Fatherlessness and the church

Sports columns aren't typically known for underscoring the importance of fathers, but then Rick Reilly's final column as a sportswriter wasn't typical. At age 56, the 11-time National Sportswriter of the Year opened his farewell column last week this way:

I am the son of a drunk, a man who was much too concerned with where his next whiskey was coming from than where I was going.

He didn't discipline me. Didn't advise me. Didn't father me. . . . [M]ost of the time he didn't even know where I was. And my trembling mother was much too terrified of him and his sloppy temper slamming home to worry about what I was doing.

So when I got a regular byline in the town paper before my 21st birthday, I was as wild and unruly as the mop of hair on my head. I had a voice and a license to use it, but not one lesson in how. I hurt people just to make a name for myself. Just because I could.

My first beat was the Colorado women's basketball team and I came out slashing. Until, one day, a retired coach named Sox Walseth came up to me. His hair was white, with matching caterpillar eyebrows, and he wore a cardigan. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, "Son, you're not going to get very far writing articles like the one you did today. These people shouldn't have to read the cheap shots you're taking at them. You can do better than this."

I looked right back at him, stuck out my bottom lip, and began to cry.

I was so starved for a father that this man I hardly knew was suddenly thrown into the job. I'm sure he was as confused about what was happening as I was, but he took me to his chest and hugged me.

As I sit here and write my last column as a sports writer, I see now how that moment changed my life.

It brought tears to my eyes as I read it. (That will not suprise my family.) Reilly's account demonstrates once again the kind of power the loving, faithful presence of a father or father figure can have, as well as the kind of power the unloving, faithless absence of a father can have.

A father can be either a bridge or a barrier to understanding God as Heavenly Father. It certainly is true in Christian homes. It seems as if it can be true even in non-Christian homes. It can be true both for sons and daughters.

Reilly's painful experience of the 1960s and 1970s has mushroomed into an epidemic of fatherlessness and father absence in America. An estimated 33 percent of American children live apart from their biological fathers, and that figure is expected to grow to 50 percent by the next century at the current rate. The fallout from this trend is well documented in a number of social indicators.

What does this plague of fatherlessness mean for the church? Well, of course, it is a reminder Christian fathers should be faithful and loving husbands and dads. But it means more than that. It means the adult men in our churches have the opportunity to be spiritual fathers to boys and girls, young men and ladies who have not known the love, acceptance and guidance they longed for from the men whose genetic makeup they share.

This will cost us as Christian men. It will cost the church. But isn't that what it means to be a Christian man? Isn't that what it means to be the church? After all, we follow the God who became man and served us at great cost to Himself. He suffered and died for spiritual orphans who had no loving father. May we die to our own interests and comforts in order to be the kind of father figures who can provide a bridge to our Heavenly Father.

Truth and grace on the transgender issue

The transgender issue is quickly gaining attention in our culture. I addressed it when I began a preaching series titled "Gender, Sexuality, and the Purpose and Power of God" June 1. The text that morning, Gen. 1:26-27, says God made man -- which refers to human beings not just males -- in His image and closes with these words: "[M]ale and female He created them."

God has not changed. He still makes each of us either male or female. And we are to embrace how He has made us. Yet, as a race infected by sin, some people identify themselves as a gender different than their biological sex. As the transgender movement gains acceptance, increasingly confused children and adults find encouragement to believe they should live as a gender different than that given by God and even to change their bodies to fulfill that identity.

The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting this week in Baltimore, approved the first resolution in its nearly 170-year history specifically on the transgender issue. You can read the entire resolution here. It is a statement filled with both truth and grace:

-- It affirms gender "is determined by biological sex and not by one's self-perception."

-- It expresses "love and compassion" to people who struggle with a conflict between biology and gender identity.

-- It invites all transgender people to trust in Jesus and welcomes them "to our churches and, as they repent and believe in Christ, receive them into church membership."

