SERMON: State of the Church, 2024
Series: New
Year Messages Text: Matthew 16:1–3
By: Shaun
Marksbury Date:
January
7, 2024
Venue: Living
Water Baptist Church Occasion:
PM Service
I.
Introduction
The Pharisees were
always trying to find a way to disprove Jesus before others. However, Jesus condemned them for being able
to predict weather patterns while remaining ignorant on the times. They should have known not only that the Messianic
era was upon them, but that the Messiah was there in front of them!
In 2024, our technology
has improved. While meteorologists still
can’t predict rain or snow with a great deal of accuracy, they have come a long
way. Yet, unfortunately, we haven’t
necessarily gotten much better about identifying the moral and cultural climate
in which we find ourselves. Scripture
explains what we should see, but we don’t always.
As we enter a new
year, it’s worth looking back and considering some of the top religion stories
of 2023. Most of these stories I
reference have been noted in The Christian Post’s lists,[1] an interview with Terry Mattingly on Issues
Etc.,[2] and some I remember from the year. I’ve tried to highlight some issues we all
need to be thinking through for the coming year. As we consider where we have been, we can
better understand our times so we can consider what to expect as a church in
the new year.
II.
The Changing Culture
If we’ve seen
anything in the past few years of social discourse, it’s been the motte and
bailey defense of language meant to move culture. For those who haven’t heard of the motte-and-bailey
argumentation, you’ve probably seen it. Imagine a castle divided into two parts:
1) the bailey, the lower and more assessable land where work is being done, and
2) the upper motte, the fortified area that’s difficult to attack and more
defensible. A person makes a bold and
exaggerated claim in the bailey, but when he is attacked, he retreats to the
fortified motte, where he proclaims a moderate claim that no one will attack.
We see this in an
emerging field, DEI principles (diversity, equity, inclusion). Of course, those words sound like principles
we would want to embrace, and that’s the motte.
Yet, the bailey includes certain kinds of quotas from marginalized
groups, the promotion of critical race theory (that systemic racism and white
supremacy exists in society), the devaluation of a merit-based practices,
employee training programs where individuals feel targeted for their sex or
skin color, etc. When challenged on these
issues, however, DEI leaders will retreat to the motte, asking why people are
against fair treatment and inclusion of different voices. It can be a frustrating tactic.
Perhaps that is why
DEI has become so prominent in the past year.
One of the big stories was the realization that banks and organizations
are pushing companies to adopt DEI principles (diversity, equity,
inclusion). However, in practice, DEI has
pushed brands to promote social justice or “woke” agendas that we recognize in advertising
and in stores.
For instance, it’s
because of DEI that Bud Light beer promoted Dylan Mulvaney on a limited line of
cans. He’s a male transgender activist
who has been dressing up like a woman on social media. This tanked their sales, but numerous other
companies have followed suit.
The ubiquitous
nature of this appearing everywhere is what made people notice something was
happening behind the scenes. Target, for
instance, was promoting these things with our children, selling “tuck friendly”
swim suits so that boys can wear girls’ swimwear. Maybelline ran advertisements with a bearded
man applying its makeup. Hershey’s chocolate
partnered with another man dressed as a woman for International Woman’s
Day. Harry’s Razors did something
similar, featuring mutilated girls with chest scars, using the razors now on
their faces like boys. It was an effort
to get popular brands to push the cultural change as normal, in the name of
inclusivity.
I
don’t present this for the purposes of boycotting but to highlight the inroads
of DEI into every aspect of the marketplace. Of course, some companies like Target have
been far more open to this. Other
companies surprised us by opening a DEI department, like Chick-fil-A. This is also being promoted in churches and
Christian institutions, so we will see more professing Christian voices
defending it in the name of Christian charity and compassion.
This
is something that we will have to consider as we move into the next year, as many
of the companies you work for may implement changes which defy logic and
Christian truth. If we know that there
will be a motte-and-bailey exchange on the subject (“Why are you against helping
people?”), we can sidestep that and get back to the practical issues that are
concerning. We must prayerfully consider
how we will answer so we can do so with truth and love.
III.
Transgenderism
As we continue to
see the effects of the sexual revolution in our culture, we aren’t surprised to
continue to see transgenderism as a major story in 2023, though it often involved
minors. Of course, this has been a big
debate for some time, with some falsely claiming that minors were not
receiving hormones and surgeries if they wanted to identify as something other
than their sex. However, clinics have
appeared all over the country, and many of them have been prescribing puberty
blockers to young children (which may sterilize them for life), cross-sex hormone
injections (which create various other issues, including osteoporosis and mood disorders)
and then engaging in surgeries of teens which remove healthy tissue and leave
behind unsightly scars and, in many cases, necrotic tissue and oozing wounds. This is done in the motte of caring for
confused young people, but the bailey is a field littered with carnage.
