In our imagination, we can see you in any number of contexts where you will surely go. We see so many of you in the pulpit, teaching and preaching the Word of God. We see many of you on the mission fields of the world, taking the Gospel where it has never been heard. We see you making disciples. Some will lead in worship and song, others in leadership and service. We can see you in so many places.

One of the most ridiculous books given to some high school graduates is Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. It is filled with the kind of logic that fuels the self-esteem movement and the culture of self-expression. It’s message is encapsulated in passages like this: “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go.”

Well, that sounds like what a lot of us would like to hear and it rather perfectly fits the spirit of the age, but it will not work for us. First of all, we do not believe that the Christian minister controls his own destiny. Beyond that, our hope is that some of you will end up where Dr. Seuss would not encourage you to go — into trouble, into court, and even into jail.

In the fourth chapter of the Book of Acts, we find the apostles Peter and John in custody. The previous day they had preached Christ and a lame beggar had been healed. You know the account. Peter and John had been walking up to the Temple to pray when they saw a lame beggar who asked for alms. Peter said to him, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” Peter took him by the hand and the beggar’s ankles and feet became strong and he began to walk, then to leap, and then to praise God. The people who saw this were filled with amazement and wonder.

Peter then preached to the crowd in Solomon’s Portico. “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.” [Acts 3:12-13]

Peter then declared that salvation has come, that the time of ignorance is over, that the times of refreshing have now come. Many who had heard the word believed, including some five thousand men. This greatly annoyed the temple authorities and the Sadducees, who were offended by everything that had happened, from the healing of the lame man to the preaching of the Gospel and the response of faith. Peter and John were placed under arrest. The next day, they were brought before the council for a trial of sorts, much like what today we would call a preliminary hearing. You know what happened:

“On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, ‘By what power or by what name did you do this?’ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified,whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’”

These two apostles, fresh from the exhilaration of the day of Pentecost, found themselves arrested for, of all things, healing a lame man and daring to preach Christ. The High Priest and his family, the rulers and elders and scribes, were ready to sit in judgment on two men who had just been used of God to demonstrate healing and to declare salvation. With Peter and John before them, they asked the crucial question: “By what power or by what name did you do this?”

That is precisely the right question. It sounds so strange to us, but it is exactly the right question. By what right, by whose name, in whose authority had they dared to do these things?

This is the question every true minister of Christ should long to be asked. Note carefully that it only makes sense to ask this question after something happens that demands it. Sadly, there have been many who have entered the ministry and retired into history, never having been asked this question. This question is asked of the bold, the courageous, the convictional. This is the question asked in the wake of any great demonstration of the Gospel’s power and of God’s determined power to save. It is the question asked in the wake of true revival. It is the obvious question to ask when a lame man begins to walk and leap, when the blind begin to see and the mute begin to speak.

But it is also the obvious question to ask every time the great good news of the Gospel is declared. Indeed, it is the obvious question to ask every time the Word of God is rightly and bravely preached. “By what power or by what name did you do this?”

We must note that Peter had answered the question before it was asked. After all, he had said to the lame man, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” To those who followed them to Solomon’s Portico, Peter had preached Christ and then said: “And his name — by faith in his name — has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.” [Acts 3:16]

Following the example of the Apostles, all that we do for Christ is done in his name. In his earthly ministry, Christ was asked: “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” But Christ, the Son of God incarnate, acted in his own name by the authority of the Father. We minister in Christ’s name.

By what power or by what name did you do this? Answering them, Peter declared: “‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified,whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’”

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. No other name. No other authority. No other power. When we are asked the question we long to be asked, our answer must be Jesus. We have no other name. We know no other gospel. There is no other name by which sinners can be saved.

It is true that you will go many places. This great assembly is humbled by the knowledge that you will go where so many of us have never gone. You will go to churches of all shapes and sizes and contexts. You will go into the streets with mercy and into the cities with compassion. You will go into homes with care and into places marked by both light and darkness. You will go to preach the Word, to declare the good news of salvation, to make disciples. You will teach and preach and care and pray. You will lead and learn and point people to Jesus.

Our fervent prayer is that, as you go, you go with the longing to be asked the question that was so famously asked of Peter and John: “By whose power or by what name did you do this?” We long to hear you answer, “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’”

That question may land some of you in jail. It will be asked of others in jungles. But, wherever you are asked and regardless of who does the asking, the answer is always the same: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”

This is a commencement address and charge to graduates of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, delivered May 17, 2013 by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President. The commencement ceremony may be viewed live at 10:00 a.m. EDT at www.sbts.edu/live.

Art: “St. Peter Preaching in the Presence of St. Mark” by Fra Angelico (1395-1455).

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

The prosecution of Kermit Gosnell put the entire nation on trial. The doctor was indicted on hundreds of criminal counts, and in addition to the murder and manslaughter convictions he received yesterday, he was also convicted on more than two hundred counts including racketeering, infanticide, and performing abortions that violated Pennsylvania law. Most of those were illegal late-term abortions.

The evidence presented in the trial was gruesome. Investigators told of finding jars filled with parts of dismembered babies. Some of Dr. Gosnell’s co-workers told of seeing the doctor deliver babies alive, then murdering them by snipping their spinal cords with scissors. They told of babies moving their arms and legs and gasping for breath, even making noises as Dr. Gosnell murdered them.

The arrest of Dr. Gosnell in 2011 brought a wave of news coverage. That was not the case with his trial — at least not until public outrage demanded that the press pay more attention. The mainstream media largely ignored the trial, and national attention came only after a concerted effort in social media and on the Internet made inattention to the story nearly impossible.

As Kirsten Powers, writing in USA Today, wrote: “Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began on March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolting revelations of Gosnell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart.” She concluded, “The deafening silence of too much of the media, once a force for justice in America, is a disgrace.”

Reluctantly, many major media outlets did start to give the trial attention, but their coverage was often more about the controversy over the coverage of the trial than about the trial itself. A report that appeared in TIME magazine just after Gosnell’s conviction, Kate Pickert and Adam Sorensen argued that “while it wasn’t completely ignored, the Gosnell trial revealed the mainstream media’s hesitancy to swarm a story about a horrifying abortion-related crime.” Later, while arguing that one reason for minimal news coverage of the trial was “the extremely disturbing nature of the crime,” they also acknowledged that “it’s no secret that most journalists are socially liberal.”

This morning, Dr. Gosnell’s murder convictions made the front pages of USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. The story appeared on page A-12 of The New York Times.

Both sides in the nation’s abortion debate agreed that Dr. Gosnell should be convicted and vilified. But pro-abortion forces found themselves continually forced to argue that Dr. Gosnell’s house of horrors was an exception and that abortion is not really at issue in the entire Gosnell trial. They did their best to make that point, but it is an impossible point to make. The babies murdered in Dr. Gosnell’s “clinic” were not visiting a pediatrician. They were born only after so-called “botched abortions.” The entire context was about abortion.

