The American Church – 28 – What are we to do with “sin”?

The modern American church has mistakenly sought to accomplish its mission through the attainment of cultural relevance by introduction of man’s ideas and methods and abandonment of unchanging biblical truth and authority in order to make the church acceptable to a culture that no longer deems itself fallen. As a result, many in the today’evangelical churches are abandoning a forthright proclamation of the gospel and replacing it with conversations about tolerance, charity, understanding, goodwill, and other noble-sounding objectives defined and dearly held by a humanistic culture. But once again we must look to the pithy writings of A. W. Tozer for wisdom and clarity. “When men believe God they speak boldly. When they doubt they confer. Much religious talk is but uncertainty rationalizing itself; and this they call “engaging in contemporary dialogue.”[1] [emphasis added]

God doesn’t have “conversations” with man about sin

Brian Houston, head of Hillsong’s twelve global churches (including one each in New York City and Los Angeles) appears to favor the conversational approach. While speaking at a press conference during Hillsong’s October 2014 conference in New York City, Houston was asked by Michael Paulson of the New York Times to clarify his statement about same-sex marriage with regard to the church’s staying relevant to modern culture.

It can be challenging for churches to stay relevant…On the subject [homosexuality], I always feel like there’s three things. There’s the world we live in, there’s the weight we live with, and there’s the word we live by. The world, the weight, and the word.

And to me, the world we live in, whether we like it or not, is changing around and about us. Homosexual marriage is legal in [New York City] and will be probably in most Western world countries within a short time. So the world’s changing and we want to stay relevant as a church. So that’s a vexing thing. You think, “How do we not become a pariah?” So that’s the world we live in.

Then the weight we live with is the reality that in churches like ours and virtually any other church, there are young people who have serious questions about their sexuality… And maybe they feel a sense of rejection there [because of homosexual feelings]…So you can have churches—not just our church, but churches—young people who are literally depressed, maybe even suicidal and, sadly…feel that the church rejected them. So there’s the world we live in, the weight we live with, and then the word we live by.

The word we live by is what the Bible says. And it would be much easier if you could feel like all of those three just easily lined up. But they don’t necessarily…For us, it’s easy to reduce what you think about homosexuality to just a public statement. And that would keep a lot of people happy. But we feel at this point, it is an ongoing conversation, that the real issues in people’s lives are too important for us to just reduce it down to a “yes” or “no” answer in a media outlet.[2] [emphasis added]

Houston felt it necessary to issue a second statement following the press conference on LGBT issues when newspaper headlines stated that his church “won’t take [a] public position on LGBT issues.” Houston stated that he had not abandoned the traditional Christian teachings that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but in addressing the issue the church must remain relevant to the culture.[3]

I think with the church, the message is sacred but the methods have to change for the church to stay relevant. And it’s challenging. It’s challenging to stay relevant. I mean, if we go to the one big hot topic maybe for churches … now with homosexual marriage legalized, and churches for generations, they hold a set of beliefs around what they believe the Word of God, the Bible says. All of a sudden in many circles the church can look like a pariah, because to many people it’s so irrelevant now… So staying relevant is a big challenge. I think it’s more than just singing more contemporary songs and the colors you paint your walls or whatever.[4]

Houston’s ambiguity and equivocating about homosexuality amounts to abandonment of biblical truth in order to remain relevant to the culture. This attempt to balance cultural relevance and a truthful presentation of God’s word has evolved to the point of being dangerously close to apostasy in Houston’s own church. If one doubts this assertion, one need only to read the remarks of Carl Lentz in an interview with CNN in June 2014. Lentz, pastor of Hillsong’s New York City Church, said that his church has “a lot of gay men and women…Jesus was in the thick of an era where homosexuality, just like it is today, was widely prevalent. And I’m still waiting for someone to show me the quote where Jesus addressed it on the record in front of people. You won’t find it because he never did.” Lentz wife stated in the same CNN interview that, “It’s not our place to tell anyone how they should live. That’s their journey.”[5]

If the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God, then no part of it is less true or less applicable than another. But this is what Lentz has strongly implied when he attempted to lessen the sin of homosexual behavior by claiming Christ did not speak against it. The Apostle Paul did condemn homosexuality in a very forthright and plain manner (see Romans 1: 18, 24-27). Paul’s admonishment regarding homosexuality is a part of the inspired word of God and is no less inspired than the writings of those who recorded the words of Christ in the gospels.

Ms. Lentz’s comment that we should not tell anyone how to live is absurd and would be laughable if her error was not so serious. One must ask what the purpose of Paul’s pronouncements on homosexuality was if he did not intend to instruct Christians (and all of mankind) on how they should live. What is Ms. Lentz’s husband doing when he preaches to the New York City Hillsong congregation? He is giving instruction on how one ought to live one’s life.

It is commendable that Lentz’s church has a lot of gay men and women attending, but without forthrightly addressing the sin of homosexuality Hillsong Church has compromised the word of God in order to maintain cultural relevance while gaining attendance and/or ministering to the felt needs of practicing homosexuals. The Bible speaks plainly about a time when truth is not taught and sin is tolerated in the church.

…preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. [2 Timothy 3:2-4. RSV]

The world is evangelizing the church

Much of the American church is desperately trying to remain relevant in the rapidly deteriorating culture. However, writing in 2001, Jim Cymbala warned that as the church confronts an antagonistic culture we need to take a look at what the church is doing. One of the things he observed was that the church is, “Letting the world ‘evangelize’ us without our realizing it…Instead of being a holy, powerful remnant that is consecrated and available to God (in the New Testament sense of the words), the world’s value system has invaded the church so that there’s almost no distinction between the two.”[6]

Oz Guinness identified the process whereby the world evangelizes the church which ultimately leads to its collapse into worldliness.

