Month: August 2011

Albert Mohler: Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution

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R. Albert Mohler Jr.

In the essay below, Dr. Mohler is speaking to an Evangelical Christian readership but many of his observations apply to all Christians. The normalization of homosexual behavior is a moral revolution Mohler writes and not one that Christians can join and remain faithful to their Christian faith. He’s right about that.

There will be pressure to adopt to this new morality as well. We even see it on the edges of the Orthodox Church with the Facebook group Listening: Breaking the Silence on Sexuality within the Orthodox Church for example. Who ever thought that some Orthodox would drag this battle of the culture war into the Church?

Mohler takes the Evangelicals to task for their sloppy handing of the homosexual question. I’m not sure we Orthodox have been sloppy, but we have been complacent. The homosexual moral revolution is at bottom a question of anthropology, what it means to be a man or woman and thus a human being. We Orthodox know some things about human anthropology but we’ve been asleep at the switch.

My conviction is that we may be in a period of social unrest similar to what the Early Church experienced that caused the the forging of the great dogmatic truths like Nicea and others (I touch on this in my essay: Orthodox Leadership in a Brave New World). Great unrest imposes suffering, but it also can unleash creativity.

There’s a lot to be done. We have to resist the attempts to homosexualize the Church from within; teach that the object of one’s sexual desire is not a primary constituent of self-identity; develop our anthropology to answer the homosexual questions with better insight and compassion; learn how to help men and woman properly deal with same-sex desires, and more.

Mohler reproves his Evangelical followers for failing to meet the challenge of homosexuality face to face, and by this I presume he means that some Evangelicals prefer not to have dealings with homosexuals at all. That’s not an Orthodox problem I think because we have an easier time drawing the distinction between people and their behaviors, including their sins. We have a better practical sense that not much more than God’s mercy separates us from the next guy.

Unfortunately, the neo-Episcopalian wing like those on the Facebook group exhibit a deep immaturity about the the human person and same-sex desire. Their immaturity probably derives from moral confusion, particularly defining such concepts as tolerance and compassion in terms of the dominant culture rather than the moral tradition. They craft an apologetic that uses the language of the moral tradition to endorse behaviors that contradict its teaching, yet they refuse to admit that the contradiction even exists.

That’s why when they collapse the distinction between person and behavior they think they fulfill the law of love, and why they believe that insisting on moral parity between opposite-sex and same-sex marriage is pleasing to God.

If their confusion is allowed to prevail, then the dominant culture will trump the moral tradition and the deep anthropological understanding that shaped the language and makes the distinction comprehensible will be lost. So will the important pastoral work that depends on it. The Orthodox will become like the liberal Episcopalians except for our Eastern flair and better looking vestments.

Source: Albert Mohler.com

The Christian church has faced no shortage of challenges in its 2,000-year history. But now it’s facing a challenge that is shaking its foundations: homosexuality.

To many onlookers, this seems strange or even tragic. Why can’t Christians just join the revolution?

And make no mistake, it is a moral revolution. As philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah of Princeton University demonstrated in his recent book, “The Honor Code,” moral revolutions generally happen over a long period of time. But this is hardly the case with the shift we’ve witnessed on the question of homosexuality.

In less than a single generation, homosexuality has gone from something almost universally understood to be sinful, to something now declared to be the moral equivalent of heterosexuality—and deserving of both legal protection and public encouragement. Theo Hobson, a British theologian, has argued that this is not just the waning of a taboo. Instead, it is a moral inversion that has left those holding the old morality now accused of nothing less than “moral deficiency.”

The liberal churches and denominations have an easy way out of this predicament. They simply accommodate themselves to the new moral reality. By now the pattern is clear: These churches debate the issue, with conservatives arguing to retain the older morality and liberals arguing that the church must adapt to the new one. Eventually, the liberals win and the conservatives lose. Next, the denomination ordains openly gay candidates or decides to bless same-sex unions.

This is a route that evangelical Christians committed to the full authority of the Bible cannot take. Since we believe that the Bible is God’s revealed word, we cannot accommodate ourselves to this new morality. We cannot pretend as if we do not know that the Bible clearly teaches that all homosexual acts are sinful, as is all human sexual behavior outside the covenant of marriage. We believe that God has revealed a pattern for human sexuality that not only points the way to holiness, but to true happiness.

