The Stand Against the Bible’s Teaching on Marriage—Coming from Parts of the Church!

Last week, the compromise happening in many mainstream denominations and among many professing Christians on homosexual behavior was given a very public platform. On September 4, the NALT Christians Project was launched, asking professing Christians to submit videos of themselves voicing their support for practicing homosexuals and transgender people.

The Religion News Service reported that “the NALT project aims to be a platform for Christians who post videos in support. . . . Supporters of the project include The Evangelical Network, Auburn Seminary, and the gay Catholic group Dignity USA. The project is spearhead [sic] by Christian blogger John Shore and Wayne Besen, from Truth Wins Out, which was founded to ‘fight anti-gay religious extremism.’”

The RNS also reported that Shore stated, “It’s time for us true NALT Christians—the ones who genuinely aren’t like that—to speak up and be heard, to affirm LGBT people as loudly and clearly as anti-LGBT Christians condemn them.”

The videos include church leaders and church attendees, from a variety of denominational backgrounds (Baptist, Episcopal, United Methodist, “evangelical,” and so on). Now, I viewed many of these videos—and the amount of compromise from these professing Christians was shocking!

For instance, in one video, the biblical view of marriage is referred to as a “knock-off of Christianity” by a Presbyterian minister. Another woman says she supports gay rights because to oppose them “doesn’t feel right” to her. An Episcopal priest tells viewers about the float her church sponsors in the Albuquerque, New Mexico, gay pride parade each year.

A United Methodist pastor in Hollywood, California, tells viewers that the book that influenced his faith the most had the subtitle, “taking the Bible seriously, but not literally.” Another United Methodist pastor says that it is “very consistent” for Christians to practice homosexual behavior or transgender behavior and to be part of the Christian community or even be leaders in the church.

A Pentecostal bishop urges Christians to accept homosexual behavior and to “walk together by faith and in the love of God” with Christians who practice such behavior. And a pastor uses his video to explain away all of the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexual behavior, using typical arguments that are easily debunked. (For more on how to handle arguments from pro-gay Bible scholars, see Steve Golden’s article titled Pro-Gay Theology: Does the Bible Approve of Homosexuality?)

What’s the common theme in the statements these church leaders and members make? They don’t respect the authority of Scripture when it comes to marriage, gender, and sexuality. Of course, many of them claim that they affirm homosexual and transgender behavior because they believe the Bible does—but Scripture is very clear that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that sex is to remain within the confines of marriage.

In Genesis 2, the standard was that one man would leave his mother and father and cleave to one woman, his wife (Genesis 2:24). Jesus Christ reaffirmed this definition of marriage in Matthew 19:4–5. We can trust that what God’s Word says is true—and His Word can be understood whether or not we are Bible scholars:

And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4–5)

Now, one of the goals of NALT’s campaign is to speak out against bullying and violence against those practicing homosexual and transgender behavior. And as Christians we must acknowledge that any brutality—verbal or physical—directed at one individual from another is wrong because man is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26; 9:6). We at Answers in Genesis do not support this sort of behavior because it is unbiblical treatment of someone made in God’s image.

But that does not change that homosexual behavior is unacceptable behavior for Christians. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that Christians are expected to leave such sinful lifestyles behind and to follow Christ:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11)

The church needs to wake up to what is happening here in the U.S. and what is going to happen if things continue this way. I urge you to pray for these Christians involved in NALT, that they would turn back to the authority of God’s Word in every area.

It’s sad when it is not just the world that is against the obvious biblical teaching on marriage—but parts of the church. One expects the world to be against the Bible, but the church should be light and salt standing for biblical authority

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

Steve Golden assisted in the writing of this blog post.