What Russell Moore Says Here is Good For Everyone, Gay or Straight

He writes concerning the Duck Dynasty controversy:

The comments that seem most offensive to people are his moral assessments of sex outside of conjugal marriage, which were more or less just a recitation of the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is lord over sexuality, and he says that sexuality is expressed rightly only in the marriage of a man and a woman. That’s not new. We also think we’re all sinners, and that God calls us all to repentance. That’s not new either.

We’re a divided country on sexual issues. That’s why every news cycle brings more controversy. Why not engage one another, and have the debates in a civil fashion, without attempting to silence one another. I don’t agree with David Letterman’s views on divorce and cohabitation, but I don’t want him suspended for voicing them. I’ll bet I don’t agree with MTV’s Nev Schulman of the popular Catfish show on sexual ethics, but it wouldn’t put me in the fetal position under the table to hear him voice them.

Let’s have the sort of cultural conversation that allows us to seek to persuade each other, not to seek to silence one another with intimidation. That’s what real diversity is all about.

Read the rest.


A few thoughts:

1.  When a group of people feel have been persecuted in the past, I'm sure it's hard to have any desire to "have a conversation".   I think this needs to be acknowledged by non-gay people.  Compassion would be in order.   Historically, many gay people have been treated very poorly by non-gay people in the majority culture.  For gay people, if that music is always playing in the background, the desire to pull up a chair at the table of cultural conversation is greatly diminished.

2.  When the assumption is that race issues and sexuality issues are exactly the same, it's a no-brainer that Phil gets fired.  If Phil did an interview in GQ magazine and was spouting off about all the n*****s in the south, of course he should be fired from the show!  Duh!  So in this sense, when many in the gay community see race issues and sex issues as exactly the same, it's easy for them to take the moral high ground.  This is not hard to figure out.  If I believed that race and sexuality were the exact same thing I'd be first in line with them.

In light of this, I think we need to back the train up a bit and have a cultural conversation about race and sexuality.  Are they exactly the same?  What are the similarities?  What are the differences?  At this point though, that conversation doesn't feel safe to me.  I fear that if I dared open my mouth and even hinted at the fact that race issues and sexuality issues are not completely parallel I'd be crucified in the public sphere.

3.  Michael Kruger responded to the controversy in this blog post.  Here is his proposed paragraph on what A&E and GLADD should have said in light of this controversy:

We here at GLAAD were disappointed to hear that Phil Robertson thinks homosexuality is a sin. We disagree. However, we acknowledge that he has the right to hold and proclaim these views, just as we have the right to hold and proclaim our views. If we want Americans to be more tolerant of homosexuality, we could hardly accomplish that goal by being intolerant of others who disagree with us. So, we want to say that we respect and tolerate Mr. Robertson’s views, even though we disagree with them. We hope this attitude of mutual respect can allow for more dialogue and conversation about these important issues.

But again, if the assumption is that race and sexuality are exactly the same then the above paragraph is simply unthinkable.  We don't negotiate with terrorists and we don't tolerate racists.

4.  This broke my heart this morning.  I have a black, five-year-old daughter, and I know there is coming a day when I’ll have to explain to her that there are still people in this world that will hate her simply because she is black.  Now, unless something changes radically in our culture, I fear that I’ll also have to explain to her that if she dares to hold historic Christian convictions in public, there will be people who will hate her for that too.  She could lose a job or worse over her deeply held convictions.

5.  We'd all be better off if we spent a bit more time reflecting on this piece from Brandon Ambrosino.

6.  The sky is not falling. Jesus is still on the throne. Godliness implies persecution (2 Tim 3:12). We’ll be ok. This life is a mist. This is nothing new and many Christians around the world are persecuted WAY worse than some reality TV star losing his job.


Books by Russell Moore:

• Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
• Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches
• The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective

Hope On The Horizon For A Contentious Issue

If this cultural discussion could have thoughtfulness and nuance like this on a broader scale, we'd all be much better for it.

After reading his piece, I get the sense that he and I would walk away with different conclusions but still respect and honor each other.

Maybe it's actually possible!

"Temptation clobbers you from the outside and lures you to do its bidding. Sin makes temptation a house pet, gets it a collar and leash, and is deceived to believe that it can be restrained by impositions of civility."

Amazing article here from Rosaria Champagne Butterfield.

A Review of "What We Talk about When We Talk About God"

Dr. Michael Kruger:

In the end, my overall concern about this volume is a simple one: it is not Christian. Bell's makeover of Christianity has changed it into something entirely different. It is not Christianity at all, it is modern liberalism. It is the same liberalism that Machen fought in the 1920's and the same liberalism prevalent in far too many churches today. It is the liberalism that teaches that God exists and that Jesus is the source of our happiness and our fulfillment, but all of this comes apart from any real mention of sin, judgment, and the cross. It is the liberalism that says we can know nothing for sure, except of course, that those "fundamentalists" are wrong. It is the liberalism that appeals to the Bible from time to time, but then simply ignores large portions of it.

