Homosexuality

Here's a funny headline I came across on the Christian Medical and Dental Associations' web site. Thinking they must have erred in their reproduction of it, I clicked the link and found they had exactly reproduced the headline as it originally appeared on the Washington Times web site. It's a UPI feed dated May 3, 2004:

Senate homosexuals ban together

Washington, DC, May. 3 (UPI) -- A group of homosexual staffers in the U.S. Senate have joined their House counterparts by establishing their own issue and support group....

Because of its reputation for muckraking I don't read the American Spectator, but a friend passed this piece on to me and I highly commend it: "Kennedy's Benchmarks" by Mark M. Trapp, an attorney practicing in South Carolina.

Trapp's piece is a case study of the betrayal of our Constitution by our nation's judiciary, most specifically the Supreme Court, as that betrayal has been perfectly illustrated by Justice Kennedy who, over the years, has hopped all over the place on the matter of whether or not sodomy is a private act protected by our Constitution. Here in a short piece Trapp perfectly illustrates the "growth" we've seen in most of the Republican appointments to the Supreme Court over many years, now. In fact, Kennedy himself was appointed by that revered father-figure of all things conservative, President Ronald Reagan.

Check it out and you'll find that the Court's Lawrence decision, by which sodomy was declared to be a fundamental right protected by our Constitution, was the product of a six member majority, and that four of the six were Republican appointees.

Which brings to mind something Joe Sobran wrote four or five years ago that stuck in my head:

Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me; Fool me three times, I'm a Republican.

Some years back, I was on the phone with Marvin Olasky and we were talking about the Republican primary candidate, George W. Bush, then-governor of Olasky's own Texas. I expressed skepticism at Bush's recent (at the time) statement that abortion would not be a litmus test for his appointees to the Supreme Court.

I protested, saying I could not think of any matter of jurisprudence even close to the significance of whether the most innocent and defenseless of our citizens were to be protected by our civil authorities, and that it was my considered conviction that our nation's leaders had no moral authority because of their betrayal of this fundamental duty. Civil authorities are to be judged on the basis of their defense of citizens at the margins of society (and life); not their latest foray into the infinitely less important matter of tweaking copyright law so Mickey Mouse will be able to continue laying golden eggs for Disney.

Since then, I've watched as the members of the Court continue to betray the Constitution, violating the vow each took to submit to, and uphold it. I have come to the conclusion that nothing less than the impeachment of these men will suffice.

Let me be clear: The Constitution of these United States provides not one iota of legal basis for the Supreme Court's Lawrence and Roe v. Wade decisions, and the solution to this constitutional crisis is not any presidential election and subsequent Court appointments, but impeachment--now! The Republican party is a joke, hoodwinking Christians as government grows, the national debt bloviates, states become even more impotent, and unborn babies die.

Last night during a campaign appearance with his wife, Lynne, in Davenport, Iowa, Vice President Dick Cheney publicly acknowledged his opposition to President Bush's support for a constitutional amendment outlawing sodomite marriage. The Washington Post reports that the Vice President said:

"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with. My general view is freedom means freedom for everyone... People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." The question of whether that relationship should be given the status of marriage, Mr. Cheney, said, is "a matter for the states to decide."

Is there a single person outside the Beltway who would be surprised to find out that the lead line of the Post's editorial on the matter was, "Good for Vice President Cheney"?

This whole episode is sad because it can't help but further confirm the mass perception that morality is relative, particularly sexual morality, and that even the most principled men sacrifice their principles when those principles would cause pain for their family members.

In the years to come, most of us will face a similar moment and the way we respond to our own family's sins will be the evidence by which the world judges whether we serve the True God or an idol.

Setting aside Vice President Cheney's conniving at the public policy side of this sin by talking of states rights, how sad to see such a manly father choosing not to love his daughter by calling her to repentance, but instead accepting that daughter's sin as an unalterable reality and making his peace with it. Has he no fear of God, either for himself or for his daughter? Has he never heard or read these words from Scripture:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1Corinthians 6:9-11)

Make no mistake: it is no more possible to love our sons and daughters and wink at their sodomy than it is to love them and wink at their adultery, fornication, or pedophilia. Like every other sexual sin that used to be illegal across our country, sodomy destroys lives. And souls.

This contributed by a member of our congregation, my friend, Scott Tibbs.