In TIME, Pickert and Sorensen argued that “this was not a case about the morality of legal, late-term abortion.” While the trial was not an open debate about the morality of abortion, that issue is what every thoughtful person recognizes is at stake — which is precisely why the pro-abortion movement had to insist, over and over again, that the morality of abortion is not the issue.

Here is a clue: When you have to argue at every turn that the issue is not abortion, the issue is abortion.

Prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced that they will seek the death penalty for Dr. Gosnell. He now stands convicted of the premeditated and calculated murder of three infants, along with over 200 additional crimes. In his closing argument to the jury, prosecutor Ed Cameron turned to Dr. Gosnell and asked, “Are you human? To med these women up and stick knives in the backs of babies?”

But we must not miss the true meaning of the Gosnell trial. It is true that Dr. Gosnell was found guilty of his crimes — at least the crimes successfully prosecuted in Pennsylvania. But, in reality the whole nation was on trial, and we are all guilty.

What the pro-abortion movement fears most is that Americans will pause to consider what this trial really means. It means that Dr. Gosnell would not be on trial for murder if he had killed those three babies while inside their mother’s body. His murder convictions have everything to do with the fact that the abortions were “botched” and the babies were accidentally born alive. Had the abortions been “successful” — even up to the last hours of pregnancy — Dr. Gosnell might have been charged with performing a late-term abortion, but not of murder.

And, speaking of late-term abortions, the abortion rights movement is against all legal restrictions on those as well. They insist on a woman’s unfettered right to an abortion up to the moment of birth.

Even more chillingly, a Planned Parenthood representative recently told a committee of the Florida legislature that even a baby born alive after a failed abortion should have its life or death decided only by its mother and her doctor.

This is America. A nation that has legalized murder in the womb and that now finds itself staring at what abortion really represents. Human dignity cannot survive in a society that insists that a baby inside the womb has no right to live while that same baby, just seconds later, is a murder victim. Respect for human life cannot endure when a baby inside the womb is just a fetus, but when moved only a few centimeters is a full citizen.

The body parts of babies presented as evidence in the Gosnell trial are routinely discarded as “medical waste” outside your local abortion clinic.

What the Gosnell trial revealed is not the exceptional gruesomeness of a single clinic in Philadelphia. It reveals the truth that all Americans are, by our laws, complicit in Dr. Gosnell’s evil. The real scandal is not just the babies murdered outside the womb, but the millions aborted legally — torn apart by blades, suctioned out as waste, poisoned unto death by drugs.

The trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell revealed the truth about this homicidal doctor and his house of horrors, but it also revealed the moral house of mirrors behind which America hides. Dr. Gosnell is not alone in having the blood of babies on his hands.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Kate Pickert and Adam Sorensen, “Three Takeaways from the Kermit Gosnell Trial,” TIME, Monday, May 13, 2013. http://nation.time.com/2013/05/13/three-takeaways-from-the-kermit-gosnell-trial/

Kirsten Powers, “Philadelphia Abortion Clinic Horror,” USA Today, Thursday, April 11, 2013. http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/10/philadelphia-abortion-clinic-horror-column/2072577/

Image: “The Murder of the Innocents,” from a medieval stained glass window.

Last month, Judge Edward Korman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York handed down an order forcing the Food and Drug Administration to make emergency contraceptives, sometimes called the “morning-after pill,” available without a doctor’s prescription or parental permission to girls without any restriction on age.

Judge Korman’s order would open the door for girls as young as 10 or 11 to obtain the morning-after pill without any involvement by either a doctor or a parent. That same girl, of course, could not be given an aspirin in a school clinic without parental permission, much less a simple antibiotic like penicillin. Nevertheless, this federal judge ruled that girls and women of any age must be allowed over-the-counter access to emergency contraceptives.

The Obama Administration had previously set the age for access to the morning-after pill, or Plan B, at age 17. That was not good enough for Judge Korman, nor for the abortion rights and feminist groups clamoring for any age restriction to be removed. On April 30, the Food and Drug Administration announced that the age for unrestricted access to Plan B would be lowered to 15. This move, shocking enough to most parents, was not acceptable to the groups demanding an end to all age restrictions.

In 2011, speaking in defense of the policy then limiting unrestricted sales of Plan B to those 17 and older, President Barack Obama had said that Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had acted rightly: “The reason Kathleen made this decision is that she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going to a drugstore should be able – alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could have an adverse effect.”

The President noted that he believed that most parents would not want the age of availability lowered, defending the policy in light of the fact that he is also father to two young daughters. Now, President Obama says that age 15 is the appropriate policy marker, once again defending the F.D.A. and Secretary Sebelius.

In effect, the Obama Administration is attempting to find some middle ground between Judge Korman’s decision and an inevitable backlash from the nation’s parents. To its credit, the Administration announced May 1 that it will appeal Judge Korman’s ruling.

Back in 2011, feminist groups accused President Obama of playing politics with the policy, trying to avoid a head-on collision with an issue that would alienate and anger the public — especially parents. Nevertheless, millions of parents were already concerned about the availability of Plan B to minors age 17, much less age 15.

The language used by those demanding the removal of all age restrictions is incredibly revealing. Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, the group that had filed the lawsuit before Judge Korman, said: “We will continue our battle in court to remove these arbitrary restrictions on emergency contraception for all women.”

Now, wait just a minute. Females under age 15 are “women?” The moral insanity of this position is made clear the moment you try to make that argument out loud. Females age 14 and under (indeed, until reaching age 18) are properly and sanely referred to as girls — not women. Calling them women would only make sense in a propaganda effort to make the public forget who we are talking about here. Furthermore, the use of this language would only make sense to people whose entire moral worldview seems to come down to nothing more than “a woman’s right to choose.”

Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post saw through the smokescreen. “They lost me on the word women,” she wrote. Parker pointed to the argument “that any interference with the over-the-counter sale of Plan B to any female of any age is blocking a woman’s right to self-determination.” She retorted: “Fifteen-year-olds, where the Obama Administration wants to set the limit, are girls, not women.”

Public policy, she added, “should be aimed at involving, rather than marginalizing, parents.”

But, marginalizing parents is one of the major aims of those who would educate our teenagers and children about sex, sexuality, and abortion. On May 8, Newsday reported that New York City public health officials are releasing a smartphone app for teenagers that will help them “locate free clinics that can answer questions about sex, prescribe birth control, test for sexually transmitted diseases, or even provide an abortion.”

The app, tested earlier in the spring and released to the public on May 7, “is expressly intended to let teenagers get information about reproductive health services confidentially, without having to go through an adult.”

On its welcome screen, the app declares: “Teens in NYC have the right to sexual health services without getting permission from parents, girlfriend/boyfriends or anyone else.”

These “health authorities” are explicitly and proudly undermining parental authority and the rights of parents to be involved in the most important issues faced by their teenagers.

But, keep in mind that the new sexual revolutionaries see parents as repressive factors to be removed and marginalized so that the nation’s adolescents can be fully liberated to experiment with sex.

