Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
“Exquisite little creature!” said the Director, looking after her. Then, turning to his students, “What I’m going to tell you now,” he said, “may sound incredible. But then, when you’re not accustomed to history, most facts about the past do sound incredible.”
He let out the amazing truth. For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!): and had therefore been rigorously suppressed.
A look of astonished incredulity appeared on the faces of his listeners. Poor little kids not allowed to amuse themselves? They could not believe it.
“Even adolescents,” the D.H.C. was saying, “even adolescents like yourselves …”
“Not possible!”
“Barring a little surreptitious auto-erotism and homosexuality–absolutely nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“In most cases, till they were over twenty years old.”
“Twenty years old?” echoed the students in a chorus of loud disbelief.
“Twenty,” the Director repeated. “I told you that you’d find it incredible.”
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World
Chapter 3
With Obama’s decision to allow the “morning after pill” to be available over the counter for all ages without question or Identification we find ourselves pushed one step closer to Huxley’s “Brave New World,” where sex is a indiscriminate past-time and casual recreation.
Random thoughts on the Obama administration allowing children to access the “morning after” pill.
1.) The State pushes indiscriminate sex because such sex destroys the ability of young people to properly bond and form familial loyalties. It is in the interest of the Totalitarian State to destroy all loyalties that might compete with loyalty to the State. By pushing casual sex the Progressive Marxists ensure that no interpersonal loyalties will be formed that will challenge their ability to rule.
2.) The end effect of encouraging meaningless sex is to destroys the whole idea of attached intimacy and dehumanizes the participants by reducing sex to a physical and animal act. The spiritual component of sex being destroyed, the destruction of man’s spirituality is significantly advanced. Man himself begins to think of himself only in terms of his physical lusts and desires. Men who have lost the sense of their spiritual significance are men who think of themselves as no more than cattle. Cattle are easily herded and controlled by the Elite Farmers.
3.) When sex becomes meaningless, and emotion drained out of the act by virtue of the impersonal nature and randomness of the sex act the sense of moral oughtness is seared so that the State can advance other immoralities that will go un-protested by those whose emotional life is barren. It does not take much to convince those, for whom unattached serial sex is morally inconsequential, that any number of other moral outrages as endorsed by the State are acceptable.
4.) The casualness of sex that is being pushed communicates the idea that everyone belongs to everyone. There is a strong strain of communalism in all this. But of course if everybody belongs to everybody then nobody belongs uniquely to anybody. The sense of belongingness is not accentuated but is diminished in the pursuit of sex as a meaningless function of reductionistic human physicality.
5.) Keep your eyes peeled for an increase of rape in our culture because of these kinds of actions. We are already seeing rape on the rise in our military,
If it really is the case that everybody belongs to everybody then it can hardly be considered a crime or even unusual if some begin to take that idea seriously.
6.) The advocacy of normalizing random, regular, and routine sex has the advantage of keeping the Goyim’s mind preoccupied with where he or she will find their next sex opportunity. Minds that are preoccupied with sex are minds that are not preoccupied with thought that is not approved by the State. Fixating the minds of the citizenry on sex is part of the bread and circuses routine that insure independent thought does not arise.
7.) Of course this is all about the Transvaluation of values. The time is coming when being monogamous or perhaps even heterosexual will be seen as pornographic and obscene. Taboos will be reversed so that a young lady who holds her virtue will be mocked and a man who respects women will be lampooned.
8.) A significant part of what makes for Christian categories of Male and Female gender roles is the idea that men are to respect women and women are to be protected by men. When sex is a random commodity men have no incentive to either respect or protect women. Protect them from what? Respect them for what reason? Indiscriminate sex thus goes a long way towards destroying gender roles thus again ensuring the destruction of Christian culture in favor of the unitary Marxist God State.
9.) All of this is suggestive of the anarcho-tyranny that Samuel Francis warned about years ago. In anarcho-tyranny states the FEDS encourage anarchy for libertine and criminal behavior while punishing the law abiding for non-criminal actions. As such we live under the rule of an anarcho-tyrannical Government that desires to, and in some cases has successfully criminalize(d) the ownership of guns, hemp, raw milk, and eggs, while at the same time encouraging and making provision for Mothers killing their babies by a pill and a glass of water.
