Critiquing Kirsten Powers’ Christian Analysis

Kirsten Powers is a info-babe on FOX News. Her politics are left and her religion is allegedly Christian. She’s all the rage of much of the pop Christianity crowd. In a recent USA article she took up for sodomite marriage.

Below I fisk Kirsten’s article,

KP wrote,

What’s the matter with Kansas? A bill protecting the religious freedom of businesses and individuals to refuse services to same-sex couples passed the state House of Representatives last week. It was blessedly killed in the state Senate on Tuesday.

Similar bills have cropped up in a half-dozen states in an effort to protect anti-gay religious believers against lawsuits. A florist in Washington state, a Colorado baker and a New Mexico photographer have been sued for refusing to serve gay couples getting married. They say to do so would be to “celebrate” nuptials at odds with their Christian faith.

Bret responds,

Now note here that suits are being brought against private businesses because they refused to sell their services / products to people. Is Powers really suggesting that private businesses ought to be forced, against their will, to engage in commerce with people whose money they do not want? Is Powers advancing the idea that the State can again deny citizens their freedom of association?

Isn’t Powers and people like her tolerant enough to allow people the liberty to make their own decisions? Should all florists, bakers, and photographers be forced into business contract or is it not enough to allow the free market to provide florists, bakers, and photographers who want the money of perverts?

What is the matter with Powers that she would ask what is the matter with Kansas? What is the matter with Powers that she finds it so difficult to understand that some Christians take their faith seriously enough that they don’t want to be associated with absurdity and perversity?

KP wrote,

It’s probably news to most married people that their florist and caterer were celebrating their wedding union. Most people think they just hired a vendor to provide a service. It’s not clear why some Christian vendors are so confused about their role here.

Whether Christians have the legal right to discriminate should be a moot point because Christianity doesn’t prohibit serving a gay couple getting married. Jesus calls his followers to be servants to all. Nor does the Bible call service to another an affirmation.

Bret responds,

1.) It’s probably news to most info-babe desk jockeys that some businesses have standards beyond making a buck. It is probably news to most info-babes who read monitors for a living that there exist businessmen in this country who realize that their tacit acceptance of sodomy in the social order — as seen in their providing a service — is not something they want to countenance even if they wouldn’t be directly celebrating a wedding union. (Oh, and by the way, we do not concede that it is even possible for two people of the same sex to get married.)

2.) But Christianity does prohibit sodomy in the strongest of terms and despite Powers inability to connect the dots some people can connect the dots enough to see that providing business goods to sodomites is one way that a Christian can indirectly support what Scripture prohibits. One wonders if Powers would be OK with a businessman selling cutlery to Jack the Ripper? After all, Scripture does not prohibit selling cutlery to those who use knives to rip open women.

3.) Jesus does call to be a servant of all within the context of Biblical law. To suggest that we, by our goods and services, must indirectly facilitate and sanction criminal behavior because we are to be “servants of all” is to ridiculous to contemplate.

4.) Creating a social order context where criminal behavior is approved of and celebrated is indeed an affirmation, Powers protestation to the contrary notwithstanding.

KP wrote,

Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, the largest church in Kansas, pointed out to me what all Christians should know: “Jesus routinely healed, fed and ministered to people whose personal lifestyle he likely disagreed with.” This put Jesus at odds with religious leaders, who believed they were sullied by associating with the “wrong” people.

Hamilton suggested that “if this legislation were to pass … those who wish to refuse service to gay and lesbian people (should be required) to publicly post (their policy). This would allow gay and lesbian people and all other patrons to know before entering a business.”

He’s right. Christians backing this bill are essentially arguing for homosexual Jim Crow laws.

Bret responds,

1.) Jesus did eat with the outcasts but the difference between who Jesus ate with in 1st century Palestine and providing a service today that helps create a social order that embraces sodomy is that those that Jesus ate with understood themselves to be outcasts and sinners. This is largely not true today. Instead the contemporary perverted are proud of their perversion and deny the sinfulness and criminality of their behavior. Would Jesus have dined with those who would have told him to go penetrate Himself because of his insistence that sodomy is sin? To ask the question is to answer it.

2.) Throughout the Scriptures when Jesus speaks, heals, and consorts with sinners he is constantly calling them to repentance or they show up in the context of their repenting. Contemporary sodomites are not a particularly repenting lot.

3.) It terms of Powers “Jim Crow Laws” quip, it should be asked if she is suggesting that any kind of discrimination is automatically out of bounds for businesses? Should businesses be forced to sell Kiddie Cheerleader Outfits to Pedophiles who want to dress up 8 year old little boys or girls in order to live out their sexual fantasy? Would it be a bad thing to embrace Pedophile Jim Crow laws? If it is not a bad thing to embrace Pedophile Jim Crow laws then what is the problem with embracing sodomy Jim Crow laws? You see, Powers whole question presupposes the normalcy of this behavior but sodomy is every bit as criminal as Pedophilia even if people like Powers have become so acclimated to it that they can no longer see its criminality.

KP wrote,

Evangelical pastor Andy Stanley leads North Point Ministries, the second largest church in the U.S. He told me he finds it “offensive that Christians would leverage faith to support the Kansas law.” He said, “Serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity. Jesus died for a world with which he didn’t see eye to eye. If a bakery doesn’t want to sell its products to a gay couple, it’s their business. Literally. But leave Jesus out of it.”

Christians serve unrepentant murderers through prison ministry. So why can’t they provide a service for a same-sex marriage?

1.) Serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity? I thought the essence of Christianity was the finished work of Jesus Christ for sinners like me?

2.) If serving people we don’t see eye to eye with is the essence of Christianity was Jesus being un-Christian when He drove the Bankers out of the Temple with a whip?

3.) Stanley wants to leave Jesus in it when he suggests that Businesses should sell their services to sodomites but he wants to leave Jesus out of it when businesses don’t want to provide services for sodomite marriages. Curious reasoning that.

4.) I would be glad to serve in a prison ministry to unrepentant sodomites who are incarcerated for their crimes.

5.) Christians serve unrepentant murderers though prison ministry. So why can’t they provide a service for Necrophiliacs and people into Bestiality? Stupid Christians.

You see the problem throughut Powers’ article is she assumes that this is something that our social order should be fine with. As such, since we should be fine with it we should be tolerant enough to get with the program. Christians, on the other hand, are not fine with the normalizing of sodomy for our social order that Powers desires to embrace. As long as she, and others like her, are going to assume that this is normal, we will never be able to agree.

KP wrote,

Some claim it’s because marriage is so sacred. But double standards abound. Christian bakers don’t interrogate wedding clients to make sure their behavior comports with the Bible. If they did, they’d be out of business. Stanley said, “Jesus taught that if a person is divorced and gets remarried, it’s adultery. So if (Christians) don’t have a problem doing business with people getting remarried, why refuse to do business with gays and lesbians.”

Maybe they should just ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” I think he’d bake the cake.

Here Powers notes inconsistency and then argues that all because people are inconsistent by serving some people that they may well should not serve therefore they should serve others that they should not serve. The problem in this scenario is not in Christian businesses not serving sodomite marriage. The problem is that they do serve lecherous marriages.

Of course it is far more obvious when two men show up at your bakery giggling about marriage to know what the score is then to know what the score is when a man and woman walk in who have committed adultery and are now going to be married, having left their former spouse. It is a bit much to expect a business to interview its clientele about their morality but one doesn’t have to interrogate about morality when two men show up talking about how they are going to tie the knot. As such Powers last point is merely special pleading.