Re-Imaging Evangelicalism in a Changing World

So in Colorado this baker –I believe his name's Richard Phillips. He actually is standing before the Colorado Human Rights Commission and could face up to 12 months in jail because he refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple. That sounds really radical, but it's actually happening. I'm not trying to be dramatic. And in Oregon it's the Bureau of Labor. The baker up there, she faces a $50,000 fine for each homosexual person she wouldn't bake a cake for.

So in New Mexico, the New Mexico State Supreme Court already ruled. And in their ruling, which you can look up the exact wording online, but they ruled against the Christian photographers because of the way this statute was written in New Mexico. And one of the judges in the ruling actually wrote that these folks are “compelled by law to violate their religious beliefs.” The law demands it. And obviously we live in a state and a country where every state's laws are developing and getting tested in courts.

But there is a trend that is going this way and we see a lot of these laws mostly in California. California about a year ago signed into law a bill called “reparative therapy” for young people who are having homosexual impulses or feelings. The law makes it illegal for a counselor or therapist in California to counsel a minor away from homosexuality. And I covered a lot of legislation when I was a reporter and interviewed a lot of legislators, and they're pretty bright people. And a lot of them, it's just been the norm for more than 200 years in the United States.

When there's a law like that, they used to be aware that most Americans are religious and they would put in religious exemption clauses. Well, this reparative therapy bill that was signed into law a year ago specifically did not have an exemption clause. And if you look back at the committee meetings and the development of the bill, the reason was because they were targeting Christian counselors and Christian families. They're targeting a family that might have a 16-year-old son who's a Christian family. They wanna go to a Christian counselor because he's having same sex attractions.

This law was written so that it is now illegal for that counselor to counsel the 16-year-old away from those. There is no religious exemption. There's no exemption for any kind of beliefs and of course it was challenged by some Christian groups, and it was upheld by the courts in California. So it is now the law of the land in California.

And so man, issues like this are so heated because for a lot of well-intentioned unbelievers, this is an issue of this person's human rights. And as someone who's from the media – I mean I was the liberal media, you know? I didn't never really write for Christian publications. I was in the mainstream and probably kind of the left mainstream as far as the publications I was writing for, not my own beliefs, but that's where God had called me. And even as someone from those circles, as I've seen the stories come out about this bathroom bill, the vast majority of them say the state of California passed landmark legislation to enshrine the rights of transgendered young people in California. Well, just the way that's written, if you disagree with it, you're a bigot. You're prejudiced.

And what it is, is if you remember when the Boy Scouts earlier this year were trying to decide can homosexual boys be Boy Scouts, and it was a big decision for them and a lot of controversy. Well, legislators in the state of California, many who are LGBT themselves, told the Boy Scouts we're gonna write a law that if you don't let young people be homosexual, we're gonna write a law that you lose your nonprofit status. Well, regardless of what the Boy Scouts chose, they've pursued this law. It's now being drafted.

It passed its first committee and this is a law that targets youth groups. That's how it's worded. It targets youth groups and in their terminology, if you discriminate for gender identity or homosexuality, you will lose your nonprofit status. Again, there is no exception for being a Christian youth group.

It's supernatural and it's an unseen force and everyone who doesn't yet know Christ is a slave of his. And he'll use unbelievers against God's people, but ultimately those unbelievers are never our enemy. They're the hostages. We've been sent here to love them and to rescue them. And so we've gotta be careful that as we observe these realities, we don't fall into a narrative that these people are our enemies. These are people who we love and who Christ loves desperately and gave his life for. We wanna reach them with the gospel.

Now, that doesn't mean that extended hand doesn't have to deal with reality and have some challenges wrapped up in it. It does. But in the end, your goal is not to win a war. Your goal is to win a person.

We've already talked a little bit about one, and that is avoiding getting trapped into the pursuit of a war in such a way that the very people you're trying to reach are viewed as the enemy and you almost put them at arm's length. How do you help people do that well? I know you talked a little bit yesterday about how we view sin and being careful to be sure that we communicate how we all fall short and all have a need as opposed to there being special categories. Why don't you talk about that a little bit?

He talked about two categories. You're either a child of God or a child of Satan. You're either in the light or you're in the dark. You're either on the narrow road or you're on the wide road. You're either a sheep or a goat, a wheat or a tare.

This is how Jesus thinks. This is spiritual reality and this is Romans 6. Well, first of all Romans 3, that we're all separated from God by our sin. We've all fallen short and then Romans 6, that none of us – we're all slaves to sin apart from God. What the book does, The Great Evangelical Recession, we make these observations, but then we try to press into Scripture, knowing that in Christ we have everything necessary for life and godliness.

His word is gonna give us all the wisdom we need to thrive in this culture. And it helps, I think, for the first half of the book, to see where we are. Then you see the New Testament in some new light and that's one of them, is Romans 6. Lord, forgive us if we ever think that because you saved us by grace, we're somehow better than someone else. We've gotten a long way from Paul who said, "I'm the chief of sinners."

And none of us has the power to resist sin, apart from the gospel. And it's actually an affront to the cross, you know? It's an affront to the gospel and to the blood of Jesus and the cross for us to tell people, "Hey, act better. Be better. Be more righteous in your own strength."

That just doesn't line up with the gospel. The gospel message is repent and come to Christ. He'll set you free. After that, your life changes. But when we just tell people, "Change your life whether or not you believe in Christ," what we're saying doesn't really line up with the book of Romans, for sure.

Now, that's one dimension of the conversation. But in the discussion of your book, this topic came up about well, there's a cultural mandate, so how do you engage a culture that's hostile to you on the one hand and at the same time, stand up for your convictions? Isn't that gonna be inherently confronting? And so isn't there a sense in which there's no choice or is there another way?

