Approval vs. Forgiveness

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Christianity, Church, Forgiveness, Homosexuality, LGBTQ+, Reconciliation, Repentance, Restoration, Secularism, Sexual Revolution, Sin, Society

I saw an article the other yesterday on a liberal news venue, pushing back against a conservative church’s attempt to influence their community.  Several observations might be made, but one will suffice for the nonce.

One of the reasons this church’s influence is so objectionable to some is the church’s promotion of Christian sexual ethics, particularly their opposition to homosexuality.  Christian sexual ethics are considered intolerant to secular society.  But, interestingly, another objection cited in the article was that the pastor had officiated the marriage of a man who had a different area of sexual immorality in his past, of which he had repented.

That is to say, part of what some people find so offensive about this church is that it does not approve of sexual immorality (of the kind society presently approves), and another part is that the church believes in restoration for people who have engaged in sexual immorality (of the kind society does not [presently] approve).

I think this is an interesting observation, that can be seen in society at large, at least to some degree.  Tolerance is aggressively (intolerantly?) promoted by de-stigmatizing of numerous immoral behaviors.  Acceptance is the order of the day.  But there are still numerous things that are not tolerated, not accepted; and for these things, forgiveness and restoration for the repentant can be in very short supply.

The Christian church calls sin what it is, but preaches that anyone can be forgiven their sins if they will repent and place their faith in Christ.  It should not be surprising that the secular world, which finds the conviction of sin offensive, sometimes finds forgiveness offensive as well.

Rejecting Young Lives

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Academia, Christianity, LGBTQ+, Secularism, Sexual Revolution, Society, Truth

Famously liberal Religion News Service gave an unintentionally apt title to a recent article: “Duke University’s student government rejects Young Life over LGBTQ policies.”  It would have been even more apt had they not capitalized “Young Life.”

The story is an old one by now: supposedly tolerant university decides that, in the wake of the sexual revolution, the standard Christian morality that has been a cornerstone of two millennia of Western civilization is no longer to be tolerated.

Not surprising, since Duke University is a very prominent academic institution, and therefore expected to yield immediately to inane cultural movements.

Interestingly, Duke’s motto is Eruditio et Religio, “Knowledge/Learning and Faith.”

The eruditio is hard to dispute, but I have a question about the religio–namely, what religion would that be?  Not the Methodism of the school’s history.  Some sort of paganism, apparently.

In their privileging of sexual deviancy above Young Life, Duke’s student government has shown they do not understand what will really nourish the minds and souls of young lives.

One more reminder that secularism is a mask for anti-Christian ideologies, and not the neutral force it pretends to be.

Case in Point

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Big Tech, Censorship, Christianity, Culture, Culture War, LGBTQ+, Media, Secularism, Society

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the non-neutrality of secularism.  I don’t think this is a controversial claim, but if anyone needs convincing…

It’s been in the news lately that Amazon, though it carries all sorts of obscenely objectionable material, has decided certain books that oppose aspects of the sexual revolution are simply out of bounds.  An apt example of the thinness of secularism’s commitment to neutrality.

But this is only an early stage in the effort to regulate the marketplace of ideas.  Big tech censorship is a matter of private enterprise.  Parts of Europe are more advanced.  In the UK, you can face charges for telling the truth about a “transgender” person’s identity.  And, most recently, in Finland, the police are investigating a politician who cited the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality.

Ostensibly neutral secularism is just the camouflage worn in the West by anti-Christian ideologies.

Fighting the Last War

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America, Bible, China, Christianity, Culture, Culture War, Education, Freedom, Hong Kong, LGBTQ+, Liberty, Secularism

As I look back over American history, and the radical cultural upheaval we have seen, I am reminded of the old saying in the discipline of military history, which goes something to the effect that ‘generals are always fighting the last war.’  What it means is that it’s hard to predict how things are going to be in the future, and trying to learn from the past all too easily takes the form of preparing to meet the next challenge as though it were going to be like the last one.  The result is wrong preparation, and a shock when the new challenge turns out to be truly new.

