A Flawed Attempt To Be Fair

I like Carl Trueman from Westminster Theological Seminary. I like him because he has a certain penchant for independent thinking which is often missing in many of my fellow Conservative Christians. And so when he weighed in on the current skirmish between the Conservative Christian community and those supporting gay rights and equality, it was time to read what he had to say.

In the current conflict, Conservative Christians have felt attacked. For not only has there been a successful lawsuit filed against a Christian businessperson for refusing to provide photography services for a same-sex wedding, a law "protecting" Christian businesspeople from such litigation was vetoed in Arizona and now a CEO from Mozilla was pressured into resigning because he contributed money to the passage of California's Proposition 8, a law that would ban same-sex marriages in that state.

And while many Conservative Christian bloggers have already spent an inordinate amount of time lamenting over the current direction of our culture with regard to gay rights, the already here "gay-mafia" "persecution" of Conservative Christians, and the approaching criminalization of the Christian faith for its opposition to the gay and other progressive agenda, Trueman made an attempt, though inadequate, at fairness. For he writes in a Reformation 21 blogpost about the Brendan Eich incident that what served the Conservative Christian interest with regard to World Vision, hurt the same in Mozilla. And thus what Trueman is saying invokes what Jesus said to Peter when he was defending Him in the garden about living by the sword. 

So Trueman's point is one about consistency. If we can use economic pressure on World Vision to change their policies toward gays, then we can't complain when gay advocates and sympathizers turn the tables on us such as what happened at Mozilla. Of course some details are missing here. In the effort to protest World Vision's inclusion of same-sex married couples as employees, approximately 10,000 child sponsorships were withdrawn (click here) as a protest. Here, we might ask who paid the real price for the changing of the policy?

But Trueman's attempt to be consistent and fair only goes so far. For example, when he predicts further hardships for Christians over gay issues, such as what Eich experienced, he didn't mention fairness when he could have. After all, under Christian influence, homosexuality has been criminalized, been grounds for losing one's job, and marriage between gays has been highly resisted by the Christian community. When we consider the history of how the Conservative Christian community has treated homosexuals, should we regard it as fair should the gay community try to ban Conservative Christians from being married or from having certain jobs, or should they try to criminalize the Conservative Christian faith? Nobody I know would feels that way but such is the logic that Trueman uses when he tells Conservative Christians that because Christians used economic pressure to change World Vision's allowance for same-sex married couples, then it is only fair that gay advocates or sympathizers can exercise similar kinds of pressure as what happened between Eich and Mozilla.

This brings us to the basic problem my fellow Conservative Christians have with regard to how respond to society's acceptance of homosexuality. Allowing Conservative Christians and gays to treat each other in same way does not make such treatment by either side fair. And perhaps, the Conservative Christian treatment of homosexuals has contributed to society's acceptance of homosexuality because we have equated opposing homosexuality with legislation that prevents gays from being treated as equals in society. So it is easy for nonConservative Christians to accept homosexuality because to oppose it has come to mean relegating homosexuals to a second class status.

We might also ask ourselves whether our society's drift from Christianity and its values might have to do with how Conservative Christians handled society when Christianity was society's dominant influence. Did we attempt to rule over those who were different? Did we assume a privileged status that would allow us to dictate laws and societal values? 

The above questions are important considering that we have entered a post-modern period and one of the main concerns of post modernism is that of combatting empire and domination. Post-modernists are all too familiar with exclusive claims to knowing absolute truths being followed by feeling entitled to rule over others, and that rulership is, of course, always for the benefit of those who would be submitting.

What is really needed by the world in order for it to see the sinfulness of homosexuality is for the Church to distinguish between opposing homosexuality and trying to rule over homosexuals so as to control them and deny them equality in society. For as long as the Church equates opposing homosexuality with legislation that denies homosexuals equality, most fair-minded people will defend equality for homosexuals and thus will reject what the Church teaches about sexuality.

We should note that this blog has had to address this issue more times than I really care to. And the driving force for the frequency in covering this issue is the number writings by Conservative Christians who lament the current circumstances regarding the status homosexuals in society and the Church's loss of influence in the same.

ONIM For March 31, 2014

Christian News

• UK Churches Pray For Peace In Ukraine -- Christian Today (UK)
• Southampton Churches Working Together On Homelessness -- Christian Today (UK)
• The Effects Of Conscious Uncoupling -- Christian Today (UK)
• Churches To Honor Washington Mudslide Victims As Death Toll Climbs -- Huffington Post
• Bishop Christopher Senyojo, Ugandan Cleric, Ministers To Gays Despite Nation's Laws -- Huffington Post
• Evangelicals Back Peace Pact With Islamic Rebels In Philippines -- Christianity Today
• A Review Of Noah -- Christianity Today
• World Vision's Reversal Is The Right Decision -- The Christian Post
• Thousands Of Youth Gather For 'Reverse' Evangelism Event In DC Area -- The Christian Post
• Hobby Lobby Case Isn't About Contraceptive -- Religion Dispatches
• Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won't Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson -- Religion Dispatches

