Russell D. Moore's Blog, page 4

Why Hobby Lobby Matters

This is as close as a Southern Baptist gets to dancing in the streets for joy. The Supreme Court just handed down the Hobby Lobby case, and ruled that the government cannot force closely-held corporations to violate their religious beliefs in the purchasing of abortion-causing drugs.

The ruling isn’t just a win for evangelicals, like the Southern Baptist Greens. It’s a win for everyone. Here’s why. A government that can pave over the consciences of the Greens can steamroll over any dissent anywhere. Whether you agree or disagree with us about abortion, every American should want to see a government that is not powerful enough to set itself up as a god over the conscience.

As Christians, we believe in obeying the law and honoring our government authorities (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet 2:13-17). But Jesus taught us to render unto Caesar what belongs to him, and to God what belongs to him. Our consciences are not held in a blind trust when we leave our church buildings on Sunday.

I hope this decision is a warning to the White House to stop such a cavalier disregard of religious liberty, seen both in this coercive mandate and, earlier, in their argument to do away with the ministerial exemption in hiring.

More than that, though, I pray for churches that can raise up a new generation to prize freedom of conscience and religious liberty for all. We won this case, and now is the time to thank God. But who could have imagined just a few years ago that we would even have to take such a thing to the United States Supreme Court? We must teach our children what it means to be free people, and what it means to follow Christ whatever the cost.

This is not just a political issue. The Apostle Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship when he was charged with disrupting the peace. All the way through the appeals process, he not only plead for his freedom, but he also preached the gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 25-26). We should do so as well. But that means teaching the next generation that following Christ will be costly, and that they will be often viewed as strange and even subversive by a culture in which sexual liberation is the highest god in the pantheon. A discount-rate prosperity gospel will not supply such grit. The gospel of Jesus Christ will.

So let’s celebrate today. And then let’s remember that we prize religious liberty not preeminently because it keeps us out of jail. We prize religious liberty because we believe there is a court higher than the Supreme Court. No government bureaucrat will stand with us before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and thus no bureaucrat should seek to lord over the conscience.

Let’s remember the words of the Apostle Peter: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a coverup for evil, but living as servants of God” (1 Pet. 2:16). Let’s fight for religious freedom, for everybody. And let’s preach the gospel with power. We must be about both: persuasive proclamation and the guarding of the freedom to disagree with us. That’s what Jesus taught us. So let’s hold onto freedom and let’s pray, for liberty and Jesus for all.

               
CommentsThank you for your work, Dr. Moore. by Ben Fedorko[…] the United States Supreme Court Monday has broad ... by Hobby Lobbing Ruling Is a Win for Separation of Church and State[…] the United States Supreme Court Monday has broad ... by Hobby Lobby Decision Is a Win for Separation of Church and State - TIMEIMPORTANT FOOTNOTE: I wouldn't call the majority opinion of ... by AdamIts definitely a win for greedy hypocritical big corporations, ... by AdamPlus 5 more...Related Stories2014 Students for Life of America National Conference: Dispelling the Five Myths PanelWhat if Your Child is Gay?Liberty Convocation 

What if Your Child is Gay?

My denomination is dealing these days with a pastor in California who reversed his position on homosexuality. The pastor said that his shift coincided with his 15 year-old son’s announcement that he is gay. This is a situation every Christian should think through, now. As I’ve said before, at stake on the issue of a Christian sexual ethic is the gospel of Jesus Christ. But what if, sitting across from you, is your child or grandchild?

You will, without a doubt, have someone close to you in your family come out as gay or lesbian, if not already, then sometime in the future. How should a Christian parent or grandparent respond?

One of the reasons this is such a crushing experience for many is because they assume that their alternatives are affirmation or alienation. I either give up my relationship with my child or I give up the Bible. The gospel never suggests this set of alternatives, and in fact demonstrates just the opposite.

Every child, whether gay or straight, is oriented toward sin, and so are you. If your child or grandchild says he or she is gay, you shouldn’t act shocked, as though you are surprised your child might be tempted toward sin, or that you find your own sinful inclinations somehow less deserving of God’s judgment.

