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Character Still Matters More Than Winning

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For years, I’ve struggled to put my finger on why I’ve been so intuitively disconnected from my Republican Party. Yes, to the shock of many, I am still registered in the GOP. But if I’m frank about the whole thing, I’ve always been more concerned with how the “upside-down and backwards way of Jesus” intersects with the messy world we live in than with the political parties themselves. My ballot is shaped less by loyalty to a particular political ideology and more by my attempt to discern how the Sermon on the Mount can inform public policy for all who bear the image of God.

Nonetheless, my disheartenedness with the Grand Ol’ Party has only grown over the last decade. So I’ve continued to churn on why. Why am I so outside of the tribe I was once in? What shifted? What were the policy issues? And it finally dawned on me:

I never became a Republican primarily because of the platform or a set of policies. It was for one reason only: character first.

Like many evangelicals of my generation, I had certain issues that mattered deeply to me. But what first drew me to the GOP in my twenties was a conviction I heard repeated over and over again: character counts. In fact, character was presented as the nonstarter for all leadership.

The message was clear. A candidate could have all the right policies, all the right positions, and all the right promises, but if they lacked proven character, they were unfit to lead – hard stop. Character was the fault line, the watershed issue, and the non-negotiable standard that could not be compromised.

Going a step further, I believed the primary process existed, in part, to protect that conviction. “We the people” of the “character-first party” would never allow someone who might undermine this stalwart value to become our candidate. Character was not simply an issue among many. It was the foundation beneath all the others; without it, we labor in vain – or worse, for our vanity.

Now I’m in my mid-fifties. And over the last decade, I have watched that conviction steadily erode.

What has surprised me most is not simply that character has become an elective rather than a compulsory standard regarding leadership, but also how often its absence is excused. And all for what? For policy gains? For political victories? For social change? For fiscal responsibility? To combat the left? The culture? The uncertainty of the future?

I often hear, “Yeah, but the character of the opposition on the left is _____________!” (fill in the blank). As though the new standard is that character no longer matters, so long as the other side is worse. But that was never the principle I thought we were advancing. If character truly matters, it must matter even when it costs us something. It must matter even when it means losing. Otherwise, character is not a conviction. It’s just a platitude.

Personally, I would rather lose while upholding the belief that character matters than win by convincing myself that poor character is tolerable if I can hold my nose long enough. Credibility is lost the moment we excuse in our own leaders the very things we once – oftentimes still – condemned in others.

Unfortunately, the result has been a seismic shift. We once argued that a good leader must first be a good person. Increasingly, we seem to argue that effectiveness matters more than integrity, strength more than goodness, winning more than virtue. And every time the absence of character succeeds, it only proves the point more. Maybe character never really mattered after all.

And that’s the hinge on which my disheartened soul swings.

For me, that is the sole – and soul – great loss. Not political accountability but moral credibility.

I joined a party that once insisted character was essential to leadership. Today, it is often treated as incidental. Which then sacrifices credibility.

And when credibility is lost, it is notoriously difficult to recover.

And when character no longer commands respect, power is often used to do what integrity once did.

And when the carrot of character is proven to be optional, the stick of control is reached for as the most effective substitute.

And when this happens, the cycle can only spin downward because we don’t require anything different except more of the same.

Yet, I still believe what I was taught all those years ago. Character matters. It matters in our homes, churches, businesses, communities, and especially in our politics. Wise policy matters. Competence matters. But character matters most. Character is still first.

Maybe that’s why I’ve felt politically homeless. Not because I care most about politics, but because I’ve always believed character comes before politics. And perhaps more tragically along the way, I’ve watched much of my evangelical tribe trade away its witness and moral credibility for the idols of political power, certainty, and victory. Things the Scriptures would call the spirits of the age.

Personally, I would rather lose while preserving character than win by excusing it away. Why? Because when we abandon our own standards, the world takes notice. But when we hold to them no matter the cost, they notice that too.

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The Southern Baptists May Have Just Banned More Than Women Pastors.

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I am a graduate of a Southern Baptist Seminary, but I am not a member of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). So my thoughts come from an outsider perspective, but an adjacent one.

The SBC has once again moved to canonize its position that women should not be called pastors and should not teach men in gathered church settings. While many within the SBC view this as a necessary defense of biblical faithfulness, I find myself drawn to a broader concern than the specific conclusion.

My concern here is not primarily about where one lands on women serving as pastors, though I do have a primary interest in that bigger question. My concern is what happens when a denomination takes a debated question and attempts to permanently settle it for future generations through constitutional force.

History suggests that rarely ends well. Trust me, I have been on the receiving end of canonized denominational dogma.

The reality is that theology is not static. The Scriptures do not change, but our understanding of them often does. Christians today understand many passages differently than believers did centuries ago. We have access to ancient documents, inscriptions, papyri, and linguistic discoveries that previous generations never possessed. Scholars continue to sharpen our understanding of Greek grammar, Hebrew idioms, ancient cultural practices, and the meaning of words within their original contexts.

In my own three decades of studying the Scriptures, I have watched discoveries in linguistics and the ancient world overturn interpretations that many Christians once considered permanently settled. Some understandings stood virtually unquestioned for centuries, only to be reconsidered when new evidence, better lexical data, or broader manuscript discoveries provided a clearer picture of how words and phrases were actually being used in the first century. What was once presented as certainty are now shown to hang there with a level of ambiguity. What was once considered obvious sometimes became more nuanced.

That does not mean the text changes. It means our understanding improves. The history of biblical scholarship is filled with examples of interpreters revisiting long-held conclusions in light of better information. Humility requires us to acknowledge that future generations may see things more clearly than we do, just as we sometimes see things more clearly than those who came before us. It is nothing less than hubris to believe that our generation, in one small nook of the historic and universal Church, stuck the landing for all time on a theological topic.

The church has always been learning.

This should not frighten us. It should humble us.

Every generation inherits the responsibility of wrestling honestly with the Scriptures. Every generation must ask whether long-held interpretations accurately reflect what the biblical authors intended to communicate.

But when a denomination effectively declares that future generations may not revisit a question, it risks forcing tomorrow’s church into yesterday’s debates. Instead of preserving unity, such actions often guarantee future division. The fact that the SBC has disaffiliated churches over this one issue while remaining aligned on virtually every other major theological conviction reveals just how elevated a traditionally secondary issue has become.

Yet, tragically, church history is full of examples.

And, the irony is that many of the people who now insist that the question is settled belong to traditions that were themselves born from challenging settled interpretations.

What especially concerns me is the way this conversation is often framed. Increasingly, the debate is presented as a choice between being conservative or liberal, faithful or progressive, biblical or compromised. It’s loaded as a clear and present danger, with dog-whistle nomenclature, before it’s openly and sincerely investigated.

However, many conservative scholars, pastors, and churches affirm the authority of the Scriptures, reject progressive theology, and still reach different conclusions regarding women serving in leadership roles, holding ecclesial titles, teaching in church services, and influencing the direction of the church alongside men. They do not see their position as a concession to culture. They see it as an attempt to faithfully interpret the relevant texts.

One may disagree with their conclusions. One may even strongly disagree. But to reduce the discussion to “conservative versus liberal” is to replace exegesis with tribalism.

What makes this framing especially dangerous is that it creates a false measuring stick for future generations since the question quietly shifts from “What do the Scriptures teach?” to “What kind of church are you?”

Once that happens, the debate is no longer merely about interpretation. It becomes about identity. And yes, identity politics is as much, if not more, a feature of evangelicalism as any left-wing social group.

Tragically, then, if a church appoints a woman as a pastor or elder, many will no longer ask how that church arrived at its conclusion. They will simply assume the church has become compromised. The label arrives before curiosity or conversation ever begins.

But reality is even far more complicated than that.

One may disagree with those conclusions. But it is simply inaccurate to suggest that every church with women pastors or elders has abandoned a conservative hermeneutic. Many churches arrive at different conclusions while still approaching Scripture with a high view of its authority and a serious commitment to careful exegesis.1

When the labels “liberal” vs. “conservative” become the framework (did you know those words are not in the Scriptures as virtues or vices), the issue becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog.

Instead of allowing the Scriptures to drive the discussion, we let political and tribal categories determine which conclusions are permissible before the study even begins. The category becomes the argument.

The result is a dismissive “or” where there may actually be room for an “and.”

Conservative and open to women serving in leadership.

Committed to the authority of the Scriptures and persuaded by a different interpretation of several contested passages.

Whether one agrees with those positions is not the point. The point is that these combinations exist. Once we deny that reality, we stop evaluating interpretations on their biblical merits and start evaluating them according to which tribe they appear to strengthen or threaten.

That is not theological discernment. It is boundary maintenance.

And history suggests that whenever tribal identity takes precedence over careful interpretation, the church inevitably pays a price.

The moment a position is declared invalid simply because it falls on the wrong side of a doctrinal, political, or cultural binary, the discussion has ceased to be primarily about the Scriptures.

Ironically, this is its own form of undermining the very Scriptures groups claim to protect. Whereas liberalism tends to extract texts from the Scriptures, legalism tends to inject more than is there. Yet, legalism is not merely adding rules. It is also the tendency to create boundaries that prevent faithful believers from honestly wrestling with the text. It occurs whenever institutional certainty begins to outrun biblical debate.

The issue becomes even more complicated when we remember how rarely the word “pastor ” actually appears in the New Testament. The term is surprisingly rare. The vast majority of leadership discussions focus on elders, overseers, shepherds, teachers, apostles, prophets, and deacons.

Yet modern church structures often import assumptions about the pastoral office that would have been foreign to the first century. To make the title pastor the defining line of orthodoxy seems particularly precarious when the New Testament itself places so little emphasis on the title.

This is one reason I worry that the SBC’s decision reflects something larger than careful interpretation. It may also reflect the cultural moment. Dog, meet your already wagging tail.

We are living through an era shaped by reactions against wokeness, identity politics, and broader cultural shifts regarding gender. Some of those reactions are understandable. Some are even necessary.

But every generation has blind spots.

Every generation is tempted to mistake its cultural battles for biblical battles.

The church should always ask whether it is defending the Scriptures or simply baptizing the anxieties of its own age.

Future generations will inevitably revisit these questions. They always do. The question is not whether future generations will revisit this issue. The question is whether we will leave them room to do so. Will they inherit a framework that encourages careful study and humble dialogue, or one that forces them into another painful denominational fight?

At Redemption Church, we are currently investigating this question ourselves. We have not treated the matter as settled merely because others have. Nor have we assumed that newer conclusions are necessarily better than older ones.

When I drafted our founding documents fifteen years ago, I can guarantee that I was shaped by a host of factors. Some were reactive. We were coming out of a four-year challenge within an egalitarian denomination. Some were dogmatic. At the time, I was becoming decidedly more Calvinistic, due in no small part to my reaction against that same dastardly Arminian denomination. And some influences, in hindsight, have proven far less healthy than I recognized at the time. The cool cowboy Calvinism and complementarianism of the era—Acts 29, James MacDonald, Mars Hill, Mark Driscoll, and others—shaped my perspectives then, as they did for many evangelical leaders of my generation. Perspectives that we are all now critiquing.

The reality is that none of us interpret Scripture or formulate theology in a vacuum. We are all shaped, to varying degrees, by our experiences, our reactions, our cultural climate, and the zeitgeist of our age. That does not mean our conclusions are necessarily wrong. It simply means we should approach them with a measure of humility. And it is precisely why there should always be room to wrestle, revisit, and reexamine our assumptions in the light of Scripture.

