In my last post, I talked about the deist worldview. However, Deism is only a pitstop on the way to full blown naturalism. Sire in The Universe Next Door writes:
“In [Christian] theism God is the infinite-personal Creator and sustainer of the cosmos. In deism God is reduced; he begins to lose his personality, though he remains Creator and (by implication) sustainer of the cosmos. In naturalism God is further reduced; he loses his very existence.” (Sire, Universe Next Door, 59)
It is during this time in particular, between deism and naturalism, that several different approaches to reading Scripture began to show up, particularly those related to the idea of scientific inquiry. Of those approaches, one of the most dynamic is called higher historical criticism. Following the queues of Gabler, a group of scholars around the beginning of the early twentieth century began close and careful study of the history of religion. Hermann Gunkel and Julius Wellhausen were two such scholars.
In reading Scripture, especially the Old Testament, Wellhausen, called the father of what is commonly referred to as the Documentary Hypothesis, argued that multiple strands of various factions from religious entities struggled with one another for superiority within the Biblical text itself. The questions began to really revolve around the composition history of the books themselves. Wellhausen’s views of Scripture are quite different from the early church and reformation era commentators. The literature is no longer deemed sacred. Scripture is the evidence of warring parties or social groups trying to gain the upper hand over one another.
It was now the job of the historical critic to ‘reconstruct’ the history and events which shaped what was written in the Bible. Another scholar Bernhard Duhm, attempted to find the historical references that best connected to the prophecies of the prophet Isaiah. Ultimately, this became the problem that many later and more recent scholars have held against the historical critical methods: if a historical reference is not easily found, there is nothing to say except that this particular section of Scripture was added at a much later date. Thus, for Isaiah and other books, like the Pentateuch, the idea of multiple authors arose.
As one can see, this historical critical method, as introduced into mainstream academic theology by the likes of Wellhausen and Duhm, has a low view of Scripture. It is no longer perceived as the very word of God, but the word of various political and religious factions. Along with that low view of Scripture, they also had an even lower view of the prophets they interpreted. The worldview that begins to show through the cracks resembles that of deism or naturalism more than the Christian theistic worldview. This worldview holds that the Bible is not God’s special revelation through which He reveals Himself to His creation. The two Testaments are not really united because of all the competing strands. There is no one united theology for men like Duhm or Wellhausen. They have placed their own rational mind above and over the text, effectively making the text fit their own mold. The methods that follow in line, such as redaction and form criticism, also seem to have the same worldview presuppositions.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
During the Enlightenment a shift (or multiple shifts?) took place when it came to the question of worldview. two major worldviews took the stage, pushing the Christian theistic worldview further off stage: deism and naturalism.
James Sire (author of The Universe Next Door: A Catalogue of Worldviews) describes deists as holding to the idea that a transcendent god created the universe, but then left it to run on its own. Often the god of deism is described as the master clock maker and the world as his clock. The creator god built the world, wound it up, and left it to run undisturbed. Deism allows for a god to exist insofar as he created what is seen. This god can be known somewhat by studying what he made. However, deism does not allow for special revelation, because the god of deism does not communicate with people.
In essence then, Scripture cannot give any additional information to man about god excluded from what is already made known via creation. The deist conception of god could not break into history, nor could he be known through history, as the Christian theistic worldview and Scripture portray Him. Also, because of the stance towards special revelation, the concept of sin and the fall into sin as presented in the Scripture is denied, as well as, the revelation of Jesus Christ being both true God and true Man in One Person.
It does not appear that Gabler held to every aspect of what is being described as the deistic worldview. It seems Gabler lies somewhere in between the worldview of Irenaeus and this deistic worldview. Certainly, it can be seen that Gabler places more emphasis on man’s capability to separate out the “unchanging truth of the bible from the mythical imagery that shrouds it.”(Ben C. Ollenburger, The Flowering of Old Testament Theology, 5)
Within the deistic worldview, interpretation of Scripture effectively becomes unwarranted. Rather than Scripture, the natural sciences emerge as the guiding principle. This strategy abandons any notion of the miraculous events of Scripture because they cannot be scientifically proven. The miracles contained in Scripture were either removed entirely as found in Jefferson’s Bible, or explained away via science.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Near the end of the eighteenth century, a man by the name of Johann Phillip Gabler spoke about the subjects of historical interpretation and Biblical theology. He proposed that Biblical and dogmatic theology are different tasks. For Gabler, Biblical theology is the primary goal when interpreting Scripture. He described Biblical theology as first consisting of historical exposition that treats the Biblical statement within the author’s historical setting. After the historical context is understood, then the philosophically informed explanation of the statement is provided that determines the abiding Biblical truth.
