According to a new survey by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 64% of young adults think that the Church is “anti-gay” and 25% of them now consider themselves to be “unaffiliated”.

Whether one leads to the other is to be debated, but it does seem clear that this issue is cresting in our country and might just prove to be the watershed debate that ultimately breaks up the marriage between America and Christianity.

The survey went on to tell us that Christianity has taken a big hit in America because of its position on homosexuality and gay marriage, and it suggests that the trend is only going to increase in the years to come.

So, as pressure mounts on the Church to get with the program and change its attitude toward gays, Christians are put in a precarious position. Either they amend their beliefs to save face in the culture or they toe the line and risk its retaliation.

This particular issue resonates with the culture we live in because it feels like it’s a matter of civil rights and social equality. The gay marriage movement has cleverly branded this issue as a battle against bigotry.

It has framed the debate as a matter of “human rights” and has blamed the Church for impeding its efforts. So, Christianity takes the fall for supposedly standing in the way of social progress.

Inevitably, Christians who continue to cling to apparently archaic beliefs or dare to speak up about so-called biblical values are branded by the movement as old fashioned bigots.

Just as Christians in the Deep South of Segregated America were expected to come around on racial equality so are Christians in the Bible Belt of Postmodern America expected to do the same on sexual equality.

Social progressives like to align the present “struggle for freedom” among gays with the past “struggle for freedom” among blacks. And, they will argue that being gay is no different than being black, but that’s where they are wrong.

You see, nowhere in the Bible is being black considered a sin. Skin color is never viewed as a moral issue in Scripture. But, sexual preference is. The Bible is crystal clear about the wrongness of homosexuality.

The only way to not see that homosexuality is a sin is to either ignore portions of Scripture or reject the authority of Scripture altogether. And, this is exactly why every Christian is now put into a predicament.

They have to make a choice between rejecting God’s Word thereby enjoying the acceptance of their society and keeping God’s Word thus suffering the persecution from their society.

What our culture does not understand is that we cannot just “change” our beliefs and still claim to be Christians. We cannot choose what parts of Scripture we will obey and what parts we will ignore.

We are required by our God to observe and keep all of His commands, and the consequence of disappointing Him is much worse for us than the consequence of frustrating our culture.

What our society is trying to do is to force us into choosing between our faith and our culture, and what they are really asking us to do is to not be Christians. After all, we cannot be partial Christians. That just isn’t an option for us.

To be a true Christian and to be the true Church, we must be against sin, all sin. This means that Christianity is not anti-gay. It’s anti-sin. Since homosexuality is a sin, we cannot accept it.

The Church does not reject homosexuals in the same way that it does not reject liars, cheaters, adulterers, and murderers. What the Church rejects is unrepentant sin. Everybody in the church is a sinner, but Christians agree to turn from their sin.

As the Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

But, notice what he says next. Paul writes, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

According to Paul, Christianity isn’t anti-anyone. The Church is pro-repentance. All people are sinners, but Christians just admit it. They confess it and turn from it. And, that is precisely why it is so absurd for the culture to expect us to go back to it.

This issue probably will not go away, and it might be the very one that isolates the Church from the surrounding culture. It might also be the one that shrinks the Church in America as it forces every Christian to choose between allegiance to our God and acceptance by the world.

But, let it be known that the true Church in America will never capitulate to the culture on this issue. We can’t. Our commitment to biblical truth won’t allow it. Whatever persecution may come, the real Church must never back down on sin.

As Joan of Arc once defiantly declared, “I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin, or to be against God’s will.” And, die she did, and so shall we.

A church that “gets it” believes that it’s all about Jesus and not about us.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t equate success with size.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t sacrifice substance for style.

A church that “gets it” is more interested in advancing the kingdom than their church.

A church that “gets it” has leadership that is transparent and approachable.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t stifle questions or dismiss doubts.

A church that “gets it” teaches for conviction and not for guilt.

A church that “gets it” tells the hard truth but does it in tears.

A church that “gets it” is into serving and not consuming.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t put on a plastic smile and fake it.

A church that “gets it” is quick to repent and ready to restore.

A church that “gets it” does uncomfortable and unconventional things.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t require people to clean up before they come in.

A church that “gets it” isn’t hung up on hairstyles, piercings, and tattoos.

A church that “gets it” understands and wants to transform culture.

A church that “gets it” knows that stewardship is more than just financial.

A church that “gets it” understands that missions work is not just overseas.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t leave young adults and single people out.

A church that “gets it” appreciates that women can do more than serve in the nursery.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t keep adding more ministries to keep people busy.

A church that “gets it” invests more resources into people than programs.

A church that “gets it” adapts to change more like a school of fish than a whale.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t use clichés and platitudes.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t fight over the age of the earth and the timing of the rapture.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t confuse being an American with being a Christian.

A church that “gets it” isn’t held captive by personal agendas and pet projects.

A church that “gets it” cares as much about poverty and injustice as abortion and homosexuality.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t just discipline for adultery and divorce.

A church that “gets it” isn’t grossed out or easily offended by sinful people.

A church that “gets it” gives regularly and sacrificially without expectation of blessing.

A church that “gets it” doesn’t think they are the only church that gets it.

