Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

East Face - Cross of Muiredach

Scripture Texts:

Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10: 11-25
Mark 13:1-13

O Come, O Come Emmanuel!  Ransom – or liberate – captive Israel!  We’ve sung this song for years during Advent.  It is the mournful song of a people needing divine deliverance. But what is the liberation these people seek? What is the “big deal”?

What turns a man so zealous for Judaism that he would kill and imprison anyone who called Jesus the “Messiah” into someone who risks his life time and again and suffers beatings, whippings, starvation, and imprisonment to proclaim this same Messiah Jesus of Nazareth?

What is such Good News that overcomes our own desire to seek our own well being and seek the glory of Jesus Christ? Why do we build our lives and our calendars around the coming of Christ? It pays to know… you and I will face the Day of Judgment together and its outcome will depend on whether we have entrusted ourselves to this same Messiah! It pays to know what it’s all about! Perhaps it will even inspire you and I to give ourselves entirely to Jesus Christ in gratitude for His Mercy! Wouldn’t that be amazing!

But Paul sees Jesus Christ as not just a wandering prophet from Galilee, not just as an enlightened Teacher or even a Prophet as Islam wants to say.

No Paul sees in Jesus God in the flesh, the fullness of God in human form (Col 2:9). Jesus is the One in whom all God’s promises for Israel and the world are coming true as guaranteed by Jesus’ Resurrection (2 Cor 1:20; Rom 1:3,4)

Consider the scriptures  we have read today in this light –

The prophet Daniel foretold a day of resurrection when some will rise to eternal joy and others to eternal shame. This word of prophecy came to a people enslaved… they had fallen under Gods’ Curse and send from their “Promised Land” as Deuteronomy 28 had warned them.

How can a people who were once blessed, people who received the Word of God , and now a people who were condemned to slavery and whose history is one fall from grace after another ever hope to rise to eternal joy?

It seemed as if God had given Israel a second chance – the nation was set free from exile – the Temple had been rebuilt and the sacrifices had returned to the Temple!

But something was missing.

There was still no real hope.

As Jesus walks that land, outwardly the people are blessed, but inwardly they are a people filled with hypocrisy, plagued by demons, and sick with sin.  The never ending stream of blood from the sacrifices may have made people technically “clean” to enter the Temple, but inwardly the pollution of sin remained untouched, uncleansed, not only under bondage to  the Romans, but in a spiritual bondage and slavery.

Jesus tells his disciples in Mark 13, that judgement is coming again. The Temple they consider as eternal as the world itself will be torn down to the ground (John 2:19-22). God’s true Temple – the Resurrected Christ – will become the focus of those who worship the God of the Bible “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). Their hopes will be directed to Jesus not to the Temple.

In Jesus, the liberation that set sinners free, that cast out demons, that forgave sins, is now sealed once and for all by our Lord’s death and resurrection. In that act, Jesus seals the salvation of His people and as the judgment He promises Jerusalem comes – He encourages them to keep trusting, those who persevere to the end shall be saved.

As Hebrews says:

Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.

And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so. For he says,

“This is the new covenant I will make

with my people on that day, says the Lord:

I will put my laws in their hearts,

and I will write them on their minds.”

Then he says,

“I will never again remember

their sins and lawless deeds.”

And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

This is what St. Paul was willing to die for! Because in meeting the Resurrected Jesus on the Damascus Road it was evident God’s promises really were coming true in Jesus.

Suddenly God’s covenant promises in the past from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob had taken on a reality in the Risen Jesus that made all the other promises of God an inevitable certainty because death itself had been conquered in Jesus Resurrection!

Our inability to find peace with God while locked in our own sins and incapable of living by God’s Law in our own strength are finally no longer a threat to you and a threat to me because the One who HAS been faithful to God in all things has become the mercy seat, the location of God’s forgiveness infallibly achieved, for all the world who come to Him in faith!

Yes, Paul saw, Christ was the goal for which those who lived under the Law yearned! He is the One whose saving crucifixion and death defying resurrection now brings every good and perfect gift promised by God and makes it available to all who entrust themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ!

Even more- the power of death is broken and Jesus  in His ascension is reigning and He is delivering His trusting, dependent people safe to the end.

