(or, “Is Truth Only for Those Who Believe It?”)

Christians believe that a human being is, from conception, an eternal transcendent soul enfleshed in a physical body, a special creation of God, every one of them—created by God, for God, and in the image of God. A human being is a moral agent accountable to God, endowed with free will and duty-bound in various ways to God and to other human beings.  This reality of what a human being is underlies all Judeo-Christian morality.  The rules of right and wrong are the way they are because a human being is what a human being is.  We should live this way; we should expect others to live this way; we should vote consistently with these rules; and we should expect all human behavior to be judged by God according to these rules.

Now, a well-meaning Christian might say, “That’s what Christians believe. But not everyone believes that.” 

To which I say, “Yes.  And so what?”

“Well, you can’t make people believe something they don’t believe, and you can’t force your beliefs on others.”   

Again, yes, and so what? We’re not talking about beliefs, we’re talking about what is true.  For where there is truth, it applies to every person, even the ones who don’t believe it. It’s just that the ones who don’t believe the truth are wrong.

To this well-meaning Christian I say, “Stop talking about beliefs!”  It doesn’t matter what you believe, or what I believe, or what another person believes.  What matters is what is true.  If I believe something because I like to believe it, because it suits me, say, then I have no right to impose it on another.  But if I believe it because it’s true—that is another matter entirely. If it’s true, then I must believe it, even if I don’t like it, and moreover, I should expect others to believe it also, even if they don’t like it, and if they don’t believe it, I can most assuredly say they are quite wrong.

Christians are not dealers in “belief”—as though it doesn’t matter what one believes just as long as one has faith in something. Even less are we dealers in uniformity of belief, as though it is important that everyone believe as we do. Christians are dealers in Truth, things that are so, even if no one believes them. Christians ought not to care what others believe, but we must care if others are wrong, even when it becomes clear that we’re never going to persuade them to change their minds.

But what about the person who says something like “We all have our truths. Jesus is your truth, and I’m fine with that.  But He’s not my truth.”  What do we say to that?

What we say is that they’re wrong, plain and simple.  They may be kind, they may be sincere, they may be thoughtful, but when they say, “We all have our truths,” they’re wrong.  No we don’t. That is not true, and we cannot let that stand.  Jesus is not our truth.  We are not inviting them to make Him their truth.  That Jesus is Lord is just true, and that does not change whether anyone believes it or not.  Christ does not become true for us Christians because we believe it.  We become Christians because we believe the truth about Christ.

Now, to what seems like a big problem: Our society does not believe there is such a thing as religious truth at all.  Therefore, it is contended, when it comes to matters of religion and morality, there is no truth to believe, but only beliefs. Therefore, when someone says “We all have our truths,” what they are really saying, since there is no such thing as truth, is that “We all have our beliefs.”

Notice that there is simply no debating such a person about God or gender or abortion or marriage or homosexuality or almost anything sexual, for that matter. Even if they acknowledge that we Christians are strongly opposed to such things, and even if they grant we may have good reasons to oppose them, no matter. Not everyone believes the way we do, so that is that. 

But we Christians know better, and we know that “not everyone believes the way we do” has nothing to do with it. We live and speak and act and vote based on truth, not on what we believe, nor on what others believe, nor on what others might be convinced to believe. Another person may believe—let’s go farther, every other person may believe—that an unborn child is just a clump of tissue, and so of course a woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy if she desires.  Now, I don’t believe that, but it wouldn’t matter if I did.  What matters is that it’s not true, that an unborn child is just a clump of tissue.  What is true is this: a human being is, from conception, an eternal transcendent soul enfleshed in a physical body, a special creation of God, every one of them—created by God, for God, and in the image of God.  Therefore, a woman cannot terminate—or rather, kill—this being merely because she so chooses. To do so would be wrong. Of course. It doesn’t matter what she believes.  It doesn’t matter what I believe.  It doesn’t matter what her doctor believes. It doesn’t matter what anyone believes.  The only thing that matters is what is true.

