The Progressive Abomination of Inclusivity

Counterfeit Love and Deceptive Ambiguity

I recently wrote an article in which I compared the introduction of blessings for same-sex couples in the Church with the imagined introduction of blessings for open racism. Needless to say, it caused no small offence among progressives and winsome evangelicals. The offence caused is not only understandable; it was the entire point.

To understand what has been imposed upon the conservative in such cases, the progressive needs to know what it might feel like to be told they must accept – and ideally, celebrate – something they know to be heinously offensive to their Christian beliefs. Whilst there are certainly many conservatives who show little empathy for why a progressive may believe what they believe, the progressive’s lack of empathy for the conservative is especially jarring given the party policy of tolerance, love, and inclusivity.

For all the talk of welcoming “the Other” when speaking of same-sex couples, there is a noticeable lack of welcome when that “Other” happens to be a conservative who is offended at what the progressive is imposing.

The much-heralded progressive doctrine of inclusivity is, in short, a sham and a scam. It is categorically untrue, for example, that the conservative is “included” in the proposed imposition of same-sex blessings/marriage simply because they are “permitted” to disagree if they wish to.

This is because it is inclusion only according to the terms and conditions of The Includers. And these Includers have managed to define love/inclusion in such a way that it suits precisely what they want to impose. The Included, on the other hand, have no choice but to be included in whatever The Includers are proposing to include them.

Uncle Candy Floss

It is rather like someone having prepared a large family meal served up on the table, and at the last minute an estranged uncle turns up apparently from nowhere with copious volumes of candy floss which he lavishes upon all, after which most of those at the table have entirely lost their appetite.

There will be those who say this uncle was being generous and inclusive. After all, technically he hadn’t “forced” the candy floss upon those who didn’t want it – they had a choice not to eat it and even to disagree with those who did. Why, then, couldn’t they all welcome and celebrate this act of spontaneous benevolence? Well, because the candy floss idea was not a “welcome” addition to the meal; it was the effective abolition of the meal.

Uncle Candy Floss technically “included” everyone, but in reality he imperiously swooped in without authority and changed what the meal was to something else entirely.

So too with the imposition of same-sex blessings/marriage. The conservatives in the Church who are imposed upon are rightly offended that the sin they cannot not oppose is not only tolerated but celebrated. Furthermore, it is they (The Included) who are now deemed the “offensive” party because they oppose what has been imposed. Progressives will continue to be offended at the rejection of same-sex blessings/marriage the more they are affirmed.

Furthermore, it’s always easier to depict the conservative argument as having the more negative and uncharitable posture of the two. The progressive “welcomes” and “celebrates” the love between two same-sex people; whereas the conservative “rejects” their love, “refuses” it, “denies” it.

This is how the conservative position comes to be seen as hate rather than love. Why can’t you just be kind?, they say. Why can’t you just accept that some people want to gorge on candy floss instead of the family meal? Why can’t you just love…?

Differing Loves

For the conservative, however, our understanding of love begins vertically before it extends horizontally. Our love of others is grounded in our love of God, which is itself grounded in God's love for us. This too is inseparable from what God stands for, and who God is – such as the fact that he is truth (John 14:6) as well as love (1John 4:8), and the fact that he cannot deny himself (2Tim. 2:13).

If we believe God sees homosexuality as sinful - abominable, even - then by definition it cannot be loving to condone those who condone it, and it is especially offensive to celebrate it. You see how it all gets very theological very quickly.

The conservative may be called “hateful” for this - or at best, less loving than we could be. But because we seek to take our orders about what is loving and/or hateful from God, and because we love God before we love people, our corresponding love for people will look different to how the progressive usually defines love.

The good-faith progressive who affirms same-sex blessings/marriage is deceived by their desire to love their neighbour above their love of God. But the good-faith conservative cannot possibly see the condoning of same-sex relationships as loving if what is being condoned incurs judgement – not blessing – from God.

When speaking of the way God loves, progressives can always point to examples of Jesus including the marginalised and surprising the expectations of the “conservative” gatekeepers like the Pharisees and Sadducees. But they must reckon with the fact that Jesus simply isn't inclusive in the comprehensive (and ultimately impossible) ways they want him to be.

Anyone who reads the gospels without rainbow sunglasses on can see that Jesus rejects many people. He is more divisive and combative than many realise. He is also the One who sent Paul (and the Spirit who inspired Paul) to say many of the divisive-sounding things that cause so much trouble for progressives, not least on homosexuality (e.g. Rom. 1:26-27). Conservatives rightly believe that such things make it utterly absurd to believe that we are allowed to give our blessing to God’s “blessing” of same-sex relationships.

Someone Is Wrong

I received an insightful response to my article from one thoughtful interlocutor with whom I first had a form of this debate almost two decades ago as an undergraduate student.

His response was insightful not only because it was honest, but because it further highlights how progressives so often tie themselves up in knots of professed unity and compassion which only really function as a wishful perpetuation of ambiguity:

“perhaps you and I could find Christian unity in our attempts to live in the currents of God's love, even when we disagree about what that looks like. We have surely been wrong about other things along our way, and one of us is wrong about this. I don't think you would want me to give up my integrity for unity, and I wouldn't expect that of you. But if we can recognise that each is pained by this, and each is trying to follow Jesus well, then there may be a way to include one another in our vision of the Kingdom. After all, I don't remember Jesus rejecting or excluding people because of honest mistakes they made in trying to live God's statutes.”

