Sojourn in a nation under judgment: Anne Kennedy's epic takedown of Rachel Held Evans

Any article critiquing Rachel Held Evans ought to be required reading. This morning, Anne Kennedy scored an epic takedown of the sniveling, neo-Pharisaical, proto-millennial blogger, who never seems to tire of pointing an accusing finger at Christians who actually believe Jesus is who he said he is and the Bible is what the church has always said it was.

First off, I wish she would desist calling me, and others who love the Bible and the Jesus revealed in the bible her “fellow Christians”. We are not fellows together. We believe contradictory opposite gospels. She is not curious enough about the gospel I embrace to know what it says, to understand that love is at the center of this issue, that Christians like me are horrified to find that the culture, and self identified “Christians” like her, have created a new definition of love that lets a person sexually tie himself or herself to a person of the same gender, regardless of God’s clear, explicit hatred of such an act. Love demands, love implores, love does everything it can to warn of the peril right ahead. So yes to fear, this is a perilous place we inhabit, now. But from whence cometh the entitlement? Christians have rightly perceived the rejection of their world view and are retreating in sorrow and grief. As for the charge that we are obscuring the gospel, I think the church has already been complicit in that confusion, and I think now Jesus himself is making the gospel more than abundantly clear. One of the ways (only one way, there are so many) gay “marriage” is so hateful to God is because it obscures the central relationship between Christ and the Church. Marriage isn’t about individuals. Each and every marriage paints a picture of Jesus’ sacrificial love for his bride, who is not the same as him. Gay “marriage” paints a lying idolatrous picture of this reality and is one reason why, I think, the winners are so angry. Because living in a horrible lie is actually not that comfortable and pleasant. Look in the defiant, tragic gaze of a child who is lying and who doesn’t know how to get out, and you have an expression of the anger we are seeing everywhere. Why, pray tell, in this moment of great joy, Rachel Held Evans, do you pause to take a wack at bible loving Christians? I’ll tell you why, because the lie is ugly and hurtful, and so there must be lots of shouting and anger to cover up the great wound that leads to death. But moving on.

Kennedy's concluding observations are most insightful.

God’s judgement is pouring out. His burning anger is already here. If you feel angry, I long for you to look in his face, and not flinch when you see his abiding, perfect wrath. Really, my Christian identity has never been clearer than at this precise moment.

Hardly a day goes by now that I don't see some Facebook post or meme issuing the dire warning that "God is going to judge America" for all of the abominations it is now condoning. But, as Kennedy implies, the judgment is already happening. In Romans 1:18-32, Paul speaks about "men behaving indecently with men," etc. precisely in terms of judgment. The prevalence of such abominable acts is not a sign that God's wrath is about to be poured out but, indeed, that it is already being poured out. It's not the popular caricature of lightning striking, but the more subtle judgment of God giving a rebellious people over to their "dishonorable passions." God may not judge a nation because it celebrates sexual deviancy. Rather, the celebration of deviancy may very well be evidence that God's judgment has already come.

If that is the case, it presents us with a very crucial question. What is the church's responsibility as it sojourns in the midst of a nation under judgment? Most assuredly, it has a more significant role to play than the complacent compromising suggested by the likes of Rachel Held Evans. In his commentary on Revelation (unfortunately, long out of print), M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. offers this sacramentally saturated observation on the church's mission in the midst of a rebellious order.

For the church in John's day, as well as today, the vision reveals the profoundly deep reality of what it means to be a citizen of New Jerusalem. To be part of the eucharistic community of God's people is to become part of God's response to the rebellion. To partake of the Eucharist is to be drawn into the very being and nature of God so as to be shaped in the image and likeness of God. To partake of the Eucharist is to be thrust out into the midst of Fallen Babylon to participate in God's costly, redemptive response to the rebellion. The vision images this in the bowls [Revelation 15:6-16:21], which, on the one hand, are the prayers of the saints that open them to the shaping presence of God and that, on the other hand, being filled with the presence of God, are then poured out into the life of the world.

The outpouring of God's wrath is never an arbitrary act. Its purpose, like all the purposes of God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is ultimately redemptive. The church, as an active participant in God's response to the fallen order's rebellion, is called to be an agent of what Mulholland calls redemptive wrath.

Loving our neighbors enough to be hated by them

R.C. Sproul, Jr. reminds us that loving our neighbors does not mean surrendering to their demands, especially when what they want is the one thing no faithful Christian can give.

There is a great difference between being like a lamb before the slaughter and rolling over and showing your neck. Christians need to learn to tell the difference. We find ourselves dizzy with the swiftness by which we have lost our privilege in the culture and have become virtual pariahs. Our sitting president, while serving as president, took a position on gay “marriage” that now is not just considered unsophisticated but is on the fast track to being a hate crime. Homo-rage is all the fashion; homo-fascism is all the rage. And Christians are increasingly being herded into a cultural ghetto.

Our Hero, our Champion, calls us to a spirit of humility and grace. He commands that we love our enemy, that we pray for those who persecute us. Which helps explain why huge swaths of the evangelical church are swiftly adopting a policy of complete appeasement. We are told that homosexuals have been vilified by the church, and so we must repent. We are told that since Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality, that we shouldn’t either. We are told that if we just love them enough they won’t fear us, when the truth is we are desperately hoping that if we love them enough we won’t have to fear them. We are surrendering not our lives but our convictions, throwing them out the door like Lot’s daughters. We are not being Jesus but betraying Jesus. We are living out the wisdom of G.K. Chesterton who told us, “What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition and settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.”

You cannot nice away the demands of the homosexual lobby because grace, forgiveness, patience, love are not what they want. Loving the sinner while hating the sin isn’t acceptable to sinners who so fully identify with their sin. They want, they demand that we approve. They want the one thing we cannot possibly give – they want us to call evil good and good evil. Until we do, we will be marginalized, pilloried and despised.

Which is just where humility, grace, and love come in. We do not measure our love of our neighbor by how much they love us, but by how willing we are to be hated by them. Sacrifice for those given over to sexual insanity is being willing to be considered insane by those given over. Loving our enemy means laying our reputations on the altar and watching them go up in smoke. It means crucifying our social standing for the sake of the truth. It is precisely because of our ambition, not our humility, that we set aside our convictions.

This conflict will not be won by laying down our arms, but by laying down our lives. Until we learn to fear God we are at the mercy of the world. Jesus promised us if we will not profess Him before men, He will not profess us before His Father (Matthew 10:32). And He calls us not merely to proclaim a benign and smiling Jesus, but to instruct the world to obey all that He commands. We will be hated and despised. And that, He promises, brings blessing (Matthew 5:10-12). Lord teach us to surrender our strategy of surrender. Teach us to love our neighbors enough to be hated by them, for Your name’s sake.

David Ould on the Anglican Communion: The conservatives are not going anywhere

A very encouraging article from David Ould about the ultimate staying power of conservatives in the Anglican Commuion:

The reality is that as the Anglican Communion effectively splits the conflict is being played out most of all in the Anglo national churches. Allan [Haley] has helpfully outlined the key events in the global background to all of this but it’s interesting to consider how it’s working it’s way out in the “Western” Provinces. The history of the North American church now already consists of whole chapters that have been written, with more yet to come but there is much yet to be written in the Church of England and Anglican Church of Australia.

The CofE’s position is a precarious one. Evangelicals have for a long time felt disenfranchised and marginalised. For them it is also, to some limited extent, a question of taxation and representation. Evangelical parishes (of which the large and growing parishes are mainly drawn) pay regular quotas of their offertory to diocesan coffers and on to the national funds. These monies are used to fund what is often perceived as irrelevant or even anti-gospel activities. To compound the situation there is not one single evangelical bishop in the House. At this stage some will protest with indignation that there are indeed evangelicals there, just not of the “conservative” label, to which I say this. The reality is that since the retirement of Bishop Wallace Benn we have not had one genuinely evangelical man representing us at the highest level. We have been marginalised, had the label “conservative evangelical” placed upon us to marginalise us even further, and had a promise of a “conservative evangelical” bishop made but ignored. They tax our tea (which in the Church of England is second in gravity only to taxing cake – or doubling the excise on a good Gin and Tonic) but the Crown gives us no representation.

