Homosexuality

Homosexuality is not a sin. We hear often from Christian writers, social observers, and pastors that it is, but nothing in the Scripture supports this. Nothing in the Scriptures even talks about homosexuality. Now, at that, I'm sure many readers will immediately think of the usual litany of verses, e.g.

You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Lev 18:22)

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. (Lev 20:13)

and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. (Rom 1:27)

But these passages deal with homosexual acts, not homosexual orientation. The acts are sin, yes. Scripture is quite clear on that. But the orientation is not. Is it a sin to be a heterosexual while single? Of course not. It would be sin to act on that orientation, i.e. to have sex with a person of the opposite gender to whom one is not married. But the abstract preference to have sexual partners of opposite gender is not itself sin. Furthermore, the orientation and the act are not necessarily coupled. One can engage in homosexual acts without being a homosexual. So we must take care to distinguish the homosexual orientation from the homosexual act.

This is an important distinction, and one all to easily glossed over in imprecise language. Apart from being unfaithful to Scripture, declaring the orientation sin has two significant impacts. First, the Christian is forced to conclude that being a homosexual is a choice. This is often claimed, but it does not pass a simple sanity check. In our culture, where gays are physically and emotionally attacked for their orientation, with incidents of men being dragged to their deaths for being gay, how can one seriously assert that someone would rationally choose to be gay? But if being gay is not a choice but nonetheless a sin, how does one understand God as a just God? This is a very awkward claim to try to defend.

Of greater concern is that the erroneous assertion that being gay is sin places a tremendous burden on gay converts to the faith. Effectively these young believers are told they had better start having sexual feelings for the opposite gender or they continue in sin. This burden is far heavier than what is placed on heterosexual brothers and sisters, and serves as a barrier to the homosexual being saved. The Scripturally correct statement, that gay sex is sin, places a much lighter burden on the believer, namely that he or she must choose to not engage in certain acts. This burden is no different than that placed on unmarried heterosexual believers.

Jesus warns the Christian church, "but whoever causes [a young believer] to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." (Matt 18:6) We are commanded by God very sternly to not add to the gospel or to speak in His name what He has not told us to say (Deut 18:20, Rev 24:18). God takes this very seriously. False prophesy, which is simply speaking untruths in His name, is a capital offense under the Law, no different than murder. Therefore, we must take great care in what we say in declaring the truth of Scripture. God will hold us to account for what we do in His name.

Capital Punishment

Many Christians advocate capital punishment as justice for murder. Typically Christians support this view by referencing the Old Testament Law which prescribes death as punishment for murder. But does Scripture really support this view? No. This view opens the door to hypocrisy and ultimately forces us to redefine Christianity for the sake of a political goal.

Does the Law really prescribe capital punishment for murder? Absolutely. That fact is not in dispute. However, the same Law also prescribes death for crimes like adultery, homosexual sexual intercourse, and disobedient children. If we are going to apply the standard of the Law, we must apply it uniformly. To do otherwise, i.e. to apply one standard to murder and another to other crimes (as defined by the Law), is text-book hypocrisy and unjust.

But is the purpose of the Law to be a foundation for civil authority? No. Paul tells us that the purpose of the Law is to declare what is sin. "Through the law we become conscious of sin." (Rom 3:20) In fact, I can think of no example in the entire Bible of the punishments indicated by the Law actually being carried out. (That does not mean they were not, just that no record is given that they were.) On the contrary, there are examples where the punishment prescribed by the Law is not carried out. David and Bathsheba committed adultery, then David arranged to have Bathsheba's husband killed in battle to cover up their adultery. Both crimes are punishable by death under the Law, yet God does not have either of them executed. They go on later to conceive Solomon, through whom one of Jesus' ancestries is traced (Matt 1:7), not to mention the royal line of Israel. So we see that the Law was not given as a basis of civil law, but as a declaration of God's standard.

We must also consider the story of the adulterous woman (John 8:1-11). Rather than carry out the judgment of the Law, Jesus showed mercy and forgiveness. Now I have heard people say this event was a setup for Jesus, that the woman wasn't really caught in adultery and the Pharisees were just trying to trap Jesus. This seems a rather contrived interpretation, whose only purpose is to avoid the conclusion that Jesus did not support the death penalty. Certainly there are questions, such as where is the man with whom she was committing adultery? But Jesus gives no indication that He thought this was a setup. If these men were falsely accusing her, one would expect Jesus to say so. Jesus' famous response, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (v 7), validates the judgment of the Pharisees. His reply implicitly authorizes those who have witnessed the crime to carry out the judgment. The "first stone" is a reference to Deut. 17:7, where the Law declares that the witness of a crime shall cast the first stone. But that verse goes on to explain the purpose of capital punishment is to "purge the evil from your midst." Jesus' statement forces us to realize that judgment carried out by sinners will not purge the evil, since the judges themselves are just as evil. (It is worth noting that the passage following this story deals with the question of viable witnesses.)

