Same-Sex vs the Bible - Part II - What Would Jesus do About the Cake?

(Read the first post in this series here.)
 

A gay couple walks into a local bakery and wants to buy a cake for their upcoming nuptials. You are the owner and a Christian. What would you do?

This scene has played out across the U.S. at least a few times over recent years, as a reality in our 21st Century post-marriage culture.

That I know of, these few incidents involved Christian business-owners who objected, for reasons of moral conscience, to doing business with the couple. At least one at a heavy price to their business. 

In a free nation, no one should be compelled against their will to provide services to others, especially by the government. "Free enterprise" should include the freedom to choose with whom we do business. It should not cost an owner their livelihood to decline business they have a religious objection to. It may tag them a racist or bigot to do so but that is their right too. Hopefully, very few business-owners fit those categories and shame on those who do. 

The above is just my opinion, not any legal advice, so if you are in business you should check the State laws in which you operate. Many have anti-discrimination laws now and as Christians we’re required to follow the law of the land (Romans 13:1), right?

And, things are changing rapidly as the U.S. Supreme Court renders what looks to be an historic decision on same-sex marriage this month. How do we live in response to this decision and the cultural changes shaping our nation? In this post, let's talk about the cake, in the next we'll talk about the marriage itself.

For Living Sent Today this is not a matter of sexual-orientation, SCOTUS decision or business practice. Rather, is it a matter of Christ-like witness that is of first importance, especially for any business representing itself as a “Christian business.”

It's really as simple as this, if you are a Christian business-owner, God has placed you there to be a witness first. By refusing to bake the cake, Christian business-owners place their own moral convictions above their first call to be a good witness. Biblically, it matters little what our personal convictions might tell us^__ Jonah found that out the hard way. What matters is what we place as our first priority when we represent ourselves as Christ followers, so I am asking, "What would Jesus do about the cake?"

REASONS JESUS WOULD BAKE THE CAKE

 Recently, I posted the following on Facebook…

Note: Andy is Andy Stanley.

How could I make such a statement as, " Jesus would bake the cake as an unselfish act of love and a witness to who who he is"?  Obviously, we cannot really know what Jesus would do in our 21st Century context but we do need to consider his example. Let me suggest some reasons Jesus would bake the cake. Please consider:

1)  Jesus understood his mission priority

John 3:17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Jesus’ mission was clear and his priority was single-minded. He came to tear down barriers that kept people from God, not erect them. He did not come to condemn but to connect God with people and people with God. Jesus came as a witness, and set the example by his sacrificial life. His first priority was to "save the world" which informed how he lived to serve others. 

2)  Jesus did not come for the moral  

Mark 2:17: “On hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" Jesus understood all too well the immoral condition of the human heart. It was the very reason he came into the world, to reach the sinner...like me. As a doctor would not place obstacles to healing before the sick, Jesus would not place obstacles to coming to him, especially before those living less than morally righteous lives...and aren’t we glad?

3) Jesus crossed cultural lines without hesitation

John 4:10: “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’” Jesus crossed beyond the socially acceptable, religiously imposed, norms of his time to minister to those in need. In this account, Jesus conducted “business” with an adulterous woman who was scorned by her community, embarrassed by her lifestyle, and forced to come to the well at the hottest part of the day. The reaction of even his disciples tell us the distance Jesus traveled to connect with those in need of his gift. He did not hesitate to engage the lost world knowing what he had come to do.

4)    Jesus was known to enjoy the company of sinners

Luke 7:34: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'” Jesus was unconcerned with what others thought of his associations with sinners. Rather, he was deliberate in his efforts to connect with the broken, outcast and marginalized, seeking relationships that would lead them to discover who he was for them. Immediately following this statement, Jesus goes to Simon's house and does the unthinkable and blesses a sinful woman. 

5)      Jesus did not condemn the immoral for their lifestyle

John 8:11: "’No one, sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’” Jesus came to set people free from the bondage of sin, he did not condemn the human condition - even the worst harlot in town. Rather, he purposed to make a way for all humanity to experience a life free to worship God. Where the religious leaders wanted to condemn the human condition, Jesus say “go now” and live an abundant life...in Him. While Jesus preached repentance it was for the purpose of entering into the fullness of life he wants for each of us. 

6)      Jesus was opposed to the moral opinions of the religious right

Matthew 23:13: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it^__ in himself. His opposition to the teaching of the Pharisees was not a correction of the law but the religious leaders interpretation of it. He was zealously opposed to shutting the door to his Kingdom life, to anyone for any reason, based on human understanding. He made a matchless effort to assure anyone, even a condemned sinner, could enter the Kingdom by removing religiously imposed constraints.

7)      Jesus offered his life for all

John 10:18: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." Jesus freely gave his life so that all who would believe would experience the fullness of life he proposes. That is not a life without struggles and hardship, but a life of forgiveness and acceptance. If he was so willing, joyfully, to endure the worst human torture ever conceived, to think he would not bake a simple cake for a gay couple brings his unconditional love, and God's grace, into question.
 

