Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Why Abortion May Not Be the Single Most Important Cultural Issue for the Christian

In the past, it has been a general rule that Christians are pro-life and oppose abortion.  There has always been opposition to a pro-life position from outside of Christian circles, but growing numbers of people inside of Christian institutions and churches have become more vocal in their opposition to a strictly pro-life position.  From what I’ve read, a common theme in pro-choice or pro-abortion arguments made from a Christian perspective is that legal abortion is an evil which is currently necessary in order to avoid a different moral or ethical problem which would be even worse.  


For the record (and this is no surprise), I severely disagree with any argument that I’ve seen which attempts to justify continued legalized abortion. With that being said, what I have not seen is an argument for the sanctified beauty of having an abortion or for the sanctified beauty and Christian virtue of the abortion doctor’s activity and vocation.  In other words, while various arguments are given to view the issue of abortion from a different perspective, I’ve not seen a Christian argue that it is a morally good and non-sinful thing to kill a baby in the womb.  

 

I believe that the single greatest issue of our time is the current sexual/gender revolution.  I believe this because this issue has the largest implications for the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ because proponents inside of Christendom argue that being involved in same sex relationships or embracing of gender confusion leading to transgenderism is morally good while the condemnation of the same is morally evil.  I say this not because transgenderism or homosexuality are greater sins than abortion.  I say this because the arguments made in favor of homosexual marriage and transgenderism are so positioning these issues as not being sinful at all.  Whether it’s Matthew Vines’ “God and the Gay Christian” or any number of similarly aimed arguments, the primary objective is to sanctify an activity that, they say, has been incorrectly defined as sinful.

 

And therein lies the reason why this is the foremost Christian issue of our time and not merely another cultural, social, or theological issue that must be debated and hashed out.  This gets at the heart of Biblical revelation and our ability to make any sort of proclamation about what is or is not sinful according to God’s Word (or anything else for that matter).  Contrary to our opponents, establishing the sinfulness of homosexual activity is not done merely on the basis of a handful of “clobber passages” where homosexuality is explicitly mentioned, but it is done by taking what the whole canon of Scripture says about sex, marriage and divorce (along with a whole range of other things) in order to create a biblical view of sexuality. 

 

If some Christians are unable or unwilling to proclaim that homosexuality is sinful, then they have cut off their noses to spite their faces because they have given over any ability to actually define sin according to what the Bible says instead of defining it according to pop culture or your own personal feelings.  And if we lose the ability to define and understand sin, we lose our ability to define and understanding the necessity for a savior who bore our sin in His body on the tree.  We will have lost the ability to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all dying men. 


Saturday, June 6, 2015

Christian Transitioning: Giving Up Who You Were

At the heart of the gospel message is a call to radical selflessness in all things.  It is a transformation that we are, quite literally, unable and unwilling to start on our own,  and it is one that requires God’s continuing grace throughout our lives.  While the transformative journey may look very different from person to person, we are assured that all who have been saved will undergo this transformation.  One of the great pictures of the purpose of the Christian’s journey on this earth is that we will “become conformed to the image of Christ” (Romans 8:29).  It is in this re-imaging transformation of ourselves that the Holy Spirit helps us to love what He loves and stop loving the things that He hates.

Shortly after Peter confessed that Jesus was the Son of God, Jesus said this to the disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23)  There are many things that one can (and should) say about Jesus’ description of discipleship, but one thing that must be emphasized is this: one of the things at the core of this discipleship is a rejection of a life focused on self-interest or self-fulfillment.

In Luke 19, we meet Zaccheus, a was a greedy man who was very good at gaining wealth by using an intentional government loophole to extort huge amounts of money from people.  But when He came face to face with Jesus, he saw that so much of what characterized himself as a person was diametrically opposed to Jesus that he vowed to pay back those he’d defrauded 400% of what he’d stolen.

This is not a lone story of the radical changes in activity or lifestyle.  Paul writes to a group of people characterized by their love for Christ, but who were also characterized by the phrase “such were some of you” (1 Cor 6:11).  The true Christian church has always been made up of former thieves (like Zaccheus), former liars, former drunks, former adulterers, and former homosexuals.

The Bible doesn’t give us the option to have a class of Christians where someone can embrace their sinfulness as a positive Christian virtue, acceptable and endorsed as a true expression of Christianity. Scripture does not allow people embrace their sinful sexuality as an asset to their Christian life, whether they be “Christian Swingers” or “Gay Christians”.  Do Christians cheat on their spouses, get drunk, steal, engage in homosexual sex, or give their affection to other gods?  In short, yes.  The difference is that while Christians may never be free of struggling with some sins, a true Christian is not one who embraces that sin, who attempts to sanctify that sin, and who condemns anyone for daring to say that what they are doing is, in fact, a sin.

As His followers, Christ commands us to deny ourselves as we walk this path of discipleship.  If instead we embrace ourselves in our sinfulness and attempt to sanctify our sin, we will not inherit the kingdom of God.   “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” (Luke 9:24)