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| Forthcoming "GOSPEL Coalition" Conference |
I personally have no issue with celebrating the Civil Right's achievements of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As a public school student my K-12 educators took a week each school year teaching us about the Civil Right's movement in American history. Dr. King was always presented as a hero. In speech class I remember choosing King's historic, "I Have a Dream" monologue.
Providentially, the Lord used Dr. King's courage and God-given oratory skills to help root out deep racial prejudices and evils within our nation, (particularly down South). Having said that, if the Gospel Coalition/Desiring God ministry is going to scold and/or condemn Christians for voting for Donald Trump (over and against Hillary Clinton) or Roy Moore (over and against Doug Jones) you have a serious consistency problem. Dr. Robert Gagnon has expressed this same concern repeatedly the past few months. In the interest of time, and because Gagnon is a more skilled communicator, I post this article from the pen of my (Facebook) friend Dr. Robert Gagnon:
"I would actually like this publicly explained by Joe Carter (a senior editor at The Gospel Coalition) and other friends of mine from the TGC who agree with his TGC editorial "The Nonpartisan Solution to Our Roy Moore Problem," that on the one hand it is "a prime example of hypocrisy" and "the opposite of integrity" (Carter) for Christians to vote for Roy Moore as an effective vote against pro-abortion, pro-transgender, pro-"gay marriage," anti-religious-liberty Doug Jones but on the other hand perfectly acceptable for TGC to put on a "MKL50" conference in April 2018 celebrating the life of Martin Luther King Jr., a man who engaged in incredibly profligate sexual behavior throughout his years as a civil rights leader?
This is a genuine question. If it is a question that I have, I'm sure many others will be puzzled as well.
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad that TGC is having the conference. Racial harmony and rooting out racial prejudice is important for the church. Yet it seems like a gross inconsistency with the stance taken against fellow Christians who, while disturbed by the allegations made about Moore's four-decades-old behavior, prefer to cast an effective vote against Jones. Perhaps I'm missing something.
I'm sure the response would be something like: This conference doesn't endorse MLK's immoral sexual life but rather seeks to build on the positive legacy of his civil rights work in promoting racial justice and harmony. Sounds good to me. Now why not apply the same reasoning to voting for Moore: Those who do so are not condoning sexual assault but rather acting out of concern for the immorality of abortion and the "LGBT" agenda as well as concern for protecting religious liberty.
