Russell D. Moore's Blog, page 2

Why I’m Going to the Vatican

The Vatican announced today that they will host, in a matter of weeks, a colloquium on marriage and the family, bringing together leaders from virtually every religious tradition in the world, to talk about the complementarity of man and woman in marriage. Here’s why I, a Baptist, accepted the invitation from the Pope to talk about this.

The colloquium isn’t one of these “Let’s hide all our differences and pretend we’re all together on everything” exercises we’ve all seen happen multiple times over. We have real and ongoing differences on soteriology and ecclesiology, starting with the papacy itself, and that will be the case at the end of this meeting as well as at its start.

That said, I am willing to go anywhere, when asked, to bear witness to what we as evangelical Protestants believe about marriage and the gospel, especially in times in which marriage is culturally imperiled. In this colloquium, we come not hiding our distinctives behind some general and abstract faith, but we come to it speaking from our distinct confessional traditions to this issue. It’s an issue I believe God has revealed in the universe around us (Gen. 1-2), and that he has explained in the mystery of Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:32), which is why it is of such importance.

Moreover, as one who has been charitably (I hope) critical of Pope Francis on more than one occasion–the last occasion being the Synod deliberations of a few weeks ago on the subject of marriage and family–I can hardly criticize from across the Tiber and then refuse to talk, when invited, about these matters. That’s especially the case when the American bishops have been resolute in standing with us, despite our real differences, on questions of religious liberty and the future of the family.

Here’s what I hope comes out of the meeting. I hope that this gathering of religious leaders can stand in solidarity on the common grace, creational mandate of marriage and family as necessary for human flourishing and social good. I also hope that we can learn from one another about where these matters stand around the world. And I hope that those of us from the believers’ church tradition can represent well our views of how marriage is more than just a natural good (although it is never less than that), but is a picture of the gospel one-flesh union of Christ and his church.

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Why Not Just Hand the Sermons Over?

The controversy in Houston rages on, after City Hall subpoenaed sermons from pastors and churches on issues of sexuality and gender identity. The obvious violation of basic American principles of religious liberty and separation of church and state here have united even those who are opposed to one another on all sorts of other issues, including sexuality and gender. But there are some who wonder why not simply comply with the subpoenas and hand the sermons over?

These questions come really in two or three different forms. The first is based on Romans 13, the Apostle Paul’s teaching that the government has God-given authority. We submit to government, the argument goes, even when we don’t agree with specific government policies. So why not just send in the subpoenaed sermons, even if we don’t like it, since we have nothing to hide.

The problem with this view is that Romans 13 is not an unlimited authority. Paul clearly bounds in the power of Caesar’s sword to the punishing of “wrongdoers” (Rom. 13:4). That’s why the Apostle says that taxes are to be paid, along with honor and respect, to those to whom such things are due (Rom. 13:7). On the opposite side of the spectrum from Romans 13 is Revelation 13, which demonstrates what happens when a government oversteps its bounds, as was the case eventually in the Roman Empire’s attempt to regulate worship.

Every authority, under God, is limited. Daniel is obedient to King Nebuchadnezzar, until the king decreed the way prayers should be offered. Peter and John are obedient to the authorities, until they are told how to preach, in which case they defy this authority (Acts 4:19-20).

Moreover, the issue is even clearer when we recognize that the City of Houston, and beyond that the broader American governing system, is, unlike in the case of Caesar, not the rule of one man (or one woman). There were all sorts of governing officials up and down the chain in the Roman Empire, but the ultimate accountability was Caesar himself. In our system of government, the ultimate “king” is the people. As citizens, we bear responsibility for electing officials, for speaking to laws that are made in our name, and for setting precedents by our actions. Shrugging this off is not the equivalent of Jesus standing silently before Pilate. It’s the equivalent of Pilate washing his hands, so as not to bear accountability for our own decisions and precedents set.

When the government acts, legal precedents are set. By complying with this unjust decree, Christians would be binding future people and institutions, including those who are the most powerless to stand against such things. If the government can scrutinize the preaching of Christian churches on sexual matters in Houston, the same government could do the reverse in, say, Amarillo. It would be just as wrong for the mayor to demand to see sermons from the Episcopal Church calling for LGBT anti-discrimination laws as it is to do this. As citizens, we bear responsibility. This is analogous to the tax collectors and soldiers coming to John and to Jesus asking how they are to function as Christians in the world of Caesar. They were not to use their power to defraud people or to go beyond their delegated authority (Lk. 312-14; 19:8).

