Reflections on our missionary identity in the age of legalized gay marriage.
Chicken Little is an old story. Very old. Versions of this story — of some small animal being hit on the head by falling fruit, hysterical about the certain doom of all things and the end of the world — go back more than two millennia. The satire resounds because someone always thinks the sky is falling. The recent Supreme Court decision declaring same-sex marriage legal has some outraged and others making 'Chicken Little' pronouncements, but I would guess most of us are more confused than outraged. We don't really know what it all means, and more importantly how we ought to feel about it.
As church planters who hold what I would consider an orthodox position (welcoming but not affirming) we are left to wonder how we ought to react and respond; both to the hysterical voice of Chicken Little in our own heads and to the now pressing (and soon to be ubiquitous) reality of gay marriage. How should we, who are planting churches and who are committed to Scripture and the testimony of the historical church, be feeling about it all? And what should we do?
One way or another, the times define us.
Planters need clarity and focus, less on the social and political ramifications of the decision, and more on our own identity. How we feel and respond to this issue is predicated on how we define our roles. Who are we to the people we work with, and what exactly is our core work? To my mind, the Supreme Court decision actually raises a more profound and transcendent question for the church planter: Do we see ourselves essentially as pastors, or as missionaries? As the caregivers of the majority, or dissidents for the minority? Do we see ourselves as moral defenders of what is, or voices crying in the wilderness for what is not?
In my experience, most church planters see themselves as missionaries at first. It is a temporary necessity which is seen as an impermanent and undesired state. Or, to say it another way, they see themselves as missionaries who want to become pastors as quickly as possible. At first, they think about the place and people to whom they have been called like a missionary would, using demographics, strategic outreach, incarnation, indigenous leadership, cultural fluency, and more. This posture is often temporary because the endgame in their mind is to assemble a few hundred Christians and then transition into the more preferential role of pastor. I think this mentality is a mistake. It is a mistake because the idea that the church should be lead by pastors (a gift / title mentioned only twice in the New Testament) is not a strong one. So much has already been written which makes the case that "disciple-making" (the missionary mandate) is the name of the game for the Christian leader. It is also a mistake because the traditional conception of the pastorate preserves the status-quo instead of advancing the cause of the kingdom in the world. Pastors care for existing communities (a good gift to be sure) but as churches are born in an increasingly post-Christian context, our best leaders must penetrate not preserve; they must take new ground, not simply protect the ground we have. The more robust and versatile sensibility of the missionary makes room for the pastoral gifts, but also subordinates them to the greater work of mission. This is the better rubric for Christian leadership in our time. So what does that have to do with gay marriage?
How we see ourselves and our role in the cultural milieu in which we have been placed determines how we think, feel, and react to a tectonic legal decision like this one.
The pastor sees a threat, the missionary sees an opportunity.
If we see ourselves primarily as pastors, then our core work is to give care and protection to Christians and the Christian way of life. This mindset would almost necessarily be hostile to an openly gay person or couple engaging the church in any way. The Supreme Court decision only makes that possibility more likely. You might think I am being cynical, but what is the preponderance of evidence of how the church has engaged the homosexual community so far? Perhaps this is due, in part, to the leadership mindset and mandate. The pastoral mindset potentially sees the entry of the sexually deviant person as a threat to the holiness and theological vitality of the church. Having gay couples enter into the life of the community is scary and destabilizing.
The missionary, on the other hand, might see access to the same people are a gift and something to celebrate. The whole goal of the missionary life is to find lost people who will enter into living friendship that ends with them hearing, knowing, and trusting Jesus. We want to be with people who don't know him. That's the point. There is nothing sadder than a missionary that can't find any sinners to love or share their life with. Getting access is everything.
The pastor fears the encroachment of heresy, the missionary sees the distinguishing of the gospel and the kingdom.
The pastor might fear for the theological integrity of the church now that it is legal for gay couples to marry. The cultural changes means that orthodoxy is somehow under fire. Won't people start to believe that it is okay? Won't I be pressured to sanction that decision? Holding out against the cultural current then feels adversarial, and it feels like we are losing something. If our people all begin to believe that homosexuality is permissible and we hold out against it, won't we lose all our people? It is a scarcity mindset that is rooted in the finite nature of the caregiving orientation.