-- It recognizes transgender people as image-bearers of God and denounces abuse directed toward them.

-- It also opposes efforts to change a person's "bodily identity" by gender reassignment surgery and other treatments.

I made some of the same points near the close of my June 1 sermon. Based on my manuscript, I put it this way:

1. We should not be surprised that such misguided thinking as that of transgender people is found in human beings. They, and we, live in a fallen world where the sin nature blinds us and causes us to believe lies. But we also should not surrender on this reality of Scripture and creation: God has made us male and female.

2. We should not see those who have what is described as a gender identity disorder as mutants or freaks. They, like all other human beings, are made in the image of God.

3. We should love, care for, serve, evangelize -- and hopefully -- disciple them. They, like all other sinners, need the gospel. And once they have received the gospel of Jesus, we should help them see, as Russell Moore has said, that part of repenting and following Jesus is not rebelling against their Creator but accepting the gender they were given by God.

Why we sing in corporate worship

(Here is an excerpt from a 2012 post on the church's singing in corporate worship.)

Christianity is a singing faith, and for that -- I think -- we should all be thankful. The Bible -- which governs how we worship -- calls for singing by God's people corporately in both the Old and New Testaments.

While more could be listed, here are some reasons Scripture indicates we should sing as a church:

(1) We should sing to give God glory.

"Sing the glory of His name; make His praise glorious" (Ps. 66:2). These commands from the psalmist are to all the earth, so it certainly applies to those who belong to God as His redeemed children. We give him glory in song by declaring how glorious He is and by making our praise of Him glorious.

(2) We should sing to declare God's attributes.

The same verse, Ps. 66:2, conveys this message by speaking of "the glory of His name." God's "name" in Scripture refers to who He is -- in other words, what His nature is, what His attributes are. The psalmist says God's people should make His attributes known in their singing.

(3) We should sing to proclaim the atoning death of Christ.

"And they sang a new song, saying, 'Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth" (Rev. 5:9-10) The apostle John's vision showed those around the throne singing about the blood sacrifice of the Lamb of God and its far-reaching impact. We will sing as one great choir about the cross-work of Jesus one day in Heaven, and we can do it now corporately on earth as the church.

(4) We should sing to instruct and encourage one another.

"Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God" (Col. 3:17). Singing, as the apostle Paul explains, has a discipleship function during corporate worship. As we sing, we act as teachers and encouragers to those with whom we are worshiping. We should recognize our singing is for the building up of our fellow saints, and their singing is for our building up.

(5) We should sing to express our heartfelt affection to God.

In this same verse from Col. 3, Paul says Christians in worship should sing "with thankfulness in your hearts to God." In Eph. 5:19, he says believers are to be "singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord." Singing is a means of expressing ourselves to God. As we sing together corporately, we tell Him of our gratitude for what He has accomplished on our behalf and express to Him joyful affection for who He is and what He has done.

The resurrection and this perilous cultural moment

We – the church of Christ – celebrated the resurrection of our Lord the Sunday after I last wrote for this blog. That previous post focused on a discussion some of the Covenant Community Church family participated in the prior Sunday evening regarding the cultural moment we find ourselves in. It is a time of growing intolerance for the biblical view of marriage and for the freedom to express that view.

In the days since that post and Easter, I have thought about what the resurrection of Jesus has to do with how we approach the issue of society’s redefinition of marriage. My conclusion? It has a lot to do with it.

By God’s providence, I reached on Easter in my preaching series through I Corinthians that great chapter on the Resurrection, Chapter 15. I preached on the first 19 verses of that chapter on Easter Sunday. I plan to cover the remainder of the chapter this Sunday.

In I Cor. 15, the apostle Paul explains the indispensability of the resurrection. There is no gospel and there is no salvation without Jesus rising from the grave, he says. Paul continues through 58 verses informing the believers in Corinth about the significance and details of Christ’s resurrection and theirs. He points to the Lordship of Jesus over all things, including death.

