The Bible & Homosexuality: Part 2

By Greg Downes. Published by Christianity Magazine in February 2013.

Link: http://www.christianitymagazine.co.uk/sexuality/gregdownes2.aspx

The issue of homosexuality and the Church is rarely out of the news.

It seems that ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ will now not keep quiet. The government’s plans to redefine marriage have dominated the news recently. However, this article is about the Bible and homosexual practice – surely the starting point before we get into any debate about ‘gay marriage’.

As I looked at today’s news, one feature was about a vicar in New Zealand who has caused offence by putting up a poster outside his church in Auckland that claims Jesus was gay. ‘It’s Christmas. Time for Jesus to come out’, the sign proclaims, with an image of baby Jesus as a toddler in a manger, surrounded by a halo coloured in the gay rainbow motif.

I remember clearly the one and only time that I met Sir Ian McKellen. It was at a set of traffic lights in Trafalgar Square. I happened to be passing by as a protest rally was ending. As we waited for the light to turn green, he turned to me and said, ‘Today will be the day when justice will be done.’ Not quite knowing what he was on about, I nodded in agreement, thinking that whatever it was sounded good. As I walked away, I realised that the rally had been a protest in favour of gay rights and later, that Wednesday 23rd February 1994 was the day the government lowered the age of consent for homosexual acts from 21 to 18.

Justice: that is what the issue of homosexuality has become for many people in our secular society. To many, to suggest homosexuality might not be the moral equivalent to heterosexuality is tantamount to racism.

These assumptions have permeated the Church, too, and there are even those from the evangelical tradition calling for a reappraisal of the traditional Christian understanding of homosexuality.

A Common Argument

A common argument we hear today is: ‘The Bible approves of slavery and the subjugation of women and the Church has moved on from these issues; surely it is consistent and logical to now champion gay rights?’

While the Bible does not repudiate slavery directly, as the book of Philemon reveals, the biblical view of humanity inevitably leads Christians to abolish slavery and find other ways to deal with debtors and prisoners of war (Philemon 1:15-16).

Likewise the Bible’s view of women, emerging from the misogyny of the prevailing cultural norms, culminates in the radical equality we see in the New Testament (Galatians 3:28).

With homosexual practice, we see no such development, nor does the Bible allow for the possibility of one. The Bible is uniformly negative about it. What’s more, unlike the issues of slavery and gender, it does not relate to a person’s God-given worth but is a prohibition against a lifestyle that is chosen (even though same-sex attraction is clearly not).

In October’s edition of Evangelicals Now, the rector of St Ebbe’s Church, Oxford, Vaughan Roberts, gave an interview entitled ‘A Battle I Face’ in which he spoke about his own struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction and his decision to be celibate. He was asked whether giving pastoral counsel to those who themselves struggled with same-sex attraction had affected his decision to be more open. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘I pray for them every Monday from a list that is divided in two: Those who continue to seek to be faithful to the Bible’s teaching that the only right context for sexual intercourse is in a marriage between a man and a woman and those who have moved away from that view. Sadly, the second group is growing.’

It is no surprise that the numbers are growing as we live in times where there is a theological paradigm shift happening in the Church on the issue. It is more than a coincidence that this theological shift is mirroring a massive cultural shift in society at large, where in the space of one generation attitudes to homosexuality have gone from prohibition to tolerance, and now to celebration.

What’s more, the relativist society in which we live ensures that there is an absolutism in this new sexual ethic, one in which there is very little tolerance for any dissenting voices. So how do we know what is true when there are conflicting voices from people who command our respect within the evangelical constituency?

The American Methodist scholar Albert C Outler examined John Wesley’s work and recognised that while Wesley (1703-1791) believed in the primacy of scripture, he also used tradition, reason and experience in discerning truth. 

While looking primarily at scripture, we will utilise the ‘Wesleyan quadrilateral’ to wrestle with this thorny issue.

Scripture

Many of the voices calling for a reappraisal of the Church’s historic teaching are revisionists. Revisionism is distinct from liberalism in that old-fashioned liberalism (in essence) argued ‘the Bible says this – the Bible is wrong’. Revisionism (in essence) argues ‘properly understood– the Bible says this’.

