Response to Controversies

For all who read the Bethany blog, I humbly apologize for my very long delay in responding to two comments posted a few weeks ago. I got distracted the first week and didn't check the blog as I should have, and then was recovering from surgery for a week and a half. I hope the blog will generate more frequent discussions, and I promise to do my best to respond promptly to any posted comments from now on.

One of the comments posted on the previous post was in response to the controversial issues of homosexuality and abortion which I focused on in a sermon. I have posted my response below on the main blog page because I thought it was too long for the narrow column in the comment section. In any case, please feel free to share your thoughts on this.

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Concerning homosexuality, Christians should not be concerned with the issue of “orientation.” I can’t say for sure whether or not people are truly “born gay.” (Though I tend to think at least some are). But this is irrelevant. Almost all heterosexual men are born with a promiscuous or polygamous “orientation,” in that most men have natural urges to have sexual relations with many different women. What matters is not the urges or orientations we are born with but how we respond to them--by praying for the grace to die to those urges and live a new life in Christ, or to give up the struggle and embrace the urges as “just who I am.” And by the way, the Christian standard of behavior for someone who has same sex attraction is the exact same for unmarried heterosexuals: celibacy. A celibate homosexual is, by far, living a more Christian lifestyle than a promiscuous heterosexual.

Though the prohibitions in scripture against the practice of homosexuality are unmistakable (Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6), there’s another line of reasoning that I think also shows it to be immoral. If we believe sexual behavior is an inherently moral thing (in contrast to amoral behaviors like breathing or walking), then there has to be moral parameters around it--to be moral necessarily means there is a right and wrong way to go about it.

If a person believes in a personal, Creator God, from whom we get our sense of morality, then it’s hard to understand how that God would have no concern about how we behave sexually. If a person were to believe that God does care, but his main concern is that we simply respect each other's wishes so that mutual consent is the ultimate moral rule, then not only should we have no problem with mutually consenting homosexual practice, but neither with open marriages, polygamy, pedophilia (or as a gay rights activist called it “trans-generational orientation”), and prostitution.

If homosexual practice is acceptable, I see no reason why any and all types of sexual behaviors shouldn't be affirmed as long as all involved are agreeable. There are a number of celebrities and public officials who openly, actively practice a homosexual lifestyle, and many people have no problem with this (some are quite proud of it). But many of the same people who celebrate the "diversity" represented by people like Barney Frank and Ellen Degeneres, would be disgusted if there were a congressman who owned one of the legal brothels in Nevada, or a talk show host who was polygamous or who had a twelve-year-old "partner." But why, if all involved are consenting? How can one "orientation" be privileged above others?

But, all this aside, at the end of the day, if we are to be faithful Christians, we must be faithful to scripture. Saint Paul clearly believed the practice of homosexuality to be sinful, and for us as Christians to say he was wrong on this would be to presume that we are more reasonable and more in tune with the spirit of God and the teaching of Jesus than he was.

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As for abortion, I agree with you about the importance of the Catholic priest’s consistency. He certainly should not isolate one sinful belief or behavior and treat it as if it were worse than others. However, I think the central issue here is not denying communion to people who have sinned, but rather denying communion to someone who uses his power as a public official to promote sin as a cultural norm. I think most Catholic priests would respond the same way if there were some, supposedly Catholic, public official fighting to promote the use of birth control or the right to quick, easy divorces. These are things the Catholic church is squarely against. Giving communion to someone who holds positions that are diametrically opposed to the Catholic Church, and who uses his authority as a public official to encourage others to do the same, would take all meaning out of communion. This would be little different from saying, “Communion is for those who believe in Christ...and for those who don’t...and for anyone who thinks it’s nonsense but feels uplifted by it...”

And regarding the whole issue of abortion, I must be candid and say I simply cannot understand how any Christian (Or anyone who believes in a personal God at all) can believe that it is a good thing for women to have the right to abort a pregnancy. Of course, in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, this is not a clear issue, but such cases make up a fraction of abortion situations, and the pro-choice political argument is not based on that.

How could we ever say that one person has the right to end another’s life because that other person’s life is too difficult or inconvenient for the other? It is also true that if we hold that a woman should have the right to abort a child prior to birth, there is no rational basis to say she does not have the right to end the child’s life after birth. (In fact, Peter Singer, a professor of “Ethics” at Princeton, believes that women should have that right. If the right to an abortion at will is acceptable, we really have no argument against him.)

And if one were to argue that we don’t know when a fetus becomes a person, this (which I think a true statement) is just as much to the point. If we don’t know when a fetus becomes a person but allow an abortion anyway, we are no better than a hunter shooting into rustling bushes; maybe it’s a person, maybe not. We don’t know, but we’ll kill it anyway?

I must also add, as one with three adopted children, I cannot see how anyone could believe that abortion is a better option for the child than adoption.

But as is the case with homosexuality, and every other moral issue in our lives, if we are to be faithful to Christ we must be faithful to the scripture he revered. How can we hold a pro choice view in light of passages like Psalm 139:13-16:

"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be."

And Jeremiah 1:4-5a:

"The word of the LORD came to me, saying,

'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;' "