Confusion on homosexuality? Part 2

It took a long time to have time to sit and enter my part two due to a terrible cold virus that swept through my family this past week.  My daughter started with it, gave it to my wife and me, and now as the smoke clears and the antobiotics are almost all used up, I think we are doing better. 

Last week, while we were nursing our poor bodies with chicken noodle soup and soda crackers, a former NBA player came out of the closet.  John Amaechi, a Forward/Center, retired a few years ago, and last week came out in the open about his sexual orientation.  It was big news in the sports world in which I enjoy living.  I was in need of some rest on Sunday afternoon and flipped on the Heat/Spurs game expecting to see my boy Dwyane Wade's amazing atheleticism.  Instead, I watched the game and listened to commentators say nothing about it.  They had an agenda.  The game went on as they chatted for about 3 minutes about Amaechi's brave move.  One of the announcers said it is so good for the NBA and if people have a problem with it, they just need education.  Wow.  I guess I need to go back to school.  They compared this story with the Super Bowl.  Yes, two African American guys coached in the big game for the first time.  People cannot help being born black, white or asian any more than they can help being born homosexual.  That's just the way it is.  That's what they say anyway.  I beliee very strongly that every tongue and nation will worship the Lamb, Jesus Christ, for all of eternity.  I believe racism is a sin.  I also believe homosexuality is a sin.  Neither were intended by the Creator, the Almighty God.  God intended to create people of different skin color.  He also intended for a man and a woman to have romantic relationships.  Marriage in Gen. 2:24 as well as in the Song of Solomon is clearly to be exclusively between a man and a woman.  Romans 1 is a passage that clearly shows God's disdain for the act of homosexuality. 

I hope this clears things up Mr. Announcers on ABC.

Currently Reading Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty to Delight By J. I. Packer, Carolyn Nystrom see related

Confusion on homosexuality? Part 1

Even though very few (well, one person-thanks Jeff!) commented on my last blog, I will enter yet another that implicates the emerging church movement.  I read an article not too long ago about homosexuality found in the New York Times (if I were really savvy, there would be a little link that says article, but I am not).  You can expect little good to come from such a liberal newspaper, and this article was no exception.  Allow me to give you my understanding of the article: evangelical and homosexual, can someone be both?  Can someone be an evangelical [a born-again believer: one who knows Christ as Savior] and be a homosexual?  I would answer yes.  Change the question: is it acceptable to God to be a homosexual (whether evangelical or not)?  NO!  It seems that too many Christians would answer both questions with an emphatic NO.  I think there is a big difference. 

I struggle with pride.  I easily fall into the falsehood that I am a pretty talented person and subsequently God's gift to the world, if you will.  This is pride.  Can I be an evangelical and be proud at the same time?  I hope so, because that's me.  Is it acceptable to God to be proud?  NO!  It is a sin.  Now, the big question is whether I fight against pride.  Am I fighting or do I sit back and say, "this is just who I am.  I was born this way."  There is a tendency in some to become alcoholics.  It is in their blood.  Should they skirt responsibilty and take the victim mentality by binge drinking?  Same with homosexuality.  I believe there are some who are born with a bent toward this particular sin.  Is there a homosexual gene?  Maybe, but it is a direct result of the fall, and like any other vice, must be fought. 

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor the 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."  -1 Corinthians 6:11

Currently Reading Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith By Rob Bell see related

Bell

I was recently flipping through Rob Bell's book, "Velvet Elvis".  It did not surprise me to find that Bell is a part of the movement called The Emerging Church, though he does not name it.  His Nooma videos have a flavor of ermerging all over them.  Some of the stuff is good, some stuff raises red flags.  The premise of this book raises a red flag for me.  In the preface, Bell describes a velvet elvis painting in his basement signed by an artist "R."  He posed the illustration that if this artist decided his painting was the best ever and that no better painting would ever be done, he would be crazy.  Martin Luther and others in the 16th Century upset the apple cart by calling out the massive errors within the papacy and structure of "church".  Bell likens the movement of the emerging church to the reformation.  A bit presumptuous, but he does it in a magnificently humble way.  It is odd.  Then he goes on to say:

As a part of this tradition, I embrace the need to keep painting, to keep reforming.  By this I do not mean cosmetic, superficial changes like better lights and music, sharper graphics, and new methods with easy-to-follow steps.  I mean theology: the beliefs about God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation, the future.  We must keep reforming the way the Christian faith is defined, lived, and explained. 

Now, I have to admit, I got a little squeamish reading this.  Is our faith and action so dead that we need to do an overhaul of everything that has been decided upon for hundreds of years?  Yes, Luther did.  But the difference between Luther and Bell (along with his compadres) is that Luther anchored his thoughts and reforming ways to that which does not change: God's Word.  The emerging discussion seems to be rank with everyone's existential and highly uneducated opinions.  Do they open God's Word and utilize the opinions of Greek and Hebrew scholars who have dedicated their lives to the interpretation of it?  I don't know.  I have never sat in a circle with emergent folk.  Another thought that came to mind (and this could be a seperate blog): in our highly technological world, are we becoming smarter or dumber?  Luther had the Bible memorized in more than one language (if I am correct).  Our ipods and movies and hatred for reading has developed a generally non-thinking generation.  Are we so arrogant that we believe we can outthink the genius, godly (men who spend countless hours in prayer-as Luther did) men and women from centuries past?  If you ask me, we should be reading their thoughts, not Brian McClaren's. 

And finally, I wonder if Bell skates on the thin line of rejecting absolute truth:

Jesus is more compelling than ever.  More inviting, more true, more mysterious than ever.

Is Jesus really more true now than He was 100 years ago?  Or when he was here on earth 2,000 years ago?  I always thought if something was true, it was always true and always will be true.  Isn't truth, by a correct definition, absolute?  2 + 2 = 4 was true at creation, it is true now, and it will be true when the end comes.  The slippery part is when we bring our interpretation of truth into the mix.  This, I believe, is where we need to continue the process of reformation. 

I know I don't have much of a reader's base anymore, but if you have thoughts on this, please, comment.  Have a Merry Christmas.

Currently Listening Oh! Gravity. By Switchfoot see related

Why I LOVE football.

Currently Listening All I Really Want for Christmas By Steven Curtis Chapman see related

Life is Different in Kansas.

The last entry I made was July 21, one day before we announced to our church in Green Bay that we would be moving on to a new ministry in another state.  Much has happened since then, and I have not had the time or interest to post anything about it publicly.  It was painful and difficult to leave.  Our house in Green Bay still sits on a very slow market and we live in the basement of my in-laws.  While we are thankful that we have a place to live and don't have to pay double housing payments, we long for a place of our own.  I love the new ministry in which I am involved, but life is different in Kansas.   I am a Wisconsin boy and miss (in a way) the very cold temperatures and the Packers losing on TV.  I miss my friends and my family there.  I miss the church in Green Bay and my friend, the Reverend Daniel Dainsberg.  I do not feel like I am home (maybe because I don't have one...he he) in Kansas yet.  It will come and I will feel a sense of pride in my new state (though it is hard to believe now).  That is all for today.  Enjoy the advent season.  Next time I will undoubtedly go on a rant of some sort, while this was a more melancholy entry.  "Rainy days and Mondays."