Your child’s point of temptation doesn’t mean that your entire relationship with him or her should be defined by that. We don’t affirm what the Bible says is wrong simply because someone we love is drawn toward it, whether that’s “straight” fornication or gay relationships. At the same time, that doesn’t mean your entire relationship is now to become a sparring match over Romans 1. Ironically, those who cut off all relationship with a gay child buy into the narrative of the Sexual Revolutionaries, that every aspect of one’s identity is defined by sexual orientation and activity. As a Christian, you believe this person is made in the image of God, and thus worthy of love, regardless of how far away from God, or from you.

First of all, consider what your child is telling you. He or she could be saying that this is an identity, from which they refuse to repent. That will require a different sort of response than if the child is saying, “This is how I feel, so what do I do?” This will change the way you respond, but what doesn’t change is your love and care for this child. Don’t panic and don’t reject them. Say explicitly that you love that child, no matter what, and mean it. Your relationship wasn’t formed by the child’s performance, and that won’t start now.

If your loved one is a Christian, spend time over the years discipling him or her about what following Christ looks like. Jesus isn’t shocked by his or her temptations, and will not leave him or her alone to fight them. The path toward chastity and fidelity to Christ is a difficult one, and your child or grandchild will need you and the church and the great cloud of witnesses to cheer him or her on, as they walk a path that can be lonely in a world that too often defines sex and sexuality as ultimate in life.

If your loved one isn’t a Christian, express your love, keep the relationship going, and be a gracious gospel witness. God never promises us that our children or grandchildren will all walk the way of Christ. Every wandering son or daughter needs to know that if the moment of crisis comes in his or her life, there’s a house waiting with a fatted-calf party ready to go, welcoming the wanderer home.

One of the reasons this is so hard for some parents and grandparents is because somehow we assume this issue to be merely a “culture war” issue, and not a gospel issue. As such, parents are often perplexed as to how to deal with this in their families because they think this is about them.

They wonder if others will judge them, as though they did something to “cause” this. That’s ridiculous, and it leads people ultimately either to reject biblical teaching to keep their kids or reject their kids (and their gospel witness to them) for the sake of appearing to keep the biblical teaching. At the root of all of that is pride, and I don’t mean that in the sense of “gay pride” but in the sense of carnal self-seeking. That’s a temptation for all parents, not just for those of gay children. We’re tempted to see our children as reflections of ourselves, and we’re tempted then to keep up our image.

Crucify that temptation. God calls us to holiness, and to encourage one another to holiness. The Bible is clear that this means fleeing from sexual immorality, and that includes same-sex sexual activity (1 Cor. 6). God also calls parents to love their children. Be clear about your convictions, and at the same time don’t exile your child from your life. If we sacrifice grace for truth or truth for grace, we’re sub-Christian.

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What Mariam Ibrahim Means

News reports have gone back and forth all weekend about whether or not Sudan will release our sister in Christ, Mariam Yahya Ibrahim. What’s not up for dispute is that Mariam, who just gave birth in prison chains, is condemned to die for “apostasy,” that is violating Sharia law by becoming a Christian. She’s also charged with “adultery,” because her marriage to a Christian man isn’t recognized. As we pray for her, I’d like us to reflect on what we see in her.

Mariam’s husband tells the press that she refused, despite all she has been through, to renounce the name of Jesus. For her, her freedom, even her life, aren’t worth tossing aside her allegiance to the Lord Christ. In this, Mariam is a true daughter of Sarah. The Apostle Peter commends such as those who do not “fear anything that is frightening” (1 Pet. 3:7).

It’s not just that Mariam is displaying the sort of fearless faith Peter commends. It’s also that she’s displaying the sort of fearless faith Peter himself lacked, at least at first. Simon Peter, when faced with potential execution, denied even knowing his Lord. Jesus didn’t leave him there, of course, but found him hiding out in Galilee, and fueled in him the sort of heroic faith that was willing to face even the worst thing he could imagine: being bound and taken where he didn’t want to go (Jn. 21:18).

And that’s just the point.

Mariam is a living picture of Jesus keeping his promise, made to us at Caesarea Philippi. Jesus said that he would build his church, and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. And sure enough. Nero Caesar couldn’t kill the church. Josef Stalin couldn’t kill the church. Even now, Sudanese tyrants and Chinese despots can’t eradicate this church.

When we see a heroine such as Mariam standing up for Jesus, even in chains, we are not simply seeing her. We are seeing the Spirit who blows where he wills, giving the kind of faith that fears not the one who can kill the body, the kind of faith that seeks first the kingdom of God.