Of course if your religion is R2K you can’t speak to this as a minister because these kinds of matters are not within the bailiwick of the ministers calling. Instead, you must tell your people that the Christian faith was never intended to transform or impact culture.
“More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Templeton Address
Do you want to know why this nation is considering legalizing Sodomy? Why we have fallen prey to the chimera that is Statist Death care? Why are we even discussing the seizing of our guns?
The answer is simple. Men have forgotten God. When men forget God then a vacuum is created that is filled by godless man. Godless man, by definition, is a demon and he will seek to destroy all social order that is related to the social order of the true God.
Men have forgotten God and in doing so have become beasts. Man can not forget God without losing his own humanity, and yet fallen man would rather embrace living in the ugly environs of the beasts, where nature is red in tooth and claw, then remember God and His Christ.
Men have forgotten God and so they enter into the war of all against all as each individual man seeks to exercise his godhood as over against the godhood of his neighbor. When men forget God it becomes me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world and all of us against the infidel. When men forget God, all men seek to be god and so all men seek to destroy one another. Gods cannot abide competition.
Men have forgotten God and so they shred all God ordained design and distinction in favor of a world where all colors bleed into one. In forgetting God, man seeks to integrate himself downward into the void since integrating upwards into God’s design is no longer an option since men have forgotten God.
Men have forgotten God and so they lose even the idea of the author in literature. The idea of an author who must be considered in understanding a given piece of literature must be rejected since such an understanding hints to much at the idea that there is an Author whose intent must be considered when it comes to life. When men forget God, there is not only no God and no God intent, there are no authors and no authorial intent. The disappearance of God requires the disappearance of the Author.
When men forget God all is chaos and we return to old chaos and dark night. When men forget God they turn to chaos to find order. Order can no more be birthed from chaos then beauty can be birthed out of Cultural Marxism.
When men forget God, life has no value, sex has no intimacy, death has no solution, thought has no meaning, joy has no reference point, and meaning is illusory.
When men forget God, sexually transmitted diseases become as common as abortion, integrity becomes as rare as a virgin on her wedding night, and the bodies start piling up.
What can be done, then, to form a new generation, immune to the multiculturalism produced by the anti-Christ faith of Cultural Marxism? What can be done to form a new generation that is immersed in the fresh springs of a culture which reflects our undoubted catholic Christian faith? (Which, by the way, is the authentic form of “Western” culture.)
The first thing to remember in this regard is the most fundamental. True “culture” is, in its origins, that which surrounds and reflects the “cult.” The true “cult,” of course, has at its core the work of God in Christ redeeming the world unto Himself. An organic culture then — one not artificially engendered — is one which develops out of man’s response to the reality of this act of sacrifice. The most primordial forms of culture, then, are those actions, behaviors, attitudes, and art forms which surround and constitute our union with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection and ascension.
Take the cult of Christ out of culture and all you have left is fiat culture and humanist illusion culture of one form or another.
The second thing is consistent with the first thing to remember and it is that since genuine culture is Objective in orientation (it depends upon and reflects truths that are outside of it) the whole notion of culture as a “social construct” can only be embraced at the price of giving up belief in the Objective nature of cult and culture. Culture that is seen as subjective in nature is culture that is not worth either living for or fighting to maintain, for if culture is merely subjective then why should anyone, beyond the vagaries of personal preference, wish to maintain culture? In keeping with this we need to realize that if we are going to embrace the whole idea of culture as “social construct” we also have to embrace the idea of truth as relative. Obviously, no one can consistently embrace either culture as “social construct” or truth as relative.
The third thing that we must remember in order to build up our immune system against the anti-culture that is the culture of the Cultural Marxists is the necessity to train our children well. In Deuteronomy 6 God calls upon His people to keep His truth before them at all times.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
The Cultural Marxists get Deuteronomy 6. They have created a culture where their truth is before all the people all the time in a myriad of ways. They have impressed their truths on the hearts of the children of the West through the media outlets, through the secondary Schools and the Universities, through the “Churches,” and through the career world. And If you step outside the cultural marxist anti-culture you will be slapped down. They talk about their commandments all the time in novels, top 40, and Broadway plays.
