There exists a page on Facebook known as "Heterosexual Awareness Month Singapore" (HAM SG), which appears to have been created on 26 June 2018. As of the time of this post, there are only 2 'likes' and 2 'followers' of the page.
In a post published at 3.06pm on 28 June 2018, the page purported to describe "some benefits of being hetero", including being "STD Free", "Healthy" and "Make Babies". The post added that "Heterosexuality is the Way, the Truth and it creates Life."
It is not clear who the creator of the page is, or whether there is any organisation behind this, religious or otherwise. Further, it is unclear what the motivations behind the creation of the page are, whether this is a "troll" page meant to mock and ridicule Christianity or conservative sexual perspectives, or a genuine page seeking to advocate for "heterosexuality".
In any event, the direction and message of the page is quite misguided, and completely misses the mark in its discourse on sexuality or faith.
The idea that "Heterosexuality is the Way, the Truth and it creates Life" is clear and utter heresy. The language of the post draws from, or at least parallels, John 14:6 where Jesus Christ said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, not "heterosexuality".
Further evidence of the page's error in idolising "heterosexuality" can be seen from the caption of its post at 3.25pm on 27 June 2018 'sharing' the video of Tamae Iwasaki where she spoke about her sexual abuse as a child, and her subsequent struggles with sexual attraction to both sexes, even during her marriage, and how God saved her. Rather than acknowledging God, HAM SG's caption was instead, "Heterosexuality heals."
The concept of "sexual orientation", including "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality", are recent inventions originating from the 1800s. In a thoughtful article aptly titled "Against Heterosexuality" (March 2014), Michael W. Hannon argues against adopting such categories:
They are recent inventions that are utterly foreign to our faith, inadequate for justifying sexual norms, and antithetical to true philosophical anthropology. The time has come for us to eradicate sexual orientation from our worldview as systemically as we can manage—with all due prudence as to complicated particular cases, of course.
Neither is it true that simply being "heterosexual" would make a person "STD Free" or "Healthy" or would "Make Babies". Sexual immorality, whether with the same or opposite sex, is a problem. For instance, according to the Ministry of Health statistics, out of 434 new cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in 2017, 417 cases acquired the infection through sexual intercourse, where heterosexual transmission accounted for 36% of all cases. Furthermore, many Singapore couples are not having children, or having fewer children. Singapore's fertility rate was also at a 7-year low at 1.16 in 2017.
Ultimately, God does not call us to "heterosexuality". Instead, the call of God to every single believer in Jesus Christ, and to all of humanity, is a call to holiness through faith in Jesus Christ, who clothes us with a new identity as children of God. As Christopher Yuan said:
God says, “Be holy, for I am holy”. I had always thought that the opposite of homosexuality was heterosexuality. But actually, the opposite of homosexuality is holiness. God never told me, “Be heterosexual, for I am heterosexual”. He said, “Be holy, for I am holy”.
And God told me, “Don't focus upon your sexuality, don't focus upon your feelings but focus upon living a life of holiness and living a life of purity.”
"When you and I as children of God are living in the light of honest confession - we're not trying to keep things under wraps, we're not trying to live a double life, we just want to honour Him in the best way that we can - your failures are not met with God's anger, they are met with God's advocacy."
- Nik Godshall
The above quote was from a message by Nik Godshall titled "Why All the Rules", which he preached at Times Square Church on 6 August 2017.
To illustrate the point, he recounted the following story:
Just not too long ago, my son was playing with a bunch of other toddlers. And when toddlers engage in fellowship, dangerous things can happen, especially when my boy is there. Because my boy is a stereotypical boy. He is aggressive, as anything. I don't know what to do with him sometimes.
He likes to hit. He breaks things and everything. He's a lot of fun; don't get me wrong. I love him so much, he's the joy of my heart. I mean, he's excited, he hits. He's happy to see me, he hits. He gets angry, he hits. And he hit a child, which he knows that's wrong. Well, he hit them twice.
And so I had to make good on my previous threat, and so we needed to go deal with the situation. We left the room, and we dealt with it, and it was a very tearful dealing; for him, not for me. And we came back, and I was going to let him resume playtime. And he didn't want to. He just wanted me to hold him.
So I'm holding him on my lap and I'm just comforting, telling, you know, "It's okay, buddy. Daddy loves you. That's why we don't hit. We have to be kind..."
All of a sudden one of the kids from the group came up. They were a little older, and they started asking me some questions about my son. And, they were making me upset, and I had to keep telling myself, "This is an underdeveloped human. This is an underdeveloped human. This is an underdeveloped human. Children are not rational." Just everything.
They had this smirk on their face. They knew what just happened, and they said, "Why is he crying? When you took him in the other room, what happened? Why is he crying?"
And in that moment, I'm thinking, "This is so perverse. What's wrong with you, child?" You know...
And I remembered a line from a book that I had read to my son only a few nights before. We want to make him a bookworm, so we're feeding into that now. We go to the library; we bring home like a dozen books and we just read one every night. We read a Bible story; he gets to pick a storybook.
That night, we had read a book by Max Lucado; it was a collection of children's stories that he had written. And the first one, a really beautiful... basically a poem from a Daddy to his daughter. And I remember one of the lines. He is telling her about what it means to be her Daddy and what she can expect from him. And one of the lines made me stop. I'm reading to him and it made me stop and think, that is amazing. It is where he tells her, "I will always be on your side." And I thought, wow, what a line about parenthood.
My son is only two, and he's got a whole life of rebellion and folly ahead of him. And sometimes I think, what's he going to get into? What am I going to have to deal with someday? And just thinking about that in terms of that line "I will always be on your side."
