ANOTHER COMPROMISE
Hugo McCord
"In the past two decades, as almost every other denomination has struggled with questions about gay ordination" the "Roman Catholic Church has stood firm, teaching that homosexual activity is morally wrong" (David Briggs, the Associated Press, October 1, 1997). Now, however,
U. S. Roman Catholic bishops are advising parents of gay children to put love and support for their sons and daughters before church doctrine that condemns homosexual activity (David Briggs, ibid.).
The RC bishops certainly are to be commended for an emphasis on love. Indeed, the greatest thing in existence is neither visible nor tangible. As the worst thing in the world is hate, so the greatest is love.
Above all other virtues (as "tender affection, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience"), Paul taught Christians to "put on love, which is the bond that unites everything in complete harmony," and "Do not owe anything to anyone, except to love one another" (Colossians 3:12-14; Romans 13:8). Not only does love cover "a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8), it "covers all transgressions" (Proverbs 10:12).
If one draws a conclusion from the above verses only, he could easily affirm that love cannot be pushed too far, covering "all transgressions," and consequently forgiveness is automatically extended not only to homosexuals and lesbians, but also to child abusers, to rapists, to murderers, to everyone for everything. If love is everything, parents, who have children who have become homosexuals, lesbians, child abusers, rapists, or murderers, will have no reason to grieve.
But God, who is "love" (1 John 4:8), will not forgive everybody. Some will on judgment day cry out, "Lord, Lord, open to us," but the "master of the house" has already told us what his answer will be: "I know you not" (Luke 13:25). Universal salvation because God is love is false doctrine (Matthew 7:13-14). God’s Son spoke of "the damnation of hell" (Matthew 23:33).
A man "sent from God" (John 1:6) warned of a "coming wrath" and he preached "a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins," and he commanded that the baptized should produce "fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:7; Luke 3:3, 8). God is not "willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Godly love "covers all transgressions" (Proverbs 10:12) if a sinner repents and "turns" back from "the error of his way" (Luke 13:3; James 5:20).
But the Roman Catholic bishops in their document, "Always Our Children," say nothing about repentance, only love. It is not godly love that fails to tell homosexual children to repent and to make a change in their lives "in keeping with repentance" (Luke 3:3, 8). But if men and women "die in" their "sins," they cannot "go" where Jesus has gone (John 8:21, 24).
"Is homosexual activity forgivable?" Indeed so, for "if we confess our sins," God "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
"But is there not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit for which there is no forgiveness ‘in this world’ or ‘in the world to come’ (Matthew 12:32)?" As long as that blasphemy is unconfessed, clearly it is unforgivable, but, again, "all unrighteousness" is taken away "if we confess our sins" (1 John 1:9).
"But if ‘we sin willfully,’ and if ‘there remains no more a sacrifice for sins’ (Hebrews 10:26), is a willful sin forgivable?" Jesus will not come and die a second time for our sins, but his dying one time was enough to wash away "all unrighteousness" if "we confess our sins" (1 John 1:9).
"But is there not a ‘sin unto death’ for which prayer is not recommended (1 John 5:16)?" The "sin unto death" has to be an unconfessed sin, for "all unrighteousness" is removed when "we confess our sins" (1 John 1:9).
But the Roman Catholic bishops do not believe that homosexuality is a sin! "In a groundbreaking pastoral letter, the bishops say homosexual orientation is not freely chosen" (David Briggs, ibid.). This means that homosexuals are born to be homosexual, that they have no choice in the matter:
"Generally, homosexual orientation is experienced as a given, not as something freely chosen," the bishops said. "By itself, therefore, a homosexual orientation cannot be considered sinful, for morality presumes freedom to choose" (David Briggs, ibid.).
In the bishops’ affirmation that homosexual orientation is not a moral matter, but only one of genes and biology, It is astounding that
the Administrative Board of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops would openly oppose the pope, who teaches "that homosexual activity is morally wrong."
The Vatican took on two high-profile cases in the 1980s. It disciplined Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen for allowing a group of gay Catholics to meet at St. James Cathedral. And it revoked Charles Curran’s license to teach moral theology at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., for saying that homosexual acts sometimes are morally acceptable. ...
In the new Catholic Catechism and in the pronouncements of Pope John Paul II, the Vatican has maintained that sex is morally acceptable only within heterosexual marriage (David Briggs, ibid.).
Not only have the Roman Catholic bishops contradicted "church doctrine that condemns homosexual activity," but they have put God in an embarrassing position. God has said,
Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. ... If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13).
Furthermore, some men and women God had to give up
to lustful and shameful passions. Their women exchanged the natural use for unnatural intercourse, and likewise also the men abandoned natural intercourse with women, and were inflamed in their sinful passion for one another, men with men doing that which is unnatural, and receiving in themselves the inescapable punishment of their perversion (Romans 1:26-27).
If homosexuality is inborn, if God puts the urge in people, how can God condemn what he initiated?