*Edited October 20, 2015.*
Every human being is bound to a moral standard. That moral standard may originate from his or
her rationality, a political belief, or a religious belief. Whichever standard our morals operate by, we
are bound to abide by that standard only.
Whichever standard we claim, it would be intellectually honest of us to
operate by that standard alone without deviating from it, otherwise it becomes
confusing to identify which moral standard you operate by. If we create our own moral standard, morality
is free to be bent and broken to our subjective rules, which is, of course,
dangerous. If your morals are influenced
by politics, your beliefs will be one way as a Democrat and another way as a
Republican, or whatever other political party you affiliate yourself with. If your morals are influenced by the religion
your keep, your morals are bound to the authority of the god you worship. As Christians, we strictly believe that the
Word of God is the main authority over all authorities — that God and His Word
have authority over all governments, all political agendas, and all human
rationality — over all men no matter one’s social status. It is the same for all Christians. If one claims to be Christian, they are
claiming God’s Word as the ultimate authority and when they indefatigably and
unrepentantly deviate from His Word, they declare otherwise. Therefore, as God’s Word unmistakably
declares homosexuality as a sin, the responsible Christian will not contradict
this declaration and therefore must not condone the sin as they would any other
sin.
The Abominable Sin
I will be
covering three fallacies (and three sub-fallacies) that people utilise to
condone homosexuality, but before I get to them we need to go to the Scriptures
that reveal the sinfulness of homosexuality.
We first see God unequivocally forbidding homosexual activity in the Law
in Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female;
it is an abomination.” Before He said this,
God condemned Sodom and Gomorrah for their homosexuality and other sexual deviances (Genesis
18:20-21; 19:4-5, 24-25). (Homosexuality
is not the only sexual sin, and not the only sexual sin that Sodom and Gomorrah
were condemned for. Nevertheless, homosexuality
is still a sin, God singling it out as “an abomination.”) The condemnation of homosexuality is not only
found in the Old Testament; it is in the New Testament as well. In his second epistle, St. Peter uses the
example of Sodom and Gomorrah as a warning for people of all ages:
…and if He condemned the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who
would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot,
oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what He saw and
heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul
tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to
rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment
for the day of judgement, and especially
those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.
(2 Peter 2:6-10; italics added.)
There is
both Law and Gospel in this passage. The
Law here is that homosexuality is an abominable sin as God has declared, using
Sodom and Gomorrah to illustrate what will happen to those who are unrepentant
of the same and other sins. The Gospel
here is that since God rescued the one man, Lot, from a sinful city because of
his righteousness, then certainly God knows how to rescue us from our sin and
the surrounding sins of those around us.
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God
is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be
able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Any temptation you experience is nothing new; God will provide a way for
you to endure it and overcome it.
However, if you constantly reject His help, you will remain “unrighteous
under punishment for the day of judgement.”
Likewise,
in Jude 6-7 we read, “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but
abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for
the judgement of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities
around them, since they in the same way as these indulged gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited
as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.”
In Romans
1:18-32, we read of God’s wrath against all the godlessness and wickedness of
man, homosexuality falling under that category.
Specifically in verses 26-27, St. Paul describes homosexuality as a
wicked perversion of God’s will: “For
this reason god gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged
the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the
men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire
toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in
their own persons the due penalty of their error.”
“Jesus Didn’t Talk
About Homosexuality”
Before I
start with the first logical fallacy, I must first debunk a common argument
people make and then briefly discuss the origin of marriage. They say, “Well, Jesus didn’t talk about
homosexuality, so it’s not a sin.”
