Homosexuality, Concupiscence, and the PCA
We must not let the sincere desire to be gentle or pastoral with those who experience same-sex attraction force us to redefine systematic theological categories which would amount to a challenge of God’s wisdom and goodness as Creator.
Until recently the doctrine of concupiscence received little attention in Reformed circles. Perhaps it was mentioned in passing during a systematics class in seminary, but until the first Revoice conference in 2018 few knew how to pronounce, much less define concupiscence. Since then however, the PCA has produced a helpful Ad-Interim Committee Report on Human Sexuality (AIC) that unquestionably affirms, “thoughts and desires arising in us prior to and apart from a conscious act of the will are still sin.” The report continues, “We reject the Roman Catholic understanding of concupiscence whereby disordered desires that afflict us due to the Fall do not become sin without a consenting act of the will. These desires within us are not mere weaknesses or inclinations to sin but are themselves idolatrous and sinful.”1 In this the members of the study committee make clear what the PCA believes concerning concupiscence—the attraction to sin is sin.
What is less clear, however, is what kind of sin it is. Should we understand concupiscence as an actual sin or as original sin only? I started asking this question after watching the video featuring Drs. Timothy Keller and Kevin DeYoung wherein they talked their way through the AIC study report. While the AIC report and the accompanying video are helpful overall, we should not agree with comments made by Dr. Keller from minutes 27:52 to 29:05 of the video. During this exchange, Dr. Keller posits that concupiscent desires that are contrary to nature are no more heinous than concupiscent desires that are according to nature. To be specific, Dr. Keller argued that a man sexually desiring a woman not his wife and a man sexually desiring another man are both “equally illicit, equally wrong.”2 The question I asked myself immediately was, “How can that be? What about WSC Q.83? What about the qualitative difference between sins against nature and sins according to nature?” Dr. Keller’s comments thereafter brought the heart of the issue into sharper focus, “And we have to be very careful not to say, ‘Well, the desire for a man is unnatural desire, a woman is natural, so one of those is a more sinful desire than the other.’ This text is actually saying ‘no,’ that basically they’re both equally illicit, they’re both equally wrong, the capacity for sin is still wrong, it’s the original sin is what’s wrong with this and I think that’s very important, that we don’t create a little hierarchy inside.” Herein lies the issue—is concupiscence (i.e. unbidden sexual desire) a mere “capacity” or part of original sin and thereby exempted from degrees of heinousness, or is it an actual sin and can be more or less heinous? Though this might seem like hairsplitting, imprecision on this point leads to even greater problems further down the line as will be shown.3
Before addressing the matter of homosexual desire specifically, let me say now that both of the aforementioned desires are sinful. Sinful desires according to nature and sinful desires contrary to nature are both sin. Both justly deserve God’s wrath and curse, and require wholehearted repentance of the sinner. We all stand in need of the grace of God. Furthermore, neither natural or unnatural concupiscent desires are as heinous as physically engaging in the activity desired. Our Larger Catechism teaches that sins that “break forth in word and action” are more heinous than those that are only “conceived in the heart.”4 Such being the case, those who struggle with same-sex attraction should not be made to feel that those desires that arise prior to a conscious act of their will are as heinous as actively nursing those desires or engaging in sexual activity. As the AIC wisely says, “To feel a sinfully disordered sexual attraction (of any kind) is properly to be called sin—and all sin, ‘both original and actual’ earn God’s wrath (WCF 6:6)—but it is significantly less heinous (using the language of WLC 151) than any level of acting upon it in thought or deed. The point here is not to encourage those with homosexual attraction to become comfortable with or accepting of it. Rather, it is to counter the undue heaping of shame upon them as if the presence of homosexual attraction itself makes them the most heinous of sinners.”5 With this I wholeheartedly agree and echo the need to be compassionate and discerning in how we handle the doctrine of concupiscence. Sins externalized are always worse than those which remain internal and our manner of approach ought to reflect this truth.
