WHAT IS BEING TAUGHT IN OUR CHURCHES?
*** Warning: this post addresses adult issues including sexual morality. Not suited for some younger audiences. ***
There is a problem with the primary methodology used by some Christian pastors these days who are trying to defend the LGBTQ agenda. It’s becoming more and more common to hear of historically evangelical churches not only welcoming gay couples into their meetings (and the biblical legitimacy of that decision can be debated either way in my opinion), but also setting up LGBTQ gatherings/worship spaces or programs within the church for them, and even openly sanctioning gay marriages and all the rest.
Now, it’s important for me to make my own position crystal clear before continuing. I believe that the Church ought to reach out to the LGBTQ community, to love them in every way possible, and to treat them exactly like Jesus would have treated them. I believe that the Church often does great harm to the gospel message by the way we interact with them, and we have much to learn about the kind of unconditional love that Jesus exhibited.
To their credit, most of these pastors I’m thinking about take exactly that approach: we must love like Jesus loved, at all cost. Problem is, they go so far in that direction that they refuse to define sexual sin as sin, and in some cases they actually come to believe within themselves that it’s simply a genetic condition that cannot be changed, therefore we need to celebrate the way God made every individual, regardless of sexual orientation or tendencies.
I refuse to hate anyone, and my wife and I had gay friends whom we love from the time when we lived in Hollywood. However, I still believe that this lifestyle is sinful, of the flesh, and is an issue that requires as much attention, compassion, support and deliverance as, say, alcoholism, gluttony, greed, adultery, lust, and a host of other sins mentioned in the Scriptures. Therefore, it is NOT hateful to speak out against this lifestyle as harmful and destructive (because statistics show that it most definitely is) and it is therefore NOT LOVE to encourage people to continue in this destructive lifestyle.
The LGBTQ lifestyle is not necessarily a more egregious sin than any other, but at the same time we also must not hesitate to call it sin and teach the crucial truth that it’s a type of bondage that one can be freed from, and we should be eager to lovingly help with that process. Greg Boyd would argue that it’s not our place to judge these people. I don’t want to get into that debate, because I’m not talking about judging. I’m talking about rescuing, out of love and concern, those caught in a destructive sin pattern. Boyd has provided a place in his church where, in his words, the LGBTQ members of his church can come and meet together and worship together.
Now, I am not ready to decidedly judge Boyd for this, because I don’t know the full story…perhaps they are trying to lead these folks away from their bondage. But I don’t think so. I have never heard Boyd identify LGBTQ behavior as sin or as a lifestyle that can cause damage, and therefore ought to be resisted (like many other sins he teaches against from his pulpit), and I have only heard him support those who “come out” as gay Christians. I heard his podcast wherein he congratulated a trans man for coming out, how proud he was of this man and his wife for doing something that was so courageous, and how sorry he was that along the way this man must have suffered much from other Christians, all the while never hinting that perhaps this man was actually in the wrong or trapped in sin. In his effort to love like Jesus loved, he actually ends up encouraging sinful and destructive behavior for fear of “judging.” I am not calling him to judge anyone, rather I’m hoping that he will love these people enough to try to lead them out of a destructive lifestyle.
These church leaders have not stopped to really consider the weight and consequences of their wholesale acceptance of the lifestyle these folks lead. Let me give provide the most obvious example of what I mean:
Suppose for a moment that we actually believe that a same sex marriage is actually acceptable in the eyes of God. It most definitely is not, but Rob Bell and others would argue that it is. For argument’s sake, let’s assume God smiles on such a relationship.
These pastors and teachers I’m thinking of only ever seem to couch their sermons and arguments in terms of same sex attractions. To be sure, many years ago it was only about the gay and lesbian community. However, the examples of Christ’s love for others and the teaching about God accepting same-sex attraction is always illustrated by these pastors only in same-sex attraction models. Andy Stanley gives examples of gay couples he’s known, and his anecdotes mostly center around same-sex attracted people he has known.
As I mentioned, we are imagining that same-sex attraction is fine by God’s standards. But now it’s important that we notice that these same teachers continue to use the “LGBTQ” phraseology in their arguments. Their illustrations are only ever about same-sex attraction anecdotes, but they use LGBTQ terminology and they verbally and enthusiastically support the LGBTQ community. Think about that for a moment…
LGBTQ does not mean same-sex attraction. It includes that, but it also includes Bisexual and Trans-sexual. Let’s take it a step further. The acronym continues to grow, but has settled for some time now on LGBTQIA+. I’ll let you look up the meaning of all those. What it really means is they want to do it with anyone they please at any time they please and with more than one at a time if they please. This most definitely cannot be biblically endorsed by Christian leaders, but it is, even as I write this, and even overtly, by their defense of the LBGTQ(IA+) lifestyle and the continued use of that acronym.
My friends, these leaders have seriously lost their way. I am reminded of the saying “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” As many of you have heard in many other instances, our leaders are compromising the plain truth of the Bible, and whenever I hear them reasoning this way, I feel inside my spirit that they are “seeking the approval of men rather than God” (Galatians 1:10).