Article forgets lesbian women

I was very interested in reading Maggie Bozich's front-page story ("Greeks prepare to crown new Big Man on Campus," Oct. 15, Indiana Daily Student) on Zeta Tau Alpha's research benefit event, Big Man on Campus, but she lost me with her first sentence: "Every male on campus wants to be him, and every female on campus wishes she could date him." Although I have enjoyed reading some of Ms. Bozich's other work, she let me down this time. With one innocent slogan, she silenced every lesbian woman on campus by implicitly denying her existence. Too often we remain complacent with narrow-minded interpretations of love, and by denying the existence of perspectives or orientations different from our own we unconsciously make others feel invisible, which denies them the right to express their love.

I believe Ms. Bozich meant no harm, but let this serve as a reminder of why it is so important that we are inclusive in our language. Silence can be deadly.

Evan Rosenberg, Sophomore

Surely Evan, with all his multi-cultural feminine sensitivities, will make someone a good wife husband.

Has America's "special relationship" with Great Britain reached its end? In longing, perhaps not. But in reality, it looks increasingly like a case of unrequited love.

Britain loathes America, especially the America that voted George Bush a second term. More than anything else, pagan Britain loathes American Christianity.

Today's issue of Britain's newspaper of record, the Manchester Guardian, has a series of essays responding to the reelection of President Bush. Almost every essay identifies America's evangelical Christianity as inimical to Britain's modern character and future.

Below, snippets from the essays with links to the original. It's worth noting not only what is hated--American Evangelical Christianity--but the intensity with which it's hated. In several essays, it appears war (civil or international) would be preferable to the current religious climate in America.

A moral dilemma by Sidney Blumenthal

Sidney Blumenthal, former Clinton aide and defender (and another American writing for the Guardian), rages against the evangelical church. The church is inspired by fear and Bush played to those fears--of women, of other nations, of other races. Read this carefully to smell the hatred. What would Blumenthal be screaming if an evangelical Christian wrote this way of Jews?

The evangelical churches became instruments of political organisation. Ideology was enforced as theology, turning nonconformity into sin, and the faithful, following voter guides with biblical literalism, were shepherded to the polls as though to the rapture. White Protestants, especially in the south, especially married men, gave their souls and votes for flag and cross. The campaign was one long revival. Abortion and stem cell research became a lever for prying loose white Catholics. To help in Florida, a referendum was put on the ballot to deny young women the right to abortion without parental approval and it galvanised evangelicals and conservative Catholics alike.

While Kerry ran on mainstream traditions of international cooperation and domestic investments, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government, Bush campaigned directly against these very ideas. At his rallies, Bush was introduced as standing for "the right God". During the closing weeks, Bush and Cheney ridiculed internationalism, falsifying Kerry's statement about a "global test". They disdained Kerry's internationalism as effeminate, unpatriotic, a character flaw, and elitist. "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," Cheney derided in every speech. They grafted imperial unilateralism on to provincial isolationism. Fear of the rest of the world was to be mastered with contempt for it.

This was linked to what is euphemistically called "moral values", which is social and sexual panic over the rights of women and gender roles. Only imposing manly authority against "girly men" and girls and lurking terrorists can save the nation. Above all, the exit polls showed that "strong leader" was the primary reason Bush was supported.

A four-year nightmare by Mike Marqusee

In this radical screed of self-loathing, the American author not only identifies with those who despise the U.S. around the globe, but urges a "militant" rejection of the president's policies by members of the American military. In essence, he's hoping for civil war. Apparently Mr. Marqusee has no idea of the attitude toward President Bush within the military.

Anti-Americanism has become a catch-all charge levied against anyone who engages in a radical critique of America's global power, its sway over the lives of billions who had no vote in Tuesday's election. People rebel against US hegemony for the same reasons they rebelled against the dominance of earlier imperial powers, not out of a distaste for the culture of the rulers but out of an objection to undemocratic, unaccountable, self-serving rule by remote elites of whatever culture.

(This piece is a revision of another piece below titled The Shame of Alfred Kinsey. This revision ran today, December 3, as a guest editorial in Bloomington's Herald Times. -Tim Bayly)

The late Allan Bloom was an Indianapolis native who served as professor at University of Chicago. In The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom lamented the destruction divorce caused his students. Noting that parents often used therapists to help their children cope, Bloom wrote, "Psychologists are the sworn enemies of guilt."

If therapists are the sworn enemies of guilt, sex researchers are the sworn enemies of shame-with IU's Alfred C. Kinsey leading the pack.

Although hired by IU as a zoologist, in 1938 Kinsey contrived to land a job lecturing engaged and married seniors on "biology." He ended the course by taking his students' sexual histories.