So, like my sophomore algebra teacher always said, it’s time to check our work. And as I’ve done that, I’ve found things I said and wrote years ago that I no longer believe are as clear or in alignment with the Scriptures as I once thought.

Thus, we are attempting to listen carefully to the Scriptures, to church history, to the best scholarship available, and to one another.

Where that process ultimately leads remains to be seen.

But I am convinced of this:

The church is healthiest when it approaches difficult questions with humility rather than certainty, with curiosity rather than fear, and with confidence that truth has nothing to fear from honest investigation.

The Scriptures have survived every generation’s questions.

They do not need protection from careful study.

They need people willing to study them carefully.

  1. As a sidebar, I do believe the label “conservative hermeneutic” can sometimes hinder authentic Scriptural study. It subtly introduces a predetermined expectation that the text must be read in a particular way before the investigation even begins. Ideally, our first commitment should not be to reading Scripture conservatively or progressively, but to reading it honestly and allowing the text to challenge our assumptions wherever it leads. But that is a different discussion for a different day. ↩︎
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Let’s Talk About Orthodoxy, Unorthodoxy, & Heresy Pt. 1

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This topic has swirled around in my mind ever since I took a seminary class on the evolution of theology in church history. Not church history, but how different doctrines rose and fell and divided Christianity into thousands of factions over 2000 years. It was perhaps the only class I found to be truly novel, and surprisingly honest about the inconsistent and messy business of practicing theology (see “practicing” here in the same way you would see practicing medicine, it’s important, but not always as certain or settled as we like to believe). The gaping hole in the course is that it quickly diverged to only track doctrinal development in the western church of Catholics and eventually Protestants, which automatically cuts out a full 1/3 of historic Christianity, but it was still eye-opening.   

While a number of things have prompted me to begin this series lately, a headline I came across this week finally made me pull the trigger. The headline read, “Kirk Cameron’s Position on Hell Is ‘Unorthodox’ but Not ‘Heresy,’ Says Apologist Wesley Huff.”  Now, my point here isn’t to get into the weeds of that discussion in this installment. Rather, I think it’s interesting that somehow Wes Huff, whom I appreciate, especially for his sometimes surprising candor regarding the overstated facts by conservative apologists on manuscript transmission and textual criticism, has become the voice of pronouncing what is orthodox, unorthodox, heterodox (I left this one out of the title – too wordy), or heretical (see below for a definition of each).

Here is why this type of assessment has always sat uneasily with me. The challenge with declarations about what constitutes orthodoxy or heresy is that there is no transcendent, divinely inspired rulebook that draws clear lines for all Christians as people wrestle with the implications of Scripture. Terms like orthodoxy, unorthodoxy, heterodoxy, and heresy often exist in the eye of each group’s doctrinal beholder. Thus, they are human assessments, yet often presented as divine declarations.

For example, the Protestant “orthodoxy” of salvation by grace through faith alone is deemed a damnable “heresy” by the Catholic Church, as articulated at the Council of Trent. The same holds in reverse in the polemical writings of the Reformers and in confessional statements such as the Augsburg Confession. So one group’s orthodoxy becomes another group’s heresy. But in the end, it is still people rendering judgments about other people, arguing from the same Bible through differing dogmatic paradigms.

The same could be said of original sin. The Eastern Orthodox Church, one of the oldest expressions of Christianity, regards the Augustinian view of original sin as a heretical error (they use different terminology, but the idea is the same) and not represented in apostolic teaching. Personally, my issue with Augustine is that I find him more informed by Stoic-Platonism than Judaism, but I digress. Anyway, if you trace Augustine’s reasoning for the version of original sin he promoted (see especially City of God XIV), it is rooted in the idea that Adam’s first sin, after eating the fruit, was an involuntary erection. Yes, you read that right.

Augustine believed that before the fruit, Adam and Eve possessed perfect rational control over their bodies. Bodily functions, including sexual arousal, were fully subject to the will, and sexual union occurred calmly, deliberately, and with reason over passion. After sin, such mastery was shattered, and libido took charge. For Augustine, the first experiential consequence of Adam’s sin was the emergence of bodily movements that no longer obeyed rational command. The most vivid and humiliating example of this loss of mastery was involuntary sexual arousal. Adam felt lust for his wife, had an involuntary erection, and acted on both. From this, shame follows immediately, hence Adam and Eve covered their nakedness.

Thus, his conclusion – from this wildly Freudian speculation (see his Confessions, especially books II, III, VI, and VIII to get perhaps the real genesis of his take on Genesis) – was that original sin is transmitted through sex. I have seen some reading into the white lines between verses, but this is as bad as the time I heard a pastor tell people to write the word “Rapture” in the white space between Revelation 3 and 4, a book of the Bible that literally warns of judgment on anyone who “adds to or takes away from the words of its prophecy.” Yet this is the genesis of our Western orthodoxy, which in the East is regarded as heresy.

I say all of this simply as a reminder that while we may use categories like orthodox, unorthodox, heterodox, or heretical, these labels do not speak for God with the level of certainty they sometimes imply. They function more as internal tribal benchmarks set by one community to caution against what they perceive as doctrinal error in another, and often rush to “we are extremely right = orthodox” and “you are extremely wrong = heretical.” This, in and of itself, should give us pause, given how much theological evolution has occurred over 3500 years of Scriptural interpretation and wrestling. Besides, we Protestants are the Johnny-come-latelys after all.  

So to conclude Part One, let’s end by defining the terms, which I am sure some people will push back on because, well, that is the very point I am making about there being no single papal voice that defines everything for everyone. But I have to offer something. Then, in Part Two, we will dive deeper into how to navigate these trigger words and how to better measure the merits behind their use.

Orthodox: Beliefs, teachings, or practices that align with the accepted, official, or historically affirmed doctrine of a particular religious tradition.

Nuance: Considered “right belief” (from Greek orthos = straight or right, doxa = belief or opinion). Functions as the doctrinal center or boundary marker. What counts as orthodox depends on the group (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, etc.).

In short: Inside the group’s doctrinal fence, but with points that sometimes differ from those of other groups. Usually, fine-tuning subcategories beyond the historic Christian Creed.

Unorthodox: Beliefs or views that differ from standard or traditional doctrine but are not necessarily condemned.

Nuance: Can be innovative, speculative, or unconventional. May raise eyebrows but not alarms. Often tolerated as minority opinions, theological exploration, or non-essential disagreements.

In short: Outside the norm of the group, but not against the historic Christian Creed.

Heterodox: Beliefs that deviate from established orthodoxy in more serious or substantive ways, though not always formally condemned.

Nuance: From Greek heteros, meaning other or different. Seen as doctrinally problematic or theologically risky. May conflict with core teachings but stop short of outright denial of essential doctrines. Often used in academic or ecumenical dialogue.

In short: Significantly off-center of the group, concerning but not universally rejected by the historic Christian Creed.

Heresy: Beliefs or teachings that directly contradict essential, defining doctrines of a faith and are formally rejected or condemned by that tradition.

Nuance: Denies or distorts core tenets (for example, the Trinity or the divinity of Christ in historic Christianity, think contrary to the Nicene Creed). Historically, subject to church discipline, excommunication, or conciliar condemnation. From Greek hairesis, meaning “choice” or “sect,” later used for a divisive doctrinal faction.

In short: Outside the historic Christian fence entirely that all groups universally see as the center.

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My Burden And Motivation As An Evangelical Pastor: Tending To Our Logs Before “Their” Specks Regarding Culture, Politics, and Partisanship.

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I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and in light of some recent commentary, I thought it might be helpful to lay out my thoughts and motivations for why I address the issues I do and the topics I tend to engage, be it on social media, my blog, or my podcast, The Everyday Missionary. I refrain from most of this on Sundays, on purpose, because my objectives and audience there are more nuanced than on other platforms of communication. Quite honestly, the people who make up Redemption Church already tend to get what I am getting at, which is why I use other forums as supplementation. They are a truly remarkable community, and I am deeply grateful to be a part of it.

Now, this is by no means exhaustive and, in the interest of brevity, will inevitably rely on some caricature, but I hope it offers a basic sense of what I’m trying to communicate—or perhaps more accurately, why I choose to communicate about the things I do.

In my casual observation, there are three general postures I see among my fellow evangelical pastors when it comes to how they use their position and platform.

First, there are those who generally choose to stay out of the fray when it comes to policy, politics, and culturally sensitive matters. The benefit of this posture is that it often avoids criticism from either side since the focus is simply on spiritual stuff. The downside, however, is that it can miss meaningful opportunities to connect Jesus and Scripture to real-life situations, areas where both are well equipped to speak with wisdom and conviction. I sincerely don’t fault this position, and quite honestly which I felt I could take that track. It would make my life a whole lot more peaceful.

Second, there are those who engage very directly by calling out what they perceive as the sins of groups they view as unsaved, morally compromised, or not as doctrinally aligned as their tradition asserts. This often includes sharp critiques of cultural movements and political positions associated with the Left or progressive causes. The strength of this approach is that it resonates deeply with a significant portion of the evangelical base and is frequently affirmed as courageous truth-telling. It’s also the fastest way to build an audience. The cost, however, is that it can leave those being addressed feeling judged or even disliked by people who claim to follow Jesus—the same Jesus who, in the Gospels, seemed to genuinely enjoy, love, and befriend those on the margins or those with complicated, messed-up, scandalous lives.

Within this posture, I also observe a considerable investment of energy in defending evangelicalism, its partisan alignments, and particularly its close relationship with the current administration’s evangelical political ecosystem. What often proves more difficult is a willingness to acknowledge or repent of our own inconsistencies, blind spots, and failures. As a pastor, I regularly encounter people who are genuinely curious about Jesus, yet hesitant or resistant because of the way His name has been publicly represented among some of these groups. I wish I could take this road; I imagine my podcast would be larger. But for reasons that will soon be apparent, my conscience will not permit it.

Third, there are those like myself, an evangelical speaking to evangelicals, about cultural evangelicalism. Those who are more concerned with addressing the log within evangelicalism than the speck they see in the broader culture. This posture echoes the prophets, who consistently called Israel to account for failures of mercy, justice, and faithfulness to God’s heart for the nations. It also reflects the ministry of Jesus, who spoke far more often about the hypocrisy of God’s people than about the moral failures of Rome. The downside here is that this approach rarely earns affirmation from one’s own evangelical tribe, and as Scripture itself asserts, it does not often find a warm welcome. It also doesn’t tend to draw an audience as much as ire. And yet, as the apostle reminds us, “judgment begins with the house of God.” Unfortunately for me, this is what the Spirit has placed on me as my burden.

In my own context of the Pacific Northwest, I feel a burden to reach people whom I often see the broader evangelical world either belittling or fighting—frequently over specks—while overlooking our own planks. Yet, the apostle warns more sharply against the religious self-righteousness of Romans 2 than the pagan excesses of Romans 1, concluding with the haunting indictment, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles (disbelievers/deconstructors/nones/I love Jesus but not the Church-ers/I just can’t do it any more-ers) because of you.” Therefore, for me, this is not about equal time or political balance between left and right. It is about addressing what I believe is a harmful “lampstand stripping” trend within evangelicalism, where our potential hypocrisy is, quite literally as Jesus warned, “shutting up the kingdom” to those we are called to reach and causing “little ones” to stumble away from the faith. Too often, this happens because our collective reputation is more about advocating against than advocating for. Demonizing their offenses and downplaying ours. It’s about strength, control, and personal security over the way of sacrifice, humility, and becoming the least to reach the more. In fact, those last two references above from Jesus are directed, not at the permissive Romans or syncretistic Herodians, the former was Yahweh professing, Scripture reading, doctrinally conservative Pharisees (Matthew 23) and to the latter the Apostles themselves who were arguing about greatness as opposed to service (Matthew 18). Jesus warns both of those groups, in those texts, of the dangers of hell for such sinful conduct. So yes, I think it’s important.

