Brothers and Sisters, We Must Do Better

I’m just heartsick. I’m watching the social media reaction to Pastor John MacArthur’s open criticism of Beth Moore specifically and women leaders in general, and I feel like crawling into my closet and crying. I’m not even going to get into the content of Pastor MacArthur’s hard line stance in opposition to female preachers. That’s for another time, and honestly tons and tons have already been written in book and article form over recent years without Christendom reaching any clear consensus. Sure, I’ve got strong convictions of my own, and I’m never short on opinions. But my sinking heart isn’t thinking so much about that right now. Instead, I’m appalled at the caustic conversation so many Christians have taken up. In public.

Sure, we can point fingers and say that Pastor MacArthur started it. That’s awfully mature of us, right? (snark intended) When his recent comments hit the Internet, my Twitter feed blew up in response. Many comments stood thoroughly in support and affirmation of Beth Moore and her decades of fruitful ministry, and I was pleased to see them. But some raged against the patriarchy lingering in certain churches and denominations (or in this case, openly celebrated), while others applauded Pastor MacArthur for his bold, counter-cultural stand. Professional and professing Christians alike chimed in, taking sides, launching verbal attacks, lobbing “truth” bombs over the gender divide. And that’s they way our society works, especially in the saturation of social media. We all say what’s on our minds, and blast it out there for the world to see, unfiltered and unconcerned for the consequences.

Brothers and sisters, we must do better.

A MICROCOSM

There are too many layers to this mess to unpack in a single blog post, so even as I write, I’m deciding which part of the stinking pile smells the worst. This feels to me like a microcosm of the ever present schism between men and women that began in the Garden of Eden and continues to divide the family of God today. It’s not the only thing that divides us, let’s not kid ourselves. But it’s a biggie, and one that I don’t think we can afford to continue to ignore.

From the time of the Fall, men and women have been at odds with each other. No surprise - God said it would happen because of our selfish ambitions and the turning inward of our own desires. But God clearly designs his image bearers, both male and female. to work together in ruling and subduing the earth, being fruitful and multiplying (Genesis 1:27-28). Neither the man or the woman is designed to go it alone. But then that crafty slinky serpent came in to divide and conquer, separating the woman from the man in a private conversation. One of Eve’s faults was her decision to take on the devil on her own. One of Adam’s faults was passively sitting by (he was right there for the whole conversation) and not stepping up to do his part. The man and woman divided, Satan had his way. He turned them on each other, dealing a fatal blow to the team God designated to accomplish His purposes. And we all know that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:25).

I hear Satan’s hiss of glee as the gender split continues to gape wide, as men and women continue to shame and blame each other for all sorts of things. In addition, Satan has us fearful of one another, insisting that we’re dangerous to each other, and in our hyper-sexed Western culture, destined to cause each other to stumble if left to our own devices for even a minute. We eye each other suspiciously, playing power games and fiercely guarding territories, as if servant-leadership is an end-sum game where one gender loses when the other one wins. Not only do we injure ourselves and each other in the great gender war, but we weaken the universal Church and take our eyes off the singular goal of shining the light of Jesus so that the lost can find their way home.

And it makes me want to cry.

HEARTBREAK

The real tragedy in all of this is the time, energy, and focus we lose fighting each other instead of pulling together for the sake of God’s purposes and plans. Whatever we might think are appropriate roles, authority structures, biblical interpretations, and so on, surely we can agree on this: the gospel of Jesus Christ is THE most important issue. Period. And over and over in the Scriptures, God asks us to watch our behavior in front of those who don’t believe in Jesus (yet) so that they’ll be attracted to that gospel (Matthew 5:16, 1 Corinthians 6:1-7, 1 Peter 2:12). He wants us to love each other so well that we give others a reason to want to belong to His family, too.

Yes, we’re a family. We’ve been adopted by the Father, born again of the Spirit, with Jesus as our Big Brother, the first born of the Resurrection. That makes us brothers and sisters, and we’re supposed to act like it, especially in public spaces.