It sounds spiritual and pious to say that we are just going to “give up our rights” and “surrender our place at the table.” We should indeed do that. When we are stricken on the cheek, we turn the other one. When someone takes our tunic, we give up our cloak as well (Matt. 5:40-41). That’s quite different though from those who have been given police authority ignoring assaults; such is injustice decried by Scripture. And it’s quite different from a soldier forcibly collecting cloaks because “you ought to be giving those up anyway.”

That’s why the Apostle Paul, quite eager to give up his personal rights (1 Cor. 11:7-11), appealed to his Roman citizenship repeatedly in the Book of Acts, litigating for liberty. And that’s why he, like John and Peter, refused to comply with a decree that was unjust (Acts 16:35-39).

But, some would ask, aren’t these sermons public anyway? Why would we not want the mayor and the city attorney to hear them? Of course, and of course. The question, though, is who has the authority to demand such things. The subpoena is not a request but rather a use of coercive state power. The compliance with this sets in motion a potential continuation of such unjust power that will harm those, again, with the least power to counteract such things. Imagine such subpoena power being used against impoverished recent immigrants to America, with little knowledge of the language and with few social and political connections?

The issue here is not the end-result of listening to sermons, any more than the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness were about the end result of eating bread and ruling the world. The question is how does one get there, and who is doing the giving. That’s why my Baptist forebears refused to pay the licensing fee to preach the gospel, even though they could have taken up an offering to do so. The issue wasn’t how much money, but rather who was claiming the authority to demand it. That’s not a question of politics, but of lordship.

Yes, the mayor and the city attorney should see sermons. And that’s why I think all of those not subpoenaed should freely send their sermons in, in solidarity with those who are under this subpoena. And that’s also why I think those under the subpoena should refuse to do so. The Apostle Paul left Philippi, just as the magistrates wanted him to do, but he didn’t move an inch until the magistrates’ command to do so was revoked (Acts 16:37-39). Peter and John didn’t stay, all the time, in the temple court preaching Jesus. But they didn’t cease while they were under orders to do so (Acts 4:21-23).

Religious liberty isn’t ours to give away to Caesar, and soul freedom isn’t subject to subpoena from City Hall.

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Houston, We Have a Constitution

 

During the 1960 presidential election, John F. Kennedy traveled to Houston to assure Baptist ministers there that he was, in fact, committed to religious liberty and separation of church and state. The fear was that he, as a Roman Catholic, might not recognize those principles. He did. Turns out, the Houston ministers should’ve been less worried about the Vatican and more worried about, well, Houston.

Reports coming out of Houston today indicate that city attorneys have issued subpoenas to pastors who have been vocal in opposition to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), a measure which deals with gender identity and sexuality in public accommodations. The subpoenas, issued to several pastors, seek “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.”

I am simply stunned by the sheer audacity of this.

The preaching of sermons in the pulpits of churches is of no concern to any government bureaucrat at all. This country settled, a long time ago, with a First Amendment that the government would not supervise, license, or bully religious institutions. That right wasn’t handed out by the government, as a kind of temporary restraining order. It was recognition of a self-evident truth.

The churches, and pastors, of Houston ought to respond to this sort of government order with the same kind of defiance the Apostle Paul showed the magistrates in Philippi. After an earthquake, sent by God, upturned the prison where Paul and Silas were held, Luke tells us that the officials sent the police to tell Paul and Silas they could go. Paul replied. “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are Roman citizens and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly. No! Let them come themselves and take us out” (Acts 16:37).

A government has no business using subpoena power to intimidate or bully the preaching and instruction of any church, any synagogue, any mosque, or any other place of worship. The pastors of Houston should tell the government that they will not trample over consciences, over the First Amendment and over God-given natural rights.

The separation of church and state means that we will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and we will. But the preaching of the church of God does not belong to Caesar, and we will not hand it over to him. Not now. Not ever.

John Kennedy taught us, rightly, to ask not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country. Our country deserves our allegiance. But no government can set itself up as our god.

