I just love Christians, don’t you know

I’ve been having another debate on Titusonenine. It all started with comments made by the Archbishop of Canterbury about the Church needing to be a safe place of gay people.
Here is the link to the whole thread.
Here is what I final wrote to a sarcastic challenge to prove what I think.


I grew up within Pentecostalism and American-Evangelicalism, until I became an Episcopalian at around the age of 34. I was ready to chuck the whole church thing because I was so sick of the hypocrisy, the inability of people to spend even a little bit of time actually thinking about their faith beyond simplistic levels, and the pedantic way people condemn to hell anyone who didn’t agree with their particular viewpoint (and now, it isn’t just theological viewpoints, but political and social as well).
Now, I’m not talking about just a few people for whom it would be easy to dismiss these kinds of attitudes – I’m talking about the generalized attitudes of whole movements. I’ve lived through it in various denominations, churches, and with scores of people. Now, I’m very glad that I grew up within these traditions – I know that I know that I know that I have experienced God! I have witness divine and medically verifiable healing. I have experienced miraculous things – honestly so. I know the power of the Enemy. But, there is more than spiritual milk – there is meat.
I have been put in places or have put myself in places where everything that I’ve believed has been challenged. When I went to college, the campus ministry I became involved in absolutely rejected any supernatural “Gifts of the Holy Spirit” functioning in the Church today – all that passed away after the Apostolic period (I Corn. 13:8 was a favorite verse quoted to me over and over, along with others students). Since I grew up Pentecostal, I had a bit of a crisis of faith. Did I believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts just because that is how I grew up and was taught? Did I assume that what I believed already was the Truth? Was I misunderstanding/misinterpreting Scripture? Was I under the influence of false teachers? Was Satan really influencing me because I spoke in tongues? Were those healings that I witnessed really trickery of the Enemy? So, I did what any good Christian should do – I prayed that God would show me the truth and whether I have been deceived and believed the wrong thing up until that point. I studied scripture all the more; I prayed; I read the exegetical and theological perspectives of more people; I sought counsel from people who knew a lot more than I did. Now, since I wanted to know, really know, Truth, and since I was confronted with two very different and opposing scriptural and theological perspectives, I read stuff from both sides of the dividing line. I needed to make a decision – what did I believe? We all believed in Jesus, our fallenness, our need for salvation, that the Bible was the very inerrant, inspired Word of God – but, well, this issue was enough to have me, and all those who believed like me, labeled as heretics.
At the time, the vast majority of the Church universal rejected Pentecostal claims. We had only been around since the Azusa Street Revivals from the 1920’s or so. 50+ years is not a very long time for such a drastically contrary movement to exist. Funny how the first leaders of Pentecostalism were summarily condemned, rejected, expelled from denominations, defrocked, and some even killed by other good, God-fearing and “orthodox” Christians. Pentecostal churches were burned down and people were literally run out of town. How things change – in such a short period of time.
Again, I lived through the embarrassment of being a called a “Holy Roller,” accused of being people who put “emotionalism” above serious faith, and who where just plain ignorant of God’s plain scriptural truth. Well, then came the Charismatic renewal movement. Now, Pentecostalism/Charismatic faith will overtake Roman Catholicism in a decade or more to become the largest expression of the Christian faith. My, how things change! Of course, denominations and theological perspectives still condemn Pentecostalism and still call its practitioners heretics, but, well, their assumed authority due to their formerly majority status just doesn’t cut it any longer. The cats out of the bag.
The liturgical and sacramental expression of the Christian faith is another example. Growing up, Catholics and Orthodox and Episcopalians and most Lutherans were all going to hell because they relied on dead tradition and rituals for their presumed salvation, rather than personal salvation by faith in the living God through Jesus. Some even said that the salvation of people who lacked the Baptism of the Holy Spirit was questionable, but I couldn’t go that far. Roman Catholics were the worst – they actually called their pastors “Father” in direct violation of Scripture, and actually claimed Mary was the “mother of God.” No human can be “GOD’S” mother after all – He is eternally existent. I can show you chapter and verse why “those kinds of Christians” were heretics and deceived and not going to heaven. We actively engaged in evangelism to get Catholics and Episcopalians, etc., saved. Those poor people, they were deceived by anti-Christ (who some believed was the Pope). When I became a teacher in a Roman Catholic High School, I was confronted with my misinformed prejudices, I was forced to again go back to Scripture and to pray and to seek God’s for His Truth. Now, I am near an Anglo-Catholic. How things change!
