We cannot know what is in the hearts of fellow Christians as they seek to honor God in their daily lives, and we should not impose restrictions on believers where God has given us liberty. Although it is human nature to do so, we also should avoid comparing ourselves with other believers and thinking that they are better than we are—or that we are better than they are—for whatever reason, since all of us are sinners in need of God’s grace in Christ.

Do you ever feel like other people are better Christians than you are? Maybe they read their Bibles more, give more money to the church, pray more for others, are involved in church ministry, do more good deeds, or never seem to do anything really sinful. It’s easy to get discouraged when we start comparing our own Christian walk with other believers we know.
One of the big reasons this happens is that humans are geared to think that keeping rules is how we are right before God, and they are actually correct about this (see Lev. 18:5; Luke 10:25–28). The problem is that no one can keep God’s law perfectly. This is why Jesus came: we need his perfect righteousness and perfect sacrifice to be counted to us through faith in Christ so we can be declared justified before God.
Some Christians can add requirements that the Bible doesn’t dictate.
Even while knowing they have peace with God in Christ alone, Christians are often prone to think that they will be closer to God by keeping certain rules and living certain lifestyles. The problem with this is that some Christians can add requirements that the Bible doesn’t command, or they may consider certain lifestyle choices to be more spiritual than others. What is a Christian to do when it comes to knowing how to live according to God’s word in this world?
The Westminster Confession of Faith gives us excellent counsel in this area in its chapter, “Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience”:

God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also. (WCF 20:2)

Look at the phrase, “or beside it.” With these words, the Westminster Confession of Faith reminds Christians that they are not bound by any “doctrines and commandments of men” that are not found in God’s word. It is also true that believers must be considerate of their neighbors, not causing them to stumble (Rom. 14:13–23: 1 Cor. 8:7–13). The sixteenth-century pastor and theologian John Calvin reminds Christians to use their freedom responsibly and lovingly.
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What we see is the genesis of an unplanned spiritual juggernaut that ultimately swept the country and led to the evangelical conversion of millions, including many outside the hippy subculture from which it sprang. This movement was rooted in the plain, unadorned teachings of the Bible and emphasized turning away from sin to uncompromising faith in, submission to, and relationship with Jesus Christ. Its original foot soldiers — often living in communal households, reeking of patchouli oil, and wearing beads and bell bottoms — walked the beaches, boardwalks, and streets of Southern California passing out tracts and inviting people to religious worship, evangelistic services, Bible studies, coffee houses, and baptisms.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared at The American Spectator.
On Thursday, February 23, the two-week-long, nonstop religious revival at tiny Asbury University in rural Wilmore, Kentucky saw its official end. Starting with about 20 students who stayed after a regular campus chapel service, tens of thousands had been drawn from across the country in that short span to participate in almost radically simple prayer, singing, and worship. By then, this “awakening” was reported to have spread to several other religious colleges.
In what even the most religiously cynical person must admit is a surprising coincidence, Jesus Revolution — a film exploring the genesis of the Jesus Movement that began among drugged-out hippies in the late 1960s in California and rapidly spread nationally and even internationally — hit the theaters the very next day. It has already quadrupled original box office expectations, grossing almost $33 million in slightly under two weeks. Not bad for a small-budget independent film with only one big-name actor.
Jesus Revolution focuses on the remarkable transformation of the life and ministry of conservative pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer), his unlikely partnership with hippy evangelist Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in The Chosen), and the salvation of Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney) from the “sex, drugs and rock & roll” lifestyle. Laurie, who now pastors a Southern Baptist megachurch, co-authored the book that inspired this movie.
What we see is the genesis of an unplanned spiritual juggernaut that ultimately swept the country and led to the evangelical conversion of millions, including many outside the hippy subculture from which it sprang. This movement was rooted in the plain, unadorned teachings of the Bible and emphasized turning away from sin to uncompromising faith in, submission to, and relationship with Jesus Christ. Its original foot soldiers — often living in communal households, reeking of patchouli oil, and wearing beads and bell bottoms — walked the beaches, boardwalks, and streets of Southern California passing out tracts and inviting people to religious worship, evangelistic services, Bible studies, coffee houses, and baptisms.