Kinsey spent the rest of his academic career conducting these interviews and disseminating the data. He was convinced that publicizing peoples' private sexual lives would usher in a more peaceful age devoid of shame and inhibition.

But his efforts did not bring the dawn of Aquarian freedom...

Dad used to think it marvelously ironic that creationist Wheaton College was the recipient of a magnificently-preserved ice age mastodon dug from the clay pits of Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He took glee in pointing out the mastodon in its full, standing-in-a-diorama-in-Wheaton's-science-building splendor to visitors from out of town.

In the same way, this sad tale rises above the level of mundane lesbian jealousy with the recent inclusion of a chapter by the attempted murderess in an anthology on Discovering Biblical Equality published by InterVarsity Press.

Ironically, Judy Brown's Alford plea conviction for the attempted murder of Rev. Ted Smart came nearly a year prior to IVP's late 2004/early 2005 publication of Discovering Biblical Equality containing her contribution titled, "God, Gender and Biblical Metaphor."

The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities provides this description of Discovering Biblical Equality,

The full-scale complementarian critique of evangelical feminism, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, has gone unanswered for well over a decade. Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothius, with the able assistance of Gordon D. Fee, have worked to redress this lacuna by assembling a team of twenty-six evangelical egalitarians to produce Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy....

While the essays seek to promote the egalitarian point of view and to critique the hierarchical point of view, they do so with charity and respect, and work to promote dialogue, all the while encouraging all to celebrate God-given gender complementarity. Among many contentions, the book's authors hold that the affirmation of egalitarianism need not deny the complementarity of male and female and that affirmation of the complementarity of the sexes need not imply a hierarchical relation between them.

For more on the connection with IVP read here and here.

Salem Commonwealth Attorney Fred King says of the crime: "This is the most unusual case we have ever handled."

IVP has now withdrawn Discovering Biblical Equality from distribution saying it will release the book without the chapter by Judy Brown later this year.

Apparently, though IVP can see the occasional tree, it's blind to the forest. And to think that Dad was a founder of IVP....

Nigerian Anglican primate, Archishop Peter Akinola, has called for the suspension of the Church of England from the worldwide Anglican communion due to her anticipated endorsement of same-sex covenant unions for her priests. Akinola has often shown himself a man of the Word in the past few years, and again proves as much. He leads between sixteen and eighteen million Nigerian Anglicans.

Four Massachusetts state legislators have introduced a bill labelled An Act Relative to Archaic Crimes which would soften state penalties against the "archaic crime" of bestiality.

Speaking quite seriously, I wonder whether Ted Haggard and David Jones would support each of these initiatives? By their own logic, my honest guess is that their only objection would be that these repeals don't go far enough. In addition to softening the penalties for bestiality, Senate Bill 938 would repeal the following "archaic laws":

CHAPTER 272. CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER

Section 14 Adultery
A married person who has sexual intercourse with a person not his spouse or an unmarried person who has sexual intercourse with a married person shall be guilty of adultery and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than three years or in jail for not more than two years or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars.

Section 18 Fornication
Whoever commits fornication shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three months or by a fine of not more than thirty dollars.

Section 36 Blasphemy
Whoever willfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior.

Thanks, Scott.

The following was written over a year ago as my own personal mental discipline in response to a certain teaching elder within my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, coming out in a prominent national forum in favor of the repeal of all sodomy laws across our country. I have not published these thoughts on the blog or in any other forum. Now, though, I am putting them on this blog to assist others in fighting against this betrayal of God's Truth and the souls and lives of those vulnerable to sodomy. I would welcome E-mails from any who have additional sources or arguments to add strengthening this case.

Scripture:

Genesis 2:20-25 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

God ordained the nature and meaning of sexuality prior to the Fall, and no human authority may separate what God has joined together: sex is to be within species and heterosexual (between man and woman). This is a universal truth rooted in the Creation Order and therefore binding on all men across all time. This is the teaching of Genesis 2 and other texts having to do with sexuality, and marriage only builds upon what Genesis 2 declares.

Exodus 20:14 You shall not commit adultery.

As the Westminster Standards teach, sodomy is prohibited by the Seventh Commandment. If, despite the teaching of this Commandment, the man of God is justified in opposing and seeking the repeal of the civil authority's laws proscribing sodomy, are there any sins against this Commandment the civil authority may proscribe?