So while the House of Bishops appears to be holding a fairly conservative position on human sexuality (although there are some glaring inconsistencies in their guidance) there is open opposition from not only clergy and laity but also actual bishops who are once again making outrageous claims (but, of course, don’t have the courage to back up their charge – they do, however, like the salary they get). What will be done in response to Bishop Alan’s open and brazen criticism of his episcopal colleagues? About the same that was done the last time; diddly squat. But the bigger issue is that the Church of England is an institution that is regularly elevating men who hold such views while not placing in leadership those who actually hold to consistent Biblical positions on the controversies of the day. It’s no good claiming to be standing in the right position on a controversy if open and wilful opposition is left unchecked.

All of this is the backdrop to the recent GAFCON Chairman’s pastoral letter which includes these paragraphs:

In the twenty first century, it is becoming clear that we must see the once missionary nations of the West as now themselves mission fields. The fact that the United Kingdom came close to breaking up last week is a symptom of the disintegration that follows when a once common Christian faith has been lost and I want to appreciate the work of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE) who are sharing with other mission minded Anglicans in England as they meet for the ‘ReNew’ Conference this week.

AMiE is authorised by the GAFCON Primates to work within and, where necessary, outside the structures of the Church of England as a missionary society. In my message of greeting to the conference I said ‘We understand the challenges that faithful Anglicans face in England. At GAFCON 2013 here in Nairobi we recognised that the focus of the struggle for biblical faithfulness has shifted from North America to England. The temptation to dilute the message of Jesus Christ and compromise with the surrounding culture is strong, so it is vital for the gospel in England, and also for the world, that you continue as a beacon to the revealed truth of the Scriptures. The salvation of people from hell is at stake. So nothing could be more important.’

The Anglican Mission in England has been around for a while but is getting on with it’s work slowly. It is, however, a “Tea Party moment”. It signals to the leadership of the Church of England that the fight is not going away. Evangelicals will continue to hold their own, and do so in solidarity with the majority of the Anglican Communion represented by a GAFCON/FCA movement that encourages their work. Just as the Tea Party signalled an irreversible moment in the conflict, so the collaboration of parties such as Church Society and Reform signals an intent which cannot be ignored, even if the pace is not to everyone’s liking.

The irony here is that quasi-evangelicals, such as the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, find themselves in a curious position. They hold a conservative position on human sexuality, but are undermined in their support of women’s consecration. Further, they give the impression they will constantly seek to appease the liberalising tendencies within the church. Tragically this moves them away from their more natural theological partners in parties like the AMiE and into the hands of those who they are, ironically, in far less agreement with on the more substantial issues.

Here in Australia a similar movement is underway, albeit in a different context. The Australia church, not least by virtue of it’s constitutional arrangements, has not officially moved to the extremes although there are some clear pockets of revisionism. The smaller House of Bishops has a variety of perspectives in it but has a good number of genuine conservatives. The new Primate, Archbishop of Melbourne Philip Freier, is seen as a safer pair of hands and a man with some experience of handling the inherent tensions having overseen the smorgasbord of Melbourne where solid evangelical parishes lie next to blatantly liberal ones. He has recently imposed new rules on the conduct of ministers including asking clear questions about their living arrangements and behaviour prior to ordination and licensing. Nevertheless Melbourne remains home to many who would espouse a gospel that evangelicals simply cannot recognise. My own sense speaking to others here about the matter is that some opposition to conservatives has softened, at least publicly. Privately I have seen correspondence and been involved in conversations where the animosity is a clear as it ever was.

All of this has led to the Australian chapter of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans announcing plans for a first local conference in March 2015. Further details are yet to come but this will prove, I suspect, to be another “Tea Party moment”. It signals to the hierarchy of the Anglican Church of Australia that the conservatives are not going anywhere. This is particularly important given what may happen in the next few years. It is no secret that liberals in Perth are very unhappy with Archbishop Herft’s decision to veto their motion on human sexuality. We should expect the next Archbishop there to be elected on the understanding that he (or she) will allow similar motions to pass. This or similar events will leave conservatives needing to decide how to respond. But the theological revisionists should also be clear on the consequences of their actions. Throwing a few tea chests in the harbour now gives a very clear indication of what might be yet to come.

The reality of the Anglican Communion is that conservatives are not going anywhere. In many senses liberals are fighting a rearguard action trying to hold onto local ground while they see the wider global battle being lost. The wholesale rejection of the Anglican Covenant idea by those same liberals is only further evidence of their increasing parochialism, they want the prestige of being part of the Anglican Communion but not the mutual responsibility. They are, globally, a lone voice crying “God save our picture of Christianity” while the rest of the Communion moves on and battles for their Biblical understanding of what Anglicanism always was and should continue to be.

Just as the British Crown lost control over the colonies and the once Great Britain is now reduced to one small nation amongst others, so also the revisionists in the Communion are looking at a similar shrinking of their influence and standing in the face of conservatives’ standing firm. Expect to see more Tea Parties, if only to let the institutions know that we’re not going away and this is all only going in one direction.

"Left Behind" should be . . . left behind, and here's why

Many thanks to Randall Hardman of Ministry Matters for saving me the trouble of writing (yet again!) a lengthy refutation of the relentlessly popular, but biblically dubious, "rapture" theology and its latest Hollywood adaptation. You will want to read the entire piece, but here is a choice excerpt.

To the surprise of many, rapture-based theology has only been around for the past couple hundred years and predominantly in America. Indeed, the world's leading biblical scholar, N.T. Wright, refers to it as an “American obsession” and notes that few Christians in the U.K. hold any sort of belief in it. I would say the same for biblical scholars (in fact, I can't think of a single trained biblical scholar of Revelation that endorses rapture based theology minus a couple at Dallas Seminary.) The origins of rapture theology lie in 1830 Scotland where a fifteen year old girl name Margaret MacDonald claimed to see a vision of a “two-stage return of Jesus.” Enter John Nelson Darby, a British evangelist and the founder of the Plymouth Brethren. Darby took MacDonald's vision and created an entire system based off of it in which Jesus returns not once (as Christians have always believed) but twice! Darby and others who were sympathetic to his views went back to the Bible to search for clues, signs, and verses which would justify thinking of worldly history in terms of “dispensations” which included a seven-year tribulation and a preceding evacuation of the church from it.

Through various “mission trips” to the U.S. in the late 19th century, the notion of a “rapture” found itself appealing to American Christians who were going through the atrocities of the Civil War which, by all measure, must have looked like Armageddon: nation rising up against nation, brother against brother, son against father, etc. With more than half a million dead, who wouldn't find a “let's get out of here” theology attractive? This mindset, of course, was exasperated with World War I and the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible which was handed out to soldiers in the trenches. Two other events corresponded to the promotion of the “rapture” in America: the conversion of Dwight L. Moody to the eschatological system (he later founded Moody Bible Institute and a major radio program which would become important in the promotion of rapture theology) and the establishment of a dispensationalist training center, Dallas Theological Seminary (get why their scholars are the exception?)

Now Christians have always affirmed the second coming of Christ, but only in the system which Darby, Scofield, and later dispensationalists developed were there three comings. This was a brand new take on the end, and while Christians throughout the centuries have always wondered whether their day was the last day (including Paul), with some interpreting contemporary events in such a way, the establishment of a system and a timetable was entirely new, as was the presupposition that Jesus would exorcise his Church from the last days.

