Confused Christian is a Ph.D in New Testament and is a Dean of a Holiness Seminary in Indiana.
Confused “Christian” (CC)
“So I think almost anyone who would be reading this post believes that homosexual sex is wrong biblically. What do we do with this? Do we
1. Try to stop it from happening anywhere we can by trying to pass laws against it or even by resorting to violence against such people? This is Bret’s Christian reconstructionist position where you try to make the nation into Calvin’s Geneva.”
Bret responds,
You know, you might first want to do some reading up on Reconstructionism before you start pretending to be an authority on what they do or don’t want.
It is interesting that you talk about “resorting to violence against such people” as if violence visited upon violators of the law is a bad thing. Was God wrong for insisting that violence be visited upon people for their committing of Capital Crimes?
Not liking Calvin’s Geneva, I presume you would prefer Harvey Milk’s San Francisco?
We try to stop rape from happening anywhere we can by trying to pass laws against it and even by resorting to violence against such people? Why should sodomy be any different?
I notice you said that “anyone reading your post would believe that homosexual sex is wrong.” You did not say whether or not you think homosexual sex is wrong. Do you?
CC,
2. “Do we ‘hate the sin but love the sinner,’ let such individuals know we love them without waffling on our values but without trying to force them to stop? This at least seems more Arminian to me and in keeping with the way God deals with the world in general, wooing people to Him rather than forcing us to obey him. And, ironically, this approach seems more in keeping with our Constitution, which does not really allow for us to pass laws based on specific religious traditions that are not universally shared and do not involve basic harm of others.”
Bret
Do you do this all the time? Do you constantly pretend to know what you’re talking about in matters outside what is supposed to be your expertise? What do you know of Constitutional law? Where does the Constitution say that we are not to pass laws based on specific religious traditions that are not universally shared and do not involve basic harm to others? Having read the Constitution a few times I would dearly love for you to point that out. Secondly, on what basis are you suggesting that homosexuality doesn’t involve basic harm of others?
All laws, all the time, are passed based on some specific religious tradition. Indeed, law itself is dependent upon some notion of a lawgiver. Show me the law … and I’ll show you the lawgiver. Having shown you the lawgiver, I’ll show you the very specific religious tradition from which the law comes.
A question for you. Should we also love people who are polygamists w/o trying to force them to stop? Yep, that certainly sounds Arminian to me. It also sounds idiotic. But I repeat myself.
CC,
“The other question is one of motive. The insidious thing about preaching against sin is that, without diluting the badness of sin, it often gives us an excuse to sin by hatefulness. In other words, it is sinful to hate homosexuals, yet because we believe homosexual sex is wrong, it is easy to let yourself off the hook and self-justify evil in one’s own heart because you are preaching against sin. Preaching against sin when we are not preaching for someone is the kind of activity that most easily lends itself to sinfulness on the part of the preacher in this way.”
Bret,
Paul said in Romans, “Hate that which is evil, cling to that which is good.”
The Psalmist, speaking to God said, “Do I not hate those who hate you w/ a Holy Hatred?”
When we preach against sin we are automatically preaching for someone. The first someone we are preaching for is God. Let’s not forget him in all of our sensitivity and compassion for sinners. The second someone we are preaching for is the Sinner himself. Sin hurts people. It hurts them bad. Confronting them w/ Sin and holding out the Lord Jesus Christ as the forgiveness of sin and the cure for sin is the most loving thing you can do for someone.
Second, it is most certainly not hateful to hate homosexuals (or any sinner) when done for the sake of love, who are, through their respective sin of choice, seeking to pull God off His throne. Certainly we must communicate a sense of pity to those who are flipping off God and certainly our hatred of them must be a hatred based on love for them (an, “against the world for the world,” kind of thing) but if we love them we must hate them. Indeed true hatred of them would be a harlot love for them that did not resist them.
