Being a
"Simple-Minded Jesus Lover"
Is No
Excuse for Really Bad Theology
Alan Chambers dodges the real issue at hand and
inadvertently
plays the role of judge.
by
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary;
gagnon@pts.edu
July 19, 2012
For printing use the pdf version
here.
I
give my permission for this article to be circulated widely in print,
email, and on the web.—RG
Alan
Chambers has responded in Christianity Today to the controversy
surrounding his public assurances to “gay Christians” that they will go
to heaven irrespective of lifelong, self-affirming homosexual practice
(read the news story in CT by Weston Gentry: “Exodus
International's Alan Chambers Accused of Antinomian Theology, July
12, 2012). Chambers, who is president of Exodus International, uses four
flawed strategies in his article, “Thoughts
from a Simple-Minded Jesus Lover” (July 16, 2012).
Alan’s
first strategy is to play the “aw, shucks” humble card.
He’s not a Bible scholar or a theologian, he says, but just a
“simple-minded Jesus lover,” neither Calvinist nor Arminian. As “just a
Christian,” Alan can rise above the controversy (“That argument is so
last year”) to tell us what the Bible really says. This posture,
however, does not entitle him to avoid the hard work of actually reading
Scripture contextually (as opposed to cherry-picking favorite texts) and
revising his theology when others point out the problems in his
interpretation of Scripture.
Far
from Alan’s beliefs rising above the fray of competing theological
versions, they are mired in an extreme, cult-like variation of “once
saved, always saved” view. For Alan there are no immoral
behaviors of any magnitude, number, or frequency that can call into
question the veracity of someone’s claim to be a Christian, let alone
justify a warning about possible loss of salvation. He has declared that
“while behavior matters,” the lifestyles that we choose—including
unrepentant, lifelong homosexual practice—“don’t interrupt someone’s
relationship with Christ.” Christians don’t even need to confess their
ongoing sins to God any longer. Indeed, to do so would be a big waste of
time because we have already been forgiven by Jesus for every sin that
we will ever commit.
The big
problem for Alan is that Jesus and the entire apostolic witness to him
disagree that unrepentant bad behavior has no bearing on salvation.
Paul repeatedly warned his Gentile converts of the very thing that Alan
repeatedly assures “gay Christians” could never happen: namely, that
immoral sexual behavior, among other offenses, can get one excluded from
the kingdom of God (including 1 Thess 4:2-8; 1 Cor 6:9-10; 2 Cor
12:21; Rom 1:18-2:11; Eph 4:17-19; 5:3-6). For example, in a letter
famous for emphasizing justification by faith and Christian liberty,
Paul reminded the Gentile believers in Galatia:
The works of the flesh are apparent, which
are (of the following sort): sexual immorality (porneia), sexual
impurity (akatharsia), licentiousness (aselgeia), idolatry
… and the things like these, (about) which I am telling you beforehand
[i.e., before God’s day of judgment], just as I told (you) beforehand
[i.e., when I was personally with you] that those who do such things
will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal 5:19-21)
And again later in the letter:
Do not be deceiving yourselves: God is not
to be mocked, for whatever a person sows, this also he (or she) will
reap, because the one who sows to his (or her) own flesh will, from the
flesh, reap (a harvest of) destruction; but the one who sows to the
Spirit will, from the Spirit, reap (a harvest of) eternal life. And let
us not be bad in doing what is good for in due time we will reap, if we
do not slack off. (Gal 6:7-9)
This is
the common teaching of the Two Ways in Paul. There are two kinds of
people: those who live in conformity to the sinful impulse operating in
the flesh and those who live in conformity to the Spirit of Jesus
Christ. The former will perish; the latter will receive eternal life.
Salvation is not unconditional: “In due time we will reap, if we
do not slack off.” At the same time salvation cannot be merited by
anything believers do because even when we comply with the Spirit it is
the Spirit that is empowering the work (compare Phil 2:12-13).