However, the good news is, once we address our planks, we can then see well enough to care for others and their specks. And that is the key. Helping a person with their speck is about care, caution, and compassion. Specks are not removed through culture wars, name-calling, or parroting pundits, but through genuine love and investment. If we want anyone to seriously consider the Good News of Jesus, they must be able to see both why it is truly good and how it actually forms good people. The gospel is not only something we proclaim with our words, but something we must make visible with our lives toward all image-bearers. When the good news is truly good, it leaves behind a trail of healing, humility, and love that invites others to take a second look.

Why is the Good News Good?

It’s Good because Our All Powerful God became A Humble Man to Serve and Save a Broken and Burdened Race.

It’s Good because He came with Mercy.

It’s Good because He came with Grace.

It’s Good because He came with Compassion.

It’s Good because He came with Forgiveness.

It’s Good because He came with Restoration.

It’s Good because He came with Servanthood.

It’s Good because He came with Love .

And we should be known for this same Good as well.

The apostle says that God first preached the Good News to Abram when He said, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Thus, our calling is to be the blessing than brings the blessing. And Jesus made that posture profoundly, and uncomfortably, clear for all who claim to follow Him. Allow me an amplified version.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who know they need God’s help in this world; God meets them first.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who grieve the brokenness of this world; they will find the comfort of a God who aches with them.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are the gentle in this world; they outlast the powerful.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who long to do right by God and others in this world; God shares that hunger and will satisfy it.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are the merciful in this world; they receive mercy for mercy.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are the wholehearted in this world; they will see God clearly in the world to come.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who seek to create peace rather than merely keep it in this world; they resemble God’s children.

Those who are blessings and thus blessed are those who joyfully suffer for doing right by God and others – be it fellow follower, neighbor, citizen, foreigner, or enemy – for God’s kingdom already belongs to them.

That is flavor for the world.

That is light in the darkness.

That is a city which beckons…

“Come, see these good (news) works, and celebrate the God who inspires them in Heaven.”

Grace

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Christians, Sin, Certainty, And The Wisdom Of Humility

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I’m currently preparing for a series in The Book of the Twelve (the Minor Prophets, for us Western church folks). In the process, I’ve taken a deep dive into the problem of sin within the community of faith. Sin is traditionally understood as “missing the mark” or as “the willful transgression of a defined boundary.” In the Hebrew tradition, there are nine concepts that capture this idea, but these two will suffice here.

While conversations about sin are often directed toward the surrounding, disbelieving culture, my initial application was more personal: to quantify how often an average Christian sins per day. One might assume this would be a straightforward task, but it’s not.

The perception and definition of sin vary dramatically across Christian denominations. Each group also tends to establish its own hierarchy of sins, hierarchies that can be almost entirely inverted from one tradition to another. As a cultural example, in some U.S. Christian contexts, “wokeness” is viewed as a paramount cultural abomination, while in others, indifference to poverty and injustice, often labeled as “wokeness,” is considered a profound social evil. Consequently, what constitutes a grave sin for some Christians is its direct opposite for others. This divergence is perhaps most evident in contemporary debates about what it truly means to love one’s political or social neighbor, or enemy, in our deeply divided climate. Some interpretations of love increasingly resemble hate, advocating avoidance, taunting, mockery, and disparagement rather than blessing, prayer, and doing good (Luke 6:27–36). That currently Evangelical Christians are debating whether empathy is a virtue or a vice only highlights this divide.  

Adding further complexity is the distinct nature of Christian sin itself. Ontologically speaking, when a Christian sins, they implicitly affirm, “I agree with you, God, that this is wrong, yet I am doing it anyway.” This arguably renders Christian sin, in any given instance, more significant than that of a non-believer. While Christians across the spectrum, from progressive to fundamentalist, often employ interpretive “hacks” to explain away certain scriptural expectations, a disbelieving person, by virtue of their disbelief, is not actively disregarding God in their actions. Their motivations are no more aimed at offending God than Odin or Zeus. Christian sin, then, is arguably more severe because it arises from belief in sin while still resulting in either committing or excusing it.

Doctrinal differences further compound the problem. All Christian traditions hold certain doctrines as truth, yet they frequently disagree on many of them. In every area of disagreement where these truths are misaligned, at least one side is teaching error as truth, or equally possible, both sides are wrong. Statistically speaking, every Christian tradition is guilty of this at some point, often unknowingly. The posture with which these doctrines are held, humility versus certainty, can either mitigate or amplify the gravity of this error. Humility in the face of unrecognized error may lessen culpability, whereas conviction in error, as exemplified by the Pharisees, compounds it by being sincerely, yet sincerely, wrong.

As one example, I recently read a Jewish-Christian scholar who argues that Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the dominant Calvinistic and Reformed view within my own theological tradition, departs so thoroughly from the Mosaic framework of atonement that it is better described as a pagan theory. In his view, it is rooted less in Israel’s God and more in the logic of the surrounding ancient world, particularly its images of capricious deities who demand violence to appease their wrath. A key component of his argument is that none of the sacrificial texts depict God pouring out wrath on the animal. Instead, he contends that later Greek philosophical categories were used to overwrite the original scriptural imagery. If anything, when the community’s sin is symbolically transferred to an animal, it does not culminate in the animal’s death as a vessel of divine wrath, but in its release as the scapegoat into the wilderness. While the Calvin-ish theologian in me wants to take a stand, the biblical scholar in me says I should sit down and listen, since he makes a solid exegetical point. Yep, maybe you “scapegoat atonement theory” people are on to something here.

I am not asserting one position over another, but the point stands: across denominations, one group’s dogma of God is another group’s doctrine of demons. In this case, Penal Substitutionary Atonement could be understood either as a pagan appropriation of troubling proportions or as an accurate depiction of atonement itself. Only in death will we know for sure.

The implication, then, is that the odds of doctrinal sin are relatively high for every group at some point. And, somewhat ironically, the more confidently a group insists it is immune from such error, the more caution its claims likely deserve.

Some will accuse me at this point of denying capital “T” Truth. That is not my claim at all. I have no quarrel with the idea of concrete truth. Rather, I acknowledge that none of us possesses the decoder to know it perfectly or to wield it without distortion. We can grasp what is sufficiently important, but on this side of the resurrection, the apostle reminds us that we never see as clearly as we imagine.

That reality should not surprise us. With 30 to 40 technically distinct interpretive approaches to Scripture and an estimated 45,000 Christian denominations spread across three major traditions, spanning two thousand years, countless languages, and vastly different cultural worldviews, it is safe to say we are not all getting everything right. At some point, every community teaches something in error while sincerely calling it truth, which itself may qualify as a sin against the truth we claim to defend.

In light of all this, humility feels like the most honest takeaway. We are all wildly dependent on grace, which means Christians ought to be the most enthusiastic distributors of it, handing out kindness, forgiveness, patience, peace, and love as if it were always in season.

After all, we know ourselves well enough to recognize our remarkable ability, both intentional and accidental, to participate in the full range of acts, attitudes, and affections we so neatly label sin. Our plank, it turns out, is already quite substantial. Perhaps a little extra humility might help loosen its grip, giving us clearer sight and softer hearts to notice the specks in our neighbors’ eyes, not with judgment, but with compassion, tenderness, and love.

Addendum

Below are some basic ways various Christian traditions articulate their emphasis on different aspects of what is generally referred to as sin. This is not exhaustive, but illustrative. I only included it because I find the various large branches of Christianity can all contribute to seeing this topic from different points of view.

1. Roman Catholicism

Types of Sin

Mortal Sin: A grave offense committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent; it severs one’s relationship with God.

Venial Sin: Lesser sins that damage, but do not break, one’s relationship with God.

Remedy

Mortal sins require sacramental confession to a priest and the completion of penance.

Venial sins may be forgiven through prayer, participation in the Eucharist, and acts of charity.

2. Eastern Orthodoxy

View of Sin

Sin is understood primarily as a spiritual illness rather than a legal violation.

The emphasis is on healing and restoration rather than guilt and punishment.

Remedy

Confession is essential, but the primary focus is on transformation through the sacraments, spiritual disciplines, and growth in holiness.

3. Protestant Traditions

Lutheranism

View of Sin

Humanity is inherently sinful due to original sin.

Even good works are considered tainted by sin apart from God’s grace.

Remedy

Justification by faith alone (sola fide).

Confession is encouraged but not required for forgiveness.

4. Calvinism (Reformed)

View of Sin

Total depravity: every aspect of human nature is affected by sin.

Strong emphasis on God’s sovereignty in salvation.

Remedy

Salvation is by grace alone, with redemption applied to the elect.

5. Methodism

View of Sin

Affirms original sin while emphasizing human free will to respond to God’s grace.

Strong focus on personal holiness and sanctification.

Remedy

Ongoing repentance, spiritual discipline, and growth in grace.

6. Popular Evangelicalism

View of Sin

Emphasis on personal and individual sin.

Central focus on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Remedy

Salvation through faith in Christ, often marked by a conscious conversion experience.

7. Anglicanism / Episcopalianism

View of Sin

Holds a broad range of views, incorporating both Catholic and Protestant emphases.

Recognizes both personal and systemic sin.

Remedy

Confession (private or corporate), participation in the Eucharist, and ongoing spiritual formation.

bible, Church, Politics, Theology

When The Cross Bows To “National Here And Now:” Why Does Christianity Get Easily Co-Opted?

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I’ve been reflecting on the intersection of the Christian faith and leadership, as well as political or nationalistic ideologies. While this dynamic certainly applies to other religions as well (and none at all), my focus has been on the particular tension within Christianity.

What strikes me as odd — and troubling — is how a faith centered on a sacrificial and suffering servant, who called his followers to love their neighbors and enemies alike, care for the poor and marginalized, and treat others as they would want to be treated, can be so easily co-opted into something dismissive, divisive, or even aggressive. Instead of being a force for unity and service, it can become a tool used to attack or exclude at the cultural level. Now, this isn’t to say that Jesus is never divisive, but oddly, his division was related to his upside-down and backward Kingdom vs. nationalistic fervor and religious dogma. The repeated accusation of his friendship with sinners, his departure from tradition, and his care for the outsider highlight the nature of the divide between Jesus and his religious nation-state. Even when he spoke of the divide between daughter and mother or son and father, the divide was between the older and younger: the old, stifling, monolithic tradition versus the new, inviting Kingdom living. He clearly knew the new wine was just too much for those old skins.

Historically, tragically, religious people have all too often followed the path of Jesus’ opponents in the name of Christianity, but sincerely believing they were doing the godly and righteous thing. That paradox is what I’ve been wrestling with. Therefore, I wanted to conduct a thought experiment in which I took a series of quotes, leaving blanks in place of the original labels used. I did this to overlay whether this rhetoric has thematic links to modern sentiments.

