Same Sex Marriage and the Christian School

Same Sex Marriage and the Christian School

Our relatively comfortable Christian world in the US has changed.

One of the most disturbing images I've seen in a long time was one of the White House lit up in rainbow lights to celebrate the Supreme Court's decision legalizing same sex marriage. 

This picture saddened and angered me. How did we arrive at this place?

The day after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress. His speech summoned a nation to war and became among the most iconic in American history.

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. ”

June 26, 2015 is also a date which will live in infamy. On that date the Supreme Court of the United States legalized same sex marriage.

I am saddened but I am not surprised by the Supreme Court's decision. I am saddened because our country continues it relentless march to Sodom and Gomorrah. I suspect that everyone reading this article feels like Lot, whom Peter describes this way in his second epistle:

“… Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard) .2 Peter 2:4ff”

I am not surprised because we long ago sowed the seeds that eventually bore the fruit we see in the Supreme Court's decision. Actually, it is not so much the seed that was sown as the seed that has not been sown.

Let me explain. 

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Ideas Have Histories: Where Postmodernism Came From-Part I

This is part one of two articles on Postmodernism

By John Stonestreet, Summit Ministries

Postmodernism comes in all kinds of shapes and expressions, and this sort of variety can make it difficult to understand. Further, postmodernism resists categories and distinctions, and this makes it more difficult to nail down as a worldview. There is a larger intellectual history that must be understood in order to grasp the uniqueness and significance of postmodernism as a worldview.

Ideas Have Histories: How We Lost Our Minds…

While dividing history into distinct time periods is not an exact science, there are two major historical transitions that can help us clarify the emergence of postmodernism: (1) the transition towards modernism, typically dated around the 1700s and (2) the transition away from modernism which began in the late 20th century.

The transition from what is often called the pre-modern period into the modern period corresponds with the influence of Enlightenment thinking and the scientific revolution. Prior to the Enlightenment, there was a dominant cultural belief in the existence of the supernatural. This was due in large part to the rise of Christianity and specifically the Roman Catholic church as the most powerful cultural presence in medieval times. This was a world of authority, and authority rested in the hands of traditional institutions, especially the church, since it was entrusted with interpreting and communicating this truth to the common person.

With a belief in God came a strong belief in the concept of revelation, that God not only existed but had revealed Himself and His will in the Bible. This revelation was considered the primary source of truth, and could be trusted to unlock God’s metanarrative (or, “Big Story”) for the world. Believing was the starting point of real knowledge. St. Anselm, typifies a pre-modern perspective on truth: “For I seek not to understand in order that I may believe; but I believe in order that I may understand, for I believe for this reason: that unless I believe, I cannot understand.” This view of revelation and authority did not fare well during the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was a movement among European intellectuals in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the decades leading up to this time, the church’s authority had been successfully challenged politically (reactions against corruption), theologically (Luther, Calvin and the Protestant Reformation), philosophically (downfall of scholasticism), and scientifically (Galileo, Copernicus, and Baconian method). There was a growing disillusionment with the traditional educational, political and religious institutions, as well as their authoritative sources.

During the Enlightenment, authority shifted from traditional institutions to human reason. A scientific approach to the world yielded tremendous advances in medicine, technology, and communications and challenged the centrality of theology and religious belief as the paradigm for learning. Free from the restrictive shackles of traditional beliefs (thus, modernism), progress seemed inevitable. Immanuel Kant described this period of time in this way: “Sapere aude! ‘Have the courage to make use of your own mind!’ is thus the slogan of the Enlightenment.”[1]

The modern period had begun. The growing skepticism in regards to anything supernatural was matched by growing faith in human ability to know the world, control it, and reap the inevitable benefits. The “Big Story” of the world was not given by revelation; rather, it was to be discovered and perhaps even determined by science, reason and technology. This major transition was at the heart of the modern period.

However, from our 21st century perspective, it is clear that the predictions of utopia guaranteed in the modern period never materialized. Instead, modernists became disillusioned as military increase brought world wars; failed development policies led to class oppression and colonialism; economic idealism resulted in communism and the Cold War; and our best science created nuclear weapons and the threat of global devastation.

Postmodern writers, beginning with Nietzsche, began to question the integrity of modernism’s metanarrative of progress. In fact, the main casualty of a postmodern perspective is the very idea of a metanarrative. Postmoderns are skeptical of any and all claims to an authoritative comprehensive worldview, absolute truth about reality, and an overarching purpose to the human story.[2] Postmoderns embrace local narratives, not metanarratives; a multitude of stories, not a “Big Story.”

In short, it could be said that religious metanarratives were dismissed by modernism. Man-made ones are dismissed by postmodernism. This is what Myron Penner and others have referred to as “the postmodern turn:”[3] postmodernism is a turn away from the certainty and optimism of modernism. As Jean Francios Lyotard wrote: “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.”[4]

Answering the Postmodern Challenge

Postmodernism’s impact on Western culture is hotly debated, and various thinkers and writers- including those coming from a Christian worldview- have offered diverging opinions of it. Some see it as a passing fad; others see it as long-lasting paradigm shift. Some decry it as dangerously destructive; others embrace its destruction of the oppressive structures of modernity.

The most helpful contribution of postmodernism is, first, that it has successfully challenged the reigning paradigm of the modern period, which was based largely on naturalistic humanism. Modernism, in seeking to arrive at absolute knowledge through empirical investigation, separated matters of “faith” from matters of objective knowledge about the real world. Postmodernism confronts this dichotomy in ways that are helpful for the Christian worldview.