There is yet another very revealing dimension of this controversy, and it has to do with how many in the media are hiding behind science in making their argument for sexual revolution.

The editorial board of The New York Times is “Exhibit A” of this pattern. On May 3 the paper ran a lead editorial entitled “Putting Politics Ahead of Science.” The editors condemned the Obama Administration’s decision to lower the age only to 15, stating that the administration had rejected science. It was, they argued, “interference with science that sparked Judge Korman’s ruling in the first place.”

The “science” to which the editors refer is the claim made by researchers that girls as young as 10 or 11 can take Plan B responsibly and safely. This involves the claim, we should note, that a girl so young can understand how to take such a powerful drug, how not to take it too often, and how to get help if any complication should arise. Note also that no one seems to be willing to make such an argument about other medications.

As if they had not already argued about science beyond the limits of reason, the editors made this astounding claim: “The administration’s continued stubbornness may please some conservative groups critical of the president. But it will hurt girls and women and is bound to undermine Mr. Obama’s credibility when he calls for principled, evidence-based policy-making on other issues, like global warming.”

That’s right. The editors of The New York Times are now warning the President of the United States that his refusal to make Plan B available to girls age 14 and under is going to undermine his credibility when making arguments about global warming. Can you imagine the clamor in the White House Press Room when President Obama makes an argument for some policy related to climate change, only to have a reporter challenge him because 14-year-olds cannot get over-the-counter access to Plan B?

Not to be outdone, the editors of The Washington Post declared that lowering the age of access from 17 to 15 was a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, “it still leaves the FDA with a position inconsistent with the judgment of its scientific experts, who recommended unrestricted access. The Obama administration’s unprecedented decision to override those experts, Judge Korman wrote, was ‘arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.’”

Once again, an argument about national policy on the availability of emergency contraceptives to young girls is absurdly reduced to the judgment of “scientific experts.” All moral concern and all respect for the rights and responsibilities of parents is thrown out the door. The same people who brought us “safe sex” are now trying to bring us “safe” emergency contraception for young girls.

The sexual revolutionaries now driving the cultural momentum in this society sneer at parents and hide behind misplaced arguments about “science.” The real emergency in the debate over emergency contraception for young girls is moral, not scientific.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Kathleen Parker, “Prude or Prudent? The Debate Over Access to Plan B,” The Washington Post, Friday, May 3, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-plan-b-and-who-gets-to-decide-for-children/2013/05/03/c88d3762-b418-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html

“Teen Pregnancy App Promoted by NYC Health Officials,” Newsday / The Associated Press, Wednesday, May 8, 2013. http://newyork.newsday.com/news/new-york/teen-pregnancy-app-promoted-by-nyc-health-officials-1.5225355

“The Legal Mess on Emergency Contraception,” editorial in The Washington Post, Thursday, May 2, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-legal-mess-on-emergency-contraception/2013/05/02/3124fc8e-b2ab-11e2-baf7-5bc2a9dc6f44_story.html

“Putting Politics Ahead of Science,” editorial in The New York Times, Friday, May 3, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/opinion/putting-politics-ahead-of-womens-rights.html

Believers are then assigned the task of telling others about the salvation that Christ has brought, and this requires the use of words. We tell the story of Jesus by deploying words, and we cannot tell the story without them. Our testimony, our teaching, and our theology all require the use of words. Words are essential to our worship, our preaching, our singing, and our spiritual conversation. In other words, words are essential to the Christian faith and central in the lives of believers.

As Martin Luther rightly observed, the church house is to be a “mouth house” where words, not images or dramatic acts, stand at the center of the church’s attention and concern. We live by words and we die by words.

Truth, life, and health are found in the right words. Lies, disaster, and death are found in the wrong words. The Apostle Paul warned Timothy, “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” [1 Timothy 6:3-5]

Later, Paul will instruct Timothy that sound words come to us in a revealed pattern. “Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” [2 Timothy 1:13-14]

Theological education is a deadly serious business. The stakes are so high. A theological seminary that serves faithfully will be a source of health and life for the church, but an unfaithful seminary will set loose a torrent of trouble, untruth, and sickness upon Christ’s people. Inevitably, the seminaries are the incubators of the church’s future. The teaching imparted to seminarians will shortly be inflicted upon congregations, where the result will be either fruitfulness or barrenness, vitality or lethargy, advance or decline, spiritual life, or spiritual death.

Sadly, the landscape is littered with theological institutions that have poorly taught and have been poorly led. Theological liberalism has destroyed scores of seminaries, divinity schools, and other institutions for the education of the ministry. Many of these schools are now extinct, even as the churches they served have been evacuated. Others linger on, committed to the mission of revising the Christian faith in order to make peace with the spirit of the age. These schools intentionally and boldly deny the pattern of sound words in order to devise new words for a new age — producing a new faith. As J. Gresham Machen rightly observed almost a century ago, we do not really face two rival versions of Christianity. We face Christianity on the one hand and, on the other hand, some other religion that selectively uses Christian words, but is not Christianity.

How does this happen? Rarely does an institution decide, in one comprehensive moment of decision, to abandon the faith and seek after another. The process is far more dangerous and subtle. A direct institutional evasion would be instantly recognized and corrected, if announced honestly at the onset. Instead, theological disaster usually comes by means of drift and evasion, shading and equivocation. Eventually, the drift accumulates into momentum and the school abandons doctrine after doctrine, truth claim after truth claim, until the pattern of sound words, and often the sound words themselves, are mocked, denied, and cast aside in the spirit of theological embarrassment.

As James Petigru Boyce, founder of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued, “It is with a single man that error usually commences.” When he wrote those words in 1856, he knew that pattern by observation of church history. All too soon, he would know this sad truth by personal observation.

By the time Southern Baptists were ready to establish a theological seminary, many schools for the training of ministers had already been lost to theological liberalism. Included among these were both Harvard and Yale, even as Yale had been envisioned, at least in part, as a corrective to Harvard. Theological concessions in theological seminaries had already weakened the Baptists of the North. Drawing upon the lessons of the past, Southern Baptists were determined to establish schools bound by covenant and constitution to a confession of faith — to the pattern of sound words.

Confessional seminaries require professors to sign a statement of faith, designed to safeguard by explicit theological summary. The sad experience of fallen and troubled schools led Southern Baptists to require that faculty members must teach in accordance with the confession of faith, and not contrary to anything therein. Added to this were warnings against any private understanding with a professor, or any hesitation or mental reservation. Teachers in a confessional school not only pledge by sacred covenant to teach “in accordance with and not contrary to” the confession of faith, but to do so gladly , eagerly, and totally.

