Denominations: God's Hilarious Joke, Part Two

I was asked to write a post about "getting along with your denomination", and this is what came out. I'm presenting it in three parts, because it's too long for one post. This is part two. Part one can be found here.

A Unique Flavor

The connectedness of a denomination is not just creeds and confessions, but "flavors" of Christianity that are preserved in a unique form. Denominations typically represent more than just a particular theological approach to the Christian faith; they also preserve perspectives on the Christian faith that can inform the church at large.

I had been looking at our denomination in the 21st century and wondering, "where do I fit?" It was easy to pick apart the shortfalls and flaws and the infighting and the confusion and I wondered why God had put me where he had put me. I remembered the moment when my heart began to  change.

The book I was reading was Philosophers who Believe. It was a collection of Christian testimonies from leading 20th century philosophers, and I was captivated by a philosopher named Alvin Plantinga. I went on to pick up his book, God and Other Minds, among others, and was mesmerized by his intellect, and his ability to articulate the Christian faith in a way that was clear and rationale and didn't feel the need to resort to simple platitudes of "just have faith's" and "just believe's". It felt like I had found someone who spoke my language. 

To my initial dismay but ultimate delight, I realized that he was a member of my denomination, and furthermore, that the history of our denomination had always been to engage the sciences and the intellect through the lens of God's sovereignty and his Scripture. I was dismayed that my denomination wasn't as terrible as I thought it was (pride, remember?) but was delighted when I began to see why God had put me where he did. It wasn't that Plantinga spoke my language; it was that I was learning that there was a whole denomination of people who had preserved a particular flavor of intellectual faith throughout their history, and now I was a part of it.

Honor the Tradition

Denominations are often criticized for being slow-moving, difficult to change, and in many cases, stuck in their traditions. Anyone who has ever been a part of one knows how true that can be! It is an unfortunate reality that many of our sister denominational churches would be the most relevant church on the block...if it was 1960!

Some traditions have to be de-emphasized, if not removed altogether. They are just preferences of a culture that has long since passed; organs, carpet colors, maybe even hymn books. Even so, we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater! What may be slow-moving, slow-to change elements of tradition might have a historicity to them that would make us blush if we knew what we were rejecting–or what we were doing to the elderly saints who hold them dear.

I was preaching at a denominational church not too long ago. Most of the congregation at the service I typically lead is very elderly. A few of them are first generation immigrants who came to the United States at a young age. I knew that the church was going through some changes, and that the general complaint was that some of the elderly folks were being sticks-in-the-mud and holding up the process. It would have been easy to think to myself–as I had on occasion–that the problem was simply that these elderly people had just never heard the Gospel! Surely, if they had, they'd be willing to change!

My sermon that night mentioned Corrie Ten Boom, and I talked about her family watch shop, and how she brought in refugees from Germany who were trying to escape the concentration camps. Eventually, Corrie was captured by the Gestapo and spent many years in a concentration camp herself, preaching the Gospel and providing hope and comfort to the other women who were there with her.

After the sermon, a man came up to me with tears in his eyes, and he began to tell me his story:

"I remember growing up in Holland when I was just a boy. My family owned a farm, and we were relatively far out in the country. When the war started, and the refugees began coming by, my parents knew that we needed to take them in, like many of the other Christian families were doing. We knew that we needed to have a hiding place for the refugees in the event that the Gestapo came looking.

We originally decided that we'd hide them in the haystacks in the barn, but eventually changed our minds. Since we were out in the country, we knew we'd get a warning if the Gestapo was ever on their way. We decided that a better hiding spot was in the canal. We made long straws for them, and they would hide under the water in the canal and breathe through the tube. The first time that the Gestapo came by, the first thing they did was take pitch forks and jam them into the haystacks.

I remember what my mother used to tell us every time the Gestapo came by. Before they got there, she would sit us down and say, "kids, tonight we might be with Jesus. But if not, then he has more work for us to do."

And then we would pray."

The man's eyes were filling with tears as he reached the end of the story, and the deep love of his heart was being made clear. I don't know if he was one of the ones who was being the proverbial stick-in-the-mud, but who might have blamed him if he was? The tradition of the church wasn't just a preference for him; it was a stabilizing force that withstood the test of dark times. It wasn't a lack of Gospel knowledge–in fact, most 21st century American Christians probably need a reminder of how cushy our lives actually are–it was a deep reminder for him that God was sovereign and that Jesus was in control.

