Sermon Illustrations on Sexual Sin — page 2

Murky Morality: Does Nature Play Fair?

Writing about the movie Juno in a recent column in the New York Times, author Caitlin Flanagan laments the plight of a pregnant teenage girl. Flanagan proclaims what she says is the “bitterly unfair truth of sexuality: Female desire can bring with it a form of punishment no man can begin to imagine” — and that is pregnancy.

Flanagan is right, of course, that becoming pregnant will forever alter the life of a teenage girl. Whether she keeps the baby, puts it up for adoption, or, tragically, decides to abort, the teenage girl will carry the consequences of her actions throughout her life.

And Flanagan is right that “pregnancy robs a teenager of her girlhood.” But Flanagan’s prescription for preserving that girlhood misses the mark. Feminists, Flanagan writes, have a “deep commitment to girls.” But their commitment, she writes, does not center on protecting the chastity of girls. Instead, they focus on freeing girls to compete with boys. And that depends on their being “sexually liberated.” And being sexually liberated depends on diminishing “among the very young the trauma of pregnancy.”

But what is really a “terrible fact” is that our young girls are being lied to and told that their happiness depends upon being sexually liberated. That is the wrong message for young women, for young men — and for adults, too.

Flanagan is genuinely interested in keeping teenage girls from the difficulties created by pre-marital sex. But instead of lighting a candle, she curses the darkness she perceives. She decries nature itself for making women women. I also think it is telling that while Flanagan uses a lot of hard words to describe teen pregnancy, not once in her column does she mention the word marriage.

The hard truth is that teenage pregnancy is a very foreseeable consequence of removing God’s standards from the arena of sexuality and replacing them with self-gratification. That is what tarnishes young souls — not the design of biology. The result is a murky morality that bows to self.

And it is exactly this murky morality that has helped build the culture of death in America, the crowning achievement of which is the Roe v. Wade decision handed down 35 years ago. If nature does not allow for consequence-free sex, then why not bend nature and erase the consequences?

But God is the Author of nature. He created our sexuality to bless us, not to curse us. He created it for the mutual joy and self-giving of man and woman within the haven of marriage. And He made it for the procreation of children within the natural family.

So you see, the answer to teen pregnancy does not lie in sexual liberation. No, the answer is to liberate our young women from the false idea that nature dealt them an unfair hand and that they are nothing more than the sum total of their impulses and desires. Doesn’t it make more sense to help them see that they are wonderfully made — and that by living according to God’s good plan for them, their deepest longings can be fulfilled?

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Is Food the New Sex?

“Put down that cheeseburger and listen up,” said George Will in THE WASHINGTON POST. In a provocative essay in POLICY REVIEW, scholar Mary Eberstadt offers a deliciously provocative analysis of the relationship between our attitudes toward sex and food. In some very fundamental ways, Eberstadt argues, food and sex have traded places. Two generations ago, most Americans observed strict moral codes regarding sex, but happily ate frozen steaks and canned vegetables. Today, society encourages sexual freedom, but condemns those who don’t eat locally grown organic veggies and free-range chickens. So we are left with “mindful eating and mindless sex.” There’s nothing wrong with eating more healthfully, of course, said India Knight in the London TIMES. Eberstadt’s point is that we seem to have transferred the notion of “taboos and rules” from sex to foodgiving rise to an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, divorce, and out-out-wedlock births.

The problem, said Mary Eberstadt in her POLICY REVIEW article, is that we increasingly think of our sexual activities purely as matters of personal taste. When it comes to food, we are more aware than ever of what our choices mean for our health and for the planet. But while “the all-you-can-eat buffet is now stigmatized, the sexual smorgasbord is not,” and I believe there is a direct connection between the two trends. All the new rules being drawn around food reflect the fact that many people, in their heart of hearts, are uncomfortable with how far the sexual revolution has gone. “Not sure what to do with it, they turn for increasing consolation to mining morality out of what they eat.” So in a very real sense, “junk food” has been replaced by “junk sex.”

[see also #35242]

Mindful Eating, Mindless Sex: Our Inner Sense of Right and Wrong

Imagine inviting some new neighbors to a dinner party. The first couple tells you they’d love to come. But, they warn, they think it’s immoral to eat animals, so please — vegetarian options only.

The second couple also wants to come, but — they’re almost embarrassed to mention it — they only eat locally grown food. No strawberries from Chili, or shrimp from Asia. Importing food from faraway countries damages the environment, they explain.

Couple number three also wants to attend — but, they ask, you aren’t serving genetically enhanced vegetables, are you, or meat produced by industrialized breeding practices?

At this point, you might be tempted to cancel the party and go out for a cheeseburger, followed up by a banana split — made with bananas from Ecuador. But you might wonder, as you bite into that greasy hunk of beef, just why it is that people have become so moralistic about food. Especially when so many are immoral in other areas — like their sex lives.

One person who has wondered about this is Mary Eberstadt, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. In her article “Is Food the New Sex?,” Eberstadt notes that food is cheap and plentiful in the West. The same can be said for sex. Technology has tamed many of the dangers associated with sex, like pregnancy and disease. Moreover, social and religious strictures have all but disappeared.

Which leads to an interesting question: What would happen, Eberstadt wondered, when, “for the first time in history ... [people] are more or less free to have all the sex and food they want?” Would they pursue both food and sex with equal ardor?

Oddly enough, they don’t. Instead, many engage in a sexual free-for-all — but put stringent moral strictures on anything to do with food. A modern young woman might think nothing of living with several different men, and having abortions when she gets pregnant. But she would not dream of eating anything from a factory farm. That would be immoral.

In effect, some people have reversed the “moral poles” of sex and eating, Eberstadt writes. They are engaging in “mindful eating and mindless sex.”

Why is this happening? As Eberstadt writes, “It is hard to avoid the conclusion that rules being drawn around food receive some force from the fact that people are uncomfortable with how far the sexual revolution has gone.”

“Not knowing what to do about it,” she says, “they turn for increasing consolation to mining morality out of what they eat.”

Or, as my former colleague Jim Tonkowich notes, “For all our relativistic talk” about encouraging people to make their own moral choices, “we cannot get away from an inner sense of right and wrong and the desire to codify [it].”

Jim is right. As the apostle Paul put it, God’s law is written on our hearts. We can deceive ourselves into believing it doesn’t exist, but when we do, we find our God-given sense of morality breaking out in other forms. In this case, in food — though it would be better the other way around.

This is what we ought to lovingly share with our unsaved friends — maybe over dinner — people who may think nothing wrong with living together out of wedlock, but who wouldn’t dream of eating mandarin oranges from Spain.

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[see also #35219]

Our Problem Is Immorality

I imagine that most people restrict morality to those sex issues that they are not involved in, that are socially dicey. Therefore, the catalogue of moral sins that the Lord condemns are generally not included in our immorality list. Some good examples of what the Lord considers moral sin are:

1. exaggerations

2. pride or vanity

3. incomplete truth (a half truth is a whole lie)

4. deceptive statements

5. desire for anything He has not seen fit to provide (this is Biblical covetousness or idolatry)

6. greed

This article leaves little wiggle room for taking the high ground as “Christian” values.

