Written by Barton J. Gingerich |
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Whenever voices make a push to make orthodoxy optional, the faithful have a choice: to relent or to fight. And, if they fight, they will inevitably be painted as Big Meanies. When Christian colleges fire liberalizing faculty members, or when denominational authorities uphold church discipline against pastoral officers who violate ordination vows via heretical teaching or unrepentant sin, they are the ones cast as villains.

Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009), the conservative Lutheran-turned-Catholic cleric and writer, originated what would become known as Neuhaus’ Law. Deeply aware of social dynamics and theological truth, he claimed, “Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.” As our own culture continues its unsettling spiritual trajectory, Neuhaus’ Law keeps playing itself out over and over again in church bodies and other Christian institutions.
Now, there are many voices that insist otherwise. What we need, they say, is some kind of expansive tolerance. In days gone by, this meant downplaying the historical accuracy and certain theological claims of the Bible in favor of what Friedrich Schleiermacher would define as true piety, which was a religious feeling of absolute and utter dependance on God. As long as someone felt and expressed that inner feeling communally, he could entertain all sorts of doubts about the Bible.
Of course, these days, the target for skepticism has shifted to the moral realm, where one finds different variants of “inclusive orthodoxy.” Rather than scoff at the historic creeds, members of the clergy and laity alike express ambivalence or outright reject biblical teachings on sex. These are the majority of today’s revisionists.
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Written by Barton J. Gingerich |
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
GAFCON-affiliated Anglicans have made it clear that fellowship has been ruptured, particularly due to the infidelity of progressive western leaders. They have not been “able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of Scripture. The ‘Instruments of Communion”’ have failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ.”

The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) has spoken, and with a clear voice. The FCA recently held its fourth conference (known as GAFCON) in Kigali, Rwanda. Delegates representing nearly 85 percent of the world’s Anglicans had a lot on their plates, but the biggest concern was drafting a statement responding to the continued, unrepentant infidelity of western provinces of the communion, particularly the Church of England and its recent decision to allow for pastoral blessings for same-sex unions.
Of course, the archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops of the Church of England presented their policy as a compromise—a measure meant to keep together an institution that includes Christians who denounce sexual immorality as well as various members who affirm sin. This policy of blessing same-sex partnerships without establishing same-sex matrimony was supposed to achieve unity.
Predictably, that policy has failed the test of unity. Neither faithful Christians within the Church of England nor the majority of Anglicans worldwide deem this an acceptable way forward. In fact, this policy’s adoption has resulted in a clear, forthright denouncement from the majority of the world’s Anglicans in the form of the Kigali Commitment.
The substance of the Kigali Commitment focuses on the crises of the Church of England’s doctrinal unfaithfulness, which has been made manifest in its endorsement of sexual immorality. While the ecclesiastical endorsement of the LGBT+ agenda draws the most notice, such behavior is the tip of an iceberg. Most of the problems lie under the surface, ranging from the denial of the Bible’s truthfulness and clarity to other doctrinal errors with regard to salvation, Jesus Christ, the Church, and human nature.
Revisionism tends toward universalism, the downplaying of sin, and otherwise portraying reality—even God Himself—as malleable to our will, preferences, and desires.
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Written by Barton J. Gingerich |
Sunday, January 8, 2023
It’s not like young people in ages past were sealed off from the “facts of life” (especially since so many more children in those days grew up around livestock). But more Americans are finally seeing that the sexual revolution’s demands—that moral corruptions be legalized, socially endorsed, and even celebrated—have immense costs, and one of them is the corruption of childhood.

The Biblical faith comes with a theology of children. In Genesis, a promised Seed is prophesied to undo the Curse of the Fall. In Exodus, we find God opposing an infanticidal regime and blessing the midwives subverting that regime’s genocide. God’s supreme judgment and mercy climax in the great Passover, which is thereafter memorialized in rituals that involve childbirth and infants.
The Psalter proclaims, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.” When we look at the New Testament, we find a Messiah who bids that little children be brought to Him and blessed, revealing that they are the prototype for any member of the Kingdom of Heaven. And anyone who is a cause of offense for “little ones” (all members of Christ’s flock, but we cannot help but imagine infants and children) is warned, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea.”
Even as we approach Christmas, the themes become all the more explicit. We celebrate the nativity of an infant King. We mourn the martyrdom of the innocents. We even traditionally commemorate St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children.
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