File this under the “one more reason I’m glad I left the Methodist church” category.  Their news service published this by a retired bishop:  Gay daughter sent bishop back to Scriptures | United Methodist News Service.

He is another in a long line of “Christian” parents who twist God’s word to justify their children’s sins.  It is bad enough when lay people do it, but this phony makes the same common intellectually bankrupt arguments that pagans make.  He knows better.

And he isn’t being loving at all.  I know someone who temporarily went lesbian after leaving an abusive marriage.  While that is somewhat common, it obviously doesn’t overturn Romans 1 or the rest of the Bible.  The world – and her Christian parents — told her that Jesus was fine with it, but deep down she knew better and admitted it to me.  It was causing her great stress because she knew it was wrong, but most people didn’t have the guts to speak the truth to her.  I didn’t rant or condemn her or even raise my voice.  I just said, “You know that’s a sin, don’t you?”  And she emphatically agreed.

Nearly 35 years ago my wife, Julia, and I wrote the first Disciple Bible Study, an in-depth curriculum that eventually numbered four studies in all. Almost 3 million people around the world have taken at least one of the studies.

I took the study and taught it several times.  It was good, because it was before he went apostate.  [Side note: By the time they wrote the third study they were using obvious wolves in sheep’s clothing to undermine scripture.]

Thirty years ago our daughter Sarah shared with Julia and me that she is gay and that she had entered into a committed relationship. She came out to us when she was 27 years old. We never imagined this was anything that would touch our family. While I had never studied in depth the passages in the Bible that seem to condemn homosexuality, I felt the Bible was clear, and as a pastor and leader in the church I stood by what our United Methodist Book of Discipline said.

The Bible is quite clear, and he knows it.  It isn’t just a few verses and they aren’t unclear or unimportant.

• 100% of the verses addressing homosexual behavior denounce it as sin in the strongest possible terms.
• 100% of the verses referencing God’s ideal for marriage involve one man and one woman.
• 100% of the verses referencing parenting involve moms and dads with unique roles (or at least a set of male and female parents guiding the children).
• 0% of 31,173 Bible verses refer to homosexual behavior in a positive or even benign way or even hint at the acceptability of homosexual unions.

Now, however, I was facing this matter as a parent. The night that Sarah shared her news with us, Julia and I talked, and we were immediately at peace with knowing that her homosexuality was not a result of her upbringing.

WARNING!  Note that his first instinct was, “What did I do wrong?!”  That’s the root of these  rationalizations about the Bible.  It may not have been anything they did.  It could have been abuse or molestation by someone else or just plain old sin.  Or maybe it was a relationship issue with the parents.  But their “revelations” about what the Bible “really” says are grounded in the utterly selfish motive to absolve themselves of parental guilt.  How shameful and unloving!

We had raised all four of our children in a loving, Christ-centered home. In one way or another, all of our children have devoted themselves to a life of faith and service in the church. Sarah heard a call to mission at a young age, and over the years she has served in United Methodist roles ranging from director of an inner-city community center to religious publisher. She is a lifelong member of the church.

Apparently he also never studied the passages about wolves in sheep’s clothing, wheat/tares, etc.

The young woman before us that night wanted to be loved and accepted, but she wasn’t a troubled, tortured soul. She was happy and whole, and Julia and I believed that her sexual orientation was how God had made her. That night we learned something new about our daughter, but we loved and cherished her just the same, if not more.

Oh, so she is happy with her sin.  Never mind.  Seriously, I’ve met over 1,000 felons while doing prison ministry.  Many have no remorse.

And he “believed” it was how God made her.  Great, throw in some blasphemy while you are at it and blame God for her sin.

Of course you still love your kids if they are sinners.  Lots of pro-LBTQX types think they are playing a trump card when they ask, “What if your child was LGBTQX?”  I am blessed that my children and their spouses are all hetero and committed believers, but I’d still love them if they weren’t.  But because I love them I’d no more affirm sexual perversions than I would other sins.

Still, I knew I had some work to do. I needed to reconcile my commitment to scriptural authority with loving and accepting my daughter.

Why yes, rationalization of the opposite of what the Bible teaches is very hard work!

