Posted in Christianity and Culture, Church and State, LGBTQ

What the Supreme Court did not change

By Weylan Deaver

The Court declared homosexual “marriage” a Constitutional right in a 5-4 decision on June 26. With fallout still to be felt, the decision did immediately change Texas law, gave sin a victory, made a mockery of marriage, and opened a door that may be impossible to shut to further imaginary rights of groups who define themselves by their deviant sexuality. For example, if marriage is not gender-dependent, why must it be number-dependent (enter, polygamy)? Why must it be age-dependent (enter, pedophilia)? Why must it be species-dependent (enter, bestiality)? If God, who created marriage, is not the grounding factor in our concept of the institution, then there is no rational argument against an ever-evolving definition of it. Yet, despite such a monumentally mistaken decision, growing out of colossal confusion, some things remain as they were. First, the Court cannot alter God’s definition of marriage (“…a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” [Genesis 2:24, ESV]; “…each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” [1 Corinthians 7:2]). Second, the Court cannot change who God joins. “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?… What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6). God joins no couple in marriage out of harmony with his own marriage law, which excludes all same-sex relationships, as well as all adulterous ones. Third, the Court cannot change what the church teaches about marriage. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). That should scare us. Divine law is not nullified by misguided human efforts—no matter how popular—and those who respect God will not be swayed by evil practices cloaked in legal respectability. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Posted in Christianity and Culture, Church and State, LGBTQ, Marriage

I Am Ashamed

With the absolutely absurd recent decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court with regard to marriage, I am ashamed.

I am ashamed because the nature of marriage entails heterosexuality as any right thinking person should know. One does not have to be a Bible student in order to determine that in nature itself human sexuality is to be expressed between males and females. Such knowledge does not require the Bible nor a preacher nor a course in a Bible College. It requires only the knowledge of anatomy and a reflection upon it. High I.Q. is not prerequisite to this knowledge. The Bible, of course, reinforces this truth obtainable through nature itself. Perhaps if more Americans still lived on farms and ranches, more children growing up would not venture to disgrace themselves in adult life by attaching their intellects to such pathetic conclusions as that recently reached by the highest court in our land. Evaluating animal behavior perhaps could bolster the right concept of human sexual behavior if, for some reason, the concept had grown vague or fuzzy in little minds.

Furthermore, since child conception is in humans restricted to heterosexuality, that in and of itself should inform confused people of the fact that sexual expression is natural only among heterosexuals. The continuation of the human species is tied in nature to heterosexuality. The species can continue with no homosexuality whatever. However, the reverse is not true. If all contemporary adults practiced homosexuality from the initiation of their adulthood, the species would die out. Does that not say something to us about the proper direction of human sexual expression? This by itself shows that homosexual activity is not natural.

But what if a homosexual’s response to the foregoing paragraph went something like this? “I admit that the species would die out if all men and all women exclusively practiced homosexuality, but who is to say whether human sexuality is simply for the purpose of child conception? Practicing homosexuals are not practicing such for the purpose of child conception anyway.” In response to such thoughts I would offer the following: I am not saying that child conception is the only purpose for sexual intercourse, but I am saying that by the fact that child conception comes via heterosexual human intercourse, such provides us with the knowledge that since conception can only take place within the confines of heterosexual expression, then whatever other purposes there can be for sexual intercourse are purposes that are ontologically correspondent to or related to a heterosexual relationship, as child conception shows. Since child conception is natural only in heterosexual intercourse, nature is saying that any other legitimate purpose or purposes of human sexual activity are restricted by nature to expressions of heterosexuality.

I am ashamed because that since my first point is true, the nature of marriage should never have become a political issue in the first place. It is only to the fundamentally and radically confused that such an idea that two women could actually “marry” each other or that two men could actually “marry” each other would appear as a legitimate possibility. It is the depth of depravity and the extreme of irrationality for anyone to attempt to uphold the concept that marriage is for those of the same sex! What are citizens (who practice normal sexual behavior and who have not caved in to “political correctness” regarding homosexuality) to think when the highest court in the land decides (albeit by a close vote) that marriage cannot, after all, be restricted to husband and wife?