Because the promises of God have been secured, because sin’s power, pollution, and penalty are conquered in Christ for all who entrust themselves to Him, because the alienation caused by sin between Jew and Gentile can finally be healed, because all humankind can, in Christ, be transformed, there is hope for all the world… a hope for peace in Christ before the Inheriting King comes in judgment not only in Jerusalem in AD 70  but in all the world at His Second Coming (Acts 17:30-31).

Because this is true, because it is such Good News, the Apostles and Martyrs declared it without regard for their safety.  On the Celtic Cross of Muiredach,  Christ as standing as He was in Stephen’s vision (Acts 7) because they considered themselves ALL MARTYRS, to the cause of Christ in one way or another, whether the red martyrdom of those who shed their blood, or the white martyrdom of those who daily offered themselves as living sacrifices unto God (Romans 12:1,2).

When we finally understand why the Good News is called the Good News, we are free to risk trusting Jesus Christ with our lives! We can trust Him and give our lives to him because  He is the one who has conquered death and will conquer all our enemies, even death itself! While we fear giving our lives up to His Lordship,  it’s His resurrection, His forgiveness, His promise of eternal salvation that enables us to finally be free to serve Him in joy and gratitude.

What is the least that we can do in light of this Good News? The author of the Book of Hebrews has no problems speaking to people who risked becoming outcasts in their own communities – Jews living in pagan environments whose only economic lifeline is the local synagogue – and tells them this:

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

In light of Jesus’ coming, the people who cried O Come, O Come Emmanuel found the One who finally set them free to hope in God  and free to live as God’s Children by Divine Adoption (John 1:12-13;Gal 4:4-7).

His Coming guaranteed that the covenant keeping God had drawn near in His grace…but not just for His ancient people Israel but for all who would draw near to God through Him!

What does the coming of Christ into the world mean to you? Why was it important?

Most importantly, how is the Christ who fulfilled the Law of God and who fulfills all the promises of God the answer to your deepest longings?

Today a group of prominent Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant leaders took the microphone at the National Press Club to discuss the unveiling of “The Manhattan Declaration”, a document outlining the commitment of many Christian believers in America to the notions of the sanctify of life, family, and faith which are under attack from various circles.

With the United States Senate set to take up debate on the hotly contested topic of health care reform, the Manhattan Declaration comes at an opportune time to remind legislators and citizens alike that many Christian believers cannot conscience what the United States is becoming.

The Declaration itself, which is available online, is a relatively succinct and eminently cogent manifest of conservative Christian beliefs; one that is sure to draw instant criticism from the leaders of the political and cultural institutions of the country and, sadly, from other Christian leaders as well.

In its two-thousand year history, Christianity has been its most faithful when faced with secular opposition, and the contemporary era gives no less of an opportunity for believers to stand up for the teachings of the Scripture with confidence and joy. Unfortunately, much of the Church in North America has sold itself out to “social justice”, so-called, at the expense of what is supposed to be her first love, the truth as revealed in Jesus Christ.

When the Church turns its back from the defense of life, endorses unbiblical concepts as ‘enlightened’ progress, and conforms herself more to society at large than to Christ, she, in effect, abandons the faith once delivered and surrenders herself into the ready embrace of the Antichrist. All too often, such ecclesiastical bodies become almost indistinguishable from the society surrounding them, and, in the process, subverts the Gospel, reducing it to a ‘lowest common denominator’ belief system or, more accurately, a form of humanism with an object of affection.

Christianity, while always seeking for reconciliation, compassion, and love among all peoples, is also a religion that teaches (and has taught for two-thousand years) in accordance with a high moral and ethical code, one that is rooted in recognizing that human beings are fallen, sinful creatures whose very reason has been corrupted as a result of our own perverse selfishness. Freedom thus means, for the believer, a deliverance from that corruption in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christ’s redemptive act and His transforming power alone are the only true basis upon which humane society can even be envisioned, let alone implemented.

While civil government has its place, the civil governments of North America (as well as other parts of the world) have taken steps to marginalize those who hold to the central moral and ethical teachings of the Scriptures; steps which then trample on the rights and freedoms of individual believers and upon religious assemblies.

