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.

Andrew Wilson's brilliant parody has the heretics squealing. . .

. . . like the pigs they are. Folks, it just doesn't get any better than this:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to worship idols. It’s not that my parents raised me that way, because they didn’t; I was brought up in a loving, secure, Christian home. But from childhood until today, my heart has been drawn to idolatry. In fact, if I’m honest, one of the defining features of my identity has been my desire to put something else – popularity, money, influence, sex, success – in place of God.

That’s just who I am.

For many years, I was taught that idolatry was sinful. As a good Christian, I fought the desire to commit idolatry, and repented when I got it wrong. But the desire to worship idols never went away.

I wanted it to, but it didn’t.

So it has been such a blessing to discover that worshipping one God, and him alone, isn’t for everyone. There are thousands of Christians out there who have found faithful, loving ways of expressing worship both to God and to idols, without compromising either their faith or their view of Scripture. In recent years, I have finally summoned the courage to admit that I am one of them. Let me give you a few reasons why I believe that idolatry and Christianity are compatible.

I start with my own story, and the stories of many others like me. I am an evangelical, and I have a very high view of the Bible – I am currently studying for a PhD in biblical studies at King’s College London, which will be my third theology degree – as well as knowing both the ancient languages and the state of scholarly research. Yet, after much prayerful study, I have discovered the liberating truth that it is possible to be an idolatrous Christian. That, at least, is evidence that you can be an evangelical and an idolater.

Not only that, but a number of evangelical writers have been challenging the monolatrous narrative in a series of scholarly books. A number of these provide a powerful case for listening to the diversity of the ancient witnesses in their original contexts, and call for a Christlike approach of humility, openness and inclusion towards our idolatrous brothers and sisters.

Some, on hearing this, will of course want to rush straight to the “clobber passages” in Paul’s letters (which we will consider in a moment), in a bid to secure the fundamentalist ramparts and shut down future dialogue. But as we consider the scriptural material, two things stand out. Firstly, the vast majority of references to idols and idolatry in the Bible come in the Old Testament – the same Old Testament that tells us we can’t eat shellfish or gather sticks on Saturdays. When advocates of monolatry eat bacon sandwiches and drive cars at the weekend, they indicate that we should move beyond Old Testament commandments in the new covenant, and rightly so.

Secondly, and even more significantly, we need to read the whole Bible with reference to the approach of Jesus. To be a Christian is to be a Jesus-person: one whose life is based on his priorities, not on the priorities of subsequent theologians. And when we look at Jesus, we notice that he welcomed everyone who came to him, including those people that the (one-God worshipping) religious leaders rejected – and that Jesus said absolutely nothing about idols in any of the four Gospels. Conservative theologians, many of whom are friends of mine, often miss this point in the cut-and-thrust of debate, but for those who love Jesus, it should be at the very heart of the discussion.

Jesus had no problem with idolatry.

He included everyone, however many gods they worshipped.

If we want to be like him, then we should adopt the same inclusive approach.

We should also remember that, as we have discovered more about the human brain, we have found out all sorts of things about idolatry that the biblical writers simply did not know. The prophets and apostles knew nothing of cortexes and neurons, and had no idea that some people are pre-wired to commit idolatry, so they never talked about it. But as we have learned more about genetics, neural pathways, hormones and so on, we have come to realise that some tendencies - alcoholism, for example - scientifically result from the way we are made, and therefore cannot be the basis for moral disapproval or condemnation. To disregard the findings of science on this point is like continuing to insist that the world is flat.

With all of these preliminary ideas in place, we can finally turn to Paul, who has sadly been used as a judgmental battering ram by monolaters for centuries. When we do, what immediately strikes us is that in the ultimate “clobber passage”, namely Romans 1, the problem isn’t really idol-worship at all! The problem, as Paul puts it, is not that people worship idols, but that they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (1:23). Paul isn’t talking about people who are idolatrous by nature. He is talking about people who were naturally worshippers of Israel’s God, and exchanged it for the worship of idols. What else could the word “exchange” here possibly mean?

Not only that, but none of his references apply to idolatry as we know it today: putting something above God in our affections. Paul, as a Hellenistic Roman citizen, simply would not have had a category for that kind of thing. In his world, idolatry meant physically bowing down to tribal or household deities – statues and images made of bronze or wood or stone – and as such, the worship of power or money or sex or popularity had nothing to do with his prohibitions. (Some see an exception in the way he talks about coveting as idolatry in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5, but these obviously reflect his desire, as a first century Jew, to honour the Ten Commandments.)

In other words, when Paul talks about idolatry, he is not talking about the worship of idols as we know it today. As a Christ-follower, he would be just as horrified as Jesus if he saw the way his words have been twisted to exclude modern idolaters like me, and like many friends of mine. For centuries, the church has silenced the voice of idolaters (just like it has silenced the voice of slaves, and women), and it is about time we recognised that neither Jesus, nor Paul, had any problem with idolatry.

Obviously this is a contribution to an ongoing conversation, rather than the last word on the subject. But I hope you will all search the scriptures, search your hearts, and consider the evidence afresh - and avoid judging those who disagree in the meantime! Maybe, just maybe, we can make space in the church for those who, like me, have spent a lifetime wrestling with the challenge of idolatry.