World News

• Sunoco Oil Pipeline Leaks In Ohio Nature Preserve -- Reuters
• Pressure Mounts For National Inquiry Into Missing And Murdered Aboriginal Women -- The Hill Times Online
• NASA-Funded Study: Industrial Civilisation Headed For 'Irreversible Collapse'? -- The Guardian
• Ukraine Severs Ties With Russia -- Sky News
• NYC Inmate Baked To Death In Cell -- Washington Post
• Liberals Hit Cuomo's Plan To Cut Bank Tax -- Crain's New York Business 
• Cops Or Soldiers -- The Economist
• Right Sector Coordinator Muzychko Killed in Ukraine's Rivne -- Kyiv Post
• The Case That Could Rock The Occupy Movement -- Vice News
• Judge Orders FBI To Explain Withholding Records Of Alleged Occupy Houston Assassination Plot -- Houston Chronicle
• An A- Paper From A UNC Athlete -- Yahoo Sports
• BP More Than Doubles Estimate Of Oil Spill In Lake Michigan -- Los Angelas Times
• There Are 6 Vacant Houses To Every Single Homeless Person -- The Mind Unleashed 
• New G.O.P. Bid To Limit Voting In Swing States -- New York Times

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• The Dark Side Of Globalization: Why Seattle's 1999 Protesters Were Right -- The Atlantic
• Walmart Admits: 'Our Profits' Depend On 'Their Poverty' -- ZCommentary

An Almost Harbinger Of Things To Come

For the majority of people who are outside the loop, the Conservative Christian community just dodged a bullet. What was the bullet? It was one of their own resigning itself to the same-sex marriage wave that was washing over the country. The ministry World Vision  had announced that would allow its Christian employees to be involved in same-sex marriages. Such would allow employees in a ministry of confessing Christians to violate Biblical sexual standards while remaining in good standing with the ministry.

Much was written about this on the blogs including the sample piece being reviewed here. This piece was written by Darrell Bock who has a blog on the Bible.org website. The blogpost we are reviewing here is called, More World, Less Vision. 

This blogpost was nothing but a lamentation for the fall of a well respected and admired, Christian humanitarian ministry. This ministry had decided on adopting a policy change that would allow its employees to either abstain or be married, but those who were married could belong to a same-sex marriage. This was first reported by Christianity Today.  This change of policy was done in the name of unity.

In his blogpost, Bock first calls this decision a betrayal of the care provided for children whom the ministry serves. He wrote this because the decision showed a reversal in the standards that drove World Vision into its ministry.  Bock correctly states that this new policy approved by World Vision was not about the current same-sex marriage debate in society. He went on to say that the policy betrayed the Christian community by abandoning God's standards for how Christians are to live and be different in the world.

Apparently, World Vision's decision to allow employees to belong to same-sex marriages was made for two reasons. First, to foster Christian unity by avoiding conflict with those denominations it serves which support same-sex marriage. Second, it seems that World Vision was conscious of possible legal problems since its employees lived in areas where same-sex marriage was legal.

But Bock interpreted World Vision's policy change differently. He saw it as a withdrawal from controversy over an issue which now implied, by the policy and its apologetic, that same-sex marriage were to be thought of as disputable as some doctrines such as the varying doctrines on how to baptize believers. In the end, Bock claims that the world was determining World Vision's morals and thus it was abandoning Biblical standards of righteousness.

Before responding to Bock's blogpost, we should note that World Vision reversed its policy decision (click here). But that should not stop us from making our observations here. And the first observation we should make is this, World Vision's late controversial policy decision could be accurately seen as a betrayal. But the kids to whom World Vision ministers are not the real, or first, victims of its breach of faith. Rather, the first, and perhaps the only, victims would be the Christian employees who would first benefit from the policy change.

How could the group receiving leniency become such a victim? Those Christians involved in same-sex marriages would be the victims of false feedback. It would be similar to a doctor who examines us and tells us there is nothing wrong when, in reality, he knew that we had a progressive disease. The failure to warn us of a serious condition would move us to ignore what was threatening our health. Such was basically setting up Christian employees to be shot with a gun they never saw. The gun was hidden by the feedback they received.

Would there be some compromises to the care the kids would receive? Yes and no. Certainly there would be no let down in the physical and emotional care the kids would experience. So in that sense, there would be no betrayal of the kids. But if the kids were also looking to World Vision for Christian teaching and moral standards, then there would be a false representation of God's Word. But it is the Christian employees who would or are involved in a same-sex marriage who would be betrayed the most.

Now, there are a few things that Bock fails to notice. And the first thing he fails to notice are the possible reasons why some of the denominations which World Vision serves have an unbiblical view of same-sex marriage. The first reason could be that the Conservative Church has overreached its bounds. It is one thing to deny same-sex marriage to those in a voluntary organization whose first loyalty is to God by following His Word as found in the Bible. It is another to try to coerce those in society, who do not share that loyalty, to follow the same standard. The varying degrees in which the Conservative Church has been forcing itself on the personal morals and lives of those who did not volunteer to adhere to the same standard has rightfully been seen as persecution. 

And this leads us to something else that both Bock and many of us suffer from. We have a personal and an emotional disconnect with our history of harming others. At best, we intellectually acknowledge some of our failures to others. But emotionally, we are unaffected and perhaps this is why we struggle to fully understand society's resistance to our agenda.

It is not until we do fully connect with how we have made others live and feel that we will know how to balance a proper commitment to Biblical morality with recognizing the equality of others in society. And it isn't until we find such a balance that we will know how to both promote that equality without making others feel persecuted.