I remember talking with a theology student who told me confidently, ‘Nowhere in the Bible does it say that homosexual practice is wrong.’ This is the bold assertion of a revisionist. But is this new hermeneutic (interpretation) warranted?

There are 12 references to homosexuality in the Bible (nine in the OT, three in the NT).

Five of the OT references refer to homosexuality in the context of cult prostitution (Deuteronomy 23:17-18; 1 Kings 14:23-24, 15:12-15, 22:46; 2 Kings 23:6-8).

We will consider the remaining seven thematically in three distinct groups:

1. The Lifestyle of Unbelievers Outside of the Law (Genesis 19:5; Judges 19:22)

Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:5) has an obvious parallel with the story of Gibeah (Judges 19:22) so we will consider them together.

In 1955, Derrick Sherwin Bailey became the first theologian in modern times to re-evaluate the traditional orthodox view in his book Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition. He suggested that the sin of Sodom (and Gibeah) was in fact a breach of hospitality and not homosexuality. He argued that the demands of the men of Sodom regarding Lot’s guests – ‘Bring them out so that we might know them’ – was in fact not sexual but flouted the ancient rules of hospitality.

This is not good exegesis for a number of reasons; for one, Lot’s gratuitous offer of women instead indicates it was sexual. Also the Hebrew word for know (yada), used 943 times in the OT, can refer to sexual intercourse, and of the ten occasions it does, six of these are in the book of Genesis.

Perhaps the most convincing argument is the NT interpreting the OT, as Jude 7 teaches that ‘Sodom and Gomorrah…gave themselves up to sexual immorality’.

2. The Lifestyle of Believers Under the Law (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13)

‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable’ (Leviticus 18:22) has been seen as a classic verse clearly prohibiting homosexual activity.

A new Bible translation, the Queen James Bible claiming to be the world’s first gay Bible, has been published (in the words of the editors) ‘to resolve interpretive ambiguity in the Bible…in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible’

When it comes to the Leviticus texts, the Queen James Bible translates Leviticus 18:22 as ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind in the temple of Molech: it is an abomination.’

The problem is, the translators have achieved this lucidity by changing the very text of scripture, by conflating the verse with the previous one (Leviticus 18:21) which is a condemnation of the practice of child sacrifice in the temple of Molech.

They were, in fact, part of the holiness code prescribing how God’s covenant people were to conduct themselves in distinction to the surrounding nations. This flagrant distortion and twisting of scripture in an attempt to make the text say what it patently does not will fail to convince anyone committed to the authority of the Bible.  

Another way of circumventing these verses it to suggest that they no longer apply in the new covenant. I chatted to a well-known OT scholar once, who stated, ‘There will come a day when evangelical Christians have to repent of their attitude to homosexuality; it is no more sinful than wearing polycotton shirts.’

He was pointing out that the Levitical prohibitions against homosexuality are part of the same law code which condemns many things, such as the eating of pork and the wearing of garments that are woven with two kinds of material.

These Levitical rules no longer apply in the new covenant, it is argued.

The Reformation theologian John Calvin (1509-1564) rightly distinguished between the ritual and moral law, arguing that though the ritual law is fulfilled in Christ (and therefore abolished), the moral law still applies. If there is any doubt that this is the case, it is further evidenced by the fact that the prohibition against homosexuality resurfaces in the new covenant (NT), and is articulated in three new separate prohibitions. While the NT makes it clear that the ritual requirements of the law are now superseded in Christ (Acts 10:9-15), the moral law remains intact, and in fact is reiterated forcibly.

3. The Lifestyle of Believers in Christ and Under Grace (1 Timothy 1:8-10; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Romans 1:26-27)

There are three Pauline prohibitions in which the apostle argues that homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian discipleship. In 1 Timothy 1:8-10 ‘practising homosexuality’ is one example among many of the lifestyle of those who break the law of God. The Greek word that is used is arsenokoites, which literally means ‘male in a bed’ and (as the linguistic connotation infers) refers to a person who engages in homosexual sex – particularly the active partner.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Paul includes those who practice the homosexual lifestyle among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Here there are two words for homosexuality used, the same one as in the Timothy passage, but also the word malakoi which literally means ‘soft to the touch’, and refers to the passive partner in homosexual sex.