Robert Gagnon: Jesus, Scripture, and the Myth of New Knowledge Arguments about Homosexual Unions

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).

Dr. Robert Gagnon on the Bible and homosexual practice

This seven-part video series by Dr. Robert Gagnon is perhaps the most thorough and scholarly presentation on the subject of the Bible and homosexual practice available online. H/T to Stephen Black and Dr. Gagnon himself.

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.

George: Stand up to the bullies!

From Robert P. George's Facebook page this morning, a call for people of all faiths to stand up to the godless bullies who are intent on imposing their will on every sector of society.

Mozilla has now made its employment policy clear.

No Catholics need apply.

Or Evangelical Christians.

Or Eastern Orthodox.

Or Orthodox Jews.

Or Mormons.

Or Muslims.

Unless, that is, you are the "right kind" of Catholic, Evangelical, Eastern Orthodox Christian, observant Jew, Mormon, or Muslim, namely, the kind who believes your religious or philosophical tradition is wrong about the nature of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and the view now dominant among secular elites is correct. In that case, Mozilla will consider you morally worthy to work for them. Or maybe you can work for them even if you do happen to believe (or should I say "believe") your faith's teaching---so long as you keep your mouth shut about it: "Don't ask, don't tell."

You are disqualified from employment, however, if you reveal your alleged "bigotry" and "cause pain" by stating your convictions. And you are certainly disqualified if you do anything to advance the historic understanding of marriage as a conjugal union in the public square. You see, that's what Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich was discovered to have done---he made a contribution of $1000 to the successful effort to defend marriage in California in 2008. Like the majority of California voters, he thought it best for the state to retain its conjugal marriage law. Recently that historical fact came to light. And in less than a week Eich was gone.

You can bet its not just Mozilla. Now that's the bullies have Eich's head as a trophy on their wall, they will put the heat on every other corporation and major employer. They will pressure them to refuse employment to those who decline to conform their views to the new orthodoxy. And you can also bet that it won't end with same-sex marriage. Next, it will be support for the pro-life cause that will be treated as moral turpitude in the same way that support for marriage is treated. Do you believe in protecting unborn babies from being slain in the womb? Why then "you are a misogynist. You are a hater of women. You are a bigot. We can't have a person like you working for our company." And there will be other political and moral issues, too, that will be treated as litmus tests for eligibility for employment. The defenestration of Eich by people at Mozilla for dissenting from the new orthodoxy on marriage is just the beginning.

Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, observant Jews, Muslims, and others had better stand together and face down the bullies, and they had better do it now, or else they will be resigning themselves and their families to a very unhappy status in this society. A very unhappy status indeed. When tactics of intimidation succeed, their success ensures that they will be used more and more often in more and more contexts to serve more and more causes. And standing up to intimidation will become more and more difficult. And more and more costly. And more and more dangerous.

Mohler on World Vision: Pointing to disaster

Evangelical leaders continue to offer responses to World Vision's insane capitulation to the culture. Albert Mohler is not persuaded by World Vision president Richard Stearns' rationale for the decision, and sees nothing but disaster ahead for the once venerable relief agency.

Richard Stearns has every right to try to make his case, but these arguments are pathetically inadequate. Far more than that, his arguments reveal basic issues that every Christian ministry, organization, church, and denomination will have to face — and soon.

The distinction between an “operational arm” of the church and a “theological arm” is a fatal misreading of reality. World Vision claims a Christian identity, claims to serve the kingdom of Christ, and claims a theological rationale for its much-needed ministries to the poor and distressed. It cannot surrender theological responsibility when convenient and then claim a Christian identity and a theological mandate for ministry.

Add to this the fact that World Vision claims not to have compromised the authority of Scripture, even as its U.S. president basically throws the Bible into a pit of confusion by suggesting that the Bible is not sufficiently clear on the question of the morality of same-sex sexuality. Stearns insists that he is not compromising biblical authority even as he undermines confidence that the church can understand and trust what the Bible reveals about same-sex sexuality.

The policy shift points back to a basic problem with World Vision’s understanding of the church. No organization can serve on behalf of churches across the vast theological and moral spectrum that would include clearly evangelical denominations, on the one hand, and liberal denominations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, and the United Church of Christ, on the other. That might work if World Vision were selling church furniture, but not when the mission of the organization claims a biblical mandate.

Furthermore, it is ridiculous to argue that World Vision is not taking sides on the issue. The objective fact is that World Vision will now employ openly-gay employees involved in openly homosexual relationships. There is no rational sense in claiming that this represents neutrality.

In his final comment included in Christianity Today‘s coverage of the issue, Richard Stearns stated: “I’m hoping this may inspire unity among others as well. To say how we come together across some differences and still join together as brothers and sisters in Christ in our common mission of building the kingdom.”

Note carefully that his language is deeply theological — not just “operational.” He speaks of being “brothers and sisters in Christ” and of “building the kingdom.” What kingdom? Whose kingdom?

