Posted on 04/07/2015 9:50:01 AM PDT by Gamecock
e New York Times just published one of the more rough-handed pieces we’ve yet seen regarding “gay Christianity.” In “Bigotry, the Bible and the Lessons of Indiana,” opinion writer Frank Bruni takes the gloves off and seeks to bully Christians into caving on homosexuality. The column is frank, direct, and brutalizing.
Let’s consider five takeaways from this striking article.
1. Here’s what Bruni believes opposition to “gay Christianity” is based in: raw prejudice. He says as much:
But in the end, the continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision. It’s a choice. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing.
It disregards the degree to which all writings reflect the biases and blind spots of their authors, cultures and eras.
It ignores the extent to which interpretation is subjective, debatable.
The lack of self-awareness here takes your breath away. Apparently, Christians cannot see their “biases and blind spots,” but Bruni can. Here’s one example of a “blind spot” he might be missing: he claims all “interpretation is subjective” and “debatable” even as he presents his viewpoint as authoritative. Though he shames Christians for their hermeneutical simple-mindedness, he turns around and makes precisely the error he has just accused us of.
Editorialist, heal thyself.
2. We also note Bruni’s comments on doctrinal formation, which reduces in his mind to “scattered passages of ancient texts.” Speaking of “blind spots” once more, this is the fallacy of “chronological snobbery,” as C. S. Lewis called it. Simply because a teaching is old means it’s outmoded. This apparently does not apply to pagan sexuality, however, which is the framework by which our secular culture now operates. I’m not sure what to think of “scattered texts”–if “scattered” means something like “homosexuality is condemned in no uncertain terms in both the Old Testament and the New Testament,” then Bruni is more accurate than he knows.
The collective witness of the Bible, spread across diverse genres and eras, is indeed unified that homosexual desire and behavior is sinful (see Genesis 19; Leviticus 18:22; Deuteronomy 23:17-18; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10). Beyond the clear teaching of these inerrant texts, homosexuality, as my colleague Jim Hamilton pointed out in his excellent chapter in God and the Gay Christian?, fits nowhere in the storyline of the Bible. Marriage is instituted by God between Adam and Eve (Gen. 2:18-25), affirmed by Jesus himself in crystal-clear teaching (Matt. 19:3-6), and ultimately points to the covenantal love between Christ and his cruciform people (Eph. 5:22-33).
Both exegetically and theologically, the Scripture is unmistakably clear: homosexuality does not owe to the good design of God, but to the corruption of the flesh. You could call this witness “scattered,” I suppose. You could also call it “overwhelming.”
3. It turns out that Bruni is not only here to correct us, however. He comes as an angel of freedom. He speaks to us in the verdant tones of “religious freedom,” which he helpfully defines as follows: “freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can indeed jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other aspects of their faith’s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.” Here it is: your 2015 version of religious liberty. In years past, this concept meant something like “the opportunity to obey your conscience without prejudice.” Now, it means “the golden opportunity to believe what secular elites tell you to believe.”
We have reverted, really and truly, to the conditions that led the Puritans and Pilgrims to brave death and come to America four centuries ago. Our worship is now compelled and instructed, just as in days past. But we are not dealing with a state church, or at least not an established one. We are dealing with a cultural intelligentsia that offers us a grand bargain: we can give up our sexual ethics and be just fine, or we can hold onto them and be smashed into conformity. It’s really this stark: the Bible should be “rightly bowing”–Bruni’s actual phrase!–to secular rationalism. In other words, we have an authority, and it is not Scripture. It is the culture.
Religious people, according to Bruni, cling to their faith. Now, the time has come. We should give it all away. Like slavery and gender roles–”other aspects of their faith’s history”–we should simply relinquish views that the culture now finds wanting. This is rich stuff. Christianity offered women far more agency than secular Greco-Roman culture did. Christianity over the centuries has ennobled women, protected them from male predation, and given them a key place in the kingdom. Christianity overcame slavery, slavery that pagan cultures practiced without batting an eye.
It is lamentably true that far too many Christians embraced the racist and sexist beliefs of secular culture in the past. But it was not Voltaire and Rousseau who championed the abolitionist cause. It was William Wilberforce and William Lloyd Garrison and Jonathan Edwards, Jr. It is not the secular elite who now protect women from the ravages of the Sexual Revolution, with men openly preying on women. It is the church, even the imperfect church, that preaches the gospel and gospel ethics, which overcome both racism and sexism to render the people of God one body, the body of Christ.
The church has never been perfect. But did the church unleash genocide on the world, as secularism did through leaders like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot? It most certainly did not. Secular authoritarianism has brought great evil and suffering to people. The church, though imperfect, has brought gospel hope, ethical enlightenment, and social justice to untold numbers of people. Bruni ignores and even erases this in his piece.
4. Bruni waves his hand and thereby dismisses all believers who hold to complementarian convictions. He quotes exactly one obscure pastor to ground this rather audacious claim:
“In the United States, we have abandoned the idea that women are second-class, inferior and subordinate to men, but the Bible clearly teaches that,” said Jimmy Creech, a former United Methodist pastor who was removed from ministry in the church after he performed a same-sex marriage ceremony in 1999. “We have said: That’s a part of the culture and history of the Bible. That is not appropriate for us today.”
