“What Would Jesus say to a Homosexual?”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
August 26, 2007
Dr. Jerry Nelson
They were young women, barely in college, and I found them, in intimate embrace.
So began my family’s odyssey into the often confusing, sometimes maddening, and always heart-breaking world of homosexual behavior.
“What would Jesus say to a homosexual?” has been in the forefront of our thinking almost daily for now over 15 years.
And I know we are not alone. Others in our church have related similar family experiences.
And still others in our church can speak to their own struggle with homosexual feelings and homosexual behavior.
It is tragic that for years Christian men and women have struggled alone unable to find help in the very Christian community that ought to be the primary source of grace – their church.
A silence on the subject has been perpetuated by both the felt shame of the one with homosexual feelings and the confusion and fears of their family and friends.
But in recent years that silence has rightly been broken.
It has taken homosexual activists and their allies in the arts and media to break it.
And while much of their agenda is tragic for individuals and the culture, it has forced Christians to come to grips with the issue.
Now maybe rather than denying it we can begin to help each other.
If you loved Jesus and desperately wanted to
be free of the fears and failures of your own homosexual orientation or
practices and you heard many of the voices of fellow Christians that have been
raised the loudest over the last few years what would it do to you?
There are those in our churches
and in our community who would give anything to be free of the terrible
struggle they feel in their own minds, bodies and emotions.
Do they hear the
voice of Jesus coming from Christians?
Or is all they hear a fearful and
maybe even angry call for isolation or eradication?
It is so easy to get caught up in the rhetoric of the power struggle going on in our culture that we forget to hear and speak God's words of grace.
All scholars I know will readily admit that there is no biblical account of Jesus talking to someone with homosexual feelings or behavior.
While that is true, we can nonetheless deduce what Jesus would say from how he spoke to others, how he acted and what he, by his Spirit, directed the authors of Scripture to include in the Bible.
Just because you can’t find the word homosexuality in the red-lettered words in your Bible doesn’t mean at all that Jesus hasn’t spoken to the subject.
Because we believe as the Bible says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…” (2 Timothy 3:16)
So “What would Jesus say to the homosexual?”
First of all, I believe he would say, “I made you but not
that way. It is not who you are.”
You are not homosexual as if that were a separate category of human being.
You are human, made in the image of God and you are man or woman.
Genesis
1:27 “So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and
female he created them.”
Jesus repeated that truth in Matthew 19:4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female…’”
There is today a culture-wide attempt to get us to believe that homosexuality is a product of our genetic make up; some of us are simply born that way.
Others using religious language will say, “God made me this way.”
The press regularly trots out one scientific study or another on the subject and heralds it as a breakthrough in our understanding of homosexuality.
The point usually is made that something over which we have no control can’t possibly be wrong in any moral sense.
Or they will say more positively, when something is the product of nature and genetics, it must be as right as any other orientation.
Heterosexual
and homosexual are not better or worse, right or wrong, they say.
There have been brain studies, identical twin studies and gene studies.
A careful reading of the responsible news reports on these studies will reveal that in no case does the research warrant the titles of the articles.
Several newsweeklies and newspapers heralded headlines of “Gay Gene.”
But when you read the end of the articles and when
you read the scientific literature behind the articles you will find no
responsible scientist making such a claim. (see end notes)
Instead, scientists
acknowledge myriad combinations of factors that influence behavior.
And they will all say that
while those factors may influence behavior, they don’t determine it.
Similarly, for example, not
all who might be genetically predisposed to alcoholism become alcoholics.
And it is discovered that
while there may be a higher percentage of identical twins than of non-twin
siblings where both have homosexual orientations, it is only marginally
higher - nothing even close to proving
cause and effect.
And the idea that 10% of the
population is homosexual is just plain false. (Responding to Pro-Gay Theology by Joe Dallas www.leaderu.com/jhs/dallas/html
Dr. Jeffrey Satinover’s Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth explodes these and other myths about homosexual orientation.
“Yes,” Jesus would say, “I made you but I didn’t make you that way. It is not who you are!”
AND even if it could be proven that homosexual orientation is genetic, it would still only prove what the Bible says over and over again: That we were wonderfully made but deeply fallen.