We are living in an anti-confessional age. Our society and its reigning academic culture are committed to individual autonomy and expression, as well as to an increasingly relativistic conception of truth. The language of higher education is overwhelmingly dominated by claims of academic freedom, rather than academic responsibility. In most schools, a confession of faith is an anathema, not just an anachronism. But, among us, a confession of faith must be seen as a gift and covenant. It is a sacred trust that guards revealed truths. A confession of faith never stands above the Bible, but the Bible itself mandates concern for the pattern of sound words.

Theologian Russell Reno has noted that confessions of faith serve a dual purpose — to define truth and to isolate falsehood:

“The impulse behind confessions of faith is doxological, the desire to speak the truth about God, to give voice to the beauty of holiness in the fullest possible sense. However, the particular forms that historical confessions take are shaped by confrontation. Their purpose is to respond to the spirit of the age by re-articulating in a pointed way the specific content of Christianity so as to face new challenges as well as new forms of old challenges. As a result, formal confessions are characterized by pointed distinctions. They are exercises in drawing boundaries where the particular force of traditional Christian claims is sharpened to heighten the contrast between true belief and false belief…. As they shape our faith, confessions structure our identities.”

Confessions structure our identities. If not, they are useless. Within a theological seminary, the confession must function as a living commitment, not as a dead letter. As Reno notes, confessions are characterized by pointed distinctions. They are exercises in drawing boundaries, addressing new heresies and new forms of old heresies. False teachings are always around us. Our task is to make certain that they do not take hold among us.

For many denominations, churches, and seminaries, confessions of faith are kept as references to a faith once believed, but available only in the present as a remembrance of things past. Among us, the confession must guard the faith once for all delivered to the saints as a living faith.

Southern Baptists learned these lessons the hardest way, and we have paid the price of theological controversy for the sake of recovering that which was lost. By God’s grace, we have been granted a recovery, if we will keep it. Now, a new generation must take up this responsibility in the face of new challenges, knowing that these challenges, like the denial of biblical inerrancy, will require the full force of conviction to confront, and the full force of confession to contain.

We must look to a new generation of teachers who will gladly teach in accordance with and not contrary to all that is affirmed in our confession of faith, without hesitation or mental reservation. We must pray for an army of theological teachers ready to do battle with the spirit of the age and, at the same time, to offer a glad defense of the hope that is in us, with gentleness and respect. We must look to professors who will be determined to stand with the apostles and the saints of God throughout the ages in the sacred democracy of the dead that points to doctrinal fidelity.

Faithfulness will be found in the stewardship of words, in the pattern of sound words revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and in the teaching that accords with godliness. There can be no lasting fidelity without confessional integrity.

The ultimate purpose of confessional integrity is indeed doxological — to make certain that we rightly worship and love God. The confession guards the sound words of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and is thus essential to missions and evangelism.

As Fanny Crosby taught us to sing: “Tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word; tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.

In the end, theological education is all about the stewardship of words. So it was when Paul commissioned Timothy. So is it now.

“Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” [2 Timothy 1:13-14]

May those words serve as the Magna Carta of theological education, May the church faithfully teach, even as it is faithfully taught, until Jesus comes. Amen.

This is the heart of my message, “Theological Education, Midwestern Seminary, and Confessional Integrity,” delivered today at the inauguration of Dr. Jason K. Allen as President of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Sources:

Russell Reno, “At the Crossroads of Dogma,” in Reclaiming the Faith, edited by Ephriam Radner and George R. Sumner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), page 105.

Beyond Kirk and Madsen and their public relations strategy, an even more effective legal strategy was developed along the same lines. Legal theorists and litigators began to argue that homosexuals were a class of citizens denied basic civil liberties, and that the courts should declare them to be a protected class, using civil rights precedents to force a moral and legal revolution.

That revolution has happened, and it has been stunningly successful. The advocates for the normalization of homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage have used legal arguments developed from the civil rights era to their advantage. Arguments used to end the scourge of racial segregation were deployed to normalize homosexuality and homosexual relationships. Over the years, these arguments have led to such major developments as the decriminalization of homosexual behaviors, the inclusion of homosexuals within the United States military, and the legalization of same-sex marriage in some states.

When Rights are Right

What should Christians think about this? We do believe in civil rights. Taken at face value, civil rights are those rights that a person should be recognized to possess simply because he or she is a citizen. Christians should welcome the recognition of civil rights, understanding that the very notion of such rights is based on a Christian worldview and the affirmation that every human being is made in God’s image, and therefore possesses dignity and certain essential rights. In the language of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Even as secularists do their best to establish some grounding for civil rights without reference to God, the founding language of our nation—in agreement with biblical principles—clearly affirms that these liberties are given to all people by the Creator.

Beyond this fact, we must be thankful that an expanding understanding of civil rights has led our nation to address wrongs and to make moral progress in ending wrongful discrimination. The civil rights movement of the late twentieth century saw America come face to face with the reality that, as a nation, we were not living up to our own commitment to those rights.

The key question we now face is this: Does recognition of civil rights for all people require the normalization of homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage?

That is precisely what gay rights proponents have been claiming for the past thirty years, and their arguments have gained much ground. In 2003 the Supreme Court struck down criminal laws against homosexual behavior in the decision known as Lawrence v. Texas. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that the Constitution does not allow for the criminalization of homosexual acts, since such laws would deny a specific class of persons their basic civil rights. A series of similar court decisions has followed, with several courts ruling that outlawing same-sex marriage is a similar denial of a civil right.

At this point Christians have to think very carefully. We do not want to deny anyone his or her civil rights. To do so would not only violate the Constitution but also deny the rights that are granted, not by the government, but by the Creator. But is same-sex marriage such a right? The answer to that question must be no.

Marriage laws always discriminate. Current laws discriminate on the basis of age, marital status, and gender, as well as a host of other issues. The law itself necessarily discriminates. For instance, married people pay fewer taxes and women enjoy maternity leave. The question is whether such discrimination is right or wrong.

Discrimination on the basis of an unchangeable characteristic such as skin color would be wrong. But Christians cannot accept the argument that homosexuality is an immutable characteristic. While recognizing the complexity of issues related to sexual orientation, we cannot define a behavior as an intrinsic characteristic. On that basis, why not grant theft or other sinful behavior the same civil rights protection?

Furthermore, we recognize that marriage, like human rights, exists prior to the law. Christians understand that marriage was instituted by the Creator, who designed marriage and the family as the foundational social unit of human society. Marriage unites a man and a woman in a holy covenant that should last as long as they both live.

From the very beginning, marriage was designed as the union of one man and one woman. Every human society has recognized this meaning of marriage, and all successful civil societies have honored, protected, and defended heterosexual marriage as the union that should govern human sexuality, reproduction, intimacy, and rearing of children.

Those pushing for the legalization of same-sex marriage have been tremendously successful in convincing many people—and several courts—of their argument that same-sex marriage is a civil right. But this is a confusion of categories that Christians cannot accept.

The argument for the legalization of same-sex marriage fails in terms of any constitutional logic that our nation’s founders would have conceived. Beyond this, faithful Christians cannot accept such arguments because an even greater authority—the authority of the Bible as the Word of God—binds us.