As committed Christian believers who recognize the calling of the Scripture as witnessed through countless generations of the faithful, the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America must speak out against the continued erosion of the fundamental right to life, which has been so seriously eroded away by the blight of Abortion… and which stands to be further minimized by the continued policies of the civil government which allow for and even encourage (fiscally) the destruction of human life. We cannot remain silent about God’s plan for the family, which forms our opposition to any and all personal relationships which are not in keeping with the Word of God, nor can we remain silent about the very real threats to men and women of conscience to speak their minds freely based on their faith without being accused of promoting hatred and facing civil, revenue, or criminal penalties for exercising not simply their right to free speech, but their God given responsibility to speak out on behalf of the truth.

It is with great confidence and solemnity that the ministers and members of the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America join those who endorse “The Manhattan Declaration”, and affirms her commitment to preach the truth about God’s plan for his people, regardless of the cost.

This headline has been in the making for years, like a movie star’s obituary awaiting the breaking news of an expected, but suddenly swift demise: New Lutheran body to form after gay pastor vote

Faithful Lutherans within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who had remained in hopes of a turn around have encountered the proverbial straw that promises to break the “camel’s back”. They can no longer let their patience accommodate this new perversity. Yet leaving is not as easy as outsiders think it might be as others within the mainline have found. Lutherans in the ELCA have an irenic bent not always shared by American Lutheranism’s “Fighting Fundamentalists”, the LCMS and WELS. They are desperately seeking a home for their commitment to their irenic evangelical Lutheranism.

Their conciliatory nature in the past means that they have been able to forge agreements like “A Formula of Agreement Between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ” that dared to say that Lutherans and Reformed might actually coexist and minister together as reformational Christians. This is a habit of  tolerance is not unprecedented but it has earned them their share of derision over the years as the modern day Melancthons and “Crypto Calvinists” when they only spoke for peace (Ps. 120:7).

Happy reunions with those who’ve spent their days in criticism for one alleged confessional betrayal or another are envisioned by some at this juncture. As a practical reality, those will not be likely for many. Women’s ordination is a barrier for those committed to that practice that will only be accommodated by the formation of a new Lutheran jurisdiction.

Another path may be possible for some, and it is not unprecedented. In the mid-1800’s  Lutherans who felt their similarities with other brethren of like precious Reformational faith outweighed their differences formed the Evangelical Synod of North America. While we are a small body, we welcome those irenic Lutheran brethren who wish to pursue that path. Our commitment to the diaconal ministry of men and women while retaining a male pastorate, our irenic and broadly reformational “Articles”, and our commitment to historic faith and contemporary mission may be the new irenic home some need to find a new place of ministry and service within the evangelical, reformed, and catholic tradition.

We rejoice with Father Rob, pastor of the RESA Mission in Johnson County, Indiana and his wonderful wife Mrs. Kristen Lyons on the safe delivery of their daughter Clare Lyons on October 26th, 2009 at approximately 9:30 AM.

May the Lord bless them with His grace.

A photo slideshow is available here…

Dear Friends in Christ,

Yesterday the Vatican announced a new program to receive Anglican parishes en masse into the Roman fold.

This all seems so odd.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer offered himself to the fires of martyrdom rather than recant the Reformational faith. The papal representatives of his day were glad to oblige.

How can those who today call themselves “Anglicans” receive such a warm reception from Rome, sans flames of course? Do they sense any loss in the process? If not, why did they call themselves Anglicans to begin with?

Of course, many things have changed since those days. Rome has toyed with the idea of justification by faith enough to mollify liberal Protestants without actually saying it was ever wrong. The Papacy has, in Vatican II, conceded many points to the Reformation Faith which Roman traditionalists rue to this day. And while many priests themselves have run up huge legal settlements for their frolics, the Church itself still nominally hails virtue as a virtue – that’s more than can be said for degenerate Protestantism. But Rome’s penchant for elevating it’s own selective reading of church tradition as the voice of God equal to scripture, it’s estimation of itself as THE Church Catholic to the exclusion of all others, and it’s demand for unquestioned loyalty still undermine the foundation of historic Anglicanism – Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Scripture Alone, Christ Alone, and the Glory of God alone.

If these have not changed, then the answer must lie in the fact that today’s Anglicans have changed.

