Acceptance, Tolerance, and Christian Love (Sin, Homosexuality, and Love part 3)

    At this point you may be asking where love and acceptance fit into all of this. Actually you're probably asking where I've been I haven't finished this series in about six months. The answer to the latter is a combination of laziness and busyness. But that is not important.

    In the first part of this series, I described how sin is, at its core, a rebellion against the sovereignty of Yahveh, the Almighty Creator and God of the universe. We are born in this state of rebellion and it is only through the sacrifice of Christ and swearing allegiance to him that we can switch sides back to God. In a metaphorical sense, Christ's death on the Cross puts us back in the Garden where we have the same choice as Adam and Eve between the two trees.

    The second part of the series dealt specifically with the question of homosexuality and how it relates to the way of the Kingdom of Heaven. According to what the Bible says, the homosexual lifestyle (key word: "lifestyle") is not compatible with the Kingdom of Heaven.

    This brings us back to the question posed at the beginning: where does the love and acceptance of Christ fit into all of this? How do we, as Christians deal, with the question of homosexuality?

    Admittedly it is a bit of a sticky question. On the one hand, people remind me that Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes and that I am called to love people like Christ did. But on the other hand I know that homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle for the members of the Kingdom of Heaven. So how can these be reconciled?

    I think the root of the issue is a misunderstanding about the difference between "acceptance" and "tolerance." Often, as with like and love, we think of acceptance and tolerance as the same thing. They are not. So what then is the difference?

    Acceptance is what we allow to come in. Think of it like university acceptance standards for admissions. Some have very high acceptance standards where to get in you need good recommendations, high grades, excellent test scores, and a long list of other things for admissions, Harvard for example. Others will take you if you have a pulse, like most community colleges.

    Tolerance is what we allow to stay in. Continuing the university example, most universities have an academic standard that must be maintained. If you don't maintain that standard, you're out. Again some are stricter than others but even community colleges aren't particularly pleased with poor grades. And, no matter what school you attend, if you fail your core classes, you cannot receive your degree.

    Christianity is a very accepting religion. As said in the last post, salvation is no respecter of persons. All are welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven, regardless of past or history. In the last post, I quoted Paul from 1^st Corinthians giving a long list of sins that will exclude people from being saved. Then Paul immediately points out the Corinthians all did these things but Christ had sanctified them. John 3:16 reminds us that Christ died for the whole world. Jesus spent much of his time seeking out sinners and the lowest of the low because, as he put it, "It is the sick that need a doctor, not the healthy." A thief was promised salvation as he was dying on the cross next to Jesus. Paul writes in Romans that the gift of eternal life is free to all who accept it. Reading the New Testament from beginning to end, it is perfectly clear that there is no standard one must have lived up to be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven; no "you must be at least this high to ride." All are welcome.

    However, while Christianity is a very accepting religion, it is a very intolerant religion. If you choose to follow Christ, that means you accept his lordship over you (Romans 10:9), which in turn means that you accept to live by his rules. Jesus does not make any accommodations for anyone. When he said in his Sermon on the Mount "Be perfect therefore, as your Father in Heaven is perfect," he wasn't kidding.

    There is a story that illustrates this perfectly in Matthew 19. Most people know it as the story of the Rich Young Man or Rich Young Ruler. The gist of the story is that this young man who is quite wealthy comes up to Christ, asking what he needs to do to obtain eternal life. At first Jesus tells the man that he needs to keep the commandments, to which the young man replies that he had. Though his claim is suspicious, Jesus accepts this and adds that the young man needs to sell everything has, give the proceeds to the poor and follow him.

    At this, the man balks because, as Matthew writes, "he had great wealth" (verse 19). What does Jesus? Nothing. He just lets him go. No compromising, no "hold on, let's talk about this." Christ was willing to let this guy walk away from eternal life rather than compromise. That is textbook intolerance. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

    That is because Christianity is about going somewhere. We aren't just a club to sit around sipping drinks and discussing politics. If it was, then intolerance would make no sense. But we aren't a club; we're a movement. We are moving toward building the world that Christ will one day recreate and rule his way. This world will be the world as it should have been with no pain, no sickness, no death, and no sin period.

