{"id":5649,"date":"2015-07-06T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T05:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=5649"},"modified":"2020-05-31T13:45:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T18:45:56","slug":"selective-outrage-on-the-legalization-of-homosexual-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=5649","title":{"rendered":"SELECTIVE OUTRAGE ON THE LEGALIZATION OF HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get one thing quickly out of the way.\u00a0 I believe homosexuality is contrary to God\u2019s design.\u00a0 I also believe marriage is between one man and one woman.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The legalization of homosexual marriage to some degree makes me feel like Marshall McLuhan who went to movies not to watch the movie, but to observe how other people watch movies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some good things have been said by Christian leaders.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there are too many other Christians depressed over what all this portends for America.\u00a0 This declinist narrative focuses like a laser beam on how the sin of homosexuality is to blame for a myriad of societal ills.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My concern may be best stated by using an illustration.\u00a0 Imagine that you want to start a landscape company.\u00a0 You eagerly knock on your neighbors\u2019 doors and announce the new venture.\u00a0 The responses you receive range from amusement (\u201cyou can\u2019t be serious\u201d) to outright anger. Why?\u00a0 The answer is simple.\u00a0 Your yard is terribly overgrown and quite the eye sore.\u00a0 You\u2019ve received regular warnings from the Homeowner\u2019s Association.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a cynic about the church, even here in America.\u00a0 It is God\u2019s primary means of accomplishing His will.\u00a0 Some of the best people I know go to church on a regular basis.\u00a0 And that includes some pastors!<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, I do have grave concerns about our laser-like focus over the horrors of legalizing homosexual marriage.\u00a0 Yes, we need to say something, but I\u2019m afraid our quickly cutting to the chase on this issue leaves many important things unsaid.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My suggestion would go more along these lines:<\/strong><\/p>\n

We believe homosexuality is a sin.\u00a0 We also believe that gluttony, gossip, adultery, sex outside of marriage, racism, unscrupulous business practices, the love of money, divorce, and a whole host of other things are sins as well.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we have not done a very good job in communicating a comprehensive view of sin.\u00a0 We have been selective<\/i>.\u00a0 Too many times we have been motivated by fear.\u00a0 We have avoided addressing certain sins for fear our giving at church will plummet.\u00a0 Too many of us have come across as both hating the sin of homosexuality and<\/i> the homosexual.\u00a0 We could go on with other specifics, but hopefully you get the point.\u00a0 Our selective outrage has made us not act like Jesus.\u00a0 We have been rather poor at modeling the \u201cgrace and truth\u201d approach of Jesus.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our quest to proclaim the righteousness standards of God, I\u2019m afraid our selective outrage presents a gospel which is no longer the gospel.\u00a0 Consider another illustration.\u00a0 Picture that you are driving a car.\u00a0 In the passenger seat is a non-Christian.\u00a0 You tune into your favorite radio station.\u00a0 The problem is that you are not fully tuned in.\u00a0 You are so accustomed to the static that you fail to hear it.\u00a0 You turn to your non-Christian friend and expectantly ask what he thinks about the \u201camazing\u201d music.\u00a0 Surprisingly to you, he is not impressed.\u00a0 You are baffled by his lackluster response but your habitual listening to music cum static<\/i> has dulled your ears.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid many Christians in America love listening to music cum static<\/i> and therefore think it worth telling others about. \u00a0Our penchant for focusing on some sins and not others (especially those which are common in the church) has made us tone deaf to what we believe are courageous and prophetic pronouncements, but could more accurately be labelled Pharisaical.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

During my years of doing radio interviews, I had the chance to interview Cal Thomas.\u00a0 Thomas was one of the major leaders in the Moral Majority.\u00a0 I was interviewing Thomas on a book he co-authored with fellow Moral Majority leader, Ed Dobson.\u00a0 The title gives away the thrust of what the authors were trying to address: Blinded by Might: Why the Religious Right Can\u2019t Save America<\/i>.\u00a0 It was a courageous and candid confession of zeal gone awry.\u00a0 Among other things, the Moral Majority would purposely give prominence to certain social issues knowing these would increase their financial giving.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been reading through various statements on the recent ruling about homosexual marriage by the Supreme Court. In the pages of Christianity Today<\/i> Mark Galli reflects the tone that should be more widespread in the Christian church:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another temptation now is to point the finger at the forces\u2014political, social, philosophical, spiritual\u2014arrayed against the church and its moral teaching. Without denying the reality of \u201cprincipalities and powers\u201d (Eph. 6:12), we do well to ponder this: What actions and attitudes have we imbibed that contribute to our culture\u2019s dismissing our ethics? Our homophobia has revealed our fear and prejudice. Biblical inconsistency\u2014our passion to root out sexual sins while relatively indifferent to racism, gluttony, and other sins\u2014opens us to the charge of hypocrisy. Before we spend too much more time trying to straighten out the American neighborhood, we might get our own house in order. Blessed are the poor in spirit who mourn their sins (Matt. 5:3-4).\u00a0 <\/i>(Emphasis added)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the same vein, my dear friend, Pastor Jeff Teague, likes to expose how much we Christians tend to be insensitive to our own sin.\u00a0 Utilizing his considerable acting abilities, Jeff asks with faux disdain, \u201cWhy is it that Jesus only hung around sinners?\u201d\u00a0 Many bite and respond with something like, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s right.\u00a0 He did hang around with a lot of unsavory types.\u201d\u00a0 By their response, many reveal that they feel different and therefore distant from the sinners Jesus regularly spent time with.\u00a0 Then Jeff answers his own question, \u201cBecause sinners are the only people who exist!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

So yes, be ready to share about God\u2019s design for marriage, but realize your answer may cloud more than clarify if it does not come with some honest comments about the sins which many times find safe harbor in the church.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get one thing quickly out of the way.\u00a0 I believe homosexuality is contrary to God\u2019s design.\u00a0 I also believe marriage is between one man and one woman.\u00a0 The legalization of homosexual marriage to some degree makes me feel like Marshall McLuhan who went to movies not to watch the movie, but to observe how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,106,122,89,100,7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-church","category-controversy","category-gospel","category-marriage","category-sexuality","category-sin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5649"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8728,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5649\/revisions\/8728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}