Month: June 2016

It’s a golden opportunity.

After ISIS supporter Omar Mateen savagely shot 102 people in a gay nightclub Sunday morning, local hospitals put out a plea for donated blood to help the survivors–most of whom are probably gay.  Evangelicals should be at the front of the line.

For decades, we have been echoing the Bible that homosexual conduct is evil.  Evil is anything God hates so it is bundled together with things like stealing, idolatry, lust, ethnocentricity (fancy word for racism), gossip, rebellion against authority, etc.  Like we do whenever we speak against evil, we urge people to flee it, to repent.  LGBT forces have responded that this is hate, that to speak against anyone’s choice of “who to love” is homophobic and hateful.  We know–and many of them know, it’s a lie.  Here’s a great chance for evangelical Christians to prove it.  Give them blood to help them live.

As for the killer who apparently acted at least in part on his Islamic convictions, we should not be too quick to write him off as deranged–at least not unless we are willing to saddle God with such a label.  It seems clear that the Prophet Muhammad freely raided the Bible for its material and adapted some he included in the Qur’an.  In Iraq, ISIS forces have been executing homosexuals by throwing them off high roofs.  Did you know that in ancient Israel the penalty for the man who slept with another man, was death? (Leviticus 20:13)  In fact, there are still a few Christians who call on the government to impose this kind of punishment.

But what God was doing in ancient Israel–giving them a specific framework to operate as a religious city-state, was for a season and for a specific people/situation.  That’s why when an adulterous woman was brought to Jesus in an attempt to trap him, he did not call the people to stone her as Israel’s ancient laws demanded.  He first invited her critics to go ahead and stone her if they were without sin.  When that shamed them all into leaving, He–the God who can forgive sins, forgave her.

Recognizing our own sinfulness should enable us to genuinely love gay men and women.  It should enable us to befriend them, invite them to our homes, pray for them, offer them the truth…

And give blood for them.

Since 5 unelected judges last year decided marriage was theirs to define and mandated gay marriage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, this quandary will be faced more and more by people who love Jesus and are invited to weddings of people they care about.

There is understandable fear that sons and daughters, colleagues, and high school friends, will mistake our convictions for condemnation and take our absence as a slap in the face.  Nevertheless, whenever I’m asked the question I reply “No”.  Kevin DeYoung does a far better job than I do at explaining why not.  In this post, he amends a previous one on attending gay weddings that purport to be Christian.  This one provides the same clarity as the first but also answers “But what if the service is completely secular; is it still a bad idea?”  https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/kevindeyoung/2016/06/07/should-i-attend-a-homosexual-wedding-if-the-service-is-completely-secular/