When Paul refers to some being “caught up” (1 Thessalonians 4:17) he's not referring to a rapture which will precede a time of tribulation in the modern world: He is giving his audience hope in the midst of persecution and death and reminding them of the hope that all Christians share, that Christ will come again (just not again and then again!) When Jesus speaks of “one being taken” (Matthew 24:40) he is not referencing how Christians all across the world will escape from a period of trial; rather, he is referencing the Genesis flood story (vv 37-40) and, as the context makes clear, being “taken away” is actually unfortunate, as it is the one who is “taken away” that faces judgment.

I could go on with a verse by verse analysis of all the “rapture verses” but there exists an underlying problem with rapture theology, one which has the ability to affect so many aspects of how Christians interact with the problems of this world: It embraces escapism as a solution. Rapture-based theology teaches us to think and hope for an escape from this world, not endurance to persevere in it. In this view, Jesus loves his Bride too much to let it go through the intense suffering and judgment the world will face (very similar to the popular notion that suffering doesn't happen to godly people). But that is not the message of Scripture, nor is it the message of Revelation in particular. Sometimes terrible things do happen to good people and Scripture doesn't promise us an “out.” It promises us a “how.”

Janna Darnelle explains the dark side of redefining marriage

Behind the media-generated facade of "marriage equality" is a cesspool of evil, spawning broken families, ruined lives, and a culture of selfishness which exploits and demeans women and children. Janna Darnelle bravely comes forward to point this out.

There is not one gay family that exists in this world that was created naturally.

Every same-sex family can only exist by manipulating nature. Behind the happy façade of many families headed by same-sex couples, we see relationships that are built from brokenness. They represent covenants broken, love abandoned, and responsibilities crushed. They are built on betrayal, lies, and deep wounds.

This is also true of same-sex couples who use assisted reproductive technologies such as surrogacy or sperm donation to have children. Such processes exploit men and women for their reproductive potential, treat children as products to be bought and sold, and purposely deny children a relationship with one or both of their biological parents. Wholeness and balance cannot be found in such families, because something is always missing. I am missing. But I am real, and I represent hundreds upon thousands of spouses who have been betrayed and rejected.

If my husband had chosen to stay, I know that things wouldn’t have been easy. But that is what marriage is about: making a vow and choosing to live it out, day after day. In sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, spouses must choose to put the other person first, loving them even when it’s hard.

A good marriage doesn’t only depend on sexual desire, which can come and go and is often out of our control. It depends on choosing to love, honor, and be faithful to one person, forsaking all others. It is common for spouses to be attracted to other people—usually of the opposite sex, but sometimes of the same sex. Spouses who value their marriage do not act on those impulses. For those who find themselves attracted to people of the same sex, staying faithful to their opposite-sex spouse isn’t a betrayal of their true identity. Rather, it’s a decision not to let themselves be ruled by their passions. It shows depth and strength of character when such people remain true to their vows, consciously striving to remember, honor, and revive the love they had for their spouses when they first married.

Please read the whole article.

Haley analyzes the South Carolina trial

A.S. Haley offers an insightful post-mortem on the South Carolina trial, including this observation about the contrast between the two camps, similar to what I had noted shortly after the trial ended last week.

First, the trial was a clash of diametrically opposed camps. Bishop Lawrence, his parishes and his Diocese were focused on going forward with their evangelical mission; the lawsuit was a drag on their ability to do so. Bishop vonRosenberg and his Episcopal Church (USA) were obsessed with looking back – to what they viewed as a hierarchical structure from the outset; to the prerogatives of national power that are concomitant to such a structure; and especially to the power wielded collectively by the House of Bishops, and by the Presiding Bishop in their absence.

Read the whole analysis here.

Read the official press summary from the Diocese of South Carolina here.

Trevin Wax on Bonhoeffer and cultural obsession with sexual identity

There are some revisionists who will not be satisfied until they have homosexualized every major figure in church history, from Jesus on down to Mother Teresa. The latest target is the German theologian and  martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The ammunition is a new biography which raises questions about Bonhoeffer's relationship with Eberhard Bethge, a long-time friend who later supervised the compilation of his works.

If revisionists had hoped this conjecture would shock evangelicals into banishing Bonhoeffer into the abyss, they are going to be disappointed, according to Trevin Wax of the The Gospel Coalition. The drive to insert sexual innuendo into the Bonhoeffer legacy says more about our over-sexualized culture than it does about Bonhoeffer or the culture which he bravely stood against at the cost of his life.

The facts in the case of Bonhoeffer are clear: he was engaged at the time of his execution, and he wrote about the fact he would die as a virgin. No biographer or scholar claims that Bonhoeffer engaged in a sexual relationship with anyone, male or female, whatever his attractions may have been.

I believe the conversation about Bonhoeffer’s sexuality tells us more about life in the sexualized culture of the 21st century than it does about Bonhoeffer. In fact, if we pay attention, we will see how Bonhoeffer’s life and legacy directly challenges several commonly held assumptions today.

Assumption #1: Life lived to the fullest must include sexual fulfillment.

Bonhoeffer lived faithfully – emphasis on fully – as a virgin. One should not miss the countercultural reality on display in his life.

Post Sexual Revolution, people often define themselves by their sexual identity. For this reason, many people see any restriction or moral restraint on how sexuality is expressed as oppressive, a dagger to the heart of a person’s life and dreams.

For the Christian, such an exaggerated view of sexuality is a pernicious lie. It feeds the falsehood that, without sexual fulfillment, it is impossible for someone to live a full and engaging life. In contrast, Christians believe celibacy is not a pitiable choice but a beautiful calling.

Bonhoeffer’s witness (along with evangelical heroes like John Stott, not to mention Jesus Himself) testifies against the assumption that self-actualization must include sexual relationships. His life challenges a culture that says you are your sexuality.

Sam Allberry, a pastor in the UK who experiences same-sex attraction yet believes homosexual behavior to be sinful, is familiar with the accusation often made against evangelicals, that adhering to Christianity’s sexual ethic contributes to teenage angst and suicide. His response is spot on:

“No, the problem is a culture that says your entire identity and sense of who you are is bound up with fulfilling your sexual desires. You are the ones who have raised the stakes that high. So that the moment you don’t fulfill your desires, you have nothing left to live for.”

Society’s view of a Forty-Year-Old Virgin is Steve Carrell. Christianity’s view of a forty-year-old virgin should be Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Assumption #2: Affectionate male friendships must be romantic in nature.

History is replete with examples of robust male friendships that are full of affection and expressions of love and yet are not sexual.

Unfortunately, the sexual revolution has made it more difficult to imagine passionate philos apart from eros. That’s why revisionist historians read romantic notions into Teddy Roosevelt’s affectionate letters to his closest friends. People wonder out loud about Abraham Lincoln’s sharing a bed with his friend, Joshua Speed. It’s hard for our society to understand how King David could weep so terribly over the lost love of Jonathan unless there was some sort of romance between them. And now, Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Bethge is put under the microscope of 21st century assumptions.

In fairness to the biographer, it is certainly possible that Bonhoeffer was attracted to Bethge, even though acting on such a notion was always out of the question. But it’s also possible, even likely, that Bonhoeffer’s friendship was, like many male friendships of the time, strong and affectionate, with a passion that did not include sexual desire.

The speculation about Bonhoeffer’s sexuality distracts us from the greater loss of slowly disappearing same-sex friendships, the kind of love we see in literature between Sam and Frodo, relationships that many today can hardly conceive of, apart from some sort of sexual longing.

Assumption #3: Sexual attraction must define one’s identity.

Because our society has adopted the notion that sexual expression is wrapped up in our identity, some may think that getting to the root of Bonhoeffer’s sexuality is the only way to truly understand the man he was. But I suspect Bonhoeffer himself would dispute such a notion, and so would most people throughout history.

