Should we care what Scripture says is wrong?

Update: Dan Haseltine has clarified his statements in a post here.  While I would like a little further clarification on a couple of items, I think the post is a good one and important to read.  I leave my own post up because this approach is way too common, and I believe the discussion I've written below is worthwhile, but with the understanding that Dan's comments were more a result of rush and limitations of Twitter than an actual denial of the moral weight of Scripture.  I hope he will clarify very soon how much weight he gives Scripture.

I ran across this headline earlier today, and was just going to pass it by, but after thinking about it a while, it occurs to me that this is exactly what this blog is about – the issues going on in “Christian” music.

So here it is:  “DanHaseltine, front-man of Christian band Jars of Clay, takes to Twitter tosupport gay marriage.”

There are a number of issues we can look at here, and I’m really only interested in one of them right now.  Look, we can totally talk about homosexual marriage here, and we probably will at some point, but I’m going to avoid that topic right now because I really want to talk about something else, and whenever homosexual marriage becomes an issue, it tends to become the only issue.  Let’s not do that right now.  We can do that later.

The reason I am bringing this up was because of this statement from Haseltine:  “I don’t particularly care about Scriptures [sic] stance on what is ‘wrong.’ I care more about how it says we should treat people.”

I hear this a lot.  It sounds nice.  To an extent he’s right.  We should not allow the moral commands of God to be an excuse to hate and to treat others terribly.  Desiring God posted a very good article on this very topic that should be read carefully.

That being said, there is a massive leap from criticizing people who misuse the moral law to abandoning it completely.  It’s not an either/or, of course, and this position doesn’t ultimately make any sense.  Haseltine criticizes those who treat homosexuals badly, for instance.  Wait, I thought he didn’t care much about what Scripture says is wrong?  Should he really be criticizing the actions of another?

See, Haseltine totally believes that we should criticize behavior that is immoral.  But he has no standard by which to judge what is right and wrong except for his own moral outrage.  He doesn’t like it when people are unloving, so he criticizes them.  Homosexuality doesn’t both him, so he’s not going to make any moral judgments there.  He doesn’t care what Scripture says about it, so he has decided that being nice to people is really the only thing we’re supposed to be doing.

Except he doesn’t do that.  He goes on a Twitter tirade against Christians who don’t line up to his subjective morality.

What does God say about how we should behave?  Well, take a quick read through Exodus 20 – the Ten Commandments.  These commandments were written by the very hand of God into stone, and while much of them can be summarized by how we treat one another, someone would be hard-pressed to prove that God doesn’t care about those things He considered “wrong.”

Or we can turn to Paul:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
-1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Well, it looks like God does care quite a bit about those things He considers “wrong,” so much so that sin would keep us from inheriting the kingdom!  But there is good news here, isn’t there?  “Such WERE some of you.”  We were not clean to begin with in this passage.  We were covered in sin.  But it describes how we are washed and purified by our Lord Jesus Christ.  We were turned from sin and saved by His perfect righteousness imputed to us.

That Gospel is offered to those who are in sexual sin, some other sin, and also those who don’t treat others the way they should.  It is for those who do not believe God’s Word as well.  Turn from you sin, whichever category (or more likely, categories) it is in, and believe in Christ for the forgiveness of those sins.