And we could say the same about the idea that men and women in loving same-sex relationships are doing something wrong.
This point amuses me. It’s as if there are no denominations with, say, 40,000 local churches that adhere to robust complementarian principles. You’d think the Southern Baptists just got raptured by a secular editorialist. It’s as if the PCA and the conservative Anglicans and Methodists and Pentecostals and hundreds of other groups simply have no voice. Why? Because Jimmy Creech says so, and Frank Bruni has cited him.
This is telling material. The secular left, more than many evangelicals, understands the indissoluble connection between complementarity and exclusively heterosexual marriage. If you give up the first, you swing the door open wide to give up the second. I say this to fellow evangelicals: Bruni is exactly right in this connection. Giving up complementarity means denying both Scripture and natural design. This shift opens the door to embracing transgenderism, homosexual orientation and marriage, and polyamory. There is no other backstop. There is no other iron wall against raw pagan sexuality.
Complementarianism–represented institutionally by CBMW, cbmw.org, the organization I lead–is the last line of defense against the secularist sexualism. There’s nothing else to arrest this cultural momentum. Bruni quotes same-sex-affirming ethicist David Gushee along these lines: “Conservative Christian religion is the last bulwark against full acceptance of L.G.B.T. people,” Gushee said.” Gushee is quite right. So, I ask my fellow Christians: is complementarity bad? Should we downplay it? Should we problematize it, sigh deeply, and wish we didn’t have to hold it?
Or, should we own it, love it, receive it as good, and see it as the outworking of a gospel worldview?
5. Bruni closes with a peroration worthy of a fiery homiletician. There is one option for Christians, and that is to embrace homosexuality or else:
Creech and Mitchell Gold, a prominent furniture maker and gay philanthropist, founded an advocacy group, Faith in America, which aims to mitigate the damage done to L.G.B.T. people by what it calls “religion-based bigotry.”
Gold told me that church leaders must be made “to take homosexuality off the sin list.”
His commandment is worthy — and warranted. All of us, no matter our religious traditions, should know better than to tell gay people that they’re an offense. And that’s precisely what the florists and bakers who want to turn them away are saying to them.
So here it is. “Church leaders must be made” to stop seeing “gay Christianity” as sinful. This is a “warranted commandment,” according to Bruni, who states this baldly without reference to any source, authority, text, or tradition. He’s quoted the tiny handful of “Christian” theologians who affirm homosexuality, albeit without so much as a whisper of a reference to the tens of thousands of scholars, exegetes, theologians, pastors, and leaders who do not affirm it. Bruni presents his claims as straightforwardly true and “warranted,” but surprisingly, he gives us no reason for that warrant. Sure, a few scattered ethicists and writers agree with him. But he’s made no case for why he’s right. He’s offered no positive material of his own to overturn two millennia of consensus on sexuality. He’s given us rhetoric and intimidating language, nothing more.
We see in the end that this is not an opinion, a view, or a conviction. Bruni has offered us dogma in his breathtaking piece. This is not dogma that plays nice, either. It does not carve out space for dissent, as Christianity has and does when applied biblically in the public square. We evangelicals actually believe we can’t coerce faith. Bruni and fellow secularists believe they can–and that they in fact have a moral mission to do so.
Conclusion
If you’re a young evangelical who gets the cold sweats when the New York Times disagrees with you, Frank Bruni’s piece should wake you up. It should derail you from any mission to draw the approval of the culture-makers. Here’s the reality: if you hold to biblical sexuality, you have no approval. You have in the eyes of many only condemnation, judgment, a this-worldly sentence of damnation on your head. You don’t deserve the freedom of your convictions. You are a bigot. You must, to use Bruni’s very words, “bow” to the culture. It’s that stark.
If, however, you stay the course (like Chuck Colson and many, many others), and go with God, you must know that you will gain something so much greater than the approval of leading voices. You will honor God himself. You will stand with him on the last day. You will have the opportunity to avoid the hatred and judgmentalism and bullying of Bruni, and you will be freed to love fellow sinners just like him, and preach the gospel to him.
Frank Bruni wants evangelicals to cave. We will not do so. We will not give an inch. We will, however, refute his foolish thinking and bad arguments, laugh at his attempts to intimidate us, and love him. We worship a Savior, after all, who died for preaching his convictions, but who in dying asked even for the forgiveness of those who put him on that cross (Luke 23:34).
We will not cave. Not by a country mile. We will, however, love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, and, as we remember this very Easter weekend, rise with Jesus in the age to come.
One thing is very clear. Satan and his minions are excellent liars who spin deception so well that even the elect might be fooled. However, me and mine will follow God!
There is zero doubt that homosexual acts are sinful. Temptation is not sin, but acting or wishing to act on temptation is. That is the key distinction.
