L and M ines
from page 1
people in our fallen world are born with genetically based
deformities, with three arms, or six fingers, or both male
and female sex organs (and hence are “transgendered”
or more accurately “multi-gendered”). They deserve our
compassionate understanding. Every descendent of Adam
and Eve finds himself or herself drawn to evil, loving
darkness, hating the light, rebelling against rather than
relishing God’s rule and rules. This has always been the
environment in which Christian ministry takes place.
Today
What has changed? Society’s norms have. Freedom to
choose, coupled with openness to and acceptance of all
choices, without any negative judgments, is the prevailing
ethos. Choice is an absolute. What one chooses is secondary.
The distinction between liberty and license has been lost.
Whereas previous generations emphasized identifying
“the good” as the goal of one’s choices, today choosing
is an end in itself. Today’s secular environment is hostile
to Christian marriage and the Christian home because
they stand as an implicit criticism of other alternatives.
Christianity limits our choices to those approved by God
as revealed in His word. It condemns those of which God
disapproves. Christianity says that unrestricted choices
lead to bondage to our desires, not freedom. Christian
sociology and anthropology are heresy in today’s secular
society.
Our alternatives
This context for our message leaves us with three
alternatives.
1. Say nothing. Since whatever we say may offend
couples living together outside of marriage, homosexuals,
transgenders, feminists, single parents, those who oppose
corporal punishment and all moral relativists, it is best to
leave matters of sex, marriage, and family unaddressed.
2. Preach with apologetic comprehensiveness. By this
we mean that we deeply research and speak with scientific
integrity the issues of heterosexuality, homosexuality,
transsexuality, marriage, gay marriage, polygamy, male/
female differences, two-parent households, single-parent
households, and disciplinary alternatives for parents. We
need to be able to address the latest scientific studies and
be able to interact with them, affirming or rebutting as the
case applies. This would allow us to say that “the latest
studies confirm what the Bible has always taught. For
example…”
Read again the warnings of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 15-20,
and Galatians 5:19, 20. These texts are all un-nuanced.
They are direct and declarative. Our equivalent might be
to say, “What are we about to study this morning is strange
for many of you. You may not have heard anything like
this before. Yet it is what the Bible teaches. It is God’s
word, and here is what He sa