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It's Saturday, June 17, 2023.

Today’s edition covers Catholic battles over transgender surgeries, highlights from the SBC annual meeting, the Levitical implications of Jesus healing the leper, and more.

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Of Christian Concern

TRANS SURGERIES: A CATHOLIC HEALTHCARE PROVIDER PERFORMS THEM, U.S. BISHOPS MOVE TO BAN THEM

The largest Catholic healthcare provider in the United States, CommonSpirit Health, provides sex-change surgeries, the Lepanto Institute revealed in a report this week. In fact, the healthcare provider openly supports the LGBTQ+ movement. In light of their findings, the Lepanto Institute says they are “calling upon the bishops of the United States to revoke the Catholic identity of CommonSpirit Health and all of the ‘Catholic’ hospitals identified in this report.”

On Friday, U.S. bishops voted to begin a process to formally ban transgender surgeries from Catholic hospitals. At their spring meeting in Orlando, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to revise the Ethical and Religious Directives that regulate Catholic hospitals and healthcare providers, by incorporating guidance from a document released by their doctrine committee in March.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SBC ANNUAL MEETING

The largest Protestant denomination in the United States, The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), had its Annual Meeting this week, with a number of significant developments.

• The platform denied a motion to suspend normal resolution submission rules, which would have allowed the admission of a resolution on the abolition of abortion.

• The gathered representatives from local churches (called messengers) voted to disfellowship Saddleback Church and two other churches for having women pastors. The decision came after brief arguments for and against.

• President Bart Barber was re-elected for a second term.

• Institutional leaders responded to questions about abortion abolitionism.

• A constitutional amendment to include a permanent ban on women pastors passed. That amendment, proposed by Pastor Mike Law, must be approved again next year to proceed.

• Messengers voted down a motion to require more financial disclosure from SBC entities.

• The Convention’s abuse reform task force unveiled a website on Wednesday that tracks abusive pastors, and the messengers voted for the task force to continue its work.

• Todd Unzicker delivered a fiery message, which has been praised by some and panned as sinfully divisive by others.

Also Noteworthy

→ UM News compiled data reporting that 5321 congregations have disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church amidst their schism over homosexuality in the last two years.

→ Worship Leader Research reports that almost 100% (37 out of 38) of the worship songs listed on the CCLI and PraiseCharts Top 25 list were “co-written or popularized” by only five megachurches.

→ A new study points to absent fathers and collapsed marriages as the cause for Christianity’s decline in the U.S.: “family decline appears to fuel faith decline.”

→ The Human Rights Campaign, an influential LGBTQ+ group, labels several Christian and conservative groups as the enemy in their recent report that declared a “State of Emergency” for LGBTQ+ people. | Similarly, Southern Poverty Law Center, another influential leftwing group, recently included Moms For Liberty on a hate group list, drawing criticism.

→ Girls Scouts now offers a patch for attending LGBTQ+ events and participating in LGBTQ+ activism.

→ A new Duke University study finds that a significant number of those who identify as LGBTQ+ revert to heterosexual within a few years.

→ Maine has advanced a bill that would allow abortions up to birth. | Ohio abortion supporters are seeking to enshrine abortion in the state constitution, but Ohio Supreme Court ruled Friday in favor of allowing a ballot measure in August that could make that more difficult.

→ Pastor Rich Penkoski, founder of Warriors for Christ, says Cash app locked him out of his account because they disagree with his activism against LGBTQ events.

→ Arnold Schwarzenegger says heaven is a “fantasy” and that “we won’t see each other again after we’re gone,” admitting he is uncomfortable with death.