Thus we cannot accept the seductive arguments that the liberal churches so readily adopt. The fact that same-sex marriage is a now a legal reality in several states means that we must further stipulate that we are bound by scripture to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman—and nothing else.

We do so knowing that most Americans once shared the same moral assumptions, but that a new world is coming fast. We do not have to read the polls and surveys; all we need to do is to talk to our neighbors or listen to the cultural chatter.

In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.

It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.

We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.

My hope is that evangelicals are ready now to take on this challenge in a new and more faithful way. We really have no choice, for we are talking about our own brothers and sisters, our own friends and neighbors, or maybe the young person in the next pew.

There is no escaping the fact that we are living in the midst of a moral revolution. And yet, it is not the world around us that is being tested, so much as the believing church. We are about to find out just how much we believe the Gospel we so eagerly preach.

Human Events. The Unseen Riots of London: American media tries very hard not to notice a world capitol in flames

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This is what the collapse of the welfare state looks like.

Source: Human Events

For the past four days, the city of London has been in flames. The UK Telegraph reports over 20,000 calls to the police on a single night:

Officials said all police cells in London were now full and that any new suspects who were arrested were being taken to surrounding areas.

Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin also called on all special constables to report for duty as the Met requested employers “to support” their emergency initiative.

“Last night was the worst the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) has seen in current memory for unacceptable levels of widespread looting, fires and disorder,” a spokesman for the Met police said.

“The MPS responded with the largest policing operation of the three nights to date (approximately 2,500 officers in addition to 3,500 officers already on boroughs).”

The Met spokesman went on to report that the riots have seen violence toward both police and civilians:

“Disturbing levels of violence were directed at officers again, leading to 44 being injured last night, which included an officer being driven at, resulting in broken bones, and another officer receiving an eye injury that is likely to need surgery (separate incident).

“Fourteen members of the public were also hurt, including a man in his 60s who has life-threatening head injuries.”

The BBC says the looters who ran over a police officer with a car are being “questioned on suspicion of attempted murder.” Another group of looters apparently shot a man to death in Croydon. Ambulances have been attacked as they ferried the injured to overflowing hospitals. The London police had to admit they didn’t have enough riot police to deal with the disorder. Buildings have been set ablaze, leading to an astonishing photograph, snapped by photographer Amy Weston, of a woman leaping from the window of a blazing four-story building.

The riots spread beyond London, leading to violence in Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham, and Bristol. A police station in Birmingham was set on fire. A gang of “200 youths with masks” was roaming through Liverpool. Residential areas and shopping centers were evacuated as the riots surged toward them. The British government seriously considered deploying the military to restore order. An Ealing woman told the BBC, “It looks like a war zone – I have never seen anything like it in all my life.”

U.S. media coverage of all this has been remarkably muted. They haven’t ignored the story, but the coverage has been superficial, and noticeably out of proportion to the scale of these horrible events. Watching an American news report about London on TV, and then taking a look at the coverage by the BBC, presents a jarring contrast. Of course, our weekend coverage was dominated by the U.S. government’s credit rating downgrade, and later we had the awful chopper attack in Afghanistan to deal with, but these events shouldn’t have crowded out the amazing story of a major Western capital – the storied city that gave birth to our own political system, and much of our culture – torn to shreds by gigantic hordes of rioters.

Perhaps the identity of these rioters made the U.S. media uncomfortable. The riots began after police officers from a unit that “investigates gun crime in the black community” stopped a taxicab and shot Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four. The circumstances of the shooting were murky, and rumors quickly filled the void of official information.

Soon after the riots began, the mobs acquired a significant “Asian” (read: Muslim) population, and eventually white anarchists joined in the fun. It may have started with a racial component, but it ended up being an impeccably multicultural disaster.

British politicians have been rushing to indict the loss of government programs through austerity measures as the true, underlying cause of the violence. Before you groan at their opportunism, consider that they have a point… and it doesn’t reflect well on British socialism at all.

The American media might have found itself a bit squeamish about those London riots, not just because of the black and Muslim participants, but because it became a broad collapse of British society, driven by the angry dependents of a collapsing welfare state. The dole leaves people with time on their hands, fills them with resentment over their meager circumstances, fosters despair over the lack of opportunity, and leaves them with various forms of “community organizing” as the only way to improve their lot in life.