That
Paul regularly issued such warnings to self-professed Christians about
exclusion from God’s kingdom is an historical fact. Rather than
deal with this, Alan simply ignores it. Christians with a
more-or-less Arminian perspective understand such texts as warning
Christians about possible loss of salvation. Alan readily discards this
interpretation because he asserts that his “once saved, always saved”
perspective disallows the possibility.
However,
unlike Alan, those who subscribe to the classical (Calvinist) Reformed
view of the “perseverance of the saints” don’t simply ignore these
warnings. They incorporate them into their theological thinking by
contending (1) that self-professed Christians who lead grossly immoral
lives were never true Christians and (2) that the warnings serve a
useful purpose of stimulating moral transformation among the truly
redeemed. The essay by Michael Horton in Christianity Today, “Let's
Not Cut Christ to Pieces,” is a case in point.
What
Alan does is something that mainstream Christianity has not done for
almost two millennia: namely, to treat justifying faith as alive and
active even in lives given over to sin. Faith is not a mere
intellectual assent to the truth. It is a holistic life reorientation
that conforms in trust and gratitude to the demands of the gospel (Gal
2:19-20).
While no
one can achieve perfection in this life, all the NT writers expect
believers to live a transformed life that conforms, in the main, to the
movement of the Spirit. If they do not, if instead they still live a
life under the primary influence of sin in the flesh, then according to
Jesus and all the NT authors they will reap death and destruction rather
than eternal life. This has always been the church’s teaching.
Alan’s
second strategy is to cherry-pick some Scripture texts that he then
reads out of context to mean the opposite of what the scriptural author
intended. Alan cites three scriptures in
defense of his viewpoint. He begins by citing John 3:16, though
it gets him nowhere. Apparently Alan construes from the verse’s
assurance of eternal life to “everyone who believes in him” that no
amount of sinful behavior could ever call into question one’s salvation.
Yet the
Fourth Evangelist clearly does not mean that, since later in John 15:1-8
Jesus announces that he is “the true vine” and that those who are “in”
him but do not “bear fruit” are destroyed like unfruitful branches
thrown into the fire. Contextual evidence of this sort is not something
that Alan lets disturb his preconceived ideology. First John repeatedly
states that if you walk in darkness, keep on sinning as a defining
feature of your life, are not keeping God’s commands, love “the world”
with its lusts, and do not (as a way of life) do what is right, you have
no partnership with Christ, his atoning blood does not continue to
cleanse your sins, you do not love God, and you have no basis for
reassuring your heart that you belong to Christ.
So much for Johannine literature supporting Alan’s theology that
unrepentant immoral behavior has no bearing on a believer’s salvation.
Even more
stunning is Alan’s attempt at “going a little deeper” by alluding to
Romans 6. Alan tries to make the text say: “Believers are no longer
slaves to sin but to righteousness…. [not because] we won’t sin; it says
that because of who we are in Christ, sin is not our master—even if we
make it so,” that is, even if we live as though sin is our master. As it
happens, what Paul actually says is nearly the exact opposite of Alan’s
interpretation.
Paul
insists in Romans 6 that Christians must no longer be subservient to sin
operating in the flesh. Instead, they must now put their bodily members
at God’s disposal as instruments of righteous conduct (6:12-14). This
command is, of course, consistent with the fact that believers have been
baptized into Christ to share his resurrection life (6:2-11). Yet Paul
goes on to explain that the test of whether we are still slaves of
sin is settled by whether we continue to live lives under sin’s primary
control. If believers again put themselves at the disposal of sin,
sin will recompense them with the opposite of eternal life, death
(6:15-23). Paul’s final answer to the question in 6:15 (“Should we sin
because we are not under the law but under grace?”) comes in 8:12-14:
So then, brothers (and sisters), we are
debtors not to the flesh, (that is,) to live in conformity to the flesh.
