In December of last year, the ultra liberal United Church of Christ launched a 1.7 million dollar television outreach campaign with its controversial “Night Club” ad. The ad begins with two burly night-club bouncers working the ropes in front of a church. When a same-sex couple approaches the church, they are forbidden entrance and told by the bouncers to step aside. Afterward, the screen goes black and a message reads, “Jesus didn’t turn people away…Neither do we.” According to Rev. Ben Guess, the United Church of Christ’s news service director, the ad is intended to show his church’s “policy of radical inclusion.”
“Inclusion” is a hot-button word repeatedly pushed with glee by today’s politically-correct world. No longer meaning a group or organization’s acceptance of everyone meeting their requirements, sharing their values, and committed to their purpose; today’s version of inclusion demands unquestioning acceptance of everybody by everyone into everything. Such “radical inclusion” threatens to eliminate the distinctiveness of all things and to reduce all things to where they defy description and are devoid of meaning. For instance, if today’s “radical inclusion” is applied to the church, the church will cease to be the church. Instead of being the body of Christ, which is made up of believers in Him, the church, overrun by unbelievers possessing neither Christian convictions nor commitment to Christ, will become something else entirely. In the end, the church will lose its distinct identity and divine purpose by being reduced to meaninglessness in order to accommodate and include everyone.
Although it is true that Christ never turns anyone away who comes to Him on His terms (see John 6:37; Matthew 16:24; Luke 14:26-33), it is equally true that He will never lower the terms for anyone. When the Rich Young Ruler refused Christ’s terms, Christ refused to lower the bar to accommodate and include the Rich Young Ruler (Mark 10:17-22). Instead, Christ stood silently by while the Rich Young Ruler walked away sad and grieved. In the end, the Rich Young Ruler was excluded from the Kingdom of God by his own refusal to submit to Christ’s Lordship. Likewise, it is not Christ, but men’s refusal to confess Him as Lord that excludes them from the Kingdom of God (Romans 10:9-10).
I don’t know of any church that has bouncers who turn sincere people away from their church services. All true churches of Jesus Christ are open for anyone to attend. Church membership, on the other hand, is a different matter. It must be exclusive, lest the church cease to be the church and lose its distinct identity and divine purpose. If they continue to insist upon championing “radical inclusion” rather than the cause of Christ, maybe it’s time for the United Church of Christ to stop calling itself a church!
