When the Expression of the Bible's Teachings is Vetoed by Political Correctness

R.R. Reno says that's what is happening in academia today.

It isn't just at universities that the stifling atmosphere of political correctness inhibits or condemns the expression of Christian moral judgments about homosexual behavior.

For twenty years now, clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have felt, at the least, uncomfortable in expressing our view that, while we may support full civil rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons (as I do), we also believe that engaging in sexual behavior outside of heterosexual marriage is contrary to the will of God. We also believe that it's our duty as ministers of the Gospel to acquaint people with all that God has to say about sin, repentance, grace, and forgiveness, including what God has to say about our sexuality. Failure to do so puts the eternal destinies of those God calls us to serve in peril.

To express moral judgments on the godly use of our sexuality though, however clearly rooted in the teachings of Scripture and in two-thousand years of Christian theology, is seen among many, if not most, of my ELCA colleagues as simplistic, out of touch, or bigoted.

One ELCA colleague, hearing me say that I favored civil rights regardless of sexual orientation, asked me, with condescension, how I could say such a thing since I clearly believed gays to be "perverts." It didn't seem to matter to him that I have never said such a thing. But the purveyors of correctness love to ascribe the basest and most inhumane motives to those who don't fall into line. Making people out to be monsters is easier than actually dealing with the merits of the moral arguments they advance.

Given this two-decade history, you can see why I'm skeptical that purveyors of political correctness in the ELCA are going to be content in allowing some congregations and pastors continue to preach and teach in accordance with the Scriptures. My experience suggests that they won't be happy until they've made their unscriptural views on sexuality, sin, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ the only ones that ELCA churches and pastors can teach.

It's time for a new reformation!