“I know you will not mind my being brutally frank when I tell you that I think I can personally handle Stalin better than either of your Foreign Office people or my State Department. Stalin hates the guts of all your top people. He thinks he likes me better, and I hope he will continue to.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Letter to Winston Churchill
“Do not preach against homosexuality (which can be ‘vitriolic’), but reach them (Sodomite practitioners) by “personalized hospitality…. We need to share the gospel and we need to stop adding to the gospel. And what I mean by that is we need to share the gospel of hope in Jesus, not rant about anal sex… that can be very distracting”
Rosaria Butterfield
Queer but Celibate Advocate
I’m reading now on FDR’s charm offensive waged on Stalin at Tehran and later Yalta. Supposedly, FDR was convinced that if he just demonstrated to Stalin that he (FDR) was no threat that Stalin would come around to see things his way. This included basically giving Stalin everything he asked for from the Americans. FDR was convinced that if Stalin could only be convinced that the Americans were not out to get them then a reasonable peace could be arrived at. FDR practiced philoxenia at its best. He didn’t argue with Stalin. He didn’t negotiate with Stalin. He didn’t threaten Stalin. He was the perfect host and just gave Stalin everything the mass murderer wanted.
There is a parallel here in the modern visible church in the West.
This is the same exact type of reasoning that Rosaria Butterfield is pushing on Evangelicals. She is telling them that we have to win the sodomite, lesbian, and trannie with “radical hospitality.” Invite them into your homes. Call them by the pronouns they wish to be called by. Communicate that you are not a threat to them. In such a manner they will be converted.
Now, I am not opposed to hospitality and I have set more than one table for friends who were sodomite and lesbian. I’ve also been to “gay” bars in hopes of reaching sodomites with the Gospel. But these people, whether sitting in my home breaking bread with me, or whether in the dark environs of an unseemly bar, had no illusions about where I stood on their sin and how they, by that sin, were destroying themselves. You see, love and hospitality, constrained me to have spoken the truth to them.
I don’t think Mrs. Butterfield is correct. I believe that the practical effect of what she is advocating is to drop the work of the law in favor of the sweetness of the Gospel. However the Gospel is only as sweet as the law is bitter and while hospitality is certainly sometimes an option it should never be hospitality at the expense of speaking the truth… yes, Rosaria, even about anal sex.
It is my conviction that Mrs. Butterfields approach works as well as FDR’s approach worked with Stalin. Roosevelt’s hospitality approach resulted in millions and millions of souls being consigned to living under the darkness of Communism. Rosaria’s approach is sure to consign people to live for eternity under the darkness of hell.
Good post.