But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed (1 Peter 3:14-16).
Another new year, another new article telling the Church to abandon God’s Word. We shouldn’t be surprised. We have been told that, rather than getting better and better, things would get worse and worse for the Christian Church. I’m not sure what Mark Wingfield, author of “3 words for the church in 2019: ‘we were wrong’” thinks he’s doing. One suspects he is trying to sound modern and enlightened in order to entice “young” people into the Church. Perhaps he just wants to show everyone how woke he is. One thing that is certain, no matter what he seems to say to the contrary, he does not believe that the Word of God is divinely inspired, inerrant, and efficacious; the means by which God creates faith and works forgiveness of sins.
Mr. Wingfield wants the Church to “admit we were wrong” about a host of things. Some of the issues he raises, such as protecting pedophiles, measuring the success of the Church by attendance numbers, and putting our trust in politics to fix all our problems, are legitimate, though there are some straw men lurking in his arguments about these things as well. (Youmay read the entire article here, and I encourage you to do so.) But, fundamentally, Mr. Wingfield’s argument about our wrongness and alleged misuse and idolatrous worship of the Bible are flawed. I don’t know this man personally, but in his article Mr. Wingfield seems to look at Scripture as something men have created to use as a tool to subjugate minority groups. It simply is not. Christianity teaches that Scripture is God-breathed. It has a divine nature as well as a human nature, just as Our Lord Jesus does, who is the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. So, I think Mr. Wingfield is pointed in the wrong direction. We don’t need to say that we were wrong. We do, however, need to apologize. We need to give a defense, as Peter writes in his first letter, of our hope. That hope is, in the words of the hymn, built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
We also need to repent. We must understand that we live in a fallen creation, and that we must contend with a corrupt nature; we must understand that all of the inclinations of our heart, because of that corrupt nature, are away from God and inward toward ourselves. The inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. We don’t make mistakes. We sin. We transgress God’s law. We miss the mark. We don’t love God with our whole heart, nor can we of our own will.
Sometimes our sin manifests itself in some of the ways Mr. Wingfield lists. We defy the authorities over us, we hurt and kill our neighbor, we misuse the gift of sex that God has given us, we steal, we slander our neighbor, and we jealously desire the things our neighbor has to the point that we scheme to get them. In short, we do not love our neighbors as ourselves. The call to us from God through His Word is to repentance.
Mr. Wingfield, however, says we are wrong about what God says sin is. He says that we have interpreted God’s Word to say things are sinful and evil which are not; he is saying that we have, because of our worship of the Bible rather than of Jesus Himself, held on to our outdated social standards and prejudices. Society has evolved upward away from the subjugation of women, the exploitation of people of different races, and the marginalization of people of different sexual orientations and gender identifications. Mr. Wingfield’s call, in the end, is not so much a call to renounce the devil, and all his works and ways, but for us to repent from believing that Scripture is the inerrant, infallible, efficacious word of God.
We are not the problem, God and His Word is the problem. And so are those people who believe what God has said. Rather than repenting of our sin and receiving forgiveness, his fix is for us to admit we were wrong about taking God’s Word seriously in it’s condemnation of sin! The second part in this bastardized confession and absolution is for us to redefine sin and reinterpret God’s Word through our current social and cultural context. What you get when you do that is a definition of sin that says anything that makes me feel bad or uncomfortable is wrong; anything that makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside is right.
Rather than expend a lot of unnecessary ink rebutting each mischaracterization in detail here, I thought it would be better to give a brief summary of how Scripture addresses the three points on which Mr. Wingfield and orthodox Christianity most profoundly diverge: Slavery and racism, the subjugation of women and misogyny, and the oppression of homosexuals.
Slavery and Racism
Mr. Wingfield says, “The church has been unable to confess America’s original sin – perhaps in part because it was a faith handed down without question from parents and grandparents…” One must wonder if he says this because he is taken in by black liberation theology, or if he is really just unfamiliar with slavery in the Bible.