I recognise that many progressives genuinely do believe they are seeking the kingdom in what they believe, as does the conservative. Yet it is also true that “one of us is wrong about this”. That is what the British Methodist Church, for example, has been unwilling to say.

In plastering the entire issue with the maxim “God in love unites us” Methodism sought to avoid the necessary tension by minimising it superficially, instead lionising the categorically absurd concept of “contradictory convictions”.

As with most instances of weapons-grade avoidance, the submerged tensions tend to rise to the surface as soon as any one side speaks out its convictions with conviction, which tends to lead to far more dramatic consequences. (Like people getting fired, for instance). If the conservative and the progressive both honestly believe they are seeking God, then it would be more consistent if both sides sought to implore each other to turn (or return) to the truth, and to reject the error of their ways.

The primary authority for such imploring, however, must be the Word of God, not the longings and/or traumas of human experience.

Plaudits and Motivations

Whilst Jesus does not necessarily exclude people for making honest mistakes, he and his apostles do speak very strongly against teachings and teachers which cause others to stumble into said mistakes. This is highly significant. Progressive Christians today will be (and are) praised by the world for their inclusivity, yet by their “inclusivity” they actively encourage people into greater sin, and will thus incur greater judgement.

It’s the “inclusive” Jesus who talked about tying a millstone around your neck if you cause an innocent to stumble (Matt. 18:6). It’s the “inclusive” Jesus who will one day throw the sexually immoral into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). Progressive Christians (and a good deal of “winsome” evangelicals, no doubt) simply don’t want this to be true. But it is…

Whilst not all progressives are primarily motivated by worldly plaudits, one thing is undeniable: the move towards broader sexual inclusivity today will bring plaudits from the world. Inclusivity is not something the world will see as a threat. You will not be chastised for it, you will be applauded for it. You will be held up as a glorious example of what Christians “ought to be concerned about”, what Jesus “really stood for” and what religion “is really all about”.

When same-sex blessings were voted into the Church of England, for example, The Guardian described it as “profound” and “historic”. The Church was finally catching up with secular society. It was finally starting to see the light.

Being in sync with what society affirms does not necessarily make something wrong, nor even more likely to be wrong. But clues are available. If what is being affirmed is explicitly denounced in Scripture and was never argued as “Scriptural” by any Christian until after the world first began affirming it, this might be a good indication that what is being affirmed aligns more with the prince of this world than the kingdom beyond it.

Deceptive Ambiguity

Many progressives are hoodwinked into believing untrue and/or blasphemous things because they find themselves swept along by their compassion for others. They so want it to be true that they find a way to make it “true”. But it isn’t…

False teaching is powerful. It deceives even those who believe themselves to be unbiased, charitable, kind, and God-honouring. But if they are disobeying God’s Word, then they are not following God, they are following a falsehood. They are ultimately following their own hearts, seduced as they are by a counterfeit mutation of “love” served up by the world.

Such progressives are usually reluctant to see their view in clear, dichotomous terms, however. They tend to believe it is far more complex and that they have graduated from those simplistic binary categories (the ones often used in Scripture) like “truth” and “falsehood”, “light” and “darkness”, “they” and “we”, etc.

They wish to maintain the ambiguity that neither side can be fully wrong, and thus neither can ever be fully right. Even those more thoughtful progressives who admit that one side must be wrong still do not want either side to declare which it is. To the imperious Includer, ambiguity is always to their advantage.

To quote my aforementioned progressive correspondent again:

“False teaching may be powerful. It is not good enough though, once we recognise that both sides are honestly attempting to remain faithful to God, to denounce the other side. It would simply be arrogant, a victim of pride, to presume that my reason, my experience, my tradition is more likely to be true than those who disagree with me.”

As with the “virtue” of ambiguity, humility tends to be used as a trump card to ensure the validity of their view without being seen to denounce the view of their opponent.

For the Love of Humility

If you insist that the progressive is utterly wrong and/or holds deceptive or dangerous views (even if you do so from a place of love), the progressive needs only to remind you that they are earnestly seeking God’s will on the issue, that they have studied the Bible in detail, and that they have prayed about it fervently.

In this light it will seem as though any further denouncing of their conclusions probably means that on some level you are lacking in the love and humility that accord with Christ.

After all, love “is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way” (1Cor. 13:4-5). Why be so rude as to “denounce” your poor progressive brother or sister? Are you not both seeking God’s kingdom in different ways? Why be so insistent that your way is the right way? Why not be “gracious” and “peaceful” and “loving”?

The Winsome Way

This is how the progressive way gets to win without seeming to have won. It wins not by declaring outright that it is the “only” way but by insisting that there need not be a full resolution of either way. This means that what is being affirmed by the progressive is given as valid a place at the table as what is being denied by the conservative.

The progressive does not need to oust the conservative view entirely (yet). They only need to shed enough doubt on the conservative rejection of their view to imply that the conservative view lacks “love”, thus intimating (ever so subtly) that such a view is thereby less likely to be in step with the God of the Bible, the God who is love.

In this way, whether they know it or not, the progressive includes with their mouth but excludes with their heart. False teaching is indeed powerful stuff.