The book has resonated with many, especially younger, evangelicals who have sensed but have been unable to adequately express what they feel has been conspicuously missing from the mission and vision statements of evangelical churches around the world. What has been embarrassingly absent is the teaching about and practice of biblical justice.

Having grown up within the evangelical church, I recall only occasionally hearing about the issue of justice. And, almost always, any discussion on the topic was related to God’s wrath and judgment upon sin. So, in other words, I was basically familiar with the idea of justice as far as punishment is concerned but had no idea that justice is also about mercy.

Mercy, of course, is about the withholding of punishment, something that I had always understood, but real mercy is also about the providing of restoration. In other words, mercy is about more than just not giving wicked people what they deserve. It is also about giving hope and healing to those who suffer innocently.

This conception of justice as mercy was something completely new to me, and it literally shook me to the core when I realized that I had been missing it for most of my life. My reaction to this revelation was a mixture of sadness, anger and regret not only over the time that was lost in my life but over the opportunities that have been missed by the church.

Over the last few years I have sorted through the range of emotions, and I have also untangled myself from the mistaken views regarding biblical justice that I had inherited by default. One of those assumptions that I unfortunately held to was the misunderstanding of what social justice really is.

For most of my life I had accepted the idea that there were two kinds of gospel: social and biblical. The so-called “social gospel” was considered the unbiblical kind because it emphasized social action over spiritual salvation. And, to be fair, a gospel only related to social action is an indeed an incomplete gospel.

However, the same is also true of the so-called “biblical gospel”. A gospel that is only related to spiritual salvation is equally incomplete. After all, any gospel that ignores either the physical or the spiritual suffering of people is really an incomplete gospel.

The truth is that there is no such thing as a “social” or a “biblical” gospel. There is only “the gospel”. And, the gospel of Jesus Christ has both spiritual and social implications for the world. To ignore one or the other is to preach and to practice a partial gospel.

If one were to do a cursory study on the subject of justice, he or she would find that justice actually comes in three forms: retributive justice, distributive justice and restorative justice. The retributive kind is the one we are most familiar with in evangelical churches because it is about wrath and punishment for evil.

In pulpits around America, though, there has been a dearth of teaching on the other two kinds of justice, at least until recently. The distributive form of justice is about providing freedoms and rights to all people fairly. And, the restorative kind is about helping people to heal and recover from victimization.

Distributive justice refers to the allocation of provisions and protections to people regardless of their social status, and it guarantees a certain level of respect and appreciation for all human beings. This stream of justice is pervasive not only throughout the Bible but also throughout the foundational documents of our country.

Restorative justice refers to the remediation of offenders and their victims, and it works to foster peace and healing for the abused and violated in our culture. This vein of justice is especially directed toward the health and wholeness of the oppressed and marginalized in society, and it is expressly evident throughout Scripture.

Because justice comes in three forms, we would be remiss not to familiarize ourselves with and contend for all three, especially when Scripture clearly calls us to do so. It should not escape us that after the issue of idolatry, God actually confronts His people throughout the Bible the most for the sin of injustice.

God roundly denounces injustice among his people both in the Old Testament and in the New, and his divine derision is directed toward all three kinds of injustice. In other words, God calls us into account for ignoring or tolerating any kind of injustice in our midst.

And, I am quite sure that He is just as concerned about injustice in our world today as He was then. For that reason, far be it for us to turn a blind eye to the various injustices around us now especially when God has clearly called for us to intercede in them.

Now, injustice takes many forms in our world, and it isn’t always easy to define it. But, we could probably get our minds around the idea that injustice is any form of oppression or abuse that violates the inherent worth and value of human beings who universally bear the image of God.

If we live by the motto that all human beings have dignity because of the Imago Dei, then we can more easily see for ourselves the abuses and injustices all around us. The most obvious offenses against humanity are murderous acts such as abortion, genocide, and euthanasia and abusive acts such as slavery, human trafficking, and exploitation.

When we observe heinous offenses against human beings, we not only should be disturbed by them but also stirred to do something about them. To care is only part of the witness that we have in the world; the other part of our witness is to actually do something.

The gospel that Jesus came into the world preaching was a whole gospel, one that ministered healing not just to the souls of people but also to their bodies. In fact, if we look at Jesus’ public ministry, He usually ministered to the physical needs of people before He ministered to their spiritual needs.

The gospel that Jesus preached and practiced on earth was good news for the lost, but it was also good news for the broken. In other words, Jesus came to bring not only redemption for those who were lost in spirit but restoration for those who were broken in body.

Don’t get me wrong. Jesus absolutely preached, but He also healed, fed, and cared for the people around him, and He often did so prior to calling them to repentance. The reason why should be obvious to us. After all, how could people be ready to receive the message of forgiveness if they are understandably preoccupied with their immediate hunger, blindness or pain?

Jesus, in his wisdom, recognized the physical obstacles to faith and removed them before attending to the spiritual ones. By filling the stomach of a hungry child, by healing the bleeding of an ailing woman, and by restoring the sight of a blind man, He earned not only their respect but also their ear.

We can learn much from the wisdom of Christ in this regard. We too must realize that we often should minister to the physical suffering of people before we minister to their spiritual suffering. In fact, in most cases, I think we must.

The reason why is because evangelism depends on it. We live in a culture that doesn’t listen much to the Christian witness anymore. They have been largely inoculated to the spiritual aspects of the gospel because of our neglect of the physical aspects.

