Today I’d like to share with you my reply to the distressed lady whose letter I posted in part one of this series on the problem of church squatters. If you have not read the previous post, please take a look at it before you read my reply.

Reply to a Distressed Lady

Dear Sister:

Forgive my delay in replying. I wanted to think carefully about what to say. I am not facing the problem you describe, and as you pointed out, I cannot simply tell you what to do. But I offer my thoughts in hope that they will help you discern the Lord’s will.

First, I want to write about my reactions as I read your letter.

Sadness, Anger, and Joy

I read your letter with a mixture of sadness, anger, and joy. I was overjoyed that you have not been deceived by clever arguments or intimidated by the self-confident majority into giving up Scripture’s clear teaching and the church’s traditional doctrine on marriage, family, and sex. You do not need me to teach you anything on this subject. I will simply say: Be confident. You are right.

I was saddened to hear that your church home has been invaded and occupied by squatters and deceived into abandoning clear apostolic teaching. Many believers know that affirming and celebrating LGBTQ+ relationships is wrong, but I’m not sure everyone realizes how wide it opens the doors to other evils. It rejects the created order and, therefore, denies the wisdom of the Creator (Romans 1:18-32). The distinction and complementarity of male and female are so obvious and basic that to erase them you must deny the very existence of a divinely intended created order. Created human nature becomes a realm of raw material to be reshaped according to human desires. The heavens can no longer declare the glory of God. The moral law possesses no authority to forbid idolatry, lying, murder, adultery, and theft. Not only must affirming- and celebrating-churches ignore the natural moral law, they must ignore Scripture’s moral teaching; for Scripture affirms all the elements of the moral law, intensifies them, and sets them into relation to Jesus Christ (On this theme, see J. Budziszewski, What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide.) For these new Gnostics, God becomes utterly irrelevant to the moral life. They substitute human subjectivity and autonomy in the place of natural and divine law. The inner self becomes an idol and the true object of worship.

I am angered by your elders’ and pastors’ efforts to justify this decision from Scripture, thereby compounding immorality with heresy. Their interpretations of Scripture are so implausible that I find it difficult to accept that they believe them. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone offer these new interpretations in what seemed to me a sincere spirit of obedience (For my analysis of these arguments, see my book The Choice: Should the Church Affirm LGBTQ+ Identities and Ways of Living). It’s always part of an effort to evade the force of Scripture’s teaching. Squatters by their actions show themselves to be thieves and liars. And that makes me angry.

What to Do?

Churches are always mixed bodies of saints and sinners. In almost any church you visit, it is likely that there are secret unbelievers and immoral people sitting in the audience. Those traditions that attempt to purge the church of every sinner tend to do more harm than good by their heavy-handed interrogations. They forget Jesus’s parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30). If you attempt to pull up all the weeds you will damage the wheat. Wait until the end and the Lord will separate the two. You don’t need to leave a church just because it contains secret fornicators, idolaters, and doubters. There are no pure churches.

No church possesses and teaches perfect doctrine. For 2,000 years, the church has conducted internal debates about worship, food, predestination, the atonement, the sacraments, church offices, and many others. You don’t need to separate from a church with which you disagree on a point of doctrine as long as that doctrine does not contradict the gospel or the Christian way of life. Scripture is unambiguous about many things but not all. How do the sacraments work? What does Scripture mean by election and predestination? Should the church organize itself in a presbyterian or episcopal or congregational way? Churches that claim to teach the whole doctrinal truth and nothing but the truth often engage in fights, purges, and divisions. You must follow your conscience.

However, when a local church or a denomination comes to be led by people who teach heresy, things become more complicated. Though your church affirms and celebrates LGBTQ+ relationships, apparently it tolerates you and others who disagree. So, you are not being forced to choose between violating your conscience or giving up your membership. You will have to examine your conscience before God.

In examining your conscience, I don’t think there is one set of questions you should ask. Our consciences have a way of speaking to us even when we don’t ask questions of them. They can warn us not to rationalize our lack of courage or ignore our hypocrisy or justify our sloth. They can counsel us against being used by the heretics to minimize the seriousness of their errors.

Another often overlooked factor comes to mind. If you are not a leader, a teacher of the faith, or in contemporary terms, an influencer, you may have less of a responsibility to break from your church even if it teaches a heretical doctrine, that is if there are some redeeming aspects to the church. Remember Abraham’s discussion with God about how many good people it would take to save Sodom from destruction (Genesis 18). If by staying you do not contribute to the spiritual downfall of others, you may not bear the guilt of the false doctrine taught by your church. You have to think about that.

For me, however, things are very different. I could not remain in attendance and fellowship with the church you describe. Because I have a responsibility to be a teacher of God’s people and have done so for over 50 years, my continued presence would tend to minimize the seriousness of its heresy. Perhaps my silence could even be used to justify it.

I have not told you what you should do. But I hope these thoughts will help you gain perspective. Above all, examine your conscience in prayer before God. May God give you courage to do what is right and the peace to live with your decision.

In Christ,

Ron Highfield