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What Should Evangelicals Make of the Rome Synod on the Family?

A Catholic friend texted me this morning: “Any Baptist churches have services in Latin? Asking for a friend.” I texted back, “No, but the Feast of Saint John the Baptist lasts all year long.” His was a sort of gallows humor, as he watched with dismay what some are calling a “pastoral earthquake” in the Roman Catholic Church on questions of marriage and family.

We don’t yet know exactly what the report means, but reports indicate that the synod is asking for a more “pastoral” and “more inclusive” approach to cohabiting couples, same-sex partners, and others, while retaining the traditional Catholic views on sexuality and the family.

Should all of this even matter to those of us who are Protestants? We do not, as Martin Luther put it, accept the authority of popes and councils “since these have often contradicted one another.” And yet, there are some important questions posed here, that we should consider.

I say “Amen” to the tone of mercy, here and elsewhere. It is quite right that there is no place among anyone bearing the name of Christ to act toward sinners with censoriousness. Christ Jesus came into the world not to condemn the world but that through him the world might be saved (Jn. 3:17).

At issue, though, is the concept of “gradualism,” the idea that sinners do not immediately give up their sins, and often move gradually toward the grace of redemption. In one sense, that is quite clearly true, and not just with some sinners but with all of us. The gospel demonstrates that all of us fall short of God’s law (Rom. 3:23). None of us, this side of death, arrive at full conformity with Christlikeness. If God’s expectation of us, as Jesus taught us, is to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves, we, all of us, are sinning persistently, and thus always in need of God’s grace, received through faith in Christ.

Moreover, it is true that many, maybe most, who come to faith and repentance do not do so immediately the first time they hear the proclamation of the gospel, but instead often mull over the things of God, as the seed of the gospel takes root in their hearts.

That is, I think, the primary difference in this discussion between the Catholic understanding of the church, and a believers’ church model. The bishops rightly note that we should not drive sinners away, but that we should receive them and nurture them toward Christ. Amen to that. That’s why we should, like Jesus himself and unlike his Pharisaical critics, be unafraid to eat with “tax collectors and sinners,” to speak with the woman at the well. Our evangelism must meet people where they are, and take the time to, sometimes over years, explain the claims of the gospel and the meaning of new life in Christ.

Where I would differ with the Catholic Church is in the distinction between the “inside” and the “outside,” between the church and the world.

The Apostle Paul tells the Church at Corinth that he is not advocating that they stop eating or associating with “the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world” (1 Cor. 5:9). He is, he writes, saying that they should not associate with those who do so unrepentantly and yet “bear the name of brother” (1 Cor. 5:11). Paul, as did Jesus, makes a fundamental distinction between those who are part of the community of the kingdom, the church, and those who are yet on the outside. “For what have I to do with judging outsiders?” the Apostle asks. “Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?”

The church is to welcome everyone as guests and observers, to hear the gospel preached and taught. The church is not itself, though, to be made up of unrepentant people. That’s why scandalous sin is to be disciplined, and why the Lord’s Table is to be offered only to those in right fellowship with God and with one another (1 Cor. 11:17-34).

Jesus patiently waits for sinners—of all sorts—to repent. That is true. He also tells them, in honest terms, what it means to follow him (see “Ruler, Rich Young”). The church is made up of those who have responded to that call, who are repenting of sin and who hold one another accountable for a life that signals the coming kingdom. The church is not like the world, a field of wheat and tares, a pen of sheep and goats. The church is a “ chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,” which means that we are “as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against the soul” (1 Pet. 1:9, 11).

Should we patiently love and offer the gospel to those who are refusing to repent of immorality, whether cohabitation of anything else? Yes. Should we baptize and admit those into membership those who refuse to walk away from such things? No.

Again, I am a Protestant, and I have no standing in the internal dispute of the Roman Catholic Church. But the questions raised here are important for us too. We must be people of truth and of grace, and this means we must call to repentance and offer mercy. We cannot sacrifice one for the other. John the Baptist proclaimed both “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand” and “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” We have no authority to do anything else.

We must love the mission field, and we must be clear about the mission, at the same time.

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Same-Sex Marriage and the Supreme Court: What Now for the Church?