“Hence, today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the ____, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” (p. 65)

“Political parties have nothing to do with religious problems, as long as these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics of the race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming of political parties.” (p. 116)

“This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.” (p. 152)

“Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time. A fight for freedom had begun mightier than the earth had ever seen; for once Destiny had begun its course, the conviction dawned on even the broad masses…” (p. 161)

“The founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the ____ people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God.” (p. 174)

“His [the ____ person’s] life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the ____ people, and when necessary he even took to the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for ____ votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic ____ parties — and this against their own nation.” (p. 307)

“Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.” (p. 383)

“It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying foreigners with missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in all seriousness, teach our National humanity that where parents are not healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy orphan child and give him father and mother…” (p. 403)

“The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God’s will, and actually fulfill God’s will, and not let God’s word be desecrated. For God’s will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord’s creation, the divine will.” (p. 562)

“As far as this variety of ‘folkish’ [social justice/culture] warriors, are concerned, I can only wish the National movement and the nations people with all my heart: “Lord, preserve us from such ‘friends,’ and then we can easily deal with our enemies.” (p. 565)

“For this, to be sure, from the child’s primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: ‘Lord, make us free!’ is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: ‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’” (pp. 632-633)

Adolf Hitler ~ Mein Kampf

No, I’m not calling anyone Hitler, except Hitler, of course. And frankly, I’m not all that focused on any particular current or future leaders, pundits, and media types who leverage politics and religion to create a rift of division between the majority and minority. All parties seeking to influence will utilize whatever tools they can exploit. Instead, I’m thinking about how Christians support such individuals in politics, churches, the media, online, and so on. How other names, races, genders, sexualities, labels could be, or are being, dropped into the _______ with just a tinge of piss and vinegar in the tone. Because here’s the hard-to-swallow truth: the majority of Evangelical Christians backed the Nazi Party (70-80% with anti-Communism, nationalism, and the desire for order being the top three reasons). But it’s nothing new. Over the centuries, Christians have more often than not lined up behind nefarious players, inhumane policies, adopted or stood silent to the most overtly un-Christian ethics, and excused it all in the name of an amalgamation of religion, patriotism, economic necessity/opportunity, and nationalism. Of course, there has always been an inspiring, though at the time despised, remnant who press against the flow, but it’s usually a remnant. The majority are often too quick to pick the wrong side of history and excuse away the words of Jesus every time. Luckily, it seems, the rest of the world eventually hears the remnants, catches up, and rights the ship (which is why I land in the revivalistic postmillennial camp, but that’s a topic for a different blog on a different day). Still, it usually leaves another stain in the history of the Christian faith where the moment was exploited, people suffered, and Jesus’ reputation was tarnished, all in the quest to enthrone a mute idol of Christ in the shadowlands of Babylon – yet again.

What started this was reading Martin Luther’s “On the Jews and Their Lies.” Honestly, I’m shocked that we Protestants still hold him in such high regard after reading it. The common defense—”That’s just how things were back then”—falls short as a moral argument. Jesus’s teachings on loving our neighbors and enemies alike were just as clear then as they are now. But I guess that’s my point. Every generation is at risk of, and even all too eager to, cut out the tongue of Christ to uphold the Zeitgeist of the age, especially when the nation is at stake. Sure, the idol of Christ as a rallying figure is elevated in the enterprise, but Jesus, the counter-cultural incarnate God who calls his followers to radical love, is quickly dispatched. In place of all this comes the practical urgency of the “hear and now,” the “more important,” the “don’t you see the existential threat,” etc. That’s precisely why I wanted to run the “whose label goes in the _________” thought experiment.

Below is an excerpt from Luther’s work that illustrates the extreme nature of political and nationalistic rhetoric when cloaked in the language of Christianity, and how, even still, modern Christians elevate a man like Luther and overlook his inhuman and un-Jesus-like dispositions. However, we continue to do that as well in other ranks. Additionally,  I think it would be equally confronting if we took out all of Luther’s uses of “Jews” and substituted blanks in there as well to see which names would find more or less offensive. I say that since we Evangelicals are a bit more defensive of the Jewish state than perhaps some other people groups, even though every person bears the image of God (Genesis 1) and houses the indwelling service-worthy Christ (Matthew 25).   

“What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we can not tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. In this way we cannot quench the inextinguishable fire of divine rage nor convert the Jews. We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity. Perhaps we may save a few from the fire and flames [of hell]. We must not seek vengeance. They are surely being punished a thousand times more than we might wish them. Let me give you my honest advice.

First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians.

Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed. For they perpetrate the same things there that they do in their synagogues. For this reason they ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like gypsies, in order that they may realize that they are not masters in our land, as they boast, but miserable captives, as they complain of incessantly before God with bitter wailing.

Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught.

Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more…

Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden to the Jews. For they have no business in the rural districts since they are not nobles, nor officials, nor merchants, nor the like. Let them stay at home…

If you princes and nobles do not close the road legally to such exploiters, then some troop ought to ride against them, for they will learn from this pamphlet what the Jews are and how to handle them and that they ought not to be protected. You ought not, you cannot protect them, unless in the eyes of God you want to share all their abomination…

To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden – the Jews…

Let the government deal with them in this respect, as I have suggested. But whether the government acts or not, let everyone at least be guided by his own conscience and form for himself a definition or image of a Jew. When you lay eyes on or think of a Jew you must say to yourself: Alas, that mouth which I there behold has cursed and execrated and maligned every Saturday my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has redeemed me with his precious blood; in addition, it prayed and pleaded before God that I, my wife and children, and all Christians might be stabbed to death and perish miserably. And he himself would gladly do this if he were able, in order to appropriate our goods…

Such a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish lot are these Jews, who for these fourteen hundred years have been and still are our plague, our pestilence, and our misfortune.

 I have read and heard many stories about the Jews which agree with this judgment of Christ, namely, how they have poisoned wells, made assassinations, kidnapped children, as related before. I have heard that one Jew sent another Jew, and this by means of a Christian, a pot of blood, together with a barrel of wine, in which when drunk empty, a dead Jew was found. There are many other similar stories.”

I include this quote to press another wrinkle in the fabric. Here, the issue is that Hitler didn’t convince the Protestants into their nationalistic sins, but it was the First Protestant who convinced Hitler, who in turn convinced the Protestants into their sins.

“Martin Luther has been the greatest encouragement of my life. Luther was a great man. He was a giant. With one blow, he heralded the coming of the new dawn and the new age. He saw clearly that the Jews need to be destroyed, and we’re only beginning to see that we need to carry this work on…. I believe that today I am acting in accordance with the will of Almighty God as I announce the most important work that Christians could undertake – and that is to be against the Jews and get rid of them once and for all.”

Adolf Hitler ~ Reported from a speech given in Berlin, Dec. 1924

That could be the telling issue: that the head is often eating the tail, and until the followers of Jesus relentlessly apply his upside-down and backwards ways in this messy world, we will be a part of perpetuating the problems and believing the lies are the solutions.

I’m not asking you to agree with my critique, but I am asking you to always measure your points of view against those pesky red letters of Jesus, especially the preschool-sounding ones. I believe he made them simple because we are so good at complicating things.

Church, Missional, Politics

The Pride Flag, From A Different Point Of View.

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Have you ever felt that sense where God, your conscience, or your gut was pushing you to do something you did not want to do? Where nothing in your rational mind thought it to be a good idea, but everything in your subconscious was crushing against your soul with restless pressure? Well, that is what this story is all about. In fear, it’s one I would prefer not to write, yet I know fear is the opposite of what it means to walk in God’s perfect love. As Bonhoeffer reminds, the issue always at stake is not “How can I be good?” nor “How can I do good?” but rather “What is the will of God?” For me, this act is God’s will.

Yet I admit, my fears regarding the subject are anything but the product of paranoid speculation. The current climate of our divided society reminds me daily that what I’m about to embark upon risks the wrath of the culture war gods. Yes, the never slumbering metaverse is always willing to pour out indignation unto exile. Yet, it is my observation that contrary to how this pejorative is wielded, the “woke cancel culture” is as much a feature of the conservative religious right as it is of the liberal irreligious left. It might better be described as “anti-woke cancel culture,” but it’s merely the flip of the same coin. In fact, it was my own evangelical heritage that inaugurated what some progressives have gone on to perfect. Both are all too willing to leverage fear, shame, force, outrage, financial punishment, and social banishment as tools of compliance. Neither of which reminds me of the upside-down and backward ethos of Jesus. Of the latter group, I have no such expectations; thus, I take no offense. Of the former, it breaks my heart and often tests my own resolve for reasons that will become apparent.

Thus I write – a rather long story – as an evangelical.

To my fellow evangelicals (though everyone is free to come along).

About painful failures and lessons learned as the parent of an LGBT+ child.

And so… (deep breath)… let’s begin.

Last month was June.

In the Boswell home, June is the busiest month of the year. My wife’s birthday is on the 4th. Our anniversary immediately comes on the 9th. Followed by our oldest daughter’s birthday on the 11th. And then, finally, at the end of the month is the birthday of our youngest and only son Grayson. Gray is our baby (though he’s rolling in on 23 years old and stands taller than his old man now). He was always a happy kid. Right there in the moment. Never focusing too much on what was behind, nor worrying about what was up ahead. A kid who would take 30 minutes to fulfill a 5-minute task as he got sucked into a hundred tiny distractions along the way. In many ways, Gray was the life of the home.

At 12 years old Gray’s world changed. Our world changed. I’m uncertain exactly when Gray knew the earth was shifting under his feet. We’ve never really discussed that element, but at 12, his inner world spilled into our world as a family. One day I came upon Gray playing a video game where his avatar presented with some possibly gay markers. He quickly tried to turn off the game so I didn’t see, but he was just a bit too slow on the draw. Instantly he jumped onto his bed and buried his face in his pillow. He reacted as one caught, exposed, afraid. My wife and I sat with him on his bed, trying to coax him out like a wounded pup under a chair. Finally, I spoke the words I was as afraid to ask. Words he was terrified to answer, “Grayson, do you think you’re gay?” It’s a moment that I will never forget. He turned his face to us, looking as helpless as any human could, and immediately buried his face back into his pillow, crying. The answer spoken without a word. That day the world tilted for us all. A gay kid, from a pastor’s family, in an evangelical environment. How would that play? I wish I could say I handled it with grace and wisdom.

I did not.

Why did I not?

I recall my first exposure to anything about homosexuality was in elementary school. At recess, we would all rush from the classroom to our janky red dirt and gravel playground. It was there the recess game of the day would collectively choose us. While there was a rotating menagerie of favorites, two were the most prevalent. The first was Kickball, where the object was less a foot-based version of baseball and more about trying to kick the ball so hard your slip-on Vans flew off on impact with the ball and cleared 2nd base (moment of confession, we would all front load the kick by pulling our heel out of the shoe to ensure a solid flight time for those sweet checkered kicks). The second game was more straightforward, Smear the Queer (and yes, that feels uncomfortable to write). Here someone was branded “the queer,” and everyone else chased the queer until you caught them and then threw, flung, or forced them to the ground. Hence, you smeared the queer. But hey, it was the mid-1970s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

Around this time, our school had a new student. Being a small town, outsiders were always a curiosity to our ingrown ecosystem, and Adrian was as outsider as you can get. He talked differently, dressed oddly in short coveralls, and came from a place called Austria. When we would all go to the boy’s bathroom after recess, Adrian would unbuckle his coveralls, drop them to the floor, and pee at the urinal with his gleaming Austrian butt for all to see. “You know why he does that?” Sam asked me, “It’s because he’s a fa__ot.” By 4th grade, I was aware enough to know what Sam was saying. None of us had a clue if Adrian was gay or not. But the label stuck, and Adrian was mercilessly picked on as long as I knew him. In fact, the first time I ever saw a person punched in the face and knocked completely unconscious was Adrian. We were playing Smear the Queer, Adrian was just about to reach the “queer,” when the kid turned around and dropped Adrian cold. His reason, “I’m not letting some fa__ot touch me.” But hey, it was the late 1970s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

In high school, I knew of a couple of kids that might be gay, along with one of the girl’s P.E. teachers everyone assumed to be a lesbian. But everyone stayed firmly tucked away in closets. Base words such as d_ke, queer, fa_, fa__ot, and homo were spoken into the air with impunity. There was no sense of a future “wokeness” that would one day displace these as staples in public discourse. People would joke around about the limp-wristed types who spoke with a lisp and had a high fashion sense. Often there were creative innuendos that would make Eddie Murphy’s stand-up special “Raw” feel like a PG-13 TED Talk. Needless to say, to be gay was to be a social pariah. Queers were for smearing, mocking, and generally laughing at. But hey, it was the mid-1980’s and gays weren’t well-liked.