Paul closes this magnificent and encouraging chapter by saying in the final verse: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

Those are encouraging words for those who trust in a resurrected Lord and believe in the future resurrection of the body. In fact, we might call them “marching orders.”

After providing the most extensive biblical teaching on the resurrection, Paul urges his readers – saints whom he dearly loves – to not back down. Based on what he has written in the first 57 verses, he tells them to continue doing what they are doing. He exhorts them to remain faithful in doing what Christ has ordained for them to do.

How can Paul say this to those who were in a perilous cultural moment in the First Century and those who are in a perilous cultural moment in the 21st Century? He can say this because the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth actually happened and our resurrection will actually happen. The resurrection of Christ changes everything for us. We no longer need fear anything, including persecution from a culture that opposes our beliefs. He also can say this because our work in His behalf – not to gain God’s acceptance but to live out the acceptance He has already granted us through the righteousness of His Son – will not be “in vain.”

To say our “toil is not in vain” is not to say we will see the fruit of those labors quickly or even in our lifetimes. But God’s words promise our labor will not be "in vain." For all who are in Christ, we can live with this assurance: Our toil on behalf of Christ and His gospel – a gospel that necessarily includes the resurrection – will be worthwhile. May we stand strong in this cultural moment with that certainty.

A hope for the church in this perilous cultural moment

I had the privilege of doing something with some of my brothers and sisters Sunday evening I think we increasingly will be doing in the months and years ahead.

By way of explanation, I will quote a tiny segment from the "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy. In "Fellowship of the Ring," the band of nine are waiting in the mines of Moria for Gandalf to discern what direction to take when Frodo -- bearing the burden of seeking to destroy the One Ring -- tells him, “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

Gandalf responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it, and that is an encouraging thought."

So it is for all who name the name of Christ today. We live during a time we would never choose for ourselves and our descendants -- a time of grievous sin and growing hostility, a time seemingly unprecedented in America for its attacks on the meaning of marriage and the freedom to practice religious faith. Yet, as with many saints of the past who have lived in such perilous times, we can say with certainty God has chosen this time for us and us for this time.

That is why gatherings like ours Sunday evening -- when 16 of us in the same church discussed our concerns for this cultural moment, encouraged one another and exhorted one another -- will be increasingly important in the days ahead. We appear to be in the early stages of a time when hostility, and likely persecution, will be experienced widely by those who follow Jesus. Some disciples will experience it more personally, often because of their line of work. But all of us will live with the reality that what we know to be true about marriage -- and, as a consequence, the gospel and the Word of God -- are no longer welcome by many, if not most, of our fellow Americans. And a disapproving government will likely wield its power against us.

As a result, I believe the church and its regular gatherings will become in reality in our hearts and minds what Jesus died to make it -- a community of the cross, a fellowship of the redeemed. If so, we will see the demarcation between the church and the world more clearly than ever before. We will prize the church as the body of Christ more than ever before. We will value the gathering of the family of God more than ever before. We will see each opportunity to be together as a time of refreshment and revitalization amid what may be consistent torment or even suffering. And we will walk together in love with our brothers and sisters for the building up of one another, for the cause of the gospel and for the glory of God.

Invisible God in a visual medium: 'The Fellowship of the Ring'

The film trilogy of "The Lord of the Rings" includes no explicit reference to God. Yet, it is possible to sense the divine providence that pervades it and to perceive the portrayals by different characters of Jesus' offices of prophet, priest and king that mark it. Of course, the world view of J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the three-volume work, helps viewers be prepared for such biblical themes in the films.

One scene eloquently points to providence -- a providence we, as Christians, understand is that of the sovereign God. It occurs in the first movie, "The Fellowship of the Ring," when Frodo Baggins and his eight companions find themselves in the Mines of Moria. While they wait for Gandalf to discern which tunnel to take, Frodo and the wizard talk about the purpose in Gollum's continuing existence and the providence in the hobbit bearing the weight of the One Ring. Here is that clip in the next segment of this series, "Invisible God in a visual medium."

