As I’ve outlined my series on Loud and Proud Complementarians there is a striking connection between the complementarian movement and activism for conservative churches to accept homosexuality. In a nutshell, complementarians are now doing regarding homosexuality what they have done regarding feminism for decades.
Consider Dr. Denny Burk, the current president of the CBMW. Burk announced his book Transforming Homosexuality: What the Bible Says about Sexual Orientation and Change in October of 2015. He became president of the CBMW eight months later. Burk’s focus on homosexuality may make him seem like an odd candidate to lead what most would assume is an organization focused only on feminism, but the CBMW has positioned itself in recent years as the center of conservative Christian response to homosexual activism. The 2017 Nashville Statement regarding gay marriage is now featured alongside the CBMW founding Danvers Statement on the organization’s website:
True to complementarian form Burk’s focus has been to give the appearance of orthodoxy on homosexuality while cutting off anyone whom he deems is too traditional on the subject. In Transforming Homosexuality, Burk and his coauthor Dr. Heath Lambert affirm that both homosexual acts and homosexual desire are sinful, but at the same time argue against reparative therapy (emphasis mine):
The Bible teaches that God’s plan for all Christians is to transform them into the image of Christ. It’s a process that takes a lifetime to complete. But this transformation is nevertheless what the Holy Spirit is doing inside of all Christians—not just some of them—including those who experience same-sex attraction. The change that God wishes to accomplish in same-sex attracted individuals is not necessarily heterosexuality but holiness. For this reason, our book opposes reparative therapy as a Christian approach to change.
Holiness, not heterosexuality is a catchphrase among conservative Christian gay activists, and Burk literally wrote the book on the subject. To see how core this idea is to conservative Christian homosexual activism, try searching on the term. Not surprisingly, the top editorial reviews for the book on Amazon are from Pastor Sam Allberry and Rosaria Butterfield:
“Denny Burk and Heath Lambert have written a clear, compassionate, and thought-provoking book on how the gospel brings transformation to those struggling with homosexuality. Our hope is not the heterosexuality-or-bust shtick of reparative therapy, but the wondrous prospect of growing in holiness and Christlikeness that comes through repentance and faith. This is essential reading for every pastor and for any seeking to bless and minister to those with same-sex attraction in our churches.” —Sam Allberry, Associate Minister of St Mary’s Church, Maidenhead UK; author of Is God Anti-Gay? and James For You
“In Principles of Conduct, John Murray reminds us that ‘the line of demarcation between virtue and vice is not a chasm but a razor’s edge.’ In Transforming Homosexuality, Denny Burk and Heath Lambert shine scholarly and pastoral light on that razor’s edge, helping Christians to discern the difference between sexual temptation and sexual lust as it bears on same-sex attraction. This is a bold and provocative book. It will also likely be a controversial book. But it is predominantly a loving book that seeks to help people with unwanted homosexual desires be transformed by the full knowledge that God’s grace for us in Christ is sufficient for all our various struggles and sins.” —Rosaria Butterfield
Another example of Burk skirting the line is his review of Gregory Coles’ Book, Single Gay Christian. In the run up to Revoice, Burk explained why he hadn’t written about the (then planned) event:
1. I’ve already written extensively about the celibate gay identity movement. For starters, you can check-out the book that Heath Lambert and I co-authored Transforming Homosexuality in which we argue that same-sex attraction and sexual orientation are morally implicated in scripture. I make a similar case in an article I wrote for The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society titled “Is Homosexual Orientation Sinful?” More recently, I wrote a review of Gregory Coles’s book that takes a critical look at his version of celibate gay identity.
Burk says he was critical in his review of Revoice worship leader Gregory Coles’ book Single, Gay, Christian, which is technically true. For reference, here is how Coles describes the book on his website:
Is it possible to be gay and still follow Jesus? And if so, what happens next? If you believe the Bible calls you to celibacy, is it possible to embrace that calling without feeling like a divine typo?
Single, Gay, Christian is the story of one person’s journey through these questions. It’s about acting like your own alter ego, about getting epiphanies from mosquitoes, about singing happy birthday to yourself while literally hiding in a closet. It’s about being gay, loving Jesus, and choosing singleness in a world that fears all three.
After opening with two full paragraphs praising the book, Burk does reject Coles’ embrace of a gay identity:
So there is much that I resonate with in Coles’ story. In the end, however, I share the same concerns about the book that Rachel Gilson expressed in her review at TGC.
