Bowsma on John Calvin’s Passion For Distinctions — Sermon Distinctions

Text — Genesis 1
Theme – Distinctions
Proposition — God creates and delights in distinctions
Purpose — Therefore having seen that God creates and delights in distinctions let us honor the distinctions that God has created.

___________

In the Genesis account we see God as the God of distinctions. As we enter into the Creation account all is equally the same. All the earth and every aspect of the earth together was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. In today’s parlance we would say that all was equal.

And then the distinction making God went to work and started making distinctions and with those distinctions order and structure was introduced.

Night is made distinct from day
Evening is made distinct from morning
The Waters of the Heavens are made distinct from the Waters of the Earth
The Land is made distinct from the Seas
The fruit and vegetation is made distinct according to its kinds
The Sun from the Moon and Stars is made distinct and given distinct spheres to rule over
Sea creatures, and Birds of the Air, and beasts of the field are created as distinct
Man is created distinct from God
Woman is created as distinct from Man.

All of Creation is one long episode in God creating and assigning distinctions.

Then we come to the fall and in the working of the Serpent in the context of the Fall, what the serpent is seeking to do is to eliminate the distinctions that God had established. In tempting Eve the Serpent successfully erased the distinction, not only between God and Eve but also between Adam and Eve. It is largely accepted that in the Fall, the attempt of the Serpent was to convince Eve to leave her distinction as mortal and to erase that distinction by becoming as God in determining good from evil, but I think we should also note that there was role reversal as well. The distinctions between male and female were negated inasmuch as Eve took the lead that should have been Adam’s and Adam submitted and followed His wife Eve.

Satan’s work in the Fall was to overturn the distinctions of God’s created order. Eve shall be Adam. Adam shall be Eve. Adam and Eve shall be God. It is interesting in the cursing of the fall distinctions are reintroduced. Eve has her own distinct curse. Adam his own distinct curse. And the Dragon his own distinct curse.

We could continue this theme throughout the Scriptures, seeing where God is a God of distinctions while the role of destroying distinctions belonged to Old Scratch.

This idea of set distinctions was at the core of Christendom. It is just the idea that not everything is the same and that the proper distinctions that are found are found because God established them. To deny this … to insist on a world where the God given distinctions are eliminated is to embrace a worldview that is in antithesis to a Biblical Worldview.

Of course we see this all around us today. Dr. Peter Jones has styled these two competing worldviews as “Oneism vs. Twoism.” He is trying to simplify heavy philosophical matters by doing so, but what Dr. Jones is after is the idea that when we presuppose the God of the Bible we get a culture where Biblical distinctions obtain and are settled while if we refuse to submit to the God of the Bible we get a culture distinctions are a thing of the past.

The idea here is that the God of the Bible provides a Transcendent point of definition wherein all things find their meaning and so their distinctions. On the other hand when God is scrubbed from reality then what you have is a world and reality where there is no “outsidedness” by which one can find meaning and so determine distinctions. The consequence then is a kind of Pantheistic worldview where all is one.

Hence Jones has taken to calling this Worldview “Oneism.” It is a worldview that denies that Creation was handed to us as already greatly pre-interpreted and opts instead on insisting that God is not and we instead can interpret our own reality.

Here is Jones on the matter,

“This Utopian vision (of a kind of egalitarian Pantheism) has a long spiritual history. The ideal of the alchemists of the Middle Ages involved ‘the uniting of the opposites …the fusion of male and female, good and evil, life and death — whose union, they believed, eventually created the perfected and completed, ideal personality called Self. The Utopian cosmology in question understands how deeply the Christian faith has molded Western culture and intends to destroy the ‘bourgeois’ Judaeo-Christian culture as the first step toward a better world. To accomplish this, its advocates must weaken the culture systematically in its economy, its military, its psychology, and its morals.They also know what it will take to establish a revived pagan cosmology and will not tolerate half measures. They want all or nothing. The goal is the complete remaking of human identity…

At this  point, such a powerful cosmology takes on an unmistakably religious character. One is reminded of the goal of the occult Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn…. “The Great Work, is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties, and his future; it is especially the prefect emancipation of his will….”

