John H Armstrong

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Barack Obama and Rick Warren's Prayer at the Inauguration

President-elect Barack Obama, as many of you no doubt know by today, chose the popular evangelical minister Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his January 20 inauguration, strongly rejecting the criticism that it slights gays. Gay rights advocates were strong supporters of Obama during the election campaign, even though he did not endorse “gay marriage” in his promises or commitments. What angers these gay rights advocates about Rick Warren is his backing of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative banning gay marriage. That measure was approved by the voters last month, millions of whom also voted for Barack Obama. This was especially the case among black and Hispanic voters who voted heavily against gay marriage and generally do elsewhere.

Anyone who has bothered to study the words and actions of Barack Obama should not be surprised at his choice of Rick Warren, as well as noted Civil Rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery, to pray at his inauguration. Obama’s record has been one of seeking to draw people together, not to divide them into more partisan debates where it harms the well-being of the nation. Thus Obama told reporters in Chicago that America needs to "come together," even when there's disagreement on social issues. "That dialogue is part of what my campaign is [was] all about.”

I have been reading David Mendell’s excellent biography of Barack Obama, Obama: From Promise to Power (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), this week. This decision about Rick Warren is, I assure you, consistent with the leadership style and makeup of the man Barack Obama. People on the left and right had better expect to see him lead in this way because this is who and what he is and it is what he has been for well more than twenty years. His record as the editor of the Harvard Law Review underscores a remarkable ability to support progressive political views while he also genuinely reached across the aisle to conservatives. He seeks to honor and respect all people, even if he disagrees with their philosophy. He did the same in the Illinois Senate and former foes have confirmed this to me personally.

Rick Warren, who has become for many the “public face” of a better and wiser evangelicalism, is clearly the leader of a new breed of evangelicals who stress the need for action on social issues such as reducing poverty and protecting the environment, alongside traditional theological themes. If Warren is a “hate-monger” then the stance of this alliance of gays reveals, sadly, who is spreading the hate in the wider culture. Warren does strongly oppose gay marriage but when is such opposition equivalent to “hate speech.” If this definition of hate spreads we are all in deep trouble. Obama understands this and will very likely not fall for it at all.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization, said Warren's opposition to gay marriage is a sign of his intolerance. "We feel a deep level of disrespect when one of the architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination," the group said in a letter to Obama, asking him to reconsider his choice. But is Warren really “an architect and promoter of an anti-gay agenda?” No way. He is an orthodox Christian who believes that marriage is for one man and one woman. The simple truth is that this protest will actually harm the Human Rights Campaign by showing its intolerance of people that it considers intolerant, namely all Christians who do not support their goal for gay marriage.

Barack Obama desires to be the president of all the people and will, I believe, lead us away from this kind of speech and posturing, at least as the president. He will take positions that many of us will disagree with but this is true for any political leader. At the same time I think he will genuinely work to change the tone of the nation’s speech and debate, a goal I support profoundly.

These same gay advocates further attacked Obama by writing: "By inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table." Obama noted in his response that a couple of years ago, he was invited to speak at Warren's church, despite their open disagreement on a number of issues. The president-elect said a "wide range of viewpoints" will be presented during the inaugural ceremonies and his actions prove this.

This issue here is relatively small, at least in the bigger picture of things, but in some ways it is a little window through which we can see and understand better how Barack Obama will attempt to lead and influence the nation.

A Life Well Lived: On the Death of Erwin Lutzer's Father

Since I was a young pastor in my early twenties Erwin Lutzer and I have shared a deep friendship. This has led to many wonderful times of conversation, ministry and prayer. Erwin's dad and mom are both over 100 years of age. This in itself is a remarkable fact but then his dad and mom are two rather amazing people. Erwin's dad finally passed away this week at the ripe old age of 106! Since I have heard so much about Erwin's dad for most of my adult life I thought it only right to share Erwin's account of his dad and his passing with all my readers. (If course, I have Erwin's permission to share this story with you. I also ask you to pray for him in light of this loss.)

Here is Erwin's brief account of his dad's amazing life and his death this week.

My father, age 106, laid his burdens down and entered the presence of our Lord this Wednesday morning at 5:00 AM. Dad did not have an easy life. He was born in 1902 to a German family living in the Ukraine, and during World War I, (1914) Russia insisted that all of the Germans within its boarders had to become refugees (lest they side with Germany in the war). My father's family was forced to make the difficult trek to Afghanistan, and there his mother (my grandmother) died at the age of 46 and was buried in a mass grave in Kabul. My father, age 12, did not have a chance to say goodbye to his mother and thought he'd never stop crying. 

When the war was over in 1918, Dad and his father and two brothers, were able to return to their farm and several years later he was able to immigrate to Canada. There in a church, he met my mother who had just been born again through the preaching of an evangelist. Dad walked her home, asked her to marry him, and within three weeks they were married. That was 77 years ago.

I will spare you all the hardship my father endured both in Europe and also the challenge of raising five children on a small farm. To this day, we as children don't understand how he did it all: for example, having to shovel countless loads of grain years before grain augers were invented. Of course we also had cows, chickens, and pigs, all of which needed care. Added to this, he had panic attacks, and couldn't work for days at a time. We as children said "goodbye" to him a number of times, because he thought he was dying. My mother shouldered these burdens and had to cope with all of these uncertainties. We never dreamed we would see Dad live a long life.

We were wrong.

Dad had come to know Christ as Savior in the Ukraine and throughout his long life he loved God, read the Bible consistently and cared deeply only about that which was most important. "I read the whole book of Ephesians today" he told me when we visited him in Canada when he was about 101.

When he was a hundred, I knelt next to him and asked him to give me a blessing as the patriarchs did in Old Testament times. He held my head in both of his hands and prayed a prayer that "would make heaven shake" as I put it. 

When we visited my parents this past May, Dad, now in a wheelchair, spoke very little. He recognized us, but only occasionally. So while we were sitting and talking with my mother, he appeared to be sleeping and was quiet the whole time. Then to our surprise, he said in a complete German sentence, "We have been speaking about the present…now it is time for us to speak about eternity and the Glory of God!"

Well, Dad, now you can speak of eternity and the glory of God in a way that you have never done before. Thanks for all the hard work…the care you gave to me and my siblings. Thanks for the hundreds of hours of prayers offered up on behalf of all of us. I can only hope those prayers will be answered.

Now my dear mother, who enjoyed her 100th birthday party three weeks ago, is a widow, anxiously awaiting her own entry into glory. She often prayed Dad would die before she did so that she would know he was well taken care of. God answered that prayer.

Rebecca and I are planning to fly to Canada Sunday afternoon for the funeral which will be on Monday.  We don't know yet when we will return, but I'm sure I'll miss the Christmas Eve service. We accept all of this in God's timing. All the details are pending.