That's not necessarily an excuse to stand in the way of continued reformation and change, but it's a good reminder that some of our brothers and sisters have carried the mantle of the Gospel through times darker than most of us have yet to experience.

Every hoop has a story

When I joined the denomination, I knew I was going to have to jump through a variety of hoops. (It occurs to me that I have no idea where that expression comes from, only what it means!) I knew that there would be red tape. I knew there would be some politics involved. I knew that we wouldn't be able to do things as quickly as we wanted to do them. It's easy to criticize the hoops as unnecessary bureaucracy, and in some cases that's exactly what they are. It's also easy to forget that every hoop has a story.

Every year, our governing body (called "Synod") gets together with representatives from each local church grouping (called a "Classis") and makes decisions for the body as a whole. Some of these decisions end up as addendum or supplements to "Articles" in our Church Order. It's hard enough to keep up with it when it happens year after year, and the latest edition of the Church Oder is published, let alone when you realize that this has been going on for a long, long time.

That's why the restrictions or guidelines or failsafes or checks and balances feel like "hoops". We're so removed from the original institution of them that we forget that there is typically a reason that they were put in place, and it's typically because something happened that the leadership of the church wanted to avoid in the future.

In that sense, the "hoops" are like the legal language that's listed in the small print on the bottom of a child's toy or the upside-down-kid-head-first-in-the-bucket picture that's on every bucket larger than 2 gallons that you've ever purchased. Somewhere along the line a kid decided to dive into a bucket and the company felt like it would be safer moving forward to warn everyone about the dangers of that activity.

Or, in religious terms, it's like the Pharisees who added boundary laws upon boundary laws to make really-super-sure that no one would ever break the actual law of God. We read the Gospels and laugh at them and fail to realize that at some point, these guys were serious about keeping the law of God and doing what was right in the eyes of God. Yes, they became self-righteous. Yes, over time they missed the point. Yes, Jesus needed to call them out and redirect their confidence from their own righteousness towards the righteousness of Jesus. And all of this must often be done in the denominational context, particularly in the 21st century.

But behind every hoop or boundary law that's put in place is a desire to honor the holiness of God and the righteousness of his church. It's a desire to protect ourselves from ourselves. It's a desire to hand down a clear Gospel message to the next generation. Sometimes the denomination gets in it's own way in the long run, but it's a lot easier to redirect when we understand that the goal was always Jesus Christ and the oversight of His Bride, the church.

Was Brittany Maynard Right?

If you follow the news, the name Brittany Maynard probably rings a bell. She was a 29-year-old woman who died last week in Oregon. She had inoperable brain cancer.

If that was all there was to the story, we'd have never heard of her. Her death certificate, like every other victim of brain cancer, listed a "brain tumor" as the cause of her death.

The difference between this victim of brain cancer and many others is that Mrs. Maynard decided that she wanted to end her life on her own terms, before the cancer inevitably got her. Before she was hooked up to machines. Before debilitating pain. Before she began to drain her families energy as they watched her die–perhaps quickly, perhaps slowly–but die in a hospital nonetheless.

So on November 1st, Brittany Maynard was given barbiturates, she fell asleep, and died.

Brittany's story went viral, and as a result, the conversation surrounding the practice of "medical suicide" or "death with dignity", depending your perspective, has once again come to the fore. (Growing up, the only time we ever talked about medically assisted suicide was when someone told a Dr. Kevorkian joke. The name was synonymous with the practice and more often than not was used to frighten a friend when they were headed off to a doctor's visit. "Going to see Dr. Kevorkian today?" we would ask, with little to no comprehension of what that actually meant.) 

The responses to Brittany's decision have been all over the map. Clearly, there are significant ethical implications to her decision. It raises a lot of questions–particularly for religious people–about the control that we have over our destiny or our own bodies or our own future. It raises a lot of questions–particularly for non-religious people–about the nature and meaning of life, but that is for a different post. Most people seem to dig in to their particular view point and really don't consider the full range of implications of sickness, health, medical intervention, what it actually means to be alive, and God's role in all of it.

So let me offer my perspective.

Keeping someone alive through medical intervention can be "playing God" just as much as ending someone's life through medical intervention.

One of the criticisms of the Death with Dignity movement is that we are playing God. We are deciding when to end our life.

As a Christian, I understand the sentiment behind that criticism. I believe that God is sovereign over the affairs of man and nothing happens that he does not either cause or allow. I believe that God knows my footsteps before I do. I believe that God created and loves all of his creation, and wants what's best for them. I believe that I ought to have a confidence in God that he has a plan for my future.