Let’s keep praying for Mariam’s release and safety. Let’s keep pressuring the State Department to act. But let’s also remember to step back and thank God for the gospel to which she clings.

Mariam is not just fighting for her life. She’s fighting against hell itself. And how does she do it? She does it with the only weapons that work: the blood of the Lamb and the word of her testimony, for she loves not her life even unto death (Rev. 12:11).

Whatever the Sudanese authorities do, they won’t be able to stop Mariam from overcoming. Whatever their charges, she is justified before God. If they kill her, she is resurrected in Christ. They may terrorize her, but it seems this brave mother can hear another voice behind theirs, one that says, “Be not afraid.”

May we hear that voice, too.

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Tullian’s Apology

Last week’s online dispute between Tullian Tchvidjian and The Gospel Coalition reminded me of what it is like to see a couple, both friends, go through a divorce. I’m friends with Tullian and with the TGC leadership, and I hated to see all this. More than that, I cringed to see one more evangelical social media cagefight. But Tullian’s apology today is something we all can learn from, and ought to reflect on.

First of all: I am quite sure that I’m probably closer theologically to Tullian’s critics than to him on the point in question. I think we must give diligent heed both to the indicatives (who we are in Christ) and to the imperatives (what Jesus tells us to do). We must trust and obey. Nonetheless, I’ve learned a lot from Tullian, about the gospel, about leadership transitions, and a thousand other things.

I think probably a lot of the controversy is over emphasis rather than substance, but that may be my instinctive quirk of “both/and” rather than “either/or” on many matters. Y’all will just have to bear with me on that.

But, let’s assume for a moment that the divide between Tullian and TGC is as stark as it could possibly be (again, I don’t think it is). And assume for a moment that the worst possible motives were at play on either side of the dispute (I really don’t think that’s the case). Tullian’s post shows us something I think all of us (and me most of all) need to see constantly: that the gospel ought to drive us to ask for, and to receive, forgiveness from one another.

Apologizing is hard, especially in the outrage culture of social media. That’s because it becomes easy to see the person against whom I’m arguing as a pixelated collection of arguments. And it becomes easy to see life as a political campaign in which the goal is to vaporize one’s opponents and to be seen as “right.” In a culture like that, apologizing seems like losing.

But it’s not just apologizing that’s hard. Receiving an apology can be even harder. Think about how many Christians wouldn’t take “yes” for an answer from World Vision when Rich Stearns apologized for their mistake on their hiring policy as it related to marriage. The tendency many of us had at first (and I include myself in this) was to cynically think that World Vision had just made a calculated decision to do damage control.

After having spoken at length with Rich Stearns, I’m convinced World Vision is sincere, and ought to receive nothing but our support and prayers. But our attitude should have been, from the beginning, to show faith working itself out in love. That means believing the best about another, unless proven otherwise.

Most of our little wars with one another don’t play themselves out on social media, as this one did. But every one of us will offend someone, perhaps even today. Every one of us will sin against others, including people we love. The devil would have us to double down and dig in. Saying “I’m sorry” might make us look weak.

But then we remember that we’re Christians. And nothing makes us look weaker than crucifixion. Let’s love one another, and forgive one another.

That may be easy for me to say, since I love both the TGC crew and Tullian. But there are other situations where apologies are harder to ask for, and where forgiveness is harder to give. Even so, it comes back to “trust and obey.” See, there’s the “both/and” tendency again. You’ll just have to forgive me on that.

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What I’ve Learned in Twenty Years of Marriage

Twenty years ago today, I was waiting in a hallway right next to the baptistery where I was immersed a decade before. Within a few moments, I stood in front of my home church to greet my bride, Maria Hanna, and to pledge to her before God and those witnesses my love and my life. Today, I look back and wonder what all we’ve learned in these twenty years together. The main thing is that I’m glad we didn’t wait until we were ready to get married.

I knew on our first date that I loved her and wanted to spend my life with her. But many told us, “Wait until you can afford it before you get married.” It’s true. We had nothing. I was a 22 year-old first-year seminary student; she not much out of high school. I worked and reworked budget scenarios, and never could find one that would suggest that we could pay our bills. That’s why I kept delaying asking her to marry me, even after I knew she was “the one.” I thought I needed stability and a put-together life before I could ask her into it.

My grandmother wisely asked one night when I was finally going to ask “that girl from Ocean Springs” to marry me. I answered, “When I can afford it.” She laughed. “Honey, I married your grandpa in the middle of a Great Depression,” she said. “We made it work. Nobody can afford to get married. You just marry, and make it work.”

