For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? (1Corinthians 14:8)
What's the context for Gospel Coalition and various Southern Baptist profs from Louisville coming out against reparative therapy and loudly pronouncing "there’s no place in the Bible where heterosexuality is commanded"?
The context is our culture's hatred of the law of binary heterosexuality instituted by God in the Garden of Eden prior to the Fall. Every law and every person in our culture who teaches the male and female heterosexuality Jesus proclaimed was "from the beginning" is under relentless attack and the battle has been going against us for decades, now. So we have to decide whether to continue to fight out of love for our neighbors, or to throw in the towel.
The recent attack upon reparative therapy and heterosexuality is the new sweet spot where Christians weary of the battle are hiding, hoping to wait it out until the artillery shells are gone and the smoke over the battlefield has dispersed. They'd never say it, but keep your eye on where these men are in relation to the rockets' red glare and you'll note how carefully they've placed themselves.
"Just tell them we don't believe in heterosexuality! We believe in Jesus. Tell them the Bible doesn't call men to heterosexuality! Tell them we are Christian counselors and we are against reparative therapy, too!"
Readers may object, saying these are principled men who are taking a stand against reparative therapy and heterosexuality because of their commitment to Scripture. That it has nothing to do with any desire to escape our culture's hostility against reparative therapy and heterosexuality.
So let me get this straight. The motives of shepherds of God's flock are always pure? They ought never to be questioned or judged?
The context for the sea-change they are pushing for in the Church's teaching of heterosexuality doesn't matter? The many ways their tactics harm and abandon their unbelieving neighbors as well as the sheep in their churches are of no consequence? You say that love always expects the best—and now, that should be the end of it?
Gospel Coalition and their fellow Louisville Southern Baptists have publicly and loudly jumped on the bandwagon of our wicked culture's criminalization of reparative therapy as well as its corresponding attack upon the moral norm of heterosexuality. Right now is precisely the time when, everywhere across North America, states and municipalities are at fever pitch passing laws against "reparative" and "conversion" therapy. Everywhere these laws are being passed, the wicked are single-minded in their determination to criminalize the godly work of Christian therapists, social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, marriage and family counselors, and any other member of the helping professions who helps souls tempted by effeminacy and homosexuality to repent of their perversion and to embrace God's law of heterosexuality.
Responding to this present attack, Gospel Coalition announces, "Godliness Is Not Heterosexuality." It takes a quivering mind overwhelmed by a perverse culture to come up with such a phrase that would have been inconceivable to any Christian before us across 2,000 years of church history. Then again, maybe if the Apostle Paul had read Gospel Coalition's talking points, he would have ended his condemnations of homosexuality and effeminacy with much-needed clarifications that would have helped him to seem less harsh and clueless:
Let's append Gospel Coalition's talking points to a couple passages from the Epistles:
For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another... Nevertheless, Godliness is not heterosexuality.
...men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And yet, Godliness is not heterosexuality.
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper. But keep in mind that the Bible never says that heterosexuality, in general terms, is a good thing.
...although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. Still, there's no place in the Bible where heterosexuality is commanded.
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 ...will inherit the kingdom of God. Amazingly, though, there's no place in the Bible where heterosexuality is commanded.
Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them ...indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh. But don't forget—Godliness is not heterosexuality.
Today's rebels against God burning with "degraded desires" have won the battle for the legalization of homosexuality. They've also won the battle against Christian bakers. In the news today is the account of a Christian baker writing a check to a lesbian couple for the court-ordered damages of $135,000 for emotional pain the couple suffered when the baker refused to bake their wedding cake.
They've also won the battle for homosexual marriage and now have set their sights on criminalizing any person in any helping profession who even hints to a counselee that homosexuality is sick and heterosexuality is healthy, that homosexuality is bad and heterosexuality is good. They are out in the public square pounding on the door of Christian counselors, demanding the door be opened and they be allowed to search the house for thought crimes against homosexuality.
And right then and there is when so-called "Biblical" counselors announce their agreement. They, too, are against reparative therapy! Isn't that weird? Both the pagans and Christians arrived at the same battle line where they agreed they both had the same enemy. You see, it's not too late to turn this whole culture war thing around. We can inoculate ourselves against possible loss of income from our "Biblical" counselling practices merely by announcing we're against reparative therapy and don't believe in heterosexuality.
The teeming hordes are attacking Christian counselors for working to move souls tempted by effeminacy and homosexuality toward manhood and heterosexuality, and right then is when the Christian professor of counseling announces that he is opposed to those who work to move souls tempted by effeminacy and homosexuality toward heterosexuality.
As he puts it, "there's no place in the Bible where heterosexuality is commanded."
The teeming hordes are hell-bent on criminalizing those Christians who, from love of our neighbors, work to proclaim God's gift of heterosexuality. But just as these hordes are breaching the gate and climbing over the top of the walls, the professor of "Biblical" counselling climbs on top of the wall with a megaphone and cries out, "There's no place in the Bible where heterosexuality is commanded!" And "The Bible never says that heterosexuality, in general terms, is a good thing."
All the men wounded and dying at the gap in the wall just below him don't quite get his point and wonder if he's a traitor?
Of course, he explains that his public attack upon reparative therapy and his denial that heterosexuality is a moral good are absolutely and certainly not even in the slightest any lessening of his own personal conviction that homosexual relations and lusts are not God's best for human flourishing.
But again, that's his own personal conviction, his own private Christian truth. And this truth is only appropriate to share with those who have experienced the Gospel and thus have hearts of gratitude toward Jesus.
Whether it's Escondido profs, Darryl Hart fans, Gospel Coalition celebrities, or nouthetic "Biblical" counselors, there's never a point where anyone must ever speak up and proclaim God's law to his neighbor—not even the universal law of heterosexuality established by God in the state of perfection prior to the Fall. Each group differs in the way they justify their silence, but the silence itself in the face of Satan's attack upon binary sexuality is such a large point of agreement between them, it's purely academic which words are used to justify their desertion.
"Homosexuality is not the issue," they say. "Heterosexuality is not the issue. Reparative and conversion counselors are wrong in talking about homosexuality, calling people to heterosexuality. In fact, incest and rape and murder aren't the issues, either! We have to guard the Gospel from any accretions so that Jesus Alone is the issue!
"Jesus plus nothing! Or maybe just a tad bit more. Maybe Jesus plus good liturgy and the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. Only if you're Presbyterian, though."
We all breathe easier having heard the oracles of Gospel Coalition reassuring us that Godliness is not heterosexuality, that there's no place in the Bible where heterosexuality is commanded, that the Bible never says heterosexuality is a good thing, and that reparative therapy is an enemy we have in common with this wicked world.
...if you are a person who struggles or who has struggled with same-sex attraction and does not have the presence of opposite-sex attraction — there’s nothing wrong with you. - Heath Lambert
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(This is the sixth in a series of posts [first, second, third, fourth, and fifth] on the Gospel Coalition's declaration, "Godliness Is Not Heterosexuality.")
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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