For, if you continue to live in conformity to the flesh, you are going
to die. But if by (means of) the Spirit you are putting to death the
deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are being led by the
Spirit of God, these (very ones) are sons (and daughters) of God.
In short,
the answer to the question “Why not sin…?” is: Because if you
live a life under sin’s primary control you will perish. Only those who
are led by the Spirit will inherit eternal life (compare Gal
5:18). Mouthing a few words of confession, “Jesus is Lord,” won’t save
you if you live as if sin, not Jesus, is your Lord. Alan says
that grace isn’t “only a get-out-of-jail-free card” (my emphasis)
but also an “unequaled power to free.” Yet for Alan, if a believer does
“misuse” grace as “a license to sin,” the believer can still use this
card to “get out of jail free” and inherit God’s kingdom. That is
precisely what Paul denies in Romans 6:1-8:17.
The final
scripture that Alan cites in his defense is Matt 7:1-5 where
Jesus cautions people about judging and enjoins them to first take the
log out of their own eye. Alan uses the passage to reject church
discipline (despite Matt 18:15-20) and to dismiss judgments that
unrepentant “gay Christians” will not inherit the kingdom of God
(despite Matt 15:19; 19:4-6).
If Alan
had only examined the context he would have seen that Matthew in 7:1-5
did not understand Jesus to be rejecting all judgment within the church.
Jesus was rather cautioning against judgment lacking in
self-introspection, against majoring in minors, and against rejoicing in
the damnation of offenders instead of seeking to reclaim them.
Only eight
verses later Matthew closes the Sermon on the Mount with a triplicate of
warnings from Jesus (7:13-27): the warning about the gate leading to
life being narrow; the warning about the necessity of bearing fruit (or
else be thrown into the fire) and Christ’s response of “I never knew
you” to those who say to him “Lord, Lord” but who do not do his will;
and, finally, the warning about those who build their house on sand
because they only hear Jesus’ words but don’t do them and are destroyed
when the cataclysm comes. Similarly, near the beginning of the Sermon on
the Mount, Matthew has this warning by Jesus sandwiched in between a
discussion of sexual offenses: If a body part threatens your downfall,
remove it, because it is better to go into heaven maimed than to be
thrown into hell full-bodied (Matt 5:29-30). Matthew is clearly
conveying that Jesus warned followers who acted immorally about coming
judgment and did so as a mark of love for the lost.
If this is
the best that Alan can do to justify from Scripture his assurances of
salvation to practicing, self-affirming “gay Christians,” his position
is in deep trouble indeed. It is disheartening that the strength of
Alan’s conviction on this matter appears to be inversely related to the
strength of his biblical case.
Alan’s
third strategy is to attack
Christians who disagree with him as “hypocritical and inconsistent,”
using flawed analogies in an attempt at shaming Christians for not
treating all sins alike. This is Alan’s main defense. He reasons
that if we declare that a “willful” homosexually active life excludes
someone from the kingdom of God, then any “willful” sin should get a
believer excluded, including pride, alcoholism, gluttony, and looking at
heterosexual pornography. Alan then drives his argument home to its
logical (but absurd) conclusion: “If we exercised church discipline
across the board based on the outward and inward sin running rampant in
the body of Christ, there would be no one left.”
The
immediate problem with this line of reasoning should be obvious: The
church is called upon to exercise church discipline (Matt
18:15-20; compare 1 Cor 5; 2 Cor 2:5-11; 2 Thess 3:6, 14-15; 1 Tim
5:19-20). Obviously the intent of church discipline is not to discipline
everyone who has ever sinned but to deal with offenders whose sins are
(1) manifested in outward action, (2) celebrated rather than repented
of, and (3) so egregious as to indicate a life under sin’s control.
The fact that the early church exercised discipline on wayward members
is strong proof that there is something wrong with Alan’s “all sins are
equal” approach.
We find
just such a case in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul demands that the
Corinthians put on church discipline a man engaged self-affirmingly in
what Paul regarded as a case of extreme sexual immorality: incest
(specifically, sex with one’s stepmother).
