Liberty Conservative: The Apoplectic Reaction to the Nashville Statement
Apoplectic, nearly universal condemnation was the reaction to the Nashville Statement, the dry reminder that, to Christians, homosexual acts are sinful, that two men cannot be married to one another, and that a man who thinks he is a woman is a man.
Yet when the kumbaya crowd heard these things, it was as if it were announced their cell phones were to be taken away. The by-now standard cries of “hate”, “bigotry”, “hypocrisy” were made, with many paradoxically calling the Statement “anti-Christian.”
The Nashville Statement was not political. Many prominent “never Trumpers” signed; for instance, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Statement does have debatable points, but theological niceties weren’t what triggered the credentialed Left. After all, it is no secret what the Bible actually says about sex. What galled must have been their discovery that large numbers of people still believe things like this:
For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature.
And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
The New York Times said “The Nashville Statement Is an Attack on L.G.B.T. Christians“. Attack?
Turns out gender dysphoria sufferers and the same-sex attracted “have disproportionately high rates of suicide and of anxiety and depression”, which is so. The NYT claims that these folks being reminded that their lusts are “objectively disordered” will cause them to kill themselves faster.
If that is so, we’re going to have to ban and burn the Bible, Old and New Testaments, lest a homosexual chance upon God saying “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Sites which give comparative translations of verses like that one are also going to have to go.
So too must we rid our shelves of Robert Gagnon’s magisterial The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, a book which stuns in its erudition and painstaking argument, a book which leaves those who help to find even a scrap of scriptural support for aberrant sexuality with no hope.
How many LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP—and even normal—folks will go to Hell if they act on their disordered desires and do not seek forgiveness, critics of the Nashville Statement do not say. It’s a good bet that, if pressed, Statement critics would say none. The only sin they would probably recognize is the “sin” of recognizing sin.
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You know where to go for the grand finale.
The editor at Liberty Conservative, Gavin Wax, asked me to contribute a few pieces, which I was most happy to do. Readers might recall that it was LC Google put over a barrel a couple of weeks back, by threatening to cut off their ads unless they removed a harmless article, but one which ran afoul of the SJWs at that once-great tech company.
It was a requirement to publish that I create an “avatar”. Its moustache, which certain homefront powers forbid, is a wish and not a reality.
Jesus said,
“I do not come into the world to judge the world but to save the world.”
“You judge by the flesh, but my kingdom is not of this world.”
“Love one another as I have loved you.”
Then this:
Romans 1: King James version:
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Paul says that they are worthy of death.
Nowhere does it say that people will go to hell.
Notice the other inclusions on the list. Having to do with features of unkind and unholy personality.
They’re also on the list!
Hell isn’t mentioned, either, I notice.
Joy, I think the only sin unforgivable is the 2nd (or 3rd depending on your version of the bible): Taking the Lord’s name in vain. It is called out as such in most bible versions. Hebrew bibles interpret the commandment to mean misusing God’s name, whereas many Christians interpret it to mean the imprecations we here daily.
If you need evidence that religion is a lie made up by people, you need look no further than its obsession with sex. People are naturally interested in sex, but why would god be the slightest bit interested in it?
Yes,
but I don’t think you presumably understand what I’m saying and why I’m saying it.
I prefer honesty and truth over exaggeration and satire, which are lies born of pride and jealousy.
It is neither in my interest or of my interest, gayness, LGBTQFX or whatever.
I do care about the truth, though and of what Jesus said.
It is noted in Romans that the state does not bare the sword in vain.
Then there is what Jesus spoke and preached and how he was received.
The proud intellectuals, in particular, could not and would not acknowledge what he said for pride and seemliness, and for personal protection.
“If you need evidence that religion is a lie made up by people, you need look no further than its obsession with sex. ”
There is no such obsession with sex. The number of verses devoted to sexual sins in the Bible is tiny. Among many other things, the Bible says that killing is wrong (and envy is wrong and pride is wrong). It also says that fornicating is wrong.
It is the religion of the Left (which has infiltrated Christianity) the one that is obsessed with the latter while disregarding that the Bible says the former too. They are obsessed with sex because the highest good in this leftist religion is pleasure, so everything that goes against pleasure is wrong for them.
In addition, it is an intolerant religion. It is not enough that they can have any kind of sexual pleasure they want. It is that they want everybody to approve. Christians have to approve things that go against their religion. Christian must change their doctrine to please the religion of the Left.
“People are naturally interested in sex, but why would god be the slightest bit interested in it?”