The Supreme Court has declined to take up appeals from states in which the courts have found same-sex marriage to be a constitutional right. This paves the way for same-sex marriage in many, perhaps most, places in the United States. Many Christians may be unaware of how momentous this is, since the denial of cases doesn’t come with quite the shock and awe of a ruling handed down. The effect though is wide-ranging. So what should our response be as the church of Jesus Christ?

There are two responses we should avoid.

The first is the temptation to listen to those who would want to jettison a Christian sexual ethic in order to acclimate to the cultural moment. We have no authority to revise what Jesus has handed down to us. Our vision of marriage is not the equivalent of a church constitution and by-laws, adaptable by a majority vote. Marriage is not simply a cultural or legal practice, but is instead an icon of the union between Christ and his church, embedded in the creation (Eph. 5:22-31). Without a Christian vision of marriage, we have no Christian vision of the gospel.

The second, though, is to respond with a siege mentality. We wring our hands or shake our fists at the cultural moment in a way that also detracts from the gospel of Jesus Christ. We live in an era in which marriage is redefined and confused. So did many of our forefathers and foremothers, which is why the Bible is consistently equipping the churches to live in a world of prostitution and adultery and so on. The sexual revolution didn’t start at Woodstock. It is always with us.

We ought to have the confidence of people who have heard a word from God and the compassion of a people who are on a mission with God. The Supreme Court can do many things, but the Supreme Court cannot get Jesus back into his cemetery plot.

Our model here ought to be the best aspects of the pro-life movement. Were there angry people who were anti-abortion who simply wanted the “wedge issue” in order to differentiate themselves from their opponents? I’m sure there were. But the primary thrust of the movement wasn’t about culture wars but cultural persuasion. That was by necessity, since real-life women were making real-life decisions about real-life babies. We don’t demonize them. We speak to them, with an alternative vision of what it means to love and to cherish every human life, in our families and in our laws.

Jesus wasn’t shocked by the Samaritan woman at the well, who had had five husbands and was now living outside of wedlock. He also wasn’t afraid to speak a word of repentance to her conscience. He said to her, “Woman, go get your husband and come here” (Jn. 4:16). Both aspects of that sentence must be part of our witness: an honest assessment of sin and an invitation not just to morality, but to life.

Let’s hold fast to what the gospel reveals about the meaning of marriage and the gospel behind it. Let’s articulate a Christian vision of what marriage should be, and let’s embody that vision in our churches. Let’s love our gay and lesbian neighbors. Let’s move forward with persuasion and with confidence. This is no time for retreat or for resentment. This is a time for mission.

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Is Divorce Equivalent to Homosexuality?

This week my denomination, through its executive committee, voted to “disfellowship” a congregation in California that has acted to affirm same-sex sexual relationships. This sad but necessary move is hardly surprising, since this network of churches shares a Christian sexual ethic with all orthodox Christians of every denomination for 2,000 years. One of the arguments made by some, though, is that this is hypocritical since so many ministers in our tradition marry people who have been previously divorced.

The argument is that conservative Protestants already embrace a “third way” because we’ve done so on divorce. Couples divorce, sometimes remarry others, and yet are welcomed within the congregation. We don’t necessarily affirm this as good, but we receive these people with mercy and grace. Why not, the argument goes, do the same with homosexuality.

The charge of hypocrisy is valid in some respects. I’ve argued for years and repeatedly that Southern Baptists and other evangelicals are slow-motion sexual revolutionaries, embracing elements of the sexual revolution twenty or thirty years behind the rest of the culture. This is to our shame, and the divorce culture is the number-one indicator of this capitulation. The preaching on divorce has been muted and hesitating all too often in our midst. Sometimes this is due to what the Bible calls “fear of man,” ministers and leaders afraid of angering divorced people (or their relatives) in power in congregations. Sometimes it’s due to the fact that divorce simply seems all too normal in this culture; it doesn’t shock us anymore.

A recovery of a Christian ethic of marriage will mean repentance, and a strong commitment by churches to courageously say, where applicable, what John the Baptist put his head on a platter to say to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” In that sense, the charge is correct.