I remembered that. I'm holding my little boy. I just had to punish him because he disobeyed me. He hurt another person. I had to deal with him because I want him to grow up to be a good person. I want him to be a good man. I want him to be a better man than his Daddy when he grows up. So I've got to be consistent. I've got to do that.
And then this innocent accuser, if you will, comes. And in that moment I remembered that line, I'm always on his side.
I made intense eye contact with this child. And I said, "It's none of your business."
And they walked away.
Stock photo
Certainly, human experiences of fatherhood pale in comparison to the love of the Heavenly Father. Yet, even in our imperfection and despite the evil within us, Jesus recognised and affirmed the natural human instinct of fathers to give "good gifts" to their children (Matthew 7:11).
And this account remains a beautiful illustration of God's discipline as well as protection over His children.
The Bible shows us that all children of God are under God's discipline. God as a loving Father disciplines us for our good so that we may share in His holiness, even though such discipline may be quite unpleasant and painful for the time being (Hebrews 12:11).
However, in the face of the accuser, God is our advocate and defender. We have an advocate in Jesus Christ who speaks to the Father in our defence (1 John 2:1). And in Romans 8:33-34, Paul writes:
Who will bring any charges against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
If God declares us righteous, who can condemn us?
All our sins have been paid at the cross, and there is no charge that anyone in heaven or on earth or from the pits of hell can bring against the children of God.
So, even as the evil one may come and bring accusations against the children of God, God as a loving Father stands as our protector, looks him plainly in the eye, and tells him, "It's none of your business."
Many Christians would be familiar with the passage in Paul's epistle to the Romans, where he wrote to the church, "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”" (Romans 8:15, ESV)
One of the best illustrations of the meaning of the primal cry of "Abba! Father!" I have heard to-date comes from a message preached by Russell Moore, "Primal Scream Theology: The Call and Response of the Abba Cry", originally preached on Sunday, 3 May 2009, at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where Moore recounts part the story of the adoption of his two sons from a Russian orphanage:
[The] creepiest sound I ever heard in my life was nothing at all.
My wife Maria and I were walking into a Russian orphanage on the first of two trips to the former Soviet Union to meet two boys to whom we had been directed to adopt as our sons.
We'd never seen them; we didn't know all that much about them, but when we walked into the doors of that orphanage, the thing that struck us right away was not the stench, although it was overpowering; I had to resist the urge to walk outside and vomit. It wasn't the squalor of the walls cracking apart and the dilapidated building although that was awful.
The thing that struck me right away was the silence.
I said to Maria, "Will you just listen for a minute?"
The place is completely still and quiet and there are babies everywhere. As you walked up and down the halls of that orphanage, room after room after room of toddlers and infants, but there was not a cry. It was almost like the Christmas carol that we sing, "all is calm, all is bright", no crying any of them made.
And it slowly dawned on me that what had happened was that you have an institution full of babies without mothers, without fathers, who are learning that when they cry, no one is going to respond. And so a baby learns if he is hungry or distressed or alarmed, that when he cries out, when she calls out, if that happens enough, they will stop crying.
And so all that you heard in this orphanage is the sound of cribs rocking and hitting against the walls as infants comforted themselves in cradles.
And every day, for a week, my wife and I would walk into a room where we found these two little Russian boys. And every day we would play with them and read with them and tell them - even though they couldn't understand us - that we would come to get them and they would be our children soon. And every day we would leave, and we would leave to silence.
Until the last day of that trip.
Maria and I were told, "It's time for you to go, you're going to have to leave these boys behind, and you're going to have to go back to the United States and you'll have to wait for all the paperwork to be done, and you're going to have to leave now."
We said, "Can we have five more minutes with these boys?"
They said, "You can have five more minutes."
And we hugged on them and we kissed them, and I said, "We will not leave you as orphans. We will come to you." And we walked out of the door.
And as soon as we walked out of the door, one of those little one-year-old boys - little Maxim, whose name now is Benjamin - fell face-first into that crib filled with excrement and screamed.
It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.
Not because of his agony, not because of his sense of abandonment, but because in that scream he recognised us as his parents. He knew that we would hear.
That is exactly what the Apostle Paul says is happening in the life of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, when through the Holy Spirit you cry out "Abba! Father!"
This is our primal cry to God when we cry out "Abba! Father!" It is a cry with the knowledge that we have a God who will hear us. As the Psalmist writes, speaking from God's perspective, "He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him." (Psalm 91:15)
This is the spirit of adoption, the spirit of sonship, that we receive through God's beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
At the 2014 Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) National Conference on "The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage", Sam Allberry spoke on the topic "Is God Anti-Gay? Answering Tough Questions About Same-Sex Marriage".
In his message, he addressed four "biggest ground-level questions" that are commonly raised:
Did Jesus even mention homosexuality?
Can't we just agree to differ over this issue as Evangelicals?
Isn't a same-sex partnership okay if it's faithful?
Isn't the kind of traditional Christian position on sex and marriage deeply harmful to people?
The responses given by Allberry on these questions are deeply insightful. Given that he is himself same-sex attracted and has been for "pretty much [his] entire adult life", his sharing is not purely theoretical, but practical as well, sharing his personal experiences in the issues and questions.
The final question that Sam Allberry addressed was: "Isn't the traditional Christian position on sex and marriage harmful?"
This is the objection that says that the traditional Christian position is the cause of acute mental health problems even suicide among gay people.
As part of his response to this objection, Allberry hit the nail in the head on the allegation that the Christian position was driving same-sex attracted people to commit suicide:
Next thing to say on this issue; on my understanding and in my experience, we Evangelicals are not the ones who say sex is everything. We are not the ones who say that a life without sex is no life at all.