As can be seen from Gabler, Scripture was not taken at face value to be true and abiding on its own right by itself. That determination is now supplied by the reader. Also, as part of this proposal, Gabler “borrowed from the classical and Biblical scholars Heyne and Eichorn, that people in more primitive stages of development expressed themselves in ways suited to their limited rational powers, namely in mythical images.”
If Gabler is correct, the Old Testament was to be considered inferior to the New Testament. The unity of the Two Testaments is in jeopardy because the OT is inferior to the NT simply because it was from an earlier era. As Gabler’s one time colleague Georg Lorenz Bauer would argue, “a separate theology would have to be written for each of them.” (Ben C. Ollenburger, The Flowering of Old Testament Theology, 5) This idea certainly goes against that of the early church interpreters and those of a more conventional Christian theistic worldview. The interpreters of the late eighteenth century relied much more on their rational mind than in trusting that the words of Scripture did record accurate accounts of history.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
The first and major shift of interpretation and worldview came during the seventeenth century. The question rested in that of knowledge and authority. Where does knowledge come from? And who has the authority speak on it? No longer did Scripture hold the authority as the medium of knowledge concerning the divine, rather a person’s own reason could seek out God and truth without a guide. Perhaps the first man to bring this to light was Benedict de Spinoza. Spinoza shows himself to be a rationalist and seminal figure of the Enlightenment. For Spinoza, reason, and not Scripture, holds the high place in man’s search for knowledge. As a matter of fact, Scripture is not a source of natural or speculative or historical knowledge. “Scripture only seeks to inculcate piety and obedience to God.” (Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, 42)
Notice the difference between Spinoza and Irenaeus or Luther. Spinoza’s worldview is light years away from the Christian theistic worldview. Christian theism was not thrown away entirely during these later centuries, however a couple of new worldviews came on the scene in rapid succession seeking to overthrow it, specifically deism and naturalism. Both of these could be put under the larger umbrella of rationalism. In both deism and naturalism, special revelation is, to a greater or lesser extent, denied. Knowledge is gained through human reason and scientific methods. As these two rationalistic worldviews came into vogue, the historical-critical method of interpretation rose along with them. It is difficult to determine what came first, the worldviews or the method. What can be seen is that many of the interpreters of the seventeenth century and later began to move away from the conventional Christian theistic worldview as described earlier.
Frei notes too that the literal sense moved further and further away from figurative interpretation. Literal sense would ultimately come to mean the opposite of a figural sense of Scripture. The literal sense would come to be equated to the single meaning of statements.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
When Luther came on the scene, he broke away from the fourfold meaning of Scripture. It is no mystery that Luther repudiated allegory and spoke favorably of typology. However, in practice, Luther still utilized allegory while interpreting Scripture passages. One only needs to read some of his commentaries to see that he does use allegory as part of his exegetical process. Go to his discussion about the doves on Noah’s ark for instance. Or pick up CPH’s two volume set: A Year in the Gospels with Martin Luther. There you will often see sections titled: Allegories.
So is Luther a hypocrite? No. As long as allegory agreed with the analogy of faith and gave comfort to troubled consciences, allegory was free to stand. This idea of allegory is not far removed from the way typology is commonly used in today’s context. Nor is it far from the middle of the road commentators from Alexandria, like Cyril. Though Luther speaks against Origen’s use of allegory, that it is not connected to the analogy of faith, Luther is thankful that Origen’s allegories are most often connected to morality. For Luther, these interpretations should always be compatible with and informed principally by Christ and to a lesser extent, the church. Luther praises Peter and Paul’s use of allegory concerning the flood (1 Pt 3) and the Red Sea (1 Cor 10) because it ‘serves to comfort hearts.