(These people ignore the rest of the New Testament that defines it as a
sin, denying the inspiration of the Holy Spirit working through the New
Testament writers, thus making it the Word of God.) Let’s take a look at 1 Timothy 1:8-11, “Now
we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that
the Law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for
the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their
fathers and mothers, for murders, the sexually immoral, men who practise homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and
whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of
the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.” The Law now speaks to the type of sinners
mentioned here, which is really every single sinner (all of us). This is why God’s Word offends unrepentant
sinners like homosexuals because His law still condemns them, and it is “in
accordance with the gospel” of God. So,
“Jesus never talked about homosexuality” is an invalid argument. Jesus never talked about rape either, yet we
know rape is a sin and immoral. That, and
rape, like homosexuality, is categorised as a sexual sin. “Gospel” and “Good News” are the same word in
Greek (εὐαγγέλιον), and Jesus is
the Gospel/Good News (Mark 1:1).
Therefore, this part of the Law is in accordance with Jesus Christ the
Gospel because the glory of God has revealed it as so. Or, to put it more simply, since Jesus is God
(Matthew 1:23; John 1:1, 14; 8:24; 10:30), He did in fact talk about it.
The Origin of Marriage
Genesis 2:18, “Then the LORD God
said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper
fit for him.’ ” God did not want man to
be alone. This is the first time God
said something was “not good.” He
created “a helper fit for” Adam. While it is vital to see the implications of
marriage inherent in this passage, we should also see that God did not want man
to live in isolation. God solved Adam’s
loneliness by creating a wife for him, but keep in mind that Eve was not just a
wife — she was another human being, specifically a woman, someone completely
different than Adam yet complementary.
In other words, God designed human beings to live in relationship with
one another; and in this case with marriage, only with the opposite sex. The helper fit for Adam was a woman; therefore a man would be unfit for Adam; and vice versa for
women. All Adam was familiar with was
the male sex, but God didn’t give him a choice.
He specifically created someone different yet complementary — a woman.
The Love Fallacy
There are three commonly used
logical fallacies to condone homosexuality.
The first fallacy is what I call the Love Fallacy. I believe this is the most often used
argument for homosexuality, especially with the hashtag “love wins” when gay
“marriage” was legalised (which is ironic because they don’t extend that love
towards people who disagree with the gay lifestyle, so really hate won that
day). The argument is that because
homosexuals “love” each other, that gives them the right to fulfil their sexual
desires. This argument commits three
sub-fallacies within itself:
equivocation, special pleading, and argumentum
ad populum (literally “an argument to the people”). Equivocation occurs when the definition of a
word changes in the middle of a proposition or syllogism. I could use this argument to justify why I
want to marry and/or have sex with my grandmother, or niece, or even my dog
since I love them all. However, someone
using this argument will quickly say that it’s not the same thing when it in
fact is when you follow this line of logic.
Christians have forewarned that if gay marriage is legalised, then
pedophiles will also use this love fallacy to legally marry and have sex with
children, and indeed they have (see this article http://www.inquisitr.com/2209930/allen-west-pedophiles-supported-by-scotus-gay-marriage-decision/). The argument used with the love fallacy is
that love justifies all things. If you
love that person or thing, then you have the right to have sex with them and
even marry them. However, if I use that
same logic towards something other than a homosexual drive, the definition will
suddenly change to mean something else.
You can’t assign a definition to love that supports your perspective and
then suddenly change that definition into something else when it’s used for a
different perspective that you disagree with.
Therefore, the love argument is invalid.
Special pleading is when a law or
rule applies to every circumstance except a specific circumstance because of a
unique property it has. With this,
people have the knowledge that God defines homosexuality as a sin, along with
other sexual sins, but they will make the exception with homosexuality and
accept the sin whether it’s because they know someone who’s a homosexual or
because they believe it’s not as bad as adultery, premarital sex, incest, rape,
bestiality, or pedophilia. It is
logically fallacious to be aware of a category of sins/wrongs (sexual sin in
this case) yet deny the sinfulness of one of those sins just because you can’t
manage to agree with that part of God’s decree.
We don’t get to pick and choose what is and what isn’t a sin. Only God can define sin, and He has in
Scripture. An example of special
pleading is a mother who says, “Yes, your honour, I do know that all convicted
drunk drivers go to jail, but he’s my son!