And the idea that, the assumption behind that, the kind of challenge that celibacy is in itself harmful means that sex has become an idol. If life without sex is not conceivable for you, it is very clear what is really 'god' in your life.
A friend of mine Andrew Wilson back in the UK once a recently spoke on the issue of "Why does God care who I sleep with?" And a part of his answer was to turn the question around and say, "Why do you care so much who you sleep with? Why is that where you draw the line and object to following God? Why is that your one non-negotiable?"
It strikes me that it is our culture that is making sex into an idol, and therefore is saying to people when your sex life doesn't work out your life hasn't worked out. It is not the Evangelical Church but our society around us that is putting the stakes up that high.
And my question is, which perspective is most likely to make someone feel that their life is not worth living: the perspective that says sex is everything and if it's not fulfilling then there's no point - life without sex is no life at all? Or the Christian perspective that should be saying sex is a wonderful gift from God, but it is but a gift and is no substitute for the Giver?
We are not the ones who say that a lack of sexual fulfilment is a lack of human fulfilment. So friends, I don't deny that the church has been the cause of ungodly and unwarranted pain and abuse for people over the years and we should not be slow to confess that and to repent of it. But I want to challenge the culture around us to say, I think it has blood on its hands as well, in making sex the centre.
This is certainly the unfortunate result of the Sexual Revolution and the culture wars of our modern times. It is not exclusively limited to homosexuality, but certainly does include it.
With the message on the one hand from the sex-driven culture that sexual relations are a core part of one's identity or an integral part of human fulfilment, and the Christian message that the only acceptable form of sexual expression is in the context of marriage between a man and a woman on the other, it is no stretch of imagination how this may lead those struggling with their sexual desires (same-sex or otherwise) to feel sandwiched between two impossible alternatives, thus leading to despair.
Taken together, these two messages present a same-sex attracted person with the (false) dilemma of either embracing one's "identity" and being "true to oneself" by giving in to one's sexual desires or of following God's commands and therefore denying one's "identity" and thereby giving up perceived human fulfilment in this lifetime.
How should the Church respond then?
Despite how political or theological debates are often about whether homosexuality is right or wrong, acceptable or otherwise, the real issue at its core is a concept of identity.
Modern culture attempts to define human identity based on one's sexuality, thereby defining people as either "gay" or "straight", "homosexual" or "heterosexual", or some other form of "gender identity" or "sexual orientation". Perhaps even some Christians may be tempted to adopt these definitions and labels.
However, this is not how God defines or sees us as human beings. The Bible teaches us that our identity comes from being made in the image of God, male and female (Genesis 1:27). If one is a Christian, one's identity comes from being a child of God and, through the Spirit, we are able to call out as children to God, "Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).
As Sam Allberry said earlier in the same message, "my same-sex attraction is not who I am. It's part of what I feel, but it's not who I am."
Indeed, in Christ, our identity comes from being the children of God. Like Jesus at His baptism, God looks down upon all who are in Christ, and what He said to Jesus He says also to us, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." (Luke 3:22)
And as children, we are able to look to God for every good gift that the Father intends to give us, be it the gift of marriage or singleness, just like any other good gift that the Father deems fit to give His children.
At all times, it is worth remembering that sex remains a gift, but is no substitute for the Giver, from whom all good things come.
Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's classic, Gulag Archipelago, recounts the horrors of the Soviet forced labour camps where "political" offenders (referred to as "politicals") were imprisoned and subject to brutal forced labour on account of various "political" offences which ranged from the ridiculous to absurd, as were other prisoners who were jailed for other offences.
Among those imprisoned for "political" offences were Christians. In Solzhenitsyn's book, he records the best and worst of their responses to persecution. Of these were a group of believers, simple people with a simple faith, that shone in the darkness of the Soviet Gulag:
And not only socialists were now politicals. The politicals were splashed in tubfuls into the fifteen-million-criminal ocean, and they were invisible and inaudible to us. They were mute. They were muter than all the test. Their image was the fish.
The fish, symbol of the early Christians. And the Christians were their principal contingent. Clumsy, semiliterate, unable to deliver speeches from the rostrum or compose an underground proclamation (which their faith made unnecessary anyway), they went off to camp to face tortures and death - only so as not to renounce their faith! They knew very well for what they were serving time, and they were unwavering in their convictions! They were the only ones, perhaps, to whom the camp philosophy and even the camp language did not stick. And these were not politicals? Well, you'd certainly not call them riffraff.
And women among them were particularly numerous. The Tao says: When faith collapses, that is when the true believers appear. Because of our enlightened scoffing at Orthodox priests, the squalling of the Komsomol members on Easter night, and the whistles of the thieves at the transit prisons, we overlooked the fact that the sinful Orthodox Church had nevertheless nurtured daughters worthy of the first centuries of Christianity - sisters of those thrown to the lions in the arenas.
There was a multitude of Christians: prisoner transports and graveyards, prisoner transports and graveyards. Who will count those millions? They died unknown, casting only in their immediate vicinity a light like a candle. They were the best of Russia's Christians. The worst had all... trembled, recanted, and gone into hiding.
For these blessed believers, perhaps "the world was not worthy of them" (Hebrews 11:38), and certainly "God had planned something better for [them]" (Hebrews 11:40).
They may have died silently, unknown and unrecognised by the world; but on the side of eternity awaits a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to them on that day of His appearing (cf. 2 Timothy 4:8).
"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?" (James 2:14)
It is often only in times of testing when the rubber hits the road and when faith is put to the test that we truly see whether one's faith is a living faith accompanied by action or a dead faith.