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas

Christianity and the Church used to be very much part of our nation’s culture.  I don’t mean to say that most Americans were Christians.  They weren’t really Christians, but they were culturally Christians.  Seventy-five years ago Most people were connected to a church, even if only nominally.  In fact, almost half attended worship services fairly regularly.  Almost everyone went to Church on Easter, at least. It was considered a good thing to ‘go to church’.  Your average citizen, even if not very religious, was generally familiar with the narrative of Scripture—they knew who Moses was, and what the Exodus was all about; they knew that Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and rose on Easter Sunday.  They were familiar with such names as Gideon, Samuel, David, Peter and Paul.  Churches were considered good things, and clergy were generally esteemed as moral leaders in the community.  Prayer was normal.  Invoking God in public settings was normal.  Atheism was deeply suspect, and the public mocking of Christianity was rare.

The moral fabric of society too conformed very closely to the moral teachings of the various churches, and the moral teachings of the different denominations were largely indistinguishable one from another.  Marriage as preached inside the Church (even liberal churches) was similarly understood and practiced outside the Church.  In fact, the churches were considered moral authorities. Illicit sex was not at all uncommon, but it was kept hidden as best as possible, and certainly not flaunted or celebrated.  Repentance, forgiveness and humility were positive values.  In those days the ethical requirements of being a decent citizen were compatible with the serious practice of Christianity, if perhaps a rather pale and unworthy version of it. 

In those days no great cognitive dissonance arose with a genuine belief and practice of Christianity.  In large part, rank and file citizens valued—or at least said they did—the same things serious Christians did, only they did so less seriously. They prayed some, while serious Christians prayed more. They worshipped God some, while serious Christians worshipped more.  And perhaps—and I emphasize perhaps—the serious Christian was somewhat more morally conscientious, although in truth there were many counterexamples.

To summarize, then, seventy-five years ago there was no great cultural divide between genuine believers and the rest of society.  There was a great spiritual divide, to be sure, but if you were not a serious Christian you probably didn’t notice that.

Today, American culture is far less Christian in flavor or appearance than once upon a time, such that the divide between the typical citizen and the serious Christian cannot go unnoticed. The change did not happen all at once.  American culture in the sixties and seventies—and even the eighties—still bore the sheen of Traditional Christianity, but it was dimming. And the dimming of it was accelerating, to the point now where the influence of Traditional Christianity on the larger culture seems all but gone.  Rather than address the causes of this transformation, or try to identify watershed moments in the decline of cultural Christianity, let us just accept that the relationship between the serious Christian and the average citizen is no longer what it once was. One is no longer a pale and generic version of the other.  They are different creatures.  They live in different worlds, speak different languages, and seek and value radically different things.

The Traditional Church is no longer a cultural institution. Rather, it has become counter-cultural. Taking Christianity seriously, and the Church seriously, now places a person seriously outside the mainstream of our current culture.  Belief in one true religion, in Christ as the sole Savior of all, as the sole judge of the living and the dead, belief in the institutional church as the only bearer of truth about God and His Will, in the sanctity of all human life, in the restriction of sex to life-long marriage and life-long marriage to people of the opposite sex, and many other such things, are completely unacceptable in various corners of our society today.  The precepts of multi-culturalism and of diversity, equity and inclusion condemn many traditional Christian beliefs as divisive, bigoted, hateful, backwards, ignorant, and the like.  The feeling is mutual.  The serious Christian condemns many of the precepts of multi-culturalism and of diversity, equity and inclusion as well, as absurd, hare-brained, utopian, foolish, utterly destructive of a good society and common sense, and even blasphemous.

It’s not so easy any more to have a foot in each camp, that is, to be a seriously spiritual person who nevertheless gets along and participates, at least outwardly, with the larger culture, or to be a member in good standing with the secular society and yet not be uncomfortable with Church doctrines and practices which are antithetical to that society. If you’re all in on one side of the divide, you’re likely all out on the other.  The only other alternative seems to be to remain uncommitted everywhere.

