I tend to ignore really stupid things making the rounds on the Internet, but since some have gone viral, and others have asked me to do a response, I will on occasion do a reply. This particular one is quite popular amongst homosexual activists, and amongst gullible believers who have lost all ability to think, discern, reason, or properly represent their faith.
I refer to “Ten Things I Wish the Church Knew About Homosexuality” by a certain Jim Rigby. One write-up about him says this: “The Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, TX, and a longtime activist in movements concerned with gender, racial, and economic justice.”
Translation: he is an apostate and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Anyone promoting the homosexual agenda in the name of Christ is deceived and a deceiver big time. And the baloney he is trying to palm off here is just typical theological revisionism. He offers the same old brainless objections that we have heard for years now.
They have all been answered by me and others time and time again. Indeed, I deal with them all very carefully in my new book, Strained Relations: The Challenge of Homosexuality. So for those looking for a detailed and fully referenced rebuttal of this sloppy thinking, I encourage you to grab my book.
But let me yet once again deal with this diabolical nonsense.
1. If Jesus did not mention a subject, it cannot be essential to his teachings.
Yeah right – really smart one Jim. Jesus never once said a word about rape, or arson, or environmental pollution. So I guess he does not give a rip about those issues either. This is kindergarten reasoning of course – and this guy is a Presbyterian Pastor?
Arguing from silence is never sensible. And Jesus did make it perfectly clear in places like Mark 10:7 that he endorsed only one form of human sexuality: heterosexual marriage. He certainly did not need to explicitly discuss how wrong homosexuality is – that was simply a given in first century Jewish culture.
2. You are not being persecuted when prevented from persecuting others.
Huh? To resist the homosexual juggernaut which seeks to destroy marriage and family and shut down all opposition is not persecution. To offer the truth to the homosexual that he does not have to remain in his risky and dead-end lifestyle is not persecution – it is biblical love in action. To warn the sinner that if he does not turn and repent he faces a lost eternity is not persecution, but fulfilling our marching orders as believers, and showing the love of Christ.
And to suggest that Christians are not being targeted by homosexual activists is pure fantasy. As I have documented so often, every day believers are losing their jobs, being fined, or thrown in jail, for daring to stand up to the homosexual militants.
3. Truth isn’t like wine that gets better with age. It’s more like manna you must recognize wherever you are and whoever you are with.
Oh yeah? Sez who? Certainly not Jesus or the Bible. Only theological liberals who have long ago abandoned truth and the authority of Scripture would make such a ridiculous remark. No one reading the words of Jesus could ever come away with that sort of nonsense.
Jesus is God, and Jesus is truth. Truth never changes because God never changes. The basis of all truth is God’s unchanging character. His holy standards for us have not altered one iota. Sin is always sin, and the demands for holiness have never lessened. To deny absolute, unchanging truth is to deny who God is, and to declare God to be a liar.
4. You cannot call it “special rights” when someone asks for the same rights you have.
Yes I can – I do it all the time. If a three-year-old is granted the right to drive like I can, I call that special rights. No three-year-old can – or should – drive a car. If an American citizen who has never left his country is given the right to vote in Australia, that is a case of special rights, and is clearly wrong. There are all sorts of things some people can do which some other people cannot. That has nothing to do with discrimination.
And homosexuals do not have the right to marry any more than I have the right to marry someone of the same sex. There is no discrimination here whatsoever. The same law applies to all of us equally. Meet the conditions of marriage and you can marry. Refuse them and you can’t – it’s that simple.
5. It is no longer your personal religious view if you’re bothering someone else.
Hey bud, you are bothering me right now by pushing your theological revisionism and apostasy, all in the name of “your personal religious view”. So what is the deal here: you are entitled to do this but anyone who disagrees with you is not entitled? Some appalling double standards here I am afraid Jim.
And guess what? Christians are supposed to promote religious views – even if it bothers others. It is the very thing Jesus commanded us to do: to go into all the world and share his truth with a needy and dying world. That is why we exist – to represent Jesus and his words to a world starving to hear them. It’s the normal Christian life Jim.
6. Marriage is a civil ceremony, which means it’s a civil right.
No it is not just a civil ceremony. It is a public and social institution which is recognisable throughout human history. In all human cultures it has been about a man and a woman coming together. And for good reason, since marriage involves the possibility of children, thus deserving special sanctions and protections.
Homosexual sex by definition and by nature cannot bring forth children. If children never had anything to do with human sexuality, then no society or government would have any reason to recognise and endorse marriage. But they do, so it does.
And as already stated, just because something is a civil right does not mean everyone can therefore have that right. A two-year-old cannot be entitled to the right of marriage. A convicted murderer loses his right to freedom. Rights are only available to those who meet the proper conditions. In the case of marriage, homosexuals do not – end of story.
7. If how someone stimulates the pubic nerve has become the needle to your moral compass, you are the one who is lost.
What? How does one begin to respond to such bizarre and incoherent remarks? To be concerned about what God is concerned about is the height of Christian discipleship. We should love what God loves and hates what he hates. Given that God regards homosexual relations as an abomination, then it is not something we should try to excuse, celebrate, or promote.
How in the world it is that someone who proclaims God truth – to the homosexual or anyone else – is lost is beyond me. But by now we have come to expect such irrationality and illogic from this very confused pastor.
8. To condemn homosexuality, you must use parts of the Bible you don’t yourself obey. Anyone who obeyed every part of Leviticus would rightly be put in prison.
Wrong again Jim. One could throw out the entire Old Testament and still have a clear case against homosexuality from the New Testament. And as any theology 101 student knows, the unchanging moral laws of Leviticus 18, for example, are not at all altered in the New Testament.
Indeed, in this same chapter that condemns homosexuality we also find adultery, incest and bestiality condemned. So in your view Jim all these are cool as well, and Christians should be demanding bestiality rights and incest rights? Thanks for the help here Jim; your biblical knowledge and wisdom is just so overpowering – not.
9. If we do not do the right thing in our day, our grandchildren will look at us with same embarrassment we look at racist grandparents.
You are quite right here Jim. If we do not stand up against the false prophets, the false shepherds, and the false doctrines circulating in our churches, then we are all toast. The New Testament warns time and time again about false teachers and false teaching, and we are told repeatedly to resist all this. Allowing poisonous doctrines – in fact, doctrines of demons – to come in and corrupt the church is just what the false shepherd allows, but not biblical Christians.
10. When Jesus forbade judging, that included you.
Sorry, Jim, he of course never forbade judging. He only warned against hypocritical judgment in Matt. 7:1-5. And in the very same chapter he commands us to judge a tree by its fruit (vv. 15-23). He and the writers of the New Testament continually command us to judge, discern and test all things.
And of course what exactly is Jim doing here but making one long judgment against everyone who dares to uphold the biblical stance on this issue? Sorry Jim, but your blatant double standards and gross hypocrisy are showing here big time.
So all in all, fail – go to the back of the class. All this sophomoric silliness demonstrates is that you do not know a thing about your own faith and about the Word of God. Or, as is much more likely the case, you do know, but you have deliberately and shamelessly rejected it all.
You may think you are cool and trendy here, and you may be pleasing lots of your homosexual buddies. But of course to seek to please men is often to displease God. And such rank rebellion and apostasy is displeasing indeed. Those who do this have just one real option here: to repent and get back to their first love. And the sooner the better.
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