Bell's book, therefore, is really just spiritualism with a Christian veneer. It's a book that would fit quite well on Oprah's list of favorite books. What is Rob Bell talking about when he is talking about God? Not the God of Christianity.

Read the rest.

I'm just glad we are all clear now. Back when Velvet Elvis was all the rage (ten years ago), Rob's theology was not quite at clear as it is now. Clarity is always a good thing.  Sadly, in Rob's case, his clarity does not equate to orthodoxy.

Another clear example of this would be here.

To Louie, From Barack

This is a fictitious letter that Timothy Dalrymple wrote but wishes would be sent from the President to Mr. Giglio. I found it to have been quite well written and would work to create a culture of true civility.  May we see more of that!

Mohler Reflects on Giglio Situation

Al Mohler:

The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment. By its newly articulated standard, any preacher who holds to the faith of the church for the last 2,000 years is persona non grata. By this standard, no Roman Catholic prelate or priest can participate in the ceremony. No Evangelical who holds to biblical orthodoxy is welcome. The vast majority of Christians around the world have been disinvited. Mormons, and the rabbis of Orthodox Judaism are out. Any Muslim imam who could walk freely in Cairo would be denied a place on the inaugural program. Billy Graham, who participated in at least ten presidential inaugurations is welcome no more. Rick Warren, who incited a similar controversy when he prayed at President Obama’s first inauguration, is way out of bounds. In the span of just four years, the rules are fully changed.

The gauntlet was thrown down yesterday, and the axe fell today. Wayne Besen, founder of the activist group Truth Wins Out, told The New York Times yesterday: “It is imperative that Giglio clarify his remarks and explain whether he has evolved on gay rights, like so many other faith and political leaders. It would be a shame to select a preacher with backward views on LBGT people at a moment when the nation is rapidly moving forward on our issues.”

And there you have it — anyone who has ever believed that homosexuality is morally problematic in any way must now offer public repentance and evidence of having “evolved” on the question. This is the language that President Obama used of his own “evolving” position on same-sex marriage. This is what is now openly demanded of Christians today. If you want to avoid being thrown off the program, you had better learn to evolve fast, and repent in public.

This is precisely what biblical Christians cannot do. While seeking to be gentle in spirit and ruthlessly Gospel-centered in speaking of any sin, we cannot cease to speak of sin as sin. To do so is not only to deny the authority of Scripture, not only to reject the moral consensus of the saints, but it undermines the Gospel itself. The Gospel makes no sense, and is robbed of its saving power, if sin is denied as sin.

An imbroglio is a painful and embarrassing conflict. The imbroglio surrounding Louie Giglio is not only painful, it is revealing. We now see the new Moral McCarthyism in its undisguised and unvarnished reality. If you are a Christian, get ready for the question you will now undoubtedly face: “Do you now or have you ever believed that homosexuality is a sin?” There is nowhere to hide.

Read the rest.

I feel strongly that we not be alarmist in this situation. The writing has been on the wall for years. Press on. Jesus is still on the throne. Just embrace the reality that Christian fidelity will bring persecution. It's always been that way and it has been promised by our Savior. We are blessed to join him in being hated and/or marginalized. Our faithful witness amidst the storm is more powerful than anything else.

Louie Giglio's Letter To His Church

He writes:

Dear PCC Family,

Though I was invited by the President of the United States to pray at his upcoming inauguration, after conversations between our team and the White House I am no longer serving in that role. I sent the following statement to the White House today:

I am honored to be invited by the President to give the benediction at the upcoming inaugural on January 21. Though the President and I do not agree on every issue, we have fashioned a friendship around common goals and ideals, most notably, ending slavery in all its forms.

Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration. 

Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past fifteen years. Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ. Neither I, nor our team, feel it best serves the core message and goals we are seeking to accomplish to be in a fight on an issue not of our choosing, thus I respectfully withdraw my acceptance of the President’s invitation. I will continue to pray regularly for the President, and urge the nation to do so. I will most certainly pray for him on Inauguration Day.

Our nation is deeply divided and hurting, and more than ever we need God’s grace and mercy in our time of need.

The issue of homosexuality (which a particular message of mine some 20 years ago addressed) is one of the most difficult our nation will navigate. However, individuals’ rights of freedom, and the collective right to hold differing views on any subject is a critical balance we, as a people, must recover and preserve.

