Challenge Pride? Does anyone dare in the times we’re living through? If there’s one social issue that dominates western society today, it’s the issue of LGBT or increasingly LGBTQIAPK (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Polygamous/polyamorous, Kink)! I’ll use LGBT for convenience! To say that the LGBT agenda is in your face would be a rather large understatement! Whether it’s the news, soap operas, documentaries, school curriculums, equal opportunity policies, political parties, the military, sections of the church – no part of society is exempt from the drive to get everyone to rejoice in the cause. Last week while watching a sermon on YouTube, a LGBT rainbow flag appeared in the top left hand corner. When I clicked on the link, I was taken to a piece about how YouTube supports the LGBT community and their right to express their love in the way that is true to how they are. Below were videos of people of the same sex kissing one another and videos of pride parades around the world. Then yesterday after logging out of my bank account, the whole screen was filled with the rainbow flag with a line announcing that the bank was a keen supporter of Pride.
So we’ve reached the point where to agree and celebrate means that you’re admitted into the ranks of the right-thinking and enlightened. Disagree, and be despised as a hater and a bigot. In some contexts your job might be on the line. In the so-called age of tolerance, little if any tolerance is afforded to people who express doubts. Let me offer a few diverse reflections on the LGBT issue, focusing particularly upon the worldview matters involved. Please understand that in this piece I am not dealing with what the Biblical texts say about the LGBT agenda nor the pastoral issues involved. To explore those issues in more detail I highly recommend Sam Allberry’s little book Is God Anti-Gay? Today I sense that we have been so impacted by our culture, that saying or writing anything on this issue that fails to sound deeply sympathetic to people with same-sex attraction or a gender identity crisis can immediately be deemed offensive. The problem in that climate is that there’s a danger that we fail to achieve any thoughtful objectivity on the matter.
Throughout what I write, I work with the assumption that God’s Word prohibits all sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage. I am also deeply committed to showing love and compassion to people who express feelings of same-sex attraction or who want to change their gender designation. But love and compassion is not always expressed through agreement. The gospel is the power of God for all people, and where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.
(1) Clear Heads
As Christians we need to think clearly about the LGBT issue. Those who see it as peripheral – or worse, acquiesce to its demands – forget that its adoption by our societies signifies something much deeper than the agenda itself. To my mind acceptance of the LGBT agenda represents a stark rejection of Scriptural revelation as having any validity or authority over us; only by interpretative gymnastics can it be claimed that the Bible fails to speak clearly against this agenda. But the issue goes even deeper than Scriptural authority. What the emerging view of sexuality represents is nothing less than a paradigm shift in how we understand the nature of reality and human existence. Or to put it another way, if you’ve successfully changed a society’s view of sexuality, you must have changed the way it understands just about everything else. This issue is huge: the acceptance of homosexuality and transgender, and then confidently labelling them normal has only been possible due to the wholesale rejection of the Judeo-Christian beliefs that Western societies were historically built upon. Accept the LGBT agenda and to all intents and purposes you’re affirming the creed of secularism. American theologian, RC Sproul speaking on his side of the Atlantic, says that the greatest revolution that’s come to America is not the American revolution, not the industrial revolution but the sexual revolution[1]. It’s for this reason that we need to think clearly about this issue and why we can’t afford to ignore it. Massive things are at stake.
(2) Supporting Beliefs
Watching the news coverage of London Pride this last weekend reminded me of how much UK society has changed during the last 30 years. My father, who is 83, speaks of a cultural revolution having occurred within his lifetime. We think of the Cultural Revolution in China under Mao when we hear that term, but the west has also experienced a revolution in its culture, albeit of a different kind. We can trace its origins back to the 1960s perhaps, but it’s hard to dispute that in the period since then beliefs that derive from Christianity have been challenged, mocked and uprooted. These beliefs have been replaced by secular ones and it’s these that have given the LGBT agenda the traction it has needed to get widespread acceptance. So what are these new beliefs? Well here are a few pointers:
(a) This world can no longer be seen as the creation of God; it is not defined by God and not accountable to God. No longer is it, ‘In the beginning God created’; now it’s, ‘In the beginning matter’. The Trinity is now, the rock, the clock and the dice (matter, time and chance).
(b) Human beings are little more than highly evolved pond-slime. We are not creatures made in God’s image but are free to define ourselves in any way we see fit.