… the true power of the movement: its possession of a new liberating cosmology, includes not just politics and economics but sexuality and spirituality. The sociological analysis, joined to the ideology of revolutionary sexual and spiritual liberation, forms a powerfully influential movement, determined to reinvent the world. Indeed, as politics becomes more all-inclusive, it becomes more religious, claiming to answer all human aspirations, physical and spiritual, and to usher in a better world. ”

Dr. Peter Jones
The Other Worldview; Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat — pg. 98

And so we are in worldview warfare right now and the battle lines are drawn at the point of Oneism (all is One) vs. Twoism (The Creator Creature distinction that then translates into all other distinctions).

You’re living right now through an all out assault on what made Western Civilization. As the British Journalist Melanie Phillips offered,

“The attack on Western civilization, at its most profound level, is an attack on the creed that lies at the very foundation of that civilization.”

And of course that Creed is Biblical Christianity.

You see, we have now gone well beyond the attack of God has Redeemer to the point where we are now attacking God as Creator. We are now at the point of challenging God’s authorial rights to delegate distinctions.

Of course the intensity of this battle to eliminate distinctions has been going on for quite some time. It has always been the goal of those in set defiance against God,

“Princes and nations will disappear without violence from the earth, the human race will become one family and the world the abode of reasonable men.”

-Adam Weishaupt, quoted in Paul Johnson, Intellectuals (London: Orion Books Limited, 1993), p. 32.

Capitalism developed the ever more inhuman polarization of the sexes. The cult of making distinctions, which serves only for oppression, is now being swept away by awareness of resemblance and identity.

M. Walser
Uber die neusten Stimmungen im Westen
In: Kursbuch, Bd. 20, 1970, S. 19-41.

“… Just as mankind can achieve the abolition of classes only by passing through the dictatorship of the proletariat, so mankind can achieve the inevitable merging of nations only by passing through the transition period of complete liberation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their right to secede. “

V. Lenin
The Rights of Nations to Self Determination

These Communists of the past are joined today by those today, who like their Communist Fathers of the past are seeking to eliminate distinctions.

“Being queer is more than sleeping with a person of the same gender…. it means transforming the very fabric of our society’s view of family. The goal is radically reordering society’s view of family”

Paul Ettlebrick
Gay Activist

We as Christians then … as those who uphold the idea of God ordained distinctions are in the contest of our lives.

Jones gets at the stakes in this contest between Christians and those who would erase distinctions when he notes,

 

“The push for homosexual rights is not a concession we throw to a tiny percentage of our population in a compromise that will bring no real harm to society. Pushed with ethical fervor through appeals to anti-discrimination, equal right, equality legislation, and the checking of privilege, this social movement deconstructs from the foundational social concepts like family, gender, and social achievement.There is no ‘live and let live,’ when faced with advocates of this agenda.”

Dr.Peter Jones
The Other Worldview — pg.96

And so to return to our Christian convictions on this matter of the distinction making God we make just a few observations in closing,

“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.”

1.) Note that at the beginning of God’s revealed word that God is presupposed. There are no elaborate arguments given for the existence of God. No ontological, cosmological, teleological, moral or Historical arguments for the existence of God. God cannot be proven unless He is first presupposed and when He is first presupposed then everything proves and demonstrates the reality of God. Indeed nothing can be proven unless God is presupposed. Genesis 1:1 reveals that the reality of God is a necessary precondition for intelligibility.

2.) God is a creator God. The fact that God has created the heavens and earth reveals that pantheism (Oneism) is false. Since God is a creator we know that He is distinct from His creation and any teaching that runs God and His creation together without recognizing the proper distinction between Creator and creation is heresy. Genesis 1:1 is thus the death knell for all forms of process Theology that hold that God along with His creation is becoming. Likewise all Hegelian notions of God being universal spirit are out of bounds because of how it tends to put God in constant process. Further the idea that God is a creator God distinct from His creation implies the creator creature distinction that is often forgotten by modern Christians. God is the thrice awesome Creator. Worship that contained a little awe and respect would be a welcome relief in most American worship services.

3.) Likewise Genesis 1:1 teaches that the creation is not totally separate from God. Creation is totally dependent upon the Creator. If God did not uphold His Creation it would cease to be. Therefore Genesis 1:1 reveals that all forms of Deism are heresy. God remains intimately involved with His creation. All that happens (all historical events, all natural happenings) remains personal because God remains not only the creator but also the sustainer and governor of His creation.

