Church Renewal & Gay Marriage

This article is a brief diversion from our series of guest articles, but it's relevant to our topic. We’ll get right back to our articles on decline in West Coast Churches of Christ. Next up are articles from Aaron Metcalf and Tim Spivey. 

This is an article from me. I just can’t help but speak when I see that current events connect with the issue of church renewal—which is the whole focus of this dialogue—and that practically everyone seems to miss the point.

Church Renewal and Gay Marriage

Admittedly, I’m a bit naïve when it comes to some hot-button issues. I have discovered that people want to put you in one camp or another. There is no room for nuance. I am incredibly bothered, however, that most people seem to fixate on the moral issue du jour and miss the bigger questions.

I just read an article titled, “Christians Side with Mammon. Mammon Sided with Barabbas.” As you might guess, the author is against gay marriage and he blasts Christian leaders who appear to be soft on the issue. In his mind, they’re no different than the ones who said, “Crucify him.” I assume the author has good intentions, but I think he completely misses the point. And sadly, most people seem to be missing the point right along with him. So here’s my feeble attempt at reframing the whole discussion. Others have probably done it better. I apologize in advance, but the message clearly hasn’t sunk in. So here I go, naively thinking that I can say something helpful.

Mammon (the point of the aforementioned article) in my opinion isn’t gay marriage. It’s blind acceptance of society. And when you blindly accept society without realizing that Jesus calls you to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him, then you end up watching TV shows you should never watch. You end up idolizing pop stars and athletes you should never idolize. You end up living for entertainment and partying rather than living for Jesus. You end up worshipping your country. The result is that you end up being discipled by the world. And the kingdoms of this world belong not to Jesus but to the Deceiver. And when the great Deceiver disciples you, you end up loving the world—not because you have the heart of God, but because you have the heart of Mammon and you’ve simply learned to love the world.

But if by contrast we are truly discipled by Jesus, then we end up living for Jesus. And Jesus lived to redeem the world, not to enjoy it. Jesus loved the world. Why? Because he wanted to reconcile all things to his Father. So if we live for Jesus, our goal is to love the world for the sake of reconciling all things to God.

Viewed in this vein, gay marriage isn’t a problem for Christians any more than drug use in baseball is a problem. It’s not a problem for us that Hollywood is amoral or that politicians are corrupt. The kingdoms of this world have always been full of such problems.

The problem for Christians is that too many of us have “accepted” the world for the wrong reason—not because we have the heart of God but because we have the heart of this world. And we have then idolized people we should never idolize. Why are we shocked that Justin Beiber is a "bad boy" or that Selena Gomez wants to be a "girl gone wild"? Why are we disappointed that politicians don’t uphold our morals or that athletes cheat? It’s only because we have wrongly placed our hope and trust in them. We’ve idolized them, and we’ve allowed our families/kids to be uncritically shaped by them. We’ve hitched our wagon to the wrong engine. And now that gay marriage is about to become legal, we suddenly cry foul?!

How foolish! We should cry foul at ourselves for decoupling our wagons from true discipleship to Jesus. Because if we were true disciples of Jesus, we’d be following his command to GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES. And if we were making disciples for Jesus, there’d be fewer people who idolize the Lady Gagas and Lance Armstrongs of this world. We wouldn’t be surprised or bothered by the weaknesses of “public” figures. Shoot, we wouldn’t even pay attention to the headline-grabbing sins any more than we’d notice that the married couple next door seems to fight a lot or that our co-worker drinks too much or that our cousin might be abusing his kids. We would notice all these problems with equal heartbreak and compassion, not because we are stunned and dismayed, but because we have the heart of God who wants to reconcile all things to himself. And we would see that the world next door is out of whack and needs his reconciling power.

If we were focusing on being instruments of his reconciling power, then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation about gay marriage. We’d be too busy discipling people whose lives are hopeless without Jesus. But instead of focusing our time and energy on being Jesus’ disciples and on making disciples, we’re wasting valuable time and energy on complaints about how the world has fallen away from God. Since when is that supposed to be news for Christians?

As a first order of business, we need renewal of the church, not of society. Wilbert Shenk, Mennonite professor of missions, wrote these words, “Genuine renewal has never come from the culture. On the contrary, true renewal calls the people of God to turn their backs on the cultural idols that have enthralled them in order that they might once again become instruments of God’s saving intention for the world” (Write the Vision: The Church Renewed, 1995, p. 101).

That’s the kind of renewal I’m talking about. That’s my hope and dream for the church—not just among West Coast Churches of Christ, but in all North American churches. I am on my knees, begging God that we might seek true renewal. We have to be people equipped as God’s instruments to carry out his mission for the world. Until we stop being shocked and awed by the depravity of our society—there’s nothing new under the sun!—we’ll never experience true renewal. And we’ll never rediscover the heart of God nor hear his call to join him in his reconciling mission for a broken world that’s a lot closer to home than we care to admit.

