Homosexual Marriage: If anyone’s on the ‘wrong side of history,’ it’s the West
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| US President Barack Obama now on the wrong side of history (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
We hear a lot about “the wrong side of history” these
days—usually from those who want to convince us we’re on it, and that everyone
in the future will think like the New York Times editorial board. But if we
want to understand where history is really headed,
we’ve got to look at
the big picture—the global picture.
President Obama—someone who’s used the “right side of history”
trope more than
once—got a glimpse of that picture last month when he spoke in
Nairobi. Addressing Kenya’s strong cultural aversion to homosexuality, the
President warned that “treating people differently” not because they’re harming
anyone but because they’re “different,”
erodes freedoms and leads to “bad things.”
Well, in a nation where 96 percent disapprove of homosexuality,
that didn’t go over so well. Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta was quick to
express the feelings of his country and Africa, saying: “…there are some
things…our culture, our societies don’t accept…for Kenyans today, the issue of
gay rights is really a non-issue.”
But the real clash of cultures is happening not among
governments, but between churches; specifically between churches in the
West—that is, in Europe and the U.S.—and churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America.
Last year the
Washington Post ran a story about the growing tension between
Anglican and evangelical churches in the West and their daughter congregations
abroad. While many churches in Europe and America have shriveled as they drift
from biblical Christianity, their
counterparts in the global south have thrived. These missionary plants
haven’t gotten the memo about rewriting two thousand years of Christian
orthodoxy. And they’re puzzled and more than a little worried when Westerners
come bearing the sexual revolution instead of the Gospel.
“Homosexuality is equivalent to colonialism and slavery,” said
Bishop Gitonga of the Redeemed Church in Kenya. “It’s not biblical and cannot
bring blessing to Christians.”
African believers, particularly those in communion with our
mainline denominations, say they feel betrayed. These Christian communities
planted by Western missionaries are now watching the churches that sent those
missionaries compromise everything they taught. For Africans, explained
Anglican Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda, it’s like watching their mother
give up the faith.
And it’s not just happening in Africa. Last month, two major
branches of South American Presbyterianism cut
ties with the PC(USA). Citing the PC(USA)’s decision to
sanction gay “marriage,” the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil and the
Evangelical Reformed Church of Peru separated from the denomination whose
missionaries first brought them the Good News 150 years ago.
Blessing homosexual unions, these Latin Presbyterians said in a
statement, is “against the principle of the authority of Scripture over the
life and faith of the Church,” and leaves them no choice but to go their
separate way.
Watching all of this, I can’t help thinking of Jesus’ words to
the churches of Asia Minor in Revelation. Walking among the lamp stands, Christ
threatens to remove the light from any congregation that doesn’t repent and
return to its first love. Listening to the reactions of our brothers and
sisters around the world as our culture and churches celebrate sin, it’s easy
to imagine the Lord saying those words to us in the West.
Folks, we should rejoice that churches around the globe are
holding fast to the faith. But if we in the West don’t repent of our compromise
and our cultural imperialism, might the Light of the World leave us in darkness? Now that
would be a fate even worse than being on the wrong side of history.