Search the rubble left by every “austerity” program in the developed world, from Greece to London, and you’ll find burning cars and riot police. The dependency class is enraged by what it views as broken promises, and it’s not about to turn that anger against itself, for being naïve enough to accept them. The Tea Party movement in the United States is the only thing standing between us and a near future of powder-keg cities waiting for spark to set them off. It’s not as if we haven’t dealt with riots here in the past… but take a long look at London today, and understand that you ain’t seen nothing yet.

John Couretas: Protect the Poor, Not Poverty Programs

OCALaity Urges OCA to Adopt “Sanctity of Marriage Sunday” Urges OCA to Adopt “Sanctity of Marriage Sunday”

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St. Nicholas Cathedral (OCA)

From OCALaity:

“St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington DC has sent five resolutions to the OCA’s Resolution Committee for consideration at the upcoming 16th All American Council. The resolutions can be found at www.OCALaity.com. The resolutions deal with marriage, our OCA youth, monasteries, child sexual abuse, and a deaf outreach.

Of particular interest to most Orthodox Christians is the resolution calling for an annual Sanctity of Marriage Sunday. All are well aware of the continued assault on traditional marriage due to fornication, adultery, divorce, and same-sex unions. Presently six states and DC have passed same-sex marriage laws, and more states plan on taking up the issue. This resolution will hopefully encourage the Faithful to proclaim Holy Tradition’s teaching on sexuality and marriage, both in the church and in the public square.

We hope you view the site (www.OCALaity.com) so an early discussion on the merits of each resolutions can be made before the AAC. Please talk with your priest and parish council concerning your support for particular resolutions.”

The Resolutions

WHEREAS the Orthodox Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality, firmly grounded in Holy Scripture, 2000 years of Church tradition, and canon law, holds that marriage consists in the conjugal union of one man and one woman, and that authentic marriage is blessed by God as a sacrament of the Church; and Whereas neither Scripture nor Holy Tradition blesses or sanctions adultery, fornication, or a union between persons of the same sex;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED THAT the Sixteenth All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America strongly commends the efforts of Orthodox bishops, clergy, and laity to bear witness to the sanctity of marriage in the public arena; commits the Orthodox Church in America to continued witness and defense of the authentic marriage of one man and one woman; strongly reaffirms the Orthodox Church’s opposition to same sex marriage, and that it does so on theological and moral grounds; and stresses God’s will that marriage be a lifelong commitment, monogamous, and heterosexual;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Sunday in September falling on or after the Feast of the Conception of St. John the Baptist will be called Sanctity of Marriage Sunday and on this Sunday: an annual letter from our Metropolitan will be read in all OCA Parishes during the Divine Liturgy affirming the Orthodox understanding of marriage; and each parish priest will declare his availability to counsel individuals or couples desiring to be married or already married; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Orthodox Church stresses that all persons tempted to act contrary to the Orthodox Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality, and all those who succumb to such temptations, are to be offered pastoral guidance and cared for with the same mercy and love that is bestowed by our Lord Jesus Christ upon all of humanity and that all persons are called by God to grow spiritually and morally toward holiness.

Jesse S. Cone: Fr. Leonid’s Culture War

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Jesse S. Cone provides a compelling critique below of Fr. Leonid Kishkovsky’s signing of Jim Wallis’ “Circle of Protection” proclamation. The document was crafted by Wallis and signed mostly by left-leaning Christians ostensibly to protect the poor from draconian budget cuts.

Wallis is a 1960’s style liberal who still believes that government has the resources and tools to eradicate vexing social problems like poverty, poor education and so forth. He never takes into account how the government inflow of money into poorer areas exacerbated the decline of the nuclear family (in the 1950’s 70% of Black children in Harlem lived in intact two parent families, a trend that was increasing; 10 years after the Great Society that number dropped to 30%), contributed to the collapse of public education (the worst performing schools in America are in the inner cites of Democratically controlled cities) and created generational dependence on government welfare.

There’s a difference between supporting government programs that ostensibly care for the poor and actually doing constructive work for the poor. This distinction is hard for many people to make because “Christian Progressives” like Wallis appropriate the lexicon of the Christian moral tradition to lend moral weight to Progressive ideology. No one wants to be accused of selfishness but the Progressives argue you are selfish if you criticize their agenda.

