One of the biggest problems affecting “conversation” and “dialogue” between progressives and conservatives, especially when Christians are involved, is that no one seems to understand the difference between social ethics and Christian morality.
The left is convinced that the church needs to adhere to contemporary Western culture’s ethical standards. Wherever they go, the church should go as well. The right is likewise convinced that the church needs to make society conform to (its particular version of) Christian morality. Both sides are wrong.
“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world…” Paul’s statement in Romans is something that progressives would do well to focus on. The left wing of the church is getting co-opted by liberal ideals. Pluralism, feminism, reversed or merged gender roles and altered gender identity…all these have moved from society to the church.
There’s no place in the church for the acceptance of other gods or religious practices. And for any official church leader to say that there is salvation outside of Christ is…brace yourself…heresy. We don’t like to use that word; there’s just something about clearly calling out someone’s error that bothers our contemporary sensibilities.
God lays out pretty particular roles for the genders. They’re clear in Scripture and biology. Men are called and created to lead, protect, to be the head of woman as Christ is the head of the church. There’s more, but that argument is for another place. Western feminism though, is pushing for not only gender equality, but for the total interchangeability of the sexes. That’s led to the progressive Christian movement ordaining women as a norm rather than an exception, against the example of Scripture.
As with Newton’s Third Law (”For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”), the right has done the same type of stupid stuff. Pushing for things such as school prayer, making same-sex unions illegal, and making women feel as though they “should” (read: must) be stay-at-home moms are ridiculous intrusions into the pluralistic world of civil ethics.
Ethics deals with right and wrong in our society, which is a mishmash of cultures and religions, and we need to be conscious of those around us with different beliefs. Christian morality is based in the Bible, and for believers there can be no other standard; but while that standard comes from the God of all mankind, we only apply it to those who’ve heard and accepted His truth, because the unregenerate mind is incapable of accepting it.
These two concepts can interact just fine in society today. For me it looks something like this: The Bible speaks negatively about the issue of homosexuality. It receives no positive treatment in Scripture. On top of that, the examples of Scripture support a marriage of one man and one woman (1 Cor 7). However, I can think of no ethical reason to deny homosexuals the right to enter into a contract similar to marriage. But the church should not bless same-sex unions. This is just one example.
My biggest pet peeve is that both sides claim the moral high ground in living as Christ wanted, but no one is following the most important of Jesus commands. The right would say that the most important part of Christianity is to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” while the left would say loving our neighbor is most important. They’re both wrong.
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment.” Matt. 22:36-38
Loving God is more important than loving our neighbor. It’s more important than personal holiness. Without a surpassing love for God, neither of those things means anything. How do we love God? We obey His commands. We glorify His name. We love the good, shun evil, and devote ourselves entirely to the Kingdom.
Loving our neighbor is an idol to the left. It’s taken on a whole new meaning. To the progressive movement it means accepting them and their sins. But if we truly love them we’ll confront their sinfulness, so they can repent and turn to God. Holiness is an idol to the right. But it manifests itself not in true holiness, which is characterized by servanthood and humility, but in the self-righteousness of the Pharisees. Pretending to have no struggles is not holiness.
Both sides have a long way to go in understanding the meaning of love and holiness.
“For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” If we raise someone out of poverty, but don’t teach her to love and follow God, and to keep his commands, she is still lost to eternity. Likewise if we teach someone to follow all of the rules but they don’t have love for God or compassion for others, he is also lost to eternity.
Until we start talking about the same things, our debates will continue to be meaningless posturing and shouting matches. Let’s get on the same page.
Check out this recent post from God’s Politics by Ryan Beiler, Does God Hate?
The crux is this: “As Stephen Colbert might say: ‘God hates or God loves? Pick a side � we’re at war.’ Or is such black-and-white, either/or thinking offensive to the nuanced and paradox-embracing mind of the progressive intellectual Christian? Discuss.”
And many did, here’s my response:
I think the problem with people’s perceptions of this is that they seem to think that God can only love or only hate. Well, Scripture seems to say he can do both. Why can’t we be comfortable with the idea that God loves the things that he created, and hates the perversions we’ve made of them?
The word nuanced is overused…in progressive circles it’s starting to translate to “convoluted”. The paradox-embracing Christian (progressive or conservative) should be perfectly at home with the idea that God is capable of both love and hate. If you can’t accept that how can you understand the tension between law and gospel, holiness and grace, and Jesus incarnation as fully God and fully man?
And my favorites from other readers:
As I understand it (but would appreciate if I was corrected), when the word “hate” is used in the bible it is taken as meaning “rejection”. Hence why God “loved” Jacob but “hated” Esau. God still blessed Esau, and didn’t hate him in a despicable way. He simply chose Jacob over Esau for his inheritance (since Esau treated it with contempt).
