Romans 1 Has Been Coopted!

More Episcopalians have been reading Romans 1 in the last three years than in the previous generation. And we know why – those verses on sexuality! If we learn nothing else from Paul's opening chapter, we all know that's where you find verses on sexuality. Unfortunately, that's all most of us know about that chapter. Whatever else Paul is writing has been co-opted by the sexuality debate.

Romans 1 is where he introduces the theme of missions and particularly to those who have never heard the Gospel. Paul is calling our attention to those who are as yet unevangelized, without Scripture and clueless about Jesus Christ. The sexuality issue is very important, but by our obscuring this missions theme, we also obscure the overlooked people Paul wants to bring to the attention of the church – once again.

It's not that complicated. Paul was talking about those who didn't have any revelation of God in the Bible or in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. These people have only seen the divine nature through the creation. Some of these folk, Paul writes, have so abandoned the worship of God that He has abandoned them to their own passions and expressions of sexuality.

These are the people who get shunted aside when we miss Paul's main theme of mission. The unreached peoples of the world – no less than 20% of today's population - remain blurred in our vision, fogged over, a blind spot in our response to God's missionary call to the Church. As long as we only read sexuality in Romans 1 and don't hear his missionary call, this neglect of the unreached world will continue.

This is not a new problem. After all, 67 generations have come and gone since Jesus gave His parting words to the gathered church on the mountaintop in Galilee. "See that each and every ethnic group has believers and disciples." Today, the number of people who have never heard of Him is staggering. 1 billion, 700 million have no clue who Jesus is and no means to hear about Him. They have no way to receive an invitation to enter His Kingdom.

I have developed a very simple mantra for these days: "Whatever is wrong on the issues of sexuality and biblical authority is not as wrong as the Church leaving 1.7 billion people in the dark about Jesus Christ." Sometimes I have heard this used as a dodge about the divisive issues facing us, so I have added a second part. "The sexuality issues and related matters are very important and must be dealt with biblically and charitably. Far more serious, however, is our neglect of the unreached population which probably leaves 20% of the world with no alternative to hell."

Trends in mission today do not indicate a change in directions. Judging from the destinations of short-term trips and response to visiting Anglican clergy and bishops, we are very active in missions but merely moving from one part of the Anglican Communion to another.

My (humorous) prayer request is also a simple one – that for a period of 10 years God would swap the locations of Costa Rica and Kazakhstan. Wouldn't that change our missions perspective! Oh, for a tithe, just 10% of the conferences, organizations, blogs, money, and attention on issues on sexuality to be directed to the challenge of church planting in the Aceh Province of Sumatra, Indonesia!

This missions neglect will bring a high cost to the church. We will face the Lord of the Church one day, and He will remind us of His charge to go to those at the ends of the earth. He will ask whether or not we went, and then He will deal with our disobedience. Yes, there will be judgment on those who have never heard and not believed, but there will be severe judgment on the church that has heard but not acted.

There are things we can do. We recruit for ordained ministry; why not for missions? We do frequent infomercials on stewardship; why not on Morocco or Bhutan? We increase line items for Sunday School; why not a larger percentage for departing missionaries who must raise their own support? We use our research tools for church growth; why not for finding ways of involvement among the Yemeni people?

If we read Paul on sexuality, we must first read him on mission. Today we can't help but hear the voices debating our internal issues. We must also train our ears to hear the cries of those searching for the living and loving God of heaven.

Tad de Bordenave was the Director of Anglican Frontier Mission, in Richmond, Virginia.