(Note from Tim Bayly: I made several errors in this post, both of which are pointed out in a comment made by Rev. Dan Reuter below. Please read his comment.)

Last week, New York's Supreme Court upheld state laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Below is an excerpt of their decision. Note, again, that in our feminist (and increasingly queer) culture, biology obstinately continues to be destiny, and arguments about leadership, marriage, procreation, women combatants in the military, etc. are often best won simply by appeal to the biological realities of the male and female sex.

Note the court actually speaks of "sexual intercourse," "pregnancy," "childbirth," "biology," and "procreation" saying it's appropriate for civil law to be grounded in these realities.

Christians would do well to follow the court's lead as we serve as Christ's salt and light in an increasingly blinded and unutterably dark culture. And one of the first places such biblical doctrines need to be restored is the Church where, for too long, the unitive and procreative functions of marriage have been separated--as if your wife can be your best friend while making a lifestyle choice not to be the mother of your children--or vice versa, with the husband.

The [section of the New York Law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman] provisions regarding marriage do not violate the due process and equal protection provisions of the New York State Constitution (NY Const art I, sec. 6, sec. 11). Marriage, defined as the union between one man and one woman, is based upon important public policy considerations and has been recognized as a fundamental constitutional right (Zablocki v Redhail, 434 US 374, 383 [1978]; Skinner v Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316 US 535, 541 [1942]; see also Washington v Glucksberg, 521 US 702, 720 [1997]; Griswold v Connecticut, 381 US 479, 486 [1965]). These considerations are based on innate, complementary, procreative [*7]roles, a function of biology, not mere legal rights. "[T]he reasons justifying the civil marriage laws are inextricably linked to the fact that human sexual intercourse between a man and a woman frequently results in pregnancy and childbirth" (Goodridge, 440 Mass at 357 n 1, 798 NE2d at 979 n 1 [Sosman, J., dissenting]).

(Thanks, David Talcott.)

After last week's attack on several men in a homosexual bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts US Representative Barny Frank and Senator Ted Kennedy immediately sought federal hate crime legislation covering attacks on homosexuals.

Where, one might ask, were Messrs. Kennedy and Frank in 1999 when Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth had seven members killed and many more wounded? Where were they in 2003 when St. Paul's in Rochester Hills, MI, had one killed and seven wounded? Or in 1999 when the Korean United Methodist Church in Bloomington, IN, was attacked by a white supremacist with one killed?

Make no mistake about it, hate crime legislation truly deals with hate, but not the hate of attackers. Instead, such legislation flows from the hatred of the wicked for the innocent. It reveals the repugnance of ordinary human life--those non-privileged classes of people whose murders are ordinary murders, exempt from federal protection--to the framers of such legislation. We leave the hatred of Frank and Kennedy for innocent babies in their mother's wombs to God to avenge. Meanwhile, all murder flows from hatred and no murderer deserves greater opprobrium than another.

The halls of human justice are established to deal with hate crimes. No other form of crime exists.

(Note from Tim Bayly: As I've noted in recent posts concerning Ted Haggard's advocacy of the repeal of anti-sodomy laws that are already on the books of our nation and states, other prominent Christians have blazed the trail he is on. One I'm especially aware of is Dr. David C. Jones who is a member of my own Ohio Valley Presbytery and served for many years as a professor at our denomination's seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary. Some years back I sent the following letter protesting Dr. Jones' position. In response to the letter I received a quite-graceful response from Dr. Jones and another letter from Covenant's president, Bryan Chapell. But neither of them responded to the substance of my letter. And so, the argument I make below remains my conviction about all those Christians leaders who seek the repeal of anti-sodomy laws in the name of Christian compassion.)

March 9, 2001

Rev. Dr. David C. Jones
Covenant Theological Seminary
12330 Conway Rd.
St. Louis, MO 63141-8697

Dear Dr. Jones,

At some point this past year, I came across your comments published in Christianity Today (October 4, 1999) arguing that "(the practice of sodomy) is not the state's business," that sodomy ought to be made legal, and that sodomites deserve to have their civil rights protected because no one made in God's image ought to be "put down" by "jokes or sneers or whatever..."

In the past couple of weeks, our congregation has been involved in bearing witness to our public servants in two areas: one, a local city ordinance that was passed this last week by our Bloomington City Council raising "gender identity" into a protected status equal to race, age, religion, and so forth. They'd already raised "sexual orientation" into protected status, but deemed that insufficient protection for various souls, particularly the "transgendered." Despite our witness at all three meetings where the ordinance was read and debated, it passed unanimously. Pastor Dave Curell engaged the city fathers in an E-mail correspondence that I'm hopeful can be put up here on the blog soon, but will first need some formatting.

