What is the Gospel?
I wrote this article to address the question I’m often asked: Is homosexuality a sin? There were many great responses on my Facebook wall, but I wanted to address a couple of them specifically. One of my (gay-affirming) friends asked me to actually answer the “sin question” directly with a Yes or No. Another (non-affirming) friend asked many great questions about the Gospel and repentance.
Is homosexuality actually sin?
What is the Gospel?
What is repentance?
From what must we repent of to be cleansed?
How is one justified?
Two notes and then off we go to the Gospel:
- I believe these questions assume that “What is sin?” is central to the Gospel. It isn’t. So I won’t be addressing them directly, but rather that mindset will be addressed in my discussion on the Gospel.
- In my discussion, I will not be citing chapter and verse of Scripture. You can ask me why if you care to know, but you should know it is intentional.
The question I will answer is: What is the Good News / Gospel?
In short, the good news is that God, the Creator of the Universe, sides with slaves and not slaveowners, the oppressed and not the oppressors, the margins and not those on the “inside”. This is indeed very good news to anyone who has been trapped. The primary biblical narrative is the Exodus from Egypt, where God says “You are free! Follow me to freedom!” That is the Gospel.
That’s not very good news to those who are invested in the status quo and who have been entrenched in systems that oppress other people, but God doesn’t really seem to get that worked up by that.
What does that look like for a Christ-follower?
We are given several key answers to the huge question of praxis (our lived theology).
What does God require of you? To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.
What is true religion? To look after those forgotten and oppressed by the mainstream (widows and orphans in the 1st Century Middle East) and to remain unsullied by the world (to stop the natural anger and violence that happens when we feel attacked).
How can I tell who is following Christ? By the love they have for their siblings, their enemies, and their neighbors.
On reading Scripture
I believe in reading Scripture accurately and carefully. This means having an understanding of the original languages and how they work, the social and cultural contexts (plural) to which they are written, the genres of literature they purport to be, and similar literature of the same era. I believe we have to read the narratives as narratives, the history as history (told with a specific purpose in mind), the poetry as poetry, the myths as myths, and the teaching literature as teaching literature. It is simply impossible to read Scriptural poetry as “literally" when it doesn’t claim to be literal.
On the focus on sin and who is in or out
This is a distraction from the purpose of the Gospel. The Bible doesn’t focus on it. Christ didn’t come to primarily deal with sin, but to free oppressed people. So I choose to focus on the Gospel instead of answering spurious questions about sin.