The Bible is clear in terms of its teachings on both sexuality and marriage. As Jesus Christ declared, God intended marriage as the union of one man and one woman “from the beginning” (Matthew 19:4–6). The legalization of same-sex marriage would confuse and greatly weaken the single institution that is most central to human society and most essential to human flourishing.

Christians responding to demands for the legalization of same-sex marriage cannot accept the argument that the right to marry a person of the same gender is a civil right.

We are living in an era of moral revolution and seismic cultural change. Christians must remember that our ultimate authority is the Word of God. We are thankful for the recognition of civil rights, but we also understand that these rights will be confused in a sinful world. We must understand that the claim that same-sex marriage is a civil right reveals more than constitutional confusion—it reveals the need of every human being for nothing less than the forgiveness, healing, and redemption that can come only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

At the end of the day, the argument over same-sex marriage is never just about same-sex marriage, and debates about civil rights are never just about civil rights. Deeper truths and worldview implications are always at stake, and it is our responsibility to make certain that we know what those are and stand humbly and compassionately for those truths, regardless of the cost.

This article originally appeared in the April-June issue of Answers, published by Answers in Genesis. View here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v8/n2/gay-marriage-civil-rights

Jesus once told of a wealthy man who went on a long journey. Before the man left, he entrusted his wealth to three servants. To one he gave five units, to another just two units, and to the last he gave only one. Each received “according to his ability,” Jesus said. The servant with the five units invested them and made five more. The one entrusted with two units also traded with them, and made two more. The servant who had received only one unit dug a hole in the ground and hid it, keeping it safe, he thought.

When the rich man returned, he demanded an accounting. The servant who had received five units but turned in ten was richly praised and rewarded. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” said the master. “You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much.” The servant who had doubled two units to four received the same commendation.

The last servant, who hid his master’s wealth in the ground, returned what he had been given; nothing lost, but nothing gained. The master rebuked him harshly, calling him wicked and taking his stewardship away. Then Jesus set down this principle: “For to everyone who has more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” [Matthew 25: 14-30]

Stewards are entrusted with great responsibility. Those who lead are entrusted with a stewardship that comes ultimately from God and will be judged by him alone in the end. We are given a job to do and significant authority as a trust. We will shipwreck our leadership for certain if we do not remember that we are stewards, not lords, of all that we hold by trust.

Stewards of What, Exactly?

Convictional leaders are called to fulfill a stewardship of breathtaking proportions. The knowledge that our calling is stewardship is both liberating and limiting. We are liberated to lead, but we are limited in our reach. When you think about it, everything we do is bracketed between those two polarities, liberation and limitation.

But, of what, precisely, are we stewards? In the first sense, we are assigned a stewardship defined by our calling and responsibility. We serve in defined roles and have job descriptions. At the very least, those realities help us to define our stewardship.

Still, there are several aspects of leadership as stewardship that demand a closer look. The leader is almost always steward of more than any job description can cover.

We are the stewards of human lives and their welfare. We have been assigned a task that will affect the lives of those we lead, and of untold numbers of others as well. Leaders are entrusted with those God made in his own image – fellow image bearers whose lives are precious to God and to those who love and depend on them.

We are the stewards of time and opportunity. Few aspects of stewardship can compete with these. Leaders set the pace and determine which opportunities are taken and which are lost. Leaders have to be concerned not only with what their organization is doing, but what it ought to be doing. There are not many typewriter firms in business today. Missing an opportunity can spell disaster, and often does.

We are the stewards of assets and resources. The financial health and wealth of your organization may not be the most important measurements of your leadership, but they are hardly irrelevant. The faithful leader knows that organizational assets are to be deployed in the service of the organization and its mission, and are to be invested and managed so that the wealth of the organization grows. This is not because we lead with the ultimate goal of financial growth, but because financial growth is needed if the organization is to fulfill its mission and extend its reach.

We are the stewards of energy and attention. Leaders radiate energy and draw attention, or they cannot lead. Simultaneously, leaders bear the stewardship of energy, determining where and when the organization and its people should, and should not, invest energy. Attention is also a limited resource, as leaders learn fast and painfully. Effective leaders develop the stewardship of organizational attention and spend it wisely.

We are the stewards of reputation and legacy. Just about everyone seems obsessed with branding these days, and brand consciousness is driven deeply into our entire culture. There is good reason for much of this obsession – we live and lead on the strength of our reputations. Organizations rise or fall on the strength of reputation. Leaders bear the stewardship of protecting and enhancing reputation and legacy, but those concerns loom far larger than mere branding. A product might be rebranded, but an injury to the reputation of a leader or an organization is rarely fixed by rebranding. Faithful leaders know that our legacy rides on our reputation and the reputation of those we lead.

We are the stewards of truth and teaching. This is the essence of convictional leadership. Leaders are entrusted with truth, with deep beliefs and framing convictions. Those convictions must be taught and retaught, affirmed and reaffirmed, protected and cherished. Otherwise, everything we believe can be lost into confusion, corruption, and worse.  As the stewards of truth and teaching, we hold a sacred accountability to perpetuate the very convictions that give life meaning, secure our hope, and summon us and those we lead to concerted action.

It is Required of Stewards that they be Found Faithful

Leadership is a trust, and we will answer to God for that trust. There will be many standards and structures of necessary accountability along the way, and leaders answer to an array of judges ranging from shareholders and stakeholders to the press and public opinion. In the end, all that really matters is the verdict we will receive from the one who invested us with this trust.

The requirement of stewards is that they be found faithful. That’s why leadership is only for the brave.

Born October 13, 1925 in the village of Grantham, Margaret Roberts was soon recognized as an unusually bright and forceful child. Her father, Alfred, was a grocer who had high hopes for his children. The Roberts household was a place of firm discipline, Christian nurture, and intellectual activity. After graduating from Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School, Margaret Roberts entered Oxford University, where she earned a degree in chemistry and became the first woman to serve as President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. Shortly thereafter, she married Denis Thatcher, an executive in the chemical industry. Together, they were to have two children, Mark and Carol. After over a half century of marriage, Denis Thatcher died in 2003.

Margaret Thatcher’s role as President of the Oxford University Conservative Association indicated two factors that would play a large part in the future of Great Britain. First, her political philosophy and worldview were solidly grounded in the conservative tradition. Her leadership in Britain would be considered revolutionary only because that nation had strayed so far from any conservative philosophy of government and economics. Second, Margaret Thatcher’s leadership at Oxford was indicative of her leadership ability as it would be later recognized by her political peers.

First elected as a member of parliament in 1959, Mrs. Thatcher was soon recognized for her articulate voice and clarity of thought. When Edward Heath led the Conservative Party to victory in 1970, he appointed Margaret Thatcher as Secretary of State for Education. During her time in that role, Mrs. Thatcher faced significant fiscal and philosophical challenges. Nevertheless, after the Tory loss in 1974, Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party. As the nation’s shadow Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher led her party to focus on ideas. In their years as the opposition party, the Conservatives, led by Mrs. Thatcher and a small band of like-minded thinkers, developed a comprehensive proposal for what they would do to solve Britain’s disastrous economic and political problems.