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OUR PROBLEM IS IMMORALITY

=========================

Walter E. Williams

Most of our nation’s great problems, including our economic problems, have as their root decaying moral values. Whether we have the stomach to own up to it or not, we have become an immoral people left with little more than the pretense of morality. You say, “That’s a pretty heavy charge, Williams. You’d better be prepared to back it up with evidence!” I’ll try with a few questions for you to answer.

Do you believe that it is moral and just for one person to be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another? And, if that person does not peaceably submit to being so used, do you believe that there should be the initiation of some kind of force against him? Neither question is complex and can be answered by either a yes or no. For me the answer is no to both questions but I bet that your average college professor, politician or minister would not give a simple yes or no response. They would be evasive and probably say that it all depends.

In thinking about questions of morality, my initial premise is that I am my private property and you are your private property. That’s simple. What’s complex is what percentage of me belongs to someone else. If we accept the idea of self-ownership, then certain acts are readily revealed as moral or immoral. Acts such as rape and murder are immoral because they violate one’s private property rights. Theft of the physical things that we own, such as cars, jewelry and money, also violates our ownership rights.

The reason why your college professor, politician or minister cannot give a simple yes or no answer to the question of whether one person should be used to serve the purposes of another is because they are sly enough to know that either answer would be troublesome for their agenda. A yes answer would put them firmly in the position of supporting some of mankind’s most horrible injustices such as slavery. After all, what is slavery but the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another? A no answer would put them on the spot as well because that would mean they would have to come out against taking the earnings of one American to give to another in the forms of farm and business handouts, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and thousands of similar programs that account for more than two-thirds of the federal budget. There is neither moral justification nor constitutional authority for what amounts to legalized theft. This is not an argument against paying taxes. We all have a moral obligation to pay our share of the constitutionally mandated and enumerated functions of the federal government.

Unfortunately, there is no way out of our immoral quagmire. The reason is that now that the U.S. Congress has established the principle that one American has a right to live at the expense of another American, it no longer pays to be moral. People who choose to be moral and refuse congressional handouts will find themselves losers. They’ll be paying higher and higher taxes to support increasing numbers of those paying lower and lower taxes. As it stands now, close to 50 percent of income earners have no federal income tax liability and as such, what do they care about rising income taxes? In other words, once legalized theft begins, it becomes too costly to remain moral and self-sufficient. You might as well join in the looting, including the current looting in the name of stimulating the economy.

I am all too afraid that a historian, a hundred years from now, will footnote America as a historical curiosity where people once enjoyed private property rights and limited government but it all returned to mankind’s normal state of affairs -- arbitrary abuse and control by the powerful elite.

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http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/04/01/our_problem_is_immorality

How Could I Have?

Job 31:9

Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York, was asked by a reporter why he was so reckless with a young prostitute. Spitzer replied, “The human mind ... permits people to do things that they rationally know are wrong, outrageous ... We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, ‘How could I have?’”

Money and Morality: A Two-Front Culture War

Luke 11:3

I’m used to Christians getting blamed for all sorts of things. But I never thought that responsibility for the current economic mess would be laid at our doorstep — yet that is exactly what happened in the pages of the New York Times, and from an unlikely source.

That source was columnist David Brooks, whose work I often commend. In a recent column, Brooks wrote that, in an earlier age, the “Calvinist restraint” created a “counter-vailing stream of sound economic values” that enabled Americans to resist the decadence that usually accompanies prosperity. True.

For most of our history, Brooks argued, we Americans have been “notoriously materialistic,” but we weren’t soft. Hard work and self-denial were part of our national character — actually our Christian heritage.

In recent years, the “sound economic values” have eroded. That’s true, too. Brooks cites examples like government-sponsored lotteries or excessive executive compensation, part of a larger pattern of self-indulgence leading to record levels of personal debt.

Well, if he had stopped there, it would have been fine. But he went on to say that this self-indulgence grew while “the country’s cultural monitors were busy with other things.”

According to Brooks, while Christians “were arguing about sex and the separation of church and state,” they were “oblivious to the large erosion of economic values happening under their feet.”

Reading Brooks you might think that the asset bubble and rampant speculation that led to the economic crisis was unprecedented — but of course it isn’t. America’s economic history is regularly marked by asset bubbles and financial panics.

Brooks writes as if it were unprecedented because it enables him to propose a new culture war. Instead of the obsolete one pitting secular liberals against religious conservatives on matters of sexual morality and religion, he wants a united front against the erosion of economic values.

But the problem, you see, is that values and the character they produce aren’t divisible. People will not exercise restraint in their economic dealings while casting off restraints in their sexual and social ones.

For evidence, we need only to look in Brooks’ best-known book, Bobos in Paradise. The “bourgeois bohemians” Brooks describes are self-indulgent in all their dealings, building enormous houses with enormous kitchens that they seldom cook in, or vacation homes they seldom visit.

When they’re not spending money on their rationalized version of the “good life,” they engage in excessive sexual practices.

Or turn on the television. There, people are indulging every sexual desire in the midst of a consumerist paradise — big homes, expensive cars and fashionable clothes. You can do anything you want.

The “Calvinist restraint” that Brooks cites didn’t preach chastity or thrift; rather it preached chastity and thrift. That’s because it saw both as proceeding from a common source: the Christian understanding of man’s nature and the purpose for which God created him.

If you try to have the one without the other, you will get neither. Far from being obsolete, the old culture war is more relevant than ever. Restoring moral values across the board is essential to rescue a sagging economy as well as renew our nation’s spirit.

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Did David Rape Bathsheba?

Abuse survivor and victims’ advocate Rachael Denhollander said a lot at last week’s Caring Well Conference sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, but perhaps nothing grabbed attention like her advice to use care when interpreting Bible stories such as the Old Testament tale of David and Bathsheba.

“David didn’t fornicate; David raped,” said the attorney and stay-at-home mother who rose to national fame as star witness in the trial of serial abuser and former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.

The reference is to the account in the 11th chapter of the second book of Samuel where David, a heroic figure in the Hebrew Bible, spies a woman bathing on a neighbor’s rooftop. He sends for her while her husband is away at war, gets her pregnant and then seeks to cover his sin by plotting the husband’s murder. While the narrative focuses on the interaction between David, Uriah and ultimately the prophet Nathan, it is not uncommon for preachers to portray Bathsheba as a femme fatale.

“If you understand the power dynamics and you understand the Hebrew, and you look at the Levitical examples and discussion of rape, and you understand what Nathan is saying in his parable, it is abundantly clear from that text that David raped,” said Denhollander, whose husband, Jacob Denhollander, is a Ph.D. student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The comment expanded on something she had said on Twitter in response to a list of Bible characters who sinned which included the example, “David fornicated.”

“David raped,” Denhollander tweeted. “It’s important we get that right.”

The Twitterverse exploded.

“I love what the Denhollanders have done for victim awareness, but this kind of thing is a perfect example of why it’s really dangerous to let your own experiences cloud the way you read and understand scripture,” commented a pastor in Chicago.

Jacob Denhollander rushed to his spouse’s defense. “You can disagree with her interpretation of Scripture without disparaging her as being too emotional to properly interpret Scripture or speak on this issue with clarity,” he replied. “You simply assume she’s too ‘clouded’ on the basis that you disagree. That’s unfair and dismissive.”

