Viewpoint: Are We Fighting for Our Way or The Way?

During election years, we often see the melding of certain issues of morality and government. President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage several months ago and Chick-fil-A's recent opposition to gay marriage have made gay marriage a hot-button issue in this season of political debate. In my ministry, I have made a commitment to not engage the political or public policy debates surrounding homosexuality. As someone who seeks to walk with men and women who struggle with unwanted same-sex attractions and as someone who seeks to share Jesus with the world in general, I find political debates distracting and frustrating.

While I have no desire to opine on the substance of the gay marriage debate, I do feel drawn to talk about the general response of Christianity to cultural shifts that go (or seem to go) against Christian Biblical values. It seems to me that we all have a tendency to get distracted by what might appear to be attacks on our faith. We like to be in the majority. We like culture to validate our faith. We like to be popular. Yet nothing in the Bible points to a Christian majority or cultural acceptance of our beliefs. And nothing in God's Word sets us up to be 'popular.'

Rather than sweeping majorities and popular influence and laws that line up with Scripture, we are promised to be odd, persecuted outcasts who leave all, die to all, endure all and serve all for the cause of Christ. We are not called to lead people to shiny churches designed to meet all their needs. We are called to lead people to the Way, and we are told that very few will actually walk through the narrow gate that is the life in Christ.

Western, cultural Christianity has distracted us. We have forgotten our calling. Our calling is not to clean up society. Our calling is not to overthrow government or legislate morality or tie tax and survivor benefits to the Biblical truth of marriage. Those things may not be bad in and of themselves, but in many ways, we have become distracted from our true call (to make disciples) and our true job (to be agents of reconciliation). Our job, as Christians, is to help reconcile a lost and disconnected world back into relationship with God through Christ. And now, as we slip further and further out of cultural acceptance and dominance, we are becoming scattered and unfocused. We are more concerned about sanitizing our world, instead of reaching the world with the amazing love of Jesus Christ. We are jumping through man-made hoops, instead of carefully navigating the narrow way of Christ. Read more

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