As a pastor, my mission is to love people, and lead them well, while lifting up the name of Jesus above anything else. I’m confident that anyone who knows me or has listened to the multitude of messages I have given in the last decade would most likely conclude that I am not easily characterized as being opposed to people—any people. Rather, I am constantly seeking to understand where all people are coming from and how to best serve them as I point them to Jesus.

In all things, the most helpful thing I can do is to invite each of us to wrestle with scripture and its implications for our lives. God’s words trump all opinions, including mine, and in the end, I believe God’s words lead to life.

My greatest desire is that we not be distracted from the things we are focused on…seeing people in our city come to know Jesus, and speaking up for the last and least of these throughout the world.

Honored to be your pastor,

Louie

"We Now Have a de facto Established State Church"

Russell Moore explains.

As citizens, we ought to insist that the President stand up to his “base” and articulate a vision of a healthy pluralism in the public square. Notice that the problem is not that this evangelical wants to “impose his religion” on the rest of society. The problem is not that he wants to exclude homosexuals or others from the public square or of their civil rights. The problem is that he won’t say that they can go to heaven without repentance. That’s not a civil issue, but a religious test of orthodoxy.

As Christians, we ought to recognize that the old majoritarian understanding of church/state relations is outmoded. Our situation today is not to hold on to some form of American civil religion. Our situation today is more akin to the minority religions of America’s past: colonial Baptists, nineteenth-century Baptists, early twentieth-century Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are appealing simply for the right to exist at all, in the face of an established religion armed with popular support and, in the fullness of time, state power.

It turns out we’re circling around to where we should have been all along: with the understanding that religious liberty isn’t “toleration” and separation of church and state isn’t secularism.

We don’t have a natural right to pray at anyone’s inauguration. But when one is pressured out from a previous invitation because he is too “toxic” for simply mentioning once something universal in the Christian faith, we ought to see what we’re looking at: a state church.

And as one old revolutionary-era Baptist said, as he went in and out of prison for preaching: “There is nothing so offensive to an established church than the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Read the rest.


Books by Russell Moore:

• Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ
• Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches
• The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective

Giglio Bows Out

CNN.com reports on Louie Giglio removing himself from the invitation to participate in the inauguration.  

"I am honored to have been invited by the president to give the benediction at the upcoming inauguration on January 21," Giglio said in a statement delivered to the White House and the Presidential Inaugural Committee. "Though the president and I do not agree on every issue, we have fashioned a friendship around common goals and ideals, most notably, ending slavery in all its forms." 

"Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda a focal point of the inauguration. Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past fifteen years. Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ."

Further on...

Giglio said Thursday that he and his team don't feel "it best serves the core message and goals we are seeking to accomplish to be in a fight on an issue not of our choosing; thus I respectfully withdraw my acceptance of the president's invitation."

"I will continue to pray regularly for the president, and urge the nation to do so. I will most certainly pray for him on Inauguration Day," Giglio's statement continued.

"Our nation is deeply divided and hurting, and more than ever need God's grace and mercy in our time of need," it concluded.

Take note friends.  This is THE issue of fidelity for the future of the church.  May we be faithful.  

The sky is not falling.  Over the last 2,000 years the church has seen much greater pressure.  Be strong in the knowledge that there is a great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us.  They know what it's like to be strangers and aliens (1 Peter 1).  We'll be ok.  Just press into faithfulness.

Sharing The Gospel With Those of Differing Views

Mike McKinley with a very helpful post here.

Rick Warren on Tolerance

He says:

“The problem is that tolerant has changed its meaning. It used to mean ‘I may disagree with you completely, but I will treat you with respect. Today, tolerant means – ‘you must approve of everything I do.’ There’s a difference between tolerance and approval. Jesus accepted everyone no matter who they were. He doesn’t approve of everything I do, or you do, or anybody else does either. You can be accepting without being approving.”

Read some other quotes from a recent interview.

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith

Jeremy Walker:

"Brutally honest" may be an overused phrase in book reviewing, but I think it applies here. This book begins with its then 36 year old author enjoying her role as a high-achieving lesbian doyenne of Queer Theory, a "tenured radical" in the liberal arts at a large research university in New York. From there, it charts her exposure to gospel truth, the comprehensive chaos that followed as Christ called her to be his disciple, and the sweeping sanctification and sincere service that followed that. Writing about and wrestling with things as only an English professor with a predilection for the Romantic can, with a strong capacity for self-analysis and a transparency that is bracing, Mrs Butterfield records this journey from the perspective of a felt outsider suddenly drawn into the kingdom and eventually (as the wife of a church planting pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church) on the frontline of its battles. That she does so honestly but not pruriently is one of the strengths of this book: she is clear and blunt without ever being coarse. There are points at which Mrs Butterfield wields her vorpal sword to slay whole herds of sacred cattle simultaneously, and I responded with a hearty "Amen!" far more often than with a stifled "Aargh!", enjoying her boldness even when wishing to push back against her conclusions. Too often Christians seek to win to Christ people who are just like them, who fit their notions of what churchgoers ought to be. Rosaria Butterfield prompts us to think more humbly about what it means to be an effective witness in an increasingly Corinthian society, with real insights into the world (not just the homosexual culture) and the church from both sides. This is a genuinely refreshing read by a woman who, it seems, states and sacrificially acts on her thoughtful and deeply-held convictions with characteristic boldness. I should love to debate with her about all kind of things, but I hope I have also learned from this sobering, provocative and joyful testimony. (I am sure that a homeschooling English professor like the author is disappointed by a significant number of errors in the text that will, I hope, be corrected in future printings.)

 Get the book here.

Is Morality Just What Harms Other People?

Very important post here as we think about engaging our culture.  Be sure to watch the video.

Joel Osteen in the Hot Seat

This is painful to watch.  But these are the questions that our culture is asking.  We need to have wise, gentle, and loving answers.

Ravi Zacharias Speaks Powerfully

"I simply want to see believers consider, above all things, how we are representing Jesus to our culture, especially those who are antagonistic."

Great post here from Barnabas Piper.

"The primary problem with the Chick-Fil-A battle was that there were very few words used."

In response to his post that I linked to yesterday, Stephen Altrogge writes:

Am I too worried about offending people? I don’t think so. I’m more than willing to offend people for the sake of the gospel. The gospel is an inherently offensive message, and I’ll proclaim the offensive gospel of grace and repentance until my dying breath. But I don’t want to offend unnecessarily. In 1 Corinthians 10:31-33 Paul said:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

Paul sought to avoid offense in order that people might be saved! As Christians, we must keep that goal before us - the salvation of many. Paul was willing to lay down his rights to eat whatever he wanted in order that people might be saved.

The primary problem with the Chick-Fil-A battle was that there were very few words used. The watching world did not hear our love for the lost, our love for Christ, and our desire to see them know the truth. It didn’t feel our compassion. It simply saw a bunch of fired up Christians eating chicken sandwiches. To me that doesn’t seem like the best way to defend the First Amendment in the name of Christ.

Read the rest.

"The only people Jesus boycotted were the religious leaders."

Stephen Altrogge:

With everyone else, he entered into their world. Yes, he called them to repentance, and we need to do that. We can’t back down from what the Bible says about homosexuality. But we need to do it with the love, gentleness, and affection of Christ Jesus. Not with snarky Facebook comments and loud demonstrations.

Jesus was called a friend of sinners. I don’t think that buying chicken sandwiches puts us into that category.

Read the rest.

A Better Conversation about Sexuality

From this article in Christianity Today:

Hill is learning to struggle well as a celibate gay man because of his embeddedness in “the true story of what God has done in Jesus Christ.” That story, which gives context to the particulars of his own life, promises the forgiveness of sins, reminds him that all Christians undergo a painful and yet glorious transformation of their affections, proclaims that our bodies do not belong to ourselves but to God and the church, and commends “long-suffering endurance as a participation in the sufferings of Christ.” Where others might regard his abstinence as “choosing to prudishly, pitiably shelter [himself] from the only life worth living,” Hill celebrates the yes of the gospel story over the yes of sexual fulfillment: “Imitating Jesus; conforming my thoughts, beliefs, desires, and hopes to his; sharing his life; embracing his gospel’s no to homosexual practice—I become more fully alive, not less. According to the Christian story, true Christlike holiness is the same thing as true humanness. To renounce homosexual behavior is to say yes to full, rich, abundant life.” If “Jesus is the model of the fulfilled human being,” as biblical scholar Walter Moberly writes, then the absence of sex in our Savior’s life means an absence in ours is not an impoverished existence—far from it. On the contrary, “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” are blessed, even when it’s painful and lonely to bear up under that burden in our fallen condition (Matt. 19:12).

Read the rest.

It's Not About Chicken Sandwiches, It's About Jesus

Trevin Wax's conclusion to his post on Chick-Fil-A and double standards in our culture in reference to religious views:

So how should we respond? We’ve got to go beyond boycotts and political statements and feigned offense at perceived persecution. We’re called to love those who ostracize us, not boycott back. So let’s trumpet the message that Jesus is for all kinds of sinners, from the self-righteous deacon to the promiscuous transsexual, no matter what kind of vitriol comes our way.

The world tells homosexuals, “It gets better.” The church tells homosexuals, “Jesus is better.”

And that is why this boycott is really about Him.

Read the rest.