Some states like
Florida and Georgia have passed laws banning such life-altering acts on
children. However, more left-leaning states
such as Colorado advertise themselves as havens for such horrific acts. Schools here in Colorado are also bringing in healthcare
workers who will promote transitioning to minors. Again, this is done under the guise of “gender
affirming care” or simply “healthcare,” so speaking against it is panned as
wanting to deny life-saving treatments for young people.
Why is that? There have been many in this demographic who
have committed suicide, so the concern is to help them by affirming their
confusion. However, the data is showing
that people who undergo social transitioning, hormone treatments, and surgical
alterations are far more likely to commit suicide than those who are denied
it. This is due in part to the terrible
effects of their treatments for their rest of their lives, which are often
shorter anyway. This is also due to the lack of therapy to see
why they feel they feel the need to “change their gender.”
Many of the
children who have been subjected to this are now grown and have begun speaking
out about their ongoing health issues and the lack of proper therapy. They are known as the detransitioning
community or “detrains,” and some are suing healthcare providers for allowing
them to undergo such mutilations at young and impressionable ages. We can only hope that their voices get heard
and this entire cottage industry ends.
Sadly, as long as this
continues, there will be some very angry and confused young people. One of the biggest stories of 2023 was the
Covenant School shooting, where a self-identified transgender individual named
Audrey Hale broke into a Christian school and killed three children and three
adults. We’re still waiting to see the
shooter’s full manifesto, but she wasn’t the only transgender or
queer-identifying shooter in recent news, such as the Colorado Springs shooter,
the Aberdeen shooter, the Denver shooter, and, most recently, the Iowa
shooter. We need to consider why these
individuals are becoming so violent and murderous, even as they are undergoing
affirmations and hormone treatments. We
are not helping — we’re hurting them.
So, we will need to
pray about this first and foremost. We
then need to notify legislators that this is wickedness upon our youth. We also need to let schools know that it is
not alright for them to promote this with children, nor is it okay to hide
these things from parents. We are still
in a representative republic, and we have the right to exercise our first amendment
rights within the confines of Christian conversation.
IV.
Antisemitism and Theological Clashes
To shift gears, we’ve
seen something else. Probably the number
one international religious news story was what happened on October 7th
— the worst terror attacks in in the nation of Israel’s history, perpetrated by
the Palestinian group Hamas. Thousands
died as Hamas raped, pillaged, and brutally murdered people at a music festival
and along the Israeli border. Oddly enough,
protests across the world have broken out against Israel’s defense of
itself, promoting Palestinian rhetoric.
This is due in part
to antisemitism. Many Muslims and
secularists alike have a racist view of Jewish people and have been promoting genocidal
statements like, “Hitler was right.” This
is while terrorists have continued killing Jews in Israel and others in the
West have been harassing them.
Some of this,
though, has been placed within the same cultural Marxist parameters of a battle
between the oppressors and the oppressed.
They incorrectly frame the state of Israel as a colonizer (which is a
complete misshaping of history) which oppresses the Muslim Arabs in the region
(despite the fact that Muslim Arabs have seats in the Knesset). They also have been told that the chant, “from
the river to the sea” simply means justice in the region, ignorant of the genocidal
history behind this expression, calling for the erasure of every ethnic Jewish
in the region. Hamas continues the
Palestinian Liberation Organization’s goal of wiping Israel from the map, but
Tik-Tok influencers and media acolytes are saying it’s just about correcting power
structures and establishing justice.
What’s surprising
is seeing this infiltrating Christian churches.
We must reject antisemitism, obviously.
We also have to reject neo-Marxist thinking that would cause us to view
everything through the lenses of oppression.
Moreover, we also will
have to think through the fact that we support a secular state over there which
isn’t any better spiritually than we are.
Israel does support the same sinful lifestyles America does. Yet, we still believe Israel has the right to
exist and to defend itself against terror.
We also must understand that many innocent people in Palestine are
caught in the crossfire. We pray for peace
in the region, which includes repentance among Israeli and Palestinian alike toward
Christ.
V.
Anti-Christian Biases in the Government
We also continue to
be concerned about the government’s treatment of pro-life individuals. You might remember that, in 2022, before dawn,
the FBI raided the home of a pro-life demonstrator by the name of Mark Houck. While Houck was acquitted of charges in 2023,
the case opened an investigation into the FBI’s and the DOJ’s anti-pro-life and
anti-Catholic stance.