In effect, Alan must believe that Paul was hypocritical and
inconsistent, inasmuch as Paul singled out this sin even though there
were lots of sins going on at Corinth, including pride (4:6-10, 18-19;
5:2; 8:1; 13:4) and richer members stuffing their faces at the expense
of poorer members during the celebration of the Lord’s Supper (11:17-34,
esp. 11:21-22). Why did Paul take this action? Unlike Alan, he obviously
regarded self-affirming incest, even of an adult-consensual sort, as
worse than the other offenses at Corinth.
A
charge of hypocrisy and inconsistency against Christians concerned about
salvation assurances to homosexually active “gay Christians” would be
valid only if all four of the following premises held true. As it is,
none of them are true:
1. There
were equally powerful organized lobbies in church and state for
promoting all other sins. There aren’t. For the couple of
decades there has been nothing comparable in church and society to
the full-court press for promoting homosexual practice and
oppressing those who disagree. That partly explains and justifies
the special attention being given to the issue of homosexual
practice.
2. Churches
were systematically “exonerating (or ignoring)” comparable sins
committed in a serial-unrepentant manner. There may be some
people somewhere who do this. Yet in general I don’t see leaders of
the church with a high view of Scripture exonerating or ignoring
sexual sins like incest, pedophilia, adultery, polyamory, sex with
prostitutes, rape, and bestiality; or non-sexual sins like murder,
robbery, and extortion. Yes, the church does need to work more on
other issues (for example, premarital sex, drunkenness, and
pornography). At the same time, beware of treating as a virtue more
consistency in disobeying the teaching of Jesus and promoting sin.
3. Christians
were not making a distinction between (a) struggling with sin but
occasionally backsliding and (b) affirming the sin as a good to be
celebrated and promoted. In general, I see a correct tendency on
the part of the church to be less inclined to warn about salvation
when offenders are genuinely struggling (albeit, not always
successfully) than when offenders are unrepentant and self-affirming
about their sin. Alan provides assurances of salvation to those who
have no intention of repenting of homosexual practice.
4. All
sins were equally heinous in the eyes of God and equally an
indicator to the church of a life lived primarily “in conformity to
the flesh.” This is Alan’s key premise. Alan insisted in the
Atlantic interview that “there’s no place in the Bible that says
this sin [of homosexual practice] is worse than any other. We’re
guilty in the church of creating a hierarchy of sin, and that’s done
tremendous damage.” Such an “egalitarian view of sin” is sustainable
neither from Scripture nor from common sense and daily experience.
I have
already devoted slightly over 10 pages to critiquing Alan’s “all sins
are equal in all respects” view in my online article, “Time
for a Change of Leadership at Exodus?” (pp. 15-25). It would be nice
if Alan would take the time to read that section carefully and actually
deal with the scriptures and rationales that I put forward. I will make
two points here.
First,
although Alan charges with inconsistency and even hypocrisy people who
treat some sins (like idolatry, homosexual practice, incest,
adultery, polyamory, murder, robbery, extortion) as more severe than
others, it is really Alan who is inconsistent on the whole matter.
Here’s why.
If Alan
truly believed that all sins or wrongs were equal, then as a member of a
local church or denomination, he couldn’t oppose church office for any
person on the grounds of morality—not for self-affirmed homosexual
practice (maybe Alan supports the ordination of practicing,
self-affirming “gay Christians”?), incest, polygamy, sex with
prostitutes, rape, robbery, or murder. For, in Alan’s view, we all
continue to sin “willfully,” usually with regard to the common sins of
pride, anger, gluttony, lust, jealousy, and the like.
As a
parent, Alan would have to regard the offense of one of his children
hitting another across the head as no worse than sneaking a flashlight
into bed to do some reading after bedtime. As a husband, he would have
to regard an act of adultery by his wife as no worse than his wife
overeating at a particular meal. As a member of society, he would have
to think that it is unjust to assign a greater penalty for raping a
child than driving 10 miles over the speed limit on an untrafficked
highway.