This movement jumped over boundaries of race, denomination, political ideology, lifestyle preferences, and social class to unite millions in a common faith as it expanded and, at times, exploded old forms of worship — not to mention that it gave us what we now think of as contemporary Christian music.
This startling evangelical revolution, which focused heavily on disaffected young people destroying themselves in the vain pursuit of liberation and authenticity, emerged in a nation that was deeply divided over everything. The cultural fabric had been seriously weakened by other revolutions, such as sexual, divorce, and the New Left. Intractable conflicts over race and civil rights, feminism, busing, and integration played out on the streets. Headlines regularly highlighted the depredations of violent groups like the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Black Panthers.
Campuses convulsed with protests, culminating in the accidental shooting of four by National Guardsmen at Kent State in 1970, which is memorialized in Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s famous song. In full color, Americans watched young men die in a war that most people had come to doubt we would win. Draft cards were being burned, and thousands of young men fled to Canada. Millions of young people were on drugs, which kept penetrating schools at younger levels. Terrible urban riots marked too many “long, hot summers.” The worst were those following the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, which one commentator called “the greatest wave of social unrest since the Civil War.” This came on the heels of over 150 race riots the summer before.
The world seemed to be constantly on the brink of nuclear disaster and was certainly marked by tensions ever-ready to boil over, including the omnipresent Cold War and the expansion of Communism. At the end of the decade, the lunar landing brought Americans together and gave us a much-needed shot of national pride — but not much and not for long.
What would have happened to America but for the Jesus Revolution?
As Josiah (DeVon Franklin), a Time journalist covering the movement, says in the film: “Our country is a dark and divided place, but now there’s hope. And it’s spreading.”
Many historians, including one of my atheist professors in graduate school, argued that the evangelical movement in England in the 1700s had prevented disaster in the face of serious social decline, inoculating it against the curse of the French Revolution. Scholars could make an equally compelling argument for the impact of the Jesus Revolution.
Millions of people were desperate because of the conditions of their own lives or the realistic fears they harbored about their children, families, society, and world. Suddenly, in the midst of their hopelessness, unlikely people were aggressively reaching out to lost and troubled youth and young adults with a saving message expressed in a language they understood.
Untrained newbies barely established in the Christian life themselves worked alongside seasoned believers to share hard truths with lost people. Then, they did whatever it took to help them live out these truths when and if they made the decision to turn from the paths they were on.
Folks on all sides who came together over Jesus had to overcome deeply engrained prejudices, animosities, traditions, and habits. A lot of lives were turned upside down as the walls came down — not instantly or easily, but steadily and surely. This was a new kind of “radical” for a period worn out by radicalism: radical grace, radical forgiveness, radical love, and radical obedience to the plain text of the Bible.
Jesus Revolution does an excellent job portraying all this without schmaltz or gimmicks. I lived through these times and came to Christ myself through the ministry of mostly ex-hippy art students living together in “covenant households.” Watching this film, I found myself reaching for the hanky — not just because of what I was seeing but because of what I was remembering. An old friend and former bandmate of mine told me that he and his wife had the same experience. We know where we would have been but for the Jesus Movement. Before seeing the movie, it seemed odd to me that Kelsey Grammer, a guy about the same age as I am, kept choking up in interviews about this film. It does not seem odd to me now.
Were there serious problems in this movement? Of course, and the film addresses obvious ones: theatrics, an unhealthy obsession with miracles and the spectacular, and too many gifted but untested leaders. Inadequately prepared potential leaders were given too much responsibility too soon, and some fell prey to their own egos and the adulation of admirers, as is evident in the breakdown of Lonnie Frisbee and his relationship with Chuck Smith.
Not addressed in the film was the role of “end times” speculation fueled by events in the Middle East. Students of biblical prophecy in the Jesus Movement interpreted these events to signal an imminent Second Coming, exemplified by the wildly popular 1970 Hal Lindsey book, The Late Great Planet Earth. And in the rush to, as they often said, “make sure there were new wineskins for the new wine” (Mark 2:22; Matthew 9:17), traditional forms of worship and classic hymns were discarded too quickly and thoughtlessly.