When we assume sexual orientation is fixed from birth and unchangeable, the question of identity naturally comes to the forefront: “Was he gay or not?” But Christianity rejects such a reductionist view of sex and identity. Everyone is warped in sexual attraction, at least to some degree. We are all sexual sinners in need of the grace and mercy of God. We are marked by our need for grace, not our longing for sex.

Bonhoeffer’s identity was not defined by sexual attraction, but by his costly discipleship following in the footsteps of his King. Going beyond letters and writings and personal correspondence to speculate on the unspoken sexual longings of a figure from the past says more about us and our own preoccupations than about the person under scrutiny.

Conclusion

Evangelicals aren’t going to go crazy in responding the new Bonhoeffer’ biography. Why? Because the idea that Bonhoeffer may have experienced same-sex attraction doesn’t matter all that much in assessing his legacy. He was a faithful man of God who immersed himself in Scripture, read the signs of the times, stood boldly against the Nazi war machine, and died as a hero.

The best way to honor Bonhoeffer is to not to speculate about his sexuality, but to see how his example counters the errant assumptions of a sexualized culture.

Anglican conflict survival guide: Simplistic templates vs. actual history (South Carolina edition)

Terry Mattingly has written a helpful piece at GetReligion about the ongoing conflict within the Anglican Communion, which is hitting home here in South Carolina this week, providing a wealth of historical background which the secular press often overlooks in the interest of advancing a simplistic template in which homosexuality is the inevitable common denominator.

Of particular historical interest to the South Carolina case is a 1992 incident involving then Bishop FitzSimons Allison, which Mattingly would later recount in a 1999 article for "On Religion."

It’s been seven years since Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison faced the fact that some of his fellow bishops worship a different god than he does.

The symbolic moment came during an Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in Kanuga, N.C., as members met in small groups to discuss graceful ways to settle their differences on the Bible, worship and sex. The question for the day was: “Why are we dysfunctional?”

“I said the answer was simple – apostasy,” said Allison, a dignified South Carolinian who has a doctorate in Anglican history from Oxford University. “Some of the other bishops looked at me and said, ‘What are you talking about?’”

Many Episcopalians, he explained at the time, have embraced the work of theologians such as Carter Heyward, a lesbian priest, seminary professor and author of books such as “Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God.” Allison asked the bishops how they would deal with those who say they serve a god that is “older and greater” than the God of the Bible.

Some of the bishops said they either shared this belief or could not condemn it.

When the time came to celebrate the Eucharist, Allison knew what he had to do in this particular circle of bishops. He declined to share the bread and the wine, but didn’t publicize his act of conscience.

Obviously, everything in the simplistic template is present in this story, including the writings of "a lesbian priest." But, for Bishop Allison, the "apostasy" at the root of his church's dysfunction did not revolve around sexuality, but idolatry: the worship of "a god that is 'older and greater' than the God of the Bible." The connection between "exchang[ing] the truth of God for a lie and worship[ing] and serv[ing] the creature rather than the Creator" and the slide into sexual deviancy (cf. Romans 1:18-32) was there even at that time, but the catalyst for Allison's decision to refuse communion with the wayward bishops was the former, not the latter.

In the ongoing conflict within the Anglican Communion in general, and in South Carolina in particular, the disease which must be cured is idolatry. Deviant sexuality is merely a symptom.

Mattingly makes favorable mention of an Associated Press article on the South Carolina trial which, he says, at least starts out on the right note.

ST. GEORGE, S.C. – About 50 conservative Episcopal churches in South Carolina are in court this week, trying to keep their name, seal and $500 million in land and buildings after they broke away from the national denomination in a wide-ranging theological dispute.

The breakaway group, the Diocese of South Carolina, said it had to leave the national church not just because of the ordination of gays, but a series of decisions it says show national Episcopalians have lost their way in the teachings of Jesus and salvation.

That's fair enough. However, I wish Mattingly would also have cited the article's final two paragraphs, in which a reputed "professor of religion" makes an outrageous and cynical statement.

The secession by South Carolina Episcopalians is ironic, said Frank Kirkpatrick, a professor of religion at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and author of “The Episcopal Church in Crisis: How Sex, the Bible and Authority are Dividing the Faithful.” While church leaders 150 years ago defended slavery on Biblical grounds, some of those breaking away from the national church body over homosexuality and marriage prefer to accept the authority of conservative African bishops rather than U.S. bishops who support the ordination of gays, he said.

“The arguments you hear about seceding from the Episcopal Church sound remarkably similar to the arguments you heard in 1860-61 from the secessionists in South Carolina who wanted to split away from the Union,” Kirkpatrick said.

This kind of nonsense fits well with the artificial narrative which the national Episcopal Church would like to impose on the story, but it does not fit with the actual facts.

To begin with, the Diocese of South Carolina was hardly at the forefront of any movement for "secession" from the Episcopal Church. Bishop Allison's early salvo notwithstanding, the diocese was, if anything, late to the game when it came to disaffiliating from the national body. Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Quincy, and a host of individual parishes in various locations had already bailed long before South Carolina even considered the possibility. Among all the entities which have disaffiliated, South Carolina stands alone as the one ecclesiastical body which literally bent over backward trying to find some way to remain connected before the leadership of the national church made continued affiliation impossible.

It should go without saying, of course, that the issue which brought matters to a head was not homosexuality, but the truth of the Gospel and worship of the one true God. Is the god who is worshiped and proclaimed by the Episcopal Church at the national level the same God, revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, who is worshiped and proclaimed in the parishes, missions, and pulpits of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina?

Even moreso than on that day in 1992 when Bishop Allison performed his silent act of conscience, the answer can only be a resounding NO!

What, then, is the rationale behind Professor Kirkpatrick's statement? The sad fact is, a boilerplate statement like this needs no rationale. It is nothing more than a bunch of thoughtless words thrown together to dazzle a secular press eager to portray simple believers in the most negative light possible. It scores high for shock value, but its only practical effect is to add bearing false witness to the national church's ever growing ledger of transgressions.

Confronting the hubris of "Progressive Millennial Protestants"

While the exceptional wisdom of Tyler Blanski (article posted here earlier today) gives reason to be hopeful about the rising generation of "millennials," his is a rare voice in what is quickly becoming a vast wilderness of disrespect, arrogance, and sheer hubris. Chief among this rising generation of malcontents is Matthew Vines, author of the recently published God and the Gay Christian, a book long on hype but short on substance. It is a sad commentary on our society that such an amateurish work should require a detailed rebuttal from a theological heavyweight like Albert Mohler.

Less detailed, but very much on point, is the response by Owen Strachan and Andrew Walker, writing today for First Things. While the struggling youth in Blanski's article invites and will greatly benefit from the compassion and understanding of Christians seeking to lead him to the foot of the cross, the flippant confidence of Vines has to be called out for what it is, and that is exactly what Strachan and Walker do.

It is a key plank in Vinesian exegesis that the writers of the New Testament lacked a modern comprehension of individuals with a same-sex orientation. But this approach to interpretation defies how the Scripture understands itself and distorts any credible doctrine of inspiration. If the Church—a pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Tim: 3:15)—has been wrong on homosexuality, what else has she been wrong on?

We can further scrutinize the fresh harvest of wisdom Progressive Millennial Protestants offer us. Jesus’s words cited above speak not only to the enigma of orientation but to the rather hidebound categories of male and female, man and woman. In his book, Vines makes clear that the Church should endorse transgender identity. In so doing, he renders Jesus an archetype of a former age. He thought that the sexes were created by divine design and thus subject to divine authority. But all this is now subject to revision.

One cannot mistake the arrogance of the new hermeneutic championed by Vines and cheered by Rachel Held Evans. It renders Jesus behind the times on human sexuality, the apostle Paul retrograde on gender roles, and the biblical witness substandard in light of queer theory. Indeed, Vines’s most radical proposal is his approval of transgender identity. Perhaps this is what promoted Evans to pronounce God and the Gay Christian a “game-changer.” Indeed, it would overturn historic Christian views of gender and sexuality if swallowed whole. We are eager to see how “egalitarian” Christians respond to Vines’s savaging of biblical gender and sexuality.

