CWA of Washington highly recommends this article recently published in CWA’s monthly Prayer/Action Newsletter that goes out to CWA leaders around the country.
By Mario Diaz, Esq., Legal Counsel, CWA
I was proud to represent Concerned Women for America (CWA) at the 2014 National Conference of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, titled, “The Gospel, Homosexuality and the Future of Marriage.” I think you will agree that few topics are more relevant to the culture in which God has called us to live.
American culture is in desperate need of Christian leadership in every area, but especially in the area of sexuality where we have seen the absolute degradation and desecration of Biblical morality.
I am writing to you as I reflect on the culmination of the first day of discussions at the conference. And today, no one was better than Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in setting the urgent tone of the issue. “We cannot separate the Gospel from sexuality,” he said. This is something CWA has tried to convey in different ways for a long time now. It is a message primarily for the Church – the Church that wants to love and reach out to those around them but that cannot
miss the centrality of the marriage
mystery in the Gospel narrative.
It exists both in substance, as the
image God uses to describe His relationship to His bride, the Church, and also as it relates to the authority of Scripture, which is crucial for us.
Dr. Mohler took on the “revisionists” within certain churches who are in a desperate search for a way for the church to accept homosexuality and “move on.” This is being called a “third way” to look at same-sex “marriage.” However, “There is no such third way,” he said. And he is right, for the decision is between following or ignoring Scripture.
He recounted how those who want to accept homosexuality within the church argue that there are things we didn’t know in the days of old that we know now. The Bible just got it wrong because it lacked information. To which Dr. Mohler replied, “I don’t believe there was information lacking for the Holy Spirit when He inspired Scripture.” That got an “amen” from me! God is the true Author of Scripture, and if we are going to tamper with its truths based on the flimsy whims of men and women, we might as well discard it all (which is precisely what happens when we undermine the authority of Scripture in this way).
Therefore, “The Gospel is at stake,” concluded Dr. Mohler. And in this there is no compromise. “A church that accepts a revisionist vision of sexuality is not one that is catholic and apostolic,” he affirmed.
But Dr. Mohler’s focus was inward. “When we come to an event like this, we have to have our hearts broken, not about ‘their sin’ but about ours,” he said. I had to fight tears at that point. He put the state of marriage and our culture in general at our feet. It was incredibly humbling.
Dr. Mohler reminded us that the problem we face is not homosexuality or same-sex “marriage,” but sin. “By the time same-sex ‘marriage’ happened,” he told us, “most of the sexual revolution had already happened.” This is yet another area where CWA has been leading the charge for years, fighting no-fault divorce laws and cohabitation, among many other issues that have been undermining marriage and the Biblical model for sexuality.
Dr. Mohler explained that the brokenness of our sexuality happened in the Garden of Eden first, and ever since then men and women have walked away from God’s model for marriage and sexuality, suffering the numerous consequences of ignoring the counsel of God.
We are all broken. We are no better than anyone else. We suffer from the same ailment, namely sin in our lives. We are all in the same desperate need of salvation. And we are all offered the same hope: The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
This is the fight we fight when we stand for God’s model for marriage. It is the fight of the Gospel of Christ. And it is worth it!