• Assumption – Some aspect of modern life or thought is assumed either to be significant, and therefore worth acknowledging, or superior to what Christians know or do, and therefore worth adopting. Soon the assumption in question becomes an integral part of Christian thought and practice.
• Abandonment – Truths or customs that do not fit in with the modern assumption are put up in the creedal attic to collect dust. They are of no more use. The modern assumptions are authoritative. Is the traditional idea unfashionable, superfluous, or just plain wrong? No matter. It doesn’t fit in, so it has to go.
• Adaptation – Something new is assumed, something old is abandoned; and everything else is adapted. In other words, what remains of traditional beliefs and practices is altered to fit with the new assumption.
• Assimilation – The outcome is that what remains is not only adapted but absorbed by the modern assumptions. It is assimilated without any decisive remainder. The result is worldliness, or Christian capitulation to some aspect of the culture of its day.[7]

In this four-step process the world infiltrates the church which leads to compromise or abandonment of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It seems that an integral part of the process in each step of the world’s infiltration begins with conversations. Whether it is homosexuality, outreach to false religions, racial problems, or some other pressing issue afflicting society, it seems that all must begin with conversations to properly identify and define problems and construct man-made solutions. In reality all of the problems that seem unique to modern culture have existed since the beginning of man’s time on the earth. That problem is man’s fallen nature as a consequence of sin. And the only solution to man’s problem with sin is his repentance and restoration to a right relationship with God through Christ’s atoning blood shed on the cross. Biblical truth is non-negotiable, and no amount of conversation among men, however sincere and well-meaning, will change this.

What are we to do with “sin”?

Many churches are compromising the gospel message through incorporation of the world’s definitions of love and tolerance. The message of many churches is that God’s love is nonjudgmental and so vast that He will overlook sin if one will only acknowledge Him. In other words, love is all that matters. If this message is true, then sin is of no consequence in determining our eternal destination. And if sin is of no consequence to God, then He does not care about how we live our lives. If sin does not matter, then Christ’s death on the cross to purchase forgiveness for mankind’s sin becomes irrelevant.

The new concepts of love and tolerance are expressed as unconditional acceptance with the hope that someday the sinner will get around to becoming a Christian if the church is nice enough and meets his felt needs. This way is presumed to be the superior, enlightened, and preferred method to evangelize as opposed to doctrinally sound and time-tested approach that requires repentance and turning from sin.

This new way appears to fit well with Brian Houston’s goal of not becoming a cultural pariah. But we must remember that Christ was an outcast, an exile in the culture of His day, and the cross became an offense to the world because it declares that there is no other way to salvation but death to sin and self. Those preaching that the church must become relevant to the culture attempt to bypass the cross by accommodating their preaching to the opinions of those who reject the cross and God’s judgement against sin.

But the issue of dealing with sin in a hostile culture has been faced by the church from its beginning. Hundreds of thousands have died over the course of twenty centuries because they chose not to compromise on the issue of sin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of those.

In 1937, the Confessing Church in Germany was under severe persecution from Nazi rulers and that portion of the German church aligned with Hitler. Bonhoeffer was a brilliant theologian, pastor, and opponent of the Nazi regime. While many of his colleagues were being arrested and sent to concentration camps, Bonhoeffer wrote a dramatic paper in which he cautioned his fellow pastors in the Confessing Church with regard to sin, repentance, and forgiveness.

Anyone who turns from his sinful way at the word of proclamation and repents, receives forgiveness. Anyone who perseveres in his sin receives judgment. The church cannot loose the penitent from sin without arresting and binding the impenitent in sin…The promise of grace is not to be squandered; it needs to be protected from the godless. Grace cannot be proclaimed to anyone who does not recognize or distinguish or desire it…The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and it will not only trample upon the Holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them. For its own sake, for the sake of the sinner, and for the sake of the community, the Holy is to be protected from cheap surrender. The Gospel is protected by the preaching of repentance which calls sin sin and declares the sinner guilty…The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance.[8]

Those in the church who stand against compromising biblical doctrine in the name of cultural relevance are called divisive and haters. But Paul commands the faithful to be aware of those who depart from sound doctrine and act accordingly.

I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded. [Romans 16:17-18. RSV] [emphasis added]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] A. W. Tozer, Man – The Dwelling Place of God, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1966, 1997), p. 126.
[2] Jonathan Merritt, “TRANSCRIPT: Hillsong’s Brian Houston on same-sex issues,” Religion News Service, October 16, 2014. http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2014/10/16/transcript-hillsongs-brian-houston-sex-issues/ (accessed July 14, 2015).
[3] Jonathan Merritt, “Hillsong’s Brian Houston says church won’t take position on same-sex issues,” Religion News Service, October 16, 2015. http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2014/10/16/hillsongs-brian-houston-says-church-lgbt-issues/ (accessed July 14, 2015).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Jim Cymbala, Fresh Power, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), pp. 22-23.
[7] Shane Lems, “The church’s collapse into worldliness,” The Aquila Report, July 5, 2013.
http://theaquilareport.com/the-churchs-collapse-into-worldliness/ (accessed December 3, 2014).
[8] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 292-293.