Thanks for your love and prayers

Pastor Lutzer
 

The Visitor

 Director Tom McCarthy’s new film, The Visitor, is what Peter Travers in Rolling Stone, calls “a heartfelt human drama that sneaks up and floors you.” I could not agree more. This is a sensational movie and a true sleeper that people who love a great film and a truly good story will likely miss.

The premise is rather simple—in a world of six billion people it only takes one to change your life. An “intriguing drama” The Visitor truly allows the viewer to see and feel the story of an illegal immigration scenario in a way that puts a human face on the issue. Starring Richard Jenkins (from the HBO series, Six Feet Under) the story line involves Dr. Walter Vale, a sixty-two year old Connecticut College economics professor who is still adjusting to the absence of his late wife.  Passion is gone from his life and teaching bores him to death. He takes up classical piano, but to no avail. Sent to Manhattan to present an academic paper that he didn’t even write Walter discovers a couple living in his infrequently used New York City apartment. Before he realizes it Walter connects with this couple. The man is from Syria (Tarek) and the woman, his girlfriend (Zainab), is from Senegal. The bond between the three grows quickly and Walter finds new passion for life. He will never be the same. As the friendship between Walter and Tarek develops the barriers of age, culture and temperament all fall away. One gets the distinct feeling that this is the way it should be in the church but very often is not.

Tarek and Walter are in the subway one day when Tarek is detained and eventually deported back to the Middle East. Walter’s story becomes profoundly caught up in the pain of Tarek and Zainab. Then Tarek’s mom comes from Michigan to help and Walter also begins to have deep feelings for her. The whole film is actually a beautiful love story without a big emphasis on sex.

The movie employs both humor and sorrow in deeply satisfying ways and shows what happens when a person truly rediscovers passion in their life and begins to have a reason to be alive. Life has rhythms and they are often found in very unexpected places. The Visitor brings you to see how such rhythms can be humane and life-affirming. I found this film uplifting in a way that I did not expect. It was a rare gem discovered just a few days ago in the new DVD section of my public library.

A 2008 film The Visitor runs for 104 minutes. It is a deeply nuanced movie that has proved to be one of my great “unusual finds” in film for the year. The Tomato Meter gives The Visitor a 92% rating, which means the professional critics actually loved it. This time they really did get it right.

ACT 3 Needs You

One of the most famous ads in American history is one that features "Uncle Sam" saying, "I need you!" It is a piece of cultural iconography. During World War II, and after, it symbolized something of the spirit of the nation.

Well, in the spirit of "need" I must tell you that ACT 3 "needs you." Every similar ministry will tell you at this time of the year that they need gifts to finish the year well. ACT 3 is in the same place. But I have been thinking a great deal lately about how you could help ACT 3 and me do this ministry.

We all know, by now, that President-elect Barack Obama unleashed the largest Internet response to a political candidate in history. He did this by putting his message before people who then shared it with their friends who then they shared it with their friends and eventually both the man and his message connected millions of people into a large movement. One of the most important keys to his political success was how his campaign raised money. The Obama folks knew that the Clinton team would have a huge advantage with money in early 2008. So they appealed to their vast network of Internet friends to give them $5, $10 or $20. It worked and the rest of the story we know. Obama communicated his message to a huge audience and millions decided to get personally involved, most of them in very small ways that made a very big difference politically.

Well, I am not running for office. I am nothing more than a visionary teacher of the Christian faith who is called by God and the church to seek the renewal of the whole church in our time. The financial needs of ACT 3 have never been huge. (Our budget has been decreased 25% since September 1 and is now less than $180,000 for all that we do; this includes salaries, travel, accommodations, printing, Internet services, postage, office expenses, etc.) And we still give all our ministry without charge, thus allowing us to serve any person or group without pre-set fees.

Most of you who read this blog do not yet realize just how much of a difference a $5, $10, or $20 gift would actually make to us. There are thousands who read these daily blogs. If a few hundred readers made any donation at all it would change our ability to minister effectively almost overnight. I am completely serious about this point. A small gift can make a big difference when you are trying to impact the lives of Christian leaders and thinkers around the world through Word and Spirit. That is our mission. If you share it, and profit from this resource, would you help me right now?

This link will take you directly to our secure Web site feature where you can make a one-time donation or, even better yet, become a regular donor. If you can sign up to give a small amount each month that would really help us.

As I thought about this situation recently I conceived in my mind 300 new people who would give once or more. I realized what difference it would make for us right now. We presently have about 300 donors. We receive no large gifts and no money from charitable foundations. What we do is not supported by the big donors who support the Religious Right or other massive conservative causes. People who play fast and loose with confessional orthodoxy like us even less than some conservatives. So I need you if you believe in the vision of ACT 3. Many of you are young and have very little to give. But remember, $5 a month would be a real big deal for us.

You can check out the newly redesigned Web site of ACT 3 to learn more about us. I would be so grateful if you helped us as soon as possible.

The "Forced" Resignation of Richard Cizik, Part Five

In my final look at Richard Cizek’s resignation as vice-president of NAE I want to make some specific observations and issue a personal plea for a different kind of Christian presence in the public sphere.

Many Christian writers believe that Cizik should have resigned, some as far back as two years ago. Mark Tooley, a writer for the Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD), believes that “Cizik has been very outspoken and in some ways ‘off the reservation’ for the last five or six years in terms of his global warming-activism, which the board of NAE had initially somewhat disavowed—but that had not discouraged him.” The terms Cizik’s critics use are often quite revealing. Tooley believes he is “off the reservation.” What an ironic expression. I doubt that Tooley meant this metaphor in the way I actually hear it. I know him to be an honorable and good man. But in his terms I suppose that I also live “off the reservation.” Frankly, I am quite pleased with this living arrangement for several reasons. The major one is that “the reservation” has become a major part of the problem in evangelicalism. Older evangelicals have begun to act more and more like their fundamentalist forefathers than I think they realize. Separatism is alive and well and can be found in a thousand types and forms. The highly politicized expression of public faith that has arisen over the past thirty years merely reveals this problem. Let me elaborate.

Christians can live and express their faith in every setting, even where they are persecuted as in China or Muslim lands. In some places this will send them to death or to prison. In others, such as in the West, there is the very real danger that Christians can begin to live in a social and religious ghetto. This is what most conservative Christians did for much of the middle of the twentieth century in America. This is why my own cultural form of church closed its eyes and ears to the plight of the African-American in their midst. The fatal attraction for many of these Christians was to see their faith in terms that were entirely private. The church, regardless of the role that the state has in a society, can never allow the state to think that it can usurp the role of God in the human conscience. Governments are under God’s rule and must be faithfully reminded of this by the church. This is why NAE actually has an office of governmental affairs. The history of this office, beginning with the fine work of Rev. Robert Duggan, is actually quite impressive. Before many of the constituent churches of the NAE saw the need to become involved in reminding the government of God’s sovereignty NAE was already there seeking to provide a Christian response to issues of government.