However I must say it is a simple and flawed theology to deduct that God must love everything because “God is love”. Love is not simply an emotion nor is it a wilfully naive. It is more of a choice, choosing to love something that is unlovely.
Perhaps study in to the original Hebrew and/or Greek texts would shed some light from time to time.
Alex Fear | Homepage
I agree with Alex on this point.
God is indeed love, but His love is very different from human conceptions of love. It is not mushy sentimentality, which is not to say that it is not personal and compassionate. But His love is indeed a different kind of “love” that is multi-faceted. A good resource for this would be D. A. Carson’s book ‘The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God’.
Another note - God’s love is informed (for lack of a better term) by His holiness. Holy love cannot “love” evil. It cannot “love” sin. God’s holiness means He cannot dwell with sin - and thus Christ’s atoning sacrifice is our entry into God’s presence because through His death, we have been clothed with His righteousness. God’s love was demonstrated in His dealing with the sin that separated us from Him through the death of His Son. But that sacrifice also demonstrated God’s justice, which will not allow sin and evil to go unpunished (Romans 3 is a good reference for this). You have to have both in mind to have a balanced view of God’s love.
That God hates sin is not a negative idea insofar as it speaks of the absolute holiness of God in which He will not “love” sin or evil.
We are informed by the Bible that when Christ returns He will judge the world for unrighteousness. We stand between the First and Second Advent of our Lord. Sin still dwells in the world, but God will deal with it definitively when Christ returns to consummate His Kingdom. We must keep that in mind when thinking of God’s hatred of sin and evil.
pollyanna | Homepage
Last month an ELCA pastor from Atlanta was tried by the church for breaking denominational rules: He is in a (committed) homosexual relationship. You can find plenty of information about it here. The decision was handed down this week. You can find the full text of it here. As usual, I get most of my major ELCA news from Bob @ I Am A Christian Too(it’s surprising how little information gets to the church staff).
I don’t know where to start, with the commentary from the panel, or with Bob’s commentary on the panel. So I’ll go with stream of consciousness. Aannnnnd…begin:
In the event that the Committee on Appeals determines that paragraph b.4) of Definitions and Guidelines is unconstitutional[!], then this committee would find, with near unanimity, that there is nothing about Pastor Schmeling’s acknowledged and stipulated homosexual relationship that would impede the proclamation of the gospel or the right administration of the sacraments. If relieved of the specific requirements of Definitions and Guidelines and permitted to decide this case under the standards of constitution chapters seven and twenty, this committee would find almost unanimously that Pastor Schmeling is not engaged in conduct that is incompatible with the ministerial office, and would find with near unanimity that no discipline of any sort should be imposed against him.
Schmeling Discipline Hearing Committee
And Bob’s comment:
Translating: Pastor Schmeling is morally fit to be a pastor, it’s just the current rules that get in the way. Whether the rules are set aside on appeal or not, they recommend that the Churchwide Assembly change the Definitions and Guidelines and Visions and Expections, the two documents governing behavior of ELCA clergy, to remove the prohibition against committed same-sex relationships. This is so cool!
Sooo…he’s morally fit, except that the rules get in the way? Doesn’t morality imply following the rules? “Ken Lay was an upright individual, it’s just that the current laws against embezzlement get in the way.” Yeah, sounds great.
Bob then employs the “human face on the problem” argument. “It is easy to argue against gay rights or for a scriptural basis for condemning gays when it is in the abstract, but when someone that you know and love comes out as gay, it’s not so easy.” I believe that this is true for many people. But two things about it are notable: one, it wouldn’t be as easy, but we don’t do the right thing because it’s easy, we do it because it’s right. This is the problem too many conservative/orthodox churches and church-goers have…the easy way to deal with homosexuality is to condemn all homosexual persons on spec, whether they are abstaining and devout or not. The right thing is to love and accept everyone and “teach them to obey everything [Jesus has] commanded.” It’s obviously much harder.
The second thing: the fact that many people would rethink and even decide that one of the philosophical shams that passes for Christian theology is true based on the sexuality of a friend or family member speaks volumes about the moral character of the West. We have a whole society raised to believe that if something feels good, it is good. That’s what this comes down to. Pastor Brad is a nice man and has become loved by his congregation, and this makes him happy…how could it be wrong? This kind of reasoning has already gotten the church and the rest of society into all kinds of trouble. If you think about it hard enough you’ll recognize it’s effects.
Since, in my opinion, this can’t be said enough, I think it’s a wonderful testimony to the grace and power of God that Pr. Schemling’s sexuality hasn’t negatively affected his ministry. It’s not his sexuality that is the problem here; it’s his open, outspoken, and unapologetic defiance of the clear context for sexual activity set out in Scripture.
