Category Archives: Sodomy

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April 28, 2016

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American Culture, Sanctification, Sodomy

And the Fog Descends

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The Gospel Coalition recently published an article where a young man described how he came to grow as a Christian through a small group of men who discipled him. But you would never know that is what the article was actually about. The basic message about growth into Christian maturity is obscured by the attempt to be relevant to the SSA crowd or someone else out there.  Carl Trueman and I often disagree on women’s roles and masculinity in particular outside the church and home. But his short post nails the problems. Let me briefly explain why the article is not helpful.

First, it tries too hard to sound hip by using SSA as a paradigm instead of talking in terms of plain old discipleship. Read my opening sentence. There is nothing amazing about what happened to the author. It happens in thousands of churches in this land every week including ones where men shoot guns and play football. A man or woman struggles with sin other Christians come along and help him or her grow in Christ. But of course, an article like that would not get traffic or tweet as easily.

Second, it tries very hard to be profound when it isn’t. Of course, obedience is better than disobedience.  Refusing to act on sinful desire is always better than acting on sinful ones. Can you imagine someone saying, a man who is prone to greed, but doesn’t steal is far more of a man than a murderer who gives in to his lust to kill? Of course not. It is so patently true that it is not worth saying. Yet if you put celibate gay Christian in there it sounds profound.

Third, as Trueman points out the article represents a category confusion. Wanting to have sex with men is a desire that has no righteous outlet. It is a sinful desire. You cannot act on it. Wanting to have sex with a woman, is a legitimate desire that must be properly channeled. Same-sex attraction is sinful all the way down, as in it can never be acted on in any way. Heterosexual desire is not.

Fourth, the article takes what has traditionally been one of the ways men separated from women, dress, manners, certain enjoyments and made them not masculine. On the flip side it has taken what is not distinctly masculine, resisting your lusts, and made it masculine.  I am not saying to be truly manly you must watch football. But men and women have traditionally had different interests. That is because they are different. It is ironic that in an article which rejects dressing like a man as being manly, the picture in the post is of someone who is clearly a man. Dress does matter. So do manners and hobbies and all that other stuff that we toss on the pile as not meaning a whole lot.

Fifth, while I am not sure it was intended this way, but the opening paragraph appears to mock a certain culture that is filled with good Christians who love Jesus, like my dad. Are they perfect? No. But apparently you can struggle with SSA and be accepted, but killing innocent animals or loving Duck Dynasty means you are a patriarchal tyrant who doesn’t understand what it means to be a man in Christ. Here is the opening paragraph.

My adolescence was a social nightmare. I grew up in the rural South but didn’t fit the mold of Southern masculinity in the slightest. Sports piqued no interest in me; roughhousing made me nervous; slaying innocent animals seemed cruel and gross. Of course I never expressed such blasphemies—I wasn’t stupid! But I was everything opposite of what my Duck Dynasty-like culture insisted I should be. I was sensitive. I liked to read. I liked to draw. I liked to journal. I wasn’t your mud ridin’, hog huntin’ kind of boy.

Again, not sure if it was meant this way, but it comes across condescending.

Finally, because the article is so unclear, I am not sure who he is addressing with the following section:

As I observed their lives they led, the image I had in my mind of what it meant to be a man started to crumble. A man could be gentle and compassionate. A man could be thoughtful and sensitive. A man could be a better conversationalist than he is a sportsman. A man could talk about women with respect and integrity. A man could struggle with various weaknesses.

If he is saying “I had the wrong view of manhood” and these Christian men helped me correct it that is fine.  But often implicit in statements like this, especially when read beside his opening paragraph and the rest of the article, is that those who hold to traditional male-female roles have taught him the wrong view of manhood.  Even if he doesn’t mean this it will certainly be read that way by many. But no one I have ever read on traditional male-female roles would disagree with anything in this paragraph.  In fact replace all his “could be” with “must be” and that is what I read from men who hold a hard line on SSA and believe in traditional male-female roles. Men must be gentle and compassionate. Men must be thoughtful and sensitive. Men are weak. Men must talk about women with respect and integrity. And I think most would say if they had a choice between being a great conversationalist and killing a deer they would pick the former. Yes we like to hunt, but we also like to talk.