Second, postmodernism has cast a large shadow of skepticism (and has offered a strong dose of humility) on the modern belief in the efficacy and near inerrancy of human reason. As was seen during the modern period, human reason can be quite productive, especially in the arenas of science, medicine, and technology. However, human reason can also be manipulative and destructive, especially when it produces the totalizing ideologies (e.g. communism, Nazism, colonialism, etc) that characterized the modern period.

Third, postmodernism has demonstrated that objectivity and certainty are not exclusive to the realm of science as was claimed during the modern period. In fact, science is often quite biased and agenda-driven, and is therefore in no place to claim to be the final arbiter on all matters of knowledge. This is especially helpful for Christians, who often feel the burden to play by the rules of modernism and empirically demonstrate every aspect of Christian truth.

Fourth, postmodernism rightly reminds us of the power of our culture, and especially the language of our culture, in creating our frames of reference. The modern period demonstrated that this power can be used to marginalize and oppress others at the personal and the systemic level. For the Christian, then, care should be taken to distinguish Scriptural teaching from our cultural perceptions.

Finally, the emphasis of postmodernism on story and narrative fits (to a limited extent) with the way the Bible presents God’s interaction with the world. The Bible is, on the whole, a narrative through which God gives us the Truth about Himself, humanity and the world. Of course, for the postmodernist, no story is to be considered true in this absolute sense over and above any other story, and propositions from one interpretive community are irrelevant for others.

The Bible does not present a God whose story is one among many, but a God whose story is the story above all others. So, in dealing with the postmodern mind, evangelicals face a difficult situation. For the past several centuries, modernity has relegated Christianity to the category of an unscientific, unrealistic worldview that is simply not believable for thinking people. Some Christians are tempted to settle for having Christianity accepted as a truth rather than face the prospect of being dismissed due to dogmatically claiming to be the truth, and abandoning the concept of worldview seems to be a small price to pay for having at least some claim to “truth.”

Although the dethroning of humanistic scientific reason is attractive to battle-weary Christian intellectuals, the postmodern denial of all objective truth is unacceptable.

Further, it is important to note that none of the positive contributions of postmodernism originated with postmodernism! In fact, the Christian worldview has always attested to the limitations of unaided human reason, the effect of the fall on objectivity and certainty, the tendency of humans towards marginalizing others, and the role the concept of story plays in our experience.

Despite the popularity of postmodernism among many Christians, the Christian worldview and the postmodern worldview cannot co-exist without one capitulating to the other. One could argue that we are chronologically “postmodern;” but ideologically, we cannot become “postmodernists.”


[1] Immanual Kant, “An Answer to the Question ‘What is Enlightenment?’” available online at http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~lyman/ english233/Kant-WIE.htm, accessed 08/30/2009.

[2] David Wells, Above All Earthly Powers: Christ in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdman’s, 2005), 74–90.

[3] Myron Penner, “Introduction” in Penner, Christianity and the Postmodern Turn: Six Views, 19–28.

[4] Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, in Theory and History of Literature, vol. 10 (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1984).

Jesus, Save Us From Your Followers

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By Jay Matthews

Just had the privilege to view the documentary in selected theaters, "Jesus Save Us From Your Followers." I had an inside source allow me to see a DVD of it and have had some time to view it in sections.

Very clever movie and very impressive in terms of the visual presentation and trendy graphics.

The documentary explores the polarization of American culture over issues of faith and asks a great question: What is wrong? Why is there so much venom over such a beautiful message- the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Dan Merchant presents an excellent exploration of this caustic culture in these important areas.

I found the movie helpful in some points, but too silent on two large aspects of this issue.

First: We have lost civil dialogue in this culture. Disagreement usually means 'war'. Instead of honest debate- we hurl sound bites over the internet or through talking heads. I agree that we have lost humility and love in the message. The section of the movie (inspired by Blue Like Jazz) of Christian confession was very powerful.

Second: We are ignorant of opposing worldviews and uneducated in the trends of mainstream culture. The culture war mantra has made these issue oriented debates instead of human relationships.

I agree with these premises and, sadly, am guilty as charged.

But there are two other major problems in our presentation of the gospel.

1) We need to be more tender to the 'world' - but we have lost accountability inside the church. There is no discernible difference inside the American church and outside the American church today. We are guilty of loving the world. We have the same consumerist tendencies- we have the same divorce rate- we have the same pattern of addiction and cynicism. Our lips love Jesus, but our hearts love the world.

This problem stems from a lack of seeing sin as serious. We have preached the watered down gospel. To quote Niebur,

A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.

The bad news is not bad... so the good news is not good.

2) We also stand as the most biblically illiterate generation in America. Our reading comprehension slowly dwindles and the light of the Word is dimming. I recently read a handout from C.S. Lewis to my freshman Bible class- when I finished a student said, "I didn't understand a word he said."

The purity of the church is diminishing because God's word is being eclipsed in our midst.

We should be tender to others and tough on ourselves. We need God's Spirit to convict us of sin. We need to stop posing and come clean in our sin- but we also need to move toward repentance and holiness.

One final comment- the Gospel of Christ will be offensive. Granted, it should be the only offensive part of our life as we seek to love, serve, in humility live above reproach. But if we ever think that we will live in harmony with the world.... don't be gullible.

So I come away from the movie conflicted... I want to stand for righteousness and preach forgiveness. That means drawing hard lines which will make me appear intolerant and offensive. I need to love sinners, but I cannot ignore sin.

Sin destroys.. the gospel heals. Help me Lord find the balance- help me walk in the truth. Anyone else seen this documentary? Comments? I won't be offended if you disagree!