In many ways we have lost our voice in the culture because we haven’t earned the credibility to speak. Credibility is earned, and our credibility in this world is earned through action. Is it any wonder that people don’t want to hear what we have to say about Jesus until we actually act like Jesus?

As Friedrich Nietzsche once told a group of Christians, “If you want me to believe in your Redeemer, then you are going to have to look a lot more redeemed.” This Nietzschean philosophy is ubiquitous in our postmodern culture, and it is a legitimate indictment of our presently hollow gospel.

The truth is that if we want to be effective evangelists with the gospel in our society, then we first need to be effective practitioners of the gospel. This means that we must both teach the whole gospel in our churches and also practice the whole gospel in our communities.

What the two subjects have in common is that Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer were both social reformers in their respective days going against the tide of public opinion regarding the worth and dignity of human beings. For Wilberforce, it was the dignity of Africans and for Bonhoeffer, it was the dignity of Jews.

Metaxas cleverly drew a parallel between the struggles for the personhood of slaves and Jews then to the struggle for the personhood of the unborn today. He suggested that just as it took a reformer to change opinions about the injustice of slavery and genocide, so it will take a reformer to change the view in America about the injustice of abortion.

The connection is not lost on the idea that abortion is a modern day holocaust, and it is happening on our watch. The dictionary defines a holocaust as “any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life”. So, does 4,000 abortions each day qualify as mass slaughter? Is 1.4 million abortions each year not reckless destruction of life? And, that’s just in our own country.

It’s not that people aren’t speaking up or that people don’t care. They do. We just haven’t yet had any persuasive reformer come along who has not only the fortitude but also the aptitude to galvanize society enough to turn it all around.

Abortion is indeed a holocaust of epic proportions. There are 42 million abortions performed each year around the world. That’s 115,000 abortions performed every single day, and that makes this issue THE single most atrocious blight on the human race in history.

I have just finished reading Patrick Lee’s Abortion & Unborn Human Life, which essentially confirms everything I have always felt and believed about the abortion debate—that there really is no debate. That is, there are NO compelling arguments against the personhood of pre-born human beings.

The simple truth is that there are no good reasons and no reasonable arguments that carry any philosophical or scientific weight in favor of abortion. The personhood of pre-born human beings has been categorically proven and the case is effectively closed.

The only thing that is really open is societal denial and personal convenience. Every argument made in favor of “choice” has proven to be biased and incoherent, so it really is time for us to stop worrying about whether we can win this argument. We already have.

What we should worry about, though, is why winning the argument isn’t enough. We ought to be concerned that even though the arguments in favor of life have prevailed, the practice and public acceptance of it hasn’t really changed.

According to recent reports, more people today are indeed against abortion than for it, but it’s one thing to admit you have a concern about something like this and another to actually do something about it.

Many would say they do not favor abortion but are cautious to speak out about it because they either have done it themselves in the past and are reluctant to pass judgment or they are simply intimidated or scared to challenge the party line and suffer retaliation.

Some have spoken up but have attempted to take cover by arguing against abortion for convenience but still permitting it in “inconvenient” cases such as pregnancy due to rape or incest. Now, although those situations are horrific, how is it that they should be treated any differently?

If abortion is, in fact, the killing of a pre-born human being, then how that human being is conceived does not change the status of his or her personhood. It is illogical to argue that abortion is somehow acceptable in one case but not in another if we agree that all of the unborn are persons.

The one possible exception to this would be when the life of the mother is clearly threatened by the carrying and/or delivering of the child. But, I only say possibly because I’m still just not sure why any mother would prefer to put their own well-being ahead of their child’s unless, of course, both of their lives are at risk.

As a pastor, I feel compelled to speak up and share what burdens me about this issue. I have a sensitized awareness of God’s pleasure and his pain, and I feel God’s pain so deeply over abortion. I just know that God holds this issue against us and will only tolerate it for so long.

I wonder how long God will permit us to stand by and continue to put up with this outrageous injustice, especially if we have the ability to say and the means to do something about it. Clearly, we ought not test his patience. He is a benevolent God, but He also promises vengeance upon evil.

That being said, it seems to me that we need to do two things now. First, we need to stop being intimidated into silence. The truth is that we hold all of the cards in this debate, and there is no reason to be fearful of any argument no matter where it comes from or who makes it.

And, second, we need to start speaking up more. I don’t necessarily mean staging protests and picketing clinics but rather making a persuasive case against abortion with the people around us. I do mean that we should let people know where we stand on this issue and explain to them why the practice is so abhorrent.

Even as a pastor, I admit that I haven’t talked enough about this issue. Some of it stems from embarrassment over how this issue has been mishandled in the past by some outspoken Christian groups, and some of it comes from my own reluctance to step into such an emotionally charged debate.

However, as I am teaching through the first three chapters of Genesis at my church and digging deeply into the meaning of bearing the image of God, I have been convicted about my own sheepishness in speaking up for the dignity of the unborn and am committed to do my part to end it.

My hope is that I can find winsome but searing ways to express my firm conviction about abortion, to prick the consciences of the people around me, and to somehow help to energize my community to do something to stop it.

Therefore, this post is my attempt to stake the ground on which I stand with the flag of life, and I intend to wave it defiantly in my generation. I will not be quiet about this issue anymore, and I want to seriously challenge everyone else around me not to be either.