There are some who argue that these verses clearly speak of pederasty (the practice of keeping a catamite – a boy kept for sexual relations with a man), and therefore have nothing to say concerning the current debate as to whether consensual, monogamous gay relationships are an acceptable Christian option. The fact is, this is not clear – especially with reference to the Timothy passage, which uses a singular word to describe homosexual activity and is therefore unlikely to refer to this practice.

What is clear from the graphic words used is that what is being prohibited here are actions – homosexual  behaviour not orientation.

In Romans 1:25-27, Paul writes:

‘They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.’

The context is non-believers in general and the vocabulary used does not lend itself to referring to pederasty (as some have argued 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 does)

This also is the only passage which seems to expressly prohibit lesbianism. Surely, then, this is a blanket prohibition of homosexual practice of any kind for all God’s people? Not so fast, argue the revisionist exegetes.

Since the passage states women ‘exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones’ and men ‘abandoned natural relations with women’, does it refer to something else?

Some have interpreted this as a condemnation of perversion rather than inversion. Perversion is where a heterosexual chooses to experiment sexually with their own gender, but inversion is where a person has a homosexual orientation that he or she cannot help – that is innate to them. This interpretation is mistaken, as the Bible authors knew nothing of the modern distinction between homosexual orientation and practice.

The historian Michel Foucault argued that homosexuality as an identity did not emerge until 1870 – before that, the terminology referred to practices alone and not identity.

We have already noted that for Paul it is the behaviour that is prohibited, so any mention of men ‘abandoning natural relations’ cannot refer to heterosexuals going against their natural orientation – but rather that the practice of homosexuality contravenes natural law; it is not how the creator intended us to live.

The sobering fact is that out of all the Bible references to homosexuality, every one is negative regarding its practice.

The Big Picture

John Stott said that the most convincing argument, however, is not these sets of verses to be used in a proof text manner, but rather the single affirmation of heterosexual marriage to be found in Genesis 2:24 – ‘That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.’

It is sometimes said that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality (as if this cancels out all the other verses), but Jesus squarely condemned sexual immorality in general (Mark 7:20-23) and quotes the Genesis 2:24 verse in his teaching as an expression of his Father’s will in creation (Matthew 19:5; Mark 10:7)

Further to this, the whole sweep of scripture is, without exception or deviation, a heterosexual narrative from the creation of Adam and Eve, through the poetic affirmation of heterosexual love in the Song of Songs, right up to the finale of the book, when Revelation concludes using a heterosexual metaphor to speak of the return of Christ (Revelation 22:17).

Those who try to argue that the intimate relationship of David and Jonathan was homoerotic simply fail to understand the Jewish cultural context, and retroactively visit the assumptions of our own highly sexualised culture on the text, in an attempt to make the Bible say what it does not.

Those who say the Bible does not teach homosexual practice is wrong are simply engaging in hermeneutical gymnastics, in which they embrace a revisionist interpretation which is completely alien to the original meaning of the text.

Since the scriptures are crystal clear on the issue, my fear is that any shift to embrace this new interpretation is nothing short of a denial of the authority of the Bible itself.

Tradition

It is important to remember that we stand in a spiritual tradition that is 2,000 years old, and longer if we include our Jewish heritage. We stand on the shoulders of giants – men and women who have been theologians, pastors, prophets, apostles, mystics, teachers, evangelists and writers. When seeking to ascertain if something is true, we need to ask ourselves, ‘Is there an unbroken tradition which seems to argue in a particular way?’

Applying this to the issue of homosexuality, there is a near-unanimous tradition that the only two possible Christian vocations with regard to our sexuality are marriage and celibacy. Added to this, there has been a remarkable ecclesial consensus on the issue.

The three great traditions of the global Church (Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism), though they diverge on many things, agree on this. 

Surely we would need very compelling reasons to come up with a new hermeneutic that is at variance with this ecumenical consensus and also the ‘silent majority’ (as GK Chesterton would say) of so many brothers and sisters who have gone before.