On May 4, 1979, Mrs. Thatcher led the Conservative Party to electoral victory and became Britain’s first woman Prime Minister. The election took place in the context of a depressed economy and Margaret Thatcher’s firm ideas–though not fully embraced by the electorate–stood in stark contrast to the Labour Party’s confusion and captivity to labor unions and the welfare state.

Once in office, Prime Minister Thatcher moved swiftly, confronting Britain’s disastrous monetary policy and skyrocketing interest rates.

One thing was clear -– Margaret Thatcher brought an entirely new focus on individual responsibility to her nation. She was convinced that Britain’s dismal economic condition and lethargic business culture had been caused by the nation’s commitment to a comprehensive welfare state. She understood what others had missed — a failure to assume individual responsibility would lead to catastrophic economic stagnation and the breakdown of social structures.

Nevertheless, her early years as Prime Minister were filled with controversy and tumult. Even as her policies transformed the nation’s economic condition, she was attacked as cruel, cold, and politically calculating.

All that changed when, in April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. The islands were British territory and had been for well over a century. Outraged by the invasion, Prime Minister Thatcher sought to bring diplomatic pressure on Argentina in order to force a removal of its troops. When this was ultimately unsuccessful, Britain’s Prime Minister responded with a demonstration of military force unlike anything the nation had experienced since World War II. Britain’s armed might, led by the Royal Navy, forced the Argentinians to surrender, and Britain reclaimed her islands.

Largely forgotten now is the fact that this military action was hardly an assured success. Britain had not faced a significant and direct military challenge in decades, and the government put itself at risk by launching such a massive effort to reclaim the islands. Nevertheless, when Britain achieved a clear victory in the war, Margaret Thatcher emerged as Britain’s “Iron Lady.” Britons -– even those opposed to her domestic policies -– admired their Prime Minister for her leadership in restoring Britain’s prestige and honor among nations. Shortly after the war, Mrs. Thatcher led her party to a landslide victory. In her first successful election, Mrs. Thatcher had held a parliamentary majority of only 44 seats. In her second election, she expanded that margin to a majority of 144–a hallmark in British political history.

Mrs. Thatcher’s courage was tested again in 1984, when an assassination attempt nearly took her life. Just a few years before, Mrs. Thatcher had refused to meet the demands of Irish terrorists. In retaliation, a bomb was planted in the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where the Conservative Party conference was held. Though Mrs. Thatcher barely survived, five of her government colleagues were killed. In the end, she had escaped death by a matter of feet.

Soon after leading the Conservative Party to an unprecedented third consecutive electoral victory, Mrs. Thatcher ran into trouble within her own party. Some of the Conservatives, concerned that they might lose their seats in the 1991 general election, demanded that the Prime Minister compromise on key domestic policies. When she refused, Geoffrey Howe, her leader in the Commons, resigned in protest. Shortly thereafter, Michael Haseltine, a former cabinet minister, challenged Mrs. Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party. Though she was sustained in the first round of voting, she resigned on November 22, 1990.

In her years after Downing Street, Mrs. Thatcher continued and extended her influence and legacy. She was made a Baroness in 1992 and became a member of the House of Lords. Yet, her influence was most effectively extended through her vigorous writings and best-selling books. Her two-volume autobiography, published as The Path to Power and The Downing Street Years, establish her as both author and public intellectual. After suffering a series of strokes, Lady Thatcher retired from much of public life. Nevertheless, she continued her influence through courageous acts of public service and representation, including her moving participation in the funeral for President Ronald Reagan.

Her presence at that event was both significant and fitting, for Margaret Thatcher had forged a close and powerful working relationship with Ronald Reagan. They shared the same basic worldview and both were well described as “conviction politicians.” The fall of the Soviet Union and the economic revolutions of the 1980s were made possible through their leadership, boldness, and determination.

By any measure, Margaret Thatcher leaves a legacy of leadership that transformed, not only her nation, but much of the world. As Sir Rhodes Boyson, one of her fellow architects of the “Thatcherite Revolution,” explained: “When she became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, Britain was on the brink of disaster, threatened by total collapse. The weak Labour government with a small majority presided over a bankrupt economy in hock to the IMF and threatened from within by a challenge to law and order itself. When she was forced from power in 1990, she left a sound economy and a confident and well-ordered society. The lessons are writ large.”

When critics called for her to reverse course in economic policy, Margaret Thatcher famously retorted: “The Lady’s not for turning.” She acted out of conviction, not political calculation.

Baroness Thatcher once described her understanding of how the Christian faith should influence political philosophy and public policy. Speaking to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May of 1988, Mrs. Thatcher argued that Christians “must not profess the Christian faith and go to church simply because we want social reforms and benefits for a better standard of behaviour; but because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ.”

In explaining how the Christian faith should impact politics, she suggested that the Bible does not tell us “exactly what kind of political and social institutions we should have.” As she explained, “On this point, Christians will very often genuinely disagree; though it is a mark of Christian manners that they will do so with courtesy and mutual respect. What is certain, however, is that any set of social and economic arrangements which is not founded on the acceptance of individual responsibility will do nothing but harm.”

In her address, she affirmed “the basic ties of the family, which are at the heart of our society and are the very nursery of civic virtue.” She insisted that the government must respect the family and build its policies on a foundation of family rights and family responsibilities.

“We must recognize that modern society is infinitely more complex than that of Biblical time, and of course new occasions teach new duties.” She was right, of course, and her mature and thoughtful reflections on Christian responsibility should call out the very best of our own thinking and reflection in these times.

At the very least, on the twenty-sixth anniversary of her rise to serve as Britain’s Prime Minister, we should pause to reflect on Margaret Thatcher’s legacy of leadership and the lessons that simply must not be missed. Standing at the center of her leadership and her legacy is the belief that the integrity of leadership is inevitably tied to the character of the leader and to the power of the leader’s ideas. This is how she lived, and this is how she led -–and this is why we all stand in her debt.

This essay is based on a commentary I originally wrote in 2005 to commemorate the 26th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power as Britain’s Prime Minister. Two portraits of Margaret Thatcher are displayed in my library. One is a photograph of Baroness Thatcher with President Ronald Reagan. The other is of Baroness Thatcher with me, when Mary and I had the honor of a private conversation with Mrs. Thatcher in 1996.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Christian leaders are called to convictional leadership, and that means leadership that is defined by beliefs that are transformed into corporate action. The central role of belief is what must define any truly Christian understanding of leadership. This means that leadership is always a theological enterprise, in the sense that our most important beliefs and convictions are about God. Our most fundamental beliefs about God determine everything else of importance about us. If our beliefs about God are not true, everything we know and everything we are will be warped and contorted by that false knowledge – and this fact points to a huge problem.