The classic example of this is the Maginot Line.  After the trench warfare of WWI, the French built a massive line of fortifications against German invasion.  It would have been great, if the next war had simply been a replay.  As it was, WWII began with a display of unprecedented mobility, as the Germans invaded through the Low Countries and the Ardennes Forest and swiftly overcame the French.  The mighty Maginot Line was obsolete, because it was built to fight the last war.

What is the relevance of this to America?  It seems to me that our founders did not take adequate steps against the threats of secularism and paganism, because those threats were hardly on the horizon at the time.  The threat from which our founders sought freedom was sectarian Christian persecution, the battles between Catholics and Protestants and the oppression of an official state church.  So they saw the need for a separation of church and state.  Very good.  And, indeed, it may be fair to say that they were not fighting the last war, but the current war; all the same, they did not anticipate the next war, and the protections they laid down may prove to be something of a Maginot Line in the defense of freedom.

For a simple glance over our nation’s history makes it quite clear that they did not see the separation of church and state as incompatible with having–and pursuing–a Christian nation.  They taught the Bible in Christian schools for most of our nation’s history; for example, Bible reading was still mandatory in Pennsylvania schools until a supreme court decision in 1963.  Freedom of religion and the separation of church and state were designed to prevent the rise of a repressive state church, not to make room for militant secularism to suppress religion in the public square.  It was assumed that the nation would be explicitly Christian in its worldview and morals.

It was assumed that the next war would look like the last war.

But what do you do when you realize you’ve been outflanked?  How do you address it, when you find that your protections against oppressive religious sectarianism have proved weak against militant secularism?

I think the first step is for Christians to see clearly through the secularist charade.  There is a pretended neutrality about secularism that many Christians have uncritically accepted for far too long.  Secularism may oppose all religions evenly, but it does not create a space that is worldview-neutral.  On the contrary, it creates a space that is either functionally atheistic or functionally pagan–perhaps an odd and contradictory admixture of both.

Don’t fall for it.  The flag of neutrality is waved hard for long enough to get the Bible out of schools.  Then, suddenly, the flag of neutrality disappears, and the rainbow flag of paganism is being hoisted instead.  And, in their audacity, the secularist still claims this is the flag of neutrality.  But we know it’s not.  We should have realized that the flag of neutrality was always a false color.  But better late than never.

It is clear now that the steps taken at America’s founding were insufficient to properly ground freedom against its enemies.  For, make no mistake, the secular revolution, advancing primarily as a sexual revolution, is an enemy of freedom.  The lawsuits against Christians trying to conduct their business as Christians continue, and will continue; but these are just early rumblings.  The direction to which secularism heads is more appropriately forecast by looking at nations such as China.  There are environments in which freedom may flourish, and others in which it will not.  Christianity and freedom properly go hand-in-hand.

Apostasy and Ideology

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Anthropology, Celebrities, Christianity, Humanity, LGBTQ+, Truth, Word of God, worldliness

Joshua Harris has been in the news recently.  He’s an author who became famous in the late ’90s for his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye–which he renounced not long ago (I never read the book, and can’t speak to its teachings).  Apparently Harris also served as pastor of a megachurch for some years.

But the more recent news is his announcements that he’s separating from his wife, embracing LGBTQ+ ideology, and departing the Christian faith.

There’s a coherence in all this.  Morality, ideology, and religion go together.  God shapes the worldview of His people, teaching us the truth about Himself and ourselves.  When we attend humbly and faithfully to God’s Word, we receive from Him a theology and an anthropology that put the world in order; we also receive His gracious help in ordering our lives after His plan.

From God we learn about God, we learn the gospel of Jesus Christ, and embrace God’s life-giving gift.  We also learn that God created mankind male and female, and designed that man and woman may join together in the covenant of marriage.  Morality, ideology, and religion are all gifted to us by God, and received in faith.

But when we reject God, we have to seek the truth elsewhere.  We get the ideologies of the world, where things become so muddled that even the plain facts of nature are explained away.  Without God, the world becomes a much less sensible place.

