With A Half-Twist

A reductio on an article that ran in a Reformed Denominational magazine. As originally published it found the word “homosexuality,” or “gay” wherever you find the word Necrophilia in my reductio.

by Name withheld

February 21, 2014 — I am a Christian. I was born and raised in a Reformed Church and educated in its schools from kindergarten through college. I am also a Necrophiliac. These two characteristics define my life more than anything else: more than my education, career, marital status, or the number of children I may have.

As a Necrophiliac Christian, I am an oxymoron to many.

I do not easily embrace myself as a necrophiliac man. I’ve only come to do that after many years of wrestling with the Scriptures, with God, with myself. I sought counsel from pastors and Christian therapists, tried ex-necrophiliacs for Jesus ministries and every reparative therapy program I could find. I begged God to change me and in despair attempted suicide. I studied every angle of the questions “How do I become ‘not necrophiliac’?” and “What must I do to love alive people?” In my study of Scripture, I wrestled with the passages interpreted to condemn Necrophiliac behavior, with creation order, the nature of sin, and the process of sanctification. And I prayed. My sexual orientation did not change.

Like every other Necrophiliac person in my Reformed denomination, I am mindful of my church’s understanding of Necrophilia. “Love the sinner, hate the sin” is a cliché implying that I am sin personified. Tony Campolo has observed that Jesus says the opposite: “Love the sinner and hate your own sin. And after you get rid of the sin in your own life, then you can begin talking about the sin in your brother or sister’s life.” Obviously therefore it is wrong for any sinner to denounce necrophilia as aberrant. I wish the Church would learn that. After all, the Church is full of sinners just like me. Our sins may vary but since we are all sinners no one should be allowed to denounce another person’s “sin.” (Unless of course we are denouncing the sinners who denounce other people’s sins or when we are denouncing Necro-phobia.)

Meanwhile, where have all the necrophiliac sons and daughters of your church gone? Many—I dare say most—have left your churches and your hometowns. Their church home became unsafe when they—like me—learned the pastor’s response to people like us.

It may surprise you that there is a deep spiritual longing within my necrophiliac friends, a longing and a struggle to reconcile “Jesus loves me, this I know” with an attribute that many in the church consider an abomination. My friends grew up loving God—that has not changed. But as a result of being rejected, many have given up on the church, and, tragically, on God.

The culture has is sure to change. Necrophiliac marriage is sure to become legal in Canada and in some states. The U.S. Supreme Court will one day surely strike down any laws forbidding necrophilia. The Boy Scouts of America one day will have special merit badges for sharing a sleeping bag with the dead. I foresee the day when celebrities, athletes, and business leaders will “come out.”

The church seems unprepared to respond to these situations legally and with moral authority. How do congregations pick up the pieces of shattered families after the failure of mixed-orientation marriages of necrophiliac people who enter into a heterosexual marriage, believing that it would make them acceptable to God and the church? How do they welcome necrophiliac couples who attend services or who wish to be married in the church?

My understanding of the Scriptures has changed dramatically over the years. If “insanity” is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, I was going insane seeking “freedom” from being a necrophiliac. Jesus confronted me with the words “I have come to give life and life abundant” (John 10:10). These words trumped “abomination theology.”

Coming out has not been easy—for me or for my family. But it has brought life.

Isn’t it time for the church to welcome back its necrophiliac sons and daughters, along with their spouses and children? Isn’t it time to encourage everyone to know the love of God for each and every one of his children?

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.

The Shortfalls of Movement Libertarianism

Dear Pastor,

I just read an article making the case that Libertarians make good Christians.

Why Christians Make Great Libertarians

I know you like to say that Libertariansim is good as far as it goes but that when it is seen as a system authoritative in itself that it is a positive evil. Could you explain, in your estimation why it is the case that Libertarians who have embraced movement Libertarianism don’t make good Christians?

Leland

Dear Leland,

Thank you for the opportunity to deal with this again. I do think that Libertarianism does at points coincide with Biblical Christianity but as a ideological movement it is opposed to Biblical Christianity. Biblical Christians and Libertarians, for example, both agree that the State should be minimal. However, movement Libertarianism tends to absolutize the individual while Biblical Christianity absolutizes God. As such because of these different absolutes the definition of liberty is different for each. For the movement Libertarian liberty is largely defined by something they call the Non Aggression Principle whereas for the Biblical Christian Liberty is that behavior which is lived out consistent with God’s Law Word. Here are some other ways in which I can see that movement Libertarianism is not consistent with Biblical Christianity.

1.) Movement Libertarians absolutize Liberty so that it turns into anarchy. (Each man does what is right in his own eyes.) Biblical Liberty is ordered liberty — ordered by God’s law word.

