Sleeping at Gethsemane. . .

What a great title!  Sleeping at Gethsemane... it is the title of an article by Robert Gagnon at the Theopolis Institute.  You can read it here. . .  In it he warns us of the danger of sitting idly by while the world is making great inroads against the position of the Church with regard to sexuality, sexual orientation, and homosexual marriage.  The battles are being fought not out in the open but hidden in classrooms and the media.  Our children will be more seriously affected than we are by this subtle campaign to change the mind of all people.  And we are, as Christians, by and large sleeping like the disciples at Gethsemane before these dangers.

Most pastors have failed to fulfill their responsibility to alert their flock to the dangers that the church is now facing. Consequently, most Christians cower in the face of abusive attacks by those promoting a homosexualist agenda, just as the disciples fled at Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested. Sadder still, many Christians, particularly those who consider themselves among the elite of evangelical Christianity, continue to relegate this issue to the back burner of political concerns, dissuading fellow believers from seeing this as a central (in my view, the central) political issue of our day.

You may or may not agree with Gagnon.  You may or may not agree with the series of examples he has posited to back up his claims.  But what is hard to disagree with is the evidence that there is a growing intoleration with what, until recently, was the universal stance of Christianity to the issue of homosexual behavior.  As the point of view against such prevailing political correctness is pushed further and further from the public square and Christians are more and more isolated to the hidden corners of culture and community, it will be nearly impossible to reclaim the legitimacy of this position for our children and their children.  In the meantime, we Christians tend to act as if it is no threat unless it is in my backyard or I am directly impacted by these things.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We are all impacted and we will all find it harder and harder to retain our confession amid the pressures and powers of those allied against us -- especially the forces of academia and the media.

This is not a call to arms but a call to action.  We can take nothing for granted in this war upon the values and order God both intended and established.  We may be further behind the trendsetters in Europe here but it is hardly consolation.  Can we afford to sleep at Gethsemane?  Gagnon makes a convincing case for the answer to be "no".