Challenges Pluralism, Materialism, Relativism And Narcissism. Says Christian Leaders Cannot Disagree With Jesus Christ On Human Sexuality. Church Needs To Stand In Solidarity With The Poor.

Bryn Mawr, PA — The Rev. John Stott, world renowned evangelical leader and Christian statesman, last night told more than 700 Episcopalians, Presbyterians and evangelical leaders from the Delaware Valley, that on the subject of human sexuality the major issue before the church today is, “who is the Lord and whom are we going to obey?”

“We have to say to church leaders, bishops, archbishops and others, that whatever their position of influence in the Church, that they have no authority to disagree with Jesus Christ,” said the Anglican leader.

“Is the church the Lord of Jesus Christ so that it can edit and twist and manipulate his teachings and reject what it doesn’t happen to like? Or is Jesus Christ the Lord of the Church where we sit humbly at his feet listening to his voice with a view to obeying it.”

“Marriage is a committed, lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual and loving union between a man and a woman and the only God given context for sexual union and intimacy,” said Stott, who has written extensively opposing both homosexual behavior and same-sex unions.

“Nowadays in some sections of the church cohabitation before marriage and same-sex partnerships are being defended by some as a legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriage.”

Stott said that such positions have no biblical sanction.

The aging evangelical leader who has written more than 30 books which have sold in the millions, many of which have been translated into dozens of languages, said the church was in danger of conformism to the world, and to avoid both escapism and conformity it should develop a “holy worldliness” in its struggle with the world.

“Holiness means we must refuse to be assimilated by the world, at the same time we should not sacrifice our holiness by conforming to the world. The common of the two temptations is not escapism but conformism to the standards and values of the world around us.”

Secular pressures from radio, TV and the print media, and other cultural pressures are incompatible with lordship of Jesus Christ, said Stott. “They demand our capitulation. If we surrender, it will compromise our integrity, blunt our testimony and suffocate our spiritual life.”

“The major theme of the Bible is that God is calling out a people for his own glory and his own possession, and He summons his people to be different.”

Stott called his listeners to radical nonconformity. “The call of God to us is to be radically different from everybody else.”

Stott cited four main pressures Christians feel in the world.

The challenge of pluralism. “Pluralism is an ideology that asserts that every religion has its own independent validity and every religion has an equal right to our respect. Pluralism condemns as sheer arrogance the need to convert people to our opinion. Pluralism rejects the Christian claim to the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ and rejects evangelism as a totally unacceptable form of imperialism.”

“The great virtue today is toleration. We are being told never seek to change people or convert them to Jesus Christ. That’s pluralism. Both syncretism and pluralism reign in the world today. But we must affirm both objective and universal truth because God has revealed himself to us supremely in Jesus Christ his incarnate son and in the total biblical witness to Christ. The existence of truth, revealed, objective, accessible, universal and timeless truth is fundamental to our Christian witness in the world today. The church is a community of truth. We confess, defend and proclaim the truth.”

Stott said we should not be defending our church formulation or any church in its empirical manifestation. “Our claim to uniqueness is not of a system or church but Jesus Christ alone. The uniqueness of Jesus Christ and his finality, that we alone defend.”

Jesus Christ has no peers, successors, no rivals. He is unique among all great religious teachers. He is unique in his Incarnation. Jesus of Nazareth i s the only God man. He is perfect in his divinity and perfect in his manhood. There is nothing like it in any other religion.

Stott said Jesus was unique in his atonement. “He took our nature, sin guilt and judgment upon him in his death. He died our death in order that we might be forgiven. He is unique in his resurrection. It was not his personality that survived death, or his influence but his literal body that was raised from the dead. He is our resurrected Lord, the power of whose resurrection we desire to live our lives today. He is uniquely competent to be our savior.”

“I want you not to be afraid to speak for Jesus Christ. You will become unpopular. Nothing is more offensive than to claim the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.”

The challenge of materialism. “The Western world is unbearably affluent in contrast to the developing countries of the Two-Thirds world. Materialism is a preoccupation with material things until they suffocate our spiritual life. It is creeping into the Christian community and corrupting many people.”

“Jesus said, don’t store up for yourselves treasure upon earth. Beware of covetousness…there is more to life than money and possessions. The Apostle Paul calls us way from covetousness. We need to develop an attitude that calls us away from consumerism to a lifestyle of simplicity, generosity and contentment. We had better travel light.”

The pressure ethical relativism. “Moral standards are slipping. In the West, increasingly elsewhere, television is creating a monoculture. It used to be taken that absolute truth was the opposite of error and absolute goodness was the opposite of evil. Instead of truth, pluralism reigns. Instead of goodness, relativism reigns.”

Relativism has permeated our culture and is seeping into the Christian community, said Stott.

“We need to take the courage of the absolute standards of Jesus Christ. The revolution in sexual ethics since the 60s has seen Christian conforming to the world’s values. Over against these trends Jesus Christ is our Lord. He cal ls us to obedience and calls us to conform to his standards and not to the standards around us. The plain teaching of Genesis one and two is endorsed by Jesus Christ. In Genesis One it states, He made them male and female. We cannot change that.”

The fourth pressure is the challenge of narcissism. “The New Age movement jumped on the bandwagon of the Human Potential Movement and the high priestess of that movement is Shirley Maclean. “I have read her three books and enjoyed none of them,” he said to great laughter. “Her gospel is an infatuation with herself. I know that I exist and therefore I am. I know that the god force exists and therefore it is. And therefore I am a part of the god force therefore I am that I am. It is blasphemous.”

“The solution is to all our problems is within, according to Maclean. We can be our own savior. This preoccupation begins to seep into the Christian community and teaches us to love ourselves.

There are three reasons to reject it.

“Jesus said the first commandment is to love the Lord your God. The second is to love your neighbor as in fact you love yourself. He did not say as a third commandment to love yourself.”

“The love Jesus speaks about is agape. It means sacrificing ourselves in the service of others. How can you give yourself in service to yourself?”

“Self love is, according to Scripture the essence of sin. Instead of loving God and loving goodness.”

“We affirm what we are by creation and false to our false self. That is the answer to narcissism.”

“The balanced teaching of Jesus and the apostles is that the Church is a community of love over against narcissism. There is no experiences greater than love of neighbor. Living is loving. Without love our personality disintegrates and dies. People hunger for authentic relationships of love. God is love.”

“The Church is not called to feeble minded conformity but radical nonconformity. Over against pluralism we are to be a community of truth. Over against materialism we are to be a community in pilgrimage. Over against ethi cal relativity we are to be a community of righteousness and obedience. Over against narcissism a community of love.”

“To what are we to be conformed to? It is to be conformed to Jesus Christ,” concluded Stott.

A Special Report by David W. Virtue

http://www.episcopalian.org/cclec/paper-stott_nonconformity.htm