The type of slavery described in the Bible is not the same type of slavery that a 21st century American social justice warrior has in mind. It wasn’t pleasant, to be sure, but it did not have the same connotations as what we think of regarding slavery today. Each slave kept his divinity as a human being, as demonstrated in the Law of Moses. It was a temporary institution, unless the slave wished to remain with his master after the seven year period of servitude. Lacking social welfare safety nets in antiquity, this type of slavery was a mechanism by which the poor could pay a debt to a creditor; a slave could also buy his freedom. Again, it wasn’t necessarily pleasant; neither is bankruptcy.
This was much different from the type of slavery Americans think of when that word is used today. We think of the western slave trade, which I will refer to as American slavery. Slaves were property. They were exploited indefinitely by their owners for profit. American slavery, rather than being a type of indentured servitude, was racist. It was based on the idea that people with dark skin were inferior to those with light skin. It was ended only because of the efforts of Christian men and women, who worked tirelessly to that end in both the British Empire and the United States. In Britain it was legislated out of existence; in America, between 650,000 and 820,000 people had to die in a civil war end it.
Nowhere in Scripture is this type of racism condoned. God makes no racial distinction. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Either we are slaves to sin, death, and the devil, or we are slaves to righteousness. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves; race is not a mitigating factor, for all who have been baptized have clothed themselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. Therefore, anyone who attempted, or attempts to justify racism and slavery by using Scripture is sinning by twisting it to say something it does not.
Women and Misogyny
Mr. Wingfield says that the Biblical evidence against women as co-equals is scant. He’s correct, but not in the way he means. Men and women were created by God as equals, counterparts designed by Him to compliment each other even as they serve as an illustration of the relationship that God has with His Church. He goes on to say, however, that the Church’s bias against women is strong. Scripture, however, nowhere advocates the sinful idea that women are essentially inferior to men. Scripture does give a very clear prohibition on women being pastors, i.e. publicly proclaiming the Word in the regular worship service:
For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church. Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant…And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
Paul gives this prohibition by the divine influence of the Holy Spirit, and for good reasons. From a cultural perspective, the women of Corinth were accustomed to female priestesses leading pagan worship. As there had been priestesses in the adulterous and idolatrous worship of the sex goddess it was quite natural for them to assume leadership roles in the Christian congregation. From a theological perspective, however, the Holy Spirit leads the Apostle Paul to the creation, and the order established by God in it. In the Garden of Eden, when Eve spoke with the serpent, she took on a role for herself which God had not delegated to her. David Scaer writes:
Adam was given the command and promise and he was responsible for all “theological negotiations.” Thus the woman’s assuming the man’s role and his assenting to this incursion are part of the first sin.
The problem is not that Scripture is vague regarding the status of women, or that there is some question of outdated cultural standards. That question of whether this was just a cultural taboo is easily and definitely answered for anyone willing to investigate the Greek used in the passages, and the surrounding context of the passages themselves. The problem is that we don’t like what Scripture tells us here: Men and women, while equal in terms of their humanity, serve in different roles within the Church. So, rather than repent of our sin, we attempt to cover it over with the fig leaves of social justice and liberal theology.
As for divorce, Jesus tells us that Moses allowed divorce and regulated it because the Israelites were hard-hearted. Wives were not to be simply abandoned on a whim. There were rules to be followed, and responsibilities to be taken by the husband. As for Jesus, He gives us the divine guideline that what God has joined together, let no man tear apart; Jesus tells us that the only legitimate ground for divorce is adultery. Inside the marriage relationship spouses are called to mutual submission and respect; husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and wives are called to respect and submit to their husbands as the Church submits to Christ. That means that men should love their wives as they love their own selves, and should be willing to die for them, and wives should love, respect, and obey their husbands.
Homosexuality
Certainly Mr. Wingfield is correct when he says that the issue of sexual orientation/gender identity is the most divisive of our time. We must not, however, allow him to misdirect us. The issue in question is not whether we “expel faithful followers of Christ when they reveal who God has made them to be” or not. The issue is whether or not God calls homosexuality a sin, and what is the solution He gives us for it?
