Christians in nearly any context will have to biblically object to these culturally expected policies and practices.  No matter the situation, we must start with the authority of Scripture, explain why we cannot acquiesce from what is clearly taught in Scripture, lay out how we will disobey the policy only enough to avoid sinning while maintaining respect for all, and then accepting the consequences and trusting God to sustain us through them and bring ultimate justice in the end. 

As our culture becomes less and less “Christian”, we will increasingly face situations in which we are pressured to participate in or approve of activities that are sinful.  As I write, the Supreme Court is considering just such a case, in which a Christian web designer is suing Colorado over a policy that would essentially force her to design websites for same-sex weddings.  Christians in wedding-related professions have faced this situation for several years, but it is spreading far beyond that industry.  Christians in all walks of life are threatened with similar scenarios.  A Christian family may be invited to the same-sex wedding of a friend or family member.  A Christian supervisor may be directed by superiors or company policy to participate in Pride Month events .  Christian parents may face situations in which their children are forced by school policy to participate in Pride Month events or be exposed to overly descriptive or graphic curriculum on sexuality.  And these are just scenarios dealing with homosexuality.  There may be mandatory work social events in which excessive drinking is essentially required, work or school policies that require active support of causes that directly contradict Scripture and lead to the degradation of society, or the expectation of working in a dishonest way to increase profits.  Possibly the most likely scenario for any Christian involves transgenderism and the use of pronouns clearly inconsistent with biology, which I cannot cover briefly here, so I will cover it in the next post.  And there is a myriad of other such situations that any Christian may encounter.
Approaching the Situation
Clearly, all Christians need to be prepared to respond biblically to any of these scenarios.  While such a prospect is new for American Christians, it has been the norm throughout the history of the Church, as Peter makes clear:

“Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”
-1 Peter 3:13-17, ESV

In this passage, Peter basically outlines how Christians should approach these situations.  This begins with approaching the situation with the right perspective.  Peter points out that no matter what happens, blessing will come to those who obey Christ.  Whether no harm comes to you because you are doing good (which Peter says is generally the case) or you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you will be blessed, whether in this life or the next.  Therefore, we should approach the situation without fear, trusting in the sovereignty and goodness of God over and above what any human can do.  We must fear God rather than man, which is the point of Isaiah 8:12-13, which Peter is directly referencing in verses 14 and 15.  Next, we must start with the objective of honoring Christ as of first importance.  We must honor and obey Christ in whatever we do, so however we decide to act in the situation, it must honor and obey Christ.  Then, we must always be prepared to give an answer as to why we decided to act in that way.  This means we need to have a well-thought-out reason from Scripture and be able to explain it.  But we must do this with gentleness and respect, honoring our opponents as people made in the image of God.  So any conscientious objection must be both logically robust from Scripture and lovingly applied with the ultimate objective of glorifying Christ.
Knowing Your Opponent
With that in mind, we must prepare for battle. Arguably the most famous line from Sun Tzu’s Art of War is: “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril”.  He wrote this around the fifth century B.C. about military battles but it applies equally to spiritual battles.  Make no mistake, when we face these situations we are at war and must therefore take on a wartime mentality, following his advice to know both ourselves and our opponents.  First, we must recognize that the people who make and support these policies are not the enemy, neither are the people who want to coerce us to support their sinful lifestyle.  Instead, the true enemy is the devil who has blinded and enslaved them.  Therefore, we must always approach our opponents not as the true enemy but as those held captive by the true enemy, whom God can free from that captivity.  He may even choose to use the humble and winsome demeanor with which we approach them as part of their salvation.  Paul says as much when telling Timothy how elders are to approach such conflicts:

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”
-2 Timothy 2:24-26, ESV

Just as it would be foolish to treat an enemy harshly who is about to defect to your side, it would be foolish to alienate someone whom God may save (and therefore make your brother or sister).  The Gospel that says that all people are dead in sin and cannot do anything to be right with God is inherently offensive, so we have no need (or Scriptural warrant) to offend people any further.  In everything, we must avoid offending God altogether and endeavor to offend people as little as possible.
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When someone comes along claiming to be some sort of authority on Scripture, but it is obvious that he knows nothing about it, or worse yet, is quite happy to ignore or reject most of it, then you know you got a real problem on your hands. Sadly there are far too many folks claiming to be believers who think and talk the same way. The biblical advice is to have nothing to do with them, or to rebuke them sharply! 