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas

I suppose the first question to address is why anybody would want to dye their hair green in the first place.  The short answer is, they want to express themselves, that is, their unique, inner self, and they want other people to notice (and hopefully appreciate) their uniqueness.  They want to stand out, and green hair certainly stands out in a way dishwater brown hair does not. So also tattoos, piercings, exotic hairstyles, clothing, and makeup can be used to make a person stand out.  Is there anything with that? With calling attention to oneself?

Not necessarily.  But it is not necessarily a good thing, either.

If one believes that individuals, deep down, are truly good and interesting and admirable, and that the more genuine and honest a look we all get at a person’s inner self the more truly good and interesting and admirable they will be shown to be, then individual self-expression of the sort in question is much to be valued. Expressive individualism celebrates the true and genuine self, rather than the façade that adherence to cultural norms seeks to present, and if this is a good thing, then the more true and inner selves we get on display the better.

But what if individuals, deep down, are not necessarily good or interesting or admirable? What if they are boring or rude or offensive or self-absorbed or ugly?  What if there are elements of our true selves that, if others could see them, would be embarrassing, or would cause others not to like us much? What if people who wear the façade of cultural normativity are just frankly easier to live with, and to deal with? What if significant elements of our true inner selves are best left hidden from all but those who are closest to us—or in some cases, from all except God? In that case, expressing our true and inner selves to the world is not a thing always to be yearned for, but a thing most often to be avoided.

Which is why Christianity does not value dress and makeup and mannerisms which are designed to make individuals stand out. It’s not that these things are bad in and of themselves—green hair might be just fine in the Emerald City. But trying to stand out, not by being excellent at something, but just by being different or unusual or even shocking, is not necessarily all that commendable. Christianity instead favors modesty and humility and yes, conformity. The façade that Christians should want to share with the world is not the true inner being that we are, but rather a humble and modest version of the person God wants us to be. That person may not always be very true to what’s really inside, but that person is a whole lot easier for others to get along with!

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church
Benton, Arkansas

To the one who is lost and sunk in the practical—or real—atheism of our present culture, to you I say:  Without God, you have nothing, because without God there is nothing. Without Him you will never have anything. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. If you want to get anywhere, start there.

To those who accept that God is, but who know nothing of what He has revealed, or what He is like, or anything He has done, I say: Look to Christ, who is God, God in human form. Jesus is the light of the world, who reveals God to us. In Him is summed up all that God is, all that He has done, all that he does, and all that He will do. If you know Him, you know God.

To those who profess Christ as the One Sent from Heaven, but who have no congregation, no pastor, no place in the Kingdom—and there are many of you!—I say, seek out a House of Worship, a place where believers gather, where your faith in Jesus can be formed and disciplined—else, your faith is too much all about you.

To those who have a church, but who participate in it only occasionally, and maybe even only rarely, to you I say, get serious. “Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done”—is not a part-time, casual, as-you-feel-the-need-for-it kind of commitment. Get serious with your worship, get serious with your congregation, or I fear you are wasting your time.

To those who have a church home (“home”, I say, for you are serious) but no solid understanding of the big picture, to you I say, seek instruction in the basics, embrace the basics, learn the catechism and the creeds, which are the condensed and distilled wisdom of the Scriptures. This is a firm and sure foundation for all that is yet to come to you. Don’t be ashamed to become a child in this. We all must start out as children. Our post-truth world doesn’t understand foundations.  But you have come to the Truth, which is the foundation.

To those who know the basics of the Truth, the ancient creeds, the catechism’s answers, the sound and cadence of people at worship, at praise, and at prayer, then to you I say, go to the Scriptures, and seek out a yet deeper knowledge of God there.  Learn the stories and the names and the events by which God has made Himself known to us. Study the words and the phrases and the verses and the passages and the images that are the stuff of the Truth.