(c) God has not spoken through Scripture, nor the incarnation. Truth and wisdom are a human invention, and are constantly evolving through human debate and progress.
(d) Our bodies are not created nor designed for a purpose and our biology is not an indication of how they are to function sexually. Instead the human body is merely raw material upon which we impose our preferences and choices.
(e) There is no law from God, nor divine blueprint for how we are to live. Instead we should always be true to ourselves and follow our hearts wherever they take us, so long as no one else gets harmed along the way. Promoting and massaging our self-defined needs is perhaps the fundamental aim of life. This attitude is applied with greatest rigour in the arena of human sexuality.
(f) There is no such thing as sin and no fear of God in the land.
Hopefully, setting out some of our societies’ beliefs in this way goes some way to explaining why Christians now face such hatred when we affirm a Biblical view of sexuality and marriage. Not only are we seen as trying to uphold to an outdated view of the world with all the limits on freedom that that supposedly imposes, but since happiness comes through self-expressed choice, we are seen as wanting to deny happiness to people with same-sex attraction or a gender identity crisis. Let me put this another way: for the Bible-believing Christian, sexual freedom is one part of what’s wrong with the world. For many people today however, sexual freedom and expression are part of the solution to what’s wrong with the world: they offer excitement and mystery in times where such things are hard to come by.
Setting out the beliefs of western societies is also a reminder that we believers need to contend for a Christian worldview. It’s the fundamental beliefs of our societies that need to be challenged and shown to be inadequate explanations for our world. Fight on the abortion front or the homosexual front and it’s likely you won’t get anywhere. Establish the validity and reasonableness of the Christian worldview, and your opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage suddenly become credible.
(3) This is a spiritual battle
One of the things we need to think about is the power of the LGBT Agenda. How is it that in the last thirty years or so the issue of gay rights has gained a power and momentum out of proportion to its significance in the great scheme of things? How do we explain the vast amounts of money committed to the cause; the political backing now from across all parties; the mind and word games used to silence opponents and demonise them? I for one am persuaded that this is a spiritual battle. This is so much more than a battle with flesh and blood (to use the Apostle Paul’s language); it’s a battle with principalities and powers that seek to destroy the knowledge of God on the earth.
Not only is the emerging view of sexuality an attack upon God via the challenging of His created order, but it’s also an attack on the gospel story itself. Fewer things are more sacred to God than sexuality; in it the story of Christ and his church is told. No wonder it’s here that Satan puts his energies and those on earth who do his bidding have almost supernatural strength and insight to achieve their ends. That means that for believers, not only must we teach truth from our pulpits but we must make these matters prayer priorities. Collectively, the church must wage war through intercession. It also means that we must think very hard about who and what our children our being exposed to, lest their vulnerable minds be brainwashed by the secular agenda.
(4) Believing Lies
When we clear away all the mirrors, smoke-screens and the, ‘you’re not allowed to say that’ creed, there’s no getting away from it: the adoption of today’s sexual agenda is nothing less than the incorporation of a lie into society. It’s a lie of physiology, of genetics and therefore of nature, to say nothing of theology. The idea that we can ignore our biology and designate ourselves any way that we want to, has only become believable after being fed postmodern propaganda for several decades (ie there is no reality; everything is fluid; everyone’s truth is different). To my mind the LGBT agenda needs to be seen as nothing less than an attempt to cut ourselves off from reality and establish the human will as the only valid tool necessary to define what we are and what we will be. For example, we have the biology of a male, but feel we’re female, so through an act of will we believe we can reassign our gender. What we’re saying is that our wills have the power to override all other ways of understanding who and what we are. My question is, is this really sustainable? Can we maintain human society in the longer term using that kind of life-philosophy? I doubt it.
Let’s shift slightly onto the subject of marriage. Listen to the words of Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
“An ignorant man who is not foolish enough to meddle with his clock is sufficiently confident to think that he can safely take to pieces and put together at his leisure a moral machine of another guise”.[2]
When we apply Burke’s comment to the legal redefinition of marriage that has occurred in almost every western nation during the last five years, Burke is saying something really profound. He’s making the point that even a foolish man wouldn’t dare dismantle his clock, thinking that he can make it work better. But – ignorant of far greater complexities than his clock – he might be willing to set to work reordering some moral foundation of society, marriage in our case.
