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53: Homosexuality - The Evangelical Temptation

Article by Peter Jones

Dec 3, 2008

Homosexuality: The Evangelical Temptation

In spite of the millions in California who democratically voted against gay marriage, the Governor, leading politicians, and all the major California newspapers are calling to overturn Prop 8. Power, it would seem, lies with ideology not democracy.

For instance, for twenty-four days since November 4, the reputable (?) LA Times, has run at least one and sometimes three pro-gay articles, without one article from the other side. An editorial made the accusation: “this [Prop 8] is a hateful measure, passed after a campaign of misleading scare tactics.”  Just kooky Kalifornia, you say? President-Elect Obama has promised to grant full civil right to gays and lesbians as soon as he gets into office and even the Evangelical church is wobbling.

This is the watershed issue of our time, both for our Western culture and for the Evangelical community. If (when) the gay agenda wins, the cultural river will begin to run their way, and faithful, biblical Christians will be left high and dry to lose their jobs and maybe their freedoms.

Some Christians won’t.

Not Neil Clark Warren, a former dean at Fuller Theological Seminary, who founded the on-line dating service, E-Harmony.com, with a great assist from Focus on the Family. The site is now worth $100 million, but Warren has lost his focus.  When sued for discrimination against gays, Warren capitulated. Though not even found guilty of the charge by the courts, they spinelessly settled. After three years “it [became] a burden in terms of the high costs of litigation and the time and resources management devoted to it.” PTL! Harmony is reestablished. Warren will not lose his job and can spend all his millions in this world undisturbed. But time is running out. He will carry a moral burden for a long, long time, for, with cute homosexual pictures and bios, his site now actively endorses perversion,  in direct competition with the gay site, ManHunt.net! Also, eternity is a long time to count your meaningless millions when even a paving stone up there is made of gold.

This is a great temptation for the Evangelical Church, a love affair with commercialism with no ultimate commitment to the honor of its bridegroom, Christ. Let it never be said of us that financial and social ease was more important than truth.

Evangelicalism is also tempted by intellectual and cultural acceptance. Jay Bakker, son of noted TV evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, along with a group of young Christian ministers, has adopted an “inclusive” view of the church’s task, and is now actively identified with Soul Force, a “Christian” homosexual pressure group.

On the same day as the E-Harmony affair emerged, another “evangelical” surrendered to the gay agenda. Tony Jones of Emergent Village publicly declared: “I now believe that GLBTQ (gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, trans-sexuals, and queers) can live lives in accord with biblical Christianity… and that their monogamy can and should be sanctioned and blessed by church and state.” I guess it all depends on what you mean by “biblical.”

Jones dismisses future criticism of him “going left,” as a knee-jerk reaction of ignorant fundamentalist jerks—like Charles Colson! On May 25, 2006 Jones answered Colson’s question, “Is Emergent the New Christian Left?” He dismissed Colson as a philosophical nit wit for claiming that truth is true, independent of our experience. Such an idea was “non-sensical,” and Francis Schaeffer’s parallel phrase “true truth” was a joke. For Jones everything we have is interpreted by our experience, so nothing is true by itself, not even if “the apostle Paul said so.” This is biblical?

Jones cheats. He himself uses “true truth” by making the universally valid statement that “all is experience.” This statement is exempt from experiential subjectivity. In other words, he is presupposing that there is a kind of truth, “true truth,” available to all, in an intelligible world already created by God that makes intelligible communication possible. Though he uses true truth, he theologically denies its existence, like the pagans of Romans 1:18, and like all the apostate liberals from ancient Gnosticism until now.Pagan does as pagan is!—with inevitable implications.

In 2006 Jones invited people who think like him to join Emergent Village, but not to expect “a position paper on homosexuality.” Well now, thanks to his changing experience, we have one—an unabashed endorsement and consecration of sexual perversion, and the apostle Paul be damned.

With no apostolic foundation (1 Corinthians 3:10) the Evangelical movement is imploding. Under the pressure of these various temptations, how many will abandon ship? What will we look like when it all shakes out? How many will be left? How many “evangelicals” will join the Progressive Liberals who have already joined the pagan spirituals, who presently have a strong global wind in their sails? How many will have not bowed the knee to Baal? But, as Elijah learned, that is not our concern.

We may lose our jobs and freedoms, but we must never lose our message--of “true truth” about God the loving and personal Creator, who, for his glory, made human beings male and female; nor the complimentary message of Jesus, God the Redeemer, who, moments before his atoning death for sinners, addressed all skeptics, Christian or non-Christian, with words unique in all of human history: “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

May you have the strength to place biblical truth before financial and social ease in order to witness fearlessly to God, Creator and Redeemer as the Lord of heaven and earth.

P.S. I have never asked you, faithful reader, for material support, so why should I do it now in a letter where I suggest some of you may lose your job because of your stand for truth!  While I have never wanted to take advantage of your willingness to read my comments on the culture, many around me nevertheless believe it appropriate for me to place our needs before you. Let me just say that if you have been helped by my newscwipps (now InsideOut), would you prayerfully consider making a one-time Christmas gift to our ministry to get us through these tough times?

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Peter Jones

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