Anglicanism began as the church of the whole people of Great Britain. It was a public faith intended to disciple a nation and leave no soul without a spiritual shepherd. Over time, it became the church mainly of the elite and not the people. Especially in the United States, the Episcopal Church was known as the “Republican Party at Prayer”. In the practical working lexicon of American Religion, the word “Anglican” almost became the synonym of “Anglophile”. It is only in the Global South where Anglicanism is perhaps disassociated from the implications of privilege, pecksniffery, and the love of all things British with Christianity included somewhere at the bottom of a long list of cultural peculiarities  if absolutely necessary, that is.

The fact that individuals either in the Anglican Communion or on it’s fringes in the “continuing churches” would gladly make this move shows how far Anglicanism has come and signals the need for a drastic reforging of the Anglican Identity in the West. Anglicans who understand the biblical, theological, and cultural significance of their brand of Reformed, Evangelical and Protestant Catholicism, and who wish to see it prosper in the coming days must make a break with image of Anglicans as elitist snobs. Anglicans must reassert their fundamental theological contributions to the Christian faith and must be known for their love for all souls, rich and poor alike. It may even signal the need to eschew the names “Anglican” and “Episcopal” if people are to focus on their contemporary mission. It definitely means tomorrow’s Anglican (by whatever name) is known for their work with the poor, the addicted, and the lost as the Baptist, Methodist, and Gospel Mission is known for that vocation today.

The Book of Common Prayer in tomorrow’s Anglicanism must not be the worship guide reserved for the service which only the aged attend. Vernacular versions of the BCP in contemporary (though not insipid) language with their lectionaries and catechisms must become the engine of corporate discipleship for coming generations once again. The goal of this revived Anglicanism is not to reintroduce Afternoon Tea in the New World but instead – as Cranmer aimed – to disciple whole families and nations into Christ, to live in His abundant grace. Because the demise of Anglicanism began with the renunciation of it’s Articles of Religion, a revived Anglicanism must likewise revive its confessional commitments along evangelical lines and enforce subscription to them and catechize in light of them.

But not all Anglicans have changed.

There are some Anglicans for  whom the words “evangelical catholic” are neither a conundrum or a paradox when used to describe their confessional, Prayer Book Protestantism. And today, they feel even more disenfranchised by yesterday’s developments. Increasingly their new found home, whether  in the ACNA or a ‘continuing church,’ strikes them as less “reformed” and “evangelical” than they might have wished.

If this describes you, you are welcome to join us here. By the grace of God, we remain committed to the Biblical Faith witnessed to by the Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs, and Reformers.

In these  trying times, may God give you clear direction.

In these challenging days, may the collapsing foundations all around us cause us to rebuild on He who alone is eternity’s sure foundation,  Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:24-27).

Please contact us if we may be of service!

In Christ,

+Chuck Huckaby
Reformed Evangelical Synod of America

What Should Faithful Lutherans in the ELCA Do?

by Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; gagnon@pts.edu

Sept. 30, 2009

I give my permission for this article to be circulated widely in print, email, and on the web.—RG

With a process that gives new meaning to the expression “stacked deck,” the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August 2009 voted to allow for the blessing of homosexual unions and the rostering of pastors in homosexual relationships. I salute the efforts of the renewal group Lutheran CORE, which courageously fought against the homosexualist agenda at the assembly (I had the great privilege of addressing them). Just this past weekend they had a meeting attended by 1200 persons that began the process of defining a new vision and structure for those who recognize the ELCA’s hard-left departure from normative Christian faith and practice.

How should faithful Lutherans—that is, Lutherans who affirm the male-female requirement for sexual unions so important to Jesus and the scriptural witness to him—deal with these new heretical and immoral actions? In particular, do the recent actions of the Churchwide Assembly justify beginning a trajectory that will lead eventually to disaffiliation with the denominational structure known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America? Let me suggest a syllogism that goes something like this:

A       MAJOR PREMISE

A denomination renders itself illegitimate when, through enactment, it willfully ordains persons actively involved in adultery, incest, polyamory, or like acts, and blesses sexual unions constituted by such behavior.

B       MINOR PREMISE

Adult-committed homosexual practice is, according to Scripture, at least as bad as—and probably worse than—adult-consensual adultery and adult-committed incest and polyamory.

C       CONCLUSION

A denomination renders itself illegitimate when, through enactment, it willfully ordains homosexually active persons and blesses homosexual unions.