As high school was nearing a close, I enlisted in the Navy through the delayed entry program. One of the steps in this process is MEPS, the Military Entrance Processing Station. Here you are tested for aptitude, physical fitness, and other criteria. The two most common questions I encountered throughout the process were (a) “Have you done drugs?” and (b) “Are you gay?” Not, “Have you ever considered selling secrets to the Soviets?” or “Have you rooted for Army instead of Navy in the college matchup?” Nope, I was asked twice about drugs and perhaps five to six times if I was gay. In fact, at one point, I was with some other kid who was hoping to be Army bound. As we were going through a physical, the doctor sprung both questions on the two of us. I gave a snappy “No sir.” to both questions. My MEPS partner, on the other hand, was “No” to being gay but “Yes” to drugs, weed particularly. “How many times have you smoked weed?” the doctor asked. “Uh, probably between 700-800 times.” The previous night being the most recent occasion. The next time I saw this kid, he was swearing into the United States Army. Had he said “Yes” to the gay question, he would have been disqualified on the spot. But hey, it was the late 1980s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

A few years later, I was in a pastoral internship and taking classes at a local community college. For an elective course, I decided to take a class I figured would be an easy 5-credits, “Intercultural Communications.” I was a decent communicator and thought the class would be about giving speeches on various cultural assignments. Nope, not at all. It was about learning from and communicating with people from various sub-cultures. It was here I heard my first insider baseball talk from the gay community. Up to this point, I was only exposed to one side, the side of my childhood. From there, I graduated into the voices of “The Religious Right” and the “Moral Majority,” which were engaged in a culture war for the soul of America. I was an evangelical, and all evangelicals were well versed in the dangers of “The Gay Agenda” that was seeking to push “special rights” above everyone else’s good old fashion Constitutional rights. The question of gays in the military was on the table with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the rhetoric was at a fever pitch. But, in this class, on some average Tuesday, I was exposed to a side of the discussion I had never experienced before. Real people discussing their real challenges, traumas, and heartbreak. I can’t recall either of the men’s names, but I vividly remember the emotion of that room and the profound shift in my heart toward this community. Both had been beaten up for being gay. Their families had rejected both. One was just diagnosed with AIDS, and the other was worried for his non-partner friend. My evangelical spaces had all sorts of theories for why these men “chose to be gay,” as it was framed. Their moms were too controlling. Their dads were uninvolved. Both were most certainly molested, of course. They also had theories on why the one man was doomed to die of AIDS, God’s judgment on his immoral behavior. AIDS was God’s solution to the gay epidemic. Countless women and children were also inflicted with AIDS throughout Africa due to infidelity and rape. However, they were people of color and way over there, the unfortunate collateral damage of God’s war on queers. That was the standard evangelical attitude in those days. But hey, it was the early to mid-1990s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

Shortly after this small step into the gay world, I had my first true set of gay friends, but I didn’t know they were gay. They were deep in the back of the closet behind grandpas old raincoat. One was Jon, the pastoral intern whom I eventually replaced. Jon and I met together weekly for well over a year. He was an awesome guy. Thoughtful, funny, and intelligent. He had a long-time girlfriend whom he had never kissed. I thought that strange at the time. This was before the whole “I Kissed Dating Goodbye, So Don’t Kiss A Girl Till You’re Married, Or You’re Not Serious About Your God” craze, so having never kissed her after years of being together should have been some sign. Anyway, Jon and I had a lot of transparent conversations where, in retrospect, I think he was trying to come out, but the risk of loss was just too high. Eventually, Jon did come out, a few years after we lost contact, and with that, he lost both his church friends and his Catholic family. Another friend was Greg. Greg was a student in our youth program, where I interned and eventually pastored. Greg was the mega servant guy. He was always showing up early, always staying late. Greg was the person you could depend on. I assumed when he graduated from high school, he might pivot into our internship program to become a pastor one day. Instead, Greg enlisted into the Marine Corps, and man, talk about a transformation. Greg was a husky guy going in, but came out of boot camp 100% a Bulldog. He lived, breathed, loved, and was willing to die a Jarhead for country and kin. And it was as a Marine that Greg began to explore the deep secret of his homosexuality. The era of no gays in the military hit the infamous slippery slope in the 90s when it acknowledged there were, in fact, gays in the military. To combat the problem, a president loathsome to evangelicals named Bill Clinton pushed for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Evangelical leaders warned the move to be the end of the U.S. military and American greatness, but so far, everything is still standing. For a while, Greg sought to comply, but the pressure mounted. Unable to reconcile the Marine Corps values of Honor, Courage, Commitment, Integrity, his deeply held Christian faith, and his secret homosexuality, Greg sought to take his own life. The attempt landed him in a military hospital and under the eye of his command. For weeks they grilled him daily on why he attempted to kill himself. Greg would soon discover that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” cuts one direction, the higher-ups can put a lot of pressure on the asking, and your job as a lowly grunt is to hold up and not tell. Greg finally told and was instantly greeted with Uncle Sam’s boot. A few days later, I found Greg on my doorstep in a daze. Unceremoniously ejected from everything that had been his identity and on the heels of a suicide attempt. In this fragile state, recovering from the trauma and figuring out what’s next with his life, the church we both had formerly attended publicly excommunicated Greg during three Sunday services for his homosexuality. In some recent messaging back and forth, Greg shared how outside of myself, “Pretty much damn near everyone pushed me away at that point.” More than 13,500 service members were dismissed under the 1993 law. But hey, it was the mid to late 1990s, and gays weren’t well-liked.

In 2000 my son was born.

Gays still weren’t well-liked.

Twelve years down the road, we would discover our son is gay.

Would he be liked?

The span of the “aughts” (2000-2009) did see a shift in public tone. The culture wars sided up more evenly as stronger voices for gay rights and equity emerged to enter the arena against the moral majority. But the general tomes remained from the conservative religious community; gays clearly weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

In 2001 Jerry Falwell suggested that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were God’s judgment on America for, among other things, the gays. On the Pat Roberson’s 700 Club program, Falwell emphatically proclaimed, “I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.'” “Well, I totally concur,” responded Robertson. But hey, it was 2001, eleven years from finding out my son was gay. Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

During this period, there was the recurrent parade of boycotts, protests, and petitions to fight off “The Gay Agenda.” McDonald’s and Disney decided to allow employees to add “partners” to the health insurance plans. So a trifecta of the Southern Baptists, the American Family Association, and Focus on the Family called for an 8-yearlong boycott. Micky and McNuggets were out. We needed to use the power of Caesar’s money to force Christian morality on culture at large (and yes, that should sound ridiculous based on what Jesus says about money). I never understood why we didn’t want people to have health care, but it was a thing. Phrases such as “Hollywood is just shoving all this gay stuff down our throats.” was in vogue in my circles. I remember joking with my wife once that shows may need to give a trigger warning for conservative religious people, “Yes, this show will have a ‘token’ gay person or couple; watch at your own risk.” Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

Toward the end of the “aughts” the liberal land of California introduced Proposition 8, which passed with a 52% yes vote. What was Proposition 8? It declared that marriage was only between a man and a woman. Yes, in the land of Hollywood, hippies, and the homeland of the Pride movement, as recently as 2008, it was decided that homosexual marriage was still off-limits, even in California. Evangelicals saw this as validation that even those godless Californians were willing to hold the moral line. But hey, it was 2008, four years from finding out my son was gay. Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

In 2010 the Clinton-era legislation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was on the repeal stack before the U.S. Senate. Initially, Republicans managed to block the legislation with a 57-40 vote. When revisited, a GOP-led filibuster was attempted, but a supermajority procedural vote moved the bill past the threat of a Republican filibuster. During this time, military chaplains were most opposed to the change in legislation. Their concern was that they would be required to treat LGBT+ soldiers, airmen, and sailors the same as their heterosexual counterparts openly. Evangelical leaders also raised several objections, not only about the possibility of restricted religious freedoms for military chaplains but warned how the very survival of the republic was at stake if homosexuals openly served. They predicted a gutted military that would face catastrophic consequences for our nation in a time of war. Much of this idea was based on the notion that military success as a nation is directly tied to our collective holiness as a nation before God – our “blessability.” Just as in the Old Testament, where obedience and disobedience was the decisive issue in military victory, so too evangelicals sought to impose this on the American fighting force as a type of biblically rooted superiority. In the end, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed. Most Americans favored it in the spirit of Barry Goldwater, who said, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.” Most evangelicals, however, vilified it as yet another slouch toward Sodom and Gomorrah. But hey, it was 2010, two years from finding out my son was gay. Clearly, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

So, way back in 2002, shortly after “the gays were partly to blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the Southern Poverty Law Center began a program called “Mix It Up at Lunch Day.” The purpose was “to encourage students to cross social boundaries, disregard stereotypes, and shut down cliques by sitting with someone new at lunch.” The campaign operated in tandem with broader anti-bullying initiatives across the country and had grown from just a handful of schools in 2002 to over 2500 within ten years. However, in 2012 the program came under fire from the American Family Association as being “a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.” Mind you that nowhere in any of the materials were gay or lesbian issues specifically addressed, but the AFA maintained that “Anti-bullying legislation is… just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda.” Based on this conjecture, parents were encouraged to keep their kids home from “Mix It Up at Lunch Day.” But hey, it was 2012. And I had just found out my son was gay. And clearly, still, gays weren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

That year my role shifted. For 12 years, I had been my son’s father, provider, protector.

Now…

I would be his first bully.

I write that with a heart filled with shame and eyes flooded with tears.

I knew those words would need to come.

I wrote them 5 minutes ago, and I’m still weeping.

I hope no parent ever makes the same mistakes I made.

Had he been anyone else’s child, I would have met them with empathy, compassion, and conversation. My exposure to the two men in my Intercultural Communications course years ago gave me great sympathy for the LGBT+ community, as had my friend Greg. But this was my son. I knew what awaited him in my evangelical world. And for every wrong reason one can imagine, I became his first bully.

Why?

Because clearly, gays weren’t well-liked, especially by evangelicals.

In all honestly, fear motivated me. I feared my overall evangelical community in relationship to my son. I knew how they spoke of the LGBT+ community. I knew the jokes, jabs, assumptions, mischaracterizations, and unilateral disapproval. The endless stream of protests, boycotts, and petitions to stop all the agendas for people like my son. They were upset about cakes, flowers, and photography for people like Grayson. I knew he would be the oddity. You know, the kid for whom “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” was created when all the evangelical kids were encouraged to stay home so as not to inadvertently affirm people like my son. I knew people would whisper, “The Boswell kid has got to be gay.” I knew they would look at him with pity, piety, or worse. They would judge his speech, posture, apparel, gait, character, and very identity. He may very well be a complex person with all sorts of layers, but he would be reduced to the pejorative “homosexual,” with an emphasis on homo.