He’s a good boy who’s just made a mistake!” Sure, he made a mistake, but the law doesn’t
care; the law shows no partiality, has no compassion, and it certainly doesn’t
care about your circumstances. Likewise,
special pleading with homosexuality is, “Yes, God, I know that all the sexual
sins You listed are sinful, but homosexuals love each other so it’s okay!” No, it’s not okay. The Law of God dictates that homosexuality is
sin and that if you commit any sin, you are condemned, for “the wages of sin is
death” (Romans 6:23). But there is
forgiveness, there is redemption, and there is freedom to overcome our sin in
Jesus Christ who died for our sins.
Before we get into the next major
fallacy, argumentum ad populum is an
argument that claims to be inherently true because the majority of the
population confirms it to be true or false.
The majority of Nazi Germany practised argumentum ad populum to justify their belief that it was right to
kill all Jews and anyone else who didn’t conform to their standards, but did
that make it morally right? Of course
not, because God defined murder as sin.
Murder didn’t suddenly because morally justifiable because there was a
majority consensus that accepted it.
It’s the same thing with homosexuality.
Popular consensus does not define sin or make something legitimate when
both natural law and God’s Law say otherwise.
Humans don’t get to redefine sin.
God defines it, and Scripture is where we have a record of His
definition. As I established earlier,
the Bible states in both the Old and New Testaments that homosexuality and all
other kinds of actions are sinful. It
specifically says that homosexuality (and other perverse sexual acts) is an
abomination to God. You can believe what
you choose to believe, but it does not change what the Word of God declares.
The Born-This-Way Fallacy
In my discussions with people, many
of them believe that homosexuality is something that one is born with and
several of them have asked me, “When did you choose to be straight,” as if that
would stump me. My answer is this: I didn’t choose; God made me straight. All people are born within the male and
female order of creation. Even natural
law (science) agrees with this. If I
choose any other sexual deviancy (e.g. LGBT, adultery, fornication, etc.), I am
choosing a perversion of God’s good design.
No one is born having decided that they’re going to be an adulterer, or
a rapist, or a sexual sadist, or any other perversity; it’s a decision they
make later on in life due to whatever environmental condition led them to make
that decision. Homosexuals are no
different and no more special than other sexual deviants who choose to act
outside the sexual order of God’s creation (which was a monogamous marriage
free of sex prior to marriage, free of adultery, etc.). When we choose to sexually act out of God’s
created order, we are willingly choosing to act on sexual desires outside of
God’s will, which He has defined as sinful, rather than embracing what God has
commanded. All of these choices are made
by turning away from God’s intention of what is acceptable, not away from some
mythical neutrality based on an evolutionary view of man. Even evolution speaks against
homosexuality. Here’s an excerpt from
World Net Daily:
The laws of evolution and of genetic succession
are particularly harsh on any trait that prevents reproduction, so let’s start
with a simple formula that paints a stark picture: “One gay man + one gay man =
zero gay children.”
Or we can look at
the female side of the picture: You can go back maybe 10 generations and assume
any fertility rates (number of children per woman) for lesbian and straight
women and calculate what would happen. Even a slight difference would cause a
homosexual gene to rapidly fade from the population. On the other hand, if the
fertility rates were the same, how could women be considered lesbians if they
were having the same amount of heterosexual sex to produce an equivalent number
of children? Even if a tendency toward
homosexuality were genetic, every time that gene expressed itself, it would
fall out of the gene pool. Ask any genetics teacher, “Could homosexuality be
genetic if there is no mechanism for gays to pass their genes on to children as
frequently as straights pass genes on to their children?” While you are at it,
propose any percentage of gays in the starting population and any fertility
rates for gays and straights, and ask for the mathematical calculations of how
rapidly a homosexual gene would die out. (Irvin, 2012.)