Reason

One of the reasons Roman Catholics oppose a revision of the historic teaching of the Church is that they believe homosexual acts contravene natural law.

The great Western theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) expounded on natural law in his Summa Theologica. He wrote: ‘…all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as…its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends.’

In other words, for Thomas, natural law was closely aligned to divine law; or, put another way, theology and biology belong together – we can get an inkling of the creator’s intension for a thing by assessing how it was created to function. This is the idea that freedom is rooted in design; a thing is most free when it is functioning as it was designed to function.

We can reason that homosexual practice is not the creator’s original design, since male and female are anatomically and biologically made to complement one another.

Experience

The 1998 Lambeth Conference for the Anglican Communion affirmed the Church’s historic teaching. It also stated, ‘We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons.’ It is important in the current debate that we engage lovingly with those with whom we disagree, and listen attentively – especially to those who are working out what it means to be a disciple of Christ and have same-sex attraction.

There are many voices in the current debate that speak about the pain and rejection gay people have experienced through the Church. There is no doubt that genuine homophobia does occur, and evangelicals perhaps have been guiltier than most at perpetuating it. Where there has been homophobia we need to repent. It is vital that the Church is true to its biblical DNA in being an inclusive and redeeming community.

We need to remember that homosexual practice is no worse than other sins, and given the standards of heterosexual holiness in today’s Church, beware of jumping to hypocritical judgement.

One concern is that many of the vocal comments in today’s Church on the issue are from Christians who have embraced the gay lifestyle and are very much advocating a change of theology.

There are many Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction who have embraced another path – the counter-cultural and costly teaching of the Bible, and perhaps for obvious reasons, choose, by and large, to remain anonymous.

They too have a story to tell, and often it is one of discovering that applying the teaching of scripture to their lives has become Good News to them. This is not to say it has been without pain and sacrifice, but in the midst of this, they have come to discover a redemptive gift. We need to salute these brothers and sisters as the courageous overcomers they are, and examples to all of us of sacrificial obedience.

Most of my ministry I have worked with students and on several occasions have had individuals confide in me pastorally about their struggle with same-sex attraction. I share the testimony of two of them (not their real names):

‘The celibate life – although with its challenges – can be a very “royal” one of depth and fulfilment. I wish this was mentioned much more often: celibacy is no “option two”. Beyond the issue of sexual orientation, it’s a lifestyle worth living, expressing oneself in creative and pastoral skills. The life of prayer that I have been offered by the Lord shows to me, in profound ways, that in Christ I can own the world and may make the world his own.’ John

‘During my teens I experienced same-sex attraction, and for periods of time felt that I was destined to be homosexual. Nobody really talks about that stuff, until they have experimented and made a final decision to embrace what they thought was the only option – come out as “gay”. But I ended up speaking about it to a chaplain who carefully guided me through the options, and what he felt the Bible taught. As I looked at the issue myself, I recognised that the traditional biblical view pointed to same-sex practice as wrong, and less than God’s best for my life. I made a tough decision not to pursue that lifestyle, and I’m so hugely thankful that I did. ‘I’m now married to a beautiful woman who sharpens, challenges and inspires me, and we have amazing children who I totally adore – to think that they would not exist if I hadn’t made that choice is unthinkable. I’ve now experienced a considerable change in sexual orientation through prayer, discussion and decision, and feel so incredibly blessed by the life I am living.’ Dave

I conclude with a testimony from one of my close friends. I’ve known James for over 20 years, after he became a follower of Jesus while we were at university together. He came to accept the orthodox Christian perspective not because he was convinced by scripture, tradition or reason, but by experience. His experience, like that of John and Dave, is that embracing the truth, while not without cost, has set him free.

‘I was a man who was perfectly content with being gay – and a vehement gay activist at that. I was also wholly faithful to my long-term male partner. However, it was while attending a well-known London evangelical church that I came into a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Soon enough, my ex-boyfriend came to Christ, and he and I, as well as being lovers to each other, became lovers of daily prayer and of God’s word.