Writing to the Corinthian Christians, the Apostle Paul stated: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” [1 Corinthians 6:9-10]

The leader of World Vision U.S. now claims that the Bible is not sufficiently clear on the sinfulness of same-sex sexuality and relationships, but he also claims a “mission of building the kingdom.” The Apostle Paul makes homosexuality a kingdom issue, and he does so in the clearest of terms.

Of course, Paul’s point is not that homosexuals are uniquely sinful, but that all of us are sinners in need of the grace and mercy of God that come to us in the gift of salvation. Thanks be to God, Paul follows those words with these: “And such were some of you. 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 Corinthians 6:11]

The worst aspect of the World Vision U.S. policy shift is the fact that it will mislead the world about the reality of sin and the urgent need of salvation. Willingly recognizing same-sex marriage and validating openly homosexual employees in their homosexuality is a grave and tragic act that confirms sinners in their sin — and that is an act that violates the gospel of Christ.

World Vision has made a decisive difference in millions of lives around the world. Its humanitarian work is urgently important in a world of unspeakable need. Last year the organization had a total financial reach of almost $3 billion. Its scale and expertise are unprecedented in the Christian world. That is what makes this policy shift so ominous and threatening.

"Unity" at the expense of truth is a false unity built upon a false premise. World Vision, rather than holding fast to the truth of the Gospel, has allowed itself to become infected by the leaven of a handful of wayward mainline denominations which have abandoned that truth. It is a tragedy which will have devastating consequences for suffering children throughout the world.

Needless suffering will follow World Vision's needless capitulation

When an ostensibly Christian organization has to preface a policy change by saying it is not capitulating to the prevailing culture, then you can be quite certain that organization has, in fact, capitulated, surrendered, and sold out to the nefarious forces of godlessness. That is what World Vision has done with its announcement today that it will begin hiring "gay Christians" (oxymoron) who are in legally recognized "same sex marriages." It is a stupefyingly short-sighted decision which is sure to have serious repercussions across the evangelical world. Russell Moore gets to the heart of the matter with his excellent essay in response to the news.

World Vision, an evangelical relief organization, announced today that they would now hire persons who are in same-sex marriages. The organization said, further, that this was no capitulation, just a recognition that some groups supporting World Vision have differing views on sex and marriage.

This is no surprise, on one level. The constellation of parachurch evangelical ministries founded after World War II have been running headlong, with some notable exceptions, toward the very mainline liberalism to which they were founded as alternatives. Some think if we can just barter away Christian orthodoxy fast enough we can catch the wave of that Presbyterian Church (USA) church growth boom.

But here’s what’s at stake. This isn’t, as the World Vision statement (incredibly!) puts it, the equivalent of a big tent on baptism, church polity, and so forth.

At stake is the gospel of Jesus Christ. If sexual activity outside of a biblical definition of marriage is morally neutral, then, yes, we should avoid making an issue of it. If, though, what the Bible clearly teaches and what the church has held for 2000 years is true, then refusing to call for repentance is unspeakably cruel and, in fact, devilish.

The devil works in two ways: by deception, “You shall not surely die” (Gen. 3:4); and by accusation, “the accuser of the brethren” (Rev 12:10). For some people, the devil wishes to assure that there’s no need for repentance, for others that there’s no hope for mercy. Some people are deceived into thinking they are too good for the gospel while others are accused into thinking they’re too bad for the gospel.

The gospel of Jesus Christ tears down both strategies. The gospel clearly calls us to repentance, even when that repentance is hated by the outside world. And the gospel clearly calls us to mercy by faith in the blood of Christ, even when we can’t believe that we’d ever be received.

We empower darkness when we refuse to warn of judgment. We empower the darkness when we refuse to offer forgiveness through the blood of the cross.

We’re entering an era where we will see who the evangelicals really are, and by that I mean those who believe in the gospel itself, in all of its truth and all of its grace. And many will shrink back. There are no riots if the gospel you’re preaching doesn’t threaten the silversmiths of the Temple of Artemis. And there are no clucking tongues if the gospel you’re preaching isn’t offered to tax collectors and temple prostitutes.

There’s an entire corps of people out there who make their living off of evangelicals but who are wanting to “evolve” on the sexuality issue without alienating their base. I don’t mind people switching sides and standing up for things that they believe in. But just be honest about what you want to do. Don’t say “Hath God said?” and then tell us you’re doing it to advance the gospel and the unity of the church.

Donor bases come and go. But the gospel of Jesus Christ stands forever.

World Vision is a good thing to have, unless the world is all you can see.

Trevin Wax sees devastating consequences for the weakest among us, not merely because of World Vision's decision (which is only a symptom) but, much moreso, because of the increasingly heathen social ethic that is behind it.

No matter what you think about this decision, I hope you feel a sense of grief… for the children. This is a story of deep and lasting significance, because there are children’s lives at stake in how we respond.

Children will suffer as evangelicals lose trust in and withdraw support from World Vision in the future. It will take time for evangelicals to start new organizations that maintain historic Christian concepts of sin, faith, and repentance.

In the meantime, children will suffer. Needlessly.

That’s why critics of the evangelical outcry toward World Vision will say, Get over it! Kids matter more than what men and women choose to do romantically!