But when I get sick, I go to the doctor and get medication. Because I don't want to die.

It is not a contradiction to believe that God is both sovereign over my life, and he wants me to take care of business when I get sick. God's sovereignty doesn't lead me to inaction but to action. I trust that God has provided me with the rational capacities to make a wise decision. I trust that he has given the medical professionals the skills and knowledge to diagnose a sickness, offer me the right medication, perform surgery when necessary, and generally prolong our lives. And I also trust that, if I contract some sort of disease or start growing some sort of cancer, and I do nothing about it, and I die, that's not God's fault. It's mine.

Could God have stopped me from dying? Yes! But the purpose of God's miracles are never to protect me from being stupid. And it would be stupid to get sick, ignore the doctors, and die, because I assumed I'd be miraculously healed. (The purpose of God's miracles are to bring God glory.)

The medical advancements that we've made have allowed us to go on living longer and healthier lives, and make sure that diseases that used to kill us are now either totally eradicated or are no longer as deadly as they once were (In America, at least. The fact that many of these diseases and high mortality rates exist in other countries is a topic for another post.) A virus that might have popped you off at thirty just one hundred years ago is now no longer life threatening. Women don't die at child birth. More children make it to age 18. The average life expectancy has risen dramatically.

The point is that we're living longer, and it's in large part because we've figured out how to heal ourselves, how to deal with disease and sickness, and keep our hearts beating just a few years longer. Sometimes that means we keep it beating for a few years longer than we should.

The argument that we're "playing God" is usually based on the fact that it appears that we're not trusting God with the outcome; I'd argue that if this were truly the case, then we're also not "trusting God" by using any form of medical intervention that is ultimately for our well-being. If accelerating the process of dying is "playing God", then so is prolonging the process of life. We're intervening into the life and death process in a way that circumvents what would otherwise have happened naturally. 

That raises the question: if it's okay to prolong our life beyond what it would have otherwise been, why it is not okay to end our life somewhat shorter than it would have been?

Brittany Maynard had terminal cancer that was going to take her life. The final months (years?) of that cancer would have been debilitating and extremely painful. She would have lost all of her functional capacities as she neared death. It would have required her family to spend inordinate amounts of energy caring for her. Not the Brittany that they knew and loved, but a Brittany that was only a shell of the woman she once was, motivated to continue based only on an increasingly distant memory. Not to mention, the medical resources necessary to keep her alive and pain free.

This future was effectively guaranteed for her. As a result, Brittany decided that since she was certain to die anyway, and since that death would come with pain and suffering that only compounded her family's mourning, it was better to end her life quietly, in peace, before the cancer fully took over and killed her anyway.

You may not agree with the timing of it–should she have waited longer? Was it at a debilitating point? Did she have more "good days" left that were wasted by ending her life too soon?–but it's difficult to argue that her decision was based on a different set of standards than the other decision she could have made, which was to dope herself up with morphine or some other pain killer, avoiding the painful effects of cancer, until she eventually died anyway. In both cases, she avoided the painful effects of cancer, and in both cases, she died.

But what about a miracle?

This typically leads to a second objection: what if God wanted to work a miracle? Isn't she ruling it out by ending her life on her own terms?

To be sure, there is a tension between the "rational" part of our minds that understands and ought to examine how the physical world works and the part that believes that God can and does perform miracles that go against the physical and natural order. My Dad died of cancer in 2008, and up until the point that he died I continued to believe that God could work a miracle on his behalf and heal him of the cancer. I also believed that it was unlikely.

Does that indicate a lack of faith? Maybe. But I'd argue that God doesn't call us to blind faith or irrational faith. The faith that we see in the Scripture is not the "step off a cliff and hope things work out" kind of faith, but the kind of faith that is based on God's action in the past and promise of action in the future. (Even Jesus, when asked to step off the cliff because surely he had enough faith to do it, declined and opted for the slow, steady, plan of God.) Yes, the faith of a mustard seed is enough to make a mountain move, but that has a lot more to do with the power of God than the power of your faith.

Could God have healed Brittany Maynard? Again I say, absolutely. We know that God is powerful enough to do it, that he might do it for his own glory, and certainly that he does not wish that anyone should perish (physically or spiritually). That belief, however, doesn't mean we shut off our rational faculties and fail to deal with reality as it is.