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BAKE THE CAKE

I asked a Facebook friend, who took exception to my FB post above, on what biblical basis would Jesus not bake the cake? No real answer was offered. Before you start throwing stones, verbally or otherwise, I ask you to consider the same question. If you cannot articulate a clearly biblical rationale for your position, then may I encourage you to do some rethinking about it. Knowing my own human frailty, I am always willing to rethink my own ideas but I do look to the Bible for answers. 

Now some might argue, “By baking the cake we would be blessing a same-sex marriage” and Jesus would never do that! Really? An eighth and maybe the most compelling reason Jesus would bake the cake is because he commanded us to bless our enemies (Matthew 5:44). Crazy, I know. But Jesus removed any socially imposed limitation on whom we, as Christ-followers, are to 'bless' and to whom we should show his love.

Turning away a gay couple because of a disagreement with their lifestyle  closes any opportunity for the business-owner to be used by God as a witness. Baking the cake does not bring us into agreement with their behavior but it does bring us into obedience with Jesus’ example and mission. What if by doing so it opens a door to a relationship that demonstrates his love and kindness, which leads to repentance (Romans 2:4)?

You should have the freedom to do what your conscience dictates. You should have the freedom to not bake the cake. Just please do not use Jesus as an excuse not to be Christ-like when such an opportunity presents itself.


This will be a developing series on one of the most important cultural challenges of Living Sent Today. Like us on Facebook at -  Living Sent Today - to follow the series. 

Same-Sex vs. The Bible: What Would Jesus Do?

I had a great conversation yesterday with my good friend Pat Murdock who is now heading a project with the America Bible Society. Pat is helping to build a new Discovery Center for ABS that will document the important place the Bible had in the founding of the United States of America. The Discovery Center is planned only a short distance from where the Declaration of Independence was signed. 

An even larger Bible Museum is also planned for Washington D.C., opening in 2017. 

Today, we are living in a time when many are considering the Bible a relic fit for a museum. The culturally enlightened tell us we must change our thinking, especially as it relates to important cultural issues such as same-sex. They reason we have advanced beyond the antiquated thinking of the Apostle Paul and the Biblical idea that homosexuality is a sin. 

We are on an intensifying cultural collision course over this issue of Same-Sex vs the Bible. 

Writing in a recent New York Times article,"Bigotry, the Bible and the Lessons of Indiana,"Frank Bruni informs us on this intensification. Mr. Bruni writes about Mitchell Gold, “a prominent furniture maker and gay philanthropist, who founded an advocacy group, Faith in America, to mitigate the damage done to L.G.B.T. people by what it calls ‘religion-based bigotry.’” Bruni states, “Gold told me that church leaders must be made ‘to take homosexuality off the sin list.’”

On the Faith in America website, they post: 

 “The term “traditional marriage” is a term employed by anti-gay religious groups and individuals to promote bigotry, prejudice, hostility and discrimination toward gay and lesbian citizens.

The term is used to justify a social injustice both in terms of denying gay and lesbian individuals equal treatment guaranteed by our Constitution and also denying them human dignity. The use of the term is an action that promotes constitutional unfairness and human indignity and therefore one which is morally wrong.

If a person of faith agrees that a practice that promotes looking upon a segment of society as inferior, unworthy and undeserving of that which we find as good in our lives, the use of the term “traditional marriage” therefore also must be sinful.”

Bruni reasons, “the New Testament, like the Old Testament, outlines bad and good behaviors that almost everyone deems archaic and irrelevant today. Why deem the descriptions of homosexual behavior any differently?” Bruni’s argument is that we should reject the Bible because it speaks about what is accepted as "bad and good behaviors," which has changed across the millennium (i.e slavery, women’s rights, etc.) and rationalizes that since understanding about the Bible has changed it is time to change again with respect to same-sex. But Bruni misses the point, as do many Christians. 

The problem here is obvious. Those who would champion sex-sex, and make the arguments that Bruni, Gold and many others are making, start from a worldview that centers on humans as primary to the cosmic equation.  Where we begin in our epistemology makes all the difference in the world and statements such as what “we find as good in our lives” clearly betrays where this advocacy is coming from^__ defining truth as rooted in self. Of course, that is nothing new (See Genesis 3). 

The challenge that needs to be acknowledged today is that “Same-sex vs the Bible” is an unwinnable ‘culture war.’ Same-sex advocates are defining truth from a position that starts with what they find acceptable and the Bible starts with God. There can be no reconciling these two worldviews rather, as we have observed for a generation, only an intensification to silence those who would start with the Bible. 

What may be new for us who desire to start with God, however, is to rethink what an active, sacrificial and missional love looks like in our cultural context. The Bible speaks in unique cultural contexts far different than today but the narrative of Scripture tells us “God is love” in every context. 

We won’t change the minds of those who start with self as defining truth but neither are we called to. That's not our mission. We can however think better about what it means to start with God, through Jesus Christ, in ways that make him better known for his supreme sacrifice on behalf of everyone – including the L.G.B.T. community. 