    This is the world that we as Christians are working towards which means eliminating character traits, habits, thoughts, lifestyles and such that will have no place in the New Earth. One of those, one of many, is homosexuality. As Christians, we are to be focused solely on following Yahveh and emulating him to the best of our ability, as we were created to do in the beginning. Those who want to join us are more than welcome, regardless of background or past or anything. And those who don't, don't have to; just as Christ didn't force the Rich Young Ruler to follow him, neither do we force anyone to follow Christ.

    If you're still confused, think of Christianity like a bus and the people on the bus as Christians. We are all going to a specific destination on a very specific route, say New York on I-80. Anyone who is going where we're going the way we're going is welcome, no matter how gross he or she might be. We'll take kings and beggars equally. That is the accepting part of Christianity.

    But what if someone comes along that wants to get on, but instead of going to New York decides he wants to go to LA? Or wants to go along I-10? That person, no matter how good or bad, is frankly not welcome. It has nothing to do with them personally; it is simply that they are not going where we're going and the bus driver (Christ) is not going to change for him or her. He or she must be willing to change for the bus driver.

    Someone who wants to be a Christian but wants to keep living their life their own way is like that person. They are not going to the same destination or the same way that Christ is and such are not welcomed.

    This is true for so much more than just homosexuality. This is true for anything that is sin, which is why there are so many lists of what is not in the Kingdom of Heaven in the New Testament. Sin is ultimately setting yourself up as your own God and dictator of your own reality. That rebellion against the sovereignty of Yahveh is what started this whole mess in the first place and it will ultimately be wiped out.

    As members of the Christian movement, we are obligated to accept with open arms all those who are serious about following Christ as their lord and savior, no matter how sordid their past might be. But equally so we are obligated to not bend or compromise the way of Christ for anyone, no matter how appealing they might be. The Rich Young Ruler was just that, rich, young, and influential. I am sure there were many disciples who were furious that Christ let him walk away rather than compromise. But that is not his way. And that is what this is all really about: living life Christ's way. It is not easy and demands sacrifice of all of us. After all, Jesus himself said that the way is narrow there are few that find it.

    Now this does not mean that those who slip up are automatically kicked off the bus. Hardly because we are still heading in the same direction. But those who try to change the bus's directions or want to go a different route are. Christ had infinite patience for those who truly desired to follow him, but none for those who did not. The same is true with us. Those who truly are seeking Christ are accepted unilaterally and with no hesitation. But those who want to live their own way as Christians we are to have no tolerance towards.

Homosexuality (Sin, Homosexuality, and Love Part 2)

    As I mentioned at the beginning of my last post, this is a topic that I am loathe to address. There are reasons why I haven't talked about this before, mainly that I think the debate in Christianity over the question of homosexuality comes from a misunderstanding of Sin and Love. The former I addressed in the former post and the latter will be addressed in the subsequent post.

    All that said, since the debate around this issue is growing more and more rabid and I have been unable to extricate myself from it, I now feel it is necessary to explain what the Bible says, at least as far as I understand it. Hence this particular post. My goal is to explore two things: first to see what the Bible itself says regarding the morality of homosexuality and secondly to begin to explore how as a church and body of believers to deal with the issue. The latter part of this discussion will be more fully vetted in the following post on love.

    Before we dive in, I feel it necessary to explain two key points first. One is that my word is not the final word. The Bible's word is. This post is about what the Bible says regarding the morality of homosexuality; all discussion should be rooted in the Word of God. If my conclusion is wrong, then show me from the Bible. Don't debate simply because you disagree with my perspective. If you don't believe in the Bible or aren't a Christian that's your choice, but don't whether or not the Bible is right. This discussion is not about that; this discussion is about what the Bible actually says so that we as Bible-believing Christians can know what to do.