Christians, on the other hand, going all pietistic, have given up on the culture or have adopted the Cultural Marxist culture and have sought to call it “Christian.” We do not obey God’s command in Deuteronomy 6 to keep His word before us at all times. Because of that we are all cultural Marxists now.
The only way to undo this is to be willing to un-train ourselves and then train our children. A new culture to fight the culture of death offered by Cultural Marxists will not be built until we become extraordinarily intentional in the raising of our children. We must train them, that at least until God gives Reformation, that living in this anti-culture culture requires them to have a “us against them” mentality.
The fourth thing we must try and do is build community. It is difficult to do that because there are so few of us who understand how besieged we really are. However, try we must. As much as possible we need to find kindred spirits, who we can ally with. As a three stranded cord is not easily broken, so a worldview and culture embraced in community by several families is not easily broken.
The Serpent’s words flowing over lips
That are painted with Cultural Marxist drips
speak the common lie
that to live is to die
To keep the lies, tight and clean
The Marxist employs the old routine
of blowing smoke and ready bribes
to destroy the Christian tribes
To keep them dumb, they suck out the brains
via school and Hollywood stains
they come with news to “save”
by making us all slaves
The media whispers in our ears
“pleasure and sex will replace Jesus fears
if you’ll only listen to me
We’ll set your libido free”
The ministers warble a carefree song
“Be at peace there’s nothing wrong”
Smoothing out the bumps
for the rank and file chumps
Then raises the voice of R2K
“This isn’t our fight anyway”
And the faith lies there inert
While the male girls lift their skirts
At a distance stands a baphomet
Who chuckles with no regret
eyes sparkling with joy
at a culture now his toy
he thinks, “circus and bread is all it took
the lust of flesh, and lust of look
And now I hold all sway
And their passion is now my play”
But there’s a voice on the air
In Marxist Vanity Fair
“The King is ending the Frankfort play
Kiss the Son or perish in the way
There’s time yet to escape”
No clever talk, nor a gift to bring
requires our lowly, lovely king
Surrender is the only thing
He looks for you to sing
Now is the appointed time to plea
Now the bound can be set free
Of the sneaking snake coiled about their feet
Plying with deceit
The lies of Marx, lie like mist
they warp, spoil, and finally twist
But the Sovereign God is a Hurricane
Who blows away Marxist chains
“I know of no surer way of a people’s perishing than by being led by one who does not speak out straight, and honestly denounce evil. If the minister halts between two opinions, do you wonder that the congregation is undecided? If the preacher trims and twists to please all parties, can you expect his people to be honest? If I wink at your inconsistencies will you not soon be hardened in them?
Like priest, like people. A cowardly preacher suits hardened sinners. Those who are afraid to rebuke sin, or to probe the conscience, will have much to answer for. May God save you from being led into the ditch by a blind guide.
And yet is not a mingle-mangle of Christ and Belial the common religion of the day? Is not worldly piety, or pious worldliness, the current religion of England? They live among godly people, and God chastens them, and they therefore fear him, but not enough to give their hearts to him. They seek out a trimming teacher who is not too precise and plain-spoken, and they settle down comfortably to a mongrel faith, half truth, half error, and a mongrel worship half dead form, and half orthodoxy.
God have mercy upon men, and bring them out from the world; for he will not have a compound of world and grace. “Come ye out from among them,” saith he, “be ye separate: touch not the unclean thing.” “If God be God, serve him: if Baal be God, serve him.” There can be no alliance between the two. Jehovah and Baal can never be friends. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” “No man can serve two masters.” All attempts at compromise or comprehensiveness in matters of truth and purity are founded on falsehood, and falsehood is all that can come of them. May God save us from such hateful doublemindedness.
Charles Spurgeon
This original exchange between Eisenbach and Keller is about 3 years old now. And for three years this exchange has been festering under my skin like an embedded thorn trying to work its way out. You can find the exchange on youtube here,
I take this on because Keller has become the darling of so many “Reformed” people today and yet I’m convinced that the man’s theology is deeply deeply flawed and that he really should be assigned a “Priscilla and Aquila” to tutor him before he is allowed to teach. Of course that won’t happen.