Only the Holy Spirit can convict the world of sin. Our assignment is to represent him well, in a spirit of love and truth. What that looks like needs to be prayerfully recalibrated today so that we do not erect barriers for anyone toward a worldview transformation^__ in Christ. 

We can ask the question, “what would Jesus do about same-sex issues of the 21^st Century?”  and then try to argue from the Bible. But the better question to ask is “what did Jesus do?” When we begin with God we see that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). This is the epitome of sacrificial love for the purpose that the world would know and believe. 

If we are focusing on our understanding of the Bible as foremost in our cultural context, and not the reconciling, redeeming and restorative love message it communicates, through Christ, we are indeed missing the mark. We must change the narrative from “Same-sex vs the Bible” to “Jesus for everyone..." for God so loved the world. Let us discover this truth as it is critical for the culture change we seek and central to the Bible's message. 

I think that is what Jesus would do.How about you?

Toward Multiplying Healthier Churches

Multiplication is NOT Enough! 

Cell multiplication in our bodies is always occurring, life requires reproduction, but it is not always a healthy thing. Have you ever battled cancer? I have for eight years. 

Cancer is a distortion of normally healthy cells that for often unknown reasons mutate and multiply. Our bodies can reproduce unhealthy cells at an amazing rate, making us gravely ill quickly. If allowed to continue for too long this multiplication will lead to our death. 

Standard medical protocols attempt to destroy cancer cells by bombarding them with chemotherapy and radiation. Have you ever had a loved one go through chemo? You know the deadly effects it has even on healthy cells. If the treatment is not stopped at some point it will end your life too. 

Fortunately, chemo and radiation do have a good track record of success, as damaging and painful as these treatments can be, when the cancer is detected early. Healthy growth can follow. 

Likewise, church multiplication, or church growth, is not always healthy growth. 

Like cancer cells reproduce after their kind, unhealthy churches can and often have reproduced after their kind. Error and unbiblcal attitudes can easily creep in, multiply and mutate distorting biblically sound theology, Christology and missiology. 

This is especially prone to occur when the leaders of churches, the pastors, are untrained or under-trained. Church multiplication is not enough. Health matters! 

That reality came into sharp focus recently in a conversation with Pastor Roli, while I was recently in Manila. Pastor Roli is a pastoral trainer in the Philippines who understands what happens when pastors are not trained properly. He is not a fan of multiplication of churches for the sake of multiplication. Rather he shared with me a guiding principle: “don't multiply without maturity otherwise you are multiplying immaturity."

Pastor Roli invests up to three years in a new pastor to train and equip them for healthy ministry. The only problem is that there are not a sufficient number of Pastor Rolis. The Philippines does have one of the best national pastoral training models in the world but there remains many untrained or under-trained pastors. The Philippines is not alone. 

Current statistics tell us that there is a global challenge and opportunity: 

There are between 2.2 million and 3.4 million pastors in the world today. 

Only 5% of these pastors are formally trained and 85% are considered under-trained. 

Current training, both formal and informal, can meet only 10% of the current demand. 

The question worth asking then is with so many untrained and under-trained pastors in the world today what are we multiplying in our church planting movements? Is the answer, “unhealthy pastors who lead unhealthy churches?”  With new church starts failing at a rate of up to 70% can there be any doubt there is a problem.  

Further, the challenge grows exponentially every day as 50,000 newly baptized believers enter the Kingdom^__ creating a need for 1,000 new pastors per day!

It would seem that we need to refocus some effort on not only church multiplication methods but church health methods that multiply healthy pastors and churches. The urgency of the need requires the important role of pastoral trainers to be revisited and mission efforts to be recalibrated accordingly. 

Toward that end, pastoral trainers globally are coming together for an historic gathering in Bangkok Thailand, June 15-22^nd for the Global Proclamation Congress for Pastoral Trainers. Convened by RREACH, together with our partners – World Evangelical Alliance, Lausanne Movement, Training of Pastors International Coalition, International Council for Evangelical Theological Educators, Global Alliance for Church Multiplication – this first of its kind gathering seeks to further connect, unite and strengthen pastoral trainers into a global community for the better delivery of pastoral training to where it is most needed. 

The task is too big to do alone but together, collaboratively, we can see more health in the global body of Christ. It must start with better trained pastors as pastoral health affects church health and church health affects societal health. 

When I found out I had cancer, I needed to focus on how I treated my body and on getting and staying as healthy as possible. Likewise, it is time Evangelical leaders focus on healthier churches.

Pastor Roli, who leads a network of 32,000 churches in the Philippines, pleaded, “please don’t multiply without health.” Closer to home, Pastor Rick Warren, one of the pioneers of the church growth movement recently wrote, “Church health is the key to church growth. All living things grow if they’re healthy.”¹  

 

The vision for the 2016 GProCongress is to accelerate church health worldwide. Learn more at www.GProCongress.org.

1: http://ministrytodaymag.com/index.php/ministry-outreach/facilities/246-church-growth/20093-forget-church-growth-aim-for-church-health#sthash.b35CfqHW.dpuf