Apart from the gospel, those were, and remain, the most liberating words I ever heard. I bought a ring that wouldn’t impress anyone, then or now, but we were headed for the altar. My only regret is that we aren’t today celebrating our twenty-first anniversary instead of our twentieth.

My grandmother’s wisdom is akin to what sociologist Charles Murray talks about in his book The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead as the difference between a “start-up” marriage and a “merger” marriage. A merger marriage is the sort one sees every Sunday in the weddings pages of the New York Times, with a groom who’s a hedge-fund manager with a master’s degree behind him and a bride who’s a film professor with a Ph.D. and tenure. They each have their lives, and they merge them. A “start-up” is where the marriage isn’t the capstone of the life, but the foundation. It’s where the husband and the wife start their grown-up lives together, often with nothing but each other.

We weren’t ready to get married. That’s true. But our finances were the least of our worries.

I wasn’t ready, at twenty-two, to know how to console a sobbing wife when she learned that her parents were divorcing. I wasn’t ready to collapse into her arms when I heard that my grandfather had died.

I wasn’t ready to pack up and move all our hand-me-down furniture into a moving van for years of doctoral work in Louisville. I wasn’t ready for miscarriages. I wasn’t ready to hear that we’d never have children. And then I wasn’t ready for an adoption process that took us to the former Soviet Union and back with two very special-needs babies. I wasn’t ready for the doctors to be proven wrong, and kind of suddenly be the parents of five sons. I wasn’t ready to be celebrating our twentieth anniversary with a two year-old toddler in the house. And I could go on and on.

Of course, I wasn’t ready for all those things. In a very real sense, “I” didn’t even exist. The life that I have now is defined by our lives together. That’s why the Scriptures speak of marriage as a “one flesh” union, of a head and a body together. These aren’t two separate lives, bringing their agendas together. This is two people joining together for one life, life together. One can prepare oneself to be a husband or to be a wife. But one can never be really “ready.”

As I look back, I can see the intense joy in our lives that would never have made it into our daydreams about the future. We loved those nights eating only cheese sandwiches because that’s all we could afford. We loved doing youth ministry together, and figuring out what to do when a teenager showed up on a mission trip with marijuana in tow. We loved sitting up together while I wrote a dissertation on kingdom ethics, taking breaks to watch “Frasier” reruns together. We loved holding each other’s hands as we prayed for the money we needed to adopt (we weren’t ready for that either).

And, even now, when I am blasted by some Planned Parenthood abortion activist or some neo-Confederate white supremacist, I love sitting down with her to remember that it doesn’t matter to me what anyone thinks of me or my ministry, as long as I please the King I pledged my life to in the baptistery of that little church and the girl I pledged my life to at the altar.

Truth is, there’s no way we could have made that budget work. And there’s no way we could have grown up enough to be “ready” for what providence had for us. We needed each other. We needed to grow up, together, and to know that our love for each other doesn’t consist in our having it all together. It didn’t start that way, and we still had us.

When I look back at those wedding pictures from twenty years ago, I see faces of people, some of whom are now gone. I see my grandmother’s face there, and I think how right she was. I see a boy and a girl in love, though not as much in love as now, after twenty of years of, as my friend Andrew Peterson puts it, “dancing through the minefields,” together.

Were we ready? No. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

               
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What Tom Nettles Taught Me

Tom Nettles retired last week as professor of historical theology at Southern Seminary, capping off a long and distinguished career. As I thought about his retirement, I reflected on what I’ve learned from this iconic Baptist historian, and it was hard to find a place to start.

 

I could start with how my life was changed by reading his book, Baptists and the Bible (co-authored with L. Russ Bush). The book demonstrated that a commitment to biblical inerrancy wasn’t what some said it was, a recent “modernist” innovation of the Princeton Presbyterians, but was deeply rooted in the Baptist tradition and, more importantly, in the Bible’s witness to itself. This book was the first I read on biblical authority that went beyond mere slogans, and it armed me to trust the Bible for the rest of my life.

 

I could start with what it was like to be on the other side of Tom Nettles’ questioning in a doctoral seminar room, or in a dissertation defense (he was on my doctoral committee). He wouldn’t tolerate a loose argument (even for a position he agreed with), and he certainly wouldn’t tolerate a split infinitive. The maddest I’ve ever seen him wasn’t when I questioned his view on the extent of the atonement, but rather when I suggested that split infinitives had evolved into acceptability.