Yet it is not the theology of the progressive Millennial Protestants that most take our breath away. It is the hubris. Matthew Vines, a young twenty-something with no formal theological training, believes with all starry-eyed optimism that he has the authority to correct the apostle Paul in his doctrinal particulars. This is a familiar pattern for Vines; one winces, for example, as he publicly brings his father to heel in his book.

We do not judge a Christian teacher only by his age or experience, to be sure. But the new progressives have an authority problem. Whether their own family members or martyred apostles, they show no hesitation in correcting those who would—and should—teach them. They do so, furthermore, with precious little confessional and congregational accountability. Ecclesial accountability—though no fail-safe—is given us for our good. Beware Greeks bearing bonds, you might say, and bloggers without churches.

Put it this way: If we’re faced with a choice between a precocious twenty-something with lots of neat new ideas about sexuality and gender untested by the scholarly community on the one hand, and an apostle gored by a Roman sword because the Holy Spirit spoke through him in tones ancient authorities considered hostile to imperial rule on the other, we’re banking on the latter.

Redeeming LGBTQ in Christ: Straightforward compassion from Tyler Blanski

I am generally unimpressed by Christian writers who adopt the vocabulary of  "LGBTQ people" in an attempt to sound compassionate and understanding. This article by Tyler Blanski, however, is a most welcome and refreshing exception. Here is a brief excerpt, but you will want to read it all, by all means.

H/T Chip Edgar

For a number of us, it can be shocking how utterly hetero (other) biblical sexuality is. It’s because Adam and Eve are different that they have such a profound unity—“one flesh.” The perfect “fit” between man and woman is the foundation for all marriages (Gen. 2:24). Sexual polarity is why we have marriage in the first place. Marriage would not exist if men and women were identical. We are male and female: “for this reason a man will leave…” (Gen. 19:5).

Sexuality is not a mere human idea.

Sexuality is God’s idea.

Jesus says marriages are something God joins together (Matt. 19:3-6). And Jesus is clear that sex is meant for a lifelong, monogamous, male-and-female marriage (Mark 7:20-23; cf. 1 Cor. 6:9-10). God is opposed to any kind of sexual activity outside of conjugal marriage—not because he makes random rules, but because he made us for something glorious.

The fruitful one-flesh union of marriage is how men and women can fulfill God’s commandment to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Even more, human sexuality, typified in marriage, is meant to reflect the profound mystery of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-32). And the marriage between Christ and his Church is complementary. We are not Christ, and Christ is not us. Because Christ is other, he is able to draw us to himself in the ultimate one flesh union of heaven and earth. Human marriage (and therefore all human sexuality) is a living, breathing parable of the heavenly marriage between the Lamb and his bride (Rev. 21:9).

A man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or any sexual relationship outside of wedlock, cannot reflect the union of Christ and the Church. To be faithful to the way God made us as male and female, to obey his command to be fruitful and multiply, and to reflect the supreme marriage of Christ and the church, our marriages (and therefore our sexuality) must be between one man and one woman, open to life in the bonds of holy matrimony.

Now, it is true that the constant Bible teaching is very clear that homosexual activity is a serious sin (Gen. 19:4-5; Lev. 18:22; 20:13). Given what the Bible says about God’s mission for sex and marriage and all creation this should not surprise us. Paul even breaks all twenty-first century rules and says homosexuality is “unnatural” (Rom. 1:18-32). Homosexuality is a sign of God’s judgment (Rom. 1:19; 2:5). Those who practice these desires “will not inherit the kingdom” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).

But homosexuality is not a unique sin. In the same list of sins Paul says will render us unable to inherit the kingdom are also sexual immorality and adultery and drunkenness and theft. This does not make it less of a sin, but it reminds us that homosexual behavior is in the category of adultery or pornography or any other sins that might be heterosexual. It’s just one of the many sins of our fallen nature in the fallen Adam that we must put behind us as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Paul goes on to say about homosexuals and adulterers and thieves, “and that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:11). Homosexual behavior is not appropriate for Christians because it is not who they are anymore. Clearly some of the Christians in Corinth were once active homosexuals. But not anymore. They have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit of God.

Whether or not you think you were born this way, you were not re-born this way. You have a new identity in Christ. You have been made new. Attractions and feelings may still persist. But in Christ we are no longer our old selves. What defines every baptized Christian is no longer our feelings or attractions. God is who defines us now. Only “in Christ” is anyone righteous in God’s eyes (2 Cor. 5:2). “In Christ” we are presented holy and blameless (Col. 1:22). All of us are weak! But Christ is strong! If this were not true, the Gospel would be one big sham.

So “T” is for transformation.

You have been given a new identity, a new self (Eph. 4:24). In Christ, you are a new creation (2 Cor. 4:17). At the bedrock of your personhood you have been “born again” (John 3:3). “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2).

But we still wait for the “redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). Temptations very well may linger on this side of the new creation. This is because you are not at the final goal yet. You’re still in a process of transformation. But as the baptized faithful, all of us, all broken and in need of the Savior, are “being transformed … from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).

What the WEIRD West doesn't get about Putin

Mark Movesian, writing for First Things, challenges conventional Western "wisdom" about Vladmir Putin, providing some valuable advice which our own political leaders would do well to heed (but probably won't).

Last Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”—the breakfast salon of the bien pensant—Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Rick Stengel took on Vladimir Putin. Stengel attempted to explain how Putin’s conduct in Ukraine damages Putin’s own interests. Putin, Stengel told his interlocutor Steven Rattner with an air of frustration, “is making fundamental errors” that would get him in trouble with the Russian people. “He’s moving further away from the West,” Stengel said, at a time when “people want to be closer to the West.” Rattner agreed that Putin is being “irrational.” Isn’t it obvious?

In fact, it isn’t at all obvious that Putin is being irrational or that people around the world want to be closer to the West, at least not in the way Stengel seems to think. It is very difficult for Americans to understand this, but on many issues we are cultural outliers. America, especially its professional class, has what psychologists call a WEIRD culture—Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. WEIRDs are very secular. They place great emphasis on personal autonomy; indeed, autonomy may be their most important value. That’s one reason why America works so hard to support movements like feminism and gay rights abroad.

By contrast, most of the world’s cultures are not WEIRD. They are not secular and do not see personal autonomy as the most important value. Jonathan Haidt explains this very well in his recent book, The Righteous Mind. Many world cultures, Haidt writes, have an “ethic of community” that sees people principally as members of collectives—families, tribes, and nations—with strong claims to loyalty. Many have an “ethic of divinity,” which holds that people’s principal duty is to God, not themselves. “In such societies,” Haidt writes, “the personal liberty of secular Western nations looks like libertinism, hedonism, and a celebration of humanity’s baser instincts.”

Putin is many things, but he is not a WEIRD. He has been making clear for years that he does not aspire for Russia to become a WEIRD society. The values he promotes are nationalism, authority, loyalty, and religion. Especially religion. As a perceptive post by national security expert John Schindler explains, Putin’s worldview contains a large element of Holy Russia/Third Rome ideology, “a powerful admixture of Orthodoxy, ethnic mysticism, and Slavophile tendencies that has deep resonance in Russian history.” Of course, Putin may be insincere. Like many dictators, he may simply be using religion to his advantage. But, even if his convictions are phony, the challenge he poses to the West is fundamentally a cultural and ideological one.