Self, Shame, and the Savior

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Christ, Christianity, Culture War, Family, Homosexuality, Joy, LGBTQ+, Love, Sexual Revolution, Society

CNN posted a tragedy recently, as part of their effort to promote the sexual revolution. The story is as instructive as it is appalling.

The article’s headline read: “I was married with 2 kids when I realized I’m gay.” Immediately following came the editor’s note, which stated with tragic predictability that “Melisa Raney is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Atlanta with her two children.”

What happened to the husband? Between title and editor’s note lay the story of a marriage destroyed by the sexual revolution. The article itself confirmed this. But what justification could be offered for this betrayal of marital vows? What could be more important than loving the man to whom this woman had united herself? What could trump the importance of providing a stable home and family life for their two children?

Finding herself. Self-acceptance.

For here was the problem, in the young woman’s mind: “there I was, at 36 years old, realizing I didn’t know myself at all.”

What explains this sense of lostness? What was missing from her life, that she had this sense of alienation and incompleteness of identity? “I had everything I thought made my life perfect. I was married to my best friend and we had two beautiful, healthy and hilarious children, with successful careers and a beautiful home.”

If that’s the description of what she thought would make her life complete, the diagnosis seems fairly clear. There is someone missing from the picture, but it’s not herself. The tragedy unfolds from her misdiagnosis of the problem. She bought the lie that desire is identity, and accepted the prescription of self-acceptance for salvation. “A part of myself wasn’t living. And by not letting that part live, I was slowly dying.”

It’s easy, then, to see why others had to be sacrificed. The gospel of self-acceptance quite naturally demands sacrifices, and one’s children and covenant partner are likely candidates for the altar. “My family was being shattered and I couldn’t stop it. I constantly had to remind myself, ‘You get one life. This is your life and no one else’s’” (italics hers).

The sacrifices were made, but ineffective. “I was finally figuring out who I was. Now I was ashamed by that answer.” Shame, the need to hide ourselves—first consequence of the open eyes in the primordial fall. How do we deal with the shame of true self-realization? Adam and Eve tried to cover up with fig leaves, but God showed them that something must die to cover their sin.

Self-acceptance is a fig leaf. No amount of supportive community and group therapy will make it adequate. The goal is an illusion: “We were on a path that feels impossible to navigate until one day, you can live your truth and be perfectly fine shaping a new life.” Truth is not a matter of personal subjectivity. Shaping a life to suit your own desires will never work out to joy, because you were made to shape your life around God and His desires.

That’s who was missing from her picture of the perfect life; and joy was missing too, because joy is His gift. Sacrifices to self-acceptance and sinful desire cannot bring what God alone possesses. So she ends with a mistaken moral for this heartbreaking tale: “I want people reading my story to know that it’s OK to be the person you’re meant to be—no matter what your age is when you finally get to know yourself and love who you are in the process.”

The real moral, of course, is that only Christ brings true life and meaning. There is a price to believing the lies of the sexual revolution, the especially heavy price of what those children have and will continue to suffer. The mask falls, and we see clearly how little the LGBTQ+ movement has to do with love. Broken homes and broken lives are its results.

Having a private, personal ‘truth’—my truth—sounds very useful indeed. It legitimates my desires and makes them utterly immune to criticism. But it is only a cloud of smoke, poisonous smoke; for the supreme tragedy is that personal ‘truth’ keeps us from finding Him who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And He is the only adequate covering for our sin and shame.  He is life, and He alone brings salvation.

The Choice

Tags

Bible, Christianity, Homosexuality, LGBTQ+, Scripture, Truth, United Methodists

Pray for the United Methodists this weekend.  At a special session, held in St. Louis, they will be making a decision that is likely to be critical for the future of their denomination, and for their witness in a lost world.

The issue, of course, is whether to embrace or reject the sexual revolution.  Unless they put the issue off again, they will be choosing either to hold their present biblical position regarding human sexuality, or to revise it some way or another, affirming (in varying degrees) LGBTQ+ identity.  Either result will probably mean the fracturing of their denomination, whether immediately or more slowly.

