God has chosen to build His Kingdom slowly and gradually through families, so we need to lift our eyes above our current circumstances to perceive both the global and multigenerational scope of God’s work.  This will not only redirect our focus to the Gospel and its application to our families but also greatly encourage us as we look past our own dire circumstances to what God has been working on since giving Adam and Eve the Cultural Mandate.  God is building His Church, and He will be successful, so let’s throw ourselves into that work that He has invited us into.

The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”
-Genesis 13:14-17, ESV

When I visited Prague years ago, I was struck by the abundance of beautiful old churches throughout the city—beautiful and empty.  At the time I visited, 80% of Czechs were atheist or agnostic.  It was sadly ironic that a place so central to the pre-Reformation would now be so devoid of the truth of the Gospel, that the church flanking a large statue of Jan Hus and the cathedral entombing the devout King Wenceslas had essentially been reduced to museums.  I couldn’t help but think of a line from Nietzsche’s “The Parable of the Madman”: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”.[1]  That problem is not exclusive to Europe.  During my commute, I drive by some lovely old New England churches, each marked as a tomb by such headstones as a Pride flag, Black Lives Matter banner, or some other indicator if inclusivity.  Churches in America and Europe are dying, particularly the mainline denominations.  Despite this (and in some ways because of it), we should not lose hope but should follow God’s direction to Abram in Genesis 13 and lift up our eyes.  In doing so, we can avoid discouragement by looking above our own circumstances to see how God works both globally and generationally as well as how that applies to our lives today.
Look Up Across the Land
We can draw parallels between our own context and Abraham’s.  In Genesis 12, God first made a promise to Abraham (Abram at the time) in the land of Haran.  From Genesis 11 and 12, we see that after his brother Haran died, Abraham looked after Haran’s son Lot, so when God first speaks to Abraham, Lot was essentially part of his family:

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
-Genesis 12:1-3, ESV

Here, God promises to give Abraham a heritage, land, descendants, and immense blessing.  So Abraham and his nephew Lot journey from Haran to Canaan, but by Genesis 13, this promise seems further away.  The limited land they occupied could not support them both, so they separated.  Lot chose what was appealing by earthly wisdom but detrimental spiritually: the fertile yet evil land of Sodom.  Thus, Abram’s family was getting smaller, not larger.  It was in this context that God essentially repeated His promise.  In Genesis 13:14-17, God tells Abram to look all around him because He would give him all of the land he could see.  As Christendom seems to be failing in the West, it is tempting for us to conclude that the Kingdom of God is in retreat rather than advancing.  But if we lift up our eyes and look past the West, we would see that nothing could be further from the truth.  Far from a retreat, Christianity is not only advancing but exploding in Africa and Asia.  F. Lionel Young III recently observed how the increasingly global and ethnically diverse nature of the Church today is so profound that it is making us rethink our paradigm of the “global north” as the spiritual haves and the “global south” as the spiritual have-nots.  In fact, Dr. Gina A. Zurlo observed that in 2020: “A typical Christian today is a non-white woman living in the global South, with lower-than-average levels of societal safety and proper health care. This represents a vastly different typical Christian than that of 100 years ago, who was likely a white, affluent European”.  Two thousand years ago, Jesus gave His disciples a mission to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:19-20).  In that time, Christianity has expanded from 120 people in Jerusalem to the largest religion in the world.  While there have been ups and downs, the Church has been growing and advancing steadily since then, so we have no reason to believe that trend that has lasted two millennia will reverse now.
But even in the West, there is reason for hope.  When we look at the decline of many churches, particularly in mainline denominations, it is right to observe like Nietzsche that the empty churches are tombs and sepulchers, but we must disagree that God is entombed there.  Instead, these empty churches are tombs of a dead religion, a false god that bears little resemblance to the God of the Bible.  By replacing the Gospel with a watered-down version that elevated social change and the values of society above Christ, they lost their first love, so as He did with Ephesus, God has removed their lampstand (Revelation 2:4-5).  Many evangelical churches have also replaced the true Gospel with a false one, emphasizing emotional experiences and watering down the Gospel to make it relevant and palatable for the culture.  The result is a fake man-centered gospel that portrays God as weak and harmless, completely neglecting His sovereignty, justice, and righteousness.  In conforming the church to the culture, they have given up their distinction and thus competitive advantage.
Businesses do the same thing when they abandon their competitive edge to chase the latest fad, as Blackberry did when faced with competition from the iPhone.  As a result, the phone that at one time ruled the business world is no more, replaced by an app on business and government iPhones.[2]  Any business must persistently focus on what sets them apart from their competition, which Jim Collins referred to as “the hedgehog principle” in Good to Great.[3]  Business failure comes when that distinction is abandoned to chase after “shiny objects”.  For the Church, the Gospel is what sets us apart, so sacrificing the Gospel to chase after fads can only be detrimental.  The World will always outdo the Church in concerts, motivational speeches, political action, and everything else but the Gospel just Blackberry could never make a better iPhone than the iPhone.  Only the Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), so the Church must focus on the Gospel.
Fortunately, while churches that have abandoned the Gospel to go after the fads of culture are predictably failing, there is steady growth in churches that have maintained their focus on the Gospel.  I have noticed in my lifetime a significant increase in Reformed theology, hunger for depth of Scriptural understanding, and a seriousness to obey Scripture that I did not see in childhood.  This is very positive, verifying that what lies entombed in dying churches is not the true Gospel, which is alive and well, even in the West.  So when we lift up our eyes and look at the growth of true Christianity in the world around us, we have ample reason to hope as Abraham did.
Look Up to Future Generations
Along with the promise of land in Genesis 13:14-17, God also told Abram that He would give him enumerable descendants.  Like the promise of land, this too seemed fleeting.  It was something like two decades between the promise of Genesis 13 and the birth of Isaac in Genesis 21.
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Our young women need older women to cast a vision for what biblical womanhood looks like. They need to experience healthy, multigenerational relationships so that they will recognize biblical womanhood in the various seasons of life and have hope. 