First, this book falls squarely within the celibate gay identity genre, in which the author rejects gay sexual behavior and gay marriage but embraces a gay identity.
Burk then quotes a truly blasphemous section from the book, and instead of soundly condemning it responds tepidly that he doesn’t know how to reconcile this perspective with scripture or natural law:
Is it too dangerous, too unorthodox, to believe that I am uniquely designed to reflect the glory of God? That my orientation, before the fall, was meant to be a gift in appreciating the beauty of my own sex as I celebrated the friendship of the opposite sex? That perhaps within God’s flawless original design there might have been eunuchs, people called to lives of holy singleness?
We in the church recoil from the word gay, from the very notion of same-sex orientation, because we know what it looks like only outside of Eden, where everything has gone wrong. But what if there’s goodness hiding within the ruins? What if the calling to gay Christian celibacy is more than just a failure of straightness? What if God dreamed it for me, wove it into the fabric of my being as he knit be together and sang life into me? (pp. 46-47)
Coles suggests that same-sex orientation may be a part of God’s original creation design and that homosexual orientation within Eden is an ideal that exceeds that which people experience outside of Eden.
I do not know how to reconcile this perspective with scripture or with the natural law. Same-sex orientation is not simply a “creational variance” (as Nicholas Wolterstorff has described it). Scripture teaches explicitly that homosexual desire and behavior are “against nature”—meaning against God’s original creation design (Rom. 1:26-27). Nor can I reconcile this perspective with what Coles says elsewhere about same-sex orientation being a “thorn in the flesh,” which suggests that same-sex orientation is not a part of God’s original design. Which is it? A thorn in the flesh or something God “dreamed” for people as a part of his original design?
After pointing out other instances of terrible theology in the book, Burk concludes his review with:
I really enjoyed getting to know Coles’s story. I can’t help but admire his continuing commitment to celibacy and traditional marriage. I want to cheer him on in that and say “amen.” Still, I am concerned that the celibate gay identity perspective he represents is not biblically faithful or pastorally helpful. And the issue is important enough to flag in a review like this one. Evangelicals need to think their way through to biblical clarity on sexuality and gender issues, but the celibate gay identity view is muddying the waters.
Burk does just enough to separate himself from Coles’ radical gay activism while praising Coles for living as a faithful Christian. It is also worth noting that while Burk disagrees with Coles embracing his “Christian” gay identity, Burk went a long way to create room for just that by declaring that heterosexuality isn’t God’s plan for Christians.
But while Burk has weak kneed criticism for Coles, he is effusive in his praise of Christian gay activist Pastor Sam Allberry (emphasis mine):
Sam is a same-sex attracted Christian, and a faithful brother. I cannot overstate how grateful I am for his life and testimony. The Lord has raised him up for our time. If you haven’t yet read Sam’s book, you need to. It’s titled Is God Anti-Gay? (Questions Christians Ask).
What did I just read
I find the idea of discovering some Edenic secret homosexuality inside the source material (Genesis 1-3) to be less sound than a feminist historian who sits on a mirror and then writes about what she thinks it was like to be a medieval peasant woman, and thus “write herstory into history”.
Genesis 1:27-28 appears controlling and authoritative, and there’s no room for some magic homosexuality in that mandate. God explained why He made sexuality: multiplication.
This is literal page 1 stuff.
I’ve done a lot of reading and blogging on the subject of gays in the church on my religious website and a detailed response to your series is beyond the scope of a single comment. Suffice it to say that the Bible does not presuppose “loving same-sex marriages” and that gays within Christianity have turned eisegesis into a fine art.
We’re witnessing the modern converged Church’s first attempts at a new false theology on homosexuality. The Church has already created a near-complete false theology on everything surrounding men and women: on sex, fornication, masturbation, marriage, gender roles, love, respect, submission, headship, parenting, childbirth, abortion, out of wedlock childbirth, marital conflict, adultery, divorce, and remarriage. Dalrock is now writing on the Church’s fledgling new theology on its gay members and how to keep them in the fold.
I’m convinced that everything I’m reading here is essentially, paraphrasing,
“Yeah, yeah, we know what the bible says about homosexuality and homosexual conduct. But isnt’ there a way to make it so that homosexuals aren’t really sinning? Isn’t there a way to make it so that we can just kind of not deal with all this gay stuff? Isn’t there a way to just look the other way, like we did with all that stuff with heterosexual sex?
