Adapt or die is not exactly a biblical principle, yet God does often call us to grow beyond our comfort zone. Resting on "what we know" in our faith is about exactly the time God challenges us. These challenges can come in the form of people, places, situations, that cause us to reflect on where we are, and where God wants us to be. Part of following the suffering servant is learning from our suffering and the sufferings of others. However, we cannot simply cater to the will of people over God so we must be careful when insituting major change in the church. Yet, what we banned decades ago is now only frowned upon by way of dancing, playing cards, going to the moview, etc. Though engaging in these activities can be a slippery slope. The real danger is not drawing a line in the sand between conservatism and liberalism. Yet even those categories evolve over time.
It is difficult to legislate the morality of people. I understand ministers should be held to a higher standard, and i myself took covenant membership when that was an option over general membership. Even before I worked for the church, I too agreed that obstaining from alcohol and drugs, and staying married was important. The Guides and Helps to Holy Living help govern a covenant member. Once accepted as such you could now vote on electing delegates and filling board members within the church. In our Wesleyan church today covenant memership is no longer offered. The disputable issues of today are more way more divicise in terms of gender identity, immigration, politics. As the culture has become more polarized, it has forced us to take a stand on these issues.
Its hard to imagine that one day the Wesleyan church might have to vote on whether or not to allow service robots into church with their owner as in the Star Wars cantina bar. Or whether or not to allow pastors to use A.I. to write their sermons. Perhaps we will have to decide if chipped or unchipped people attend Sunday service. Maybe virtual marriages in the Facebook multiverse will become an issue in the future to be voted on. In some senses there is nothing new under the sun, yet in other ways cultural challenges are new to our generation. Our idols come in the form of images on screens instead of images on wooden totems.
In this way it makes voting on women adonring themselves with jewelry a moot point to be divided on. However, many of these issues are within the context of the times they are being practiced. In some ways the changes we seek to make are to teach the world a new way, such as with slaverly. In other ways the changes we seek to make are to stand against the tide of gender fluidity. There is a push and a pull to everything, yet only God can rightfully navigate us to become counter culture change agents.