 

Or I could start with what it was like to co-teach a Sunday school class with him. There we did prison ministry together, and I saw him share the gospel passionately with men serving life sentences. I saw him confront erring church members caught in adultery, warning them with their accountability before the Judgment Seat. I saw him reassure tender consciences, doubting their salvation.

 

But the moment I learned the most from Tom Nettles didn’t come in a book or a doctoral seminar or in church ministry together. It didn’t happen in a faculty meeting after we became colleagues. It happened at my little apartment doorstep, and I’ll never forget it.

 

My wife Maria had just suffered a miscarriage, our third lost pregnancy. The doctors had told us that we’d never be able to have children. Our house was funereal. I was growing despondent and even bitter toward God. I could see all of my friends becoming parents, and I was looking at a lonely future with just the two of us and, I feared, a house-full of cats.

 

Tom and Margaret Nettles were the first to our house. He didn’t exegete the Book of Job, or reiterate his lecture notes on the sovereignty of God and personal suffering. He sat with us, in silence, for a long time. He wept with us, and prayed with us.

 

As they were leaving, though, he stopped at the door and he spoke words I still hear.

 

“Russell, Romans 8:28 is often quoted at a time like this, and rightly so, but I think you need to hear Romans 8:29,” he said.

 

“God has promised you something. He has promised to do whatever it takes to conform you into the image of Christ, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. I don’t know why this is happening to you and Maria. It’s awful. I can’t tell you the reason God is permitting you to walk this path, and I can’t tell you exactly where He is taking you in it. But I know this. God is committed to shaping you into the image of Jesus, and that’s for your good. He hasn’t forgotten you and He hasn’t forsaken you.”

 

I doubt I would have heard those words if they had come before the tears and the silence. But because they came after those things, I heard them with my heart, and what I heard was a call, first, to repentance. In my fear and anxiety and self-obsession, I had forgotten the gospel. I thought God owed me the life I expected for myself and I was angry at him, rather than being driven to cast my anxieties on Him, as the One who cares for us.

 

Tom Nettles didn’t stop with that night. In the fullness of time, as Maria was approaching yet another surgery, he assembled a group of church leaders to pray over her and to anoint her with oil, in keeping with James 5:14. As he did so, he said to the men there, “I’ve got to admit that I feel a little awkward doing this, almost like I’m doing something Pentecostal, but I recognize that’s my own pride. This is what the Bible tells us to do when someone is sick and in need of prayer, and the Bible is God’s Word.”

 

I would think about those moments as the years went by and more and more children came into our family. Margaret Nettles would remind us not to talk about the “terrible twos” but the “terrific twos.” Tom Nettles would talk to the kids in a Donald Duck voice, and they’d laugh with glee. And I would remember that these children weren’t natural steps in my life plan. They were gifts from God, and they came to us through suffering, through tears, through the prayers of the Body of Christ.

 

I had learned about God’s sovereignty and biblical inerrancy from Tom Nettles in his books and in his lectures, but I learned much more from him in our doorway, in our living room, and, in the fullness of time, in our nursery.

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The Church Needs More Tattoos

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) often tells audiences, “Republican Party events need more people with tattoos.” It struck me, as I heard him say this, that this is kind of what evangelical Christians ought to be saying about our churches. It struck me further when I read this tribute my former student Spencer Harmon wrote about his new wife and her past that this is precisely the issue facing the next generation of the Bride of Christ, the church.

What Paul (the senator, not the Apostle) means, it seems, is that his party, if it is to have a future, shouldn’t count on just doing the same thing it’s always done, and it can’t rely on people who look like what people think Republicans ought to look like. The party must expand out to people whose pictures don’t currently show up in a Google image search for “Republican.” There are people, Paul says, who agree with the Republican message, in theory, but who pay no attention to it because they assume they aren’t the kind of people the party wants to talk to.

Paul isn’t alone in this. His colleague Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who disagrees sharply with Paul on foreign policy and other issues, quipped recently, “They aren’t making enough angry white men for our party to have a future,” unless the party reaches new constituencies.

My interest here isn’t the Republican Party, or the Paul or Graham wings of it and their ideas for reinvigorating a political movement, or even whether their critique of the political situation is accurate. Instead, Paul’s imagery reminded me of a burden I have for the church of Jesus Christ to, as Jesus puts it, “seek and to save that which was lost.”