Others charged the couple with reading modern views into an ancient text.

“If she wasn’t a willing participant, she could have simply refused and dealt with the consequences,” a male commenter argued against viewing Bathsheba as blameless in the affair. “Countless people have chosen death over violating their own consciences.”

“If she’s not dead, it means she’s an adulterous woman,” Mr. Denhollander paraphrased in his reply.

Still others pointed out that gender bias applies equally to both women and men.

A woman who grew up being taught that Bathsheba purposely bathed in view of the king to get his attention called it “the Sunday school version of ‘what were you wearing when you were assaulted?’”

The Denhollanders aren’t the first Baptist couple to broach the problem of misogynistic readings of the story of David and Bathsheba.

David Garland, then dean of the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, and wife Diana Garland, dean of Baylor’s school of social work who died of cancer in 2015, discussed it in their book Flawed Families of the Bible: How God’s Grace Works through Imperfect Relationships, published in 2007.

“Artists and interpreters over the centuries have turned this particular woman into a painted sex kitten who bewitched a divinely chosen king,” the Garlands said in a chapter excerpt reprinted with permission in the Baylor school of social work’s journal.

“They accuse her of deliberately choosing to bathe in a place where she knew she could be seen by the king,” the authors said. “They imagine her coquettishly parading around naked to catch the king’s eye. As a consequence of this portrayal of the scene, David seems almost a helpless victim in the sights of a conniving vixen determined to seduce him.”

The Garlands said that portrayal – popularized with much artistic license in 1951 movie David and Bathsheba featuring Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward – is not supported by scripture.

In the Bible, they said, Bathsheba “is not taking a bubble bath or lounging in a hot tub” but a required ritual washing at the conclusion of her menstrual period. There is not even reason to assume she was naked, they said, because if she were in public view she would have washed without disrobing.

“Public nudity was not acceptable in this ancient Jewish culture but instead was considered shameful,” the Garlands said. “There is no foundation for assuming she was some kind of exhibitionist.”

“Male-dominated cultures like Bathsheba’s and our own teach women that they are responsible for men’s lust,” they said. “Women may think and may have been told that their behavior evokes this response in men – somehow they have telegraphed availability messages. As a consequence, when men lust after them, some women feel guilty. Somehow, they think they have caused the sexual harassment, the unwanted sexual come-ons or touching, or even the rape.”

The Garlands said nothing in the Bible story suggests Bathsheba’s compliance with the king’s order was voluntary.

“She was his subject, and she knew his sterling reputation as God’s appointed leader, a man purportedly just and righteous,” they said. “She did not know about the vermin crawling around beneath the floorboards of his religious façade and reputation. She did not know that he was capable of stooping so low to trap and use her to satisfy his burning lusts.”

“The setup was complete,” they continued. “By acquiescing to go with the king’s messengers, suddenly she found herself in a compromising position, alone with the king. Who would believe her should she accuse him of any wrongdoing? It was her word against his, and he was the great king. She was only a woman. There was no escape.”

“Bathsheba was sent for and was taken,” the Garlands said. “This was no sexual affair. An affair assumes mutual consent, and there was no indication – or even possibility for – consent. She was in a position that rendered her powerless to give consent.”

They said her portrayal in the public imagination “only compounds the injustice of her rape by making her a seductress rather than a victim of the king’s abuse.”

“She was beautiful and desirable to a lecherous monarch, but that does not make her an adulteress,” they said. “She did not ask for this. The problem with sin is that it does not simply affect the one who commits it. The fallout spreads to innocent and guilty alike. Though guiltless, the victim suffers punishment.”

“Perhaps, since David is a biblical hero, readers want to clear him of any unscrupulous behavior,” the Garlands concluded. “As when pastors abuse their power, people want to turn a blind eye or make excuses for him.”

Culture: Not Just Naughty Behavior

Hebrews 12:14

There are few topics that we need to understand more than how our culture is viewing sex, and nowhere are modern sexual mores more evident than in pop music. It may not be singularly occupied by sex, but nearly so.

This reflects not merely an aberrant way of life, but a different worldview. Peter Jones’ underappreciated work from a few years back, “The God of Sex,” helped me see that many people today have, wittingly or unwittingly, adopted a pagan outlook on life. In our modern neo-pagan world, the body is paramount, gender roles are blurred, and sex is cathartic, giving meaning to life.

In many modern neo-pagan pop and rap songs, there is no whimsy, no space for romance. All is sex. Sex is all. One partner after another, one night after another. There are no boundaries, no rules. The act is the end of all things. Depending on who’s making the music, sex can be earthy to the point of grimy or elevated to the point of life’s meaning. Sex is the particulars, the dirty details, and it is also the one truth that makes sense of it all.

So how is a Christian to respond? A few thoughts come to mind:

First, Christians have to know that we’re dealing with a different worldview (or mish-mash of them). Non-Christian friends who buy into a neo-pagan sex-driven paradigm may cop to any number of spiritual beliefs. Whatever else they put their trust in, they are at the very least syncretistic. They are reveling in the body and its pleasures, seeing them as the purpose and minute-by-minute rhythm of life.

This is really what’s taking place among those -- often men -- addicted to pornography. They’re not simply falling into certain unbiblical practices. In buying into a neo-pagan way of life, they are ruled by their bodies, and glorying in them, and -- if a Christian -- they are losing sight of their meaning and purpose in Christ.

We need a zero-tolerance policy with sexual sin. Neo-paganism is pulling at all of us, and far too many Christian men are obeying its siren song. I commonly hear the question today, “How much sexual sin is tolerable in the life of a pastor?” The answer is zero (Hebrews 12:14). We simply cannot excuse pornography usage. If we’re falling prey to it, we should step out of ministry. It is sadly true that we will all sin in isolated ways, but I fear that many young men are caught in patterns of sin. They need the shock effect of being removed from ministry to master their sin. The Gospel brings forgiveness, but the Gospel also breeds toughness.

Second, Christians need to be clear about the goodness of sex. If we have been ashamed by sex in the past, we cannot be today; otherwise, we will fail to connect with folks ensnared in today’s thought patterns. Let’s be frank: God invented it, not Satan. God created it for our delight. We celebrate His brilliant and gracious design. We’re not hedging on the goodness of sex.

But we’re also clear: Sex is not meant to give ultimate meaning to life. Pleasure and delight are preeminently found in God. No sensation or feeling is meant to lastingly satisfy us. In fact, God hard-wired sex in its very design not to be a permanent reality, much as our pop and rap songs tell us otherwise. Sex naturally is connected not merely to marital happiness, but to children, and thus to self-sacrifice, love for others, virtue and a host of other behaviors and truths. Our culture wants sex without consequences because it has lost sight of the beauty of the natural family.

Third, Christians must also make clear that sex is intended to speak a truth about meta-reality. The loving union of a man and a woman speaks to the marriage of the atoning Christ, our head, and His atoned-for, submissive church (see Ephesians 5:22-33). It speaks a cosmic truth. The act and sensation of sex is part of the broader framework of marriage, which points us to the reason for the cosmos: God loving His people for all eternity and being not only seen by them, but delighted in by them.

