A bridge too far
Ethicist and author David Gushee has announced his departure from evangelicalism. He writes,
I now believe that incommensurable differences in understanding the very meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the interpretation of the Bible, and the sources and methods of moral discernment, separate many of us from our former brethren — and that it is best to name these differences clearly and without acrimony, on the way out the door.
I also believe that attempting to keep the dialogue going is mainly fruitless. The differences are unbridgeable.
The controversy over marriage and sexual ethics divides and cripples whole denominations with no end in sight. A recent survey of Australians shows the most significant reason why Australians won’t engage with Christianity is the Church’s position on homosexuality (31%).
So much is at stake. In fact, too much is at stake.
Andrew Walker points out that Gushee is,
asking the church — and by extension, the global church — to repent of two thousand years of biblical teaching. He’s asking us to journey with him accepting that the church’s entire witness, including the words of Jesus himself, have been misunderstood or wrong for the entirety of church history. He’s asking us to trust him on his journey and those like him — highly educated and predominantly Western social progressives — to speak univocally for the entire church.
It has come to this:
There is no “third way” possible. Everyone is going to have to pick a side. Sitting on the fence might be convenient for some people’s career, but the trajectory of where the West is headed will not countenance moderation when the canons of social justice require nothing short of celebrating LGBT orthodoxy.
What are we to do?
The true church will hold fast to biblical teaching no matter what the cost, and institutions parading themselves around as churches will capitulate to the reigning zeitgeist and reveal themselves for what they are — churches with no lampstands (Rev. 2:1-7).
