Why have the evangelicals fallen silent? Two leading evangelical organisations founded to equip Christians to engage with the modern world have ceased to resource their supporters on the key contested issues of family, marriage and sexuality.
The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC) and the Cambridge-based Jubilee Centre once were at the forefront of helping Christians to understand and engage with the challenges that our society throws up for Christians in these areas.
But no more. You will search in vain in their recent output for anything to inform you as a Christian of what is going on in culture around family, marriage and sexuality or to equip you in your workplace or your children’s school to respond biblically. What has happened?
LICC was founded in 1982 by leading evangelical teacher John Stott to, in his words, ‘relate the ancient Word to the modern world’. His visionwas for Christians to ‘integrate’ all areas of life under the Lordship of Jesus and thereby to ‘penetrate the secular world’ with ‘a more integrated gospel’.
Today LICC is committed to: ‘Empowering Christians to make a difference for Christ in our Monday to Saturday lives’. Yet a search of the Institute’s output since January 2016—including their weekly Connecting with Culture email—reveals not a single article about marriage, family or LGBT issues. Not one. With all that is swirling about in our culture at the moment, and the immense pressure on Christians to abandon biblical standards on sexuality, how exactly is this empowering Christians for their Monday to Saturday lives?
Perhaps LICC is specialising in certain areas and leaving these important matters to others? If so, then it seems to be an exception, as it runs articles about almost every other aspect of culture, from money to Marvel to fashion. In addition, there is no sign of LICC’s support for the few Christian organisations which do still stick their necks out in these increasingly pressured areas, such as Christian Concern and theChristian Institute.
Instead, what do we find? A collaboration in a theology competition last Autumn—the Theology Slam—in partnership with liberal-leaning Lambeth Palace, Church Times and SCM Press. Entrants were offered twelve topics to choose from, none of which were family, marriage, sexuality or gender. Instead there was a selection of standard progressive concerns, including the ‘gig-economy’ and ‘consumerism’.The three finalists spoke on #MeToo, the Environment and Mental Health. Are we beginning to form a picture of an organisation which limits itself to issues approved by Guardian readers?
The story is similar at the Jubilee Centre. Founded by Michael Schluter in 1983 to ‘promote social engagement … based on careful research’ to ‘change society in the direction of the biblical social model’, up until 2013 it produced high quality resources on family and marriage. This included giving evidence to MPs in 2013 warning against the same-sex marriage bill.
However, since then, the organisation’s resources in this area have become few and far between. It published one very tentative piece in 2016 on transgenderism which described itself as an opening comment, but there has been no obvious follow-up. The number of posts and articles in the past five years relating to family, marriage or sexuality could be counted on one hand—despite one of them rightly describing sex as ‘a largely unspoken aspect of church life, which dominates our daily lives’.
One post rather oddly accuses the church of undermining marriage by over-valuing it, which is perhaps a ‘lesson’ the Jubilee Centre has taken too much to heart.
So what explains this silent night of Britain’s evangelicals? The timing is surely a clue. The advent of same-sex marriage in 2013 was a watershed in our culture’s approach to family and marriage. It was, for example, the last time Archbishop Justin Welby or any serving Church of England bishop spoke out in defence of Christian marriage.
Since then, the statutory equality of same-sex marriage and male-female marriage has paved the way for a relentless campaign by LGBT activists to erase any remaining distinctions in public or civic life, along with any remaining liberty to dissent. It has also been the catalyst for the next phase of the LGBT movement: the assault on the notion of biological sex itself in the transgender movement.
In this environment the cost of speaking out on these issues in terms of risk to reputation and splitting supporters has increased dramatically. Silence seems a prudent option, and comes with rewards of partnership with establishment players like Lambeth Palace and the Church Times, as LICC have discovered.
This self-muting also appears to be the approach of another (non-evangelical) Christian think tank, Theos, who have maintained a studied silence on all these issues, not commenting one way or the other, allowing them to maintain some standing with both liberals and conservatives.
This is a sad reflection of a Christian and evangelical world more divided than ever on sex and marriage, despite the Bible being as clear as day in its teaching on the matter. And it is yet another way in which same-sex marriage undermines the institution of marriage in society, by reducing many Christians to silence on it, even when they privately hold to biblical teaching.
Meanwhile, a solid defence of Christian teaching on marriage, sex and family is pushed ever further to the margins of polite society. Organisations which keep the faith are shunned not only by mainstream media and liberals but also by the silent evangelicals desperate to keep in with the fashionable crowd and avoid social ostracism, or indeed litigation.
I have no doubt that much of the work LICC and the Jubilee Centre do is worthwhile. But now is not the time for silence on the big issues facing Christians in our society. Biblical teaching, particularly on sex, marriage and family is under attack from all sides, and as much as ever Christians need to be equipped to have confidence in what the Bible teaches and to live it out and stand up for it in every area of their lives.
The culpable silence of organisations like LICC and the Jubilee Centre, while preferable to outright rejection of biblical teaching, reflects and magnifies a faltering of faith that is having a devastating impact on churches around the world. If evangelicals will not stand up for the Word of God and hold to it despite all that the world throws at them, then who will?
It is crunch time for biblical faith in the West as the progressive and secularist forces unleashed in the Enlightenment set their sights on the eradication of any public presence of orthodox forms of Christianity. Biblical teaching on marriage, sex and family is high among the charges against the faith. Now is the time for Christian organisations to arm the people of God to remain faithful, not to discreetly absent themselves from the fray and leave the dangerous jobs to others.
LICC and the Jubilee Centre were contacted for comment, but there was no response.
The difference being that the Rev’d John Stott was a Bible believing Christian leader. I won’t call him an evangelical because to my understanding all born again Christians are evangelical – however we do it we want to share the good news.