Strangely enough, we agree. In fact, this is one of the main reasons we’re against redefining marriage. We believe kids matter more than gays and lesbians having romantic relationships enshrined as “marriage.”

Children are the ones who suffer when society says there’s no difference between a mom or a dad.

Children are the ones who suffer when a couple’s romantic interests outstrip a child’s healthy development, whether in no-fault easy divorce laws, or in the redefining of society’s central institution.

Children are the ones who suffer when Mom and Dad choose to live together, as if their relationship is one lengthy trial or audition, a decision that can’t provide their children with the security that comes from marriage.

Children are the ones who suffer when careers matter more than marriage, when romance matters more than reproduction, when sex is a commodity, when a marriage culture is undermined.

Children are the ones who suffer when organizations like World Vision, under the guise of neutrality, adopt policies that enshrine a false definition of marriage in the very statement that says no position will be taken.

Children are the ones who suffer when President Obama (rightly) mourns the rampant fatherlessness in the African-American community, while simultaneously campaigning for marriage laws that would make fathers totally unnecessary.

Children are the ones who suffer and die when “sexual freedom” means the right of a mother to take the life of her unborn child.

Sex is our god. Children are our sacrifice.

So, yes, we grieve for the children across the world who will be adversely affected by World Vision’s decision and the evangelical response.

But we also grieve for children here at home who are growing up in a culture in which sexual idolatry distorts the meaning of marriage and the beauty of God’s original design.

Today is a day to grieve for the children.

Needless suffering will follow needless capitulation.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

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.

Mohler: Fred Phelps preached a false gospel

Timely words from Albert Mohler, upon the death of cult leader Fred Phelps:

Fred Phelps became infamous due to one central fact — he was a world-class hater. He brought great discredit to the Gospel of Christ because his message was undiluted hatred packaged as the beliefs of a church. Even Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center referred to Westboro Baptist Church as “this so-called church.” The damage was due to the fact that his platform for hatred was called a church. That provided the watching and listening world with a ready target and case study for the accusation that Christian conviction on questions of sexual morality is nothing more than disguised hatred for homosexuals. And, like radioactivity, Fred Phelps’ hatred will survive in lasting half-lives of animus.

The media made Fred Phelps into a public image, but they could hardly ignore a prophet of antipathy who showed up with his followers in public demonstrations and took his case for public protest all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. Phelps and the media needed each other and fed each other. The New York Times described Phelps as “a loathed figure at the fringe of the American religious scene,” but he was not a fringe figure in terms of media attention. I have done my best not to add to his publicity, but as calls from the media in recent days made clear, the time has come for a necessary word.

Fred Phelps claimed to preach against homosexuality, calling out sin as sin. “The way to prove you love your neighbor is to warn them that they’re committing sin,” he said in 2004. That is the full lie of a half truth. The way you prove you love your neighbor is to be honest about sin — including our own sin — in order to tell the good news of the forgiveness of sin and salvation in Christ.

Phelps knew exactly what he was doing. As The Washington Post reported yesterday: “He found comfort in being a pariah. ‘If I had nobody mad at me, what right would I have to claim that I was preaching the gospel?’”

But that raises the most emphatic point — it was not the gospel that Fred Phelps was preaching. The gospel is the declaration of the good news that God saves sinners. It is the declaration of the fact that there is forgiveness of sins and life everlasting to be found in Christ and in belief in Him, and that is not the message for which Fred Phelps was known and hated.

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!

Joe Carter: We cannot be followers of Christ and promoters of evil

Coming alongside Michael W. Hannon's excellent article from last week, Joe Carter explains why "sexual orientation" is not analogous to race and, therefore, not a legitimate criterion for anti-discrimination laws.

What Is Sexual Orientation?

Critics of orthodox Christianity often claim that the writers of the Bible had no conception of sexual orientation in the way that we use the term today. I suspect they are right. Some Christians (including me) believe that the phrase sexual orientation should be abandoned altogether since it is a harmful social construct.

The phrase itself is rather new. It was almost never used before 1920, and only really entered common usage in the 1970s during the early gay rights movement. Since then, the term has expanded and contracted based largely on the political needs of activists. The typical definition of the term, for instance, the one used by the American Psychological Association, is that a sexual orientation "refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions."

The three broad categories of sexual orientation are heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual, though there are other distinct—and often problematic—orientations as well. A prime example is pedophilia.

We can either say that pedophilia is a distinct sexual orientation, or we can say that it is a paraphilia associated with one of the three main orientations. For the past three decades this latter option has largely been rejected by the LGBTQ community. They insist there is no link between homosexuality and pedophilia. As a 2012 Huffington Post article says, "Quite often, pedophiles never develop a sexual orientation toward other adults." However, if it is true that pedophiles don't develop an orientation to other adults, and hence are neither heterosexual nor homosexual, then pedophilia must be a distinct sexual orientation.

This has been the commonsense view, though it too has been rejected by the LGBTQ activists since it makes the protection of sexual orientation as a generic class not only problematic, but morally reprehensible. If they are being honest, what they want is not a protection for all sexual orientations but only for orientations that can be applied to adult homosexuals. What LGBTQ activists want is a special exemption for a special subset of sexual orientations.