But divorce and remarriage is not, beyond that, applicable to the same-sex marriage debate. First of all, there are arguably some circumstances where divorce and remarriage are biblically permitted. Most evangelical Christians acknowledge that sexual immorality can dissolve a marital union, and that innocent party is then free to remarry (Matt. 5:32). The same is true, for most, for abandonment (1 Cor. 7:11-15). If the church did what we ought, our divorce rate would be astoundingly lowered, since vast numbers of divorces do not fit into these categories. Still, we acknowledge that the category of a remarried person after divorce does not, on its face, indicate sin.

The second issue, though, is what repentance looks like in these cases. Take the worst-case scenario of an unbiblically divorced and remarried couple. Suppose this couple repents of their sin and ask to be received, or welcomed back, into the church. What does repentance look like for them? They have, in this scenario, committed an adulterous act (Matt. 5:32-33). Do they repent of this adultery by doing the same sinful action again, abandoning and divorcing one another? No. In most cases, the church recognizes that they should acknowledge their past sin and resolve to be faithful from now on to one another. Why is this the case? It’s because their marriages may have been sinfully entered into, but they are, in fact, marriages.

Jesus redemptively exposed the sin of the Samaritan woman at the well by noting that the man she was living with was not her husband. “You have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (Jn. 4:18). It could be that her husbands all died successively, but not necessarily. Christians are forbidden to marry non-Christians. This does not mean, though, that these are not marriages, or that, after repentance, these marriages are ongoing sins. Instead, the Scripture commands a repentance that looks like fidelity to that unbelieving spouse (1 Cor. 7:12-17; 1 Pet. 3:1-2).

Even if these marriages were entered into sinfully in the first place, they are in fact marriages because they signify the Christ/church bond of the one-flesh union (Eph. 5:22-31), embedded in God’s creation design of male and female together (Mk. 10:6-9).

Same-sex relationships do not reflect that cosmic mystery, and thus by their very nature signify something other than the gospel. The question of what repentance looks like in this case is to flee immorality (1 Cor. 6:18), which means to cease such sexual activity in obedience to Christ (1 Cor. 6:11). A state, or church decree of these relationships as marital do not make them so.

We have much to repent for in the accommodation to a divorce culture in our churches. And if we do not articulate an alternative gospel vision of the definition of marriage, we will see the same wreckage we’ve seen on so many churches’ capitulation on the permanence of marriage. But our attitude should not be that so many have shirked their churchly responsibility in some things, so let’s then shirk our responsibilities in everything. That would be the equivalent of someone saying, “Since I have had lust in my heart, which Jesus identified as root adultery, I should go ahead and have an affair” or “Since I am angry with you, which Jesus identified as springing from a spirit of murder, I should go ahead and kill you.

Instead, our response ought to be a vision of marriage defined by the gospel, embodied in local congregations. This means preaching with both truth and grace, with accountability for entering marriages and, by the discipline of the church, for keeping those vows. We don’t remedy our past sins by adding new ones.

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The Church and Violence Against Women

Male violence against women is a real problem in our culture, one the church must address. Our responsibility here is not simply at the level of social justice but at the level of ecclesical justice as well.

We must teach from our pulpits, our Sunday school classes, and our Vacation Bible Schools that women are to be cherished, honored, and protected by men. This means we teach men to reject American playboy consumerism in light of a Judgment Seat at which they will give account for their care for their families. It means we explicitly tell the women in our congregations, “A man who hits you has surrendered his headship, and that is the business both of the civil state in enacting public justice and of this church in enacting church discipline.”

Church discipline against wife-beaters must be clear and consistent. We must stand with women against predatory men in all areas of abandonment, divorce, and neglect. We must train up men, through godly mentoring as well as through biblical instruction, who will know that the model of a husband is a man who crucifies his selfish materialism, his libidinal fantasies, and his wrathful temper tantrums in order to care lovingly for a wife. We must also remind these young men that every idle word, and every hateful act, will be laid out in judgment before the eyes of the One to whom we must give an answer.

In the public arena, Christians as citizens should be the most insistent on legal protections for women. We should oppose a therapeutic redefinition of wife abuse as merely a psychological condition. And we should call on the powers-that-be to prosecute abusers of women and children in ways that will deter others and make clear society’s repugnance at such abuse.