On one side of the debate are the conservatives who prefer a smaller version of government and on the other side are the liberals who prefer a larger form of government. The difference between them is how much presence and how big a role they want government to have in our lives.

The political debate revolves around whether the government should provide positive and/or negative rights for its citizens. Positive rights are benefits provided to people by government, and negative rights are freedoms protected for people by government.

Those who believe government should provide positive rights see bigger government primarily as a welcome influence whereas those who believe government should only protect negative rights see bigger government essentially as an unwelcome interference.

In other words, proponents of big government think that the government should do more for its citizens than just protect their rights. They think the government ought to also provide them beneficial things such as entitlement programs and healthcare.

On the other hand, proponents of small government think that government should only protect the rights of its citizens and stay out of their way. They believe that government should only clear the path by removing obstacles to free enterprise and then leave people alone.

Up until the progressive era that started about 50 years ago, most people preferred a limited view of government. But since then, progressives have pushed for a larger, more expansive form of government in our country. So, the debate over the size and scope of government is as controversial as ever.

Many think, though, that the only reason why the size of government matters is because of the political or fiscal implications. However, I would contend that the issue of the size of government also has significant religious implications too. And, that is something we should be concerned about.

The reason why this issue matters is because of the huge divide that has been manufactured between Church and State. Ever since Thomas Jefferson’s words in a letter about a wall of separation between Church and State have been adopted, and in my view hijacked, government has steadily moved toward becoming “religion free”.

There has been a fundamental shift in government away from viewing religion as something productive that should be included in the public square to viewing religion as something divisive that should be removed from it. As a result, religion has been relegated from the public sphere to the private.

And, over time government’s view of neutrality has changed from not taking sides between different religious traditions to not siding with religion at all. Now, government unfortunately thinks neutrality means keeping government and religion completely separate.

Because of the current separation of Church and State, government has been trying to remove religion from the public square altogether, and that includes public institutions, agencies, schools and universities. Freedoms to pray publicly, to cite Scripture, and to even display religious symbols in those centers have been routinely stripped from public view.

The problem with this kind of growth is that the bigger the government becomes, the more of the public square it absorbs. And, as the government subsumes more of the public square, religious activity gets pushed out of it.

What we end up with is a completely secular square with little or no religious presence that is, in fact, mandated by law. It is scary to think what life would be like in our country should it actually become illegal to speak out about matters of religion at any level in the public square.

Because big government will end up repressing religious freedom in our culture, we should be concerned about it. The bigger the State gets, the smaller the Church and other religious institutions become. As the secular grows, the sacred shrinks, and that is why big government is a problem.

It really has nothing to do with political affiliations or parties. Rather, it has everything to do with religious liberty. The First Amendment guarantees us religious freedom and part of that freedom is the right to practice our faith in public and influence the culture in which we live.

If that religious freedom is suppressed or pushed to the fringe of society, then we will end up with a naked public square, a secular State, and a society without a conscience.

Those who reject the biblical account have to come up with another explanation, and that means the burden of proof is on them to explain how we got something from nothing. The very idea of this happening, though, is perplexing unless an intelligent being is responsible.

Something cannot come from nothing. It just isn’t possible, and it doesn’t make any logical sense. Someone who is intelligent, powerful, and volitional must have brought things into being because things do not come into being on their own.

The question of origins is a critical issue, and naturalism hasn’t come up with a viable explanation for it. Scientific naturalists have advanced theories about how they think things developed over time but have provided very little about how they think things got started.

The best attempt that they’ve come up with is a theory called The Big Bang. Now, Christians usually bristle when they hear about the idea of a big bang because they presume it is in conflict with the biblical account of creation.

However, the concept of a big bang actually aligns quite nicely with the Genesis account, which tells us that the universe came into being in an instant. We read that God spoke things into being, which describes an instantaneous event.

What evolutionists call The Big Bang, we simply call the Creation Event. It’s like looking at the same picture but only from different perspectives. And, what we can agree on is the fact that things got their start in a split second.

In an article published last year, a respected Johns Hopkins physicist Dr. Charles Bennett was quoted about some groundbreaking research that he presented at PrincetonUniversityin which he demonstrated how the universe grew to astounding proportions in less than the blink of an eye.

Dr. Bennett said, “It amazes me that we can say anything at all about what transpired in the first trillionth of a second of the universe.” His research about the instantaneous beginning of the universe aligns with and actually confirms what we read in Genesis.

The universe did, in fact, come into being in a trillionth of a second. The question is, what caused it to happen? Did something cataclysmic just explode on its own and lead to the formation of matter and eventual life? Or, did someone cause it to happen?

Something, or Someone, had to be the first cause, and that agent had to be uncaused. As we have always heard, every effect must have a cause, and if the effect is the universe, then there must be an initial cause that precipitated it.

The most plausible solution is that a free willed, intelligent, powerful being is that cause. It had to be a Designer who had not just the power to create but also the will and the freedom to do so.

My encouragement to those who embrace The Big Bang but reject the biblical account of a Creator is simply to ask themselves, what is the best explanation? Is the best, most simple answer that things exploded without cause or that someone intentionally caused it?

