Further Thoughts On Chick-Fil-A Flap

Last updated on: August 7, 2012 at 6:00 am by Esther O’Reilly

Further Thoughts On Chick-Fil-A Flap 2012-08-07T06:00:34-04:00 Esther O’Reilly

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.

I hadn’t planned to write further on the Chick-Fil-A flap (er, bad pun sort of intended). But professorpook left a comment on my Saturday open thread trying to argue the case that Barnabas Piper made good points in the article to which I linked so negatively. So I decided to take a leaf from Thomas Aquinas by laying out this post in the form of “objections” and “responses.” We’ll go systematically through professorpook’s comment and answer each objection he raises. Maybe this will be of some use to somebody by organizing the issues at stake here in a clear, easy-to-follow format. I also encourage readers to check out this Moody Radio program where Chris Fabry took calls from Christians on both sides of this issue, including a segment with Barnabas Piper himself. It’s a great one-stop place to hear both perspectives get a full hearing. I think the young lady who called in around minute 35 nailed it.

Objection #1: “We are not in competition with the world. We know how it ends. We win. There is no contest. Our purpose here is to communicate the gospel. Jesus said they will know us by our love.”
Response: Reader Lydia has already given her thoughts in reply to this, and I concur. While it is technically true that Jesus is going to come back and bring the world to an end, souls are hanging in the balance in the meantime. We shouldn’t be so eager to show “love” to unregenerate, aggressively hostile sinners that we neglect the people they are impacting for evil. I glanced at a Facebook thread where these people were talking about Friday’s “kiss-in” in relation to children, and they were essentially chortling over the young souls they had already corrupted to the point where they would be comfortable with seeing two men or two women kiss each other. “Yeah, my 5-year-old wouldn’t bat an eye, because she totally ‘gets it.’ ” Now if we don’t take a vocal stand against this corruption, who will? Just because Jesus will ultimately overcome the forces of darkness in the end doesn’t mean that they are not working VERY hard to take as many souls with them as they can. And the devil knows his time is short even if they don’t, so he is mobilizing them like an army to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. Jesus has some pretty harsh words for people like this. Which brings us to…
Objection #2: “Go through the Gospels, and you will see that Jesus was gentle and fellowshipped with those outside the church, and frequently got angry with those in the church.”
Response: First of all, the Jewish establishment at the time of Jesus does not equal “the church” of today, so the parallel is poor and anachronistic. Different issues, different power structure, different culture, different everything. I think (and this is a particular affliction of pastors looking for sermon fodder), that Christians can sometimes be over-eager to find “applications” for everything they find in the scriptures. The problem is that this doesn’t always work very well.
Secondly, this one-sided focus on the gentleness of Jesus with regard to sinners overlooks something important: Jesus was an INCREDIBLY powerful personality. Turning over the tables of the money-changers is one obvious example that comes to mind (and that, by the way, wasn’t against “the religious people” — in fact, it was an example of Jesus being rather “religious” himself). But even if we look elsewhere, the Bible gives us a picture of somebody who had a tremendous amount of coiled-up force and energy behind every word he spoke. It was almost magnetic. Sinners who saw him were moved to repent because they felt about as big as a pea in his presence. They were humbled by him. When he called to Zacchaeus with a gleam in his eye to come down from the sycamore, Zacchaeus wasted no time obeying and amending his ways.
I think we should be willing to admit that there is some fear going on in stories like this—the kind of holy, awe-filled fear that we are supposed to have for God. Jesus, as God incarnate on earth, inspired that kind of fear. Nevertheless, it was fear mixed with love. It was both at the same time. But regardless, we need to dispense with this fantasy of “Jesus hanging out with completely unrepentant sinners so he could love on them and listen to their stories.” It was more like “Jesus confronting unrepentant sinners with their sin in such a powerful, direct way that they were almost invariably moved to repent.”
Objection #3: “I think Barnabas Piper is concerned that we communicate the gospel truthfully but without *needlessly* dividing people. As he says and as the Bible makes clear, division is going to happen anyway. The Word of God is a double-edged sword. We do not need to add salt to the sword – simply to be willing to use it – the sword of the Word – not the sword of activism (however mild that activism might be).”
Response: Again, Lydia addressed this objection quite well and referred to another blogger who’s written up his own response to Piper. I have little that’s new to add to their responses. As they’ve pointed out, at no point has Chick-Fil-A been the aggressor in this fight. Cathy, like many conservatives, had the question pressed upon him, and he simply answered according to his convictions. It was then that the homosexuals decided to make a fight out of this. Conservatives responded by simply showing up to extend their support. (And again, I must reiterate the unintentional humor of all this. “We just finally had enough, and in fact we got so fed up that we… went out and bought a chicken sandwich!” We’re not seriously having a debate about this, are we?)
Here’s my question to those who would take Piper’s position: What do you expect would have happened had the mass response NOT taken place on August 1st? Do you really think it would have made a huge difference to the gay community’s approach? Do you think they would have suddenly had a change of heart and thought to themselves, “Huh, looks like they’re not showing up in force to support Chick-Fil-A. How restrained of them. You know, maybe we ought to rethink this aggressive agenda of ours and start backing off, just like they’re doing.” I kind of doubt it. Fact: When you give in to a bully, he doesn’t go away. He makes more demands. He gains more ground. When you look at it that way, it makes perfect sense to simply… not give in. Suppose you had a gay friend who asked you on Wednesday “So, are you going to Chick-Fil-A today?” and you, having decided that it was an obnoxious “activist” move even though you agree with Cathy in principle, said “Nah.” What’s your friend’s reaction going to be? Naturally, he’s going to feel a little bit smug and hope that maybe he’s influencing you to move in his direction. He’ll be all the more encouraged in all the wrong ways.
I want to say something else, which kind of expands on something Mary said. She was saying that she appreciated the feeling of solidarity with her fellow Christians that she felt on Wednesday, and that it was akin to being in a battle and seeing reinforcements arriving over the hill. I entirely understand and agree with where she is coming from. Soul-winning is not the only worthwhile thing Christians can do. There are many worthwhile things we do as Christians that don’t happen to have the winning of souls as their goal. If we made that our only goal, what would be the point of hymn sings, or Bible Bowls, or any sort of activity that involves nothing more than sharing fellowship with other Christians? The Bible instructs us to be always building each other up. We can’t allow our timidity in the face of bullying perverts to rob us of our joy or our impulse to encourage a brother in Christ.
Moreover, if that happens to offend some acquaintance of ours who is living in sin (which I saw one blogger cite as a reason why he felt torn regarding how he should react on August 1st), there’s a place for bluntly saying “Too bad.” As one caller pointed out on the Moody talk show, the bitter pill that the gospel presents to the proudly unregenerate is one that must be swallowed sooner or later. Well-intentioned Christians who take Piper’s stance would obviously never say that they intended to witness to their gay acquaintances under false pretenses, but once we begin talking about how this gesture might “burn bridges” or “be seen as adversarial,” we have to discuss what exactly that means when it’s all parsed out.
Whether knowingly or not, young Barnabas Piper and his ilk are sapping the strength of God’s foot-soldiers on earth. And while I have yet to see Piper Sr. say something quite this radical, I do think there’s a connection to what he said in his sermon as a reproach to churches and pastors who are “too politically active.” How did that affect pastors who had hoped for Piper’s encouragement? It made them feel abandoned. The last thing that we need right now is for a sub-group of Christians to be frowning and nagging and wagging their fingers at the rest of us like a bad nanny the moment we dare to demonstrate a little push-back in the face of relentless persecution. We need encouragement, not discouragement. The discouragement of our friends will only advance the cause of our enemies.

