Succumbing to Pressure

It's sad to me, sometimes, to see how easily we Christians cave to peer pressure. And it's not merely a single event. We often alter our thinking because everyone else is.

Take, for instance, the term "gay." Yeah, yeah, we've dropped the "happy" connotation of the word and now it can only be used to reference same-sex relationships. (That's even too vague, isn't it? I mean, I have a lot of "same-sex relationships that are not "gay." But you know what I mean.) So if I say, "That's so gay," I'm commenting on something that calls to mind homosexual behavior of some sort, not some happy times. We've surrendered "gay" in our minds to mean "having sex with the same sex" without even recognizing that we did it.

Someone gave me a copy of the Baptist Faith and Message (2000) to read. It's basically the statement of beliefs and doctrines of the Southern Baptist Convention. In it, they had a section titled The Christian and the Social Order on how we should seek to improve society. One sentence in that section reads like this:

In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography.

Now, I'm pretty sure that almost no one sees it here, but it's plain to me that this is another example of what I'm talking about. This sentence says we should oppose, among other things, "homosexuality." What is homosexuality? The dictionary will tell you that it is a state of being. You don't practice it. You don't do it. It is an identity. Why? Because that's what our world is telling us. Is it true? Consider. In Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth he writes about the subject. The New American Standard reads, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate , nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God" while the ESV says, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." You can see the difference there, right? The NASB (1977) used the word "homosexuality" because at the time "homosexuality" meant "the desire for the same sex," not an identity. Since then the term has become a reference to an identity, even "born that way," so the ESV is more specific, referring not to "it's who I am," but "what I do." We've bought a sinful behavior as an identity and continue to use the term for that.

One of the obvious ones is our use of the word, "marriage." In a recent "Ask Pastor John" piece someone asked John Piper, "If a gay couple gets converted, should they stay married?" Pastor John answered just fine, but you can see in the question the complete collapse of how we perceive things. This is simply because our society has told us that "marriage" means "two people in a sexual relationship with promises" or something like it. (In truth, I have yet to see anyone actually define marriage for me from that perspective.) Scripture talks about "two become one" and "a man leave his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife" (Gen 2:24; Matt 19:5; Eph 5:31) making it a lifelong union of a man and a woman for purposes of mutual support (Gen 2:18) and reproduction (Gen 1:28). We -- Christians -- have so far embraced the modern version that many rebel at that definition not because it's not in there, but because we've so succumbed to peer pressure that we don't even recognize it anymore.

These are only examples. And they are intended for Christians. I'm not trying to complain or point fingers because I'm sure I have the very same problem. We live in a sin-sick world and are in constant need of being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2). I'm only asking you to consider, to think, to look and see what you're saying and thinking. Because in this "total immersion" in sin that we live in, it is unavoidable that some of our thinking will be polluted by the poison where we live and we need to, with God's help, keep careful watch on our own thinking and perspectives. "Be sober-minded; be watchful," Peter tells us. "Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world" (1 Peter 5:8-9). That's all I'm saying.