PMT 2017-084 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

In this four-part blog posting I will simply provide a rough sketch of the issues surrounding the homosexual issue from the perspective of God’s law. Perhaps this brief outline will be helpful to readers as they engage this large cultural issue. Postmillennialism entails a worldview that includes moral issues. Hence, the name of my blog: Postmillennial Worldview.

I. GENERAL MORAL ISSUES

A. Tolerance and Morality

The call to tolerance is a moral challenge. It must come from within some particular moral system. Moral systems must support and give meaning to public, universal, invariant moral principles. And they must be defensible within a broader worldview framework. The Christian perspective cannot be precluded at the outset.

Toleration has limits. Those limits must be defined by moral considerations. The tolerance of all opinions would lead to moral relativism which undermines a stable and just society. Such is self-refuting in that it destroys any moral objection to any action, including the call to tolerance itself. The very existence of a stable, orderly society militates against absolute moral toleration.

Evangelical Ethics (3d ed)
by John Jefferson Davis
One of the best treatments of contemporary ethical problems facing Christians. John Jefferson Davis brings mature biblical thought to issues such as homosexuality, genetics, abortion, euthanasia, war and peace, the environment, divorce and remarriage.
See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

B. Civil legislation and Religion

The issue of civil legislation regarding homosexual conduct is not a question of whether values will be imposed, but whose values. All laws impose of values (we have different values from cannibals) or else laws =suggestions.

Law is an imposition of someone’s religious values: law is necessarily rooted in morality; morality in ideas of ultimacy and value; and ultimacy and value are religious conceptions not discovered in the laboratory or mathematical formulas. Therefore, all law is fundamentally religious in character.

We see this expressed in an important U. S. Supreme Court decision known as Abington v. Schempp (374 U.S. 203 [1963]):

“Nearly every criminal law on the books can be traced to some religious inspiration.” Zorach v. Clauson that “we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being” (343 U.S. 306 [1952]).

Transforming Homosexuality
What the Bible Says about Sexual Orientation and Change
by Denny Burk and Heath Lambert

Is same-sex attraction sinful, even if it is not acted on? Denny Burk and Heath Lambert challenge misconceptions on all sides as they unpack the concepts of same-sex orientation, temptation, and desire.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

C. Privacy Issue

Regarding anti-privacy laws, many laws restrict private acts. For example, American law prohibits polygamy, prostitution, incest, illegal drug use, bestiality, consensual sado-masochism, suicide, cruelty to animals, and so forth.

Privacy is one value among other competing values. At points of collision, privacy values must give place to other more fundamental values such as justice, security, and human life.

Private morality cannot be a matter of public indifference. Or else we will witness the progressive decline of moral values in society and the chaos that such brings. Such is detrimental to a society’s moral stability, its government’s legal substructure, the dignity of human life, and more.

Continued in the next blog posting.

Tagged: Bible and homosexuality