By signing the document Fr. Kishkovsky added his voice to the chorus and aligned the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) with Wallis’ Progressive ideology. Is he equating Orthodox moral teaching with Progressive ideology? It sure looks like it.

Economic laws are like physical laws. You can cheat them for a time but in the end they always win out. Accrue debt and sooner or later you have to pay it back. Accrue too much debt and in the end the borrower owns you. America is perilously close to default and the nations who lent us the money (primarily China although many other nations) are more alarmed than many in Washington seem to be. They haven’t forgotten elementary economics.

For example, take a look at China’s (China!) two warnings to America last week (here and here). It’s not pleasant being reproached by China but who can argue with the reproach?

Progessivism is failing morally and fiscally as anyone who is not intimidated by the strident exhortations coming from Progressivist quarters already knows. Fr. Kishkovsky needs to examine the Wallis world view with greater sobriety. A lesson in economics wouldn’t hurt either.

Cone also mentions an organization I had a hand in organizing and am presently involved with called Christians for a Sustainable Economy (CASE). We agree with Wallis that budgets have a moral component but we believe encumbering the next generation with our debt is immoral. We do not believe that the Progressive vision is morally justifiable or economically sustainable.

One minor correction. CASE believes that government has a role in funding the social safety net. We also embrace the counsel of F. A. Hayek who cautioned that the transition from welfare dependency to a model of personal responsibility must be handled with great prudence and deliberation. Nevertheless, events are going to force these transitions upon us as last week’s budget imbroglio made clear. We need to do it well. Jesse S. Cone’s essay follows.

Source: OCATruth | August 3, 2o11 |By Jesse S. Cone

Fr. Leonid Kishkovsky

Amid heightened concerns that factions in the OCA want to follow in the footsteps of The Episcopal Church by catering to social trends, Fr. Leonid Kishkovsky, the OCA’s Director of External Affairs and Interchurch Relations, put his name and the OCA’s alongside The Episcopal Church USA’s Presiding Bishop, Katherine Schori, on the Circle of Protection. The Circle of Protection is an ecumenical statement attempting to support governmental social programs whose funding is being threatened by the current debt crisis. It is supported by the National Council of Churches, and receives a large part of its funding by the leftist billionaire George Soros. You can see Fr. Leonid’s name under that of the General Secretary of the NCC, Michael Kinnamon.

The Circle says that,

As Christians, we believe the moral measure of the debate is how the most poor and vulnerable people fare. We look at every budget proposal from the bottom up—how it treats those Jesus called “the least of these” (Matthew 25:45). They do not have powerful lobbies, but they have the most compelling claim on our consciences and common resources. The Christian community has an obligation to help them be heard, to join with others to insist that programs that serve the most vulnerable in our nation and around the world are protected.

There is no disagreement among Christians that we should minister to the poor and needy, though there is plenty of disagreement about the Circle and Church’s role in the governmental programs it is supporting. On the basic level it is an issue of who should actually be doing the ministering: individual and organizations of Christians directly, or intermediaries; in this case the government. Should it be the Church that ministers to the fatherless and the widows, or should the Church support ministering programs? While these questions are not simply either/or, the polarities — and the consequent tensions – are real. Nevertheless it is ironic then that the Circle defends the government backed social programs they wish to protect by appealing to the signatories’ own experience of ministering directly to the poor and needy.

We know from our experience serving hungry and homeless people that these programs meet basic human needs and protect the lives and dignity of the most vulnerable. We believe that God is calling us to pray, fast, give alms, and to speak out for justice.

So what justice is the Circle of Protection crying out for, and what programs are they trying to protect? Programs like SNAP (formerly food stamps), Medicaid, Head Start, CHIP, as well as general support for areas of Low-Income Education and Training, Shelter and Homelessness, Peacekeeping, and Sustainable International Development Programs. While these programs may not espouse explicitly debatable agendas, this does seem to be part and parcel with the agenda of the NCC. That agenda has definite leftist leanings, as witnessed by George Soros’ contributions, which make explicit use for lobbying in Washington, especially in regards to his proposed Criminal Justice reform.

The Circle’s claim that budgets “are moral documents” is disturbing to traditional Christians who consider the moral significance of supporting Medicaid. Medicaid provides some funding for abortions in almost every state. What situations allow for Medicaid funds to be used to pay for abortion varies by state, but there 17 states in the Union that have 1/3 of their abortions paid for by Medicaid.