Without
the foundation of a moral absolute, there is no basis upon which anyone can
call any kind of sexual behaviour wrong; they can only call it different and pass no moral
judgements. Christians look to God for
the absolute standard and trust His revealed Word to make our judgements. Arguing that people are born gay and that it
is not a choice is arguing against what god has revealed as His will in His
Word. Even if people are born with the
propensity to seek sexual affection from the same sex, that does not make it
right or “normal.” From this line of
logic, the people making this argument would have to excuse other moral wrongs
and sins because people are born with the propensity to be an adulterer, a
compulsive liar, a murderer, a rapist, a thief, and so on. Any moral perversion, from the propensity to
be a compulsive liar to the propensity to be a psychopathic serial killer,
would be justified under the same “born-this-way” argument. Of course, people who make this argument will
disagree, once again committing the equivocation fallacy.
The
Happiness Fallacy
This
argument supposes that homosexuality is right because “everyone has the right
to be happy.” By this remark, they
perhaps think of the right to the pursuit of happiness in the U.S.
Constitution. But that statement by our
founding fathers gives us the right to
do exactly what it says — to pursue happiness;
it doesn’t promise that the government will give it to you. Also, following this line of logic that
everyone deserves to be happy is essentially saying that if something makes you
happy, whether it’s moral or not, you should be allowed to do it. That’s basically what anarchy is — doing
whatever makes you happy, whatever pleases you, and it only leads to chaos and
moral depravity. Murderers are perfectly
happy murdering innocent people. Sexual
sadists are perfectly happy raping women and molesting children. Many men are perfectly happy having sex with
as many women as they want and the same goes for women with men. So by this logic, we could justify their
actions since it makes them happy. And
again, those who support homosexuality
will disagree and then we’re back
to the equivocation fallacy again.
I
have heard the argument and even sermons from “pastors” (like the heretic Joel
Osteen) that God wants everyone to be happy.
A bigger lie could not have been told.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that the goal of faith is ultimate
happiness. A life with God in the centre can bring joy, but even then, tribulation is
inevitable, for we “share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ” (2
Corinthians 1:5). Not only that, but
Jesus said, “In this world you will have
trouble” (John 16:33). If God was
only concerned with our happiness, then He would tell us everything we want to
hear and give us everything we want.
Rather, He tells us what we need to
hear through the Law (which is not what we want to hear) and Gospel (which many
reject in spite of its Good News). And
by His grace and mercy, he chastises and blesses us. Our happiness is irrelevant. We live this life and the life to come for
god, not for ourselves. Happiness is
ever waning in a sinful world, but the joy of the Lord is eternal. Life has nothing to do with us; it is all
about God and His glory.
A Call
to Repentance
Keep
in mind that homosexuality is not the only sexual sin, and neither is it the
worst sin. (If you haven’t gotten that
by now with the many times I put in parentheses, “and other sexual sins,” then
you need to pay more attention.) God
likewise condemns adultery (Matthew 15:19; Hebrews 13:4). God condemns bestiality (Leviticus 18:23). God condemns incest (Leviticus 18:6-7; 1
Corinthians 5:1). God highly condemns
rape to the point that the rapist must be punished by death and the victim is
innocent (Deuteronomy 22:25-28). Lastly,
God condemns fornication — that is, premarital sex and promiscuity (Hebrews
13:4; 1 Corinthians 6:18). People who
are unrepentant of all these sexual immoralities, including homosexuality,
along with other non-sexual sins, will not inherit the kingdom of God (1
Corinthians 6:9-10). If you’re for
homosexuality or you are a homosexual, you may have heard the prior First
Corinthians passage thrown at you numerous times. Or if you’re not gay and you’re against it,
you may have been the one throwing the passage at people (which I exhort you to
stop doing). In either instance, verse
eleven is always left out, which says, “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.”
People in the Corinthian church were guilty of all these sins that Paul
listed, and he reminded them of their baptism, so this is more so for
believers. But if you’re not a believer,
then it’s not too late to believe and be
baptised and forsake your sins. As
Christians, because we are justified in Christ by our baptism, all of these
things are unnatural ways of life. We
have been forgiven for all these sins, therefore we must not continue to live
in them. Whichever sin enslaves you,
turn from your wicked ways and let Christ enable you to overcome it! God forgives and cleanses all our sins.
