The Christian Worldview and the Moral Revolution – Part 2

An earlier article reviewed the comments of David Closson, Director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at the Family Research Council at the Christian Worldview Conference sponsored by the Maryland Family Institute in Mt. Airy, Maryland on April 18 regarding George Barna’s research into the prevalence of a Biblical worldview and the moral revolution that has challenged it among Americans and American churchgoers, and the importance and impact this has in the controversy over abortion. In further presentations, Closson discussed the impact of the moral revolution on the public understanding of marriage, sexual morality, homosexuality, and transgenderism.

Changing Attitudes toward Marriage and Morality

Closson noted the dramatic change in attitudes about marriage in recent years. For Gen Z, 19.7 percent of young adults identified as “gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgender.” This was only true of 11 percent of Millennials, 3.3 percent of Gen Xers, 2.7 percent of boomers, and 1.7 percent of silents. Closson proposed to consider “the timeline of the moral revolution.”

First, he considered “the rise of urbanization.” In 1880, 7 percent of the world’s population lived in cities, today 55 percent do. In another 24 years, it is estimated “that 68 percent of the world’s population will live in cities.” While cities are “morally neutral” in themselves, they do result in a diminution of “community-based accountability.” For many, there is a very substantial anonymity to be had in cities. In small towns, by contrast, there is much truth in the saying “everybody knows everybody’s business.”

Secondly, there is the rise of technology related to human reproduction.  In 1960, the FDA approved the contraceptive pill (Enovid). The twentieth century also saw the appearance and use of intrauterine devices (IUDs). This separated sex from procreation. We now live in the fourth generation of this separation.

Third, there are significant changes in law. Closson noted that “the law is inherently pedagogical [a teacher].” For many, it makes the difference, or at least is a powerful determinant, of right and wrong. Laws pertaining to sexual activity changed dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s. Many laws restricting sexual behavior were repealed or overturned by courts. “Access to birth control exploded” after two Supreme Court decisions, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) which declared laws against contraception for married women unconstitutional, and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) which declared laws against contraception for unmarried women unconstitutional. The latter decision was especially radical, as it gave legal respect for the first time to non-marital intercourse.

Later, in 2003, Lawrence v. Texas declared laws against sodomy to be unconstitutional. This was followed by the sane-sex marriage decision (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015), which mandated same-sex marriage nationwide, overturning laws in 32 states mandating opposite-sex monogamy. These decisions have reflected the moral revolution, Closson said, “but they also drive the moral revolution.” He quoted Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s (in)famous “mystery clause” in the Planned Parenthood v, Casey decision (now overturned), which says that everyone has the right to define their own identity and desired reality.

Similarly, there has been a religious change in the direction of secularization. In 2009, 77 percent of Americans said they were Christians, in 2019, it was 65 percent, a twelve percentage point decline in a decade. On the other hand, the percentage of non-religious Americans rose from 17 percent in 2009 to 26 percent in 2019.  Notably, during the coronavirus shutdown stores, casinos, and abortion facilities were not closed, while churches were shut down. There was no recognition that religion was important. By contrast, during the Spanish flu of 1918, shutdown orders from mayors and governors either exempted churches or politely asked clergy to close churches for a short time.

Finally, Closson said that the change in anthropology is important, i.e., how people understand who they are. This is where “the biggest tension comes between Christians and non-Christians.” He referred to Carl Trueman, and his thesis that over the last 100 years “subjective feelings, emotions, and impulses” have increasingly defined who we are, and are considered much more important than “external authority” or reality. At the present time, this prioritizing of feelings is only true in certain areas. We do not tell anorexics that they indeed need to lose weight. He pointed to an illustration advanced by Tim Keller, in which an Anglo-Saxon warrior in A.D. 800 and a young American man in today’s Manhattan both have strong feelings of aggression and same-sex attraction. But the Anglo-Saxon warrior without giving it a second thought suppresses his same-sex attraction because of the wider world in which he lives, while giving vent to aggression, and the young American male suppresses his aggression, while identifying with his same-sex attraction. This shows that even in a supposed era of self-determination the way we think is culturally determined.