The 'Morally Neutral' Criteria

But let's grant, for the sake of argument, that we are warranted in carving out a special exemption for a particular type of sexual orientation (adult homosexuals). Is homosexual orientation and behavior morally neutral?

The obvious Christian answer is "no." There has never been a time in the history of Christianity—or even of Western Civilization—when sexuality has been considered a morally neutral characteristic of humans. Homosexuality, in particular, has historically been viewed by orthodox Christians as immoral behavior.

How then do LGBTQ supporters make the case that homosexuality is morally neutral and morally uncontroversial? By claiming that it is unreasonable to oppose homosexuality. And how do they do that? By claiming it is a morally neutral trait akin to race.

This argument fails, however, because it relies on a form of the logical fallacy called circular reasoning. Circular reasoning is often of the form: "A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true." The LGBTQ argument is rooted in the idea that "Homosexual orientation is akin to race because it is morally neutral; and it is morally neutral because it is akin to race." The argument needs an extra premise that ties homosexuality to race. The most common one cited is the impact of discrimination.

The Economic and Political Impact Criteria

The most obvious reason why the connection between homosexuality and race fails is because it does not currently lead to a detrimental economic and political impact. I won't belabor the point, since it is so obvious that LGBTQ advocates rarely attempt to claim that being gay is politically and economically harmful.

While individual cases obviously vary, as a class homosexuals have more political and economic power than any other minority group in America. The idea that homosexuals suffer the same detrimental impact as African Americans is so ridiculous that no one even bothers to seriously make such a claim.

What the Issue Is Really About

The main difference between antidiscrimination laws based on race and on sexual orientation is that the former were intended to recognize a morally neutral characteristic, while the latter is an effort to reclassify a non-neutral characteristic as morally good.

In previous decades this point was talked about, but not made obvious. As the LGBTQ journalist and activist Randy Shilts once said, the gay political agenda is "essentially a battle for social legitimacy." Similarly, Frank Kameny, an early leader of the homosexual rights movement, said in 1964:

I take the stand that not only is homosexuality . . . not immoral, but that homosexual acts engaged in by consenting adults are moral, in a positive and real sense, and are right, good, and desirable, both for the individual participants and for the society in which they live.

This is the position of most, if not all, members of the LGBTQ community today. It is also widely shared by many Christians, despite that fact that is wholly and unequivocally incompatible with Christian belief. Christians who support making sexual orientation a protected class are not, as some mistakenly believe, supporting a morally neutral position; they are helping to transform and reframe the idea of sexual orientation—specifically homosexuality—as a moral good.

Should We Be Forced to View Homosexuality as 'Morally Good'?

That is the stated goal of antidiscrimination laws based on sexual orientation: such legislation compels people, by force of law, to recognize that sexual activities are morally good and provides a basis for societal censure for disagreeing with that viewpoint.

As Americans, we have a constitutional right to lobby the government to recognize and promote our favorite types of sin. We should not be surprised, then, to find secular LGBTQ activists promoting their views in the public square, even when their arguments are morally problematic, illogical, and offensive to racial minorities.

What we should not tolerate, however, is the efforts of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to promote laws that promote destructive behavior as morally good. We cannot love our neighbor by encouraging them to engage in actions that invoke God's wrath (Psalm 5:4-5; Romans 1:18). As Christians we may be required to tolerate ungodly behavior, but the moment we begin to endorse the same then we too have become suppressers of the truth. We cannot love our neighbor and want to see them excluded from the kingdom of Christ (Eph. 5:5).

We must, therefore, challenge our fellow believers who are promoting hate by claiming that discrimination based on sexual behavior is similar to racial bigotry and Jim Crow-style segregation laws. These types of claims that sexual orientation is analogous to race are unbiblical, racially insensitive, and morally repugnant. We must correct such misperceptions in a spirit of gentleness and truth. But we must also do so forcefully and make it clear that we cannot be followers of Christ and promoters of evil.

Michael W. Hannon: Against heterosexuality

Michael W. Hannon challenges the conventional wisdom surrounding the novel concept of "sexual orientation." It is a refutation that is long overdue. Here is his opening salvo, but please read the whole article at First Things.

Alasdair MacIntyre once quipped that “facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a seventeenth-century invention.” Something similar can be said about sexual orientation: Heterosexuals, like typewriters and urinals (also, obviously, for gentlemen), were an invention of the 1860s. Contrary to our cultural preconceptions and the lies of what has come to be called “orientation essentialism,” “straight” and “gay” are not ageless absolutes. Sexual orientation is a conceptual scheme with a history, and a dark one at that. It is a history that began far more recently than most people know, and it is one that will likely end much sooner than most people think.

Over the course of several centuries, the West had progressively abandoned Christianity’s marital architecture for human sexuality. Then, about one hundred and fifty years ago, it began to replace that longstanding teleological tradition with a brand new creation: the absolutist but absurd taxonomy of sexual orientations. Heterosexuality was made to serve as this fanciful framework’s regulating ideal, preserving the social prohibitions against sodomy and other sexual debaucheries without requiring recourse to the procreative nature of human sexuality.