We must not, however, let the sincere desire to be gentle or pastoral with those who experience same-sex attraction force us to redefine systematic theological categories which would amount to a challenge of God’s wisdom and goodness as Creator. In all our discussions surrounding sin and its heinousness, let us have a greater fear of offending Almighty God than of offending man. In order to understand whether concupiscence should be classed as an actual sin or original sin, we must first define them both.
Original Sin
The Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC) teaches that original sin consists of three parts: the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want (lack) of original righteousness, and the corruption of our whole nature.6 This means that all those who are descended from Adam by ordinary generation are born with a guilty verdict over their heads by virtue of their federal head’s failure to keep the covenant of works. Adam’s guilt is imputed to all his posterity making them legally guilty before God.7 According to Thomas Vincent, the want of original righteousness includes, “1. Want of spiritual knowledge in the mind. 2. Want of inclination and power to do good; and want of all spiritual affections in the will and heart.”8 This means that fallen mankind is originally inclined toward evil whereas Adam, prior to his fall, was originally inclined toward righteousness. In addition to this inherited guilt and want of “perfect conformity of all the power and faculties of soul to the holy nature of God,” original sin means that we inherit corrupted natures from Adam.9 The extent of this corruption is universal meaning that it touches every part of our being and, consequently, everything proceeding therefrom (inclinations, volitions, thoughts, words, deeds, etc…) will be corrupted and displeasing to God.
Actual Sin
WSC Q.18 goes on to teach that the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists not only in his original sin but also in “all actual transgressions which proceed from it.” Actual transgressions are those sins which we commit against God in thought, word, and deed, whether intentionally or unintentionally.10 Actual sin is the fruit and original sin is the root. The reason these are called “actual” sins is because they are acts of the soul as opposed to the inherited, corrupted nature (i.e. original sin) that gives rise to those sinful acts. It is worth saying here that one must be careful not to equate “actual sin” with sin “acted out” or externalized. Actual sins do not need to be manifested in either word or deed for them to be considered actual. For example, consider Jesus’ teaching on lust in the Sermon on the Mount.11 It was not just the outward act of committing adultery that was sinful, but even the look with lustful intent, which was born in the heart, was sinful. If it “proceeds from” original sin, whether internally or externally manifested, the language of our Standards teaches that it is an actual transgression.
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What is the “Great Barrier to Church Growth” and Why has it Fallen?
A mother church (a church that plants other churches) would often ask me to help reach these former attendees. And, I would interview them in focus groups. I found they didn’t often leave the church because of a tension or disagreement … but because of access. As they grew in their faith and became more involved in the church, they also were no longer traveling just once or twice a week to the church. Because of ministry opportunities, committee meetings, training, etc. they were now driving multiple times every week to a church. Their journey of discipleship was being impaired, because longer travel distances created a barrier to access.
There’s always been an almost impenetrable barrier to church health and growth. But innovators such as Charles Fuller, Billy Graham, Chuck Smith and David Fusco have been able to break it. What is this barrier and why is it so powerful?
For almost 40 years, researchers have found that the distance people will drive to a church is a main factor in their attendance and long-term commitment. Recent research from the Baylor University Religion Survey confirmed this. Baylor found that a majority (68%) of church attendees drive under 15 minutes to a church. While this pertains to the majority of attendees, some may drive longer in rural areas and shorter in congested areas.
Research continues to support that this four-decade thesis holds true: the majority of your attendees will always be coming from within a 15-minute drive.
How I learned about this barrier from my mega-church experience.
As I was studying church plants as the minister of evangelism and church growth at a megachurch, I found that the majority of people who stopped attending our church did so because they found a church closer to where they lived. I remember interviewing one person who said, “We liked the preaching. And the worship was outstanding. But we travel almost 40 minutes each way. And that’s time we could spend as a family. And, as we got more involved, we traveled back and forth even more often. Now there’s a church just 10 minutes from our house. It isn’t as good, but it’s good enough.”
After interviewing dozens of people, I discovered that an initial factor in their attendance was the good preaching and excellent worship of our mega-congregation. But over time the tedium of a longer drive would wear upon the attendees. They would then find a church nearer home. It might not offer preaching or worship as professionally. But the shorter drive would promote more family time, as well as allow more trips back and forth in their volunteer efforts.
