One of the reasons why evangelicals tend to dismiss serious Biblical objections to their typical moral stances, such as those involving sexism towards men and women, is that morality is treated as a lesser goal than promoting the salvation message of the New Testament. There might sometimes be a facade of righteousness, but this is quickly given a place behind the gospel in order to influence others when it is convenient. Now, it is not that salvation is not an important part of Biblical theology. Instead, the truth is that evangelicals overestimate its important out of a selfish set of priorities.
Their words and actions reveal that they are far more concerned with whether they will go to heaven due to mercy--something that they cannot deserve--than whether they understand and live out the Bible's moral commands. In other words, personal gain in the afterlife is a higher priority than avoiding and condemning the sins that make a person deserving of hell in the first place. Since a morally upright life is the only visible evidence that a person is even saved to begin with (Matthew 7:15-20), morality comes before and after soteriology.
At their core, common evangelical ideas about morality at best cling to a facade of righteousness that is incomplete, backwards, and hypocritical. Not only do evangelicals routinely ignore actual commands of the Bible in favor of advocating for social constructs like gender roles and other legalism, but they openly focus on salvation more than morality despite the former being trivial by comparison to the latter [1]. Morality is the only reason soteriology even matters!
A sound analysis of the Bible would never place salvation above justice, no matter how enthralled by salvation one is. To refuse to stand alongside evangelicals in this error is to refuse a crucial part of evangelicalism itself. Any rational Christian must forsake evangelicalism along with all other fallacious distortions of Biblical Christianity, and rejecting any ideology that pretends like salvation could possibly matter more than ethics is a necessary part of rational theology.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/12/morality-comes-before-soteriology.html
No comments:
Post a Comment