Now read this again
Thomas and John were sitting in a house together watching tv. Thomas should be able see because he had his glasses on, John had lost his and was blind. Thomas noticed something was wrong, both he and John smelled something. Thomas being the one who could see went to investigate. Thomas turned his head around the corner and saw immediately that the kitchen was on fire. Thomas felt like a fire really couldn't be that bad a thing and it would be rude to say something about it to John, his glasses must not be working right. It would hurt John's feelings to say something so negative and hurtful. So Thomas came back and told John everything was fine. His kitchen was on fire but fire was a good thing and he needed to change nothing. Rather he should be proud of the fire in his kitchen. In the end the house burnt down around them both killing them both.
Who was more loving?
The early church was counter culture. They opposed gladiatorial matches, were inclusive of slaves and antislavery, and with an uncharacteristic of their time and heavily valuing children etc. This trend has continued throughout the churches history. The Church, even when in a Christian culture was and provided a constant impetus for positive change in society. Abolition, the Civil rights movement and many others. Some failed, some succeeded tremendously. Children for example, were seen as property and were subject to all sorts of sexual abuse in Roman culture. Christianity, with it's high value for the human individual and society did away with such things.How Christianity invented children
After all, Christ became a man, and to be a man he became first a child. All of the human experience was sanctified and made holy, and in him our lives are also made thus. The Church therefore has naturally been a positive source of change in culture.
There is a movement today called theological liberalism. It has it's roots in enlightenment and some in romantic era philosophy. Headed by men like Friederich Schleiermacher, it embraced a progressive and pan/panentheistic view of a changing God.
Liberalism today decides to subvert itself to the culture which supposedly changes as God changes.
I saw something like this today at a United Church of Christ church.
What they were referring to was another slogan you may be familiar with
Of course he's still talking to us as revealed in scripture, And he's telling us the same thing as always because he never changes neither is there added revelation. What they mean isn't just he's still communicating the same truth through his revealed word, but that he is changing.
These churches never convert anybody outside of a church. They affirm the mantra "I"m okay you're okay" so essentially that "you're okay out there come in!" The response is typically "Okay, so I'll stay here". It's the evangelicals who leave evangelicalism who they win over. But their churches are getting older, whiter and dying. The solution has been to pour in more of this toxic venom that's killing their churches, but why?
The idea is not to be countercultural much as it's claimed, rather it's to be a people pleaser to fill the pews. It's really a hard thing to watch as they have bought into our cultures greatest value. Always be nice and never say anything hurtful. There is no evil aside from this in our culture today. Which I find hurtful since they say my beliefs are wrong but they are allowed to be mean to me, since I am a conservative evangelical.
What is being said by the above pictures is that homosexuality is now okay for the church. Of course a homosexual is welcome in my church on any sunday. Christ preached to tax collectors, adulterers and others. However what is not acceptable is the identification of a person with sin. This amounts to cheering a person on as they fall to their death, all to be nice and affirming.
Let me quote 1 corinthians 5
10I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. 11But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?…
God calls us to witness and call sin sin, but we are to reach out to and love the sinner. Jesus finds a person as they are and thankfully doesn't leave us as such. If the church were to have nothing to do with associating with those outside of the church (as opposed to only the sinners in the church) likely none of us would be here. How else are they to see Christ if not in us?
1 Corinthians 6:10-11
9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
If a persons identity is a sin he has not repented. They may struggle but to associate with the sin is to disassociate from the God of the bible. What the liberal churches are doing are saying that it is fine for a persons identity to be a sin. All this in the name of civil rights and equality.
Liberalism further likes to claim no need for change and declares itself a champion of "civil rights" however such is not the case.
Christians involved in the suffrage movement, civil rights, abolition were all trying to make the culture MORE in line with scriptural teachings. Liberalism today tries to make it LESS by defining the bible's morality as "be nice" or "loving" without taking the bible's definitions. All to fit the culture. Such alteration is meant to make it more appealing and relevant. However the Gospel as is, is always appealing to those whom God calls and needs never be made relevant. The Gospel is always relevant and unchanging because it's author is always both. Man's condition hasn't changed either, contrary to popular belief.'
The civil rights movements played off of the biblical definition of humanness. A woman bears God's image in her womanhood, why shouldn't she vote. People bear God's image sacredly in the variety of skin colors and nationalities, Mankind bears God's image in gender, as God created it in the Garden of Eden. Male and female, Jew and Gentile are all saved without distinction. Sexual sin is never sanctified. Changing Christianity to include something contrary to how it is found in humanity therefore is not civil rights. Sex like race is sacred and is to protected, so condoning sexual sin even damages the person living in it.
Changing Christianity is not the solution to making it relevant, rather it makes it irrelevant by making it unnecessary. It is the conservative evangelical who inherits the civil rights movement. It is the evangelical who seeks positive change against the culture's failings. Our need for a savior has been and always will be the same. If God were changing who knows what he'd say tomorrow and how horrifying it could be. Yet such is the logic of theologians pushing this progressive theology.
