Benediction creates friction
Recently, Louis Giglio, the pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta, Ga., withdrew from an invitation to offer a prayer at President Obama’s inauguration.
The reason for his withdrawal was the recent discovery of a sermon preached by Giglio about 15 years ago in which he condemned the act of homosexuality. The discovery of Giglio’s stand has resulted in much outrage within certain interest groups.
Many people saw this as déjà vu because of a similar controversy that happened at the last inauguration. Four years ago, Rick Warren (famous author and pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California) followed through with his involvement in the inauguration ceremony even though he holds the same beliefs that Giglio does.
Much of the media has asked why Washington is helpless to find clergymen who do not offend. “Is there no religious leader who agrees with homosexuality?” some may say.
The problem with this world is we need to catch up with the homosexuals. They were able to find Giglio’s “flaw,” but I guarantee he has many more.
We should have had a group of prostitutes outraged at Giglio’s Biblical stand against fornication. Why not have a group of married men outraged because he believes adultery is wrong. Or why isn’t anyone outraged at his view against dishonesty—an offense I would propose we are all guilty of.
When the Bible refers to homosexuality, it also reveals several other offenses (adultery, incest, fornication just to name a few). The majority of us would say that the Bible is correct on many moral standards.
We do not lash out at Giglio because many Biblical offenses are all understood as immoral. We believe that honesty is a good trait or that it is wrong for a woman to cheat on her husband.
In the Bible we find God’s standard, and we also find that none of us meet that standard. The Bible says that many things are sins, including homosexuality, which should never be put on a pedestal (though, sadly, many church leaders do).
The Bible also says a thing or two about showing love to all people, something that many church leaders and homosexuals alike forget to practice.
My question is why do we believe the immoral traits condemned in the Bible like dishonesty, selfishness, and impurity are wrong, yet we call it outdated on its stand against homosexuality?
Either the Bible is true, or it is false. You cannot pick the parts that you like and disregard the ones that may be offensive. This would be like your doctor refusing to tell you that you have cancer in order to protect you from being heartbroken. If you ask any clergyman who has a high view of scripture and teaches what the Bible really says, then the response toward homosexuality will always be one of condemnation, but it should also be one of love regardless of the situation. It is irresponsible of us to expect Giglio to not do the same.
“When the Bible refers to homosexuality, it also reveals several other offenses.”
Right! You left out the best of Leviticus! What about the abominations of blended fabrics? Or tattoos? Or eating shellfish? Where is your moral outrage over this country’s obsession with lobster and polyester? Why aren’t you picketing outside the Student Center to save all the poor souls with inked up skin from the fires of Hell? I mean almost everybody’s got tattoos these days! Don’t they read their Bibles?
You’ve got it right there at the end. The Bible contains a lot of falsehoods. And the more years go by, the more society realizes it’s more false than true. Jesus being a great guy aside, the texts comprising the Bible were written 2,000 years ago by men who wanted everyone else to behave in the ways they liked best. I think a thing or two might have changed since then.
I like your doctor analogy. We want a doctor to tell us if we’ve got cancer, just as we’d prefer doctors keep up with the newest ideas and treatments, and not give us a diagnosis based on notes from Hippocrates. So let’s take a cue from the doctors of the world and keep our conception of morality up to date!