The other day Alan Knox shared with me an article written by Ernest Goodman at Missions Misunderstood. Goodman has just finished up a series called The Counterintuitive Church. This series really made me think about what Jesus did, what Jesus’ apostles wanted to do, and what I usually do. Let’s take the Parable of the Talents as an example. Starting in Matthew 25:14, Jesus tells a parable of a man on a journey with three different servants. To each of his servants he gave some talents (money). To one he gave five talents, to another he gave two talents, and to the last he gave one talent. When the man came back from his journey, the three servants brought with them the talents. The first two had both doubled the investment while the last had only hid it. The first two were praised for their faith and trust, while the last was scolded.

In today’s economy, it doesn’t really look like the last servant had done anything really bad. He was afraid that his master would have nothing, so made sure to keep at least one talent for him. It was very pragmatic. It is probably what I would do. But it is not what Jesus would expect of us. There are a number of examples in Scripture where Jesus talks about doing the opposite of what is natural for us. When the government tells you to walk a mile, you walk two. When someone hits you, you turn the other cheek. He sat and spoke with a Samaritan woman, alone. It seems like he did everything that was contrary to our nature. And to top it off, we should reflect his life in our living.

That’s really what Goodman’s series focuses on within our church structures. We have sought after pragmatism, rather than following Jesus’ nature. I highly encourage you to read this series. They are fairly short and precise, to the point, and will surely make you think.

• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 1
• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 2, The Gaps
• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 3, Distribution
• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 4, Let’s Be Clear
• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 5, What’s Wrong With Pragmatism
• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 6, Impractical Worship
• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 7, Impractical Spaces
• The Counterintuitive Church – Part 8, The Impractical Church Among Us

After reading this series, I thought to myself. Maybe instead of asking, “What Would Jesus Do?” and coming up with a practical answer… I should ask, “What Would I Do?” and then do the opposite. That would probably more closely reflect Jesus’ nature – rather than my own.

A couple of days ago one of my Facebook friends linked to an article by Adam Walker Cleaveland called, The Bible & Homosexuality: Enough with the Bible Already. I would like to respond to this article, both it’s heart and it’s content. Obviously the title is rather shocking to the more conservative folks out there. The author starts by saying, “Unfortunately, if you came to this post hoping to see a detailed exegesis of texts like Leviticus 20.13 and Romans 1.26-27, then you will be disappointed.” These text both speak about homosexuality in a negative sense.

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. – Leviticus 20:13

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. – Romans 1:26-27

I think it would be erroneous to state that these texts support homosexual acts. The author links to two books, one who believes the Bible does not condemn homosexuality as sin, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality and one who does, The Bible and Homosexual Practice. But neither seem to be the point of this article, what is this authors real point is if you dismiss one author because of their view of scripture, then “enough with the Bible already.”

Cleaveland goes on to support his position of “enough with the Bible already.” I believe his concern is that as Christians we are using the Bible to discriminate against a whole class of people. This has been and continues to be a concern of mine. It wasn’t too long ago in American history where conservative Christians used their Bibles to condemn and discriminate against black people and  all women (even to this day). However, I think Cleaveland goes a little too far. He admits that he will be acused of going down a slippery slope, but that is merely a logical fallacy anyway. Rather, I believe he is committing his own logical fallacy, the “fallacy of slanting” or deliberately omitting, deemphasizing, or overemphasizing certain points to the exclusion of others in order to hide evidence that is important and relevant to the conclusion of the argument and that should be taken into account of in an argument. The reason I say this is because of a few key statements that Cleaveland makes, such as,

There are certainly plenty of books written that go into great detail concerning the very few texts in Scripture that deal with same-sex relations…. (his emphasis, not mine)

…these beliefs come from a very selective reading of a very small amount of texts from the Bible….

…Christians need to get over their infatuation with a very select few verses…

It seems to me that Cleaveland is demphasising these verses in favor of homosexuality. I think this is where he crosses the perverbial line. He’s right in many cases, if the Bible is causing you to believe that homosexual people are sub-human, or do not deserve the same rights as non-homosexual people, then perhaps your misreading the message of Christ. However, to claim that we should put aside our bibles if we believe homosexuality is wrong, is completely ignoring the evidence. I truly believe Cleaveland is swinging the pendelum to far… he has noticed an ongoing trend towards people (Christians) who hate Homosexuals and use the Bible to bash and condem them. His answer is to throw away the Bible, instead, I believe our answer should be to pray, seek the Lord’s wisdom, and consider these verses.

Do I think it should be illegal for homosexuals to marry? No, that is up to the state and its government. However, I do believe that homosexuality is sin. To be perfectly honest, the bible doesn’t really talk about the same topics very often. If we were to take Cleavelands view, there are tons of topics we could ignore because they are barely mentioned. For instance, Leviticus 18:23 reads, “Also you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.” But there are so few verses in the Bible about having sex with animals, why can’t we safely ignore this one? Perhaps this is a better example, Exodus 22:22 reads, “You shall not afflict any widow or orphan.” Since this isn’t talked about very often, then we can do whatever we want to widows and orphans.

Do you understand my point? I would say the bible rarely speak about the same sins over and over again, their frequency shouldn’t determine how we interpret scripture. Gossip, slander, lying, etc. are all sins but how often do you see them mentioned in scripture? Probably as much as homosexuality is mentioned. The pure weight given to each of these, clearly mark them as “sinful” even homosexuality. Cleaveland ends by saying,

If it is the Bible that is causing us to delay accepting and celebrating LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual] persons as being fully human and fully created in the image of God, just as they are, then perhaps we need to say, “Enough with the Bible already…”

What are you thoughts on this subject?

Alan Knox of The Assembling of the Church recently interviewed Frank Viola. Frank Viola is the author of the books, Pagan Christianity and Reimagining Church. I haven’t read Reimagining Church yet, but thought Pagan Christianity was a great book.

Check out the interview here: In Conversation with Frank Viola

My pastor and friend, Alan Knox, gave a lecture to one of Dr. Black’s (of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) classes about how his Ecclesiology was developed. He was able to record the lecture and post it to his website. I listened to it, thought it was great, and wanted to share it with you all.

This is taken with Alan’s permission from here.

Developing a Biblical Ecclesiology Lecture
This is a lecture that I delivered concerning how my ecclesiology – my understanding of the church – has changed over the last few years.

Click here to download a pdf version of my PowerPoint presentation.

Click here to download the entire file (52 MB). Or, click the play button below to play the file online.

Click here to read Alan’s post regarding his lecture.

Hey everyone, if you have been paying attention to anything that goes on in the “Christian Culture” then you have surely heard about the book and movie The Golden Compass. Apparently this book is similar to the Narnia books, except it was written by an Atheist… one of those “God is Dead” types. I haven’t read it, but it apparently ends with “Adam” and “Eve” killing God… because he’s stupid or something. The movie comes out real soon and it sure does look fun! I plan on seeing it (someday).

Anyways, the “Christian Culture” I mentioned is up in arms about this movie. Warning all parents to prevent their children from seeing it, or else they’ll turn into the devil.

Well, Michael Spencer from Internet Monk has written a response to this reaction, called, I’m Not Afraid of Atheists (or Their Movies). I am officially adopting it as my own. Thanks Michael!