This is a huge question that many people are asking today. It's a question I was confronted with once again the other day as I read the recent story of an Atlanta-area megachurch pastor. The pastor's name is Bishop Jim Swiley and he leads The Church in the Now. You can read the full NPR story by clicking here.
I strongly encourage you to visit the NPR website and read the story for yourself. Not only can you read a brief story about Biship Swiley, but they've actually included the church service video in which the Bishop affirms his homosexuality. I also encourage you to watch the video. I've taken many statements and included them for discussion within this post.
I'll have to admit, this is one of the most fascinating things I've ever watched. After a few preliminary remarks, the Bishop states that there are two things in his life that are absolute: his call to ministry and his sexual orientation (about 6:15 mark). If you were to watch the Bishop's entire statement, you would find that he says over and over that his homosexuality was not something that he chose. He states emphatically that God made him that way. To prove his point he uses a number of comparisons, such as: race, pregnancy, a woman's menstrual cycle, eye color, and even heterosexuality. The idea is that just as he didn't choose to be white, neither did he choose to be homosexual - it was unavoidable.
As if all this were not eye-opening enough, things really get interesting when he shares what he believes the Bible to teach concerning homosexuality (roughly the 28:00 mark). He takes the Bible passages (that he cares to mention) in chronological order. First among them is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (S & G) found in Genesis 18:16-19:29. The Bishop argues that S & G had nothing to do with homosexuality. It is really a story that teaches the evils of "gang rape" and thus S & G can't be used as a standard when speaking to the issue of homosexuality. For that reason he suggests that the biblical story of S & G should be "taken out of the mix" when addressing the subject.
The Bishop's interpretation of S & G lacks a knowledge of the Scriptures, though it is the charge of biblical ignorance that the Bishop later goes on to lay at the feet of any who would challenge his position. Had the Bishop read Ezekiel 16:49-50, perhaps he would've recognized that his interpretation of the S & G situation is just plain wrong: "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me: therefore I took them away as a I saw fit." I'll be the first to agree that Sodom's sin was not just homosexuality, but to act as though homosexuality wasn't a part of it is just flat dishonest with the text. The "abomination" Ezekiel speaks of is clearly that of homosexuality because Jude would go on to say that S & G had "given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh" (Jude 7). So, while the Bishop may want to take Gen. 18-19 out of the mix, the whole of Scripture won't allow him to do so.
The Bishop then goes on to mention the passages dealing with homosexuality in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. The former passage clearly says: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination." Once again, the Bishop says we can't bring those passages into the mix. He tells his listeners that they "don't want to play the Leviticus card" (roughly 30:20). Basically, he argues that since the rest of the Levitical laws don't all apply to New Testament believers, neither should these. Is he right? Clearly the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament no longer apply to New Testament believers. Christ perfectly fulfilled every requirement of the Law (Matt. 5:17), so that now through faith in Him we can be fully justified (Rom. 5:1). So while Christ may have removed the necessity of keeping the OT ceremonial laws, in no way did he remove the moral precepts of the OT. If that were so, why not discard the Ten Commandments? Is the Bishop suggesting that we scrap the whole of the OT? The ceremonial laws of the OT were grounded in the moral precepts of God, and in this case that includes the fact that homosexuality has always been and will always be sin.
That's enough for now. I'll address more of the Bishop's theology later and speak to the heart of the issue at that time.
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