And many Russians support him. Putin has been extremely good at exploiting the suspicion that many Russians feel about the West and its values—especially America and its values. Notwithstanding Stengel’s assertion, Putin is not acting against the wishes of his own people. Indeed, his popularity at home has been growing since the start of the Ukraine crisis. And, as Schindler explains, it’s not only Russians who think the way Putin does. “There are plenty of people in the world who don’t like Putin or Russia, yet who are happy that someone, somewhere is standing up to American hegemony.” The thuggery in Ukraine will cost him some of this support. But many people will be inclined to dismiss Putin’s conduct as a reassertion of Russia’s traditional interest in its near-abroad.

In other words, our conflict with Russia is not simply about politics, or economics, or even national security. It’s about culture and values. It’s not that Putin insufficiently appreciates what WEIRDness requires. He’s not a WEIRD at all. He doesn’t want to be. The people who run our foreign policy should understand this. If Stengel’s appearance on Friday is any indication, they don’t.

Brendan O'Neill: Same sex "marriage" is inherently coercive, authoritarian, and illiberal

Brendan O'Neill, editor of the British journal Spiked!, says what has needed to be said for a long time about the rush to embrace gay "marriage." It is not a "civil rights" issue, but a most odious form of coercion masquerading as an effort to expand "liberty."

It’s four weeks since Javascript inventor Brendan Eich was hounded out of his job at Mozilla by a virtual mob of intolerant tweeters and campaigners. His crime? Failing to genuflect at the altar of gay marriage, which is now the closest thing our otherwise godless, belief-lite, morally vacuous societies have to a sacred value. For refusing to bow down before this new sainted institution, and for having the temerity to donate money to a campaign group opposed to it, Eich was found guilty by the mob of sacrilege and was hounded out of public life as a modern-day heretic.

And in those four weeks, some gay-marriage backers, feeling more than a little red-faced, have called for the zealots in their camp to get a grip. The treatment of Eich was an example of what happens when bad-apple activists turn crazily self-righteous, they say. British-American writer Andrew Sullivan says the witch-hunting of Eich speaks to the ‘fanaticism’ of certain campaigners, which apparently runs counter to the gay-marriage movement’s desire to create a more ‘tolerant and diverse society’. This week, prominent American liberals and libertarians published an open letter headlined ‘Freedom to Marry, Freedom to Dissent: Why We Must Have Both’, which says the Eich episode showed the ‘eagerness [of] some supporters of same-sex marriage to punish rather than to criticise or to persuade those who disagree’. ‘Enforcing orthodoxy hurts everyone’, the letter says, and gay-marriage campaigners must lobby for the ‘freedom to marry’ in a less hysterical fashion.

It is always refreshing to see people stand up for the freedom to dissent, especially on an issue like gay marriage, on which there’s an astounding amount of nodding-dog conformity. But there is nonetheless something off, something problematic, something wrong about the past month’s burgeoning critical response to the Eich affair. And it’s this: it treats the illiberalism and intolerance hurled Eich’s way as a one-off, an extreme case, an instance of ‘some activists’ going too far, when in truth what happened to Eich is entirely in keeping with the coercive culture of the politics of gay marriage more broadly. To view the hounding of Eich as an aberration, as a veering off the alleged path of diversity mapped out by the gay-marriage campaign, is utterly to miss the point – Eich’s treatment is better seen as the logical conclusion to what has been a strikingly illiberal movement from the get-go.

This is the thing no one in the gay-marriage lobby, or in political and media circles more broadly, seems to want to talk about - the fact that in every jurisdiction in which it has been introduced, gay marriage has been heavily attended by authoritarianism and coercion.

Sometimes the coercion is soft, taking the form of what John Stuart Mill called ‘the tyranny of custom’, where those who refuse to embrace gay marriage - the most speedily formed custom of modern times - will be branded phobic and hateful and perhaps boycotted by agitators, pressured to choose between their moral opposition to same-sex marriage and their place in polite society; you absolutely cannot have both. And sometimes the coercion is hard, involving, in the case of France most obviously, actual state violence against opponents of gay marriage. But whatever form it has taken, coercion has been the order of the day in every campaign to legalise gay marriage, meaning Eich’s fate wasn’t some abnormality - it was part of a pretty scary ‘new normal’, of a sweeping culture of intolerance that has been fostered by the political set pushing gay marriage.

The push for gay "marriage" is inherently coercive and authoritarian, O'Neill says, and its bitter fruit is having devastating consequences throughout the Western world.

Anyone who over the past few years has paid attention to the moral delegitimation of critics of gay marriage, to the state attacks on anti-gay marriage protesters, to the social ostracism of those who favour traditional marriage, to the attempt to force religious schools to teach about gay marriage, and to the Orwellian airbrushing from history of the words and identities cleaved to by the already married, cannot have been surprised by what happened to Eich. His fate wasn’t the product of a handful of zealous campaigners going too far on Twitter - it was the end result of an intolerant culture, sometimes mob-like, sometimes state-enforced, that has been gaining ground for years, and which showed long before the elbowing aside of Eich that it was more than happy to ostracise, punish, criminalise and censor anyone who dared raise a peep of opposition to gay marriage. Coercion is built into gay marriage. They used to say love and marriage went together - in the gay-marriage movement, it’s authoritarianism and marriage that are bedfellows.

The question is: why? Why has the gay-marriage issue been such a shrill and intolerant affair? It isn’t because some campaigners are overly keen and a bit hotheaded; it’s because gay marriage is not actually a campaign to expand equality, far less freedom, but is better seen as the main mechanism through which modern society now challenges traditional cultural norms, through which society expresses its dislocation from, and its growing disdain for, the old-world values of family life, family sovereignty, long-term commitment, loyalty, and so on.

Gay marriage has emerged as the perfect means through which our post-traditional, relativistic elites can both subtly denigrate older values and also impose a set of whole new values, related to viewing traditional married life and family integrity as problematic, and therefore more individuated, changeable forms of human relationships as good. And because this is fundamentally about eradicating old moral values and enforcing new ones, it constantly verges on being coercive, expressing a hostility towards its opponents that tends to treat them, not simply as wrong or pesky, but as actual blocks, as ‘ideological enemies’, to the elite’s attempted enforcement of a new moral outlook.

One of the most striking developments in Western societies in recent years has been the sacralisation of homosexuality, the transformation of sexuality from a simple matter of who you have sex with into a set of values and behaviours. In a very short period of time, historically speaking, homosexuality has gone from being a crime to being possibly the most celebrated way of life in modern Western nations. Indeed, such has been the sacralisation of homosexuality, everywhere from popular culture to the political sphere, that the criminals are now those who criticise gay sex, not those who have it - as witnessed in such acts of authoritarianism as the imposing of a one-month prison sentence on a Swedish pastor who preached against homosexuality, the arrest of a preacher in Dundee for saying homosexuality was a sin, the banning of an advert in London that offended gays, the sending of American experts to Africa to preach about the virtues of homosexuality (in a similar way that Christian colonialists used to preach to Africans about the virtues of the Bible, including, er, anti-homosexual views), and so on. Gay-friendliness has become probably the key barometer of decency in the modern West; and those who fail the test can expect censorship or some other form of punishment.

Read the whole article.

Waning evangelical support for Israel tied to rejection of dispensationalism

Dale M. Coulter, writing today for First Things, observes that waning support for the state of Israel among American evangelicals may be indicative of a shift in theological perspective.

While there is no doubt a push for greater recognition of Palestinian Christians among certain evangelical groups, a key issue that has yet to be addressed is the role of dispensationalism and its view of the End. When John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel is a prominent advocate of a rapture theology, one can be sure dispensationalism is in the background. There is a theological issue at stake in this debate that offers a backdrop for the political debate. Evangelicals who want greater support for Israel ignore this issue at their peril.

Placing the theological foundation of any support for Israel within a dispensational framework is problematic because it weds the issue to a highly debated and controversial theological position. In brief, dispensationalism maintains a clear distinction between Israel and the church although Progressive Dispensationalism sees both as part of the one people of God. God has not forsaken his covenant with the natural descendants of Abraham. The consummation of Christian salvation history will begin with a secret rapture of the church, the point of which is for God to fulfill his plan for Israel. Historical events such as the foundation of the modern state of Israel are viewed as prophetic clues to the approaching of the end.

