In what may be my inflammatory link of the month (year?), Joel McDurmon (who else) posted here and here on the blame for gay mirage in America resting with eschatological pessimists generally, and dispensationalism more specifically. While I am inclined to believe the AV club has something vaguely approximating a point, at least pertaining to the more....cavalier folks in the pop-dispensational camp, (here's lookin' at you, Hagee and Hunt!) I think that they are missing the forest for the trees. In other words, the truth about the church and potential culpability in the mirage is not smaller than the problem of cultural defeatism in eschatology, but it may be bigger. While conservative Christians can weep, gnash teeth and rend garments in a panoply of #thanksobama hashtags, most of us are complicit in the modern calamity to greater or less degree, and I will illuminate some broad stroke reasons that I feel this way below.
1) McDurmon does have a point.
Without belaboring the issue, it is difficult to make progress one is neither expecting nor working for. Theonomists have not been alone in presenting the problems with the sort of mindset McDurmon describes in the "rapture silver lining"camp. Suffice it to say I find the "escape hatch to heaven" doctrine both inconsistent with the overarching theme of Scripture and conducive to practice that has already cost multiple generations of Christians dearly. However, as others will spill more than enough ink on the topic, I move on to other more pressing items.
2) Christian complicity with State education.
Doug Wilson and others have written books, typed blogs and heated microphones to a steady radiance on the simple fact that Christian parents err grievously in handing over the time, energy and thought life of their still-developing children to as anti-Christian an institution as the US Department of Education. If the fact that light has no fellowship with darkness is insufficient to make the point, said Department's joining the recent rainbow logo fetish should be demonstrative to believing parents that State educators have a vested interest in de-magnetizing their childrens' moral compass. Plenty of parents whose children apostatize after years or decades in secular education express shock and dismay in the event, including parents who felt strongly that their child(ren) would be salt and light in the education system. Too often this is the equivalent of housing your nursery in a dingo preserve and expecting an end result of vegetarian dingos. Culturally, of course, the heirs of the legacy of Dewey (and by proxy, then, of Marx) are simply getting hungrier, as people perceiving increased proximity to their goals are apt to do.
3) Christian underestimation of the power of media.
Many of the same kids (including my peers, who are no longer children) left the hours a day, five days a week of secular catechesis they were already experiencing in order to pick up secular extra credit for additional hours and days in the form of secular tv, film and books, particularly television. I am no Luddite. In fact contrary to the stance of JD Hall or others, I do not feel that only television programs depicting a minimum of sin are edifying, or that consuming tv that depicts sin constitutes celebration of same. However, even if children, particularly young children (it is too late for much of my generation) are spared from exposed breasts and gunplay, the IV drip of poison continues in the form of ideological confusion. Sit down in front of the average program on "ABC Family" and count the number incidents of a) endorsement or outright celebration of homosexuality or other "alternative lifestyles" b) confused or absent ideas of what a "family" or "parent" constitutes c) promotion of herd mentality, particularly in the form of generation splitting (the out of touch mother or the workaholic father are proven less wise than the main character, usually a teenager's, friends, who of course all agree on whatever it is) d) presentation of anyone over thirty as backwards or out-of-step with reality and anyone over sixty as racist, obstreperous or senile e) flattening out of the concept of love into a conglomeration of sentiment, sex and tolerance. Prepare to be amazed. With the number of people my age who went directly from school and homework to tv every day of the week, it's honestly a wonder there are any twenty-somethings without a rainbow filter on their Facebook.
4) Christian ignorance of history.
We have been rendered impotent in the face of some of the most shallow and facile historical arguments I have seen on any issue. The slavery and race comparisons are so utterly bad that to be flustered by them is worse than admitting defeat, it's snatching it from the jaws of victory. Additionally, the inheritance of pietistic moralism in post-protestantism has resulted in a muddle of confusion on the distinction between sins and crimes, which results in the same regarding the states' role in either. To issue the example that cuts to the heart of the matter the quickest, the segregationist business owner who attempts to hide his bigotries under Christian terminology is a sinner in need of repentance. As soon as police officers force the desegregation of his business, he is now a resentful unrepentant sinner who is also a criminal. The bigot has learned nothing, and what society (especially the parts of society who control the police officers) has learned is that it can dictate morality. And a State dictating morality is not guaranteed to dictate only the kinds you like.
5) Christian ignorance of the Bible.
We cannot teach what we do not know. And I am not just talking about ordained ministers, but about parents, especially Fathers who are called to be the minister in their home. I didn't keep a running tally of statements on social media that betrayed a mind-bogglingly bad knowledge of Scripture, but I probably should have. These statements varied in content, but a fairly common example was, paraphrase permitting, "well, we all know that nothing in Leviticus or Deuteronomy [or the OT period] is applicable for Christians today, therefore...". These are young adults, active in a church (in some cases, I may be stretching my definition), with a existing, English-speaking first world pastoral staff and two professing Christian parents. Both the church and the parents are problems. But since I'm going to assume readers of this blog are on board with modern applicability of Old Testament texts, we all need to be committed to starting with Deuteronomy 11:18-21.
The above issues are not new problems. They did not arise overnight, which means that Obergefell v. Hodges did not arise overnight, and if there is to be counter-revolution, it will not happen overnight either. As always though, change, if it is to come, must be Holy Spirit-driven, which is to say gospel centered. Starting with our children and our next door neighbors, the answer to the modern American crisis is not the Republican party (or any other political institution), but rather the identity of the Church as, first and foremost, a proclaiming people.
In Christ,
~JS
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