To those whose faith has been formed by a confession and a catechism and a congregation and a liturgy and the Scripture, whose place in a pew—the very place you sit—is well known to a pastor in a pulpit, to a pastor whose face and voice is well known to you, to you I say this: Sunday morning is not the end of it.  Search the Scriptures daily and pray without ceasing. Yes, by yourself, but not on your own. The Church prays together on Sunday mornings, but it prays separately every day, and you are a part of that Church which prays every day.

To those who have mastered all of this, I have nothing to add. But would you please pray for me? I am still on my way.

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas

Occasionally in sermons or in a Bible class I will reference homosexuality. When I do so, I think I’m generally pretty clear that homosexuality is sinful and is to be avoided by Christians.  Nevertheless, most of us probably know homosexuals, and many have relatives or even close friends who are homosexual.  Not only that, but there are homosexuals who consider and declare themselves to be Christians. To make matters more complicated, there are even some churches—although not many—which receive practicing homosexuals into membership, perform same-sex marriages, and even ordain them into the public ministry. So, good faith questions are bound to arise among faithful Christians, and some may wonder: Should homosexuality be treated differently? At the risk of beating a dead horse, I thought I would address the issue and give it some clarity.

As a kind of sin, there is nothing special about homosexuality. It is but one kind of sin among a great many others generally classified as “sexual immorality.”  It is neither more heinous, nor more noble than any of the others. Like every other kind of sexual immorality, same-sex attraction is a sign of a distorted appetite. All sexual immorality is sinful and is to be avoided by Christians, homosexuality included.

That’s easier said than done, of course. Some kinds of sexual immorality are difficult for an individual to control or repress; some are very common and seemingly benign. Cultural attitudes sometimes tolerate, and sometimes approve various forms of sexually immoral behavior, making it still more difficult for a Christian to exercise self-control. Nevertheless, Christians must disavow all sexual immorality, do their best to resist it, and repent when they fail. That’s the life and the lot of every Christian.

As I said above, as a kind of sin, there is nothing special about homosexuality, including how Christians deal with it. Like all other sin, repentance and forgiveness is the way. 

Homosexuality is not new; it has always been around.  So why all the fuss now? A single word explains it.  Approval.  To the extent that our culture, our friends, family members, co-workers, and even sometimes other Christians want, seek, and even demand approval for it, the practice of homosexuality becomes infinitely more disruptive and difficult to manage. That’s why all the fuss:  the demand for approval.

A person confessing a homosexual sin, or a homosexual past, or a homosexual orientation, is not seeking approval for it.  A person in a same-sex marriage or an openly same-sex relationship is. A homosexual seeking God’s help to resist temptation is not seeking approval for their sinful desires.  The same cannot be said for the homosexual who demands that the church accept him the way he is. For the one repenting and confessing, there is no impediment to full membership and participation in the church, right along with every other kind of sinner. But for the one wanting, seeking and demanding approval, this cannot be, and to pretend all is well between them and God would be a lie.  Repentance and forgiveness is the way, not approval.

Once in a while someone will suggest that the Church is singling out homosexuality for special treatment. “Divorce is forbidden,” they note, “but look:  Churches are filled with divorced people! And the church doesn’t get nearly as worked up over heterosexual extra-marital sex as it does over homosexuality!” There is some truth to this observation.  Perhaps Christians have grown too lenient about these kinds of problems.  But that is not quite what this person means.  They are not suggesting that the Church tighten up with respect to heterosexual sins, but rather that it loosen up with respect to homosexuality. In the first place, most divorced Christians do not seek approval for their divorces, but forgiveness, and few Christians are proud of whatever immorality is in their past. Anyway, the answer to inconsistency is not for the church to relax God’s commands with respect to homosexuality, but to be more consistent in how it handles all varieties of public sexual immorality.

