Jesus, Repentance, and Homosexuality

Can any biblical case be made in favor of homosexual sex? Editor-in-Chief of World Magazine, Marvin Olasky, writes:

• I appreciate the honesty of Emory University professor Luke Timothy Johnson, who teaches courses on the New Testament and acknowledges that he and liberal seminary colleagues “do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good… we are fully aware of the weight of scriptural evidence pointing away from our position, yet place our trust in the power of the living God to reveal as powerfully through personal experience and testimony as through written texts. (World, July 11, 2015, 24) 

I too appreciate their honesty. However, I doubt that their case can be made through “personal experience and testimony.” For one thing, it seems apparent that children raised by same-sex couples do not do as well as those raised by biological parents. In a brief filed against SSM in the US Supreme Court, the American College of Pediatricians wrote:

• Despite being certified by almost all major social science scholarly associations—indeed, in part because of this—the alleged scientific consensus that having two parents of the same sex is innocuous for child well-being is almost wholly without basis. All but a handful of the studies cited in support draw on small, non-random samples which cannot be extrapolated to the same-sex population at large. This limitation is repeatedly acknowledged in scientific meetings and journals, but ignored when asserted as settled findings in public or judicial advocacy. 

Also, regarding the alleged “personal experience and testimony” in favor of SSM, we cannot ignore the horrid stats revealing that those who have adopted the gay lifestyle have attenuated lifespans, a greater incidence of depression, mental issues, substance abuse, domestic violence, and a range of STD’s.

Meanwhile, those who are less honest than Johnson try to justify SSM biblically. Walter Wink, professor of NT at Auburn states:

• The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is simply that the Bible has no sexual ethic. Instead, it exhibits a variety of sexual mores, some of which changed over the thousand-year span of biblical history. Mores are unreflective customs accepted by a given community… The Bible knows only a love ethic, which is constantly being brought to bear on whatever sexual mores are dominant in any given country, or culture, or period.

Well, what is the “love ethic?” I’m assuming that Wink refers to the two greatest commandments: loving the Lord and our neighbor as ourselves. But what does it mean to love God? To keep His commandments:

• Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him… If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. (John 14:21-24)

Do the commandments against homosexuality and other forms of sex represent a consistent warning (ethic) that transcends Israel? Yes! Let’s look at some in context:

• And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. (Leviticus 18:20-23)

The ethic against homosexuality did not only pertain to Israelite society. Rather, it is associated with other forbidden practices that go beyond cultural differences:

1. Offering children as a blood sacrifice to demons
2. Adultery
3. Bestiality 

God does not wink at these practices even within the other nations. Instead, He punishes them for these. Observe the next two verse:

• “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.” (Leviticus 18:24-25)

Evidently, these concerns were important. Therefore, they appear again two chapters later:

• “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:10-16)

There is no reason to suspect that these commands were only relevant to the Old Testament culture. They are even repeated in the New. In fact, there is not a single verse in all of Scripture that gives even the slightest encouragement to homosexuality.

Meanwhile, Jack Bartlett Rogers, Presbyterian minister, seminary professor emeritus, and moderator of the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), claims:

• When we interpret Scripture in a way that is hurtful to people, we can be sure that we are not glorifying God. (Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, 62)

Rogers interprets this to mean that any words of correction, any encouragement to repent that might offend a gay person “does not glorify God.” However, this claim is so far from the words of Jesus that it hardly needs any refutation. Jesus’ words to His opponents  – the Sadducees and the Pharisees – were hardly models of political correctness and comfort. Instead, they were downright hurtful. Even His words to His disciples were critical and discouraging at best.

Rogers presses his point further, affirmatively citing the PCUSA report in the 1983 notes:

• “No interpretation of Scripture is correct that leads to or supports contempt for any individual or group of persons either within or outside of the church.” (62) 

Of course, Jesus was not motivated by contempt but love. However, Rogers invokes this principle as a warning against anyone who would suggest that active homosexuals need to repent. For Rogers, this represents contempt for the homosexual. (I guess it would also represent contempt for the adulterer or pedophile if they were called to repent.)

