Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Narrative and Nuance

Home

Home
Evangelical
Relationships and Religion
6 Ways Evangelicals Can Move Forward from the Bathroom Debate

6 Ways Evangelicals Can Move Forward from the Bathroom Debate

Last updated on: May 20, 2016 at 11:13 am by Dan Chappell

6 Ways Evangelicals Can Move Forward from the Bathroom Debate 2016-05-20T11:13:47-05:00 Dan Chappell

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Bathroom debate pic

If you are like me, you find yourself surprised at the number of times you have thought about bathrooms in the past month. I find myself exhausted, frustrated, and slow to believe that things will get better in our public discourse, not to mention the possibility of real solutions ahead.

Most of us realize there is much more going on than where people use the bathroom. We are in the midst of a very public conversation on the meaning of sexuality and gender. Worldviews are on display, and the clash has been explosive.

There is little doubt that historical and orthodox understandings of sexuality and gender are falling to a revolution that is moving at warp speed. In response to this revolution, evangelical Christians have come out swinging.The call to arms has been loud and clear in this latest installment of the culture wars, and the response and posturing look very similar to the protracted war over homosexuality and gay marriage.

Evangelicals lost the gay marriage war, and we will lose the transgender war as well unless we rediscover what it means to win.

We can move forward from the bathroom debate, not by retreating, but rather by reframing our engagement. If we can, and I believe we must, we will rediscover the kingdom intention of our faith and the primary role of incarnational ministry. When we practice incarnation, we do as Jesus did. Incarnation moves in, moves closer, dwells, gets involved, does life on life, and all of this for the purpose of seeing the kingdom grow through redeemed lives.

The lessons are there for us to learn and here are five ways we can move forward towards a more Christ-like Christianity.

1. Say yes to ministry over the methods of culture wars

Evangelical Christians can no longer afford to be primarily known by support for legislation seen as discriminatory and limiting the rights for identities that do not represent our personal theology. To recapture the effective message of our Gospel we need to invest in the ground game of incarnational ministry rather than the air war of legislation.

2. Understand that what we believe and how we believe are two sides of the same coin.

The strength of Evangelical Christianity is our conviction and connection to the historical truths of Christianity. These truths are not arbitrary beliefs. Rather, they form the foundation for our relationship with God, who has made himself known. However, in recent times, we have often divorced the strength of what we believe from how we posture our belief. We need to understand that what we say is only strengthened when the way we believe is humble, empathetic, longsuffering, patient, and a whole list of other adjectives that describe the beauty of compelling faith.

3. Telling the story of redemption matters now more than ever.

We are in a day where the power of story reigns. Many evangelicals fail to leverage the chance to speak the gospel through the story of redemption and personal story. We opt out and settle for statements of moral law, holiness, and God’s justice. We must realize that telling stories of redemption and identity transformation will offer compelling visions of the Christian life for our culture to explore.

4. The marginalized played key roles in Jesus’ public ministry

When we read the New Testament, we fall in love with Jesus because often did the culturally difficult task. He stopped to reward the faith of the woman who would touch his garment; he healed the man born blind, the cripple; he stood toe to toe with the accusers of the woman caught in adultery, and there are much more examples of his ministry to the marginalized. Evangelicals are not compelling when we further marginalize the marginalized. We do this when we advance arguments that gay people only represent 2-3% of the population or that transgender persons are only .1% of our population. Numbers and majority cultures have never figured prominently in Jesus’ kingdom ministry and therefore the marginalized (LGBT) community should matter to each of us.

5. Fear and suspicion will not produce the love that Jesus requires.

Too often, evangelicals are known being isolationists and protectionists in our exchange with changing culture. Often, we shrink back from involvement because we fear for our children. Other times we simply fear the unknown or the different. While it is entirely right to shepherd our children’s hearts, we need to teach our children that risk is right and doing the harder thing and advancing toward the uncertainties of culture models the beauty of saving faith. Our faith is not rooted in the fear of cultures and peoples. We can, with certainty in God’s goodness and example, draw near to our gay neighbor, our lesbian sister, our transgender coworker, and a plethora of other daily opportunities. When we cast off the fear of the unknown we transform our homes and communities to weapons for the gospel instead of safe zones for protection.

6. Christians have always walked as strangers in a foreign land

Finally, we must realize that this world is not our home. I am not calling for retreat, but rather pointing us toward perspective. We have been given this time here to live on mission for the purpose of seeing the world come to trust and love the Christ of the cross. We have come to call for reconciliation and relationship with the creator. We have to ask ourselves how we will accomplish these goals. Will we see this happen by preserving a culture that makes it easier for Christianity to flourish with our rights intact or will we do so by laying down our rights, suffer when called to, and live valiantly and winsomely for Jesus in the midst of a culture that will increasingly become hostile to the Christian faith? I do not believe this is entirely an either or, but I certainly believe our emphasis must be on the latter.

Culture and Christianity

Previous Post

May 2, 2016

Marriage, Singles, and the Kingdom

Next Post

May 24, 2016 Same-Sex Attraction and My Marriage

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Church and State Culture and Christianity Dender Dysphoria Down syndrome Gender Gender Identity Ministry My Story Narrative & Nuance Sexuality Special Needs Suffering Uncategorized

Select a Month June 2017 March 2017 December 2016 October 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 March 2016 January 2016 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 April 2015 March 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

After healing a leper, Jesus sternly warned him to tell no one but show himself to the priest. Did the man obey?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Partially, he told his family only Yes, he remained silent No, he spread the news widely Yes, he told only the priest