Simply put, would you stay in perpetuity in a denomination that officially sanctioned adult-consensual incest, adultery, and polyamory (i.e. concurrent multiple-partner unions) and even set up as leaders of the church persons who engaged unrepentantly in such immorality? If the answer is “no,” consider this: Scripture treats homosexual practice of any sort as at least as bad as, and probably worse than, these offenses. And the ELCA hierarchy has now endorsed adult-committed homosexual practice.

Few will contest the major premise (A) that a denomination ceases to be a faithful representation of the body of Christ to the world once it endorses adultery or consensual, adult-committed incest or polyamory. Perhaps a few would argue for the continuing legitimacy of a church that both blessed such unions and rostered leaders unrepentantly involved in such unions. Yet such advocates would be a tiny minority that could be identified and isolated as extremists.

The main point of contention will be over the minor premise (B); namely, over whether adult-committed homosexual practice is at least as bad as (and probably worse than) consensual adultery and adult-committed incest or polyamory. Yet the point can be easily demonstrated by three considerations. As I note in an online piece entitled “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice according to Scripture and Does Scripture’s Indictment Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?” (http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/HomosexHowBadIsIt.pdf):

1. Homosexual practice, committed or otherwise, is the violation that most clearly and radically offends against God’s intentional creation of humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24). According to the story in Genesis 2, the differentiation into man and woman is the sole differentiation produced by the removal of a “rib” or (in my view a better rendering) “side” from the originally undifferentiated human. It is precisely because out of one flesh came two sexes (a story line that makes a transcendent point about the exclusivity of male-female complementarity) that the two sexes, and only the two sexes, can (re-)unite into one flesh (2:24). Since Jesus gave priority to these two texts from the creation stories in Genesis when he defined normative and prescriptive sexual ethics for his disciples, they have to be given special attention by us. Paul also clearly has the creation texts in the background of his indictments of homosexual practice in Rom 1:24-27 and 1 Cor 6:9.

1. Every text that treats the issue of homosexual practice in Scripture treats it as a high offense abhorrent to God. That this is so is evident from (a) the triad of stories about extreme depravity, Ham, Sodom, and Gibeah (which incidentally are no more limited in their implications to coercive acts of same-sex acts than is an indicting story about coercive sex with one’s parent limited in its implications only to coercive acts of adult incest), to (b) the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic legal and narrative materials that rail against the homoerotic associations of theqedeshim as an “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” (men who in a cultic context served as the passive receptive sexual partners for other men), to (c) the Levitical prohibitions (where the term “abomination” or “abhorrent practice” is specifically attached to man-male intercourse), to (d) texts in Ezekiel that refer to man-male intercourse by the metonym “abomination” or “abhorrent act,” to (e) Paul’s singling out of homosexual practice in Romans 1:24-27 (compare 1 Cor 6:9) as a specially reprehensible instance, along with idolatry, of humans suppressing the truth accessible in the material creation set in motion by the Creator, labeling it sexual “uncleanness,” “dishonorable” or “degrading,” “contrary to nature,” and an “indecent” or “shameful” act. These views are also amply confirmed in texts from both early Judaism and early Christianity after the New Testament period, where only bestiality appears to rank as a greater sexual offense, at least among “consensual” acts. There is, to be sure, some disagreement in early Judaism over whether sex with one’s parent is worse, comparable, or less severe, though most texts suggest a slightly lesser degree of severity. Yet while Scripture makes some exceptions, particularly in ancient Israel, for some forms of incest (though never for man-mother, man-child, man-sibling) and for sexual unions involving more than two partners (though a monogamy standard was always imposed on women), it makes absolutely no exceptions for same-sex intercourse. Indeed, every single text in Scripture that discusses sex, whether narrative, law, proverb, poetry, moral exhortation, or metaphor, presupposes a male-female prerequisite. There are no exceptions anywhere in Scripture.

