It is the task of the preacher to be led by the text, even if the questions he brings to that text are shaped by present concerns, pastoral and otherwise. Our ministry should be as wide ranging and as balanced as the Bible.  But it is the task of the concerned citizen to speak specifically to those issues which are being used to undermine free and civil society.

Dave Moore has an excellent post on the selective outrage of evangelicals over gay marriage.  Here is the core of his argument:

“We believe homosexuality is a sin.  We also believe that gluttony, gossip, adultery, sex outside of marriage, racism, unscrupulous business practices, the love of money, divorce, and a whole host of other things are sin.  Unfortunately, we have not done a very good job in communicating a comprehensive view of sin.  We have been selective.  Too many times we have been motivated by fear.  We have avoided addressing certain sins for fear our giving at church will plummet.  Too many of us have come across as both hating the sin of homosexuality and the homosexual.  We could go on with other specifics, but hopefully you get the point.  Our selective outrage has made us not act like Jesus.  We have been rather poor at modeling the “grace and truth” approach of Jesus.”

Amen.

My one point of pushback or perhaps clarification would be this: While I cannot speak for others, the only reason I write regularly in the wider public sphere on the issue is that this is the one being used to leverage restrictions on freedom of religion.  If greed or gossip were being used in that way, I would write against them.    In fact, as I reflect on my Sunday preaching over the last years, I think I have mentioned gay marriage perhaps half a dozen times in the pulpit in the course of 150+ sermons, and then often only as illustrative of some wider point.  Probably I should teach more on sexual ethics than I do, given that one can no longer assume that all Christians necessarily grasp what the Bible teaches.

It is the task of the preacher to be led by the text, even if the questions he brings to that text are shaped by present concerns, pastoral and otherwise. Our ministry should be as wide ranging and as balanced as the Bible.  But it is the task of the concerned citizen to speak specifically to those issues which are being used to undermine free and civil society.

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