Bishop Edward J. Slattery, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, recently wrote of the confusion within the Catholic Church regarding its teaching on divorce, cohabitation, and people who experience same-sex attractions (“We are not defined by our sin”). He states that much of this confusion resulted from the Vatican’s October publication of a working paper (Relatio post Disceptationem) of the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Family whose purpose was to raise awareness of significant pastoral issues concerning divorce, cohabitation, and homosexuality. The document was designed “…to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured.” [1] [emphasis added]
One of Bishop Slattery’s concerns is that much of the confusion results from contemporary commentators and even some in the church who use language that tends to diminish the human person through emphasis on their sinful activity. This is a legitimate concern, and as the bishop states, “…activity should never be confused with identity. The human person always remains greater than what he or she does or experiences.” [2] The Bishop is correct in that the importance of man’s identity is confirmed by the inestimable value God places on man. The tremendous value of man to God is undeniable when one considers that the cost of man’s redemption from his sinful state was the sacrifice of God’s own Son on the cross. Therefore, God does not condemn man nor can the church. But man was given freewill, and with freewill man made choices that are in conflict with God’s commandments and plan for mankind and thereby condemned himself. When this happened, it was called sin and broke the relationship between God and man. It is at this point that man often attempts to justify his activity because of his identity, and the modern church is often a co-conspirator in excusing sinful activity.
From a broader perspective, it would appear that much of the confusion in the church world stems from the church’s efforts (both Catholic and Protestant) to be inclusive of people who want to be accepted by the church but also want their sinful lifestyles to be accepted too. To do so they engage in theological contortions to answer questions and give perspective that will bring “maturity” (i.e., acceptance of the sinner and the sin within the church). It is in these efforts that the Bible is ignored even though it is the ultimate source of truth and is exceptionally clear in most cases as to God’s answers and perspective with regard to both sin and the sinner.
An example of this confusion and blurring of lines with regard to sin, the pastoral teaching of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops correctly states that, “God does not love someone any less simply because he or she is homosexual. God’s love is always and everywhere offered to those who are open to receiving it.” [3] However, this truthful teaching is often perverted to mean that love is all that is necessary by those wanting the church to embrace both the sinner and his sin. To do so dismisses the admonitions of Paul to the Romans regarding homosexuality which are clear-cut and still applicable in the twenty-first century. [4] This is but one example of the great caustic of relativism seeping into the church and by which biblical truths are ignored and eroded.
To claim love is all that is necessary is to dismiss the centrality of the cross in the great meta-narrative of the Bible with regard to creation, the fall, and man’s need for redemption. Christ died for the sins of the world to obtain forgiveness for man, and every man has a choice as to whether or not he will accept that forgiveness and follow Christ. To follow Christ is to follow His commandments. But, if love is all that is necessary, then the cross becomes irrelevant, sin is a misnomer, Satan is a myth, and God does not care about how we live our lives.
Bishop Slattery rightly says, “Chastity, after all, pertains not just to our behavior but also to the state of our hearts.” [5] Acceptance of Christ is first a matter of the heart. We can’t clean up our lives before we approach Christ. Every human approaches Christ as a sinner whether he is guilty of adultery, homosexual behavior, fornication, murder, theft, or one of a thousand other sins. I am a sinner saved by grace, the unmerited favor of Christ. I have repented of my sin and have been forgiven. Not only have I repented of past sins, I have turned from my sinful ways. Homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators, and any other label the sinner wears can repent, be saved, and fellowship with God for eternity. However, to do so, they cannot stay in their sin. When the sinner accepts Christ he must put away the sin and often this “putting away” can be a difficult and continuing struggle for the new Christian. But it is the struggle to lay down one’s sin coupled with continued repentance which makes the difference, not a continuing indifference to one’s sin.
In 1937, the Confessing Church in Germany was under severe persecution from Nazi rulers and that portion of the German church aligned with Hitler. Brilliant theologian, pastor, and opponent of the Nazi regime, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a dramatic paper in which he cautioned his fellow pastors in the Confessing Church.
Anyone who turns from his sinful way at the word of proclamation and repents, receives forgiveness. Anyone who perseveres in his sin receives judgment. The church cannot loose the penitent from sin without arresting and binding the impenitent in sin…The promise of grace is not to be squandered; it needs to be protected from the godless. Grace cannot be proclaimed to anyone who does not recognize or distinguish or desire it…The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and it will not only trample upon the Holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them. For its own sake, for the sake of the sinner, and for the sake of the community, the Holy is to be protected from cheap surrender. The Gospel is protected by the preaching of repentance which calls sin sin and declares the sinner guilty…The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance. [6]
Americans are especially averse to pain and suffering, and much of the modern church has that mindset. This is why it is difficult for some in the church to require the often painful “putting away” of sin when it welcomes the sinner into the supposed “big tent” of Christianity under the banner of love. Many in the modern church insist that the problem is not “cheap grace” but “cheap laws.” In other words, love and looking to Christ is all that matters. But grace without repentance is still cheap grace. Writing in his classic work The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer described this toxin within the church.
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church…In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin…Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. [7]
When we approach the cross with a contrite heart, our destiny is defined by how we respond to Christ’s invitation to be a part of His eternal kingdom. A person who willfully continues in his sin cannot be excused for they “…are [not] open to growing in virtue” and their heart remains unconverted. If the church does not make this distinction clear, it is guilty of misleading people as to their eternal destination.
Larry G. Johnson
[1] Edward J. Slattery, Bishop of Tulsa Diocese, “We are not defined by our sin,” Tulsa World, October 18, 2014, A17;
http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/readersforum/bishop-edward-j-slattery-we-are-not-defined-by-our/article_bb6fed60-fa34-581b-951c-5884295d6ffa.html (accessed October 20, 2014).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gavin Newsom, et.al., Letter to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, June 10, 2014.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.sfgate.com/file/829/829-ArchbishopLetter.pdf (accessed June 23, 2014).
[4] Romans 1: 18, 24-27. RSV
[5] Slattery, A17.
[6] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 292-293.
[7] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God,” (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), pp. 117-118.
