With the recent decision by Tim Tebow to withdraw from speaking at the controversial First Baptist Church of Dallas because of its “hateful” views, Christians in the west are once again reminded of the current challenge to proclaim a robust Biblical sexual ethic unapologetically.
Pending an unforeseen (yet very possible) revival of Christianity in the west, it is very obvious that the culture will grow increasingly intolerant of historic Christian beliefs–especially Biblical sexual ethics. How are faithful Christians to respond? A few points to consider:
1) Expect modern culture to redefine Christianity.
Christianity will never be totally rejected in the west. Those who oppose Biblical faith recognize that to completely erase Christianity from the consciousness of American society will be next to impossible to do. Rather, those who wish to fight against Biblical Christianity will seek to edit and redefine it, so as to discredit anyone who wishes to still hold to Biblical Christianity. Those “Christians” who hold to a liberal view of the Bible will be touted by American society as the “real Christians.” While Biblically orthodox Christians will be made to look evil, stupid, and out-of-date for holding on to a faith that should have long since been discarded.
The advantage that the culture has in doing this is that it gets to assuage it’s conscience by convincing itself that it doesn’t hate Christianity. No, in fact, the culture will convince itself that it supports Christianity–albeit, a newer, better Christianity that is inclusive and stripped of any definitive truth claims.
Because we can expect the culture to do this, we must be engaged in dialog such that the true Christian faith is not lost amongst the coming confusion. Faithful and bold preachers, teachers, and apologists will need to understand the times, and now, more than ever, be able to clearly articulate the Christian faith to an increasingly Biblically illiterate culture.
2) Don’t get tied down to certain controversial issues
It will be all too easy to forget the gospel in an attempt to struggle to preserve morality in the culture. I suspect it will be a great temptation for us to speak the loudest on the issues that the culture is currently seeking to use to discredit Biblical Christianity. Christians in America must remember that our greatest goal is not to preserve a Christian America, but to advance the gospel throughout the country. The preaching of the gospel, fueled by prayer and service to our neighbor is our greatest weapon–not getting into debates about homosexuality, abortion, etc. There is a time for debate, but our emphasis must be on preaching the word of God persuasively in our current cultural context.
3) Don’t expect to win the cultural war (Nor do we need to).
Look, we need to face facts. There is a good chance that America could end up like Europe, and Europe could get worse than it is already. There is no guarantee that revival will break out. We ought to preach the Bible faithfully and pray for a great harvest in America, but it could just as well be the case that, on a whole, America continues to forsake it’s Christian roots.
What should we say if this happens? Has Christianity lost and the church failed in its mission? No. God will continue to call his elect to himself, whether the culture is receptive to Christianity or not. No amount of hostility will keep God from building his church and saving those whom he foreknew. The problem with having a Christian culture like the west had a few decades ago is that it gives the false impression that everyone in that culture knows the true and living God, when in fact they do not.
However, when the culture is hostile to Christianity, the true believers are more readily identifiable. So, whether the culture embraces Christianity, or is hostile to it, God always has his remnant of true believers in the culture. This perspective reminds us that God is not powerless during the so-called “culture wars.” He may just have a different agenda than we think he should have.
I implore every faithful Christian to take heed lest he fall. Saturate yourself in the word and pray to God to guard your belief, so that you will not compromise in the coming years as the culture continues to apply pressure on orthodox Christians.
I think the question to ask is, “how do we be the church in the 21st century?” Personally, I don’t think that circling the wagons or waiting to see where everything stands after the dust settles is the way to go. In my reading of scripture, Jesus is more relational than doctrinal.
I enjoyed this article. I think it is very thoughtful and hits talking points on the culture wars that I think a lot churches need to wrestle with. I do, however, find it problematic to delineate “true” Christianity as a conservative Christianity and liberal Christianity as a not true Christianity. This type of rhetoric creates divisiveness in the church, of which we should be careful. While the culture might be more inclined to embrace more liberal theology, if it proclaims the life, death and resurrection of Christ, their status as heirs of God do not deserve quotation marks, no matter how off we believe their theology to be. As well, I often have to call into question anytime the “Christian roots” of America are established as a base for which our nation was established. This has long proven to be a cultural myth and is part of the reason that Christians try to propagate and preserve a Christian America instead of the gospel of Jesus. These are just my thoughts. I hate to leave such a long criticism when I did overall enjoy your essay. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Bryant,
Some insightful perspective. I agree with most of your formulations, but at the same time, have some reservations.
For pt #2, I think that there is a good point in what you are saying. Many people can get easily consumed with focusing so much on these debates without the larger context of the gospel being in the forefront of the mind. However, this does not imply that entering those debates in and of itself is wrong.