Human nature so abhors a vacuum that a totally secular society is never possible. Secularists deny this but then they are promoting their own brand of religion in place of the truth revealed in Jesus Christ. This is precisely why Christians must engage both public issues and civic leaders. Jesus is Lord! If we do not remind our leaders of this truth then idolatry will take its place at the center of our everyday life. Faithful Christians cannot allow this to happen without reminding people of the core truth of the kingdom of God. 

The problem here is not with Christians engaging the public sphere but rather in how this has been done. Many conservative Christians would like to take us back to the old corpus Christianum, the civil religion of another era. In this approach the church is far too closely linked to the ruling powers and ceases to truly be the church in its prophetic task.

Take Islam as an example of my point here. Islam, without a doctrine of original sin, believes that the law of God and the law of the state are one. When they are not then it is the role of the mosque to stir up the people to make this a reality. This is the concept of sharia law. Mosque and state are one under sharia. There is no distinction of function between them, thus we see Muslim clerics telling secular rulers, who are not truly secular rulers at all in our sense of the word, what they should do and how they should do it. This is the sacralization of politics. In this way of governing the will of God becomes a political goal. When this happens, Lesslie Newbigin (photo on left) reminds us, “demonic powers are unleashed.”

I believe the Religious Right is unleashing these same sacralizing tendencies and with it doing a great deal of harm to the gospel and the mission of Christ. This is not done in the way Islam does it, thus the differences are substantial and subtle, but the fundamental mistake is the same. Born-again Christians become prone to associate their views of God’s kingdom and Christian dogma with their views of economics, global warming, national health insurance, programs for the poor and national defense. Let me provide but one illustration.

Most of the same critics of Richard Cizik are the same folks who defended President Bush’s decision to go into Iraq. They see this as an “open and shut case” of national defense and just war. It is, quite frankly, nothing of the kind. These same Christians also tend to see anyone who disagrees with this stance as weak on national security and opposed to Christian teaching. The whole doctrine of pre-emption has not generated nearly enough concern among evangelicals for just this reason. “God bless America and God bless George W. Bush” have become virtually synonymous with the views of many conservative pastors and churches. I have long criticized more liberal churches for promoting socialism as a Christian stance but the opposite is true for conservatives when they say capitalism is biblically based. One does not need to resort to God and the Bible to make good arguments for better government.

I believe we can address an obviously moral issue, such as abortion to use the most important illustration, without making it into a “strictly” Christian issue. By associating abortion with the church (directly) we actually do a bad job of making an important case for the culture of life. And by connecting every other issue to a legislator’s record on abortion we tend to give the impression that nothing else matters to us. This gives all the wrong signals to the world about the authority of Christ over our lives and decisions.

Consider the Civil Rights movement in light of my point. Dr. King was an avowed Christian and thus drew deeply on Christian principles, biblical texts and moral arguments. But he never used one political party, or a list of governmental measures, to make his larger moral case. He appealed to all people by showing them that his cause was just and right. The movement succeeded because the public became convinced of the sheer justice of the Civil Rights cause. Evangelicals have failed to accomplish this, at least so far, with the pro-life issue or with the homosexual-marriage debate. We are seen as trying to force our will on the public and we are resented for this approach. ( I would add, justly so.)

Lesslie Newbigin writes that the “Religious Right uses the name of Jesus to cover the absolute claims of one national tradition.” He then argues that the rhetoric of the Religious Right “is only a further development of the ideologizing of politics that stems from the Enlightenment. . . . The Enlightenment gave birth to a new conception of politics, namely, that happiness can be provided by a political system and that the goal of politics is happiness” (cf. Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture, pages 115-17).

This type of thinking seeks to bring heaven down to earth. But as Newbigin insists, “it always results in bringing hell up from below.” The fullness of the kingdom of God will not come in this age. We must understand this or we will always fall for idealistic and Utopian fallacies. But the Christian church must go on continually reminding earthly powers of their direct responsibility to God. And the church must never identify itself with the kingdom of God directly. The church serves the kingdom by never relinquishing its role to speak truth to power. Concludes Newbigin: “The church witnesses to that true end for which all creation and all human beings exist, the truth by which all alleged values are to be judged.”

I am forced to conclude that there should never be a total identification of the church and the political order. But there should never be a total separation of the two either. The church serves the kingdom. Christians serve the kingdom in various spheres of divine sovereignty. There is clearly wide room for disagreement about how the faith can and should inform public policy. Cizik was seeking to speak to this issue, albeit in ways that can and should be challenged. But removing him under duress was an act of will, an act of sheer power. It was a revolt of a few against someone who got “off the reservation.” And woe to the person who challenges those who believe that they know God’s view on every issue related to the important public debates we are having today about global warming, civil marriage and birth control.

This issue of marriage is actually another indicator of what has gone wrong in the church. We have been willing partners with the civil authorities about marriage for several hundred years. In most countries there are two parts to a marriage ceremony, a civil part and a separate religious part. The first is required by civil law and the second is for those who want it because of their faith. America is a rarity among nations in the West in that ministers are “civil servants” when it comes to performing wedding ceremonies. This is all changing now as the culture and Christianity are being rapidly disconnected. What happens when the state changes marriage laws? What will ministers then do?

The church shaped the culture of America very powerfully. The church is still the means by which God brings his kingdom into the most obvious visible expression within the culture. What has happened over the last forty years is that a good part of the church has become more and more like the secular culture around it and less and less like the church of Jesus Christ as seen in Holy Scripture. Then in 1979 a group of conservative Christians formally decided to adopt a specific strategy to change all this by directly using political will and power. The results are now clear. (I first began to challenge this marriage of church and politics in a sermon preached on July 4, 1976, so I’ve been challenging these developments for quite a while.) The church is clearly losing the culture war through spiritual apathy, anti-intellectualism and theological ignorance, not through losing elections, though now this is happening too. 

How then does the church promote the kingdom in terms of marriage in our culture?

My good friend Michael Craven, who is the chairman of the ACT 3 board and the president of the Center for Christ and Culture, answers this in a recent article by saying that we must first make sure that we live our personal lives under the authority of the king. He adds, “It means that we fight as a community for every marriage within the body that is in crisis.” Amen!

But for thirty years we have been fighting with unbelievers when our real battle is within the church. Unless the church regains its soul we will have nothing to give, as a servant community, to the culture. We have very likely already reached this point. This is what I believe happened under the leadership of countless well-meaning conservative spokesmen and spokeswomen who believed that they were doing God’s good work through a broad spectrum of efforts that developed under the influence of the Religious Right. Michael Craven concludes, “A compromised church cannot produce a chaste and moral culture that upholds and honors marriage, much less advance the kingdom.”