Then the other shoe dropped. This same week the Indianapolis Star had a very large headline across the front page announcing that the Indiana Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of what the Indy Star called "gay adoption." The ruling was two to one, with an excellent dissent written by Judge Ted Najam. I've read the majority opinion and it's pure legal casuistry--all kinds of closely reasoned arguments making it appear that their ruling is only an absolutely necessary deduction from the plain meaning of adoption legislation passed by the Indiana legislature. But anyone who knows the Indiana legislative climate will recognize that as a joke.

Before reading anything about the decision and knowing who the judges were, I submitted the following letter to the editor of the Indy Star. Here's the letter, which today was responded to by three letters to the editor you can find here, here, and here.

Are you serving faithfully as salt and light in your community, steadfastly proclaiming both God's 'yes' and His 'no'? Or have you lost your savor, having convinced yourself that doctrine and truth don't really matter--only friendship evangelism and random acts of human kindness.

To the Editor:

The big news today? The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in favor of "gay adoption," two judges in the majority and one dissenting. And although I don't yet know the names of any of the three judges, one thing is clear: two judges have defied nature and nature's God, while the third fears God and loves the citizens of the state of Indiana--particularly her children...

Those who deny the connection between human catastrophe and divine judgment often throw out the presence of "innocents" among the victims of catastrophe as proof the catastrophe could not be related to judgment.

As a hemophiliac who saw half the hemophiliacs of his generation die from AIDS (contracted from exposure to contaminated blood), I have little trouble making that connection.

By God's grace I was spared that illness, though I did receive another blood-born disease (HCV) often linked to illicit behaviour. Nor do I hesitate to view HCV as God's judgment on sexual profligacy and drug addiction.

But had I come down with AIDS, that would not have lessened the obvious link between AIDS and God's judgment on sodomy. Jonah's shipmates weren't running from God yet they suffered God's judgment on his sin. Nor were Lot's sons-in-law Sodomites in the transitive sense of the verb. But they died with those who were.

Few of the hemophiliacs I knew who died of AIDS would have hesitated to link AIDS to sodomy. In fact, I suspect some of their families resented sodomites for spreading the disease and selling blood which infected others with their disease. Nor would those who were Christians have blinked at understanding AIDS as divine judgment on sodomy.

Finally, had I come down with AIDS, it would have been quite possible to understand it as God's work in my life calling me away from sin. Indirectly, it could have been judgment. Indirectly, my HCV is judgment. It is the product of sin in general, and of my own sin in particular. God is chastising me as a son in accord with His promise in Hebrews 12. But it is not direct judgment of a sinful act.

When God allows the act of sin itself to carry with it the penalty of death, the man who denies any link to divine judgment is simply a fool.

The federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just issued a ruling confirming the punishment of Protestant chaplain, William Akridge, for not allowing an open sodomite to lead the praise band in the Protestant worship services at Ohio's Madison Correctional Institution.

Akridge, a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, explained his actions: "The leaders that the chaplain selects implicitly implies an endorsement and approval of the lifestyle of the selected leaders. (Having a sodomite as our praise band leader) would violate my conscience and make me guilty in the sight of God."

One of my seminary professors who remains a dear friend just wrote taking issue with my use on this blog of the word 'sodomy' to refer to same-sex carnal knowledge:

I find your use of the word 'sodomites' a bit inaccurate, because the sin of Sodom was not solely homosexuality, but also (maybe primarily) lack of concern for the poor.

Ezekiel 16:49-50 Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

Jude 7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

I hear this objection frequently. One of my dearest friends told me several months ago that he thought my constant use of 'sodomy' and 'sodomites' made me look to our readers like I was a member of the lunatic fringe.

Well, I've thought carefully about it and I can't find another construction that is as helpful, spiritually, in referring to the practice of same-sex sexual intimacy. So if you're one of our readers who's inclined to give us a chance, maybe I'll be able to convince you that this is a usage we can't give up. Anyhow, what follows is my defense.

Growing up in an editor/writer's home, I'm very sensitive to language and I want to say at the outset that my use of 'sodomy' is intentional. Until recently I never used the word. Instead, I spoke of the unrepentant sodomite as "gay" and the repentant sodomite who had put his faith in Jesus Christ as someone "tempted by same-sex intimacy." A very long construction, that last one, but it has the merit of not identifying a man as if he were constantly doing something that is a sin. Also, it avoids labeling the man in such a way as to communicate that this form of sexual temptation is central to his personal identity.