In reading up on this issue I’ve come across several theological arguments attempting to demonstrate God’s acceptance of homosexual union. These arguments, more than any other, highlight the underlying theologies of the progressive Christian movement. These theologies are characterized by a number of ideas, including that the Bible is written in a mythological form that uses miracles and the supernatural to convey “deeper truths” about God, and that the earliest Christians didn’t believe Jesus was God. Marcus Borg, one of the world’s leading progressive theologians, denies the divinity of Christ and his resurrection.
The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin hasn’t officially separated from the national church, but they’ve taken the first steps. I’m really impressed with the coverage in the Reuters article. The AP’s piece, however, left me underwhelmed.
The Fresno-based Diocese of San Joaquin voted Saturday to affirm its membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion, in what diocese leaders called a first step toward a formal break with the national church over the ordination of gays and women.
If only that were the truth of the matter. Reuters hits it dead on with this:
“Homosexuality is just one symptom of how the church has lowered its view,” said McCalister. “The key issue, however, is the ecclesiastical structure that recognizes the authority of the Bible, as it has for about two millennium. We’re not bringing in anything new.”
This is the heart of it. The upper echelons of Episcopal Church authority have begun to set the Bible’s “lesser teachings” aside in favor of a policy that goes something like, “Love your neighbor, even if that means ignoring some of Jesus other commands.” I don’t know what other issues will arise in the future, but right now we have a large number of Christians who believe everyone on earth is saved, regardless of their acceptance or rejection of the Gospel; many who believe that the idea of Jesus’ divinity was added in later. This break isn’t about ordination, it’s about theology and the position of the Bible in the church.
The Bishop Schori has a wonderfully deceptive response:
“Our task as the Episcopal Church is God’s mission of reconciling the world, and actions such as this distract and detract from that mission,” she said.
But who’s really “breaking away” here?
The Episcopal Church is a branch of the 77-million member Worldwide Anglican Communion, a loose federation of national churches around the world. Jefferts Schori leads 2.4 million followers in the United States.
At the San Joaquin diocese’s convention on Friday, Bishop John-David Schofield said, “The Episcopal Church walks apart from the Anglican Communion, but accuses us of leaving the church.”
The ECUSA is abandoning the centuries old view of the Bible as the infallible Word of God. As a Christian, that should be tantamount to apostasy.
I hate to use attendance statistics to suggest the health of a church, but if you check out the “growth” reports about the Episcopal Church from 1992-2004, you’ll see that only one diocese increased it’s membership relative to the population. Many actually lost members despite 10-20% population gains. That is not a good sign in a country that generally views Christianity as a good thing, with anecdotal evidence that points to a growth in overall church membership.
Like I said though, that’s not the way to determine whether a church is doing God’s will…just a fun fact. In the end what matters is this: The only tangible connection we have with Jesus’ teachings is the Bible. We have the Spirit and we have prayer, but those things are intangible. If we are to believe in him we have to trust the Bible to guide us to him.
Even Luther says in his Disputation on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ that when a dispute arises between our perception of the truth and the Bible’s declaration, the Bible’s language should prevail. The church fathers went to Scripture to guide practice. And Scripture testifies to itself, the Bereans searching the Scriptures to be sure the Apostles teaching was correct. I hope the leadership of the Episcopal Church remembers that, before the cookie falls apart in their hands.
You’d think people would be sick of crying “Wolf!” by now. The world hasn’t ended yet, despite all your posturing and hoping and warning, and I don’t think it’s going to any time soon. Of course, I could be wrong, and if I am, that’s okay, but in the mean time, you’re making anyone who takes any word in the Bible literally look foolish.
Okay, sorry. That was just a little rant targeted at all those biblical prophecy nuts who are trying to convince the world that the apocalypse is coming. On my way to work today I heard a commercial on the radio about a seminar that will be held this Saturday, and it made me a little queasy. It bothers me for two reasons: First, the Bible says that no one knows the day or the hour that Christ will return. Which, to me, means that you can’t predict it. Which brings me to the second reason…why try? There’s no legitimate point in building this case about the prophecy, other than trying to become rich and feed your ego. You’ll only convince people who already believed it, and you begin to look foolish.
There is one defense of it, and that’s that Jesus taught about the end times, he told people to watch the “signs of the times”, and Revelation is in the Bible to be read and understood, just like the rest. But are we going to continue to start up the bandwagon every time someone takes a shot at Israel? That just doesn’t make sense, since they’ve been fighting with at least one of their neighbors every day for 60 years. Give it a rest!
We should be focusing our energy in places where it will make a difference: counseling, benevolence, service, teaching Biblical examples of the Christian life. We should be helping people interact with the lost, so that they can be found. We should be telling people that God loves them and wants healing for them and wants them to lead the holy, peaceful life he intended. Not shouting that they’ll die painfully, then go to Hell.
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