I’ve frequently expressed my hope that churches would more
directly promote Biblical truths that impact the moral lapses in our
culture. A recent blog HERE listed
all the things that sermons scrupulously avoid. Repeated below is a list
of what most churches avoid discussing to avoid offending…
Don’t discuss homosexuality. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss gay marriage. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss abortion. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss out of wedlock pregnancies. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the government’s incentive sapping welfare system. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss excessive reliance on government entitlements. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the evils of Islam. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the overblown role of government that displaces personal and church responsibilities. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss rampant illegal immigration. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss patriotism and building a strong nation. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the Christian foundations of our nation. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss gay marriage. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss abortion. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss out of wedlock pregnancies. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the government’s incentive sapping welfare system. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss excessive reliance on government entitlements. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the evils of Islam. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the overblown role of government that displaces personal and church responsibilities. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss rampant illegal immigration. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss patriotism and building a strong nation. It might offend someone.
Don’t discuss the Christian foundations of our nation. It might offend someone.
It is not unusual for churches to take several weeks –
virtually hours worth of sermons - to elaborate on a few verses of
Scripture. I’ll use the first 9 verses of Philippians,
potentially the subject of 2 or 3 sermons, as an example:
Philippians
(NIV)
1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at
Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons[a]:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 I thank my God every time I
remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always
praywith joy 5 because of your partnership in the
gospel from the first day until now, 6 being
confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to
completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
7 It is right for me to feel this way about
all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in
chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in
God’s grace with me. 8 God can testify how I long for
all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may
abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so
that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for
the day of Christ,11 filled with the fruit of
righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of
God.
Show me one word, phrase or verse in those 9 verses that
noticeably or specifically addresses ANY of the cultural or governance issues
facing our nation today. “Good works”, sure. “Pray with joy”,
good. “Love may abound”, right. “Pure and blameless”, absolutely.
Some will suggest that these noble but vague admonitions are
enough to get us on the right track toward addressing the moral problems facing
our culture. I will suggest that such noble, but vague, admonitions
constitute nothing more than hoping for subliminal assimilation and
eventual application to our cultural lapses. We are expecting
people to use their imaginations to somehow apply these ideals to specifics
amidst the hundreds of hours of explicit contradictory media we are exposed to
every day.
Stated another way, we are asking people who listen to a half
hour sermon comprised of highly generalized admonitions to overcome much larger
quantities of explicit exposure to liberal and immoral media and
entertainment.
I suggest that the Christian thing to do – not the Democrat or
Republican thing to do – is for the Church to relate these fine admonitions, in
unmistakable terms and examples, to the the things the Church today seems
hell-bent on avoiding (see my list, above). Every one of the moral
lapses in our nation that I list above are addressed in Scripture in some form
or another. Sometimes those clear Biblical positions are discounted with
the excuse that the Bible has conflicting sections or is subject to various
interpretations. True. Truth can be distorted or misapplied.
Sure, many people believe the Bible is just fables. But it is the
responsibility of the Church to apply these sound Biblical principles to our
lives and our culture in ways that minimize the need for subliminal assimilation
– vague impressions without explicit guidance.
Here are excerpts from earlier blogs that elaborate on this
point:
These are all components of what many Church leaders define as
“politics”, discussion of which is to be avoided at all costs. Off
limits. Don’t cause dissension. Don’t offend. Let’s avoid
these topics so we can attract more members – more potential “converts” or more
revenue. This “big tent” priority sounds more like the aspiration of a
political party than a legitimate priority of the Church.
The whole Bible, from beginning to end, discusses the
relationships between God, governments, and mankind. It begins with the
first interactions between Adam and Eve and God, with Satan as the
foreshadow of government: The antagonist; the interloper. The
relationship between God, the people, the Laws, the Judges and the Kings
continues throughout the Old Testament. The New Testament brings about a
cleansing from oppressive Laws through Jesus Christ. It renews the spirit
of the personal relationship between God and the individual which was
intended from the beginning. Throughout, it continues to demonstrate the
tug of war between our innate evil tendencies and what God desires of us as a
“higher law”, superior to all the laws created by either secular or religious
laws.
But the modern Church appears to prefer to ignore these
themes. It prefers justifying our surrender to the culture and government
overreach, declaring its overly broad definition of “politics” as taboo; off
limits.
Instead, the Church finds a comfortable corner of Scripture
concerning faith, personal salvation, and how much better we will all
feel. Sin? What’s that? Can it even be defined anymore since
such a large part of the Church not merely excuses but embraces what was formerly
universally understood to be sin. Without acknowledgement of “sin”, how
can there be forgiveness and reconciliation? Then who needs Christ?
Wow, we are now free from the constraints of religion. Imagine, as John
Lennon did.
And now, whether a misquote or a revelation from an apostate, an
official of the Catholic Church has proclaimed “there is no hell” after earlier
excusing himself from criticism of rampant pedophilia in the Church with “who
am I to judge.”
Without a “hell” there is no constraint. Both individuals
and governments can do whatever they please. Wipe away all sense of right
and wrong, don’t judge, and we have the ultimate clean slate for us to be made
in the image of government instead of in the image of God. Who needs God
if there is no sin and no hell? This is the ultimate path to Communism,
the “ideal” that has led to more dictatorships, more death, and more loss of
freedom than any other ideology with the exception of Islam.
The Church is allowing the culture to destroy it by its silence.
And from one of my 50 favorite websites, American Vision, here
is a worthwhile article titled “Should Preachers Address Politics
from the Pulpit.” It touches on something about preaching “the
whole counsel of God.” Modern churches should try it some time.