I grew up in an ideological era: capitalism versus communism. I also grew up in a minority: Evangelical Christian inside a secular society. Then ideology seemed to fade away for a while, post the fall of European communism and everything was technocratic. The question was what works?
Then it became clear that this was wrong and we were, and always had been, living in ideological times. We began to realise when there was louder push-back against some of the stands of the ruling progressive secular worldview. The Overton Window had shifted a long way in a particular direction and now there are groups trying to move it back.
So what are the options when it comes to responding to a key policy, doctrine or ethical issue? I think there are at least four.
Persecution (or maybe Prosecution) ← → Prohibition ← → Permission ← → Promotion
Let’s take the issue of homosexuality. In 1952 Alan Turing the famous mathematician and code-breaker was prosecuted for gross indecency because of a homosexual relationship. Fast-forward 70 years and 11% of British MPs are gay or lesbian and there are three openly gay government ministers and the British government actively advocates for LGBTQ rights internationally. On this issue the government has shifted from persecution all the way to promotion.
One of the critiques of the secular progressive governments is that they have overreached. Take the issue above, had a government moved from prosecution to permission, there would perhaps be little opposition even from Christians. But the activists did not stop there and they went for promotion. The tools and power of the state were now bent towards advocating for what they once prosecuted. Of course that can happen in the opposite direction too. The UK government famously went from promoting slavery to persecuting it.
Or consider media. Some outlets state clearly they are left-wing or right-wing, for an issue or against. There is no pretence at trying to be balanced or neutral. The problem comes with national broadcasters like the BBC who are not supposed to take ‘a side’. Wielding enormous cultural influence there can be huge outcries over editorial decisions that seem to either promote or persecute one side or the other. This is made worse by the cultural organisation also being a leading news organisation because people have a hard time believing that if there’s bias in the cultural institution that the same bias isn’t also there in its news operations.
Churches operate on a similar scale over doctrine and practice. Consider the issue of charismatic gifts from a hardline cessationist perspective. Here the charismatic gifts are considered fraudulent or demonic and those who promote them are actively forced out. In other less hardline churches there is no need to hunt down the hand-raiser but there are all sorts of ways of letting people know that’s not the done thing. There’s prohibition: ‘we don’t do that here’. The next stage is where many land, theoretically continuationist functionally cessationist. Here there is cautious permission. The last step, promotion, gives access up to the church chandeliers and the glossolalia workshops.
As I’ve already noted most people and most organisations are rarely static. There is constant pressure from various sources be it friends, media, pressure groups, or ‘society’ to agree with or change on all sorts of positions, all the time. There are also genuine fears that prohibition is a precursor to persecution. Or alternatively a fear that permission is either one step away from promotion or a failure of courage to move all the way to promotion.
To some every change is evidence of the presence of a slippery slope. Sometimes they’re right.
Take government assisted suicide – what can start as permission for people to choose how they die, quickly becomes de facto promotion that people should choose this option. The State begins to promote a choice, while doubtless simultaneously denying that any coercion is happening.
The diagnostic of what is persecuted, to what is promoted is a helpful tool. It can help us evaluate in church whether we are prohibiting what the Bible prohibits or subtly prohibiting more than that. That would open us to Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees of laying extra burdens on the people beyond what they can bear.
Similarly, we can evaluate the things we are promoting and whether those things are really what Scripture promotes or maybe we have elevated a cultural value to a place that Scripture has not clearly afforded it.
And lastly we can use it to ask questions when change is being presented. Where will this lead? Why was the former position wrong? Will this change lead to further change and therefore will we find ourselves blessing what Scripture prohibits and prohibiting what Scripture blesses?
None of this tells you what to think or do on any given issue; that still takes wisdom. But it does give you some helpful questions to ask before you move at all. When you feel the pull to prohibit something the Bible permits, or promote something it merely tolerates it’s worth stopping and naming where you’re currently standing and where the pressure is trying to push you to. Half the fights in a church, or in a culture for that matter, are really disagreements about which of these four positions we should be in. Having the tools to see those positions might make it easier for us to get clarity about our decisions and actions.
Further Reading
If this framework was useful to you, here are some posts where I’ve tried to apply it:
- Common ground for Charismatics & Cessationists — a fuller look at where charismatics and cessationists actually land on the permission/prohibition line
- Disputable matters — the Romans 14 case for permission over prohibition
- Family formation & same-sex marriage — applying this to the marriage debate directly
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