Here’s the thing: siblings can be seriously annoying. I have a sister and brother of my own, biologically speaking, so I get it. I didn’t choose them. They didn’t choose me. And we’re about as different from each other as we can be. My own children are polar opposites of each other as well, having pretty must just their parentage in common, so they get crosswise with each other from time to time. But doesn’t it break my heart when they fight and quarrel! And didn’t it break my parents’ hearts to hear me go to the mat with one of my siblings, hurling all sorts of verbal assaults and slamming doors. One of the biggest fights I can remember my sister and I having was over who got to have which drawer in the bathroom for her toiletries. We had plenty of other fights, too, don’t get me wrong, but for some reason, that one ended up in a shouting match loud enough to rattle windows. It’s sad enough behind the closed doors of our own home. It’s downright embarrassing and humiliating in public spaces.

How much more does our Heavenly Father’s heart break when He watches His children draw up battle lines against each other? When we squabble and fight over things that might be important, but just aren’t as important as THE most important thing - the gospel that makes us one in Him? And then, we have the audacity to embarrass and humiliate Him IN PUBLIC in front of others with our arguments, mockery, and verbal bombs.

Can you tell I’m emotional about this? I can’t imagine what all this does to the gracious heart of our God.

CAN WE JUST NOT?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about important issues in public spaces. What I am saying is that we shouldn’t talk about one another in public spaces except to build each other up and give honor to the God who made us all. There’s a really big difference, and we’ve lost sight of that. If we actually regarded each other as brothers and sisters in Christ first and foremost, and then as pastors, spouses, bosses, employees, and all the other stuff after that, I think it would help. But men and women lost the bonds of familial love a long time ago, and the fragments are hard to find in the Western church these days.

Instead of guarding one another as brothers and sisters, we’ve become focused on guarding our doctrines and theological positions. When issues become more important than image-bearers, we’ve lost sight of the love God gives us so freely and commands us to give away to others. Funny thing is, I can’t find a single place in the Scriptures where God tells us to guard His word or some doctrine. He wants us to guard our hearts and minds, for sure. He commands leaders to guard their flocks by giving them sound teaching and gentle care. He wants us to keep His commands as the light to our path that leads us to Him. But He doesn’t ask us to guard or defend His Word with those outside of our authority, let alone our interpretations of it, let alone enforce our interpretations on others. Guess what? He’s perfectly capable of defending Himself, and despite repeated and focused attempts over history to wipe out God’s message to the world through the Bible, still we hold it in our hands.

By the way, the folks in Jesus’ day who decided it was their job to guard and enforce the Scriptures were the Pharisees, and in their zeal to protect what they knew and understood from the written Word, they completely flubbed it when the Living Word showed up in the flesh. We should be very careful, then, to not assume we’re God’s chosen guardians of the faith. Those who’ve done so in the past have not done well, nor did Jesus have nice things to say to them. So there’s that.

Instead, we’re called to adopt a child-like attitude of humility, one that admits we probably don’t know everything because we don’t. And one of the things children learn first is how to play nice with others, especially our brothers and sisters in the family of God.

So can we just not call each other names? Can we just not mock and ridicule those who hold different convictions than our own, even if we’re absolutely certain that they’re wrong? Can we just not elevate issues above people made in God’s image? Can we just not point fingers and name names in the name of being right or “guarding the faith?” It’s not our place. And it’s not pretty. It’s not lovely, or admirable, or excellent, or praiseworthy, or any of those other things Philippians 4:8 says we’re supposed to be occupied with. And it’s certainly not bringing anyone to Christ.