The Bible records numerous accounts of heroes of faith, well-known and relatively unknown, who have stood against evil even when it cost them dearly. The genocidal impulses against the Hebrews or the Jews have always been strong and, on many occasions, godly men and women stood against the tide. For example, there were the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, who disobeyed Pharaoh's order to kill the Hebrew newborn boys (Exodus 1). There was Esther, who stood against Haman's edict seeking to exterminate the Jews.
The pastor, from the film The Hiding Place (1975)
In our own not-too-distant history, the evil one has not relented in his efforts to destroy God's people. In her book, The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom records an account where she was looking for a place where she could hide a Jewish mother and child from the Nazi secret police, the Gestapo. With the scourge of Nazi Germany and its genocidal impulses, arrest would almost certainly mean death:
And the very next morning into the shop walked the perfect solution. He was a clergyman friend of ours, pastor in a small town outside of Haarlem, and his home was set back from the street in a large wooded park.
“Good morning, Pastor,” I said, the pieces of the puzzle falling together in my mind. “Can we help you?”
I looked at the watch he had brought in for repair. It required a very hard-to-find spare part. “But for you, Pastor, we will do our very best. And now I have something I want to confess.”
The pastor’s eyes clouded. “Confess?”
I drew him out the back door of the shop and up the stairs to the dining room.
“I confess that I too am searching for something.” The pastor’s face was now wrinkled with a frown. “Would you be willing to take a Jewish mother and her baby into your home? They will almost certainly be arrested otherwise.”
Color drained from the man’s face. He took a step back from me. “Miss ten Boom! I do hope you’re not involved with any of this illegal concealment and undercover business. It’s just not safe! Think of your father! And your sister – she’s never been strong!”
On impulse I told the pastor to wait and ran upstairs. Betsie had put the newcomers in Willem’s old room, the farthest from windows on the street. I asked the mother’s permission to borrow the infant: the little thing weighed hardly anything in my arms.
Back in the dining room I pulled back the coverlet from the baby’s face.
There was a long silence. The man bent forward, his hand in spite of himself reaching for the tiny fist curled round the blanket. For a moment I saw compassion and fear struggle in his face. Then he straightened. “No. Definitely not. We could lose our lives for that Jewish child!”
Unseen by either of us, Father had appeared in the doorway. “Give the child to me, Corrie,” he said.
Father held the baby close, his white beard brushing its cheek, looking into the little face with eyes as blue and innocent as the baby’s own. At last he looked up at the pastor. “You say we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family.”
The pastor turned sharply on his heels and walked out of the room.
So we had to accept a bad solution to our problem. On the edge of Haarlem was a truck farm which hid refugees for short periods of time. It was not a good location, since the Gestapo had been there already. But there was nowhere else available on short notice. Two workers took the woman and child there that afternoon.
A few weeks later we heard that the farm had been raided. When the Gestapo came to the barn where the woman was hidden, not the baby but the mother began to shriek with hysteria. She, the baby, and her protectors were all taken.
We never learned what happened to them.
Such was the cowardice of the pastor. Indeed, faith without action is dead.
I began this year feeling purposeless and meaningless, feeling like I have seen all that I need to see in life. Whether in my work, ministry, or anything else, I felt that I had enough and there was - to borrow a phrase used by the writer of Ecclesiastes - "nothing new under the sun".
"What's next?" This was the question I posed to God repeatedly over the next few days.
This morning, God finally gave me an answer, "Be faithful with the little things."
It was a deeply unsatisfactory answer, since I had been hoping for something I would consider more precise, such as a clear direction to "do this" or "do that".
But upon further reflection, I recalled various passages that I had read recently in my quiet time. As Jesus said, "One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much." (Luke 16:10, ESV)
Likewise, in both the Parable of the Talents and the Parable of the Minas, the talent or mina of the unfaithful servant was taken and given to the servant who had been faithful with what he was given.
Jesus added, "I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." (Luke 19:26, ESV)
The little things that God entrusts to us are not to be taken lightly, since faithfulness is what counts in God's eyes. So, take heed, and "Be faithful with the little things."
Freedom is born only of truth, for as Jesus Christ said, "the truth shall set you free" (John 8:32). Yet truth offends, for everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed (John 3:20ff).
So how can the truth be spoken unless there first is freedom? Will it not be that everyone who speaks the truth must endure scorn, ridicule and persecution so that others might be free?
For this very reason, the Son of God came to "testify to the truth" (John 18:37), and to purchase our freedom through His sacrifice on the cross.
For this very same reason, there must arise in every generation prophets and martyrs who will speak the truth, regardless of the consequences, so that others might be set free.
And this is the call of every disciple of Jesus Christ.
This has become a mantra of our time. Postmodernists and relativists claim that different people have different ideas of truth, and there is no truth. Politicians dodge direct questions from citizens or journalists by making vague statements about how there are different points of views from different segments of society and how it is not easy to "balance" these competing views.
But if there is anything that we can agree with German postmodernist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on, it is that without Truth, all we are left with is the "will to power". Thus, quietly but surely, the claims of postmodernists and relativists about "different ideas of truth" or of politicians of "balancing" vaguely defined competing views often masks a carte blanche for the imposition of sheer power.
Jesus had a direct question that He asked His disciples, "Who do people say I am?" (Mark 8:27) Although they were not exactly dodging the question like the postmodernists, relativists and politicians, the disciples replied by referring to the different views that people had: "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." (Mark 8:28)
Jesus pressed in further, to which only the straight-talking Peter replied. The Gospel of Mark records:
"But what about you?" He asked. "Who do you say I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Christ." Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about Him.
