GAY TRUTH

Author: Russel Moore. Kirsten Powers and Jonathan Merritt wrote an article for the Daily Beast accusing conservative Christians of hypocrisy and unchristian behavior for suggesting that some persons’ consciences won’t allow them to use their creative gifts to help celebrate same-sex weddings . Since I was a key example of this hypocrisy, I’ll respond to that charge. At issue is a response I made, reposted this week over at the Gospel Coalition , helping a Christian wedding photographer think through whether he ought to work for a same-sex wedding. In the photographer’s question, he grapples with the question of how his conscience ought to play in this decision not only as it relates to weddings of people who, for all he knows, might be involved in all sorts of unbiblical behavior. Powers and Merritt suggest if he refuses to photograph one “unbiblical wedding,” he ought to “refuse to photograph them all.” As a matter of fact, they say, to do anything else is to be “seen as a hyp

English: Wedding cake of a same-sex marriage  (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The call for tolerating same-sex marriage has become a demand for compliance. Cases like Masterpiece Cake Shop in Colorado and Elane Huguenin's New Mexico photography business have shown us that "tolerance" ends exactly where the right to say "no" begins. And so people, businesses, and non-profits are forced to choose between their livelihoods and their convictions. Some fellow Christians are giving this new state of affairs a thumbs-up, including Kirsten Powers , whose fearless stand against abortion I admire, and Skye Jethani, a friend I respect greatly. They argue that Christians who won't participate in gay " weddings " are "applying Scripture selectively." If you object to baking a cake, shooting photographs or playing music for a ceremony for two men or two women, they say, you should also object to serving anyone with an unbiblical lifestyle. But since

The call for tolerating same-sex marriage has become a demand for compliance. Cases like  Masterpiece Cake Shop in Colorado  and  Elane Huguenin’s New Mexico photography business  have shown us that “tolerance” ends exactly where the right to say “no” begins. And so people, businesses, and non-profits are forced to choose between their livelihoods and their convictions. Some fellow Christians are giving this new state of affairs a thumbs-up, including  Kirsten Powers , whose fearless stand against abortion I admire, and  Skye Jethani , a friend I respect greatly. They argue that Christians who won’t participate in gay “ weddings ” are “applying Scripture selectively.” If you object to baking a cake, shooting photographs or playing music for a ceremony for two men or two women, they say, you should also object to serving  anyone  with an unbiblical lifestyle. But since no business owner can do a background check on every client’s personal life, Powers and Jethani conclude t

- by Keith Pavlischek Jonathan Merritt , a blogger and journalist, who I’m told is associated with the progressive wing of Evangelical Christianity , recently published a blog post, MLK[Martin Luther King] would agree with Kirsten Powers on serving same-sex couples . The upshot of Merritt’s blog is that Christian photographers, bakers, and florists and the like should, (1) as a matter of Christian ethics and morality be willing to offer their services at gay weddings or other such events, since that, according to Kirsten Powers, is what Jesus would do; and (2) Christians and others should be required by law to serve at “gay weddings” or some similar type event, even if it would violate their conscience to do so. These are two related although distinct questions. I will leave (1) to others. My focus will be on (2). Now, I’m generally not concerned with asking questions such as “What would Jesus do?” A resort to that type of rhetorical question is typically evidence of an immature

Today Kirsten Powers and Jonathan Merritt wrote an article for the  Daily Beast accusing conservative Christians of hypocrisy and unchristian behavior for suggesting that some persons’ consciences won’t allow them to use their creative gifts to help celebrate same-sex weddings . Since I was a key example of this hypocrisy, I’ll respond to that charge. At issue is a response I made, reposted this week over at the Gospel Coalition , helping a Christian wedding photographer think through whether he ought to work for a same-sex wedding. In the photographer’s question, he grapples with the question of how his conscience ought to play in this decision not only as it relates to weddings of people who, for all he knows, might be involved in all sorts of unbiblical behavior. Powers and Merritt suggest if he refuses to photograph one “unbiblical wedding,” he ought to “refuse to photograph them all.” As a matter of fact, they say, to do anything else is to be “seen as a hypocrite” and t

In just a moment I would like to interact with a post by Kirsten Powers and Jonathan Merritt, which you can read here if you haven’t already. In one sense, I wish they hadn’t written that thing together, because I have some respect for Kirsten Powers. She has done some very fine against-the-tide work on things like international persecution of Christians , and on the Gosnell horrors. I don’t know as much about Merritt, but what I have seen seems to indicate someone who is being wafted along by the breezes emanating from the Zeitgeist Wind Farm, which is a bad metaphor because that’s not how wind farms work. To change metaphors , it is as though they happened to be at the same place on the road because she was walking into a great city while he was walking out of it. Anyhow, however they came to say it, what they said needs a response. But before saying anything about their argument, I want to say something else about a necessary scriptural backdrop to all such discussions. As conser

Last week, Kirsten Powers and Jonathan Merritt joined their voices with the opponents of Christianity . In short, they argue that Christian business owners who refuse to participate in gay weddings are unjustly discriminating against gay people. Powers even went so far as to say that legal efforts to protect these Christians are tantamount to Jim Crow laws for gay people . Again today, Powers has another op-ed doubling down on her stance against these Christians. This Jim Crow narrative has really taken hold in recent weeks, but I want to invite you readers to consider whether it really is a good analogy. In the Jim Crow South, white business owners regularly refused service to black people because of their skin color. Are these Christian business owners try to do the same? Consider the case of Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Washington State who is being sued by the attorney general of the state for refusing to involve her business in a gay wedding. You can watch her in her

PHOENIX, AZ , February 25, 2014 – In a move that has sparked antagonism from both Republicans and Democrats, the  Arizona state legislature passed a bill Thursday  that would grant business owners the right to refuse service to clients on the basis of religious objections. SB 1062  would provide business owners the grounds to deny their services to same-sex “marriages.” The bill, which now awaits the signature of Gov. Jan Brewer , has been lambasted as discriminatory by its opponents, but its defenders say it’s a necessary protection for religious freedom. In the past few years, there have been  several cases of business owners facing lawsuits after  refusing to provide their services  to  gay couples at their “weddings.”  This bill would prevent such suits from being filed in Arizona and would protect objecting business owners from facing heavy fines. This bill has a lion’s share of opponents. Both of Arizona’s federal senators, each Republican,  have urged Gov. Brewer