Matthew 16:18
"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."
The Supreme Court of the United States just released an opinion that has granted the right of marriage to the LGBTQ community. Men can now legally marry men and women can now legally marry women. The Evangelical community is up in arms.
Things in America will never be the same.
And maybe they shouldn’t be.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that gay marriage pleases God. It can’t possibly as homosexual acts are a sin. Father God doesn’t base His ideas of right and wrong on our lustful ideas of "true love" or "soul mates." The concept of marriage is based on the relationship that He wants to have with us and that concept isn’t going to change. Ever.
But there are several things we need to think about, to remember, to perhaps even embrace for the first time.
First, there is no such thing as a "Christian" nation. Nowhere in scripture does it say that a "country" en mass can or will be saved. The only nation that was designated as a "nation unto God" was Israel and even then, the writer of Hebrews clearly explains (chapter 11) that only through faith in God is anyone saved, including those born into the house of Israel. "Saving a nation" is a secular idea that was permeated in the early days of the Church after Constantine made Christianity the "state religion." The idea was that any nation conquered by Rome would become "Christian." The problem is, being conquered never changes someone’s heart; only the Holy Spirit can do that!
All along the United States has been "playing" at being Christian. It has been a society that tried to embrace Judeo-Christian values (whatever that means) without the power of the Holy Spirit. What we really wanted, as Christians, was a nice, pretty place to live without the requirements of having to evangelize (more than inviting people to church) and without being "offended" because someone who wasn’t a Christian might sin in front of us. Actually, it’s surprising that the charade lasted as long as it did. And, of course, like all charades, it was simply smoke and mirrors as the Church ignored the obvious (and usually not invisible) effects of congregations living in self-absorption. Even early on, the American Church used doctrine to oppress those that it wanted to ignore or, even worse, exploit. Christianity was reduced to a culture and God never intended for that to happen.
Second, by trying to create a Christian culture, the American Church focused on the sins of those on the "outside" of the Church and failed miserably to police itself as we are instructed to do in scripture. Our judgmental natures were super-focused on the unsaved around us while we grew more and more lax about the sin in our own lives and in the lives of our Christian brothers and sisters.
As an example . . . I was struck with the irony yesterday of reading, on the same news page, both the announcement by SCOTUS of the legality of gay marriage and the report that the grandson of Billy Graham had resigned as the senior pastor of a very large and influential evangelical church due to adultery. If this kind of perverse sin has permeated even the very family of the one of the greatest evangelists of our day, we have to admit that there is something very wrong within the Church in America. We can no longer look to our unsaved neighbors as the cause of our demise; we must look to ourselves!
Third, the American Church has come to have privileges given to very few within our nation: freedom from taxation, honored positions within the community, and luxurious buildings. It used to be that the Church was the place where the poor could go to find respite from their poverty. Churches provided housing, food, clothing, and comfort to those who were without (for whatever reason). Little if any of that is done anymore. Church schools charge tuitions equal to private schools. Church pastors earn salaries (including benefit packages) equal to CEO’s of large businesses. Church members come on Sundays to gather in coffee cafes, sit in padded chairs with cup holders, and drive home in cars whose payments are more than most mortgages.
We are no longer hospitals for the disenfranchised. The American Church has become a country-club industry.
In the next months or years ahead, it is very likely that things will change greatly for churches . . . and it should! We should be ashamed of redecorating our large, air-conditioned buildings when there are children starving in our communities. We should be ashamed of criticizing the unsaved when sin is rampant within our own ranks. And we should be ashamed of wanting tax-free status when all we do with it is build another "country club" for "us four and no more."
Whatever happened to the Church that Christ built?
"I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it."
Nothing . . . nothing . . . NOTHING can stand against the Church that Christ is building. The question is, are we part of that Church? Are we willing to, as the apostles, give up everything in order to follow Christ? Rather than bemoaning that a false culture is quickly disappearing, we should instead be embracing our dear Lord and everything that He stands for . . . including righteous living, sacrificial giving, and eternal Hope in our Savior and His plan for the Church.
© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