In contrast, Jesus’ love called people to repent:

• There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Luke 13:1-5)

Was Jesus’ demand that they all repent a display of contempt, as Rogers suggests? After all, weren’t Jesus’ words “hurtful to people?” They certainly were! No one likes to be told that they are in sin and must change their lives around. However, according to Rogers’ definition, Jesus failed the love test. In fact, Jesus almost always failed Rogers’ love test. Here are His hurtful words to the Pharisees:

• Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” (John 8:42-43)

How hurtful, degrading, and insulting! No wonder they crucified Him! However, Jesus deemed that this is just what these unrepentant needed to hear. Perhaps Rogers and his PCUSA need to re-examine the meaning of love from our Lord’s perspective.

Does Rogers and his PCUSA love Jesus? Perhaps not:

• “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” (John 14:23-24)

Apostasy: The Gaying of the Church

In 1997, City Church (Presbyterian Church of America – PCA) was planted in San Francisco to provide a biblical alternative. Fred Harrell and the church drew thousands! He also drew hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporting churches. However, this witness for Christ quickly became tarnished:

• On March 13, 2005… members were shocked when Harrell and sex elders – two resigned – sent out a letter announcing that City Church “will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation.” The letter made it clear that sexually active gay and lesbian couples in same-sex marriages could become church members. (Marvin Olasky, World Magazine, July 11, 2015, 33-34)

Harrell claimed that his beliefs had “evolved.” However, it couldn’t have been on the basis of biblical teaching, which gives no encouragement whatsoever to non-heterosexual sex. On top of this, there are many warnings that those who make a practice out of sin will face judgment:

• If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:6-7)

John follows this up with the assurance that we will be forgiven if we confess our sins (1 John 1:9). However, this is precisely what same-sex couples will not do and what the church has condoned in defiance of Scripture:

• We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (1 John 2:3-6)

Does the homosexual lifestyle defy the commands of God? Clearly:

• Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

When church membership is granted to active, unrepentant homosexuals, they are, in essence, told that they are accepted by God. Meanwhile, it is scripturally obvious that the unrepentant are not and have no place in the Kingdom of God:

• For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them. (Ephesians 5:5-7)

By extending church membership to the unrepentant gay, we are now “partners.” We can no longer say, “You cannot promote homosexuality here,” or “You cannot provide leadership and influence our youth.”

Also, if the church makes this allowance for gays, to be consistent, it must also make such an allowance for all sinners. It also means that the church can no longer define what it is or what it stands for.

But are we actually loving the gays, when we throw open the doors of our church, telling them that they are fully acceptable before God? No! Instead, we are contributing to their damnation:

• The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

If we love them, we must warn and plead with them to confess and repent of their sins, as we have. According to Jesus, confession and repentance are key:

• Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." (Luke 13:1-5)

Yes, warning causes hurt, but warning is essential. Many things cause hurt, like surgery to remove a cancer, but this is often essential. Jesus often warned:

• "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Warning is precisely what the apostate church is not doing. It is telling everyone that they are okay and will have peace and freedom. Yes, we must extend hope, but it must be a true hope. If instead, we extend an unbiblical hope, we become false teachers. Peter gives us a telling description of a false teachers:

• These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. (2 Peter 2:17-21)

When we give membership to those who are unrepentant, we are telling the entire church that sin is okay. And when we do that with sexual sin, we unleash a tsunvami.

And what about those who know better and yet give the gay community an unbiblical hope and assurance? The Hebrew Prophets gave us many descriptions of what the false prophets preached. It was always a popular message and always included what the people wanted to hear - “peace.”

• “They keep saying to those who despise me, 'The LORD says: You will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, 'No harm will come to you.'  But which of them has stood in the council of the LORD to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word? See, the storm of the LORD will burst out in wrath, a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked. The anger of the LORD will not turn back until he fully accomplishes the purposes of his heart. In days to come you will understand it clearly. I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. But if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.” (Jeremiah 23:17-22)

Often times, a popular message can kill. It is not faithful either to God or to those who He is calling. However, this is a temptation against which we must all guard. We want the approval of others. We want worldly peace, even at the expense of our peace with God. Therefore, the Apostle James warned us:

• You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4:4)

God and His Word must remain number one! When we disregard the Word of God, we disregard God and become His enemy:

• It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)

We therefore cannot be a friend to the world and retain a friendship with God:

• Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him… The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17)

We must all, therefore, repent of our sinful ways in order to find a real peace with God:

• Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:7-8)

Do not be deceived by the growing hoard of false teachers who are trying to justify homosexuality on a biblical basis. Editor-in-Chief of World Magazine, Marvin Olasky, writes:

• I appreciate the honesty of Emory University professor Luke Timothy Johnson, who teaches courses on the New Testament and acknowledges that he and liberal seminary colleagues “do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good… we are fully aware of the weight of scriptural evidence pointing away from our position, yet place our trust in the power of the living God to reveal as powerfully through personal experience and testimony as through written texts. (World, July 11, 2015, 24)

May we all seek our Lord and His truth, sincerely asking Him to search and expose any sins!