Content Catch-Up

Recent, notable content by Christian creators.*

→ Richard Dawkins’s Ex-Right-Hand Man Becomes A Christian: Evangelistic ministry Living Waters interviewed Josh Timonen, who worked for years as the right hand man for the world’s leading atheist, but has more recently come to faith in Christ. (Video)

→ Ex-Mobster Rants On Politics: Mobster-turned-Christian, Michael Franzese, rants about NYC’s free drug paraphernalia policy, Gavin Newsome’s attack on Ron DeSantis for bussing illegal immigrants to California, Pride month, and more. (Video) 

→ Why Boycott The Chosen: Christian YouTube channel LION OF FIRE MINISTRIES argues that The Chosen director Dallas Jenkins’s response to the controversy over a Pride flag appearing in behind-the-scenes footage was not sufficient, and that people should boycott the show. (Video)

*Not necessarily an endorsement

The Bible, Briefly

Holy, Common, Clean, and Unclean (Part 3)

In ancient Israel, everything was classified into one of three categories: holy, common/clean, and unclean. Two weeks ago we defined these terms. Last week we detailed the ways a person or object moved from one category to another: pollution, sanctification, cleansing, or profaning. Now, in light of these concepts, consider this specific example.

Leviticus 13-14 records the laws about leprosy, which is an umbrella term for any number of skin diseases. The priest must follow a procedure to determine whether someone is leprous, and if he is, he is declared “unclean.”  A leprous person must live in a particular way (13:45-46). He must wear torn clothes and keep his hair unkempt. Wherever he goes, he must cover his upper lip and call out, “Unclean, unclean.” So also, he must live outside the camp, and he remains unclean as long as he has the disease. If the disease clears up, the priest must inspect him again, and he must go through a ceremony to be cleansed, which includes offering a sacrifice (14:1-32).

These laws in Leviticus provide context for a significant moment in Jesus’ ministry recorded in Matthew 8:1-4. Jesus is descending the mountain where He just preached the Sermon on the Mount, and “great crowds” are following Him. At that moment, a leper kneels before Him and says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretches out his hand and touches the man, saying, “I will; be clean.” Immediately, the man’s leprosy is “cleansed,” and Jesus commands him to show himself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded. 

Consider these four observations:

1. Huge crowds were following Jesus when the leprous man appeared seemingly suddenly. He should have been calling out, “Unclean, unclean,” so the crowds would part, which would have made his appearance less than sudden. Matthew doesn’t record whether the leper did this—but if he didn’t, he was not following the law of Moses to the letter, a fact which Jesus apparently overlooked. Jesus’ response was gracious in light of the man’s faith.

2. The leper’s request was to be “clean.” That word had in its scope everything he lost when his disease began: fellowship with God, inclusion in his community, a sense of dignity, permission to even remain well-groomed, and more. The leper was asking for his life back, and proclaiming his belief that Jesus could give it to him. Jesus did.

3. Jesus healed him with a touch. He could have simply healed him with a word, without physical contact (he demonstrates that ability in the following verses, 8:5-13), but he preferred instead to touch him. But recall that Jesus was clean and the leper was not. A clean person was not supposed to touch an unclean person, or he would also become unclean (via pollution), because uncleanness was transmissible and cleanness was not. In Jesus, however, there is a reversal of this phenomenon: uncleanness doesn’t affect Jesus. He affects it. Jesus’ cleanness is transmissible.

4. Jesus is not only clean, but holy. He is God in the flesh. He’s the One who said in Leviticus, “Be holy, because I am holy.” Recall that there were negative and often fatal consequences for any unclean thing that came into contact with a holy thing (i.e., profaning). If it were not for Jesus’ choice to veil His glory, a touch could have meant death for the leper. But in light of the leper’s faith, there is again a reversal of the Law in Jesus: when uncleanness came into contact with Him, the Holy One, the result was not death, but—in a manner of speaking—life. He transmitted restoration and wholeness.

Without the concepts of Leviticus as a frame of reference, we lose some of the significance of this miracle—and, perhaps, of the miracle of cleansing in our own lives. 

In the present, the New Covenant era, ceremonial uncleanness is of little concern to God (e.g., Matthew 15:11; Mark 7:19; Acts 10:9-16; 15:1-35). But moral uncleanness—sin—remains of great concern (e.g., Romans 6:1-2; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Ephesians 5:3-5). As with the leper, so with everyone. Everyone who says in faith, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” receives the answer, “I will; be clean.”

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