A few years ago, it became obvious to me that society was going to remove the social and moral boundaries that I had found comfort and safety in.  I vividly recall a moment, totally disconnected from anything I saw going on at the time, while walking down the stairs in our first home in Westfield, MA.  I can only describe it as a chill that went over my whole body when an inner voice, I believed to be God’s, said, “I am going to allow the world you live in to turn their back on me.”  Regardless of whether you love the “new normal” or hate it you will have to admit that the big change over the past thirty years is that human reasoning has replaced the bible as a foundation for societies rules.   Granted people used the bible in the past to justify racism and sexism, but nevertheless they were using the bible.  MLK relied heavily on scripture passages and imagery to lead the civil rights movement.

My brief descending stair experience made no sense at the time.  Ronald Reagan was president, evangelicals were prominent media personalities and people who espoused biblical values seemed to have the upper hand in those very earliest days of the culture war.  As I have watched a removal of many Judeo Christian values from the culture, I made a decision that I didn’t want my ministry to be characterized by what I was against.  I have laid low on many of the social and moral issues that some pastors aggressively attacked in their preaching.  I don’t regret my decision to land somewhere in the middle between Joel Osteen and John Hagee.  I do think there are times when we are responsible to speak out on societal sin and social justice issues.  I probably have missed some opportunities to help my congregation with their Christian world view, but I still maintain that the primary mission of the church is to provide an alternative culture, not try to create a  political theocracy.

In the first place, I don’t disagree with everything about the “new normal.”  I never thought that intolerance was right.  I never thought that mistreatment of people because of their race, religion, gender or sexual preference was consistent with the gospel.  Secondly, I always thought that the best way the church could go public was with compassionate service so that people would “ask for the reason of the hope.”  I always thought our acts of charity should be louder than our preaching of truth.  In spite of the fact that many proponents of tolerance and love are now committing the sin of hypocrisy as well as evangelicals ever did, they are saying things we should have said first.

This week there have been two major social events.  One was a headline, the other was further down the page.  The headline was Jason Collins, veteran backup center for the NBA, who announced that he was gay.  Quite frankly, if It was important to me to approve of pro athletes sexual lifestyle choices, I would have stopped being a sports fan a long time ago.  The disturbing news story for me was that the Federal Drug and Food Administration announced their approval of the morning after pill being sold over the counter and available to fifteen year olds.  I have a twelve-year-old daughter, so this hits real close to home.  Have we lost our minds?  You don’t have to answer that, I already have.

I am not ready to write the manual for living out our faith in the twenty first century; however, I do intend to take a clue from a previous leader who led people through a major transition.  The leader’s name was Joshua and the transition was moving from the closely monitored life of living in a desert community to the freedom of scattering all over the land of Israel.  Joshua knew that the former controls and well-scrutinized community was gone forever.

Not long after Israel moved from the confines of living in a collection of tents, Joshua brought everyone together and here’s what he proposed.

If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15 (NIV)

Joshua knew that he wasn’t going to be able control people’s behavior as Moses had done in the past, so he initiated a new paradigm; personal resolve and family responsibility.  He was saying, “we’re in a new era of social freedom, no longer will you be able to borrow the values of those around you.”  The head of every household had to decide what pleases the Lord and lead their families in accordance with those values.  I believe that is a striking parallel to our present situation and you know what?  I am very optimistic.  Oh, I am not optimistic that America will turn its collective hearts over to God, but I am positive that great heroes of the faith will emerge.  Great parents are going to lead great families and great pastors are going to lead great churches.  I am positive that what it means to follow Christ is going to get clarified.

Listen, acceptance by the culture isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Look at how prominent evangelicals behaved when they were media celebrities.  They were horrible, check the record.  Evangelists behaved just like politicians and celebrities when they became politicians and celebrities.  We are not the culture, we are the builders of an ark, bring on the flood.  We are not the world, we are the light of it, bring on the contrast.

So I am going to think long and hard about how to address the issues of the day. However I never want to obsess on how everyone is suppossed to be at the expense of focusing on who we are suppossed to be.