“Because, if we do it the way the bible says, we have to tell them they’re sinning and that they need to repent. And that’s just…. mean. And we don’t want to be mean. And we can’t be mean because if we are, the SJWs will destroy us and people will just leave. And, I mean, we made it this far. We’ve been able to avoid lecturing single people not to have sex, even though we know they’re all sleeping with their serious significant others before they’re getting married. We KNOW this is happening. And we don’t say anything about that. We also continue serving communion to our divorced people and remarried people and fornicators and people we know have had abortions and support abortion rights. We just changed the theology to fit them all in. So can’t we just do that with homosexuals?”
For those who read the comment by James above and thought he had misspelled a word – nope. He wrote “eisegesis”, not “exegesis”. New word to me, probably for some others.
https://infogalactic.com/info/Eisegesis
Very useful word, too.
Is it possible to want to murder everyone and still follow Jesus? And if so, what happens next? If you believe the Bible calls you to not murder, is it possible to embrace that calling without feeling like a divine typo?
Is it possible to want to have sex with animals and still follow Jesus? And if so, what happens next? If you believe the Bible calls you to celibacy, is it possible to embrace that calling without feeling like a divine typo?
Is it possible to be a Satanist and still follow Jesus? And if so, what happens next? If you believe the Bible calls you worship one god, is it possible to embrace that calling without feeling like a divine typo?
Funny that no matter what sin you put there it still sounds silly. Homosexuality and Holiness cannot exist together since one is called AN ABOMINATION IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. Weird how that works.
You know, this sort of theology is only possible if the natural law is optional. When it’s not, there is only the unavoidable conclusion that homosexuality is never a gift and always a privation.
This is the same nonsense I heard in grad school in 1993……
I saw a lecture at my Polytechnic telling all of us men (95% of the institution) the Internet was actually invented in feudal Europe by women on the loom weaving and making the intricate tapestries that graced castles, manors, and churches……the limitless patterns, choices, skills, and deft that “only a woman can have or understand” when making such a varied work of art, and we “future high tech workers” need to accept, acknowledge and celebrate.
This auditorium was filled with over 2,000 men and gave this speaker thunderous applause. I was whipping my head around…….everyone applauding, some standing……men who played hockey. Men who were studying architecture, men who were brilliant compared to me…I was just for a stupid MS in technical communications and UCD. Future programmers and engineers………all applauding. LOUDLY.
I felt I was in the “twilight zone”
I said to myself (or out loud) “why is everyone applauding???!”
This is the must bunk comment and failed score of “revisionist history” since learning in undergrad that the agenda being pushed to change “The Vietnam War” into “President Nixons War” (which is int he textbooks now in California, Vermont, and New York State)
Why was everyone applauding??????????????
Was I the dumbest one in the room? Did women really invent the Internet in backwater feudal Europe while sitting at a loom? Am I crazy?
Why is everyone applauding?
I mentioned offhand to a few guys back in grad student housing this surreal scene “it’s not that big a deal, let em have it….we know the truth.”
Anything to get approval of women. ANYTHING.
This wasn’t some bunk polytechnic either. No, I was not in one of the better or more famous departments, but my grad school is the oldest one in the USA.
This same stuff I read here in this post……..why is this accepted??????? Why are people now rewriting the Bible? Too many “christian leaders” with way too much free time on their hands
@Nathan Bruno
Not just multiplication but to symbolise the relationship he has with mankind.
Its not for nothing that husband and wife is reflective of christ and church.
Remember that bacteria can easily multiply by cloning themselves asexually.
@ar
Useful. But in public discourse its ends up being “No U” each side accuses the other of except one is right or both wrong
AR
Without going to the link, eisegesis is basically reading into the text something not there or ever intended by the writer.
It can be done with any text really. And is the basis of “rights” not enumerated in the constitution but later “discovered” by super smart Supreme Court justices.
It’s the opppsite of exegesis.
Jason,
I am noticing that many tech “ads” for events and such these days always show more women than men, even though the reverse still remains the reality. More women are in tech than when I was getting my degrees in computer science, but not as many as so many things proclaim.
And “women in tech” events are flooding every field, even though they have been trying this same approach for the past 40 years or more, with little success. These are supposed to be smart people too!