    Secondly, I need to point out that I myself am not gay. Neither do I have close friends that are gay (at least to my knowledge). At the same time, to my knowledge I don't have friends that are vehemently anti-gay. Other than people repeatedly asking my opinion and answer on the question, I have no vested interest in the debate one way or the other. While this gives me the advantage of being fairly objective on the issue (I have no particular axe to grind), I am fully aware that I have no inkling as to the struggles that homosexuals, particularly homosexual Christians, go through. I cannot speak to nor understand that pain; neither do I claim to.

    So with that in mind, what does the Bible say regarding homosexuality? As I often do, the first place to start is the beginning with Creation. After all, the Edenic world is the ideal world and it is for the ideal world that we ought to be striving for. And in the Garden of Eden, Yahveh created one man (Adam) and one woman (Eve) literally for each other with the task (among many others) to populate the earth.

    There is a trite and somewhat derogatory saying thrown around by anti-gay activists that "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." While the implications of this statement are demeaning, there is factual truth to it. Yahveh could have created a male companion for Adam. He could have created the first two people women. For that matter, he could have created multiple Eve's or multiple Adam's. But he didn't. He created one man for one woman.

    Secondly, Yahveh specifically commanded Adam and Eve to populate the earth. This was a key part of their responsibility as regents of this world. This is also very difficult to do for homosexuals (read, impossible). Again, Yahveh could have created both sexes with the possibility of bearing children. But he didn't. By his design it takes one of each to create life.

    The Divine ideal is crystal clear: a monogamous, heterosexual, life-long, committed marriage. Now the implications of this go far beyond just homosexuality, especially in other parts of the world; divorce and polygamy particularly spring to mind. These are issues that are not the subject of this post, but have major complications of their own.

    One may point out that we don't live in an ideal world. After all, Yahveh created Adam and Eve heterosexual and there are people who are born gay. This is true. But I have to ask, does that change Yahveh's ideal? Hardly.

    Let's skip ahead a few books to Leviticus 18:22: "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." We can assume that this rule works both ways; women, don't sleep with women like you would with a man.

    Okay, so this describes homosexuality and calls its practice "detestable." Note that the Bible calls the practice of homosexuality wrong. It does not say that if you are attracted to members of the same sex that that is wrong. A subtle, but important difference.

    Back to the text; the Bible doesn't really leave any gray area here. Here it condemns homosexuality, plain and simple. After all, this is in the middle of a series of commands titled in my Bible "Unlawful Sexual Relations." Among them are adultery (duh), just about any kind of incest (Yahveh is quite thorough in covering all the bases), bestiality, certain times to avoid sex (a woman's period), and even polygamy, then a commonly accepted practice, to an extent. Oh, and Yahveh throws in a "don't sacrifice your kids" command for good measure.

    Now when I use the text, people raise two objections: one, wasn't this just for the Jews and two, aren't we picking and choosing which rules we follow?

    The answer is largely the same for both. In specific regards to the first objection, a study of the context answers that simply enough. Chapter 18 begins with an admonishment to "not do as they do in Egypt where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices." The same chapter ends with "Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things." Clearly Yahveh intended these laws to apply to both Jew and non-Jew alike.

    As to the second objection, there are several points to consider. First, what are people referring to by "picking and choosing"? What I mean is, which rules are we picking to follow and which rules do we disregard? Most people reply with the sacrifices and feasts or with wearing clothes made of two types of fabric.

    First, the context of this passage ought to be considered. Chapters 17-20 of Leviticus make up what is called the Holiness Code, or a series of codes and laws that were to be applied to both Hebrews (ancient Jews) and non-Hebrews alike. Sacrifices and feasts and mildew laws are not part of this code, specifically applying to Hebrews only. It is true that the rather random and obscure law referring to the two types of cloth are part of the Holiness Code. However there is further context to be considered.