All of us
in countless ways on a daily basis act on the moral conviction that some
offenses are morally worse than others. Even the individual vices that
Alan mentions vary with severity within their own category. One could
imagine some manifestations of pride (e.g., over one’s child’s academic
achievement) as warranting less concern than others (e.g., thinking that
one is so morally good as to not need God’s grace or thinking that one
is racially superior). So Alan himself is inconsistent in claiming the
belief that all sin is equal in severity.
Second,
Scripture itself confirms that God regards some sins as more heinous
than others. Granted, God acts in different ways than humans. No one
can merit entrance into God’s kingdom on the basis of one’s own “works.”
However, that doesn’t mean that all sins are equally heinous to God or
equally indicative of a life lived in the flesh. Christ’s universal
coverage of sin through his death on the cross does not mean that all
sins are equal in all respects but only that all sins are equal in one
respect: They are all covered for those who repent, believe in him, and
remain in him by letting the Spirit do the leading. By way of analogy,
one may have health coverage for all injuries great and small and pay
the same amount for the coverage regardless of the injury; but that
doesn’t mean that no one injury is more severe than any other injury.
Scripture
shows that God exhibits more “wrath” over some sins than others. The
Golden Calf episode is called “a great sin” in which God considered
blotting out Israel (Exod 32:30). Ezekiel refers to “greater
abominations” (Ezekiel 8:6, 13, 15). Old Testament law maintains
different grades of punishment for different offenses, including
different tiers of sexual offenses in Leviticus 20. Jesus spoke about
greater and lesser commandments (Matt 5:19; Mark 12:28-31), weightier
matters of the law (Matt 23:23), some people loving more because they
were forgiven more (Luke 7:36-50), and a blasphemy against the Spirit
that could not be forgiven (Mark 3:28-30). As we noted above, Paul
obviously treated the case of incest at Corinth as a particularly great
offense (1 Cor 5), since nowhere else does he recommend removal of
members despite the clear presence of other sins in the community like
pride, jealousy, and discord. Paul also spoke in the same letter of
wrong actions meriting different penalties, ranging from suffering loss
while being “saved … as (one passing) through fire” to being destroyed
by God (1 Cor 3:10-17).
High on
actionable offenses for Paul was sexual immorality, which usually
appeared on Paul’s vice lists first or second, alongside idolatry. For
Paul, as with ancient Israel and early Judaism, homosexual practice
was viewed as one of the most heinous sexual offenses, after
bestiality and before the worst forms of adult-consensual incest,
adultery, and sex with prostitutes. Here are some reasons why:
1. The
extreme unnaturalness of homosexual intercourse (“contrary to
nature,” “leaving behind the natural use” of the other sex), which
leads Paul in Rom 1:24-27 to describe it further as a form of
“sexual impurity” that is “degrading” or “dishonorable,” “shameful
conduct” or “indecency,” and a fit “payback” for straying from God.
2. The
priority of a male-female requirement already in the creation texts,
Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, which Jesus cited as foundational for
establishing other principles in sexual ethics like the limitation
of two persons for a valid sexual bond (Mark 10:6-9 // Matt 19:4-6).
3. The
strong revulsion associated with homosexual practice in a series of
OT texts (the stories of Sodom and the Levite at Gibeah; the
feminized homosexual cult figures known as the qedeshim from
Deuteronomy to 2 Kings; and the strongly worded prohibitions in Lev
18:22 and 20:13).
4. The
fact that, apart from a prohibition of bestiality, the prohibition
of homosexual practice is the only sexual prohibition held
absolutely (no exceptions) for the people of God from creation to
Christ—something that can’t be said for polygamy or even incest.