Muslims look at us and say, “Look what Christianity has produced in the West.” We answer by saying that this is the result of secular forces, not because of the church. But the church looks more secular than Christian in both our theology and methodology. We market the gospel way the world markets its message, we promote our cause the way lobby groups promote their cause, and we argue the way the world argues. We have run from our weakness like the plague and in the process lost our power. Like Samson shorn of his hair we have no real power left. The emperor has no clothes but in this case the emperor is still leading the church. 

The proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back,” with regard to the resignation of Richard Cizik, was his advocacy (albeit a tame advocacy if you read his words carefully) of civil unions. I could wish that he would have spoken about this a bit differently but forcing him to resign was not a good solution, it was a typical political reaction. It reflects the sad place where we have arrived in many evangelical churches and denominations, thus the pressure was put upon NAE to act against Cizik.

Writers like Mark Tooley (photo on left), who have been criticizing Rich Cizik and the NAE for some time now, rejoiced in his resignation. And Wendy Wright, the president of Concerned Women for America, considered Cizik’s views to be “not anywhere close to biblical orthodoxy, traditional Christian theology, nor the bulk of evangelicals who ground their faith in the Bible.” I read this quote and said, “What on earth are you talking about?” The bulk of evangelicals, according to every serious survey I’ve seen, have no clue what the major teachings of the Bible are at all. And the vast majority of evangelicals are not living their lives based upon anything remotely like the gospel. Wright even suggested this might be the reason why Cizik shared his views on NPR, a forum to which most of his “constituents” do not listen. Really? There is a commentary in itself.

So we have another Religious Right leader admitting that the problem is out there, with something like the venue of NPR. I wonder if this will now become a new litmus test. I laughed out loud at this comment, especially since I listen to NPR quite avidly. I find that 98% of what passes for Christian radio is so weak and insipid that it either bores me or exasperates me. I much prefer to keep my dial on NPR since the conservative political talk shows are also beyond anything remotely reasonable these days. (Michael Medved, a politically and religiously conservative Jewish commentator, is my lone exception here. There are other good programs I am sure but so far as the programs I can get in Chicago during the time when I am in my car Medved is about it. But NPR remains my favorite radio programming for news and thoughtful dialogue.)

I end this commentary on Rich Cizik’s “forced” resignation with a prayer.
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Unknown

The "Forced" Resignation of Richard Cizik, Part Four

One of the more perceptive voices addressing Christianity and public policy is that of Calvin College’s Joel Carpenter (photo at left). Joel was once the director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals (ISAE) at Wheaton. He is someone that I listen to much the way the old E. F. Hutton commercials suggested people listened to Hutton's advice about the market. Carpenter is an astute observer of evangelicals and the NAE. He has also followed the Richard Cizik matter very closely.

Last week Carpenter observed: “I think the public affairs office (of NAE) has been the most vital and important thing that the NAE has been doing in recent years. Joel Carpenter actually contributed a chapter on the history of the NAE to the book Revive Us Again, a history of fundamentalism and evangelism in America. He suggests, as a historian of this 66-year old organization which was birthed in opposition to the World Council (WCC) and National Council of Churches (NCC), that “Cizik has made that office a lively conversation partner in Washington. He’s made it matter, and I don’t think it did before.”

Based on what I wrote in Part Three of this series I have to agree with Carpenter. NAE’s real problem is simple—it doesn’t matter any more but doesn't seem to know what to do about the problem. It represents an old-era attempt to get various conservative and fundamentalist groups together in a unity of essentials (which is a very short and non-creedal statement of faith) for the purpose of mission and public influence. While it made a serious contribution to the churches, at one point in the past, it is now debatable if NAE really matters even to its own members. Serious historians debate the reasons for this conclusion but most agree with it. NAE is irrelevant. In releasing Cizik the NAE will very likely become even more irrelevant. Younger Christian leaders are uninvolved in large numbers.They could care less about NAE.

One of the reasons NAE became less and less relevant has to do with the rise of the Religious Right thirty years ago. NAE existed to provide a place for ecumenism among conservative churches and ministries, those churches not aligned with the NCC and WCC. NAE fostered dialogue and interaction in a fairly healthy way. It also birthed and developed two major ministries: World Relief Commission (WRC) and the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). For many years NAE had a lovely headquarters building across the street from Christianity Today, very near my home in Carol Stream. Today it is no more. As an organization it exists only as a shadow of what it once was when it had a much larger budget and staff. The days of Billy Melvin’s leadership are missed and the association has been pushed back by the money and power of the Religious Right. I find this a great shame. NAE represented a working ecumenism of its various parts and included many of the smaller churches and groups that had no other place to go for this kind of cooperation. But NAE was overshadowed by the growing popularity of the conservative social/political movements of the 1980s and 1990s. The one place where ecumenism mattered to many American conservatives who sat out the WCC at a critical time in church history was NAE. (A better expression of this past history still exists in the World Evangelical Fellowship, a broadly representative group that still carries some profound influence in certain parts of the world.)

Michael Lindsay (photo on right), a sociologist at Rice University, notes that NAE had a fractured constituency but served an important role in Washington, D.C. until the more powerful organizations such as Focus on the Family, the Christian Broadcasting Network and Prison Fellowship came on the scene. Now the landscape has changed considerably. Evangelicals are more united but in a way that is built on a few issues not upon ecclesial communities that confess a common Christian faith. Says Lindsay, “Because there’s no central hierarchy in evangelicalism, the NAE has provided a convenient reference point for those outside of the community for a pulse on what evangelicals are thinking.” (NAE once had a publication that was actually called Pulse. It was quite valuable.) In the absence of such publications and churchly prominence Richard Cizik came to play a more important role since he was the public face of the NAE. Lindsay believes that “[Cizik’s role] has been fundamental for how evangelicals have been able to gain attention.”

NAE now consists of some 50 denominations with about 45,000 member churches. But my friend Larry Eskridge,the associate director of the ISAE, notes correctly that the rise of the Religious Right made it hard for the NAE to speak any longer for a whole subculture. Eskridge, speaking to Christianity Today, noted: “The NAE’s role for this diverse, Jell-O-like constituency was a lot easier 30 years ago when they could speak in Washington on bland ‘religious issues.’ But with the onset of the ‘culture wars’ as Falwell, Dobson and the rest emerged, the whole ballgame changed, and the ambiguous role of the NAE as being some overarching evangelical spokes-organization began to unravel.”

Before 1980 NAE spoke to issues such as the persecution of believers in many lands, pro-life concerns and quite generally to issues that were of common concern to all but the most liberal Christians. I attended NAE conventions in those days but by the late 1970s, and early 1980s, I began to see this shift taking place. The focus became more and more on the “big names” and the “culture wars” and the NAE could not keep up. It lost the generous orthodoxy of its strong, early leadership and became more marginalized in the mainstream. It eventually became a minor player in the public sphere. And with the breakdown of denominations the way NAE actually worked became increasingly irrelevant. It seems to have served a great purpose, for about thirty-five to forty years, and then it lost its way. Or, more likely, it was made irrelevant by the shift in conservative Christian focus upon the wider culture.