On this novel account, same-sex sex acts were wrong not because they spurn the rational-animal purpose of sex—namely the family—but rather because the desire for these actions allegedly arises from a distasteful psychological disorder. As queer theorist Hanne Blank recounts, “This new concept [of heterosexuality], gussied up in a mangled mix of impressive-sounding dead languages, gave old orthodoxies a new and vibrant lease on life by suggesting, in authoritative tones, that science had effectively pronounced them natural, inevitable, and innate.”

Sexual orientation has not provided the dependable underpinning for virtue that its inventors hoped it would, especially lately. Nevertheless, many conservative-minded Christians today feel that we should continue to enshrine the gay–straight divide and the heterosexual ideal in our popular catechesis, since that still seems to them the best way to make our moral maxims appear reasonable and attractive.

These Christian compatriots of mine are wrong to cling so tightly to sexual orientation, confusing our unprecedented and unsuccessful apologia for chastity with its eternal foundation. We do not need “heteronormativity” to defend against debauchery. On the contrary, it is just getting in our way.

The Church of England's oxymoronic gospel of sin management

Among the more benighted pronouncements emanating from the "pastoral guidance" issued over the weekend by the Church of England House of Bishops is this load of sanctimonious gibberish:

We are conscious that within both Church and society there are men and women seeking to live faithfully in covenanted same sex relationships. As we said in our response to the consultation prior to the same sex marriage legislation, “the proposition that same sex relationships can embody crucial social virtues is not in dispute. Same sex relationships often embody genuine mutuality and fidelity…., two of the virtues which the Book of Common Prayer uses to commend marriage. The Church of England seeks to see those virtues maximised in society.

This paragraph sums up precisely the problem not only in the Church of England, but in numerous other ecclesiastical bodies in the West, including some that are avowedly more evangelical in their temperament. What is being propagated here is a half truth gospel of sin management and cultural accommodation, rather than the true Gospel of repentance, regeneration, and new creation.

Paul said, "And such were some of you, 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 Corinthians 6:11). He did not say, "And such are some of you, but your genuine mutuality and fidelity makes your transgression permissible because it embodies certain virtues which the church seeks to see maximised in society."

There is never, repeat never, any virtue in rebelling against God. To speak oxymoronically of any sin, sexual or otherwise, as embodying "mutuality and fidelity" is nothing but a feeble attempt to overlook that sin's temporal and eternal consequences.

Bishops from Mother Church issue "pastoral guidance" on same sex "marriage"

Kevin Kallsen and George Conger give this document a qualified "thumbs up." Matt Kennedy and Cranmer, among others, do not sound so enthusiastic.

To the Clergy and People of the Church of England

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

We write as fellow disciples of Jesus Christ who are called to love one another as Christ has loved us. Our vocation as disciples of Christ in God’s world is to hold out the offer of life in all its fullness. God delights always to give good gifts to his children.

The gospel of the love of God made known to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest of these gifts. The call of the gospel demands that we all listen, speak and act with integrity, self discipline and grace, acknowledging that as yet our knowledge and understanding are partial.

As members of the Body of Christ we are aware that there will be a range of responses across the Church of England to the introduction of same sex marriage. As bishops we have reflected and prayed together about these developments. As our statement of 27th January indicated, we are not all in agreement about every aspect of the Church’s response. However we are all in agreement that the Christian understanding and doctrine of marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman remains unchanged.

We are conscious that within both Church and society there are men and women seeking to live faithfully in covenanted same sex relationships. As we said in our response to the consultation prior to the same sex marriage legislation, “the proposition that same sex relationships can embody crucial social virtues is not in dispute. Same sex relationships often embody genuine mutuality and fidelity…., two of the virtues which the Book of Common Prayer uses to commend marriage. The Church of England seeks to see those virtues maximised in society”.

We have already committed ourselves to a process of facilitated conversations across the whole Church of England in the light of the Pilling Report. These conversations will involve ecumenical and interfaith partners and particularly the wider Anglican Communion to whom we rejoice to be bound by our inheritance of faith and mutual affection. They will include profound reflection on the meaning, interpretation and application of scripture to which we all seek to be faithful. They will involve particular attention to the lived experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. We believe that Christian understandings of sexuality have a vital contribution to make in our society’s conversation about human flourishing.

The introduction of same sex marriage in our country is a new reality and has consequences for the life and discipline of the Church of England. We seek to model a distinctive and generous witness to Jesus Christ in our pastoral guidance to the Church at this time which is set out in the Appendix to this letter.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for all people in all times and situations. We continue to seek God’s grace and the prayers of the whole Church as we seek to proclaim that faith afresh in this generation.

+ Justin Cantuar + Sentamu Eboracensis

On behalf of the House of Bishops of the Church of England

Read the whole document at Anglican Ink.

Voddie Baucham: "Gay" is not the "new black"

Justin Welby: The harsh reality sets in

If you still had any lingering doubts that Justin Welby is an unmitigated disaster as Archbishop of Canterbury, the events of the past week should clear them all up. First came a press release bearing his name in which he heaped praise upon Madam Oven Mitt on the occasion of her "richly deserved" honorary doctorate from Oxford. It was a statement which, to the many victims of the Presiding Bureaucrat's "intellect" and "compassion," came across as hurtful, insensitive, and mean-spirited.