The missionary doesn't change their view of morality because they make friends with (and room for) the sinner. They are not alarmed because they know themselves to be the one entering into the world of the sinner and doing so with gratefulness. We assume people are in darkness, not light. Jesus gave instructions to the ones he sent, "When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.'" The missionary enters the life and habits of the uninitiated with peace, not judgment — but the people we go to must be open to the preaching of the kingdom , if not, we look elsewhere (Luke 10:10). This is because the missionary must do what they were sent to do. They must go where they are received, and they know that all sin, in time, will be uncovered and laid bare, not by our judgment or morality but by the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
The pastor laments the loss of christian morals, the missionary rejoices in the triumph of justice.
To be precise, the decision the Supreme Court actually made was that no state could "deprive the right" of marriage to a gay couple. This is important language. The supreme court can no more define marriage than it can define goodness, friendship, or beauty. Marriage was conceived by God and only He can actually define it. What the Supreme Court can (and should) do is talk about established and existing rights (under its own governing document) and their fair and equal distribution.
The missionary rejoices in the coming of the kingdom in any form, and to any person. Gay couples being given rights is a cause for rejoicing, not because marriage has been redefined (as I have said, the government has no such power and we should not give it to them in our rhetoric), but because people whose rights were denied have now been granted them.
Rights are afforded to people not because their behavior is aligned to the will or wish of God, but because of their basic dignity as human beings made in the image of God. Yes, I believe Scripture condemns homosexual practice. It is listed right there with the equally egregious sins of greed, idolatry, adultery, and pride. I am trying to imagine Christian outrage over allowing greedy people to get married. We do not necessarily minimize the biblical deviant behavior of pride because we also believe that prideful people should still be allowed to marry. The Bible teaches that the proud stand as the opposition of God. It is by all accounts worse than homosexuality. It is, as Lewis called it, "the anti-God state of mind." Still, as a Christian, I should fight for the rights of the prideful, greedy, and adulterous people to have access to public education, healthcare, a fair trial if accused of a crime, et.c… and still uphold the testimony of scripture, that people who defiantly embrace such practices will not enter the kingdom of God — myself included.
Justice done anywhere is a victory and foreshadowing of the kingdom. I can believe that homosexuality is sinful, and also believe that to deny them the rights afforded to other citizens is also sinful. Are we really in favor of denying human rights because of sin? What human would be left to lay claim to their rights? Our behavior may be sinful, but to deny a person the right to marry because of it would also be sinful. The missionary understands that because they separate the broad moral and loving act of justice from the particular act of the sinner receiving something precious like freedom, jurisprudence, or the right to vote. We rejoice when those thing are equally distributed even to those who do not know or understand the things of God. Perhaps it is even more important for us to fight for the rights of those people precisely because they are not a part of the kingdom yet, and our witness to them is dependent on us demonstrating charity, compassion, and justice.
My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight…
The missionary sees this. The pastor can not. The pastor sees only threat to the status quo. Their thinking is quickly riddled with scenarios of forced weddings and building rentals and imminent lawsuits. I can support the just decision of the government to allow homosexuals to marry and still refuse to perform the ceremony, because the other thing the missionary understands is that we must distinguish ourselves. I would not officiate the wedding of atheists either, because I believe marriage is fundamentally a vow made before God. No God, no marriage. The civil union of two people which affords them certain rights is exactly what government is empowered by God to ensure; but I must represent a kingdom which is not of this world in which the will of God is sovereign, and that witness must stand out on the backdrop of advocacy and justice. I fight for their civil rights, but I can never compromise the word of God and the holiness of his kingdom. I am only a messenger. I cannot change my view of what is moral or immoral because of the cultural whim of the people and place I live. On the contrary, the missionary knows they are sent to challenge the order of things.
Even if we are persecuted for steadfastness, the missionary would rejoice. Because we would be found worthy of suffering for the name of the Lord, and we would know that any blood we shed would be for the glory of God and testimony of Jesus, done in love for the unbelieving world. The missionary knows that they will grow to hate the people and culture they enter if they do not stand fast on the truth. It is not loving to compromise the message we have come to deliver. At any cost we must deliver it faithfully. Even if we become a laughing stock. Even if we are branded irrelevant.
The pastor wants to be the pillar of the community, respected around town. This is not the delusion of the missionary, they seek only the glory of God in the mystery of preaching his kingdom.
We have both of these archetypes fighting for control of our identity as church planters. We feel and act like missionaries but we harbor some endgame of becoming a pastor.
I have no idea how it will all play out. Maybe the "chicken littles" are right and the sky is falling. I kind of hope it is, because the missionary knows the greatest enemy of the church is not sin or satan, it is apathy. A comfortable church, unthreatened and untested, is impotent. So, if this is the end, so be it. It only means Jesus is on his way, and every knee will soon and finally bow.