Because God loves you because we are His creatures. He wants us to have a full life. This includes the right use of sex (the same way it includes the right use of everything else). He wants us to have a working society and not a society that kills itself, like Europe (where every deviation is allowed and it will be replaced by Muslims.
To be a convincing atheist, you must improve your arguments.
John 15:
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
Still cannot understand why one would stay with a religion if you don’t want to follow its rules. Having your cake and eating it, it seems.
Problem is, if God exists as advertised by a particular religion, and you are not following the commandments of that religion, then you will have the problems in the afterlife as advertised by that religion, instead of the good things as advertised.
After all, why believe that only the good things will happen? It is completely irrational.
Interesting commentary about marriage in Israel
http://messiahsmandate.org/messianic-jews-denied-marriage-in-israel/
What’s the purpose of the Nashville Statement? As a method of persuasion it fails and worse.
It will not, cannot, have the aggregate effect of persuading the immoral to consider a more moral alternative — and in fact induces the immoral to more fervently reject the more moral alternative — because of human psychology, the so-called “backfire effect,” whereby when a cherished belief is challenged, even disproven, the believer not retains belief but believes even more fervently. RE “Backfire-effect” see https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect and its links. That’s how people are made by their creator — refusing to consider the intrinsic nature of humans and adjust accordingly seems to be going against the creator’s design.
In other words,the faithful believers behind and endorsing the Nashville Statement are, via naively ineffectual persuasion tactics, reinforcing the perpetuation of the very immorality they oppose. Had the faithful kept quiet, the outlook for achieving greater social morality would have been better preserved (at least the prospects would not be made worse). This is a good example of the adage, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’
The NYT remark about the N. Statement being an “attack” on LGBT Christians is somewhat illuminating as it shows how severely a mere expression of a different viewpoint is perceived — not just different, but hearing it qualifies as an “attack”. That arises from very deep-seated insecurity of a treatable mental health nature. The Atlantic has a decent summary of how/why that is becoming a new-normal:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
Ken is right again.
To stick with the example of Jesus and his preaching. When people rejected God he walked away. He did not fight them.
He approached these kinds of situations with understanding and love.
By the standards advocated here, I should have refused to treat patients who were not straight. Not that there were many even gay patients let alone Transexuals. Of all the tens of thousands there is only one patient who I recall who was having hormone treatment and I read his name wrong calling him Mr, then said,
Oh they’ve got you down as MS” and so on.
This current media and political preoccupation with this topic is a phase.
How long it will take is unclear. A major war will have the effect of sorting out some of these fevered issues which develop.
You can’t meet fire with fire when it comes to argument. Only in a fight.
My friend who was a police woman and used to go out on the beat with the male police officers, prior to the rules changing in the Met reported that she used to be used to go in to talk to wild and angry men very often as she had a better effect than when one of the lads tried to deal with the individual. It’s common sense.
Where religious discussion is concerned sense goes out of the window in belief of a some other ideal as to how things should proceed.
In regard to the “obsession with sex”, I recall a verse saying, “Be fruitful and multiply”. Homosexual acts do not lead to “multiplying” or to “being fruitful” for that matter, unless you are referring to derisive slang for homosexuals.
@ Joy,
Hell may not be mentioned in the passages you quote, but it is in fact mentioned only in the New Testament and Jesus speaks about it more than anyone else in the Bible.
@ Yawrate,
Yes, interesting that you can be a mass murderer and be forgiven, but not an atheist. Not believing in the existence of god is viewed as worse than wiping out millions of lives.
@ imnobody00,
“He wants us to have a full life”
I’m wondering why an infinite god would ‘want’ anything, but beyond that, it’s dumb of it to design us such that we enjoy things it doesn’t want us to enjoy. In other words, you can’t complain about how people play the game if you’ve designed the game and the players!
@ Alan M
“Homosexual acts do not lead to “multiplying” or to “being fruitful” for that matter, unless you are referring to derisive slang for homosexuals.”
These same sexual acts are carried out by heterosexual people also, I hear they’re quite popular. It’s possible for homosexual couples to have children via surrogacy, the same way some heterosexual couples have to do it, despite being the claimed result of an infinitely-intelligent designer.
The secular world’s obsession with sex is actually fairly recent, dating from the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s, in which women were used as cannon fodder. Naturally, people are interested in sex, but not necessarily to the point of obsession. It is a strong drive, perhaps as strong as hunger or thirst, though its lacking is not as fatal as the other two. That is why every society on the face of the earth has had a social mechanism for coping with it, such as marriage or the execution of rapists.