Luther appears to take what is good from the Alexandrian interpretative tradition and the best of Antioch and builds his own method. Luther asserts the historical account is the literal sense as well as the spiritual sense in his Genesis lectures, but understands allegory (or would modern scholars understand it as typology?) can work well and assist, as was shown above. Luther held to a Christology more along the lines of Cyril of Alexandria. Christological doctrine is born from exegesis of Scripture. As long as the allegory was connected to, illustrated the historical account, and agrees with the analogy of faith, allegory is permitted.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Post: As we begin digging into the history of Christianity and how the Old Testament came to be understood by Christians (Remember we hold to what Jesus said and how Jesus used the Old Testament, namely that He is the fulfillment of it), we first come across the group that we know as the Ebionites or as we know them from Galatians, the Judaizers.
The question presented to Christians, especially of Jewish background was how the law of Moses was supposed to be understood. Should the Christian follow it still? To what extent?
If we remember the laws of Moses come in three varieties: Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial. Some of the Ebionites did not force these laws on everyone else, but from Galatians 2 we hear of a pretty vocal group. This group appeared to hold to all three varieties of the laws of Moses. They certainly held to the moral and ceremonial.
Jesus himself dealt with some of this during his earthly ministry. Paul and his companions certainly did. The first council of the church (Acts 15) dealt with the question of the ceremonial law.
We need to be aware of the trappings of what the Ebionites taught, especially about the Old Testament and the law contained therein. While the Ebionites wanted to maintain the laws of Moses in their entirety, the next push came from a man named Marcion who wanted to do the exact opposite. We will talk more about him next.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO
The following is a post seen on social media following the overturning of Roe v. Wade & Planned Parenthood v. Casey. A friend and opponent in the abortion debate, who is agnostic/non-Christian shared it with me seeking commentary. I obliged them. So, here is the commentary. My responses are included inline. [You may identify my remarks by the brackets containing them]. The author of the original post is unknown to me at the time of this writing.
The Post:
A headline on one of my Facebook friends’ posts yesterday was “Today’s Supreme Court decision was a MAJOR win for God.”
A win for God?
[No, it’s a win for morality. Moralism for the sake of morality in the secular realm isn’t for God.]
I immediately thought, does he think our God is so feeble that he needs a panel of nine men and women to affirm him and bestow favor on him?
[No, He isn’t. No, He doesn’t. And, they didn’t affirm Him. SCOTUS affirmed the rights of all people to be secure in their person from death by murder as enumerated in the Constitution. The poor precedent didn’t stand scrutiny in its discovery of unenumerated rights that superseded the life of a unique human being in the womb.]
Regardless of where you stand on the issue of abortion, yesterday’s decision has proven to be a terrible day for God and His church. Why? Because so many of the people that make up His church are deciding to act anything but Christlike.
Scripture says, “They will know you are my disciples by your love.” By your love. Not your memes, not your posturing, not your gloating, not your politics, but by your love.
[That’s out of context and a poor translation in any case. A better on says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
Does Jesus say other things about this “love?” Yeah, He sure does. He says a lot more.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Was Jesus diminishing the commandments here? No, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17) In the rest of chapter five, He expands the commandments beyond their perceived limits. Hatred is the same as murder. Lust in the heart is the same as adultery. This is our understanding of and the way we teach all of the commandments (Matthew 5:17-48).
Love begins with the love of the Lord and His commandments. Then, love moves to my neighbor. No one can love his neighbor while encouraging his neighbor to commit sin like murder.]
On the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, so many in the church began waiving victory flags for Jesus, while the enemy was using your actions to turn more and more people off to God.
This wasn’t a win for the church.
[Meh, it’s a win for babies, who were being murdered. More of them may live now. Murder is always evil. Not murdering is always good.]
In fact, I believe history will show that this decision was a tipping point for the downfall of church attendance and effectiveness. No one on the opposite side of the decision felt the love, compassion, and ministry of Jesus yesterday. No one.
[This guy doesn’t want to see the church or Christians’ love for people. He wants us to be indifferent to sin. He wants us to encourage our neighbor in their separation from God. That would be the end of the church and the Christian faith.]
