Here I am writing another post defending marriage. There is so much more to be said because the debate over same-sex marriage has practically no intellectual weight to it on either side. The side for same-sex marriage is purely emotional, and will answer any pressing question with an insult that the person opposed is a bigot or is homophobic. That is hardly the way to defend any position, but these days it seems to be effective to just call people names and shut down debate. Well let me say that the reason I am writing about this topic again is because I want to. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about what I write about. If they don’t like what I write, they don’t have to read it. As long as this is a free country and I have breath, I will write, thank God. Now some have charged that I write about defending marriage because I have a dislike of gays. Actually, it is the opposite. I write about defending marriage because of my love for gays. Christ loved gays, and so do I. But Christ, since he was the Son of God, who is co-eternal with the father, did not condone homosexuality prior to his time on earth (when he was alive in spirit with God), during his earthly ministry, and as far as I know after his ascension 2000 years ago he hasn’t changed his position. If someone does hear from him and I don’t then please give up the 411!
How any Christian could be supportive of homosexuality, let alone same-sex marriage, shows one thing: they don’t truly believe the Bible. Moreover, it demonstrates that they don’t truly care about gays either. If the Bible is clear about its position on homosexuality, why on earth would any Christian put the eternal soul of someone who is gay in jeopardy by telling them they can willfully live a life of sin and if God were here today he would give his blessing? My heart so aches for someone who calls themselves a Christian but would willfully deceive a precious person who is gay about God’s word. With Christian friends like that, no one who is gay needs any enemies. Yes, I know my Christian “friend” will say “God is love” and someone who is gay was “born that way,” so if God created them that way then it must not be a sin. But then what would that Christian say about any other type of sin, particularly the sins they may have been born with? Can a Christian pick and choose what is a sin or not based on what the current culture feels about what is sin/right/wrong? If a Christian can pick and choose then they don’t need the Bible, and they don’t need Christ because if sin is culture-bound then it is culture that defines it. Christ is extraneous at best and nothing more than a man as opposed to a risen savior that lives today.
On the Sean Hannity program a couple of weeks ago, there was a black, pro same-sex marriage pastor named Oliver White. White said that God intended there to be same-sex marriage, and that this was a position to which he had “evolved” towards (I presume in a similar manner to President Obama and Hillary Clinton) due to his dealings with gays at his church. So instead of him, the pastor, teaching what the Bible had to say on homosexuality, he allowed gays and supporters of same-sex marriage to tell him what they think the Bible should say. And of course, he lovingly complied. Below are three quotes from White during his time on the Hannity program:
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When asked if he disagreed with Christ on homosexuality, White stated: “I don’t disagree with Jesus Christ, …but if Jesus were alive today, he would be more inclined to say, ‘you know, I didn’t know it all…”
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When asked why he accepts homosexuality against biblical teaching, White had this to say: “I believe that the Jesus who also said ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ would not discriminate against a person on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
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When challenged if someone should have to be married to have sex, White said: “Let’s take sex outside of marriage. If that be the case… if that was totally wrong then 99% of us are wrong because most of us have sex outside of marriage.”
Let me take these three statements in turn. First, White stated “if Jesus were alive today.” Now if Jesus were not alive today, then the entire gospel is false because if Jesus did not raise from the dead and continues to live, then the gospel little more than a sham. Even though the Bible is obviously not authoritative to the Reverend White, this is what it actually says:
12Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:12-19 ESV)
So even the Bible says that if Christ did not raise from the dead, then the whole Christian enterprise is, indeed, a pathetic one. And what precisely does White mean when he says Christ “didn’t know it all”? If Christ didn’t “know it all,” then he certainly was not God and nothing more than a man. So I think we’re beginning to see that White really doesn’t believe the Bible, even though he does personally agree with some of its teachings, most notably about loving others as one would love himself as we see in the second quote above. White has determined that if Jesus would say you should love your neighbor as yourself, then he would not “discriminate” against a person on the basis of their sexual orientation. So exactly who is White to determine what Jesus would or would not say? And if Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but we can, like White, cherry pick what we believe is sin, then why did Jesus die a heinous death on a cross to begin with? There is no reason to pay a penalty for sin unless there actually is sin, and if sin is little more than what you decide is sin, then I have no idea why we would even bother with the gospel or even accept Christ’s worthless “penalty” on a cross. And now to White’s third point. It seems if everyone is committing a certain sin, then it is no longer wrong because everyone is committing it. So Christ is not the authority here but, again, sin is culturally bound and takes precedence over both Christ and the Bible. Sorry, but I am completely confused now. It must be the homophobia in me causing me to be irrational and miss White’s logic.
The point I’m trying to make in this post is that Christians cannot have it both ways. You cannot say that you worship a risen savior (not a dead one) and that you are under his authority, yet you get to decide what is sin and what is not. Either you are under the authority of the Bible or you aren’t, as we see clearly with the Reverend White that he is not. White gets to interpret Scripture any way he wants to, and so can you. So in essence, he gets to make God in his own image, and you get to make God in your own image too. Well not so fast. If that is the case, then if God is anything like any man or woman walking on this earth, then God is not God because he can’t possibly be a construction of our own flawed and sinful thinking. I am a Christian because I believe the history of the Bible, and I believe the testimony as to the life of Christ, his death, and his resurrection as historical fact. Thus, Christ sets the objective standard of morality and I am subject to obedience to him. I am so glad Christ is not like me, and I have no desire that he conform to my standards. And neither should you. If you don’t want to conform to the teachings of Christ, then please, please, renounce Christianity. It will be far better for you to renounce Christianity than to continue in Christianity and manipulate its teachings to suit your own personal ends. You are certainly not doing gays a good service, and are only leading them down a false path. If you truly love gays, you will tell them that just like everyone else, they must deal with their own sin as you have to deal with yours. You will not be out there telling them homosexuality is not a sin and that they deserve to be able to marry. That is not Christian and puts even your own soul in jeopardy.
More to come soon…
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