There was a marked difference in my Dad's physical demeanor, spirit, and perseverance on the Friday morning before he died, and the Friday afternoon before he died. On Friday morning, there was a sliver of hope that there were options to treat the cancer. By Friday afternoon, the hope was gone. The doctors had done everything they could. All the knowledge that they had accumulated about cancer and about his cancer had been applied. All the surgeries and treatments they had at their disposal had been used. I'd add, all the prayers that could have been prayed to heal him of cancer and give him another five or ten or forty years had been prayed. But then the doctor came in and said, "there's nothing more we can do. We're sending you home with hospice care."

Two days later, Dad died. And it was pretty clear that on that Friday afternoon that he had already made up his mind: the end is near, I can let go now.

Dad didn't ask the doctor for a barbiturate, but he definitely decided when it was okay to die. I bet Dad could have willed a couple of extra days, maybe even a few more weeks. The doctor's even suggested that he could. In fact, in hindsight, Dad had probably already willed a few extra months. But then there were no more options. So Dad let go, and he died.

Our Hope is Not Yet Fulfilled

Here's the thing. Nowhere is it written that our hope is finally for this life. In fact, if our hope were for this life only, then Christians would be the most pitiful creatures on the planet! Only a fool would go on believing that he would never die of cancer, or of disease, or never get sick, or have all the money he wants or needs. Only a fool would believe it because the evidence says just the opposite.

The Christian doesn't hope that this life will be free of pain. The Christian hopes and believes that there is more than what this life has to offer; that there is hope on the other side; that even though in this life we live in brokenness, we also live in the glow of victory because of the cross. Yes, there is darkness. But the light has broken in. And someday, the darkness will be gone for good.

So was Brittany Maynard right to end her life? I don't know, but I'm definitely not willing to condemn her for her choice. Someday we'll never have to decide between a slow, painful death of cancer and the quick death of barbiturates. But that day isn't now. And I'm not sure that Brittany was wrong for deciding to avoid the pain that by all accounts was an inevitable reality, and deal head on with the consequences that were coming, no matter what. 

The NFL is not our Morality Compass

Inasmuch as I continue to hear outrage over Tony Dungy's comments regarding the drafting of Michael Sam, I wanted to post at least once more to help clarify my thoughts. I'm frustrated at what I see as the inability of the general public to separate what I see as the real issue–in this case, the distraction a player brings to a team verses their overall talent–and the much more sensitive issue of a persons's sexual preference.

Let me again make something clear, that I believe Tony Dungy would agree with (based on his statements): Michael Sam should be be given every opportunity to play in the NFL, regardless of his sexual preference. Can we just get that out of the way? The frustrating part of this whole "controversy" is that we seem to have a difficult time separating what Tony Dungy believes, personally–that marriage is between a man and a women–and how he would operate as an NFL coach. I wonder, if Dungy had never made his personal beliefs public, or if it wasn't a known fact that he was an evangelical Christian, if his initial statement in the Tribune would have even been picked up as controversial.

I don't expect the NFL to be the nations morality compass. It's just not their job. The NFL, as a money-making organization, will respond to the morality compass of culture, but they won't set the standard. At least, they shouldn't. And to the degree that Tony Dungy would apply his personal morality to the drafting process or to the NFL as a whole, I think he's mistaken. I simply don't believe that's what he's doing.

The argument presented against Dungy is that he has, in the past, encouraged the signing of players who came with significant, off the field, distractions. The most common example is that he was a supporter of Michael Vick. The question that I think is wrongly raised, in an attempt to make Dungy look like a hypocrite, is whether Sam's sexual preference is somehow more immoral than Vick's dog-fighting. Of course, the obvious answer is "no", if the issue is about morality. But it's not. The issue is about a) whether a player deserves a chance (yes, in both cases) and b) whether their on the field performance is worth the risk of their off the field distraction. Again, the NFL is not the morality police. The issue really shouldn't be about the cause of the distractions; it should be about the distraction itself (as I said in my last post). I assume that their decision ought to be, and is, based on net-gain to the team and what will bring in the most wins, and the most money. If that's true, then one could make the case that signing Vick, even with the greater "wrong", had a higher net-gain to his team than drafting Sam.

That said, I think I understand where the criticism is coming from. Those who have derided Dungy's comments have largely done so because they believe that, no matter what Sam's talent level, it is worth the risk and the distraction so that people who are afraid to "come out" have a role model in the NFL. They have someone they can look up to who had the courage to say, "I'm gay", and let the chips fall where they may. In the long run, the "chips" that fall will be fewer and fewer. But someone has to go first. In this case, it was Michael Sam. We should be willing to support that, no matter what the distractions may be to our organization.