Whatever our views on specific economic policies, we must recognize that much economic hardship of women in our age is the result of men who abandon their commitments. We should eschew obnoxious “welfare queen” rhetoric and work with others of goodwill to seek economic and social measures to provide a safety net for single mothers and abused women in jeopardy. We should join with others, including secular feminists, in seeking legal protections against such manifestations of a rape culture as sexual harassment, prostitution, and sex slavery.

An abusive man is not an over-enthusiastic complementarian. He is not a complementarian at all. He is rejecting male headship because he rejecting his role as provider and protector. As the culture grows more violent, more consumerist, more sexualized and more misogynistic, the answer is not a church more attenuated to the ambient culture, whether through a hyper-masculine paganism or through a gender-neutral feminism.

Instead, the answer is a truly counter-cultural church, a church that calls men to account for leadership, a leadership that cherishes and protects women and girls.

—–

Photo Credit

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Why I’m Glad David Platt Is the New IMB President

Today the trustees of our SBC International Mission Board elected my friend David Platt to serve as president, and I am radically happy. Here’s why.

I have been praying for a long, long time that he would be elected. Our IMB president must be one who can drive our missions focus in a new way for a new era. It’s not enough that Southern Baptists’ global missions leader motivates us all to give and to go (although he must do that). He must be someone who can connect from the Scriptures how the Great Commission, and especially our global Great Commission responsibilities, are the urgent concern of all of us. Most Christians know that Matthew 28 and Acts 1 command us to go, to reach the unreached with the gospel. We need though to be constantly reminded how every text, from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 is connected to the mission of reaching the nations.

In a rapidly shifting American culture, this means modeling a vision of why it is that cooperating together for this task is connected to everything else that we do. We need to activate and enthuse a new generation for the adventure of reaching the world with the gospel.

Look at the latest Pew Research poll of Millennials. The primary problem there is a mistrust of institutions–from political parties to marriage to church membership and beyond. We cannot simply say, “Look, we have the greatest missionary organization in the history of the Christian church” (although I believe that to be true). We must speak to a generation wary of institutions of why cooperation together is part of the eternal purposes of God in Christ.

We need leaders radical enough to make changes, but radical in the right, biblical sense. We need a radical, not a revolutionary. Someone radical enough to build up, not radical in order to tear down. That’s precisely what David is.

We need leaders radical enough to work together, against the headwinds of a secularizing American culture and a global persecution of Christians that is, if anything, only just beginning.

I have friends who were concerned because David’s church, The Church at Brook Hills, though they heavily supported world missions, didn’t do so mostly through Cooperative Program channels. I understand that concern. If I didn’t know David, I might be just as concerned. I believe in the CP, and always have. As the president of an entity funded through the CP almost entirely, I would be insane to celebrate the election of someone I thought wasn’t committed to CP.

David believes in the importance of CP. He does not want the mess that we came out of before 1925: a missionary force having to spend inordinate time at home fundraising. The society model doesn’t work in reaching the world for Christ, and he knows that.

The CP will thrive and flourish in the future. I firmly believe that. And I believe that’s the case not because Southern Baptists will feel guilty if they don’t. I believe that because there is a new sense of energy, excitement, and focus. A new generation of Southern Baptists will give, and I think give sacrificially, to CP because we believe, together, in a common cause, despite all our differences.

In 1964, the Republican Party signed up a leader to argue for its principles around the country. Many were suspicious (and understandably so) because he had always been a Democrat, had supported Democratic presidential candidates over Republican ones, even was a labor union activists. The Republicans could have punished him, I suppose, and worried that this would send a bad signal, encouraging other people to support the other party. But instead of policing boundaries, they embraced this man, with his vision and enthusiasm, as their own. That man was Ronald Reagan.

Whatever you think of Reagan or of the Republican Party, we can agree it would have been reasonable to keep him out of leadership, but that wouldn’t have punished Reagan. It would have punished the Republican Party, for generations to come. Reagan resonated with the principles of the Party, and he also knew how to articulate those principles to people, like he had been, who had connected with the legacy of Roosevelt and Truman and Kennedy.

