The Sins We Are To Address

In responding to a commenter of a friend's Facebook link to an article on homosexuality, Chantry makes some good observations. The gist of the commenter was how "disproportionate" Christians are in "witnessing against homosexuality in contrast to how much space that subject occupies space in Scripture."

Here are excerpts from Chantry's article, "Which Sins Should We Address?":


First, it certainly makes the commenter feel good about himself to pontificate about Christian lack of concern for the poor, but it is an outright lie.  He references Luke 3:11, “And he answered them, ‘Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.’”  But the idea that Christians do not do this is absurd.

Who in America is without a coat?  Honestly, who?  Because I’ll tell you that when I go into the inner city, I find that even the poor have food to eat and coats to wear.  They get them – among other places – from Christian missions.  Donations of food and clothing pour into the missions – mostly from evangelical Christians who take Luke 3:11 so seriously that we maintain large, expensive ministries in every urban center in America to make certain that the poor receive the benefit.  And by the way, we are feeding and clothing the homosexual poor, also.  I understand that it gratifies a taste for smug superiority to bring up the poor each time a Christian speaks against homosexuality, but it is bearing false witness, plain and simple.

More to the point, though, I cannot help but wonder whether the same commenter, were he to consider the American church in, say, the 1840s, would be on the side of those Christians who through evangelical fervor spoke out against the enslavement of a race and all its incumbent outrages, or rather with the large and calcified denominations who considered slavery a settled issue not worth dividing the church over?  After all, consider how little space that subject occupies in Scripture!  Yes, the Bible says that abuse of slaves is wrong, and yes, it decries all racism, and yes, it affirms that any form of slavery based on kidnapping (as the American system was) is an abomination before the Lord.  But it’s hardly a major theme....

We will only be opposed when we speak out against those sins which are actually among us.  As long as we stick to rare sins we can avoid most reproach.   That’s why it’s so easy to fulminate against the sin of not helping the poor; everyone agrees that we should help the poor, and many already do so.  The much harder but more biblical task is to speak boldly about the sins which our culture applauds.

End quote.