4.) Christian Theology must continue to take into account God’s work in creation as well as God’s work in redemption. In some sense Redemption serves the work of God’s creation by restoring creation to its original intent. God’s work of Redemption returns God’s work of Creation to the status of ‘very good.’ Creation provides the context where Redemption happens and Redemption in return brings Creation to all that it was intended to be and Creation groans for the fullness of Redemption that is yet to be. Creation and Redemption while distinct can never be divorced. They have an incipient relationship.

5.) On the question of origins we see the Christian Worldview demands a supernatural answer. The Cosmos was created by a personal Creator. This stands in sharp contrast to the Humanist Worldview where all happens by time + chance + circumstance and where all starts by impersonal materialistic process. According to the Christian the Heavens hold a listening and watching God and all life has meaning because this personal God has placed His fingerprint on it all. According to the Humanist the Heavens are brass and all of life is meaningless — a mere chasing of the wind. Which Universe would you prefer to inhabit?

6.) If God is the creator and man is the creature then man is responsible to God. Man is not an end in Himself. He is now accountable to the Creator God and will one day give an account for his actions to the creator God.

7.) Genesis 1:1 is the beginning of Revelation where God reaches down to make Himself known to fallen man. All other religions stand in contrast to Christianity on this point. All other religions are mythologies where man seeks to ascend to God. The god or gods of all other religions are ‘man’ said loudly. Only in the Christian religion does God descend to man in order to make Himself known. We come to know God because He has made Himself objectively known. Orthodox theology thus distances itself from all forms of existentialism where that which is subjective precedes and destroys all notions of that and He which is objective.

8.) Genesis 1:1 implies God’s aseity. The doctrine of divine aseity holds that God is not dependent on anything outside himself for his being and nature. The Creator is not dependent upon the creation for His existence but rather the creation is dependent upon the Creator. If a tree fell in the woods it would still make a sound even if nobody heard it (if only because God would hear it) and If there was no creation to hear God, God would still be God. God did not create because there was some kind of lack in God. God did not create because He was lonely for fellowship. God did not create because He had some kind of unfelt need going un-met that was met by us (lucky for God He made us — blech!). God has eternally been the eternally happy God. God’s creation was the spill over of His eternal satisfaction in His triune self.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Conclusion

We end with a quote from someone who analyzed the life of Calvin and who offers Calvin’s thoughts on the importance of distinction.

“But the notion that what ails the world [inseparably from sin] is confusion had much practical value for Calvin … Thus, when Calvin associated disorder with obscurity, he could conceive of correcting it by sharpening the contours of the various entities composing the world; once one thing has been clearly distinguished, physically or conceptually, from others, it can be assigned its proper place in the order of things … Thus he abominated ‘mixture,’ one of the most pejorative terms in his vocabulary; mixture in any area of experience suggested to him disorder and unintelligibility. He had absorbed deeply not only the traditional concern for cosmic purity of a culture that had restricted mixture to the sublunary realm but also various Old Testament prohibitions. Mixture, for Calvin, connoted ‘adulteration’ or ‘promiscuity,’ but it also set off in him deep emotional and metaphysical reverberations. He repeatedly warned against ‘mixing together things totally different.’ …

The positive corollary of Calvin’s loathing of mixture was his approval of boundaries, which separate one thing from another. He attributed boundaries to God Himself: God had established the boundaries between peoples, which should therefore remain within the space assigned to them … ‘Just as there are in a military camp separate lines for each platoon and section,’ Calvin observed, ‘men are placed on the earth so that each nation may be content with its own boundaries.’”

W.J. Bouwsma
John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait — p.34-35

 

 

Why is it so hard to talk about why it is so hard to talk about homosexuality — II

Continuing, in this second entry, to examine this article

seeking to respectfully point out the errant thinking, inconsistencies, contradictions, and misinformation contained therein.

When we left off last time we began to deal with the accusations of “homophobia” which Rev. Nydam said was “so present in our gay-unfriendly culture.” Rev. Nydam in the same context raises an implicit objection to patriarchy. It seems that Rev. Nydam is convinced that as a culture we value the masculine above the feminine. Rev. Nydam offers no facts to support this bald assertion. The good pastor goes on to lament how our culture condemns men with feminine traits. And yet we must keep in mind that the Scripture teaches,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,

Now, perhaps the Pastor is correct in saying that we shouldn’t condemn those with feminine traits but surely given the teaching of God’s word we should meet Christian men who are overwhelmed with feminine traits with some disapproval.