This is how we recognize, against the pagan impulses of our pre-converted hearts, that sex must have limits, for at a much greater level, Christ limited His covenant relationship to His bride. This last precept brings morality, virtue and righteousness into the equation. Sex cannot be whatever physical act we commit with whatever partner(s) we desire. There are holy limitations, and the church’s covenantal God sets them and keeps them. He does so both for His glory and for our flourishing.

When we hear modern songs and encounter media that fit the general category of neo-pagan, we need to see that this is not simply naughty behavior being spoken of. This is a worldview in direct opposition to Christianity, one that takes a good gift of God and twists it and misunderstands it. We find ourselves among body-worshippers, and we ourselves are tempted as they are.

How good of God to give us the gift of sex. How good of Him to show us, both through human design and especially through special revelation, that we are not made for ourselves and our own selfish sensations. Instead, we are made for the pleasure of holiness expressed and experienced through a full-sensory life of delight in Him.

Sex isn’t a reductionistic act. It’s a gift of God, part of a worldview of delight. To a neo-pagan society, we say: Your view of sex, of love, is not too big. It is too small.

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Owen Strachan is president of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood and associate professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri.

Grace and Truth Are Needed When Addressing Sexuality

John 4:6

Christian ministry in America’s sexual culture calls for both grace and truth, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore and pastor Jimmy Scroggins said in a conference for Virginia church leaders. Pastors and other leaders “must be separated from sin, but we can never be separated from sinners,” Moore told an audience at the Empowered Conference sponsored by the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (SBCV). “But it is easier in ministry to do the reverse.”

Christians must be willing to endure criticism for spending time with transgender and other sexually broken people “in order to speak with truth and with grace, with conviction and with kindness” to them, said Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

In this way, pastors and others must speak “with the confidence that you are on mission with Christ so you are not afraid of the lost people who are offended by what it is you are saying and you are not afraid of the religious critics who are upset that you are having those conversations with those lost people,” he said.

Scroggins, lead pastor of the Family Church in West Palm Beach, Florida, told the leaders they have “to be saturated with the grace of God” as they teach on sexuality, gender and marriage.

“Teaching on this stuff in this culture with a really hard edge, slicing people to ribbons with the Gospel machete, that’s not going to help,” he said.

Basing his message on the John 4 account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, Moore said a faithful church “has to be the kind of church that earns the respect of the people around us by speaking and telling the truth. Our neighbors can read texts. They understand what our Scriptures teach.”

What non-Christians want to know is, Moore said, “Do you really believe this, and do you believe this enough that you are willing to lose my esteem because you hold to these things?”

“If you and I are going to equip people to be able to minister in a world that has much confusion when it comes to issues of relationships and sexuality and marriage, we must be willing to undergo the controversy of being assumed to be bigots, being assumed to be hateful, being assumed to be people who don’t get it when we speak of a vision of sexuality,” he said.

Scroggins was asked how to apply grace and truth to ministry to convicted sex offenders or child molesters.

They should be called to repent of their sins and believe the Gospel, then pursue God’s design, Scroggins said. They will have a “high level of accountability” in the church, however, including separation from the nursery and children’s ministry, he told attendees. The church should separate the offenders from temptation and children from potential dangers, Scroggins said.

Moore said a church should have “an absolute, zero-tolerance policy” and “never, never, never cover up anything that even approaches the abuse of a child or a vulnerable person.”

Civil authorities, as well as church authorities, should be involved in every possible situation of abuse, Moore said. “And you cannot substitute one for the other.”

“One of the worst and most egregious things” regarding the cause of the body of Christ has occurred when people “have had their entire lives destroyed by predators within churches and within ministries, and those things have been covered over because people didn’t want to deal with them,” he said. “That is not just wrong; that is an abomination before God, and we have to be the people who make sure it doesn’t happen.”

During his remarks based on 2 Cor. 5:17-21, Scroggins told the audience “one of the best ways that we can be ambassadors” of reconciliation between God and human beings “is what we do with our gender, our sexuality and our families.”

“One of the best ways to be an ambassador is just to have a healthy marriage,” he said.

Scroggins offered various ideas for church leaders to consider when training others and speaking about sexuality, gender and family structure, including:

• Remember it is an ongoing conversation, not just a sermon.

• Continually connect sexuality to God’s design in marriage.

• Make it clear but not crude.

• Encourage, don’t condemn.

• Focus on stewarding the gift of sexuality rather than a once-for-all triumphalism over lust.

Horror At Hillsdale

Job 20:27

In 1999, Hillsdale was a proud bastion of conservatism. Under the leadership of the late George Roche, its president for nearly three decades, Hillsdale had transformed itself from an ordinary liberal-arts college in rural Michigan into a nationally celebrated institution that was best known for refusing to accept a penny of financial aid from the federal government. Its monthly newsletter had a million subscribers. Lecture series hosted famous conservatives from around the world. The largest group on campus was the College Republicans.

Then came a controversy that was often described as tragic but which in fact was Gothic. Hillsdale President George Roche III lay in a hospital bed surrounded by his son, his daughter-in-law, and his new wife. The daughter-in-law, Lissa, blurted out a highly emotional confession that she and her father-in-law had conducted an adulterous affair for 19 years. The son turned to his father and asked, “Is she telling the truth or is she having some sort of breakdown?” The son said his father “didn’t say a word. I could tell by looking at him that she was telling the truth. I saw the look in his eyes. He was caught.”

The next day, Lissa Roche unlocked her husband’s gun cabinet and removed a .38 special. She walked to the nearby arboretum, sat down, placed the barrel of the gun behind her ear, and pulled the trigger. When her husband arrived, her flesh was still warm to the touch; but she was dead.

President Roche later denied the accusations but was forced to resign. Liberals reveled in the news, not merely because it was salacious but also because it was an embarrassment to conservatives. Wasn’t Hillsdale supposed to be a fortress of traditional values?

He was not the first conservative to be exposed as a hypocrite, by far. In the Old Testament, Jacob’s fourth son, Judah, had a similar fall. He had failed to fulfill the family obligation to his twice-widowed daughter-in-law, Tamar, so she came up with an elaborate plot. She dressed as a prostitute, negotiated a fee with Judah, took some of his possessions as collateral, then had sex with him. As she had desired, she became pregnant. The longtime-engaged but still unmarried woman soon became a scandal in the community and she was charged with sexual sin. Her own father-in-law, Judah, passed the sentence - death by burning. It was a harsh sentence since stoning was the normal method, but Judah had to uphold his Jewish values.

It was at that moment that Tamar dropped the bombshell- Judah himself was cause of her pregnancy. She silently produced his collateral. Unlike President Roche, Judah immediately admitted to his guilt: “She is more righteous than I” (Genesis 38:26).

The episode seems to be a turning point in Judah’s life. Previously he had been callous and worldly. He chose a Canaanite for his wife and was the one who suggested selling their brother Joseph as a slave. Years after Tamar’s rebuke, he interceded for his youngest brother, Benjamin, before a feared Egyptian official (who turned out to be the long-lost Joseph) and Judah even offered to take Benjamin’s place as a hostage.

Tamar herself also had good things happen. She ended up being an ancestor of King David and, ultimately, Jesus Christ himself. While their scandal was unseemly, God can turn out anything for the good.