The culture around us has its own concept of God, and it has little to do with the God of the Bible. Out in the fog of modern culture, God has been transformed into a concept, a therapist, a benign and indulgent patriarch, and a user-friendly deity. As theologian David F. Wells states so powerfully, “We have turned to a God that we can use rather than a God we must obey; we have turned to a God who will fulfill our needs rather than to a God before whom we must surrender our rights to ourselves. He is a God for us, for our satisfaction, and we have come to assume that it must be so in the church as well. And so we transform the God of mercy into a God who is at our mercy. We imagine that he is benign, that he will acquiesce as we toy with his reality and co-opt him in the promotion of our ventures and careers.”

In the aftermath of this crisis in the knowledge of God, many essential truths are eclipsed or lost entirely, and one of those truths is the principle of stewardship.

The Sovereignty of God and the Stewardship of Leaders

Out in the secular world, the horizon of leadership is often no more distant than the next quarterly report or board meeting. For the Christian leader, the horizon and frame of reference for leadership is infinitely greater. We know that our leadership is set within the context of eternity. What we do matters now, of course, but what we do matters for eternity, precisely because we serve an eternal God and we lead those human beings for whom he has an eternal purpose.

But the most important reality that frames our understanding of leadership is nothing less than the sovereignty of God. Human beings may claim to be sovereign, but no earthly leader is anything close to being truly sovereign. In Daniel chapter 4, we learn of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, one of the most powerful monarchs in human history. God judges Nebuchadnezzar for his arrogance and pride, and he takes Nebuchadnezzar’s kingly sovereignty away from him. Later, after his humbling lesson, God restored Nebuchadnezzar to his greatness. Now, if your sovereignty can be taken away from you, you are not sovereign. Nebuchadnezzer spoke of the lesson he had learned about who really was sovereign, and he testified of God’s true sovereignty, stating that “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.” [Daniel 4:34]

Like Nebuchadnezzar, today’s Christian leaders know that God is sovereign, and we are not. But, what does it really mean to affirm God’s sovereignty as Christian leaders?

It means that God rules over all space and time and history. It means that God created the world for his glory and directs the cosmos to his purpose. It means that no one can truly thwart his plans or frustrate his determination. It means that we are secure in the knowledge that God’s sovereign purpose to redeem a people through the atonement accomplished by his Son will be fully realized. And it also means that human leaders, no matter their title, rank, or job description, are not really in charge.

The bottom line is this – we are merely stewards, not lords, of all that is put into our trust. The sovereignty of God puts us in our place, and that place is in God’s service.

The Steward: The Real Meaning of Servant Leadership

The biblical concept of a steward is amazingly simple and easy to understand. The steward is one who manages and leads what is not his own, and he leads knowing that he will give an account to the Lord as the owner and ruler of all.

Stewards are entrusted with responsibility. Indeed, stewards in the Bible are shown to have both great authority and great responsibility. Kings had stewards who administered their kingdoms – just think of Joseph as Pharaoh’s steward in Egypt. Rich citizens hired stewards to serve as what amounted to Chief Executive Officers of their enterprises – just think of the parable Jesus told about the wicked steward in Luke 16:1-8.

Paul describes ministers as “stewards of the mysteries of God” [1 Corinthians 4:1] and Peter spoke of all Christians as “good stewards of God’s varied grace.” [1 Peter 4:10] Clearly, this is a concept that is central to both Christian discipleship and Christian leadership. Christian leaders are invested with a stewardship of influence, authority, and trust we are called to fulfill. In one sense, this underlines just how much God entrusts to his human creatures, fallible and frail as we are. We are called to exercise dominion over creation, but not as ones who own what we are called to lead. Our assignment is to serve on behalf of another.

Just think of the leadership failures and crises that regularly populate the headlines. Many, if not most of those failures originated in the leader’s arrogance or overreaching. Stewards cannot afford to be arrogant, and they must quickly learn the danger of overreaching. At the same time, stewards are charged to act, and not to stand by as passive observers. Leaders are to lead, but to lead knowing that we are leading on another’s behalf. Leaders – no matter their title or magnitude – are servants, plain and simple.

This essay is an excerpt from my recent book, The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters. It is available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and your local bookseller. Part Two will follow on Wednesday, April 10, 2013.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Bruni may well be right, given the trajectory and the trend-line he has described. Of course, Bruni, along with his fellow columnists, editors, and reporters for The New York Times will, along with their friends in the larger world of elite media, bear much of the responsibility for this. They are certain that their work is the mission of human liberation from irrational prejudice.

In the most important section of Bruni’s column, he writes: “In an astonishingly brief period of time, this country has experienced a seismic shift in opinion — a profound social and political revolution — when it comes to gay and lesbian people.”

That is a powerful summary of what has happened. Bruni is undoubtedly right, and he has helped to make it so. But there is something missing from Bruni’s analysis, and this is something that he has helped to cause as well. The “seismic shift” on the issue of homosexuality is a profound moral revolution as well.

And yet, what makes this moral revolution so vast in consequences and importance is this: the moral dimension has virtually disappeared from the cultural conversation. This is true, we must note, even among the defenders of heterosexual marriage.

This is not to say that those who now defend the natural and venerable definition of marriage deny the existence of a moral argument, nor to imply that they are anything less than fully in agreement with the historic and scriptural assessment of the Christian church that homosexual acts and relationships are sinful. We must, however, note that the current intellectual environment has forced them to leave the moral issue behind — far behind.

Eric Teetsel, executive director of the Manhattan Declaration, also contributed a column just as the Supreme Court was to hear the same-sex marriage cases last week. Teetsel wrote in defense of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, arguing that society has an interest in defending the historic definition of the marital union as “the first institution of society” and “the society that creates and nurtures the next generation.”

But Teetsel’s column, published in USA Today, also included this statement: “This understanding requires no judgment about the morality of homosexuality.” He went on to argue that many non-marital relationships, including same-sex romantic couples, “are worthy of rights and relationships,” but the state’s interest in marriage is its ability to create and nurture children. But, he insists, this concern “requires no judgment about the morality of homosexuality.”

The same approach is reflected in the very best book defending natural marriage from a natural law perspective. What is Marriage? by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George is a brilliant defense of marriage and a tour de force in terms of intellectual argument. The book is actually an extension of an important article by the three authors that originally appeared in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

In the book, the authors begin with this declaration: “What we have come to call the gay marriage debate is not directly about homosexuality, but about marriage.” That is a truly interesting statement, but it actually points to what these three authors want the argument to be about, not to what the larger culture thinks the argument is about.

Later, the authors make this statement about their argument in defense of marriage. “First, it is not in the end about homosexuality. We do not address the morality of homosexual acts or their heterosexual counterparts. We will show that one can defend the conjugal view of marriage while bracketing this moral question and that the conjugal view can be wholeheartedly embraced without denigrating same-sex attracted people, or ignoring their needs, or assuming that their desires should change.”