But starting in the 60s, the idea was hatched that women should be available to men without restriction, a view that was not so common previously. This was gratifying to many men, but catastrophic to women. Unmarried mothers constitute a rather large subset of those in poverty, since there is no longer an expectation of fathers stepping up.
One consequence has been that any institution or person who doesn’t think this is the best thing since sliced bread is now seen as “obsessed with sex.” But if the secular society were not so driven, it would not go bats whenever someone says “I don’t think so.”
Steven Fry’s summary was spot on.
This is a matter of taste and there’s no accounting for taste.
What you describe YOS is repression versus permissiveness.
The difference is in how the obsessive reveal their obsession.
The treatment of the subject by the mainstream media is in no way a measure of people’s attitude. It is rather the other way around.
The bible reports attitudes towards it and there is little or no direct reference to it from Jesus. There is no escaping these facts. There are more important things in life than what other people are up to. Unless, of course, they are blaming you for t! In which case it becomes of primary interest.
Swordfish,
So far, John’s Gospel contains no Hell reference but I’ll post them when I find them.
There is much of the same commandment repeated. Let’s just say I think Jesus would not give you such a hard time as some around here. (in the world where Jesus exists.)
All that is required is faith in him.
@ Joy,
“Let’s just say I think Jesus would not give you such a hard time as some around here.”
You seem to have the idea that I personally am gay? To avoid possible confusion, I should say I’m not, and if I was, my wife wouldn’t be very impressed. I can see why my “I hear they’re quite popular” remark might have given you that impression, but it was just my somewhat odd sense of humour.
I do understand you are an atheist. I also note your remark above regarding the obsession of the church being untrue compared with claims of some blind members of the church that everybody outside of it is obsessed. Since the number of people arguing on here for the opposing side is really rather small it is common that the mob takes heart and carries on in a way which did not used to be a feature of this website. It used to work the other way around.
There are lots of assumptions which people make on here from what they read. I used to think JH was a man.
I once said the world ‘fairy’ and had cibre Christmas ‘presents’ (ugly man) that would make poison pen letter from a psychopath look and sound mild.
Then there’s the word “Champagne” or “duck!”
Trigger words abound! If I were a bit tougher it might be a good game trying to find them, kind of like on line battle ships.
10/10 for your comedy gold comment on the other post though about ‘Truth”. It really did make me laugh.
This was it: From God is pure Truth post. It’s going on my list of favourite quotes:
Swordfishtrombone said:
I took the trouble to follow the link about lying which “St Thomas considered fully”. It was as baffling as most of his writings but it did lead me to the Summa Theologica text which turned out to be comedy gold.
Example 1: (from the Bible) “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.” Which is the most evil fruit? personally, I vote for raspberries.
Example 2: “woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence; such as that of a south wind, which is moist.” Keep smiling but back away slowly.”
Swordfish regarding your 15th Sept 8:22am comment.
If busy please ignore or read the last part. Checked the four Gospels regarding hell.
The overt references are few, I counted three from all four gospels. Jesus does mention ‘everlasting fire’ in Matthew Chapter 25 v34- 46.;
In chapter three of Matthew and Luke also is mentioned the issue of complacency regarding the people claiming birthright to the kingdom of heaven.
There is no direct hell reference to a person. Many examples of parable and examples of types: like the scribes, the Pharisee and the rich man.
Emphatic reference to God’s final judgement is made clear I.e. those without faith.
Nowhere (regarding the current topic) does Jesus condemn any actual person to eternal fire. He says to Judas that it were better that he had never been born. It is the only direct condemning remark I could find to a person. Jesus speaks of people in parables.
There is an imaginary example of a rich man burning in hell pleading with a poorly soul, to cool his tongue. if taken literally implies a waking knowledge of burning. This, it seems to me, is example, not literal as the man is comfortable enough to be talking in his torment. Jesus says,
‘Everything is possible with God’ When the disciples are exasperated as to who might ever be saved.
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Much of what was written was for it’s contemporary audience that which is taken for granted today seems to have amazed the people back then. Which shows that some things have indeed changed since he brought the Good News.
Materially though, people are better off, even the poor in western nations and the difference between rich and poor has grown.
So much has changed in what people know but not much in how people behave. Man’s head is more full and his heart is ill considered and all sorts of connotations have become associated.
To ‘Take heart’ is to have courage and this becomes easier with faith. It would take a strange man not to believe in Jesus if he had done the things he did right in front of him but it seemed that some did. Perhaps this is the way an atheist should view this kind of thing. One of my favourite people in the world is an atheist and I spent many a time in tears about this as a child.
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Regarding fire and brimstone invocation, from Luke chapter 9:
And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
55
But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.