Gay (no, not the happy kind)

I remember an episode of Medical Center from my childhood.  Robert Reed, the man who will be forever etched in my mind as Mike Brady, father of six, husband of Carol, hirer of Alice and sometime architect, wanted to remove his man-parts and become a woman.  That was a little bit weird for a twelve-year old kid in middle-'70's Minneapolis to come to terms with.

Fast forward thirty-five years.  In 2010 America, sexual deviance no longer exists.  You'd be hard pressed to find a television show that does not have a homosexual character.  Showtime had an entire series dedicated to female homosexuality.  HBO has one dedicated to polygamy.  Companies offer benefits to "partners," whatever that means.

Few places remain that hold to husband-wife marriage as sexual normalcy.  Texas won't accept the homosexual marriages performed in other states and as such won't provide a divorce for that which they do not recognize.

Another place where homosexuality remains hotly contested is within the church.  Recently, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) caved and deemed it peachy for pastors to be involved in a homosexual relationship (here or here), but they still declare that marriage is between a man and a woman (though I can't figure out why).  Fewer and fewer churches recognize biblical authority over cultural authority and affirm homosexuality to be a sin equal to any other sexual relationship outside of marriage.

So why do those within the Church argue with such passion against homosexuality? Because the adulterers of the world are not trying to normalize their rebellion within the church.  While not part of the Christian church, only in fringe Mormonism can you find polygamists trying to make inroads toward religious normalcy.  So the Church stands upon the word of God and proclaims that sin is sin.

Homosexual advocates who try and mainstream into the church take one of two tacks.  First, they argue that the plethora of verses declaring the sinfulness of homosexuality and homosexual relationships really don't address homosexuality at all.  They contend they really point to idolatry or some other cultural taboo and not homosexuality itself.  They divide the Gospels from the rest of Scripture and assert that since Jesus didn't talk about homosexuality it can't be that bad.*

The second group doesn't much care what the Bible says; they cannot deny what they feel, so they just go with it.  Into this group falls Jennifer Knapp.  Ms. Knapp released a couple of CDs over a decade ago with a very folksy sound and heavy Christian themes.  Quite the talent.  And then she vanished from the Christian music scene.  She reappeared in recent days with a new CD (not specifically "Christian") and proclaiming herself to be quite gay...and Christian.

Now, there is a difference between someone who struggles with a sin and someone who declares their conduct to not be a sin.  The person who regularly turns into Dunkin Donuts, buys a dozen and consumes them enroute to work has an issue with gluttony.  If they do this once a week, sometimes twice, and hate what they have done as they wipe the chocolate frosting from their cheek, they struggle with sin.  Those that turn in five out of five days and revel in the sprinkles despite tipping the scales at three-and four-hundred pounds believes themselves (wrongly) to not be in sin.

What about Ms. Knapp?  In an interview with Christianity Today (CT), she stated her position with clarity.

I'm not capable of getting into the theological argument as to whether or not we should or shouldn't allow homosexuals within our church. There's a spirit that overrides that for me, and what I've been gravitating to in Christ and why I became a Christian in the first place.

She doesn't want that theological stuff (God-study stuff) to get in the way of being a Christian.  When we loose ourself from the foundation of the Bible, it's easy to say that all's fair. 

CT then asked her what she thought about those who believed homosexual feelings to be okay but the act to be sinful.  Her reply:

I'm not capable of fully debating that well...If God expects me, in order to be a Christian, to be able to theologically justify every move that I make, I'm sorry. I'm going to be a miserable failure.

So is she struggling with sinful desires?  Nope.  She's quite happy, thank you.

The day fast approaches where publically taking the Bible position that sexual deviance is a sin will earn a do-not-pass-go trip to jail time.  That day has arrived in Canada.  In many places in our nation, it's already verboten to refer to such conduct as rebellion against a holy God.

So do we, unlike the ELCA, call the sinner to repentance by exposing sin as sin as John and Jesus did, or do we quietly blend in and deny the faith we profess?

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*Jesus, the Jew, came as the Messiah of Israel.  Within the Jewish nation, homosexuality was already understood to be an abomination against God; it was not an issue that needed a specific address while he walked the earth.  As Paul went into the Gentile nations where homosexuality was common, he needed to address God's position on such behavior.  To the Corinthian Church he wrote (1 Corinthians 6:9-11):

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. 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."

Hence, it is not surprising to find the Gospels silent on the matter of homosexuality.