Trueman called this the most confusing statement of the day and maybe the week. He is right. It is not helpful and throws fog on a topic that is already filled with confusion.

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April 8, 2016

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Podcast, Sodomy

2016.03-A Line in the Sand

 

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In this podcast I discuss the laws being passed in states such as North Carolina and Mississippi that are trying to hold back the homosexual agenda. What can we learn from the responses to these laws by the media and by corporations?

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March 24, 2016

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Book Review, Sodomy

Book Review: Unchanging Witness

Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and TraditionUnchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition by S. Donald Fortson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am surprised this book has not gotten more publicity. It is a tour de force and exactly the type of academic work needed to help Christians stem the tide of sodomy in our churches. It is the best book I have read on what the church has taught about homosexuality down through the centuries.

Why did this book need to be written? The answer is the gay-Christian movement, which has leaned heavily on twisting Scripture and church history to fit their agenda. The goal of the gay-Christian movement is to get the church to accept practicing homosexuals as full members of Christ’s body. The authors make clear that goal is totally at odds with the teaching of the church since the beginning. At no point in time has the church taught that homosexuality was an acceptable practice for a Christian. This book proves that.

The book is divided into two main sections.

First the authors discuss the historic church’s position on sodomy from the church fathers until the present day. They deal extensively with primary sources, quoting from numerous men to prove that sodomy was never accepted. What is most striking about this are the penitential manuals from the early Middle ages (500 to 900 AD). These were manuals that described what type of penance needed to be paid for specific sins. Homosexuality was condemned by these manuals. The authors end this first section by describing various modern denominations and their capitulation to the homosexual agenda.

The second main section in the book is an extended discussion of specific texts in Scripture and what they teach about homosexuality. This includes Sodom, Leviticus 18, I Corinthians 6:9, and Romans 1:26-28. This also includes a discussion about Jewish views of sodomy, as well as Greco-Roman views of it. The authors take two chapters to discussion I Corinthians 6:9 and what that passage means. It is clear from their writing that the terms in I Corinthians 6:9 describe practicing homosexuals and soft men. They then take two chapters to discuss Romans 1:26-28. They list a lot sources outside of Scripture that show that “against nature” in Romans 1 means homosexuality. It does not mean a sub species of homosexuality, such homosexual temple prostitution or pedophilia. It is clear from both their exposition of Scripture and surrounding culture when the NT was written that homosexuality is exactly what Paul is condemning in Romans 1:26-28 and I Cor. 6:9. Also included in this last main section is a discussion of homosexual orientation in the NT era.

The authors quote a lot of primary sources from the ancient world. But they also interact with those writing for the gay-Christian movement including Jack Rodgers, Justin Lee, Mark Actemeier, David Gushee, John McNeill, and John Boswell. In other words, they have read the opponents.

This book is excellent and should be on every pastor’s shelf. I want to gather a few key points from reading this book.

First, nowhere in the history of God’s people has homosexual practice be acceptable for Christians.

Second, Paul and other writers were not condemning a particular form of homosexuality. This is one of the key arguments of the gay –Christian movement. They will argue that Paul is condemning pederasty, sex with boys. Or that he is condemning homosexual rape. But the sources cited by the authors make it clear that is not the case. Homosexuality in all its forms was condemned by the church.

Third, the ancient world understood that men could be born with orientation towards the same sex. They would often try to attribute it to astrology or mythology. But the world knew that some men and women were born with what we would call same sex orientation. They still condemned it.

Fourth, the teaching of Scripture is that sex in marriage between a man and a woman is the only acceptable form of sexual expression. Therefore everything else is condemned.

