What the Bible Really Still Says About Homosexuality By Kevin DeYoung

On Tuesday afternoon, CNN ran an article on its Belief Blog by Catholic priest (sort of) Daniel Helminiak entitled “My Take: What the Bible really says about homosexuality.” The article is amazing for including so many bad arguments in so little space. A quick trip through the piece will show you what I mean. Helminiak’s writing will be in bold and then my response will follow.

President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage, like blood in the water, has conservative sharks circling for a kill. In a nation that touts separation of religion and government, religious-based arguments command this battle. Lurking beneath anti-gay forays, you inevitably find religion and, above all, the Bible.

We now face religious jingoism, the imposition of personal beliefs on the whole pluralistic society. Worse still, these beliefs are irrational, just a fiction of blind conviction. Nowhere does the Bible actually oppose homosexuality.

These two paragraphs perfectly depict how many see any Christian opposition to homosexuality or gay marriage. We are undercover (or not!) theocrats trying to impose our personal preferences on the rest of the country. But the charge of legislating our morality is not as simple as it sounds. For starters, the government legislates plenty of morality already-morality about killing, stealing, polluting and a thousand other things we’ve decided are bad for society or just plain wrong. Moreover, the arguments being made in favor of gay marriage are fundamentally about morality. That’s why you hear words like justice, love, and equality. Most gay marriage advocates are making their case based on moral categories, if not religious and biblical.

What’s more, the pro-gay marriage side would like to see the state reject a conjugal view of marriage in favor of a new, heretofore unknown, definition of marriage. And in insisting upon the state’s involvement, they want this new definition to be imposed on all. We may not all have to like gay marriage, but the government will tell us what marriage means whether we like it or not.

In the past 60 years, we have learned more about sex, by far, than in preceding millennia. Is it likely that an ancient people, who thought the male was the basic biological model and the world flat, understood homosexuality as we do today? Could they have even addressed the questions about homosexuality that we grapple with today? Of course not.

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Here we have an example of progressive prejudice, the kind that assumes we have little to learn from the benighted masses who lived long ago. Whether they thought the world was flat has nothing to do with whether ancient people can teach us anything about sexuality. Such a tidbit is thrown in, it seems to me, as a rhetorical cue that these people were as dumb as doorknobs and can’t be trusted. More importantly, Helminiak distances himself from an orthodox understanding of biblical inspiration. Instead of approaching the Scriptures as the word of God, his first step is to position the Bible as a book by ancient people who don’t know all the things we know.

Hard evidence supports this commonsensical expectation. Taken on its own terms, read in the original languages, placed back into its historical context, the Bible is ho-hum on homosexuality, unless – as with heterosexuality – injustice and abuse are involved.

That, in fact, was the case among the Sodomites (Genesis 19), whose experience is frequently cited by modern anti-gay critics. The Sodomites wanted to rape the visitors whom Lot, the one just man in the city, welcomed in hospitality for the night.

The Bible itself is lucid on the sin of Sodom: pride, lack of concern for the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:48-49); hatred of strangers and cruelty to guests (Wisdom 19:13); arrogance (Sirach/Ecclesiaticus 16:8); evildoing, injustice, oppression of the widow and orphan (Isaiah 1:17); adultery (in those days, the use of another man’s property), and lying (Jeremiah 23:12).

But nowhere are same-sex acts named as the sin of Sodom. That intended gang rape only expressed the greater sin, condemned in the Bible from cover to cover: hatred, injustice, cruelty, lack of concern for others. Hence, Jesus says “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19; Mark 12:31); and “By this will they know you are my disciples” (John 13:35).

How inverted these values have become! In the name of Jesus, evangelicals and Catholic bishops make sex the Christian litmus test and are willing to sacrifice the social safety net in return.

There is really only one argument in the foregoing paragraphs: the sin of Sodom was about social injustice not about sexual immorality. No doubt, there were many other sins involved, as Helminiak rightly observes. But there is no reason to think homosexuality per se wasn’t also to blame for Sodom’s judgment. For example, Jude 7 states that Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities “indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire.” Even the NRSV, translation of choice for the mainline (and the version Helminiak seems to be using), says “pursued unnatural lust.” Clearly, the sins of Sodom lived in infamy not simply because of violent aggression or the lack of hospitality, but because men pursued sex with other men.