WHAT LOVE REQUIRES

Part of what makes me so sad is that I’ve had a taste of what a good brother-sister relationship in the cause of Christ can look like. My brother-from-another-mother Mike and I enjoyed that kind of relationship when we worked on the same church staff. We shared theological perspectives, spoke into each other’s ministries, prayed with each other, laughed and cried with each other, and even pinky-wrestled once or twice to solve a debate. We didn’t agree on everything, but we always agreed to disagree, frequently ending our conversations with a big bear hug. Mike went on to be a senior pastor at a church in another state, and we’ve lost touch as God has led us down different paths. The loss still stings, mostly because the sibling relationship I had with this dear brother in Christ is one I’d never experienced before and haven’t found again since. Yet I know a loving, godly, outside-of marriage brother-sister relationship focused on the gospel is possible. I’ve lived it. And that makes me miss it all the more.

So what does love require of brothers and sisters in God’s family?

First of all, we’ve got to get on the same page about what’s important and what’s not. The gospel tops the list. Loving each other with the sacrificial, best-interests-of-each-other kind of love that God gives, defines, and demands of us - that’s a super close second if not a tie for first. That means men and women build each other up instead of ridiculing, manipulating, or tearing each other down. We call out the other’s strengths and guard their weaknesses. We encourage and support and comfort and see straight through each other’s crap, refusing to take it or let our siblings wallow in it to their own destruction. We protect each other, watch each other’s backs, guard our blind spots, love each other fiercely even when we don’t like each other much.

Allow me to refer you to the classic “love” passage and ask that we apply it to the folks of the opposite sex both inside and outside the church:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

The passage goes on to say that prophecies and knowledge and all sorts of other really important religious things will pass away, but love never will, standing supreme above them all. We cannot sacrifice love at the altar of our issues. God’s Word gives us no wiggle room here.

The current discourse on the MacArthur/Moore front violates this passage in more ways that I can count. Brothers and sisters, I’ll say it again: we must do better.

That means that those of us who are deeply offended by Pastor MacArthur’s words need to do a gut check. We don’t get to ridicule him for ridiculing a sister in Christ. Instead, we honor the vast amount of good he’s done over the years as a pastor and theologian, even as we gently and respectfully engage him on the issue of women in leadership in the church. And for those of us who agree with his assessment of public women’s ministries such as Beth Moore’s, we don’t get to join in on the laughter or mocking in any way because it’s so unbecoming as children of God. Instead, we honor Beth for all she’s contributed to the kingdom, and we gently and respectfully engage on the issue with her as well.

This gentle and respectful engaging only comes with the humility of a child-like faith. And if there’s one thing children do a really great job of, it’s asking questions. Instead of attacking one another on social media, what if we asked private questions to get clarifications, perspectives, and understanding? We could share our feelings without prescribing motivations of others, and do so in a manner that avoids slander, gossip, and all sorts of other demeaning behaviors that makes our faith singularly unattractive to those outside the family..

Finally, we need to be more concerned with our own obedience to God’s Word and His commands than we are with someone else’s. Sure, we’ve got folks in error all around us, but that’s not our job to worry about. God doesn’t need us to be His Doctrinal Police. He calls us to be ambassadors, diplomatic and tactful, respectful and accurately representing Him and his love (2 Corinthians 5:20). As for the rest of the stuff, God certainly can and will take care of those things Himself.

So let’s remind ourselves of a few rules from our childhood school days, the manners that our parents (hopefully) taught us, and let’s have the humility to go back and rehearse them once again.

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

Listen to your Teacher and do what He says.

Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. You do the right thing and let the Teacher worry about the others.

This is what Love requires of us, brothers and sisters.

The thing is, if we actually pulled it off, I’m willing to bet that God’s kingdom would spread like wildfire in our world. Why? Because the “team” of male and female image bearers working together instead of alone or against each other is exactly what God had in mind in the first place. This is how He set it up from the beginning, and His ways are perfect. And the devil knows it, which is why he keeps stoking this fire that leaves both men and women injured and angry. He also knows the resulting carnage draws the attention of a watching world, leaving them shaking their heads and wondering about the love of God we talk about

Brothers and sisters, we must do better. And I believe we can.