I fear that one of the sad ironies of the Rich Cizik incident was missed by many. While the very conservative voices were being raised against his statement on civil unions given on NPR he was also being attacked by advocates of gay marriage. Yes, you read that right. The New York Times had a paid ad titled “No Mob Violence,” condemning attacks on people of faith following the Proposition 8 attacks. (You will recall that the Mormons suffered the most aggressive attacks on this issue.)

A pro-gay rights group in New York then placed a full-page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune with headline, “Lies in the name of the Lord.” This ad featured a cartoon figure of Pinocchio and a Bible inscribed with the words, “King Colson, Donohue and Cizik Version.” (Donohue is from the Catholic League and the three are referred to because they signed the earlier ad in The New York Times.)

So here is the bitter irony. Cizik is attacked by the far right for being morally soft on marriage and homosexuality while the radical homosexual groups are attacking Cizik as a hate monger from the right. Sometimes, at least when you stand in the public arena, you just can’t win for losing. Cizik is condemned on the right and the left. So much for serious and moderate civil dialogue in our culture.

Leith Anderson, in issuing NAE’s statement about the resignation of Rich Cizik, was asked if NAE would take any new direction after this episode. He answered this way:

"Of course, we’ll take some new direction on something I don’t know anything about yet. But is there some intended redefinition of who we are and what we’re going to do? I consider that NAE goes back to 1942. We have been on a similar path with the same beliefs for the entire history of NAE. What we are is primarily an organization of churches and church-related organizations. We are not primarily a political entity. So the backbone of NAE is our 50-plus denominations, and that’s a large part of who we are and what we do.”

This strikes me as a way of saying we will stay the course. I see this course as the death of NAE.

Amazingly, when Anderson was asked if the rise of the Religious Right made it more difficult for NAE to represent evangelicals his answer was astounding: “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about that.”

I would hope he is thinking about it  lot right now. If NAE has any future in the larger ecumenical and missional purpose of the church it had best recover its real purpose of uniting churches in mission and seriously rethink what its role is in a post-denominational world and a post-partisan evangelicalism, if there is to be such a role for NAE at all. The world is changing and many Christians are dug in defending the way they have always said things. The eternal message of the gospel is not changing but the times are changing very rapidly and those who grasp this missio-cultural fact will be more likely to be the truly missional Christian leaders of the future. It is them I pray for and try to teach in every way I know how.

The "Forced" Resignation of Richard Cizik, Part Three

The “forced” resignation of Richard Cizik has brought a great deal of attention to evangelical Christianity in America and most of it is very negative. We live in a time when spiritual interest is actually rising but respect for the church is in sharp decline. Most non-Christians associate our response to leaders like Rich Cizik with the gospel message itself, like it or not. We can say this is not the case but they see this very simply as Christians attacking Christians. To them we are all fundamentalists, whether we like it or not. And our standing in the culture is at an all-time low based on everything I have seen.

Statistics reveal that an unsettling exodus is also taking place in the American church. This is not a passing fad but a real, observable and much-studied trend. What makes young people leave our churches? And why is the name “evangelical” so unpopular these days? Surveys reveal that multitudes believe that organized religion is unattractive even though Jesus still appeals to many. I hear this all the time: “Isn’t the church nothing more than organized religion with a political motivation?” And, “Isn’t the church and religion judgmental and homophobic, unlike Jesus?”  My generation tends to see all of this as defiance and rejection of the gospel, a rejection rooted in sin and open rebellion. I believe that “rejection” is always going on at the spiritual level but these very human responses are really the fruit of an entire generation really watching us and hearing us thus they are no longer interested in the good news because they hear nothing that good in our message. Thus this generation has no intention of repenting of sin or of believing that Jesus loves them when what they hear is rejection and all our political negatives couched in gospel terms. This is why the Richard Cizik story matters to all of us. It is a picture, albeit a very gritty and offensive public one, of how the under-35s see and hear the gospel in modern America.

Cizik was fired because the constituency of some in NAE found his remarks unacceptable, indeed offensive and unbiblical. Leith Anderson said it was because “he did not appropriately reflect the positions of the National Association of Evangelicals and its constituencies.” He added, “Our (NAE’s) position on marriage, abortion, and other biblical values is long, clear, and unchanged.”

The problem here is that Cizik never said otherwise. What he actually spoke about was “civil unions.” In a statement NAE issued after Cizik resigned Cizik himself added, “I categorically oppose ‘gay marriage’ and see now that my thoughts about ‘civil unions’ were misunderstood and misplaced. I am now and always have been committed to work to pass laws that protect and foster family life, and to work against government attempts to interfere with the integrity of the family, including same-sex ‘marriage’ and civil unions.” He added that he remained opposed to abortion and remains a serious “advocate for pro-life policies without exception.”

The NAE produced a 2004 document, For the Health of the Nation, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman and then adds, “We also oppose innovations such as same-sex ‘marriage,’" and, “We also oppose the expansion of ‘rights talk’ to encompass so-called rights such as ‘same-sex marriage’ or ‘the right to die.’”

Cizik has been under fire, as I previously noted, since 2006. Why? Because of his views on the environment. Being named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, earlier this year, raised his profile considerably. Leith Anderson even admits that Cizik had raised the profile of NAE by the attention he had received, good or bad.

Richard Land (photo at right), the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) equivalent to Cizik in Washington, responded to Cizik’s comments and the ensuing resignation by saying, “I was stunned when I heard it. I was momentarily speechless, and for me, that’s quite a feat.” Land added, “[As spokesmen], we’re not hired to express our personal opinions. Clearly, under Rich’s leadership in Washington, the NAE has increasingly taken positions that have been non-traditional for the NAE.” That is putting it mildly so long as one understands that the NAE represents a definite constituency of people and church leadership. But what is that constituency?

In short, the answer is that it is a mostly white, male and aging constituency. NAE long ago walked away from serious attempts at reconciliation with their black counterparts in the National Association of Black Evangelicals (NABE). This tragic story is important to keep in the background of these debates. One former NAE leader suggested to me that this was the precise time when God’s judgment on the NAE may have actually begun. I have to admit that I too wonder but then none of us knows the mind of the Lord on these kinds of providential events. I do know that NAE has refused to create a tent that openly embraces their Africa-American brothers and sisters. I also know that NAE has repeatedly refused to seriously deal with theological issues for decades. (This fear seems to be that these subjects would divide them so they left them on the side lines.) NAE has continually followed a course that is not friendly to the emerging generation (especially in how they pick leadership on their board) thus it is essentially a “men’s club” that is now losing influence in big chunks. In some ways having Rich Cizik around brought the NAE more press than it should have ever enjoyed given that its influence is so truly small. And it sure beat the press that NAE got with Ted Haggard!

