One of the arguments for the sudden wholesale acceptance of open homosexuality in the Church (contrary to all holy scripture and millennia of prophetic warnings) is that Christ “never turned anyone away, regardless of who they were or what they did.” That “he was always among the sick and afflicted, because the whole hath no need of a physician.” That “all are invited to come and participate so that we might help each other.” (These are actual quotes defending homosexuality within the church.) So to be like Christ we are supposed to unquestioningly embrace a person’s self-proclaimed homosexuality, period. In this world at this particular time, this must strike us all as a very convenient and comfortable philosophy.
What is wrong with these sound bytes that create such an idyllic picture? Let’s take them one by one.
“Christ never turned anyone away.” False. He cast out devils, he cleansed the temple, he dispatched the rich young man. He castigated the Pharisees and told hypocrites to “depart from me.” Is our understanding of Christ (the Creator and Savior of the Entire Universe) so vaporous and insipid that we think of him only as a camp counselor or massage therapist or cruise director? And do we really think the gospel of Jesus Christ is just about including everybody? If Christ is just about holding hands in a big circle, why does he incessantly call us to repentance? Why does he invite us to change our hearts? Why does he entreat us to shift our carnal worldview, to overcome our human nature? Certainly this type of discriminatory speech offends plenty of people. To keep from offending or excluding anyone, we would have to abandon the most fundamental principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, those of sin, repentance, and faith in Christ as Savior.
“Christ was always among the sick and afflicted because the whole have no need of a physician.” This is incomplete and humanist by itself. This argument is also inconsistent with a church that has publicly conceded that there is nothing disordered or “unwhole” about the gay identity; unrepentant gays would certainly take offense at this. The scriptures exist primarily for our spiritual health, not our earthly health. Christ’s miraculous healings of physical ailments were symbolic of the possibility of his healing our spiritual ills, just as he overcame physical death so we might have immortality. The cultural embrace of homosexuality is a symptom of deep spiritual illness not being addressed that has been developing for some time.
“All are invited to come and participate so that we can help one another.” This is dangerous in its arrogant simplicity if we’re talking about wickedness. The truth is, some people do not want to be included in anything godly. They want to remake the church into their own image, to refit the church to their proclivities rather than fitting their proclivities to the church. They are rebelling against God and are about very patiently destroying the kingdom of God on earth and making everyone as miserable as they are. When Alma saw the people of his brand new church beginning to labor in iniquity because wolves had entered the fold and were teaching them to sin, he asked the Lord what to do. How should he handle those who were members of the church but leading others astray? The Lord— yes, Jesus Christ— told Alma to protect his church by excommunicating the unrepentant sinners. To blot out their names. But as many times as they humbled themselves and repented, they were to be welcomed back. In other words, unrepentant sinners were to be called on their sins, taught to “sin no more,” and invited to return to the fold. Just as then, today, although visitors are welcome, willful apostates must be disciplined to keep order and integrity in the church. The only way to access the Atonement is through humble repentance. Everyone is free to take it or leave it, but churches must not abandon their doctrines. If they do they cease to be of God, and if they are not of God, we can know whom they serve.
It is essential to point out that the openly self-identified homosexuals churches are suddenly so eager to include in their congregations and youth groups and boy scout troops are not repentant. They have embraced deviant sexuality, pretending they cannot control their thoughts and feelings, insisting it is who they are, and as such are rebelling against God, nature, and God’s plan of agency and salvation through Christ. Bold as they are, they have obviously been conditioned and trained in activism. (This conditioning is highly cultural and also systematic through gay-affirming organizations and online.) And they are not the only casualties of this godless movement. The rest of us are, too, in one way or another. Those who ignorantly and unquestioningly go along with this movement are being deceived and led astray, committing sins of their own and encouraging homosexuality in others. On the other hand, those who are standing for their deeply-held scriptural beliefs, traditional values, and God’s truth are being shamed and lectured, pronounced unChristlike. Considering the power a hierarchal church has to demand requirements and withhold privileges from its members, this amounts to being coerced into approving of homosexuality or at least coerced into pretending we approve. For whatever reasons, in one generation churches gone from standing for truth and righteousness to shaming and punishing truth and righteousness and encouraging sinners on their road to hell.