Of course, that is also applying a certain morality to the drafting process. According to that line of reasoning, Sam should be be given an advantage precisely because he is gay, even if his talent level doesn't necessarily justify his acquisition in terms of net-gain to the team. Typically, a player's off the field distraction will be measured against his on the field performance, resulting in either a net gain to the team or a net loss. ("Talent + Miscellany = Net Gain".) The argument in this case is that, regardless of the distraction, and regardless of the net gain, someone has to go first, and every NFL team should support it and should have drafted him no matter what. That's why the comparison to Jackie Robinson comes up so often. What isn't typically mentioned, of course, is the fact that Jackie Robinson was an all-star caliber player. The Brooklyn Dodgers didn't just "break the barrier", by having Robinson play. They added a significant talent to their team that made them better, and ultimately, probably made them more money. Would they have been willing to "break the barrier" with a guy who was going to sit in the dugout the whole game? Surely, they had the opportunity to do it, but they didn't.

I'm not saying that if the NFL wants to break the "gay barrier" they need to wait until there is a player who is all-star caliber to do it. I am saying that if Michael Sam was a guaranteed pro-bowler, Dungy would have never said what he did. I think his response to the question of whether or not he would have drafted him would have been, "of course!" It's a football decision, not a morality decision.

I recognize that those who passionately argue against Dungy see the cause as being greater than football. The upside, culturally, to have an NFL team draft Sam is worth whatever distraction or risk the NFL team who drafted him will have to take on. I'd argue that it's not on the NFL to make drafting decisions based on morality or "cultural upside". It's a business, and they ought to draft whoever offers the the most net-gain as an organization, regardless of their sexual preference.

So would Dungy draft a gay player? Of course he would. As an NFL coach, (personal belief aside), I don't think he cares much about a players sexual preference. He's looking for the player who provides the most upside to the team. But would he draft Michael Sam? Probably not. Because in Sam's case, the talent didn't justify the media distraction that it received, resulting in a net loss for the organization.

There's a big difference between those two questions and responses. Again, I emphasize: good for the St. Louis Rams for deciding that the distraction of hiring Sam relative to his level of talent, maybe even as a result of what they saw as the "cultural upside", was worth it. I just don't think we should demonize someone who says that, in this case, they probably wouldn't have made that choice.

The Real Reason Dungy Stepped in It

Well, Tony Dungy stepped in it. Of course nowaday's you can step in it at any moment, without ever realizing that there was an "it" there to begin with.

Dungy was asked a simple question: would you have drafted Michael Sam? He said no. The reason? Because there was going to be a lot of distraction surrounding him as a player. 

Let's consider what he's saying. Every NFL organization drafts players based on, at least, this very simplistic formula: 

TALENT + MISCELLANY = NET GAIN TO THE TEAM

Talent is the first item to consider. How good is this player? How good will they ultimately be? On a purely football level, is this player going to make a significant contribution to the team?

Miscellany (almost certainly not the term used by NFL Execs) is an extremely broad category that includes, but is not limited to, personality type, religious beliefs, and general off-the-field elements that might be a distraction. One distraction might be excessive media attention for something unrelated to the actual game of football.

Talent, plus miscellany, equals net gain. So an extremely talented player, for example, has a high gross margin that allows themself the ability to be quite distracting off the field. Most teams are going to deal with it because, at the end of the day, the net gain to the team is still in the positive. A player that is only marginally talented, however, may want to keep his nose clean so that they can be judged solely based on their talent as a football player.

I'm convinced that Tim Tebow probably doesn't have a job in the NFL because of the fact that his talent level couldn't overcome the unbelievable media circus that followed him around. Was "Tebow-mania" a distraction to, say, Mark Sanchez when Tebow was on the Jets? It sure looked like it. As a result, the net gain of adding Tebow to the roster was actually a negative. Other teams took notice, and it almost certainly played a roll in his inability to get a spot on anyone's roster, even if, at the end of the day, he had the talent for one of those roster spots.  His talent, alone, may have gotten him a back-up spot somewhere. But the teams didn't want the distraction of all that came with Tim Tebow.

One response to this is to say that the NFL is bigotted and discriminatory towards Christians. That is, after all, the reason that Tebow got so much attention. He was an outspoken Evangelical in a day and age when most Evangelicals feel like they should just keep their mouths shut. The Evangelicals like having someone they can look up to that speaks their language. And maybe it's true. Maybe the NFL is discriminatory towards Christians. But I doubt it. The NFL likes whoever brings in the most cash, and the quickest way to more cash is to have players who make your team better.

