I’m trying to allow this article to pass through sensitive filters, so those, mainly Christians, won’t be blocked from it. That is the only reason I’m avoiding certain terms and used same gender intimacy and coition (SGIC).
The NFL had its first openly SGIC claimant drafted this year #249 by the St. Louis Rams. ESPN covered Michael Sam and his “boy friend” celebrating his success by playfully messing each other’s faces with cake and icing and smooching. Miami Dolphins defensive back Don Jones ‘came out’ with this tweet — “Horrible” — before quickly deleting. Too late, Don. Saturday night, Dolphins general manager Dennis Hickey said the team wouldn’t tolerate Jones’s actions and coach Joe Philbin echoed that sentiment. Men who don’t like male on male smooching get Hickey (sorry, couldn’t resist). He was fined an undisclosed sum, temporarily discharged from the team, and required to complete an educational training class before he can join other activities.
Horrible. The same night I heard the above news on radio, a popular talk show host, speaking of some other event, said, “Holy [expletive].” Education class for him? Nope. Anyone surprised?
I am truly interested in Jones’s mandatory class. Must he keep straight lipped while shown videos of men feeding each other cake and cuddling each other cheek to cheek? Are Christians required to remain in the closet? How could we have gone to required unmitigated support in such short time? “Horrible” less than explains a genuine Christian attitude toward the activity of Sam and his collaborator. The NFL forbids a genuine Christian reaction to this sin. Maybe Christians should boycott the NFL — no attendance, no products, no television. I’m afraid that financial loss is the primary motivation here.
My friend, Bobby Mitchell, wrote about this same phenomena two weeks ago and then half the discussion revolved around opposition to his isolated mention of former Bob Jones University president, Stephen Jones (SJ). SJ thinks the Bible contradicts SGIC, but Mitchell was decrying his softness toward it. In 2013, Jones delivered several messages on ‘same gender intimacy’ and said such statements as the following:
I want you to know that I also have close SGIC friends. Several of them are unsaved, and I’m trying to be a testimony to them. They know my position. We’re close friends. In fact one of the nicest guys I know is a SGIC.
Would Jones talk about his close fornicating friends? Isn’t friendship with the world enmity with God? And then:
Alright, so don’t feel prideful sitting there, “Well I don’t have a same-[gender] attraction, so I’m doing ok.” If you lie, if you’re a liar, God says you are an, you are abominable. Your sin is abominable. It’s in the same category. The same thing with dishonest business practices. Those who are dishonest in business, it is an abomination. God uses the same word to describe it. In fact he says everything the wicked do – their thoughts, their walk, their sacrifice, their prayer – it’s all an abomination.
In reading about this terminology, “God’s ideal,” I found this is language used by those who divide between qualified acceptance and non-acceptance. Those who claim to be Christian and give qualified acceptance will use the “God’s ideal” type of language to indicate that. They usually add that the person didn’t choose to be born that way, so it is a condition for which he doesn’t have control. And, we should be sensitive to that condition, like we would other ones. I’m not saying that SJ believes the latter, but he uses the language of qualified acceptance, blows that particular dog whistle for it.
Qualified acceptance language poses as evangelistic compassion, arguing that SGIC will listen better to the saving message and feel a drawing kind of “Christian love” by the qualified acceptance. I contend that the acceptance is a bow to the culture, which requires it, and Christians today feel shamed by a new morality. SGIC requires acceptance. Acceptance lessens the guilt and doesn’t properly represent God’s hatred of the sin. We become children of God, not by the will of man, and this strategy smacks of pelagianism, attempting to fan a spark within the dead soul through human means, instead of using the law as a schoolmaster (Gal 3-4).
Is it true that SGIC is morally equivalent to lying and idleness and other sins? SGIC is listed with other sins in the Bible like a lifestyle of and lack of repentance over those sins mark a lack of conversion. It’s true, but that doesn’t make each of them equal in abhorrence. I don’t think we should say that the abomination label makes a sin equal to other sins with that label. It really gives no information except that the act is an abomination or in certain cases the person is one. SGIC is an abomination. Abomination is a more serious designation than “not God’s ideal.”
Romans 1 makes SGIC sound more serious than just any other sin, based on a legitimate argument. Romans 1:26:27 portray SGIC as reaching the apex of rebellion against God, as the chief indicator that God had given up the participants in SGIC. No other sin is mentioned as that. We can see that it is a sin against nature, that is, a sin against design. Read it:
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
If you read all the verses around these above two, you see that it is the essence of unthankfulness. At the root of God’s work as Creator is His designed distinctions between the genders. SGIC erases those distinctions and says there’s a better way. SGIC adherents shove in the face of God at the root level their hatred of how God made them. Nothing is more basic than man and woman and the people reverse that in favor of their own lust. Nothing rebels against God like SGIC. It’s in its own category.
I probably overuse the metaphor, “if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” The hoofbeats say that SGIC is worse. SJ and others are looking for zebras.
Even in the context of Romans 1, homosexuality is listed as a consequence of idolatry (Romans 1:21-25) along with other sins such as "unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful" (1:28-31).
Additionally I don't think being friends with unsaved people is "friendship with the world".
Horace,
Are you arguing that there is nothing uniquely bad to homosexuality that it is lumped in as another sin? Vv. 26-27 do not set it off as unique? Are you saying it is not worse than anything else?
On the second comment, Horace,
Are you saying that James 4:4 has no application to friendship with people? Jesus said that unsaved people are of their father the devil.
I don't call my relationship with unsaved people, friendship. I'm an acquaintance. I'm loving to unsaved people. I'm helpful. I am a friend to them, but not friends with them. Jesus is a friend to sinners. But does he have friendship with them?
Rev. Brandenburg,
It depends on what one means on whether homosexuality is uniquely bad. It is true in the sense that it is referred to as abomination in certain passages of Scripture (as noted above) with harsher punishments in the OT era, but there were several other sins of that same class. At the same time, though, in the spiritual sense all sins have the same ultimate punishment and pious hypocrisy (which is ultimately what Jones appears to have been talking about here) is condemned in Matthew 10:15 as worse than the sins Sodom was guilty of. The passage from Romans 1 was preceded by an equally specific condemnation of idolatry. Is it not equally possible that Paul merely used homosexuality as an illustrative example, considering there is nothing in the text that calls it out especially a sin?
As to your second point, I think James 4:4 and similar passages are condemnations of worldliness and sin, not friendship with unsaved people. I don't think obviously its possible to have fellowship (in the spiritual sense) with unbelievers but I believe it is possible to be friends in the sense of being mutually friendly to each other. It was in that sense that Jesus called Judas friend in Matthew 26:50.
Horace,
Thanks.
I don't think that one ranking it as worse necessarily means that he thinks he's better. Can we judge that? It's not either/or, i.e. binary — you're only calling it worse to cover for your own sins, that's all it could be. I don't think the problem for Jones is hypocrisy, that somehow people are judging that they're righteous as long as they're not homosexual. Effeminacy is rampant there and everywhere now, but especially there. He's equivocating, because the new type of BJU student wants it, as studies of millennials show. People are getting softer everywhere on this, and Christians need to push back. We're not hypocrites or unloving because we say it's worse. And if we back down on this, it's not going to get better, and that doesn't please God.
Kent, I have to agree on this post, regardless of who is articulating the softer language. There is nothing to be gained by equivocating on these sins. There is nothing to be gained by attempting to prove you are a "nice guy" who maintains friendships with flagrant militant sinners. That is not to say one should be unfriendly, or to say that "I am better than you", but simply to say, "Your sin is intolerable."
It is interesting that certain sins fit the category of "intolerability" in our culture. Some rightly so, others not. Child molestation is intolerable (rightly so). Smoking is intolerable (??). But SGIC? Nah. We all have some 'friends' who are SGIC, right?
As for me, with folks like that, I am friendly and polite on a human level, but I do let them know I am praying for them to change and offer a witness to them against their wickedness. They will go to hell if they don't change. I don't want that blood on my hands.
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Thanks Don. And I do think you love SJ more than others because you talk like this. And I don't think you're doing that out of hypocrisy, to prove that you are righteous. 😀
"not God's ideal"
I suppose that could be used to describe Stephen Jones' words here. "Going soft"? It depends on how one defines "going soft" and whether these particular words really reflect his position or whether he misspoke. I suspect we'll find out over time. If "going soft" means deciding the sin is ok sometimes, I don't think he is going soft. If it means he isn't speaking / thinking entirely Biblically on it, perhaps so.
As to your "apex" terminology, Kent, Romans 1 doesn't end with verse 27, but with verse 32. Homosexual sin is part of the apex, but it isn't unique, there are other things there, too. And those who rejoice over the sin are just as guilty, just as depraved, as those who commit it.
Kent,
I thought of this article and Bobby's (linked above) as well, when I found out that BJU just hosted New Age Openly Sodomite Drunkards for their artist series this last week. The Group is called Cantus. As I mention below. BJU confirmed they knew the men were openly sodomite and promoted drinking by their very name, and yet invited them anyway. I have family that attends BJU. Here is a challenge and warning that I gave to parents and pastors who still have ties to BJU, regarding their softening on sodomy. I'll post it in 3 parts.
(1/3) The drift continues in "fundamentalism" as BJU under new head, Steve Pettit, hosted Cantus, a men's music group for their January 27,2015 Artist Series. I called the school because I have friends and family that attend BJU, but no one would talk to me or have not yet returned my call. Here is the groups show schedule on their website which clearly lists having been at BJU.
http://www.cantussings.org/concerts/national/
Here is some insight into the Group's name and view of things that the believer should hate like sodomy, alcohol, and overall love of the world, it's music and wicked anti-Christ philosophy. All the following are direct quotes from the Cantus Website.
http://www.cantussings.org/meet-cantus/singers/
Zachary Colby, a tenor, has this bio info on their website.
5. Which living figure do you most admire? – Oprah Winfrey
Chris Foss, a bass in the group says…
A “cantus” is also the name for an activity organized by European students that mainly involves getting together to sing very old songs while drinking beer. Any similarities between the two are purely coincidental…
Blake Morgan, a tenor has this on their website.
Blake is also an accomplished jazz vocalist and has taken the stage to perform with many GRAMMY®-award-winning singers and instrumentalists including Kurt Elling, the New York Voices, Paquito D’Rivera, and Janis Siegel of the Manhattan Transfer. Blake was featured in DownBeat Magazine’s Student Music Awards as the “Best Vocal Jazz Soloist of 2013.”
3. What is your idea of a great evening?
I really dig sunsets, and craft beer, and I think those go well together — also, I’m into local coffee shops, folk music, and eating all the foods. Combining these things at once is never a bad decision.
Basically, I had two big dreams when I was a kid: play professional basketball and become a rockstar; I guess Cantus is the next best thing…
I’ve been really getting into this group called Moss. I’m a huge fan of vocal jazz, and two of the members of the New York Voices (Peter Eldridge and Lauren Kinhan) formed this super group with three other insanely talented vocal jazz artists (Theo Bleckmann, Kate McGarry and Luciana Souza). The tunes show a lot of folk/pop/world music influence, and allow the members to take a step back from the really sophisticated jazz stuff for which they are renowned as individuals. It’s just really honest music that speaks a lot of truth, in a very simple way.
(2/3)
Matthew Goinz, a baritone has this bio. exchange.
5. Which living figure do you most admire?
I’ve decided I get two for this one. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. They’re brilliant actors and great friends and I just can’t imagine how fun it would be to spend a day with them in and out of rehearsal. (Ian Mckellen is openly gay)
Samuel Green, a bass speaks highly of rapper, Dr Dre.
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
I have spent a lot of money on ear buds and headphones in the past. Dr. Dre certainly had the choral musician in mind when he created his Beats.
Aaron Humble, a tenor and evidently open sodomite, has this tidbit on his bio.
When he’s not singing or conducting, Aaron enjoys gardening and an endless list of home improvement projects. A resident of Southwest Minneapolis, Aaron also commutes to Dallas where his husband Xu lives with their two cats Chopstick and Toothpick.
3. What is your idea of a great evening?
I got married in December but shortly there after my husband had to move to Seattle for his job. With that in mind, any chance to spend with Xu and our two cats is a great evening. If it involved beautiful weather, good food from the garden and perhaps a walk around Lake Harriet or a movie…that would be OK too.
Shahzore Shah, is a tenor and also openly speaks about his sodomite relationship.
Shahzore lives in Highland Park, Saint Paul with his husband, Daniel. He frequently collaborates with other local artists and teaches voice lessons. At home, you will likely find Shahzore gardening or cooking, as he is always on the lookout for delicious food.
5. Which living figure do you most admire?
Thich Nhat Hanh – Zen Buddhist master of our time, philosopher, teacher and prolific writer on mindful living
Matthew Tintes, a baritone admires greatly adulterer, Bill Clinton and rockers, the Doobie Bros.
5. Which living figure do you most admire?
I’ve admired Bill Clinton since I was a kid. For starters, he brought himself up from having almost nothing early in life to become the President of the United States. To me he epitomizes what one can achieve with the right combination of initiative, vision and determination.
9. What is your most recent music discovery?
I just discovered the old Doobie Brothers song, “Eyes of Silver”, and it’s awesome! I can’t get enough of it.
Every Bible believing pastor and parent should call and demand accounting of President Steve Pettit and immediately look to withdraw their sons and daughters from this institution that is shifting straight towards the cliffs of spiritual compromise! When it is okay for openly sodomite men to sing in the auditorium named after Bob Jone Senior, a line has been crossed that can never be erased! For the sake of our kids and grandkids, speak up for righteousness!
(3/3)
Update is that a BJU official returned my call and verified that they did invite this group, they did know that some of the men in the group were openly sodomites. There is no denying it.
The justification is that they are not a church and that they can bring in the groups to expose the students to different things. They also said they invite them in to evangelize him. When I asked them if these men were evangelized specifically with the Gospel, calling them to repentance from their open reprobate life, nothing. When I asked how many of these unsaved performers that were "evangelized" by BJU, had repented and been born again, the official did not have any idea. Most of the conversation was him bringing up hypothetical situations, trying to justify disobedience by pointing to other disobedience.
He assured me that they infuse a Biblical world view into every aspect of the education. When I asked how promoting openly homosexual performers on the same platform that the Bible is preached, he had no answer except that it gives them an opportunity to evangelize sinners.
I guess you cant go into all the world and preach like the Apostles, you have to invite, pay money to, and even more, you have to promote as God-honoring that which God says is wicked.
From my conversation today, I cannot help but conclude that Bob Jones is new evangelical and well on their way to apostasy. I take no joy in drawing that conclusion. Separation and withdrawal of fellowship is the only Bible response and the only hope for them to repent.
In the mean time, every parent and pastor should do the same for the sake of their children and grandchildren.
Dear Bro Rodgers,
Thank you for this information.