I still refer to those "tempted by same-sex intimacy," but instead of 'gay' or 'homosexual' I now speak of 'sodomy' and 'sodomites'. Why?

It's taken a while to get around to it, but here are a few responses to one reader, James', comments on the two earlier posts, "Why 'sodomite' instead of 'gay' or 'homosexual'?" and "What exactly is "unnecessary offense to the Gospel?" I realize this discussion has been drawn out over quite a bit of time, but that's the nature of this wonderful time of year called "summer." Things take longer because other things interrupt. And I've been loving the interruptions.

So now, on with the responses.

James writes: In the comments section of the first post Mr. Bayly attempts to address comments made on another blog that he "did not take Sodom's explicitly stated sins very seriously." After reading the entirety of his post and what followed, it seemed very obvious that the person who made that comment was referring to Mr. Bayly's nearly complete ignoring of the Ezekiel text and almost total exaltation of the Jude text.

James, my purpose in what I've written has never been to give an historical analysis of all the sins of Sodom for which she was judged. Rather it has been to defend the church's historic use of the word 'sodomy' to designate same-sex carnal relations, and to establish that this was one of Sodom's central sins according to the text of Holy Scripture.

Homosexualists have spent decades promoting a revisionist interpretation of the Genesis account, seeking to remove sodomy from the list of sins God judged when He destroyed Sodom. And to that end, they emphasize all the sins of Sodom that have nothing to do with sexual immorality.

But again, my purpose is not to analyze Sodom and her sins. Rather, it's to defend the church's historic usage of the terms 'sodomy,' 'sodomitic,' and 'sodomite' as being faithful to the text of Scripture. That's what's under attack.

No one has ever denied the other sins of Sodom...

Too late, my time has come,
Sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time.
Goodbye everybody-I've got to go. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.
Mama, ooh, I don't want to die, I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all... -Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS twenty-six years later.

Recently, I exchanged E-mails with a friend who has written a book for Christians interested in the interface of public policy and faith. After reading the first quarter of it or so, I put it down and sadly wrote my friend telling him that I couldn't recommend his work due to any number of errors in the way he dealt with God's revelation in Scripture. There were many problems, but two stuck out.

First, in a chapter opposing the legislation of morality one section titled "Worshiping a God of Freedom" begins with this statement: "We worship a God who is concerned with freedom over virtually anything else." My response?

Really, dear brother, that is no god, but only an idol.

Not surprisingly, my friend goes on to argue against sodomy laws. By now, you know the arguments: sodomy was "not even a primary reason for the Sodomites' destruction"; sodomy is not the sin of evangelical churches (one wonders what church he attends, and how he could be so blind to those sitting in the pew next to him?); those who oppose sodomy are doing so out of self-righteousness; sodomites are engaging in "consensual acts" that hurt no one but themselves; and so on.

He states categorically that laws against sodomy are "not consistent with God's will." Ah, the glorious certitude...

July 25, I posted my initial piece explaining why I believe Christians ought not to allow the words 'sodomy' and 'sodomite' to be silenced by the homosexualist lobby. And principal among those reasons was my concern that referring to those who give themselves to same-sex carnal relations as "gay" is to abandon the association of perversion and shame that sodomy has carried to this point.

Today, I received the following E-mail from the same friend who started this discussion, and I post it here for discussion among our readers. To my way of thinking, his arguments prove my central thesis--that those who give up on 'sodomite' and use 'gay' instead are not willing to think and speak biblically concerning this particular sin.

Is a man who identifies himself as "gay" and continues to practice sodomy "godly?" And while he identifies himself as "gay" and engages in sodomy, should he be a member in good standing of a church?

Here's my friend's argument. Is it biblical?

Remember, I'm only an audience of one, but I have some good friends who consider themselves "gay" and are decent, upstanding men, even God-fearing (or church-attending). I consider them as "brothers" even though they are caught in a terrible sin cycle...

Make no mistake about it, if any Nigerian priests are in ECUSA and do not remove themselves, they will face ecclesiastical charges, because we are no longer in communion with ECUSA.

-Peter Akinola, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Nigeria

By no means everything is negotiable for me. I would not be happy if someone said: Let us discuss the divinity of Christ. That to me seems so constituent of what the Church is.

-Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury in his August 19, 2006 interview with Wim Houtman, Religion Editor of the Nederlands Dagblad

Above we see two who aren't agreed, and therefore cannot walk together. Both are confronting heresy and apostasy, but one aims to win while the other aims only to avoid losing.

A few months back, there were rumblings of the real possibility of the ECUSA being cut off from the worldwide Anglican communion, with UK Anglicans coming down on the other side. It was notable that this warning originated in Canterbury--the home of worldwide Anglicanism, historically. The warning came just prior to the 2006 75th General Convention of the ECUSA, held this past June.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, sent a representative to meet with ECUSA leaders and to warn them that, unless they turned back from their present course, they would be responsible for schism in the worldwide Anglican communion, and that this would be a situation up with which the Archbishop of Canterbury would not put. Williams' message boiled down to this: Unless the ECUSA switched directions, Canterbury would be forced to choose sides, and their choice would be the Southern hemisphere--not the ECUSA, her sister communion across the pond.

This is the context within which to understand the present brouhaha over the Archbishop of Canterbury's purported change of mind concerning sodomy. Up until now, he's been known to be soft on sodomy...

"Two consenting adults in a bedroom is not really the role of the state." -Ted Haggard in a 2005 interview from ChristianityToday.com

Asked about the Supreme Court decision striking down bans on gay sex, Haggard responded: "I'm pretty liberal on that actually. I don't think the state should have any business with what goes on between two consenting adults in their bedroom." -BBC News Online, 16 October 2004

Almost one year ago, on November 15, 2005, I posted the following article on this blog. Now I'm putting it back up on the first page because there's a lesson here for those of us who belong to Jesus Christ--particularly those who serve as officers of Christ's Church.

Back in 1788, two geographical centers of American presbyterianism, the Synods of Philadelphia and New York, composed and adopted as the introduction to their Form of Government what were then, and still are, known as our "Preliminary Principles." Between one and two pages long, these eight principles continue to be foundational to presbyterian polity today to such an extent that the Orthodox Presbtyterian Church, the mainline and liberal Presbyterian Church (USA), and my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, all continue to adhere to them.

Since hearing about Haggard's resignation, the fourth of these principles has been at the front of my mind constantly, and I reproduce it here believing it's worth careful consideration in this present context. (I'd also recommend that pastors and elders memorize it.)

Here then is Preliminary Principle Number IV, followed by the blog post from one year ago:

That truth is in order to goodness; and the great touchstone of truth, its tendency to promote holiness; according to our Saviour's rule, "by their fruits ye shall know them:" And that no opinion can be either more pernicious or absurd, than that which brings truth and falsehood upon a level, and represents it as of no consequence what a man's opinions are. On the contrary, they are persuaded, that there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty. Otherwise, it would be of no consequence either to discover truth, or to embrace it.

In the nick of time, Ted Haggard says 'no' to sodomy laws... (November 15, 2005)

Ted Haggard is Senior Pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs and President of the National Association of Evangelicals. During an interview a few weeks ago, he said (thanks, David Talcott):

I think some issues should have rules within the church. For instance, we believe within the church that sexuality should be only between a married man and a woman. But in civil law, I would never want that inculcated.... There are many things that I teach in the church that I would never want integrated into civil law.... Two consenting adults in a bedroom is not really the role of the state.

Pastor Haggard goes further...

In her article cited in an earlier post, Anne Graham Lotz is pandering to some of the more ungodly prejudices of our culture by attacking the church for not being biblical on the meaning and purpose of sexuality. What she really means, though, is not that the Church isn't biblical, but that it's not enlightened or progressive--it's not, as they say, "evolved."

Before the watching world, Ms. Lotz argues that those who maintain distinctions between the sexes (other than those irrepressible biological and physiological ones) are bound for extinction as her new age of feminist gender equity finally dawns among the slowpoke people of God.

One looks in vain for any recognition on Ms. Lotz's part that she's thrown the entire history of the Christian Church's doctrine of sexuality in the dumpster. Likely she'd deny this, pointing to her strong stand against sodomy or divorce as proof that, where the rubber meets the road, she's rock solid on sexuality.

Yet the order of God's creation prior to the Fall is as clear concerning the sinfulness of women exercising authority over men as it is concerning the sinfulness of men having sex with men, or as it is concerning divorce. The authoritative primacy of man over woman, the heterosexual limits of physical intimacy, and the evil of divorce are each equally and undeniably established by our Creator in the Garden of Eden, and the rest of Scripture only reinforces God's Edenic order.