Yet millions “saved” through this movement persevered through these difficulties, made corrections, learned, and moved on in the faith. We already see that dynamic in the film in the early stages of the remarkable biography of Greg Laurie, who ultimately became intimately connected with Billy Graham, a powerful senior statesman of evangelicalism who thankfully embraced and supported the Jesus Movement without ignoring its foibles.
So why is this film such an unlikely success? There are no simple answers to questions like this, but I would like to hazard one, which I think is also connected to the remarkable phenomena that just unfolded in rural Kentucky: Jesus Revolution speaks to our nation at a time at least as, if not more, divided, hopeless, and troubled than the era of Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison.
Drug epidemics and overdoses rage, penetrating every racial group and social class, while suicides, mental illnesses, and sexual and gender confusion among young people climb. Social media makes us sicker and more divided as people retreat to echo chambers when they are not shouting, denouncing, or “canceling” those with whom they disagree. Educational institutions are increasingly Orwellian ideological training centers rather than places dedicated to communicating true knowledge and literacy. Young people are abandoning religion — not for atheism but for vague personal spirituality that is little more than repackaged ancient paganism. Elites in and out of government keep lying to and manipulating us. We cannot trust our FBI or intelligence services, and now even the venerable CDC has betrayed us.
Trust in our major social institutions has hit new lows, and rightly so. Urban race riots returned with a vengeance in 2020, along with now-chronic violence in cities where woke politicians are no longer able to put public safety ahead of ideology and businesses cannot protect the wares on their shelves from shoplifters and flash mobs.
The international scene looks less stable and more dangerous than it appeared 50 years ago. Will China invade Taiwan? Will Putin or Kim Jong-un launch nukes? Will the brutal invasion of Ukraine draw us into World War III? The reservoirs of strength available to us half of a century ago, which Nixon accurately called “the silent majority” in 1969, are grossly depleted. Our brokenness extends across the political, ideological, and cultural spectrum.
For many of us baby boomers influenced by the Jesus Movement, the hope we felt through our first “born again” president — and then on through the Reagan years and beyond — is now replaced by disappointment, cynicism, and fear. Those of younger generations vacillate between focusing on personal material welfare, comfort, and safety and getting caught up in social justice causes and tribal identities with simplistic views of reality rooted more in slogans and emotions than facts and logic. Historically low marriage and birth rates in our nation are poignant evidence of young people allergic to commitment — but perhaps even more just paralyzed by fear, mistrust, and lack of confidence about the future. At least hippies were searching for “truth”; millennials and beyond increasingly do not believe it exists anywhere beyond their own preferences.
While political and cultural engagement is more vital than ever, no political or cultural fix we can engineer is likely to turn things around. Increasingly, many Americans are coming to believe that, if our civilization is to survive — if Baby Boomers and their children are going to have any hope in a good society for themselves and their progeny — the answer must come from outside of us, from above.
Our hope is not in ballot boxes, lobbying, marches, or media campaigns, important as they are. But the answer will be found on our knees and in face-to-face faith communities across denominations and churches renewed, revitalized, and refreshed by God himself doing for us what we cannot hope to do for ourselves.
Are Jesus Revolution, the overwhelmingly positive public response to it, and events like these recent religious awakenings positive harbingers of a fresh spiritual revitalization of America? Are we in the darkness before a glorious new dawn? Whether you are a person of faith or not, you should hope so. Because if this does not happen — and soon — well, God help us.
Dr. David J. Ayers is the Fellow for Marriage and Family with the Institute for Faith & Freedom. His latest book is “Christian Marriage: A Comprehensive Introduction.” This article is used with permission.

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In light of our current crossroads as a denomination, I pray that we will be found faithful to uphold the faith once delivered, to realize the shoulders of the many faithful men who have gone before us and upon which we stand, and to not shy away from where the battle is most fierce but instead to charge forward by the power of the Spirit knowing that he who has called us is faithful.