2.) Libertarians turn man from Homo Adorans (man the worshiper) into Homo oeconomicus (man the economic being). Movement libertarian reduce man to the sum of his market decisions and turn his whole being into one of economics. Biblical Christians do not see man as primarily an economic being and so the thinking of Biblical Christians on social order issues does not reduce man to the sum of his economic decisions.

3.) Movement Libertarians have no standard by which to measure Liberty except the sovereign autonomous self and its fiat word. Libertarianism insists on doing that which is good for the individual but that which is defined as good in only in reference to the individual.

4.) Movement Libertarainism atomizes man and completely misses His covenant jurisdictions. As such men become free floating integers that are not inherently connected to any covenantal identity. If Socialism makes the mistake of seeing man only as part of the hive, movement Libertarianism makes the mistake of seeing only man as unrelated to anything but his own subjective self (ego).

5.) Libertarians don’t make good Christians because as Rushdoony taught Libertarianism is merely the flip side of the coin to Marxism. Marxism and Movement Libertarianism presuppose one another. Neither get correct the One and the Many and in getting the One and the Many wrong they serve the purposes of each other’s errors in that regard.

Thanks for writing Leland,

The Conservative Church’s Function In The Declining West

The majority visible “conservative” “Christian” Church in the West really serves the purpose of codifying progressive change as “Holy,” thus soothing the conscience of the member practitioners.

Think about it.

At one time the Church stood against Birth Control. Progressives pushed Birth control and mainstreamed it and the Church finally went along thus sanctifying Birth control for the membership while at the same time soothing the membership conscience in terms of practicing something that had previously been considered “sin.”

At one time the Church almost universally stood against divorce in most circumstances. Progressives pushed the boundaries of divorce even unto the legislating of “no-fault” divorce and the Church finally went along thus sanctifying divorce for the membership while at the same time soothing the membership conscience in terms of securing no-fault divorces that in previous generations would have been considered sin.

At one time the Church almost universally stood against sodomite Marriages in all circumstances. Progressives have pushed this boundary and within 10-15 years couples in sodomite marriage will be accepted as members in many, if not most, “conservative” Churches. The Church thus will sanctify, once again, the success of the Christ hating progressives and will serve as the cultural agent that soothes the conscience of the rank and file membership that the members really are servants of the Lord Christ despite their Birth control, divorces, and acceptance of, and participation in sodomite marriages.

Other examples could be enumerated but we see here that the Church still has a function in the culture. It’s function is to help the rank and file be comfortable with the direction that the Christ haters are pushing the culture. The Church convinces us that we can be comfortable and well adjusted in a culture that is insane.

To be sure, the Church often comes kicking and screaming to it new position but it realizes that if it wants to survive, pay the bills and the Pastor’s salary, and keep the bureaucracy rolling it must eventually give in the success of the cultural Marxists and make declaration that matters which were once considered sin are no longer considered sin and are even positive virtues.

Federal Government At War Against The Working Middle Class

1.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoWlJ77pMyg

In this 27 minute video Senator. Ted Cruz explains, from the well of the Senate, how it is the case that the proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that has passed the US Senate (S-744) will redistribute wealth and opportunity away from Americans and legal immigrants towards envisioned newly Amnestied immigrants since the employment of newly amnestied immigrants means that the employer doesn’t have to pay Obamacare taxes given the provision of the passed Senate Bill — S-744. This bill provides overwhelming incentive for employers with over 50 employees to hire newly amnestied immigrants over American citizens and legal immigrants. Further, the bill provides incentive to even exchange one’s American workforce with newly amnestied immigrants since every exchanged American employee for a amnestied immigrant means a potential $5000.00 profit in the pocket of the employer. Put briefly, if an employer with over 50 employees hires a US citizen over one of the new 11 million amnestied immigrants the employer (the business owner) will be penalized $5000 per head!

2.) http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-02-19.html

Obamacare premiums are set by your age, not your health. The older you are the more you pay in premiums. It doesn’t matter if you never go to the doctor. Obamacare punishes you for having a healthy lifestyle. The Obamacare tax is a massively regressive poll tax on the middle-aged and the middle class.

Once again, this is a redistribution of wealth away from the Middle-aged and middle class towards both the Lower class and the upper Class. The wealthy do pay the tax but because it is a regressive tax it represents a much less significant portion of their income. The lower class do not pay the tax because they don’t meet the income requirements. The people taking it on the chin are the Middle aged and the middle class.

So, the Obamacrare tax does a couple of things.

A.) It works to reduce the middle class so that we have an increasingly “have vs. have not” society.

B.) Depending on whether there is a profile of the typical people who disproportionately represent the middle aged and the working middle class in this country we would be seeing an attack on the people group who might hypothetically meet the profile of your average middle aged and working middle class.