I take exception to how you seem to be softly “dichotomizing” law and gospel.
Yes, there is a distinction when it comes to salvation, the law can never bring about salvation. But in terms of attempting to bring sinners to be able to submit to God, if we do not confront them with the law, they will never truly understand the gospel and the sin that they have committed against God.
Due to the clear (natural) revelation and law in their hearts (Rom 1, 2), they know the God that they are sinning against, and they know that what they are doing is wrong, but it is all suppressed.
This is why it is important to engage in these debates **properly** and not fall back from these debates completely as if simply preaching the gospel (w/o law) is somehow more biblically consistent.
You know this well in that this concept is key to understanding presuppositionalism, epistemology and epistemologically-consistent ethics.
In other words, the Gospel is meaningless without law and certainly vice versa.
All of these ethical debates fulfill several purposes (which we would probably both agree), which is to have people understand the law of God so that ultimately the gospel can be preached and that people can submit to the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, the important **social** primary reason is for societal moral preservation etc…
If that focus of the spiritual is lost due to our undue emphasis on the societal when we debate ethics. this does not mean that consequent of debating ethics is wrong or should be done away with, but that we have been misapplying and/or misunderstanding the true premises that have led to our conclusion that we should debate ethics in the first place.
In general, my observations have been that when we have any discussion about the culture wars, whether for, against, or in the middle, the focus tends to exclusively be on the culture.
Ironically, when we look at the culture wars, what we first look at shouldnt be culture, but it should be on the law of God and how through the gospel, we can fulfill it, and how through society, we can be that salt and light in the world.
If we dont attempt to engage in these debates ***with the proper mindset*** or we then dont engage at all, then the Lord’s commands for us to be salt and light are meaningless.
In other words, the approach should be first and foremost a presuppositional and epistemological one, not an ethic-centric or cultural-centric approach (whatever that means). If we dont start with this (presupp and epist) foundation, our subsequent applications will not be fully consistent with biblical truth.
An example. The Bible does talk about predestination. But, if predestination is all we talk about, we have lost focus on how predestination should be discussed in relation to the entire counsel of God.
This doesnt mean that we therefore not talk about predestination, but that we re-focus our efforts on how our discussions of predestination fit into the larger scheme of law and gospel.
This same logic should be applied to our ethical debates as well.
Keep writing! God’s providence in your studies at WTS!!!
Chris Lee
http://confessionalkingdom.blogspot.com
Sorry.. Couple more things.
1) We need to think about this from an epistemological/presupp perspective because of what culture is. We understand that culture is behavior. And that behavior is really a manifestation of what we know or claim to know and how that is applied to a particular situation. Culture isn’t simply what we do, but what we know and ultimately, how we know it.
2) Therefore, when we get down to brass tacks, our approach shouldn’t have the primary focus of winning culture wars etc…
It should be about understanding that we as the church should be preaching both law and gospel and through those actions, and as people come to Christ, the culture will eventually be more conformed to the law of Christ, and in that way, we “win” or “turn the tide” in some ways in the culture war…
And through God’s working through those people’s hearts (and ours), we can expect some sort of “victory” in the culture wars, but I personally, would tend not to stress so much on the victory aspect compared to attempting to preach law and gospel to sinners and God can use those seeds to do what He wills. The responsibilities for preaching is ours.. The results (or the victory) is what God brings about and so this is why I wouldnt stress on the victory and more on our responsibility.
This is great. I love it. I love how you pointed out that its easier to see true Christians, which is true and this is still a struggle in the south…I live in Tx and everyone is Christian (cultural) then I share the gospel and things change (usually for the better). Then I love the perspective that God is doing something outside of what we think..which is usually the case, right? I wish America would see going down Europe’s path is not that great. They are really unhappy and hopeless people. I do believe we will be where they are very soon which is sad and makes me scream, why?! Then again with immigration causing serious cultural changes maybe not, but then Im reminded who’s in leadership and yea maybe so.
It is interesting that you bring up the mental outlook of Europeans. I was just having a discussion with someone about the general pessimistic, depressed outlook about life that currently exists on the continent. I surmise that after suffering through two world wars, and the modern day economic crisis, it is somewhat understandable why Europeans may feel this way. But I would like to explore a little more on what impact the lack of a vibrant Christian worldview plays into this pessimism. Thanks for the comment.
This is an excellent article I intend to share profusely. Thank you, sir. Well said!
Thank you for reading. Appreciate the support.
This was an insightful article, we definitely have to continue to preach the unadulterated gospel; all else is sinking sand.
Amen!
Well said, might I add 2b? If you DO engage in conversations about controversial topics, do your best to consistently point back to the basics of the gospel.
Agreed. In all our dialog with those who think differently, we should try to go to the gospel.