Who Rules?

by   T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                                                           Vol. VIII, No. 4, April 1995

On 12 March a Southern Baptist affiliated church in the District of Columbia sent out a letter to a number of pastors. One of them sent his copy to me. I do not publish the name of the church nor of the pastor who signed the letter because I have no interest in starting a polemical exchange. However, the substance of the letter illustrates a continuing flaw in mankind's nature and is worth examining. The letter is addressed to "Dear Pastor" and its two paragraphs state:

"The issue of sexual orientation has no doubt impacted upon your ministry as it has mine. It is a divisive and challenging issue for the church, and I know it is not an easy one for congregations to talk about. My purpose in writing you is not ideological, but pastoral.

"[Name of his church] has taken an outspoken stand with regard to being an inclusive and ‘welcoming’ church for gays and lesbians. We have a weekly support group, GRACE, which attempts to help gay and lesbian persons come to terms with their struggles and faith journey. I share this, not braggingly or in some attempt to put you on the spot, but as a matter of simply sharing a resource with you. If you find that there is a gay person in your congregation who needs such a support group or would benefit by being in a worship context that is not being stressed at this point by this issue, then please know we stand ready to work with you in offering care and support to such persons. Again, we do not seek to "change" a person's sexual orientation and we are not asking you to make some declaration pro or con regarding this controversial subject. In fact, we are suggesting that there are times when discreet and confidential recommendations can be made which serve the purposes of healing and faith development far better than public pronouncements – and this is said from a church that has made its own public pronouncement! We simply want you to know we are here and if our presence can help a person or help you pastorally then we want to do that."

There are a number of things wrong with this letter. Let's look at a few of them. At the end of the first paragraph the author states that his "purpose in writing you is not ideological, but pastoral." Note the denial by implication that the issue could be theological. The Bible settles God's position regarding homosexuality as clearly as language can speak. But this letter simply ignores what God has said.

The second paragraph describes a support group "which attempts to help gay and lesbian persons come to terms with their struggles and faith journey." Why then not a support group to help thieves come to terms with their struggle and faith journey? Or murderers? Or wife beaters? Or pedophiles? The unspoken assumption behind this language is that we are all on the same "faith journey," bound for the same destination, but just at different spots along the road. The clear implication is that just as there is no culpability entailed with being 100 miles from Richmond while someone else is only 25 miles away, so there is no guilt involved in persistent behavior which God's written Word condemns. The pastor-author explicitly states they do not "seek to `change' a person's sexual orientation," nor are they asking for a "declaration pro or con regarding this controversial subject." Heaven forbid (or perhaps some other spiritual realm might more appropriately forbid) that a sinful nature be asked to change, and likewise, he would never suggest someone should stand up for what he believes "pro or con" on a "controversial subject!" One might ask, if you don't stand openly on controversial subjects, why stand at all? Is there any value, any merit, any worth in openly declaring yourself on a topic about which everyone is in agreement?

Well, enough already. Suffice it to say that the assumptions, the bases of the writer's position, are about as unchristian, as contradictory to our Lord and His book as I have seen. By way of contrast, consider the following paragraph from Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock (Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1979) vol. I, pp. 127-128. Charnock was born in 1628 and died in 1680. His work is highly recommended.

"Man would make himself the rule of God, and give laws to his Creator. We are willing God should be our benefactor, but not our ruler; we are content to admire his excellency and pay him a worship, provided he will walk by our rule. This commits a riot upon his nature. To think him to be what we ourselves `would have him, and wish him to be' (Psalm L.21), we would amplify his mercy and contract his justice; we would have his power enlarged to supply our wants, and straitened when it goes about to revenge our crimes; we would have him wise to defeat our enemies, but not to disappoint our unworthy projects; we would have him all eye to regard our indigence, and blind not to discern our guilt; we would have him true to his promises, regardless of his precepts, and false to his threatenings; we would new mint the nature of God according to our models, and shape a God according to our own fancies, as he made us at first according to his own image; instead of obeying him, we would have him obey us; instead of owning and admiring his perfections, we would have him strip himself of his infinite excellency, and clothe himself with a nature agreeable to our own. This is not only to set up self as the law of God, but to make our own imaginations the model of the nature of God. Corrupted man takes a pleasure to accuse or suspect the actions of God: we would not have him act conveniently to his nature; but act what doth gratify us, and abstain from what distastes us. Man is never well but when he is impeaching one or other perfection of God's nature, and undermining his glory, as if all his attributes must stand indicted at the bar of our purblind reason: this weed shoots up in the exercise of grace. Peter intended the refusal of our Saviour's washing his feet, as an act of humility, but Christ understands it to be a prescribing law to himself, a correcting of his love" (John xiii.8,9).

I do not know about you, but I readily recognize my natural man in the pastor's unbiblical assumptions and in Charnock's characterization of our natural motives. May God help us to surrender more and more to His law, His sovereignty, His attributes. Truly, He must increase, I must decrease.