Tolerate the Intolerance?

One of the big issues of our modern world is the issue of "tolerance" and "acceptance", especially of homosexuals. It is not a big surprise when the secular culture preaches the message that homosexuality is no big deal and is just an "alternative lifestyle", but when the church starts to do the same thing I begin to get worried. It is not as though the Bible is not clear on the issue so that it has to be argued and debated among Christians, at least among true, Bible-believing Christians. Here is just a sample of what the Bible has to say:

"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." - Leviticus 18:22

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." - Leviticus 20:13

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." - Romans 1:26-27

It seems pretty clear to me that homosexuality is not something to be condoned, no matter how much the world and men say that it should be. There is an old saying that says that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will eventually come to believe it. I think that saying can easily be applied to our situation today.

One of the most popular articles on the Yahoo news site this morning was one entitled "God and gays: Churchgoers divided". The entire article made me sad. It makes it seem that the churches are just stubborn and behind the times in changing their views on homosexuality.

"Many, gay or straight, seek a community of souls that welcomes them and shares their sense of the Scriptures and the sacred.

It may mean staying in their church of a lifetime, finding ways to accept - or overlook - teachings with which they disagree.

Most people (72%) have stayed with one religion all their lives, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup survey of 1,002 adults June 9-11. Brian Flanagan, 28, a cradle Catholic, openly gay and studying to be a theologian, says not even an unbroken line of rulings from the Vatican can drive him from his church because what truly matters is the "way it talks about Christ, about God.""

In other words, homosexuals want a church that overlooks the fact that the Bible says that what they are doing is a sin and that just talks about the loving, caring, nice aspects of God. They do not seem to want to deal with the fact that God is also a wrathful God who detests sin of all kinds. There is a penalty for sin: death. That is why Christ had to die, to pay that penalty for those who will accept what he did and repent of their sin and ask for forgiveness. Yet, people do not want to face the fact that what they are doing is sin. They just want a place to go to where they can feel good.

The article also goes on to state that:

"Once, black people, women and homosexuals were viewed the same way by the leading theologians of the times: "They were all cursed by God in Scripture, inferior in moral character and willfully sinful and deserving punishment," says the Rev. Jack Rogers, former head of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and author of a new book, Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality.

Eventually, most churches found a biblical basis for changing their stance on race and gender but not on homosexuality."

There is a difference between gender, race, and homosexuality. The Bible says absolutely nothing about it being sinful to be a woman or to be black or Arab or Hispanic or Caucasian or oriental. In fact, it is very positive when it comes to women and different races. Just open up your Bible and read it. The Bible is not positive at all, however, when it comes to homosexuality. As I pointed out earlier, it says clearly that homosexuality is a detestable act.

The last section of the article is given the heading "Churches slow to change", as if it is a bad thing. It then points out that:

"The largest U.S. denominations - Roman Catholics, Southern Baptists, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and Lutherans in the Missouri Synod - clearly proclaim that homosexual behavior is a sin.

They don't allow a different theological direction, however welcoming individual congregations may be. Change is not on their agendas."

Even though this strong stance on the issue was made to seem like a bad thing in the context of the article, it made me proud to be a member of the Southern Baptist church. I pray that it will continue to resist the influences of the world and maintain the stand that the Bible is the ultimate authority and that God does not change with the culture. The movement towards the liberalization of the church is not, as the article seems to say, a good thing when it means moving away from the basis of the Christian belief so that the church can be a fun, accepting social club.

God does love homosexuals and yes, we should be accepting of them and loving them as people who, like everyone else in the world, including myself, are sinful and in need of a Savior. However, God does not love homosexuality, and we should not accept it as an acceptable practice, no more than we accept murder, adultery, and stealing.