The longest biblical passage on male-male sex is Romans 1:26-27: “Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another.”

The Greek term para physin has been translated unnatural; it should read atypical or unusual. In the technical sense, yes, the Stoic philosophers did use para physin to mean unnatural, but this term also had a widespread popular meaning. It is this latter meaning that informs Paul’s writing. It carries no ethical condemnation.

Compare the passage on male-male sex to Romans 11:24. There, Paul applies the term para physin to God. God grafted the Gentiles into the Jewish people, a wild branch into a cultivated vine. Not your standard practice! An unusual thing to do – atypical, nothing more. The anti-gay “unnatural” hullabaloo rests on a mistranslation.

Besides, Paul used two other words to describe male-male sex: dishonorable (1:24, 26) and unseemly (1:27). But for Paul, neither carried ethical weight. In 2 Corinthians 6:8 and 11:21, Paul says that even he was held in dishonor – for preaching Christ. Clearly, these words merely indicate social disrepute, not truly unethical behavior.

This line of reasoning is also common among revisionists. There is little to say in its favor, however, and Helminiak’s argument-that para physin “carries no ethical condemnation”–is particularly weak.

1) He makes the rudimentary error of forgetting that words have a semantic range of meaning. Just because Paul used “against nature” or “dishonorable” in non-ethical settings (sort of), doesn’t mean those words and phrases cannot carry ethical weight in another context. It’s like suggesting that if FDR once said “this soup is terrible” and later said “what the Nazis are doing is terrible” that he couldn’t possibly mean anything more than “what the Nazis did was kind of strange and not my personal preference.”

2) The context in Romans 1 tells us how to understand para physin. Paul has already explained how the unrighteous suppress the truth about God seen in nature and how they exchange the glory of the immortal God for images of created things. In both cases Paul contends that people believe a lie which prevents them from seeing things as they really are (1:25). Then in the very next verse he singles out homosexuality as “contrary to nature.” He is not thinking merely of things that are unusual, but of acts that violate the divine design and the ways things ought to be. For Paul, the biological complementarity of the male-female union is the obvious order of things. A male-male or female-female sexual pairing violates the anatomical and procreative design inherent in the one flesh union of a man and a woman. That Jewish writers of the period used comparable expressions to describe same-sex intercourse only confirms that this is what Paul meant by the construction.

3) Even more obviously, we know Paul considered same-sex intercourse an ethical violation, and not simply something uncommon, because of what he says in the very next sentence. Helminiak conveniently cuts off Paul’s thought halfway through verse 27. Notice what Paul goes on to say: “Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error” (NRSV). When you read the whole verse, Helminiak’s “non-ethical” argument becomes implausible. Paul thought homosexuality not just unusual, but wrong, a sinful error deserving of a “due penalty.”

In this passage Paul is referring to the ancient Jewish Law: Leviticus 18:22, the “abomination” of a man’s lying with another man. Paul sees male-male sex as an impurity, a taboo, uncleanness – in other words, “abomination.” Introducing this discussion in 1:24, he says so outright: “God gave them up … to impurity.”

But Jesus taught lucidly that Jewish requirements for purity – varied cultural traditions – do not matter before God. What matters is purity of heart.

“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles,” reads Matthew 15. “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Or again, Jesus taught, “Everyone who looks at a women with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Jesus rejected the purity requirements of the Jewish Law.

In calling it unclean, Paul was not condemning male-male sex. He had terms to express condemnation. Before and after his section on sex, he used truly condemnatory terms: godless, evil, wicked or unjust, not to be done. But he never used ethical terms around that issue of sex.

