What is the judgment of God? Has God judged the embrace by individuals of homosexuality to be a sin? The Human Rights Campaign (referred to throughout as HRC) is an organization to advance understanding of the LGBTQ+ community and in doing so to claim that the Bible has been misunderstood and that homosexuality is not a sin. The HRC is convinced that the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament has been distorted for various reasons to exaggerate Almighty God’s rejection of the LGBTQ+ community.
The HRC begins its defense of homosexuality against clear injunctions against it in Holy Scripture by stating that while God created man and woman, it does not say in Scripture that He created ONLY man and woman. When I read these words, I was flabbergasted. Yet, this observation by HRC is consistent with the many claims of gay organizations that there are 30 or more different “genders.” Apparently, just as airplanes and computers were not mentioned in the Holy Bible, the many other created genders were not mentioned. Orchids also were not mentioned or sycamore trees, yet these also exist and have existed for a long time. The Bible account of creation did not have the advantage of anthropology to enhance its accuracy, nor was that penetrating insight into the difference between sex and gender understood when Genesis was given to Moses to write approximately 3500 years ago. Just as locomotives and electricity were not mentioned in the Bible, but are legitimate realities, the HRC says that the omission of the creation of varied genders in Genesis is an innocent but understandable omission.
But what about the offense taken in Mosaic law and even in Genesis with the behavior of homosexuals such as in Sodom and Gomorrah? HRC claims that this is God’s hostility towards violent behavior and towards hyper-eroticism not towards loving, committed non-straight behavior. Yet, it remains difficult to ignore the overt hostility shown at the gay pride parades in New York City when “loving” gay men will go out of their way to urinate on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But they do raise an interesting question: what constitutes the homosexual community?
Homosexual “community” is based on some common sexual practices not engaged in by other communities. But Christian community is not based mainly on sexual practice. For biblical Christianity, community comes from the Greek word koinonia. Merriman-Webster defines koinonia as “intimate spiritual communion and participative sharing in a common religious commitment and spiritual community.” This definition denotes a common, transcendent set of beliefs and commitments, not merely a type of sexuality, not merely oral sexuality or penile-anal intercourse. The homosexual community is joined together by a commitment to and acceptance of certain sexual practices and identities that are not accepted or practiced by the vast majority of society.
They are engaged in common practices, not common beliefs and commitments to a holy God. “Christian community” connotes an aspiration to a higher level of human interaction and worship of the Creator. Homosexual “community” is absorbed with certain erotic satisfactions. Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual Episcopalian priest amicably divorced his wife, and joined in a civil union with his male lover. But their “love” – their “commitment” – came to an end in 2014. The anal satisfaction was not enough to keep them together. Are we entirely surprised? He was put forward as a perfect amalgamation of the gay community and the Christian community. But that “bonding” failed because the two concepts of “community” are inherently incompatible. The participants in this amusing digression from normal commitments insist that they too have love and commitment, but do they? Do they parent? Do they have assured commitment under the hand of a loving and absolutely trustworthy God – the one we call ALMIGHTY GOD!?
The fact that homosexuality and its variations is promoted by an organization that calls itself a “human rights” organization implies the purity of the actions and motives of homosexuals. “Human Rights” is intended to imply the goodness and acceptability of the rights it claims to represent. The right of anal fornication and mouth-penis stimulation between men is not only something people may be doing, but as a human right it is, well…right. Why do they not call themselves the “Sodomite Rights Campaign”? The reason is that the word “sodomite” is pejorative – it is a behavior that Christians and others use to denigrate the practices of this so-called community. But they wish to affirm that this behavior is wholly human, normal, and the moral equivalent of heterosexual intercourse. For HRC and their allies, homosexual practice which further expands the boundaries of human choice whether it be within or outside of the marital bond is also wholly human.
To HRC, expressions of lust and lasciviousness are wholly human. The idea of sin is outmoded and irrelevant. Almighty God only wants us to love, but sin as an enemy of love is as out-of-date as the kerosene lamp. Love is wanting the best for other people, and if pleasure comes under the special gift of human freedom, then the obtaining of that pleasure and encouraging the right to seek that pleasure constitutes the fulfillment of love. If God loves us as Christianity claims, then it stands to reason that is not requiring these outmoded concepts. HRC undoubtedly believes that when Jesus died on the Cross, he died to relieve us of the burden of Old Testament sin and lead us into an open space of freedom and hope without the oppressive and cruel restrictions that took place under the Mosaic Law. Even where the New Testament seems to condemn sin, it is only because they lived at a time in history when so much less was known about people, about brain and body chemistry, and about the reasonableness of personal fulfillment which was unthinkable in the first century. Undoubtedly, they would have thought differently if they lived in our time.
But when Jesus died on the Cross, he uttered the eternally relevant words, “It is finished.” (John 19:30) The mission of the Godhead to establish righteousness on the planet Earth was completed. All had been set in motion for the redemption of those who would receive the message of hope and the real time forgiveness of sin for those who would be born again. (John 3:3). Sin in general as well as particular sins remain condemned by Almighty God. Forgiveness comes eternally through the intervention made by the Son. Romans Chapter 1 cannot be moderated or diluted in any way. It reads, “27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.”
Photo: Warrensburg Star-Journal
Jeffrey Ludwig
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