Poverty, the Church, and Entitlement Programs

Christians are routinely bashed for not being concerned about the poor. This charge is based upon our lack of support for “entitlement” programs.

Meanwhile, many are now calling for “income equality” as a basic “human right,” and even claim that this is a Christian thing. But is it? Certainly, concern for the poor is a high biblical priority. Here are some examples:

THE SABBATH  “Observe the sabbath day… Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. (Deut. 5:12-14)

The Sabbath was even a rest for the least of people. Such mercy for the poor was in direct contrast to all other ancient cultures:

• “Tacitus, Juvenal, Plutarch make merry over the idea of presenting one day in every seven to the worker! The far-reaching humanitarian significance of the Sabbath was, of course, undreamt of by them.” (J.H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs)

• “Subordination of the rights of property to those of humanity…a new conception in the history of the world-a conception that could as little have been derived from Egypt as from Greece and Rome.” (Hertz)

• “Among the Romans, the idea of property took precedence over theidea of humanity. Thus, if the debtor was unable to repay a sum advanced to him, the Roman creditor could imprison him in a private dungeon, chain him to a block, sell him into slavery, or kill him…pity for the poor was looked upon as sickly sentimentality, unworthy of a free man…Virgil praises one of his heros because he never felt any sympathy for sufferers through want; Seneca thinks it natural to recoil in horror from a poor man; and Paulus declares feeding the hungry to be cruelty because it prolongs a life of misery.” (Hertz)

According to Mosaic Law, the poor were never to become a permanent underclass. Therefore, debts had to be cancelled every seventh year – an historical anomaly among the nations:

THE SABBATH YEAR:

• At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD's time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. (Deuteronomy 15:1-3) 

THE JUBILEE:

• Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. (Leviticus 25:10) 

Land was the means of wealth and security. When the poor would lose their land, they would also lose their means of income. Therefore, the land had to revert to the family to whom it had been originally allocated.

THE THIRD YEAR TITHE:

• At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deuteronomy 14:28-29)

This was not intended for the able-bodied but for the needy. We do not know to what extent it provided for their needs.

GLEANING:

• "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 23:22)

The law of gleaning did not encourage laziness. Instead, the gleaners would have to forage strenuously for scarce resources.

LOANS:

• If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. (Deuteronomy 15:7-8) 

Jesus seems to have only reiterated the Mosaic laws:

• Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:42)
  

These loans weren’t gifts. They had to be paid back or else the Israelite might have to sell himself as a servant until the debt is paid off. Giving was never to be administered in a way that created dependency but in a way that would help the needy to escape dependency.

Those who received the loan had to be treated with dignity. The loaner could not simply enter into the home of the indebted one. His dignity had to be preserved:

• When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into his house to get what he is offering as a pledge. Stay outside and let the man to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. (Deuteronomy 24:10-11)

Although the indebted might have to provide security on his loan in case of default, the loaner could not deprive the indebted of his means of repaying the debt:

• Do not take a pair of millstones--not even the upper one--as security for a debt, because that would be taking a man's livelihood as security. (Deuteronomy 24:6)
  

Christians, therefore, rightly want to give in a way that will help and not hinder. If giving creates dependency and laziness, it is destructive. Instead, compassion argues that the lazy should reap the appropriate consequences of their laziness so that they might wake up:

• He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son. (Proverbs 10:5) 

• Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor. (Proverbs 12:24)

• A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied. (Proverbs 13:4)

• One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys. (Proverbs 18:9)

Consequently, Paul argued that the lazy should not be enabled in their laziness:

• For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." (2 Thess. 3:10) 

When giving is not coupled with wisdom, it can damage:

• As for younger widows, do not put them on such a [support] list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. (1 Tim. 5:11-12)

Giving can also elicit contempt and an entitlement mentality. The Occupy Movement believes that they are entitled to the money of others. They decry the riches of the “one percent” and even talk violently against them, as if they have committed a great injustice. (Sometimes, it is a matter of injustice. But if this is so, then it must be mediated by the courts, or new laws must be passed to protect the poor. However, the Occupiers have never seemed able to articulate what the new laws should look like.)