Helminiak’s argument seems to be: Paul said homosexuality was an impurity; Jesus set people free from the purity requirements of the Jewish law; therefore, homosexuality is not wrong. This reasoning is so specious that it’s hard to know where to begin. Jesus did recalibrate the purity laws, but Mark 7:19 makes clear that the episode in question was about declaring all foods clean. Jesus was not saying for a second that anything previously called “unclean” or “impure” was now no big deal. Helminiak again connects words in a facile manner, suggesting that because Jesus fulfilled certain aspects of the ceremonial code, now anything described with the language of impurity cannot be condemned. Nine times in his epistles Paul references “impurity” and it is always in the context of vice and immorality (Rom. 1:24; 6:19; 2 Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19; Eph. 4:19; 5:3; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 2:3; 4:7). Besides all this, Jesus explicitly lists “sexual immorality” (in the passage Helminiak quotes) as one of the things that defiles a person. The Greek word is porneia which refers to “unlawful sexual intercourse” (BDAG), especially, for the Jew, anything condemned by the Law of Moses.

It is simply not true that Paul, or Jesus for that matter, never considered homosexuality an ethical matter. To cite just one more example: in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10 Paul uses a rare Greek word, arsenokoites, which is a compound from two words found in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Paul thought the prohibition against homosexuality in the Old Testament was still relevant and the sin was still serious.

As for marriage, again, the Bible is more liberal than we hear today. The Jewish patriarchs had many wives and concubines. David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, and Daniel and the palace master were probably lovers.

The Bible’s Song of Songs is a paean to romantic love with no mention of children or a married couple. Jesus never mentioned same-sex behaviors, although he did heal the “servant” – pais, a Greek term for male lover – of the Roman Centurion.

These are wild assertions without any corroborating evidence. Whatever one thinks of Leviticus 18 and 20 for today, it’s obvious that the Torah considered homosexual activity an abomination. It’s absurd to think that any ancient Israelite would have any celebrated David or Jonathan or Ruth or Naomi or Daniel if they were homosexual. It is the worst kind of special pleading and reader response to conclude against all exegetical, theological, and historical evidence that any of these Old Testament heroes were gay.

Likewise, there is no evidence to suggest that the centurion’s servant was his lover. The leading New Testament lexicon (BDAG) gives three definitions of pais: a young person, one’s own offspring, one who is in total obedience to another. If the word somehow means “male lover” in the Gospels, we need evidence greater than Helminiak’s bald assertion.

Paul discouraged marriage because he believed the world would soon end. Still, he encouraged people with sexual needs to marry, and he never linked sex and procreation.

Were God-given reason to prevail, rather than knee-jerk religion, we would not be having a heated debate over gay marriage. “Liberty and justice for all,” marvel at the diversity of creation, welcome for one another: these, alas, are true biblical values.

The link between sex and procreation did not have to be articulated by Paul because it was already assumed. God’s design from the beginning had been one man and one woman coming together as one flesh. This design is reaffirmed throughout Scripture, not least of all by Jesus (Matt. 19:4-6) and by Paul (Eph. 5:31). An important aspect of this union is the potential blessing of children. The prophet Malachi made clear that procreation is one of the aims of marriage when he said about a husband and wife, “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring” (Mal. 2:15).

None of this proves the case against gay marriage as a government injunction (though that case can be made as well). What careful attention to the Bible does show is that the revisionists do not have a Scriptural leg to stand on. From the first chapter of the Bible to the Law of Moses to the New Testament, there is no hint that homosexuality is acceptable behavior for God’s people and every indication that it is a serious sin.

This is why I appreciate the candor of honest pro-gay advocates like Luke Timothy Johnson:

The task demands intellectual honesty. I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties. The exegetical situation is straightforward: we know what the text says…I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. And what exactly is that authority? We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us. By so doing, we explicitly reject as well the premises of the scriptural statements condemning homosexuality-namely, that it is a vice freely chosen, a symptom of human corruption, and disobedience to God’s created order.