We’re not a political party. We’re a convention committed to missions. And David was never “on the other side.” So it’s a very imperfect analogy. But I think a similar situation is at work. David Platt, the other entity presidents, and I plan to work hard, together, to say to the generations that gave sacrificially and built this great denomination, “You were right. This is the best mechanism for cooperating that can be found.” We also plan to say to those churches that want to reinvent the wheel, “How can you say the SBC isn’t committed to change, to innovation, to generational connectedness? Look at the unity, the purpose, and the cooperation together. Now, let’s work, all of us, together.”

I know and love David Platt. We have prayed through this, together and separately, and I am enthusiastic. I understand how those who maybe don’t know him, or who don’t know his heart here, might be concerned. The Cooperative Program is too important a legacy to ignore or to undermine. The Apostle Paul himself had to prove himself to the apostles at Jerusalem. Paul reflected that James Peter and John “asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do” (Gal. 2:10).

Southern Baptists expect us, all of us, to guard our legacy of cooperation, and that’s the very thing David is eager to do. And, together, we want to do more than just protect the legacy. We want also to build on it to meet the crushing burden of global lostness.

I think what you’ll see in the years to come is an IMB that is just as cooperative as ever with the rest of Southern Baptist life. You will see a dynamic and close working relationship between the entities. And you’ll see the Cooperative Program proving the legacy right: as a new generation joins together to work, together, to see the gospel cover the face of the earth.

In my view, that’s the right kind of radical for radically challenging time.

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Should We Stop Singing Vicky Beeching Songs?

In recent days, singer/songwriter Vicky Beeching announced that she is a lesbian, and that she disagrees with the historic Christian sexual ethic. Prior to this, Beeching wrote many songs used as praise choruses in evangelical churches. Some are asking if they should continue to sing her songs in corporate worship.

At first glance, the question is a good one. After all, this is not the equivalent of an intramural disagreement about the ordinances or church government or the authorship of the Book of Hebrews. At question here is whether or not the church will tell unrepentant persons that they will “not surely die” if they proceed in this way. This is a gospel issue.

The issue becomes more complicated, though, when we ask what it means to sing songs written by someone in some area of doctrinal or moral error. The leadership of the congregation in song is a calling of great gravity. Music is more than just “mood accompaniment” for preaching. Music is an important way that the people of God conduct spiritual warfare and the way we teach one another in the gospel (Eph. 5:15-20).

In the old covenant, God gifted, by his Spirit, the musicians of the people of Israel, with a high responsibility for leadership. In the new covenant, the gifts of the Body come from a triumphant Christ, and are for the upbuilding of the rest of the church (Eph. 4:7).

The question, then, is what does it mean to sing songs written by someone in error? If Vicky Beeching were the worship leader of a congregation committed to a biblical understanding of sexuality, she would face the discipline of the church seeking to bring her to repentance (1 Cor. 5:9-12). If she were using her gifts within a local congregation to write the songs of praise, the congregation would pause this area of leadership. But is that the same thing as a congregation singing songs written by someone outside of the congregation?

In one sense, this question is only possible in the modern era. There was no Christian music industry in the first-century church. The Psalms were written, at least partially, by a sexually immoral murderer (though ultimately a repentant one), and the songs and hymns were probably mostly composed by those under the direct oversight of the local congregations.

To get at this, let’s compare the situation to preaching. Suppose a pastor is caught in some serious doctrinal or moral error. The pastor is then disqualified from continuing in this service to the church (1 Tim. 3:1-7) until he comes to repentance and to restoration by the body (when possible). But is this the right analogy? What about the sermons he preached previously? We all have benefited from preachers and pastors who later went astray. Are the insights we gained from them, sometimes insights we still return to and perhaps even quote to ourselves and to others, now to be put away?

Moreover, what about the distance between the songwriter and the direct leadership of God’s people in worship. Is the analogy here between a songwriter and a preacher, or is it more akin to the writer of a biblical commentary, who informs the interpretation of the preacher.

There are, on my shelf, all sorts of commentaries written, many of them with great insight, by people I would not admit into membership. Would I quote them to a congregation, by name? I suppose so, as long as I didn’t think the congregation would see the quote as an endorsement of everything the person believes, or does.

I think the same dynamic is at work in this case. Personal regeneration is necessary for leadership in a local church, but that doesn’t mean that every insight is dependent on the spiritual condition of the writer.