It is called total depravity; sin has impacted every aspect of the human experience.
Paul tells us in Romans that ALL creation was affected by the Fall – the sin of Adam and Eve.
And
the devastating effects of sin on the human race are staggering – birth
defects, disease, immorality, genetic disorders, greed and a host of other
maladies and character defects that often render life difficult for many and
tragic for some.
If homosexuality is your orientation, remember you are still in the same boat with the rest of us adulterers, liars, thieves, slanderers, and idolaters.
It is not to make the point that misery loves company but that we are NOT defined by our sins.
You are not a homosexual, you are a human being, male or female, made in the image of God and if you are a Christian you have been born again and are being remade in the image of Christ even if the sins of a thousand generations are making it hard for you to live that out.
So again I would say, don’t let your desires define who you are.
I will speak more to that subject later.
Secondly, I think Jesus would say, “I know what
you are experiencing for I have been tempted in everyway that you have.
· Jesus knows the power of the body’s cravings.
· He knows the power of temptation.
· He knows the struggle with loneliness, fear, confusion, etc.
If you read the account of the temptation in the wilderness and the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane you will learn how real his struggle was.
That’s
why the Holy Spirit said through Hebrews 4:15-16 “For we do not have a
high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one
who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without
sin. Let us
then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Will you believe that he has been tempted in “every way, just as (you) are?”
Or will you say, he doesn’t know what it’s like?
As a pastor and as a father, I have listened to the cries and I have seen the tears.
I have heard something of the depth of the pain of thinking you are different and that the difference is unacceptable to everyone you love and everything you have known.
But hear God’s Word, no one, not even another person with homosexual feelings could possibly understand what you are experiencing as well as can Jesus.
You can trust him to know what he’s talking about.
The Bible makes very clear that our God is a merciful, patient, even long-suffering God.
He has demonstrated that throughout history and in our own personal histories.
As the Bible says, “He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve.” (Psalm 103:10).
He has promised that he will spend our lifetime working his grace in our lives to conform us to the image of Jesus.
But do not mistake his patience with tolerance of sin.
Today we hear, “But we love each other; how can such love be wrong?” “Didn’t God say the greatest of these is love – doesn’t love prove the rightness of our relationship?”
Author Roger Biery has written, “One of the most popular
errors in the realm of Christian ethics has been the effort to make love an
omnipotent spiritual quality which has the power to sanctify anything that is
done in its name.” Roger
Biery, 76, Understanding Homosexuality: the Pride and the Prejudice,
1990
D.J. Atkinson writes, there “is a misconception of the
relationship between love and law in the Bible. (But) the biblical
understanding of the nature of love is always related to the description or
expression of God’s character in himself on the one hand and the character of
life appropriate to the people of God on the other hand.” Homosexuals in the Church,
1979, p69-70
Many want to separate law and love.
They portray law as repressive and love as liberating.
But God says they are intimately related.
Jesus
said it this way, John 14:15 “If you love me you will keep my commandments.”
But didn’t Jesus say that we are not to be judgmental? “Do not judge or you too will be judged.”
Yes he did, but we must understand that being judgmental is different than judging.
· Judmentalism is a prejudiced attitude expressed in condemning conduct.
· But judging is simply comparing one action to a standard.
I
can tell the highway patrolman that he shouldn’t judge me but he would reply he
wasn’t making a statement about my character he was simply pointing out that I
was exceeding the posted speed limit.
The sin of judgmentalism is not in knowing right from wrong but from mistreating those whose sins are different than ours.
Too
often in the church the adulterer or gossip looks down his or her long pointy
nose at the alcoholic or the homosexual – that is judgmentalism.
But to call sin, “sin,” is to properly judge.
Jesus left no doubt about how he judges homosexual behavior.
Please notice I did not say that homosexual desires or temptations are sin.
Just as I believe it is true that a person
with an interest in the opposite sex will be tempted to lust and even tempted
on occasion to engage in illegitimate sex so it is possible for someone with a
homosexual orientation to be tempted.
Temptation is not
sin. Yielding to the temptation is.
