INCHEON, South Korea — “God is for sex.” That was the clear message from the Rev. Canon Vaughan Roberts, rector of St. Ebbe’s Church in Oxford, England, who suggested Christians globally on how to reply to the myriad harms brought on by the sexual revolution and distortion of God’s created order.
The sexual revolution that started as a countercultural motion within the Nineteen Sixties is not so anymore and is now “absolutely mainstream,” Roberts stated.
Over the many years, the false guarantees of human flourishing pushed by these selling the sexual revolution have led to the “almost complete collapse of family life in our culture and devastating effects on families, especially the most vulnerable: children,” he lamented.
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As a substitute of desirous about what courses they’ll be taking, as Roberts stated he was doing as a younger pupil, youngsters are being requested to decide on their pronouns, what intercourse they wish to determine as, and their sexuality. This has solely intensified their emotions of “isolation” and “confusion,” stated Roberts, who described at this time’s youth because the “anxious generation.”
The sexual revolution, Roberts stated, has taught generations to present into their emotions and fleshly needs and that “any external forces must be resisted — whether it’s from traditional morality, religion, or even biology itself.”
How ought to Christians reply?
Roberts says the method is an easy one which requires adherence to the scriptures with added humility and compassion in such a manner that churchgoers will be sincere about their struggles with out fearing they’re going to be shunned.
“We must turn to God’s never-changing Word and not just to a few proof texts, but to its main overarching themes: Creation, fall and redemption,” Roberts informed the hundreds of delegates gathered at Songdo Convensia worldwide conference heart for the Fourth Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization on Monday.
“You can summarize God’s design for sex and marriage in some very basic statements. God is for sex,” he declared, emphasizing that “sex is for marriage” as outlined in Genesis 2:24. “And in God’s design, sexual union is designed to express, seal and strengthen the one-flesh union” between a husband and spouse.
Roberts burdened that God’s directions for human sexuality are usually not the best way they’re as a result of He’s “a spoilsport, wanting to spoil our fun.” As a substitute, they’re offered “for our good, that we might flourish individually, as families and as societies.”
However as an alternative of adhering to God’s Phrase, some church buildings have capitulated to the various iterations of the sexual revolution. Declaring themselves as inclusive congregations, they drape the outside and inside of their church buildings with LGBT and progress delight flags within the worship of inclusivity.
Such church buildings lack “theological integrity,” Roberts stated, posing the query of what good can come from a church that merely repeats the identical views of the non-Christian world and doing so in such a manner that church leaders learn into the Bible teachings that aren’t there.
“[T]hat kind of adaptation is missionally ineffective,” he added, noting that can be why revisionist church buildings are in “terminal decline.”
‘Churches need not be silent’
“We churches desperately need not to be silent. We’ve got good news to share,” Roberts rejoiced, highlighting that “the Christ who said come as you are did not say, ‘stay as you are.’”
Whereas revisionist church buildings are seen as capitulating to the whims of the tradition and disabusing the scriptures for the sake of worldly “inclusion,” some conservative church buildings are additionally not appropriately responding to members of their flock who’re scuffling with such points as spousal abuse, same-sex attraction, gender dysphoria and even pastoral sexual abuse.
Roberts famous that though “revisionists keep quiet about repentance,” conservatives are inclined to swing the pendulum in the other way and are “strong on repentance and holiness, but too often we focus on moral rules rather than the wonderful relationship which Christ came to offer to us.”
Addressing the problem of sexual sin, there isn’t one group that’s extra righteous than another, he added, as a result of all are responsible. And acknowledging that ought to affect how one responds to others.
As an illustration, Roberts stated on any given Sunday at church, one is likely to be seated subsequent to a Christian scuffling with same-sex attraction but residing every day to observe Christ both of their singleness or in marriage. “Brothers and sisters … does the tone and manner in which you speak invite them to be honest and open? Or does it force them into a secret, lonely isolation, which will only be an incubator of shame and sin?” Roberts requested.
“Too many feel unable to be open and honest about the struggles they feel for fear that they’ll be dismissed and rejected” by their church household, he added.
In full transparency, Roberts stated he, too, struggles with same-sex attraction that first manifested in his early teenagers. Regardless of wrestling with these emotions, he makes the choice every day to observe Christ. Being same-sex attracted just isn’t a part of his identification, however it’s an “ongoing part of my reality,” he stated.
Reflecting on 1 Corinthians 5, Roberts stated sin “has corrupted every part of life, including our sexuality … and that should lead to humility.”
In that chapter, “Paul says we are not to judge the world in matters of sexual morality. Leave that to God,” he continued. “We’re not, first and foremost, to issue a wagging finger to the world. Jesus was the friend of sinners. … That same chapter makes it very clear the Church should exercise discipline against unrepented sin.”
One other misapprehension Roberts sought to deal with is that of singleness, which he stated is “viewed by so much of the Christian world as a problem to be solved.”
“Have they never read Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19 or Paul in 1 Corinthians 7? Single people are not single. If they’re in Christ, they’re related to Him. And we have a precious gift which enables special opportunities to serve Him and grow in delight and dependence on Him,” stated Roberts, stressing that “there should be no isolated people in the Church of God, and yet too often there are.”
Christ revolution
What Christians have to supply the world just isn’t solely Christian morality however the reality of the Bible, Roberts defined.
As individuals battle with sexual brokenness and even the challenges of navigating troublesome seasons in marriage, the best way to reply to all method of issues rooted within the sexual revolution is to “respond with Christ,” he maintained.
“Don’t just preach morality. Certainly, don’t just preach condemnation. Preach and live Christ for the glory of His name,” he added. “[In] His teaching, He affirmed God’s creation order and His example. He showed amazing love to sinners and then the relationship with Him, which we can enjoy in this present life by the Holy Spirit.”
Describing it as Christ’s revolution, Roberts stated it’s the “greatest revolution the world has ever known, far greater than the sexual revolution. … And that is the perspective from which we need to look at this revolution going on in the world.”
The information that God created intercourse for marriage and that one is to stay one’s life for Christ, Roberts stated, is what remodeled him.
“That conviction changed my life,” he said. “It wasn’t that I was suddenly gripped and excited by Christian morality. I was gripped and excited by Christ. I loved Him, and loving Him, I wanted to live for Him.”
“Well bless their hearts.”
