The Resistance discusses the new Steve Carell movie Crazy, Stupid, Love. While it certainly gets some ideas about love right this movie does pose some problems.
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Article by Cameron Spink & Fellow Believer
Comedian Josh Thomas attacked ACL's Jim Wallace on the issue of homosexuality on Q & A this week saying:
"Why is it they listen to the part of the Bible that says it is abomination for a man to lie with another man but you ignore the part of the Bible that says it's an abomination to mix crops in the same field? Why are you so passionately anti-homosexuality but you are fairly quiet on the issue of biodynamic farming? Also, it's widely understood that gays have no choice about being gay. I can tell you from personal experience it's impossible for me to feel sexual desire or romantic attraction to a girl. We know young homosexuals have a hard time coming to terms with being homosexual and studies have shown that they're far more likely to experience depression, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness - that's right, homelessness - and they're ultimately far more likely to attempt and occasionally achieve suicide. I am interested to find out if Jim is concerned about the role the Australian Christian Lobby is playing in empowering homophobia, which could be contributing to the mental illnesses of young gay people."
Suffice to say that Jim Wallace's response was less than adequate. So let me explore Josh Thomas' comments. At the start of his criticism, Josh makes reference to the stance that the book of Leviticus has against homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13) and compares the Christian response to homosexuality as opposed to the Christian response to mixing crops (Leviticus 19:19). This is a regularly used ploy. "Why don't you concentrate on other verses from Leviticus?". To be honest, this question is either intellectually dishonest or is merely a question of ignorance. Leviticus 18 is entirely about sexual acts that should not be practiced. Whereas Leviticus 19 is broken up into three parts. Initially, and most importantly, it charges the Israelites to keep a holy relationship with God (Leviticus 19:1-8). This is the chief identifier of them being God's people. Secondly, there are the ways that the Israelites should interact with their neighbours (Leviticus 19:9-17). Again, this is off-spring of the Ten Commandments and how they related to the Israelites living in Canaan. That is, these laws are social directives to keep God's people holy. This brings us to the verses so regularly compared with Leviticus 18:22. Leviticus 19:19-37 speaks on God's statutes like not turning to necromancers (Leviticus 19:31) and fair trading (Leviticus 19:35). Again, it is clear that these are social directives that separate the Israelites from every other nation surrounding them. Of course some of these still make sense in how we should live today (Leviticus 19:29-37) because they exist outside of their social structure and are still very much sinful behaviour. It is very easy to identify which statutes are behaviours that mattered under the Israelite covenant that set this nation apart and which ones still have relevance.
Here's another way of looking at it. As Christians we have a position against murder and lies. Both of these positions would be endorsed by Josh Thomas as good moral rules. But how does he determine good moral rules? It seems that he just takes issue with the moral rules that affect his own life. To be honest, that's one of two responses to be expected. Either you conform your life or you reject the rules. Yet Josh would likely wish to stand strong against murder but would have no viable reason to hold such a view. He, by his own worldview, has no reason to condemn such a view while actually enunciate the dangers of homosexuality. In the end Leviticus must be read through salvation and understood that it's chief purpose was to keep the Israelite nation holy.
Toby Jones asked whether Jesus makes any mention of homosexuality, to which Jim Wallace responded "Christ was silent". However, Jim Wallace's response does not actually match Jesus' teachings. Jesus was clear on marriage in Matthew 19 - "the two shall become one flesh". Indeed he went further when speaking on divorce. "[F]rom the beginning it was not so" (Matthew 19:8). Jesus is clear that relationships are meant for their created form. That is, a man is designed to become one flesh with one woman. This intention is important because we are told in John 1 that Jesus was present in the beginning. It was His creation. "He who created them from the beginning made them male and female" (Matthew 19:4). It is clear that what God created naturally for sexuality did not include same-sex relationships. Furthermore, as Ros Phillips states:
"No one on the program pointed out that Jesus explicitly condemned homosexual behaviour in Matthew 15: 19 and Mark 7: 22, where Jesus talks about the evil things which come out of a person. One of the evils listed is "porneia" or "porneus" in the Greek - sometimes translated "sexual immorality" - and includes all forms of sexual expression apart from sex between a married man and woman."
To construe Jesus stance as being ambivalent on homosexuality is either divisive and/or ignorant.
Edit: the following is written by a friend of mine who agreed to help me with this article. This relates specifically to Josh Thomas' contentions that are not about any Biblical interpretation.
Josh Thomas presents two main arguments for the acceptance of homosexuality not directly relating to the Bible. Firstly he presents that homosexuality is not a choice: "Also, it's widely understood that gays have no choice about being gay. I can tell you from personal experience it's impossible for me to feel sexual desire or romantic attraction to a girl.". Secondly he claims that a range of social and physiological problems that homosexuals experience is the result of 'homophobia': "...studies have shown that they're far more likely to experience depression, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness - that's right, homelessness - and they're ultimately far more likely to attempt and occasionally achieve suicide. I am interested to find out if Jim is concerned about the role the Australian Christian Lobby is playing in empowering homophobia, which could be contributing to the mental illnesses of young gay people."
The first point that Josh presents is that because people are one way, it is how they ought to be. This reasoning should firstly be rejected because it commits the is/ought fallacy. Basically the fallacy is that just because things are one way does not mean they ought to be that way. Therefore, even if homosexuals have no choice in their feelings, this does not mean that they ought to find approval for these feelings. To illustrate I will present some examples:
- If a man has chronic anger problems it does not mean we ought to approve of his actions, even if he did not make a single decision where he chose to be quick tempered. In this circumstance it is clearly recognised as not being how things should be and treated accordingly.
