[Vision2020] Anti-gays Repent, but Moral Tunnel Vision Persists

[News of Christ Cult]

 http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2005/07/antigays-repent/

Anti-gays Repent, but Moral Tunnel Vision Persists

Some anti-gay Christians are uncomfortable thinking about the world in
tangible, rational, measurable, logical terms.

These individuals — indeed, whole denominations — may be more comfortable
reducing the world to primeval "curses and blessings" — superstitions and
ghosts.

Douglas Jones and Douglas Wilson present themselves as two such individuals.
In Owning the Curse: Rethinking Same-Sex
Marriage<http://www.credenda.org/issues/16-2memorandum.php>,
Jones and Wilson reduce readers' moral vision to the following flawed,
unidimensional assumptions. Wilson, a Calvinist, earns
praise<http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/015763.html>from
Marvin Olasky.

The authors' assertions are in italics below, followed by my response.

*Homosexuality is a judgment from God.* Citing just a single sentence of the
Bible, the authors assert that homosexuality (which they do not define) is
God's end-times infliction upon a society that He has abandoned. In order to
justify this assumption, the authors:

   - misappropriate and exaggerate an isolated Bible verse;
   - ignore the simple fact that homosexuality has always been widespread
   — but brutally and hatefully suppressed by authoritarian societies in which
   individual freedom does not exist;
   - perceive that homosexuality is God's punishment for the "normal
   idolatries" of *the authors' religious community* — but they decline
   to name the idolatries of which they are guilty.

*Homosexuality is primarily a judgment against the Church.* Well-disguised
victimology here: The church is being righteously victimized by an angry
God, and homosexuals — lower than a plague of locusts in the authors' scheme
of things — are God's passive-aggressive way of lashing out in vengeance.

*Curses are removed by our repentance, not denunciations of "them."* This
assertion should make Exodus officials squirm on two counts: Alan Chambers'
claim that saved Christians like himself do not qualify as sinners, and more
broadly the ex-gay political leadership's false assertion that, unlike gay
people, ex-gay activists are repentant of their sins. (Quite the opposite:
Many gay individuals, like many heterosexuals, possess a broad perspective
on the scope and depth of right and wrong — while activists affiliated with
the religious right trivialize morality by reducing it to a mud-slinging
fight over abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality.)

While this effort by the authors to assume some moral responsibility is
noteworthy, the writers unfortunately veer into anti-secularist bigotry,
falsely equating secularism (freedom of religion) with agnosticism.

*We should, therefore, "own" homosexual sin.* One cannot own what one does
not understand, and the authors clearly do not understand homosexuality:

*Homosexuality is about resentment.* "At its root, homosexuality is a love
of sameness rather than difference." This is sheer, unsubstantiated bigotry.
"We understand that homosexuality is a deep longing for communion with the
masculine, a longing that has been trampled by neglectful or abusive
fathering." Sexist pseudo-Freudian rubbish. The authors complain about
secularism one moment, then indulge in a 19th-century atheist's prejudices
the next.

*Christian fathers are a primary cause of the curse of homosexuality.* This
is an adolescent blame game.

*Homosexuality will only pass when Christian fatherhood is pleasing to
God.*The authors speak only vaguely about fathers' "refusal to live
self-sacrificially." They fail to define exactly what forms of fatherhood
would be pleasing.

*Our repentance lives under a curse.* On the surface, this may sound like
more pre-Christian superstition, reminiscent not of true Christianity, but
of witches and goblins. But the authors seem to be saying that anti-gay
Christians must repent rather than fight an opposing category of sinners.

*Our repentance must defy all attempts to make our repentance illegal.* I
sense a trace of paranoia and scapegoating here — a denial of ample evidence
that conservative Christians have sought to make being gay illegal through
discrimination and sodomy laws, while the U.S. tolerance movement has made
no comparable effort to discriminate against or imprison people *because of
their Christianity*. (While many anti-gay activists have sought to silence,
fire or imprison people merely because they are same-sex-attracted, a mere
fringe of militant pro-gay activists has sought to silence people — not
because the targets are Christian, but because they use taxpayer-subsidized
venues to air anti-gay religious propaganda that are deemed incendiary by
the would-be silencers.)

*We must have reformation in the Church.* This is political correctness by
another name. Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily — sometimes political
correctness of the left or right is really just an expectation by some that
others will conform to common decency and good manners. But please spare me
any self-congratulatory talk about "reformation" — if political correctness
is an unsuitable description, then please try "power grab": The authors
position themselves as the sole arbiters of worship that is "false and
corrupt" and then demand that the entire nation "submit to the Lordship of
Jesus Christ."

*Side issues about science:* The authors declare genetics irrelevant, and I
agree but for very different reasons.

*Language:* Having failed to define sodomy, the authors eschew left-right
rhetoric but resort to an even sluttier reduction of morality: Faithfulness
vs. sodomy — as if sodomy (whatever it is) were the only sin. To their
credit, the authors acknowledge gay-baiting (whatever that is) as a sin —
but then return to their superstitious assumption that a "homosexual
lifestyle" exists and that gay people of faith are at odds with faith and
virtue — how so, the authors do not bother to explain. Among their
superstitions, the authors falsely assert, "Homosexuals say they are
'queer'," "they are miserable…."

*The destruction of our civil order:* The authors conclude by returning to
their atheist 19th-century father-bashing. In doing so, they ignore the
damage potentially done by the religious right to civil order.


-- 


Juanita Flores
Advocate for the Truth from Jesus
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