Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Are you “Christian?” Then BE CHRISTIAN.


Christianity is about teaching the whole counsel of God, even if it steps on someone’s toes (including my own).

I’m sure this is going to get me a whole lot of private and public response and probably earn me some enemies, but I was never about holding things back. here goes…

I find this article from the Orange County Register rather fascinating.

GARDEN GROVE – Choir members at the financially troubled Crystal Cathedral say they are upset by a covenant they have been asked to sign that places a strong emphasis on them being heterosexual and Christian.

Let me rephrase this: members of a church that claims to be Christian (the Crystal Cathedral is a member church of the Reformed Churches in America, which has this statement about homosexuality) are upset because they’re being required to sign a covenant that enforces the doctrine of their church on the subject and contains a statement defining marriage by its traditional, scriptural definition (one man, one woman, for life). 

Hello? Isn’t this a Christian church? And we’re objecting to agreeing with Christian statements in a Christian church?

I have, admittedly, never been very thrilled about the Crystal Cathedral and the whole idea of “positive thinking” as definitive of Christian doctrine. I attended the church on a couple of Sunday mornings when I used to live across the street, and never saw a single Bible carried by anyone. Anywhere.  The sermon on both mornings did not contain a single reference to Christian scriptures. It was, for all intents and purposes, a mass psychological counseling session. I never went back.  I’ve been told the midweek classes and such are far better in quality than what people get on Sunday mornings, but experience and statistics indicate that only a small percentage of people that go to a church service anywhere (not just the Crystal Cathedral) on Sunday morning get involved in more in-depth meetings during the rest of the week.

Christian life isn’t about “feeling good”

My response to churches such as the Crystal Cathedral and “positive thinking” churches has always been this: If the reason you go to church is to sing some great songs, listen to “positive preaching” that doesn’t address real life, and then leave for Sunday brunch feeling better about yourself, you’ve been to the wrong church. In fact, you’re doing your spiritual journey a huge disservice.  Let me advise you of this from first-hand experience and from my experience leading small groups of Christians for whom all the “positive thinking” in the world is useless in their day-to-day struggles.

The entire concept of “church” should never revolve around making oneself feel good for going to some “lovey-dovey” pep rally so you can feel all happy inside about how wonderful it is being a “Christian.” Church is ekklesia, an assembly of believers worshipping an almighty God (who is not only love but also justice—we always forget that second part, don’t we?) and being taught and equipped in the moral and scriptural principles that define Christianity.  That is a pastor’s job; it was the job I was trained and earned my Bachelor’s degree cum laude in.

That means teaching the whole counsel of God, even if it steps on someone’s toes (including my own).

As a church, we’ve become so afraid of the Gospel offending people that we’ve watered it down into some mass love-in where everyone is supposed to feel good and be patted on the back rather than challenged that if we intend to call ourselves Christians, we should be Christians and not just pay our faith lip service.  Try that watered-down approach sometime with Christians who are being persecuted for their faith in other areas of the world such as China, Africa, and the Middle East, and see if they don’t laugh you out of their churches.

It also means that if we claim to be Christians, we don’t get to pick and choose which parts of Christianity we’re going to live with and which parts we’re going to ignore or brush aside because they not comfortable or convenient to follow. (I realize that statement is going to open up a whole other debate about killing gay people because that’s what it says to do in Leviticus, but’s that’s a rhetorical diversion that takes scripture out of the context of the whole, and that’s a whole other essay.)

If you’re going to be Catholic, be Catholic

I claim to live as a Catholic.  As a Catholic, there’s a volume called the Catechism of the Catholic Church that essentially details everything that we, as Catholics, believe. As a child I was taught from the Catechism until my family left the church when I was 12. Having returned to the Church, if I want to know what a Catholic is to believe about a given topic, I refer to the Catechism (lest someone say I should refer to the Bible, the Catechism provides the scriptural references providing the basis for the belief stated in the Catechism, so the Bible is part of it, too).  If I want to know how the Catholic Church does a certain thing, I can look it up in another volume called the Code of Canon Law. One of the things I’ve appreciated about returning to Catholicism after being Protestant so long is that if there’s a question about what we believe about something, there aren’t twenty separate answers from twenty different preachers about what I should believe; I go to a single source to find out what Catholics believe—there’s no guessing.  Coming out of Protestantism, there’s still significant parts of what Catholics believe and have written in their Catechism that are not comfortable or convenient for me, but if I claim to be Catholic, I follow those things too, even if I don’t like to. Because that’s what it means to be a Catholic Christian.

That said…

All of the above said, does that mean we have a license to run roughshod over people’s emotions and lifestyles to force our beliefs down the throats of others?

Obviously not. But it also doesn’t mean that we compromise what we believe just so others will like us. We stand firm on what we believe, while at the same time, to quote the RCA’s own statement:

To adopt as the position of the Reformed Church in America that the practicing homosexual lifestyle is contrary to scripture, while at the same encouraging love and sensitivity towards such persons as fellow human beings. (MGS 1990: 461, emphasis mine)

and earlier in the same document (emphasis once again mine):

When Paul rejects homosexual acts on the grounds that they are “against nature” he expresses and reaffirms the clear sense of Scripture: Human sexuality was created for heterosexual expression…When the subject of homosexuality is raised, the majority of modern opinion still seems to be: “People weren’t made to be that way.” If such opinion is expressed with fear, loathing or recrimination, as is often the case, it must be pitied and resisted. When the same statement is made in humility and with compassion, it may be considered biblical.

This is what the choir members of the Crystal Cathedral are being asked to agree to. If you don’t like what a church teaches, there are literally hundreds of other churches within easy commuting distance that would be more than happy to scratch your itching ears (and ego).

To provide the views of the Catholic church that I claim to belong to, here it is directly from the current Catechism, with the footnotes rewritten for clarity by me since I assume my average reader is not going to know that “CDF” means “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”.

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity [Note 140], tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" [Note 141]. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Note 140: Cf. Genesis 19:1–29; Romans 1:24–27; 1 Corinthians 6:10; 1 Timothy 1:10.
Note 141: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana (Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics), 29 Dec 1975, § VIII.

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