Let me be blunt.
If you are a Christian who believes in a God who will condemn people to hell for not believing in Him and you’re choosing to spew hate and vile towards people you disagree with, then you, my friend, have more blood on your hands than any person who chose to get an abortion.
[Acceptance ≠ Love. Acceptance/encouragement of sin = actual hatred, and not the imaginary kind dreamt up by an unbelieving world. But, actual, genuine hatred for your fellow man. The kind of hatred that gleefully of indifferently watches my neighbor hurtle themselves toward perdition.
We believe that we separate ourselves from the love of God by our sin. Only forgiveness received by faith, which turns us from sin, can remedy this.]
It’s time for the separation of church and hate.
[No one can love his neighbor while encouraging his neighbor to commit sin. The world has redefined love by the definition: acceptance and exaltation. Accepting, exalting, and encouraging sin, which separates people from God is not love. That’s indifferent hatred. A hatred that doesn’t mind my neighbor going to hell, separated from the Lord by their beloved sins.]
The church is the richest organization in the world. We have more money than Apple, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. If we really cared about babies, we could do something about it.
[False! The tech billionaires are extraordinarily wealthy individuals, and their international corporations are wealthy to a degree we can’t fathom. They are also quite miserly in their charitable donations.
It’s possible that the Roman Catholic Church may be a very wealthy organization. All other Christian churches organizations pale in comparison. My parent organization, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, with her 2.9 million members is quite poor comparatively. Others are significantly smaller still. I’d love to see a dollar by dollar comparison of monies taken in vs. those spend for the good of people. Between charitable organizations run by individual congregations, small groups of them, and their parent organizations as well as money sent into use outside of themselves, there isn’t a comparison in the secular sphere.
I will leave the graft, waste, and fraud in government, the wealthiest organization yet mentioned, for others to address.]
I am hoping when I attend church on Sunday there is a line around the corner for the church to volunteer to adopt and foster. That’s what you do when you really care about babies.
[There is. The state is the only thing preventing even more. The legally mandated goal of CPS and every foster agency – working to reunite families of birth – directly opposed to best interests of the children in their care. This genetic priority further wounds prospective and current foster parents in a much lesser way than the children themselves.]
I hope there are special offerings taken on Sunday to raise money for diapers, formula, babysitting, and therapy, because that’s what you do when you really care about babies.
[We don’t need special offerings. It’s baked into the cultural bread of every church. We don’t talk about it much. Because, it’s just business as usual.]
I hope every church that offers preschool will now do so at no charge, because that’s what you do when you really care about babies.
[Nah, the best place for babies is with their mothers. Daycare/preschool raised babies/toddlers do less well than kiddos with mom at home. We offer the service and help folks make ends meet. But, we also encourage and assist in the best situation for every child: mom & dad, married for life, raising their kids. We work hard to uplift and strengthen families, because that’s the very best thing for babies. We do that because we love babies, toddlers, children, and their parents.]
Where is the love and compassion for women?
[Right alongside the compassion for the children, about 50% of whom will also grow to be women. Even if there were a complete absence of care or support for mothers, that would never justified murdering their babies. But, that premise is faulty. It assumes a counterfactual situation and condemns us Christians based upon an imaginary sin.]
Where is the Christ-like behavior?
[Which Christ do you want us to emulate? Jesus, who dared the crowds to throw their stones, if they were without sin? Jesus, who called the Syrophoenician woman a dog? Jesus, who became angry with His disciples for keeping the infants away? Jesus, who flipped over tables and chased the money changers with a whip? Jesus, who forgave sin AND commanded sinners to go forth and sin no more? Jesus, who lived a perfect, sinless life, died for our sins, rose again to life on the third day, and ascended to the right hand of the father?
They are all the same Jesus.
I’m not Jesus. Neither are you. Let’s let Jesus be Jesus and Jesus us in the way that He Jesuses.]
Where is the empathetic understanding that this decision, even if you agree with it, has placed real fear in the hearts of so many?
[Love can never encourage its neighbor in sin. I cannot encourage my neighbor toward hell.]