Homosexual fantasizing and homosexual behavior are sin.
Let me show you some very straightforward
passages from the Bible that clearly indicate God's attitude toward homosexual
practice:
The first are in the Old Testament: Leviticus
18:22 “Do
not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”
Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with
a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.”
In Genesis 19 we read the account
of the lurid activities of the men of Lot’s city of Sodom.
For those who
think the sin of Sodom was other than sexual, the Apostle Peter commenting on
that event said, 2 Peter 2:7 “Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the
filthy lives of lawless men.”
That’s not lack of hospitality as some suggest, but that was sexual sin – homosexual sin.
The second set of verses is in the New
Testament:
I Corinthians 6:9 “Do you not know
that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:
Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes
nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers
will inherit the kingdom of God.
The homosexual offenses cited here are
illustrated in Romans 1:26,27 “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful
lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the
same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed
with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and
received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
I have spent many hours reading from a
variety of sources wherein the authors attempt to reinterpret these passages.
In each passage
they tried to convince the reader that either
God is not even
talking about homosexuality or that God is only opposed to homosexual promiscuity.
It was depressing to see how blinded people
can be by their need to excuse their behavior.
Just as clearly as God spells out
his disapproval of adultery, of premarital intercourse, of murder or of many
other sins so he spells out clearly his disapproval of homosexual
practices.
If you have any doubt about that, I challenge
you to do a study of these texts and the others.
I believe you will be convinced
that the practice of homosexuality is a sin against God.
The booklet “The
Bible, the Church & Homosexuality” is a great source of help (http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BL04F01).
Several copies of this booklet
are available at the information booth this morning.
Please see the insert in your bulletin today for more helpful resources.
A more complete
exegesis of relevant biblical passages can be found in Robert Gagnon’s The
Bible and Homosexual Practice.
To me, what is revealing is that when
scholars can’t get the Bible to say what they want it to say about homosexual
practice, they change the subject.
Dr. Walter
Wink is Professor emeritus at Auburn
Theological Seminary in New York City. His faculty discipline is biblical
interpretation.
He is the
author of several books and articles on the subject. (Homosexuality
and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience for the Churches (editor), Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999 AND Homosexuality and the Bible)
Wink has written,
“Simply put, the Bible is negative toward same-sex behavior, and there is no
getting around it. The issue is precisely what weight that judgment
should have in the ethics of Christian life.”
(In Wink’s review of The
Bible and Homosexual Practice. By
Robert A. J. Gagnon. Abingdon, 520 pp., $49.00.
He has also written, “Where the
Bible mentions homosexual behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely
admit that. The issue is precisely whether that Biblical judgment is
correct.” http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-walter-wink
There are a number of so-called evangelical authors promoting the idea that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexual practice.
Honest scholars admit that it does, they just don’t agree with the Bible.
But even apart from the Bible, what about our
very humanity?
God created us
male or female.
Sexual sin
is an assault on our humanity.
Lest you
think I am singling out homosexuality as the worst of sins, let me quickly add
that all illegitimate sexual conduct (premarital intercourse, bestiality,
adultery etc.) is an assault on our humanity; it slices harmfully into what it
means to be a man or a woman, made in the image of God.
“No,” Jesus says, “don’t confuse my patience with tolerance. I hate what sexual sin does to you.”
One of the many “Law and Order” programs on television recently portrayed a young man in conflict with his family over his homosexual behavior.
The program was an hour-long promotion of the myth that homosexual orientation can’t be changed.
With great pathos the young man claimed he was made that way and with great authority the detectives declared that was so and that any attempt to make him change was abusive.
That is now assumed in our culture.
So much so that psychiatrists and other mental health workers consider it unethical to help someone change even if they want to.
The 2001 edition
of the “Opinions of the Ethics Committee (of the American Psychiatric
Association) on The Principles of Medical Ethics” has a question and answer
section.
Question: Is it
ethical to engage in a therapy (such as reparative or conversion therapy) to
change sexual orientation?