We already mentioned, but it bears mentioning again, that Rev. Nydam is not up to date concerning the false narrative of the Matthew Shepherd case. In the last entry we pointed out an investigation which has been done in this case which demonstrates that Shepherd was not murdered because of his homosexuality but rather Shepherd was murdered in the context of a meth drug deal gone bad. In point of fact the man convicted for Shepherd’s murder had previously had sodomite relations with Shepherd. Like the Roe. vs. Wade false narrative from 1973, the Matthew Shepherd narrative was completely contrived in order to gain legislative sympathy for the sodomite agenda. Rev. Nydam completely missed this in his article. With this article by Rev. Nydam I have to conclude that Rev. Nydam may have a severe case of Hetero-phobia as seen by his symptomatically high egalitarian fever.

I agree with Rev. Nydam and that is the necessity to come alongside and support those Christians who are struggling with the temptation of homosexuality.  I agree that we have need to confess our sin so that we do not come across as self righteous prigs to those who are genuinely struggling to put off the old man of homosexuality and put on the new man of heterosexuality or who are seeking to be celibate in the context of what they recognize as sinful appetites. At the same time we need to enter careful self-examination to make sure we are not watering down the word of the Lord Christ in order to be able to fit into the zeitgeist. We have need to name the sin of compromise with this present wicked age in order to help those who are struggling. This is a very difficult spiritual challenge.

I also agree with Rev. Nydam that we must be friendly with those who are struggling against the sin of sodomy and lesbianism. We must come alongside them and encourage them to honor our Lord Christ by remaining chaste. We must advocate for before God’s throne in prayer asking that increasingly they will be able to quit finding their identity in their sexuality and instead find their identity in Christ. We must never push away repentant people who were once LGBT but now are in Christ. We must remind them though they were once Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and  Transgender they have been  washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. By coming alongside them and encouraging them in their new identity in Christ we can together rejoice over the Grace that has delivered each one of us from our sin and misery. In just such a manner the love of God gets to them just as God intended.

So as the CRC continues in the conversation concerning pastoral ministry among those redeemed out of the LGBT lifestyle, those struggling with the sin of LGBT-ism and the sin of continuing to identify as a LGBT person even after they’ve embraced Christ how can we best prepare ourselves for this conversation?  Several recommendations come to mind.

1.) As Rev. Nydam said, “we must continue our commitment, once again together, to a careful, thoughtful hearing of the biblical text. Scripture must speak to us.” This means guarding ourselves against novel readings of the Scripture that conclude what nobody in 2000 years of Church history have concluded. It’s possible that for 2000 years the Church has gotten something this significant wrong but extraordinarily unlikely.   So,  as Rev. Nydam offers, “we must not give in to the temptation, the exegetical error, of reading our wishes or beliefs into the text.”  
2,) We must affirm a biblical definition for human sexuality. This means, in terms of marriage, that one boy goes with one girl. It also means understanding that given the way our sexuality is tied up with how we are God’s image bearers that it only makes sense that Lucifer is going to seek to overthrow God’s design at just this point. This also means that we have need to be sensitive to the fact that this kind of sinful behavior could well be a sign of God turning people over to their reprobate desires (Romans 1:18-32). Becoming more comfortable with the way God speaks about sexuality will give biblical wisdom to our responses.

3.) We need to allow the Scriptures to shape our understanding of gender roles. Scripture teaches that men are to  love their wives, and wives are to submit to their husbands. Scriptures teaches that men are to lead and women are to be silent in the Church. Scripture teaches that we all have the fruit of the Spirit as that fruit demonstrates itself in the roles God has assigned to men and women.

4.) We must learn more about homosexuality in general. For example, repeated studies demonstrate that in a overwhelming percentage of cases where boys become homosexual it is due to some kind of molestation or Father-Son dysfunction in early development. If this is true then it is likely also true that people do not choose aberrant sexuality the way they might choose what flavor of ice cream to have. This is a fallen world and people can be fallen quite apart from self consciously deciding how their fallen-ness is going to manifest itself. Studies have given us very little evidence that LGBT-ism is a genetic predisposition.