I have been asked a few times about a homosexual orientation, whether that in and of itself, is sinful.  Yes, it is, in the same way original sin is sinful. We might well call original sin an orientation too, and it’s definitely sinful, and we’re all born with it. A sinful orientation does not imply a powerlessness over sin! A person with a homosexual orientation, but who, for Christ’s sake, does not practice homosexuality, is exactly like a heterosexual who, for Christ’s sake, practices chastity. They are both to be praised! What after all is the baptized life but this: that a person who by nature is not very much like Christ at all, being baptized, undertakes from that moment on, to try to be as Christ-like as they can be, relying always and only on grace and the forgiveness of sins, and doing it all to the glory of God. Following Christ is a life of striving to be, with God’s help, what we are not by nature, and daily repenting of our failures as we go. I say again, to deal with sin—any sin—repentance and forgiveness is the way, not approval.

It is curious, this belief of many well-meaning but uninformed Christians, that among all the vexing, intractable sins of the mind or of the flesh that people are heir to, that this one sin, homosexuality, stands in some special category.  But it doesn’t.  Neither the sincerity of some of its practitioners, nor the fact that they did not “choose” their orientation, nor their powerlessness to change it, exempts this behavior, or the people who seek approval for it, from the judgment of God. And the judgment of God is this:  “That those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:21).  And this:  That “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Truly, there is nothing special about homosexuality, including how Christians should deal with it. Like all other sin, repentance and forgiveness is the way. “[D]o you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:9-11).

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas

I wrote last week about radical individualism and promised a follow up.  Here is the follow up: 

Since the end of the Second World War, there has been a profound shift in the thinking of our culture, a shift away from an objective, God-centered understanding of reality and of the individual’s place within it (a “Judeo-Christian” World View), to a view of reality that is centered and focused on the subjective, the personal and the private world of the individual. This highly individualistic perspective on reality is sometimes labeled “radical individualism,” and it has been embraced, to varying degrees, by many in America.  As a result, it is commonplace today to believe that goodness and truth are not to be found outside of us, in religion say, but within.

Among other things, this has resulted in the major reordering of sexual morality in society often called the “sexual revolution.”  Sexual morality is no longer a matter of conformity to an external standard set by God. Sex is now self-expression, part of a person’s very “identity.”  Being sexually moral means conformity to oneself, not to rules.  It is about authenticity.  Thus, the revolution. 

Radical individualism has also brought about another revolution in our culture, a new understanding of truth. Truth, for most people today, is not a shared understanding of reality as it once was, but is personal. Each person has their own truth, and what is most important about an individual’s truth is that it is authentic to them. 

Radical individualism has no place in the Church, and I would like to say that we Christians have been unaffected by it, but that would not be true. Although we see clearly enough the changes it has brought to society, and are appalled by them, we Christians are often unaware of just how much we too have been affected by the larger society’s shift away from a Judeo-Christian world view.

The radical individualism of our society has caused many Christians to become uncertain about the nature or importance of sexual purity. To the extent that Christians have to some degree bought into the sexual revolution, it is not because they have carefully studied the Scriptures and come to new conclusions about sex, but because they have, again to some degree, bought into the thoroughly unbiblical idea that if sex is consensual, committed, and “loving,” then it’s okay.  Today, even committed Christians sometimes hesitate to call extra-marital consensual sex a sin—because even Christians are not always entirely sure that something that feels so right could actually be wrong. That certainly explains why so many young Christian couples are already living together before they even see their pastor about a wedding! Think about that, though.  Living together means they are not even hiding it!  Not even from their own parents! Lately, attitudes toward homosexuality have followed a similar path.  Deep down many Christians suspect that the sincerity of homosexual lovers justifies—perhaps even sanctifies—their conduct. The results in churches have been embarrassing, often painful and are proof that our culture has rubbed off on us too much.

But as many problems as the sexual revolution has brought to Christian homes and churches, there is something worse about radical individualism than that. Just as radical individualism teaches that people should be free from being told who they can love or how, it also teaches that people should be free from being told what to believe. For the Church, this is actually a far more corrosive, far more ubiquitous, and far more consequential aspect of radical individualism than the sexual revolution.