Years ago, when my husband and I were newlyweds, we led a small-group Bible study for other newlywed couples in our church.  As a new believer and being new to the church, I looked forward to building friendships and having robust Christian fellowship.  While fun and lively, we sensed that our group lacked something significant—something deeper—like some sort of ballast to anchor us during this youthful adult season.
We were able to put our finger on what was missing after this young adult group abruptly dissolved during a difficult church split.  Soon after, we joined another group and I understood almost immediately what was lacking before.  In this new group, in the assortment of gray hair, middle-aged couples, men with loosened ties straight from work, toddlers at mothers’ feet, and teenagers on the periphery, I saw the Church.  Among these people, I saw the realities of each season, not just a mirrored view of my own, narrow, newlywed life. Being a part of this new small group shifted my perspective and drew me in to love and value discipleship within a multigenerational church, not just fellowship of people my own age.
That’s not to say that age-specific ministries don’t have their place within the church.  I am a coordinator for a girls’ discipleship group that meets weekly in our church.  It is a specific time set apart to disciple them according to their age and maturity.  Yet, in my ministry with our older teens, I know these young women need more than just me and each other.  They need the Church—the whole church.  They need to experience friendships from all generations.  More specifically, they need to experience the kindness and wisdom of other and older women; they need to see biblical womanhood across generational lines.  They need our older women to cast a vision for them of what living biblically looks like in each season of their lives.
God has given women a clear, multigenerational command in Titus 2:3-5.  Titus tells us that older women (literally “aged women”) have a responsibility to teach younger women to discern what is good, to love their families and households, and to live lives worthy of Christ.  This command is different from the “one another” commands of the New Testament; it specifically addresses multigenerational mentoring.
Often, because the Titus 2 verses refer to young women within the context of husband and home, we fail to think about this verse as relevant to our girls or to single women.  But just because they may not yet live within that context, it does not mean that these virtues are not relevant to them.  Titus 2:3-5 tells us that it is the duty of older women to cast a biblical vision of womanhood for them regardless of their current context. Our younger women need older women—and multiple women—to take active roles in their lives.
When we older women lose sight of our generational duty, our discipleship ministries can become siloed, which can lead to an inward, consumerist approach to church community.  Women’s discipleship becomes programmatic rather than organic.  We seek friends and connections rather than mothers, sisters, and daughters in Christ who provoke us “unto love and good works” (Heb. 10:24 KJV).
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The emergence of sexual liberation as a rising public value and an essential human right means that Christians are accused of “bigotry,” “hatred,” “homophobia,” “heterosexism,” and “heteronormativity.” As gay people believe that their gayness is “who they are,” an in-born aspect of their essential personality, there will be an inevitable clash between biblical truth and personal rights. Inevitably, the Christian view on sexuality will become a major reason for persecution of Christian believers. Rarely could two sides stand in starker opposition.

