Trey Pearson Is Wrong

 

As a disclaimer, until the recent news about Mr Pearson, I had no idea who he was.  Not only am I not a fan, I was as unaware of his existence as he is of mine.  I have no axe to grind in regards to him, and I have no real desire to try to achieve some sort of  cheap victory off what must a be a very trying time for his family.  I don't see the point in kicking a man while he is down, especially if that man is a brother in Christ
  But Trey Pearson is wrong.  He's not just wrong in his behavior, but he is wrong in his theology, and that  horrible misunderstanding  has given the enemies of the Lord occasion to blaspheme. I assume by his testimony he is a saved man, but he is still wrong.
  Mr. Pearson, in his letter to his fans, says;

 "I had never before admitted to myself that I was gay, let alone to anyone else. I never wanted to be gay. I was scared of what God would think and what all of these people I loved would think about me; so it never was an option for me. I have been suppressing these attractions and feelings since adolescence. I've tried my whole life to be straight."

  Repeatedly in this very candid letter, Mr. Pearson references his feelings and his emotions. He recounts his struggle to have a healthy relationship with his wife, or to be the man that he knew he was supposed to be.  I have no reason to believe he is being disingenuous and I believe his struggles, as he explains them are very real. I believe his decision to come forward with these struggles was undoubtedly agonizing.  But he is still wrong.
  Mr. Pearson isn't wrong because he's a sodomite, he's a sodomite because he's wrong. His theology is inherently flawed in that it makes his feelings or his proclivities the standard instead of the word of God.  That bad theology, resulted in bad behavior, and that bad behavior now seeks to justify itself. Make no mistake, Trey Pearson will be welcomed by the world as one of it's own. Already the  gushing testimonials from other deviants have come out, proclaiming his 'courage'.  In the middle of all this, Mr. Pearson is wrong.
  I don't know at what age Pearson  put his trust in Jesus, but at whatever age that happens for everybody that it happens to, we all have some things in common. We all bring some baggage with us.  Our flesh still longs, on occasion, for the life we left behind.  Your issue might have been lying, or drink, or women, or self-righteousness or pride.  Whatever your baggage was, there is still a haunting comforting familiarity to it, and that struggle is not unique to Mr. Pearson.  If Mr. Pearosn, before his conversion, had a proclivity towards unnatural affections, then I am hardly surprised that a shadow of those appetites lingered to some degree for the rest of his life. In other words, we all have feelings where we want things we know God has told us we aren't supposed to have.
  If your feelings  are the standard, then your flesh will wear you down to get what it wants, and you will eventually give in. Once you give in, you will seek to justify yourself, usually by referring to those same feelings that led you to betray God. It won't mater what the Bible says, you will do what you want and convince yourself that God either doesn't care or is in favor of your  personal happiness at the expense of obedience to His word.
  But the Bible says "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,...". To borrow a phrase , the struggle is real, and the Bible acknowledges this struggle, and then tells us to obey God anyway.
 Paul had this same issue, saying " For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."   There is no benefit to  pretend the struggle doesn't exist, but we should obey God anyway.  We don't sin against God by still having a desire, we sin against God be acting on that desire.  After all, according to 1 Cor 15 "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. " Jesus Christ has already won the victory and the  feelings you deal with are just echoes of the past that, through God's help you can lay aside so that you can run the race.
  Mr. Pearson, by his own words, had some struggles, and had had these struggles for years. But rather than walking in the Spirit, and resting in His Saviour, he gave in to the demands of his flesh and now lives the life of a reprobate.  He claims to feel 'free', but just like his other feelings, this freedom is an illusion, because the Bible says "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."

  The Bible is more true than your feelings.  Whatever the issue is, don't do what Mr. Pearson has done. Acknowledge the issue before God, confess it as sin, and go forward in the victory God has promised you.

Iconic Theologian or Methusaleh of Numbskulls?

