In this piece,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304584004576416284144069702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Dr. R. Albert Mohler does a good job laying out the problem with the tsunami of the hommosexual agenda that is washing across these united States.
However, I do have some observations on Mohler’s segment below,
(1)”In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins….
(2) It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.
(3) We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.”
A.) In reference to sentence 1 of paragraph #(1)
All sins are equal in our culture today. This is why Dr. Mohler has to write this sentence, and it is why every time a Christian raises his voice against some public square sin the charge of “Hypocrisy” is leveled.
The conversation seems to go something like this,
Christian: “Homosexuality is evil.”
Public Response: “How dare you declaim against homosexuality when you are a sinner as well. We are all sinners and we need to keep that in mind before we go around faulting some people for the sins that are not ours. If we really took our sins seriously we would never speak against another persons sins.”
Yes, we are all sinners. And while all sins separate the one outside of Christ from God not all sins are equal in their malignity. Do we really believe that the sin of stealing a cookie from the cookie jar is the same in malignity as a College professor convincing a classroom that Government theft is righteous?
Yes Christians are sinners. Yes they need the Gospel of forgiveness preached to them because they are sinners. But the fact that Christians are sinners does not mean that Christians therefore can not raise their voice against malignant sins that destroy people and ruin civilizations.
B.) In reference to sentence #3 of paragraph (1),
1.) Mohler gives us a false dichotomy. It is our concern that Homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Jesus Christ that drives our concern that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted. Is Dr. Mohler trying to divide the concern that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Jesus Christ from the concern that homosexuality will become normalized and accepted? I would insist that a love for the Lord Christ and for those living with the burden of homosexuality dictates that both concerns be present as mutually reinforcing truths in the Christian community.
C.) In reference to paragraph #(2)
As a thought experiment imagine paragraph #(2) in 25 years being slightly rewritten from some erstwhile, nationally known Evangelical.
“It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about Bestiality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of Bestiality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.”
I write the above paragraph for shock value. It is my hope that people will realize that the reason that that homosexuality was spoken of in crude and simplistic ways in the past was because people were, once upon a time, as appalled by it as they now are of the thought of coupling with farm animals. Surely we can understand why something this crude was spoken of in a crude and simplistic fashion. I think saying things “crude and simplistically” (Mohler’s phrase) also served to reinforce the taboo against homosexuality. In other words such disapproving shame type speech served the purpose of keeping homosexuality in the closet and away from our children and families. Now we speak all respectfully and with complexity on this issue and so the Homosexual is emboldened by this new found respect and the previous taboo is no longer taboo. Indeed, now we reserve our taboo reinforcing crude and simplistic language for those who believe that homosexuality is a perversion.
Secondly, I agree homosexuals need the Gospel. However, the Gospel begins with, “God is Transcendent and Holy and will not abide with wickedness.” Some would say, and Dr. Mohler is not one of these, that such a message is crude and simplistic.
Without going into all the details, without ever being homosexual I have seen the homosexual lifestyle up close. I have been to the gay bars. I have befriended the homosexual and have had them confide in me. It is a lifestyle of destruction and hatred. If it is cured it is only cured by regeneration accompanying someone compassionate enough to speak of the peril, both temporal and eternal, in which the homosexual finds themselves. The Love of Christ constrains us, with tears in our eyes, to command all men everywhere to repent.
D.) In reference to paragraph #(3)
But this can’t just be dealt with on an individual level, though I agree that it must start there. This has also now become a public policy issue to which Christians and Churches must speak. The Homosexual agenda is flooding our schools, it is now on the verge of normalizing homosexual “marriage.” It is an agenda that is anti-Christ to its core and is committed to perpetuating its strength through recruitment. We must shepherd the individual Christian homosexual who has this as a besetting sin they loathe but we also must speak publicly against the theology out of which homosexuality prospers — a Theology that hurts people that are created in the image of God.