As Canon Phil Ashey observes:

How can Justin Welby ascribe “remarkable intellectual gifts dedicated to the service of Christ” to a leader who has been challenged time and again over the last ten years by the Windsor Process itself, who has ignored the moratoria begged of her and TEC, and whose acceleration of those innovations was the very cause for the response of the Anglican Churches in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and elsewhere in the majority Global South which offered pastoral care and covering to those Episcopalians, now Anglicans, who would not submit to her innovations as a matter of conscience and fidelity to Biblical teaching and Lambeth Resolution 1.10?

Is such conduct really an expression of remarkable intellect in the service of Christ?

What possessed Justin Welby to say that Jefferts Schori “richly deserves” an honorary award for her “remarkable gift of compassion which she has dedicated to the service of Christ,” in the face of the following facts:

On February 17, 2011, The American Anglican Council published a documented report of how Bishop Jefferts Schori and the leadership of TEC had violated the very text of its canons, due process and natural justice to inhibit and depose (at that time) 12 bishops and 404 deacons and priests. Since then, the estimate of total inhibitions and depositions of bishops, priests and deacons has risen to 700. This represents the largest exercise of penal discipline by any Presiding Bishop in the history of the TEC—and perhaps in the history of any Church in the Anglican Communion.

In one notable case, Bishop Jefferts Schori deposed Bishop Henry Scriven of the Church of England! In another notable case, her “compassion” led her to inhibit retired Bishop Edward MacBurney (VII Quincy) on April 2, 2008. On April 4, his son died, leaving the grieving father and bishop unable to conduct his son’s funeral rites.

Through her Chancellor, Bishop Jefferts Schori authorized and continues to authorize litigation against volunteer vestry (parish council) members and other volunteer leaders in church property cases. Although volunteers do not hold title to the property of the departing congregations, we documented at least 48 instances (as of the date of our report) where such volunteer vestry members have been sued by TEC or the diocese—in some cases, seeking the personal assets of these volunteers for monetary punitive damages in excess of the value of the property at issue. Such claims represent a position by Episcopal bishops and attorneys that a volunteer vestry member‘s vote to leave TEC is oppressive and malicious illegal behavior that justifies the forfeiture of a volunteer‘s personal assets. In addition to suffering the intentional infliction of emotional distress at the possibility of losing their personal assets, volunteer vestry members and other leaders have suffered damages by the mere filing of such claims including difficulty in refinancing their homes, difficulty in obtaining security clearances for new jobs, and prejudice to their credit reports.

When “Christian compassion” might have moved Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and the leadership of TEC to accept the Primates call for a moratorium on litigation at their 2007 meeting in Dar es Salaam, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori chose instead to accelerate the litigation. In 2009 when TEC cut staff and program by 30%, it increased the line items in the budget for litigation. We documented at least 56 complaints filed by TEC and its Dioceses against individual churches, clergy and volunteer vestry members. Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori led a delegation of bishops to Lambeth 2008 who demonstrated reckless indifference to the truth by telling other Anglican bishops in their “indaba groups” that TEC was being sued by local churches—when precisely the opposite was true. The Episcopal Church has continued to stonewall every request for an accounting of the funds it has expended on such litigation, and conservative estimates based on public records indicate that the cost is already in excess of $30 million.

Really-Is this “compassion dedicated to the service of Christ?”

Next came the Archbishop's speech to the Church of England General Synod, presented with that typical winsomeness which British clerics seem to think can cover a multitude of sins. Matt Kennedy, however, was not fooled.

This speech by Justin Welby could have easily been given by Rowan Williams or, indeed, any number of revisionist Episcopalian bishops. It is, of course, about women bishops and how those who rightly oppose the move to make them ought to open themselves to the “perfect love” that casts out all that curmudgeonly concern for biblical fidelity which as we all know inhibits “human flourishing”. But this speech is not only about women bishops. The language he uses here is “precisely” the language he uses to push reconciliation with those leaders in the Communion who want to mainstream and bless homosexual behavior. This subtext breaks to the surface quite clearly in the paragraph below

“This sort of gracious reconciliation means that we have to create safe space within ourselves to disagree, as we began to do last summer at the Synod in York, and as we need to do over the issues arising out of our discussions on sexuality, not because the outcome is predetermined to be a wishy-washy one, but because the very process is a proclamation of the Gospel of unconditionally loving God who gives Himself for our sin and failure. It is incarnational in the best sense and leads to the need to bear our cross in the way we are commanded.”

Note here that Welby identifies the gospel with the “very process” of creating a “safe place” to disagree about human sexuality.

No. That is not the gospel. The gospel is the truth that God became Man to save sinners from the consequences of sin and its enslaving power. God did not become Man to make peace with those who lead people into sin. To those who do such things, quite contrary to the Archbishop’s claim, Jesus suggested millstones and deep lakes would be far more bearable compared to what he has planned for them apart from repentance.