A far better response, then, is to simply understand that most NFL teams decided that there was no net-gain to adding Tebow to the roster. Talent alone? Maybe. But add in the media circus and the crazed fans calling for the coach to put him in everytime your starting quarterback bobbles a snap and you end up with not a net gain, but a net loss. No NFL owner wants that.  So they decided to pass, almost exclusively based on the fact that Tebow comes with a boat-load of distraction that his talent level doesn't justify. It just so happens that the distraction level is a result of his religious faith.

Let's move on to Michael Sam. Dungy said he wouldn't have drafted him because of the distractions, and then clarified to say that it was, in essence, because the distractions weren't justified by his level of talent. That is to say that the unfortunate truth for Michael Sam is that by being the "first" anything, you receive a lot more media attention than you probably want, and based solely the standard of your talent, more than you deserve. 

Does Michael Sam deserve a shot at playing? No question. If anyone discriminated against him based solely on the fact that he was gay, they would be a bigot, as would any team who discriminated against Tebow based solely on the fact that he was a Christian. I just don't think anyone did that. 

But then, that's not really the issue. 

The real reason that Tony Dungy is coming under fire is that basically, he admitted that he doesn't think that homosexual rights take priority over the game of football, or at very least, something he personally does not prioritize over the game of football. What culture wants from everyone, including NFL coaches, is to recognize that the rights of the homosexual person are more important than anything else, including religious conviction, or in this case, wins (or perhaps more shrewdly, money). In other words, who cares whether it's a net gain or a net loss for your team? This is bigger than football. Isn't it a net gain for all of us?

(Remember what Dungy said..."things will happen". What if Sam doesn't get a spot on the roster, or if he never plays? Is the Ram's organization run by bigots? Or would it be okay to make a "football decision" then, even if it means that the first openly gay player drafted into the NFL doesn't become the first openly gay player to play in the NFL?) 

That's why Dungy stepped in it, even though his comments were basically benign. Culture believes that sexual preference is more important than wins for a football team, locker room comfort, or money.  Dungy says he, as a coach, was more interested in what was best for the football team (which, of course, is exactly what he was paid to do as an NFL coach.)

I know it's hard to separate the cause of the distraction from the distraction itself, but I hope we can. It's not Tebow's fault that the media hyped his evangelicalism. It's not Sam's fault that he's receiving the hype for his sexuality. Unfortunately for both of them, that type of distraction works against you when you're not one of the supremely talented dudes your organization is willing to put up with because you might single-handedly win them some football games. Maybe Sam & Tebow should get together for lunch. I'm sure they could commiserate.

Good for the Rams for following their convictions and deciding that even if Sam was a net loss for their organization in terms of football, it was worth the loss in order to give him a shot. I just don't think we should demonize a coach for saying that he probably wouldn't have been willing to do that. 

The Slippery Slope of Religious Exemption

Having addressed my chief concern–that Christians must be able to distinguish between identity & conduct, and recognize what it is that has changed in us because of Jesus–I wanted to move on to a second point regarding the exemption letter recently sent to the White House. How much can we expect Christian organizations to be able to partner with the Government, and vice versa?

Most of the issues that Biblical Christians are going to encounter in 21st century America will require a combination of conviction and nuance to navigate. While that may be new to American Christians who have, for the most part, experienced their faith in the midst of a culture whose value system closely resembled their own, it isn't "new" to historical Christianity. Jesus himself navigated the tricky waters of Biblical conviction and political involvement when he was asked about paying taxes. (Matthew 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17) The New Testament letters instruct Christians how they should respond to the political and social forces of the day in a way that was Christ honoring, but would also be submissive to the government (See 1 Peter 2:13-17 for an example). It's important for the 21st century American Christian to realize that there is a way to be distinctively Christian, but still participate in the social order of the day.

This combination of conviction and nuance, the ability to stand firmly on what we believe the Bible teaches, while also being able to interact in a positive way with the culture, requires that Christians have a clear understanding of what the Bible actually teaches, as well as a firm grasp on where the points of resistance will be from culture. Most people have a tendency to opt for one or the other: either we stand on our convictions, culture be damned; or we stand with culture, convictions be damned. This is at least part of the reason that amongst Christians our first reaction to a letter like the one Lindsay signed is a visceral one; it makes us feel a certain way and we respond accordingly. If we are the convicted type, we come out on the supportive end and can't understand anyone who is against it. If we are more for nuance, we find the letter to be off-putting and defaming the name of Christ, or at least what it means to be loving. For the Christian, however, Conviction and Culture aren't opposites or even on a spectrum; they both operate together, all the time. We need to understand what the Bible says, and then apply it in the context in which we find ourselves; we need to apply it to our culture.

