RE: Student Examines Homosexuality on Campus

This is a letter submitted to a series of articles that were written in the Southwest Baptist University Omnibus. Following is a response letter to go with it from one of the faculty. Very well done and well written.

Athosxc
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RE: Student Examines Homosexuality on Campus

Issue date: 5/11/07 Section: Letters to the editor
SBU Omnibus: student newspaper
Author: Unknown
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Are we preparing Christians who can bear witness to the truth in this post-modern culture where every man has become a law unto himself? I believe we must examine ourselves (II Cor. 13:5) and ask, "Are we?" as in are we followers of Christ. I don't mean have we mentally ascribed to the idea of salvation, but rather have we "come after" Jesus Christ the Lord.This seems to be the real question facing Southwest Baptist University. The issue of sexual purity (irrespective of the particular perversion) is deemed by some as divisive, but perhaps it is the calling out for public declaration before men for those who are not ashamed to clarify with the Word of God instead of pacifying with the word of man (Matt 10:32-34).The decisiveness of this hour goes far beyond this campus to the effectual witness we at SBU have in a world that is radically opposed to following Jesus Christ. To further the question outside a university policy, I think it necessary to begin by questioning our premises concerning this debate and addressing the issue of sexual purity v. homosexuality on the idea of creative design and the concept of moral choice.1. Does man have a created design? Or is man simply a product of impulses, and impersonal forces which shape man?2. Does man have the ability to be free (moral choice) from the "law of his members," or is he subject to be ruled by them; destined/ fated to fulfill the passions of the flesh without recourse or ability to subject his passions to the laws of creator God?I choose (exercise my freedom/ liberty) to believe that man has a created design, that man is of immeasurable worth, bearing the image of the creator. Thus, as regenerated, new creations in Christ Jesus, we bear not the image of man, but rather of God (Mark 12:16-17). Further, that because of that creative stamp, I must adhere to the creative authority, accepting both the privileges and responsibilities that separate conscience driven humans from instinctive driven animals. To do otherwise is to determine human worth based upon humanistic criteria and to hold as paramount individual authority, a supposition which leads to lawlessness. In essence, we are imitators of Jesus the Christ, and as such we have the ability to choose to follow the commandments given us within scripture. Some will say, I can follow my own desires and still be a follower of Christ. In contrast, Jesus said he bound himself to the commandments of God and that those who loved him would likewise obey the commandments (John 14:15-31). Some will argue that this premise is arguing for the law; I would encourage the reading of the "law of faith" (Rom. 3:27), and the "law of liberty" (James 1:25) in deed we are "dead to the law" while being alive to live as Christ (Rom. 13:8-10); (Gal 5:14-21).

Biblical FoundationAny argument has a conceptual underpinning or philosophical basis. Thus my premises rely on a biblical foundation in principle and a call to the Christian life in particular. In Luke 9:23, Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."To paraphrase Mathew Henry, we must in essence prefer the salvation of our souls to the pleasing of the flesh. Luke continues recording Jesus words in verses 24-27 with " For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels." In essence in battle between the soul and the flesh we must observe "Animus cujusque is est quisque"-the soul is the man.The call of the Savior is clear and scripture is replete with references to sexual morality. Paul's letter to the Romans, Jude, Timothy, Leviticus, are only a few places where God's expectations for man are listed. From Genesis to Revelations the Creator's design is clearly communicated to his people. Many will reject God's authority, as recording in II Timothy 3:5 where Paul writes that many will have "a form of godliness but denying it's power." To them the gospel has no authority over their lives and no power to enable man to exercise freedom, personal sovereignty, or choice with regard to the flesh, instead they have become subject to the flesh. No reasonable man can accept scriptural authority and reject God's standard on sexual purity.Philosophical Foundation--1st Amendment and Free ExerciseUnfortunately there are those both inside and outside the church who deny biblical authority over their lives, and in the process are denying biblical authority over our lives as well. For them we must be ready to examine this issue within the context of natural rights, God-given rights, and freedom/ liberty which provide the foundation of this country. The 1st amendment guarantees the "free exercise" of religious beliefs. This guarantee is being replaced with the Gnostic idea "believe what you want, but act only in private." This perverted idea dictates that although we are benefactors of the 1st amendment we may not converse with one another according to our expectations of moral behavior. The loss of moral accountability seems to free everyone to become a law unto themselves, but is in fact the trappings of self-imposed slavery of ourselves to our passions, and ultimately to anyone (ask Sampson) who controls those passions. Instead of love, we are confined to anger, jealousy, strife, and a multitude of inclinations which we now bow to, acknowledging their power over us by means of our cravings. We have become slaves to the very cultural idols that promised us freedom. Liberty, the rule of law, and holy living for the Christian become vestiges of a forgotten life, swallowed by the selfishness of living on cheap grace.
The "separations of church and state" doctrine (or rather indoctrination) is in essence the masquerading of the secularization of the United States within the guise of civil (individual) rights. Christians would be well advised to read Jefferson's response to the Danbury Baptist from which secularists have contrived this wedge to divide moral consciousness from the political realm. Once again we fall prey to the Gnostics within the church and the Secularists without. We cannot legislate morality they say, yet inherent within legislation is the concept of "law" which necessitates a judgment of right and wrong. Justice is the guardian of liberty, and without justice (right and wrong) we are left to the tyranny of social reconstruction. When we divorce morality from legislation we place ourselves at the whims of the politically elite, and we forgo our God-given rights so beautifully articulated within the Declaration of Independence. To paraphrase Lincoln, may this nation so conceived in liberty not perish from the earth; but as goes liberty replaced by license, so goes the country.To accept this notion of separation of Church (we really mean religion, morality, and anything that would restrain evil desires) and State (we really we the sovereignty of the people to "exercise" their faith in the public realm) is to acquiesce to the very adversary of liberty. Where there is no God, no transcendent truth, there is left no morality, and no conscience outside our self-assuming and ultimately self-consuming truth. If the creator does not exist, then we hold these truths to be no longer evident, and men are no longer created equal. We stand to lose those natural, God-given rights that included life (lost to abortion/ euthanasia), liberty (lost to lasciviousness), and property rights (lost to socialism). We mortgage the future of our posterity by robbing it of its most precious gift, the gift of our humanity from the Creator and before the Creator. We no longer have the freedom to choose or to be morally responsible, but instead have succumbed to the lesser angels of our nature.

Resulting Societal ImplicationsThe children of this society who are left with the results of this base philosophy and subsequent epidemic of promiscuity are most affected by the false teaching that humans are divorced from the responsibilities of liberty and the capability of self-control and moral choice. If our response to the "warring of our members" is that we have no choice, no self-discipline, and that we must yield to every temptation (for to not yield is to acknowledge self-control), we are ultimately left with no hope for humankind.This false teaching of genetic subjection, equally poses and intellectual quandary for "safe-sex advocates" in that one would reason that any efforts to modify promiscuous behavior would be doomed to the failure of self-control. If mans behaviors are not obedient to the great tenets of the Christian faith, then the delusion of self-restraint must by necessity also apply to the social engineering of safe practices, and must ultimately lead to the opening of the Pandora's box of every kind of sexual deviance, sliding this nation into a moral abyss from which history records societies never return. This is a culture war in which many Christians are standing on the side in an attempt to appease the enemy of our souls.
What about Christian Compassion, Mercy, and Grace?Many will counter that this position is uncompassionate, I would contend that compassion, mercy, and grace without justice, are simply cruel tormentors which allow sinners to sink into the abyss of sin, both in the temporal reality and in the eternal certainty. We have embraced the deception of compassion, cloaked in the skin of truth, but generations of children will be denied the comfort of fidelity within the confines of biblical marriage because we have placated the social engineers of our day in fear of being judgmental. This kind of compassion, which is no compassion at all, refuses to recognize that there is a way that seems right to a man, but leads only to death. A death that includes physical, emotional, and spiritual consequences stemming from a misguided compassion that pities the victim while watching him sink in the slough of moral decay.

Is loving someone allowing them to pursue a course of life that we know will end in their destruction? Oh how sweet the honey on a window sill to the fly that wanders by, only to find his pleasure has become his prison as his wings are soaked in the all too temporary ecstasy. Indeed sin is pleasurable for a season, but there is a terrible price to pay for vice. Just ask self-imposed prisoners of lung cancer, alcoholism, and yes sexual immorality. If we love them, we must bear witness and bear burdens, Christian love is reasoned self-denial, not the allowance of self-worship.We must remember, the most serious crimes are not against fleshly desires but rather against the soul. If we err, let us err to the awakening to sin, to consequences, and ultimately to the gospel message of salvation. We must stop convincing lost people they are not lost and that there are no wages to sin. Our motivation must not be to win the war of words, but to engage the culture in the war for the souls of men. Are We?

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Part Deux: By a different Author:

Leviticus 18:22 says, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination" (New King James Version). Romans 1:26-32 says, "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also, the men leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due"(NKJV). The Bible clearly states in these verses and others (Genesis 19, 1Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 4:19-21, Ephesians 5:3-5, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, Jude 7) that God sees homosexual activity as a sin. The deception that has been portrayed upon the world, and that I see in some of the comments in Ben Nielsen's series of articles, is that a person is born as a homosexual. The belief seems to be that it's part of a person's identity, and that they have no choice. But, the Bible says that God created each of us and He is opposed to homosexual activity. So how can we believe that God would create a person to "be" something that he sees as an abomination. Homosexuality is not a "way of being" it is a chosen activity by an individual, and in God's eyes this activity is a sin. Thus we, as Christians, and in particular as a part of an academic community promoting Christian education, have a responsibility to point to God's view of these and other sinful and destructive behaviors. Am I a sinner? Absolutely, and I am saved by the grace of God who gave his son, Jesus, to die for my sin. My first response to God's grace is to realize how God views my sin and agree with Him. If I live my life believing that my sin is just "the way I am" and I am not responsible because there's not anything wrong with it, then I can never experience God's grace in my life. I don't want any student at SBU to be deceived by the world into believing that their sin is really okay in God's eyes and experience the destruction that comes with sin as opposed to experiencing His wonderful grace and love.Bob GlasgowMathematics DepartmentSouthwest Baptist UniversityBolivar, MO 65613(417) 328-1597


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