Therefore,
do not fret; there is no reason to fear.
Through baptism, daily repentance, and the forsaking of our sins as God
enables us, we are able to be free from
any sin that enslaves us. After
confession, forsaking the sin must follow.
If you repent of a sin and yet still commit the sin, then you’re still
guilty of it. “Whoever conceals his
transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will
obtain mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).
Confessing the sin grants you forgiveness, but physically forsaking the
sin frees you from its physical bondage, which can only be done through the
strength of Christ, hence, “I can do all things through Him who
strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). How can you be free from the clutches of the
sin that once bound you when you still practise it? I’m not saying that you’re saved by your own works. God forgives us before we even ask. A criminal who serves his or her sentence and
yet still commits the same crime after being exonerated upon completion of
their sentence is still guilty of that crime.
Or say you’re reformed drug
addict. If you start indulging in the
drug again, are you still purified from that substance? Of course you’re not. It is the same thing with sin. Repent of the sin with a contrite heart,
resulting in God’s immediate forgiveness, yet if you continue to commit the
sin, then you are still guilty of that sin.
God will still forgive you, but you’re still guilty of that sin if you
just turn right back to it after repenting.
Because if you confess, and then immediately revert to your
self-medicating sin, you obviously didn’t really mean it.
Forgiveness,
even with the effects of baptism, does not grant you permission to freely
commit and/or dwell in a particular sin you enjoy. Forgiveness is the recognition of the poison
of your sins as God willingly cleanses you from its poison. As St. Paul wrote in Romans 6:1-4:
What shall we say
then? Are we to continue in sin that
grace [that is, God’s forgiveness] may abound [be abundant]? By no means!
How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism
into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. [Brackets added.]
Baptism
is the death of our original sin and as we rise from the waters, we emerge into
a new life in Christ — hence being born again.
Therefore, as St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:11, such a lifestyle of
living in sin when baptised is unnatural and a denial of what God has done in
your baptism (not just the homosexual lifestyle, but any sinful lifestyle gone unrepentant). Forgiveness cleanses you from that sin;
forsaking the sin is what enables you to live free of its misery and
condemnation as a result of sin. “If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Likewise, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny
Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
Suffering
in sin is an inevitable part of life that we all must endure in a sinful
world. The good news is that God enables
us to endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Whether we allow it to overwhelm and therefore rule our lives or let God
take control is ultimately up to us. And
it may require some necessary and arduous sacrifices. The sacrifice for non-reformative
homosexuality is celibacy for one’s entire life (as it is for the pedophile). In this way, we can see how faith truly is a
gift as one is enabled through the grace of Christ to conquer the sin and its
dominion over him or her rather than living completely bound to its
chains. Consider how minuscule this
sacrifice is to make for Christ when he gave His life for every single one of
us and every sin that underprops our suffering.
No sacrifice is greater than that.
Sure, sex may feel wonderful, but do you absolutely need it? One may say yes, but unless you’re planning
on procreating, you don’t need sex to live; you can literally live without it
and live a meaningful, fulfilling life.
I personally know some Christian men who suffer with same-sex
attraction, but they’ve repented of this sin that they cannot control (like
some of us cannot control gossip, greed, gluttony, etc.), and as a response to
God’s merciful forgiveness, they don’t
practise homosexual acts. Sure, they
still suffer with homosexual thoughts because that’s how this current life is
in a sinful world, but by the strength of Christ they don’t act on them.
God
is faithful and just and He forgave their sins, cleansing them from all
unrighteousness because He always
remains faithful even when they, and all
of us, are faithless.
References
Irvin, P. (2012, October 21). Proof You Can’t be
‘Born Gay’. Retrieved October 14, 2015,
from http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/why-you-cant-be-born-gay/
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