While we are not
Catholic, we are concerned that a document classified some Catholics as “radical-traditionalist”
on the basis of such factors as being anti-LGBT and anti-immigration. We wouldn’t claim either of those labels, but
believing that marriage should only be between a biological male and female and
that we should secure our southern border would certainly make some people think
we are also radicals in a motte-and-bailey fashion.
We have the right
to call out this mistreatment, but we will have to contend with a growing
anti-Christian sentiment from within the government as well as culture. We must remember Christ’s words, “blessed are
the persecuted.” We’ll also have to
remember to bring issues back around to the gospel as graciously as we can.
VI.
Theological Drift in Denominations
Another big story
in 2023 was the ongoing schism in the United Methodist Church. This has been brewing for a while, as Western,
wealthier, mostly white denominations have been demanding the church adopt
same-sex weddings and embrace everything on the LGBTQ+ spectrum as good. African and Asian congregations in
particular, however, have stood against this progressivist move. Since 2019, 7,600 congregations have left the
UMC. It’s interesting that those who are
concerned with power structures don’t see white and rich churches trying to
force poorer churches in the global south to accept their changes, but that isn’t
how the social justice warriors in the church frame it in this case.
Of course, the UMC
isn’t the only denomination to have this debate. The church of England, for instance, is pushing
for the same thing, creating a rift in that fellowship. Interestingly, before year end, the Vatican
issued a document on blessing same-sex unions in opposition to the Catechism of
the Catholic Church; we might say that the Catholics have left orthodoxy long ago
by abandoning sola scriptura, but that doesn’t explain what is happening
in so many of our Protestant denominations.
Other denominations
are having the same debate, just decades later.
It was a long time ago that the UMC decided to ordain female pastors,
but that is the current debate in the SBC.
After years of hearing that there are no women pastors in the SBC, many
have shown how many SBC churches have been appointing women to various pastoral
positions in their churches. The SBC did
overwhelming vote to disfellowship Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, but only after
Rick Warren appointed a husband-wife team to take over as pastors with his
retirement — his church and many others have been hiring women pastors for
years. Convention leaders are asking
people to not be so narrow in their interpretation of the Baptist Faith and
Message 2000.
VII. Conclusion
Much of this comes down to a combination of errors. There is an infiltration of cultural Marxists
views in the church causing people to think there are inequities to correct and
power structures to tear down. That’s
not to say there aren’t errors to correct — there are. Yet, the inequities people look to are not
based on scriptural definitions of righteousness versus injustice, but rather
power structures and oppression. Men are
seen as oppressing women, so we need women in leadership. Heterosexuals are seen as oppressing
homosexuals and transgendered folks, so we need to change practices and
beliefs. So, it is not ultimately the
Bible which is the basis for what we’re seeing within the church, but the
world, and people are trying to create change within the church in the name of
God while ignoring His word.
If we have no basis for truth, then we have no foundation
from which we can speak to our changing culture. The culture is changing, shifting like the
sands of opinion which constantly move.
People are looking for something true, but as our culture becomes
post-Christian, they understand less and less about truth. They don’t understand why we care about sex
and marriage or anything else. They
think they are being caring by accepting, for instance, transgenderism in schools,
but the mercy of the wicked is cruel, and they have no idea how it’s ruining
lives. Others, reacting against this, are
self-described as red-pilled and becoming increasingly hateful toward all the
woke nonsense in our culture — they are embracing some of the old errors of
racism, antisemitism, and the like, not seeing the church resounding with a
clear voice on these issues.
We have to be willing to speak the unchanging truth of God’s
Word lovingly, explaining why the way of God is the best path for human flourishing,
kindness, and justice. We will have to walk
that line in not touting salvation in any political party or candidate this
year while also demonstrating why the platform of the Democratic party is
causing more harm than good. We have to
show that the sexual revolution and Marxist ideologies are not the liberators
people view them as, and that true liberty only comes in Jesus Christ.
[1] The Christian Post's top 10 stories of 2023 (part 1), December
26, 2023, https://www.christianpost.com/news/the-christian-posts-top-10-stories-of-2023-part-1.html
and The Christian Post's top 10 news stories of 2023 (part 2), December 27,
2023, https://www.christianpost.com/news/the-christian-posts-top-10-news-stories-of-2023-part-2.html.
[2] 3631. The Top Religion News Stories of 2023 – Terry
Mattingly, 12/29/23, https://issuesetc.org/2023/12/29/3631-the-top-religion-news-stories-of-2023-terry-mattingly-12-29-23/.