As a kid, I vividly remember watching a ceremony on TV where Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to China. I couldn’t begin to understand the significance of that event at the time. That was 22 years ago. When Hong Kong was handed over to China, there was an agreement in place where Hong Kong would retain its economic and political systems for 50 years. (more…)
This week, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) voted to endorse the Nashville Statement. The Nashville Statement is a series of affirmations regarding traditional Biblical views of sexuality and gender and was created by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
To give a sense of what the Nashville Statement discusses:
WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church.
WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. We also deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before God. (more…)
ABC reality show the Bachelorette is in the news regarding a confrontation from bachelorette Hannah Brown and contestant Luke Parker. Brown is a professing Christian and Parker is a born again Christian. The subject of sex outside of marriage came up in a conversation. Parker said “let’s say you have had sex with one – or multiple – of these guys, I would be wanting to go home.”
Brown says “I’ve had sex and Jesus still loves me.” Certainly Jesus is infinitely gracious. But we also should not take a casual attitude towards sin. Brown has received criticism from many Christians this week. I think her attitude is one that has become too common among professing Christians. We take anyone pointing us to Christians teachings as them judging us. And we treat “thou shalt not judge” as the first and only commandment that matters in the 21st century. (more…)
A group of United Church of Christ (UCC) clergy traveled to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Milwaukee to have a special service of blessing and solidarity.
The United Church of Christ is among the most progressive mainline denominations. They’re celebrating Planned Parenthood and what they stand for. From a news release on the UCC website, they say quote a minister who attended the event and said “This is not about reproductive rights. This is about controlling women. This is not about saving lives. It’s about controlling women. It is not about children. It is about controlling women. If it were about children, we would have the same amount of energy at the border right now. If it was about children, we wouldn’t have children being hungry at night.”
This is a caricature.
Not about saving lives? Not about children? Hundreds of thousands of babies are aborted every year in this country. And you have a church standing arm and arm with Planned Parenthood. This is the fallacy that the pro abortion movement likes to commit which is that if you don’t have a plan to actively fix every evil and injustice in society, that you therefore can’t be pro-choice. This is nonsense. Millions of Christians all over the country care about those who are going hungry. Christians support missions and local food banks. Christians disproportionately adopt and foster.
It’s shameful that people representing a church denomination would conduct themselves in this way and support the termination of the lives of the unborn. It’s disappointing, but given how far the UCC has gone, it’s not surprising.
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Josh Benner has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has served churches in Minnesota and Illinois. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in St. Louis.
I observe this being the great risk in more liberal denominations.
Truth that doesn’t practice love
I think this is more of a danger in conservative and evangelical circles. We place a high value on the scripture and theology. And well we should because both of those are hugely important.
But we can get so preoccupied with having the right answer that we lose sight of actually living out what we know. This is very similar to the failure of the Pharisees in the gospels. They were very well studied and trained in theology, but they missed the heart of the message.
It can be easy to know the right answer but it’s difficult to live it out in practice.
Truth and love. It comes down to belief and practice. We need both.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!
Josh Benner has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has served churches in Minnesota and Illinois. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in St. Louis.