Comments

El Burro said…
Jason, you DID say something helpful. Matter of fact, all of it was helpful. Thank you for these penetrating thoughts which I hope we Christians will absorb.
Unknown said…
Jason, WOW you hit the nail directly on the head! I completely agree with your post and hope that many will read and consider the very crucial point you have made. We have the tendancy to focus on the symptoms of the problem instead of the root of the problem. You have helped us take a look at the root. Thank you for your words of wisdom!
Jason Locke said…
Thanks for the comments. I appreciate the kind words.
Unknown said…
Jason good article but what seems to me a battle against the gay community to silence Christians to teach anything? How do we address that?
Jason Locke said…
Thanks for the comment, Dennis. The question about teaching (in my opinion) isn't whether to teach about homosexuality along with other sexual issues. Instead, the question is where do we teach about it? In the public forum? Or in our churches? Paul's letters that address (among many other things) sexual struggles are directed TO the church, not to the world. I could say more, but that might give you a directional pointer. I'm sure you might have some good thoughts on this, but that's my thinking at this time.
DVanEaton said…
Jason,

Are you suggesting that Paul's letters should not have been canonized and included in the Bible? I assume you would answer "of course not"..but do you see the fallacy in your logic? Paul's letters contained God's objective moral truth for all mankind...not just those in the church. We should teach in and outside the church the Gospel and all it's implications for mankind..no need for nuance or complexity here...love yes...acceptance of people yes, but not acceptance of bad behavior. Otherwise, we offer what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace...which is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship..."
Jason Locke said…
Sorry to be snippy, David, but you don't seem interested in conversation. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but your post strikes me as someone who is just trying to win cheap points via mean-spirited argumentation and rhetorical questioning. Not interested in playing.
Jason Locke said…
If you're sincerely asking a question, I don't mind answering. But your post doesn't strike me as someone sincerely interested in conversation -- just accusation.
DVanEaton said…
I've read my post several times, compared it to the others, tried to put myself in your shoes and looked for a reason for your response. The only thing not contained in my post was a compliment of your article or an affirmation of some kind. I didn't want to be patronizing or overly lengthy, so I got to the point. My question and comments are more accurately related to you answer to Dennis' question and your post on Lynn Anderson's FB page regarding your article. Yes, I'm interested in an honest adult conversation...that avoids the temptation to rashly categorize one's motives...with so little information. Just don't see the "mean-spirit" in my question, but I do in your response. I'm not shocked at what I see in the world....that Christian men struggle with pornography, that we tend to lack patience and grace with our neighbors and that we are too often shallow in our moral applications or discussions with each other. I am however distressed by how our culture is influencing the church, affecting our views on objective moral truth and how our culture is changing. Paul, in Acts 19 was distressed by the number of idols he saw in the marketplace...shocked...I don't know, but it bothered him and he spoke against it. Denial of self...agreed. Silence on moral issues, such as gay marriage. I don't agree....if that's what your saying and I'm not sure that you are. I agree we should turn our backs on the culture (our citizenship is in Heaven), but I also believe that "as we go out into the world" we must say "no, this is wrong and should not be done". So, my post was sincere and I'm interested in your response to it. I'm also interested in what you would suggest Christians do with respects to cultural movements that want to change God's objective moral truth. Church renewal...to what end? Can we disciple without instructing those in and outside the church on God's moral teaching? Should we teach he gay community...or any community about the need to repent? I hope you don't mind discussing.
Jason Locke said…
You say I misread your intent. So I apologize. I think, though, that you are bringing other things into this conversation that I have never said or am not trying to address in this single article. But fine. I'm not opposed to that.

I've spent the better part of a decade in Europe. In the country where I worked as a church-planter, only 5% of the population attended church on a weekly basis. Only 0.5% attended any kind of conservative, Protestant church that would have much of anything in common with our heritage. My work almost entirely focused on reaching non-Christians and training new Christians. Mind you, these were people living in a pluralistic world that had a very different view of morality from the one I had grown up in.

I had a choice when interfacing with non-Christians -- which was a daily event. I could focus on their need to become moral people. Or I could focus on their need to follow Jesus. Sometimes, these conversations included conversations about the moral requirements of Christianity because they had questions about it. More often than not, however, I left those questions to the side to focus on the bigger question of belief in and commitment to the Creator God. Once people became Christians, they then had to make major choices about sexuality, drunkenness, etc.

This kind of work and experience has deeply shaped by thinking on this kind of issue. I don't think we win converts by shouting about the dangers of immorality from the mountaintops (or our Facebook pages). Instead, we win converts via the trenches of personally reaching out to people who need Jesus. And in that process, we certainly have to deal with many messy issues. We'd be wrong to avoid them. But we'd also be wise to realize that nothing trumps commitment to Jesus.

As long as this is a theoretical conversation, it is meaningless.

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