Liberalism can hardly be called Christianity. It has taken the documents of Christianity and made them mean something else. When you take a label but hollow it out and fill it with new meaning you have really made it something else. Denominations that have gone the liberal route have ceased being Christian and become Apostates. They have done nobody any service and have loved imperfectly. Telling a person of their fate so they can avoid it is loving, cheering the person on and telling them in nicety is cruel.
I quote CS Lewis a lot but he is right a lot, "Love is a more splendid thing than mere kindness". It is not about feelings but well-being. If they really understood the Gospel they would reach out differently. If they truly loved and were rooted in who God is they would see there is no dichotomy between his love and his justice.
Christ paid the penalty, redeemed man from sin and saves those who believe in him. If your identity is in Christ and his work, you don't have to identify with every tendency or temptation to feel acceptable. You will be unchangeably and permanently found in Christ and have a love that never fails. Freed to work, not working to be free. I want that for those who are lost, whether they struggle with homosexuality or any other sin. You will be accepted and transformed.
As for the theology behind it I will speak as follows
Postmodern text criticism has gone hand in hand with this. The bible it's said, is there for us to draw our own meaning from and that the bible is man's experience of God not God's word to man. The bible was not written as such that we may create meaning from it. Such would be communicating to ourselves what we wish to see. It was meant to communicate God's word to us as revealed in his writing. In understanding the culture we do not lose the meaning but find the original intended meaning that was being communicated. There's no "gnostic" truth underneath it about being nice or tolerant. There's a God who wrote to a culture. Scripture reflect culture because it was written to a culture, it is not wholly a product of that culture. Yet in this direction liberals went to far and made truth itself relative.
The bible is not so that we can see God with a mirror, and make him into ourselves. Such is the conclusion when applying the Liberal Hegelian/Marxist hermaneutic. The "world spirit" of how God manifests/speaks now dictates truth and the evolution of man. The old thesis, meets a new antithesis and the two form a new Synthesis. It makes sense then they would use the Church for this fusion with culture.
This practically led to the gnostic idea is "we must get to the nugget of truth within it!" which of course always ends up making God look like the liberal/Hegelian.
This may sound odd at first considering how Marxism/Hegelianism both strongly desire rebellion and social evolution. But not so when one thinks of the world spirit being the cultures motion. Therefore it is believed the world spirit is moving the culture to revolt and throw off it's old ways/morality. Revolution which is really devolution is the goal. Marx spoke of "returning" man to a herd mentality (as if man had even been such). It is little wonder then our sexual ethics and our devaluing of human worth are making us more bestial. If it feels good it's natural, if it's natural it's who you are so do it. The belief is we are making progress but it's really regression.
The idea is to constantly "evolve" and "progress" but to what? To whatever comes next is the assumption made in faith just as the direction is likewise assumed to be good. Liberal Christianity is in essence, another religion. It is Hegelian Marxism at it's most covered. Like a sheep in wolve's clothing it pretends to be Christian but wholly defies and alters the identity of what Christianity is. Who is to say tomorrow the progress won't lead to something akin to the dictatorships of the 20th century or some great horror? I can guarantee you without the Gospel they deny mankind always will. Mankind is not evolving in this way much as Marx and Hegel would suppose. The sinful condition of man is and will be the same till Christ returns. This failure to understand human depravity and the human condition helps explain the failure to understand the systems weaknesses.
Liberals if they applied their cultural approach in the past would likely have been those supporting slavery which was introduced to Christian Europe in the 1500's from outside African/Islamic contact. They are certainly more akin to it in that they do not seek to change the culture, they seek to change the bible. Or male dominance, after all that's how the spirit of God is "manifesting" himself in the culture.
We win nobody over and save nobody if we make culture dominant and scripture subjective. The ability to silence the past while claiming it to discredit those who truly inherit it's glory is astonishing. What they really inherit, is the sexual revolution which inherits underpinnings from all these I have mentioned before, a new paganism. While embracing new family models, new sexual ethics they protect and defend those with a harsher stance on such issues than Evangelicals.
It is the conservative evangelical who inherits the civil rights movement, it is the evangelical who seeks positive change against the culture's failings.
An evangelical is labeled evil and a bigot for his disapproval of the sexual ethic of our time but a Muslim is to be tolerated and is right for himself. This betrays two things. They have the same enemy, the Gospel. And Christianity is seen as a "Western" idea. It belongs to our culturally relative culture so we can speak poorly of it. Further and more importantly, it gets in the way of the world we want.
I will likely discuss my Christ in culture leanings elsewhere but one thing must be certain.
God never intended Christianity to be a cheerleader. He intended it be a transforming and soothing balm to a world not only dying but a world that is already dead.
Without the realization of the Gospel there can be no true positive change in a culture. The Gospel as expounded by conservatives is the Gospel and the necessary healing for the nations. The church's calling is to save and transform individuals and in so doing save and transform nations.
All are indeed welcome, welcome to a new life and a renewal of our beings. The Gospel is as true for you as it is for me. Christ atoned for my sins too and he found me while I was yet a sinner. I was not acceptable as I was but was made acceptable on his account and by his work.
I will close thus
Revelation 22 (after the new Jerusalem, the church is introduced)
1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Romans 12
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2Do 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.
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