Andy Stanley recently preached a sermon in which he stated that the straight couples in church are basically being shamed by the faith and desire to serve that is being demonstrated by gay couples. In one example, he very clearly and concisely tells a story of a gay couple in one of his congregations who wanted to serve in church. These men were approved to serve together on a committee, and were doing so for a period of weeks, when Stanley found out that one of the men was still married to a woman because his divorce had not yet been finalized. Therefore, Stanley felt obliged to ban them from ministry. The reasoning he used tells it all:
They were allowed to serve as a gay couple, but not when it was found out that one of them was still married. In other words, the homosexual relationship did not disqualify them from service, but the adultery did. If you’re thinking this is too bizarre to believe, then watch it yourself:
In this video, he recounts his conversation with this man as follows, and I quote: “Your partner, he’s still married, so see, this is just good old fashioned adultery. You’re in a sexual relationship with someone else’s husband [admitting he knew the two men were in a sexual relationship]. So I said you can’t be on a guest services team…this is clear, you just can’t do this.”
They were banned because of the adultery. Not because of the homosexual relationship.
Wow.
I do not enjoy writing posts like this. Regarding another Christian teacher and pastor, I have been greatly blessed by Greg Boyd’s teachings over the past many years, but he has begun to compromise on this issue, and he also goes a bit overboard in his support of biological evolution and other things that are troubling. In an effort to show everyone the unconditional love of Jesus, many leaders are demanding that this includes completely ignoring sin. But we are called to make disciples of all nations. What is a disciple? One who acts like his or her teacher. If our lifestyle does not match that of Jesus’s lifestyle, and this includes behavior as well as character development, then we are not being effective disciple-makers.
And what does it take to be a disciple? Many things, but one extremely important part of it is study and knowledge of the bible. And here is perhaps one of the most important things I have noticed these past few years: every one of these teachers who are compromising on sexuality are also questioning long-held orthodox beliefs in the bible as the inerrant Word of God.
Rob Bell started off by denying the bible had anything at all to say about homosexuality, and making it very clear that Jesus (according to Bell) said absolutely nothing about it, therefore Jesus Himself does not find anything wrong with it. Now (if you know anything about Rob Bell), it’s clear that he is completely off the rails of basic Christianity.
Andy Stanley has recently been called out by scores of Christian leaders for his sermon encouraging us to “unhitch from the Old Testament.” There are a lot of subtleties about his arguments, because what he’s really trying to do is emphasize the fact (and rightfully so) that we are 100% free from the Old Covenant. But he takes it too far, and much of his language demeans the value of the Old Testament.
Brian McLaren was one of my favorite authors decades ago, but when he began to liberalize his understanding of the bible, he began down the road of sanctioning homosexual behavior among Christians, and now apparently is all in favor of gay marriage.
The pattern is clear – those who continue to question biblical authority, or think that they have to come up with clever insights and trendy twists to biblical truth because of popular demand, seem to all end up defending the LGBTQ agenda.
It’s a clear pattern, and it’s disturbing how that trend goes. This is why I have such respect for people like Mario Murillo. He has only ever taught the simple, clear truth of the gospel, straight from the Bible. We have all sinned, we all need redemption, come and get healed and set free. And people are coming to Jesus by the thousands because of his uncompromising teaching.
Andy Stanley’s church does not have 500 people rushing forward in repentance during his services. Do we wonder why? Because Stanley says little to convince people of the value of the history of God working in and through His people. A big part of this is a word that has fallen out of fashion with these liberal teachers: holiness.
Being like Jesus. It turns out that, after all, behavior really does matter.
Greg Boyd sees this injunction to be like Jesus in a very limited way. He insists that we ought to love like Jesus in every way, that our mission on earth is to emulate Jesus in every way, that we are to always treat others the exact same way Jesus treated them.
Sounds all well and good on the surface, but we can’t forget that Jesus intentionally fashioned a whip and then whipped the money changers and drove them out of the temple.
It’s true that he had no words of condemnation for the woman caught in adultery, but He did tell her to “Go, and stop your sinning.” He did not excuse her behavior as a genetic trait.
He told the Pharisees that in spite of their impressive biblical knowledge they were vipers, tombs full of dead men’s bones, true hypocrites in every sense of the word.
In other words, Jesus absolutely called out sin where he saw it. He genuinely loved people, but He told them they were sinners who needed to change their ways. Paul did the same thing a thousand times in his letters to the various churches. He never excused sinful behavior, but called people to be holy, even though he knew it would be a process in which they would fail multiple times.
Where did pastors ever get the idea that we can ignore sin in the name of love? It’s a heresy from the devil, designed to keep people in bondage in their sinful behavior. I don’t know how someone like Andy Stanley can go so far off the path, but it happens. I am not perfect – far from it! But I want to at least believe the Bible. Those teachers I know who are uncompromising on biblical truth are also the ones who do NOT get caught in controversy, fall from grace due to sexual sin, and rail against those who hold to a conservative, historical view of biblical truth.
Where do we go from here? I’m not sure it’s up to us. “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God” (1 Peter 4:17). I believe we are in the age where God is cleaning house. If pastors who compromise biblical authority are not removed from ministry, I believe their ministries will become less and less significant, will bear less and less fruit, and will not be used by God as instruments to drive the Third Great Awakening, of which we are already a part.
Don’t compromise, stay true to the Word of God, reject compromised teachers who gather around them listeners with itching ears, and remain faithful that God may use you in this historic hour to bring His kingdom to earth. This, after all, is what it’s all about – not just surviving until the rapture, but thriving and taking back this entire world under the Lordship of Jesus, just as the Bible promises!