    In the early Church of Acts, similar questions were being asked about which rules were to be followed and which were not. In response to this growing (and divisive) debate, the Church held a special council in Jerusalem to resolve this issue, recorded in Acts 15. To summarize the debate, the Church leaders decided that the following items ought to be followed: refrain from eating food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meet of strangled animals (all in reference to Leviticus 17), and from sexual immorality (in reference to Leviticus 18). Two things to note from this: first, nothing past chapter 18 is referenced and second sexual immorality ought to be understood as all forms of sexual immorality discussed in the Old Testament, including homosexuality.

    Finally, exactly which sexual rules do we actually disregard? I mean, do any of us honestly consider incest or adultery or bestiality or polygamy okay? What about taking rival wives? Of course not. The closest we get to an "acceptable" sexual practice is having sex with a woman during her period, which strikes me as a) revolting and b) women, are you really "feeling it" that time of month?

    It is precisely because so many people (in the secular setting) consider homosexuality okay that we do debate the issue. We don't hesitate to condemn any of the others, so why does homosexuality get a pass? Biblically and logically that makes no sense. I mean what if a brother and sister, both adults, realize they are deeply in love with each other and want to get married? Would we condone that relationship? Again, of course not. We would be disgusted. Again I ask, what is difference between the two? Neither are considered acceptable relationships according to the Bible, yet one (homosexuality) is treated with controversy yet the other is outright condemned by everyone, regardless of religious beliefs.

    For Christians, this strikes me as an odd hypocrisy, one that few people acknowledge. Most people complain that gays and lesbians are singled out while adulterers and porn addicts get a free pass. Again, this is definitively not true. Among Christians no one questions that these are wrong whereas Christianity is split on the issue of homosexuality. As a result, homosexuality is merely more visible than these other sexual sins and so gets more attention. But I challenge you to observe what happens if a person walks into a church and openly admits to either being addicted to porn or having an affair and watch the fire and brimstone rain down. This is especially true of affairs, which often shatter and divide churches like little else.

    But I digress into the next post's topic. The point is that biblically, it makes no sense to single out homosexuality as "okay" while assenting to all the others. Such a belief is inconsistent at best and open rebellion by vaunting what we as humans want over Yahveh's commands at worst.

    As noted above, the New Testament church continued to Old Testament belief of condemning the practice of homosexuality. In addition to the Council of Jerusalem, Paul adds a more specific condemnation in his first letter to the Corinthians, "Do not be deceived: the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanders nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

    There are two points to be noted here. Again, the practice of homosexuality is condemned, not being homosexual. This point cannot be stressed enough: while the Bible clearly condemns the homosexual practice, nowhere does it condemn a person who is inherently homosexual.

    The following verse helps us transition to the second part of this long post. "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

    Salvation is no respecter of persons, meaning it is available to all. Adulterers, idolaters, thieves, and yes, homosexuals, all have access to the gift of salvation. It does not matter what you have done, Christ's death still covers you and gives you a new birth in the kingdom of God.

    But salvation is no respecter of persons, meaning it demands the same things from all. Just as adulterers, idolaters, and thieves must submit themselves to the rule of Yahveh. We don't think that it would be okay for someone to keep on worshipping Zeus in addition to Yahveh. Nor would we approve of someone continuing to thieve as if nothing had changed. Can we honestly say that someone is really saved, i.e. someone who has become a member of the kingdom of Yahveh that continues an extramarital affair with no intention of stopping? I doubt it. Again I ask why would we give homosexuality a pass? It does not follow.

    I do not deny this is a hard teaching, just as I readily admit that I cannot fathom the difficulty of this teaching. As I said before, I am not gay and so can't truly understand. Yet none of that changes what the Bible says. Clearly it condemns the homosexual lifestyle, though just as clearly not condemning the person.

    Still it is hard. This dooms the homosexual to a life bereft of the companionship that the rest of us have the opportunity to enjoy. It demands that those who have a partner separate on becoming a Christian. But again, it is what it is.

