Monday, January
28, 2019
Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven. Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created. Your regulations remain true to this day, for everything serves your plans. Psalm 119:89-91(NLT)
One of the things pastors do is
attend meetings. Truth be told, I could
do without most of them. The meeting I
attended last week reminded me why I go to meetings; sometimes I get to hear
something that helps recharge my batteries.
This meeting, as others I’ve endured in the past few years, intended to keep
discussion going, information flowing, and tempers cooler, did not keep my
stomach from churning…but it did get me thinking.
The author, an historian, focusing
on cultural mores, presented a paper on human sexuality, and how the new
morality brought to the spotlight in the 1960’s is a springboard
for something of a new Great Awakening[2]
that allows us to grapple with our current culture’s context. In short, this professional historian/religious
seminary professor, was attempting to convince a room full of United Methodist
pastors that contextual interpretation of Scripture requires, as a normal derivative
of Wesleyan tradition, that we speak-up for the marginalized and oppressed;
that being the whole point: we should
accept, and even normalize homosexuality and abortion. Pardon me; did I miss something here?
It is a long (and closely held) hermeneutic
that the church proclaims the Gospel and interprets Scripture TO
the culture; it does not react to the culture’s desires by baptizing sin and
calling it a sanctified alternative lifestyle. The Apostle Paul warned us to run from that
kind of thinking:
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Romans 12:2a(NLT)
Let’s look at it from a simplified
perspective, without the buzz-language or big words. Suppose tomorrow the Supreme Court of the
United States ruled 7-2 that murder, stealing, cruelty to animals, and beating
your spouse are simply normal expressions of human behavior, brought on by
stress. It’s now legal to do whatever
you want to do. Should the church go
back and erase commandments #6-8 and just call it a good day’s contextualization
of the Scripture?
One thing I agree with this author
about, is that genuine Wesleyan people speak up for the oppressed, and against
injustice. But to label those who wish
to distort God’s eternal and unchanging Word as oppressed in the
name of academic redefining what God has said plainly about human sexuality is
more than a stretch; it is sin.
Just to be clear, I did not say we
ought to be haters, ready to stone the sinners.
If that were the case, I’d have to stone me too. All persons are the object of God’s love, and
that makes everyone someone of intrinsic value, never to be judged by me, or
disparaged. But the Word of God is our
charge, our marching orders. It would be
sin to not proclaim its’ truth.
Methodology approaches to
proclaiming Gospel truth may change with the shifting landscape of human cultural
norms and mores, and I could be taken to task for being a cultural heretic,
a dinosaur of a Bible-thumping old man, out of touch with the way people think
today, but cheapening the Gospel by attempting to knock the sharp points off
the Sword
of the Spirit is one pill I’m not willing to swallow.
For You Today
I trust you’ll join me in praying
for our world and it’s darkness. Pray
that the Morning Star will dawn on the landscape; humanity needs to see our
way.
Go to VIDEO
[2] My phrase,
not the author’s
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