As understood by John Hagee, Christian Zionism is framed in terms of end-time prophecy. In addition, Hagee weds together biblical texts about blessing Israel to a prosperity message, saying that doing the former will bring the latter. He also suggests that any deviation in support for the state of Israel will lead to divine judgment. Again, this is shaky terrain.

No Reformed person worth their salt theologically would go near dispensationalism or prosperity theology although a “Calvinist” occupying the space between theological worlds might. Even within Pentecostal circles rapture theology is not universally embraced. Premillennialism, the belief that at his second coming Jesus will set up an earthly kingdom is fairly standard, but there is room for divergence on a secret rapture of the church.

The point is that the future of evangelical support for Israel cannot rest upon a theological foundation that divides many Evangelicals from one another. It would not surprise me to discover that there is a correlation between waning support for Israel and a rejection of the rapture theology behind dispensationalism.

The remainder of the article wanders into the weeds with some speculation about the development of "an Evangelical theology of Judaism." Catholics, Orthodox, and some mainline Protestant groups have apparently done a better job of engaging practicing Jews at a deeper theological level, to the point, at times, of making evangelicals nervous about their commitment to the centrality of Christ as the only way to salvation.

Pros and cons of supporting Israel aside, however, the growing rejection of dispensationalism is a welcome sign of theological maturation by many evangelicals. John Hagee's history of fomenting "end times" hysteria and his latest fabrication surrounding the "four blood moons" ought to place him outside the pale of orthodoxy even among the most sectarian of evangelical groups. Russell D. Moore has plotted a more sane (although, I would argue, not yet fully satisfactory) course for future evangelical excursions into the study of last things and, as head of the influential Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, he will likely have a lot more say in plotting that course than will the fast fading figure known not so affectionately as "Dr. Armageddon."

Same sex marriage dissidents: The always insightful Mollie Hemingway at her always insightful best

Underneath the stale ideological pushing and shoving involved in the recent Brendan Eich/Mozilla debacle is a far more substantive issue that really strikes at the heart of a civilized society. Eich's problem is not that he is, to use the oft repeated cliche, "on the wrong side of history" when it comes to the "evolution" of marriage. Rather, he is, like every normal thinking person before him over the last, say, six thousand years, simply right about an institution at the heart of human civilization. There are some things, like the complementarity of men and women, which simply cannot be changed no matter how strong the winds of cultural relativism blow.

The always insightful Mollie Hemingway is at her always insightful best in her latest article for The Federalist. . .

OK. We probably already understand relationships have value, right? Assuming we’re not sociopaths, we do. So what is the difference between marriage and other relationships? There’s no question marriage has been treated dramatically differently than other relationships by governments and society. Why? Is it that it features a more vibrant or emotional connection? Or is there some feature that is a difference in kind – that marks it out as something that ought to be socially structured? We usually don’t want government in our other relationships, right? So why is marriage singled out throughout all time and human history as a different type of recognized relationship?

Well, what singled it out was that sex was involved. Sex. Knocking boots. The bump and grind. Dancing in the sheets. Making the beast with two backs. Doing the cha-cha. And so on and so forth. And why does that matter? Well, there’s precisely one bodily system for which each of us only has half of the system. It’s the one that involves sex between one man and one woman. It’s with respect to that system that the unit is the mated pair. In that system, it’s not just a relationship that is the union of minds, wills or important friendships. It’s the literal union of bodies. In sexual congress, in intercourse between a man and a woman, you are literally coordinated to a single bodily end.

In every other respect we as humans act as individual organisms except when it comes to intercourse between men and women — then we work together as one flesh. Coordination toward that end — even when procreation is not achieved — makes the unity here. This is what marriage law was about. Not two friends building a house together. Or two people doing other sexual activities together. It was about the sexual union of men and women and a refusal to lie about what that union and that union alone produces: the propagation of humanity. This is the only way to make sense of marriage laws throughout all time and human history. Believing in this truth is not something that is wrong, and should be a firing offense. It’s not something that’s wrong, but should be protected speech. It’s actually something that’s right. It’s right regardless of how many people say otherwise. If you doubt the truth of this reality, consider your own existence, which we know is due to one man and one woman getting together. Consider the significance of what this means for all of humanity, that we all share this.

Now if one wants to change marriage laws to reflect something else, that’s obviously something that one can aim to do. We’ve seen the rapid, frequently unthinking embrace of that change in recent years, described one year ago in the humanist and libertarian magazine Spiked as “a case study in conformism” that should terrify “anyone who values diversity of thought and tolerance of dissent.”

Perhaps there should have been a bit of a burden of proof on those who wanted to change the institution — something beyond crying “Bigot!” in a crowded theater. Perhaps advocates of the change should have explained at some point, I don’t know, what singles out marriage as unique from other relationships under this new definition. What is marriage? That’s a good question to answer, particularly if you want to radically alter the one limiting factor that is present throughout all history. Once we get an answer for what this new marriage definition is, perhaps our media and other elites could spend some time thinking about the consequences of that change. Does it in any way affect the right of children to be raised by their own mother and father? Have we forgotten why that’s an important norm? Either way, does it change the likelihood that children will be raised by their own mother and father? Does it by definition make that an impossibility for whatever children are raised by same-sex couples? Do we no longer believe that children should be raised by their own mother and father? Did we forget to think about children in this debate, pretending that it’s only about adults? In any case, is this something that doesn’t matter if males and females are interchangeable? Is it really true that there are no significant differences between mothers and fathers? Really? Are we sure we need to accept that lie? Are we sure we want to?

. . . and it only gets better, so please keep reading.

Matt Walsh on the inevitable downfall of the "gay rights" movement

The present advance of the "gay rights" movement, illustrated so egregiously in the firing of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, is a temporary phenomenon. Like all tyrannical movements, it will have its day and then take its place alongside all other such aberrations on the ash heap of history. As Matt Walsh points out, it is inevitable.

Don’t you people read? Haven’t you learned anything from history? ‘Advancements’ earned through tyranny never endure. You can only win a debate by suffocating your opposition for so long. Your strategy is doomed for failure, because it has always failed.

In the name of ‘fighting for the freedom to love,’ you’ve utilized hate. For the sake of ‘tolerance,’ you’ve wielded bigotry. In order to push ‘diversity,’ you’ve been dogmatic.

You are everything you accuse your opponents of being, and you stand for all the evil things that you claim they champion.

You are exposed. We see you for what you are: a force of destruction and division.

You showed your hand, and now you’ll lose the game.

It’s inevitable.

Marriage has, had, and always will have, by definition, a certain character and purpose; a character and purpose centered around, above all things, the family. Marriage is the foundation through which a thriving and lasting civilization sees to the propagation of itself. Human beings can only reproduce by means of ‘heterosexuality,’ and this reality sets the ‘heterosexual’ union apart. Marriage is meant to be the context in which this reproduction occurs.

Marriage is many things, but it is also this. And ‘this’ can never be removed from it, no matter the direction of the political winds, or the motion of the shifting sands of public opinion.

Marriage and the family are dimensions of the same whole. They cannot be detached from one another. They, as a whole, as an institution, can only be weakened — not erased or redefined. And so the campaign to protect and strengthen the institution was and is designed to do just that. It was never about ‘legislating love’ or imposing intolerance or ‘discriminating against gay people,’ or any other silly bumper sticker platitude.

You want to be free to love? You are. You always have been.

Heterosexuals don’t claim to monopolize love; only reproduction. Me, I love in many ways and in many directions. I love my wife, yes, and I also love my parents, and my country, and football, and hamburgers. These are all different kinds and degrees of love, yet still love.