Answer: No…. Any treatment
that is based on an assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder,
or is based on an assumption that the patient should change his or her sexual
orientation, is by its nature unethical, as it violates numerous ethics
principles. Such so-called “treatment” ignores established scientific evidence,
demeans the dignity of the patient, succumbs to individual and social prejudice
and stigma, and has often been significantly harmful to patients, families,
others, and their relationships. (September 1999) The 2001 edition of the “Opinions of the
Ethics Committee on The Principles of Medical Ethics”
With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry 2001
Edition Section
1–GG
Medical Doctor Jeffrey Satinover in his book Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth demonstrates exactly how the American Psychiatric Association and other professional guilds changed their assessment of homosexual behavior with no scientific evidence.
Dr. Robert Spitzer, who originally helped change psychiatry’s age-old position on homosexuality, more recently, realized how wrong he and his colleagues have been.
A report on Spitzer’s more recent studies noted:
“Is reorientation therapy harmful? For the participants in our study, Spitzer notes, there was no evidence of harm. "To the contrary," he says, "they reported that it was helpful in a variety of ways beyond changing sexual orientation itself." And because his study found considerable benefit and no harm, Spitzer said, the American Psychiatric Association should stop applying a double standard in its discouragement of reorientation therapy, while actively encouraging gay-affirmative therapy to confirm and solidify a gay identity… Many patients…can make a rational choice to work toward developing their heterosexual potential and minimizing their unwanted homosexual attractions."
Spitzer Study Published: Evidence Found for
Effectiveness of Reorientation Therapy By Roy Waller and Linda A. Nicolosi Opening: The results of a study conducted by
Dr. Robert L. Spitzer have just been published in the Archives of Sexual
Behavior, Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003, pp. 403-417. http://www.narth.com/docs/evidencefound.html
I spent time on the website of the National Association for the research and therapy of Homosexuals (NARTH).
This organization, made up of scores of scientists from across the nation, debunks the myth that you can’t change.
It is not only the testimony of professionals but also the testimony of many who have struggled with homosexuality that laid the lie to the myth that you cannot change.
In my preparation I spoke with Mr. Roger Jones the executive director of the local organization “Where Grace Abound.”
His personal testimony is a powerful reminder of the grace of God to help us change.
I have read many, many accounts of men and women who are being freed from the grips of homosexual sin.
I am
disappointed that Yvette Cantu Schneider, who was with us several years ago,
and who originally planned to speak to this subject today, could not be with
us.
Her experience is witness to the life-changing power of Christ.
All of which brings me to the most powerful witness to the grace of change – God’s own Word:
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually
immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual
offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers
will inherit the kingdom of God. And
that is what some of you WERE. But you were washed, you
were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by
the Spirit of our God.”
One man wrote, “In regard to
homosexuality, the most important witness of Scripture is not condemnation but
(this) promise of liberation.” Bennett J. Sims in “Sex and
Homosexuality” CT Feb 24, 1976 p23ff
As with the sins of most of us, that change may not be instantaneous or complete until we see Jesus.
Maybe you won’t ever be totally free of the temptations.
But that doesn’t mean you aren’t healthy and growing?
Maybe you won’t marry and have children.
But you don’t need to live the rest of your life in bitter loneliness.
The question isn’t what does life have to offer you but what do you have to offer life.
“Two men looked out of prison bars; one saw mud the other stars.”
Yes, you are living with a disadvantage that most don’t suffer.
So are blind or deaf or otherwise physically handicapped people.
Helen Keller, Joni Erickson Tada, and a host of others know something of lifetime limitations.
And what about the heterosexual single person?
Is any one of them less a person or less fulfilled because they are single?
Is their celibacy less a struggle than the homosexual’s celibacy?
Yes you may experience a measure of loneliness but loneliness is God’s great opportunity to draw near to the soul.
Even suffering is redeemed by God. 2 Corinthians 1:3ff
What to do?
1. Don’t identify yourself as a homosexual but do call homosexual activity what it is sin.
2. Find a friend who will listen to you tell your story. Like the alcoholic, the person addicted to pornography or the serial adulterer, you need community that doesn’t neglect this struggle in your life.