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is at a crossroads. The issues related to human sexuality have become a focal point for the past five years. And although great strides have been made to carefully explore these issues, there is still work to be done. We have communicated our appreciation for the Nashville Statement as biblically faithful at our 47th General Assembly. We then overwhelmingly approved the Ad Interim Committee Report on Human Sexuality at our 48th General Assembly. Our 49th General Assembly approved a proposed amendment that sought to amend our governing document (Book of Church Order) to better reflect our stated convictions on these matters as they relate to the general classification of officers. This proposed amendment failed to meet the threshold of approval among the presbyteries, and so we now have several requests to the General Assembly (overtures) to amend our Book of Church Order (BCO) to clarify even further our conviction and resolve on issues related to human sexuality. This year’s Overture 9 from Arizona Presbytery is just one of several that have been submitted. It proposes to add the following language to the BCO:
7-4.  Men who deviate – whether by declared conviction, self-description, lifestyle decisions, or overt practice – from God’s creational intention for human sexuality are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.
It is my intention here to give helpful insight into the principle and intention of this overture so that our commissioners might see best what this overture brings to the table. I crafted this overture in conjunction with my Session, and it was discussed among several other Teaching Elders in our presbytery before being brought to the floor of presbytery for a vote.
One challenge we’ve noticed with these types of overtures is related to the proper placement of the amendment in the BCO. This seems to be one of the more contested issues among those convinced that an amendment on these matters is desirable and necessary. Where do you place such an amendment? My argument for chapter 7 would be simply that this chapter deals most fundamentally with the classes of officers (elder and deacon), including setting various general constraints upon these offices. This overture necessarily follows BCO 7-2, which states, “In accord with Scripture, these offices are open to men only,” and, since the content is dealing with a further restriction upon these offices, it necessitates an additional paragraph, much like what BCO 7-3 accomplishes related to ecclesial titles. Therefore, chapter 7 seems the most helpful and natural place for this type of restriction related to officers to be stated.
Regardless of the placement, however, I believe this overture and the others submitted will give helpful and necessary fodder for our Overtures Committee to chew on, so that we might together craft governing language that will seek to do what is in accordance with our vows as elders, to “strive for the purity, peace, unity and edification of the Church” (BCO 24-6). So, in light of these things, let me walk through the language of this overture so we can best understand it as we prepare for the work of our 50th General Assembly.
“Men who deviate”
The key word of this overture is “deviate,” upon which the principle of the overture is set forth. Here is the principle: Define the standard to expose the deviation. We need language that bolsters our ability to see deviations, rather than language that names and even describes a limited number of deviations. When we do the latter, we open ourselves to either: A) frequent amendments to our BCO based upon aberrant cultural developments and/or B) the inability of our courts to properly adjudicate matters pertaining to future deviations that we cannot now name or define. This proposal is different than previous proposed amendments and additions to the BCO in that it seeks to develop a procedural rubric for determining deviations from the biblical standard as they relate to officers in the PCA.
The Particular Categories
The short list of descriptive phrases found within the em dashes in the language proposed is meant to provide categorical insight into the focus of this provision. In terms of the purposes of this overture, these cover a wide variety of potentials and will give our courts helpful language to assess one’s conformity or lack thereof to our confessional standards, which rest on the biblical witness. Let’s take these in turn to explore the contours of these descriptive phrases. You will notice that each phrase speaks to the willful way in which someone is operating and does not impugn or presume upon one’s motivations.
“declared conviction”
The first is “declared conviction” which speaks to the professed, stated, or articulated belief of someone regarding these issues. It is important to note that this first category does not necessitate the need for one to struggle with these sinful proclivities themselves but rather is based on the substance of one’s declared convictions on these matters. If an officer or candidate is an advocate for positions that deviate in one way or another from God’s intention for human sexuality (i.e., sexual union, sexual intimacy, sexual attraction), then this declared conviction would be grounds for a court to bring discipline against a current officer or prevent a candidate from becoming an officer. For instance, an elder declares that same-sex sexual desire is not sinful. This would qualify as a deviation. Consider another example: During the initial examination, a candidate for gospel ministry states that an aberrant sexual orientation may be within God’s creational intention for human sexuality. This would be a deviation. It is important to note that this would implicate one regardless of their own personal experience with said desires, temptations, proclivities, etc. because of their conviction to affirm, support, or defend these deviant positions.