  Recently  an associate of mine forwarded to me an interview with 'legendary' and 'iconic' theologian Harvey Cox.   I think the context in which I received this is  important.  This article was  forwarded to my associate by his pastor as a sort of gentle intellectual rebuke, since his  position on the issue of marriage does not line up with the official position of his denomination . My associate had taken the  comparatively hard-nosed stance that things forbidden in scripture shouldn't be allowed or encouraged by people  who claim to believe the scriptures.  Crazy, huh?
  It's worth mentioning that Mr Cox taught at the Harvard School of Divinity for longer than I have been alive.  I'm sure he's a nice guy and if I saw him broken down the side of the road, I would probably  do my best to stop and help him.  However, Mr Cox is a perfect example of the mess in which modern biblical scholarship finds itself . Mr. Cox teaches the Bible, but doesn't produce Bible believers, he produces Bible critics. The critics he has trained have gone on to  pastor churches or write books and lead whole denominations astray. Only at the  judgement seat of Christ will the full extent  of  the soul-wrecking damage done by Mr. Cox and his ilk be revealed.
  I say this without reservation, even though  I am  significantly younger than Mr. Cox and have less academic accomplishments. In this interview, Mr. Cox makes some statements with shattering implications,  those statements must be examined in light of the scriptures.
  The interviewer asks him ;You talk about reading the Bible as narrative. What does this mean and how is this different from the way most people read it?.  Mr. Cox responds:

Most people do read the Bible as a collection of narratives – legends, stories, history, parables – but some read it as a compilation of moral exhortations and doctrines. Some enjoy its poetry. There is no single “correct” way to read the Bible.  This is, in part, because it contains such a variety of literary genres. Many believe, as I do, that God speaks through the Bible, but the message comes to us through many different voices.

     I for one would be interested to know what parts of the Bible Mr. Cox considers 'legends' and 'stories'. I enjoy the book Huckleberry Finn. I consider it probably the  greatest America novel ever written. I , however wouldn't bother spending  40 years or 4 years or 4 minutes 'teaching' people about Huck Finn because it's  just a story.. The Bible says, in regards to itself, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables..." and "Thy word is true from the beginning". Having a man teaching  theology who disbelieves his subject is akin to taking medical school lessons from a man who doesn't believe there is an appendix.  His disbelief  naturally taints the  subject.
 Later on in the interview, Dr. Cox is asked what advice he would give to 'lay people' who have never been trained how to read the Bible in a 'historical context'. His reply is as follows:

Knowing something about where a given biblical text was first written, and by whom, and to whom it was originally addressed immensely deepens our appreciation of it. For many centuries this information was just not available. During the past century, textual analysis, archaeology, the comparative study of original documents, and knowledge of the secular history that surrounds and suffuses the biblical texts is now readily available in standard encyclopedias and through search engines.

  The mindset that the poor unwashed  'lay people' are simply too stupid to understand the Bible without scholars ( like himself) coming to the rescue  is an old ,tired argument.  It displaces the Bible as the authority and replaces it with  lexicons and  dusty tomes written by even dustier men who don't believe the thing they are studying.  By contrast, the Bible says "..ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:" and that "..the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." Furthermore, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments:"If a man lives right, God will give him insight into the scriptures without any bible-rejecting scholar being involved.
  After giving some trite (and scholar-exalting) homilies on feminism and the Bible, the  interviewer finally gets to the question that, as they say , is on everyone's mind; is the  Bible a reliable opinion source on sodomy?

The term “homosexuality” was also unknown to any of the biblical writers. In the current debate, certain verses are often cited without reference to their original social setting or to what the words used meant at the time. In the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, given the hardship of living and high infant mortality, any sexual activity that was not reproductive was viewed with suspicion. The Apostle Paul is mainly concerned with the misuse of sex by the powerful (mainly men) as an expression of domination and inequality. As for Jesus, he says nothing whatever on the subject. Here again careful historical study helps clarify what was at issue when a text was originally written and to what extent that context differs with or overlaps with our own. This kind of careful examination, even if it does not produce an unequivocal solution to current arguments, might cool some of the overheated rhetoric often deployed. 