3. Stay away from tempting situations (real or virtual or in your mind).
4. Don’t treat your sin lightly but don’t demonize yourself as worse than others – you are made in the image of God.
5. Be willing for God to make changes in you – Don’t expect too much but don’t expect too little.
6.
Maybe you will need to learn to be content in
singleness. (1 Corinthians 7:32-35 (These ideas are from HIS magazine Vol. 38 No.5 p.2-8)
I close with the words of Andrew Comiskey who is head of the ministry called Desert Streams, “ministering the life of Jesus to the sexually and relationally broken.”
When asked what
Jesus would say to Ellen Degeneres a TV personality who has declared herself a
homosexual, Comiskey responded:
“Jesus would woo her with a love that is full of truth, full of grace,
and full of healing power. His compassion would call her into a higher
and truer reckoning with who she is as a woman called to glorify Himself.
“Jesus would neither condemn nor bless her in her lesbianism; He would
seek to save her with a love that is as grace-filled as it is truthful. And if
she responded to Christ's call to follow Him, He would throw a "coming out"
party for her that would surpass any that the gay community could give one of
its new members. He would celebrate her true membership in His body, and would
call each of us to celebrate with Him that one who was lost now has been found.
That's what Jesus would offer Ellen….
Comisky continues, “As an 18-year-old, I was listening. While in the throes of the homosexual lifestyle, Jesus wooed me with a love as truthful as it was filled with grace - A love powerful in healing authority. And that love beckoned to me through His body-- good Christians who administered that truth and grace and healing power. The church conveyed to me the compassion that transforms lives…
Though the roots of homosexual tendencies are complex and often outside of ones control… I am grateful for those truth-tellers many years ago that called me to squarely face the truth of Gods Word in regards to sexual boundaries. I couldn't choose not to have homosexual tendencies. But I could choose to accept the protection of truth that these boundaries afforded me…
The swaggering, empty heterosexual who seduces women must kneel
alongside the broken male who felt he could never measure up to his macho
brother and who now is prone to homosexual adultery.
The flirtatious female looking for a man to save her must realize that her sin is on par with that of the abused woman who is fearful of men and looking for a woman to save her. We are all broken, we are all adulterers, and we all need Jesus. Without Him, we are all degenerate. That recognition breaks the dividing wall between those who wrestle with homosexual and heterosexual (sin). Once broken, we can kneel together before the same cross and discover the truth, grace, and healing power that frees us as we gather in His name…
According to John 8:1-11, Jesus first helps the accusers to clear their
hearts. Jesus knows that only a community of grace can free us to deal
forthrightly with our sin. He breaks the power of condemnation by silencing our
accusers, and then implores us "to leave our lives of sin."
God wills that we grasp the goodness of His intention for us, humanity
as male and female. I believe firmly in the healing authority of Jesus and His
church to restore His sexual order for humanity, regardless of our starting
points. We must renounce the unbelief prevalent in certain evangelical circles
that resigns homosexual strugglers to little if any release from their
tendencies. That perception of God is too small!
Through a journey that we will continue on until we see Him face-to-face, Jesus heals the homosexual. And He wills to heal through His church. Jesus calls each of us out of our closets and into His community. It doesn't matter whether our sin is heterosexual or homosexual. He calls us all to kneel before the one cross, and discover there the truth and grace and transforming power of His love.
(From
What Would Jesus Say To
Ellen? By Andrew Comiskey http://www.desertstream.org/homosexual.htm)
I believe that is what Jesus would say to a homosexual.
Additional notes and resources are on the following pages.
Other Resources and notes:
The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Robert Gagnon
Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, Jeffrey Satinover
Who Walk Alone, Margaret Evening (especially chapter 3)
The Broken Image, Leanne Payne
False Intimacy, Harry Schaumburg
Someone I Love is Gay, Anita Worthen and Bob Davies
Desires in Conflict, Joe Dallas
Three men and a baby By
Mike S. Adams
Monday, July 24, 2006
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2006/07/24/three_men_and_a_baby
Dear Christopher: I appreciate your recent email
characterizing me as a “sick, twisted, homophobic, right-wing, piece of slime.”