    Christ has promised us many things, but an easy life is not one of them. Indeed, Christ has promised us, all of us, that the life of the Christian is a hard one. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus informed those who wished to follow him that they would be persecuted. In John 6, Jesus calls himself a bread that everyone should (the exact meaning of this is a topic for another post) and many of his disciples deserted him because his teachings were too hard for him. In several places, Christ describes the cost of discipleship; it is a high price. His disciples grumbled that Jesus rather stringent teaching on divorce a teaching too hard to accept.

    Jesus does not promise an easy life; what he does promise is strength to overcome whatever hardships we will face. In the quoted passage above, Paul writes that the Corinthians were the evildoers that don't inherit the kingdom of Heaven. But Christ had saved them and sanctified them. Now this doesn't mean that they were "cured," that homosexuals were suddenly straight. For some this may happen, for most it will not.

    But Yahveh will give you the strength to bear the hardships of life. At the end of the Great Commission in Matthew 28, Jesus promises to be with us to the end of the world. In his final discourse with his disciples at the Last Supper in John, Jesus repeatedly promised the Holy Spirit to be with us, the same Holy Spirit given to those who truly follow Christ. In 1^st Corinthians, Paul writes that those who no temptation will be sent our way that Yahveh does not provide a way of escape.

    If you have sworn your loyalty to him, he is responsible for you as well. And true to his word, he will help you if you are willing to follow his commands. So the real question is do you really trust Yahveh? Are you willing to live under his rule and trust that he will help you through life? Is Jesus really the Lord of your life?

What is Sin? (Sin, Homosexuality, and Love part 1)

    A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I got into a bit of debate regarding homosexuality. Many of us are familiar with the debate raging across the country. Unless you live under a rock, it's hard not to. For the most part, I have tried to avoid the debate and have intentionally avoided writing on it until now and it will be the subject of the next post.

    A central reason I have avoided the debates is because, like most things, this (homosexuality) is really about that (sin). The real issue is the title question: what is sin?

    I touched on the concept a while back in post where I laid down my model of how salvation works. If you haven't read it, or haven't read it in a while (most likely true), it might be good to refresh yourself on it. Though that model has changed somewhat, many of the central concepts are the same, including the one about Sin. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

    If you haven't already figured it out, the foundation of my theology comes from the Creation story in the first three chapters of Genesis. There are two reasons for this: one, because it answers the most important questions we ask (is there a God? Why am I here? Who am I? etc.) in those three chapters and two, because it describes the world as it should have been. After all, we are aiming for perfection and Genesis 1-3 describes perfection.

    Most of us know the story: Yahveh creates the world culminating with the creation of Adam and Eve (humanity, in other words). He places them in a beautiful garden as their home and tells them to rule the world (literally). Where the story intersects the issue of sin is that after creating the Garden of Eden, Yahveh does something rather interesting: he places at the center of it two special trees.

    One was the Tree of Life. Eating from its fruit would grant a person perpetual life and youth. The other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eating from its fruit would, as Yahveh warned, bring about death and misery. That tree was Pandora's Box.

    Obviously these trees are about something far more than fruit. They represent the most fundamental choice that we as humans are given: follow Yahveh or follow ourselves. To eat from the Tree of Life was to submit to the continued lordship and sovereignty of Yahveh. To eat from the other was to rebel against that lordship. It was to set ourselves up as "gods."

    This is Sin. Sin is rebellion against the sovereignty of Yahveh. That is what got Satan in trouble to begin with. According to Isaiah 14, he wanted to "be like the Most High." Satan wanted to be his own personal god, accountable to no one but himself. That is how he got Adam and Eve to fall. He told them that if they ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would "be like God."

    The question of lordship is a central theme to the entire Great Controversy. The question of who will you follow is repeated over and over and over. At the end of Deuteronomy, Yahveh gives Israel an option: follow me and these blessings will ensue or reject me and these curses will follow. This wasn't a "love me or else" threat; it was a "will you accept or fight my sovereignty?" question.