My thesis, in part, was that though initially attracted by high-quality preaching and music, over time people found a church nearby that was “similar enough” in theology, worship, volunteer opportunities and quality.
What causes this barrier? Access. Here are first two of three principles to overcome it.
I would soon be asked to help coach churches that were suffering from this barrier. I discovered the solution usually involves three principles.
1. As people are moving out of the neighborhood and into areas further than a 15-minute drive away, there are new cultures springing up around most churches.
Sometimes called suburban flight, more recently it’s occurred in the reverse, with a gentrification of urban areas (i.e. young suburbanites moving back to the inner city).
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Protestants Need to Go Back to Basics
Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Monday, November 27, 2023
A time of social upheaval and chaos such as ours is likely to send even the most devout Christians into despair unless they can place the terrifying flux of life in the earthly city against the unchanging reality of the sovereign God himself. It is the same with personal suffering. What patient suffering from cancer wants a doctor who has cancer too? They want a doctor who can overcome their illness. That is the God of classical theism. He does not need to suffer as God. He needs to take human flesh and overcome death in that flesh.Last Monday I had the pleasure of delivering the opening lecture for the newly-founded Center for Classical Theology. The brainchild of Matthew Barrett, of Midwestern Baptist Seminary, its aim is to reinvigorate Protestantism by reconnecting it to its historical and theological roots in the patristic and medieval periods. Unfortunately, much of modern evangelicalism sorely needs to recover “classical theology”—the term Barrett uses to describe orthodox Christian doctrines as set forth by the creeds, the Great Tradition of theology exemplified by the ancient ecumenical councils, and traditional Protestant confessions such as the Westminster Confession.
Recent scholarship in both the ancient church and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism have exposed an unfortunate problem with large swathes of the conservative, and especially evangelical, Protestant world. Much good work was done over the last century in both articulating a high view of the authority of Scripture and developing more self-conscious and sophisticated theological approaches to biblical interpretation. But at the same time, many Protestants became disconnected from creedal and confessional teaching on the doctrine of God (and thus by inference, from Christology). Many conservative Protestants did not even notice that this was the case, as their understanding of what the creeds and confessions actually claimed was refracted through a biblicist lens that was detached from the history of doctrinal debate behind these documents.
Hence, doctrines such as simplicity, immutability, and eternal generation have been redefined or have vanished altogether in certain Protestant communities, even as many who played a role in this maintained a verbal commitment to the Nicene Creed or the Westminster Confession of Faith. The conservative criticism of liberal Christians—that they use orthodox words but mean something different—somehow did not apply when the people doing so affirmed the historical resurrection but rejected the basic elements of the classical doctrine of God.
A recovery of classical theology is thus long overdue for a variety of reasons. The language of confessional Protestantism and orthodox evangelicalism was historically rooted in these classical doctrines. The Reformers and their hearers took it for granted that theology is always to be done in careful dialogue with the past and, as much as possible, in continuity with it. But this is simply counter-intuitive to an evangelicalism shaped more by revivalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the fundamentalist-modernist strife of the early twentieth.
That points toward one of the reasons classical theology and classical theism now seem implausible to many. True to its roots, evangelical Christianity in our modern day is too often impatient with language that seems speculative and abstract and with doctrine that cannot be easily instrumentalized.
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No Christianity without the Church
The church of centuries past had a far more robust and biblical understanding of the church’s corporate self-conception and the need for corporate discipleship and gathering. We can and ought to recapture and promote this past self-conception and ecclesiastically corporate mentality.
[Reformation21] Editor’s Note : This post has been adapted from a longer article set to be published in a forthcoming edition of the Puritan Reformed Journal.
It will come as little surprise to many readers on this site that the state of theology in the contemporary North American church is fraught with weakness. This theological anemia is one that prompts serious concern and demands serious attention. In particular, the way in which the modern evangelical populace in North America regards the church and the church’s corporate identity and the necessity of corporate worship is one that is in dire need of correction.