It is enough almost to make one ashamed to be an American. How can our culture have reached such moral depravity to produce justices who would attempt to attack nature in the name of law? But it is no more possible for two women to “marry” one another or for two men to “marry” one another than it is for a man to marry his dog or that two dogs can “marry” one another. Will animal rights activists at some point call for the legalization of “marriage” among animals? Calling the relationship “marriage” in no way secures it as real. A merely legal redefinition of what marriage is or can be in American society does not attack its actual standing in reality at all. Such simply cannot be accomplished by any set of judges. American law currently stipulates that if a person is missing for so many years, that person can then be legally declared “dead.” Such a declaration, however, with all of its legal ramifications, still has absolutely no bearing whatever on whether or not the person is actually dead! A man declared “dead” by such procedure can be on the one hand legally dead, and on the other hand actually very much alive. This much ought to be clear to all of us. Legal definition and actual condition are not always the same!

Why not let the high court go on and redefine “sisters” and “brothers”? If a real marriage can exist between two men or between two women, why can’t the high court redefine “brothers” (plural) and redefine “sisters” (plural)? In other words, why can’t the court simply say that “brothers” can minimally mean not only two males born to the same parents, but that it also can legally entail one male and one female born to the same parents? And why can’t the high court redefine “sisters” so that it at least minimally applies not only to two females born to the same parents, but also to one female and one male born to the same parents?

If it is simply a matter of legal definition, what is the limit? Where does it stop? Language becomes meaningless as concepts entrenched in nature become distorted.

It has taken us well over two hundred years to reach this absurd historical moment, but it is pitiful beyond proper description that the moment arrived at all. The nature of marriage cannot be altered by mere human vote, even if the vote is unanimous! A horse cannot become a cow and a cow cannot become a dog by vote! And humans cannot become non-humans and non-humans cannot become humans by redefinition, by constant declaration, or by a vote! And being human entails certain characteristics, which characteristics do not disappear or subside by what a society says. Legal declaration is no substitute for natural existence and cannot affect it at all!

As technological advancements have characterized our country for years, our morals have lagged far, far behind. The Supreme Court decision sanctions sexual abomination and degrades the concept of marriage. The New Testament tells us to honor marriage. The Supreme Court now stands in outright violation of that biblical obligation and in the unenviable position of having attacked marriage, which God himself arranged for man’s welfare on the earth. Many have been in our time dishonoring marriage by the immoral practice of licentiousness, fornication, and adultery for years. The high court, however, has now attacked the institution of marriage at the point of concept. And that constitutes a more fundamental attack since it is an attack on the nature of the institution itself.

I am ashamed of a court, supposedly comprised of relevantly informed people, that voted five to four in favor of attempting to change the nature of marriage in the country. In one sense, one might think that at least four people voted with reason and nature. But to think that five did not is mind-boggling! Why in the name of common sense, did anyone vote in favor of attempting to legally give sanction and dignity to that for which God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Homosexuality is and always has been a distortion of human sexual expression! It is not a natural condition.

If one were to argue that we cannot depend on the Bible for truth regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, much less the nature of marriage, I would respond by saying that if God is removed as the originator of marriage, then, morally speaking, we need not concern ourselves with marriage as a morally binding relationship at all anyway ever. If there is no God and if God has not defined what marriage is, then “marriage” can be what men want it to be, but in their determinations, they cannot ever make of it anything that is morally superior to fornication and adultery. “Adultery” ceases to be a morally meaningful concept when marriage is reduced conceptually to a merely human construct! If God is not the divine arranger of marriage, then there is no dignity to it that raises it above the moral level of fornication, adultery, and sexual relations among animals. And if that is the case, there is no “dignity” in the marriage arrangement worth the perverted pursuit of it that homosexuals have been giving to it for years.