I thought about this past Sunday as my congregation sang one of my favorite hymns, “God of Grace and God of Glory.” The writer of the hymn, Harry Emerson Fosdick, is, in my view, a heretic. He denied the virgin birth, the inerrancy of Scripture, the historicity of many of the miracles, the bodily resurrection, and the physical return of our Lord. This is not Christianity.

But what a hymn.

“Crown thine ancient church’s story, bring her bud to glorious flower. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour.” I had tears in my eyes, as the rest of the church instructed me in song: “From the fears that long have bound us, free our hearts to faith and praise.”

If my church leadership had thought that singing this hymn would be an endorsement of Fosdick’s theology, I am quite sure it would never be sung. But no one would have concluded that and, truth is, many of the songs we sing were written by people we wouldn’t want to follow.

Horatio Spafford, author of the majestic “It Is My Well with My Soul,” died as part of some sort of messianic cult. This isn’t communicated when we sing. Instead, we are communicating that Spafford grasped something true when he wrote, “My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more.” Whatever Spafford personally experienced, that song is true, and when we sing it we are not endorsing him, but we are instead using his artistic gift to point ourselves back to what God has revealed to us.

And, ultimately, that’s the point. If in your context, there’s some reason why using a song written by a songwriter in error at some point of other would lead people to assume you are endorsing the error, don’t sing it. Don’t be a stumbling block. But, if not, then the most important question, for this decision, is not, “Is this person right?” but “Is this song true and good and beautiful and edifying?”

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My Thoughts on “Boyhood”

The other night I was mentally exhausted from writing frenetically on two book projects, so I did a Binx Bolling and slipped off to a late-night movie. The film was “Boyhood,” directed by Richard Linklater, filmed over twelve years with the same cast. I’m glad I was in an almost empty theater, because I sat there in tears.

To be honest, I went mostly for cultural analysis, to be prepared to answer questions about it. The film is groundbreaking in approach, and deals with the issues I work with every day, family dissolution and substance abuse and so on. But this film is about more than that. It’s about, as Jesus put it, sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Let me put my culture-warrior armor on first for moment, since that’s what I was expecting to be as I sat there. The film shows honestly what can happen when marriages break apart. The child Mason, whose perspective guides the film, moves from school to school, peer group to peer group, and from one drunk, mean, abusive stepfather to another.

In the father, played by Ethan Hawke, I saw a familiar figure, the fun but irresponsible adult. In his constant political opinions, I recognized what I see everyday on social media. The people who can least keep their lives together seem often to be the most willing to be Facebook warriors, fighting it out on politics or religion.

I winced at the profanity, the violent bullying, and the awful situations this young man found himself in. But my response wasn’t what I thought it would be. It wasn’t, “See! This why fathers are crucial,” as true as that is. Instead, I found myself breaking down in tears, because Mason in the film was, alternatively, the ages of four of my sons. I could imagine, through his eyes, them having to navigate all this trauma.

More than that, I wept as I saw short-sighted, impatient adults who just couldn’t have mercy on this hurting, awkward kid. I wept as I considered all the time when, in the whirl and bustle of our lives, I am diligent to maintain discipline and order (as is absent in this family often), but I am too often a failure at showing mercy and just letting some things go. I could feel myself saying, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.”

As I reflect on it more, the more I think I’m not sure I have ever seen a soundtrack that more closely fit a film. That’s especially true of the song “Hero” by Family of the Year: “I don’t want to be a big man; I just want to fight with everyone else…Baby needs some protection, but I’m a kid like everyone else.” The adults in this movie feel like “kids like everyone else,” but there are some babies who need their protection.

At the end of the film, the mother (whom I loved) blurted out that she hated to see her son leave home because it meant the next life-event would be her funeral. Watching this child grow up in two and a half hours reinforced the brevity of life for me, especially as it relates to the rearing of children. I could hear James saying, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and vanishes (Jas. 3:13). I went home and wanted to wake my sons up and tell them I loved them.

This movie is not for everyone. The moral compass is hardly Christian, or even Stoic. Look at content advisories before you decide whether it’s a good idea for you to see it.

I went in expecting to do cultural analysis. But instead I just prayed and groaned, and realized how dependent I am on my Father to be a father.

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