It would be a lot more pleasant, in some ways, to be able to support the pro-homosex position. It would certainly be easier. After all, the church is called to welcome everyone in the love and grace of Jesus Christ, and it’s a fair bit easier to make people feel welcome if one can simply affirm their choices and decisions. That’s one reason why so many churches wink at so many other sins.

Beyond that, though, in American culture these days—perhaps not here, but in our country in general—being a straight guy who supports gay rights is a pretty comfortable thing to be. After all, the bigots on the conservative side—and there certainly are some—might yell at you a little, but they save the real abuse for homosexuals; the price paid by heterosexuals who argue for gay rights is pretty minimal. Meanwhile, liberal bigots—and there are definitely those, too—will pat you on the back and tell you how enlightened you are. For that matter, so will most of the American intelligentsia, and most of our rich and famous. And if a lot of other Americans disagree with you—well, that just offers the chance to indulge the ancient vice of snobbery.

These are some of the things that would make it a lot easier to throw in the towel regarding homosexuality. And yet, I am committed to understanding the Scriptures—which means standing under them, letting them read me and control my thinking, not trying to read my thinking into them. I am committed, further, to the principle that the call of God is a radical one, that Jesus calls us to give up everything to follow him, and that anyone who hears the call of Christ and is not challenged on some point of sinfulness in their lives didn’t really hear his voice at all. As uncomfortable as it might make me, as risky as it might be, if I start backing down on the issue of homosexuality, it won’t stop there. After all, it would be a lot easier just to affirm gossips in their gossiping and liars in their lying, too.

I keep coming back to the Rev. Tim Keller’s point, in his sermon at GCNC last year, that we cannot truly preach the gospel if we aren’t identifying and confronting the idols in our churches. It’s not just a matter of confronting sin; if all we do is point out and condemn the behaviors people already acknowledge as sinful and for which they already feel shame, we aren’t doing anything but piling on. The crux of the matter, rather, is identifying the desires and behaviors and heart attitudes that people (including ourselves, no question) don’t acknowledge as sin, and don’t want to admit are sinful—not the ones people already hate and wish they could give up (the challenge there is to support and encourage them in that work), but the ones they love and to which they cling, because those areas of sin have become idols in their lives.

That’s a necessary task in ministry, but it’s one from which we too often flinch, because people usually don’t respond pleasantly to it. Try it, and you’ll be called every name in the book, and maybe even some that aren’t in there yet; and in particular, you’ll be called hateful, unloving, judgmental, and maybe even pharisaical (depending on the other person’s vocabulary). And yet, doing so isn’t unloving in the least; in truth, it’s a profound act of love. Too often, I think, we don’t love others enough to risk their anger and abuse by telling them something they don’t want to hear, even if they deeply need to hear it. Easier not to care that much, to just be quiet instead. It’s a shame, really; in fact, it’s a damned shame. Literally.

Tyler Jones, a church planter with Acts 29 down in Raleigh, has an interesting post up today on the Resurgence website called “The Poison of Quaint Moralism”; it’s addressed to his Southern context but has validity far beyond it. He writes,

The South has been poisoned, and the poison is “quaint moralism.” This poison has systematically infected tens of millions in the South and we are now in the midst of a moralistic pandemic. . . . Our churches are full of good-looking, upright, moral people. The tragic irony is that our goodness is our poison. A great many Southerners claim Christianity as their religion, mimicking righteousness on the surface while their hearts remain unchanged by the gospel of Jesus. I understand the gravity of that statement and do not make it hastily. Here in the South, the gospel has either been ignored or foolishly assumed. We have satiated our desire for God through quaint morality, allowing people to ignore their need for Jesus.

There is a common and deadly misconception that the church is supposed to produce people who live “good Christian lives.” This misconception spreads easily because it bears a strong superficial resemblance to the fruit of true holiness; but it just isn’t so. After all, it’s perfectly possible for most of us to be nice, moral people—good enough on the outside to make most folks happy, at any rate—in our own strength; and in this country with its Christian heritage, the world is perfectly happy to let you live a nice, moral life, as long as you are properly “tolerant”—which is to say, that you don’t do anything that makes anybody else uncomfortable. It’s a way of living that makes it easy for us to look at ourselves and think we’re doing just fine, and not realize how much we need God—while on the inside, our hearts remain closed to him. As C. S. Lewis said,

We must not suppose that if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world.

Moralistic religion is bloodless and powerless; it can affect behavior, but cannot touch the roots of sin in the heart. It directs our attention to ourselves and our own efforts, and thus away from God; it turns us away from grace and toward legalism, and thus waters the seeds of self-righteousness, arrogance and spiritual pride in our souls. The Devil is perfectly happy to make us moral, if only we will be moral to please ourselves (or other people) rather than God; what else, after all, was Jesus’ complaint against the Pharisees? Thus Michael Horton opens his book Christless Christianity with this story:

What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Over a half century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio. Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia, all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am,” and the churches would be full every Sunday . . . where Christ is not preached.

If Christ is preached, everything else follows. If Christ is not preached, nothing else matters.