Scientific discovery is all about evidence, and the real scientist will always follow the evidence. And, if the evidence of origins, in fact, leads to a Creator, then why dismiss that? It seems to me that for those who want to do true scientific inquiry, they would base their conclusions not upon biases but upon facts.

All I am suggesting is that empirical students do the research that they claim to do. Look at the evidence and follow it. Apply Ockham’s Razor to the problem, and see for yourself if the simplest and best solution for The Big Bang is not creation.

And, for convinced Christians, we need to stop fearing The Big Bang. The theory isn’t that far off from the truth, and it is a big step in the right direction. Instead of looking for reasons to reject it, why don’t we look for commonalities to share with it?

After all, Paul did this very thing in Acts 17 when he affirmed that the Athenian philosophers were on the right track in worshipping an unknown god. He found common ground with the Athenians, took what was unknown to them, and then graciously explained it.

I liken the debate over The Big Bang in our culture to the unknown god in Athens. The Big Bang isn’t a bad idea; it’s just not a complete idea. That means it needs to be developed and explained, not feared and rejected.

People like the idea of tolerance because it sounds like it is a palatable “live and let live” approach to life. It’s a mentality that sells well in a postmodern world because it seems so inclusive and it sounds so accepting. Everyone wants to be tolerant of everyone else because apparently the worst thing you can be today is intolerant or judgmental.

Tolerance, though, has become a sort of trump card that people use to shut other people down if they have anything to say that they might deem as controversial or unpopular. And, it has often been used to silence religious groups and members of the faith community to keep them from speaking out against immoral behavior or wrong belief.

The truth is that a measure of tolerance isn’t necessarily bad because it does actually stifle violent behavior and hateful words. Of course, people should never attack each other or even demean others no matter how much they disagree with someone else’s behaviors or beliefs. So, in that way, tolerance can do some good.

However, tolerance in our culture is usually not about mutual respect and charity. Tolerance is more often about acceptance of every lifestyle and equality of all ideas. The essence of tolerance today is embracing all belief systems and every individual choice, no matter how selfish or harmful one’s choices may be to oneself or to society.

In our culture, it seems that we would rather let an alcoholic drink herself to death than tell her she has a problem. And, we would prefer to allow an addict to self destruct rather than dare to tell him he is wrong. We would also rather let marriages fall apart and kids crash and burn than risk speaking up about the dangers of foolish choices and false thinking.

In our society, no one has the right to impose their moral convictions on others and no one’s views are more acceptable than any other’s. In a tolerant society, there are no rules or boundaries. There are only preferences and opinions. So, nobody really has the right to speak into the lives of others or has the obligation to listen to others speak into theirs.

In concept, tolerance sounds pretty good. But, in practice it is actually pretty bad. The reason why is because it doesn’t work. A truly tolerant society doesn’t work because it causes people not to care more about their fellow man; it causes them to care less. People start to care less when their efforts to show interest and concern are discouraged.

The truth is that when tolerance is drilled down into our collective minds and hearts, we are actually conditioned by it to have less interest and show less concern for other people. When our attempts to look in on and look after the welfare of others is culturally diminished, then we eventually stop caring altogether.

For this reason, tolerance is actually worse than hate. At least when you hate, you care. You care enough to get worked up about something. You are care enough to speak up and say something. But, when you are indifferent, you don’t even care. And, this is where tolerance leads.

Tolerance is bad because it fosters indifference. And, indifference is the opposite of love. If we love others, then we will look out for them, we will speak into their lives, and we will care enough to tell them the truth. Even if it hurts or offends, real love means telling others when they are heading in the wrong direction or when they are harming themselves or others.

It is as the Jewish-American writer, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once wrote in U.S. News and World Report, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

Tolerance is indifference. It is the opposite of everything good including love, art, faith and life. Indifference destroys cultures and harms people, and that is why it’s bad for us and bad for society.

Now, I know what they are intending when they use this expression. I understand that they mean Christianity is different from other religions because it is not about keeping legalistic rules and performing empty rituals. It’s about trusting in Christ and not about trying to earn God’s approval.

And, I also understand that we may dislike the word “religion” because it has negative associations for people. For some, it has come to be associated with something boring or oppressive, but that is largely defined by one’s own personal experience so it shouldn’t be used to indict religion as a whole.

Just because religion has negative associations for some, does that mean we should all abandon the concept? Do we simply give up on the idea because some people had a bad experience or should we instead reclaim and redeem it? I am of the persuasion that thinks we ought to do the latter.

So, in the sense that religion is not about legalistic duty and that it has some real world negative associations, Christians who use the phrase are right. But, in the sense that they want to reject the word and ditch the concept of religion, they are wrong. When they say that Christianity is not a religion, they are simply mistaken because it is.

The dictionary defines religion as “A set of beliefs concerning cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”

So, according to that definition, Christianity is clearly a religion. The textbook definition is right, which means that we don’t need to get rid of the idea of religion. We simply have to define it or, in many cases, redefine it.

Christianity is a religion because it needs to be. If Christianity is not a religion, then it is in a category all to itself, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. The reason why is because defining Christianity as something else altogether does set us apart, but it also isolates us.

If Christianity is not a religion, then there are two significant issues that arise. First, if Christianity is not considered a religion, then it means that we do not have a place in the religious marketplace of ideas. We only have our own circle in which to talk about “relationship”.