1. The male-female prerequisite is the foundation or prior analogue for defining other critical sexual norms. Jesus himself clearly predicated his view of marital monogamy and indissolubility on the foundation of Gen 1:27 and 2:24, texts that have only one thing in common: the fact that an acceptable sexual bond before God entails as its first prerequisite (after the assumption of an intra-human bond) a man and a woman (Mark 10:6-9; Matt 19:4-6). Jesus argued that the “twoness” of the sexes ordained by God at creation was the foundation for limiting the number of persons in a sexual bond to two, whether concurrently (as in polygamy) or serially (as in repetitive divorce and remarriage). The foundation can hardly be less significant than the regulation predicated on it; indeed, it must be the reverse. Moreover, the dissolution of an otherwise natural union is not more severe than the active entrance into an inherently unnatural union (active entrance into an incestuous bond would be a parallel case in point). The principle by which same-sex intercourse is rejected is also the principle by which incest, even of an adult and consensual sort, is rejected. Incest is wrong because, as Lev 18:6 states, it involves sexual intercourse with “the flesh of one’s own flesh.” In other words, it involves the attempted merger with someone who is already too much of a formal or structural same on a familial level. The degree of formal or structural sameness is felt even more keenly in the case of homosexual practice, only now on the level of sex or gender, because sex or gender is a more integral component of sexual relations, and more foundationally defines it, than is and does the degree of blood relatedness. So the prohibition of incest can be, and probably was, analogically derived from the more foundational prohibition of same-sex intercourse. Certainly, as noted above, there was more accommodation to some forms of incest in the Old Testament than ever there was to homosexual practice. Adultery becomes an applicable offense only when the sexual bond that the offender is cheating on is a valid sexual bond. It would be absurd to charge a man in an incestuous union or in a pedophilic union with adultery for having sexual relations with a person outside that pair-bond. One can’t cheat against a union that was immoral from the beginning.

For further study: Additional brief arguments are put forward in my online article, “What the Evidence Really Says about Scripture and Homosexual Practice: Five Issues” (http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexScripReallySays.doc.pdf), especially p. 7 under “5. Significance” and p. 1 under “1. Jesus.” For more on the analogy with incest and polyamory see my “Why Homosexual Behavior Is More like Consensual Incest and Polyamory than Race or Gender” (7 pgs.; http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexIncestPolyAnalogy.pdf).  For a more extensive analysis of Scripture texts, see my The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon, 2001; 500 pgs.); my 55-page contribution in Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress, 2003); and, with some updating, my 120-page “Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?” in Reformed Review 59 (2005): 19-130, esp. pp. 46-100 (online: http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf; table of contents athttp://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homoReformedReviewTableCont.pdf).

The Exploitation-Promiscuity and Orientation Arguments

Claims have been made by ELCA “homosexualists” that Scripture’s indictment of homosexual practice is an indictment only of promiscuous or exploitative forms of homosexual practice and not an absolute indictment of homosexual practice per se. This argument is akin to asserting that Scripture’s indictment of incest or the New Testament’s implicit indictment of polygamy extends only to promiscuous or exploitative forms of these relationships and not to adult-committed forms. The exploitation-promiscuity claim shows ignorance of the historical record. Both the conception and reality of adult-committed homosexual relationships existed in the ancient world. Moreover, we have texts where Greco-Roman moralists and Church Fathers acknowledge the presence of love and commitment in homosexual unions and yet still reject the unions as unnatural and immoral. Finally, Paul gives numerous indications that his indictment of homosexual practice is absolute, including his echoing of creation texts, his nature argument, his indictment of lesbianism, his stress on the mutuality of affections, his derivation of the term “men-lying-with-males” (arsenokoitai) from the absolute prohibitions in Leviticus, and the historical context of early Judaism’s absolute opposition.

As even Louis Crompton, a homosexual historian and author of a massive and influential historical-cultural study of homosexuality, has written:

According to [one] interpretation, Paul’s words were not directed at “bona fide” homosexuals in committed relationships. But such a reading, however well-intentioned, seems strained and unhistorical. Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer of this period imply the least acceptance of same-sex relations under any circumstance. The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any other Jew or early Christian. (Homosexuality and Civilization [Harvard University Press, 2003], p. 114)

Note the similar comments by the lesbian New Testament scholar Bernadette Brooten, who has written the most important book on lesbianism in antiquity and its relation to Rom 1:26, who criticized both John Boswell and Robin Scroggs for their use of an exploitation argument:

Boswell . . . argued that . . . “The early Christian church does not appear to have opposed homosexual behavior per se.” The sources on female homoeroticism that I present in this book run absolutely counter to [this conclusion]…. The ancient sources, which rarely speak of sexual relations between women and girls, undermine Robin Scroggs’s theory that Paul opposed homosexuality as pederasty. (Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996], 11, 361)

In addition, the claim that the ancients knew nothing akin to our concept of homosexual “orientation” and had no conception of congenital influences on homosexual development is also false. Such theories did exist in the Greco-Roman world. Some are close to modern theories, others more distant, but all presuppose the critical point that at least some homosexual behavior is traceable to influences beyond a person’s control. Also erroneous is the claim that knowledge of homosexual orientation would have made a significant difference to Paul’s indictment of homosexual practice. Let’s remember that Paul defined sin in Romans 7 as an innate impulse passed on by an ancestor, running through the members of the human body, and never entirely within human control.

As classicist Thomas K. Hubbard notes in his magisterial sourcebook of texts relating to homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world:

Homosexuality in this era [viz., of the early imperial age of Rome] may have ceased to be merely another practice of personal pleasure and began to be viewed as an essential and central category of personal identity, exclusive of and antithetical to heterosexual orientation. (Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook, 386)

Classicist and church historian William Schoedel in a significant article on “Same-Sex Eros: Paul and the Greco-Roman Tradition” (an article that, incidentally, favors ecclesiastical acceptance of homosexual unions) states that “some support” exists in Philo for thinking that Paul might be speaking in Rom 1:26-27 “only of same-sex acts performed by those who are by nature heterosexual.” But he then dismisses the suggestion:

But such a phenomenon does not excuse some other form of same-sex eros in the mind of a person like Philo. Moreover, we would expect Paul to make that form of the argument more explicit if he intended it. . . . Paul’s wholesale attack on Greco-Roman culture makes better sense if, like Josephus and Philo, he lumps all forms of same-sex eros together as a mark of Gentile decadence. (Homosexuality, Science, and the “Plain Sense” of Scripture, pp. 67-68)

Schoedel also acknowledges that a “conception of a psychological disorder socially engendered or reinforced and genetically transmitted may be presupposed” for Philo (p. 56).

Similarly, Martti Nissinen, who has written the best book on the Bible and homosexuality from a homosexualist perspective and whose work I heavily critique in The Bible and Homosexual Practice, acknowledges in one of his more candid moments:

Paul does not mention tribades or kinaidoi, that is, female and male persons who were habitually involved in homoerotic relationships, but if he knew about them (and there is every reason to believe that he did), it is difficult to think that, because of their apparent ‘orientation,’ he would not have included them in Romans 1:24-27. . . . For him, there is no individual inversion or inclination that would make this conduct less culpable. . . . Presumably nothing would have made Paul approve homoerotic behavior. (Homoeroticism in the Biblical World [Fortress, 1998], 109-12)

The ecclesiast who claims that the authors of Scripture would not have opposed a committed homosexual union entered into by homosexually-oriented persons simply doesn’t know the historical evidence well; or, if knowing it, has deliberately sought to hide the historical evidence to others in the church. Our so-called “new knowledge” about homosexuality is not so new after all.

For further study: For a brief presentation of evidence against the use of exploitation and orientation arguments see again my “What the EvidenceReally Says,” especially “3. Rom 1:24-27 and the Erroneous ‘Exploitation Argument’” on pp. 3-4; my “How Bad Is Homosexual Practice according to Scripture and Does Scripture’s Indictment Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?,” especially pp. 6-8; and my “Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?,” especially pp. 62-83. For a look at the Greco-Roman evidence for committed homosexual relationships and the conception thereof see my “A Book Not to Be Embraced: A Critical Review Essay on Stacy Johnson’s A Time to Embrace” [Part 1: the Scottish Journal of Theology article] (Mar. 2008; 16 pgs.; online: http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexStacyJohnsonSJT2.pdf), especially pp. 5-8; and for a more detailed look at orientation theory in antiquity see my article “Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful?” in Christian Sexuality: Normative and Pastoral Principles (ed. R. E. Saltzman; Minneapolis: Kirk House, 2003), 106-55, especially pp. 141-46.

Since it is the case that Scripture treats homosexual practice per se as at least as bad as, and probably worse than, adult-committed forms of incest and polyamory and adult-consensual forms of adultery, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly by its recent decisions has forced the faithful, against their will, to give sober and painful reconsideration of long-term affiliation with the ELCA.