This has exactly been our approach to marriage: after just a few hours of debate, our elected representatives believe themselves capable of reconfiguring an institution that has been the foundation of just about every civilization in history. We might ask firstly, ‘Have they any idea what they’re doing’ and secondly ‘Does our generation have the right to take that kind of decision when we have no idea what the long term consequences of our actions will be for future generations?’
(5) Liberty is on the line on this Issue
In the UK, last Saturday’s London Pride parade centred on the celebration of 60 years since the legalisation of homosexual acts. Although I’m far away from London, through the miracle of cyberspace, I sought to pick up some of the mood surrounding the parade. I think it would be true to say that what occurs in Pride events around the world is much more than a celebration. It’s also a collective act of defiance, challenging anyone who dares to suggest that their life styles are wrong. Amazingly of course large sections of the media seem to assist them with this agenda. In spite of vast amounts of energy devoted to the promotion of the LGBT cause, dissenters are afforded little room for putting across any other perspective.
Whether it’s 1930s Germany or the post-war McCarthy era in the United States, history teaches us that situations that prevent dissenters from having a voice are highly dangerous. Herding people into one way of thinking through propaganda, blackmail and bullying always undermines a free society. And it’s for that reason that Christians can expect plenty of grief in the years to come. The former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron – a Christian -discovered this to his cost during the recent election campaign. The way he was hounded and vilified for saying that he thought gay sex was sinful was disgraceful if predictable.
Societies don’t like dissenters. Historically though, mature societies have come to realise that dissent has an important role to play; the trendy or majority view may not be correct. Sadly, dissenters in the West today are not admired for having the courage to think differently or because they’re loyal to their principles (as we might have hoped). In this context, they’re labelled enemies, people opposed to progress and the progressive society.
(6) No road to freedom
The bus in the picture has the destination ‘freedom’. This is the great irony of what used to be called the ‘gay liberation movement’; there is no freedom in a lifestyle that contradicts our Creator’s design and takes pride in sin. In the final analysis, God defines human sexuality; it is determined by Him, underwritten by Him and it is not up to us to redefine. When we speak to people, we need to try and get this across. We don’t challenge homosexual acts because we’re homophobic, we do so because they go against the way God has designed us and are therefore in the end always destructive to human well being. The destination is never freedom.
In finishing I will offer two quotes that I find helpful. Both offer advice on how we might respond to people in conversations about the LGBT agenda.
(a) Turning the tables on intolerance
Greg Koukl writes these helpful words:
“If you’re placed in a situation where you suspect your convictions will be labelled intolerant, bigoted, narrow-minded, and judgmental, turn the tables. When someone asks for your personal views about a moral issue-homosexuality, for example, preface your remarks with a question. You say: “You know, this is actually a very personal question you’re asking, and I’d be glad to answer. But before I do, I want to know if you consider yourself a tolerant person or an intolerant person. Is it safe to give my opinion, or are you going to judge me for my point of view? Do you respect diverse ideas, or do you condemn others for convictions that differ from yours?” Let them answer. If they say they’re tolerant (which they probably will), then when you give your point of view it’s going to be very difficult for them to call you intolerant or judgmental without looking guilty, too. This response capitalizes on the fact that there’s no morally neutral ground. Everybody has a point of view they think is right and everybody judges at some point or another. The Christian gets pigeon-holed as the judgmental one, but everyone else is judging, too. It’s an inescapable consequence of believing in any kind of morality.”
http://www.alwaysbeready.com/22-apologeticquote/239-apologetic-quote-greg-koukl-homosexuality
(b) Connecting race and sexuality
Ravi Zacharias (who is always worth watching on YouTube) once explained how a lady asked why Christians were rightly opposed to racism and yet so against homosexuality. The answer he gave that lady is quite brilliant:
“Why is racism wrong? Race is something sacred and we dare not violate it. We’re not allowed to undermine that is God given. But by the same token so is our sexuality. It is God-given and sacred and we’re not allowed to violate it. Here’s the question: how do you sacralise the one and desacralize the other? Sex is a sacred gift from God and I can no more justify an aberration of it in the life of someone than I can justify condemning someone for the colour of their skin.”
You can watch the whole answer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPYRXop7aPA
[1] http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/revolution-enslaves/
[2] Reflections on the Revolution in France, p301.
First published on Challenging Thinking on 2017-07-14. Reproduced here in the CWT essay archive without style or semantic changes.