I don’t like tattoos, and I can’t emphasize that enough (especially if you’re one of my children, one day, reading this). But if the Spirit starts moving with velocity in this country, our churches will see more people in our pews and in our pulpits with tattoos.

Now, what I don’t mean by that is that we need to more Christians to tattoo crosses or Bible verses or Psalms in Hebrew or the Apostles’ Creed or the sinner’s prayer across their arms or necks. That’s not a sign of gospel awakening; it’s just, at best, personal fashion and, at worst, more marketing in an already over-marketed evangelical church.

Tattoos don’t mean what they used to. They don’t signify necessarily, by a long shot, the kind of “tough” image they used to. I spoke with a friend who mentioned that as he walked through an upscale resort in south Florida, almost everyone in the pool was wearing ink. But, what if the tattoos, in some cases, do signify a tough back-story? That’s what I want to see more of.

I first saw this not in a “relevant” urban church, but in the most stereotypically “hellfire and brimstone,” King James Version, gospel hymn-singing southern revivalist church you could imagine.

As a child, I remember seeing a man sitting in front of me, with his arm resting on the pew. The arm was covered with a large tattoo of a woman who was, well, let’s just say she didn’t fit what we would consider biblical standards of modesty in her attire. I couldn’t believe I was seeing this, in my church, so I nudged my grandmother and pointed, as if to say, “Can you believe this?”

My grandmother whispered, “Yes, honey. He’s doesn’t know the Lord yet, and he’s had a hard life. But his wife has been trying to get him to come to church for a long time, and we’ve all been praying for him. He’s not trying to be ugly to anybody. He just doesn’t know Jesus yet.”

I’ll never forget that “yet.”

With that one word, she put before me the possibility that this hardened ex-military man with the unclothed lady tattoo might one day be my brother-in-Christ. And, in time, he was. I suppose as time went on, this new Christian started to see that his tattoo was potentially a stumbling block, because I started to see it less and less as he started to wear long sleeves to church.

Tattoo removal wasn’t a booming technology then, but, if I had to guess, this man started to see that tattoo as emblematic of an old life he’d left behind. He didn’t need a tattooed pastor (necessarily), but he needed a church that didn’t see his tattoo as evidence of a life too far gone, of someone too rowdy to be loved with the call to repentance and faith.

I think about him often when I see people in the local coffee shop or walking down the streets with tattoos. Some of the markings are of are of blood-drenched skulls. Some of them are slogans of a hedonistic quest for pleasure. Some are threatening others, demonstrating their fearsomeness. Some are pagan, or even occult. I am chastened by how rarely my first thoughts are rooted in my grandmother’s gospel wisdom.

Not everyone with tattoos is an unbeliever or has lived a hard life, of course. But the larger point remains, how many people don’t listen to our gospel message because they assume they don’t “look” like the kind of people who would follow Jesus?

And, shamefully, how many times do we filter out our gospel preaching to people who would, upon baptism, be able to pose nicely for our Sunday school booklet illustrations? How often do we assume that the good news of Christ is a message just like a political campaign or a commercial brand, targeted toward a demographic of a certain kind of buyer?

The Gospels consistently tell us that the preaching of Jesus drew in those who had hard stories, who had made bad decisions, or faced horrible situations that seemed to have wrecked their lives forever: prostitutes, Roman collaborators, leprous outcasts, the demon-possessed, and on and on. That’s because, he tells us, the Spirit builds the kingdom not with the noble or the powerful but with the lame, the marred, the hopeless (Lk. 14:21-23; 1 Cor. 1:26-29).

If we’re really carrying the gospel to the whole world, this means there are going to be people listening, whose bodies carry messages contrary to the Word of God. So did our hearts and psyches.

That young woman with the Wicca tattoo, or the old man with the Hell’s Angels marking, they may wonder, as they feel the pull of the gospel, “How can I enter with this visible reminder on me of my past?” That question is the same we all had, regardless of how “respectable” we looked when we came to Christ: “Deep is the stain that we cannot hide? What can avail to wash it away?”

Jesus will build his church, with us or without us. But if we are going to be faithful to him, we must share his mission. This means we don’t just talk about lost people, we talk to them. And we don’t talk to them as enlightened life-coaches promising an improved future but as crucified sinners offering a new birth.