One of the foundational points of Christian belief is that no one can measure up to God's standard. Under the Law we all deserve death, not just the murderer. Therefore, if we are to apply the Law uniformly, then we would all have to line up for the executioner's chamber. To only apply that standard to a murderer is hypocrisy and to be like the Pharisees who held others to a higher standard than they held themselves. Furthermore, to deny our own guilt under the Law is to completely invalidate the Christian faith! The Christian who declares Ted Bundy worthy of death must also confess themselves worthy of the same. Jesus died on the cross because we deserved death. If we did not, then Jesus died in vain, and can therefore not be who He said He was.

Yet, as Christians, we know that we may be saved through Jesus. His blood paid the price demanded by the Law. Having been forgiven, are we not commanded to forgive others? Is this not the point of Jesus' parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:23-35? Did Jesus not tell us that "by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return." (Luke 6:38) If we are going to judge or measure others by the standard of the Law, Jesus warns us that we will be judged by the same standard. Jesus' parable warns that those who do not forgive others as they themselves have been forgiven will be "handed ...over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him."

Whatever crimes a murderer may have committed are small in comparison to the sin that we have committed before God. In fact, the James says, "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all." (James 2:10) In other words, breaking any part of the Law is breaking all of the Law. Therefore, the murderer and I stand in equal violation before God and His Law. How, then, can I judge the murderer differently than I judge myself?

If I believe the Bible and the gospel, then I cannot avoid this conclusion. Paul called himself the most vile of sinners. If we believe the gospel then we will have the same attitude for ourselves. To do otherwise is to invalidate the gospel because we reject the truth that we are sinners as well and start down the path of the Pharisee who said, "God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers" (Luke 18:11).

Having shown that to judge a murderer under the Law is either hypocrisy or an invalidation of the Christian faith, what about arguments to support capital punishment other than the Law? Surely it can be agreed that, as fallen, fallible human beings, there exists the possibility in any system of justice that mistakes will be made. In the realm of capital punishment, this means there always exists the possibility that an innocent person will be executed. A pastor once told me, in response to this point, that "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs." This pastor was essentially accepting this possibility as a necessary part of doing something good.

But what is the Biblical view? Gen 18:20-32 records a conversation between God and Abraham regarding the city of Sodom. This was a wicked city of probably thousands, and God was considering wiping out the city as punishment for their sins. Abraham asks, "Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" (v 23). There follows a series of exchanges where Abraham asks if God will spare the city for the sake of a small number of righteous, i.e. innocent. This small number ranges from 50 down to 10, and in all cases God affirms that he will spare the thousands of guilty for the sake of a few innocent. God's standard, then, appears to be that He will spare the guilty rather than punish the innocent. God's standard should be our standard. Applied to the question of capital punishment, we must conclude that we must spare the lives of the guilty rather than risk executing an innocent person.

Pro-Life

It is an accepted generality that Christians are "pro-life" on the question of abortion. American Christians lead the political fight against abortion rights for women to save the millions of unborn children killed in the womb every year in the nation. It is typically argued that human life is sacred, whether born or not. And yet these Christians do not apply the same reasoning once the child is out of the womb. Joe Urcavich, pastor of the nondenominational evangelical Green Bay Community Church, recently said

I'm very antiabortion, but the reality is the right to life encompasses a much broader field than just abortion. If I'm a proponent of life, I have to think about the consequences of not providing prescription drugs to seniors or sending young men off to war.

To be pro-life is a comprehensive outlook, touching on every element of our lives. To be pro-life, one must consider not only the unborn child, but what happens to that child after he or she is born. It means being concerned about poverty. It means being concerned about victims of war.

I still remember the 104th Congress (the one elected in the 1994 elections). One of the measures the Republicans wanted to push through was a change in welfare that would prohibit additional benefits to women who get pregnant while on welfare. Now, think about this. You have a woman struggling to provide for, say, two children who then gets pregnant. Without additional benefits, how will she provide for a third child? Were these supposedly pro-life not driving poor women to consider abortion? How is that being pro-life?

How many Christians rejoiced and praised God in 1991 after the first Gulf War that the death toll was so low, even though perhaps 100,000 Iraqis were killed by our bombs? Why were only American dead counted? To be pro-life is consider the innocent Iraqi victims of that war, and the sequel, as just as important as the American soldiers who died.

Now, is God pro-life? I do not mean in the political sense regarding abortion. I mean in the sense of, does God view life as sacred as so many Christians do? I think the answer, quite frankly, is no. To make such an argument, one has to forget all the instances in the Old Testament where God ordered mass killing, and to be blunt, genocide. What was the last straw between God and King Saul? It was Saul refusing to carry out God's order for genocide against the Amalekites.