We don’t need to spend a lot of time here trying to prove that the Scriptures call homosexuality a sin (they do), or if that that categorization still apples to us today (itdoes). We need to refute the notion that the Church rejects homosexuals and excludes them simply because they are homosexual. This is not the case. As with any sinful human being, regardless of what their particular sin might be, there is one criterion used to decide whether or not they are excluded (read excommunicated). That criterion is faith. Or more specifically, faith in Christ showing itself, as the person bears fruit in keeping with repentance.
But how can you tell someone to repent (turn away from) who they are? This is crueler than simply kicking them out, is it not? I happen to agree with the author that homosexual desire, and perhaps other dysphorias, have a genetic component, though I would not say that God has “made them to be” that way. We are fallen and corrupt creatures living in a fallen and corrupt creation. We should not be surprised when our defectiveness manifests itself. While I do not know what it is like to be a homosexual, I do understand what it is like to feel overwhelming desire for a behavior which is sinful. Every person deals with this struggle, though we all have different sins.
We have been taught that homosexuals are just born that way and do not choose their lifestyle. Science may have even identified the gene responsible for same sex attraction. But science also tells us that alcoholism is genetic. Yet society recognizes alcoholism as unnatural and destructive. We support groups with tax dollars and tax incentives whose entire purpose is to council alcoholics not to engage in such behavior. Is this cruel and bigoted? Is it alco-phobic? Should we not, applying the same standards to this as we do to homosexuality, encourage alcoholics in their lifestyle, since it is who God made them to be? And, before arguing that alcoholism is detrimental to mental and physical health and homosexuality is not, proponents of it’s acceptance would do well to consider the scientific data to the contrary.
Just because people are sinful doesn’t mean society in general, but the Church in particular, should accept and celebrate sinful behavior. That isn’t being loving or inclusive. It is to reject Christ and to embrace the world. To accept a person into your midst as the Church while embracing and celebrating their sin, whatever that sin may be, is the opposite of love, though it may make people feel good in the short term. It is to withhold the means by which God creates faith in the hearts of men, and by which they receive the forgiveness Christ won for them by His death and resurrection – the efficacious Word of God. Without hearing the Law, they will not know their sin; without hearing the Gospel, they will not know what God has done for them, forgiving their sin, cleansing them by the blood of Christ. Alternately, those who hear the proclamation of Law and Gospel and reject it are excluded from the Church, not to harm or punish them, but to show them the magnitude of their situation and, hopefully, bring them to repentance. The congregation which embraces the impenitent sinner is not the Church.
What Mr. Wingfield is really calling for is abandoning an interpretation of Scripture which takes seriously the fact that it has both a human and divine nature. He is trading that for the more intellectual human-centric higher critical approach. He is also, perhaps without realizing it (though I suspect he does realize it), calling for gospel reductionism, a Christianity that says all you need is love.
The love of God is indeed what man needs. That love comes to us in the Word made flesh, Jesus. He won salvation for mankind by dying on the cross, and conquered death by rising from the grave. He comes to create faith in us by the power of His Spirit through the means of His Word, whether preached, read, or coupled with the physical elements of water, bread and wine in the sacraments. He calls us to repent of our sins, to turn away from them. A Christianity that tries to redefine sin out of existence and make God’s Law nothing more than some outdated customs which are no longer applicable because culture has evolved isn’t honest or sincere. It isn’t woke. It isn’t being loving, or socially conscious, or even doing anyone any good. It is simply a Christianity that no longer believes in God’s Word. That Christianity does not hold God’s Word sacred, no matter how much it gives lip service to the contrary. It is no Christianity at all.
If the Church is to be “relevant in its mission and agents of God’s reconciling love,” to quote Mr. Wingfield, the solution is not to be found in preaching social justice. The solution is to preach Christ crucified and risen from the dead. It was for the forgiveness of all our sins that He died, and it was for our justification that He rose from the dead. The solution is to repent, and believe the Gospel. The problem is, preaching Christ will not make us relevant; it will make the world hate us more. To all those who find themselves in such relevant church bodies, where the heretical social gospel masquerades as the Word of God, I am so sorry.