Richard Land, an outspoken SBC conservative, was asked to comment about the earlier open letter sent to Cizik about his environmentalism and whether he should have resigned back in 2007. Land said, “That’s above my pay grade.” Some of you, like me, will smile at this response since you will recall that Barack Obama used the same words to the question Rick Warren posed to him about when “life begins.” Is there irony here or what?

Cal Beisner (photo at right), whose views on environmentalism stand in considerable contrast to Cizik’s views, says Cizik does not represent evangelicals fairly on the issue of whether or not global warming is man-made. He adds, “If he speaks on abortion or homosexuality—which he rarely does anymore—no one knows if he’s accurately standing for evangelicals as a whole. As a spokesman for evangelicals, he has undercut his ability with decision makers.”

This comment by Cal Beisner is very revealing with regard to some of the real issues here. First, Cizik is not speaking out enough on the “hot-button” issues of conservatives. This is true. He is a poor spokesman for the religious right. Second, he does not represent evangelicals as a whole. (Who does and what is “evangelicalism" anyway?) Third, he lost his ability “with [the] decision makers.” That is, to my mind, the most damaging criticism of them all. Evangelicalism, throughout my lifetime, has become more and more about these “decision makers.” The under-35s could care less about this stuff and they find the language itself totally distasteful. Having grown up believing that religion and power are wrongly linked within the church they see and feel that something is very wrong in this way of thinking and speaking.

Cizik has committed the unpardonable sin in white evangelicalism—he has become an “evangelical maverick.” (These words were used by one leader who responded to this breaking story last week.) Michael Cromartie adds, very perceptively I believe, that “the arguments in the past several years have been extremely heated and emotional.” You bet they have. That, to my mind, is the real problem. A host of those involved in the religious right movement have turned up the rhetoric and waged their culture wars at all new levels of fear and bombast. This is why many Christians refuse to believe that Barack Obama can be a real Christian. This is why civil dialogue is gone in many conservative congregations. This is why Democrats come to me in churches regularly and tell me how hard it is to remain in an evangelical church even though they remain theologically evangelical in every significant way. These last thirty years of religious rhetoric and politics have done serious damage to the mission of Christ.

Cal Thomas (photo at left) recently contributed a very hopeful analysis of this problem to a Web extra edition of World magazine (November 6, 2008). He noted that when Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, 2009, it will also be the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Religious Right. This movement, whose early history is still not adequately understood, was “a reincarnation of previous religious-social movements that sought moral improvement through legislation and court rulings. Those earlier movements—from abolition (successful) to Prohibition (unsuccessful)—had mixed results.”

Thomas rightly notes that social movements that relied on changing hearts more than on changing moral code were the ones that had the most success. Thirty years of trying to directly change culture by directly challenging government (through elections and various lobby groups) has failed. Thomas says, “I opt for trying something else.” I could not agree with him more.

The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that a liberal believes you change culture by directly using politics. He said a conservative believed that you changed politics by changing culture first and this was done by changing people. The problem is that religious conservatives got angry at the liberal social gains within our Post-War War II culture and decided to fight back. The result has been a thirty year culture war!

Suppose, Thomas suggests, that millions of evangelicals decided to practice the Jesus model and live the life that radical discipleship calls for. Suppose they “loved their enemies, prayed for those who persecuted them, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those in prison and cared for widows and orphans?” And suppose they did these things not as actions for political ends but as an end in themselves. Suppose they actually loved those they feel so strongly about in the culture? And suppose they loved homosexuals, to use but one example, without trying to force them to change by the way they expressed this Christian love to them? (Again, read my words very carefully. I am not arguing that we should overlook immoral behavior at all. This is a matter for church correction and loving care.) Thomas says such a strategy would be “transformational.” I could not agree more.

Power is not made perfect in seeking power. Power to change our culture is not found in conservative Christian groups operating in Washington with an eye on changing the culture via partisanship, liberal or conservative. Power to change anything begins inside you and me. It grows inside the church and then it works its way out into the culture. If we want to feel good we should attack Cizik and spend more money on politics. If we want real change we could better spend our energy and money on helping the helpless and caring for those in deep need.

Our ineffective attempts at reforming this culture are obvious, at least to me. They are also obvious to most in the under-35 generation. Young Christian leaders, and this includes a few of us older men and women like Rick Warren to cite just one shining example, know that the battle is not with flesh and blood. They know that by choosing to work under the radar in helping people in Africa and urban America they are actually doing the real work of the “upside down” kingdom. Thomas concludes: “If conservative evangelicals choose obscurity and seek to glorify God, they will get much of what they hope for, but can never achieve, in and through politics.”

This is why the Rich Cizik story truly matters. It reveals that many older white leaders still care about the old way of doing kingdom business. I pray this way will die, sooner than later. I do not mean this in a personal way against any person involved in the religious right. I have known leaders in this world and love them as my brothers. But I remain profoundly disillusioned with their leadership and pray for a new, fresh move of God to blow through our churches restoring spiritual sanity and balance to both our words and actions.

I see a growing number of “mavericks” in the church and I am praying they become the leaders of a very different future. The past thirty years has been a long, dark night for many of us who believe that the church can do so much better in public if it is truly revived by the sweet and powerful wind of the Holy Spirit in private. Only then will our “good works” truly glorify God and thereby cause unbelievers to hear our gospel and repent of their sins.

Priests and Prophets

The Advent Sermon that I heard at the Lutheran Church of the Master (Carol Stream, IL), preached by the interim pastor Curt Gerald, was excellent. He preached from the two liturgical texts found in Isaiah 61:1-11 and John 1:6-9 and 1: 19-28. He explained quite well the frequent tensions that existed between the two ends of the Old Testament spectrum: the priests and the prophets. His point was that both were always needed but often they clashed and people tended to miss the importance of one or the other side of this emphasis.

I quite agree with Curt and this take on the Old Testament story. Our churches have both types of people in them. The "priests" want to make sure the church is run right and the worship remains sound. They are concerned about the operation of the ministry and in things like "decency and order," to use Paul's well-known phrase. The prophets, often less in number, want to make sure that justice and mercy are firmly stressed and that people are served and good works are actually done.They are interested in the "weightier" matters of the law.

A healthy church, and for that matter a healthy person, will always see the need for both. I have been required to fulfill the priestly side of this equation as a pastor (1972-1992) but now that I am not a pastor (ACT 3, 1992-present) I am much more inclined toward the prophetic role. This means that I can be less than patient with the priestly-type folks. This is a serious weakness in me.