I can recount other such experiences where I have had to stop and consider whether what I then believed was wrong or right or somewhere in between because I was confronted with undeniable examples of stuff contrary to what I then believed, how I interpreted Scripture, and to which theological perspective I aligned with.
So, then I was confronted with homosexuality. What I had always believed was challenged. What I had always been taught was challenged. What I had always regarded as the plain reading of Scripture was challenged. I really didn’t care what the Tradition had to say – reference the above concerning Pentecostalism and what I was taught about liturgical and sacramental faith. What I wanted to know is what God thought – what is the Truth. “Let God be true, and every man a liar!” (Romans 3:4)
The first place to start was Scripture itself. Because I was confronted numerous times with people who held vastly different scriptural and theological perspectives on primary issues, I knew that honest people of faith, who loved Jesus and wanted God’s will to be done, could and will disagree and yet still be regenerate. I knew that if what I read and who I listened to where only those books or people with whom I already agreed, then what I would be doing was, “…to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear… (2 Tim 4:3-4)
You see, Truth Unites, it is not just the “liberals” who often gather around themselves those teachers who scratch their itching ears, but “conservatives” often do the same thing. I thought at one time, by the encouragement of others and what then seemed rational, that in order to protect myself from deception I should not read or listen to teachings contrary to what I’ve already been taught – the faith once delivered. (Galatians 1: 8-9, as you previously posted) Don’t listen to those non-Pentecostals, don’t listen to those Catholics, don’t listen to those Calvinists, don’t listen to those Social-Gospel mainliners, don’t go near that liberal heresy, etc., etc. Much of American-Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism is caught up in this way of thinking. I know this all too well from personal experience and by what I continue to read and hear. The Emergent Church conversation/movement is moving away from this, thankfully. Anglicanism on the whole has never been this way! I fear that forces are afoot trying to change this aspect of the Anglican Tradition. This has not been a traditionally accepted Anglican-Evangelical notion or way of doing theology, although I know it has invaded current day Anglican-Evangelicalism.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand – the Church’s dealings with the issue of homosexuality, Scripture, Tradition, and how we should live. So, after being confronted with irrefutable challenges to what I had always believed, I went to Scripture. I read all different kinds of English translations, and what I found was that some used the word “homosexual” and some didn’t. Why? So, I went to the Greek. It wasn’t there. Well, after I did some studying, I discovered that the word “homosexual” didn’t exist until somewhere during the last 150 years. It was not in an English translation of the Bible until the 1950’s. What was meant in Scripture, then, before the 1950’s, and before the modern concept of “homosexual” was developed during the last 150 years or so. What were the writers actually saying to the people they were writing to? What was God actually teaching the original hears of His word? How did the people truly understand these words, back then? How does that then apply to us, now? (exegesis and hermeneutics)
Then, I went to people who knew a whole lot more than I did concerning Biblical interpretation and theology. Now, I was still very much an American-Evangelical and had no intention of going to liberal sources – I didn’t think they had anything to say because they really didn’t believe in Scripture to begin with and because they really did not know Jesus, anyway (my presumptions and prejudices). I had bought the “Expositor’s Bible Commentary” (NIV) published by Zondervan. What I read in this trusted Evangelical commentary, that began with the perspective that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, was not what I had been lead to believe by the pastors and teachers of my past (and I had done a lot of reading and listening, already). The author of the “Romans” commentary, good Evangelical scholar that he is (or was, I don’t know whether he is still living or not), Everett F. Harrison, made an absolutely astounding statement, “’Because of this, God gave them over…’ Sexual deviation contains in itself a recompense, a punishment for the abandonment of God and his ways. This need not demand the conclusion that every homosexual follows that practice in deliberate rebellion against God’s prescribed order. The ‘gay’ façade is a thin veil for deep-seated frustration. The folly of homosexuality is proclaimed in its inability to reproduce the human species in keeping with the divine command (Gen. 1:28).” (Vol. 10, p.25) This shocked me, because he reverted to psychology to make his condemnation of homosexuality, not the “plain reading of scripture,” and then used a biological argument – reproduction – as another justification, connected to God’s command to multiply. Whether I understood him correctly at the time or not, this opened a whole host of other questions in my mind.