In other words, if Christianity is not also a religion, just as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam are, then how can we expect to be taken seriously in the debate? After all, how can we enter into the forum of world religions if we don’t belong there?

If we want to enter into the religious studies debate, then we need to have a seat at the table of world religion. If we secure a seat, then we can get the opportunity to exhibit the Christian worldview and negotiate its relevance to the religious discussion.

To be taken seriously in the religious milieu today, we shouldn’t be trying to exclude ourselves from the dialogue. We ought not to retreat to our own domain, but we inadvertently end up doing this very thing when we don’t call ourselves a religion.

If we say we’re not about religion but relationship, then we make it sound like Christianity is thin and hollow, not thick and substantial. The Christian faith is something to take seriously, and it belongs in the discussion of religion.

And, second, if Christianity is not a religion, then it also means we are not recognized by the State and are therefore not protected by First Amendment rights. If you recall from your American History class in high school, the First Amendment is what guarantees freedom to practice “religion”.

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Notice that it doesn’t say that Congress shall not respect or prohibit the exercise of “relationship”.

I think people just repeat an expression like “Christianity is a relationship and not a religion” because it sounds nice and people use it a lot. It’s a cliché, and we are notorious for repeating Christian platitudes and clichés. But, platitudes and clichés make us look bad. They make us sound shallow like we’re an inch deep and a mile wide.

Sometimes I fear that we keep coming up with clever ways to say things in order to either side step honest debate with others or to preclude ourselves from any serious scrutiny. In other words, not calling ourselves a religion can be a sort of trump card that we play in order to evade criticism or avoid intelligent interaction.

The truth is that religion does require us to do certain things and do them “religiously”. There is value in “doing” religion and not just in “being” in a relationship. The truth is that the Scriptures talk just as much about doing the right things as they talk about being good people.

In fact, James tells us explicitly in his book that there is such a thing as doing religion, and doing it righteously. James 1:27 says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

James’ command shows that he is not down on religion at all. Rather, he is quite up on it as long as it’s the right kind. He writes that real religion is about doing something (caring for the most vulnerable) and about not doing something (avoiding the temptations of this world). So, religion is about doing and not just about being.

As Christians we need to be thoughtful in the way that we talk about our faith. Though we do want to distinguish our religion from all the others and to make the case that the Christian worldview is the best one, we must first get the opportunity to do so.

When we use Christian clichés like “Christianity is a relationship and not a religion”, we often end up shutting down our chances to gain a hearing with others. The reason why is that it often comes across as dogmatic and even triumphalistic.

The message that this sends is that we are not interested in debate and that we are somehow superior to others. The fact is that people are turned off by those who appear to be closed off or puffed up, so we clearly don’t want to project that kind of image to the world.

Instead of promulgating a message like that, it seems to me that it would be better to try to open the doors of communication with the world rather than close them. And, one of the ways that we can do this is by choosing commonalities and building bridges with others.

We can prop one of those doors open by dropping our resistance to using the term religion and embrace what it provides us in the marketplace of spiritual ideas as well as what it protects us from in a country that guarantees religious freedoms.

So, the bottom line is that Christianity is a relationship, but it is also a religion. It is a religion by definition and by practice, which means that religion is not a bad thing. It is not a word to be avoided or a concept to be ignored.

The Christian religion is unique and offers the best and most holistic view of the world, and we want to get the opportunity to share that with others. But, in order to have that chance to voice our faith, we need to take our seat at the table of religion.

At the same time, I am actually encouraged by those results because it proves that the case is far from closed and shows that there is room for disagreement and healthy debate within the church regarding this issue. Even in a Bible church that is largely conservative theologically there is wide diversity in perspectives, so this clearly is not a liberal/conservative issue.

I grew up in a largely young earth environment and was consistently taught one side of the debate, which led to my presuming that there really was only one biblical view on this issue, at least for those Christians who consider the Scriptures to be inerrant. Like others in my circle, I was fairly dogmatic about this belief because I didn’t know any different.

So, I was genuinely surprised when I later learned that there are actually several other views held by evangelical Christians who maintain a high view of Scripture and are sincerely conservative in their theology. I eventually came to realize that the only difference between them and those in my tradition was the way that they interpret the same infallible Scripture.

This realization led me to look into the other views and read a host of literature from disparate perspectives, and the net result of that investigation for me is a high regard for the different views and deep respect for those who hold them. I now understand more fully that there are legitimate arguments for different views and that they are held by God-fearing, Bible-believing, highly intelligent Christians.

Admittedly, I still favor a young earth view, but my reasons are more theological and exegetical than they are geologic and scientific. I have read equally compelling arguments for and against a young earth based upon geology, but being a pastor and not a geologist I understandably and hopefully appropriately give more weight to special revelation than to natural.

Given that bias, I let Scripture become the ultimate arbiter of the issue. And, for that reason, I actually do prefer the common understanding of “yom” (day) in the Genesis account, which is the 24-hour day. And, I have found that the theological problem of suffering and death in the world before Adam’s sin though not insurmountable is quite difficult to reconcile with the rest of Scripture.

Nevertheless, I hold my personal leanings loosely knowing that I could be wrong. The truth is that the Scripture is not clearly explicit on this issue and there must be room for charitable disagreement in the church. We ought to permit and even encourage healthy dialogue and investigation to occur within the church and be tolerant of and comfortable with a diversity of views.

