Evangelical Writers Challenged to Avoid Alienating the Unchurched – Dr. Paul J. Dean
http://www.churchexecutive.com/news.asp?N_ID=1265

Evangelical writers nearly always alienate non-evangelicals in their works, noted long-time Christian writer and editor Tim McLaughlin. McLaughlin contends that evangelicals include personal information in a biography to establish credibility based on religious standards rather than professional. After careful consideration, he decided to delete the line on family life in a biography and leave just the subject’s professional qualification in his efforts to edit out the “passwords” used in evangelical writing. “Let’s not call marriage ‘biblical,’ as we like to, but healthy,” posed McLaughlin. ... “Adam and Eve had no civil ceremony, Abraham slept with other women including Hagar, Isaac’s wife was selected by his father’s servant and was his cousin, David ‘collected wives like military victories, and his most memorable son came from an affair with a married woman,’ and Prophet Hosea married a whore,” McLaughlin noted, speaking from a non-evangelical point of view. “So what do we have as a biblical model for marriage?” he asked while chuckling.

Commentary

There is no doubt that evangelicals need to learn how to talk in such a way so as not to unnecessarily offend non-evangelicals and thereby lose an opportunity for gospel advance. The Scriptures are clear that our speech should be seasoned with salt and that we are to walk in wisdom toward those who are outside of the faith. Applications of these principles abound and discussion should be evoked thereby.

However, the suggestions called for in this article are misguided. To substitute the word “healthy” for “biblical” is to say nothing in terms of one’s character or the standard to which one holds. It is that different standard, that change of life, that commitment to a different worldview that is ultimately attractive to the uninitiated, not a lowering of such standards. If Christians are no different from the world, why would the world even bother to consider Christianity? It is true that pagans do not like Christians or their standard. At the same time, it is that standard that becomes attractive when God is at work. In the same way, pagans hate the gospel. But, it is that same gospel that is the power of God unto salvation.

Further, McLaughlin is guilty of twisting the Scripture in his brief diatribe against biblical marriage. Neither Abraham nor David is held out as a model for us in terms of what it means to be faithful in marriage. Hosea was commanded to marry a prostitute as a picture of God’s redeeming love. To say the one-man-for-one-woman-for-one-lifetime is not the biblical model, as McLaughlin implies, is to twist the Scriptures. The bible is replete with teaching on marriage and Christ Himself is the standard.

In the end, as one reads what McLaughlin actually says, it is not his concern for the lost that is driving his comments. At their root is a liberal theology that rejects the authority of Scripture.