‘I had spent my entire adult life affirming others in their gay identity. Imagine therefore what happened when, some time later, after a dozen or so appointments with a good but pretty regular therapist, and some incredibly accurate and powerful sessions of healing prayer, I rapidly began to find resolution around areas of my past where I had become stuck and my “fixed, always felt gay” identity began to unravel.

‘In brief, I came to discover that God’s word, which I had learnt to interpret as pro-homosexual practice, was the opposite. God doesn’t judge anyone’s same-sex attraction. I have come to learn, however, that it is not the way he has created us to be. I meet people nearly every day who are leaving behind the gay lifestyle and embracing Christ, not sexual attraction, as their true identity. [Now], 15 years on, I’m married and a dad, and my ex…a great man, is dead. I believed I was living a fulfilling and happy life as a (so-called) gay man. I now live a wholly amazing and much more deeply contented one having…matured into a fuller expression of what I stumbled across “by accident”…my…true sexual identity.

‘Many of us are discovering God’s word as interpreted over the centuries to be true, even in the face of incredible hostility from society and, more sadly, from other Christians.’

Greg Downes is Christianity magazine’s theologian in residence and director of the Centre for Missional Leadership: http://www.cml.uk.net/ 

For a further resource that reflects the traditional evangelical stance, go to: 

www.eauk.org/church/resources/theological-articles/resources-for-church-leaders-biblical-and-pastoral-responses-to-homosexuality.cfm

John Stott: Four Ways Christians Can Influence the World

How we can be salt and light.

John R. W. Stott | posted 10/20/2011 10:15AM

Alienation was originally a Marxist word, and Karl Marx meant by it the alienation of the worker from the product of his labors. When what he produces is sold by the factory owner, he is alienated from the fruits of his work. But nowadays the word alienation has a much broader meaning of powerlessness. Whenever you feel politically or economically powerless, you are feeling alienated.

Jimmy Reid, the well-known Marxist counselor in Glasgow and leader of the Clydeside Ship Workers, when he was rector of Glasgow University, said, "Alienation is the cry of men who feel themselves to be the victims of blind economic forces beyond their control. Alienation is the frustration of ordinary people who are excluded from the processes of decision-making." Have we any influence? Have we any power? That's the question.

The word influence can sometimes be used for a self-centered thirst for power, like in Dale Carnegie's famous book How to Make Friends and Influence People. But it can also be used in an unselfish way of the desire of Christians who refuse to acquiesce to the status quo, who are determined to see things changed in society and long to have some influence for Jesus Christ. Are we powerless? Is the quest for social change hopeless before we begin? Or can Christians exert some influence for Jesus Christ?

There is a great deal of pessimism around today that grips and even paralyzes people. They wring their hands in a holy kind of dismay. Society is rotten to the core, they say. Everything is hopeless; there is no hope but the return of Jesus Christ. As Edward Norman, dean of Peter-house in Cambridge, once said in a radio interview, "People are rubbish."

But people are not rubbish. People are men and women made in the image of God. Indeed they are fallen, but the image of God has not been destroyed. Are they capable of doing no good? The doctrine of total depravity, which means that every part of our human being has been tainted by the Fall, does not mean that we're incapable of doing any good. Jesus himself said that although you are evil, you are able to do good things and give good gifts to your children. Now, of course we believe in the Fall. We believe that when Christ comes again he is going to put things right. If you develop a Christian mind, you don't concentrate exclusively on the fall of man and the return of Christ. You also think about the creation and about the redemption through Jesus Christ. And we have to allow the creation to be, as it were, qualified by the Fall, and the Fall by the Redemption, and the Redemption by the Consummation. And the Christian mind thinks in terms of this total purpose of God, which includes the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption, and the Consummation.

