continued from previous post
Bailey’s
second argument was that the rest of the Old Testament, nowhere suggests that
the nature of Sodom’s offense was homosexuality. Instead, Isaiah implies that
it was hypocrisy and social injustice; Jeremiah adultery, deceit and general
wickedness; Ezekiel arrogance, greed and indifference to the poor (Isaiah
1:10-16, Jeremiah 23:14, Ezekiel 16: 49-50).
Bailey
also handled the Gibeah story in (Judges
19: 22-25) the same way. He claimed that the sin of the men of Gibeah was
not their proposal of homosexual intercourse but their violation of the law of
hospitality adding that the Christian tradition about “sodomy” was derived from
the late apocryphal Jewish sources.
But
Stott (1999) opposed Bailey’s argument on the following basis:
·
The adjectives “wicked”, “vile” and
disgraceful” in Genesis and Judges do not seem appropriate to describe a breach
of hospitality.
·
The offer of women instead does look as
if there is a sexual connotation to the episode
·
Although the verb “know” is used only
ten times of sexual intercourse, Bailey omits to mention that six of these
occurrences are in Genesis and one in the Sodom story itself (about Lot’s
daughters, who had not “known” a man, v. 19:8)
Another one, a practical case, is
that of Ikekhuame Egbele, a 25 year-old male model who tied the nuptial knots
with a priest lover in 2010. Tell
magazine reported the shocking event (wedding) which was about to take place at
St John the Baptist Church in Devizes under the headline “Homosexual Priest
Weds Nigerian Male Lover”. The report reads: “Reverend Colin Coward, 65, a
homosexual priest at St John the Baptist Church in Devizes, Wiltshire, England,
has announced plans to marry his Nigerian male model boyfriend, Ikekhuame
Egbele. Coward lives with his gay fiancé in Marston, near Devizes and believes
his marriage would set a “visible example” to other homosexuals within the
church.
Rev. Coward speaking on his proposed gay
marriage said: “My goal is for everyone within the church to feel comfortable
with the situation because at the moment the majority of gay Christians marry
secretly. It is a taboo subject but the church is now under huge pressure to
change its stance and that pressure will only increase in the future. Though he
agreed that many people would view their union as “horror,” Coward however
said, “But we are both deeply committed Christians so it would be unthinkable
for me not to do it in church and not to do it with the congregation and with
all of our friends.”
Rev.
Rowland Macaulay, founder of the gay church in Nigeria, House of Rainbow
Metropolitan Community Church, once made his contact avaliable on a blog to who
ever care to have it. Some other supporters of Macaulay in the blog comment
said, “We are not here telling people anything new, we are only telling them
who we are and that we are children of God. Rev 7:13-14 says, Then one of the elders addressed me, saying,
‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ I said to him,
‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have
come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.―KJV. Those rejected from the church are now robed
in white, they are accepted by God. Romans 9:25-26 "Those who were not my people I will call “my people”, and her who was
not beloved I will call “beloved”. And it shall come to pass that in the very
place where it was said to them, “You are not my people”, there they shall be
called children of the living God.”
Other
gays said “I am gay because God want me that way so I intend therefore to affirm
and indeed celebrate what I am by creation”.
Another
opposing argument goes thus: “Some may even want to argue base on the fact that
throughout the ministration of the Lamb (Christ Jesus) on earth, he never spoke
about or condemned homosexuality and gay marriage. Yes, I agree with that but I
also know that we can’t discern the mind of Christ concerning this issue
excerpt as laid down in the bible. Jesus said: “think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophet: I am not
here to destroy but fulfill” Matthew 5:17 KJV. Simply put, Jesus was
referring to the Mosaic Law contained in the Old Testament.
Aside churches that conduct gay
marriage, there are also the so called “Christian literatures” that encourage
this act with biblical backing. One of such literatures is Gay Christian
101: Spiritual Self Defense for Gay Christian by Rick Brentlinger. The author of the book
said that they (Gay Christians) are a joyful global fellowship of born again gay and
straight Christians on the path of life together. He also added that they are
authentic Bible-believers, swimming against the tide of Bible rejecting
theological liberalism, upholding the truth of God's inerrant, infallible word.
The Bible talks very directly about
homosexuality in sixteen different passages;
ten in the Old Testament (Genesis
13:13; 18:20-21; 19:1, 4-11, 3, 24, 28; Ezekiel 16:49-50; Leviticus 18:22,
20:13, Deuteronomy 23:17-18; Judges 19:22-24; Hosea 9:9; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12;
22:46; 2 Kings 23:7), six in the New Testament (Romans 1:21, 24, 26-27; 1
Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Timothy 1:8-10 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 7; Colossians 3:5-6). Analysing
the above passages in the Bible vis-a-vis the arguments of the homosexuals and
their sympatisers, I believe that the body of Christ should know the mind of
their HEAD concerning this issue and stop twisting the truth.
Does
error become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, or does truth become
error because nobody sees it? ―Mahatma Gandhi If the church could violate her only
Constitution (the Bible) and begin to respect the secular Constitution to
please the intellectual whims of men, then what message does it the church have
for the world? Or should we say the gays
are right? These questions are daring for answers.