I’ll grant that a homosexual can’t help feeling same sex attraction, but he still has the freedom to choose. It’s no different than dealing with any other temptation, like an alcoholic turning away from drink or a husband refusing to cheat on his wife. In none of these cases do we Christians advise people to embrace the sin! Why should homosexuality be any different? (It’s not)
C.S. Lewis wrote the following in a 1953 letter:
But…certainly I feel that very grave dangers hang over us. This results from the apostasy of the great part of Europe from the Christian faith. Hence a worse state than the one we were in before we received the Faith. For no one returns from Christianity to the same state he was in before Christianity but into a worse state: the difference between a pagan and an apostate is the difference between an unmarried woman and an adulteress. For faith perfects nature but faith lost corrupts nature. Therefore many men of our time have lost not only the supernatural light but also the natural light which pagans possessed.~snip~
About remedies to the question is more difficult. For my part I believe we ought to work not only at spreading the Gospel (that certainly) but also at a certain preparation for the Gospel. It is necessary to recall many to the law of nature before we talk about God. For Christ promises forgiveness of sins: but what is that to those who, since they do not know the law of nature, do not know that they have sinned? ... Moral relativity is the enemy we have to overcome before we tackle Atheism.
Look at the results of moral relativism in just the last fifty or sixty years: a baby is aborted every 24 seconds, any mention of God or morality is all but forbidden in public schools, homosexuality is a "right" that is to be put above personal liberty, etc.
And what has become of many "Christian" churches these past decades? Many are pro-abortion, more and more are performing same-sex "weddings" and nearly all look the other way at sex outside of wedlock. Decades ago any Christian would have told you that no church would EVER allow this, yet here it is.
I think that far too many of us have forgotten that our Lord went out of His way to warn us that the wolves would come dressed as sheep. Have we been so busy looking for wolves that we haven't even bothered to look at the sheep? Unconditional love (which NONE of us are even capable of) has become a major catch phrase lately; however, somewhere along the way people began to believe that love was synonymous with tolerance and acceptance and I think that is where so much of the damage started.
Churches must accept homosexuals just as they accept all sinners; however, they need to be accepted in the same manner in which a hospital accepts a heart attack victim. Our sin is a terminal condition that is far more dire than a heart attack and it must be treated, not just ignored. I'm sure that homosexuals feel "accepted" when they go to these "churches" filled with like-minded relativists, but that acceptance pales in comparison to the love they would know if they truly repented and received God's forgiveness because that love is the ONLY thing that will fulfill the longing that every sinner has in his soul.
You are right Wag.. But no one spoke for the Jews.. like them we have no advocates outside our ourselves
“And what has become of many “Christian” churches these past decades? Many are pro-abortion, more and more are performing same-sex “weddings” and nearly all look the other way at sex outside of wedlock. Decades ago any Christian would have told you that no church would EVER allow this, yet here it is. “
Many of these churches are falling apart. Look at the rise of nondenominational churches breaking with the main line churches. I know this first hand, as my best friend and minister was fired for sticking to...you guessed it MORAL ABSOLUTES. He and I started our own nondenominational church. It is going very well after 2 years.
Is it a tax-exempt org? or is it unregistered?
Unregistered
unaffiliated (except for God)
uncontaminated
Glad to see you on Cruz control : )
Not that I disagree with you wags, but for the record, ALL sexual immorality is incompatible - To include homosexuality - But also to include fornication, adultery, and etc... And by extension, easy divorce/remarriage (which IS adultery according to the Scriptures)... It is too easy to draw a distinct line at homosexuality, but in fact, there is no ground to stand upon if we all don't recognize that churches of all stripes have let marriage become sullied long before this issue gained traction.
Not only 'one man and one woman', but 'for life', and 'sex only within the bonds of marriage' is the only standard that is wholly defensible in the scriptures. To lessen the strictures against fornication and adultery implies inherently the 'authority' to change the Word, and in that, would allow any change whatsoever. One cannot engage in this battle without returning to what the Bible requires.
I agree completely and mentioned sex out of wedlock in post 42.
As far as I know, Satan hasn't stolen any souls by telling people that he was going to ruin their lives, he does it by promising pleasure, power, money, etc.
Churches began to tolerate sexual immorality as a way to make everyone feel "welcome" and everything became focused on not offending anyone; this IS NOT the purpose of Christianity, Christianity is about salvation for our sins...PERIOD. Don't get me wrong, fellowship is wonderful whether it be in a small prayer group or at a church picnic, but fellowship cannot take the place of the Gospel of Christ's salvation for our sins and to suggest that certain sins are no longer sins is offensive.
To lessen the strictures against fornication and adultery implies inherently the 'authority' to change the Word, and in that, would allow any change whatsoever.
Correct and the Word has been so distorted that the members of many current "churches" would feel right at home among the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Churches began to tolerate sexual immorality as a way to make everyone feel “welcome” and everything became focused on not offending anyone; this IS NOT the purpose of Christianity, Christianity is about salvation for our sins...PERIOD. Don’t get me wrong, fellowship is wonderful whether it be in a small prayer group or at a church picnic, but fellowship cannot take the place of the Gospel of Christ’s salvation for our sins and to suggest that certain sins are no longer sins is offensive.”
NAILED it.
bump
Beautifully said, dear brother in Christ!
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