We know better than to just show up and do that. We know the great missionaries that we have around the world right now. They go in, they demonstrate an unconditional love through actions. They'll dig a well or they'll build a clinic. This is what 1 Peter 2 says when it says, "Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds, and glorify your father in heaven."

That same word, good, is used in Matthew 5 when Jesus says, "Let your light so shine." If you can shine in the darkness, that men will see your good deeds and glorify the Father. So we know this when we go into what is visually an obviously foreign culture. We know you start with good deeds. You take the time to learn the language. You build a relationship and then on that foundation you present the gospel. And those who accept the gospel, you disciple, and their lifestyles are gonna change rapidly because now they're free from sin.

He came down into our darkness. He took the time to become one of us and without compromising his righteousness. And so if we're gonna follow Christ to foreign tribes, we get that overseas and I'm essentially calling us for a paradigm shift that we recognize. A lot of our neighbors in our workplaces, in our family reunions, living on the same street. They are now from foreign tribes, and if we just show up and just wag our finger in their face and say, "Repent," it's not gonna be any more effective here than it would be in Africa.

But if we follow Christ's example, and I'm not saying do this because it works or do this because we're smart, I'm saying this is what Jesus did. He humbled himself, became one of us, spent 30 years with us walking on this Earth. And so in the same way, follow that example. Apply 1 Peter 2. Live such good lives among the pagans that they'll see your good deeds.

And then raise the question, isn’t this a better way to live? Isn't this a better way to conduct your lives? That kind of thing. And I think when we miss that, we risk not having an example behind what we're doing. I often like to tell students that if you watch the gospels, you'll see Jesus preach a message like he preaches the message in the synagogue in Nazareth and he says, "I've come to preach to the poor and to heal the sick," and that kind of thing to preach the good news of the day of the Lord, of the day of Jubilee.

And in the very next passage, he's out ministering in a way that reinforces the message. So that if you say, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," there actually is a way in which Jesus and his disciples minister to the community that said, "We really believe this, and you can see it in how we're interacting." And I think we've missed a little of that.

And we're good to go. That's not what Jesus did. He didn't send down a message from heaven. "Hey, you're all sinners. I'm opposed to you, but I love you." He came down among us and showed that he loved us and then explained our sin and our need for repentance.

And I think for folks who are listening to the podcast, I've been a pastor for almost five years now, a senior pastor. It is a lot harder for me to live among the pagans than when I was working in a newsroom. And I think those of us who are leading ministries, this is an important thing for us, and it's an important thing for us to be encouraging our people, who, seven days a week – well, five to seven days a week, are working among the pagans. We can't reach them if we're not among them.

If they've never had exposure to the church, you wouldn’t think they'd be impacted by the church. So how are they gonna get exposed to what the church represents? They can only get exposed to what the church represents by meeting people who can reflect that to them in one way or another.

I mean they thought I was gonna be this really radical – and I mean I am radical in my belief, but they thought I was gonna be this really offensive, jagged edged person. And those were really fun years. It was a privilege to get to work in that environment. And that's probably why I use the word pagan so much, is because they would all say, "Yeah, we're pagans." They knew they were pagans, and a lot of them knew the facts of the gospel, but they had never met an agent of the gospel who showed the grace, the love, the fruits of the spirit, the joy, the peace.

They want that peace. They want that joy. They want that contentment. And I think that's what we're called to do, whether that's at our family reunions, in our neighborhood, for so many of the people in the American church, in our workplaces.

The way they're gonna flesh out is gonna look a little different in different contexts. But I think some of these paradigm shifts, one, that we're not the majority. And that brings a humility. And that brings a humility not only with our neighbors, but before God. That says, "Lord, our strength is not our bank account. Our strength is not our facilities. Our only strength is you."

And if we don't get to that place in our hearts, Scripture says God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore before the Lord that he will lift you up. If we don't start there with that paradigm shift of a desperate humility, God, unless you work, unless you show up, we're not gonna reach the lost. We're not gonna change the culture. We're not gonna strengthen and encourage your church. We can't do it without you."

That humility, these are really deep foundational paradigm shifts. Same thing with our unbelieving neighbors, whether they're LGBT, Muslim, or just agnostic, unbelieving, that we view them as people who God loves just as much as us and who are enslaved in sin because all have sinned. And that we really wanna look at the way Jesus ate with sinners. We really wanna live out 1 Peter 2.

I think if we really in our hearts before God say, "God, I wanna apply 1 Peter 2. I wanna live a good life among the pagans." If we do that with a humility and ask him to empower us the same way that he empowered the church in Acts, he will enable us to do that. And I wish it was do these three things, but I think that’s where it starts, is that humility before God and others.

It's not gonna happen by accident. There's some unbelievers who stopped by and come to our ministries. But unless we get out there and really engage and I'd say surprise some of these groups that think that we should hate them, think we do hate them, let's go out without compromising the truth. Let's also be people like Jesus, who are full of grace, and demonstrate God's love with actions.

They're gonna have some prejudged stereotypes about me. My goal is not ultimately to get them to like me, but my goal is to show them Christ's love and grace in a way that sets them up to also show them God's truth. Romans 10, salvation only comes by hearing and these good deeds are only a foundation to ultimately explain the good news.

This wasn't a scrape the Milky Way and look at how evangelicalism looks, what evangelical looks like from 55,000 feet. This is what it looks like when your boots are very much on the ground. And so thank you very much for coming in and talking with us. And we thank you for joining us at the table where we discuss issues of God and culture.