If the Spirit starts breathing this burden into us with power, we’re going to see churches filled with people who never thought they fit the image of “Christian.” We’ll see that the markings on the flesh, whatever they were, count for nothing, but that what counts is a new creation (Gal. 6:15).

We’ve come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. We’ve come to call not just those who look like whatever Christians are assumed to look like, but the whole world. If the church is powered by the gospel, then sometimes the Body of Christ has tattoos.

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On Mother’s Day, Remember the Infertile

Mother’s Day is a particularly sensitive time in many congregations, and pastors and church leaders often don’t even know it. This is true even in congregations that don’t focus the entire service around the event as if it were a feast day on the church’s liturgical calendar. Infertile women, and often their husbands, are still often grieving in the shadows.

It is good and right to honor mothers. The Bible calls us to do so. Jesus does so with his own mother. We must recognize though that many infertile women find this day almost unbearable. This is not because these women are (necessarily) bitter or covetous or envious. The day is simply a reminder of unfulfilled longings, longings that are good.

Some pastors, commendably, mention in their sermons and prayers on this day those who want to be mothers but who have not had their prayers answered. Some recognize those who are mothers not to children, but to the rest of the congregation as they disciple spiritual daughters in the faith. This is more than a “shout-out” to those who don’t have children. It is a call to the congregation to rejoice in those who “mother” the church with wisdom, and it’s a call to the church to remember those who long desperately to hear “Mama” directed at them.

What if pastors and church leaders were to set aside a day for prayer for children for the infertile?

In too many churches ministry to infertile couples is relegated to support groups that meet in the church basement during the week, under cover of darkness. Now it’s true that infertile couples need each other. The time of prayer and counsel with people in similar circumstances can be helpful.

But this alone can contribute to the sense of isolation and even shame experienced by those hurting in this way. Moreover, if the only time one talks about infertility is in a room with those who are currently infertile, one is probably going to frame the situation in rather hopeless terms.

In fact, almost every congregation is filled with previously infertile people, including lots and lots who were told by medical professionals that they would never have children! Most of those (most of us, I should say) who fit into that category don’t really talk about it much because they simply don’t think of themselves in those terms. The baby or babies are here, and the pain of the infertility has subsided. Infertile couples need to see others who were once where they are, but who have been granted the blessing they seek.

What if, at the end of a service, the pastor called any person or couple who wanted prayer for children to come forward and then asked others in the congregation to gather around them and pray? Not every person grappling with infertility will do this publicly, and that’s all right. But many will. And even those too embarrassed to come forward will be encouraged by a church willing to pray for those hurting this way. The pastor could pray for God’s gift of children for these couples, either through biological procreation or through adoption, whichever the Lord should desire in each case.

Regardless of how you do it, remember the infertile as the world around us celebrates motherhood. The Proverbs 31 woman needs our attention, but the 1 Samuel 1 woman does too.

A version of this commentary originally ran on May 5, 2011.

               
CommentsScoala de soferi Drive School… [...]Moore to the Point – ... by Scoala de soferi Drive SchoolI am a retired pastor. My wife and I were unable to have ... by Roger[6] Mel, [7] Philippa Yes, thank you for saying what I was ... by Ross Clark[...] Related Article: Russell Moore “On Mother’s Day, ... by A Non-Mom Speaks About Mother’s Day@Ron, I'm assuming that you have not walked through the pain ... by Jacob WinnPlus 5 more...Related StoriesOn Prayer, Supreme Court Upholds FreedomWhat I’ve Learned from the Orphan Care MovementSame-Sex Marriage and the Future 

On Prayer, Supreme Court Upholds Freedom

The Supreme Court ruled today that a town council has the right to allow persons to open council meetings with prayer. On this one, the Supreme Court not only made the right call but also safeguarded an American principle of the right kind of pluralism in the public square.

Some would argue that this decision, Town of Greece v. Galloway, represents an establishment of religion, that it tears down the separation between the church and the state. They are wrong. The decision does just the opposite. Notice what the town was not doing. They were not writing prayers, or censoring prayers, or even requesting certain wording in prayers. They were simply allowing sessions to open with persons praying according to their own consciences.

Some would object that this is the problem, that these prayers were “sectarian” in nature (many of them, for instance, were offered in Jesus’ name). But that’s exactly the point.

