Bible bait and switch: How churches hide unbiblical teaching with clever word games

For a while now, I’ve been paying attention to how Christian leaders play word games to obscure certain views on hot-button issues.

Vocabulary word: 'Sophistry'

My favorite word for this is “sophistry.” Sophistry is one of the devil’s go-to strategies of deception because it relies on an appearance of truth to smuggle in error.

Christians can learn to detect the use of sophistry by paying attention to the manipulation of words to obscure truth, especially regarding homosexuality. As a growing number of churches have begun affirming it, faithful Christians want to know up front what the church teaches about it.

Thus, a church’s beliefs and practice about homosexuality have become a “litmus test” for Christians considering a new church. Bible-believing Christians want assurance that they’ll be taught proper doctrine. But church leaders don’t always want to say openly what they believe.

At best, they sincerely want to reach people with the gospel. They don’t want to turn anyone off with a harsh stance on sexuality. At worst, they are more interested in growing a church than in being faithful to God’s word. All too often, it's hard to tell because they send mixed messages.

A convoluted Facebook message

A friend recently sent me a screenshot of a Facebook message from another church about that church's teaching on sexuality. This message was a self-contradictory, double-tongued word salad that needed some skillful discernment to untangle. After reading this message, I was struck by how vulnerable so many Christians are to slick messaging that tricks people into thinking a church is doctrinally solid when it isn’t.

I care about these things because in this age of confusion, God’s people need clear truth, not evasion.

That’s why I wrote this post. I wrote this to show the subtleties of the sophistry deployed to lure Christians into doctrinally compromised churches.

Here’s the message:

Hi... Our church holds to the historic position — one man, one woman, in marriage, for life. However, love and welcome EVERY person regardless of race, age socio-economic class, or sexual orientation. We believe that God has a plan and purpose for every person. In fact, our mission as a church is that we exist to reach and teach ALL people to have a relationship with God that gets better and better. We do not exclude any person attended our church, attending our groups, or even attending our church. Our goal is that our church is a safe space for people to ask hard questions and that we prioritize love for Jesus over theological agreement.

The first sentence is 'Bible bait'

The message begins with Bible bait: “Our church holds to the historic position of sexuality — one man, one woman, in marriage, for life.”

Sounds solid, right? Well, it isn’t. It’s bait that is meant to build trust. It offers reassurance that this church is trustworthy because they uphold the “historic position on sexuality.”

There’s two problems with this. First, the historic position described here is too narrow. Biblical sexuality is not limited to a definition of marriage. Their narrow definition leaves the door open for lots of theological novelties in areas that aren’t directly related to marriage, such as accepting “sexual orientation” as legitimate (More on that in a moment).

Second, the rest of the message negates the first sentence. Their actual practice is the opposite of the “historic position.”

How do we know?

One of these is not like the others

Just look at the second sentence. It says, “However, we love and welcome EVERY person regardless of race, age, socioeconomic class, or sexual orientation.”

The “however” at the beginning of that sentence is massive. It signals a pivot from their supposedly historical position to an unbiblical practice. The way they actually do things as a church sounds more like a DEI training than scripture. Notice how they mix together four different categories of personhood: race, age, class, and sexual orientation.

What do you notice about them?

One of them is not like the others. Race, age, and class are not moral categories. There is nothing moral about one’s ethnicity, age, or class. “Sexual orientation,” however, is a moral category (although the Bible does not speak that way about homosexuality).

“Sexual orientation” is a modern invention to justify immoral behavior. It is certainly not the “historic position” of the Christian faith.

We 'love' and 'welcome' every person

That sentence also says the church is eager to “love and welcome” all the people mentioned above. What does that mean?

It means someone’s gayness will not matter any more than someone’s ethnicity, age, or class. Even though the Bible condemns sexual immorality, this church gives “sexual orientation” protected status. Hello, my name is “Gay Christian.”

This is standard DEI language used by HR departments all the time. By listing moral categories of personhood along with non-moral categories, all of them now appear morally neutral. Thus, calling someone to repent of their homosexuality would be like calling someone to repent of their ethnicity.

As a result, the church makes contradictory statements. On the one hand, it claims to believe the historic position on sexuality. On the other hand, it promises never to act like it believes it. No one will be called to repent of homosexuality.

As the message continues, this fact becomes even more explicit.

'Safe space'

The last sentence says, “Our goal is that our church is a safe space for people to ask hard questions and that we prioritize love for Jesus over theological agreement.”

“Safe space” is a euphemism for “no repentance needed.” In all likelihood, this commitment to providing safe spaces indicates people will receive special treatment and attain victim status for homosexual sin. In fact, those who confront homosexual sin are making their church less “safe,” so they are more likely to be corrected for doing so.

Theology is not the enemy of love

Further, notice that "love for Jesus" is set against "theological agreement," as if theology is the enemy of love. Modern Christians too often reduce “love” to nothing more than sentimental well-wishing, devoid of any real obligation to seek the highest good of others.

But how do we know what it means to love people apart from what God’s word says? And how can we know what God’s word says without reading it and studying it? That’s theology. If we do not define love biblically and theologically, pop culture and Disney movies will define it for us.

In other words, theology is necessary to define love. According to Jesus, we love him by obeying him. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Asking 'hard questions'

That last sentence also says the message authors want their church to be safe for people to “ask hard questions.” Church leaders use this “ask hard questions” language all the time, and it doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think “ask hard questions” means they have people who can provide biblical, theological guidance through deep questions of our faith, like the problem of evil or the Trinity.

I assure you, that’s not what that means here.

In this context, “hard questions” means grievances against God and the church. It’s a mindset of seeing God and his church as mean and judgy and seeing ourselves as victims. In other words, unrepentant people get to slander and judge the bride of Christ. The church, of course, will not ask any hard questions. After all, the church has now become a “safe space.” The church’s job is to just “love” and send out the good vibes.

Conclusion

When you see churches or pastors speak this way, we need to realize that this is a marketing schtick to pander to unbelievers while convincing solid Christians they're just a faithful church “on mission.”

Don't fall for it.

This essay was adapted from an article originally published at Michael Clary's Substack.