The letter that Lindsay signed seeks to deal with this difficult ground of conviction and culture. I think that Lindsay ought to be commended for having the courage to take a stand for something as historically elusive as real, religious freedom–something we’ve taken for granted, at least in my lifetime, in America. What was troublesome to me was that my perception of people’s response, particularly those opposed to the exemption letter, seemed to zero in on the idea that Gordon, in some way, was being discriminatory. That led me to my first response which dealt with the discrimination (or discernment) that a Christian organization will necessarily have if they are to be distinctively Christian.

The main point of that post, more succinctly, was that while we as Christians should not discriminate against a person who is gay, a Christian organization should be allowed to discriminate against a person who is not a Christian. That distinction is incredibly important for the Christian to recognize. You can be a gay Christian. You cannot be an unrepentant Christian. An unrepentant Christian is an oxymoron; if you disagree with what God calls sin, it is an indicator that you really don't believe what you say you believe. (Matthew 18:15-17). The apostle John says that if you say you are a Christian, but do not follow God's commands, you are a liar. (1 John 1:6; 1 John 2:4-6) A Christian organization would be working against itself to hire people who don't agree with their fundamental outlook on the world; they shouldn't be forced to hire people who are not Christians–a fact that is sometimes revealed by a persons conduct. If a Christian organization is forced to hire someone who openly and continually disregards what they believe God's word teaches, it would be a clear violation of their religious liberty.

I couldn't agree more.

Unfortunately, that is not the whole story. The letter that Lindsay has added his name to is responding to an executive order that would currently only apply to federal contractors. That is, President Obama is issuing an order for any company that receives federal dollars or has a federal contract including religious organizations that receive federal funding for some work they are doing in the community. The concern expressed in the exemption letter is that this will ultimately leave religious organizations who currently receive federal funding in a difficult position: either they stand on their convictions, and lose their funding, or they drop their convictions, and keep their funding. It's also important to note that this doesn't effect only Christian organizations; other non-Christian religious organizations who are discriminatory in their hiring practice for religious reasons, as well as any religious-based federal contractor who maintains a standards of conduct that is discriminatory, would be included as well.

The exemption letter attempts to address what it’s authors see as the implications of the ENDA: it is highly likely that, at least in the short term, the executive order would harm far more people than it would help. Most legitimate Christian organizations who are currently serving the poor or marginalized of their communities in general will opt for standing on their convictions, and either be forced to seek other funding sources, to scale back, or to shut down altogether. The argument thus rests on the belief that there is a "greater good". In this case, the "greater good" is the work being done by the many religious organizations that receive federal aid, even if their hiring policies are discriminatory towards the LGBT community.

One of the problems that I think we are seeing is that what someone intends to say is not always what is heard. It seems to me that what was heard was that Dr. Lindsay wanted to add Gordon College to a list of organizations that are legally allowed to discriminate against gay people. Having attended Gordon College, and having utmost confidence in the administration, staff, and faculty, I strongly believe that this was not at all the intention and that Gordon maintains the same standards of conduct that it has always had, as expressed repeatedly in the responses from Dr. Lindsay and the Chair of the Trustees. Again, to be clear: Gordon College does and is legally allowed to discriminate against people who are not Christians, which is sometimes demonstrated through their unwillingness to live according to a biblical standard. But, this has nothing to do with a person’s fundamental nature, people group, sexual preference, or any other thing that may arise from our inherent genetic makeup.

In other words, the problem, as I see it, is that the letter failed to adequately address the intentions of the authors and left open to interpretation what they were saying in the background, which has justifiably caused more controversy than was intended. Or, to use the language I used earlier, perhaps the letter required more nuance, and possibly even more focus on the actual issue at hand.

To begin with, in my view, the ENDA does not restrict religious freedoms for any religious organization. That is to say that any organization based in the United States may continue to operate according to their standards of ethics and conduct, based on their religious conviction, without interference from the Government. This is the essence of religious freedom. The government will not, and cannot, tell you what to believe nor can it restrict your freedom to operate according to those convictions, except where it might cause harm to others.