There’s never a dull moment when you have an interactive blogsite. Every day you get all sorts of folks sending in comments. Often they are terrific comments sent in by terrific people. But nearly as often you will get nutters, trolls, secular lefties, atheists, militants and haters coming along as well. That always make things interesting.
I would have posted thousands of comments from the latter group and tried to interact with them. But many of these comments can only go straight into the bin, given that they fail my commenting rules. But all this keeps me off the streets I guess.
Here I want to speak about those who come seeking to argue about Scripture and theology. Some are well-meaning and care about sound doctrine. I will leave them out of the discussion here. But there are those who come here saying the most ludicrous, brainless and unbiblical stuff.
I am always amazed at how they can manage to get things so very wrong. And over the years I have discovered that there are at least three groups of these folks. Some are just angry atheists who will attack any Christian for any reason. Some are clearly not Christians but they come here pretending to be. But as soon as you see what they have written it is obvious where they are coming from.
And then there is a third group who do indeed appear to be Christians, but they nonetheless are so woefully biblically ignorant and so theologically mixed-up that you do not know if you should laugh or cry when you see their stuff. Sometimes it is not quite clear which of the three groups a person is a part of.
But I sure get lots of these sorts of comments coming in. Let me deal with just one of them that was sent in a while ago. It had to do with a piece I wrote called “Still You Have Not Returned To Me.” That was about how God will often use various means to try to get our attention, to get us to return to him, and so on. That piece is found here: billmuehlenberg.com/2021/09/19/still-you-have-not-returned-to-me/
Some of these divine means include things like plagues or other calamities. I mentioned some biblical examples of this, and asked whether the current covid outbreak might in part be how God is trying to waken a sleeping world and get us to get our priorities right.
Some good comments came in, and helpful discussion ensued. However, one guy sent in a real doozy of a comment. It was so bad that I figured it was worth writing an article about one day. And so here it is. And I still do not know if this is one of the more biblically illiterate Christians around, or just some troll pretending to be a believer. Anyway, this is what he sent in:

It’s a very dangerous belief system that some Christians have, of giving God credit for deaths and disaster. What you’re saying is that some people deserve to be punished and God is causing them pain and death. This not only is in contrast of a God that is defined by love, but it also takes away the power of the Cross. Jesus has paid in full for our sins and has taken on our punishment himself. If we start giving God credit for disasters, what we are saying is that “What Jesus did is not enough, and that God needs to hand out extra punishment”

Oh dear – how can a guy get so much wrong in such a short space? Where does one even begin in trying to reply? Well, let me make that attempt. First, to defend what Scripture clearly and repeatedly teaches is a “dangerous belief system”? Really?
And “some Christians”? I would have thought that all genuine Christians who accept the Bible as the authoritative word of God would of course hold to what it so patently teaches.
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The queer and trans history on Hope College’s campus has not always been warm or welcoming. With Hope being a religiously affiliated campus there are many places on campus that haven’t been a safe space for queer and trans students to exist as themselves.

A colorful display of celebration filled the space of the Butternut Event Center on Saturday night. The first-ever Rainbow Gala presented by Prism took place as a beautiful gathering of allies and community members who entered through the wall of decorative streamers dressed to the tens. As the debut of what will be an annual event that commemorates the hard work of queer and trans students, allies, and staff on campus, it showed to be a great success. Aubrey Brolsma (‘23), the treasurer of Prism, described the event, saying, “The event was a celebration of queer voices and allies on Hope’s Campus. It was our send-off to the year and it was a place where we could celebrate the students and faculty who deserve recognition for their work towards LGBTQ+ inclusion and equality on campus.” And celebrate the students and faculty they did.
As this was the first year of the event, some might be wondering what was the motivation behind carving out a space to hold an event like this. There were a couple of reasons that Brolsma outlined. This was the first year that Prism was included as a part of the Multicultural Student Organizations (MSO). Some of the MSOs are known for having large end-of-the-year celebrations so Brolsma mentioned that “we decided to go for it and secure funding!”
Another one of the motivations was based on the date that this event was held. On Friday, April 22, it was the national “Day of Silence” where people all over can take a vow of silence for a day to represent the silenced voices of queer and trans people all over the world. It is in honor of the voices that have been taken away due to bullying and harassment because of homophobia and transphobia. Saturday, the day after the event, is called “Breaking the Silence.” Brolsma explains that this date was intentional because “Breaking the Silence” is a celebration of the queer voices that can now be loud because of the work that has been done in the generations before.”
Speaking of generations before, that brings us to the third inspiration behind the gala, which was all of the history that led up to this moment.
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