It is helpful if you realize that we have rightly both kinds of people and even some of both are in us but only Jesus represented these two traditions perfectly in the same person. Jesus alone is our high priest and faithful prophet. He is also our royal king, our sovereign. The emphasis on all three "offices" (I am not all that happy with this term "office" in the modern sense) is a great strength in the Reformed world. Curt stressed that Lutherans have a happy and important place for the use of "and" more than "or" in their tradition. This is another way of seeing grace and truth in balance. I benefited from his good words and as always from the Eucharist, which once again fed my soul profoundly. I do wonder how so many live without the Holy Supper for weeks or months and then expect to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

The "Forced" Resignation of Richard Cizik, Part Two

On Wednesday of this week Richard Cizik resigned as the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). The preceding week had been filled with calls for his removal by constituent members of NAE who were deeply distressed that he was shifting his views on same-sex marriage. As I showed in Part One Richard Cizik has been under considerable fire for over two years. The statement that led to his resignation became, without any serious doubt, the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Leith Anderson, president of NAE, wrote to the board members of NAE the following: “Although he has subsequently expressed regret, apologized, and affirmed our values, there is a loss of trust in his credibility as a spokesman among leaders and constituencies.” I have no doubt that Leith Anderson spoke the truth here and nothing but the truth. The issue was not so much what Cizik said in the December 2 interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, or what he meant by what he said or left unsaid, as it was a “loss of trust in his credibility.” This is precisely why I wrote what that I did in Part One so you could get a sense of the background on this matter. If Cizik’s most recent comments had been made without the context of a nearly two-year attempt to see him removed from leadership in NAE I seriously doubt that his recent comments would have resulted in his ouster. I will try to show you why.

Charles Colson, whom I profoundly admire and count as a friend, summed up the general mood about Cizik, at least among older evangelicals, when he said:

For better or worse, Rich became a great, polarizing figure. He was gradually, over a period of time, separating himself from the mainstream of evangelical belief and conviction. So I’m not surprised. I’m sorry for him, but I’m not disappointed for the evangelical movement.

In the now controversial interview on December 2 Cizik spoke mostly about the environment, the issue that he has been hammered about for more than two years now. In the midst of this dialogue Terry Gross asked him several questions that became the points upon which he was forced to resign (I will give this portion of the interview in full so the reader can read the statements in their total context. Remember, most of the interview was focused on the environment.)

Gross: You say you really identify with the concerns and priorities of younger evangelical voters, and one of those priorities is more of an acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage. A couple of years ago when you were on our show, I asked you if you were changing your mind on that, and two years ago you said you were still opposed to gay marriage. But now you identify more and more with younger voters and their priorities; have you changed on gay marriage?

Cizik: I’m shifting I have to admit. In other words I would willingly say I believe in civil unions. I don’t officially support redefining marriage from its traditional definition, I don’t think. We have this tension going on in our movement between what is church-building and what is nation-building. And I lean in this spectrum at times—maybe we should concentrate on building values in our own movement. We have become so absorbed in the question of gay rights and the rest that we fail to understand the challenges and threats to marriage itself—heterosexual marriage. Maybe we need to re-evaluate this and look at it a little differently. I’m always looking for ways to reframe issues, give the biblical point of view a different slant, if you will, and look it, we have to. The whole world, literally, the planet is changing around us, and if you don’t change the way you think and adapt, especially to things like climate change, scientists like Bob Dopple he says well if you don’t adapt and change your thinking you may ultimately be a loser, because climate change in his mind—he’s a systems analyst—has the capacity to determine the winners and losers, and your life will never be the same, growing up during I say the great warming. Our grandparents grew up during the great depression, our parents, well they lived in the aftermath of that and became maybe the greediest generation, and our generation, this younger one, needs to be the greenest.

Gross: Stephen Waldman of Beliefnet raised this question that I want to put to you. Barack Obama supports the right to an abortion, but he also advocates reducing the number of abortions when possible. Will you support him in abortion reduction or do you see that as a diversion from the work of banning or restricting abortion?

Cizik: I will support him. I will support Barack Obama in finding ways to reduce the number of abortions, absolutely.

Gross: Now is that controversial within the evangelical movement?

Cizik: For some, yes. I’ve already been called one of the devil’s minions for taking this position because it seem compromising, but that’s again that winner take all mentality that you have to have it all. In politics I have learned over many years less is more. I think finding those who are in trouble, in crisis, helping them through this and if need be even supplying what government presently doesn’t do, namely contraception, is an answer to reducing unintended pregnancies.

Gross: Wait, wait. I think I heard you say government supplying contraception. That’s got to be controversial.

Cizik: Among some it would be, but I don’t think so. We are not, as I have said previously, we are not Catholics who oppose contraception per se. And let’s face it, what do you want? Do you want an unintended pregnancy that results in abortion or do you want to meet a woman’s needs in crisis, who frankly, would by better contraception avoid that choice, avoid that abortion that we all recognize is morally repugnant—at least it is to me.

Plainly there are three controversial subjects raised in Cizik’s answers. First, the issue of same-sex marriage. Second, the issue of civil unions between same-sex partners. Third, the issue of governmental provision of condoms to help in decreasing the number of abortions. As Cizik said, the third issue offends only a few in the evangelical camp since there is no established evangelical ethic position about condoms. What some would oppose, and do so fervently, is the role of government in such provision. But this is clearly not the “big" issue here.

The answers that got Cizik removed from NAE were same-sex marriage and civil-unions.

Leith Anderson, in expressing the NAE position, stated that “The role of an NAE spokesperson is primarily on behalf of what we have said, not on behalf of what we have not said. It’s also to represent our constituency, and our constituency does not favor civil unions.”

By the way, Cizik told Terry Gross that he voted for Barack Obama in the primaries but did not indicate who he voted for in the November election.

Following this interview NAE was flooded with emails, a large number from members of NAE member organizations. According to Sarah Pullman, reporting in Christianity Today, some writers cited his views on abortion and condom distribution but most focused on the gay union issue. Anderson reported that NAE favors decreasing the number of abortions but has not laid out a specific plan such as the distribution of condoms.

So it should be clear to all—Cizik was forced to resign because he said “I believe in civil unions” and because he then added “I don’t officially support redefining marriage from its traditional definition. . . .” The protest of him was centered about his views on gays.

Make no mistake about this—“gay” politics is hot right now, red hot. With Proposition 8 passing in California, and more than thirty-five states formally forbidding gay marriage in various legal ways, the issue has been front and center for the past seven or eight years. As I have traveled about the United States, speaking in churches of all sorts, I can tell you this issue produces the single most obvious level of deep emotion of any issue I have seen in my lifetime inside the church. At one time the most emotional issue was removing prayer in the public schools. Then it was abortion in the 1970s and 1980s. Now it is gay marriage and related sexual identity issues. Of all these types of social/moral/cultural issues this one has plainly generated the most wide-scaled legal response, both pro and con. And it has generated the most unbalanced rhetoric of any such issue since segregation was openly challenged in the 1950s.

