The Church Fails Again

I like Wintery Knight. He has a lot on Apologetics and a lot of other good stuff. If he puts it out there, I read it. So it was a bit depressing to read his post the other day about Coeur d'Alene city officials coercing the owners of a wedding chapel to perform homosexual mirages. (Oh, sorry, I think they're spelling that "marriage". They keep using that word. I don't think that word means what they think it means.)

I wasn't disappointed because he wrote it. I wasn't disappointed because he kind of missed the point that these aren't simply "pastors"; they're the owners of a business. They're facing the same thing that the baker and the florist and the photographer and ... well, you know all those stories ... were facing. It's wrong, and I agree with him on that. But then he gave his reasons for why it is happening.

I credit Bible-centric pastors for failing to explain the issues of homosexuality and gay marriage ... That’s what 20 years of church prepares you to do. That’s what being raised in a Christian home prepares you to do.

Really? I had to read it a few times. Because it sounded like he was saying "Do away with Bible-centered pastors and Bible-centered preaching. And do away with church and Christian homes while you're at it." Funny thing. I was raised in a Christian home and a Bible-centered Christian church and will not attend a church that isn't Bible-centric, and I seem to be able to address these issues both to Christians and to unbelievers. Where did I go wrong? Could it be that it's not "Bible-centric" that is the problem?

Wintery Knight argues like so many others do. (Thus, it's not so much a reflection on him, but a general idea that fills much of American Christendom.) We have to make good arguments in order to obtain the outcome we desire. What outcome? Resistance to the gay rights movement. Defending our rights. There is a sense, as one commenter put it, that we're supposed to be "a firewall against the moral corruption of the age". Look, if you want to be persuasive, if you want to be convincing, if you want to be able to stand up for your rights and defend the faith in a world that rejects your faith, it must be by doing so without the Bible. They reject the Bible, so you can't use it. Better crank up the heat another way, 'cause that book is out of bounds.

You know, in just about any other arena he'd be right. You need to play on the field where the game is. But Christianity isn't any other arena. It is its own field. We can use philosophy or critical thinking, science or archaeology, evidence or logic. But Jesus said, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead." And Paul wrote, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the well constructed argument complete with evidence." No, that's not what he wrote. He wrote, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Rom 10:17).

Now, I need to be clear. I'm not saying that he's completely wrong. I think too many teachers have avoided the command to teach them to observe all that Christ commanded (Matt 28:20) when they ignored "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." (Mark 12:30). They've missed Paul's claim that sin rots the brain (Rom 1:28) and the subsequent command to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:2). We are often not taught to think, but to feel warmly toward God. We are often not taught to be "prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15). Interestingly, while folks like Wintery Knight call this a mistake, I would have to classify it as sin.

But when we think that our battle is with the world and their faulty logic and poor thinking, we've missed it. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Eph 6:12). We are not dealing with unconvinced souls; we're dealing with hostile forces. "For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness." (1 Cor 1:22-23). Paul said, "Natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." (1 Cor 2:14). Thus, "Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void." (1 Cor 1:17).

When we try to move the work of God to our own efforts, our own skills, our own abilities, our own training and arguments and reasoning, it simply means we don't know what is at stake, what the conditions are, or what God thinks of it all. We are supposed to do our best and we are supposed to use our minds and we are supposed to defend the faith (Jude 3), but the work is a supernatural one. Discarding the Bible as central because they don't accept it will not succeed in producing the faith that is required to make the dead person alive. We are not here to stem the tide of evil, but to do what our Lord did, to aim to seek and to save the lost. Arguing the truth with a people who "suppress the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom 1:18) won't get them to the truth. Apologetics bolsters faith, sure, but it doesn't overcome spiritual hostility. That's a divine work.