Of course, I disagree with Johnson’s approach to the authority of Scripture and his liberal deference to experience. But I commend him for acknowledging what should be plain: the Bible really really calls homosexuality a sin. A sin that can be forgiven in Christ like a million other sins, and a sin that can be fought against by the power of the Holy Spirit, but still a sin. That’s what the Bible says. And as the CNN article demonstrates, it takes a lot of contorted creativity to make it say something else.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/what-the-bible-really-still-says-about-homosexuality-75108/

Black Christians in an ‘Adulterous’ Relationship With Obama, Says Evangelical Pastor By Paul Stanley

An influential African-American evangelical pastor says that many black Christians are in an “adulterous” relationship with President Obama over the issue of same-sex marriage and that if the issue is not addressed soon, it will negatively impact the president’s desire for a second term in November.

• In an interview with The Christian Post, Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., who is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Baltimore, Md., and one of the nation’s most outspoken black pastors, maintains that Obama has drawn a hard line on major theological issues such as same-sex marriage and expects black Christians to compromise their beliefs.

“Obama laid down the gauntlet on black leaders,” Jackson said. “The question we are being forced to address is ‘are you going to be black or be godly.’”

And Jackson is not alone in his sentiments.

On Thursday, a group of black ministers calling themselves the Coalition of African-American Pastors, many of whom represent the nation’s fifth largest denomination, the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), are holding a press conference in Memphis, Tenn., to call on Obama to denounce his position on same-sex marriage.

The Rev. Bill Owens is a veteran of the civil rights movement and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and other noted civil rights leaders during the peak of the movement in the 1960s. He believes Obama’s evolutionon the issues will have far-reaching effects on society and specifically in the black community.

“We will be spending the next weeks and months visiting black churches, asking for support from pastors and their flocks to speak up against the media-generated view that gay marriage is a civil right,” Owens told CP.

“We ask President Obama to stand with the black church, on the word of God and evolve again back to the common sense biblical view that marriage is the union of husband and wife.”

When asked if Obama’s “evolution” on the issue of same-sex marriage was surprising, Owens said “no.”

“The reason it didn’t surprise me was because President Obama is ‘political.’ But as pastors and members of the body of Christ, we’re disappointed – very disappointed.”

Bishop Jackson also said Obama‘s announcement that he now supports same-sex marriage was nothing new.

“I realized Obama was for same-sex marriage from the very beginning of his political career,” said Jackson. “Jeremiah Wright (Obama’s former pastor) has been performing same-sex ‘commitment services’ for years. Obama has been exposed to this belief for years and has demonstrated time and time again that he does not believe that homosexuality is a sin. Actions speak much louder than words.”

Yet the issue of exactly where black Christians stand on the subject of same-sex marriage is what Democratic pundits and Obama campaign advisers want to know. In other words, will Obama’s stance on same-sex marriage impact voter turnout in the African-American community and ultimately, the November elections?

Both Jackson and Owens say the answer to that question is “yes.” Jackson outlined the issue by putting black Christians into three general categories.

1) Black Christians who are in a state of denial. This group thinks President Obama was forced to cave to political pressure from homosexual activists in order to win a second term. Jackson describes this group as “nominal Christians.” 2) Black Christians who feel betrayed in the faith by the relation and will either not vote for Obama or protest by not going to the polls at all. This group could cause the Obama campaign to lose in some key battleground states such as Ohio and North Carolina. 3) Black Christians who are so angry with President Obama that they are planning to vote for the Republican nominee, which will most likely be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“The black community is in an adulterous relationship with President Obama,” Jackson said. “He is asking us to stray from the most basic tenets of Scripture – that marriage is an institution made by God for man and woman to become one and procreate. He’s telling us it’s fine to hold onto our beliefs but that it’s also okay to accept his stance on a position that goes against that core belief.”

“This is no different than a married person having a relationship with someone other than their spouse,” said Jackson.

Jackson, like Owens, recognizes that the core issue for black Christians – like all Americans – is jobs. “Blacks want to be recognized and not taken advantage of,” Jackson said. “They want politicians to realize there are significant issues of race that still need to be addressed and that jobs and economic opportunity are more important that homosexual marriage.”

When Owens was asked about Jackson’s comments, he said they were “right on.” But the elder civil rights leader said he also takes issue with the homosexual community comparing their desire to change the definition of marriage with the civil rights movement.

“I take great exception to the comparison and it is an insult to me and many others who worked tirelessly to advance social justice for black Americans,” said Owens. “I, along with many others, marched for civil rights. I did not march for homosexual marriage.”

Still, with the all of the controversy surrounding the issue, the question remains if the issue will cause Obama to lose in November.

“I don’t know if it will be a ‘make-or-break’ issue or not,” said Owens. “But this is not good for President Obama.”

A recent Public Policy Polling poll shows that approximately 60 percent of black voters in North Carolina are opposed to same-sex marriage.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/black-christians-in-an-adulterous-relationship-with-obama-says-evangelical-pastor-75127/

Facebook: a Forum for Perverts? By Chris Johnson

In a dark corner of the internet, perverts and scumbags swap trophies of their sexual conquests of innocent children and infants. Pictures and videos of rape and incest are uploaded and discussed, like some kind of sick social club.

While it may not be surprising that such a community exists on the internet, the forum they use to exchange their disgusting memorabilia is very surprising – Facebook.

After an exposé  by Chelsea Schilling on World Net Daily (WND.com), increasing attention has been brought to the popular social site’s disturbing denizens and the ways in which Facebook deals with them.

Schilling shares the method she used to uncover what she calls “the dark underbelly of Facebook.”

 

“As part of an undercover news investigation, WND used alias Facebook profiles and located dozens of child-porn images after “friending” many likely pedophiles and predators who trade thousands of pornographic photos on the social network.

 

During the investigation, entire Facebook predator communities were easily spotted. Child pornographers use groups as meet-up points to find others with similar interests. Many of the offenders would list similar interests on their profile pages, including terms such as “Thirteen,” “Lolita,” “Justin Bieber,” “incest” and “PTHC (preteen hard-core pornography).” Their activities might include “Receiving nude pics,” and they subscribe to explicit Facebook fan pages posted in plain sight…

 

The following are actual groups and ‘likes’ currently and/or previously available to site users around the world:

 

Kidsex Young Preteen Lesbians 10-17 Teen Bisexual Incest (2,119 “likes” on April 19, 2012) PTHC (preteen hard-core pornography) 12 to 13 Boy Sex Young Gay Pics and Movie Trade Gangbanging Hot and Teen Lesbians Bl-wjob Fan Page (1,662 likes on April 20, 2012, mostly girls, some young-looking teens) Young Lesbians Teen Sex Love Little Kids”

Schilling’s WND article contains graphic descriptions of some of the images found during their investigation as well as screenshots which have been blurred to protect both the subject of the photos and the readers.

Needless to say, these images and descriptions are still disturbing and we will not be reposting them.

Facebook, then has some questions to answer. Are they aware of the problem? What are they doing to prevent it? Do they continue to look for new ways to block these materials from their site?

After the publication of Schillings article, Facebook released the following statement:

 

“Nothing is more important to Facebook than the safety of the people that use our site and this material has absolutely no place on Facebook. We have zero tolerance for child pornography being uploaded onto Facebook and are extremely aggressive in preventing and removing child exploitive content. We scan every photo that is uploaded to the site using PhotoDNA to ensure that this illicit material can’t be distributed and we report all instances of exploitative content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. We’ve built complex technical systems that either block the creation of this content, including in private groups, or flag it for quick review by our team of investigations professionals.

 

We’ve worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the New York State Attorney General’s Office in the U.S., as well as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in the U.K., to use known databases of child exploitive material to improve our detection and bring those responsible to justice.

We feel we’ve created a much safer environment on Facebook than exists off-line, where people can share this disgusting material in the privacy of their own homes without anyone watching. However, we’re constantly refining and improving our systems and processes and building upon our relationships with NCMEC and law enforcement agencies specializing in child protection to create an even safer space.”

 

 

It’s a pretty strong statement, but the fact remains that this garbage is still on Facebook, so the company is clearly not doing enough to prevent it. Until the time comes when Facebook has purged these groups and images from its network – as difficult as that may be – the company’s efforts are unacceptable and incomplete.

It’s alarming enough that this material is present on a forum that has become a normal part of life for almost a billion users worldwide, but news from New York sheds brighter light on child pornography’s shifting place in society.

The state’s top court ruled that, under state law, the viewing of child pornography was completely legal. The five judges agreed on this point unanimously.

A piece by New York Post columnist Thomas Fleming expresses the point well.

 

“…[I]f weird and perverse pornography has to be tolerated, it is not because we tolerate everything. Quite the contrary, in the Anglo-Sphere there has never been so little toleration of dissent and so much power to impose conformity! No, we tolerate this filth because we either approve of it or cannot figure out any rational grounds on which to regulate it – so long as no-one is harmed.”

It’s just plain pitiful when a society can’t think of “rational grounds” to prevent its members from exploiting children for sexual gratification.

Add to these news pieces the rash of stories about teachers having sex with underage students, or the FBI agent busted for having child porn on his computer – this crap is not as unheard of as it used to be or should be. It’s easing its way into daily life and while it may still make most people cringe, it may not make us all cringe quite as much as it used to.

As Thomas Fleming notes in his article, “the future lies with countries like the Netherlands, where the age of consent is 16 but children of 12 may have consensual sex with anyone 16 or younger.”

It may seem unlikely now, but what’s to stop it when a culture has no moral anchor? Any perversion can and will be rationalized.

http://www.americandecency.org/archives/facebook-a-forum-for-perverts/#more-6676

The President’s ‘Other Gospel’

It is one thing to talk about “fairness” when it comes to allowing gays and lesbians to marry; it is quite another to claim biblical authority for such relationships.

President Obama cited the “Golden Rule” about treating others as you would like to be treated, but in doing so he ignored the totality of Scripture and the Lord Himself, who alone gets to set the rules for human behavior.

The president says he is a “practicing Christian.” It is difficult to be one while simultaneously holding a low view of the Bible, which his position on several social issues might suggest.

The same Book that informs him about the Person he told Pastor Rick Warren in 2008 is his “Savior,” also speaks to the beginning of human life (he has done nothing to limit abortions), fornication between adults of the opposite sex (no word yet on his position on that subject), marriage, and adultery, which the Seventh Commandment and New Testament passages condemn.

I recently wrote that it is becoming increasingly difficult for people who believe the Bible is God’s Word to impose their beliefs on those who disagree with them. But it is something altogether different for those who disagree to claim the Bible doesn’t say what it says, in effect calling God a liar. President Obama apparently hopes there are sufficient numbers of biblical illiterates — and he could be right about this — that either won’t notice his sleight of hand, or don’t care.

Thousands of years of human history have sustained marriage between one man and one woman. Even human biology testifies to a natural order.

Genesis 2:24 says “…a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. The two shall become one flesh.” Jesus, Whom President Obama likes to selectively quote when it suits his earthly political agenda, honored traditional marriage at a wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1). He also reaffirmed the Genesis passage in Matthew 19:5.

Paul, the Apostle of Jesus, wrote in Ephesians 5 about husbands and wives, male and female.

Scripture teaches that the marriage union between a man and woman is an illustration of how Christ and the church are one (Ephesians 5:32). It also teaches that since God made us, conceived of marriage and created sex to be enjoyed within the marital bond, He gets to set the rules and establish the boundaries for human behavior, not because He is a curmudgeon who wants to deny us pleasure, but because He knows what is best for us.

Liberal theologians have tried to modify, or even change, what is contained in the Bible and there are those in our time who are following their example with the issue of same-sex marriage. People are free to accept or reject what Scripture says. What they are not free to do is to claim it says something it does not. In modern times that’s called “spin.” In an earlier time it was called heresy.

The Apostle John warns in Revelation 22:18-19 about the punishment awaiting anyone who adds to, or subtracts from Scripture. Deuteronomy 4:1-2 has a similar warning. The consequences aren’t pretty. There are also warnings not to preach “another Gospel” (Galatians 1:8, 2 Corinthians 11:4, among others).

As he seeks to justify his position on same-sex marriage and other issues that are either questionable at best, or deny Scripture at worst, President Obama might be said to be preaching another gospel. This could possibly lead to a fissure in his solid support among African Americans, costing the president votes in November. It will also likely galvanize the culture warriors. Minorities mostly vote for Democrats, but they don’t like their faith denied. That could cause some of them to stay home on Election Day, or even vote for Mitt Romney.

The negative reaction the president received from some of the African-American ministers he called last week after declaring his support for same-sex marriage should serve as a prophetic warning.

Cal  Thomas

Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the book, “Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America“.

http://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2012/05/17/the_presidents_other_gospel/page/full/

Moral, Now the Story

As a child, I was a voracious reader, mostly of fiction. I would read during class, during lunch, during the bus ride. When I was reading, I was not part of my boring normal life, but part of a deeper, more compelling story.

Fiction has the ability to transport the reader into a different world. The same holds true for movies and television shows. Stories of all types capture our attention and imagination. Even news is told in story fashion. Sports coverage includes the backstories of the athletes to draw us into the narrative of the event.

When we talk, we trade information with friends, often through story form: “Let me tell you what,” or, “Can you believe that?”

Even how we view our own lives is a storyline. More often we are the protagonists, the people who are battling against the forces of evil and becoming stronger and better through the process. According to Jonathan Gottschall, author of “The Storytelling Animal,” “we are, as a species, addicted to story.”

But not all stories are real. For instance: The Obama-Biden campaign recently rolled out a story about Julia, a made-up woman. Titled “The Life of Julia,” it is billed as a way to “take a look at how President Obama’s policies help one woman over her lifetime — and how Mitt Romany would change her story.”

The moral of the story given to us at the end of the slide show is: “From cracking down on gender discrimination in health care costs to fighting for equal pay, President Obama is standing up for women throughout their lives.”

The story promises a nanny state where the government is the one that makes sure people, in this case women, are cared for and happy.

In his newest book, “The Road to Freedom,” Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, lays out the opposite moral argument. It is in favor of the free enterprise system and against government control.

The choice he describes is between two versions of America. One where “government will restart our economy with more stimulus, more taxes and more borrowing. Morally, the government holds the secret to fairness through more income redistribution and taxation of the wealthy. The government will lift up the poor and the disadvantaged. We need government programs in order to pursue our happiness.” Think Julia.

The second version is the belief that “the key to our success lies in free enterprise — the system our Founders left us to maximize liberty, create individual opportunity and reward entrepreneurship. Free enterprise creates the opportunity our ancestors came to America seeking — the opportunities that allowed them to pursue their happiness in a new land.”

The opposite belief system from Obama-Biden and convincing to me (but then I’m a conservative).

Brooks writes that the argument for the free enterprise system must be based on what is moral to be won. “Free enterprise teaches us to earn success, not learn helplessness. It rewards merit, which is the fair thing to do. And in the end, it is the only system that can improve the lives of literally billions of poor people — here and around the world.”

If Brooks is correct, then why is President Obama currently in the lead?

According to a Gallup poll released Tuesday, “56 percent of Americans think Barack Obama will win the 2012 presidential election, compared with 36 percent who think Mitt Romney will win.”

This is in contrast to a poll released by Gallup last Thursday where “registered voters are more likely to say Mitt Romney, if elected president, would do a very good or good job of handling the economy than they are to say President Obama would, if re-elected — 61 percent vs. 52 percent.”

Brooks’ argument is right, and compelling, but the America people are responding to story more than the moral argument.

Gottschall noted in his book that “if you want a message to burrow into a human mind, work it into a story.” Fiction is more than fiction; it is a way to teach morals. “In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence.”

The moral of this column: Conservatives have to do more than make the moral argument; they have to be able to share stories, connect emotionally and persuade through more than evidence and argument

Jackie Gingrich Cushman

Jackie Gingrich Cushman is a speaker, syndicated columnist, socialpreneur, and author of “The Essential American: 25 Documents and Speeches Every American Should Own,” and co-author of “The 5 Principles for a Successful Life: From Our Family to Yours”.

http://townhall.com/columnists/jackiegingrichcushman/2012/05/17/moral_now_the_story/page/full/

God NEVER Gives Up!

