2007-11-05

The GAY and the GOSPEL

John Shuck delights in deleting my comments, no matter how irenic. So if I'm to respond honestly to anything over at Shuck-n-Jive, I have to do it here.

Flycandler, who claims to be an unrepentant homosexual Presbyterian who studies at Candler School of Theology, ponders why we evangelicals in the mainlines can't admit that we really just want to be institutionally homophobic. He implies that, in addressing our grievances about what's wrong in our churches, we can't do it without mentioning THE GAY. (Funny, but I seem to remember history telling a different story about who keeps bringing the issue up.

Anyway, here's what I said:
Anybody ever notice that the Progressives can't bring up justice, the love of Jesus, etc. without also bringing up "THE GAY"?

When we forget the Gospel (succinctly stated in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8), ALL of us get sidelined and tend to major in the minors.
That's the point...we keep getting into each others shorts because we welched on the Gospel. Polity is not going to solve this problem. The only thing that will is repenting and agreeing that the Bible says what God intends for it to say!

3 comments:

Douglas Underhill said...

Oh no! If only there was some way I could repent and also not have to become a biblical literalist! :)

Oh well, I guess instead of repentance I get to participate in modern scholarship in history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, textual criticism, archeology...and all the other demon disciplines that just can't see the light - God wrote a book, and demands that we ignore all the evidence to the contrary!

Presbyman said...

I'd stay out of Shuck's playpen if I were you. Let him and his little acolytes run around screaming and throwing things.

Chris Larimer said...

Doug,

Can you provide some archaeological evidence that shows God didn't (or did!) "write" the Bible? How about a text critical argument? What is it in anthropology or sociology that causes you to reject divine inspiration?

I have an idea, and I don't think it has a lick to do with any of those disciplines. People who are better versed than either of us in these fields have both embraced and rejected the Bible as the infallible rule of faith and practice. This is not now, nor has it ever been, an intellectual problem. It is a volitional problem, an authority problem.

Cry "Bibliolatry" all you want, but it's just not going to hold water so long as your reason and your experience trump the Holy Scriptures as arbiters of truth.