Also, I was an evangelical pastor. I could lose my job. I’m not just saying that. Pastors have lost their positions over having gay kids, so it’s real. Our family would need to move. We had just gotten settled after a rough four years. We had just started a new church in the last year. Having an openly gay son would risk everything.

And what of our future relationship? Evangelical churches excommunicate practicing LGBT+ people. It happened to my friend Greg. People were told to have nothing to do with Greg except call him to repentance, to not so much as even have a meal with him. Would Grayson be excommunicated? Would I need to honor the words of 1 Corinthians 5-6 and never have any relationship with him ever again if he were to go down this road? What about his sisters? Honor prayed for this little brother and has adored him from day one. Emma and Grayson are only 20 months apart and thick as thieves. Would they be forced to decide between a relationship with God or Grayson?

And Ellen…

My sweet wife. She cried with sheer joy when she found out she was having a son. The pregnancy was hard. The months that followed Grayson’s birth were even more challenging due to a health issue induced by the pregnancy. She fought like hell for the first year of his life. And invested passionately every year following. Staying home as a mom. Opting to homeschool all three of the kids as their teacher. Reading countless books on Christian parenting and education. Doing everything “right” to ensure her kids turned out to be godly adults. Making every day an intentional deposit for a tight-knit family.

Ellen and Grayson are particularly close. Two peas from the same pod. What would it mean for them? For us all?

The fears piled on quickly.

And so the attempt to course correct (i.e., bullying) began.

Don’t stand like that!

Don’t sit like that!

Don’t walk like that!

Don’t speak like that!

Why are you going to wear that?

Why do you like stuff like that?

I was counseled to “Dude him up.” So I bought him a motorcycle. Built R.C. cars with him. Drug him out on hikes with a machete. Taught him to shoot guns. Made him watch “Braveheart” to see how real Scottish men act. You know, I focused on a monochromatic vision of masculinity. One in which, quite honestly, I’m not even entirely comfortable with but felt I needed to embrace to fit within my evangelical world. We did have some fun in those times, but my goal wasn’t as much fun as fixing. In hindsight, I see what this was. I’ve always been a massive opponent of Reparative/Conversion Therapy. I think it’s pretty destructive stuff. I’m grateful many states and countries have made the practice illegal. But I was engaged in a twisted version without even realizing it.

Throughout this time, he tried to talk to me about what was happening in his inner world. And I would hear him, but I wasn’t listening to him. I would push back. Challenge his perspectives. Redefine his words, his feelings, his point of view. We would banter about the nomenclature of “same-sex attraction” versus “gay.” He would maintain he was the latter, and I would retort by saying he may be – at most – dealing with the former. It was a battle of identity. How stupid I was. At the very time in life when kids are at their most insecure and vulnerable, I visited upon my son the sins of my father.

Growing up, I didn’t have the best relationship with my father. I was made to feel like I was always some disappointment. I swore I would never do that to my kid.

Until I did.

At 15, everything came to a head. Through a series of events, I discovered our son had a friendship with another young man that was more than mere friendship. The conversation escalated quickly. Grayson wanted to help me understand. I refused. He tried to stand his ground. I had intimidation on my side. I brought every verbal threat an evangelical pastor parent could muster. I could lose my job, we would lose our home, the family would be wrecked, we may not be able to maintain a relationship with you, and you may face an eternity in hell; you get the gist. In effect, I said, “You are going to destroy our entire lives if you do this.” Pretty heavy and devastating stuff to throw down on a kid trying to figure himself out. And it worked. I shoved my son back into the closet he had been attempting to come out of since he was 12. In reality, I only established a new equilibrium, a homegrown version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He maintained all the right words while seeking to send every, “but hey, I’m still gay” signal he could. He planned to say the right stuff until he graduated. Then he could come out without that added burden of putting his family at risk. He assumed, understandably, that it would mean no further relationship with the family who meant so much to him, but to be true to who he was would require loss and rejection.

Grayson didn’t make it to graduation before coming out once and for all. A few months into his senior year, another series of events caused Grayson to pretty much fall right out of the closet. Sitting on our front porch, he sobbed as he told me, “I just don’t believe like you believe. I just don’t. I can’t do it anymore.” That day I just held my son and cried with him. Shortly after, my wife pulled up. She held him and wept. The 5-year quest to stop the inevitable was finally at its end. Now we would find out if all our fears would be realized.

That afternoon I called our church leadership and broke the news that my son was going to live an openly gay lifestyle.

That evening our leaders and some additional close friends came to our house. We talked, cried, and prayed together. We discussed that my job may need to come to a close with this revelation. That is one of the issues our leaders needed to work through. We also decided that I would share about our son being gay at church that Sunday. Kind of crazy right? How many families have to go through such stuff so publicly? But it’s a pastor’s life in a small town. News travels fast, and I knew where there is no story, one will be created. We also discussed the need to make Grayson feel loved and welcomed at church. Ideas were tossed around about having everyone in our church write him a card of encouragement. I also asked our then youth pastor to please take an added interest in Grayson, something I had been asking for regularly but never really materialized up to this point. As the night ended, everyone hugged my wife and me. But, as my son later noted, everyone came over to comfort you, but that night only one person stopped to check on me. He doesn’t blame or fault anyone for that, but he also took note of it.

That Friday, our leaders concluded that I was not disqualified from pastoral ministry even though I had an openly gay son. On Sunday, I shared our story with the church at large. A couple of families left the church, citing I sounded too affirming, but the majority responded with compassion. It was a relief. Perhaps all my fears, all those decades of conditioning, would be disproven. Which would only highlight how awful I had been with all the needless mistreatments my son endured.

When it came to Ellen and me, we felt incredibly loved by people. Most could identify with the perils of parenthood and thus extend to us nothing but grace. But, the story with Grayson was a bit different. The idea of having everyone send him a card of encouragement never materialized, except for a couple of families who took personal and heart-felt imitative. And my hopes of our youth pastor making a proactive investment played out in an opposite manner. Instead, an entire youth group night was dedicated to all the rumors people had heard about Grayson. Our youth pastor approached me the next day to let me know about all the other things I may not be aware of that kids were openly sharing the night before at youth group. That conversation was the only time I can ever recall fully “losing my shit” regarding a fellow staff person. I was fighting for the soul of my son, and the environment I needed to step up the most was sabotaging all efforts. At my son’s work, his interactions with people from church were a mixed bag. Some would come in and double down on friendliness. He loved that. Others would come in and display a subtle aloofness where there had once been warmth. Some kids in the youth group were particularly an issue since every gossipy speculation shared on that fateful Wednesday night was codified as fact since there was never follow-up to clear the air, confront hearsay, or correct statements made.

Overall, I think some people weren’t sure what to do with him, and he sensed it. We sensed it too. And that is true with most LGBT people and the evangelical landscape. At best, pity feels far more like the emotion in play than love. In fact, I still catch hints of the pity at times when people ask how my kids are doing. When asking about my daughters, the octave is usually higher and spirited, “How are Honor and Emma?” When asking the same question about Grayson, the tone drops into that slightly burdened “bless your heart” range. Now, please understand I don’t share any of this in hurt or blame or to shame, but as a tool to learn from and grow in applying the deeply needed feature of uncomfortable grace.

It’s funny; I commonly hear evangelical people say how coming out as LGBT+ is so popular today because you are instantly hailed as a courageous hero without really doing much of anything. I can’t speak for all LGBT+ people, but I can guarantee that my son has never been heralded as any hero. I agree it took grit for him to stay the course of his journey, but precisely because he knew he might suffer significant loss and villainization. And that villain persona persists. We live in the liberal land of Seattle, and still, my son faces insults and ridicule for being gay. The first time he was openly called a “fa__ot” was walking through, of all places, a Target in Redmond, WA. Also, on a walk around Green Lake once with his boyfriend, a group of guys decided to harass “the queer-y fa__ots” who needed to stop holding hands in public. Grayson has shared other stories about the judgment he and some of his friends have faced, especially in the trans community. Even today, I talked with a dad who needed to get our local police department involved with escalating physical harassment toward their transgender child. It’s a lot of pressure when you know a large portion of the country doesn’t like you simply for who you love or the gender you sense. For every group vocalizing support for the LGBT+ community, there is a sea of counter-voices to let them know they are oddities who threaten Western civilization. That’s a lot of psychological weight, especially for a young and anxious soul.

Which brings me back to June.

Where clearly, still, gays aren’t well-liked by evangelicals.

June is Pride Month for the LGBT+ community—that time of year when the gays and evangelicals go to social media war over the rainbow. Oddly, the coalition of anti-Pride is comprised of a hybrid of backgrounds, all unified under the tent of anti-Woke politics. I find this odd only in that most evangelicals see those other faith traditions as theologically hell bound. Yet, cultural foes sometimes require strange alliances in the face of societal slide. It should be the start of a joke, “Why did the Jewish political pundit, the White Nationalist, and the Evangelical set aside their beliefs and walk into a bar? To discuss how to shut down the drag bar across the street before they’re tempted to read ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ to kids at the library.” This year’s Rainbow Wars did not disappoint, which is what was so disappointing.

Before Pride month began, there was all sorts of clamor over Bud Lite doing a marketing campaign with a transgender social media influencer. Next, there was the perennially vilified Target and its Pride apparel line. Apparently, Jesus doesn’t want LGBT+ people drinking cheap pilsner or wearing colorful clothes from non-Christian companies. Next came attacks on Chick-fil-A for hiring a head of inclusion and equity. Immediately following this were calls to cancel the television show “The Chosen”(a show all about the life of Jesus) when a Pride flag was spotted behind the scenes on the gear of a cameraman. People were gleefully posting infographics about how much the worth of Target and Anheuser-Busch had fallen in the face of boycotts. Kid Rock took to his submachine gun to wipe out a stack of Bud-Lites in protest, as though that doesn’t send a violent signal toward trans people. Others vented about how sick and tired they were of all the Pride flag stuff being jammed down their throats at every turn. Evangelicals reminded everyone of the real meaning of the rainbow and to take the colors back for Christ. Even “The Ark Encounter” in Kentucky went to social media with the Noahic replica awash in the hues of the rainbow to reclaim the colors. And as the month closed, the LGBT+ community was handed another setback as the Supreme Court sided with a Christian web developer in Colorado who did not want to provide wedding services to same-sex couples. It’s odd, but as best as I can tell, the LGBT+ community is the only group businesses can legally discriminate against regarding certain goods and services in the marketplace. I can easily see the day when a White Christian Nationalist refuses goods or services to a mixed-race couple because it violates their religious convictions regarding the mark of Cain in Genesis 4. Even atheists business may join the religious conviction model by refusing goods and services to those who disagree with the moral code of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Based on the court’s reasoning, I’m not sure this wouldn’t be a protected position for anyone presenting a religious conviction. Then add to this all the hyperbolic speak around transgender athletes, state laws, school board meetings, and book bans, and the inevitable walk away for a person in the LGBT+ community is pretty apparent – forget whether evangelicals love you or not, they certainly don’t like you at all.

And thus… why would they ever want to listen to us?

We can’t keep dropping anti-LGBT+ cluster bombs in the culture war and then say, “But let me tell you about Jesus who loved you so much he came and died for you.” Which of us would want to lean into, learn from, and do life with a group that collectively sounds like they have little to no regard for you? I learned this lesson the hard way. I have spent years making up for it. And still, regularly, I hear the tone-deafness of my overall evangelical world on the subject. It’s all very religious but looks so little like Christ. Now, I know some will reply, “Matt, don’t forget, love the sinner hate the sin!” Great! Let’s work with that. Let’s make sure the LGBT+ community feels unmistakably loved because many think we only see them as sin.

