Mattera On Christ & Culture (Part 1)

 At the Christian Post, Joseph Mattera writes.. 

Revolutionaries have consistently redefined reality and classifications to control the narrative and advance their agendas.”  One cannot help but notice that his list begins with the French, not the American, Revolution.  He has no problem with revolutionarism - just with revolutionarism that disagrees with him.  

After name checking the French, Leninist, & Nazi Revolutions - inferring that those with whom he disagrees ought to be identified with the revolutionaries in Europe (but not the US), he presents his list.   Keep in mind that Mr. Mattera has served as a presiding bishop in the Christ Covenant Coalition & is a leader in the US Coalition of Apostolic Leaders.  We should ask ourselves, “How is this sort of thinking represents sound Christian Apologetics?

I personally find it distressing that what he writes is regularly published as if the folks running Southern Evangelical Divinity School in Charlotte are teaching this sort of thing there.  Is this teaching congruent with the Bible correctly exegeted, exposited, understood, & applied? 

According to Mr. Mattera, modern day revolutionaries are doing the following: 

The inverted covenant with the earth: The rainbow, a sacred biblical symbol of God’s covenant with the earth, has been inverted by the LGBT+ community to illustrate their attempt to influence the whole earth as part of “Woke” ideology to reframe the foundational covenantal structure of the earth (Genesis 9:13). 

The rainbow also symbolizes unity & diversity within the terms of the covenant itself.  How so? The terms of the covenant are with all living beings not just with a subset of them.

The text repeats those terms five times - yet somehow the only takeaway people seem to get is that it symbolizes God’s promise not to destroy us all by watery means.

2. Binary gender to gender fluidity: Traditional, biblically-defined gender roles are being replaced with fluid concepts of gender. Genesis 1:27 indicates God designed the human race with the construct of binary gender to represent His image. Entities like Facebook have recognized an extensive list of gender options to accommodate the diverse ways people identify. The most recent updates show that Facebook provides over 70 different gender options.

Appealing to Genesis informs us that God originally created non-angelic human beings & grouped them into two root categories, by sex, male & female. 

Mattera is conflating sex & gender with no supporting argument, and he is using a statement about God’s decretal will as a template for God’s moral will, which commits a Category Mistake/Error. 

In addition, he is using the human body itself as an epistemic warrant for ethics relative to sex & gender.  That contravenes Romans 1:18 - 28, which clearly teaches that neither the human nor animalian image & authority are the epistemic warrant for ethics - God’s image & authority constitutes the only non-arbitrary epistemic warrant for faith & practice/ human ethics. 

The redefinition of marriage

In the beginning, God united one man and one woman in holy matrimony, a union reaffirmed by the Lord Jesus and upheld by Western civilization following the advent of Christianity (Genesis 2:21-24, Matthew 19:4-6). This divine design of marriage has been foundational to societal stability and moral order.

However, woke ideology has progressively sought to challenge and redefine this sacred institution, culminating in the progressive-leaning Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, which constitutionally codified same-sex marriage as the law of the land in the United States.

According to Genesis, God did not command us to marry.  He commanded us to be fruitful & multiply, which are not the same thing, & while it’s true that Genesis provides us with part of the rationale for marriage, it doesn’t supply us with all of the rationale.   Moreover, there is no command to ensure that marriage is a heterosexual institution to the exclusion of homosexual marriage. 

If marriage is a heterosexual institution, then it follows that a homosexual couple is in sin regardless of their moral motives, which contravenes the manner in which God says He condemns & commends us in  I Samuel 16:7, Jeremiah 17:9 -10, & Matthew 5:21 - 22, 28.   God judges us according to our motives, not regardless of our motives. 

Taken to its logical conclusion, Mr. Mattera’s position conduces to a species of Situational Ethics in which he, unlike God, judges whether or not the couple is in sin based on their sex/gender identity — not the caliber of their love for God & neighbor.  

The Bible teaches that sin is fundamentally a failure to love God fully & completely & one’s neighbor before oneself (Matthew 22:37 - 39), and all of God’s moral will is summarized thusly.  Perfect love fulfills the Law (Romans 13:8-10), & drives out fear in the Judgment (1 John 4:17 - 18).   In short, God judges us sinners by way of His evaluation of our internal volitional mechanism/mechanics — not by way of the mere sex/gender of our romantic partners.  

Saying otherwise would mean that a valid marriage certificate is all that is required to avoid a charge of sexual immorality.  That’s works righteousness.  All we need to do is complete the checklist of items that have nothing to do with our internal motives.   

He is also using Matthew 19 as if it teaches that marriage is a heterosexual union only — but it’s presented as an answer to a question about divorce, not whether marriage is reserved for heterosexuals.   Moreover, he uses it for its appeal to Genesis while ignoring its appeal to Deuteronomy. 

The Bible demonstrates sound reasoning processes for us to follow.  Instead of committing a Category Error / Mistake & the Is-Ought Fallacy by using God’s decretal will as a template for His moral will & then deducing a moral principle from the Created Order itself, the author of Matthew shows us that Yeshua descriptively appealed to God’s decretal will & then prescriptively coupled that appeal with His own moral teaching, which He was mostly likely drawing from Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, & Malachi & other passages on divorce & covenantal unfaithfulness.  

God bless us all, each & every one. Go & sin no more.