From where do their threats come? They have been told that they are entitled to more, and that they have been unjustly cheated out of their “human rights.” While poverty is sometimes a matter of justice, it is not always so. It might instead be the product of other causes, including laziness and substance abuse.

It is therefore important to exercise discernment and wisdom. Many entitlement programs have actually hurt those who were supposed to be helped by them, creating dependency and an angry entitlement mentality:

• We hardly need another polemic about the failure of America’s “war on poverty.” After decades of bitter wrangling and torpid inaction, there is at last a broad consensus that the welfare system is a cure no less malignant than the disease it was intended to remedy. Liberals and conservatives, politicians and program administrators, social workers and taxpayers have all been forced to acknowledge that the poor are not best served by our current lumbering and impersonal entitlement bureaucracy. They never have been. They never will be. On this, we now all agree.

• If the poor are to be equipped with the tools of self-reliance and initiative, they must first restore family ties and community connections that have been sundered by privation and irresponsibility. Promiscuous philanthropy does little to solve the long-term dilemmas of social disintegration. It is little surprise then that programs that emphasize personal accountability, family responsibility, and community cooperation are much more likely to succeed than programs that simply dispense aid as sheer entitlements. 

How can we truly help the poor? First, we have to understand their must fundamental needs. Gracey Olmstead writes:

• In his excellent essay at the end of the book, Peter Greer references a World Bank survey from the 1990s, in which surveyors asked financially poor people throughout the developing world how they would describe poverty. “The poor did not focus on their material need,” writes Greer. “Rather, they alluded to social and psychological aspects of poverty.” They referenced poverty in terms “shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness.” 

Can we give in a way that helps the needy recover their sense of dignity? Many Christian aid groups have! In The Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World Magazine, argues that, for 300 years, the church has been doing a good job of addressing the needs of the poor:

• Faith-based groups a century ago helped millions out of poverty and into homes. Local organizations had the detailed knowledge and flexibility necessary to administer the combination of loving compassion and rigorous discipline that was needed.

Caring for the poor is not an option, it is a Christian duty! However, this duty must be wisely fulfilled, or it will damage the ones we are to help.

The “Christian” Evolutionist: Peddling Darwin to the Church

How does the theory of evolution impact Christianity? Bruce Malone, President of Search for the Truth, writes:

• “Acceptance of evolution is a poison which will destroy true Christianity. The evidence for this can be seen in the decline of the evangelical belief in Europe as the acceptance of evolution has increased.” 

Marvin Olasky, Editor in Chief, World Magazine, has also observed its impact:

• Disavowal of biblical teaching about creation is particularly serious because that perspective underlies so many other positions: In dozens of once-Christian colleges a slip-sliding-away from the first three chapters of Genesis has led to abandonment of the rest of the Bible. (World Mag. October 4, 2014, 60)

Why does this happen? The two worldviews (WV) are in direct opposition to each other. While the evolutionary WV posits a bloody fight for survival from the get-go, the Bible presents a picture of peace and harmony before the Fall. The living creatures didn’t evolve through a fight for survival. Instead, each species had been created according to its “own kind” (Genesis 1:12, 21, 25). Instead of pain and the shedding of blood, even the animals had been created as herbivores (Gen. 1:30). Humankind didn’t evolve but instead was directly created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7). Instead, of a world where every beast was fearfully fighting for its life, God regarded His entire creation as “very good” (Gen. 1:31). In fact, it was so good, that Adam and Eve went naked, experiencing no shame and no fear of being devoured. Nor did they devour. Death wasn’t introduced until sin brought it forth (Gen. 3). In fact, there is not a verse in the entire corpus of Scripture that gives the slightest encouragement to evolution!