It is not
surprising, then, that in the extended vice list in Rom 1:18-32 Paul
listed homosexual practice second only to idolatry as proof of human
suppression of the truth about God and the way God made us, transparent
in the material structures of creation. In 1 Cor 6:9 Paul cited “men who
lie with a male” alongside “the sexually immoral” (a broad term but in
context having perpetrators of incest primarily in view) and adulterers
as among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Thus, not
only the daily moral evaluations that everyone makes but also the
writers of Scripture themselves confirm that Christians are right to
treat some offenses both as more severe than others and as requiring
different responses, without of course excusing any
self-affirming sin.
Alan’s
fourth and final strategy is to obscure the real issue by appealing to
his own good character. Alan
closes his defense by assuring readers that he does not engage in
homosexual practice, nor does he regard homosexual practice as a moral
good. He adds that Christians are never going to resolve “the debates
surrounding eternal security” or “whether or not someone can be actively
gay and a believer.” These observations throw up a smokescreen that
obscures the real issue here. The real issue isn’t about Alan’s
character or about whether he believes homosexual practice is sin or
even about eternal security.
The
real issue is, specifically, Alan’s assurance of salvation to
self-professed Christians who engage in homosexual practice and have no
intention of repenting. This, in turn, is a manifestation of a more
general theological problem: Alan’s adoption of an extreme view of
“once saved, always saved” that does not regard a transformed life
as a necessary byproduct of justifying faith but rather
treats a life led by the Spirit of Christ as optional for salvation.
In
supplanting the view of Scripture on such matters, Alan is playing
the role of judge. For he is providing assurances of salvation in
instances where the Jesus and the NT authors issue warnings about
exclusion from God’s kingdom. Those who are already abusing God’s grace
in carrying out serial-unrepentant sin of an egregious sort are being
encouraged (whether Alan thinks so or not) to carry on with that abuse.
This is not acceptable behavior for a president of Exodus International.
Michael Horton, a professor of theology at Westminster Seminary
of California (with an Oxford University Ph.D.) says this in
response to Alan Chambers’ views: “It is as unloving to hold out
hope to those who embrace a homosexual lifestyle as it is to
assure idolaters, murderers, adulterers, and thieves that they
are safe and secure from all alarm…. Paul's point is clear: For
Gentiles, sexual immorality (including homosexuality, within
proper social boundaries) is normal, but to take that view is to
exclude oneself from the kingdom of Christ. A proud sinner
defiantly ignoring the lordship of Christ while professing to
embrace him as Savior is precisely what Paul says is impossible.
These passages do not threaten believers who struggle with
indwelling sin and fall into grievous sins (see Romans 7 for
that category); rather, they threaten professing believers who
do not agree with God about their sin…. Refusing to agree with
God about the nature of such behavior as sinful, those who
embrace sexual immorality as a lifestyle reject the gospel. One
cannot even seek forgiveness for something that one does not
regard as sinful in the first place…. We dare not try to cut
Christ in pieces, as if we could receive him deliverer from
sin's guilt but not from its dominion, or as Savior but not as
Lord.” It is powerful testimony to have both a Reformed scholar
(Prof. Horton) and a Wesleyan-Arminian scholar (Prof. Ben
Witherington, “‘Behavior
Doesn't Interrupt Your Relationship with Christ’: A Recipe for
Disaster”), each
representing a very different view of whether a believer can
ever lose salvation, agree that self-professed Christians who
embrace gravely immoral lifestyles such as homosexual practice
reject the gospel and are excluded from the kingdom of God. Paul
says as much in 1 Thess 4:2-8:
For you know what instructions we gave to you
through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God: your
holiness [or: sanctification], that you abstain from sexual
immorality (porneia), … because the Lord is an
avenger concerning all these things, just as also we told
you before and were charging (you before God). For God did not
call us to sexual impurity (akatharsia) but in holiness
[or: sanctification]. For that very reason the one who
rejects (this instruction) rejects not a human being but God who
gives the Holy Spirit to you. (my emphasis)