No one is suggesting that we should be poor stewards of God's gifts but the Church's unique concern is not the protection of the environment, advocacy for the imprisoned or the refugee, the homeless, the abused, or any of those causes. We are God's only voices to address sinners with the call to repentance and to bestow upon the penitent God's absolution. We are God's only voices to preach the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen with hope that we too shall live even though we die. We are God's only voices to speak of His coming again as Lord and Judge of all.
As Christian people we have a duty to our neighbor. As the Church, we have a duty to God. As Christians we have a duty to God. As the Church, we have a duty to the world around us. They ought not be in conflict but sometimes they might appear to be. We should not put them at odds with each other but neither should we fail to distinguish these duties. In reality, our duty to God is never at odds with our neighbor -- only the appearance of a conflict because the neighbor holds values or pleads a cause at odds with Scripture. In this case, our best duty to our neighbor is fulfilled by being faithful to God, faithful to His Word, and faithful to His will and purpose.
It is a sham to think that the Church's greatest failure has been to sit on the sidelines while society marches to a tune in conflict with God's revealed will. But it is no sham to confess that we have too often been silent when we should have been vocal in proclaiming the Lord's Word when that society deviates from God's revealed will and purpose. There will be many voices in pursuit of these causes but there is only one voice that addresses the world on God's behalf -- that is the voice of His Word spoken through the lips of His people, His ministers, and by His Church. The Gospel is not a principle or an idea or a cause. It is the eternal truth of Christ crucified for our sins and risen for our justification. That Gospel dare not by co-opted by those who would substitute another message and another agenda for the one that God has spared nothing, not even His Son, to accomplish for us and our salvation. God keep us from those who lament why we have not been in front of the causes that conflict with God's Word and our own faithful confession over the ages. This is not a repentance recognized by God or blessed by Him. This is nothing less than a betrayal of that Gospel and the abdication of our own duty to God.
2 comments:
"...the Church's unique concern is not the protection of the environment, advocacy for the imprisoned or the refugee, the homeless, the abused, or any of those causes. We are God's only voices to address sinners with the call to repentance and to bestow upon the penitent God's absolution." This concisely contrasts the pernicious effect of so-called social justice with the true purpose of the Church in our world. The captivating of the hearts and minds of well meaning people by this philosophy is nothing short of evil. The ubiquitous ideology of diversity, inclusion, and equity allies itself with social justice to concoct a lethal mindset that diverts one's attention from Christ.
"A Lutheran blogger laments the greatest failure of the church of his generation has been their silence and inaction with respect to climate change."
Another, more likely confessional, Lutheran expressed the opposite complaint in objecting to climate change and other leftist propaganda in his June 21, 2016, comment to a Reporter article, "ADF’s Baylor delves into legal issues facing LCMS schools," when he wrote:
"The LCMS has been too slow in my opinion to address the fed’s developing control over our K-12 schools. This should have happened when Common Core was being pushed on our schools. That was not done. We now have Common Core and its sex ed, climate change, etc., embedded in various ways into our K-12 curriculum... When I brought this up to the head of the SWD Education Dept. I was told “we have to accept the Federal Common Core Program because our Milw. inner city LCMS schools could not survive without the WI State $$$, they would be cut off if we said NO to Common Core."
Post a Comment