Thus everyone needs “to be aware of how our culture is shaping our identity.” For Christians, however, the question is whether “our interpretive moral grid is being shaped by the Biblical metanarrative.” He said that “most fundamentally, we are made in God’s image.” We have “a God-given purpose, to rule and have dominion” over the earth (Gen. 1:26). Scripture also says that “we are either male or female (Gen. 1:27).” But the fall informs our identity, as well. Christ’s life, death, and resurrection then should complete our identity. We should “value our core identity, which is ‘sinner saved by grace.’” This is radically different from the message of the current culture, which is that we are defined primarily by sexual desires. But Christians must “help people understand that your feelings do not always determine what is true.”  

The Homosexual Revolution and the Creation Order

After reviewing the conflict over abortion, Closson addressed the other area of the moral revolution, the sexual side (of which homosexuality was the lynchpin). Homosexuality and same-sex marriage have now been eclipsed in the public mind by transgenderism, he noted, which followed immediately on the heels of the same-sex marriage decision (Obergefell v. Hodges) in 2015. Bruce Jenner’s interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC News’ 20/20 two months before the Obergefell decision gave impetus to the new leftist cause celebre of transgenderism. Jenner there announced his new identity as Caitlyn Jenner. North Carolina passed its “bathroom bill” the same year in response to the transgender offensive that mandated sex-separate public bathrooms. The NCAA and other sports organizations then pulled their games out of North Carolina.

The Overton Window, or range of acceptable opinions, has thus shifted dramatically on sexual issues in recent years. Things which “were once unimaginable” and doubtless only a generation or two ago would have been laughed off as fallacious “slippery slope” arguments against the moral revolution are now a reality and widely accepted. A Family Research Council survey showed that 19 percent of churchgoing Americans thought that the Bible was unclear on homosexuality, 11 percent thought that the Bible did not address homosexuality, and 7 percent didn’t know if the Bible addressed it. Thus, 37 percent of “regular churchgoers” were unclear about what the Bible has to say about homosexuality.

Closson referred to Matthew Vines’ 2015 book, God and the Gay Christian, as an example of the kind of distortion leading to the current confusion. His basic argument is that people who are homosexually active can be nice, kind people, and this fruit from their lives shows that homosexuality is not evil. In particular, Vines maintains that one need not give up one’s Christian identity to embrace homosexuality. While this argument may not be convincing to Christians who have lived through the sexual revolution of the last sixty years, it may be more convincing to Christian young people who have been bombarded from an early age with the message that homosexuality is normal and natural.

The well-worn arguments that Vines advances against the Biblical condemnations of homosexuality are that the sin of Sodom was inhospitality, and that Jesus never condemned homosexuality. As far as the Biblical account of Sodom in Genesis 19 is concerned, Vines identifies other Old Testament passages that hold that the “sin of Sodom” was such things as greed and oppression. Ezk. 16:49-50 links “the sin of Sodom” to the oppression of the poor, as well as “pride and a mocking behavior that characterizes Sodom.” In Vines’ opinion, Isaiah chapter 1. Amos 4, and Zephaniah 2 do so as well (although sin in Sodom is linked to sin in general in these passages, as it commonly is in the Bible).

But while what these Biblical references say is true, a straightforward look at the text of Genesis 19 shows that the sin of Sodom must be sexual, Closson showed. The angels sent to Sodom stay and dine with Lot, after which the men of Sodom demand that the angels be put at their disposal, so that they may “know” them. Lot says this is acting “wickedly,” and offers his virgin daughters to the men of Sodom instead, but they are not dissuaded from their desire for the angels, whom they understand to be men. Closson points out that the Hebrew word for “know” means “to become acquainted with,” but is context-dependent in its meaning.  Here it quite clearly means to know sexually.

Vines concedes this but claims that what was being condemned is only gang rape, “an extreme form of inhospitality.” He appeals to Ezk. 16:49, which says that the sin of Sodom was “arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease,” and also not helping the poor and needy. Yet the next verse (16:50) says Sodom committed “an abomination” before God. Again, the Hebrew word for “abomination” is the same one used in the condemnation of homosexuality in the holiness code of Leviticus chapters 18 and 20. That homosexuality is condemned in the account of Sodom is also confirmed in the New Testament. II Pet. 2:7 says that Lot “was greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked” and that the unrighteous “indulge defiling passions” (II Pet. 2:10). Similarly, Jude 1:7 says that Sodom and Gomorrah “indulged in sexual immorality,” and “pursued unnatural desire” (or more literally “went after strange flesh” and were made an example, “undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