Fifth, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah has always been homosexuality. Failure to be hospitable might be part of the problem. But sodomy was always part of the problem.

The authors make this a gospel issue. They basically say that a church that says homosexual practice is fine is apostate and sending its members to Hell.

The final thing is they spend some time discussing Paul’s view of the transforming power of the Gospel in Romans and in other places. Why do they do that? The answer is that the church has come to believe that people cannot change.

There have been many popular books written on homosexuality, such as K. DeYoung’s. But this is an academic work that fills a void. This, along with Robert Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice, effectively demolish the idea that Christianity and homosexual practice are compatible.

I have decided to give a reading scale for many of my books. 1 is an easy read, meant for most anyone who is literate. 5 is very difficult. This book is around a 4. It is a difficult read, but well worth your time.

View all my reviews

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March 23, 2016

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Pastoral, Sodomy

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Why the Focus on Homosexuality?

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One accusation often leveled at those of us who teach against homosexuality is, “What about other sins? Why do you focus so much on homosexuality.”  The implication is that we let other sins go while we single out homosexuality for extra attention. I wanted to address this.

First, My guess is that the week to week teaching of most pastors is more balanced than what people read from them on the Internet. I write a lot about sodomy and other sexual issues here. But when I preach I cover sins like pride, gossip, lying, adultery, fornication, selfishness, hypocrisy, etc.  I rarely preach against sodomy, though it does come up from time to time. My congregation knows it is a sin. But they don’t always know how to defend themselves against the onslaught of homosexual propaganda. Therefore I often address homosexuality when I write. In other words, perception from blogs and articles is probably not the reality in the day to day and week to week life of most churches. But even beyond this most men I know, including myself, write on a broad range of subjects. Homosexuality is one of the sins we address in our writing, but certainly not the only one. Our topics are more balanced than people think.

Further, homosexuality is just like every other sin in that it can be forgiven by the blood of Christ and the sinful desires can be overcome by the Spirit. We can have a great measure of victory over those sins in this life. No pastor or Christian thinker I know or follow believes that sodomy is somehow unforgivable or is worse on a personal level than any other sin.

But even though homosexuality can be forgiven like all other sins in at least two ways sodomy is not like other sins and therefore demands more attention from ministers.

First, Paul teaches in Romans 1:18-32 that sodomy and lesbianism is a sign that God has given a people over. It is not just a sin. When a culture adopts sodomy as a way of life it is being judged by God. This, along with Sodom and Gomorrah being listed frequently as a sign of God’s great judgment, make it difficult to put regular homosexual practice on par with all other sins in its level of depravity. It is deep rebellion against God and His created order. This does not make it unforgivable. But it does mean the culture is deeply diseased. A cold, though a sickness, does not require the same attention as cancer. Sodomy is cancer.

In addition to the Biblical text, we also have the celebration of sodomy in our culture. Homosexuality is not just a sin that shows up in our society.  It is a sin that is praised and paraded. It is darkness declared as light and bitterness declared sweet. It is a sin that puts men in Hell and yet is promoted as a virtue in some sectors of the church. There are pastors butchering sheep by saying that homosexual practice is okay. Here is I Corinthians 6:9-10:

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 sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

No other sin on this list is treated like the “effeminate” and the “sodomites.” We do not have parades where thieves are praised for robbing people or where drunkards are praised for getting drunk. Elders are not pushing at general assembly to have extortioners praised for their love of mankind. We don’t have debates on whether or not the Bible forbids idolatry. Of course, people still steal and get drunk, some churches turn a blind eye to these sins, and the world promotes these sins at times. But even sins like fornication and adultery, which are rampant in our culture, are not generally paraded as virtues.  In many shows, cheating on your spouse is still viewed as wrong. When was the last time a show portrayed sodomy as wrong?  In other words, in our society homosexuality is not like other sins. It is given special treatment.

