society more broadly.  This gives us a lens to understand so many of our culture’s ills, and offers a prescription for addressing them.

            The family is the basic social unit.  Here the fundamental diversity of humanity as man and woman shows its complementarity in the unity of marriage; this unity is (normatively) fruitful.  Thus husband, wife, and children, the basic society, form the cells of a healthy social body on the larger scale.  In the mutual love and support of the family an environment is created that is naturally conducive to human flourishing—naturally, because this is the divine design.

            In saying this, I do not mean to deny the great value of extended families, close friendships, neighborhood communities, and all the rest.  I only point out that the core human society is the nuclear family, and therefore that marriage has a social significance frequently neglected in the contemporary west.  This is the fundamental building block of a healthy society, and our long denigration of the institution of marriage has, it stands to reason, a sizeable share in the blame for the extent of our besetting social ills: poverty, drug abuse, abortion, suicide, and so on.

The project of rebuilding western civilization, which we might fruitfully consider, would need the restoration of marriage as a core tenet.  Bear in mind that all of this assumes a true understanding of marriage, a Christian understanding of marriage.  Marriage with the gospel at the center is the kind of marriage we need.

So, in the first place, churches should invest heavily in nourishing strong Christian families.  Every marriage truly consecrated—Christward, God-centered marriage—is a fortress built in the kingdom of God’s invasion of this dark world.  Here a tree has been planted to bear fruit in the midst of the desert.  Here a sanctuary has been fenced to raise children who will be protected and loved and taught to stand straight in a culture enslaved, who will know the truth, and by God’s grace may believe the truth.  Here a banner has been raised to declare the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the wonder of the Spirit’s transforming power.

Secondly, we should oppose any ideology, force, or movement that aims to displace or dismantle the family.  This is a typical tendency of contemporary secular social philosophy; the family is to be denounced as an artificial construction, and its functions outsourced to the community or the government.  We see this in educational agendas, political policy, and social advocacy, to name a few.  But any denigration of the family is fundamentally misanthropic, and must be resisted.

Thirdly, and most importantly, we must see the implications of this for the family of the church.  In our fallen world, human society will never be as it ought.  God is at work to repair what sin has broken, and this is primarily exercised through the community of the faithful.  The church, in fact, supersedes the biological family (without nullifying it); separated from the family of God, the family of man will be inevitably dysfunctional.  The church must be family for all the families of the church, and for all those who have no other family.

For in His love, God has made a way for us to come into His family.  In the church, we realize now a foretaste of the fellowship of the family of God.  For all those who are lonely and lost, for those whose families are broken or abusive, God reaches out with His gospel of love, forgiveness, acceptance, and healing.  This is the message that transforms lives, communities, even cultures; this is the message of Christian marriage and the proclamation of the church: God has made a way, in Jesus Christ, for us to be reconciled to Him and adopted into His family.

God has worked to draw us to Himself.  That is the testimony of matrimony.

The Liberal Chimera

Tags

Christianity, Holy Spirit, Liberalism, Progressive Christianity, Scripture, Truth, United Methodists

According to an article that appeared Monday on RNS, liberal United Methodists have recently declared they are starting a new denomination (but not really a new denomination) within (and also outside of) their denomination: the Liberation Methodist Connexion. Those familiar with the history of theology in the past century may immediately detect Marxist vibes in the use of “Liberation” in the title; the choice of Anglicized spelling for connection is, apparently, a Methodist thing.

The United Methodists have been going through the same struggles as other historic Mainline denominations over whether or not to surrender to theological liberalism, particularly in the area of sexual morality. The general Mainline consensus has been to surrender, and continue to enjoy a drastic decline; the American Baptists are, I think, still deciding; the United Methodists decided last year to buck the trend and not embrace the LGBTQ+ agenda, largely because of strong participation from their African churches. But the conservatives have been quick to compromise, and the general impression was that the denomination would split this year–a break prevented by COVID-19.

The new news is that some of the liberals are tired of waiting, and have organized a new movement ahead of the scheduled (and postponed) break.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the LMX is how up-front they are about truth taking a back seat to action. Of course, they claim to be responding to “The timeline of the Holy Spirit”–although they are going directly against what the Spirit has said in Scripture. But, “Correct doctrine is less important to the new denomination than correct action, collaborators said during Sunday’s presentation.”

This is not an oversight, but a conscious decision, emphasized from the beginning of the article. “Its theology ‘is not written in stone,’ the website said”, which contrasts quite decidedly with God’s ten commandments, which were written in stone. As one of the leaders puts it, “We seek not answers that lead us to correct doctrines as to why we suffer. We seek correct actions, correct praxis, where God sustains us during the unanswerable questions”; so, for her, correct doctrine is not just undesirable but impossible–the questions are “unanswerable”. One of the destinations you may reach by the road of doubt is the cul-de-sac of ignorance.

In fact, the liberal antagonism towards truth finds direct expression in the words of another leader: “There are no doctrinal litmus tests in the movement. We are moving beyond the supremacy of a single belief system”. This is to say that to hold that there is such a thing as truth is a sort of violence, an attempt to assert supremacy. Such a view is worlds away from the perspective of Christianity, where believing the truth God has revealed is an act of humble obedience to the Creator and Lord of the universe.

Of course, the LMX does have united doctrine, even if they want to pretend they don’t. How could they have united actions–“correct praxis”–without it? What would they act towards? Here is what they act towards: “That action includes reparations, caring for the earth, and finding new ways to live together outside of systems like colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, clericalism and heteronormativity, they said.” See, the difference is not that they don’t have doctrine, it’s that they eschew historic, orthodox Christian doctrine in favor of trendy worldly ideologies. And I do wonder if someone within the ranks tried to dissent and say, advocate ‘patriarchy’ or ‘heteronormativity’ (I do not say this is likely, just speculate with me for a moment), if they might not find themselves up against “the supremacy of a single belief system” after all.

The attempt to dispense with doctrine is a chimera. When you attempt it, what is most likely is that you will dispense with true doctrine, and end up captive to deceptive ideologies and worldly fads. As the self-contradictory, almost farcical nature of the LMX shows, the supposed rejection of doctrinal orthodoxy is both a Trojan horse for paganism and a bizarre antagonism towards truth itself. Christians must seek to know the truth and love the truth, remembering that our Lord is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6, ESV).