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When Being Affirming Isn’t Loving

Both the question of sexual identity and the politics that surround it are not primarily concerned with sexual behavior. They are actually about what it means to be a human being. For Christians, far more is therefore at stake in this debate than the question of which sexual acts are moral and which are immoral. Once sex becomes recreation and once it is detached from the body’s own sexual script, what it means to be human has fundamentally changed. Sexual complementarity, the telos of marriage, and the analogy between Christ and the church all lose their significance. In a society like ours, therefore, how we think about what it means to be human has undergone a significant change. The anthropology of modern Western society is fundamentally incompatible with a Christian doctrine of man. Failure to see this and then try to argue that codes of sexual morality are negotiable and can be subordinated to pastoral strategies of love and affirmation is to contradict central tenets of the Christian faith.

When Being Affirming Isn’t Loving by Carl R. Trueman

If you haven’t read The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self or Strange New World by Carl R. Trueman, you need to. Carl has done a great job at connecting the dots between philosophical movements over the centuries to today.

In addressing Andy Stanley here, he is spot on. There are reasons that certain biblical understandings are important. Sexuality and marriage are fundamental and foundational to our understanding of what it means to be human. The modern warped view on it separates us from God, confuses more than it clarifies, and sets us up for a life of misery.

While Isaiah and his colleagues saw their task as calling the people away from the anthropology of the wider world and back to that of the covenant God, today’s prophets seem to see their task as being religious mouthpieces for the priorities of the wider culture, calling the church away from a Christian anthropology and toward that of the world around.

Go read the whole article and his books as well. Christian, the world’s view has shifted far from that of Christianity. And you need to understand it because you’ll be facing it sooner or later.

Andy Stanley’s Version of Christianity

I try to reserve words until things are clear. Andy Stanley has said some questionable things over the years, but I chalked most of them up to out-of-context sound bites that oversimplified complex teachings… Well, Andy made things perfectly clear over the weekend it seems. He’s no longer a Christian and is openly teaching heresy from the pulpit.

[Gay Christians] choose a same sex marriage, not because they’re convinced it’s biblical. They read the same Bible we do. They chose to marry for the same reason many of us do, love, companionship and family.

And in the end, as was the case for all of us, and this is the important thing I want you to hear me say, it’s their decision. Our decision is to decide how we respond to their decision.

Andy Stanley’s Version of Christianity

We will not bow.

I love MacArthur and Todd Friel’s additional commentary is fantastic. Satan is a wily devil.

Today, Judicial Lawlessness Crossed into Judicial Tyranny

“Today, judicial lawlessness crossed into judicial tyranny. Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America.

“I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama Administration is trying to force to chose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.

“In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts rightly observed that the Court’s marriage opinion has nothing to do with the Constitution. Justice Scalia observed that the Court’s opinion was so contrary to law that state and local officials would choose to defy it.

“For every politician — Democrat and Republican — who is tut-tutting that Davis must resign, they are defending a hypocritical standard. Where is the call for the mayor of San Francisco to resign for creating a sanctuary city — resulting in the murder of American citizens by criminal illegal aliens welcomed by his lawlessness?

“Where is the call for President Obama to resign for ignoring and defying our immigration laws, our welfare reform laws, and even his own Obamacare?

“When the mayor of San Francisco and President Obama resign, then we can talk about Kim Davis.

“Those who are persecuting Kim Davis believe that Christians should not serve in public office. That is the consequence of their position. Or, if Christians do serve in pubic office, they must disregard their religious faith–or be sent to jail.

“Kim Davis should not be in jail. We are a country founded on Judeo-Christian values, founded by those fleeing religious oppression and seeking a land where we could worship God and live according to our faith, without being imprisoned for doing so.

“I call upon every Believer, every Constitutionalist, every lover of liberty to stand with Kim Davis. Stop the persecution now.”

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz

I stand with Kim Davis.

In Which I Paint with some Bright Yellows

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Thomas Jefferson

I have a guity pleasure for the writings of Douglas Wilson. The wit and the bite of his words are something to admire. Many Christian writers are too nice, avoiding harsh, direct words even when they are necessary. Douglas doesn’t mince words.

In his latest piece, he addresses the lack of support for Kim Davis, the county clerk that has taken a stand against the new cultural edict of gay marriage.

[T]here is a difference between contempt of court and seeing that the courts have become contemptible.

This woman needs our prayers as much as the Duggars do. As she is brought before the court of the land, she will need the boldness to stand for godliness against a godless rule. This is no easy task. Fact is, she was elected to uphold the law and the rights of the citizens. These rights and these laws were not to be established by men, but by God. “Endowed by our Creator,” to quote our founding documents. But now, activist lawyers have taken it upon themselves to read additional rights into amendments that simply don’t give those rights.

So let us pray for Kim’s boldness, her faith, and her resolve. They can either fire or impeach her, or realize that when a right infringes on the rights of others, it isn’t a right. Forcing Christians to participate in sinful behavior has never been legal, so let’s pray that we can get some balance back for religious freedom.

Now this takes me to my citation of Jefferson above. Some might say that it is a shame that I, a staunch Calvinist, have taken to quoting a Deist on the relationship of righteousness to government. And I say that it is a shame that a 18th century Deist has a better grasp of the relationship of righteousness to government than do two and a half busloads of 21st century Reformed seminary professors. The striking inconsistency might have two possible causes, in other words.