If we are pessimists and think we are capable of doing nothing in human society today, I venture to say that we are theologically extremely unbalanced, if not actually heretical and harmful. It's ludicrous to say Christians can have no influence in society. It's biblically and historically mistaken. Christianity has had an enormous influence on society down through its long and checkered history. Look at this conclusion of Kenneth Latourette in his seven-volume work on the history of the expansion of Christianity:

No life ever lived on this planet has been so influential in the affairs of men like the life of Jesus Christ. From that brief life and its apparent frustration has flowed a more powerful force for the triumphant waging of man's long battle than any other ever known by the human race. By it millions have been lifted from illiteracy and ignorance and have been placed upon the road of growing intellectual freedom and control over the physical environment. It has done more to allay the physical ills of disease and famine than any other impulse known to man. It's emancipated millions from chattel slavery and millions of others from addiction to vice. It has protected tens of millions in exploitation by their fellows. It's been the most fruitful source of movement to lessen the horrors of war and to put the relations of men and nations on the basis of justice and of peace.

Christ and his church have had an enormous influence. And if only we were out and out for Jesus Christ in the fullness of our commitment, then we would have far more influence than we do.

So, away with pessimism, and away also with blind optimism, as if we thought utopia was around the corner. No, Christians are sober-minded, biblical realists, who have a balanced doctrine of creation for redemption and consummation. We are not powerless. I'm afraid what we are, rather, is often lazy and shortsighted and unbelieving and disobedient to the commission of Jesus.

Beyond Mere Survival

To many of us, the verses of Matthew 5 are becoming increasingly familiar. We see their great importance today, and we begin to look at them again. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims, in verse 13: "You are the salt of the earth." Verse 14: "You are the light of the world." Verse 16: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven" (ERV).

In both these metaphors of the salt and the light, Jesus teaches about the responsibility of Christians in a non-Christian, or sub-Christian, or post-Christian society. He emphasizes the difference between Christians and non-Christians, between the church and the world, and he emphasizes the influences Christians ought to have on the non-Christian environment. The distinction between the two is clear. The world, he says, is like rotting meat. But you are to be the world's salt. The world is like a dark night, but you are to be the world's light. This is the fundamental difference between the Christian and the non-Christian, the church and the world.

Then he goes on from the distinction to the influence. Like salt in putrefying meat, Christians are to hinder social decay. Like light in the prevailing darkness, Christians are to illumine society and show it a better way. It's very important to grasp these two stages in the teaching of Jesus. Most Christians accept that there is a distinction between the Christian and the non-Christian, between the church and the world. God's new society, the church, is as different from the old society as salt from rotting meat and as light from darkness.

But there are too many people who stop there; too many people whose whole preoccupation is with survival—that is, maintaining the distinction. The salt must retain its saltiness, they say. It must not become contaminated. The light must retain its brightness. It must not be smothered by the darkness. That is true. But that is merely survival. Salt and light are not just a bit different from their environment. They are to have a powerful influence on their environment. The salt is to be rubbed into the meat in order to stop the rot. The light is to shine into the darkness. It is to be set upon a lamp stand, and it is to give light to the environment. That is an influence on the environment quite different from mere survival.

Four Powers

What is the nature of this influence? Let me suggest to you a few ways in which we Christians have power.

First, there is power in prayer. I beg you not to dismiss this as a pious platitude. It isn't. There are some Christians who are such social activists that they never stop to pray. They are wrong, are they not? Prayer is an indispensable part of the Christian's life and of the church's life. And the church's first duty toward society and its leaders is to pray for them. "I urge, then, first of all," writes Paul in his first letter to Timothy, "that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness" (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

If there is more violence in the community than peace, more indecency than modesty, more oppression than justice, more secularism than godliness, is the reason that the church is not praying as it should? I believe that in our normal services, we should take with increasing seriousness the five or ten minutes of intercession in which, as a congregation, we bow down before God and bring to him the world and its leaders, and cry to him to intervene. And the same is true in our prayer gatherings, in our fellowship groups, and in our private prayers. I think most of us, myself included, are more parochial than global in our prayers. But are we not global Christians? Do we not share the global concerns of our global God? We should express these concerns in our prayers.