Religion News, a propaganda machine for liberal “Christianity”, has published a showcase of opinions regarding what some Methodists hope will result from the session.  It is a very slanted piece of reporting (granted, it is labeled an Opinion piece), a collection of voices that are mostly liberal to very liberal, with a couple of very gentle conservative voices included to soften the one-sidedness.  But, as a piece of liberal advocacy, the article does highlight what is at stake for the Methodists in this session.

It begins with a reminder that the denomination has already effectively caved to the sexual revolution, and only by repentance and submission to God will they be able to turn back from the precipice of paganism that looms before them.  They already have an openly lesbian bishop.  Having biblical standards regarding human sexuality on paper isn’t worth much if you ignore them in practice.

The voices that follow show the inroads of secularism and paganism in their denomination’s leadership.

Rev. Adam Hamilton says:

It requires patience, humility and grace to look at people with whom you disagree on an issue or theological point and say, “You are still my brother or sister.” It requires a willingness to say, “I don’t agree with you here, but I value what you bring to the table, and I need you.”

As though gross sexual immorality were a matter of adiaphora or theological minutia!  Hamilton regards willingness to tolerate this sort of thing as a sign of patience, humility, and grace.  The Scriptures regard that sort of tolerance as a spiritual failing, not a virtue (see 1 Cor. 5).

Rev. Alex da Silva Souto speaks in worldly terms of discrimination, framing this (as the culture has so effectively done) in terms stolen from the civil rights movement.  He says:

Which is why I and thousands of other United Methodists support the Simple Plan, which would strike from our Book of Discipline all discriminatory language against LGBTQIA+ people. After decades of systemic harm, the only solution is returning to the first rule of United Methodism: “Do no harm.” The Simple Plan proposes exactly that. We must first stop the spiritual/physical harm against LGBTQIA+ people, and only then can we have a real conversation about “human sexuality.”

Very good.  First, let the pagan culture set the agenda, then engage in theological reflection.  Step 1, surrender, step 2, sit down at the diplomatic table.  What could go wrong?

Rev. Beth Ann Cook begins insightfully.  She recognizes that there is an underlying issue:

Our theological division is not limited to the issue of human sexuality. Sexual ethics are the presenting problem for a deeper theological division in our church.

But her following comment makes clear that she does not grasp what the underlying issue is:

The Commission on a Way Forward spent countless hours looking at every possibility. There is no perfect plan. Passing any of the plans will violate someone’s deeply held convictions in such a way that they will feel unable to remain part of our denomination.

Deeply held convictions are not worth defending simply because they are deeply held convictions.  Atheists have deeply held convictions, but you shouldn’t let them guide your denominational policy.

The underlying issue is whether or not God should be believed and obeyed.  A perfect plan, in this case, is one that says God should be believed and obeyed, and that those whose deeply held convictions disagree with this are welcome the to leave.  The Traditional Plan probably approximates this closely enough.

The Scriptures are not unclear about the issues being debated here.  This is not a matter of difficult biblical interpretation.  Besides the clear condemnations of homosexuality in various biblical passages (e.g., Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Tim. 1:10), the opening chapters of Genesis lay the groundwork for a sound theological anthropology, and attendant doctrine of human sexuality.  God created mankind in His image, male and female (Gen. 1:27).  He made us man and woman, equal in dignity and glory as His image-bearers, immutably different from each other, and sexually complementary (Gen. 2:18-24).

That is, God created humanity in two genders, male and female; both men and women are fully human and equal; men and women are different, not changeable and not interchangeable; sexual intimacy is designed to be enjoyed by a man and woman within the covenant of marriage.

We could go on through the article, but it isn’t necessary.  This is the issue, often buried beneath worldly rhetoric or the laudable goal of unity.  Is God to be believed, trusted, and obeyed?

God’s Word is clear.  The issue for the United Methodists is a question of whether to believe God’s Word and accept its authority; that is a question of whether to believe God and accept His authority.  The alternative is the anthropology and sexual mores of an increasingly pagan culture.  Ultimately, then, the United Methodists are deciding between God and idols, between Christianity and paganism.

I pray they make the right choice.