Christian Inclusiveness
Since I’m too brain-dead (sharing that state with our President, according to Sen. Joe Biden) to post on any of half a dozen subjects that have caught my attention in the last few days, I’m just going to link to a thought-provoking series of articles by Pastor Mark D. Roberts on Christian Inclusiveness.
The context is a conflict within the Episcopal Church USA over their rejection of Biblical authority on the issue of homosexuality.
Pastor Roberts uses this as a springboard to argue the Biblical position that Christ’s acceptance of “all who come” was in fact predicated on repentance. At the same time he criticizes the Church for a hypocritical view that often places homosexual offenders in a special category of “super-sin” (my term) and exhorts the Church to greater efforts to include homosexuals in our outreach efforts.
Therefore, to interpret the unconditional love of God in Christ as some sort of “absolute inclusiveness†is a mistake. God invites all people into relationship with himself. But entry into this relationship and maintenance of this relationship depend on such things as repentance, faith in Jesus, and a life of “walking in the light†(1 John 1:5-9). To say that, on the basis of Jesus’s own practice, the church should include all people just as they are is simply wrong.
In point of fact, the advocates of inclusiveness within the Episcopal Church don’t actually practice the sort of inclusiveness the seem to promote. They don’t, for example, say to those they label as homophobic, “Y’all come. It’s just fine if you continue to act unlovingly towards gays and lesbians. We practice absolute inclusiveness here.†In fact many of the strongest proponents of inclusiveness in the Episcopal Church are increasingly moved to exclude those in their own denomination whom they label as fundamentalist because of their commitment to the authority of Scripture. Now I would in fact defend this notion of limited inclusiveness, because I think absolute inclusiveness is both impossible and wrong. The church needs to be more precise and discerning when it comes to inclusion (and exclusion). Of course, though I defend the idea of limited inclusiveness, such as practiced by the Episcopal Leaders who would include gays and exclude “fundamentalists,†I think they’re making precisely the wrong choices about whom to include and whom to exclude.
Yet, having said this, I must add that the church’s zeal to exclude gay and lesbian people has, sadly, far outstripped its commitment to Christ-like love. Many Christians practice a double standard, whereby homosexual sin is worse than heterosexual sin, the one unforgivable, the other easily overlooked. A father once admitted to me that he continued in relationship with his daughter, who was living “in sin†with her boyfriend, while he had completely broken relationship with his son, who had chosen a gay lifestyle. This sort of double standard is indefensible. The church needs desperately to reach out to all persons, including gays and lesbians, with the forgiving, healing, renewing love of Christ.
That’s a fair summary in his last few paragraphs, but I would encourage you to read the series from the beginning as he relates some examples from his own experience that challenged me to consider how I approach this issue.