  As far as I can tell, Mr. Cox's position is that books like Leviticus or Deuteronomy aren't commandments given by God that are eternal in nature, but rather  a collection of superstitions held by ignorant folks fearful of a shortage of babies.  Presumably there was no shortage of babies in Jesus' day (despite the murder of most of his generation), so he  neglected to mention it ,yet Paul felt the need to bring it up again in Romans 1 (which has nothing to do with 'powerful men') and Peter  felt obligated to address it in his writings. I personally have to wonder if Mr Cox has ever even read the verses he dismisses. By  'iconic theologian' standards we, with a world population in the billions, should now be free to commit all manner of abominations.  Mr Cox, why should we pay any heed to Biblical warnings against bestiality, incest or murder?  
  You see, that's the real  business Harvey Cox is in; providing a scholarly  alibi for the sins of Bible-rejecting church members. Here's how the game is played; apostate church members find that the Bible goes against their sin.  Unwilling to turn from their sin, they search around until they find someone of scholarly authority willing to tell them that the Bible means this when it clearly says that.  These reprobates  congratulate themselves on having shed themselves of  old-fashioned ideas and praise each other for how open-minded and scholarly they are in their rebellion. "Professing themselves to be wise, they  became fools" is the Holy Spirits take on it. Now unfortunately one day they  will stand before God who, as it turns out, is way more old-fashioned and closed-minded than the idol they have constructed in his name.  As a great  man once said, "Some people's minds are so open their brains have fallen out. Their mind needs to be closed for repairs."
  Mr. Cox doesn't teach the Bible, he teaches idolatry, with the idol being smart guys like himself who stand in judgment of God's word, adjusting it to the political climate of apostate churches in exchange for a paycheck.  Mr. Cox is 85, and I hope for his sake that he really has trusted Jesus for the pardon of his sin.  I also hope that he  realizes the horrible injustice he is doing to the body of Christ and repents. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

No Matter Who Won, We Lost

  It  has been interesting to watch the news coverage of the latest SCOTUS  fiasco.  As usual, the  elctronic media  hypnotists do their  dead-level  best to   misdirect you and  point your focus somewhere other than where it should be. I have seen almost no  television coverage of any substance regarding the horrific gutting of the 5th Amendment by our good friends in the 'conservative leaning' Supreme Court.  That is  massively more impactful to my day to day  life and liberty than DOMA, which was a poorly thought out law to begin with.  The media instead  have   tapped into the deeply emotional nature of the DOMA debacle, which  to me was the least surprising thing the  Supremes have done lately.  But even  while covering it, they have failed to  look at it in any depth.  The narrative is painted as a simple one reinforced with looped footage; happy  homosexuals on one side of the argument, and foaming at the  mouth religious people on the other.  I'd like to think I don't fit into either group, in fact I can assure you that I don't  qualify for the first group with my  wife as  the star witness.  but I would like to weigh in with my own analysis of  these events, and throw my 2 cents into the national debate.
  DOMA was a bad idea, because there exists nowhere in the Constitution the authority for the federal government to regulate or define marriage. I'm not even entirely certain where we got this notion from.  Legislation intended to shape or steer a society is  often the most dangerous stuff you  can dream up. Had I been a Congressman I would have voted against it.  An individual has a right to  conduct their own personal affairs and enter into any sort of  relationship that they desire. I may not approve of it, I  may even preach against it, but in the end, according to scripture they are sinning against their own body and is not something  Congress needs to pay any attention too.  I will go on further to say they  have the right to call that relationship whatever they want, but as we  say back home 'putting a cat in the oven don't make it a biscuit'.  You don't have the right to  redefine a word  to suit your own agenda at anyone else's expense.  At this point , the individuals involved have only harmed and involved themselves. DOMA gave Congress unconstitutional powers to regulate  something that only affects the people involved.
  So as an example, let's say I joined a  2 person club. Me and my  fellow club-member agree that when one of us dies, the other one gets  his stuff.  We both agree to this, and  even put it  in writing.  We decide to call our club "The  Coolest Club in the Universe". Silly? Absolutely.  You might even say that the club name is misleading ( really Mike? the whole universe?). You may not like it, you may not approve of it and even speak out against it but really, it's none of your business what we are doing, and what we call it.   What you lack is the legitimate authority to outlaw it.  Later on, we decide to expand the club parameters to allow a 3rd person to join.   Does it suddenly become your business legislatively?
  Here's where it gets hairy and here is exactly where I think , as bad an idea as DOMA is, the SCOTUS decision is just as  bad.  I now take my club and  go to your restaurant and say 'you must offer my  club the discounts and  privileges you offer other  clubs, or I will cry foul'.  A  rational response would be to assess what business impact this would have  on your restaurant, along with your personal feelings about our club, and make your decision from there.  You may decide to offer me what you have offered others, or you may  decide to tell me to  hit the bricks. Either way, I should  have no authority to FORCE you to  cater to our little group of weirdos because you are under no obligation to  honor a agreement that you weren't part of. Our club has no 'rights' other than the right to  associate with whom we please. We should not be able to force you to associate or acknowledge us.  We certainly shouldn't have the right to legislatively force you to modify your business practices to accommodate us against your  will.
  The long term fallout of the SCOTUS decision will be in its application, and my prediction is that  a new 'right' will spring out of whole cloth, and with it the justification for  the state to  force other people to acknowledge a union that they were never part of. I  expect discrimination  lawsuits and defamation campaigns to   be generated against those  that choose not to  acknowledge the latest 'club'.  Those that speak  out against the club will be vilified even worse than they already are, and their speech curtailed under the jackboot of the  police state. I expect the  heavy hand of government will  violate  people's right to association and to their own  property and business practices in order to force this new reality down every ones throats.  The end result will be less freedom for everyone, the  homosexuals included ,and more  government interference in people's bedrooms.
  Nobody wins.

