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    Confronting the Controversies: A Christian Responds to the Tough Issues
    Confronting the Controversies: A Christian Responds to the Tough Issues
    Confronting the Controversies: A Christian Responds to the Tough Issues
    Ebook165 pages2 hours

    Confronting the Controversies: A Christian Responds to the Tough Issues

    By Adam Hamilton and Sally Sharpe

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    About this ebook

    Christians are faced every day with daunting choices between difficult alternatives. What does my Christian faith have to say about the moral issues that divide our society? There are plenty of people on opposite sides of the spectrum claiming to know the will of God in these matters. It is nonetheless very difficult to find help in looking at both sides of these ethical questions and applying the biblical witness to arrive at an authentically Christian belief about them. This is precisely what Adam Hamilton proposes to do. Presented as a collection of sermons, Confronting the Controversies includes euthanasia, assisted suicide, creationism, abortion, and homosexuality. Scrupulously fair to both the positions of each side and their motivations for holding them, Hamilton offers clear, concise information on what is at stake in these explosive issues. Hamilton applies a careful, broad reading of Scripture to offer direct yet compassionate guidance on what a faithful Christian response will be. This book is set up for group study, with discussion questions at the end of each chapter.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateMay 1, 2001
    ISBN9781426722295
    Confronting the Controversies: A Christian Responds to the Tough Issues
    Author

    Adam Hamilton

    Adam Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City. Started in 1990 with four people, the church has grown to become the largest United Methodist Church in the United States with over 18,000 members. The church is well known for connecting with agnostics, skeptics, and spiritual seekers. In 2012, it was recognized as the most influential mainline church in America, and Hamilton was asked by the White House to deliver the sermon at the Obama inaugural prayer service. Hamilton, whose theological training includes an undergraduate degree from Oral Roberts University and a graduate degree from Southern Methodist University where he was honored for his work in social ethics, is the author of nineteen books. He has been married to his wife, LaVon, for thirty-one years and has two adult daughters.

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      Book preview

      Confronting the Controversies - Adam Hamilton

      CHAPTER 1

      The Separation of Church and State

      You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

      You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

      (Matthew 5:13-16)

      Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone.

      (Titus 3:1-2)

      How Do Christians Decide What Is Right and Wrong?

      How do you begin to develop your positions on important moral issues? Most people do not spend hours reading over the various ethical debates. We do not usually do our own research. Typically, our personal experience; the convictions of others we trust who study the issues; the beliefs of our parents and others who have influenced our lives; and what we read in magazines or hear and see on television, radio, and in the movies help shape our views. Many of us simply do not have strong opinions on various issues. We often know what we do not believe, however; and those negative reactions are based in part on how little we like the purveyors of those views.

      But for us who call ourselves Christians, our views, positions, and beliefs should all spring from our understanding of the will of God. Christians seek, above all, to know and do the will of God. Ultimately, nothing matters more than this. God has created us, has a plan for us; and we believe we will be held accountable for how we respond to God’s will. We consider ourselves citizens of God’s kingdom first, even before our national citizenship; and we strive to live so as to bring God’s reign to the whole world. When we invite Jesus to be Lord in our lives, we invite him to be our sovereign or ruler. We agree to live by his commands and teachings. And we pledge to seek to do his will.

      As we struggle to understand God’s will in our lives, we know that God does in fact care about all of the issues we will address in this book and the people who face them. Can anyone who is a believer truly think that God does not care what we think regarding criminal justice and the death penalty? Or euthanasia? Or how homosexuality is looked at and how homosexuals are treated?

      Some people have suggested that these are merely secular issues. But though we make distinctions between what is sacred and what is secular, God does not. The Bible says, The earth is the LORD’S and all that is in it, / the world, and those who live in it (Psalm 24:1). For God, all issues, all circumstances, and all people are a part of God’s domain. Separating the sacred from the secular is creating a false dichotomy.

      Wesley’s Quadrilateral: Four Tools for Discerning God’s Will

      So then, if God does care about these issues and we as Christians long to know the heart of God, where will we go to discover God’s will? How can we discern the convictions God would have us hold and work toward? John Wesley, the eighteenth-century founder of Methodism, offered four tools for discerning God’s will. In our time we call this the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (quadrilateral means four sided). These four principles will be the tools we will use in this book as we consider the issues before

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