Church, remember why you exist. It’s not so you can consistently get your way politically. It’s so you can introduce people to a God who loves and cares for them. It’s time to confuse people on where you stand politically and give them the unconditional grace that God gave to you.
[No sir, this is the commission, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
Go back, read it all again, teach it, and do it. The Law & The Gospel Condemnation & Forgiveness]
You only have ONE LIFE. You might as well MAKE IT COUNT.
[No, we have eternal life to live. Jesus counts for us, dying for our sin to deliver us from it and into eternal life. Some don’t want that and love sin. There is eternal damnation for those having no need of forgiveness. As a result, and we can only live our lives to the glory of God. Speaking out against sin and preaching forgiveness in Christ Alone. “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel… For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:15-16, 21)
I suspect this will fall on deaf ears. The writer, who may be a part of a Christian church, clearly knows very little about the work of the church or the life and teachings of Jesus. His goal seemed to be eliciting a shamed backpedaling apology.
In the law of God I delight. And, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. I preach Christ and Him crucified for sinners who are perishing, but God grants hearing, faith, and growth.
I am not ashamed of the Gospel.]
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team: Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
Encore Post: In my first post about accepting Jesus as your personal Savior, I explained that you do not need to do so. Why? Because God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has already accepted you. God made you his child when God the Father loved you before he made the world, chose you to be his own, rigged your future to make sure you would be adopted as his child. The Son became man, shed his blood to redeem you and the Holy Spirit sealed you in baptism and lives within you as a down payment on your eternal life. (see Ephesians 1)
So, where does that leave those who have pledged their lives to Jesus, invited him into their hearts and believe they are born again? The bottom line is all of this shows some sort of faith in Christ and trust in his promises. That faith saves them. They are mistaken that the commitment in any way saves them. The reason: it is God’s grace alone, received by faith alone that saves us. They have the cart before the horse. Works do not save you. Salvation gives us the power to do good works — including giving our lives to Jesus. (Ephesians 2:8-10)
In fact, Lutherans make commitments to serve God and their neighbors all the time. It begins with vows at our baptism — made by us when we are baptized as adults and for us when we are baptized as children. In every divine service and in private confession, we confess our sins and confess our faith in the ecumenical creeds. At Confirmation and every time we join a new congregation, we renew these vows. These frequent confessions and pledges have a very practical value. Since Christians continue to sin the rest of their lives. It is only at death the we are sin-free. These confessions tap the power of the gospel to strengthen our faith.
The trouble with depending upon our own strength to commit our lives to Jesus for salvation is we can never be certain we’re saved. Were we sincere? Did we really commit our lives to Christ? Or were we in it for the approval of other or to escape hell. So many re-commit themselves at every opportunity. We become unsure of whether God loves us and whether he really love us. This could, ironically cost us our faith and salvation. This is why Lutherans insist on the gospel
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Sermon on Matthew 9:36; Luke 10:1-20 4th Sunday after Pentecost Our Hope Lutheran Church 3 July 2022
Text: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest… “Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you” … “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” … Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Intro: These past few months have been filled with tragedies that made the news. School shootings, natural disasters, brutal warfare, the incredible evil one human being can do to another, especially the innocent and defenseless. We confront this coming out of a truly scary plague and the overreaction of those who meant well making it worse. We can’t help but feel bad for people. And so we reach out and offer our thoughts and prayers – and we follow through, too! It all seems so weak a response. What can you do when you want to do something! When there is not much you can do?
A question that leaps to mind – especially for a man of my generation – is what would Jesus do? The gospel lesson and its sister passage in Matthew begin to answer that question and its follow up – what would Jesus want us to do?
Jesus reacted as Jesus often does… his heart went out to them and he sent help.
Christ’s heart goes out to us.
There are several Greek words the New Testament uses to talk mercy talk. Two of them are:
ἔλεος – to be kind to people, even if they do not deserve it. It is used in the most ancient prayer of the church — Κύριε, ἐλέησον, Lord, have mercy
Σπλαγχνίζομαι – To feel compassion in your internal organs. In the New Testament, it is almost always entirely used of Jesus. The closest we can come to translate it is to say: “his heart went out to them” or “it broke his heart.”