Indeed, completely unnecessarily and incomprehensibly, because we have been told that the gay identity is not a disorder, not a sin, and not changeable, homosexuality is now to be considered righteous, healthy, and permanent! We’re to believe that whatever cool, trendy thing a person says about himself concerning his gender and sexuality, at any age, contrary to reality and the Family Proclamation and the scriptures, is worthy of our intellectual, moral, and spiritual respect. If a person who decides he is gay and announces it to the world is at all famous, he might even get a phone call from the President of the United States commending him for his “courage!”
Those of us who resist this nonsense and hold fast to truth and goodness are now being lectured in scriptural language and called unChristlike by our ecclesiastical leaders unless we abandon our religious beliefs and deeply held moral values. How can anyone deny that this is nothing less that spiritual abuse? It is certainly nothing less than persecuting the humble followers of Christ under the pretense of religion. Followers of Christ are supposed to be at war with the world, not following in its wicked wake. Are people really so blind as to deny that churches everywhere are falling in line in the Great Gay Pride Parade?
Without morality, there is no Christ. We can be as inclusive and kind as we wish, but we are not disciples of Christ unless we uphold God’s laws come what may. Accepting homosexuality as a respectable, healthy, righteous identity is the very opposite of Christlike. It is tantamount to encouraging these deceived, troubled, and rebellious people along the miserable road to hell. The worst of it is unquestioningly accepting the gay identity in children and teenagers, young, vulnerable, impressionable souls, indoctrinated and damaged by a godless, lawless culture, who don’t even know what homosexuality really is and are nevertheless being encouraged at a young age into an extremely harmful mindset and lifestyle by the people they trust most!
Do mature grownups really think that embracing a young person’s homosexual identity (or pretending to) is going to help him resist acting on his misguided, raging, impulsive hormones? (Homosexual lust is said to be much harder to resist than heterosexual lust because of its extreme and perverse nature. The scriptures call it “men burning in their lusts toward their one another.”)
On the contrary, it is implicitly giving gayness the bright green light. It is loving the sin and hating the sinner.
The Word was not made flesh just to teach us to “do unto others;” he came to make us new spiritual creatures fit for eternal life. This must involve faith in Christ as Savior, repentance, and the Holy Ghost, and the results will have us doing unto others more effectively, according to God’s will and out of love for God first.
The argument for inclusion by itself it is completely irreligious. On this level it is a pretense of religion devoid of all distinctively religious elements. For Christianity to be Christianity, rather than mere neighborliness, we must emphasize such basic eternal principles as law, sin, punishment, redemption, and salvation. The kind of love Christianity is really about is divine love, the kind God has, the kind that made Him send His Son so we might not perish spiritually but have everlasting life.
It’s as if supposedly religious people have really come to believe there is no such thing as sin, even though we have the Scriptures screaming this reality at us! We’d rather fit more comfortably in the world. Yes, it’s awfully convenient. It turns sins into “challenges” and unspeakable depravity into a respectable identity.
Alas, the shoe is now on the other foot. Right is being held up as wrong, and wrong as right, not just in our culture but in our schools, churches and every aspect of society formerly espousing traditional values. The devil’s servants are enjoying great success. True followers of Christ are going to have to walk in the strength of Christ and bear his cross, lose friends and family, lose societal approval and position, suffer all manner of social, spiritual, moral, and psychological abuse in order not to become participants in not only the gay parade but in the vaporousness and hypocrisy overtaking our congregations. We’re to wish the best for our enemies, do good to them that persecute us, and be steadfast and unwavering in all that is true and good, come what may.
That, friends, is Christlike.
-Stephen & Janice Graham