What the ENDA addresses is cases where you have allowed Government “interference” into your organization because of the agreements that you have entered into with them, whether as a contractor, or as a recipient of funding. This is a different case altogether, and one that I think the Christian must wrestle with. As I mentioned earlier, we have taken for granted that for the most part, our government has supported Judeo-Christian ethics and the church/culture value systems have aligned closely enough where partnership could be easily accomplished. But as the value system of culture changes, it will be the Christian who has to increasingly make the choice to either stand on their convictions, or align themselves with organizations who do not share their view of the world.  Isn’t it often true that the borrower becomes the slave to the lender? Such is the case, I think, when we accept funding from any institution that does not share our value system, especially the government.

This is why I believe so many in the media picked up this letter for critique. The exemption letter seems to come at the ENDA from the angle of religious freedom, but as I’ve identified, religious freedom is not necessarily what is at stake. What is at stake is the receipt of federal funding or contracts. By addressing it in terms of religious freedom, however, the exemption letter places the emphasis on religious institutions necessary desire to be discerning in their hiring policy, rather than the implications of what would happen if the government decided to no longer fund explicitly religious institutions, even if the work they were doing was good for the national interest. And yet, it is this second piece that I believe is the real issue, and, was always the intention of the authors of the exemption letter.

As I looked at the list of organizations who signed the letter, for example, there were several that stuck out to me. One was Bethany Christian Services. I have three adopted children, and know several employees of Bethany, so I highly value the work that they do both nationally and internationally through their adoption and foster services. In our area, Bethany works alongside of DYFS to ensure that children are taken care of, and placed into foster or adoptive care when necessary. Bethany is also an explicitly Christian organization with an explicitly Christian standard of conduct. Were the ENDA to go through, whatever agreements they have with the State of New Jersey (as well as agreements in other states) would be at risk, since they would continue to maintain their standard of conduct and thus, be unable to receive a federal contract. This would have a ripple effect on the state level. Eventually, non-religious organizations may step into the gap, but in the short term, there would be immediate effects of the ENDA that would result in a loss of social services to a large number of people.

Or consider Catholic Charities, which I assume runs some inner city ministries such as food pantries, men’s and women’s shelters, homeless ministry, and the like. It is in the best interest of the government to give a grant to a Catholic Charity, rather than to try to fund a program itself. The fact is that someone working at a non-profit organization makes significantly less than any social worker in a government agency. Thus, it’s cheaper for the government to fund Catholic Charities than it is to try to take care of the work itself.

Or, in Gordon College’s case, what about federal student loans? Would Gordon continue to qualify as a destination for those loans? Or what of any work that Gordon might be doing in the scientific or computer field, where they might receive government funding to do their research?

The point is that if the ENDA goes through, Dr. Lindsay and these other religious leaders see that there will be implications, and they might be more far reaching than anyone is prepared for. They are sincerely asking culture, and the White House, a question: can we agree to disagree on this one issue, so that the work that we are doing together can continue? Perhaps the letter would have had more impact if there were some hard facts within the letter addressing these implications.

To ask the question another way, what will go away if the ENDA goes through? It won’t be religious freedom, and it won’t be religious “discrimination”. But it will be a lot of good, community serving organizations and the work that they are doing. I think that’s where the letter could use more focus.

So let me add one more thought, for any Christian organization who is wrestling with whether or not they will lose their funding: who is it that has called you to your work?

The nuance (if we can continue to use that word) of Jesus' response to the Pharisees who approached him about taxes was that he put the government in their proper place without having to sacrifice his conviction. The instructions of the New Testament authors did the same. The Christian, they would argue, is a citizen of another kingdom with another King. And that King has called them to the work of restoration of the whole world, including caring for the poor and the marginalized. If our earthly government is willing to support that effort without us having to sacrifice our convictions, we should rejoice! But if they order us to sacrifice our convictions, or else they won't give us the funding we used to have, we can still rejoice. Why? 

Because our funding never really came from them anyway. The government didn't call us to the work of restoration and the government isn't on the hook to fund it. God calls, God provides. (Take note that God tells his people through the prophet Haggai that he's going to "shake down" the nations for all of their gold and silver...the King's economy doesn't have a cash flow problem.)

It might be a good idea to warn the White House what is at stake if the ENDA goes through. But let’s keep things in perspective. We’re just sojourners here anyway, living by a different set of rules, and we’re going to keep on doing good whether the government is willing to help us fund it or not.