Frankly, I was amazed at my lifelong ignorance about homosexuality. I had spent my ministry dealing mostly with the uses, misuses, and abuses of sex among heterosexuals. But I did not understand or worry about my energetic, popular youth fellowship leaders who never went out on dates. I was grateful for the Wesleyan Service Guild women, some of whom lived together and cared for each other for 50 or 60 years. I didn’t give any thought to the private lives they must have had or even the pain that their secrets must have inflicted.

Ah, so heterosexuals abuse sex but LGBTQX people don’t.  Check.

So I began my own journey. I reached out to other families with homosexual members, and I listened to their stories of struggle in the church. And I began a more in-depth examination of the Scriptures that address the issue of homosexuality. You may be surprised to know I hadn’t fully done my homework here, but the truth is, if you have a big-picture grasp of the Bible as I do, then you will understand just how insignificant these few passages are.

Bullshit.  They aren’t insignificant, and again, there are countless passages pointing to God’s ideals.

How can I say anything in the Bible is insignificant? Because not all passages in the Bible were created equal. For example, the books of the minor prophets, such as Malachi and Obadiah, can’t be compared to the power and significance of Genesis and Exodus. There is a reason many Bibles use red letters to set Jesus’ words apart: The color highlights their importance relative to the surrounding text.

What a wicked lie.  Jesus affirmed all of the Old Testament down to verb tenses and dots, and He authorized the New Testament.  It all turned out just as He wanted it to.  The bishop implies that lesser known sections aren’t true.  How Satanic!

So keeping this understanding in mind, I took each passage that addresses homosexuality and examined its context. I looked at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which has been used over the centuries to claim that homosexuality is a sin — the so-called “sin of Sodom.” The angry townspeople were eager to rape and humiliate the strangers who were visiting Lot.

Yep, and they persisted even after being literally blinded, which is why you should never give into the LGBTQX lobby.

But I think it is fairly easy to see that the sin was not homosexuality but rather the townspeople’s violent inhospitality to strangers. I say “easy,” because you don’t have to look beyond the Bible to understand this. The prophet Ezekiel identified it when he wrote: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus also implies that Sodom was guilty of ugly inhospitality.

Bzzzzt.  Ejector seat time.  This wolf knows there are other passages, such as in Jude and 2 Peter 2 that clearly show the “sin of Sodom.”  Did you catch how he didn’t refer to those and pretended they didn’t exist?  That’s because wolves — even those who write Bible studies — rely on biblical ignorance to make their case.

Jude 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

We know, of course, that the Holiness Code in Leviticus and Deuteronomy forbids homosexual acts between men. But we forget the context: This code was designed for the specific purpose of setting the Jews apart from the Canaanites. It was not intended as a universal morality. It was peculiar to the Hebrews — and to the times. It reflected one side of the constant tension in Judaism, as well as in all religions, between exclusion and inclusion.

Wrong.  He assumes you won’t read Leviticus 18 and note how the passage was clearly condemning the Canaanites.  A long list of sins is bookended  by God saying how He is judging them for what all people know is wrong.

The Apostle Paul does graphically list sins where women have sex with women, and men with men, but again, context is everything. Paul was familiar with only two kinds of homosexual activity: when wealthy Greeks would buy young boys as slaves and sexually exploit them, and when part of the Greek-Roman world would go to male and female prostitute-priests as a form of fertility or mystery cult worship. Neither of these ancient practices, of course, has any resemblance to the loving, faithful relationships that I witness in my family and among our family friends.

Double bzzzzt.  That’s wrong on many levels.

First, note how this wolf tips his hands and assume that the Holy Spirit wasn’t involved in the writings!  That’s a common and Satanic trick of the “Christian” Left, where they quote scripture authoritatively whenever they think they agree with it but undermine it when they don’t like it.  He claims it was Paul’s alleged mistakes.  But that means scripture is wrong and the Holy Spirit wasn’t involved.  What else is wrong, and how does he know?

And he falsely assumes Paul didn’t know about those relationships.   What evidence does he offer for that claim?

The text couldn’t be more clear.  It refers to consensual relationships, not exploitive ones.  It also refers to men with men, not to men with boys.  So he tells a blatant lie when he says, “Paul was familiar with only two kinds of homosexual activity: when wealthy Greeks would buy young boys as slaves and sexually exploit them.”  The passage doesn’t mention boys, so Paul clearly knew at least one other kind of homosexual activity.  It is so plain, but he trusts that most people won’t read it.  They actually want to be misinformed so they can go along with the world.