At that point, I began reading anything I could on the subject, both from the perspective that it was always and forever forbidden in all circumstances, to a more moderate position that homosexuality was part of the fall and some accommodation could be permitted since not everyone is given the gift of celibacy, to the unabashed support of homosexual sexual relationships. I could not, and still cannot, accept arguments from the perspective that Scripture is a human book of writings as people in antiquity tried to figure out their world and what it all meant. I believe the books of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God containing all things necessary for salvation. So, while I did read some liberal theologians and scholars, with a grain of salt, I mostly read Evangelical and moderate scholarship. I have also read a lot about the subject from psychological, sociological, biological, physiological, anthropological, and historical perspectives.
Now, don’t forget, in all this, I am diligently praying for God to show me His Truth, to protect me from deception, and to help me humble myself in order to receive from the Holy Spirit. It makes no difference what I want to believe, and what I feel. God’s Truth is God’s Truth, regardless of anything pertaining to me! What I think is meaningless – God will be God and God’s ways are God’s.
I have read and continue to read from both perspectives. If I really want to know Truth, I have to be willing to say I am wrong and read from varying perspectives, else all I will do is gather around me those who I already agree with. That is not seeking Truth, that is seeking confirmation and consolation for what I already believe. That gets me, and all of us, nowhere.
I have read numerous commentaries, analysis of the Greek and Hebrew, the historical contexts, and so on, and books by scholars and common folks alike. For you information, here is a brief list of what I have read:
Advocates for rethinking the Tradition:
– What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality, by Daniel A, Helminiak
– Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, by John Boswell
– The New Testament and Homosexuality, by Robin Scroggs
– Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, by Jack Rogers
– Homosexuality and Christian Faith, Edited by Walter Wink
– This Far By Grace, Bishop J. Neil Alexander
– Additional stuff by Smead, Sullivan, White, Besen, etc.
Advocates for maintain the traditional understanding:
– The Bible and Homosexual Practice, Robert A.J. Gagnon
– Scripture & Homosexuality, Marion L. Soards
– Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic, by Dr. Elizabeth R. Moberly
– Psychogenesis, by Dr. Elizabeth R. Moberly
– A Strong Delusion, Joe Dallas
– The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self-) Therapy for Homosexuality, Gerald J.M. Van Den Aardweb
– Strength in Weakness: Healing Sexual and Relational Brokenness, by Andrew Comiskey
– Additional stuff by Nicolosi, Cameron, Schmidt, Medinger, etc.
Two perspectives in one book:
Homosexuality and the Bible : Two Views, by Dan O. Via & Robert A.J. Gagnon
After reading and studying, after lots of praying and meditating on Scripture, after talking to lots of people, and yes – including personal experience – I came to believe that the arguments of those who advocate for a rethinking of the traditional notions of Biblical interpretation and application concerning homosexuality are stronger than those who call for retaining the traditional understandings. I could be wrong.
Thus, I think the way the Tradition has handled Biblical interpretation and application is wrong, and a rethinking is called for. The more I read the more I realize that more Evangelical scholars are beginning to say the same thing. Again, I’m not really interested in what “liberals” who do not believe in divine inspiration of Scripture have to say. I understand where they are coming from and can respect their position, but I disagree with their premise. I don’t think that the few pericopes traditionally used to support the anti-homosexual argument can sustain the weight of the argument, when Scripture is taken as a whole and when the verses are in context and when the world is regarded as it really is, and not as we demand it to be.
I could detail the arguments for and against homosexuality for each of the periopies from Leviticus to Jude, but that is so much more. Perhaps that is what you really want. Do the research.
I also understand that I could be wrong, and that is why I continue to read and engage with those who disagree with what I currently believe.
What I will assert as true and as fact is that there are faithful, God fearing, longing for Truth, born-again Christians on both sides of the issue. Simply because one calls for a re-examination of the Tradition does not mean one has rejected the authority of Scripture – patently false assumption. I will asset that there are secular, godless, hedonists who are homosexual and heterosexual. This group is not the same as those who desire to know God and to live god-centered lives, homosexuals or heterosexuals. To demand that all homosexuals and those who advocate for them insist that the Church accept hedonistic behavior is inaccurate (although examples of anything can be found – even to support an anything-goes ideology).
So, there you go, Truth Unites. I’m will make an assumption that his has not satisfied you, and I welcome continued questions, conversation, and challenge. I will say, however, that I have spent my life dealing with this issue. I do know a little bit about what I am talking about – the realities, the dangers, the fallacies, and the frailties. I don’t expect to change your mind, but what I do expect is honest exchange, and a bit of respect for the effort I have put into this whole issue. I also expect a bit of humility – all of us can be wrong, all of us will be wrong, all of us will not be privy to God’s complete Truth until we see Him face-to-face.
Let me know what you think and where we go from here.