Thoughts on the World Vision developments

Yesterday's quick and contrite reversal by World Vision U.S. on its new same-sex marriage policy proved to be welcome news for most of those who identify themselves as evangelical Christians. Only two days after announcing it would hire people in same-sex marriages, the relief organization resorted to its previous policy after widespread opposition from influential evangelical leaders and, undoubtedly, sponsors. Its president and chairman said the board had made a terrible mistake and asked for forgiveness. As forgiven people, evangelicals should extend forgiveness to World Vision and pray for it and other Christian organizations to remain faithful to Scripture.

While we can rejoice in the ability to move forward regarding this incident, here are a few thoughts on this week's developments that are by no means exhaustive:

-- This was, and is, important. It is not just a minor annoyance when a Christian organization finds as acceptable sexual relations outside the covenant relationship designed by God. In its initial decision, World Vision showed a misunderstanding of or departure from the gospel and the authority of Scripture, the latter which the board acknowledged in its letter seeking forgiveness. It is difficult to understand how the board could think it would not encounter the widespread opposition that greeted its acceptance of same-sex marriage among employees.

-- To oppose World Vision's acceptance of same-sex marriage was, and is, not to betray needy children. Some bloggers who seemingly identify themselves as evangelicals sharply criticized at least some evangelicals who wrote posts taking issue with World Vision's initial policy change. These critics seemed to indicate the biblical admonitions to feed the hungry absolutely trump the biblical admonitions to reserve sex for true marriage. They made it sound as if the bloggers who disagreed with World Vision cared little for the destitute but much for targeting gays and lesbians. Yet, the blogs I read -- by such evangelical leaders as John Piper, Al Mohler, Russell Moore and Kevin DeYoung -- demonstrated graciousness and heavy-heartedness, as well as truthfulness and biblical faithfulness. As some of these blogs pointed out, how faithful are evangelicals to God and how much good are they doing if they relieve suffering in this life but approve policies that tell sinners they are okay to continue in practices the Bible says are indications they will suffer eternally if they do not repent?

-- To withdraw support from World Vision is not necessarily to withdraw support from evangelical relief and witness. World Vision is the best known of the international evangelical relief organizations -- kind of the 800-pound gorilla in the field. It is not the only one. That seemed to be the implication, however, from some who criticized those who disagreed with World Vision's original policy change. Compassion International and Food for the Hungry come quickly to mind. Singer Shaun Groves, who works with Compassion, provides what appears to be a balanced explanation of the difference between Compassion and World Vision in which he says, "Compassion always works through the local church to develop one child at a time into an adult who can transform their community some day. World Vision, sometimes in partnership with local churches, develops communities in a way that positively impacts the lives of children." You can read his explanation of the differences -- and he expresses support for World Vision -- here. Included in his post is a video by World Vision explaining its work.

-- This is about the gospel of Jesus. Several bloggers made this point eloquently after World Vision announced its original policy change. Piper explained it this way: "Make no mistake, this so-called 'neutral' position of World Vision is a position to regard practicing homosexuals (under the guise of an imaginary 'marriage') as following an acceptable Christian lifestyle. . . . Over against this, the apostle Paul says they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. It is that serious. If it were not, God would not have given his Son to be crucified for our rescue. Therefore, World Vision has trivialized perdition and the cross."

-- This is not the end. Hopefully, it will be for World Vision. Having humbly corrected its error, the World Vision board may be cured permanently from considering such an action. But we live in a culture where same-sex marriage has made stunning gains in the last nine months in courts, legislatures and public opinion. The pressure continues to mount for Christians to acquiesce to the spirit of the age rather than stand strong against the cultural winds. Christians, churches and evangelical organizations face a growing outpouring of human contempt and, likely, government sanction without obeisance. May we not bow before these or any other pretenders to the throne of God.