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Adapted from the article “Horror at Hillsdale” by John J. Miller in National Review, , November 12, 1999.

Narcissism, Therapy and Us: What Weiner Really Revealed

What is the case of Anthony Weiner really all about? Well, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has an insightful and profound take on the whole sorry affair.

Douthat writes, “In the sad case of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s virtual adultery, the Internet era’s defining vice has been thrown into sharp relief. It isn’t lust or smut or infidelity, though online life encourages all three. It’s a desperate, adolescent narcissism.”

Douthat is absolutely right. Weiner wasn’t out for sexual thrills. Opportunities for that kind of misbehavior stalk the halls of Congress.

No, Weiner, according to Douthat, was on a “pathetic quest for quasi-public validation.” Weiner’s Tweets and emails don’t reveal a man who wanted a relationship with women other than his wife. He simply wanted to show off. “Whether the congressman was tweeting photos of his upper body or bragging” about some other body part, Douthat observes, Weiner’s focus was “squarely on himself.”

Now, the Internet didn’t launch us into the age of narcissism. But it sure makes it easier to engage in self-absorption. A “growing body of research,” Douthat writes, “suggests that American self-involvement is actually reaching an apogee in the age of Facebook and Twitter.” Citing well-regarded sociologists, Douthat claims that “younger Americans are more self-absorbed, less empathetic and hungrier for approbation than earlier generations...

“The rituals of social media,” Douthat claims, “make status-seekers and exhibitionists of us all.”

We live in a culture of narcissism, as one sociologist famously put it some years ago.

But there’s another point that I need to make. Congressman Weiner recently announced that he was seeking a leave of absence from the Congress so he could undergo therapy. Therapy for what? For repulsive behavior? For the inability to refrain from taking lewd photos of himself and sending them to innocent people?

I don’t know what psychologists would call this disorder, but I would call it sin. Something we are all prone to and guilty of.

And while some doctor will prescribe psychotherapy or some drug to control the Congressman’s urges, the proper prescription would be taking responsibility, repenting, and asking forgiveness.

But in today’s therapeutic culture, people too often try to explain away their sins. “I really have a drinking problem,” someone protests, or, “it’s a chemical imbalance,” or “I was picked on as a child.” Well, all that may be so, but those things did not drive you to sin. I do not want to discount the existence of grave psychological illnesses, but the vast majority of us choose to behave the way we do.

Those feelings of guilt and shame that so many of us nowadays try to medicate or explain away are absolutely essential to our moral and spiritual well-being. They are warning lights that all is not well with our souls. We ignore them or disable them at our own peril.

I suppose if any good is to come from the Weiner episode, it may be that people can see where the me-centered, post-modern worldview leads us: To narcissism and to the therapist’s couch.

Here are two worldview lessons for us. First: The cure for narcissism is stepping away from the mirror and looking at someone else -- especially at Him who is the true desire of us all.

Second: Taking a pill or undergoing therapy will be no substitutes for forgiveness. The good news is that forgiveness is only repentance and a prayer away.

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Baptist Preachers Who Have Fallen Into Sin

Examples of recent pastors who have fallen into sin. A magazine in a large southern city carried a 10 page cover story telling the raunchy tale of an independent Baptist church in the area. The pastor and two members, all brothers, are accused of flagrant sexual immorality. One swapped wives with a man in his former church; then both families moved to this new city. The other brother, who administrates the church school, had left his wife and the church he pastored and went to Florida with a 17 year old high school girl. He and his wife are back together now. The senior pastor is accused of sexual sin by five women in the church, three of whose names are given in the articles.

Another church nearby had a young pastor who defiled more than a dozen women in the church, left his wife, and married the wife of another man in the congregation. It was known he had been involved with numerous girls in his home church. (This part used 8/5/90)

[see also #590]

A Man's Perspective: the History of Lust

Genesis 2

For Christian men, it can be difficult to address lust without perpetuating abuses and wounding our sisters along the way. In a former post, I confronted the blame-shifting that unfairly burdens women when it comes to issues of lust and modesty.

When the conversation gets framed in these terms, we men exhibit that we are our father’s — Adam’s — children. On no other issue do we men so unabashedly and inappropriately play our father’s card: “God, it was that woman you put here.”

The issues of lust and immodesty date back almost to the very beginning, stemming from a disruption of the relationship God intended for women and men. Digging deeper into Adam and Eve’s unity — and disunity — helps shape our current understanding of male lust.

Adam and Eve initially existed in unity, enjoying and exemplifying interdependence. In Genesis 2, God removed Adam’s rib and from it created the body of Eve. Remarkably, this creation of Eve from Adam produced a strong physical inclination toward her that illustrates the general inclination men have for women. It’s an inclination that prior to the Fall, served to unify the two.

After Adam recognizes Eve as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh Scripture tells us that for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. While Bible teachers and scholars tend to refer to this “leave and cleave” in strictly emotional terms, the context indicates that the “clinging” is also physical and sexual: He will cling to his wife and the two will become one flesh, the latter a euphemism for the sexual consummation of marriage.

The Hebrew term used for cling confirms the physical and sexual nature of the inclination. In similar scriptural contexts between men and women it connotes a man’s deep attraction for a woman, almost at the level of irresistibility (Shechem and Dinah, Genesis 34:3; Solomon and his many wives, 1 Kings 11:2). Scripture repeatedly depicts this inclination in men, both in corrupt forms such as the story of David and Bathsheba, or in celebrated fashions like that of the lover and his beloved in Song of Songs.

Before the Fall, the inclination that man had for woman — both physical, emotional, and sexual — was good. It encouraged marital unity and signified that man did not own the place of dominance. It meant that there was a reciprocity and interdependence between male and female, a power dynamic of mutuality.

However, man’s desire for woman was perverted — like so many other things that God made good -- when sin entered the world. We continue to witness this brokenness in pornography and the rampant objectification of women. Rather than pulling men toward marital unity, man’s inclination toward woman became distorted into consumptive lust. Furthermore, man bucked at his vulnerability to woman by reasserting male dominance and shifting the weight of guilt onto woman. Adam was the first to do this in Genesis 3:12, and men have been doing it ever since.

Man’s attempt to reassert dominance disrupts the unity God intended for male-female relationships. It dehumanizes the female person, making her into an object for his satisfaction or condemning her as the seedbed of lust.

Lust is the fruit of an undisciplined imagination, so we men are without excuse. There is no one to blame but ourselves. Though lust is an ever-pressing temptation it is not impossible to resist. It does, however, demand constant vigilance, sensitivity to conviction, and the practices of confession and repentance.

For this to happen, the church needs to provide a safe space for men to wrestle with their weakness without fear of shame. This is an important role that men’s small groups can fulfill. In environments free from judgment and shame, men need fellow men in whom to confide and find accountability. And while dialogue between the genders is also important for understanding, it is never ever appropriate for a man to confess his lust to the woman for whom he is tempted.

Brothers, when it comes to modesty, our responsibility is not to read a list of rules for modest female dress based on our own personal struggles. Instead, our responsibility is humble recognition of our weakness and how we have perverted that physical inclination that was created good. In repentance we men must work toward a way of thinking about the female body that is in harmony with the created goodness of her whole being.