There are also zero references to temples or prostitutes, let alone temple prostitutes.  And there are zero examples in history of lesbian temple prostitutes.  But none of that stops the bishop from repeating those fallacious sound bites.

Romans 1:26–27 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Fixating on those words also misses the larger point that Paul was simply trying to list every sin he could think of. He wanted to show that all of us have fallen short, that we are all sinners in need of the atoning grace of God. As I reflect on the list of sins, I know not a day goes by that I’m not in need of grace.

False.  Of course we are sinners in need of grace.  But homosexual behavior was Paul’s Exhibit A in the case that people suppress the truth in unrighteousness.  And the bishop is proving his point!  He is truly without excuse.

Romans 1:18–20 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

But Jesus and his ministry concern me most.

You mean where He defined marriage as between one man and one woman?  And where he said there are just men and women?  Why do you deny that ministry?  And on the bishop’s standards, these count more because they are “red letters.”

Mark 10:6-9 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

Time and again, he deliberately focused on the marginalized.

Time and again He told people to repent.

The hatred and condemnation of others all seems to be the very opposite to both the action and the teachings of Jesus. He laid the groundwork for the church to accept Gentiles when he said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.”

Of course Jesus said not to hate, but that’s just a pathetic ad hominem attack by the bishop.  We don’t hate LGBTQX people, we love them enough to tell them the truth.  We’ll share the Gospel with anyone: Murderers, adulterers, LGBTQX people, thieves, the greedy, etc.  But we offer it on God’s terms: Repent and believe.

Again and again Jesus placed kindness and acceptance over custom and social norms. “Love one another,” he commanded, “as I have loved you.” He also emphasized hospitality: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And you will be blessed.”

If we are to be Christ followers, how can we reject the LGBT community in light of Jesus’ ministry?

False dichotomy.  You aren’t rejecting them, you are inviting them on the same terms as everyone else: Repent and believe!

And yet, make no mistake, I am not condoning sin.

Liar. That’s exactly what he is doing.

Nothing in my 70 years of ministry would lead me to believe that The United Methodist Church would or should divide over these few misunderstood passages of Scripture.

It is no coincidence that most of the pro-LGBTQX lobby also deny the authority of scripture, Jesus’ exclusivity for salvation, Jesus’ divinity, and more.

I am offering this message because, I believe that Jesus is Lord of the Bible, and all of his teachings direct us to create a loving and inclusive community of faith. I ask for your prayers for the church. Lift your voice in affirmation of our great tradition and help us to find a way forward to heal, and not divide.

But he is hypocritically dividing from people who disagree with him.  I’m fine with division.  The UMC should have split long ago.  Better yet, they should have ejected the wolves who lied at their ordination vows and/or apostatized later.

Christ beckons: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”

If you love God and neighbor, you won’t lie to them about the Bible. Again:

• 100% of the verses addressing homosexual behavior denounce it as sin in the strongest possible terms.
• 100% of the verses referencing God’s ideal for marriage involve one man and one woman.
• 100% of the verses referencing parenting involve moms and dads with unique roles (or at least a set of male and female parents guiding the children).
• 0% of 31,173 Bible verses refer to homosexual behavior in a positive or even benign way or even hint at the acceptability of homosexual unions.

There is no place to comment at the link and they disabled comments for the YouTube video.  Convenient, that.  I’d love to debate this wolf.  Think of the easy questions to destroy his arguments.  Just a sample from the Romans 1 section:

• You said that one of the only two kinds of homosexuals Paul knew about involved exploitative relationships with men and boys.  Can you please point out where Romans 1 refers to boys?
• You said that Paul didn’t know of other kinds of relationships.
  • What evidence do you have to prove that?
  • Even if Paul didn’t know of other types, wouldn’t the Holy Spirit have known?
• You mention temple prostitutes.  Please show where the text refers to them.
• You imply that the lesbian relationships involved temple prostitutes.  Please show me anywhere in recorded history that lesbian prostitutes are mentioned.  I’ll wait while you Google it.
• And so on.

Run, don’t walk, from any “Christian” Left group.