Our English word is not too bad – it comes from latin: compassio – to suffer with.
When Jesus’ heart goes out to people, compassion results in action.
He feeds 5000.
He heals the sick.
He raises the dead.
He calls on us to pray – and sends workers out.
Sometimes our compassion doesn’t go that far.
We see something and say, “that’s awful”
Sometimes we pray, which is not chump change, by the way, but that’s it.
Once in awhile, our heart itself moves, and we do something. But not much.
God wants us to always have compassion, but most of the time we don’t have that emotional bandwidth. Our heart is not in it.
Jesus invites us to share his compassion.
Why didn’t God just crumple the world into a ball and build Earth 2.0? He loved us.
The heart of God went out to us, and his Son became one of us.
He lived a perfect life for us, suffered and died for us, rose again for us, because he had to do something, but not just anything!
The Holy Spirit took out our heart of stone and gave us a heart of flesh in Baptism.
Now we want to show mercy, as our Father shows mercy.
Conclusion: So what to do? Pray for sure. Jesus invites you to do so. Donate? Of course; either in kind or cash. Roll up your sleeves and go to work on the ground? There are many churches and non-profits here in the Fort that would love to have you. Mister Rogers used to say, when asked what to tell children with disaster comes to TV was, “Look for the helpers. There are always helpers.” Maybe one of them is you.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
It shouldn’t surprise us that a sinful world misidentifying love would also fail to accurately recognize hatred. This has been a moving target over the past ten or twenty years. The sequence was tolerance, acceptance, celebration, and elevation. This sequence applied a moving standard to Christians. We were deemed hateful by failing to meet the current pagan standard of what is allowed outside of the 6th commandment.
Tolerance: you will allow LGBTQ lifestyles. It was the toe-in-the-door. The pagan world told Christianity that we shall not define acts outside of the 6th commandment any way other than acceptable. The choices wouldn’t be called preferential or good. But, anything less than acceptance was deemed hateful.
Acceptance: LGBTQ lifestyles are good and acceptable within your social circles. There are two things happening here. You must allow these folks into your social circles. And, their absence from your social circles is cause for suspicion. Your failure to include LGBTQ persons in your peer group may see you judged as a hater by this former standard.
These first two goal post positions defined my youth and young adulthood. I was coming of age during this shift. Churches began to allow lifestyles defined solely by their setting aside 6th commandment. Sex is a gift only rightly enjoyed by a man and a woman, married to each other until death. Society disagrees with God’s Law and was succeeding in pushing incremental change into the church. Soon, LGBTQ persons would be invited to the altar, then the pulpit, then the church hierarchy.
Celebration: LGBTQ is a laudable lifestyle. All aspects of culture and faith must embrace it within themselves. Here, the lifestyle must be judged “good” in a moral sense. You may not call the thing sin any longer. Our identification of sexual sins as sin is sinful, in the eyes of our pagan culture. Instead, we must recognize and celebrate the LGBTQ persons in their lifestyle.
Elevation: this lifestyle is morally superior to CIS gendered existence. CIS is a pejorative term that may not appear in your lexicon yet. It means all forms of heterosexuality and fixed gender identity. The category of people diminished by this term also includes folks engaged in unacceptable heterosexuality, according to the 6th commandment.
It is preferable in the current stage of elevation for people to be in the LGBTQ community. They are allowed to exclude and belittle CIS persons for their closed-mindedness and hateful views. Consider TV, film, and other media. More often than not, the LGBTQ characters are smarter and morally superior to other characters in portrayal. The killer, the evil actor, or the perpetrator are most likely a CIS male, or for want of one, a CIS female.
Each of these progressive phases encourages sin. “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:32)
Love can never encourage sin. That’s the opposite of love. Behavior that encourages our neighbor to sin is actually hatred. If we allow our neighbor to persist in the idea that their sin doesn’t separate them from God, we want them to perish eternally. What can that be, other than hatred?
“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” (1 John 3:11-15).
Our Lord died to forgive sin. Faith in that promise flees from sin. Tolerance, acceptance, celebration, and elevation of sin are a rejection of the forgiveness that Jesus won for us.
Live instead in that forgiveness.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team: Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