Remember, if you will, the constant revisionist refrain beginning in 2003: “These issues do not have to divide us. We still gather round the same table and worship the same Jesus. Let us work on being brothers and sisters despite our differences…”

But these very pleasant sounding coaxings only obscured the truth. The “differences” that divided us then and continue to divide us now are gathered around two options: 1. teach the biblical truth about sexual sin and call people who experience with same sex attraction to live lives of repentance and faith resulting in eternal life or 2. teach people with same sex attraction that the behaviors the bible says will keep people out of the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9) are really no sins at all.

There is no “middle road” here. There is no reconciliation ground between these two viewpoints. None. If those who believe #1 above are correct, then then those who believe #2 are leading people God loves to hell. These leaders must be called to recant or be subject to discipline and expulsion. What Archbishop Welby wants to do, and he does it clearly in this speech, is re-cast the question as if it were tantamount to “should Christians drink wine?” or “What is the appropriate length for women’s skirts?”. He wants to reduce the question to “adiaphora”, to the level of a matter about which God does not speak. This is a lie as anyone equipped with reason, a bible, and the ability to understand human language ought to know. To promote this notion is to sully and obscure the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is time for orthodox, evangelical Anglicans to face the harsh reality about Justin Welby. He is no better than Rowan Williams, and possibly even worse.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

The arrogance, hypocrisy, and sheer hubris of Canterbury and York

Bishop David Anderson of the American Anglican Council well describes the recent communique on homosexuality from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Provinces of Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria as "spiritual bullying." The two top clerics of the Mother Church have literally scaled new heights (or, perhaps better stated, sunk to new depths) of arrogance, hypocrisy, and sheer hubris in presuming to lecture the three largest provinces of the Anglican Communion on the subject of human sexuality while, within their own house, they have failed miserably and scandalously to uphold the biblical teaching concerning the same.

Bishop Anderson pulls no punches, also pointing out other failures of the Mother Church's ostensible leadership.

The English Archbishops of York and Canterbury have fired the equivalent of a broadside into the respective Anglican Provinces of Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria, and naturally it has to do with the Western hot button issue of homosexuality. While this subject seems to be causing the implosion of Anglican Provinces in America, Canada, England, Wales, and Scotland, the English Archbishops, rather than stand their Biblical ground against unnatural acts between individuals, choose rather to lecture and caution the three largest Anglican Provinces on the laws their civil governments are enacting.

When the head, nominal though he be, of the Anglican Communion lectures and cautions any Province, the implications and threat cannot be missed. It is odd that this lecture and caution would be directed toward the orthodox Anglicans of the Communion and not against the heterodox Anglicans both in North America and indeed within the Church of England itself. It seems that the Pilling Report may define the path that the Church of England will actually take. The Anglican Communion will soon have to face the prospect of a Mother Church which is spiritually unable to lead the worldwide flock of Anglicans. Interestingly, both the Archbishop of Kenya and now Uganda have responded to this English broadside and, commendably, they understand exactly the kind of spiritual bullying that is being directed toward them.

Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda, reminds the English Archbishops that, “….as they lead their own church through the “facilitated conversations” recommended by the Pilling Report, that the teaching of the Anglican Communion from the 1998 Lambeth Conference, from Resolution 1.10, still stands. It states that “homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture,” and the conference “cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions.” And then, in a direct and clear statement Ntagali says, “We sincerely hope the Archbishops and governing bodies of the Church of England will step back from the path they have set themselves on so the Church of Uganda will be able to maintain communion with our own Mother Church.”

I would not be surprised if the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, doesn’t respond as well. These three Anglican Provinces are the largest in the Anglican Communion, with a combined total of some 40 million, and these are people they can actually find on Sunday. I think it is fair to note that no longer should the mice dictate to the elephants on matters ecclesial.

There you have it. The primus inter pares, the Archbishop of Canterbury can no longer convene a full Primates Meeting, or a successful Lambeth Conference, and the orthodox Anglican Primates of GAFCON can convene two Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans conferences, in 2008 and 2013, and see a huge turnout and success. As additional responses to Canterbury surface we will post them.

One final thought. To be clear, the American Anglican Council does not support any law that unjustly targets people based only on sexual orientation. We agree with the 2008 resolution of the Ugandan House of Bishops to the effect that the church should offer “counseling, healing and prayer for people with homosexual disorientation” and that the church should be a safe place for anyone seeking help and healing.

Many westerners tend to use public pressure and media outlets to influence governments, churches and other groups. Those tactics don’t always work. If we have differences with our brothers and sisters in Christ, private, respectful but direct conversations are called for more often than not.

Also notable is the response from Archbishop Wabukala, who is not only Primate of Kenya but also chairman of GAFCON.

The good advice of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York would carry much more weight if they were able to affirm that they hold, personally, as well as in virtue of their office, to the collegial mind of the Anglican Communion. At the moment I fear that we cannot be sure.

Regrettably, their intervention has served to encourage those who want to normalize homosexual lifestyles in Africa and has fuelled prejudice against African Anglicans. We are committed to biblical sexual morality and to biblical pastoral care, so we wholeheartedly stand by the assurance given in the 1998 Lambeth Conference resolution that those who experience same sex attraction are ‘loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.’

We anxiously await Nigeria's response.