{"id":7515,"date":"2013-07-11T21:49:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T01:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morganguyton.wordpress.com\/?p=7515"},"modified":"2014-07-17T14:03:34","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T19:03:34","slug":"its-not-heroic-martyrdom-to-tie-up-heavy-burdens-for-others-matthew-234","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mercynotsacrifice\/2013\/07\/11\/its-not-heroic-martyrdom-to-tie-up-heavy-burdens-for-others-matthew-234\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s not heroic martyrdom to “tie up heavy burdens for others” (Matthew 23:4)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Jesus\u2019 woes against the Pharisees in Matthew 23 should be mandatory daily devotional reading for American evangelicals. It\u2019s incredible how much we resemble the religious insiders who crucified Jesus. One of the things that Jesus says about the Pharisees in verse 4 is that \u201cthey tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others.\u201d We are living through a time in which many Christians measure their \u201cfaithfulness\u201d to God according to the weight of the burdens that they tie up for others to carry, the prime example of course being the homosexuality issue. What\u2019s farcical is when Christians act as though they are making some great sacrifice and bearing some great cross on account of how strict they are in their consideration of what other people<\/em> do.<\/p>\n

The ancient Christians were martyred for doing<\/em> things that put them at odds with the social order like refusing to participate in the pagan festivals and refusing to buy meat that had been sacrificed to pagan gods. I have total respect for someone who gets persecuted or scorned because they are choosing to act<\/em> differently than the people around them. I don\u2019t disrespect people who have a different Biblical interpretation than I do on the issue of homosexuality. Many Christians are able to hold their perspective with humility and grace.<\/p>\n

But when you go on and on about the heroic martyrdom of your anti-gay position, then you\u2019re making it pretty obvious how much self-justification you\u2019re getting out of it. When you\u2019re in a sub-culture whose most distinguishing marker of identity for the last forty years has been its sexual traditionalism, there\u2019s nothing risky or martyr-like about holding onto a position that keeps you from getting kicked out of your sub-culture. In our balkanized society, conservatives demonize liberals and liberals demonize conservatives. This is expected; neither can complain with any degree of integrity that they are persecuted or martyred; both have echo chambers in which they can isolate themselves and feel completely supported in their views.<\/p>\n

The reason why no argument, no matter how strong the Biblical grounding, will ever sway most evangelicals on homosexuality is because their tribal identity depends upon the moralization of sexual normalcy. That is the entirety of what the code-word \u201cBiblical\u201d means. It doesn\u2019t have anything to do with following Jesus\u2019 Sermon on the Mount or Galatians 5:22\u2019s spiritual fruit or James\u2019 insistence on living out your faith through works or Leviticus 25\u2019s year of Jubilee. The way evangelicals determine whether someone is \u201cBiblical\u201d or not is to evaluate their beliefs about sex and gender. That\u2019s the only sphere in which the adjective is deployed.<\/p>\n

To stop being anti-gay would involve a complete crisis of identity for the evangelicals. The moralization of sexual normalcy was the evangelicals\u2019 means of recovering their dignity in the early seventies after taking a beating form the civil rights movement. Because it isn\u2019t racist to say that the reason we\u2019re middle class instead of poor is that we don\u2019t sleep around outside of marriage and we don\u2019t need to spend our tax dollars subsidizing poor peoples\u2019 immorality with welfare.<\/p>\n

For years I have watched the leaders in the Southern Baptist Church of my upbringing use the homosexuality issue as a means of jockeying for power and attacking rivals\u2019 characters. I\u2019ve never seen\u00a0 the issue come up in a true pastoral context where someone\u2019s actual discipleship was concerned. The constant charge being brought against the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, for instance, is that they\u2019re really pro-gay under the surface, which means that CBF pastors are under intense pressure to prove their fidelity to the anti-gay cause in order to stave off their delegitimization.<\/p>\n

I realize that I can\u2019t see into other peoples\u2019 souls to see how much of what they profess is said out of fear of more conservative Christians discrediting them. I just know that for a long time I kept my mouth shut and toed the party line for this reason. In my case, being anti-gay wasn\u2019t a stance that I held out of integrity but in order to protect my right flank from attack.<\/p>\n

Whatever you believe, don\u2019t do so out of fear of whichever tribe you fall into. Ask God to show you the truth, and be obedient to what He reveals. Whether you believe it or not, that\u2019s the way I\u2019m trying to live. The most critical part of your witness is the humility with which you hold your beliefs, which does not mean at all that you\u2019re not allowed to speak honestly about them. I\u2019ll try my best to love and respect you. But if you\u2019re going to make a big fuss about your heroic martyrdom for the burdens that you tie up for others to carry in order to demonstrate your loyalty to the evangelical tribe, then I\u2019m going to say get over yourself!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus\u2019 woes against the Pharisees in Matthew 23 should be mandatory daily devotional reading for American evangelicals. It\u2019s incredible how much we resemble the religious insiders who crucified Jesus. 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