Dear Editor,
As an interested follower of politics I have watched the recent election coverage with some concern. Apparently Christian candidates have been mistreated. As was pointed out in your article ‘Christians get the treatment’ (July en), evangelicals have often been hounded by inquisitors in the media. This is really nothing surprising, since if we follow Christ we should expect to suffer along with him – a servant is not greater than his master – but it is sad.
However, it did occur to me that we need to be very wise in answering such questions as ‘Is such-and-such a sin?’ This is obviously a trick question to which there can be no ‘right’ answer for the audience: since anything Christians say is or is not a sin is a theological statement to a secular audience. Since many of us might be asked similar questions in our jobs, families and everyday life, we need to call out this question for what it is. It is utter hypocrisy when it is asked by someone from a secular, humanistic viewpoint, since they don’t believe there even is such a thing as ‘sin’! The trap is to leave the question itself unchallenged.
Might I suggest therefore that we take a leaf out of Jesus’ book and question the question? When Jesus was asked ‘And who is my neighbour?’ by a man wanting to justify not loving certain people (and excluding them from the category of ‘neighbour’), he questioned the illegitimate question, and redirected it. He told the parable of the Good Samaritan and questioned how we should be a good neighbour instead (Luke 10).
Perhaps the first response to an overtly hostile questioner asking ‘Is gay sex a sin?’ should be ‘What is your definition of sin?’ After all, if the interviewer is asking a theological question, they must be prepared to offer a basic theological definition to make sense of their question! If the questioner is prepared to offer a definition of sin, I would then offer the Bible’s definition of sin, and explain that that is where we get our standards from as Christians, not from a subjective, relativistic viewpoint. I think only then can we go on to answer these hostile questions on firm ground.
Yours in Christ,