(Mark 8:29-30)
The same question that Jesus posed to His disciples is the same question that Jesus poses to us today.
It is easy to simply reply by appealing to what other people think or say about God, about Jesus Christ, or about all the "controversial" moral issues of today. It is easy to reply things like "Christians say this about Jesus, while other religions say that", or to say things like "social conservatives say this, while those who are socially liberal say that".
It is also easy to just repeat what other Christians think or say, by saying things like, "According to my pastor..." or "According to my church..."
But the question that Jesus Christ is asking us today is a much more pointed one, "Who do you say I am?"
Will we, like Peter, proclaim "You are the Christ"? Is He your Lord and Saviour? Is He the Way, the Truth and the Life? Or is He just a good man, or something else?
Do we recognise Jesus Christ and His Words as the way to eternal life, an objective Truth that sets people free? Or are we ashamed of being identified as His disciples in a time when following Christ means exposure to contempt, ridicule or even persecution?
Jesus Himself said:
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it... If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels.
(Mark 8:34b-35, 38)
In a time of growing confusion and compromise, let us "fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2)
On 10 September 2013, Russell D. Moore was inaugurated as the eighth president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the moral and public policy agency of America's largest Protestant denomination.
Among those who spoke at his inauguration was Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, who outlined the challenges for Christians in society today.
Here is a transcript of his speech:
The Southern Baptist Convention is blessed. The larger Christian community is blessed. The nation, Russell, is blessed. Indeed, the world is blessed by the decision to appoint Dr Russell Moore to this position of leadership in the Christian community. I will tell you truthfully that my heart leapt for joy when I got the news that my beloved brother whom I admire so much would be appointed to fill the big shoes of Richard Land for the next period of leadership, and may it be long and blessed of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Those are big shoes to fill, Russell, but I haven't the slightest doubt that you will distinguish yourself beyond all measure.
The right man, in the right place, at the right time.
And let me express my gratitude on behalf of the larger Christian community to the Southern Baptist Convention and especially to the Board that made this blessed selection for the wisdom to have appointed such a man to a position of such importance and leadership at this time.
And what a time.
A time when the foundational principles, the foundational moral principles of our faith, the foundational ethical and moral principles of our polity, as a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. And among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; thefoundational principles of our very civilisation, a civilisation shaped at every turn, and in its greatness by the Judaeo-Christian ethic. A time when every foundational principle is in peril and is under assault. Assault sometimes - I will speak to you plainly - from positions of power in our own nation and in nations across the country.
What are those principles? We know them well. They're the principles articulated in what Richard Land named the Manhattan Declaration, that great call of Christian conscience.
First and most foundationally, the principle of the profound and equal and inherent dignity of each and every member of the human family; the idea expressed in our Scripture as the human being made in the very image and likeness of the divine Ruler and Creator of the universe. The idea that every member of the human family - no matter how small, no matter how weak, no matter how unimportant in the eyes of the world - is of immeasurable worth and dignity. It doesn't matter the size, it doesn't matter our age, it doesn't matter our stage of development, it doesn't matter are condition of dependency. All of us my friends, even those we regard as the most powerful, are dependent in one way or another. None of us can truly declare an individual independence. There is no Declaration of Independence of Robert George or Russell Moore from the community of which we are a part.
The second principle - and it is absolutely indispensable - is the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. That principle we know so well today - Pastor Luter, President Luter, mentioned it - is under the most severe assault. What is proposed is not an expansion of marriage or eligibility to participate in the institution of marriage, as it's sometimes peddled to us. What is at issue is whether marriage as understood in our tradition, and every tradition known to us, as articulated in Genesis 2 in the concept that the man leaves his mother and home and cleaves onto his wife and the two are one flesh.
That principle is proposed for abolition, not expansion, abolition; to be replaced by a completely different way of organising human relations, replaced by a conception of "marriage" which is truly nothing other than sexual romantic companionship or domestic partnership. A conception that can make no sense - believe me brothers and sisters, I have had the challenge out there to our friends on the other side of this issue now for ten years - they can make no sense of the norms up exclusivity and fidelity; the idea that marriage is the union of two persons not three or four or five or more in polyamorous sexual partnerships.
They can make no sense in the idea of marriage as a permanent union, as opposed to a temporary alliance for a two-year term or five-year term as now is being proposed in Mexico City. Renewable. Well that's nice. Or "for as long as love lasts" as the hippie weddings used to have it in them in the sixties.
None of these structuring principles and norms of marriage can make any sense once the idea of marriage is a conjugal union - a one-flesh union - is jettisoned in favour of the alternative conception marriage as domestic partnership or mere sexual romantic companionship.
And then of course, the great foundational principle of religious liberty for which the entire Christian community and the world owes a great debt to you Baptists, and to the Baptist tradition. You were there first, way before many of our other traditions. We got there, but with your good leadership and example. And to say that that principle is under assault is only to report soberly what a previous speaker said to you explicitly.
My friends, the persecution is coming. Indeed it is here.
We see it - I speak plainly I hope I offend none, but I take the risk - of the Health and Human Services Mandates imposing obligations on employers with the narrowest of exceptions on employers - even religious employers, Catholic hospitals, Evangelical colleges and universities - to provide insurance coverage for services or products which they cannot in good conscience, in Christian conscience, accept. Giving them the choice of following God or Caesar, demanding that they render unto Caesar that which is God's.
We see it now increasingly with respect to the marriage issue. Wedding photographers, Christian wedding photographers, Mennonite owners of catering services, people who supply flowers for wedding events brought under prosecution, subjected to civil liability because they cannot in good conscience participate in the blessing of unions that, on a Christian view, cannot be judged other than to be immoral.
