A friend sent me a link to this article. The issue is a liberal church (United Church of Christ) slamming conservative churches for barring homosexuals. Here is a snippet from the article…
The ad, part of a 3 1/2-week, $1.7 million campaign, shows a muscular bouncer working a rope line outside a nameless church and deciding who is eligible to enter and worship.
“No, step aside, please,” he says to two men holding hands.
Across the screen comes the message, “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” The final scene shows two women embracing.
This is not exactly a classical apologetics issue, but it is an issue that is used to undermine our effectiveness in reaching lost people. It is important for us to be able to think through the issues carefully so we don’t get tripped up. This ad shows the Church as rejecting homosexuals because of who they are. Further, they attempt to show us as treating homosexuality differently than any other sin. This is deceptive on both counts, and we must be able to show why.
We do not reject homosexuals; we reject the practice of homosexuality just as we do any other sin. The reason it looks like we have singled out this particular sin is because this is one of the few sins where many of those who practice it deny that it is wrong and do it openly and with pride. Imagine any other sin being practiced this way (adultery, murder, lying, etc.). We would treat such practitioners exactly as we do homosexuality. We would attempt to convince them that their practice is sin and that they must repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness. If they insist on openly flaunting the sin, we are Biblically mandated to put them out of fellowship. But we don’t get flack for putting openly adulterous folks out of the church. That is because the real problem is not how we deal with sin, but that they take issue with our calling homosexuality a sin at all. But since the Bible is so clear on this, they cloud the issue by attacking us as bigots.
This is huge issue in the culture and the Church today. We must to be prepared to cut through the smoke screen and defend the Biblical position. We don’t stand for the truth because we hate people. We love people enough tell them that they (that we all) have a serious problem. That problem is sin, and there is only one solution. There is forgiveness in turning to Christ, but that means turning from our sin.
Are people sympathetic to the advertising campaign justified in making their claims since Evangelical Christianity often conjures up images of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson on Larry King Live? I love Jerry as a brother in Christ, but the posture that is often taken by him is more smug than compassionate, more propositional than conversational. Don’t get me wrong I love to draw straight, non-compromising lines, but the way we portray our message often becomes our message. I am not saying there is an easy answer in our sound-bite world, but more soul searching on how we extend the truth we believe would lead us to greener, more God-centered, pastures.
Dan, I’m with you. I often cringe when I see someone represent evangelicals that comes across just like the stereotype we are trying to shed.
Isn’t it sad that when we hear the words evangelical or fundamentalist we think: Taliban. It’s tragic, not so much because we’re losing the language, but because the connotations, stereotypes, and caricatures are so effective.
So what do we do?
As noted in this post, we need to engage people in a way that leaves a watching world with only one conclusion: that these representations of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians just don’t seem to line up with this person I know who calls himself a follower of Christ.
Hugh, that’s a great question. One strategy is to avoid the language that is loaded down with baggage and come up with new terms. Once the term ‘Christian’ became diluted and misunderstood, other terms like ‘believer’ have taken its place. As that takes on baggage, a phrase like ‘follower of Christ’ refocuses the intended meaning.
Dan uses this technique with great effect. Terms like ‘leadership team’ and ‘directors’ replace the baggage laden ‘elders’ and ‘deacons.’ Spreading God’s fame gives fresh meaning to the traditional idea of spreading God’s glory.
That’s one thing we can do. Another, but much harder, thing is to try to restore meaning to words that have been distorted or devalued. The word ‘awesome’ is one of my pet peeves. Awesome quite simply means to inspire awe. Awe is a reverential fear. For me, to attribute to anything other than God and His works the status of awesome is tantamount to trivializing God. Yes, a losing battle for sure, but we’ve all got our issues. 🙂