I recently heard a sermon that gave me deep concern. It was on 1 Peter 4:12–13, a text that predicts serious suffering for Christian believers. Peter, who was crucified upside down by the “civil” authorities of Rome, wrote: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” Peter was writing to Christians under persecution for not worshiping the Roman emperor, who believed himself to be god. As I listened to the sermon preached in 2021, I couldn’t help wondering what Christians will suffer and are already suffering in our time and in cultures around the world.
A few days before hearing that sermon, I received an email from Christian Concern, a UK legal defense ministry similar to the Alliance Defending Freedom. The article described the experience of Rev. Dr. Bernard Randall, 48, an Anglican minister and a chaplain at Trent College, a Church of England school of “protestant and evangelical” traditions for children up to 18 years of age. A student had approached Dr. Randall, asking him to give a chapel talk on the subject of LGBT sexuality, since Dr. Elly Barnes, a leader of Educate and Celebrate, had been invited by the school to train staff on how to “equip you and your communities with the knowledge, skills and confidence to embed gender, gender identity and sexual orientation into the fabric of your organization.” In that training session, Dr. Barnes had openly called on the school to chant: “Completely smash heteronormativity.” We can hear cultural echoes of the Sixties chant by radicals and friends of President Obama, Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn’s slogan: “Smash monogamy.” Addressing the students from a different perspective, using a different tone, Dr. Randall stated:
Now when ideologies compete, we should not descend into abuse. We should respect the beliefs of others, even where we disagree. Above all, we need to treat each other with respect, not personal attacks – that’s what loving your neighbor as yourself means. By all means discuss, have a reasoned debate about beliefs, but while it’s OK to try and persuade each other, no one should be told they must accept an ideology. Love the person, even where you profoundly dislike the ideas.”
Dr. Randall nevertheless proceeded to argue principles:
But there are areas where the two sets of ideas are in conflict, and in these areas you do not have to accept the ideas and ideologies of LGBT activists. Indeed, since Trent exists “to educate boys and girls according to the Protestant and Evangelical principles of the Church of England,” anyone who tells you that you must accept contrary principles is jeopardizing the school’s charitable status, and therefore it’s very existence.
For the beliefs on marriage, sexuality and gender, he pointed to the Church of England’s public liturgy, especially the Book of Common Prayer and Canon Law, specifically naming heterosexual marriage as an essential Christian belief.[1]
How was Randall’s balanced approach received by school authorities? Following an interview with the headmaster, the school reported Dr. Randall to the government’s counter-terrorism watchdog, Prevent, which seeks to “prevent people being drawn into terrorism.” The Rev. Dr. Randall is being treated as a potentially violent religious extremist. He was also reported to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) as a danger to children (essentially treating him as a pedophile). At the next staff training day, the school announced that it had fully adopted the “LGBT inclusive curriculum” including a section for 3–5 year old nursery children, proposed by the afore mentioned expert and well-known lesbian, Elly Barnes. Approval of homosexual practice is spreading like an out-of-control virus throughout the Anglican Church of England. Previous church disputes were over the two natures of Christ and other weighty theological issues; now this historic church is split over sexuality.[2]
This could not happen in America, right? Al Mohler in his Briefing of August 17, 2021, described the powerful push for LGBTQ+ training in all schools, whether private or public. Children are being taught the various methodologies of sexual intercourse and how to intelligently watch pornography! An article in USA Today asks: “…do we teach our children what is true in reality and history and nature, [regarding] queer, inclusive sex, or do we teach them what we want them to know?”[3] The choice is proposed between objective LGBTQ+ reality and parental closed-mindedness.
This emphasis on sexuality is international. The current US State Department is in league with the United Nations Human Rights Council, which affirms the “fundamental duty of [each] State…to recognize every human being’s freedom,…including children of any age…to determine the confines of their existence, including their gender identity and expression and the human right to alter their gender entirely by self-identification.”[4]
PROGRESSIVE SEXUAL IDENTITYIdentity politics has emerged as a major point of conflict in both the culture and the church. Specifically, sexual identity is one of the most important aspects of a person’s life. Clothing itself in the contemporary moral values of diversity and social difference, homosexual identity presents itself as an expression of Critical Race Theory. An oppressed “sexual minority” does no harm in its good-hearted celebration of all things queer. Each individual is understood as having the inviolable right to determine his, her, or “their” own sexual option. Even non-religious conservatives like Tucker Carlson never say a public critical word of the LGBTQ agenda, whatever they think in private. Scores of conservative politicians sent an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting same-sex marriage.
The emergence of sexual liberation as a rising public value and an essential human right means that Christians are accused of “bigotry,” “hatred,” “homophobia,” “heterosexism,” and “heteronormativity.” As gay people believe that their gayness is “who they are,” an in-born aspect of their essential personality, there will be an inevitable clash between biblical truth and personal rights. Inevitably, the Christian view on sexuality will become a major reason for persecution of Christian believers. Rarely could two sides stand in starker opposition.
