“The Tornado, the Lutherans, and Homosexuality” by John Piper, www.desiringgod.org/blog, August 20, 2009.
“A Moral Crossroads for Conservatives” by Jonathan Rauch, www.nationaljournal.com, August 8, 2009.
“Leaving Homosexuality: A Practical Guide for Men and Women Looking for a Way Out” by Alan Chambers (Harvest House, 2009, 155 pp.)
by Dr. Ralph Blair
In August, tornados tore across the Midwest and inflicted injuries, flipped cars and destroyed homes, barns and businesses in six states. One struck in Minneapolis, damaging homes but causing no serious injuries. It bent the tip of the cross-topped steeple of a Lutheran church near the convention center where the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was considering a wider welcome to gay and lesbian Lutherans. The tornado tore up tents and scattered folding chairs in the parking lot and left a hole in the roof of the convention center. Deliberations continued.
On his blog, John Piper, minister of the city’s Bethlehem Baptist Church, “venture[d] an interpretation of this Providence with some biblical warrant”.
His 1st point: “The unrepentant practice of homosexual behavior (like other sins) will exclude a person from the kingdom of God”. He footnotes I Corinthians 6, where Paul – arguing against lawsuits between Christians – lists examples of the excluded: “revilers” (antigay lobbyists?), “greedy” (heterosexuals who reserve the joy of sexual intimacy for themselves only?), “swindlers” (“ex-gay” pushers?),“drunkards” and people whose identity scholars dispute. But Piper insists these are gay people whom he reviles and ELCA was about to embrace.
Piper’s 2nd point – on the text’s “such were some of you” – assumes Paul means “ex-gays”. But whoever they were, they cannot be as easily identified as can “revilers”, the “greedy” and “swindlers”.
Piper’s 3rd point again begs the question: “Therefore, official church pronouncements that condone the very sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God, are evil.”
Piper’s 4th point is that, “Jesus Christ controls the wind, including all tornadoes”. But did Piper “venture an interpretation of [the] Providence with some biblical warrant” when a tornado that “Jesus Christ controls” smashed into a Baptist Church in rural Mississippi and utterly destroyed the meeting place of a hardly “gay-affirming” congregation?
Piper’s 5th point continues his circular argument by cryptic allusion to the calamities in Luke 13. But didn’t Jesus reject the notion that a tower crushed Siloamites because they were especially sinful? Didn’t Jesus refuse a political spin to news of Pilate’s slaughter of Galileans? Didn’t Jesus say that all are under judgment and all must repent? Dallas Seminary biblical scholar Darrell Bock (no apologist for homosexuality) comments: “Jesus deflects the question about the degree of sin because it distracts from the real question, the presence of sin, no matter what its form. Often we compare sinners so that we may excuse ourselves as not being as bad as others. Jesus wants no such escape from responsibility here.” Bock asserts: “It is cruel to assume that a personal tragedy has happened because of sin in someone’s life.”
Piper concludes: “The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA … : Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction.” What’s missing at my ellipses is Piper’s little phrase, “and all of us”. But, if Piper’s warning is really for all of us, why is the gay issue his big chance for that pronouncement? Might not Piper’s “and all of us” be actually little more than a tactfully obligatory “all have sinned” when, what’s really being said is: Look: that tornado hit them just when they were about to welcome homosexuals! If tornados are warnings to “all of us”, why all the fuss over what so many of us have no interest in getting into? Isn’t Piper’s prime proof-text clearer on revilers and the greedy – with whom all of us can identify – than on supposed “homosexuals” with whom but a few of us revilers and greedy can identify?
And has Piper forgotten that God gives sunshine and rainfall to all, to the just as well as the unjust? (Matthew 5:45) Though we’re not in charge of sun and rain, can we not do something about liberty and justice for all – whether we see them as the “just” or the “unjust”? Said John Calvin, if they could, the selfish would keep the sun all to themselves and block it from the poor and oppressed!
Well, for what it’s worth as weather-based hermeneutic, the ELCA resolution to roster clergy in “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships” passed under clear and sunny skies.
Rauch’s essay will break the hearts of the Golden Ruled. This gay conservative writer tells of the love of his cousin, Bill, and Mike, Bill’s partner of 30 years. While away on business, Bill fell into a coma. Mike rushed to his side and stayed there. Months later, Bill came out of the coma. His first words (written because he couldn’t speak) were: “Will you marry me?” Mike’s broad smile said it all. They married legally last summer.
Rauch concludes: “If cultural conservatism continues to treat same-sex couples as outside the social covenant, the currents of history will flow right around it, and future generations of conservatives will wonder how their predecessors could ever have made such a callous and politically costly mistake.”
In his new book on “leaving homosexuality”, the president of the Exodus “ex-gay” network cautions that it’s not a “guide to change from gay to straight … because no such plan exists”. Chambers puts it plainly: “heterosexuality shouldn’t have been my goal – nor should it be yours”. But then he doubletalks: “the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality: it’s holiness”. Is that straightforward speaking? (James 5:12)