Revisionist Gay Theology: Did God Really Say…?

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Regardless of the place we flip in tradition at the moment, problems with homosexuality and “gender id” are hotly debated. The ideology of “homosexual rights” continues to hunt to legitimize and approve—not simply tolerate—gay habits, resulting in quickly altering social mores and values. This impacts us deeply in our each day relationships with household and with church members, neighbors and colleagues.

A key technique in introducing this uncritical acceptance and promotion of homosexuality into the broader tradition centered on church buildings and synagogues. Particularly, gay activists and their allies know that the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic discovered within the Bible is the final bastion of protection towards the widespread acceptance of homosexuality all through the tradition. They perceive that if Bible-believing Christians and Jews can persuade themselves that gay habits is not sinful in God's eyes, then the battle for the complete realization of their political and social targets can be received.

For instance, homosexual strategists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, of their seminal 1989 gay public relations guide, boldly inspired gays “to muddy the ethical waters, that’s, to undermine the rationalizations that 'justify' non secular bigotry and to undo a few of its psychological rewards.” They go on to specify that this implies “making severe theological objections to conservative biblical instructing.” Additional, gays are known as upon to “undermine the ethical authority of homo-hating church buildings … by portraying such establishments as outmoded backwaters that run counter to time and the newest findings of psychology”.¹

It was on this context {that a} propaganda marketing campaign was launched concentrating on biblically orthodox believers to sow the seeds of doubt about God's instructions relating to gay habits.

In its theological software, this disinformation marketing campaign is commonly often called “homosexual revisionist theology” and is at the moment going down in denomination after denomination with rising divisions. Starting within the mid-twentieth century, the church started to systematically query the clear biblical instructing on gay habits—harking back to the serpent's query to Eve in Genesis 3—“Did God actually say…?²

The apostle Paul warns towards this example when he writes to Timothy and says:

For the time is coming when males is not going to endure sound instructing, however could have itching ears, and can accumulate for themselves lecturers in line with their very own passions, and can flip away from listening to the reality and can wander into myths.³

Whereas Paul spoke of sure false doctrines that Timothy would little question have confronted in his ministry, this warning equally applies to the Physique of Christ at the moment as we face revisionist theology that – on this case – challenges God's clear command to not interact in gay habits.⁴

Particularly, the meant impact of revisionist homosexual theology is to disengage the church from the broader cultural debate about homosexuality by redefining it as divinely ordained and morally permissible. And just like the serpent's temptation of Eve within the backyard, the leaders of the “gay-Christian” motion tempt us with the query: “God actually to say…that homosexuality is a sin?”

Generally, there are a number of broad classes of arguments that homosexual revisionists use to problem God's Phrase relating to gay habits:

1. Christians' prejudice towards homosexuals leads them to misinterpret biblical texts about homosexuality;
2. Scriptures that supposedly condemn gay habits have really been mistranslated;
3. Scriptures that supposedly condemn gay habits have been taken out of context and don’t apply to our present society.⁵

Whereas it’s not doable to supply an in-depth refutation of every of those units of arguments throughout the scope of this text, a number of normal observations about revisionist theology will be made:

• The Bible is totally dependable, reliable and true in every part it affirms. It clearly teaches the honour, dignity, and worth of the 2 sexes as created in God's picture—deliberately female and male—every bringing distinctive and complementary qualities to sexuality and relationships.
• Sexuality is an excellent reward from God – meant to be provided again to Him both in marriage for procreation, union and mutual pleasure, or in celibacy for undivided devotion to Christ.
• Revisionist homosexual theology violates God's intentional goal for gender and sexuality by saying that girls don’t want males and males don’t want girls.
• Revisionist theology locations human emotions and needs above biblical reality and leads folks to imagine lies. These with a vested curiosity in selling homosexual revisionist theology usually twist the plain teachings of Scripture to help and justify their habits.
• Scripture begins and ends with the picture of marriage as a God-ordained establishment—designed to unite a person and a lady in a lifelong, trustworthy, covenantal relationship. This view is confirmed by Moses, Christ, and Paul and has been supported by hundreds of years of Jewish Christian historical past and custom. Homosexual revisionists normally don’t even try to handle God's created goal for human sexuality, however as a substitute twist Scripture and argue towards texts that condemn same-sex habits.
• It’s extremely unlikely that the translators of the Bible would have mistranslated 5 references to sexual ethics in two completely different testimonies of Scripture. Much more unlikely is the likelihood that they merely mistranslated the Scriptures relating to gay habits.
• Scriptures that testify towards gay habits – together with Leviticus 18:22, 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:9-10 – are so clear and particular that they defy new interpretation. It’s intellectually dishonest to say that conservative people and leaders “interpret” such clear verses as “Thou shalt not lie with man as with girl” out of prejudice towards homosexuals.
• Homosexuality in Leviticus, Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy is talked about within the bigger context of sexual, immoral, and forbidden habits, all of which develop the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” prohibiting intercourse outdoors of male-female marriage.⁶ This challenges the argument that Scripture condemning homosexuality has been taken out of context.
• The references condemning gay habits have been addressed to the very completely different cultures of the traditional Close to East (from Hebrew to Greco-Roman) – thus nullifying the argument that scriptural passages towards homosexuality are culturally sure and inapplicable in at the moment's society.
• The argument that Jesus mentioned nothing about homosexuality within the Gospels is deceptive and illogical for not less than 5 causes:

1. The Gospels are not any extra authoritative than these books of the Bible that condemn gay habits. All of the authors of the Scriptures have been impressed by God's Holy Spirit.⁷
2. The Gospels aren’t exhaustive. Among the most vital Bible teachings – the reason of religious items, the priesthood of Christ, the doctrine of the outdated and new nature of man – seem in different books of the Bible.
3. The Gospels don’t declare to be an entire account of Jesus' life or teachings. Elements of Jesus' life aren’t mentioned within the Gospels, and we can’t be sure that Jesus by no means spoke of gay habits.
4. The Scriptures educate that Jesus saved the complete Regulation and confirmed all that the Regulation and the Prophets taught.⁸Undoubtedly, this would come with an affirmation of the dedicated, monogamous marriage of a person and a lady and an unwavering condemnation of gay habits. Since all orthodox Jews within the first century would have held themselves to this normal, the difficulty of affirming homosexuality wouldn’t have been open to debate in Jesus' time.
5. Jesus clearly made heterosexuality the usual. Particularly, he described God's created goal for human sexuality: “

Have you ever not learn that he who created them from the start created them female and male and mentioned, “Because of this a person will depart his father and mom and cleave to his spouse, and the 2 will turn into one flesh”? 6 So they’re not two, however one physique. So what God has joined collectively, let not man put asunder.⁹

In brief, homosexual revisionist theology threatens to basically change the Christian church and biblical doctrine. When God is claimed to approve of that which He clearly forbids, then a severe heresy is boldly unfolding earlier than us. Opposing this false instructing lovingly—however firmly—is important as a result of it requires us to substantiate professing Christians of their sin once we are biblically commanded to do the precise reverse.

The writer is indebted to Joe Dallas for the content material of this text.

References for additional examine

What does the Bible say about homosexuality? A Response to Revisionist Homosexual Theology

Joe Dallas, Homosexual gospel? How pro-gay advocates misinterpret the Bible2007 (Harvest).

James B. DeYoung, Homosexuality: Up to date Claims Examined within the Mild of the Bible and Different Historic Literature and Regulation2000 (Kregel Publications).

Robert AJ Gagnon, The Bible and Gay Apply: Texts and Hermeneutics2001 (Abingdon Press).

1. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Overcame Its Worry and Hatred of Gays within the NinetiesPenguin Books USA , New York , 1989 , p. 179. ↩
2. Genesis 3:1-7. ↩
3. 2 Timothy 4:3-4, ESV. ↩
4. Leviticus 18:22. ↩
5. Joe Dallas, Homosexual gospel? How pro-gay advocates misinterpret the BibleHarvest Home Publishers, Eugene, OR, 2007, p. 105. ↩
6. Exodus 20:14 ↩
7. 2 Timothy 3:16. ↩
8. Matthew 5:17-19. ↩
9. Matthew 19:1-8; Mark 10.6-9. ↩