How does the “Christian evolutionist” (CE; They used to call themselves “theistic evolutionists” until they realized that as “Christian evolutionists,” they could better gain acceptance in the churches.) explain this blatant contradiction? Easy! Create a false and deceptive distinction! They claim that evolution is only concerned about the physical world and the Bible is only concerned about the spiritual world. Miraculously, this contradiction disappears, since the two systems are concerned about entirely different things!

This, of course, is laughable. Evolution is quite interested in also explaining the origin of morality and religion (the spiritual world), while the Bible has a lot to say about the physical world! Just one example is necessary: A theology of the Cross (spiritual world) depends on the history (what actually happened in the physical world) of the Cross. If Jesus didn’t historically die on the Cross, there can be no theology of the Cross.

There are many other examples of the same thing. Clearly, Jesus understood Genesis 1-3 as teaching something about the physical (historical) world. And what God had accomplished in the physical world was essential to the spiritual or theological world. For example, when the Pharisees challenged him about divorce, He based His answer on the physical work of God in Genesis 1 and 2:

• "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' [quoting Gen. 1:26-27] and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together [quoting Gen. 2:24], let man not separate." (Matthew 19:4-6) 

If Jesus regards Genesis 1-3 as historical, Christians have little choice but to also regard these accounts as historical. Meanwhile the CE claims that they are allegorical. However, no New Testament book denies their historicity. (However, this doesn’t deny that they also have a deeper allegorical meaning.)

All of the NT regard Adam as historical, without giving the slightest indication that Adam might simply be allegorical. In fact, if Adam is merely allegory, then Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must also be allegorical, since they are connected by the same genealogy.

Meanwhile, CEs even deny the historicity of Adam and the Fall. CE Karl Giberson, past co-head of Biologos Foundation, wrote:

• Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science. Dennett’s universal acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred. (Saving Darwin, 9-10)

Nevertheless, he assured his readers that he is still a Christian. However, a couple of years later, he wrote negatively of the Old Testament Deity as a:

• “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity,” “commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages…but who believes in this deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God.” 

I suspect that most CEs have also “moved past this view of God.” The CE must not only deny Genesis chapters 1-3 but also everything that the NT says about these chapters. Also, by separating the Bible from the physical world, they have dismissed apologetics, the proof of the faith. Without the physical evidence, it is hard to prove the spiritual assertions of the Bible. Here’s one example:

• The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

Romans claims that the evidence for both God’s existence and character have been made plain, so plain that no one has an excuse. However, against the claims of Scripture, the CE claims that the physical world offers no evidence of God. CE Ron Choong, founder of the Academy for Christian Thought, claims:

• Darwin suggested that there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of God. That is correct!

Well, if Choong is right, the Bible is wrong in claiming that we are “without excuse” for not recognizing the evidence for God’s existence.

The Apostle Paul had reasoned with the Athenians in favor of the goodness of God:

• Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." (Acts 14:17)

However, if unguided evolution is a fact, Paul’s argument about the goodness of Paul is wrong. The Athenians then should thank evolution (or chance) and not the hand of God for these “blessings!”

In fact, if the CE is correct, the entire worldview of the Bible has been undermined, as Giberson suggested. Instead, Paul claimed that Jesus is the “second Adam,” reversing the death that Adam had brought into the world:

• For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22) 

If the Bible is wrong about Adam and how he introduced death into the world, what reason do we have to believe that it is right about Jesus! Jesus’ work corrects the evil done under Adam. According to the worldview of the CE, Jesus’ work, since it didn’t reverse the Fall, must have reversed the death and struggle for survival introduced by the Father’s original bloody creation design! Of course, such a notion is theologically unsupportable.

Paul also supported the Genesis account of death and the Fall in this way:

• For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21) 

Romans does not claim that creation had been created in “frustration” and “bondage to decay.” Instead, it claims that creation was “subjected to frustration” and “decay” by God’s will in agreement with the Genesis 3 account of the Fall.

However, these insurmountable problems have not stopped the CE from pushing Darwin into the church and regarding it as ignorant, as Ron Choong does:

• Darwinism exposes Christianity’s weakness in keeping up with the growing scientific knowledge. We use the fruits of scientific technology and blissfully ignore its implications for a contemporary and comprehensive worldview.

Why doesn’t the CE care about the very obvious contradictions between these oppositional worldviews? Jesus alerted us to the dangers about serving two masters:

• "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24)

The CE has made it abundantly obvious which master has won his devotion.