….and among traditional Christians, precisely who doesn’t take that passage seriously when it comes to talking about the reality of sin in this fallen world? Catholics? The Eastern Orthodox? Most of the world’s Lutherans and Anglicans? Pentecostal believers (the fastest growing flock in worldwide Christianity)?
Pretty quickly, CNN sets this up as a rather typical battle between a country-fried preacher (or two) and a real biblical scholar. Yes, that is ONE biblical scholar, from one seminary.
What Terry doesn’t say is that the MOST revealing thing about the article is that CNN believes their own statement about their own article (“best, fairest, article on Christians and homosexuality you’ll ever read. Fact.”) when it so clearly is at odds with the truth–KSH.
Oh, boy. A scholar from a liberal Protestant seminary, and TEC’s own Jim Naughton, and that’s enough to refute the view of the preacher with a beard from the swamp, who happens to hold the view held not only taught by St. Paul but held by evangelical Christians, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglicans and Lutherans who take the faith as the apostles taught it. I don’t have to have anything but the Biblical faith in common with a duck hunter from the Louisiana swamps to know he’s right. He’s saying bluntly what “moderns” don’t want to hear.
My favorite thing about all of this kerfluffle is that I have absolutely nothing in common with Mr. Robertson — his culture and background are utterly alien to my own — except the most important thing.
And the most important thing is the thing I do [i]not[/i] have in common with most of the bishops of my church, as well as Jim Naughton.
My brother is Phil Robertson.
I actually talked to Throckmorton a few years ago and I was appalled that he believes there is biological evidence of homosexuality, and he actually cited brain studies. Even if you ignore the fact that no area of the brain has been shown to be responsible for homosexuality and the brain actually changes structure in response to behavior, which would call into question the cause of changes if they were found, the studies that are out there such as LaVay’s work and an early study on the anterior commissure (corpus callosum) all were discredited by later larger studies or by flaws in the original study. Simply going to Wikipedia will give an update, as well as “The Homosexual Brain” by Rana, although he cited Bailey and Pillard twin studies whose random sample came from write ins from gay magazines. He should have stayed with the area he researched.
Also, Throckmorton thought the 2008 brain study supported biology. Of course, they did MRI’s and found that the only difference was in area of the brain which they admitted had nothing to do with sexuality. It is the area which includes the fight or flight nucleus which has a masculine feminine difference. But there are masculine heterosexual women, feminine homosexual women, masculine homosexual men, and effeminate heterosexual men. So to accurately look for differences, it would be necessary to control for masculine/feminine as well as homosexual/heterosexual. They would have needed 8 groups rather than four i.e. masculine versions of homosexual men, homosexual women, heterosexual men, heterosexual women, and the feminine versions of the same groups. Instead, they just took their four groups, did MRI’s, and looked for some area where the homosexuals were more similar to the opposite sex. It is interesting that in the parts of the brain which involve sexuality, they didn’t find anything. That would verify the results of the larger and newer studies, which discredited the older brain studies.
One thing I noticed is that Dr. Throckmorton did not seem to understand the problems with the information he relies on to claim biology. It is too bad that someone as biased and ill informed as he is has a soap box. It is also interesting that after I told Throckmorton and Gene Robinson that I was coming to the APA symposium’s planned talk about religion and homosexuality where Throckmorton and Al Mohler were going to admit biology to a group including Robinson, it was canceled. My plan was to bring the research done by homosexuals as well as accurate information about twin studies to pull apart the fixed and genetic stereotype of homosexuality. I had sent my article “Why Theology Should Precede Change”, which Mohler now quotes, to the participants. At the time Mohler said that it was clear who did not show up to that discussion. Yet Throckmorton is still out there making false claims, because he apparently just doesn’t get science.
Jackie Keenan (Author name: Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan)
Ms. Keenen,
At least three times a week, I encounter a comment by a homosexualist ideologue comparing gay rights to the civil rights struggle of African-Americans. To this I have a standard reply: Being gay is not like being black. The former is a subjective, self-reported claim about one’s psyche, the latter is an objective fact. Even if there is a biological factor in same-sex attraction, there are biological factors in many conditions, including alcoholism.
I never get a reply.
Charles52, hither thee over to Stand Firm and see Alex Haley’s excellent explanation of Biblical Authority. That plus the work of Robert Gagnon explains why you will never ever get a reply.
Charles52 is right that some biology would not mean we have to bless homosexual behavior, which God in His wisdom forbids. There is some biology in many cases of obesity, but we do not therefore say that obesity is a blessed condition and by doing so encourage others to overeat. Gay researchers and the CDC have pointed out how often homosexual attractions change in our youth and young adults. Also, they change often in women in general, so it is sad that the church is encouraging people to live into and reinforce these attractions by blessing homosexual behavior. But we also should remember sinners are encouraged to come to church before they give up their sin. If we didn’t do that, anyone who is obese as a result of social factors is guilty of gluttony and would have to lose weight to come to church. But there are actually churches that have helped people lose weight who never could before, because of the help of the Holy Spirit. I met a woman who attested to that. Anyway, we need to find a way to bring people into church with their issues so that they can be transformed.
I suspect that CNN honestly believes that it is being fair and accurate. In report after report I’ve seen on the Internet, the staffs at mainstream media sources (which I believe CNN falls into) are almost exclusively liberal and atheist. [url=http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1141255/posts]Link to article[/url] They never come in contact with views contrary to their own (the few conservatives have learned to stay quiet) so to them, someone like Jim Naughton is “middle of the road” – perhaps even “to the right” a bit, since TEC has historically been considered the church of the right wing (I can recall lots of references to TEC being filled with “W.A.S.P”s during the 60’s).
This kind of environment is also being established in our education system. The NEA (National teacher’s group) has been donating to the Democrats for years; my Mom (a former teacher) gets the newsletter, which reads more than the “Village Voice” than an magazine for educators. On college campuses the ratio of liberal to conservative staff runs between 10-1 and 30-1 [url=http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=217]Link to article[/url]. My daughter is currently in a state university, and she has had problems with professors both opening criticizing conservative viewpoints, and insisting on liberal themes in classwork.
I wish I had a solution to offer, but I don’t – just a call to awareness.