Read Our Vigorous Rejection of The Reformation Project
If you haven���t read our most recent issue of Solid Ground (that I co-wrote with Greg), I encourage you to read it now. You need to understand a challenge the Church is facing and will continue to face in the foreseeable future. It will be tough for Christians who want to remain faithful to Christ and Scripture.
With the recent SCOTUS decision legalizing same-sex marriage, we will be increasingly living in a culture that is supportive of homosexuality. That will exert external pressure on Christians. We���ll also have internal pressure from Christians who want the Church to be gay-affirming. Given both of these forces, we���ll have our hands full. It will be tempting to want to compromise our convictions. We���ll need to stand firm and not conform to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2).
Even if you���re not the least bit persuaded by The Reformation Project (TRP) and their revisionist interpretation, you might need to become familiar with the material Greg and I present because a believer you might know will need your help. If you don���t read it for yourself, read it so you can help them when and if they���re beguiled by TRP���s revisionist interpretation of Scripture.
Right now I���m working on Part II of this Solid Ground series, but in the meantime I want you to consider what TRP, the Gay Christian Network, and others like them think. They believe that Judaism and Christianity have, since their inception, been permissive of loving and consensual homosexual sex acts. In other words, they believe the Bible does condemn some homosexual acts, but only abusive or exploitive ones. It���s hard to imagine Moses, the prophets, Jesus, and the disciples all affirming some forms of homosexual behavior, but that���s TRP���s incredible view.
As Greg and I clarify in part I (and will again in part II) of this Solid Ground series, the Bible's prohibition of homosexual behavior is a categorical rejection of all male-male or female-female sex acts, not just abusive or exploitive ones.
Even the Jewish historian Josephus based his condemnation of homosexual intercourse on the Mosaic Law by stating, ���The law recognizes only sexual intercourse that is according to nature, that which is with a woman���But it abhors the intercourse of males with males.��� Notice he mentions sex that is "according to nature," which is heterosexual, in contrast to that which is against nature (homosexual). There���s nothing here to narrow the type of sinful homosexual sex acts to merely exploitive forms.
Don���t get me started! There���s so much wrong with TRP���s assessment of the Bible and homosexuality, but I���ll save it for part II of Solid Ground that comes out in September. Be sure to keep it and part I together as a handy tool to see through TRP���s case.
Against Apion 2.199 as cited in Robert Gagnon, Horizons in Biblical Theology, Vol. 25 (2003), 232.