But, alas, only one of these loves can (or should) result in the creation of a biological family. Thus, this love carries with it a certain distinction and a certain responsibility.

Bigotry? There is nothing bigoted about it. This is mere science. You see, bigotry only enters into the conversation when you try to destroy a man’s life just for participating in the conversation.

You are the agents of bigotry, my friends. You. You are what you say we are.

Andrew Walker on World Vision and evangelical identity

If you were unfortunate enough to read Tony Jones and Rachel Held Evans today, you might mistakenly think the evangelical world is full of "spiritual bullies" and rigid ideologues who simply will not tolerate dissent, especially in the form of a para-church organization softening its standards on marriage. Jones and Evans are among the more strident voices of nominal evangelicalism's whiny, overgrown adolescent fringe. They would do well to heed the admonitions about spiritual maturity from Paul and Peter, among others. Matt Kennedy offers the "Rachel Held Evans Rule" as a criterion for determining the good or evil of particular actions.

Conversely, Andrew Walker, writing today for First Things, sums up with remarkable clarity what the recent World Vision episode demonstrates about "evangelical identity."

In American evangelicalism, you can’t believe in anything you want and call yourself an evangelical. That what Mainline Protestantism is for. That’s the route that “professional dissidents” like Rachel Held Evans want evangelicalism to become, but that only leads to eternal pottage.

World Vision reversed course, ostensibly, from an outpouring of criticism from conservative Christians all over the United States. To the lot of us, there seemed to be something inconsistent about a Christian organization making marriage an adiaphora—something up for negation, or compromise. And that’s why I remain skeptical at trend lines that suggest that younger evangelicals will embrace same-sex marriage. It defies precedent. In each age, intellectual surrender and compromise has stood before the church, yet she keeps on going. The faith persists. As G. K. Chesterton said that bears repeating: “Time and again, the Faith has to all appearances gone to the dogs. But each time, it was the dog that died.”

In a day where American views of sexuality are fracturing, the World Vision episode reveals that the gravitational center of evangelicalism remains decidedly biblical. The challenge before us today is to keep it that way.

Modes of baptism may be negotiable, but even then, we all insist that it is water that must be present. The same couldn’t be said about the bitter pill World Vision was asking evangelicalism to swallow. Evangelicals know that the structure and design of human embodiment has a biblical telos to it, that marriage is something, but World Vision was saying something different.

We weren’t having it. But there were no Papal Bulls. There were no Councils. There were no Synods. There was only evangelicalism with Bibles open, recognizing that a line had been crossed.

Good for World Vision in correcting course. This episode will subside, and wounds will heal. Their integrity remains intact. Their steps to reverse a horrifically wrong stance are commendable. And good for evangelicalism to have the identity it does to know what its identity is and isn’t.

Reno: "Gay marriage" and growing societal inequality

First Things editor R.R. Reno finally says something that has needed to be said for a very long time. "Marriage equality" and just about everything else associated with the "gay rights" movement is neither about marriage nor equality. On the contrary, it is all about privilege for society's elite at the expense of the poor and most vulnerable among us.

The Human Rights Campaign, a leader in gay rights, claims to promote marriage equality. If you’re one of the small minority of gays and lesbians in America who wants to get married, I suppose that makes sense. But viewed with any degree of objectivity, it’s an absurd claim, because it ignores the increasingly profound marriage inequality in society at large.

The Human Rights Campaign and supporters of gay marriage from Andrew Cuomo to Alan Simpson also ignore an inconvenient fact: the striking correspondence of the increasingly elite support for sexual freedom and the accelerating growth of marriage inequality. As the Human Rights Campaign succeeds in achieving its goals of normalizing homosexuality and securing same-sex marriage, poor America gets hit with declining economic prospects and a zippy, new, postmodern marriage culture that works for the rich but not for them. Elton John gets a husband and baby while the ordinary Jims and Janes in America get—nothing.

Culture is not a machine. You can’t directly trace alterations to this movement or that change in the law to broad social changes of the sort we’re seeing in the growing marriage inequality. But is it really so difficult to see that gay marriage is today’s luxury good for the rich that’s being paid for by the poor? Apparently so.

To carry Reno's point just a little further: The "LGBTQ community," that which Reno refers to as "the small minority of gays and lesbians in America who wants to get married," ought not be confused with the larger majority of persons struggling with homosexual inclinations who either wish simply to be left alone or to be freed from their bondage to sin. The latter group can always find refuge and healing in the arms of Jesus and his church. It is the former group, the one which revels in its lasciviousness, that desires neither forgiveness nor acceptance by the church, yet constantly badgers her for refusing to offer either.

The oft repeated claim that "LGBTQ people" are today's equivalent of the "tax collectors and sinners" with whom Jesus kept company is little more than an attempt to trivialize the very real problem of human sinfulness. Taken as a whole, deviant sexuality is only one aspect, and a relatively minuscule one, of the "gay lifestyle." It is, by an large, a lifestyle of the rich and famous. Far more objectionable, and morally repulsive, than its sexual component is the extravagance, arrogance, and avarice of its most visible advocates. The "tax collectors and sinners" came to Jesus for one simple reason. They knew they were no good. Today's "gay rights" advocates, who never tire of boasting about their own goodness and virtue, have far more in common with the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other men, than with the tax collector who cried out to God for mercy.

What would Jesus do? He would change water into wine!

I have noted before the limits of the "What would Jesus do?" principle. It will do as an elementary principle, but it will never do as the basis for a well rounded Christology. It invests too much in Jesus as a moral example and not enough in him as Savior and Lord.

Kirsten Powers is a new Christian and, her faith having not come to full maturity, she can be excused for asking the ridiculous question, "Would Jesus bake a cake for a gay couple?" and offering an equally ridiculous answer. Skye Jethani and Jonathan Merritt, however, do not get off so lightly. They should know better, but apparently don't.

Now, I am not going to waste anyone's time considering the pro's and con's of Christians baking cakes for "gay weddings." That is a superficial issue so sadly illustrative of the superficial times in which we live. Bringing Jesus into the discussion, in the hypothetical manner in which the above mentioned authors have, only adds to the superficiality.

Jesus was a carpenter, so the question of whether or not he would bake a cake is irrelevant to the discussion. What we do know about Jesus and weddings, however, is pretty clear from Scripture.

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

(John 2:1-11 ESV)

Previously, I wrote concerning this passage:

The church’s message about salvation has often been one-dimensional focusing, in some circles, on this particular aspect while, in other circles, on that particular aspect. The result, quite predictably, is a superficial “gospel” that is more death than life.

Today’s Gospel reading reminds us that salvation is not merely redemption and healing—on a superficial level—but restoration to fullness of life or, as Eugene Peterson has put it, “Life, life, and more life.”

Throughout John’s Gospel, salvation is synonymous with life. Jesus says in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” What he does at the wedding in Cana illustrates this profoundly. No one is sick, no one is hungry, and the people hosting the wedding are certainly not destitute. Yet, Jesus acts anyway, invigorating a feast that was about to die before its time with new, vibrant, abundant life.

It is crucial that the church today proclaim, in both word and deed, the entirety of the Gospel message of salvation as fullness of life. Our culture today devalues life. The life of the unborn, of the elderly, of the disabled all seem to become more expendable as they become more inconvenient. I saw an article the other day about two twins in Belgium who were already deaf and going blind. They decided to euthanize themselves because they couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing each other anymore. Wickedness masquerades as compassion when the culture of death reigns.

The Jesus we encounter in the Gospels is not merely some moral teacher whose example we seek to emulate when faced with an ethical dilemma. He is God incarnate, the Word made flesh, the Lord of creation who comes to transform us out of death into new and unending life.

So let us be done with all this superficial talk about Jesus and wedding cakes. Jesus is not interested in baking cakes. He is interested in changing water into wine!