Second, there is the power of truth. All of us believe in the power of the truth of the gospel. We love to say, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16). We are convinced of the power of the gospel in evangelism—that it brings salvation and redemption to those who respond and believe in Jesus. But it isn't only the gospel that is powerful. All God's truth is powerful. God's truth of whatever kind is much more powerful than the Devil's lies. Do you believe that, or are you a pessimist? Do you think the Devil is stronger than God? Do you think lies are stronger than the truth? The Christian believes that truth is stronger than lies, and God is stronger than the Devil. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:8, "For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth." As John said in his prologue to the fourth gospel, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Of course it cannot; that light is the truth of God.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the legendary Soviet dissident, believed in the power of truth over lies. Upon receiving the Nobel Prize in literature, he gave a speech called "One Word of Truth." Writers, he says, "haven't got any rockets to blast off. We … don't even trundle the most insignificant auxiliary vehicle. We haven't got any military might. So what can literature do in the face of the merciless onslaught of open violence?" Solzhenitsyn doesn't say we haven't got any power. He says, "One word of truth outweighs the whole world." If anybody should believe that, it's Christians. It's true. Truth is much more powerful than bombs and tanks and weapons.

How are we going to see the power of truth at work? Persuasion by argument. Just as we need doctrinal apologists in evangelism to argue the truth of the gospel, so we need ethical apologists in social action to argue the truth and the goodness of the moral law of God. We need more Christian thinkers who will use their minds for Jesus Christ, who will speak and write and broadcast and televise in order to influence public opinion.

I'll give you one quick example. You cannot force people to go to church by legislation. You can't force them to rest on Sundays. Nor can we simply quote from the Bible as if that settles the matter. But we can put forward our best arguments. We can argue that, psychologically and physically, human beings need one day's rest in seven, and that socially it's good for families who are separated during the week to have a day together on Sunday. We can argue for legislation that protects workers from being compelled to work and encourages family life. In this example, we're neither imposing our Christian views, nor leaving non-Christians alone in their own views, nor quoting the Bible dogmatically. We are simply using every argument—physical, psychological, sociological—in order to commend the wisdom and truth of biblical teaching. Why? Because we believe in the power of truth.

If you doubt the power of secular forms of argument to illuminate biblical truth, then consider an article appearing in the American magazine Seventeen in 1977 called "The Case against Living Together." It's an interview with Nancy Moore Clatworthy, a sociologist at The Ohio State University. For ten years, Clatworthy had been studying the phenomenon of unmarried couples living together. When she began, she was predisposed towards the custom. "Young people," she said, "have told us it was quite wonderful." And she said she believed them. It seemed to her to be a sensible arrangement, a useful step in courtship in which couples get to know one another. But her research, involving the testing of hundreds of couples, married and unmarried, led her to change her mind. And she concluded that living together was not doing the things the couples expected it to do, especially with girls. She found them uptight, fearful, looking past the rhetoric to the possible pain and agony.

Clatworthy makes two points: In the areas of happiness, respect, and adjustment, "Couples who live together before they're married have more problems than couples who marry first." In every area, the couples who lived together before marriage disagreed more often than the couples who hadn't. Living together, she concludes, doesn't solve your problems.

Her second point was about commitment, the expectation a person has about the outcome of a relationship. Commitment is what makes marriage and living together work. But here's the problem: "Knowing that something is temporary, like living together unmarried, affects the degree of commitment to it. So unmarried couples are less than wholehearted in working to sustain and protect their relationship. And, consequently, 75 percent of them break up. And especially the girls are badly hurt." She concludes, "Statistically you are much better off marrying than living together, because for people who are in love, anything less than a full commitment is a cop-out."

Now, I don't think that Clatworthy is a Christian. Her appeal is not to the authority of Scripture but to the findings of sociology. And yet her sociological research vindicates the wisdom of Christian ethics as it applies to the institution of marriage. It reminds us that God's truth has power, in both its biblical and non-biblical guises.

Our third power as Christians is the power of example. Truth is powerful when it's argued. It's more powerful when it's exhibited. People need not only to understand the argument. They need to see the benefits of the argument with their own eyes. It's hard to exaggerate the power for good that a thoroughly Christian family can exert, for instance, in a public housing development. The whole community can see the husband and wife loving and honoring one another, devoted and faithful to one another, and finding fulfillment in one another. They see the children growing up in the security of a loving and disciplined home. They see a family not turned in on itself, but turned outward—entertaining strangers, welcoming, keeping an open home, seeking to get involved in the concerns of the community. One Christian nurse in a hospital; one Christian teacher in a school; one Christian in a shop, in a factory, or in an office—we will all make a difference, for good or for ill.