Gay marriage (and correspondingly for some, civil unions) is seen by my generation as “the issue” that will define our entire future as a nation. If the gays publicly win then the nation is finished. The church will be attacked, freedoms will be removed through the use of hate speech law and our ability to live the faith without persecution removed. Further, children and marriage will be irreparably damaged for generations to come. I do not think I am overstating the way this issue is seen and felt at all.

Many people fear homosexuals in general and openly loathe their behavior. Many even find people who are openly gay to be disgusting and despicable human beings. (Thankfully I do not think the number of such people is as large as the advocates of homosexual marriage want us to believe. Surveys and poll data support my observation in general. I do not deny that hatred and prejudice are real and harm some people profoundly.)

As with most of these kinds of "hot button" moral/cultural issues, but particularly with this one, it becomes almost impossible to have a civil dialogue about the issue without turning persons into enemies. I have seen this work in church contexts more than I care to admit. My own position on the issue itself is clear—I believe homosexual practice plainly violates the clear teaching of the Word of God and I have taught this in both friendly and not-so-friendly contexts for years. I do not believe ministers who are committed to homosexual practice should be ordained and I do not think unrepentant homosexuals should be welcomed into church membership. But Richard Cizik agrees with me so far as I can tell. So why was he removed for his few words on NPR.  Why, or why?

1. He endorsed the concept of civil unions. This is a broad category but generally it means the government grants legal protection and benefits to gay couples based on a union that is non-religious yet civilly established.

2. He expressed clear opposition to “redefining marriage from its traditional definition”—i.e., one man and one woman.

What this demonstrates to me is that we cannot have a reasonable dialogue about these issues without personal threats and massive political intrigue. What happened to the idea that the church was a “safe place” for sinners? What happened to welcoming and embracing sinners? What happened to explaining in calm and clear ways why the sin of homosexual practice is not the same as concern for civil rights and legal protection for a minority?

My very suggestions here will be read by a few as an endorsement of homosexual practice. I am doing nothing of the kind. But I am appalled at how quick some evangelicals are to remove the speck from their brother or sister’s eye without seeing the log in their own. Cizik actually addressed this in his further comments about marriage. I think his comment is brilliant and I rarely hear anyone say it so well: “We have become so absorbed in the question of gay rights and the rest that we fail to understand the challenges and threats to marriage itself—heterosexual marriage.”

I have said this again and again and it generates either a complete yawn or an angry denunciation. Who is kidding whom here? Evangelicals divorce at a higher rate than the culture in general and few of our local churches, or denominations, have dealt with the sin of adultery in any clearly biblical way since before World War II. How many evangelical churches do you know that will discipline a person for adultery? The church I pastored for sixteen years faithfully practiced such discipline and the results of our practice were powerful and redemptive. I shared a deeply moving meal this week, of the sort that I believe I will enjoy in heaven someday, with a friend of thirty years. This man, now in his 50s, was a young man under my care as a young pastor. I led my congregation to discipline him for adultery. What followed was extremely trying and difficult. But about a year after the discipline he was soundly converted and has ever since been a growing, productive and fruit-bearing Christian man. He loves me with an unusually deep love and the bonds between us are almost unexplainable at times. There is mutual respect and deep love for Christ and we will remain close, I am quite sure, for all eternity. This all came from practicing "tough love" in a biblically faithful church context.

My question with the Ciziik episode is why will these conservative Christians who so loathe homosexual practice tolerate so easily heterosexual sin? Something is very wrong here and saying it, and seeing that it is clearly true, should deeply disturb us all. Cizik said it but it seems his critics completely missed it.

Cizik also said that he is “always looking for ways to reframe issues, to give the biblical point of view a different slant, if you will . . .” Whether you agree with him or not, or like him or not, this is at the heart of anything that deserves the name evangelical. We are a missional people and as missional people we are always looking for ways to “reframe” the truth that we see in Scripture. This is dangerous for sure but this is the point of view bequeathed to us by the Protestant Reformers. You can fault Cizik for how he said what he said, and remember he admitted that he could have said it very differently and much better, but you cannot fault him for trying to practice a truly evangelical principle.

I will say more later about Cizik’s view of same-sex marriage, which he ardently opposes, but for now please focus on the nub of this debate. Cizik was removed for one reason—he supports civil unions.

Now I know that Wikipedia can be faulted on many scores (in terms of scholarly precision and faithful reporting at points) but it can also be useful in many instances. In this case it is the latter that I believe we find when we search the term: "civil unions." Here is the Wikipedia definition given under the entry on civil unions:

A civil union is a legally recognized union similar to marriage. Beginning with Denmark in 1989, civil unions under one name or another have been established by law in many developed countries in order to provide same-sex couples with rights, benefits, and responsibilities similar (in some countries, identical) to opposite-sex civil marriage. In some jurisdictions, such as Quebec, New Zealand, and Uruguay, civil unions are also open to opposite-sex couples.

Most civil-union countries recognize foreign unions if those are essentially equivalent to their own; for example, the United Kingdom lists equivalent unions in Civil Partnership Act Schedule 20.

Many people are critical of civil unions because they say they represent separate status unequal to marriage ("marriage apartheid"). Others are critical because they say civil unions are separate but equal - because they allow same-sex marriage by using a different name.

As used in the United States, beginning with the state of Vermont in 2000, the term civil union has connoted a status equivalent to marriage for same-sex couples; domestic partnership, offered by some states, counties, cities, and employers since as early as 1985, has generally connoted a lesser status with fewer benefits. However, the legislatures of the West Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington have preferred the term domestic partnership for enactments similar or equivalent to civil union laws in East Coast states.

As you can readily see “civil unions” has a very broad definitional scope but in almost no case is it seen as (Christian) marriage. The very term “civil” means non-religious. For this reason alone civil unions are not gay marriage. Whether we like it or not civil unions already exist and are not likely to go away. It seems to me that the best place for a Christian to stand in this current cultural milieu and radical change is to protect marriage as an essentially religious union and civil unions as something different. It also seems to me that Cizik was making such a distinction.

But Cizik’s critics saw only “red” and charged after him with the determination to see him removed from his leadership position. My guess is that he will be better off outside the NAE, at least personally. But it also seems to me that the NAE failed to respond to a crisis with the kind of personal relational care that portrays to the world that we are not simply driven by the heated political rhetoric and debate that so marks the breakdown of civility in our time. I will say more about the NAE, and its history and present confusion, in my next post. In the meantime I hope that some readers will rethink how we can and should discuss this issue of marriage and civil unions. The least we can do is dial down the passionate speech level and the heated rhetorical confusion this creates. Surely I am not the only Christian leader in my generation who feels that we are the worse for our continual inability to conduct a serious conversation without the gloating and celebrating that has accompanied the removal of Brother Richard Cizik by the NAE.