Actually article 9 of the bill of rights says that all the rights of man isn’t listed. So the bill of rights might not say it, but you have more than just the listed ones.
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Well when Intermercials (inter commercials) on YouTube pop up or interrupt a video you would think 50% of the nation was African American 40% white female, and everyone is under the age of 30
Any big name celebrity pastor worth a damn is dead. Before anyone mentions voddy bacham he called signs from God paganism.
These new influencer pastors are canceraids. They are also the first people catch a bullet in a night of long knives situation, so they really should consider changing their position.
This conflation of pauls notion of spiritual eunuchs with sodomites is amazing. Just like, one of the top ten heretical things I’ve ever heard. So, hat tip for that i guess.
I just wanted to comment that my aunt is a lesbian and has had a partner for the last several decades, though never “married” and they don’t live together. She goes to church every Sunday. The family just doesn’t talk about it, and neither does she. It is just one of those things. If there is a “way ahead,” that is pretty much it.
@Mad_Kalak
That’s just a version of “We don’t talk about it”, a common coping mechanism for generations. The US military version circa the 1990’s was “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
But…”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” won’t work in current times, not when SJW’s follow in the footprints of Trotsky, Mao, Pol Pot etc. in their demand that everyone applaud the current campaign, forever.
@AR
I never even knew she was a lesbian until I put 2 and 2 together as an adult.
To your point, I think it (not making an issue of being gay) works if the gay person just deals with the contradiction in their own way, rather than the SJW way of trying to get everyone else to accommodate them. I see it as no different from my time in the pews as a sinner before I confessed and cleaned up my predilection for straying from my vows. I admit that last bit publically just as a testament to how strongly I feel about the issue. I didn’t ask the church to accommodate my sins and change, I had to change to not be a fraud as a Christian. I would hope they would do likewise. Is this a coherent policy? No. I will admit it really isn’t and it must be case by case.
Anyway, I am ready to be savaged by the commentariat here.
What underlies all of this is the notion that homosexuality is genetic: gay people were ”born this way”.
This narrative does violence to science: There is no scientific study that has verified that gay people are born gay. Not one. In forty+ years of looking.
Thus there can be no Edenic gay situation. Sin is sin: It has to be confronted, admitted, repented of and abandoned. This is the hard yards of picking up your cross and carrying it.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses warns Israel to avoid idolatry, for it is idolatry that is practiced by the tribes of the Promised Land and Why God is going to use them, Israel as His mechanism of judgement. Idolatry and fornication always go together.
Sexual sinners always think they are special, that they can’t repent and abandon, that it’s too hard. Men will do it, despite having the higher sex drive. Men do it because they respond to the binary nature of God’s Law: ”Thou shalt…” and “Thou shalt not….” are the uncompromising standards used.
Feminists, gays, lesbians bi’s, et al always think they are in a class by themselves, that they should not be judged as harshly and held to a different standard. That’s only because their idol is their sexuality and they need to cast it down in order to get into the Kingdom. Nothing else will suffice.
Off Topic: Surrey Police investigation over ‘misgendering’ tweets
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527
Good to know that English police will threaten English subjects with jail time for calling a he a he, when he’d rather be called a she. Now, let’s see them do this to a Muslim.
Reblogged this on A Life Un-Lived and commented:
I’ve previously asserted that Christian scripture discourages celibacy, and Jesus himself ridiculed his disciples for proposing to avoid marriage. That pretty adequately answers questions to me about “celibate gay Christians.”
Such creatures are fiction.
I am noticing that many tech “ads” for events and such these days always show more women than men, even though the reverse still remains the reality.
Alongside the Kick-Ass Warrior Woman, Hollywood has given us the Whip-Smart Hacker Woman.
Since the 1990s, many of the most brilliant computer hackers in Hollywood films have been beautiful young women. TV shows like VR.5, and films like Hackers and Anon. Lori Singer, Angelina Jolie, and Amanda Seyfried were the beautiful femme hackers in those films, respectively.
From the 1990s …
Don’t forget Jurassic Park, too. Hollywood wrote in the girl hacker themselves, which was not consistent with the novel.
@Jake
Voddie is criticising those who let their feelings or vague notions and other vain imaginings dictate their actions an seeing them as “signs from god” rather than looking 1st at scripture.