In view of man’s God-given inclination, women may hear this witness and respond to it as an invitation to assist men in confronting lust. Again, this does not necessarily mean women submit to a list of rules and guidelines for modest dress, but it does mean practicing conscious awareness of men’s vulnerability without being enslaved to it. For each and every one of us, this is a process of discernment. Both women and men must seek the Holy Spirit and consider the witness of the church as we live out Paul’s directive in 1 Timothy 2:9 to “dress modestly, with decency and propriety.”

St. Augustine once spoke of the way in which Adam was made weak through the removal of his rib so that Eve could be made strong. This action, Augustine explained, was a foreshadowing of Christ, whose body was broken and made weak so that his bride, the church, could be made strong. Unlike Christ, who was sufficient unto himself, the weakening of man gave birth to a good and beautiful male-female interdependence. This unity between the genders was damaged by the Fall, but not altogether lost.

The church can still bear witness to God’s design for human relationships. For men, this means forsaking the way of the First Adam for that of the Second. Rather than blame our sisters, we must crucify the flesh. This is our responsibility in the work of redemption.

Why Sexual Deviance Is Getting Worse

There are atheists and liberals, some who are both, who believe there is no need for God in order for morality to be maintained in a society. They argue that people can act morally apart from a supreme authority.

I agree that people can act morally apart from God’s standard. However, the real question is why should they? If there is no supreme authority -- no God -- then why behave morally?

If there is no God, there are no objective standards for moral behavior. The logical progression leads to anarchy. Everyone does what is right in his or her eyes. This is clearly seen in the area of sexual expression.

If there is no God, then there is no objective, authoritative standard when it comes to sexual expression. The logical result is sexual anarchy.

I attended a debate in downtown Portland, Ore., more than a decade ago regarding whether it was appropriate for Oregon public schools to promote homosexuality as natural, normal and healthy.

At some point during the discussion someone suggested homosexuality and incest were morally equivalent.

When the debate ended, I was confronted by a woman who identified herself as a lesbian. She was furious that we “Bible-thumpers” were ignorant enough to equate incest with homosexuality.

I listened to her tirade until she paused to take a breath. Then I asked her, “Why are you so upset with homosexuality and incest being morally equivalent.”

“Because of the use of power by an adult authority figure to manipulate a younger person for the purpose of gaining sex,” she replied.

“That is not incest,” I said. “You have described pedophilia (sex with children) or ephebophilia (sex with teens) but not incest.”

I continued, “Incest is persons who are related to one another having sexual relations. Why do you care if two adults who are in the same family consent to a sexual relationship?”

“It is just wrong,” the woman said. “It is not natural!”

“Really?” I said. “I agree with you that it is not natural for the same reason your sexual behavior is not natural, because the Bible indicates what is natural, normal and healthy.”

The woman glared at me.

“If we reject God’s standards, we are left with nothing more than subjective criteria,” I said. “Incest might be wrong for you but there is no way you can say it is wrong for anyone else.”

I continued, “So you are judging those who pursue incest by your own subjective ethic -- the same thing you accuse us ‘Bible-thumpers’ of doing.”

The woman stomped off.

The evidence of a sexual anarchy is all around us. It is the result of rejecting God’s authoritative standards and embracing a subjective morality.

The sexual expressions of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism were once deemed to be aberrant and perverse. Not anymore. These behaviors are now celebrated by many around the world as natural, normal and healthy.

Children as young as 5 who say they were born the “wrong” sex are encouraged by parents to pursue their feelings. Some are even given drugs to impede the onset of puberty.

Sexual anarchy is progressing toward the acceptance of more and more perverse behavior. Adult incest, which the lesbian in Portland believed to be unnatural, is already accepted in many countries.

Among the countries that do not punish consensual adult incest are Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg, Turkey, Russia, India, Israel, China, Sweden, Brazil and Japan.

A judge in Australia recently said that adult “incest may no longer be a taboo and the only reason it is criminal is potential birth abnormalities, which can be solved by abortion,” London’s Daily Telegraph reported.

If there ever were a case of two wrongs not making a right, it is the judge’s linking of incest with abortion. It is moral anarchy on steroids.

Another form of sexual expression that some regard as acceptable is pedophilia.

Consider the following:

In an article titled “Mental Health’s Cold Shoulder Treatment of Pedophilia” from “Behavioral Health Management,” Douglas Edwards cited Fred Berlin of the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry: “Dr. Berlin discounts the common view that pedophilia is a conscious choice. He regards pedophilia as a lifelong sexual orientation, just as hetero- and homosexuality, and he says patients can be terrified by the discovery of pedophilic cravings.”

Richard Gardner, the late clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, argued that America’s attitude toward child sexual encounters was out of step with the cultures of the world. In his book “True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse,” Gardner blamed the oppressive morality of the Bible for the American view of pedophilia. He also wrote, “It is of interest that of all the ancient peoples it may very well be that the Jews were the only ones who were punitive toward pedophiles.””

These are just two of several dozen so-called scholarly articles advocating pedophilia as a natural, normal and healthy sexual expression.

Sexual anarchy is unfolding before our very eyes and it will continue until our culture once again recognizes God as the supreme authority for sexual morality. Until then, sexual expression will become even more perverse. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Accepting and Affirming the Repentant Homosexual

Luke 15:7

Nineteen years ago, my wife and I began a journey.

We both were struggling with our identities -- my sexual identity and her identity as a woman and a wife. Our marriage had been shattered and both of us, in unique and personal ways, had experienced a profound and fresh connection with our Savior.

We knew we needed the local church. We desperately wanted a place where we could be honest about our struggles. Yet, most churches that seemed open to our struggles also seemed vague about homosexuality and sexual sin.

In some ways I felt safe in those churches as I imagined they would not reject me for my struggle. But in greater ways, I was leery.

I knew I was vulnerable, and their nuanced language made me fear their pastors might, in some way, encourage me to accept the very thing God was calling me to lay down at the cross. We ended up at a Baptist church, where we kept our struggles secret but received solid teaching. God shored up our spiritual foundation there and it was instrumental in our healing. Joyfully, we later found a church that figured out how to meld authenticity with a commitment to God’s Word. Our healing was exponential in that place!

Today, many mainline denominations are no longer vague cultural wave of pro-gay sentiment and a genuine desire to share the Gospel, have made great strides in crafting a message for the gay community designed to be less argumentative and more inclusive.

I fear, however, that churches which have chosen to speak more kindly and nuanced on issues like homosexuality and sexual sin, or which have chosen to say nothing for fear of saying too much, might be trying to reach one disconnected group outside the church at the cost of neglecting an important group within the church. In our desire to be more welcoming to and accepting of the gay community, have we shut our doors to the community of the conflicted and repentant? Are we as safe for repentant gay men and women as we are for the unrepentant?

Homosexual expression may not be worse than any other sin, but it is unique as the only sinful behavior that is protected, celebrated and endorsed on an increasingly broad scale. When someone chooses to walk away from homosexuality, based on the work of the Spirit to convict them of their sin and give them hope for something more, they are not just walking away from behavior. They are walking away from community and identity and, in many ways, safety.

I remember well the strong pull back to the accepting, caring gay community in the early days of my repentance. Had my church in any way endorsed as “OK” what I had left behind, I’m not sure I would have stayed the course. I may not have discovered the amazing life God had for me as I lived out my repentance and grew into all that He had for me within His perfect boundaries for sexuality.

