Such Were Some of You by Kevin Linehan (Herald Press, 1979, 231 pp.)
Homosexuality: A Biblical View by Greg Bahnsen (Baker Book House, 1978, 152 pp.)
by Dr. Ralph Blair
After going through various religion “trips”, drugs, an aborted military experience, a serious suicide attempt, and some sordid homosexual activity, Linehan tells of meeting a fellow student named Murl (“My God, I gasped, he’s beautiful. Are you sure you’re not dreaming?”) In the midst of “falling in love” with his fantasy of this stranger with “sky-blue eyes, square and masculine jaw, sandy hair and well-proportioned body”, Linehan concluded: “To deny my homosexuality seemed the height of hypocrisy. … How could I ever say that I was not gay. Homosexuality was not something you did; it was something you were.” He goes on to tell of how he “rejoiced to know that [Murl] was here, beside me, because this is where he chose to be, because it was comfortable, secure, and where he belonged”. But then all of this collapsed when he announced to Murl that he wanted to “marry” him. Murl left within two months. He believed himself to be totally rejected now, even by Murl. (When he had talked to his mother by phone and told her he took joy in his gay relationship, his mother’s response was: “Every time I see your face I will vomit” and she slammed down the phone.) Linehan reacted very badly to the romantic break-up. He soon believed that he had to escape from what he thought was inevitable heartbreak in homosexuality.
He became a Christian and read what he thought was Paul’s saying that there were those, in Corinth, who used to be homosexuals and who were so no longer. Hence, the title of the book. He says he “exegeted” the passage (with a B.S. in communications?), studied the Petristic [sic] Greek-English Lexicon, and concluded that homosexuality was sinful. In his argument, he quotes I Timothy 1:8 from the New International Version of the New Testament to prove his point, but since the NIV does not use the word “homosexuals” in this verse, he takes it upon himself to supply “homosexuals” in his quote, albeit in brackets! He says that the “pro-gay” theologians who are “proportedly [sic] Christian [get] enmeshed in a subtle web of historical/cultural, … grammatical … justification for their views”. Understandably, he shows no knowledge of rudimentary hermeneutics. He says that these theologians then “almost blatantly and openly unwillingly [sic] to consider the research I had compiled on the linguistic and historical aspects of the subject under the direction of such wonderful Greek scholars as Mr. Goodrich of Mulntnoma [sic] School of the Bible”. According to the biographical data in the back of the book, Linehan is a pastor in Reno, Nevada, but is also enrolled in a “Toledo Bible School” in Indiana. This mail-order school does not appear in even Moody Monthly’s list of over 100 Bible institutes and colleges, not to mention its absence from any roster of generally accredited institutions of higher education. [Later research on the Internet indicates that “Toledo School of the Bible” was a degree mill without classrooms. It moved to Indiana, changed its name, and continued to operate as a degree mill.] Little wonder few seem impressed with Linehan’s efforts at biblical scholarship.
Although he does not mention homosexuality on more than a few pages in the entire book, he concludes under the subheading, “No Longer Gay”, with the typical non-Christian mind-over-matter doubletalk of the “ex-gay” advocates: “Truly, I was no longer a homosexual in God’s eyes. Surely, I had been washed, justified, and sanctified. Beyond dispute, as far as I was concerned, was the fact that I had a new identity as a man in the Lord. All this was certain in spite of what temptations from my lower carnal nature might still remain to plague me and causer me to cry out for grace from Jesus to live conditionally in light of my new position in Him.”
By his own evidence, Linehan is still a homosexual. He is denying it, however, and unable to face the facts. If this is what the churches are demanding of Christians in order to be accepted in God’s sight, the churches have abandoned their role of preaching the Gospel of grace. Even non-Christians who do not believe in the doctrine of grace at least value honesty! As is quoted above, Linehan interpreted his homosexuality more honestly before coming under the influence of antigay Christians!
That yet another otherwise responsible publisher can make this kind of contribution to antigay propaganda, underscores once again, the utterly desperate state of affairs among those who, in their ignorance and unwillingness to face facts honestly, persist in arguing a basically unsupported and unsupportable case. (A personal note: Linehan complains that “Over and over again I attempted to contact Ralph Blair, a professingly Christian psychotherapist …. These efforts proved fruitless”. I am truly sorry he could not reach me – even with our 24-hour, everyday telephone intercept, but I invite him to keep trying.)
So far as the Bahnsen book is concerned, even Christianity Today reviewed it “as unnecessarily unbending and unintentionally unloving” and said “Bahnsen communicates self-righteousness, despite protests to the contrary” and his “style is to focus on the weakest arguments of his opponents, not their strongest”. One wonders if Bahnsen really read, to say nothing of understood, the scientific material he cites in his bibliography. Did he dwell too long on the antigay material from Logos magazine, the Watchtower Society, and the John Birch Society? Bahnsen’s new-Platonism, which he pushes as a so-called “Biblical View”, is understandably dubbed “idiosyncratic” in the Christianity Today review. Bahnsen’s strangely forced theonomous interpretation and application of Old Testament laws not only disqualifies his foisting them onto homosexuals and others in our pluralistic socio-political scene, but, evidently, disqualified him from the faculty of Reformed Theological Seminary.