Miracles and especially signs and wonders are absolutely obvious with no doubt whatsoever as it is in stories of scripture. And with scripture is easily determined.
@Jake: “Any big name celebrity pastor worth a damn is dead.”
One persists, at least: John MacArthur. I have seen no compromise in his preaching or ministry.
What underlies all of this is the notion that homosexuality is genetic: gay people were ”born this way”.
This narrative does violence to science: There is no scientific study that has verified that gay people are born gay. Not one. In forty+ years of looking.
Thus there can be no Edenic gay situation.
Actually, the “born that way” line of argument isn’t morally relevant, either — people just find it more emotionally compelling. There are such things as genetic defects which are inherited genetically. The Christian understanding of these is that they are the result of the fall and the corruption that spread thereafter, rather than being a part of the “intended design”, and present in the pre-lapsarian version of humanity. If “science” were to discover tomorrow that there is in facta “gay gene” this would not change the moral perspective on homosexual acts, which would remain morally illicit, whether one is genetically programmed to be inclined to them or not. What would change is the attitude towards the attraction itself — i.e., whether being homosexually attracted is itself a sin (today some Christians believe it is and others believe it isn’t unless acted upon in some way) — but not the moral perspective on acting on that attraction.
Of course, the emotional element of it would be somewhat altered — lots of people who are only so-so on “abstract moral rules” are easily swayed by a “born that way” argument because it seems to their emotional side to be unfair to someone to tell them that something that they have “naturally” (the same way any other genetic defect is also one’s natural inheritance) is somehow wrong to act upon. But that’s just muddy thinking. An, in any case, even without a shred of scientific evidence to back it up, as you note, I think something like 60-80% of people currently think that gay people are born that way, regardless, so the impact of the idea is already baked into current attitudes.
I didn’t ask the church to accommodate my sins and change, I had to change to not be a fraud as a Christian. I would hope they would do likewise. Is this a coherent policy? No. I will admit it really isn’t and it must be case by case.
This is in fact what is already happening now, in most places. There are very few places that will throw someone on their ass out the church door because they are suspected of being gay. Even actively gay. If, however, that person, together with other gays in the church and outside it, begins to agitate to be openly accepted, to have their relationships blessed, to be permitted to serve at all levels of the church openly and in their gay relationships and so on, then the disparities between churches emerge, with some being very accommodating (like the mainlines) and others being much less so (conservative protestant churches, Catholics, Orthodox).
There are still some gays who want to operate under the “under the radar”/DADT paradigm … but there aren’t that many of them. Most are activists for open acceptance in one form or other — either the progressive form (it’s all good, we will marry and ordain you, you’re just fine) or the conservative one (which Dalrock has been talking about here). There aren’t that many who are content with the old way of doing things, which was to keep things quiet, even though everyone kind of suspected that person X was gay. That approach has been almost entirely abandoned by the gays themselves, so I don’t really see it as working on a wide scale.
In Catholicism, the parishes due to size operate on an honor system so without question there are many actively gay people participating in the life of the church on a very full basis in Catholicism — even notorious non-celibate ones like Andrew Sullivan. The Catholics don’t really police things that way. In Orthodoxy if a gay person is openly active, they are not admitted to communion in almost any parish — there are a few with very disobedient, and I would say wicked, priests who will communicate them here and there, and this has led to scandal and condemnation. I am sure that there are other situations where nothing is open (i.e., the person is gay and not celibate, and the priest knows, but the gay person is quiet about it, noone else knows, and so on so the priest communicates them … and that is also terrible and disobedient in the extreme but harder to detect if everything is going on under the radar). It is less common in Orthodoxy though because our parishes are small (people know each other and the priests know everyone), our priests are almost all married guys, and the chalice is closed (no non-Orthodox can receive), so the priests are used to not communicating people. But it does happen, and mostly when it does the priest is either clueless (i.e., there is an Orthodox who is gay but the priest is unaware) or disobedient (not common, but it happens here and there).
In general the DADT approach, I think, won’t have much general application in the years ahead because the gays won’t let it.
Related article as rebuttal:
https://www.tobyjsumpter.com/why-the-bible-aint-woke/
@ Hmm
Agreed on John MacArthur. Sadly, he’s getting up there in years, and probably won’t be around much longer. Voddie Baucham doesn’t compromise either, but he’s not a pastor anymore. He’s the dean of the seminary at African Christian University in Zambia. But that is a good thing.