5.) We must be sympathetic and empathetic. This sympathy and empathy must be for both God and His authoritative word and for those struggling with LGBT-ism. We must be tender where there is a spirit of repentance or anguish on their part. We must sincerely care about those who want to give this lifestyle up to follow Christ. Let it never be said of Christians that we added burdens of hatred upon and for those who are already bearing the terrible burden of a self-loathing because of the sin they struggle so mightily against.  Let it never be said that we failed to encourage those who have been redeemed from this lifestyle to remember their identity in Christ.

6.) For those of us who have friends who have come out of the homosexual lifestyle we must continue to show ourselves kind and generous. This means having them over for a meal and making them welcome. This means taking their phone calls at midnight in order to help them past temptation.

 

 

Lift up your glass and raise up your pitcher to good Judge Roy Moore

At Iron Ink we talk a good deal about the lesser magistrate doctrine as developed by the Reformers and their descendants. This doctrine simply teaches that if Magistrates (Elected officials) at the top of the ladder go off the rails in wickedness then the Christian faith allows people to follow elected officials at a lower lever in overturning the design of wicked higher officials.

Some would contend that Alabama’s State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is just such a lesser Magistrate who is throwing off the wickedness of a lower Federal judge who has ruled that Alabama must allow sodomite and lesbian marriages. I disagree. It is my conviction that Judge Moore in this case is the higher magistrate overturning the ruling of the lesser lower Federal court judge. However, even if Judge Moore is a lesser magistrate he is still doing what is right both Constitutionally (Where does the US Constitution explicitly command that States must embrace sodomite marriage?) and according to Natural Law and according to Biblical Law.

My friends, somewhere a line has to be drawn or else we are going to discover that marriage can be defined as any combination imaginable. In this completely arbitrary definition of “marriage” that we are on the threshold off we will doubtless soon find a man, a woman who used to be a man, a man who used to be a woman, a homosexual transgender and their toaster all joined in holy wedlock.

May the Lord Christ bless Judge Roy Moore.

 

 

THE NORMAN AND THE SAXON by Kipling


“My son,” said the Norman Baron, “I am dying, and you will be heir
To all the broad acres in England that William gave me for share
When he conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice little handful it is.
But before you go over to rule it I want you to understand this:–

“The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, ‘This isn’t fair dealing,’ my son, leave the Saxon alone.

“You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears;
But don’t try that game on the Saxon; you’ll have the whole brood round your ears.
From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field,
They’ll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield.

“But first you must master their language, their dialect, proverbs and songs.
Don’t trust any clerk to interpret when they come with the tale of their wrongs.
Let them know that you know what they’re saying; let them feel that you know what to say.
Yes, even when you want to go hunting, hear ’em out if it takes you all day.

They’ll drink every hour of the daylight and poach every hour of the dark.
It’s the sport not the rabbits they’re after (we’ve plenty of game in the park).
Don’t hang them or cut off their fingers. That’s wasteful as well as unkind,
For a hard-bitten, South-country poacher makes the best man- at-arms you can find.

“Appear with your wife and the children at their weddings and funerals and feasts.
Be polite but not friendly to Bishops; be good to all poor parish priests.
Say ‘we,’ ‘us’ and ‘ours’ when you’re talking, instead of ‘you fellows’ and ‘I.’
Don’t ride over seeds; keep your temper; and never you tell ’em a lie!”

Why is it so hard to talk about why it is so hard to talk about Homosexuality — I

In the February edition of the Banner Rev. Ron Nydam wrote an article probing as to why it is so hard to talk about homosexuality. I wanted to spend some time probing Rev. Ron’s probing.  It is my conviction that Rev. Nydam’s article is written in order to grease the rails into accepting the idea of the normalcy of relationships that the Scripture characterizes as sinful.We should note at the outset that it is always the goal of those who want to make something formerly taboo to be acceptable to get people talking about the taboo. Conversations about the taboo make the taboo more acceptable and less frightening. As such Nydam and the Banner are advancing the agenda of the LBGT crowd by continuing to insist that this is something that must be spoken about. In a sense, even my writing of this essay serves their agenda because continues the conversation they so desperately desire in order to mainstream aberrant behavior.