Faith and Culture

Previous Post

August 6, 2012

Stephen Hill Passes Away

Next Post

August 13, 2012 Monday Morning Humor: Every Boy Band Song in 4 Minutes

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 3 star 3.5 star 4 star 4.5 star Anatomy of a Song Behind the Songs Blog Stuff Book Reviews CCM CCM vs. SG CD Reviews Christians in Entertainment Christmas Essential 12 Christmas Favorites Christmas Top Fives Concert Reviews Concerts Culture Devotional Thoughts Faith and Culture From the Vault Fun Gospel Singers Gospel Songs Great Music Guest Posts Harmony Master Classes History Holidays Humor Hymns Interviews Marriage in the Movies Monday Morning Humor Movie Reviews Movies Music NQC Odds and Ends Old Movies, New Eyes Old Southern Gospel News Old Stuff Open Threads Other Genres Perfect Tenor Performances Polls Questions and Answers Recently Added SG vs. The Rest of the World Sing It Again Songs Songwriting Southern Gospel Surprise Sunday The Definitive Hymns Theology Toe-to-Toe Top 10 Lists Top 5 Top 5 Lists Two Sisters Review Uncategorized Video Posts Youtube Finds

Select a Month August 2026 February 2025 August 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 October 2023 March 2023 February 2023 December 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 June 2020 March 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 April 2018 September 2017 August 2017 May 2017 February 2017 December 2016 November 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Rabbi" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Prophet Master Lord Teacher