If one had been living in Sodom during the days of Abraham, he would have found that homosexuality was indeed normal behavior in that it was widely practiced and socially accepted. But it was never natural behavior! That is, the practice of homosexuality was the norm to and among many, but it never redefined what was natural. The God who created nature does not make homosexuals and then condemn them for what at birth they could not help, any more than he would by nature’s laws arrange for a genetically identifiable Anglo-Saxon baby born to Anglo-Saxon parents and then condemn the child for his Anglo-Saxon heritage! Such is absurd, but such absurdity evidently escaped the notice of our high court.

Perversity of human sexual desire may well begin very early in human experience, but no one should ever blame such an unnatural desire upon God or the nature that God has made. God is the father of our human spirits and the original creator of the earth from which the human body was taken. We surely should realize that temptation to sin, including the temptation to practice

sexual deviation, does not arise ontologically (that is, in the nature of being itself) from our human spirit or from the body in which it is encased. Something must happen in order to redirect the proper channel of human sexual expression. And when humans are redirected in a perverse way, they stand in need of help. They do not need their deviate desire to be dignified and protected as though it were something natural. Such people should be pitied and helped. And when society attempts to “help” them by sanctioning their deviation, it is providing no help at all, but rather encouraging them to feel “natural” when they are “unnatural.”

Voting cannot turn nature into non-nature; it cannot change non-nature into nature. When two non-natural persons (homosexuals) are told that they can “marry” and they attempt such, they and the society that encourages them, face the impossible situation of trying to take two non-natural persons (persons with non-natural sexual desire) and form one legitimate natural relationship. It simply does not and cannot happen! If a man develops a sexual desire for his pet dog, no court in the land by changing the definition of “marriage” can provide legal cover that actually dignifies such a relationship so that the man can attempt to “marry” his dog. If a person cannot grasp this concept, then he is unreachable on rational grounds with regard to the comprehension of what marriage is.

If a trial had been held in Sodom over the legitimacy of homosexuality as a proper and natural route to human sexual expression, the vote perhaps would have been unanimous. It gives me little comfort to think that our court was divided. That the vote was close gives me little encouragement. Over something so basic to human existence and to society, it is appalling that anyone on the court could have voted in support of an effort to reconstruct the nature of marriage at all. It requires much ignorance and no little arrogance to attempt such. As Jesus once told Pilate, Pilate would have no power against Jesus unless God had given power to him. His sin, therefore, was indeed “greater.”

Our Supreme Court has sinned against God and this country in rendering their five to four decision which attacks the home and seeks to legally sanction abominable immoral practice. The confusion of the high court should be evident to most Americans. That it is not evident to all Americans, and given the fact that the decision is now celebrated by quite a few Americans, it is clear that America is, as a country, losing its moral and intellectual direction. Our national law is becoming hostile to God and family, and by such hostility, it is becoming its own destroyer. The Bible still declares that it is righteousness that exalts a nation and that sin is a reproach to any people. And while Christians are under obligation to pray for our government, I shudder to think what it has already become. Yet, we will continue to pray for it and for the welfare of our heretofore divinely blessed country.

But I am ashamed of the repulsiveness characteristic of the Supreme Court in its ridiculous decision regarding the nature of marriage. Those of us who respect the Bible as the inspired, infallible, and all-sufficient word of the living God, will continue to live our lives before God with the proper concept of marriage in mind, which concept corresponds to our divinely provided human nature. Our high court has attempted to redefine what marriage is, but it can no more change the nature of marriage than it can reconstruct by redefinition human nature itself.

Posted in Christianity and Culture, Gender, LGBTQ

“Transgenderism” and the Bible

“For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman.” That’s what former Olympian, Bruce Jenner, told Diane Sawyer in a much-hyped two-hour interview aired April 24 on ABC’s “20/20”. Jenner is 65, has been married to three women, has six biological children and four stepchildren. He thinks he has crossed from manhood to womanhood. “Transgender” is identifying with a gender other than the one a person was born with. The first known use of the word dates to 1979. It seems American culture is eager to embrace the most outlandish claims, as long as biblical morality is eroded in the process. Instead of new categories of gender expression, what we need is divine instruction (cf. Mark 6:34). What Bible truths can be brought to bear on this subject?