Here are a couple other places where some fine analysis of Keller’s incipient Marxism takes place,
If Keller is Confessional and Biblical Reformed then I’m groupie of D. G. Hart.
Professor EISENBACH begins the dialogue with Keller,
…I wrote a book about the gay rights movement because I was appalled by the oppression and the discrimination against homosexuals in my America [KELLER: uhhmm..]. And this questioner asks, ‘What do so many of the churches have against homosexuals? And what about your church’s approach to homosexuality, is it a sin? Are they going to Hell?
Now this question could have been easily answered by responding to the last two questions above with,
“Yes and Yes.”
A Christian minister might have thrown in a couple references from Scripture to support his affirmatives,
I Corinthians 6:9 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 homosexuals,[a] nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Galatians 5:19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: [i]immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, [j]factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
It also would have been interesting for Keller to ask Eisenbach for some examples of the appalling treatment of Sodomites that Eisenbach references. After Eisenbach answered that Keller could have cited examples of the appalling treatment of Christians and then made a point that in a sin ravaged world appalling treatment is a equal opportunity employer. Personally, I refuse to allow the GLBT crowd play the victim card.
But Keller decides to nuance the question disarming the intensity of the question by using humor thus giving himself some breathing space and time to think,
KELLER: uhhh…let’s talk about my church first which will be a little easier than trying to answer for all the other churches of the world….but I’ll try [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]. I’m representing all the churches of the world alright, you know? [EISENBACH: but Christianity I mean….you, you…] Yeah, I know but let’s start with mine.
I actually applaud Keller here. Humor can be a great way to take the sting out of a question and clearly Keller was being set up here by Eisenbach. There is nothing wrong with using humor as a opportunity to re-frame the question. However, I’m not satisfied with Keller’s re-framing.
Eisenbach returns to the question and Keller responds,
EISENBACH:…. You go to the Bible quite often and there are many evangelicals who would say it is listed as a sin in the Bible [KELLER: sin in the Bible, right.]…and these people are going to Hell.
KELLER: Right. Now…What you..first…ughhhh…Let’s talk about my church again [nervous laughter]. Let’s go back here. What we would say is…I think it’s unavoidable. (1) I think most Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox Christians over the years have said, you read the Bible and the Bible has reservations. (2) The Bible says homosexuality is not God’s original design for sexuality. (3) Ok? There we are…you have it. (4) The Bible also says, ‘Love your neighbor’. The Bible…in fact, The Good Samaritan parable which is how Jesus tells us to love our neighbor…you put a Jew and a Samaritan there. So, what Jesus is trying to say is everybody is your neighbor. (5) Gay people are your neighbors. Uhhh…people who are of other faiths are your neighbors. People of other….. other…uhhhh….uhhh…races are your neighbors. (6) And it’s the job of a Christian to do what Jesus did on the cross which was to give himself for people who were opposing Him and people who were diff….believe….didn’t believe in Him even. (7) And so, a Christian is supposed to say, ‘I serve the needs and interests of all of my neighbors in the city, whether gay or straight, whether Hindu or Muslim.(8) I mean Hindus, for example, don’t believe in the Trinity. (8a) It’s a different view than what the Bible says. (9) Gay people have a different view of sexuality than generally what you see in the NT. I’m supposed to love my neighbors. (10) So, what I don’t see is…at this point, I see some churches that are…basically, ignoring the places in the Bible that talk about homosexuality in order to love their gay neighbor. (11) And I see other Christian churches taking very seriously what the Bible says about homosexuality but in a very self-righteous way. So, they actually do single out gay people. I mean, there are a number of conservative churches that will love their Hindu neighbors and will love their Muslim neighbors, and not their gay neighbors. And I really don’t think there is any excuse for that. So…that’s what [EISENBACH: Is…is] (12) I mean, I…I….Therefore, I have to take some responsibility for being a member of the Christian Church for the oppression of homosexuals.