The trend has been observed for some years that a growing number of self-professing evangelical Protestants have been embracing a lower and lower ecclesiology. The tendency to downplay the necessity for corporate worship and corporate discipleship as a covenanted, local community (local church) has increased, parallel with an accompanying tendency to emphasize personal or private prayer and Bible reading either over against corporate worship/gathering, or that such individual habits of piety are fundamentally more important than any such corporate practices of piety. While this social trend has been observed anecdotally for years and has been the subject of ire within many a sermon introduction or popular magazine article[1], in recent years, there has at last emerged empirical data to substantiate this observation.
In 2020, Ligonier Ministries, in partnership with Lifeway Research, commissioned and performed a survey[2] of three thousand Americans asking a variety of questions about key theological tenets and doctrines: about Jesus Christ, the Bible, truth, ethics, etc. The results are eye-opening. Particular to the concerns of this article, one of the statements to which survey participants were asked to respond was this, “Worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.” Amongst all respondents, 32% “Somewhat agree” with that statement, and 26% “Strongly agree”—thus, 58% of all respondents viewed that statement favorably.[3] Conversely, some 29% of all respondents disagreed with that statement either “strongly” or “somewhat.” Now, these data reflect the views of Americans writ large, not specifically the views espoused by evangelicals. However, the Ligonier Survey does provide a subset of data regarding evangelical responses to that statement—and it does not portend well for evangelicals’ ecclesiology. When faced with the statement “Worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church,” 20% of self-identified evangelical respondents strongly agreed with that statement—a full fifth!—and 19% agreed somewhat. Nearly 40% of all evangelical respondents viewed the aforementioned statement favorably. Conversely, some 55% of self-identified evangelicals disagreed with that statement—35% disagreeing strongly, and 20% disagreeing somewhat.[4]
While the higher statistic is heartening, it is at the same time disconcerting: barely over half of self-identified evangelicals take issue with an individualistic Christian mindset. Barely over half of self-identified evangelicals, presumably, object to this statement which downplays a corporate sensibility and obligation to the Christian life—and it is only just over a third which disagrees strongly! Meanwhile, a strong minority (39%) find that congregationally-reductionistic attitude regarding Christianity at least somewhat agreeable.
This is a growing trend in North American Christianity and it betrays the low ecclesiology which continues to plague the church. This is something that must be answered with a strong ecclesiology that recognizes and emphasizes the centrality of the corporate life and identity of the institutional church, her people, and their collective ministry. The current moment demands a resounding “Amen!” to Cyprian’s dictum (which sentiment has been perpetuated in Reformed circles by Calvin in Institutes IV.1.1.)[5] that “No one can have God for his Father, who does not have the Church for his mother.”[6]
Recent Scholarship
In recent years there has been something of a happy resurgence of both popular-level writings as well as more scholarly theological work relevant to ecclesiology, such as much of the fine work that has been produced by 9Marks ministries and other connected writers.[7] Much of this scholarship has come from a credobaptist viewpoint and assumes congregationalism as the standard for church governance. Though this factor is at odds with classically Reformed and Presbyterian ecclesiological commitments, these works are nonetheless useful in emphasizing the necessity for the corporate gathering and a corporate Christian self-conception.[8] While there has been useful ecclesiological work coming from Presbyterian and Reformed authors of late, these have tended to be more popular-level works that focus more narrowly on issues surrounding the sacraments or that of pastoral leadership/church officers.[9]
There are works that deserve frequent reference in ecclesiological studies such as the late Edmund Clowney’s work on the church[10] which, while Reformed in its theological orientation, is not exactly a work of recent scholarship, being published in 1995. Of course, the classic 19th-century ecclesiological tome by James Bannerman[11] is both Reformed and eminently worthy of consideration, but hardly recent. There is also the widely popular work by Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the communal/community aspect of the life of the church,[12] but this work is not recent (being published in 1939) and Bonhoeffer’s theological orientation is not of the classical Reformed sort.[13] One happy exception to this is Michael Horton’s People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, which was published in 2008.[14] There are also forthcoming scholarly works that promise to contribute to a more robust ecclesiology in our day but, at the time of this article’s writing, have not yet been released and are thus unable to be considered.[15]
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