That being said, I am really concerned about two things regarding this emotionally charged debate in the church today. First, it bothers me how Christians treat each other while fighting over this issue. Young Earth Creationists accuse Old Earth Creationists of being unbiblical compromisers and Old Earth Creationists return the favor by calling Young Earth Creationists narrow-minded simpletons.

When I first read Hugh Ross’s A Matter of Days, I was stunned to hear how alienated and persecuted he felt by the evangelical church for his old earth views. In fact, he laments for several pages the unmitigated anger that was directed his way by pastors and evangelical leaders when he went public with his arguments.

In the same way, I was equally shocked to learn that Ken Hamm was being panned and ridiculed for his young earth views at Answers in Genesis. It seems many in the old earth community actually mock him and his peers for holding what they deem an outdated and narrow minded perspective.

Having grown up among young earth proponents that I respect, I am equally concerned by the childish panning directed their way as I am by the angry condemning that is returned. As a pastor who values diversity in lesser debates, I really am embarrassed by the lack of charity shown by both sides.

The other thing that bothers me about this issue is that I believe the church is fighting the wrong war. Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” as we live and minister in the midst of wolves, and being wise means that we must know where to draw the battle lines. As Christians, we too often draw lines where they shouldn’t be. And, the age of the earth need not be a battle line in the church.

Being wise as a snake is about knowing where the true war is, and the true battlefront is not whether the earth is young or old but whether the earth is created or not. You see, the real war today is whether God created the world or whether it evolved by blind chance. This means that we are fighting in the wrong place and wasting our energy and resources on the wrong things.

While the church is busy bickering about whether the earth is thousands or millions of years old, the culture is more interested in deciding whether there is any need for a Creator in the first place. In case you haven’t noticed, atheism is growing at unprecedented rates in America and around the world because more people think that God is basically unnecessary.

When we divide our forces and fight on the wrong battlefronts, we are spinning our wheels and wasting precious time in the real war over the creation story. People have forgotten that there is a God who created them and has plans for them because evolutionary naturalism tells them something different.

From a young age, we are taught that we are nothing more than an accident in the grand scheme of unfolding evolutionary events. Our culture believes more every day in blind chance as the parent for all things including us, and we lose more ground each year because we aren’t mounting efforts to show them otherwise.

Instead of fighting with each other about WHEN and HOW God created the earth, we ought to be fighting together for the truth THAT God created the earth and the people on it. The when and how are secondary. What is primary is the fact that there is a Creator who made all things, and that Creator is the God of the Bible.

People today need to hear one common message from the Church, and that message is that there is a Creator who made them, loves them, and has plans for them. They need to see that there is undeniable evidence that our world is carefully designed and personally superintended by an all powerful God, and they need to know that they are not an accident and that people have value, dignity and purpose because God gave it to them.

For this reason, I want to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ to stop wasting emotional energy and spiritual resources on the when and how of creation and instead start spending it on the “that” of creation. Let’s invest ourselves in one common cause and unite in one shared message that the God of the universe made everything and He made it all for a purpose.

When I was a young child, my family was eating lunch at a restaurant after church one Sunday. At the time, my father was the new pastor at the Baptist church in San Lorenzo Valley, and Dr. Vernon Grounds of Denver Seminary was in town speaking at another church in the area.

He just happened to be dining in the same restaurant as us and noticed our family seated across from him. For some reason, he decided to stand up, walk across the room and introduce himself to my parents. He then looked at the two little boys seated at the table and asked if he could lay his hands on their heads and pray a prayer of blessing on both of them right there in front of a restaurant full of people.

Now, I’m not a mystic, but I’m mystical enough to think that something special was conveyed that day through the hands of a saintly leader to those two little auspicious boys. Whatever occurred that day, I wonder if the experience explains in part the path that my brother and I have both taken in this life.

As a young man, I recall sitting in church and hearing my father tell the church that he believed in his sons and invited them to watch us grow and see for themselves what God would do through us. His affirmation gave us both something to reach for, but more importantly, it gave us the security of having his confidence.

From that day forward, we both took the responsibility seriously of living up to the challenge that our father gave us and endeavored to prove him right. Though we both faltered as all young men do and had to grow up like everyone else, we held onto the affirmation that our father gave to us and it carried us through those years.

As a college student, I worked for a summer on a cruise ship. During the course of that summer experience, I never ran into another professing Christian among my coworkers. I found myself suddenly isolated from my life back in Arizona and my personal commitment to Christ was put to the test as never before.

I had many opportunities to turn away from God and indulge myself in sin, but God supplied me the strength to withstand the temptations. It was during that time of testing that I felt the true call of God on my life to serve Him in vocational ministry, and it was then that I decided that I would go to seminary.

Now, one would think that having the blessing of a spiritual patriarch, the confidence of a father and a clear call from God would be enough for a dynamic and effective ministry. Some would say that I had everything I needed then to be a great minister, but it wasn’t enough. There were some things that I still lacked.

In Paul’s second letter to his protégé Timothy he told the young pastor that his gifts and talents, his sense of calling and even his affirmation from Paul was not enough to be an effective pastor. No, Paul told him that he needed more.