Diminishing or skimming over parts of God’s Word, so as not to offend, helps no one. As Jeremiah condemned false prophets of his day, our lack of clarity may well be offering people peace where, in fact, there is no peace. The church may be leading the very people Jesus came to save to a dangerous place -- not only because it may impact someone’s salvation, but also because it impacts what we are promised in Jesus -- joy, peace, abundance, fulfillment, purpose and so much more.

There was no nuance in the proclamations of the Old Testament prophets. And Jesus and the New Testament writers never minced words -- on sin or on love. The church need not fear the hard words about sin and must not ignore the hard words of love. Sin destroys, and if we really believe that, we won’t fear calling sin out. Love restores, and if we really believe that, we will extend it in the context of truth to the repentant and the unrepentant alike.

The early days of repentance, no matter the sin, can be the most precarious. Satan will work to convince repentant sinners that repentance was not necessary, or that what they have left behind is more valuable than what they are being offered. Clear confirmation of what God calls us to in repentance is vital in the process of repentance and sanctification.

God designed the church to stand with repentant sinners -- encouraging them, teaching them, supporting them and loving them as they go through the withdrawals that always accompany walking away from the mind-altering, numbing nature of sinful behavior.

If we ignore the call to repentance because we want to attract the unrepentant, we will have nothing real to offer the unrepentant when they show up. And we will, perhaps inadvertently, minimize the magnitude of the miracle of conviction in those who are moved to repentance. There may be few who choose to enter that narrow gate, but heaven celebrates each one.

Far be it from us to cause those precious ones to stumble back into what God has called them to leave behind.

Sex and The I-World: Recovering Healthy Relationships

Acts 15:20

A few years ago a pastor named Dale Kuehne took some college students to work in a farming village in Costa Rica — a poor village that lacked electricity and running water. The locals did have a generator, however; once a week, they fired it up to watch a raunchy American television program — Beverly Hills 90210.

Kuehne was shocked to see village teenagers mimicking the behavior of the characters in the show. And he was floored when village men asked him what was wrong with the women who’d come on the trip. “Why don’t they want to have sex?” they asked. “We thought all American women want to have sex.”

Kuehne relates the story in his new book, Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking Relationships beyond an Age of Individualism. What happened in Costa Rica, he writes, shows how far iWorld messages have spread — and how little the Church has done to engage the iWorld culture.

Kuehne says that we are witnessing in the West the collapse of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Replacing it is a worldview that some call “postmodern individualism,” but Kuehne calls it “iWorld.”

iWorlders are dissolving long-established boundaries because they believe that people are happiest making their own moral and relational choices — outside of the family, community, and faith traditions into which they were born. And the iWorld promotes a desire for immediate gratification — as illustrated in the huge levels of consumer debt and the tendency to become sexually involved at the very outset of a romantic relationship.

Sadly, iWorlders often unwittingly sacrifice what they want, in the long run — contentment and fulfillment — by succumbing to their immediate desires, especially when it comes to sexual relationships.

Perhaps even more sadly, the Church has done precious little to present to iWorlders a vision of true fulfillment. That’s partly because the Church itself has turned a “blind eye” to sexual immorality within the body of Christ. Even worse, writes Kuehne, “is the degree to which the historic orthodox understanding of sexual morality and marriage is being ignored or revised by clergy and laypeople alike.”

This has enormous consequences for the Church’s ability to be salt and light in a culture suffering from the after-effects and social ills of the sexual revolution. The Church needs to be reminded — and needs to make the case — that “the biblical teaching that limits sexual relations to a marriage relationship between a man and a woman is actually beneficial to all.”

And that’s exactly what Kuehne does in his book, in a direct, challenging, but ultimately compassionate way. Every human, he says, is on a “never-ending quest for acceptance, love, and fulfillment.” But these things can never be found in the iWorld — by asking, “What’s in it for me?”

So instead of being subsumed by the iWorld culture, the Church has the “rWorld” to offer. The rWorld understands that God created people for relationships — and that we find our deepest fulfillment in relationship with Him, and in living a life rich in self-giving, not self-satisfying relationships.

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A Wild-Living Man Admits The Truth About Monogamy

Mark 10:6

Dan Bilzerian is a professional gambler who claimed to have won $11 million in a single night of playing poker. He is also a notorious internet celebrity and influencer who claims to have slept with thousands of women. Yet in March 2024 an interview with him went viral when he admitted the truth about monogamy.

“I had this image in my mind when I was growing up of like, how awesome this would be,” he said in the podcast, presumably referring to sleeping with thousands of different women over the course of his life. “What I kind of landed on was I think it’s like, better to have a monogamous relationship, as strange as that is coming from me,” he laughed. Bilzerian now believes being committed to one person leads to stronger connections and more satisfying intimacy.

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"Dan Bilzerian, Who Slept With Thousands Of Women, Learns The Truth About Monogamy," Kay Smythe.

Has God Changed His Mind On Homosexuality?

Jude 1:7

When politicians change their position on some policy matter, it’s called a “flip-flop.” A new book on sexual ethics describes God this way, as a kind of “flip-flopping” politician who said one thing for thousands of years but has, in recent years, altered His moral demands. Oddly enough, His new perspective makes Him more progressive, tolerant, and enlightened. You know, like us.

Thirty-years ago, Richard Hays, professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity, produced the classic work of biblical ethics, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. In that book, he offered a definitive biblical argument against same-sex relationships. “The New Testament,” Hays wrote, “offers no loopholes or exception clauses that might allow for the acceptance of homosexual practices under some circumstances.”

In a new book co-authored with his son, Fuller Seminary Old Testament professor Christopher Hays, he has now reversed this position on same-sex relationships. In The Widening of God’s Mercy, the authors assert:

The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as “strangers and aliens” but as fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

This idea of a moral “trajectory” in the Bible that eventually points beyond itself is nothing new. In other words, same-sex relationships used to be wrong, but now they’re ok. As Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler explained, the authors are suggesting that God has changed His mind on homosexuality and that the Church should “move beyond the Bible” on this issue.

Reversals like this, even when scholars and pastors claim otherwise, are rarely motivated by arguments or theology. The elder Hays acknowledges that his “experience being in a congregation with openly gay and lesbian members” helped change his mind. And, it’s likely the younger Hays played a role as well. As author Christopher Yuan remarked, “I have seen young adult children turn their previously biblical parents toward heresy ... including a president of a Bible college.”

Still, the arguments offered in this book are neither good nor new. For example, Hays repeats the claim that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. It’s a silly claim. As Rebecca McLaughlin countered in an article at The Gospel Coalition, Jesus condemned “sexual immorality,” (the Greek word “porneia”) alongside murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and slander.

Porneia (from which we get the word “pornography”) is, as Hays himself admits, “a nonspecific umbrella term for any kind of sexual immorality — presumably including all forms of illicit sexual relations elaborated in Leviticus 18.” That would, of course, include homosexual activity. So, by Hays’ own reasoning, Jesus did speak about same-sex relationships in the Gospels.