“self-description”
This term is one that has been the focal point of our recent controversy and was the emphasis of Overture 15 from 2022. What is in view here is the significance of the preservation of one’s mind and one’s words as an officer of Christ’s Church. In speaking of the way in which one describes themselves, our own Ad Interim Committee Report on Human Sexuality states:
To juxtapose identities rooted in sinful desires alongside the term “Christian” is inconsistent with Biblical language and undermines the spiritual reality that we are new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). [1]
If we have stated this in the report related to Christians in general, then how much more so ought this to be the standard of our officers? The way in which an officer describes himself is important for the purpose of clarity and understanding among: 1) those he has been called to shepherd; 2) those under his care who may struggle with same-sex attraction; and 3) those under his care who know someone who struggles with these sinful proclivities. This is showing Christian love by not peddling the confusion of our culture but instead faithfully presenting ourselves in light of who we are in Christ.
This category is critical because of the need for our courts to determine if the way in which one describes themselves is out of accord with our biblical and confessional standards. Note that there are no “magic words” or shibboleth phrases that become landmines, but rather, a court is charged to superintend the overall way in which one is describing themselves to gain an understanding of whether or not they are deviating from God’s creational intention for human sexuality in their self-description.
“lifestyle decisions”
This phrase has attracted the most attention among those who have interacted with me directly regarding this overture. What is in view here are those decisions that are reflected in one’s life. Decisions that would expressly deviate from the divine intention for human sexuality (i.e., sexual union, sexual intimacy, sexual attraction). Such deviations would include, but certainly not be limited to: “spiritual friendship” (described as same-sex unions that are exclusive in nature, with the appearance of marriage, but are not engaged in sexual activity); transvestism (the presentation of oneself to seem like the opposite sex); transgenderism (a lifestyle in which one presents themselves out of accord with their biological sex, even through actions that may cause irreversible damage to one’s body); and queer culture (an adapted form of belonging that envisages one’s affiliations and community as made up by those who are transgressive in their sexual expression and lifestyle). It is worth mentioning at this point that some of these categories of “lifestyle decisions” are relatively new to our society and reflect in many ways the spirit of the age. It is not unreasonable to assume that these types of transgressions will only metastasize as the culture willingly moves away from any and all biblical moorings.
It is important that we understand that these lifestyle decisions are directly related to the way in which one is expressing their vision of human sexuality and would not include family decisions or marital decisions that fall well within the parameters of the Scriptures, such as adoption or remaining unmarried. These, in and of themselves, do not necessarily expose a deviation because they are not in violation of the biblical standard for human sexuality. In fact, in terms of adoption, we see that far from being a deviation, it is rather a marvelous parable of the gospel, as Paul states:
…you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:15b-17)
In terms of remaining unmarried, again, the Apostle Paul gives a vision of this for the Christian from his own life and encourages others to consider this way of serving the Lord. He states his reason for this clearly when he says:
I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. (1 Corinthians 7:35)
The Apostle states that there is a God-glorifying way to remain unmarried that does not violate God’s creational intention for human sexuality (i.e., sexual union, sexual intimacy, sexual attraction) but rather upholds it, honors it, and puts forward a vision of Christian chastity. An unmarried man living a chaste life shows fidelity to God’s creational intention for human sexuality. This is not a deviation. This is true whether this has occurred in widowhood, until one is eventually married, or even if one remains unmarried for their entire life. A deviation would consist of a man who is unmarried pursuing sexual intimacy or sexual union, which God intended for one who is married. A deviation would also include a man who is unmarried entering into a vow of celibacy or if a man were to put off marriage in an inordinate manner.
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