² "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt.
³ 'Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'"
...
⁸ He captured Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
⁹ But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly; but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.
¹⁰ Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying,
¹¹ "I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands."

If God not only orders genocide but rejects kings who do not carry it out, how can one argue that God views human life as sacred? It doesn't follow. This is a hard truth, but it is the truth of Scripture.

I am not saying God is indifferent to this life. Indeed God cares very much for our life on this earth. He demonstrates this in Jesus' healing of the sick, and His continuing healing today. But God is concerned primarily with our spiritual lives, not our physical lives. We are all too easily consumed by this life. One of the great questions non-believers constantly ask is, "how can a loving God allow such and such to happen?" I think the answer is that God, while concerned and pained by the sufferings of this world, is more focused on the eternal.

"U Can't B a Christian and B ProChoice"

[This was originally published on my Doc's Home blog. It is reproduced here as it is relevant to the blog's subject matter.]

I read this bumper sticker this morning on a car as I walked to my bus stop. I've tried to preserve the spelling from memory. This really angered me as a believer. I am not going to comment on pro-choice or pro-life. What angers me is the association of being a Christian and a specific political point of view.

When I read explanations of the Gospel in the Bible, whether in John 3, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians 2, etc., the gospel is always pretty simple. The best known verse of the bible is John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Paul puts it in Romans 10:9 as "if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Interestingly, there is no reference made to one's political views in deciding who is a Christian, at least according to Jesus and Paul. Political views have no impact on one's salvation or standing before God. Politics is not part of the gospel!

If one puts one's faith in Jesus to save him or her, he or she is saved. So the conditions to be a Christian are

1. faith.
   

Stop! Hold it! Whoa! Go no further! End of list! That's it! Faith. Not faith and certain political views. Jesus did not say, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him, votes Republican, opposes abortion rights for women, and opposes gay marriage legalization shall not perish but have eternal life." Yet many brothers and sisters appear to believe that is what He said. They insist on adding conditions on being a Christian, as the author and presumably buyer of this bumper sticker is doing.

They go beyond what Jesus said. They effectively put words in Jesus' mouth. These brothers and sisters are following the well-worn path of the Pharisees, who insisted on adding rule upon rule to the rules God gave in the Law. The last time I checked, Jesus didn't seem overly impressed with the Pharisees, so why are these brothers and sisters following their example? To go beyond what Jesus said is to believe He didn't fully understand what He was teaching. Do these people really think they have a better understanding of Christianity than Jesus? If we believe Jesus knew what He was talking about, then we must humble ourselves and accept what He said, and if He chose to not include political views in His definition of salvation, then why should anyone else?

Does faith impact one's political views? Certainly. I'm not saying there isn't a "right" view on some political issues from a Christian point of view. But holding a "wrong" view on some political question does not invalidate one's faith, and if one has faith one is a Christian plain and simple.

To those who would put words in Jesus' mouth and redefine Christianity and salvation for the sake of their political agenda, I quote these words of warning.

"But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say...must be put to death." (Deut 18:20, NIV)

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book." (Rev 24:18, NIV)

God is not too pleased with people who put words in His mouth or add to what He has said.

Taking Care of Needs

When facing a person who has messed up and is in need as a result, what do you do? Do you address the immediate need or the mistake? Say, for example, a young unmarried woman gets pregnant. Do you address her needs as a woman, perhaps providing a place to stay, counseling, or just a shoulder to cry on? Or do you address the sin that got her in trouble to begin with? I think of the story of Peter walking on the water (Matt 14:28-31):

²⁸ Peter said to Him, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water."
²⁹ And He said, "Come!" And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
³⁰ But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
³¹ Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

When Peter panicked, the first thing Jesus did was address his immediate physical need by grabbing him and keeping him from drowning. Only then Jesus address the underlying problem, which was Peter's lack of faith.

This should be our model for ministering to people in need. That is love in action. But in the American Christian church we see far too much condemnation coming from pulpits in place of ministry. It's not that we should not address sin where sin is. Certainly we should. But without the loving hand to give comfort and protection, where is the love?

New Blog

I have started this blog to be dedicated to addressing issues relevant to Christianity. I am a born-again, Bible-believing Christian, though my views are not always in synch with the conventional evangelical viewpoint. I hope the reader will be challenged where necessary and that we can bring a biblical perspective back to the church. May our attitude always be that of the Berean church, who "received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." (Acts 17:11 NASB)

I will typically quote from the NASB translation of the Bible. This and other translations may be found online at Bible Gateway.

I will continue to post to my Doc's Home blog on general issues. This one is dedicated to Christianity.