A massive 2019 study that analyzed DNA samples and lifestyle information from 477,000 people (the largest such study to date) found “no clear patterns among genetic variants that could be used to meaningfully predict or identify a person’s sexual behavior.” [5] This study indicates that “non-genetic factors—such as cultural environment, upbringing, personality, nurturing—are far more significant in influencing a person’s choice of sexual partner.”[6] This surely means that the only biological determinant is heterosexuality. Other forms are self-imposed or chosen. Homosexuals often say they are “born that way,” but this is not true when it comes to biology, though some people struggle with homosexual attraction from a very early age.
Neither objective biology nor the rights of God as the divine Creator are recognized in our increasingly anti-biblical contemporary society. Sexual identity has become the ultimate expression of human autonomy. Identity politics cannot be questioned. “It’s none of your business!”
BIBLICAL EVIDENCEProclamation of the gospel requires a clear description of the human person as a glorious, though fallen, being made in God’s image. The human being is so noble that the eternal God sent the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, to enter into the human lot, take on human form, and save us from our sins by his atoning death. Part of the glory of God’s image is his creation of both male and female, a warm and amazing reality that reflects both unity and distinction, just as the divine Trinity expresses both unified love between the three persons and distinct functions. Distinction is essential; humans carry within themselves an expression of the deep distinction between themselves as created beings and God, their totally “other” Creator. This binary value, what I have called “Twoism,” is the basis of all creation. Sexual complementarity is bound up in our biology as male and female, in our genetic make-up as either XX or XY. This is what both Jesus (Matthew 19:1–6) and Paul (1 Corinthians 6:9 and 16 and Ephesians 5:31–32), taught, referring back to God’s creative act in Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them; and Gen. 2:24: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Both Jesus and Paul understood that the “image of God” is expressed both in sexual unity and in sexual distinction. They understood that since we are specks in a vast universe (which we did not make), we cannot begin by defining reality by how we feel. With gentleness and understanding, believers must find a way of telling gays that sexual sameness is not who they are, even though they believe it represents the deepest part of how they feel. We need the wise approach of Dr. Randall, but remember how he was treated!
A CAUSE FOR SERIOUS PERSECUTIONTacitus (AD 56–118), an early Roman orator and public official, is often described as the greatest Roman historian of the ancient world. I have often wondered why he, of all people, called the Christians of the second century “haters of humanity” (Tacitus, Annals 15.44), even though Christians were known as honest citizens who took care of the sick and rescued abandoned babies. Some believe this harsh judgment was because of the exclusivity of the Christian faith, but it may also have been because Christians refused to celebrate the Roman norms of homosexuality, abortion and adultery. The ancient world everywhere honored homosexuals as religious shamans because they affirmed Oneism or sameness in their sexuality— that is, the pagan notion of human sameness with the divine, thereby denying the Twoist image of God.[7] As we become more like the ancient Roman culture and as Washington’s Potomac and Rome’s Tiber meet head on,[8] the subject of sexuality becomes increasingly sensitive and deeply controversial. On one side, progressives assert the autonomy of human beings and are incensed by the very idea that a Creator could determine human behavior. On the other side, biblical Christians make equally massive statements about human sexuality, based on their understanding of its relationship to the being of God the Creator. In this sense, sexuality is an unavoidable issue in Christian witness and will doubtless grow as a cause of opposition and eventual persecution. The Equality Act, which the Democrats are planning to pass, legalizes the LGBTQ+ agenda and imposes it everywhere, while specifically denying on this subject any religious freedom of opinion. Thus, a serious clash with Christian orthodoxy seems unavoidable. In their discourse regarding the being of God the Creator and the nature of created human beings Christians cannot be silent (though we must not generate unnecessary antagonism as in the Westboro Baptist’s—”God hates f…s” approach). The gospel does not pick out one sin, because while presupposing the dignity of all human beings, it affirms that we are all sinners. At the same time, all sins must be named, including sexual behavior that opposes the will of God the good Creator—A Father who desires human flourishing.
May God grant the church of the twenty-first century understanding, clarity, boldness, courage, humility, and compassion as it enters days of great persecution. “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. This article is used with permission.

[1] See https://www.newsweek.com/uk-chaplain-sues-college-discrimination-after-his-dismissal-sermon-questioning-lgbt-policy-1590269.
[2] Virtue, David W. Who Blinks First? Rowan Williams Challenges Peter Akinola on Homosexuality (10 Aug 2021). https://virtueonline.org/who-blinks-first-rowan-williams-challenges-peter-akinola.
[3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/08/05/sex-education-importance-lgbtq-inclusivity-
[4] https://outlook.office.com/mail/deeplink?popoutv2=1&version=20210802002.13
[5] Kelland, Kate. “No ‘gay gene’, but study finds genetic links to sexual behavior.” Reuters (29 Aug 2019). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-sex/no-gay-gene-but-study-finds-genetic-links-to-sexual-behavior- idUSKCN1VJ2C3.
[6] Kelland, “No ‘gay gene.’”
[7] See my article: Androgyny: The Pagan Sexual Ideal; https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/43/43-3/43-3-pp443-469_JETS.pdf
[8] Stephen D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion, 2018).