And yet again, we see increasingly the tide turning against conscience and in favour of the imposition by political power on the conscience of the believer. We look abroad. It was kindly mentioned Philip that I was sworn in yesterday by Chief Justice Roberts on Harriet Tubman's Bible, let me add, as the new Chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom; an office I'm very proud to hold, but I hold it in fear and trembling because I look around the world and I see the viciousness of persecution from North Korea to China to Iran, throughout the Middle East, Africa, Cuba, Venezuela. Increasingly, we see things that worry us deeply even in the democratic countries in Western Europe. Anti-Semitism again on the rise. Secularism aggressively pushing religion out of the public and into the private domain, as if religion were a purely private activity legitimately pressed by government into the narrow confines of the home or the church or the mosque or the synagogue.
So we have a big challenge, both internationally and domestically, to religious freedom; a challenge that, it's the duty of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission to exercise leadership in. We need that leadership. We had it in Dr Land, we will have it in Dr Moore.
These are not fights that we Christians can afford to fight alone. This cannot be simply an Evangelical battle, or even more narrowly, a Baptist battle. We need to unite across the lines of historic theological division both within the Christian world and beyond. We need Baptists and we need Catholics. We need Eastern Orthodox Christians. We need Latter-Day Saints. We need Orthodox and observant Jews. We need those members in the Muslim community - and they exist - who will stand with us for religious liberty, for the sanctity of human life, for marriage as the union of husband and wife.
We need to be prepared in giving our Christian witness to stand arm-in-arm with them. It's our duty to engage the culture.
As a Lutheran pastor recently said in a wonderful homily that I had the occasion to listen to, Jesus doesn't need any more secret agents. He's got enough of them. He needs bold witnesses. And Christians should be in the forefront - not alone - but in the forefront, of giving that bold witness to these foundational principles. And of course that's going to mean sacrifice. That means that we will place at risk all that we have - the status, the prestige, the standing in the eyes of the world, the opportunities for career advancement, sometimes for career advancement in politics. Some will put their businesses at risk. Recently a photographer couple went out of business - their own little small business - because they were forced out. They couldn't stay in business and remain faithful to their Christian conscience.
So we need leaders. We need leaders who will set the example of courage. As the previous speaker said, we need giant killers.
And thank God that God has raised up a man like Russell Moore at this time and placed him in the position of leadership that he now holds. But we cannot be mere followers of Russell or of anyone else. Each of us in this room needs to be a leader in defending the foundational principles our faith, of our polity and of our civilisation. No, not all of us are called on to be full time as Russell will be. But all of us are called not merely to follow but to lead.
Let's exemplify that in the community. Let's live that life that we're called to live by Jesus. Let's cling to Jesus, as I know Russell will cling to Jesus, as we go forward. Not as mere followers, but as leaders, each and every one.
March for Life 2015 took place on 22 January 2015 at the National Mall in Washington D.C., the United States.
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, delivered a powerful speech and prayer before the launch of the march. (Rev. Rodriguez's speech begins at 1:16:42 of the video.)
The transcript follows:
We gather today not as blacks, whites, yellow or brown. We gather today as children of the living God.
We gather today with the commitment to reconcile righteousness with justice, sanctification with service, and Truth with Love.
We gather today with Biblical conviction and courage to speak to the spiritual forces that exacerbate the death of innocents in the womb.
We gather today to speak to the spirit of Pharaoh, and to the spirit of Herod, and to declare the following.
We declare the following:
For every Pharaoh there will be a Moses;
For every Goliath there will be a David;
For every Nebuchadnezzar there will be a Daniel;
For every Jezebel there will be an Elijah;
For every Herod there will be a Jesus!
And for every devil that rises up against us,
there is a mightier God that rises up for us.
For we understand that the right to life stems not from the executive branch, judicial or the legislative branch. The right to life does not stem from a political party or apparatus. It does not come from the donkey or the elephant.
The right to life comes from the Lamb that is on the throne; His name is Jesus.
Therefore, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, let us remind our nation and our fellow citizens that Uncle Sam may be our uncle, but he will never be our Heavenly Father.
With that, let me invite you to pray.
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, we pray that this generation will recognise the image of God in every human being in and out of the womb without exception.
We pray that the followers of Christ will no longer hide at the bottom of the threshing floor but rather they will emerge as mighty heroes of righteousness and justice.
We pray that the children of the cross realise that today's complacency is tomorrow's captivity, that moral stagnation leads to spiritual atrophy, and that there is no such thing as comfortable Christianity.
We pray that children will not be aborted, that marriages will thrive, and religious liberty will prevail for generations to come.
We pray that Truth will never be sacrificed on the altar of expediency, that Love will overcome hate, and that the prophetic will silence the pathetic. And we pray for the strength of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the anointing of God's Spirit to equip us in order to advance Your agenda; an agenda that protects the innocent and the unborn, all while we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before God.
And we pray all of this in the holy, righteous, triumphant, victorious name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen and amen.
I recently heard a message preached from 2 Kings about the story of Hezekiah and his big mistake towards the end of his life.
The Book of 2 Kings 20:12-19 records:
At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of Hezekiah's illness. Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses--the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil--his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did those men say, and where did they come from?" "From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came from Babylon."
The prophet asked, "What did they see in your palace?"
"They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah said. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
"The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?"
The blindness and folly of King Hezekiah was utterly remarkable. How could the invasion and plunder by the Babylonians of the palace, or the forceful subjugation and castration of his own descendants be called "good"?