“God manages perfectly, day and night, year in and year out, the movements of the stars, the wheeling of the planets, the staggering coordination of events that goes on the molecular level in order to hold things together. There is no doubt that He can manage the timing of my days and weeks.” – Elisabeth Elliot

• Throughout time, though God’s people often forgot their God, God didn’t forget them. He kept his word.
• God didn’t give up. He never gives up. When Joseph was dropped into a pit by his own brothers, God didn’t give up.
• When Moses said, “Here I am, send Aaron,” God didn’t give up.
• When the delivered Israelites wanted Egyptian slavery instead of milk and honey, God didn’t give up.
• When Aaron was making a false god at the very moment Moses was with the true God, God didn’t give up.
• When only two of the ten spies thought the Creator was powerful enough to deliver the created, God didn’t give up.
• When Samson whispered to Delilah, when Saul roared after David, when David schemed against Uriah, God didn’t give up.
• When God’s word lay forgotten and man’s idols stood glistening, God didn’t give up.
• When the children of Israel were taken into captivity, God didn’t give up.
• He could have given up. He could have turned his back. He could have walked away from the wretched mess, but he didn’t.
• He didn’t give up.
• When he became flesh and was the victim of an assassination attempt before he was two years old, he didn’t give up.
• When the people from his own home town tried to push him over a cliff; he didn’t give up.
• When his brothers ridiculed him, he didn’t give up.
• When he was accused of blaspheming God by people who didn’t fear God, he didn’t give up.
• When Peter worshiped him at the supper and cursed him at the fire, he didn’t give up.
• When people spat in his face, he didn’t spit back. When the bystanders slapped him, he didn’t slap them. When a whip ripped his sides, he didn’t turn and command the awaiting angels to stuff that whip down that soldier’s throat.
• And when human hands fastened the divine hands to a cross with spikes, it wasn’t the soldiers who held the hands of Jesus steady. It was God who held them steady. For those wounded hands were the same invisible hands that had carried the firepot and the torch two thousand years earlier. They were the same hands that had brought light into Abram’s thick and dreadful darkness. They had come to do it again.
• So, the next time doubt walks in, escort him out. Out to the hill. Out to Calvary. Out to the cross where, with holy blood, the hand that carried the flame wrote the promise, “God would give up his only son before he’d give up on you.”

[ by: Max Lucado - received from Chris Long at 'Laugh & Lift' (www.laughandlift.com) ]

A Living Parable

Lurking fears.  They’re illogical–perhaps.  But they’re also undeniable!

I watched a father and his two small daughters at play.  He’s in the water; one of them jumps into his arms.  The dry one gleefully watches her sister leap.  She dances up and down as the other splashes.  But when her dad invites her to do the same, she shakes her head and backs away.  A living parable!

How many people spend life on the edge of the pool?  Consulting caution.  Ignoring faith.  Never taking the plunge.  They’re content to experience life vicariously through others.  For fear of the worst, they never enjoy life at its best.

http://www.maxlucado.com/articles/daily/fear_is_an_option/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MaxLucado_EverydayMax+Lucado+Daily%3A+Everyday+Blessings#When:06:01:58Z

‘Doe’ describes odd twist in landmark abortion case #OneNewsNow.com#

‘Doe’ describes odd twist in landmark abortion case #OneNewsNow.com#.

Tenn. sex-ed more focused on abstinence (OneNewsNow.com)

Tenn. sex-ed more focused on abstinence (OneNewsNow.com).

His Ascension and Our Access

It came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven —Luke 24:51

We have no experiences in our lives that correspond to the events in our Lord’s life after the transfiguration. From that moment forward His life was altogether substitutionary. Up to the time of the transfiguration, He had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man. But from the transfiguration forward— Gethsemane, the Cross, the resurrection— everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to anyone, and by His ascension our Lord entered heaven, keeping the door open for humanity.

The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.

The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God— He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ deliberately limited His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But now they are His in absolute, full power. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ now has all the power at the throne of God. From His ascension forward He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

http://utmost.org/his-ascension-and-our-access/