Which brings me back to June for the last time, Pride Month, and that 6-striped rainbow flag. Many may not realize it, but the colors of the Pride flag have meaning.

Red: Life
Orange: Healing
Yellow: Sunlight
Green: Nature
Blue: Harmony/Serenity
Purple: Spirit

Neither I nor my faith convictions are at odds with those six themes. Thus, as the parent of a gay child, I confess I am grateful for the work of the Pride movement. I know that is not the evangelical thing to say, but if Christians had historically faced this issue more like Christ, I might not feel the need to admit it. My faith tradition does not have a great track record of understanding, compassion, or civic tolerance toward the LGBT+ community. We love the founding fathers and their assertion that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But regarding the equality between heterosexuals and homosexuals, it’s more like Huxley, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” If it wasn’t for this movement, I’m not sure who would have sought to ensure the LGBT+ community would have civil rights, equal protection under the law, the right to serve their country openly, and general acceptance in everyday society. The Pride flag, to me, is not synonymous with sexual activity but symbolizes a marginalized community’s hard-fought efforts to be treated with equality, dignity, and civility. And thus, the Pride flag has a meaning far different for me; it represents a community that cared about equality for people like my son when the culture at large and the evangelicalism, in particular, would never have done so. In fact, I have found that the evangelical groups and ministries who are courageously seeking to build a bridge, bring healing, and repent for the sins of callousness and unkindness toward the LGBT+ population are doing so mainly because the Pride movement exposed our offenses of indifference and injustice. Consequently, I’m grateful for those in the LGBT+ community who went before so that people like my son would feel cared about while simultaneously confronting our tendency toward a Christ-absent Christianity regarding LGBT+ people.

So why do I write all this?

I have three asks.

And one confession.

First, I write this for every parent who comes across that moment when they discover their child may be asking LGBT+ questions. Our story stands as a cautionary tale. Whatever you do and whichever resources you seek, don’t become your child’s bully. Walk with them. Pray for them. Show the absolute best of Jesus to them. Be compelling through kindness. And ready… be prepared to learn a lot along the way. Also, feel free to reach out to me. I often find that only those who live it fully understand it.

Second, I hope we evangelicals work harder at what it means to obey Jesus’s golden rule of Matthew 7:12, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Ask almost any LGBT+ person, and they will surely tell you how unloved they feel by those who claim the love of God… especially in June. Now, I’m not asking evangelicals to become Pride-affirming, flag-waving allies, but simply Christlike neighbors who do good to and speak kindly of their LGBT+ family and acquaintances; in person, in private, in public, and online. As a pastor friend recently said, “Wouldn’t it be great if evangelicals stopped playing the public square equivalent of ‘smear the queer’ and instead just stopped to listen to and befriend the queer?” His words rang with the echoes of Jesus when a woman was drug into the town center to be condemned by religion and instead was met by the fierce love of God. And that reminds me of what Melinda Selmys wrote in her work Sexual Authenticity, “[Sexual minorities] are not a problem for experts and theologians to solve… They are, first and foremost, the face of Christ, marginalized, bullied, misunderstood, spit upon and rejected, and absolutely beloved of God.”

Third, I invite my evangelical friends to graciously stand up for people in the LGBT+ community when they see them being bullied, mocked, mischaracterized, or treated as the butt of a joke or meme. Too often, I see online jabs and jokes directly or indirectly targeting this population. And in talking with people in the LGBT+ community, many have religious traumas related to mistreatment. We are called to be a population of peacemaking. Incarnating a counter-cultural Christ who used selflessness and grace to draw and heal wounded souls. In this, I’m not advocating we start “calling out” the bullies as bullies ourselves, but instead, we exercise a touch of humanity and privately “call in” to offer encouraging options for dealing with cultural differences in a more kindness-based way.

Finally, I write this as penance. Jesus said, “Woe to those who make these little ones stumble.” I believe that to have been my offense with my son, and for that, I must accept my fate. Like the Pharisees before me, I placed upon Grayson “burdens too heavy to bear.” I should have approached those early years like these last few. Fear drove the former; now, love and faith drive the latter. My 23-year-old son no longer claims a Christian faith, but he has shown me a Jesus-like compassion I wish I would have shown 12-year-old him.

Yesterday I sent this article to Grayson. Shortly after, he called me. He was crying and wanted me to know it was ok. That he understood why we did what we did. And that he hurt with us as his parents. He told me how much he loves me and is proud that I’m his dad. Go figure; he was looking out for me. I broke down. I’m weeping again just recounting the moment, as one slain by the power of undeserved grace.

And Grayson… we are proud of you.

I love you, “wingman.”

Politics

The Problem Of Voting “Biblically” In Babylon

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MB PostsMy cultural tribe is of the evangelical persuasion. And within my tribe there is an interesting and sometimes entertaining nomenclature related to the social life of the tribe. We say things that others who are not from within the tribe may fail to translate properly. For example when an evangelical says, “I echo that” it has nothing to do with shouting into valleys or performing a medical test. When we say, “She found Jesus!” we don’t imply that Jesus is the Waldo of the world and people try to find where He is, but rather we mean just the opposite in that the “she” was lost and Jesus found her. Yeah, it can be a bit confusing at times, especially in an election cycle.

It seems every four years (because let’s be honest, who gets excited about off-year elections) evangelicals begin ramping up with phrases such as “vote your conscience” or “vote biblically” or my favorite “it’s your obligation to vote.” Now everyone one of these in and of itself isn’t a wrong idea. I actually find myself sympathetic to all of them in some form. But the challenge Clan Evangelical faces is that most of these phrases are pre-loaded with a particular implied meaning. Thus when the expressions are used the implied translation is, “and by that we mean vote for the conservative Republican that espouses our social priorities since all other options are neither biblical nor conscionable.” In other words we all know what constitutes a truly “Christian” vote (insert wink and nod here), but let’s use ubiquitous words such as “conscience” and “biblical” as code for politically conservative voting.

Now believe it or not this is not where I find the problem. I do believe there are times where particular politicized issues reflect transcendent Christian virtues. But voting biblically (which should be concerned with matters far deeper than ideology alone) is not as simple as a matter of assessing platform or party. In fact I would venture to say that what might even be more critical than the platform of a candidate is the character they display. And when that is factored in you may find yourself in a biblical conundrum when a person with questionable character who advocates a more “biblical” platform is running against a person with stronger character and yet a weaker “biblical” platform. So then which is the more biblical vote, the vote for character or policy? Or to complicate it more, what happens if we find that both sides are a mix of biblical and unbiblical policy and character (also known as the Republicans and Democrats)? Should we want to claim that we are voting biblically when we know that our vote also empowers unbiblical priorities at times?

Perhaps toughest of all what happens when both candidates are unbiblical, but for different reasons? This is where we employ a new phrasing, “voting for the lessor of two evils.” Now for the record I don’t think it’s an easy case to make that voting for evil is biblical, even if it’s a lessor one. Yet I think this phrase occurs because we are told, “it’s your obligation to vote” implying that to refrain from voting is in and of itself more unbiblical than casting a ballot for Mr. Sinister to stop Mrs. Wicked.

Now there are some, in order to fulfill their binding obligation to vote but not wanting to vote for evil, stay with their model of voting based on their conscience and they write in a “really-quality-biblically-minded-totally-obscure-never-will-win-but-has-great-values” candidate only to be told by others how they threw away their vote and thus bare a repentant-worthy culpability in handing the country to Mrs. Wicked. I experienced this first hand when confronted by my fellow evangelicals for “throwing away my vote” in 2012 when I voted for JESUS in the Presidential election. It’s a weird experience when you vote JESUS and you’re told by fellow Christians that you sinned against the country and squandered your vote. It was there I found that within our evangelical jargon voting “biblically” according to “conscience” only counts if it’s also realistic and practical.

I could go on, but all of this illustrates the problem of exiles seeking to vote with a biblical conscience in Babylon – it’s not as clear-cut as it first seems.

  • For some, voting biblically will mean looking at the personal character of a candidate more than their platform.
  • For some, voting biblically will mean backing the platform of a particular party even if the person who represents it is lacking.
  • For some, voting biblically will mean centering on just one single topic because they feel it’s a topic God is profoundly clear on such as life, poverty, peace or family.
  • For some, voting biblically will mean casting a vote against a greater evil by invoking a lessor evil.
  • For some, voting biblically will mean voting for someone who cannot win but who is honorable and thus they are honored to support them.
  • For some, voting biblically will mean writing in JESUS as an act of prayer and offering to God asking that He might heal our culture.
  • For some, voting biblically will mean not voting at all because they feel to vote is to endorse and to endorse is to give approval to that which they do not approve of.
  • For most, more than one of these methods will be employed in an election cycle as their options thin out and thus their biblical vote adapts.

And I would say that all of these are legitimate ways in which Christians can properly vote with a biblical conscience since the Christian conscience is not a one size fits all. In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul faces this very problem and asks, “Why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience?” Indeed! How Scripture, Spirit, context and conscience collide in regard to culture can have different outcomes for different Christians and yet each still remains biblical in their orientation.

However what is not biblical is when our vote is motivated by fear, greed, anger, bigotry, idolatry, guilt or power. Thus it’s equally possible to vote for the most biblical platform in the most unbiblical way. For to be truly biblical in our earthly citizenship is to remember that we must be loyal to a greater eternal citizenship. This world should receive from us primarily gospel, grace, service and love of neighbor and enemy alike because we know the systems of this world are frail, broken, unreliable and ultimately doomed to judgment. Therefore where we have the opportunity to be most biblical in our personal vote is in our awareness of and confidence in the truth that God is sovereign over the affairs of humanity in the collective electorate. The consistent narrative of the Bible is that God alone “removes kings and sets up kings”[1] for a larger sovereign purpose. In this way, to vote most biblically is to cast a ballot with confident joy in His provision and then respond with courageous contentment regardless of the outcome. Or as Paul put it in Philippians 4,

10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

To vote biblically is ultimately to vote unto the glory of God without relegating our hopes, fears or faith to the politics of man.

[1] Here is a list of passages that shows God Himself is ultimately the one who sets up the kings of the world. Daniel 2:20-22; 37, 4:13-17; 25-26; 31-32, 5:21, John 19:10-11, Luke 4:5-8, Romans 9:17; 13:1-6, 1 Peter 2:13-17 and Revelation 17:17.

Church

Decapitating Jesus

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MB PostsChrist is the head of the church, His body, and is himself its Savior.    Ephesians 5:23

I recently wrote a pragmatic response to the alleged reasons people are leaving the church. I call them alleged because I suspect there are just as many sin-inspired or self-satisfying reasons as there are “justifications.” But my goal here is not to re-pound that sand. My purpose runs deeper. I want to target the biggest problem exiters (those who are officially rejecting church all together while still claiming Jesus) face, “How exactly does one go about decapitating Jesus without killing Him in the process?”

In the western mind everything can be segregated for personalized appeal. “Selection” is the optimal word in marketing. “Customization” beckons us to put the “ME” stamp on everything from phones to diets and cars to cloths. Individuality, personalization and particularity dominate the landscape of American life, and that slams straight into Christian attitudes about spirituality, ecclesiology and theology. Specific to this topic, it laces people with the illusion that one is free to retain Jesus and their Christian spirituality, but to reject the church and all it’s irritating fragility. It’s customized spirituality at consumerism’s finest, but is such a division biblically permissible? Can a Christian separate the head of Jesus from the shoulders of His body and still follow Him in the way the New Testament specifies?