King Hezekiah's comment showed the utter selfishness and self-centredness of his own heart. It cared nothing for the welfare of his own descendants, but cared only about his own wealth and temporary "peace and security" during his lifetime.
This, the preacher explained, seems to be the attitude of many parents towards the education of our children, who are being castrated in their hearts and minds by worldviews and philosophies utterly opposed to the things of God.
Nothing destroys the future generation more than castration. Yet in the same way, in the Old Testament at least, God's covenant from one generation to the next is marked by circumcision. It is not merely a bodily circumcision, but a circumcision of the heart that God calls for, as exhorted in Deuteronomy 10:16, "Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer."
Likewise, Paul emphasised in Romans 2:28-29:
A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.
A couple of chapters down, Paul urged, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will." (Romans 12:2)
Ultimately, Christians should at all times be aware that this is a spiritual battle being waged on all fronts against a relentless enemy whose goal is none other than to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10).
Former Lebanese ambassador Charles Malik, said in his address "The Two Tasks" delivered at the dedication ceremony of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College on 13 September 1980:
Responsible Christians face two tasks - that of saving the soul, and that of saving the mind... The mind is desperately disordered today. I am pleading that a tiny fraction of Christian care be extended to the mind too. If it is the will of the Holy Spirit that we attend to the soul, certainly it is not his will that we neglect the mind. No civilization can endure with its mind being as confused and disordered as ours is today. All ills stem proximately from the false philosophies that have been let loose in the world and that are now being taught in the universities, and ultimately of course... from the devil, whether or not the human agents know it.
As Christians, we cannot possibly neglect the mind, including the spiritual, emotional and intellectual education of our children. We are called to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God", and "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). In Ephesians 6:4, Paul writes, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."
Our children need to be circumcised in their hearts and minds, not castrated.
With the rise of gender theory and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) activism, a growing number of people have begun to define themselves with reference to their "sexual orientation" or "sexual identity". Terms like "gay" or "lesbian" are used to define people, and distinctions are made between "heterosexual" and "homosexual" persons. Even many Christians use these terms.
But is this Biblical?
The concept of "sexual orientation" is completely foreign to the Biblical framework, a point that homosexual activists and liberal theologians are especially quick to emphasise. Yet this is precisely the point.
From the Biblical perspective, human beings are not defined by "sexual orientation" or "sexual identity". Instead, the starting point is and has always been Genesis 1:27:
So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Men and women are created in the image of God. That is our identity.
For Christians, our identity is rooted in being children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Paul writes in Galatians 3:26-28:
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Your attractions do not define you. Despite the fact that much is made today of “being gay” or having a gay identity, the reality is that your romantic attractions and sexual desires do not define who you are as a person.
More importantly, if you have surrendered your life to the Lord and are living in obedience to Him, your primary identity is found in being a son or daughter of God.
Many believers struggle when they put gay before Christian in terms of their identity rather than putting Christian (or child of God) first.
16. ... The human person, made in the image and likeness of God, can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. Every one living on the face of the earth has personal problems and difficulties, but challenges to growth, strengths, talents and gifts as well. Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a "heterosexual" or a "homosexual" and insists that every person has a fundamental Identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, let us refrain from using simplistic and reductionist labels like "gay", "lesbian", etc. We are not defined by our desires, sexual or otherwise.
Marred as we are by sin, humans still bear the image of God. And through Christ Jesus, each one of us can be set free from desires that enslave us, to live a life free from sin with the guidance and counsel of His Holy Spirit.
Yesterday morning, I was complaining to God and asking Him why I do not hear His voice all the time. At the same time, I was also thinking about some of my friends whom I felt I ought to speak to more.
God had some words for me and them. He said three words, "Where are you?"
"Where are you?" were the words that God spoke to Adam in the Garden of Eden, after Adam sinned by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Bible records in Genesis 3:8-9:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
The question was more than a mere question about Adam's physical location. It was a question of where Adam was with respect to Him, or where Adam was in Him. As Skip Moen puts it in Guardian Angel, "God is asking why Adam is not where he is supposed to be - with Him." Yet, "Adam now seeks escape from the presence of God."
The passage suggests that Adam used to walk with God, more than just physically. But now Adam said, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." (Genesis 3:10)
Jesus' call of discipleship is as simple as "follow me", literally to leave all else and walk with Him.
But there were hard teachings. Once, Jesus spoke about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Another time, He spoke about taking up the cross and denying oneself to follow Him. People left.
When Jesus asked His disciples whether they were going to leave too, Peter gave a remarkable answer in John 6:67-69:
"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
So God's word for me, and for my friends who came to mind, was "Where are you?"
Is the answer, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid"?
Or is the answer, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life"?
From the Old Testament sacrifices to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, many Biblical covenants are made in blood.
At the same time, we often hear people describing the church as a "family", drawing from passages such as Matthew 12:50 where Jesus said, "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."
Knowing that the Bible teaches that the natural family unit is established by marriage between a man and a woman and their children, a fellow brother-in-Christ once asked concerning the apparent dilemma between the two definitions of "family" in the Bible.
My answer to him back then was that the use of the word "family" in the context of the church is a metaphor, drawing from the understanding of the natural family unit.
This is not wrong, and might be an answer I would give to a non-Christian, but I soon came to realise that there is much more.
When we talk about the natural family, we are referring to flesh-and-blood relations. For example, if someone is my brother, he is related to me by flesh and blood. We would expect a DNA test to show that we are biologically related.
But Christians are truly related by flesh and blood too!
Christians are related by the shedding of the flesh and blood of Jesus, who died to redeem us all from our sins. In Holy Communion, we partake of Christ's flesh and blood. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26:
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
There is also another sense in which the church is related by flesh and blood with Jesus.
