The Hinge of Apologetics: Romans 1:25 in an Age of New Pressures

A little over five hundred years ago this week, on the eve of All Saints, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg. The Reformation that followed swung on the hinge of justification by faith alone. That remains the gospel’s door. For the church’s public witness and cultural courage today, however, another hinge has become indispensable: the Creator–creation distinction of Romans 1:25. “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”

Peter Jones coined the terms Oneism and Twoism to help us think about the issues that arise in culture. Rosaria Butterfield repurposed the hermeneutic using the terms Binary and Non-binary. Oneism is the worship of creation as divine, the conviction that everything shares the same essence and that all distinctions are ultimately illusory. Twoism is the worship of the transcendent Creator who is distinct from everything he has made, yet is intimately involved with it. These are the only two religions. Every pressure the church now faces—sexual, technological, spiritual— ultimately reveals a worship issue. It is the hinge on which people are turning.

Consider the fruit of the sexual revolution which has cultivated more than LGBTQ+ ideology:   “Ethical Non-Monogamy,” also known as polyamory, is now a growing trend in culture. “Seattle passed a measure on Tuesday to extend civil rights protections to non-monogamous people and multigenerational households, and recognize additional sexual orientations and gender identities as protected classes under local law. The city council voted unanimously in favor of the bill.”

The rise of “toxic masculinity” in young men and the new waves of feminism that affect young women, are radically renegotiating or exaggerating naturally designed roles and treating the binary of male and female as oppressive rather than creational. In Oneist logic, if all is one, then the distinction God placed on humanity at creation (Genesis 1:27) can be dissolved or redefined by desire. 

As another example, TruthXchange will be dealing with the topic of AI and tech advancements during one of the segments of next year’s think tank. It should be a given that any good can become an idol to our hearts. Here is a specifically Oneist temptation: the hope that human flourishing through ingenuity and  creativity can have godlike results. Transhumanists and some AI adherents believe that they can transcend humanity and even escape death through fast-tracked technological advancement. Thus, rather than stewardship and creativity, this use of AI becomes an attempt at divinity. When reality is treated as impersonal matter or self-generating intelligence, man (or the machine) becomes ultimate. Twoism answers that the true Creator is not threatened by our tools, nor is He constrained by them. He remains the Redeemer who entered history as the second Adam – not as an algorithm. The Church can engage with the advancement of tech and AI without panic because it offers a better way to steward technology. This is because its hope is fixed on the One who called us to steward the world in which we live.

Thus as we engage with counter-Christian ideologies, we must remember the church’s first apologetic response is not moralism (dos and don’t’s) or moral superiority (since scripture affirms, we are all both image bearers and fallen) but the recovery of Twoism: The Creator who made us male and female is the same Creator who redeems us, by giving himself for us. Because of the exchange of the truth for the lie, God had given man over three times. But because God as creator is also the redeemer, we have the good news that God who did not spare His own Son, gave Him over, for us.

As I mentioned earlier, we will be hosting a Think Tank in 2027. This Think Tank will be the second event under the title The Peter Jones Lectures, and the theme will be “The Other Worldview: Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threats.” I am excited to share more details in the coming months.

While the church faces the toils, tribulation, and tumult of her war, we should not give into despair and panic. Martin Luther’s hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” hammers home this confidence:

And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God has willed
His truth to triumph through us.

As Christians, we live as beacons of this hope in a dark and broken world. Our Christian witness shines with Twoist clarity and binary charity—holding fast to the Creator-creature distinction of Romans 1:25. This is the faithful apologetic hinge of the church, which bears witness to the gospel of justification by faith alone through our Creator and Redeemer.