First of all, what would be a non-sectarian prayer? Would it be a prayer that is directed to God but doesn’t mention Jesus? How is that prayer not exclusionary of polytheists? More to the point, how does the government decide what is an appropriate level of “sectarian” content? Does the government allow one to say “God” or “heaven” or “Ground of Being,” but rule you out of bounds for mentioning “Jesus” or “Allah” or the Bible or the Torah or the Bhagavad Gita?

If so, then we would in fact have an establishment of a religion. The establishment of a state-enforced generic civil religion. As an evangelical Christian, I believe that I can approach God only through the mediation of Jesus Christ, who stands before God with his own blood and righteousness interceding for those who are found in him. That’s why evangelicals close their prayers “in Jesus’ name.” I don’t expect those who don’t believe in Christ to pretend that they do. In fact, to ask them to pray as though they were Christians would be an act of hypocrisy. I have serious theological differences with other religions, and those differences show up in the ways we pray. But those differences should be the subject for debate among ourselves, not for the government to referee them by pretending they don’t exist.

Some would say, further, that we could eliminate this tension altogether by simply disallowing any sort of prayer. In her dissent, Justice Kagan said that we come to our government simply as Americans, not as representatives of various religious traditions. But, again, this is itself a religious claim, that faith is simply a private personal preference with no influence on our public lives. That’s a claim that millions of us, whatever our religious beliefs, reject.

Prayer at the beginning of a meeting is a signal that we aren’t ultimately just Americans. We are citizens of the State, yes, but the State isn’t ultimate. There is some higher allegiance than simply political process. We often disagree on what this more ultimate Reality is, but the very fact that the State isn’t the ultimate ground of reality serves to make all of us better citizens, striving to seek for justice in ways that aren’t simply whatever the majority can vote through. And it reminds us that there is a limit to the power of politics and of government.

A government empowered to mandate generic civil religion prayers or to ask citizens to pretend that their government has no higher accountability would be a government too intrusive. It wouldn’t create unity, but would simply silence proper pluralism and replace prayer with bureaucracy.

In this decision, the Supreme Court didn’t violate the separation between the church and the state, rightly understood. The Court instead upheld it, and did the right thing. Maybe this is a sign of a better way forward, toward a right kind of free marketplace of faith expression in American life. Let’s pray that it is.

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This article was originally posted on time.com.

You can view the Amicus Brief we filed with the Supreme Court regarding this case here.

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What I’ve Learned from the Orphan Care Movement

I was lost in a seeker-sensitive church. I noted the irony as I wandered the massive lobby of Willow Creek Community Church, trying to navigate where I was supposed to be, here at the annual Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit. But I kept running into people, people who reminded me what God has taught me through this movement.

One of the first people I encountered was a woman I’d never met in person but without whom I’m not sure if Maria and I would have made it through the last year. One of our sons with special needs rooted in his very difficult first year in a Russian orphanage is particularly averse to change. He had a hard time transitioning in the move away from Louisville and to our new life. Some friends at Focus on the Family had this woman, an expert on kids who suffered early childhood trauma, call us. She did, and it changed everything.

She walked us through how to love and to minister to our son, and helped us see how kids who’ve been through what our son has been through tend to process stress. She showed me how to communicate to him what I want and need to say, “You are my beloved son, and with you I am well pleased.” She was willing to text with Maria, to talk with me (one day for over an hour) teaching us how to love and to parent well in a more different situation than what we had known.

When I saw this woman, for the first time, I instinctively hugged her neck and told her, “You saved my life.” She did. And she’s not alone.

As I walked around that hallway, I saw one person after another who had taught me much. Some have taught me about how to minister to children with attachment disorder, some about how to mobilize churches for foster care, some how to minister to women in crisis pregnancies, and on and on. I saw Pentecostals and Presbyterians, film makers and social workers and pastors.

When God gave Maria and I a sense of calling to adopt and then, after that, to call the church to the priority of caring for orphans and widows, I knew that he was leading us toward our family. What I did not know was that he was also blessing us with this joyful, gospel-centered tribe of pro-life, whole-life ambassadors for children and for families.

Every year that I come to this summit, I’m reminded of just how indebted I am to be part of this group of extraordinary people, people of whom I’m not worthy. It’s worth getting lost in a lobby, to see some of them by “accident” and to be reminded of the truth that this isn’t really lost at all. This is what it feels like, for me, to be kind of adopted, for life.

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