When God created woman, He put the man Adam into a deep sleep and formed the woman out of the man's rib. As a result, the man could say of the woman, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." (Genesis 2:23)
Jesus has been described as the Second Adam (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:45). In the same way, Jesus was put into a deep sleep in the grave and out of His sacrifice God formed the church. The church is the Body of Christ (Ephesians 5:22-33). It is truly bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh.
Therefore, in a very real sense, Christians are related by the flesh and blood of Jesus.
Sometimes, when we speak to people in church about sin, we are often met with the retort, "Do not judge!"
But why are so many people who profess to be God-fearing Christians so afraid of judgment?
The Gospel message is unabashedly pointed in its presentation of the reality of sin and its consequences, but at the same time is unabashedly clear about the reality of justification in Christ Jesus. This is beautifully summed up in Romans 3:23-24:
[For] all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
In his First Epistle to the notorious Corinthian church, Paul did not hesitate to warn them about sin, even as he affirmed their sanctification and justification in Christ:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
For those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation. Paul writes in Romans 8:1-2:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
If we are in Christ Jesus, there is no reason to be afraid of judgment.
Rather, God's judgment would be a form of vindication for those in Christ Jesus.
To be "justified" is to be declared righteous, like in a court of law. Someone who is truly innocent has has no reason to fear the judgment of a righteous and holy God.
Like in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, when Jesus returns at the Second Coming, the wicked are cast into eternal punishment, while the righteous are brought into eternal life (Matthew 25:31-46).
For the righteous, judgment is not to be feared as condemnation or punishment. Instead, it vindicates them. The Book of Revelation records the cries of the saints in heaven to God:
"How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" (Revelation 6:10)
The question, then, is this: Are you in Christ Jesus, or not? If you are, you would welcome judgment because you have nothing to fear. If not, it would be "a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).
"I desire mercy, not sacrifice," God spoke through the prophet Hosea as He pointed out the grievous sins that Israel and Judah had committed (Hosea 6:6).
"I desire mercy, not sacrifice," said Jesus when the Pharisees questioned Jesus' disciples as to why their Teacher was eating with tax collectors and "sinners" (Matthew 9:9-13).
"I desire mercy, not sacrifice," said Jesus again when the Pharisees rebuked Jesus and His disciples for picking some heads of grain and eating them on the Sabbath. Jesus then headed to the synagogue and healed a man with a shrivelled hand (Matthew 12:1-14).
Having been raised in a Christian home, and having attended church ever since I was born, "being Christian" has essentially meant attending church every Sunday, reading my Bible and praying every day, attending cell groups and Bible studies and living a good personal life. That was what I was taught about how to be a "good Christian".
On the other hand, failing to attend church and missing Bible studies were a big no-no; these were only pardonable if I had some legitimate reason.
But what does the Lord truly desire of us?
In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus illustrated the meaning of "mercy" by telling of the priest and the Levite who walked on without caring for the injured man, while on the other hand, the Samaritan went the extra mile to show concern for him and ensure that he was being cared for.
In the parable, Jesus seemed to care very little about the fact that the priest and the Levite were "religious" people, who were probably on their way to or from their religious duties. Instead, the hero of the story was a despised Samaritan who his neighbour and showed mercy.
Have we gotten church wrong? Where do our priorities lie?
Surely, salvation is by grace through faith alone (Romans 3:23-24), but likewise we are called to work out our salvation "with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12) and to express our faith in love (Galatians 5:6).
In our weekly Sunday rituals, have we forgotten the poor, sick, homeless, orphans, widows, aliens, unborn, or disabled? Have we forgotten those who are sexually broken and crying out for love and affection yet finding these in all the wrong places?
Will we be the people to whom the Lord will say "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me" (Matthew 25:35-36)?
Or will the Lord say to us, "depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41)?
Full post at "http://pjsaunders.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/divorcing-love-from-morality-new.html"
"Situation ethics basically states that other moral principles can be cast aside
in certain situations if love is best served; as theologian Paul Tillich once
put it: ‘Love is the ultimate law’.
The moral principles Fletcher was specifically referring to were the moral
codes of Christianity and the type of love he is specifically referring to is
‘agape’ love.
Fletcher believed that in forming an ethical system based on love, he was best
expressing the notion of ‘love thy neighbour’, which Jesus Christ taught in the
Gospels.
He believed that there are no absolute laws other than the law of ‘agape’ love,
meaning that all the other laws are only guidelines on how to achieve this
love, and could be broken if an alternative course of action would result in
more love."
By my reading Situation Ethics is a distortion of biblical ethical teaching. It
is, in short, heresy. But it is a heresy that appears to be very much alive and
well amongst British evangelicals in the 21st century. No more clearly is it
evidence than in the shifting views and lack of clarity amongst evangelicals
about sexual morality and the shedding of innocent blood.
Interestingly, Fletcher later identified himself as an
atheist and was active in the Euthanasia Society of America and the American
Eugenics Society and was one of the signatories to the Humanist
Manifesto. When he started out, his position was barely distinguishable
from orthodoxy. But he finished up in a very different place altogether."
Full post at "http://pjsaunders.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/cheap-grace-false-gospel-and-deadly.html"
Bonhoeffer defines cheap grace as follows:
'Cheap grace is the
grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness
without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion
without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without
the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate’
But what does this cheap grace look like? Bonhoeffer points
especially to two things that mark out cheap grace from real grace.
Cheap grace is without repentance
Cheap grace is a grace we bestow on ourselves, in other
words, it is a grace we give each other when we see fit, rather than
according to the pattern of God