Moreover, when asked about divorce, Jesus responded by reasserting God’s original design for marriage described in Genesis. “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh...” Also, his “trajectory” was not to relax rules on sexual immorality. Jesus said that anyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart. That doesn’t sound like God changing His mind about morality.

The ultimate problem with the argument the Hayses make is that it all amounts to God “learning on the job,” as they unbelievably phrase it. As theology writer Derek Rishmawy responded, a “God” who changed his design for human sexuality would not be a God worth worshiping. Such a change would imply that there is a moral standard higher than God to which He failed to conform in the past. The moral purposes of such a “God” could not be trusted, nor could his supposedly “widening” mercy, since what he calls sin today may tomorrow be something he welcomes and encourages.

Thankfully, the “God” of this book is not the God of Christianity. James 1:17 says that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Human sexuality, designed for union and procreation within man-woman marriage, is such a gift. Though it has been distorted by our fall into sin, God’s purposes for sexuality, and the prohibitions that flow out of those purposes, have not changed.

This is far better news for sinners, including those who’ve sinned sexually, than a “God” who has changed His mind. His mercy doesn’t need “widening.” It is already vast enough to rescue sinners from futile behaviors and false identities.

Those hoping to widen God’s mercy make His mercy unnecessary and His character untrustworthy. They should know better. In fact, considering the Bible’s warnings to those who call evil good and good evil, and who cause others to sin, they should repent.

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7 Reasons Why Christian Leaders Fall

Luke 4:13

Why do they fall? They fall for the same reason that all Christians fall. Each of us are drawn away by our own evil desires and enticed. When these desires are acted upon, they lead to sin (cf. James 1:14-15). Sin has a life cycle — it either grows or withers depending on whether we feed or starve it. John Owen, the prolific Puritan author wrote, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

Consider the following ways that sin gains entrance:

1. “It will never happen to me.” 1 Corinthians 10:12 reminds us that if we think that we are standing firm, we should be careful that we don’t fall. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). Pride says, “I’ve never committed adultery. It will never happen to me.” Humility says, “By the grace of God, I haven’t, but I can.”

Strength is found in admitting our weaknesses: “For when I am weak I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Pride opens the door to compromise and unwise decisions; it ignores conviction. Conviction is not always a hammer to the head, it’s a still small voice to the heart.

Sadly, many confuse God’s patience with His approval. C.H. Spurgeon rightly noted, “We are never, never so much in danger of being proud as when we think we are humble.”

2. I’m “too busy.” We are all susceptible to putting God second and ministry first. If we’re too busy to cultivate a prayer life that places God first — we’re too busy. Men would live better if they prayed better. We’re often too busy because we’re doing too much. “When faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live” (E.M. Bounds). It’s hard to fall when you’re always on your knees. Moral failing cannot gain a stronghold in a broken, praying heart that spends time in the Word and obedience to it (cf. James 1:22). Nine times out of ten, when a leader falls, he or she has no meaningful prayer or devotional life.

3. Holiness is compromised. The enemy attempts to draw us away from God’s holy standard. I vividly remember a story of a young boy who kept falling out of his bed. He finally asked his mother why he kept falling. She wisely answered, “It’s because you don’t stay far enough in.” In the same way, many of us fall back into sin because we don’t get far enough into God’s framework of safety and protection via holiness. In the words of Isaac Watts, “True Christianity, where it reigns in the heart, will make itself appear in the purity of life.”

Of all the attributes of God described in the Bible, holiness is seen most often. Holiness is a vital weapon of defense against the enemy’s attack (cf. Ephesians 6:14). But holiness must come from brokenness and humility not legalism. A low view of holiness always damages morality ... we rationalize instead of repent. I’m convinced that today’s media plays a significant role in the decline of holiness. Sadly, Hollywood, not the Holy Spirit, influences many. We cannot fill our mind with darkness all week and expect the light of Christ to shine in our lives.

4. Many build unhealthy relationships with the opposite sex. We must be on high alert in this area and have tremendous steps of accountability in place. The devil doesn’t show those involved in counseling appointments, inner office meetings, and private “fellowship” the pain and anguish and the years of regret that moral failure brings; he deceives them with a false sense of freedom in ministry ... that we are simply “helping” the other person.

If you are married and attracted to another person, or if the potential is there, take steps now and remove yourself from the environment. Adultery begins with small compromises. We’re often too smart to take deliberate plunges, but we’re easily enticed to take one step at a time, one compromise at a time, one bad choice at a time until we’re at the bottom. Don’t fight sexual desires; don’t entertain them ... flee (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:18).

5. We fail to strengthen weak areas. The demands of life often tempt us to seek gratification in alcohol and other things. We must be on high alert. The enemy uses “opportune times” to draw us away from God. (cf. Luke 4:13.) The line is so thin that it is often hard to determine when we cross over. Weak areas such as drugs, alcohol, pain meds, sex, anger, marriage issues, and so on are “opportune times” for the enemy to strike.

We must expose these areas through repentance, and install safeguards and accountability. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

6. Accountability is often breached or minimized. Accountability is a safeguard, but it’s not bullet-proof. Accountability, by itself, doesn’t work — it’s not realistic to ask others to hold you accountable. Your heart must be focused on honoring God’s Word. Accountability simply adds another level of security in the battle against sin. It’s healthy to say to those we trust, “I’m struggling in this area. Can you pray with me and ask the hard questions from time to time.”

The enemy loves to work in darkness and deceit. Exposing cracks in the armour helps others keep an eye on them as well. This is one reason why I’m upfront about avoiding alcohol. (More can be read at the following blog post: http://westsidechristianfellowship.org/articles/3-24-14-alcohol-liberty-has-limits-pastor-shane-idleman/).

I also have accountability software that sends all websites visited to my wife’s email every week. This is a major deterrent and it makes me very conscious of even seemingly innocent sites. To some, this may seem extreme, but we need to be armed for the enemy who steals, kills, and destroys. The greater our influence, the greater the need for accountability: spiritually, financially, and relationally.

7. Loneliness becomes an excuse. Ministry is hard and can easily take it’s toll. Feeling a sense of entitlement if often the beginning of justifying wrong choices. We can easily become jealous and judgmental of those who seem to have “all the fun.” As Oswald Chambers states: “God buries His men [and women] in the midst of paltry things, no monuments are erected to them; they are ignored, not because they are unworthy, but because they are in the place where they cannot be seen.”

Luke 16:10 should be a great encouragement, “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’.” Sin can be silenced in a thankful heart set on worshiping God. God has given us the privilege to serve Him, proclaim His truth, and help others. Don’t allow frustration and negativity to lead you down the wrong path.

In closing, if you are on the cliff or have already fallen, take time now and repent. It will hurt, but the fruit of repentance far outweighs the fruit of exposure that will surely come (cf. Numbers 32:23). God’s grace will see you through. A penitent person turns from sin. They accept full responsibility for their actions without blame, resentment, or bitterness. They seek forgiveness without conditions and stipulations. They take full (not partial) responsibility for their actions. There can be no “but’s” when repentance is genuine. “I am sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me,” are often (although not always) healing words and signs of repentance. Excuses need to stop before healing can occur.

There are consequences for past mistakes, but it’s best to live in God’s healing arms of forgiveness, rather than to live broken outside of His will. Which way will you turn?

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Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Southern California, just North of Los Angeles.