An Evangelical Rethink on Divorce?
November 6, 2007Yeah, it’s a headline on Yahoo! News today. How timely.
This part of the article I found especially intriguing. And I quote:
Still, the controversy suggests that even the country’s most rule-bound Christians will search for a fresh understanding of scripture when it seems unjust to them. The implications? Flexibility on divorce may mean that evangelicals could also rethink their position on such things as gay marriage, as a generation of Christians far more accepting of homosexuality begins to move into power. (The ever-active Barna folks have found that 57% of “born-again” Christians age 16-29 criticize their own church for being “anti-homosexual.”)
Have they been reading my blog? Just kidding.
Expect an update on the topic from me today (or tomorrow if I get busy), as I’ve been learning alot about it since my original post a month ago. Tip: Read the comments after the post. That’s where we get into the really tricky questions.
“Even the most rule-bound Christians will search for a fresh understanding of scripture when it seems unjust to them.”
Amen.
The only problem I have with that statement is how close it is to “even the most legalistic person will try to explain away scripture when they don’t like what it says.” It seems like we can so easily just come up with a new interpretation of scripture whenever a position becomes increasingly unpopular.
It would be really convenient to be able to find an interpretation of scripture that allowed for homosexuality to not be a sin, because then we wouldn’t have to stand against our culture OR say that we didn’t believe the entirety of scripture is God-breathed.
I’m just always a little leery when it seems like culture is moving away from scripture on an issues, and all of a sudden, we are re-thinking our positions.
Now, none of this addresses the actual issue at hand.
I’m just saying that in the same way that we need to be sober in our judgements, realizing that Christians have been very wrong on issues before, we also need to be equally aware of culture’s influence on our desire for scripture to read a certain way. It’s hard to be objective, but I believe it’s possible or else God really has just left us hung out to dry.