WE CANNOT BE SILENT:
Speaking truth to a culture redefining sex, marriage, and the very meaning of right and wrong
By Al Mohler
Nelson. 256 pages. £17.53
ISBN 978 0 718 032 487
A moral revolution has reshaped Western society. Twenty years ago, same-sex marriage was not recognised anywhere in the world. Today, it is commonly viewed as immoral to oppose it.
Ten years ago, few would have questioned the reality that people are either male or female. Today, even primary children are being told that they can ‘choose’ their gender, and those who challenge this are vilified as ‘transphobic’. The church now finds itself in alien territory in a post-Christian culture.
Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and leading social commentator, has written this book to help us understand where our culture has come from, where we are now and how we should respond.
The new upside-down world
Firstly, he describes the moral and legal revolution that has transformed Western society, including the stunningly successful advance of gay rights. The church’s historic teaching is now generally viewed as immoral and oppressive. Some parts of the Bible are regarded as ‘hate speech’. It is not that our age has rejected all religion. Many are willing to accept a God who is there to help us and make us happy. But there is no place for a God who exerts authority over us.
The ‘front-line’ attack on the Bible is the claim that it is oppressive to assign people to the ‘binary categories’ of male and female. Theologian Virginia Mollenkott, for example, looks forward to the time when we are all free to be ‘omnigender’. Government records would not record gender; everyone would be free to change their own bodies and we would all use gender-neutral words to describe others.
Mohler shows that the transgender revolution, even more than the movement for gay liberation, undermines the most basic structures of society. He accepts that some ideas of what is ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are, to some degree, shaped by culture, but this does not mean that our understanding of humanity as male and female is, itself, socially constructed.’ Rather, under scriptural authority, we affirm that ‘biological sex is a gift of God to every individual and to the human community to which that individual belongs’. This means that ‘sex reassignment’ (whether by means of hormone treatment or surgery or both) is ‘an act of defiance against the Creator’s purpose’.
Mohler manages to balance humility, (admitting that it is wrong to resort to ‘simplistic explanations that do not take into account the deep spiritual and personal anguish of those who are in the struggle’), with faithfulness. He is convinced that we cannot accept the idea that we can, in reality, change gender.
New skills of compassion
Pastorally, we are called to love and minister to people struggling with gender confusion, just as we are called to love and minister to people struggling with same-sex attraction. ‘A biblical response to the transgender revolution will require the church to develop new skills of compassion and understanding as we encounter persons, both inside and outside our congregations, who are struggling.’
But the gospel provides the only true remedy for sexual brokenness. The theological and pastoral challenges we face in the trans-gender revolution are enormous, but ‘they are not beyond the sufficiency of Christ’s cross and resurrection’.
Religious liberty told to give way
Mohler examines the implications of the redefinition of marriage and offers a thoughtful overview of the biblical teaching on the purpose of sex and marriage, as well as a helpful discussion on the place of natural law. He outlines some of the current threats to religious liberty in the US, where, in a number of high-profile cases, ‘the courts have found that the religious liberty of the individual must give way to the larger societal purpose of reinforcing the new morality’.
This has direct relevance to the situation in the UK, where we also ‘face an array of religious liberty challenges that were inconceivable in previous generations’. Mohler explains that to limit ‘religious liberty’ to ‘liberty of worship’ effectively banishes us from making any contribution to the public square.
The practical response
Secondly, Mohler addresses the practical question of how we are to respond. We are not to treat these questions merely as ‘doctrinal issues’. We are dealing with real people, some Christian, some non-Christian, but all in need of the gospel.
One option is to accommodate the culture around. Our culture elevates individual and personal fulfilment, attraction and desire to be the absolute priority. In practice, many evangelicals have ‘softened’ biblical truth in the name of ‘compassion’. It seems unendurable to deny anyone their ‘right’ to ‘fulfil their needs’ or ‘assuage their anguish’. Experience stands over truth. ‘My needs’ take priority over God’s Word. Scripture has to be interpreted in the light of experience and the current culture.
This kind of ‘softened’ evangelicalism becomes an essentially therapeutic religion where we assume that God is primarily there to fulfil my needs. Unsurprisingly, Mohler rejects this option. He explains that it comes down to a question of authority. If we can’t trust the Bible on sexuality and human identity, why should we trust it on anything? Genuine compassion involves telling the truth. Those who ‘adjust’ the Bible’s message to fit human desire are lying. Lying is never compassionate. It leads to death.
‘Just preach the gospel’
Another option is to ‘just preach the gospel’ (defined in the narrowest possible way), and stay quiet over contentious issues. Mohler describes this as ‘running for cover’ – evading our Christian responsibility to tell the truth about what God has revealed concerning human sexuality, gender and marriage.
He concludes by looking at 30 of the questions often posed to Christians today. Should a Christian attend a same-sex wedding? Is sexual orientation a choice? How do we balance truth and compassion? Should governments legislate morality? The scenarios mentioned are directly relevant to the issues we face right now in the UK.
Vast subject
This book is vast in scope, but limited in length. Inevitably Mohler cannot deal in depth with all the issues raised. For example, the brief section on artificial reproductive technologies, cannot deal with all of the pro-life implications; or the important issue of the rights of the child to know his or her own parents (on this, I would recommend John Ling’s Bioethical Issues, Day One 2014).
That minor quibble aside, I strongly commend this book as a clearly argued, compassionate and faithful resource to help us understand what is going on and how to respond. None of us can hide from the challenges of the ‘new morality’. Mohler’s great passion is for Christians, and particularly the upcoming younger generation of Christians, not to be intimidated into silence, but to be equipped to live faithfully and speak boldly for Christ ‘at such a time as this’.
