Many readers of the Christian Reformed Churches’ Banner were likely startled to find it’s September 17, 1984, issue largely devoted to the discussion of homosexuality. It appears that the successful effort to override the Biblical prohibitions of women in church office may now be followed by a comparable effort to break down the churches’ traditional and Biblical opposition to homosexuality.
All this is hardly new or original. We are only too familiar with the movement in the larger Liberal denominations in this direction and many people prominent in the news media as well as many Liberal politicians have been making a fad out of attempting to break down what moral and legal restraints still exist in our society against this kind of perversion. The old mother churches of many of us in the Netherlands have also been somewhat ahead of us in this movement. A recent visitor to the Netherlands commented that about the only concern· that seemed to be generating much enthusiasm in many of those emptying churches was the drive to welcome homosexual practice.
The September 17 Banner included a variety of materials and expressions of opinion. Among them was a summary of the Synod decisions of 1973 which concluded that homosexual practice must be condemned. Several of the other articles were sharply critical of the Synod’s condemnation and some aimed at bringing the churches to accommodate this way of living.
Our Flawed Studies
Regarding the churches’ stance, we must recall that the report which the 1973 Synod accepted, while it finally condemned homosexual practice, did this only after it had undercut the Biblical ground for that condemnation. The report, began with an uncritical acceptance of some psychologists’ sharp distinction between a homosexual condition and homosexual practice. Then it said, “Whether the judgment which the Old Testament makes on homosexualism would be the same if such a distinction had been known we cannot say at this point. But therefore we cannot simply apply the Old Testament prohibition without considering whether our knowledge of homosexuality may not modify to some degree our moral judgment about the homosexual practices of such persons.” Treating the New Testament condemnations of such behavior in the same way, it said, “But again we need to ask whether the judgment of Paul applies to those who are homosexuals as we have defined them, i.e., those who are constitutionally homosexual . . . .” Its final conclusion condemning the practice is also qualified by the stated principle that “biblical injunctions and prohibitions are to be honored in every instance where they are not overborne by either external necessity or by a higher value.”
Even this weakened and wavering discouragement of practices that God’s word condemns as “abominations” which called for the death penalty and moved Him to destroy their practitioners (Leviticus 18:22–29; 20:13; Romans: 1 :26–32) , Morris N. Greidanus revealed in the above mentioned Banner (p.14 f.), were too strong for the writers of our Contemporary Testimony, who in their “carefully” picked words said, “Sexuality can become disordered in our broken world, but Christ’s renewing work gives hope for order and healing, and surrounds suffering persons with a compassionate community.” Even reducing the matter to a mere “disorder,” Greidanus observes, is still too “negative” to accommodate the homosexuals who want their way of life affirmed as legitimate for Christians, and he would have us “accept the basic principle that homosexuals are not responsible for their condition.”
How Must We Help?
Especially prominent in the Banner writings, as also in the ‘83 Synod report on the subject, is the suggestion that in order to help the homosexual we must be so sympathetic that we must really stop condemning the practice , must not call it sin and may not consider one responsible for it. Only so, it is intimated, can we give any help to him or her. It is significant that Douglas Houck, director of Metanoia Ministries of Seattle, points out from bitter experience that the denomination’s approach in its report which more or less assumes that homosexual orientation is a fixed characteristic for which one is not responsible and which cannot be changed, is a false notion which is one of the biggest obstacles to giving any real help. He points out that the opposite is true. This underscores, in effect, what Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 6:9–11), “Don’t you know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral . . . nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders . . . will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” While we have to be sympathetic with the sinner, remembering, as Paul reminds us that none of us is outside of that category (Rom. 3:22), we cannot possibly begin to give any real help as long as we refuse to identify sin as sin, seek to excuse or justify it, call it a “right,” or even, as some clerics are doing, dignify this way of life as a “gift of the Spirit.” One is reminded of Calvin’s comment that the devil by trying to keep people from identifying sin endeavored to make it incurable.
As was pointed out at somewhat greater length in an article in the May, 1982 OUTLOOK (“Gay Right or Old Vice”), this way of living is not in any way a modern development or a new discovery, but an old vice that has characterized paganism from its early days. The Old Testament prohibitions and warnings were not the products of ignorance but the warnings of God against the advanced moral degeneracy that finally, as in the case ofSodom, called for his annihilation of its practitioners. The Old Testament’s frequent references to Sodom’s destruction from Gen. 18 on as an object lesson and historical anticipation of hell are highly significant in this connection. Similarly, the Apostle Paul’s explanation of this kind of perversion as both a judgment upon men’s deliberate rejection of God and as their progressive degeneration under that judgment (Rom. 1:26ff., “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections . . . .”) sheds further light on the matter. These warnings were not to condemn but to move to repentance and salvation.
When our “theological experts” insist on “interpreting” these Biblical warnings as products of ignorance instead of as the Divine explanations and warnings that they are, they merely give us one more example of their growing habit of confusing God’s Word with the devil’s, and whether they realize it or not, make their significant contribution toward helping the apostate society and churches “ripen” in preparation for the Divine judgment which the Bible everywhere assures us is approaching.
The Growing Rift
For a number of years the Laymen’s NEWS BULLETINS labored, often with little thanks, to alert church members throughout the denomination to the symptoms of breakdown in doctrine and conduct that was taking place. Since the demise of that publication, the churches’ paper, THE BANNER has been doing that for us, although, unlike the laymen, it is promoting the process. This propaganda BANNER on Homosexuality appears at exactly the time when larger numbers of people than ever before* are asking how much longer they can in good conscience support the present church leadership, and whether the time has not come when a conscientious Christian must like the fathers of 100 and of 150 years ago, break the “unequal yoke” with unbelief (2 Cor. 6:14ff). It may help them make up their minds.
*A recent report tells of 600 people at a Northwest Iowa meeting approving written rejections of last June’s un-Biblical synod decisions.