Secondly I note that the LICC is an Anglican organisation and may have been influenced by the general touchy-feely offend no one culture that has taken hold in the Cof E..
The silence of evangelicals over issues of family, marriage and sexuality has been more than mysterious. A few of us have been commenting on it for a long time now, but there has been no significant change. I’m sure there is a serious spiritual battle going on here, but there’s no harm in thinking through the practical reasons for this impotence among evangelicals. Here are a few possibilities:
1) They have been won over by the progressive argument.
2) They broadly don’t think there’s anything much about which to be worried: they’re
neutral on the issue.
3) They can’t see their way through the argument (pulled both ways), so feel
unequipped to engage.
4) They have an approach to Christian life and witness which says conflict should
always be avoided, and that people are won round when they are shown ‘love’.
5) They follow the Welby lead, i.e. ‘mutual flourishing’ or ‘good disagreement’.
6) They know that it’s a serious issue but believe their limited time and energy must be
used on other priorities – the obvious being worship and evangelising in their local
situations.
7) They believe that the debate is lost, secular culture has won and churches have
mostly capitulated; therefore it makes sense to work down to retirement or a red line
being crossed.
8) Fear: the unpleasantness of the way the battle is being fought; loss of prospects for
further employment or promotion; a natural concern for the family’s material future;
bullying by colleagues or superiors in the organisation.
9) They frankly don’t feel ‘called’ to engage in this one…!
10) Perhaps the sheer inconvenience of fighting yet another Christian battle
(particularly this one!) just isn’t worth the hassle.
What’s the common factor here? I’d suggest it’s a kind of group demoralisation which leads to this kind of inertia amongst individuals and organisations. And I think that, at the human level, it’s the lack of leadership which is at the heart of it – the sheep have scattered. If we believe it is God who raises up great leaders, then there’s nothing more urgent than praying for Him to do just that!
Brilliant analysis!
Excellent thoughts. A useful summary, and one that provides a lot of thought. I’m inclined to lean towards a combination of fear, lethargy, and a lack of inspirational leaders. I for one will join with you in praying the Lord raises up passionate godly leaders ready for the challenge.
A burr under my saddle is that dating practices of young “evangelical Bible-Believing Christians” is indistinguishable from that of non-Christians.
I have heard Mega-Church pastors say that every Sunday Morning service ought to be Seeker Services, presenting the basic Gospel message hoping for converts.
Troublesome things like prohibitions against adultery, fornication, homosexuality, etc. are actually ‘stumbling blocks’ that repel people and prevent them from hearing the Gospel.
The theology and psychology behind this are horrible. It’s a cowardly modality. But I fear it has infected the Church.
You perhaps mean,
“Why have organisations that were set up to represent evangelical Christians fallen silent?”
We have to recognise that as Jeff Goldblum says in Jurassic Park, “Life will always find a way.”
So it is with the Giver of Life.
Organisations are set up to meet a need. Perhaps Bible school or Medical school, or a hospital, or a home for unmarried mothers..
They are set up, serve their purpose, then they become rigid and irrelevant and the Giver of Life moves on and finds Christians who are open and obedient to meet the current need..
God is always in control. He allows us to exercise our intelligence and free will, but we can never outwit Him.
The fact that these organisations have lost their commission and anointing should not worry us too much. God will raise up new ministries, churches will continue to teach the importance of the family and provide supportive counsellors for couples who are struggling in their relationship.
Perhaps God wants to divest us of our cultural trappings and take us back to to the way of the Early Church.
In Australia we have a political party with at least one representative in the New South Wales Parliament for several decades, a party that consists mostly of evangelical Christians and is quite well-known around the nation. It has always made very clear its views on marriage and sexuality and so on. There is another fairly new well-publicised party that is not specifically Christian but which has a number of keen evangelicals seeking endorsement as candidates for the coming Federal election. That party clearly opposed same-sex marriage.
When same-sex marriage was the subject of a nation-wide vote a couple of years ago the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, strongly evangelical, gave one million dollars towards the NO campaign. I’m not saying that there isn’t a problem along the lines of the article, but at least in Australia the story is not all gloomy. There is a lot of evangelical “speaking up”, whether by individuals or organisations.
You make my point for me, thank you. Whilst it is sad to see institutions formed in Christian conviction falter, lose their way and their original purpose, God’s Holy Spirit breaks forth through the cracks in our world view and new shoots form and flourish.
Nothing that we men do lasts for ever. It serves a purpose and then dies, no matter how we offer life support.
” Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.”
Hmmm..
Yet some churches still believe the old wineskins are worth patching…
Much of the difficulty here is that within western Anglicanism, words like “evangelical,” “catholic,” “charismatic” and “reformed” have lost all meaning. Each person self-selects an identity, or multiple identities, based not on some doctrinal definition, but on what book they read recently, how much ceremony they prefer, and/or whether they prefer “president”, “presider”, or “celebrant.”
This leads to a circumstance in which you find descriptions such as “Anglo Catholic woman priest” or “pro-abortion Evangelical”, and reports that “gay marriage is a new thing the Spirit!!!™ is doing.”
So, the question for Evangelical churches and groups is…how many members are Evangelicals, and do you even have a working definition? In the Anglican press, one reads that Nicholas Okoh, Tom Wright, Justin Welby, Shannon Johnston and Gene Robinson are all evangelicals (and that’s just bishops). If you add in all the “3 streams” stuff we hear nowadays (and someone please explain how you can be an evangelical bishop and a freemason simultaneously), I think there are only about 5 people left in the Anglican world who do not self-identify as Evangelicals or evangelical in combination with something else.