Now it would be easy to make this matter complicated by raising all the emotional and practical baggage that is associated with the discussion. However, I want to make this as simple as possible, not because simplicity makes it easier to swallow, but because some truths should be communicated to professing Christians with a simple matter-of-factness, minus the sentimental caveats that are designed to soften up the listener. And yes, I am aware that last sentence is beginning to sound a little harsh, but I would maintain that we are discussing truths here and truths are not inherently harsh. Opinions are harsh, people are harsh, circumstances can even be harsh, but truths are just truths. They may feel like cold comfort in that we don’t like certain truths, but they endure unabated precisely because they are fixed regardless of our feelings, situations or opinions. And so here is the simple truth, it is biblically impossible to decapitate Jesus, stick His head under your arm and move along with your own disembodied Christ. One must take Him head and body or – by default – He is rejected altogether.

In 1 Corinthians 12:12 & 27 Paul unequivocally highlights this truth when he writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ… 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Notice that Paul does not advocate a distinction between the Person of Christ and the Body of Christ as though they are complementary partners with distinct boarders of independence. He says that just as the body is one, so it is with Christ. Do a double take on that. The fullness of Christ isn’t isolated from the church (neither the church universal or local – remember 1 Corinthians is written to a local church after all); rather the church is an extension of what constitutes the fullness of Christ’s glory revealed. As one set of commentators put this, “Christ may be said to be a body with many members” therefore “to dishonor any part of Christ’s body is to dishonor Christ himself.”* Now we should not read this as some weird quazi-Christian-pantheism, but we must read it in the sense that the Body of Christ is ultimately indivisible from the Head of Christ because together this displays the Glory of Christ. I know this all sounds very mysterious, but truths are no less true simply because they are filled with mystery (Ephesians 5:32).

In the big picture, to reject the church – locally or universally – is to reject how Christ chooses to display His very own self. You may not want to accept that. You may attempt to reduce what you are rejecting to a frigid political institution of religious jargon and entertainment saturated marketing, but you rejecting far more in the process. For in leaving the church entirely you do more than divest yourself of a governing board, philosophy of ministry or group of people; you are also leaving that which Christ identifies as part of Himself. Therefore the raw reality is that any wholesale rejection of Christ’s Body, driven by personal hurts or biases, will not hold up as legitimate before Christ who is the Head. Jesus will not allow individuals to enthrone Him as their decapitated king. He cannot be divided against Himself for the fulness of His glory is shown through His unification as Head and Body (Ephesians 4:1-6). The gospel brought this together (Colossians 1:24-29) and no disgruntled, disenfranchised or discouraged Christian has the authority to tear it asunder.

Now are there some wonky local churches and jacked up denominations? Yes! But there are also a great number of them getting far more things right than wrong.

  • Churches that are filled with people who also have been hurt, but don’t give up.
  • Churches that are struggling with how to love a pluralistic culture while still maintaining a biblical vision of life.
  • Churches that are fighting to pursue a healthy blend of what it takes to reach consumers while still developing true disciples.
  • Churches that are proclaiming the fullness of the Bible while still admitting the ongoing battle to become everything Jesus seeks.
  • Churches that are replete, not with judgmental hypocrites, but imperfect people who are imperfectly trying to “be perfect as their Father in Heaven is perfect.”

So come back! We all agree that the church at times can seem like a saggy, broken, out of shape body with stretch marks and a few scars, but it’s Jesus’s very own Body which is indivisibly and gloriously joined to His headship (Ephesians 5:25-30 & 32).

[*] Vaughen & Lea, 1 Corinthians BSC, p.150 & Ciampa & Rosner, 1 Corinthians PNTC, p.609

Missional

7 Reasons Evangelicals Must Become The Most Tolerant Group In Culture.

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MB PostsIn the current lexicon the word “tolerant” is about as loaded as a pub-hopping Irishman on St. Paddy’s Day. It’s the brave new litmus test that discerns whether one is an enlightened and understanding citizen, or an outdated bigot who deserves to be branded with an “ic” or “ist” tacked onto the back of some culturally untouchable word. Because of this, I need to take a moment to unpack how I’m using the word. I will do this by differentiating between new and true tolerance.

The “new tolerance,” as DA Carson christened it, is the pervading cultural pressure to affirm the beliefs and behaviors of others, provided those beliefs and behaviors are legal, consensual and/or harmless to the majority. Now, much of this definition I am prepared to live by, with the exception of the pivotal word, “affirm”. See, I expect my culture to engage in things that I sometimes find to be wrong. Equally, I expect my culture to look upon some of my beliefs and behaviors the same way. That is the nature of a democratic and multicultural society. But to impose the added requirement of affirmation is a game changer.

Lexically the idea of affirmation is an artificial addition and has nothing to do with the “true tolerance.” The Oxford Dictionary defines “tolerant” as, “Showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.” Based on this, tolerance is actually what is required of a person when they specifically do not support something. At best, tolerance asks us to respectfully co-exist with differences we do not affirm for the sake of civility and discourse.

Thus for the evangelical, true tolerance does not require unfiltered affirmation of beliefs or behaviors the Bible calls sinful, but it does require a relational acceptance of all people in the hope that the transforming grace of the gospel will penetrate their lives. In this sense evangelicals must rise up as the most truly tolerant group in culture for seven reasons:

1. Because We Must Compensate For Our Crazy Drunk Uncles.

Do you have a crazy uncle? He shows up at Thanksgiving wild-eyed, outspoken,a bubble off center and guzzling Pabst Blue Ribbon like a camel on empty at a desert oasis. In the media it seems they often manage to find evangelicalism’s crazy drunk uncle to give airtime to. The result is that many who are not evangelicals think the crazy evangelical who made it as a sound bite on “The Daily Show” is how all evangelicals think and act.

I recently experienced this firsthand when a group of people automatically assumed that since I am an evangelical pastor I hate the president, despise the gay community, watch Fox News, listen to Rush Limbaugh and carry a gun. That last point is true; the rest is not. I don’t tune in to Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. I believe the president to be a well-intended man in a very difficult position. I care about the gay community as I do the rest of my culture. And as to the gun I carry, I don’t do it to make a point at Target, and I am not a member of the NRA. This doesn’t mean I agree or disagree with everything on Fox News, from Rush Limbaugh, by President Obama, in the gay community or about gun rights, but in the spirit of true tolerance I don’t need to. Rather I need to know how to graciously relate Jesus to all the views that swirl around me even regardless of whether I agree or disagree.

Only by going out of our way to establish caring friendships, so as to show people something beyond one-dimensional caricatures, will they begin to see real life evangelicals differently than our crazy drunk uncle TV pundits.

2. Because We Are To Be Tolerant, Just As God Is Tolerant.

Romans 2:4 says, “4 Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that His kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” (NLT). Every day that Jesus does not return is another massive global tolerance campaign. If it’s good enough for Jesus to be tolerant it’s good enough for those of us who follow Jesus. And the reason for the tolerance is profoundly missional; it’s intended to see people turn from their sins. Therefore, sitting on the other side of a cultural fence lobbing condemnations and frustrations will never be as effective as crossing the fence in the spirit of godly kindness in the hopes of seeing someone we love come to repentance.

3. Because We Need To Be Understanding To Reach The Unbelieving.

I think about Paul at Mars Hill. His first reaction upon reaching Athens was nothing short of disgust. It says in Acts 17:16 that when he saw the sheer scope of idols flocking the city “his spirit was provoked within him.” (ESV). The word “provoked” really doesn’t cut it here. The original Greek word paroxyno is where we get paroxysm, “a sudden attack or violent expression of a particular emotion or activity.” When people looked at Paul that day he had a gag reflex kicking in with a nervous twitch flapping over one eye. That is, until he recalled that this city didn’t know any better. They were doing exactly what they knew how to do because no one had shown them anything different. From this Paul downshifts and begins to relate to the people of the city. He begins to compliment them, speak their cultural language, and even quote from one of the very altars that caused him to flip his phylactery a few days earlier. In doing so he has no intention of selling out (as verses 31-32 eventually shows with the words such as repent and judgment), rather he is pressing in. Ultimately Paul chose suffering long, in the hopes of seeing others rescued from suffering forever.

4. Because We Have To Model What Actual Tolerance Is.

The new tolerance is as hypocritical as a chain-smoking dad busting his kid for sneaking a cigarette. It’s a selective acceptance that tolerates only what it affirms and stands rigidly intolerant to those who disagree. And those who advocate the new tolerance are not spending a great deal of time encouraging one another to love those who disagree with them. Just follow some of the recent trends in the media and you will see exactly how the new tolerance treats those who hold a different vision of the world. The exercise of true tolerance is branded as intolerance, which in turn solicits, even demands, banishment or shaming as the appropriate response.

For evangelicalism, however, part of our core command is to love our neighbor. We are reminded perpetually of the need to love people right where they are. To invest in those whom we may disagree with, to turn the other cheek when provoked and to even do good to an all out enemy. I realize we have not always done this well. Far too often we have slipped into imposed morality or personal offense, but we must continue to encourage one another in what the Bible commands of us toward those who don’t believe or behave as we do.This is true tolerance; it is the tolerance that evangelicals are the best at displaying and we must continue to model this more than ever in a culture that is losing the spirit of true diversity.

5. Because We Already Acknowledge Our Own Sinful Short Comings.

Evangelicals believe they are saved, grown and completed by gospel grace alone. It is a faith of walking shoes, not work boots. Thus when evangelicalism begins to sound chiefly like a religion of morality, we missed a turn somewhere. We know we don’t earn our standing before God; rather we follow the One who earned that standing for us – Jesus. Because our salvation is only by the grace of God, we should humbly be aware of our own sins, our various faults and our continued weakness. This is exactly why tolerance is necessary. Paul himself even says in Colossians 3, “12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (ESV). True tolerance doesn’t excuse sin, but it understands the struggle with sin, comes alongside in gentleness and points to the grace that can free and refresh. A good, honest look at the sinner in the mirror, coupled with gratitude for God’s grace, helps us to love the sinner across the street in true tolerance.

6. Because We Are The Ones Who Can Maintain The Importance Of Both Tolerance And Repentance.

The new tolerance seeks to free people from their sins by telling them their sins are not sinful. It is humanities’ attempt to save itself from its sins through the gospel of anesthetization. Yet the only road to abundant life passes through the door of repentance and grace. This is where evangelicals have the perfect combination. In true tolerance we can connect with people in a way that displays legitimate acceptance and love, but not at the cost of sharing the enduring message of God’s love that can forgive people of their sins and produce in them the life that excusing sin will never produce.

7. Because We Believe Only The Gospel Can Change People.

Culture wars are not for evangelicals. Every culture war has a deeper root that is the real war, and that root is sin. Not sins, but the actual cause, the nature of sin itself, Original Sin. Therefore to think that culture is the war is like battling the fever to cure the cancer. The real conflict is internal, supernatural, generational and trans cultural. It is a war that invades every layer of life in every person’s life, thus nothing done through the means of this world can change our deepest problem. Only an invasion from outside this world can change the sin of this world…

Which is why God sent Jesus.
Which is why Jesus received the Cross.
Which is why the Spirit raised Jesus.
Which is why Jesus sent the Spirit to testify of Himself and God.

God invaded our broken sphere in the person of Jesus to bring true transformation through the Spirit. Therefore…

Only the Gospel can confront our cultural sins.
Only the Gospel can restore our cultural soul.
Only the Church carries the Gospel that can change the culture we are called to love in the true tolerance of God.