- All of humanity are fundamentally orientated towards self and sin. It is ridiculous to say that just because people have no choice in the matter it is right. This is fundamentally what humanity is and fundamentally what they ought not to be.
- To underline this understanding we should look at what Paul said about marriage. Paul clearly states that it is not necessary to be married; in fact it can be of benefit not to marry at all (1 Corinthians 7:1). This demonstrates that even with heterosexual feelings, they do not need to be acted upon. In telling others to marry Paul avoids using the is/ought fallacy as he instructs those burning with lust should marry SO THAT they won't sin (1 Corinthians 7:9). The fallacy is avoided as he gives reasons why is leads to ought. If Christians are not compelled to act on our orientation even when it involves the non-sinful act of getting married, why do homosexual feelings require participation in the homosexual lifestyle as well as approval from the public?
In saying that, the best way to avoid homosexual sin is to remove the 'is' in the first place. Better to cut the temptation off at the source, as this is far better than having the whole body thrown into Hell, as Jesus said (Matthew 5:29-30). Therefore, it is important that the provisions we have are used. Namely renewal through the Holy Spirit; repentance; prayer and the therapy that is available. In this, it is important to realise that everyone is inclined towards various sins in different amounts; everyone has things about them that are, yet ought not to be.
In making his second point Josh Thomas openly admits that homosexuals have a disproportionately higher level of problems such as depression, eating disorders, alcohol abuse etc. Josh Thomas tentatively places the blame of these problems upon homophobia. In rushing to this conclusion Josh ignores other variables that differentiate the lives of homosexuals from heterosexuals. Namely the sexual acts themselves; the homosexual culture; and the lack of natural parenthood. We could only conclude that homophobia is the culprit if these problems approached normal levels as 'homophobia' approached zero. Meanwhile, to think that homosexual culture, which at many levels actively rejects traditional constraint, would not have an affect on one's alcoholic consumption is nonsense.
In reality these facts alone do not make an argument for greater acceptance of homosexuality, unless 'homophobia' is indeed the primary reason for these problems, which it is not evident that it is. In fact if the other variables are more prominent then it gives greater reason to continue to oppose acceptance in the public sphere as well as to continue to call men and women out of the lifestyle. It is the only compassionate choice; to oppose that which brings sexual disease, deception, psychological problems, no parenthood and no salvation.
Here's a great article written as a follow up from my article The Worldview Body Count. I, however, cannot claim to have authored this article. It was written by a fellow believer who is a follower of this ministry:
One of the major arguments commonly used by atheists against both Christianity and religion in general being allowed to have influence in the public sphere and being encouraged to 'proselytise'- is an argument based on the atrocities committed by Christians.
Typically the argument proceeds in a achetypal fashion as cited by Greg Koukl in his own book - Tactics:
Atheist: More wars have been fought and more blood has been shed in the name of God than any other cause. Religion is the greatest source of evil in the world.
In this case Koukl provides the correct response in citing the immense body counts of Secular Ideologies:
Koukl: You'll find that carnage of unimaginable proportions resulted not from religion but from institutionalized atheism: over 66 million wiped out by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev; between 32 and 61 million killed under Communist regimes since 1949; one third of the 8 million Khmers- 2.7 million people- were killed between 1975 and 1979 under the communist Khmer Rouge.
Koukl is correct in demonstrating the weakness of the atheistic position in just demonstrating the facts of history, clearly and with accuracy. However, such discussions rarely end there. Not because the atheist has a problem with the facts but because he has a problem with the categories used:
Atheist: Hang on, you can't claim that Stalin and Mao committed their crimes because of atheism. They never did this in the name of atheism or because they were motivated by atheism their crimes were unrelated.
In this case the atheist has merely reduced the scope of atheism to the point where any crimes committed by an atheist have no relation to atheism itself. Whereas religion is to blame if a perpetrator merely mentions God (see: Hitler, Breivik etc.), the relation between their actions and actual Christian doctrine is not relevant. There is an obvious double standard here and it highly useful to simply point it out, however now that the double standard has been established by the atheist his own tactic can be used against him.
In reducing the scope for the negative influences of atheism on the one hand, the atheist has unwittingly reduced the scope for all influences atheism has, this also includes positive influences. Therefore it is advantageous to demonstrate the tremendous positive influence Christianity has had throughout history in every sphere of life, because when the tables are turned atheism is completely naked as no-one commits these good acts in the name of atheism or with an atheistic motive. By the atheists own standard atheism is without utility.
Therefore the atheist has two choices; with the first option they need to re-expand the scope to the point that that the body count of the atheistic regimes is included, conceding the original argument and secondary argument. From this level of scope; atheism does not have any advantage on the 'body count' side of the coin and still loses out on the positive benefits ledger as well. The second option is to keep the revised scope and have to face reality that atheism offers no utility.
A positive aspect of including positives in such an argument. Is that Christianity can be framed as being being a beneficial philosophy as opposed to a 'lesser of two evils'. Which is a far better stance for evangelism.
Another weakness of the atrocity arguments is that the crimes are not just vast in their scope but also very recent. Considering all these events happened in recent memory atheism must be considered as a more dangerous belief system than Christianity in their modern forms. To illustrate; which man would you trust to keep sober? A man who got drunk years ago or a man who has lost control of his drinking recently? Given the relative rarity of atheistic regimes it is hard to see why atheists should oppose Christianity or religion in general due to past atrocities.
In the end, it should be noted, that this argument does not have any impact on whether atheism or Christianity is true. However it is a primary motivator behind militant atheism. If Christianity or religion in general can be demonstrated to be dangerous, it legitimizes aggressive atheism at a personal level as well as in politics which is where you get the fallacious 'separation of church and state' arguments being made.
