Every church, and by extension every Christian, is a steward of God’s truth. Paul calls the church “the pillar and support of the truth†(1 Tim 3:15). And of stewards, Paul said, “it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy†(1 Cor 4:2). Being trustworthy for the truth is our first order of business, no matter the pressure put on us to give it up.
While you were going about your business last week, World Vision (one of the world’s largest Christian charities with an annual budget of around 1 Billion dollars) quietly adopted a policy allowing them to hire homosexual couples who were married. This would not be a big issue if World Vision hired anyone of any faith or persuasion for certain jobs, but that is not the case. World Vision is openly and avowedly Evangelical in doctrine, practice and hiring. It hires Christians and has strict guidelines regulating sexual conduct of employees according to Scripture. Single employees must be celibate, and married ones must be faithful. It is an explicitly Christian organization.
The World Vision board, however, completely capitulated to the spirit of the age in fully accepting a position at odds with the Word of God and all of Christian teaching for 2000 years. They said they were under no pressure to make this change, but did it for unity’s sake, since they have support from a few liberal denominations that embrace same-sex marriage. Their claim was that same-sex marriage should be treated like the modes of baptism, or church government, or views of the end times — things about which faithful Christians disagree. For peace and unity, they put marriage in the category of “non-essential.†What do you think happened? Did they achieve “unity? No. Thanks to good stewards of the truth and the rapid spread of news on social media, World Vision apologized and reversed its policy two days later. Part of their statement reads:
“Today, the World Vision US board publicly reversed its recent decision to change our employment conduct policy. The board acknowledged they made a mistake and chose to revert to our long-standing conduct policy requiring sexual abstinence for all single employees and faithfulness within the Biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. We are writing to you our trusted partners and Christian leaders who have come to us in the spirit of Matthew 18 to express your concern in love and conviction. You share our desire to come together in the Body of Christ around our mission to serve the poorest of the poor. We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness.â€
This is one small victory in the church’s battle to be faithful to the Word of God. There will be many more battles, and many losses I am sure. The goal of the homosexual agenda is total dominance in all spheres of the culture. Pressure to forsake the truth, to be untrustworthy stewards, to try to “get along†will be enormous.
All through church history, Christians have had to endure much suffering, even death, for the truth. Sometimes it seemed the whole world was against them, but they persevered. We should do no less.
Today, I am thankful for the church across the land that quickly spoke up and reversed this compromise. Andrew Walker pointed out something else about this reversal as well. Faithful Evangelicals made the policy reversal happen by speaking out. There was no time to organize or build a movement. It was spontaneous and swift. As Walker pointed out, “But there were no Papal Bulls. There were no Councils. There were no Synods. There was only Evangelicalism with Bibles open, recognizing that a line had been crossed.â€
Just so. We didn’t need to have a massive organizational unity to make this happen, or to tell us right from wrong. We had the Word and the Spirit, and the desire to be trustworthy. That’s all the church has ever needed to be the pillar and support of the truth.
Yours in Christ,
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Originally printed in The AFBC Pony Express. Vol. VII, No. 4, April 2014.