Bret responds,
(1.) The Bible has RESERVATIONS about sodomy? Reservations? To have reservations is to have doubts or misgivings. The Bible does not have reservations about sodomy. The Scriptures everywhere inveigh against it as sin. Shall we say that the Scriptures have reservations about wife swapping? Do the Scriptures have reservations about blaspheming the Holy Spirit? Do the Scriptures offer reservations regarding idolatry?
For Pete’s sake … reservations?
(2.) The Bible says homosexuality is not God’s original design for sexuality?
Note, here, as above, the word “sin” is avoided. The bible has reservations. The Bible says homosexuality is not God’s original design. What circumlocution will we get next? The Bible frowns slightly on men sleeping with men?
Note in I Corinthians 5 when St. Paul was given a question about sin he didn’t tap dance around the issue with circumlocutions.
It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. 2 [a]You have become [b]arrogant and [c]have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and [d]I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord [e]Jesus.
If Keller had to deal with the situation St. Paul speaks of he would have written something like,
“I have some reservations about this man having his Father’s wife and want you to know that such untowardness is not God’s original design. I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already commended all of you for not being judgmental. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 I have decided to make known my reservations about this behavior not being according to God’s original design. ”
(3.) “Ok … there we are … you have it.”
Bang … right between the eyes.
How bold.
How forthright.
Never a man spoke with more clarity regarding sin.
(4.) “Love your Neighbor.”
And that means what concretely?
Is Keller implying that loving your neighbor means telling them that God has reservations about Sodomy? Is Keller implying that denouncing sodomy as sin is not loving? What is Keller implying when he reminds us of the necessity to Love our neighbor? Some Christians might think that loving your Sodomite neighbor is to bake cookies for them without giving them law and Gospel.
(5.) Yes, I know who my neighbor is and I know that I am supposed to love them. The most loving thing I can do to my neighbor who is of another faith or who struggles with immorality is to give them law and Gospel. Oh sure, I bake cookies for them, and invite them over to the house but if all that happens without telling them of God’s command for all men everywhere to repent, I’m not being loving to my neighbor.
(6.) Jesus died to give his life as a ransom for many. It is not my job to die to ransom a people.
And when the Christian tells the truth about sodomy, greed, lust, or any sin, at that very moment the Christian is giving himself for those who oppose both myself and my Elder Brother, the Lord Christ. Love is not a word that I get to fill with my own content. Love is defined as acting consistent with God’s law towards others. Love to God and to others is to treat them consistent with God’s propositional revelation.
(7.) The Christian first serves the interest of God before he serves the interest of all those types of people that Keller lists. Indeed, I can’t know how to serve the interests of all those people that Keller lists unless I first serve God’s interests.
Secondly, does Keller understand that how the Christian understands the interests of the non-Christian is monumentally different then how the non-Christian understands their own interests. As such, I could be serving the interests of the non Christian while the non-Christian at the same time is howling at me and gnashing his teeth at me because he does not believe I am serving his interests.
For example, I am serving the interests of the Muslim when I oppose allowing a Mosque to be built. Does the Muslim believe I am serving his interests when I do all I can to oppose Mosque building? For example, I am serving the interests of the GLBT crowd when I oppose their curriculum being taught in the Government schools. Does the GLBT crowd see that as serving their needs or interests?
Keller’s answers are glib and not well thought through.
(8.) (8a) (9.) Hindus have a different view of the Trinity than the Bible? Gay people have a different view of sexuality than generally what you see in the NT
A different view?
Than generally what you see in the NT?
Does this guy ever eat meat?
Why do we limit God’s teaching on the subject to the NT?
(10.) At least Keller here admits that some Churches are ignoring the sin (he doesn’t use that word) of homosexuality in order to love their gay neighbor. But the problem is, is that if the Churches in questions are not confronting the issue of homosexuality as sin then, contra Keller, those Churches are not loving the Sodomite. It is not love to ignore the issue Tim.
(11.) (12.) The question starts with the issue of Homosexuality and in these sentences we see Keller’s harshest words for Christians. The way he speaks here turns the sodomite into a poor poor victim of nasty Christian meanness.