Paul told him that in God’s house there are vessels of gold and silver and then there are vessels of wood and clay. And, the difference between them is how “honorable” they are. In God’s economy there are common and uncommon ministers, and even though God loves and values both of them, He chooses to use the uncommon ones.

Paul’s exhortation to Timothy was that before one can expect to be used by God, he or she must be honorable. So then, how does one become honorable? Paul writes that to be honorable, one must be “set apart as holy”, “useful to the master of the house” and “ready for every good work.”

First, Paul says that to be honorable we must be set apart. The Greek word for set apart is hagiazo, and it means to literally be purified. One can be set apart for anything, but Paul says that one must specifically be set apart “as holy.” This means that we must, in fact, be made holy before we can be considered honorable.

Usually, the word is translated as sanctified, and the thing about sanctification is that it is not an event but a process. Justification is an event, the moment that one is declared righteous through faith in Christ, but sanctification is a process that begins and continues through life.

And, though we are largely sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we are also sanctified through the exhortation of others. In other words, we need other people in our life who are further down the road, more mature and credible than we are who are willing to speak into our lives and show us our blind spots.

We all have blind spots, and we need others who can show us what we cannot see ourselves. In my case, I had a big blind spot when I went to seminary. At my 60 hour review, I received a letter from the faculty informing me that they were largely pleased with my academic work and impressed with my gifts and skills.

However, they also told me that there was one thing they felt would inhibit my ministry and impede my progress in seminary if I didn’t confront it. Collectively, they said there was evidence of pride in my life, and I needed to be purified of it. They knew that God would hold me back until I learned the essence of true humility.

Looking back on that experience, I can honestly say that it was quite painful and embarrassing to have all my professors call me out in a formal way, and I was hurt for a while. But, as time passed I learned that it was quite necessary and was really only the first of several events in my life that God has used to break me of my pride.

So, many years later, I now find myself grateful for the purification I received from the faculty at Phoenix Seminary. I’m glad they cared enough about me to tell me the truth, even if it meant hurting me for a season. Their investment into my life has served me well as it has spared me from just spinning my wheels in ministry.

Second, Paul says that to be honorable we must be useful to the master of the house. The Greek word for useful is euchrestos, and it literally means to be equipped. To be equipped is to have the right tools and skills for the task at hand. In the case of ministry, one must have the tools and skills necessary to read, interpret and apply the Scriptures. They must also have the ability to think theologically and philosophically.

In seminary I gained the tools and skills I could not provide for myself. I learned church history, theology, Bible and the biblical languages. My mind and heart were stretched in profound ways in school as I was taught not only to process but also to integrate all the fields of study into life and ministry.

Now, I have two little boys named Ethan and Christian. Ethan is five and Christian is three, and they both love Thomas the Train. As I have endured watching the many episodes over the last few years with them I have picked up something that struck me. I noticed that all the little trains in the show have one primary goal in life, and that goal is not to be the fastest, the strongest or the smartest, but to be the most useful.

That’s right. Their central goal in their life as a train is to be a “really useful engine.” I was honestly taken by that idea as it accurately describes what our goal ought to be in ministry. We too want to be really useful to the Master, and our usefulness is directly tied to how well equipped we are to serve Him.

Third, Paul says that to be honorable we must be ready for every good work. The Greek word for ready is hetoimazo, which literally means to be prepared. To be prepared is to take the appropriate time to study and practice in order to be qualified and approved for ministry.

There is tremendous value in taking the time to get prepared for doing good work. No lawyer practices law without going to law school and no doctor practices medicine without going to medical school. It is no different for ministers of the gospel as there is no substitute for good preparation.

There is a story told by Lewis Sperry Chafer in his book Grace about two lumberjacks who challenge each other to an all day wood chopping contest. One chopped wood all day long and noticed that the other took many breaks and enjoyed a leisurely lunch. At the end of the day, the one who chopped all day long was upset to find that the other had chopped more wood than he had. The man who took all the breaks told him that what he had failed to notice is that while he rested he was sharpening his axe.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” Seminary training is about sharpening our axe. It is about taking the time to get prepared so we can be more effective in our ministries and always ready for good works.

In my case, I gladly spent four years of my life in seminary knowing that it would prepare me for all the good works that God has prepared for me the rest of my life. If I didn’t take the time to prepare, I know that I would likely not be ready for all the good opportunities when they came my way.

So, as we can see, there is more to being an effective minister than having the blessing of a leader, the affirmation of others and even the sense of a personal call. According to Paul, being an honorable vessel is about being set apart, useful and ready. It’s about being purified, equipped and prepared for the ministry that God gives us.

We must resist the urge to coast on our own abilities and gifts, on our own confidence in a personal calling, and on the affirmation of others. The truth is that we can have all those things and still just be a common or dishonorable vessel that is unused by God.

To be an uncommon and honorable vessel that is used by God, there must be more. We must give him what He desires from us. That is, we must be purified of our pride, we must be equipped with the right tools and skills, and we must be prepared with instruction and training. If we want for God to use us, then we must, in turn, give Him something that He can use!

This is why we need Phoenix Seminary. We need a graduate school that turns common vessels into uncommon vessels, ignoble instruments into noble ones, and what is dishonorable into what is honorable. This seminary is turning the wood and clay into gold and silver, ensuring that the next generation of pastors, teachers, leaders, missionaries, chaplains and everyday ministers are really ready for the great work that lies ahead.