    At the end of Joshua, the same question is repeated to Israel. "Choose you this day who you will serve." The challenge was "will you accept Yahveh's sovereignty or will you fight it?" Solomon was given the same challenge to begin his reign as king over Israel.

    And lest you think that this is an Old Testament phenomenon, Christ's battle in Gethsemane was a question of lordship. Hence his prayer "not my will, but yours be done." He was submitting to the sovereignty of the Father.

    Salvation itself boils down to the question of lordship. Both Jesus and John the Baptist called people to repentance. Peter, in his Pentecost address (Acts 2) told the crowd to "repent and be baptized." To repent is to change direction, to do an about face. Specifically, they were calling people to change their lives. Another way of looking at it is to say that they were calling people to change sides. Paul most clearly sums it up in Romans 10. "That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

    The whole concept of salvation is more fully fleshed out in the previous blog post but to sum it up: not being saved is living in rebellion against Yahveh. This will get us killed. Conversely, to be saved means to be living under the sovereign lordship of Christ. It is like getting a change of citizenship.

    But this means living under Yahveh's rules and this is where we as Americans get in trouble. After having lived in a democracy for so long, we consciously or subconsciously assume that the universe is a democracy. After all, we hear evangelicals preach all the time about righteous America and bringing God and democracy to the downtrodden places in the world.

    The problem is, the universe isn't a democracy; it is, for lack of a better word, a dictatorship (the technical term is actually theocracy, but dictatorship conveys the idea more clearly). Unlike a democracy, in Yahveh's kingdom, we have absolutely zero say in the rules. Yahveh decides the rules and that is the end of the matter.

    Let me give you an example: in the Torah, Yahveh told Moses the rules about how the nation of Israel was going to run. To repeat, he just told Moses the rules. There wasn't any discussion or vote. It was "this is how it is going to be." End of story.

    Same thing in the Garden of Eden. Yahveh didn't sit down with Adam and Eve and have a long discussion about what trees they could and could not eat from. I mean they might have, but it wasn't a "let's decide" conversation. It was a "this is how it is" conversation.

    For that matter, look at nature. I mean, was there a vote about gravity? Was there a long, protracted debate about whether our bodies process oxygen versus, say, boron? No, of course not. These things are the way they are because Yahveh decided to.

    The point of all this is is that Yahveh and Yahveh alone decides right and wrong. Whatever Yahveh says is right, that's right. Whatever he says is wrong, is wrong. Period. End of story.

    Recently I read a blog post that claimed that sin is a very personal thing. If the blogger had meant that sin is a very personal thing to Yahveh, then he would have been dead on. Sin is whatever Yahveh decides is wrong. That standard is universal to the rest of us.

    Unfortunately the blogger meant that sin is very personal to us. But this brings us back to the original point: sin is setting yourself up as your own god. That is what got Satan in trouble; that is what got Adam and Eve in trouble; that is what got Israel in trouble repeatedly; and it is what gets us in trouble today. Sin is trying to live life on your own terms instead of on Yahveh's.

    In the end, it is by Yahveh's standard that we are judged. This is something else that we as Americans do not like to talk about, but whether we like it or not, we are held accountable. The Bible talks again and again about "the judgment" when all humanity must give an accounting for their lives before Yahveh (Daniel 7 and Revelation 20 are a couple of examples). In the end, there are two camps: those who accepted Yahveh's lordship and those who rebelled against. The former are given eternal life and the latter are given eternal death.

    For many of us, this may sound harsh. But that is more because we are used to a democracy where we get to decide than because it is harsh. After all, Yahveh's rules lead to the best life possible. Sin ultimately leads to chaos and death. Following Yahveh is advisable all the way around.

    This is a jumping off point into so many other things, like Salvation, Great Controversy, Origin of Evil, Judgment, and on. But for now, we're just going to define Sin. Sin is rebellion against Yahveh's sovereignty. Right and wrong aren't for us to decide; rather they are already dictated for us by Yahveh. We can either choose to submit ourselves to him or persist in rebellion. It's our choice.