Can Christians be mean? Absolutely. Can Christians be self righteous? All the time. But calling out Homosexuality as sin is not mean and not always self righteous. And the fact that Christians might be inconsistent in calling out Homosexuality and not other sins is not unfair to homosexuals. What is unfair is that they are not calling out other sins as sin. If there are 8 cars going 95 miles an hour and I get pulled for going 95 mph it is not unfair that I get a ticket for speeding all because the other cars got away with it. Just so, if there are a host of different sins being engaged upon and only one of them gets hammered as sin, that does not make it unfair to the sin that was rightly called out all because the others weren’t called out.
And lets keep in mind also at this point that the GLBT crowd are the ones who are organizing in order to mainstream their sin into our society and culture. It is they who are the ones who are forever keeping this subject alive so that Christians have no choice but to respond to it. The love that once dare not speak its name now won’t shut up. What else can Christians do except to respond to it. If liars or kleptomaniacs or the greedy were to officially organize as liars, kleptomaniacs and the greedy in order to advance the cause of liars, kleptomaniacs and the greedy the Church would have to speak just as regularly against those organizations. So, away with all this nonsense that somehow the Church has a fixation on the issue of sodomy. If the sodomites would quit screaming their ruddy lungs out in order to advance their agenda the Church wouldn’t have to whisper back about “reservations, and that sodomy is not according to God’s original design.
EISENBACH: Are committing homosexual acts sin….against God?
KELLER: uhhhh….What do you mean by ‘sin’? The answer is ‘yes’.
Bret responds,
Well, at least he said, “yes,” even if he had to ask what was meant by sin.
EISENBACH: Yes.
KELLER: Now see. Here’s the problem with that. You don’t go to Hell for being a homosexual…..
This is so facile it is beyond belief. Keller here begins to introduce a false dichotomy.
Of course a person goes to Hell ultimately because they have not trusted Christ alone. But when a person doesn’t trust Christ alone the consequence is that they remain in their sin and so not having their sins covered they are thrown into hell by God because of their assorted sins.
EISENBACH: …..but committing homosexual acts will get you to go to Hell?
KELLER: Noooo. Wait a minute. Wait, wait [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER].
Why is the audience laughing? They are laughing because they know that despite of Keller’s tap-dancing he is on the horns of a dilemma. And Keller knowing what the audience knows raises his protest “Noooo. Wait a minute. Wait, wait.”
EISENBACH: well, you know. Some people say, ‘Well, it’s not the homosexuality or being gay. It’s being/doing gay stuff that’s the problem’.
KELLER: No, no.
Despite, Keller’s seeming dismissal of Eisenbach offering, I do think it is possible for one to have the besetting temptation to homosexuality and yet have no sin because they resist temptation and don’t do gay stuff.
KELLER: First of all, heterosexuality does not get you to heaven. I happen to know this [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER/CLAPPING]. So, how in the world could homosexuality send you to Hell? And actually…uhhh…The Bible…Listen…..This is…this is true. Jesus talks about greed 10x more than he talks about adultery, for example. Now, one of the problems Christians have here is partly…let’s be nice to Christians. You know when you’re committing adultery. I mean you don’t say, ‘Ohhh, you’re not my wife’ [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]. I mean you know when you are committing adultery. But, almost nobody knows when they’re greedy. Nobody admits…thinks they’re greedy. You know cause everybody is comparing yourself to other people and so, it’s a frog in the kettle kind of thing. Ahhh….however, the fact of the matter is…the Bible is much harder on greed/materialism. It’s a horrible sin, terrible sin. Will greed send you to Hell? No! What sends you to Hell is self-righteousness – thinking that you can be your own savior and lord. What sends you to heaven is getting a connection with Christ because you realize you’re a sinner and you need intervention from outside. That’s why it is very misleading actually to say, even to say, ‘Homosexuality is a sin’ because most people…Yes, of course homosexuality is a sin because greed is a sin, because all kinds of things are sins. But what most Christians mean when they say that and certainly what non-Christians think they hear when they hear that is ‘If you’re gay, you are going to Hell for being gay’. It’s just not true. Absolutely not true.
