I am hopeful that these Pages will speak meaningfully to any future generation no matter what the changes in general culture may be. There are no changes in the fundamentals of Christian culture, all generated from the holiness of the nature of God. In nature we refer to righteousness which ought to characterize the Christian, and is available for application to culture. It is change. The outline of that righteousness, making it practical for human life, is found in Scripture. Scripture, by the nature of its uniqueness, must be interpreted in itself in that there is no other instrument for interpreting it, and no culture that alleges to be formed in a model (revelation) from outside nature. For biblical Christians the Christian Bible is the preamble to the Constitution of the Kingdom of God. The Constitution of that Kingdom is in the mind and creativity of God. It is understandable and acknowledged that all this sounds odd and unacceptable to the humanist. Unless the person is taken by divine faith, there is usually perceived to be little effective explanation of the assertions above. There can be tolerance in unbelieving persons for those affirming that faith, as there must be tolerance in the persons accepting that faith for those who do not. This relates to the essence of freedom as an objective for society. The Christian does have a special point in that there is nothing in Christianity that offers less than the best concepts for building a good and flourishing society. Christianity is the friend of mankind in common grace, and challenges it to higher context in divine grace.
This may be illustrated in a current controversy that has come to a head in America. It is now focused on same-sex marriage. In the decade of the 1970s the challenge of the homosexual lifestyle suddenly began to change from a distortion requiring some effort for adjustment through laws, psychiatry, counseling and medical treatment to acceptance and new interpretation of normality for those embracing the orientation. The proposals met with resistance, and more than a majority of states, including the one in which I live, made laws resisting the concept of same-sex marriage. By way of illustration, in the last election a constitutional amendment was proposed that marriage could only take place between a male and a female. The public exchange was intense. The fortune of time and money put into the campaign was quite significant. The proposal lost by a slim margin. In the follow up, the former law is being challenged, and in a wave across the states, the concept of same-sex marriage appears on the way to approval. At some point the Supreme Court of the United States will be called upon to rule about the significant change in the legal understanding of marriage and consequently the concept of the homosexual lifestyle.
The Church has always treated homosexuality as a sin, based on both Old and New Testament teachings. Some church denominations have already changed their basic documents to permit same sex marriage. They have shifted the understanding of Scripture from its own authority to the interpretation by culture. The Scripture then is to be interpreted by the culture rather than to interpret the culture, although there remains a high opinion of the value of Scripture. The shift in interpretation is a vital one, and opens the door for changes in other matters, perhaps even in the redemptive story, for those churches. If Scripture can be re-interpreted in one area, can it be re-interpreted in another? This question is not our purpose here. Our purpose is to address what the biblical Christian ought to do relative to any revisionary approach to both Scripture interpretation and church practice – for this or any other cultural change made in society. We are always called to love and peace. At the least that calls for tolerance, not of concepts, but of acceptance of persons. We will have to wait and see how the matter plays out in the life of society, but the differences between the humanistic and the Christian contexts have never seemed so divisive. If all persons live within the graces available to them, with the understanding of the differences, there will be peace, hopefully love for all mankind even in what may be interpreted as flawed life and circumstances. The Christian is faced again with management of the teaching of Scripture and the preferences of the electorate. The problem has been faced before in other matters, principally in the sin of warfare that justifies, in common grace, the mass murder of human beings. We remember Revelation 22:11 that permits personal freedom to choose one’s own culture for the earth sojourn. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020