Try the Zeal

*For evidence of the title’s claim, see The Advocate’s Pope Francis “Person of the Year” December 2013 issue.

(They really show once again that they have—at best—a superficial familiarity with Christianity.)

LGBT people and allies are consistently showing that they neither know, nor care to understand, the particulars of essential Christian doctrines, like, say, love (in this case), and sports writer for The Advocate, Annie Hollenbeck, is no exception, unfortunately.  I will probably never know the joy of mischaracterizing and misrepresenting the force and appeal of an opponent’s argument, but that is exactly what Ms. Hollenbeck does from as early as her second paragraph.  But you see, there’s the rub: many of these people—the Leftists, LGBT people and allies, atheists, secularists, humanists, non-theists—don’t think that we actually have any legitimate points on the issue of same-sex marriage (among other things, let’s not forget).

Hey, there I am!  (Not really: It's a joke.  Calm down.)

To them, we are the rough equivalent of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, segregationists, and the rest of their ilk (maybe even all rolled up into one nasty, sludgy pool of bigoted-ness?)—to be tolerated for now, but only because polite society hasn’t yet found the nerve to banish us from its presence like those other, now illegitimate, groups.

Ooh!  Ooooh!  Those are my friends!  Those were the days....
(Another joke.  Calm down.  Yeesh.)

If you don’t believe me, just read The Daily Signal’s recap and analysis of the Twitter exchange between Ryan T. Anderson (a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and proponent of the conjugal, man-woman view of marriage) and Josh Barro (a writer for The New York Times and proponent of same-sex marriage).  Teaser: he wants us “stamped out.”

Anyway, to the article.  You can read it here.  I will take the title and sub-header to be Ms. Hollenbeck’s thesis of sorts.  It reads: “Hating the Sin Is Hating the Sinner: An executive for the Baltimore Ravens invokes the tired ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ philosophy, but is that truly Christlike?”

Hmm, are the Ravens homophobic and deserving of our ire?

In a word, yes. Yes, it is in fact extremely Christlike.  In fact, it may just be the most Christlike thing about Christ (next to His being the Son of God, Savior of the world, and the Bread of Life, of course).  Allow me to explain.  You see, Christ came to separate sins from sinners.  That was essentially the whole point of His atoning sacrifice on the Cross.

In the Old Testament, to a certain extent, we saw people lumped together with their sins.  That was why there were prescriptions for stoning, banishments, ritual cleansing ceremonies, etc. for the Israelites, who, last I checked, were indeed sinners just like the rest of humanity, past and future.  The sin was bound up with the sinner, the actor, and there was just no way to separate the two—not yet anyway.

When Christ came, His sacrifice acted as a kind of “reverse epoxy” (as Peter Kreeft puts it): We could now repent, and be truly forgiven, as Christ covered our infinite debt to the Father.  He now pleads eternally before the Father, advocating on our behalf and displaying His wounds as a never-ending display of love and fidelity to us, thereby placating the Father’s just judgment.

So yes, Ms. Hollenbeck.  Loving the sinner but hating the sin is Christlike.  Sorry to rain on your parade.  Now, to the rest of the op-ed.

She is definitely correct when she writes, “you simply will find no instance where Jesus Christ looks a gay person in the eye and tells him that he is going to hell.”  Hell, I agree 110% with that statement (play on words most definitely intended).  But I am confused when she writes (not even one sentence earlier): “As a Christian, I am floored when I hear people like Swayne claiming that while they are taught to love and accept everyone, Jesus Christ teaches against homosexuality.”  Why is this hard to believe, exactly?

