The Gospel and the Gay by Kenneth Gangel (Thomas Nelson, 1978, 202 pp.)

The Right, the Good and the Happy by Bernard L. Ramm (Word, 1971, 188 pp.)

by Dr. Ralph Blair

Gangel maligns Christians who disagree with him on homosexuality, arguing that they simply do not believe the Bible. He casts them as “the so-called ‘gay evangelicals’,” pretending “to show some semblance of commitment to biblical evangelicalism”, but denying “inspiration” and practicing “gay exegesis”, they are, he insists, “the false teachers against whom Paul wrote”. He attempts to discredit them all by linking them to “homosexual lib” and warns that, “people like Bailey and Blair are more dangerous to the whole matter of the gay problem in Western culture today than the drag queens of San Francisco”.

Gangel’s research is sloppy. His “scholarly” references are decades out-of-date and long discredited in the scientific community. He has made errors in dates from as few as 11 to as many as 30 years. He attributes to one organization the publications of another (e.g., HCCC for NOW). He is confused about names (e.g., “Rod Benson” for R. O. D. Benson, “Goscone” for Moscone, “Houser” for Hauser, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which he twice mislabels). He quotes Save Our Children on a supposed Los Angeles Police Department memo on gay recruitment of children which was publicly and immediately repudiated by the Department. At times the problem seems to be poor proof reading (e.g., “were not dedicated” for “were now dedicated”) but at other times there are mistakes of more serious mendacity (e.g., “it is true that the American Psychological Association views homosexuality as a form of mental illness” – this is, of course, the opposite of the truth).

His arguments are intellectually dishonest. For example, he cites (from yet another spurious secondary source) a psychiatrist – whom he incorrectly implies is a member of the American Psychological Association – in order to bolster his weak case for “curing” homosexuals. Gangel fails to quote this same psychiatrist (Lawrence Hatterer) on the disappointing outlook for “cure” (e.g., Hatterer states:“As far as the cure of fixed homosexuality is concerned, it is unrealistic to try to eradicate the homosexual’s desires for members of his own sex”. It’s Hatterer’s view that it is “cruel for a parent and a therapist to attempt to change a person who is strongly identified” as homosexual”). Gangel claims that, “the propensity can be changed by the power of Jesus Christ”, and that Richard “Lovelace stops short of the real power of the gospel”. But Gangel offers absolutely no convincing evidence and he even refers to an interview in Inspiration magazine without admitting that the magazine’s “ex-gay” himself acknowledged in the interview that he still masturbates thinking of men. Gangel makes much of a meeting at which this now ex-ex-gay” spoke. He’s since left the “ex-gay” program, EXIT, which he founded. One of Gangel’s prize cases for cure is a “Billy”, whose “homosexuality was not discovered until after his incarceration for arson” (clearly a case of situational homosexuality) and, after getting out of prison, “married a younger girl [and] never returned to his homosexuality”. Another example is that of “Greg” who is given an entire chapter. It’s entitled: “A Case Study in Homosexual Regeneration”. But “Greg” concludes: “I still have a long way to go. … I believe that the Lord is going to cure me. I claim that promise.” Clearly, this is no case of cure. Gangel gives another whoe chapter to “Susan”. But she never even claims to have been interested in women sexually.

In discussing “the subject of Sodom”, Gangel calls on Dallas Seminary’s Old Testament professor, Merrill F. Unger, for prestigious support. Inexplicably, though, he cites instead Unger’s discussion of “sodomites”, an entirely different topic. According to Unger, “sodomites” were “male prostitutes consecrated to the cult of Qudshu [a nude fertility goddess] and prostituting themselves to her honor, were called Qudesh, usually translated [incorrectly] ‘sodomites’.” The “sodomites” become the “Sodomites” within Gangel’s misquote of Unger, and Gangel transfers this to today’s homosexuals. Unger had explained, but Gangel does not quote him, that these “sodomites” were “not inhabitants of Sodom, nor their descendants”.

Even though Ramm’s book was published eight years ago, many people may have missed what, for then if not so much for now, are some remarkably enlightened thoughts by a foremost evangelical teacher of hermeneutics. The section, “Homosexuality, Lesbianism” (attention to lesbianism was advanced even for gay liberationists in 1971!), takes up only three pages of this book on Christian ethical theory and practice. Although what Ramm says about pathology, parental influence and the purpose of sex is seriously lacking, he makes insightful hermeneutical comments. On Christians’ misuse of the Bible in this context: “The issues about homosexuality are very complex and are not understood by most members of the Christian church. To them it is a vile form of sexual perversion condemned in both the Old and New Testaments.” He explains that in the Bible: “Homosexual practices may be part of religious rites or done for the sake of pure sexual titillation. These forms of homosexuality were widely practiced in the ancient world and the biblical condemnations of homosexuality are usually addressed to these versions. Homosexuality as purely sexual titillation was a common Roman vice.” He warns: “The problem within the average Christian church is that almost all Christians believe that homosexuality is a perverse manifestation of sin and should be so treated. They are completely dense to the psychological factors” (“before the third year” of life, Ramm notes) and he cites the Church of England’s 1957 Wolfenden Report – supporting decriminalization of sodomy – as “the one relief at this point”.

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