Asked whether divorce is right or wrong, Jesus responded by going back to Eden, prior to the Fall, making it clear that God's order from the beginning was heterosexual, monogamous, and lifelong:

(Jesus) answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." (Matthew 19:4-6)

Asked whether it was proper for women to exercise authority over men, the Apostle Paul responded by going back to Eden, prior to the Fall, making it clear that God's order from the beginning was neither matriarchal nor egalitarian, but patriarchal:

But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. (1 Timothy 2:12, 13)

Do Ms. Lotz and other evangelical feminists really think they can pick and choose between the details of the sexual order God established in Eden which is reinforced repeatedly in the sacred words of Scripture?

"Let's see, I'll have some heterosexuality and monogamy, please. But no patriarchy today, thank you."

Well, any simpleton can see what's happened, and therefore what's coming.

What's happened? Well, for many years, now, evangelicals have lived in an increasingly egalitarian and feminist culture, and that culture has won us over--all that's left is the mop-up operation. Few of us would be willing to preach or listen to the sermons of past centuries our fathers in the faith preached concerning male authority or female deference and submission. And structurally, our practice bears no resemblance to the church's historical practice.

Denominationally, some of us are still forced to toe the line: we don't yet ordain women to the pastorate or eldership, but we've taken every other step we can. We have women leading our corporate worship, administering the Lord's Supper, preaching in our pulpits, teaching mixed-sex adult Sunday school classes, leading mixed-sex small groups, serving as commissioned deacons, serving on our national theological study committees, preaching at our conferences, serving as regional directors in our parachurch and mission organizations... Need I go on?

Yes, we have our Pharisaical righteousness in each place we're fiddling around the edge. Women preaching in our pulpits are the exception--not the rule--and they do so under the authority and review of the elders board. Our women deacons are not ordained--they're only commissioned. We've limited the Sunday school classes led by women to one quarter of our offerings each term. Women lead our call to worship and prayer of confession, but never our pastoral prayer. Women administer the Lord's Supper, but our senior pastor is a man and he's the one who hands the trays to the women before they go out into the congregation. The woman on the study committee has special expertise in the subject under review, and she's not a full voting member. Our conference isn't a church meeting, our speakers aren't really preaching, and we don't have any authority over those who attend. Our organization is parachurch--not church--so we have no need to submit to Scripture's prohibition of women exercising authority over men.

At this point, some readers are likely hung up on one or more of the particulars I've cited and are asking themselves, "Is it really wrong to have women deacons?" "Why shouldn't women lead in prayer during corporate worship?" "If women shouldn't be regional directors of mission agencies, should they be running for president?" Or, "If it's wrong for women to preach in morning worship, is it also wrong for them to serve as professors in Christian colleges and seminaries?"

Although these are important questions, such examples are only meant to be representative of the sea-change the evangelical church has embraced. We will differ over which of the above practices are within the proper boundaries of Scripture, but we must not differ in acknowledging that, taken as a whole, these practices are not a reformation returning us to the doctrine of Scripture, but rather a revolution leading us away from Scripture...

The aggressive sodomite group, Soulforce, is trying to shame biblical Christians across the country by organizing civil rights demonstrations on the campuses of colleges and seminaries that affirm God's condemnation of sodomy:

You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)

It seemed fairminded for us to agree with the repeal of sodomy laws, didn't it? Living in the tragic shadow of AIDS, we showed ourselves so compassionate. Sodomites claimed their civil rights were, in practice, second-class and that didn't seem right. Consequently, we sought the repeal of the laws prohibiting sodomy on the books of the vast majority of states across our nation. It was a Christian cause.

So, what did it get us? Moral capital with God? A "compassionate conservative" label in our nation's capital? A reputation for being kinder, gentler, reasonable? We're not fundies; we're "thoughtful Christians," right?

And what did it get sodomites? Did legalization of sodomy decrease their temptations? Did it make their sin safer? Did it decrease their rate of substance abuse or suicide? Would Christians thinking through the matter biblically, taking into account the immortality of the soul and our coming Judgment, claim the repeal of these laws was spiritually constructive for those suffering under this great evil?

No, our dear brothers and sisters who struggle with this particular temptation are only worse off due to our compromise with political correctness.

And what about us? Well, we see who needs help with their civil rights, now; and who will need ever more help with them in the future. As C. S. Lewis said, they'll tell you that you can have your religion in private, then they'll make sure you're never alone.