Christians are marked people. The world is watching. And God's major way of changing the old society is to implant within it his new society, with its different values, different standards, different joys, and different goals. Our hope is that the watching world will see these differences, and find them attractive, that they "may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).

Fourth, Christians have the power of group solidarity—the power of a dedicated minority. According to the American sociologist Robert Belair, at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, "We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a whole culture may be changed when two percent of its people have a new vision."

That was the way of Jesus. He began with a small group of only 12 dedicated people. Within a few years, Roman officials complained they were turning the world upside down. There is a great need for dedicated Christian groups committed to one another, committed to a vision of justice, committed to Christ; groups that will pray together, think together, formulate policies together, and get to work together in the community.

Do you want to see your national life made more pleasing to God? Do you have a vision of a new godliness, a new justice, a new freedom, a new righteousness, a new compassion? Do you wish to repent of sub-Christian pessimism? Will you reaffirm your confidence in the power of God, in the power of prayer, of truth, of example, of group commitment—and of the gospel? Let's offer ourselves to God, as instruments in his hands—as salt and light in the community. The church could have an enormous influence for good, in every nation on earth, if it would commit itself totally to Christ. Let's give ourselves to him, who gave himself for us.

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) was rector of All Souls Church in London, founder of Langham Partnership International, and the author of many books. This article is adapted from a sermon published on Christianity Today's sister website PreachingToday.com.

John Stott Has Died

John Stott died 27 July 2011 at 3:15 London time (about 9:15 a.m. CST), according to John Stott Ministries President Benjamin Homan. Homan said that Stott's death came after complications related to old age and that he has been in discomfort for the last several weeks.

"An evangelical is a plain, ordinary Christian," John Stott told Christianity Today in an October 2006 interview. From his conversion at Rugby secondary school in 1938 to his death in 2011 at 90 years old, Stott exemplified how extraordinary plain, ordinary Christianity can be. He was not known as an original thinker, nor did he seek to be. He always turned to the Bible for understanding, and his unforgettable gift was to penetrate and explain the Scriptures. As editor Kenneth Kantzer wrote in CT's pages in 1981, "When I hear him expound a text, invariably I exclaim to myself, 'That's exactly what it means! Why didn't I see it before?'"...

Stott was every inch an evangelical, but a reforming evangelical. He recognized that evangelicalism could and sometimes did sink down into mere piety, whereas the Bible spoke of a robust transformation of the world brought about by God's people engaged in mission. As a London pastor, Stott increasingly recognized the need for evangelicalism to reclaim its heritage of engagement with the social issues of the day.

As he told an interviewer years later, "In the early 1960s, I began to travel in the Third World, and I saw poverty in Latin America, Africa, and Asia as I had not seen it before. It became clear to me that it was utterly impossible to take that old view." The "old view" was that preaching was always a Christian's preeminent task, and that deeds of compassion were strictly secondary. As Stott probed the Scriptures, he came to believe that Jesus' Great Commission commanded Jesus' servants to carry on his entire mission, which included practical concern for life and health.

One of Stott's most significant works—and one that carried him far out of his own expertise—was the book Issues Facing Christians Today (1984), in which he attempted to address crucial concerns of contemporary society such as abortion, industrial relations, and human rights. Earlier he had written Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life (1972). In 1982, he helped to launch the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, which offered classes and lectures on a wide variety of topics relevant to life in modern society.

His greatest impact in the area of social concern came somewhat inadvertently. In 1974, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association convened an International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. About 2,500 members attended (in addition to 1,300 other participants). About half of the delegates and speakers came from Majority World countries. The gathering's wide representation resembled meetings of the World Council of Churches, but the excited atmosphere of unified mission was unprecedented. Many participants grasped for the first time the global dimensions of the evangelical church. Almost 30 years later, Philip Jenkins would write The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. But as David Jones, president of John Stott Ministries, says, at Lausanne, "Jenkins' book was there in the faces and minds of people. Lausanne showed the global church that we can work together."

Read more here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/julyweb-only/john-stott-obit.html