Journey into the Unknown, part 3

This morning was my next-to-last time with the adult Sunday School class I’ve taught since September, 2010. They are a great class—inquisitive, affirming, and they like to participate in the discussion. I told the class this morning that next Sunday would be my last day with them.

It was serendipitous that the lesson for today was from Genesis 12 and 15 (God telling Abram to set out on a journey to “the land I will show you” and that he and Sarai, both beyond normal child-bearing age, would have a son). This lesson also followed a summer forum on faith in Hebrews 11 that I co-taught last August. I was able to connect the passages and say that when we step out in faith under God’s guidance, we can know that He will be with us on that journey.

Interestingly, Abram was a human being like you and me. He messed up badly by taking things into his own hands after God had promised to bless him. The fact that he obeyed God initially and set out on the journey, and that he “believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” regarding the birth of a son, doesn’t negate his sin of not trusting that God would be with him along the journey.

His faith, like mine sometimes, was not always rock solid. Still, God blessed him when he obeyed, and granted him grace when he strayed. In saying that I am, like Abram, starting a journey into the unknown, I’m not claiming any special status or insight. I’m just doing what I believe the Lord is leading me to do at this time. May the Lord be gracious when I also blow it.

I had to tell my class why I was leaving. They knew that the vote to pass the “inclusion statement” last Sunday was connected; but I didn’t want them to think that I was leaving just because I was “unreasonably afraid of homosexuals” (the literal mean of “homophobic”—the pejorative term made up to demean those who disagree with the pro-gay agenda).

Again, the statement adopted by my church is “Calvary welcomes and affirms all people as children of God from every cultural and religious background, sexual orientation, family composition, physical and mental ability, economic means, race, age and gender."

As I have told several people, if the two words, “and affirms” were removed from the original statement (which also didn’t have the words “as children of God”), I could have voted yes and stayed. I believe we are to welcome and extend God's love to everyone. That doesn't mean to have to affirm them if that means we have to agree that their behavior is OK with us and we cannot say anything about that behavior.

Contrary to what has been taught at the church lately, I do believe the Bible classifies homosexual behavior as sin. At the very least, there is no place in the Bible where homosexual activity is praised, spoken of positively, or “affirmed”.

So, if I am accused of being intolerant or unloving because I believe the traditional interpretation of the Bible is God’s word on the matter, then I’ll admit my mea culpa. I do wonder though, why those who would thus judge me as unloving and judgmental don’t see that their own judgment of me is unloving and judgmental.

I stated that I told my class why I was leaving the church. Here are the primary reasons:

(1) I cannot “affirm” behavior the Bible classifies as sin. My remaining there after the church voted to affirm that behavior would be a tacit endorsement of the statement.

(2) I cannot endorse or accept what I see as revisionist interpretations of Scripture—interpretations based more on P.C. reactions to cultural changes than on solid hermeneutics.

(3) Since I started as their teacher, my goal has been three-fold: to teach the Bible; to teach how to study and interpret the Bible (hermeneutics); and to seek to apply the Bible’s teachings to life today. That’s why I can’t stand by silently when faced with interpretations that “pull us from the future” and in the process throw overboard “the faith that was once for all entrusted to…(us)”.

(4) I have been swimming against the stream too long. I am conservative and traditional (small "o” orthodox) in my theology. The direction of the church’s flow is not one I want to struggle against anymore, and I can’t just go with the flow.

(5) And, there are some other reasons that I’ll have to get to later. For now, it was important for the class to know that although the homosexual agenda issue is there, much more than that is involved.