Christ elevated marriage to the level of sacrament: an indissoluble union recognized by God as binding on both parties involved for all time.  And Christ confirms the reality of the union as orthodox Christians now understand it when He says, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ … ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”

It would seem that Ms. Hollenbeck is attempting to make a case from Jesus’ silence on the issue of same-sex marriage.  “Since Jesus never preached against homosexual unions,” her reasoning goes, “he must be in support of them, or at the very least, neutral toward them.”  Well, Jesus never spoke out against genocide or racism, but I am confident that Ms. Hollenbeck would say that Jesus would not support those particulars ills.  And one has to wonder if Ms. Hollenbeck has ever considered the reality that Jesus likely never spoke out against same-sex marriage because it was just so radical and unrealistic—both politically and morally—that it just never crossed His mind to explicitly condemn it—it was just understood implicitly as being out of the question.

A parallel example might look something like this: Jesus’ explicit condemnation of same-sex marriage would be like a cultural elite or politician today condemning traditional slavery in America.  No one is seriously advocating for it; if they are, they are not taken seriously; it is most definitely not being practiced; and it has no real chance of making a comeback (as far as I can tell, though I could be wrong).  Essentially, it is so far removed from reality that if, say, a 2016 presidential candidate called for us as a nation to never again own slaves (in the sense of pre-Civil War America), we would rightly ask if s/he needed his/her head checked.  I can see it now.  Aide: “Maybe some water and shade will do you good Mr./Ms. Candidate?  It is awfully warm out here,” as he dials for a psychiatrist.

The rest of the op-ed consists of thinly veiled attacks upon Christianity and intimations that faith and religion should just be private endeavors and/or something that you leave at the door of the church, synagogue, or mosque when you leave there at 10 am—“Swayne is more than entitled to his opinion, and he has the right to practice his faith as he sees fit.  However, considering the times, and particularly the state of affairs this season with Michael Sam in the NFL, this message isn’t as innocuous as Swayne and others may try to claim it is.”  Because, really, enlightened society is clearly not in your favor; how can you bear to be so in the minority and actually live out your faith considering “the times” (whatever the heck that means)?  That’s so passé!  So 12^th century!  Basically, you are entitled to your opinion and can live out your religious faith and convictions… except where it matters: in the public square.  Because, really, you’re making a scene and upsetting the children.

Next up, the conflation of homosexuality and homosexual acts: “Being gay isn’t something you do.  It’s something you are.”  Here, she seems to imply that being gay is one and the same as acting on those impulses, as if gays and lesbians must act upon them—that they have absolutely no say in the matter.  Not only does Ms. Hollenbeck imply that these people have no self-control, but she also makes a critical error: Christians do not oppose gays, never have, in fact.  What we are opposed to are homosexual acts, based upon natural law theory, a 2,500 year-old tradition of thought (ctrl/Command+F “2,500” for the tweet in question) and philosophy stretching all the way back to Sts. Augustine and Aquinas, running through such titans as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, and Kant, and, recently, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Disagree with the theory or the thinkers’ employment of it if you so choose, but don’t insinuate that we don’t love gay people as a way to take the moral high ground, Ms. Hollenbeck.  Thank you, from Christians everywhere.

Ms. Hollenbeck ends her op-ed with a reference to St. Paul’s description of love and a sobering observation: “‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.’  You may love the homosexuals, Mr. Swayne, but love with judgment isn’t love at all.”

The man himself, ready to boss it up.

Here’s the problem: I would assume that she is appealing specifically to the “does not dishonor others” bit of that passage in order to vindicate active homosexuals in their pursuit of marital and moral “equality”/liberation and simultaneously disparage Christians who make life so difficult for these people by telling them what they think about their future goals.  That’s all well and good, except that Christians do no such thing when they express the truth about human sexuality and its purpose, ordered toward married life.  Telling people the truth is part of loving them, Ms. Hollenbeck; lying to them to keep them comfortable while they do what is contrary to the moral order is not.

As for her final pronouncement, I would argue that love minus judgment is not only anti-love but that for love to be true, it necessitates that judgment be involved.  Judgment is simply discrimination (selection and preference, not hate) among ideas, actions, and persons.  If I love you, I will tell you when I believe that you are acting contrary to good sense and upright moral behavior.

Let me know what you guys think in the Comments section!  And share this post with your friends as well!

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