First, gender cannot be changed verbally. A man’s claim to be a woman does not make it so. The idea that men have a feminine side (or, that women have a masculine side) is without foundation in the Bible. Likewise, the idea that a man could have a body with one gender, but a mind with the opposite gender. God is the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9), but not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33). Jesus highlighted human inability to do such a small thing as “make one hair white or black” (Matthew 5:36). If we cannot even alter hair color (without temporary, artificial means), surely we cannot change as fundamental a thing as the gender with which we were born.

Second, gender cannot be changed behaviorally. David “changed his behavior” on one occasion and pretended to be insane (1 Samuel 21:13). Acting insane did not make him insane. Nebuchadnezzar, for a while, lived outdoors “and ate grass like an ox” until his reason came back to him (Daniel 4:33-34; cf. Jude 10). He was not pretending. But, his behaving like an animal did not make him an animal. Behavior is not identity. A man who wears a dress does not become woman thereby. Moreover, he sins in so doing. “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 22:5, ESV). The New Testament, as well, is plain on the distinction between men and women, and clear about their God-given roles.

Third, gender cannot be changed medically. No person is just a surgery away from becoming the opposite gender. “Sex reassignment surgery” (as it is called) is simply the severest form of playing make-believe. It is the drastic resort of desperation to be what one can never become, and thrives on the money of the mentally ill. Whatever surgeons may cut off or stitch on will never change a person’s DNA. Nor is genetic makeup changed by taking hormones. God asked, rhetorically, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23). Some things are not subject to surgery. Jesus did say, “there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12). On being taken captive, Daniel may well have been made a eunuch (cf. Daniel 1:7), but, if so, he was still a man. The Ethiopian officer baptized by Philip in Acts 8 was a eunuch, but he was still a man. Gender is more than anatomy and hormones, and surgically altering anatomy does not change gender.

As Jesus stated about the sexes, “he who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4). He did not say that God made them male, female, transgendered, confused, or undecided. Veering from Scripture is never the path to spiritual prosperity. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). “Transgenderism” is a manmade concept, and those who respect the Bible ought lend it no endorsement.

Posted in Christianity and Culture, LGBTQ

Then and Now

By Weylan Deaver

“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian.” General George Washington gave those words to his army at Valley Forge on May 2, 1778. Modern sensibilities and prejudices (allegedly enlightened and tolerant) would disallow Gen. Washington from even thinking about saying that out loud. Were he alive today, the Founder of our Country would be supremely unelectable and condemned in the court of public opinion. On May 12, 1779 Gen. Washington told some Delaware Indians, “You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ.” With today’s political-correctness run amok, that statement would be deemed totally unacceptable on so many levels. In March of 1778 Gen. Washington had a soldier drummed out of the army, “never to return,” for “attempting to commit sodomy.” Our current Commander-in-Chief does not seem proud of America’s historic beliefs and achievements (made possible by a gracious God), but he does take pride in homosexuality and seeks its tireless promotion and forced acceptance–even designating June 2013 as “gay pride month.” The cultural divide is quickly opening into a chasm so wide it will not be closed without one side’s defeat. We can seek our country’s roots, grounded in principles taken directly from the Bible, or we can continue transforming into an increasingly godless, secular, immoral, confused people who proudly tolerate everything except the very beliefs that got America off the ground. The difference in then and now is a difference of day and night. We are reminded of the sobering words of Thomas Jefferson, “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever….”

Posted in Christianity and Culture, LGBTQ

Sin Pride Month

By Weylan Deaver

In case you haven’t heard, we Americans are supposed to be celebrating sin this month. At least, that’s what our President tells us. From his whitehouse.gov website comes a proclamation which reads, in part:

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2013 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists, and to celebrate the great diversity of the American people.”