Bret responds,
When Keller does his little humor bit about heterosexuality and homosexuality it might be easy to conclude that sexuality makes no difference whatsoever in terms of heaven and hell.
Keller then goes on to talk about greed thus seemingly suggesting that Christians who oppose homosexuality are being hypocritical because they don’t oppose greed adamantly enough.
Next, we have to note Keller continuing in his false dichotomies. It is true that self righteousness is that which sends you to hell but Homosexuals and all those (greedy, materialists, adulterers) who are embracing their sins are by definition those who are seeking to establish their own righteousness and so are by definition “self-righteous.” So Homosexuality does send one to hell because the Homosexual is by definition “self-righteous (i.e. — one who has rejected Christ’s righteousness for his own).
Keller seems to want to communicate to sodomites that sodomy doesn’t preclude the possibility of God’s grace and forgiveness but if that is what he is trying to say he could have been far far clearer.
Note that Keller says it is misleading to say that homosexuality is sin even though he immediately contradicts himself by saying … ‘yes of course homosexuality is sin.” Which is it Tim?
And how does the below come close to making any sense,
“of course homosexuality is a sin because greed is a sin, because all kinds of things are sins.” (?)
Of course what it seems Keller is trying to do here is to suggest that all sins are equal therefore it is wrong to focus on homosexuality.
And yes Tim … if the homosexual doesn’t repent they will go to hell for their homosexuality which was part of their attempt to establish their own righteousness.
EISENBACH: So then, what’s….then how is homosexuality a ‘sin’. I’m not….
KELLER: ….Well, homo…[sigh]..Greed is a sin. In other words, it doesn’t help human flourishing. Basically, Christianity has an account of what we think human beings were built to do and what will therefore, help human flourishing. So, we would say if you spend all of your money on yourself, that’s bad….not only for your own soul, but for everybody elses. We would say homosexuality is not the original design for sexuality. Therefore, it’s not good for human flourishing. We want people to do things that are good for human flourishing. But that’s not what sends you to heaven or Hell. Now, there…maybe we ought to talk about that [NERVOUS LAUGHTER]. What sends you to heaven or Hell really has to do with your faith in the Gospel which is that you can’t….uhhh…be your own savior through your performance and your good works. Now here, I’m coming at this like a protestant now. You know…ummm…everybody’s gotta be a particular kind of Christian and there’s differences of opinion within Christianity about this. But uhhhh…no. being gay doesn’t send you to hell and sin doesn’t send you to Hell like that. The sin underneath the sin is, ‘I am my own savior and my lord’. And that’s the reason why pharisaism, moralism, Bible-believing people who are proud and think God is going to take people to heaven because they’re good…that’s sending them to Hell. I mean, I know that this is a lot to take in at once.
Bret responds,
Homosexuality is seen as sin according to Keller because it doesn’t help human flourishing. Tim doesn’t mention that homosexuality is sin first and foremost because it is rebellion against God and His law word. Certainly it is true that homosexuality doesn’t help human flourishing, but homosexuality is a sin because it is rebellion against God before it is a sin because it doesn’t help human flourishing. When we treat sin only as a horizontal problem we lose the majesty of God and His authoritative Word.
Keller then seems to imply that his Protestantism is just one of the Baskin-Robbins flavors of Christianity among which one can legitimately choose from. Hints of postmodernism is all over this answer from beginning to end.
And Keller, in a question that has to do with whether or not Homosexuality is a sin, saves his harshest words for false Christians. Now, I quite agree that false Christians are not going to heaven but for Pete’s sake this question was about Homosexuality.
EISENBACH: It’s a lot.
KELLER: I’m…well…yeah…I mean….[EISENBACH: I want to go back to……]but inside our church…[EISENBACH: right.] There’s just not going to be this disdain of homosexuals [EISENBACH: right.] There just can’t be…not when I’m teaching the gospel like that.
EISENBACH: right.
No Christian congregation should have disdain for any individual who is looking for answers to their sins. However, there should be great and heaping disdain for any individual who looks to mainstream their sin and demands that Christians speak in even softer terms regarding homosexuality then even Keller does.