Author: | 12/11/2016 12:32:16 AM

Source: Dr. Albert Mohler

“The Briefing”  10-20-2016

Will the Society of Biblical Literature ban InterVarsity Press over historic Christian position on sexuality?

Finally, in recent days on The Briefing we’ve talked about the decision announced by the campus ministry known as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship that it would expect its staff members to uphold its theological principles and convictions, including those on sexual morality. The ministry had adopted a major statement known as the theological summary of human sexuality that offers a very clear and very biblical summary of Christian biblical teachings concerning the nature of human sexuality, God’s purpose of marriage, and the gift of gender. That was simply too much, of course, for the secular left and for many who were on the evangelical left, or at least what calls itself the evangelical left, as well.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has been one of the most central evangelical campus ministries on many both private and public campuses for a matter of decades now. But what’s significant is that it was only at this moment that the board of IVF, as it’s known, acted to adopt this statement, and of course there were those who immediately joined in the outcry that this was a form of discrimination and intolerance, and there were those who protested the decision.

As I stated back when I announced this development, this is exactly what any Christian ministry is going to have to do. As I’ve written before, there’s no place to hide. Every Christian church, every Christian minister, every Christian ministry is going to have to be extremely clear about where we are on all of these issues. Now one of the things I simply want to note is that the price of this kind of clarity is a prior theological clarity. In other words, an organization, a church, a school, or a ministry that has been unclear about any number of theological issues can’t expect there to be anything less than shock when it all of the sudden gets serious about being faithful to biblical sexuality.

But on the other hand, this is a wake-up call to every single Christian ministry, and that wake-up call got amplified, not only in terms of the story that addressed this new development at IVF in Time magazine by calling it a purge, but also by what was announced just in recent days, leaking a letter that had been written by John Kutsko, who is the executive director of the academic guild known as the Society of Biblical Literature, a letter that was written to InterVarsity Press, the publishing wing of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, in which it was said that that group would no longer welcome InterVarsity Press to its academic meetings to display books at least the beginning with the 2017 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature to be held in Boston.

Very sadly, what this tells us is that the intolerance of the secular left is not only mirrored by but perhaps even exceeded by the intolerance of the religious left. The Society of Biblical Literature has been trending in a liberal direction for a century now. And there are even those who have suggested that it should change its name to the Society of Ancient Near Eastern Literature to even avoid the word biblical with a reference to the Christian Bible. But what’s really interesting is the actual language used by the executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature in this letter threatening or disinviting InterVarsity Press. The executive director spoke of the society’s commitment to,

“a variety of critical perspectives, diversity, of participation and unhindered critical discourse, free inquiry, and free expression.”

Now just think about that for a moment. In the name of critical discourse, in the name of free inquiry, in the name of free expression, and in the name of a variety of critical perspectives, the group has announced that it will disinvite a group that is sided decisively with Christian orthodoxy on the question of human sexuality. The InterVarsity Press has not even said they will follow the same principles as InterVarsity Fellowship in terms of these very issues. But what’s really interesting is that that doesn’t even matter. That would be of concern to an entirely different constituency. What’s really interesting here is that in the name of tolerance, the secular left has long been intolerant. And the religious left, as we see, is if anything even more intolerant.

This goes back to the 1970s and Herbert Marcuse who talked about the fact that tolerance had to be redefined so that a group that wouldn’t be totally tolerant would no longer be tolerated. Well, that’s exactly what we’re facing today in the name of tolerance: intolerance. It’s one thing for that to come from the secularists. It’s another thing for it to come from a group that calls itself the Society of Biblical Literature, a group now that doesn’t even want to allow a display from any group that just might be committed to the truth of what the Bible has to say about marriage, gender, and human sexuality. The lesson is that you’re welcome to be a part of the Society of Biblical Literature unless, evidently, you believe the Bible’s teachings of sexuality to be true.

Commentary:

Q1: What is “Biblical Sexuality”?
Defined with the truth, the Word of God as stated in His Word the Bible.   That sex is between one man and one woman in marriage.  That we should “Run” from sexual impurity.

Q2. What is “intolerance of the secular left”?
They stand is direct “Intolerance” for God’s defining ‘Boundaries” on humans lives.  Freedom to do as they please, is their “Call”.

Q3. What is “intolerance of the religious left”?
“Religious” is the key, they no longer stand for the truth of God.  But, have invented their own morality apart from life saving and life guiding principles.  In other words, “They” don’t want “Nothing of it”.