As for Jesus not mentioning homosexuality, it is also true that Jesus never mentioned or condemned bestiality, rape, or incest (indeed, bestiality is not mentioned in the New Testament), “Silence does not mean approval.” Further, Jesus accepted the authority of the Old Testament (Matt. 5:17, 22:43-44, Jn. 10:35). In this regard “Jesus affirmed the creation pattern for marriage” (one man and one woman in exclusive, permanent monogamy, Matt. 19:4-6, Mk. 10:6-9). Jesus responded to the Pharisees in these passages by quoting the creation order in Gen. 1:27 and Gen. 2:24. It might be added to these considerations that Jesus ministered in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria, where overt homosexuality was reasonably uncommon or nonexistent, not in Greece and Rome, where Peter and Paul ministered. Many people in churches today want to set aside Biblical morality “for emotional reasons,” Closson said. But careful and honest reading of the text supports the traditional Christian sexual ethic.

Closson observed that for the last 1,900 years, his analysis of the Biblical text would have been non-controversial. Only in the last 100 years, with the rise of theological liberalism, has the kind of interpretation of the Bible’s sexual ethic offered by Matthew Vines and others seemed plausible to many people. Closson again noted (as in his comments in the preceding article) that theological liberalism was “embarrassed” by the Bible’s supernatural claims. This meant that belief in the Bible as a revelation of eternal truth from God came to be highly qualified, and the Bible was treated more as a collection of human documents relative to the time and place in which they were written. Those denominations that accepted theological liberalism did not reject traditional sexual morality when liberalism was accepted in the early twentieth century, but the next generations did. “When the culture shifted on sexuality and abortion, they shifted as well.” Churches that rejected theological liberalism also maintained a traditional sexual ethic.

What Young People Should Understand About Marriage

Closson then discussed the marriage controversy in the 2000s and early 2010s. There were thirty-two states that passed marriage amendments, codifying marriage as being between one man and one woman. But since the same-sex marriage decision, the nature of marriage has passed from public attention. He pointed out that young people today in high school and college have only known a world of same-sex marriage. Therefore, churches must be careful to teach a Biblical ethic of marriage, rather than simply assuming that people in church actually understand and believe in the traditional sexual morality of opposite-sex monogamy.

Truths about marriage that people, especially young people, should understand are that

1. Sexual differentiation is central to God’s plan for marriage (Gen. 1:27-28, 2:24). Neither male nor female could alone “fulfill that creation mandate of being fruitful and multiplying.”
2. Marriage is the exclusive union of one man and one woman.
3. Marriage is permanent. “They are therefore not two, but one flesh, therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt. 19:6).
4. Marriage is a sacred covenant.
5. Life with opposite-sex parents is crucial to a child’s development, Boys raised without a father are much more likely to engage in violence, crime, and dissipation, and drop out of school, while girls are more likely to engage in promiscuity and face unwanted pregnancies.

Closson then pointed out “two popular lies about marriage. First, “it’s OK to identify as a gay Christian or a transgender Christian.” Here he referred to the vice list of I Corinthians I Cor. 6:9-11 (which includes such persons as the “greedy,” “drunkards,” “revilers,” and “swindlers” who “will not inherit the Kingdom of God”). No one would identify as a Christian thief, drunkard, or swindler. Christians should identify as Christians, as disciples of Christ, not in terms of their former sins. A second lie is that churches can accept same-sex couples into fellowship, provided that the church does not recognize them as married. The problem here is in effectively accepting the sin of sodomy. Repentance is part of discipleship and invariably accompanies true conversion. It might be added that if same-sex couples can be blessed and received into fellowship, so can polygamous marriages or polyamory.

A Biblical worldview of course includes more than doctrines and practices about abortion and homosexuality (and now transgenderism), but these are not uncommonly presenting issues that show whether a church or individual is truly faithful to the confession one claims, or whether one accommodates the world when enough pressure has been applied. However much society changes, faithfulness means holding fast (II Thess. 2:15) to the teachings of Christ and the apostles on the sanctity of life and sexual morality, always in the hope that people will change for the better, and in sure hope of the final victory of God’s kingdom.

More from IRD:

The Christian Worldview and the Moral Revolution – Part 1