The Metropolitan, who took heat on Mark Stokoe’s website for his “unilateral” and “political” involvement in the March for Life and the Manhattan Declaration has now been outshone by Fr. Leonid. However political and right-leaning one views Metropolitan Jonah’s actions, Fr. Leonid’s provide a far more obvious move in the opposite direction. Acton Institute president and co-founder Fr. Robert Sirico called the Circle “hyper-political” in a piece for The National Review .

The actions of Wallis and the co-signers of the Circle of Protection are only understandable in light of political, not primarily religious, aims. Wallis, after all, has been serving as self-appointed chaplain to the Democratic National Committee and recently met with administration officials to help them craft faith-friendly talking points for the 2012 election. And when Wallis emerged from that White House meeting, he crowed that “almost every pulpit in America is linked to the Circle of Protection … so it would be a powerful thing if our pulpits could be linked to the bully pulpit here.”

Think about that for a moment. Imagine if a pastor had emerged from a meeting with President George W. Bush and made the same statement. I can just imagine the howls of “Theocracy!” and “Christian dominionism!” that would echo from the mobs of Birkenstock-shod, tie-dyed, and graying church activists who would immediately assemble at the White House fence to protest such a blurring of Church and State.

Once again it seems that the criticisms don’t always cut both ways, and not just in Washington but also in Syosset. This is not to say that the Circle’s statement that “budgets are moral documents” is without merit. Christians who share that view but do not support the financial stances of the Circle have formed a response to the Circle, Christians for a Sustainable Economy (CASE). Orthodox priest Fr. Hans Jacobse played a role in CASE’s creation, and he reports on CASE and offers a critique of the Circle of Protection uber-supporter Jim Wallis and his liberal Sojourners group. It appears that the budget morality the Circle espouses is not Orthodox, and may in fact be at odds with the Faith.

Regardless of where one stands politically – whether you are incensed by this or not — it is the case that Fr. Leonid’s signature on the Circle of Protection is a political action, and one he is taking for the OCA. Some members of the OCA were shocked to hear of Fr. Leonid’s action, though it is not yet known whether the Metropolitan or the Acting Chancellor were consulted or apprised of his action before it appeared publicly. It is doubtful he received such a blessing, considering his strong disagreement with the OCA’s involvement with the Manhattan Declaration. Indeed, the OCA’s very involvement with the NCC and the WCC is questionable, considering the Antiochians withdrawal from both bodies back in 2005.

Interestingly enough, the trigger for the Antiochian’s withdrawal was a controversy that’s recently been the subject of much talk in the OCA of recent. From the 2005 article,

Reasons given for the withdrawal include the general liberalism of the NCC, whose General Secretary, Bob Edgar, withdrew his signature from a statement defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

While I appreciate Fr. Leonid’s position in the OCA, I am curious to see how his participation profits the OCA’s relationships with the other Orthodox jurisdictions. It seems hard to believe that the Mother Churches are smiling blithely at what can easily be described as a unilateral political move in opposition to the Metropolitan’s public endorsements of traditional morality. I cannot state whether Fr. Leonid’s act was a conscious push-back against the Metropolitan, but the act is certainly a move in the opposite direction — and a move that is ostensibly without support. Those who lauded the Metropolitan’s involvement in the March for Life and Manhattan Declaration have already voiced their opposition to this progressive agenda, and those critical of the Metropolitan have called for non-involvement in such political hot-button affairs. Fr. Leonid’s actions do not correspond to either demographic.

I don’t believe, nor have I ever heard that the Office of External Affairs and Interchurch Relations exists to make statements about the federal budget and government programs. A case could be made for it, and I would look forward to being persuaded should the Holy Synod of bishops decide to present such a case. Till then, Fr. Leonid’s volunteering the OCA for such a tendentious initiative — especially considering our the current context – can be seen as an ill advised personal political endorsement at best; or a not-so-subtle act of rebellion against Metropolitan Jonah at worst.

Our reputation in the Orthodox world has suffered enough during the past year to keep Fr. Leonid busy, why add to the perception of the OCA’s establishment being a fractured group of in-fighters? One hopes our relationship within the Orthodox community matters more to us in the OCA than our status in the National Council of Churches.

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