Friday, January 25, 2008

I'M AN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN!

I made a comment yesterday on Pam's House Blend in reference to her post entitled, "The Peter chides C-SPAN for airing openly gay bishop's speech."

Part of Pam's post quotes Peter LaBarbera, president of the homophobic site Americans For Truth, in which, I'm proud to say, my blog, as is Pam's, is listed as one of the "Pro-Homosexuality Blogs" that he disdains.

LaBarbera's "screed," as reproduced in the post on Pam's site, partially reads as follows:

"C-SPAN helped homosexual Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire Vicky Gene Robinson - he was named such because his parents wanted a girl - plead his heretical case to America by airing his speech twice on Christmas Eve night.

"In the speech, Robinson discussed his plan to enter into a "civil union" with his homosexual lover, saying he always wanted to be a 'June bride.' The bishop claimed (against all evidence in Scripture) that the Holy Spirit is involved in the crusade for more open homosexuals like him in the clergy.

"Write C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb (viewer@c-span.org) or call him (202-737-3220) to protest this holiday programming choice that was deeply offensive to Bible-believing Christians.

"Urge C-SPAN to balance Robinson's lecture by covering a presentation by evangelical Dr. Michael Brown in Charlotte, North Carolina next month titled, 'Can you be gay and Christian?'"

I thought you'd be interested in reading the comment I made on Pam's post on her blog:

I'm an "evangelical Christian" and I take the Bible very seriously. There is absolutely NOTHING in the Bible that condemns Gay people, or loving relationships between people of the same sex, or same-sex marriage!

There's a world of difference between an "evangelical Christian" and a bigot, but we wouldn't know that, given the takeover of that term by people, many of whom are very limited human beings who are haters who impose their prejudices upon the Bible, just as they seek to impose those prejudices on the rest of us.

As the erudite Peter J. Gomes, the gay minister and professor at Harvard, writes in his excellent book, "The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart," that I highly recommend you read if you are at all interested in this issue, we must understand what the Bible says, what it means, the text, the subtext, the context, what we bring to the text, and what we take out of the text.

Moreover, the Bible is not God! When one worships the Bible, he/she is committing the sin of idolatry! Christians worship God! Not the Bible!

The Bible might best be viewed as "a finger" that points to a couple of the many dimensions of God, and God's dealings with assorted people and nations throughout human history. The Bible contains historical fact, metaphor, and allegory to enable us to get a better glimpse into the mind of God than would likely exist without its library of books written over a period of about 1400 years by many people from a wide variety of walks of life.

For example, if I ask you where you live, and you point to your house, and I keep staring at your finger, I might come to know everything about your finger: the conformation of your fingerprint, the size and shape of your finger, etc., but I won't come one bit closer to knowing where you live. I have to look to the place where your finger is pointing to know where you live. The Bible might best be seen as such a finger!

Simple biblical literalists, frequently and erroneously called "evangelical Christians," may know assorted verses of the Bible, but totally ignore (or are ignorant of) the context of those verses (such as the "clobber passages that the homophobic professing Christians relish in using), and therein lies their distortion and perversion of the Bible; their preaching their false gospel of legalism, perfectionism, and exclusion, and their defaming the only Gospel to be found in Christianity!

Unfortunately, all too many self-styled Christians not only worship the Bible, but actually worship their own interpretations of selected Bible verses that seem to them to conform to their preconceived prejudices, and then have the audacity to claim that their perversions and distortions of selected Bible texts come from God.

So, actually, such professing Christians are not merely worshiping the Bible, but they are in actuality worshiping themselves and their own distorted views of certain biblical texts that they erroneously think conform to their prejudices, their distortions.

These prejudiced haters, be they ignorant or not, defame Christianity just as they defame God by their preaching the false gospel of exclusion that has absolutely nothing to do with God or the things of God, including the Bible itself.

The only Gospel (that is why the word "Gospel" means "good news") to be found in Christianity is the Gospel of grace (God's unmerited favor), faith (trusting God over and above seen circumstances), love, peace, reconciliation, and inclusiveness.

The false gospel of legalism, perfectionism, and exclusion has absolutely NOTHING to do with Christianity!

By giving "equal time" to those who distort and pervert the Bible and the Gospel is to place ignorance and/or hatefulness on the same plane as grace and love epitomized by Jesus' life, teachings, and ministry.

Lies and truth; legalism and grace; enmity and peace; demonization and reconciliation; exclusion and inclusiveness; hate and love don't deserve equal time!
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