Rev. Nydam leads off by mentioning the CRC study committee due to report in 2016 on providing pastoral guidance  to churches, pastors, church leaders, and members on appropriate ministry and expectations in a culture where same-sex marriage is increasingly legal and common. Rev. Nydam throws in the bisexual and transgender people into this pool of ministry consideration since their pastoral needs may be quite similar. My question for Rev. Nydam and others is why stop with LGBT folk? Shouldn’t we include in the report the pastoral needs of necrophiliacs and bestiality oriented folks as well? After all, why should we be so narrow as not to include their very real pastoral needs?   The answer to the bigotry of the CRC against these folks is that LGBT has become societally acceptable while those who perhaps suffer the most from unmet pastoral needs are left not considered. This is a black mark upon us as a Denomination.

Rev. Nydam speaks of the necessity of shalom that we are to seek in our congregations and is concerned that this issue will divide congregations. He’s afraid that this issue will bring strife and divisions to families, friends congregations, and Denominations. In writing this Nydam has suggested that the acceptance of the LGBT agenda, sure to be at the very least hinted at in the coming report, is not something so serious as to actually divide over. We must be see that our false unity as based on false theology is more important then any unity that can only exist in the context of dividing from people with whom we have no unity.

Rev. Nydam subtly suggests that people who disagree with LGBT-ism struggle do so wisely and biblically. Rev. Nydam insists that what he is writing about is not the ethical issues around sexual behavior but only to examine the high anxiety in the hetero-sexual community. But Rev. Nydam seems not to realize that the very reason there exists high anxiety in the hetero-sexual community is because of the ethical issues around sexual behavior. It really is impossible to tamp down high anxiety on this issue without also engaging in the ethical issues around sexual behavior. For Rev. Nydam to suggest that he is only going to address high anxiety but not ethical issues is like someone saying they are going to address conductivity without mentioning electricity. In point of fact, by inviting the “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members to listen in” he has at that moment touched upon the ethics of all this.  Is it ethical for Christians (even celibate ones) to self identify as sinners?

Rev. Nydam then suggests that the real problem here is that Scripture appears to be being interpreted “in new and different ways.”  Once again, we are back in the realm of ethics. We have to ask, “Is it ethical to appear to be interpreting Scripture in new and different ways when it comes to the issue of sexual ethics. (?)

Rev. Nydam next suggests that since we are all sexual sinners in one form or another then none of us have the place to speak to the sin of the LGBT community. After all we all have beams in our own eyes therefore we have no business worrying about the beams in other people’s eyes. This is the classic moral equivalency apologetic. If you have one sin in your life you are no longer qualified to hold up God’s standard. In point of fact no one is qualified to hold up God’s standard since no one is without sin. Somehow Rev. Nydam knows that “all of us struggle to some degree with our sexuality.” Really? All of us? Each and every one of us?

Rev. Nydam implicitly complains about the double standard that Christians have regarding sexual sins. He says that on these sins we are “especially punitive.” Maybe though the reason we are especially punitive on these sins is that the Scripture teaches that these sins are especially grievous?

“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” (I Corinthians 6:18)

In the Ten Commandments God gave us two commandments that protect the family. Maybe we are especially punitive on sexual sins because we know that not only do they destroy the individual but they destroy the family and eventually, if left unchecked, they destroy the community.

(And Rev. Nydam … can you give me the names of folks who say that each and every sin is as bad as any other sin that can be imagined? Is the sin of a 5 year old stealing a cookie as bad as the sins of Stalin?)

Rev. Nydam then notes that we heterosexuals might be committing the sin of “self-righteousness” for being pleased that we are heterosexual. But might not Rev. Nydam be committing the sin of self-righteousness for being pleased that he is not being guilty of the heterosexual pride which leads to self-righteousness? What Rev. Nydam seems to be attempting  here is getting everyone in the same sin boat. Once we are all in the same sin boat then none of us can complain about the sin of anybody else since, in Rev. Nydam’s words, “one sin is as bad as another,” and “we are all pretty crooked.” But if Rev. Nydam is pretty crooked also why is he here faulting the crooked heterosexual people who are opposed to mainstreaming the crookedness of LGBT-ism? Who is the crooked Rev. Nydam to correct anybody?

Next Rev. Nydam launches into a soliloquy on homophobia, and patriarchy. In doing so he trots out the Matthew Shepard canard.  It seems that Rev. Nydam has not learned yet that Shepard was not killed because of homophobia but rather the murder was due to a Meth deal gone bad.

The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard