GAY TRUTH

What does the Bible say about homosexuality . An interview with Sean McDowell and Matthew Vines . How did Jesus view sex and marriage? In this video, Sean and Matthew discuss important biblical passages related to the biblical view of homosexuality. Last night I had the opportunity to discuss the Bible and Homosexuality with Matthew Vines. It was hosted by Living Oaks Church as part of their “Get a Grip” series. Here is my opening statement. I normally don't post an article this long, and I rarely write out a speech word-for-word. But here it is nonetheless! My thanks to pastor Jon and the church for hosting this conversation, and my respect to Matthew for being willing to enter into this dialogue at a church that holds the historic Christian view on sex and marriage. I appreciate Jon’s opening statement. This issue is too important to be decided by personality, experience, or likability. Don’t be tempted to believe something because you like me or because you don’t like ...

Australia is in the middle of a debate as to the extent to which religious freedom rights should be accommodated in legislation introducing “same sex marriage” ( SSM ). Those who object to this idea tell us that: Christian conservatives – following the lead of their counterparts in the United States – seek to use freedom of religion to justify discrimination against members of the LGBTQI community . This agenda is now being pursued under the guise of the debate for a marriage equality bill. (“After the yes vote, let’s not remove one inequality and replace it with another” Anja Hilkemeijer, The Guardian online , 22 Nov 2017) The word “discrimination” is a notoriously slippery one, and I would like to challenge the view that recognising religion freedom in changing marriage laws amounts to unjustified discrimination. At the moment the legislation to implement SSM, a Bill introduced in his private capacity by Senator Dean Smith, already recognises a couple of areas where a religiou...

Meet Evan. According to the current edition of Time Magazine , he and his baby are the new frontier in the brave new world same-sex marriage is creating for us. Biologically, Evan is a woman but we are not allowed to call her this. Despite transitioning some years ago to identify as a man, Evan proved her femininity by dialing back the testosterone supplements enough to allow her to fall pregnant. Evan, the woman identifying as a man, recently became the mother of a child through sperm donation. This is because Evan's partner is a woman and despite Evan identifying as a man, the couple were unable to conceive without outside help. For the record, ACL believes donor conception and surrogacy in all its forms is ethically problematic. The photo of the bearded, hairy chested Evan breast feeding his/her baby is confronting. Some things just can't be unseen. I've made another PC faux pas by referencing breast feeding in this context. Time, which celebrates this development as ...

The objection goes something like this: “In the midst of all of your attention to details of various Bible verses, you’ve lost the big picture. The cardinal virtue that Jesus taught His followers was love. If you value love, what’s the problem with two consenting adults making a commitment to each other out of love? Love is love. To insist that homosexuality is sinful and to deny them the right to get married is simply not loving, and therefore not Christian.” So you see how the collective reasoning of the culture paints the Christian into a corner here. Any response which does not fully affirm homosexuality—no matter what the Bible explicitly says about the matter—is hatred, pure and simple. And Jesus calls us to love. And you claim to follow Jesus. So you’re an un-Christian, hypocritical bigot. Love as Unconditional Acceptance But the argument simply doesn’t hold water. And this is the reason: the wisdom of secular society has failed to define love biblically. To our self-indulgent...

Last night,  on a serious Australian current affairs program, Q&A , our current serving Prime Minister, a self-professed Christian, grossly caricatured the Bible . A pastor questioned the PM’s change of mind on same-sex marriage, pointing out that Jesus says, “A man shall leave his father and mother and be married”—summarising  Matthew 19:4-6 —and asked why someone calling himself a Christian does not believe the words of Jesus in the Bible. The PM replied, “Well if I was going to have that view, the Bible also says that slavery is a natural condition.” This received the most enormous applause of the night, which incidentally seems to indicate both the depth of biblical illiteracy and the hostility to Christian morality . As justification, the PM went on to refer to Paul’s instructions—delivered in both  Ephesians 6:5  and  Colossians 3:22 —for slaves to be obedient to their masters. And he suggested on this basis, “we should have all fought fo...

rudd (Photo credit: weldonwk ) Eternity Newspaper  have an interview with the questioner Matt Prater   here  and a transcript of the above scene  here . Elsewhere  Sandy Grant has written an excellent response  to Rudd’s ridiculous claim that “the Bible also says that slavery is a natural condition” (2:26 in the video above). I won’t write more about that except to quote Sandy: I am appalled at how this national leader, publicly claiming “an informed conscience and a Christian conscience”, misrepresented the Holy Book of the faith he confesses, on its teaching on one matter (slavery) to avoid its teaching on another matter (of marriage), in order to justify his abandonment of that biblical teaching. It is naïve in the extreme—just a poor reading strategy—to assume an endorsement of an institution or activity, simply because it is recorded without particular narrative assessment at one point, or because it is regulated—for what might be calle...