The brilliance of this book lies in its careful distinction between two rival views of marriage — the conjugal view, which defines marriage as “a bodily as well as an emotional and spiritual bond” which sustains the world through the creation and nurture of children, and the revisionist view, which defines marriage as “a loving emotional bond, one distinguished by its intensity, with no reference to a duty beyond its partners. The conjugal view, based in the function of the family and the nurture of children, points to lifelong fidelity. The revisionist view points to a relationship based on emotional intensity in which the partners remain “as long as they find it.”

This argument is vitally important, even essential, to any conversation about marriage in our modern context, for it points far beyond the issue of same-sex marriage to the prior assaults on conjugal marriage brought by no-fault divorce and the replacement of personal responsibility with mere personal autonomy. Sadly, the revisionist view of marriage is embraced by millions of heterosexual couples, married and unmarried, but it is essential to the very idea of same-sex marriage.

The argument offered by Girgis, Anderson, and George will stand the test of time. It is the very best public argument yet presented from the defenders of marriage. And yet it brackets the question of the morality of homosexuality. The authors are not making a moral argument, presumably dependent upon a religious authority, but a natural law argument accessible to all by common reason.

And yet, their argument is not well received by the proponents of same-sex marriage and it remains to be seen if their argument will gain any traction in the larger culture. In any event, it is an argument stripped of explicit moral concern.

During the oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the attorneys defending Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] followed the same lines of argument, strictly avoiding any reference to a moral judgment against homosexuality or homosexual unions.

Why are these authors and attorneys so careful to excise the moral argument? They believe that it is necessary before the Supreme Court, and before the court of public opinion.

The Court’s oral arguments on the DOMA case made the risks of moral argument clear. Justice Elena Kagan, pressing Attorney Paul Clement, the lawyer defending DOMA, asked him if Congress had made a moral judgment in adopting the Defense of Marriage Act. She then read from a House of Representatives report, issued in advance of the vote on DOMA, in which a clear moral argument was made. That report included these sentences:

“Civil laws that permit only heterosexual marriage reflect and honor a collective moral judgment about human sexuality. This judgment entails both moral disapproval of homosexuality, [and] moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.”

Keep in mind that both houses of Congress then approved the law by massive votes, and that the Act was then signed into law by President Bill Clinton. All parties knew, and publicly affirmed, that they were making a moral judgment.

But all that is now part of the problem, legally speaking. In his decision striking down California’s Proposition 8, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker argued: “The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples.” Judge Walker dismissed all moral judgment against homosexual conduct as a matter of merely private moral opinion, presumably drawn from religious sources.

Back in 2003, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the landmark case, Lawrence v. Texas, that struck down all laws criminalizing homosexual acts. Kennedy argued that moral opposition to homosexuality was not a rational basis for the establishment of a law.

In response, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that Kennedy had just eliminated any legal barrier to same-sex marriage. “If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is ‘no legitimate state interest’ for purposes of proscribing that conduct … what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising ‘the liberty protected by the Constitution?’”

Those words are now seen as deeply prophetic. The removal of moral disapproval from this legal context set the stage for the inevitable controversy we are now experiencing — and for the removal of morality from the public conversation. If anything, the court of public opinion, driven by those who control the media, entertainment, and the public conversation, is far ahead of the law courts in this respect.

But consider the implications of this bracketing of moral argument. What, other than morality, sustains any laws restricting human sexual behavior?

The legislative debate over the prohibition of polygamy after the Civil War was explicitly moral. Sociological analysis did not drive that movement, morality did. What about all the other laws that restrict sexual acts? Are they also to be cast down by this logic?

Moral judgment under girds the entire structure of laws and is necessary for the rational structure of any significant statute. The idea that our laws can stand independent of moral foundation is senseless. We do not think that driving under the influence of alcohol is simply risky, in terms of statistics. We believe that it is wrong, in terms of explicit moral judgment.

The point here is not to criticize those who, working within the confines of public reason and prevailing constrictions, do their best — and often brilliantly so — to defend marriage without moral judgment.

But we should note this change in the rules of public debate with more than a passing interest; for the implications of this moral revolution are more vast than anyone can yet foresee. At stake is not only the ability to express moral judgment about homosexuality, but about any sexual behavior. Further, this logic cannot be restricted to public debates about sexuality. This revolution goes far beyond marriage and sex.

Subjected to public ridicule on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight,” Ryan T. Anderson did his best to argue the case for marriage, avoiding moral judgment on homosexuality. He was unconscionably mistreated and marginalized. In the course of the show Piers Morgan told Anderson, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, that he was in danger of being found on the wrong side of history. Anderson retorted: “There is no wrong side of history apart from what the truth is.”

That statement is profoundly true, and it is profoundly moral. Without moral judgment there is no truth, and without truth there is no moral judgment. And there is no wrong side of history, apart from what the truth is.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler

Frank Bruni, “Marriage and the Supremes,” The New York Times, Sunday, March 24, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/bruni-marriage-and-the-supremes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Eric Teetsel, “Affirm Marriage’s Historic Meaning,” USA Today, Tuesday, March 26, 2013.

Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, Robert P. George, What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense (New York: Encounter Books, 2012. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594036225?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1594036225&linkCode=xm2&tag=fidelitas-20

The Apostle Paul affirms this priority when he writes to the Christians in Corinth. In the opening verses of1 Corinthians 15, Paul sets out his case:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Paul points directly to the events of the cross and resurrection of Christ. He is not concerned with just any gospel, but with the only gospel that saves. This is “the gospel I preached to you,” Paul reminds the Corinthians. The same Paul who so forcefully warned the Galatians against accepting any false gospel reminds the church at Corinth that the very “gospel I preached to you” is the gospel “by which you are being saved.” Their stewardship of the gospel is underlined in Paul’s words, “if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.”

Paul’s statement of priority is a vital corrective for our confused times. Without hesitation, Paul writes with urgency about the truths that are “as of first importance.” All revealed truth is vital, invaluable, life-changing truth to which every disciple of Christ is fully accountable. But certain truths are of highest importance, and that is the language Paul uses without qualification.

And what is of first importance? “That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,” and “that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” The cross and the empty tomb stand at the center of the Christian faith. Without these, there is no good news — no salvation.

Paul gets right to the heart of the matter in setting out those truths that are “of first importance.” Following his example, we can do no less. These twin truths remain “as of first importance,” and no sermon is complete without the explicit affirmation of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So it was then, so it is now, and so it ever shall be until Christ claims his church.

As Paul reminded the Corinthians — and now instructs us — the gospel is at the center of our faith, and the cross and the empty tomb are at the center of the gospel. “So we preach, and so you believed,” Paul encourages us. [1 Cor. 15:11]

May the power of the cross and the victory of the empty tomb fill every pulpit, every pew, and every Christian heart — and may the Good News of the gospel be received with joy by sinners in need of a Savior.

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. [1 Corinthians 15:56-58]