The United Methodist Church recently held its worldwide convention, and its delegates surprised everyone.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/united-methodists-fracture-lgbt-plan-rejected/583693/
Here’s the key.
And here’s where the rot lies.
First, it’s absolutely true that the problem starts with the “conservatives” who supposedly believe in Biblical inerrancy, yet compromise on women in ministry.
Second, it’s also true that Pastor Adam Hamilton (whose church is in Leawood, KS, a UMC suburb of Kansas City) and his pro-LGBTQ+ ilk don’t love the Bible, and read into the Bible what they want to see, rather than extract from the Bible the meaning that the Holy Spirit put into it.
Don’t be surprised if, in a few decades, Africans and Asians evangelize Americans.
Here’s the best quote from the Methodist convention. It took me a while to find again.
https://world.wng.org/content/methodists_vote_to_uphold_biblical_sexuality
Well said, Rev. Kulah.
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Yon’t be surprised if, in a few decades, Africans and Asians evangelize Americans.
Yup, and to Europeans, too, who are even more lost than Americans. Either way, it’s going to be a brutal mission field for them.
@ Novaseeker
I think the 60-80% of people include those who believe that gay people may not have been born that way, but early in life developed into being gay. The development process may have been faulty due to reasons other than genetic. Thus, a gay person did not choose to be gay just like a heterosexual person did not choose to be heterosexual. It’s this lack of choice which gets categorized as born that way.
I apologise in advance for the wall of text…. you know how it is when you just get going…
Homosexuality as a movement or a community (by which I mean queer culture) has to iether destroy or subvert Christianity, and indeed all religion, in order to survive/thrive.
This stems from the fundimental delema that queer culture faces. It must create the perception that homosexuality, in both inclination as well as action, is both without choice (“born this way”) and completely natural (by design/evolution).
By saying you were “born this way” you indicate that you had no choice, at least in your inclinations if not your actions. Whthout a choice you can’t be subject to a moral judgement.
“Born this way” is excellent propaganda to both siglance criticism and ellicet sympathy.
The problem with the “born this way” argument is that it runs into problems from both religious as well as aethistic evolutionary sience.
In Christianity we see the increased inclination twards all sin as well as all physical mallidies as a secondary consequence of the fall (the primary consequence being death). In this understanding “born this way” becomes a tragedy. To Christianity “born this way” does not equal “designed this way” and homosexuality something fundimentaly unnatural to be struggled against like all other inclinations to sin.
Also if you’re an aethist you could begin to see homosexuality for the reproductive dead end that it is, and what happens is people start seeing homosexuality as an actual disease that should be “cured.”
If there is a “gay gene” that opens the door to gene therapy/editing, which is something you bet the non-western cultures of the world will gladly do!
So to thrive as a culture queers have to be “born that way” becouse that protects them from religious judgement and rejection on those grounds. But they also have to convince people that its by some kind of design (both intended and good).
Christianity is the low hanging friute for subversion because our beliefs call for forgiveness and forbarence. They have to subvert Christianity because they need it’s (dwindling) population to work against there real enimies ….. Islamic cultures that (absent Western pressure) will brutally murder queers as both religious sacrifices (& also just for fun) and the Chinese who (absent Western pressure) will coldly medicate them out of existence.
A long time friend once described Europe as “where missions go to die”
“Don’t be surprised if, in a few decades, Africans and Asians evangelize Americans.”
Nigerian churches are already sending missionaries to Western Europe.
Too bad he is supporter of the false idea of cessationism along with directly violating the Scriptures by “forbidding to speak with tongues.” I used to like listening too him, but now he is on the “instant change” setting when he comes on a station I am listening too.
God doesn’t tempt, so why in the world would anyone counterpose holiness and a lessening of temptation? If this dichotomy were to succeed, it goes even further and it would be “unloving” to even try and cure things like mental illness, because what we want ultimately isn’t “mental health” but holiness.
But you don’t see these rationalizers going around saying that it is misguided for Christians to try and help people restore their health, which betrays them. They have a pet sin which they love and nurture, and they don’t want anyone messing with it, so they change the subject.
@ feeriker
What goes around comes around, I guess.
@ Horst Muhlmann
I believe it. Africans are also holding the line in the Anglican Communion.
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