Compared with most of the homosexual hate mail I receive on an almost daily
basis, yours was really quite articulate and civil. As such, it deserves a
lengthy response.
After your initial string of epithets, you
outlined an argument against my attitude towards the homosexual lifestyle. Your
argument enumerated several assumptions and positions I hear in many letters
from gay readers.
First of all, you argue that homosexuality
is genetic, not learned. Since these sexual urges are “natural,” they are also
“God-given” and, therefore, you say, should be acted upon. And, since I am
critical of homosexuality, you assert that I am interfering with God’s will.
Finally, since Jesus never explicitly criticized homosexuality, you conclude
that I am “un-Christian” to do so.
Considering the following true story that
was told to me just a few weeks ago can discredit the bulk of your argument:
A 43-year-old
businessman was tired of working seventy hours a week and enjoying virtually no
social life – especially since he was still a bachelor. So he decided to invite
a couple of his neighbors to put aside their yard work and spend a Saturday at
the beach throwing back beers and taking in the sun. Somehow, the neighbors
both convinced their wives to let them go for the day.
By late morning,
the beaches were filling up with girls in bikinis and the three musketeers were
rating each one as she passed by. Just before noon, the bachelor saw a tanned
blond in sunglasses who appeared to top them all. She was about 5’3”, maybe 110
pounds, and must have worn a size “D” cup. Without hesitation, he tapped one of
his friends on the shoulder and said “Perfect 10! Kind of makes me want to go
back to college.” Both of his friends soon lifted a thumb in concurrence with
the judgment.
But then, something
funny - funny “strange,” not funny “ha-ha” - happened. As the tanned young
blond approached, the businessman recognized the girl. She lived just down the
street in his neighborhood and attended a local middle school. In fact, she was
only in the eighth grade. As soon as he did the math and realized she was
around 13 years old, he felt a sickness deep inside his stomach.
A few moments
later, one of his married friends also recognized the girl as his 13-year-old
neighbor. He felt a similar sickness in his stomach. But neither of the first
two guys felt as nauseated as the third. Within a few moments, he recognized
the girl as his 13-year-old daughter.
The question I have for you, Christopher, is
whether you consider the sexual urges of these three men to be “natural”? And,
if so, would you also consider them to be “God-given.” Should any of these three
men act upon these urges simply because they came about naturally? And, if one
or more were to act upon the urge, should I keep my objections to myself to
avoid interference with the will of God?
Perhaps you are of the opinion that it would
be wrong for the businessman to have sex with the 13 year old because she is
not a consenting adult. But, remember, Christopher, Jesus never spoke out
against statutory rape in the New Testament.
But, fortunately, we do have a basis for
preventing the second man from having sex with the 13 year old. Since he is
married, the act would constitute adultery, which Jesus specifically condemned
in the New Testament.
Of course, that would also provide us with a
reason to condemn the third man if he were to have sex with his 13-year-old
daughter. But, according to your twisted logic, he would be no more culpable,
morally speaking, than the second man if both were to act upon the sexual
attraction to the 13 year old. Incest was never mentioned by Jesus in the New
Testament, so it has no relevance in your theology.
Having sinful sexual urges is not the thing
that separates homosexuals from the rest of the population, Christopher. It is
the arrogant tendency to characterize the sinful urge as the will of God, to
yield to it, and to make it the center of his being that makes the average
homosexual too self-absorbed for me to tolerate. And you are simply not let off
the hook by Christ’s refusal to state the obvious.
I know this response was not what you wanted to hear, but I must respectfully ask you to keep your epithets to yourself. If you feel the urge to unleash another hostile email, please do me a favor and try to control the impulse. It is the very thing that separates the citizen from the savage.
Why should we deny these people (homosexuals) the only kind of love they can experience?