Radical individualists will not believe what they are told simply on the authority of the one who is speaking. Truth founded like that on authority they call dogma, and dogma is bad.  Authentic, grown-up people do not believe something simply because they are told to believe it.  They will believe only what is corroborated by their own experience and feelings and sense of truth. Believing something because you are told to believe it, rather than because it seems right to you, is the opposite of authentic. Idolatry is the most grievous sin of the Christian; believing dogma is the most grievous sin of the radical individualist.

But what is the Christian Faith if not dogma? We believe what God says not because we deep down agree with it but because it is God who said it. Dogma does not come from within us, but from without, and it changes us. Dogma does not mean blind, stupid beliefs, it means beliefs that are so central and so certain that they are no longer debatable, and so important they must be passed on. Dogma should not be rejected because we don’t agree with it. We should change what we think until we do agree with it!  “Jesus is Lord” is dogma. “God raised Him from the dead” is dogma. “Given and shed for you” is dogma. To reject dogma is to reject Christ!

Because it teaches that people cannot be told what to think—they must find the truth for themselves—the effect of radical individualism on the church has been particularly catastrophic. Christians have become uncertain about dogmatic truth. They may wonder whether Jesus is really the only way to the Father (because so many people sincerely don’t think so).  They may wonder whether the Word and the Church really are more important for our lives and the lives of our children than happiness, security, and money (because again, so many people sincerely don’t think so).

Christians have become wary of dogma even in how they raise their kids. Many Christians were raised, and then went on to raise their own children, with some kind of an idea like this:  “Religion shouldn’t be forced on children. Religion is something they should choose when they are old enough to decide for themselves.” Now, most Christians would never come out and say that. More typically, what happens is they simply don’t teach their children about Christ and the Kingdom at all. In this way they reduce the Word of God from dogmatic Truth—something so central and so sure that it is beyond debate and must be passed down—to something people can choose if it suits them. What accounts for that?  It’s not that they didn’t care about their children.  It’s that they too much had adopted this new view of truth, that it is something personal and private, something that, to be authentic, you must choose.

Almost half the children baptized in LCMS churches quit the church altogether before adulthood. That’s why we’re not growing. Take cheer, I guess. Our denomination is better than most. Sometimes it’s because these kids grow up and are persuaded by the culture to reject a dogmatic faith.  There’s a lot of pressure on young people to do that. But often enough it’s because they were never given a dogmatic faith in the first place.  Instead, they were given a faith they could choose if it suited them and, apparently, it didn’t suit them. Quite possibly their parents had the same kind of faith. Our radical individualistic culture applauds that kind of parenting. So does the devil.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I’m not writing this in the hope of changing the nation.  “Let the dead bury their own dead,” Jesus said. Let others do that. I’m concerned for the Church, that the nation and culture not change us too much. 

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas

I have had a number of fairly intense debates / discussions of late, mostly, but not entirely, with young Christians, regarding abortion, homosexuality, and LGBT lifestyle issues. I have been struck by the intensity of their feelings and by their sincerity.  What have I heard? Dissatisfaction with a perceived lack of compassion among traditionally-minded Christians (including the Missouri Synod); a lot of pro-choice rhetoric, and sometimes even a full-throated embrace of pro-choice politics; skepticism regarding the Church’s historic teaching concerning homosexuality; and, of course, the belief that we must love one another and not judge people just for being who they are.  In other words, I’ve been hearing a lot of the same things that have been emanating for quite a while now from our televisions, from pundits and from politicians. But here’s what I haven’t been hearing: I haven’t been hearing Scripture. I haven’t been hearing theology. I’ve been hearing a lot of political theory. I don’t think these Christians mean to substitute politics for the truth of the Gospel, but in practice if it’s not quite that, it’s sometimes coming pretty close.