People are Crazy, and Not in a Good Way

  You'll have to  forgive my vagueness on the details, but I am neither a sports fan or a celebrity watcher, but as far as I can tell, this is what  happened; an athlete announced to the  world that he is a sexual deviant; a homosexual. Now what this has to do with his profession I haven't the foggiest idea.  There is a tendency among people  with that  deviancy to get their entire life wrapped up in their deviancy; to find their  very identity in the  'cause'. Honestly, my heterosexuality  almost never comes  up in conversation and I've never thought it  needed to be celebrated or applauded.
  Soon after this announcement, another  athletete  put out a statement  claiming confusion as to why  a man would prefer another man with all the  beautiful women in the world. This statement was pounced upon by the media, although its really not that different from a thousand similar statements Ive  heard heterosexual men  make amongst themselves over the years.
  Thirdly, yet another athlete made a statement that he is a Christian, and  homosexuality is not something to be celebrated, but rather  something to be condemned as the sin that is according to Scripture.  On  this, the  media went absolutely berserk, but in a pathetically predictable way. I had the misfortune of having to watch  an afternoon talk show populated by a panel of very 'progressive' and 'open-minded' women who were weighing in on this despite the fact that  it was none of their business and no one had asked them.  One by one, they spouted their open-minded drivel to the   frantic clapping of their empty-headed audience. Each one  seemed to try to outdo the one before her in how open-minded  she could be, and although they expressed their opinions, it was all the exact same opinion. There was no deviation from the party line. Sodomite  good, Christian bad, straight down the line.
 One of these women, a grammatically challenged  lady who reminds me of Mr. Ed, misquoted a Bible verse to prove her point and then said that the  Christian athlete "he sin every day". That may be true, I'm not familiar with his personal life, but I am willing to bet that when he does, he does not expect to be congratulated, celebrated, patted on the back or made into a hero for it.  Only deviants expect that, and  only fools comply.
  But this is a  free country, mostly, and these  women have the right to their opinion, but isn't it interesting that they all knew, despite their diverse backgrounds, EXACTLY what they were expected to say.  They didn't even have to  think about it.  None of them dare say 'Well the Christian guy may have a point, why are we applauding this? Is it really 'bravery' to air your faults like this?'.  You take a stand like that, you step outside the groupthink parameters, outside of the  3x5 card of accepted opinion ( thank you, Tom Woods) and you become a pariah,an outcast. You become one of Them. You won't get your   hefty contract for your show,  sponsors will drop you,  you won't be invited to  all the cool parties.  Really its just  high school on a much grander scale. You are either one of the cool kids ( and the  cool kids decide  whether or not you are) or you're a  Them.
  Well call me a Them, but I think I'll just stick with the Book. It's done right by me so far.