Douglas Wilson

The Bible and Same-Sex Marriage: 6 Common But Mistaken Claims

Claim 1: Jesus didn’t speak about same-sex marriage, so he’s at least neutral if not open to it. What Jesus doesn’t condemn, we shouldn’t condemn.

This is an argument from silence, but the silence doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Jesus addresses and defines marriage in Matthew 19:4–6 and Mark 10:6–9 using both Genesis 1:26–27 and Genesis 2:24 to parse it out. Here Jesus defines and affirms marriage as between a man and a woman, a reflection of the fact that God made us male and female to care for creation together. With this definition, same-sex marriage is excluded. Had Jesus wished to extend the right of marriage beyond this definition, here was his opportunity. But he didn’t take it.

Jesus never discussed same-sex marriage because the way he defined marriage already excluded it. He was not as silent on the topic as some claim.

The Gospel Coalition

An argument from silence. Know your logical fallacies.

This article has some great answers to the questions that, if you are a Christian, you have heard a few too many times.

Intolerance Against Their Own Kind

“If these cultural Marxists won’t even tolerate leaders in their own community like Reisner having a peaceful dialogue with the other side, then it’s not a movement but an inquisition.”

Dialogue. It used to be that we could reach across the aisle and talk with our opponents. Ask them questions. Seek to understand them. And now? Now anyone that disagrees with the Left needs to be silenced. No matter if they are the CEO of Mozilla or the owner of a mom & pop pizzaria. We have a problem.

“I’m not sure where their intolerance leads,” said Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler. “Are they going to boycott TV networks and their advertisers that interview Ted Cruz? Book stores that sell his books? How about the hotels that host his events. Where does it end?”

Bloomberg

What does Cruz support on the matter of marriage? That it should be decided on a state-by-state level. That is constitutional, after all. If the Constitution doesn’t specifically give the federal government power over something, that something is then in the power of the state governments. Cruz believes that the Supreme Court throwing out state laws that back DOMA is unconstitutional. It is. Because the federal government doesn’t have power over marriage.

So the Left is trying to shut Cruz up. And because the gay men that own this hotel that Cruz had a fireside chat at were willing to open dialogue with him, they need to be shut down, their business ruined.

Makes sense.

It’s Legal to Kill Babies, But Let’s Worry About a Gay Person’s Right to Cake

In their minds, there exists the fundamental human right to a wedding cake, but not to life itself.

Regarding that which made me sick and that which makes me a bigot.

Speaking of which, interestingly, we’re told gays have the right to marry and buy cakes and so forth because gay is not a choice. And gay is not a choice, they say, because gays are gay from birth. And if gays are gay from birth, then the matter is genetic, and if it’s genetic then gays are gay even before birth. But if gays are gay before birth, then it would seem that they were them in the womb. In other words, whatever their nature is, their essence, they had that, they were that, in the womb. And if they are now what they were then, and were then what they are now, then either they’re people now and they were people then, or they weren’t people then and they aren’t now.

Such great words here.

A creature is whatever it is. It can adapt and change and grow, but it cannot alter its nature. It cannot morph from one essence to another. Once it is, it is. It cannot be just a potentiality. The moment it becomes, it is an actuality, not a potential actuality. You can’t be mere potential, because then you wouldn’t be, do you see?

Duh.

Look, this is elementary logic. Like, well below first grade level. So elementary that children (or “half-people,” using liberal terminology) understand it on an instinctual level. They might have to learn what a horse or a pig is, but once they’re taught, they’ll likely never ask whether a horse can be a horse but not a horse at the same time. No, it’ll take at least 12 years of public school and four years at college for them to get that dumb.

The Blaze writes a great article, again, that calls out the hypocrisy and stupidity of the progressive movement.

Toward a Gracious Historic Sexual Ethic

This teaching is admittedly unpopular in our late modern times. Yet Scripture shows no interest in being popular or relevant—that is, in being adapted, revised, or censored to align with ever-shifting times. We must remain countercultural wherever the culture and the truth are at odds. It is this posture that makes Christians truly relevant in the culture.

The Gospel Coalition

Why so many Christians won’t backdown on gay marriage

I don’t think I could have said it better myself. A Christian’s very basis of understanding humanity and sexuality is rooted in God. This goes back to the formation of our rebel band of lovers 2,000 years ago.

The story Christians have been telling for 2,000 years goes something like this: The God who made the Universe is also, by his very nature, Love, and he made human beings with a very lofty vocation. Humans are meant to reflect His glory in the world; to be like God, that is to say, to be lovers and creators. Everything in the Universe has been put here to be used by God’s children to reflect his loving glory — and to teach them about God’s love. This is particularly true, or so the story goes, of the unique sexual complementarity between men and women. The sexual act is meant to reflect God’s love by fostering a union at once bodily and spiritual — and creates new life. The complementarity of the persons in a marriage reflects the complementarity of the Persons of the Trinity, and the bliss of marital union is an inkling of the bliss of the union of the Persons of the Trinity. The fruitfulness of the marriage act reflects that God is a creator and has charged man to be an agent of his ongoing work of creation. And, finally, if God’s love means total self-giving unto death on a Cross, then man and wife must give themselves to each other totally — no pettiness, no adultery, no polygamy, no divorce, and no nonmarital sexual acts. According to the story that Christianity has been telling for 2,000 years, Christianity’s view of sexuality isn’t some encrusted holdover from a socially conditioned patriarchal era on its way out, but is instead deeply connected to its understanding of who God is and what human beings exist for.

The Week