Such a definition of love is not only unbiblical but also
trivial. C.S. Lewis in The Problem
of Pain, has some appropriate statements to make in relation to this
sentiment. He summons the Scriptural analogy between the love of God for a man
and the love of a man for a woman. The truth in this analogy of bridegroom and
bride (Ephesians 4:27) is “to emphasize…that Love, in its own nature, demands
the perfecting of the beloved; that mere ‘kindness’ which tolerates anything
except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole from
love.” God is committed to nothing less than restoring in us the image broken
in the Fall. Because of this, his “love is more sensitive than hatred itself to
every blemish in the beloved…of all powers he forgives most, but he condones
least: He is pleased with little, but demands all.” Lewis concludes: “To ask
that God’s love should be content with us as we agree is to ask that God should
cease to be God: because he is what he is, his love must, in the nature of
things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and
because he already loves us he must labor to make us lovable.
Ben Patterson (article in my library
with no notation as to source).
What about the “Gay Gene?”
The Gay Gene?, by Jeffrey
Satinover, M.D.
Jeffrey B. Satinover,
M.D. has practiced
psychoanalysis for more than nineteen years, and psychiatry for
more than ten. He is a former Fellow in Psychiatry and Child Psychiatry at Yale
University, a past president of the C.G. Jung Foundation, and a former William
James Lecturer in Psychology and Religion at Harvard University. He holds
degrees from MIT, the University of Texas, and Harvard University. He is the
author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Baker Books, 1996).
http://www.leaderu.com/jhs/satinover.html
(1) All the research that has been done on homosexuality
has been
selectively
trumpeted through the press in carefully crafted form in order to shape public
opinion-hence public policy-in predictable ways. The research itself means
almost nothing.
(2) The research projects that would truly mean
something are scarcely being done because they would all explicitly or tacitly
lead to but one end highly undesirable to activists: a method or methods for
preventing homosexuality or changing it with ever-increasing efficacy; and to
one conclusion: homosexuality per se is not inherited.
(3) Most of the research
has been hastily and often sloppily done-but this
point is a distraction. Even were
it superb, the findings would still mean almost nothing.
(4) To whatever extent this research has been good enough
to generate valid conclusions at all, these conclusions are precisely the
opposite of what is claimed in the press.
Before we talk about
specifics, here is what serious scientists think about the recent
behavior-caused-by-genes research. From Science, 1994:
Time and time again,
scientists have claimed that particular genes or chromosomal regions are
associated with behavioral traits, only to withdraw their findings when they
were not replicated. "Unfortunately," says Yale's [Dr. Joel]
Gelernter, "it's hard to come up with many" findings linking specific
genes to complex human behaviors that have been replicated. "...All were
announced with great fanfare; all were greeted unskeptically in the popular
press; all are now in disrepute."[6] [6]Mann C. Genes and behavior. Science
264:1687 (1994).
The magazine TIME,
June 12,1995. The author boldly
asserts: “No matter how people feel about the issue, it is increasingly hard to
argue that genes play no role in homosexuality.” Late in the article however
the author contradicts himself: “Scientists caution against jumping to
conclusions about the meaning of the NIH studies.”
“If a biological basis is
found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment
to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would
support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any
appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of
sin.” Al Mohler’s, March,
blogsite. Mohler is president of
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php?selectMonth=3&selectYear=2007
The
possibility of change:
Gagnon, on Wink’s review of
Gagnon’s book:
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2664
When Wink asserts that some
people "may find it impossible" to change, he overlooks multiple
meanings for change. Change can run the gamut from ceasing homosexual behavior,
to a reduction in homosexual impulses, to the experience of heterosexual
arousal. After ticking off a vice list in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul said of
the Corinthian believers: "such were sonic of you." He was not
asserting, for example, that former adulterers no longer experienced sexual
desire for people other than their spouses. Rather, they no longer lived out of
such fleshly impulses but rather out of time power of the Holy Spirit.
Wink argues as if the mere
fact of an entrenched impulse not being consciously chosen is grounds for its
acceptance. But why should this be a decisive factor? Some alcoholism, criminal
behavior, and a whole range of non-criminal vices (e.g., selfishness, jealousy,
greed, lust) are connected with entrenched impulses.
Wink does not love more than
those who want to withhold incentives for homosexual behavior. He may love
less. He simply starts with a different set of premises, including disregard
for core values in the teaching of Jesus and Scripture and disregard for the
harmful effects of promoting homosexual behavior and other extramarital sexual
activity.