Self Destruction

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America took a page from the Episcopal playbook over the weekend voting to allow gay and lesbian clergy to serve in their churches. This triggers the heart-wrenching process for hundreds of churches across the U.S. of having to decide whether or not to leave the denomination. No matter what decision churches make there will be a traumatic process of losing members, hurt feelings, and, most tragic of all, those who'll leave church all together connecting this stupidity to Christian faith.

Yes, I said stupidity. For decades now several protestant denominations have pretty much abandoned the teaching of the Bible. They've opted instead for the pursuit of a social justice, feel good, self-help, mushy "God is your friend who would never confront your rebellious sinful lifestyle" kind of approach to faith. This has led to all sorts of behavior being overlooked...or worse, sanctioned...by church leadership.

Loving, serving and caring about others comes straight out of an intimate knowledge of God's Word and being surrendered to His Holy Spirit. Trying to manufacture that outside of Biblical understanding and being anchored on a bedrock foundation of truth leads to the kind of foolishness the Lutherans fell into last week (foolishness toward which they've been sliding for years). There's nothing unloving about holding people accountable to a standard. There's nothing unloving about saying that God sets the standard for human behavior to which all of us should strive.

I have a sister who has consistently made extremely poor relationship choices since she was a teenager. I'm convinced she has a history of having been abused as a child. She's the most loving, caring, considerate person you could ever meet. However, for whatever reason, she has no standards when it comes to relationships and over and over and over and over for the past 30+ years she's repeated the same painful mistakes. Never, at any time have I given her the impression that she's making good choices. Never have I considered applauding her choices. On the contrary, I have chastised her, spoken harshly to her, been critical of her choices and given her advice on other options she could pursue that would result in her achieving health and becoming able to make healthy choices ultimately getting her what she really wants, a truly healthy relationship. I've never once stopped loving her or caring about her so deeply that it makes my heart ache.

If, instead, I chose to demonstrate my love for her by telling her all her bad, hurtful choices are now okay by me and she should pursue them with gusto, it wouldn't make my heart hurt any less. In fact it would make it worse because I would now be complicit in her self-destructive behavior.

She called me yesterday and opened the door, yet again, for me to speak directly and honestly about my opinions regarding her choices. Toward the end I apologized if I took a harsh tone. She said that's what she needed to hear and knew that I loved her and was speaking truth to her. She wasn't looking for license to keep going on the same path. She was looking for someone to confirm that she had a hand in her current situation and that there was hope for a better life if she'd pursue a healthier path built on a foundation of truth.

Telling someone that their wrong behavior is okay doesn't make it okay. The homosexual community has, for years, been screaming at the church that accepting their lifestyle is the only thing that will demonstrate that we truly love them. Yet another denomination has buckled under the onslaught. Purporting to demonstrate love for people by changing the fundamental definition of right and wrong is actually among the most destructive things we can do. And putting God's Word to a vote...well, that's a topic for another time.