An analogy with abortion is easy to make. Can a doctor who performs abortions be forgiven? Of course. Can a mother who killed her child be forgiven? Again, of course. But abortion becomes something different when it is widespread with millions of babies being killed and a society that facilitates and praises chopping up children in the womb. Beating someone to death with a bat is murder just like killing a baby is. But in a context where abortion is widespread and often praised, to focus on killings with bats misses the point.

Being a drunkard will send you to Hell just as quickly as sodomy. Drunkenness should be condemned and fought against. But given the Bible’s teaching in  Romans 1, Sodom and Gomorrah, and our culture’s push for sodomy to be praised as good and right it is not hard to see why Christian pastors and teachers spill so much ink on homosexuality. They are not running from the battle against sin. They are fighting where the battle is hottest.

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January 21, 2016

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Sodomy, The Church, Worship

Culture First, Then Laws

Dr. Al Mohler in his book  We Cannot be Silent, spends a chapter chronicling how the homosexual agenda gained traction through the latter part of the 20th century. He begins by noting that in 2004 eleven states voted to ban gay marriage. In all eleven cases the referendums passed with not less than 66% voting in favor of banning gay marriage. Compare this to 2012 where four states voted to ban gay marriage and in all four cases the vote failed. He also notes that in 2008 most polling data indicated a vast majority of Americans were opposed to gay marriage. By 2014 the polling data had changed dramatically with many being open to gay marriage as morally neutral or even a good thing. Add to this the Supreme Court’s decision in the summer 2015 and one can see that gay marriage and indeed the whole gay agenda has taken hold in America.

Mohler is not ignorant of the many compromises prior to the gay movement that set the stage for where we are at today. Still, the magnitude of the moral shift along with speed of the shift is striking. In less than fifty years, America moved from a country where sodomy was immoral and where same-sex marriage was unthinkable to a country where many accept sodomy and same-sex marriage as a moral right. How did this happen?

The answer is interesting. Mohler explains how the gay movement decided not to try to change laws, but rather to change the moral landscape and then use laws to stamp their morality with approval:

In After the Ball [a pro-homosexual strategy book published in 1989], Kirk and Madsen [the authors] set out a program that, in retrospect, was likely even more successful than they had dreamed, largely because it focused on changing the culture, rather than just changing the laws…They demanded far more than legal recognition. They demanded that American society embrace homosexuality as a normal sexual experience and view same-sex relationships on par with heterosexual marriage. [Emphasis Mine]

Mohler goes on to recount how homosexuals worked to change public opinion concerning sodomy through what essentially amounts to a massive PR campaign. They did not seek to change laws. Instead they sought to change the minds of professors, movie stars, journalists, psychiatrists, psychologists, students, pastors, and judges. One good example of how drastic this change has been is that in the 1970s same-sex attraction was a form of mental illness. We have now arrived at a place where those who believe same-sex attraction is wrong are mentally ill. In almost any field, from sociology to medicine, from movies to law, from clothing to churches, the gay revolution has been successful. Sodomy has been normalized. To speak against it is to speak against the cultural norm. Most of this happened without the help of the courts. Here is Mohler’s summary of the connection between culture and the courts for the gay agenda:

At every point along the way, the approach was to use the courts as a means to extend the cultural gains already occurring in the larger society. 

The reason the gay agenda worked was because culture, or perhaps more clearly, society, changed first, then the laws followed giving a stamp of moral approval to the cultural changes.

I am not opposed to changing laws. The Christian witness must extend to the courts and legislative bodies around the country. We should be speaking prophetically to law makers, judges, and politicians. We should also be raising up Christian men who will work in these places to bring about better laws. But sweeping changes, such as the gay movement has seen over the last fifty years, does not come primarily through courts or laws. It comes from changing the minds of people “on the ground” if you will. How can the church do this? I will address that in a later post.