Sin has come a long way, hasn’t it? There was a time when it troubled people. Remember when Abraham’s nephew, Lot (a resident of Sodom), was “greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked” (2 Peter 2:7)? Of course, Lot was distressed by wickedness because he was “righteous” (ibid.). Which explains why our President is not distressed at all about homosexuality. President Obama proudly endorses evil, doing whatever he can to force its acceptance by the rest of us. We refuse to follow him on such a misguided errand. In fact, here is another quote, but, instead of coming from a presidential desk, it comes from the throne in heaven:

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10, ESV).

Now, if it is right to single out a particular sin as an object of celebration (a concept which ought to be too absurd to mention), then why not add some more special months to the calendar, such as…

  • National Pride in Sexual Immorality Month
  • National Pride in Idol Worship Month
  • National Adultery Pride Month
  • National Thief Pride Month
  • National Drunk Pride Month

Not long ago there were laws on the books against sodomy (i.e. homosexuality). Today, we are supposed to prop up homosexuality at every opportunity, applaud it by governmental proclamation, and reserve hatred only for those who refuse to endorse it. If the President is serious about the need to, in his words, “eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists,” then my question to him is this: Why does your Oval Office harbor such prejudice against the Bible and those who believe it? When is the President going to become intolerant with a culture that increasingly is willing to kick Christianity in the teeth? Obama’s hypocrisy is as odious as it is obvious and, for all his championing of “great diversity,” he clearly has no respect and little tolerance for views differing from his own, such as those held by Christians who still understand the distinction between good and evil.

No, Mr. President, we take no “pride” in homosexuality in any of its perverse manifestations. Neither in this month, nor in any other will we respect your directive to do so. Moreover, we hold your proclamation in contempt, realizing the utter foolishness of taking “pride” in anything which the Lord condemns. We bow to no king but Jesus, and he has already made a proclamation that excels and supercedes yours in every way. But, as long as we’re talking about “pride,” Mr. President, we submit this truth to your consideration: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

Posted in Christianity and Culture, LGBTQ

Why “Same-Sex Marriage” Is a Bad Idea

By Weylan Deaver

“Same-sex marriage” may be winning the polls, but it will lose every time against God’s word in the Bible. Consider several reasons. First, it fails to recognize God’s role in marriage (Matt. 19:6). God does not join anyone in marriage contrary to his law, and if God doesn’t do the joining, then there is no marriage in God’s eyes. For that reason alone, no homosexuals will ever have a God-endorsed marriage. Second, it cannot harmonize with Jesus’ teaching on marriage (Matt. 19:4-5). Jesus endorsed a concept of marriage dating back to Creation, when they were made male and female, and in which a man leaves his parents to cling to his wife. No other definition of marriage meets with Jesus’ approval. Third, it tries to make the unnatural into the normal. A simple reading of Romans 1:26-27 should convince anyone that God deems homosexuality dishonorable, unnatural, shameless, and erroneous. Fourth, it makes marriage an elastic institution (but cf. 1 Cor. 7:2). If marriage can be redefined to include homosexuality, then there is no sustainable argument against redefining it to include polygamy, bestiality, and whatever perverse behavior lurks in man’s darkest imagination. Fifth, it cannot produce children (cf. 1 Tim. 5:14) and, since some homosexual couples inevitably demand to raise children, it creates all kinds of twisted scenarios in which children grow up with multiple fathers or mothers, while implying that neither a mother nor father is necessary to a child’s well-being. Biologically, only a man and woman can produce a child. Biblically, only a man and woman married to each other can produce a child. Sixth, it can only be maintained by perpetual sin (cf. 1 Cor. 6:9-10). That is, if homosexuality is inherently sinful, then there is no way to create a marital bond between homosexuals that would not also be inherently sinful. Seventh, it dishonors marriage, which all of society is obligated to hold in honor. Marriage cannot be honored while trampling what Jesus taught on the subject. Marriage cannot be redefined without compromising its God-given integrity. “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Heb. 13:4, ESV). Political correctness won’t get anyone to heaven. We need to repent and get back to God’s word, for it will judge us all eventually (John 12:48).