Scripture does not offer any refuge for those who claim that their “bound conscience” requires them to support committed homosexual unions. The argument about unity in Rom 14:1-15:13 applies only to what the Stoics calledadiaphora, matters of indifference such as diet and calendar, not matters of significance involving sexual immorality (contrast Paul’s remarks in 13:12-14; 6:19-22 with 1:24; 8:12-14; 11:21-22; 1 Cor 6:9-20; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19-21; 1 Thess 4:2-8; Eph 4:17-19; 5:3-6; 1 Tim 1:9-11). When Paul encountered some at Corinth who prided themselves in their ability to “tolerate” a case of adult-consensual incest (1 Cor 5), he didn’t say, “respect the bound consciences” of those who think adult-consensual incest is acceptable. He didn’t put church unity over church purity; rather he defined church unity christologically rather than sociologically. Unity around immorality wasn’t worth a warm bucket of spit. Only the unity centered around the will of Christ is worth anything. So Paul insisted “in the name of the Lord Jesus” that they put the offender outside the community for the sake of the offender (who needed a wake-up call lest he be excluded from God’s kingdom), for the sake of the church (lest members get the mistaken notion that sexually impure behavior does not incur God’s judgment), and for the sake of God (who redeemed the community with the precious blood of the Jesus, the new Passover lamb, and who can still “take us out”).

The ELCA has gone beyond the Corinthian community. It has allowed for sexual immorality that Paul (and Jesus) would have regarded as even more extreme than the specific case of incest at Corinth. Furthermore, it has not only tolerated such immorality but also allowed for its blessing and the rostering as active leaders of the church the very persons engaging in the immorality. Moreover, unlike Corinth, this outcome is not just a recent development but part of an orchestrated effort for promoting homosexual behavior over the past decade. The faithful in the ELCA have been more than patient.

At some point—perhaps not immediately but surely down the line—those who remain in the ELCA run the risk of becoming enabling accomplices to a regime that has betrayed the illustrious heritage of the Lutheran communion, to say nothing of the worldwide church, Scripture, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. No doubt there is pain ahead, but also the joy that comes from dying to self and living for God. May God grant them wisdom and courage in their future decisions, which only they can make.

© 2009 Robert A. J. Gagnon Used by permission.

Father Robert Lyons offers a prayer of benediction over Deacon Greg Elsbernd as he becomes a professed religious solitary within the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America.

Gregory Jude Elsbernd, a deacon of the Reformed Evangelical Synod of America, began his first year as a vowed religious solitary with the taking of vows at the Divine Service on Sunday, October 4th. Father Robert Lyons offered a homily on the day’s readings, in which the meaning of the profession was elaborated upon in light of the universal call to holiness. After taking his vows, Brother Elsbernd was invested with a simple black crucifix, a symbol of his profession. While he remains attached to the RESA Mission in Johnson County (Indiana) as his parish of record, he will now take up residence at Saint Francis of Assisi Hermitage in Cincinnati, Ohio. Later this fall, the Hermitage plans to begin construction on a chapel which will serve as a house of  worship and a hub of outreach ministry.

Please keep Brother Elsbernd in your prayers as he embarks on this new stage in his journey of faith.

The Reformed Evangelical Synod of America recognizes the validity of special callings called “Christian Sodalities”. We understand Christian Sodalities in this light expressed in Chapter 34 of our Articles of Religion:

Throughout the history of the Church, men and women, married and unmarried, clergy and lay alike have formed religious, fraternal, and missionary organizations or sodalities to commit themselves to God for special service and to carry out the labors of specific Christian vocations in the church and world. No pride or superiority should be attached to such service and these organizations retain their legitimacy so long as they serve to carry out the mission of Christ in accordance with Holy Scripture, without seeking to supplant, but rather support, the public ministry of Christ’s Church and operating in coordination with the Church’s lawful spiritual authority.

Deacon Greg, by God’s grace, is establishing a mission house and base for preaching the Gospel. He will be evangelizing and gathering God’s holy people for worship while exercising a diaconal ministry of service in Christ’s Name. Thank you for your prayers on his behalf. +Chuck