Here’s why I say “political theory”, and here’s what I mean by that. Bear with me a moment. There is, in our society, a pronounced tendency to frame moral, lifestyle and identity issues in terms of individual autonomy. That is the very essence of a political theory with deep roots on both the left and right called “liberalism”.  As political theory, liberalism flourishes today as so called “classical liberalism”, and as Libertarianism, but also as a kind of radical individualism where personal autonomy is seen not just as liberty from legal constraint, but from social and moral constraint as well. On the left and the right personal liberty is often described as the highest political value, and there is much talk on both sides about “rights”.  Opposing political theories, often labeled as “illiberal”, can be seen on the left in “woke” politics and some kinds of progressivism, and on the right in some kinds of social conservativism.  These other political theories are often characterized as “illiberal” because individual liberty, in the sense of personal autonomy, is not generally upheld as the highest good. Instead, conformity to some greater good is emphasized—to God, say, or the community, or the State, or anti-racism.

There are moral and theological implications to radical individualism. Where individual autonomy is seen as the highest good, authenticity becomes a high, perhaps even the highest, virtue. An authentic person, whatever else they may be, is a person who is true to themselves. They ought to be respected for being courageously and virtuously authentic. After all, it’s very courageous and virtuous for a gay person to “come out”, or for a Trans person to make the switch. Not only that, but they ought to be honored and respected also, for who they are, because there is no better way to be than to be the way you really are.

On the other hand, an inauthentic person is to an extent affected, hypocritical, and fake. Christians are often characterized this way. Deep down they know they are really no better and no different, but they hide that fact, from themselves and others. Worse yet, they judge others who, ironically, are really more honest and virtuous than the Christians who judge them! Inauthentic people deserve moral approbation because they are fundamentally dishonest, and that is the opposite of authentic.

Moreover, in this way of thinking, to subject an authentic person to moral judgment merely for being who they are is to deny, in some sense, their very humanity. To do that—and especially to do that in the name of Jesus—is mean-spirited and hypocritical.  It is the opposite of “loving your neighbor as yourself”. No matter what the Scriptures say, to someone who upholds the virtue of authenticity in this way, the Church judging people for being homosexual just seems mean.

It’s this kind of political theory that is giving rise to much of the confusion among Christians when it comes to sex, gender and LGBT issues, even to the point of engendering hostility to some very ancient and heretofore uncontroversial Church teachings. But these Christians often don’t realize this. They just think they’re being nice, accepting, loving—like Jesus.

The problem here is that Jesus, though indeed an enemy of a certain kind of hypocrisy, is no great champion of authenticity or personal autonomy. That’s the fact. Being “true to oneself” and “self-actualization” are not high virtues in the Kingdom of God. Rather, Scripture is filled with exhortations to the fear of God, obedience to the Word, humble faith, repentance, self-denial, self-discipline, suppression of the Old Adam, self-sacrifice, humility, dependence on God, chastity, faithfulness in suffering, obedience to authority—as well as warnings against pride, self-exaltation, licentiousness, and libertinism.  Now these are virtues in the Kingdom of God, and they are the kinds of virtues that arise from sound Theology. When I speak with Christians who are advancing pro-choice or LGBT causes, I don’t hear any of that. I hear instead about liberty, rights, personal autonomy, authenticity, and self-actualization. It is all well meaning and sincere, but it is not Theology.  Rather, this is the stuff of political theory, and not good political theory.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with political theory as such, and though you might find it hard to believe these days, there is actually room in the Christian Church for a great many political theories to flourish. But we Christians have to be careful that the particular political theories we embrace line up with—or at least don’t contradict—our theology!  There is a way that liberalism as a political theory, both the classical small government liberalism of the right, and the more expansive big government liberalism of the left, can fit with a Christian world view.  But liberalism in the form of radical individualism is another matter. That kind of liberalism is an inversion of a most basic Christian truth, that sinners are not called to be authentic to themselves, but to repent of themselves, and to be authentic instead to Christ who dwells in them. More on all this in the next post.

James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas