Here is the latest Solas ‘Short’ – you can access it on Youtube, Facebook and on the Solas Short Answers
This also ties in with my article on Tim Farron – Is Gay Sex a Sin?
The Blog of David Robertson
The Blog of David Robertson
Here is the latest Solas ‘Short’ – you can access it on Youtube, Facebook and on the Solas Short Answers
This also ties in with my article on Tim Farron – Is Gay Sex a Sin?
I remember hearing after my minister in adolescence retired that he didn’t believe in races mixing. It’s not that he didn’t like people or were scared of who weren’t of white Anglo-Saxon heritage, he just didn’t, as a ‘Bible-believing Christian’ believe there should be mixed congregations or marriages. He was at pains to state he wasn’t a racist though. My grandmother, as a Christian child, was not allowed to read novels, go to the cinema or play with Catholic children.
If you want to state that there is something different about sexual ethics and the church almost every Christian married couple I know uses contraception in order to have as much sex as possible without having kids. I remember a lot of youth sermons talking about how if you waited til marriage you could have endless sex with your wife. Yet, a hundred years ago, contraception was very much seen as unbiblical, the Church of England only changing their stance in 1930 to allow for contraception “when there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence.” Even that is not how every Christian married couple I know uses contraception.
I sometimes wonder if the whole gay marriage debate will look the same in fifty years. The ministers who stood against it seen historically like those who absurdly and distastefully stood against civil rights. Or just simply as another sexual ethic we change because of society and a hundred years from now forget we ever believed something different as being ‘Biblical’.
Thanks Frederick – I don’t think however the story of your minister in adolescence is analogous. Where in the Bible is mixed race marriage forbidden? But the teaching about marriage and sex and sexuality is very explicit. Given that contraception did not exist a hundred years ago I’m not sure that your second point is a valid one.
It is also completely ridiculous and superficial to claim that those who seek to uphold the biblical view of marriage are equivalent to those who stood against civil rights – I assume you mean in the American civil rights movement? This whole “you are on the wrong side of history” argument is one that really does not stand any reasonable test, but it is repeated ad nauseam as though it were fact.
I wouldn’t say that anything is particularly explicit in the bible, hence the thousands of denominations which exist in the world, all with their own ‘correct’ interpretation. Though that isn’t to say that there isn’t a correct interpretation and we shouldn’t be striving to find out what that is.
Contraception, albeit in less successful forms, has existed for thousands of years. That and the point about looking back on history are not necessarily arguments for embracing homosexuality. I don’t think you could justify murder or stealing in a similar fashion for example. But they do serve to highlight that what the church finds moral and immoral, Biblical and unbiblical, constantly changes as society changes. Ad nauseum from conservative Christians we are told that marriage is about having and raising children, and up until a hundred years ago that included not using contraception, as this went against God’s design for marriage. In another hundred years I’m sure the church’s definition of marriage will expand to include homosexuality.
Thanks Frederick – I’m afraid I’m not as knowledgeable and the history of contraception as you are so I’m not sure I can comment any further on that. However it is a completely absurd statement to say that nothing is particularly explicit in the Bible – and then to justify that by saying that this obscurity is the reason for their being thousands of denominations. These statements are illogical and demonstrably untrue. Your last sentence is also something that will be proven true in the next hundred years. The teaching of the Bible has always been under attack in every century, and yet it remains constant. Your “on the wrong side of history’ is completely unprovable and just one of those feelings that people feel is true. I prefer to deal in facts!
There is no homophobic bigotry going on with Christians – all this name calling is an emotive tactic to intimidate and silence the critics of homosexuality. When Emperor Nero justified feeding Christians to the lions as sport after blaming them for causing the fire that destroyed Rome (….a fire that he started himself to rebuild a new Rome), he needed a scapegoat for his own selfish, hedonistic objectives. The same is happening today, but instead of burning Rome to build a new city, it is destroy decency in society for a new hedonistic, “no rules” society and Christians are easy pickings because they won’t shoot first at opponents and ask questions after. The idea that the church should dump decency as taught in the Bible to be “relevant” in a hedonistic, decadent society that is going to destroy itself, is a farce – if people want to sink in a society that will inevitably destroy itself, Christians shouldn’t have to applaud in the race to the bottom. When the Rome Empire eventually had rampant hedonism and debauchery toward the end of the 3rd century, it was Emperor Constantine who turned to a form of Christianity (many Biblical teachings were ignored) as a way out of the horrors going on in the Roman society. So there is an example of how we must also avoid the same horrors of rampant hedonism and debauchery by following the Christian teachings – the more Biblical we get, the better off we will be. In other words, we can be “saved from ourselves”. The Church doesn’t want the state government to get involved with their churches, but the LGBTIAQ lobby-dictators are demanding our government to give them the status of “marriage” which has relevance to the religious practice of marriages between man and woman which requires them to consummate their marriage, and adultery can be grounds of divorce. A religious marriage doesn’t require a state marriage certificate. Same-sex couples have had nothing to do with the word “marriage” during 1788-1856 in Australia during a time when the government was not involved in the practice of religious marriage in Australia. Therefore, it is the state getting involved in churches and not the other way round. Same-sex couples claim that the Humanist’s “Marriage Equality” will have no impact on churches, despite the Church of England today has declared it will separate over “gay marriage” and priests having same-sex sexual relationships. The dividing of the churches into the sheep and goats (wheat and tares) is happening all around the world on the issue of marriage, and Christians being able to understand the original meaning of marriage was a “one flesh” union between man and woman in order to fill the earth with people….and the symbolism of Christ (the “Bridegroom”) marrying the Church (the “Bride”) – these two Christian concepts cannot accommodate same sex marriage in any way, shape or form (along with many Bible verses stating as such) or else it destroys the bedrock of the Christian faith. Christ cannot marry another Christ and the Church cannot marry another Church because there is no eternal life for us sinners if they did. Can Christians identify the difference between a “one flesh” union as God outlines and a “sham marriage” of the world?….ANSWER: NO. If churches accept sinning as the new “christianity” (or more accurately “Churchianity”), then Jesus dying on the cross was futile because there is no need for a Saviour if there is no need for us to be saved from sin. Time will tell, but many Christian and churches have already discarded the Biblical teaching on this issue and adopted a worldly (Anti-christ?) view – after all, the Anti-christ himself will be “a denier of women”.
Thank You for stateing the Obvious. It’s a shame that so many (includeing)the church can Study Gods words,yet strive to change it to fit their agendas. I wonder what Spirit attends a Gay marriage in a church that performs it? And What happens to the Blessings a Gay preacher asks for? What direction do they believe those prayers go?
The article and your comment seem to be based on the erroneous assumption that Biblical Christians are under some kind of obligation to accommodate themselves to a secular liberal account of human society. Why is it? It seems to have completely missed the fact that Christianity has its own account of human societal anthropology that isn’t obligated to anything or anybody except its own integrity under a Creator God. So, how can Christians get it wrong when it is mere human critics telling us so from their self-appointed pedestals of subjective morality?? And what have Christians got wrong? An opportunity for atheists/humanists/naturalists to be less outraged than usual? Big deal. The atheists/humanists/naturalists claim to own the rational, scientific view of the world, but make as big or bigger mistakes than Biblical Christians do – are they not aware that many of the great scientists in the past were Christians?….they ignore such facts because they have selective reasoning. And what about “The Enlightenment”?….it’s turned out to be more “The Endarkenment” because the world is getting worse the more that people turn away from Biblical Christianity. In actual fact, this “falling away” is another perfect fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. so the more that non-Christians push their selfish, greedy, lustful and ungodly ways, the more they re-affirm two-thousand years of Scriptural based, orthodox Christian teaching on human ways; good for them – they are helping Christians to show how true the Bible really is. The Bible is only being rejected by a particular iteration of bourgeois, secular liberal opinion. But, it’s Christianity for heaven’s sake; of course it’s ‘offensive’ to secular liberalism – what did you expect!? You seem to conflate ‘reaching out’ with condoning behaviours that the church – with explicit scriptural mandate – considers to be sinful, and of course there’s a growing cultural acceptance of all kinds of expressions of human sexuality, but that doesn’t mean that the church has to accept them. In fact, orthodox Christian teaching explicitly demands that a liberal understanding of human sexuality, the institution of marriage and society as a whole be vigorously opposed. The church is not – and never has been – in the business of being popular; what would it profit the church if it gained the world but lost its very soul? In short, the church is not in the business of accommodating itself to the vagaries of worldly culture, human desire or some feckless and capricious ‘zeitgeist’, it is in the business of proclaiming the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified. To the world, the Gospel is offensive, it always has been and it always will be. There is even more fulfilled prophecy when the non-Christians claim that the Gospel is foolish (see 1 Corinthians 2). Haven’t they heard of “reverse psychology”?….the more they rubbish the Bible and claim how bad Christianity is (including quoting the Bible themselves and trying to give negative Christian examples), the more they spread God’s Word and the more curiosity they create making people rush to the Bible to read for themselves what all the fuss is about!….from then on, the Bible makes more and more sense as people genuinely read it more and more (unlike the prejudiced way that Bible critics read it).
The first retort I can imagine in defence of believing nectophilia, bestiality and paedophilia are wrong is: these are not based on the mutual consent of responsible adults. That’s often the argument I’ve heard in defence of homosexuality.
Thanks Alison,
Yes that is the common retort. But it doesn’t really work. For two of those of course consent is not possible. And why can’t a 12 year old give consent? It’s funny that we allow a five year old to determine what their gender is – but think that a child cannot determine whether they wish to have sex or not. Obviously this is not to defend paedophilia or to say that they can – but it seems to me that it is it is an incredible double standard. The other problem with consent as being the only criteria is that of course it allows then for polygamy and incest.
I’d like to think anybody with an IQ of 50 should be able to spot the utterly stupid logical arguments in this video.
Feel free to do so – assuming that that is your IQ…