Off Track on Orientation

The always contentious debate over homosexual orientation has heated up in the news recently in connection with the controversial views of a high-profile U.S. Presidential candidate. If we take a step back, we'll see that the premise of the entire debate is flawed because of our modern prejudices.

The Bible does not discuss sexual orientation not because the writers were ignorant of sexuality but because this concept is a fairly new one tied to another false modern construct: sexual identity.

The Bible presents one model of sexual behavior and that is within the male-female marriage. It paints all other sexual behaviors outside of this model with various degrees of disapprobation. In the New Testament, Jesus takes this further to describe that sexual behaviors begin in the thought processes (Mt. 5:27-30). Thought processes, however, are not the same as orientation/identity. The whole idea is thought processes are behavior.

What's the real orientation of humans? Against God. In the hearts of fallen men and women, "anything goes." Inherent in all individuals is a sliding scale of sexuality — no fixed orientation, no Balkanized identities. Fallen man's only identity is against God. Cultures and societies determine the rest.

The Judeo-Christian model of the monogamous male-female marriage covenant was/is completely anathema to the way the rest of the world worked and works. The civilizing influence of this strict model turned out to be quite successful in preserving the race of humankind and helping it flourish.

The concept of homosexual — and by extension, heterosexual — orientation was based on the errant belief that man is "inherently good" and was a way to shoehorn contra-Biblical behavior into a Biblical framework that seemed right.

Outside of Biblical morals and God-given conscience, it's social conditioning (family, friends, community, society) which shapes people's sexual behavior. That behavior can run the gamut depending on those conditions.

This is a huge topic deserving of more space, but for the moment let's look ahead to the future. What will future generations see? The concept of "orientation" will itself be discarded as outdated and rigid. The dead seeds of "sexual orientation" will be swept away for a more "fluid" sexuality that will not recognize or adhere to any arbitrary divisions. The world has been there before and, on its current track, will return there again.

Desensitization and the Christian

The recent controversy over the beauty pageant contestant from California has led to heated debates on some Christian blogs. The two most salient questions are: one, have today's (conservative) Christians compromised Biblical views on sexual purity; and two, if so, do they realize it? The answer to the first question: yes. The second: they better.

If anything, the controversy holds up a mirror to the current state of Christian churches vis-à-vis sexuality, and the reflection is an unappealing mixture of immaturity, confusion, and willful complacency.

In an unrelated but still relevant article, writer Robin Phillips at Robin's Readings & Reflections addresses the desensitization of Christians to our hyper-sexualized culture. Its repercussions affect not only sexual purity but eventually Biblical worldview as a whole.

How do the edges of our worldview give way in the first place? When they concern standards—the things we say no to—the pattern is usually the same: our standards are surrendered to the degree that we become desensitized to the things we once objected to. When one is saturated in worldly culture, this happens by default unless we actively strive against it. Desensitization occurs when a person is inundated with a flood of offensive material presented in the least offensive fashion possible, so that it seems almost laughable to make a problem out of it.

Read the entire excellent post here. (A note of reminder: as usual, a link is not necessarily a blanket endorsement of a site's views/doctrinal predisposition.)

The Tyrannical Soul

The deadly cocktail of hedonism and crossless compassion has done widespread damage to today's Christian churches. It has shipwrecked people's faith; it has produced grotesque doctrines.

Paul described Moses as "choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. " (Hebrews 11:25, ESV, emphasis added) Sin is always in opposition to faith. It destroys faith and trust in God's farsightedness by appealing to carnality and man's shortsightedness. A tragic exchange.

It turns out the idols of pleasure are never placated, never satisfied. They are merciless taskmasters. They drive their vassals into the ground and into the dust. The hedonist is filled with angst, but he dares not blame his idols of fleeting pleasure. Instead, he sets out to impose his idols on other people and ultimately on the Bible itself. Yet, these efforts are Sisyphean exercises in continual frustration. Relief is always just out of reach.

In the fourth century B.C., Plato wrote about what he called the "tyrannical soul." From The Republic:

Not only is he ill governed within himself, but once misfortune removes him from private life and establishes him in the tyrant’s place, he must try to control others when he cannot control himself. He is like a sick man who is unable to exercise self-restraint yet is not permitted to pass his days in cloistered privacy; instead, he is obliged to engage adversaries in never-ending rivalry and discord....

Then he who is completely the tyrant is completely the slave.

Doesn't that sound a lot like the men and women in positions of influence who demand that society and the Bible be changed to accommodate their dissolute passions?

Faith in Christ offers true, lasting freedom. Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 11 (ESV):

²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Great Joy

It really should be Easter (Resurrection) Sunday every day for born-again Christians.

Christ's finished work on the cross set regenerated believers free from the slavery to sin. Yet it's the kind of freedom that we have difficulty grasping, much less achieving, in practical terms, not for lack of self-discipline, of which there could never be adequately enough in these imperfect bodies, but for lack of faith, which arises from the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are not only justified by grace through faith, we are sanctified by grace through faith.

Jesus sees what we do not see: His completed work in us. If we try to get there by our own energies, by our own desire to do good, even by our own zealousness (remember Peter and the rooster's crow), we will fail. On our own efforts, we may succeed to some degree, possibly more than the unregenerate, but we will still fail. We will know that we have failed. Like the young Moses before his first trip to the wilderness, we are given a heart for the Lord but still stubbornly strive to do His will by our own power. A defeated life, even for a saved life, results.

Victory for Christians is identification with the Risen Christ — His power and His glory forever. Paul writes that we are to live "with Christ" (Romans 6:8) and "by faith in the Son of God." (Galatians 2:20) By living in faith, we trust the Lord to bring us to that objective (sanctification), only in His time and in His way. It is by faith that His will transforms our day-to-day lives.

There is great joy in freedom.

withChrist.org provides many excellent resources for further study on the "identification truths." For a primer, read "Identification History."

Dawn of a Dark Age

Iowa and Vermont recently became the third and fourth states to legalize same-sex marriage in the U.S. In his April 10th blog entry, Albert Mohler asked, "Is Same-Sex Marriage Inevitable?" His answer: a resigned yes.

The tragic absence of moral clarity has catapulted 21st-century society into the abyss. Once de facto homosexual marriages, i.e. so-called civil unions, were approbated, not just legislatively and judicially but also, and especially, in people's mindsets, the endgame was in sight.

Amending the Constitution would appear to be the only route left available to traditional marriage advocates, but this action highlights the one necessarily unavoidable weakness of the Constitution — in order to legislate morality, you need a moral people. As John Quincy Adams wrote, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. "

Blessed are the Meek

Anton Bosch Ministries recently posted a series of excellent pieces on the Beatitudes.

From "Blessed are the Meek":

One of the ways we learn meekness is by taking His yoke upon us and by walking with Him. In so doing we learn meekness from Him. But when we go at things on our own and constantly have to fight circumstances and situations, we become more aggravated and less meek, rather than meeker...

So the question is: Are you more like Jonah, or more like Paul? Have you learnt surrender to the will of God, or does God have to arm-wrestle you every time He wants you to do something? The sad reality is that it is not the Lord who suffers because of our stubbornness – it is us who continue to feel the pain of the goads and the frustration of fighting the very things that should be drawing us to the center of His will.

The meek man has stopped fighting and has discovered the joy and peace of surrender to God’s perfect will.

The "Disproportionate Response"

In today's Daily Mail, Melanie Phillips writes an incisive, impassioned article on the war in Gaza and clears away some of the rotten thinking vis-à-vis Israel that is currently so trendy in the West.

The often-made comparison with IRA terrorism spectacularly misses the point. Hamas actually run Gaza. The equivalent would have been the Irish government firing 6,000 rockets at England.

Does anyone seriously doubt that, in such a hypothetical situation, Britain would have been at war with Ireland long before that total had been reached?

And she cuts down the oft-wailed "disproportionate response" argument:

The main complaint is that Israel’s response is ‘disproportionate’, since some 500 Palestinians have been killed compared with ‘only’ four Israelis since the war started nine days ago.

This is absurd. In World War II, 20 times more civilians were killed in Germany than in Britain. Did that make the war against the Nazis ‘disproportionate’? Of course not.

Click on the link below for the full article:

"Yes, the war in Gaza is terrible. But the alternative was worse - for all of us"