Editorial

A Baptist ethics professor's column last week offers what is essentially a red-letter hermeneutic to deal with the controversial issue of homosexuality: Just look to the words of Jesus in the Gospels where He is supposedly silent on the matter and where love of neighbor is the controlling ethic for Christians.

For the sake of homosexuals who need to hear the truth of their need to be liberated from sin (as do all of us) and for the sake of the church that is obligated to preach God's truth, even when it's not politically correct, I pray the red-letter hermeneutic is rejected by Southern Baptists.

David Gushee, distinguished university professor at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., authored a column appearing in Associated Baptist Press March 27: "On homosexuality, can we at least talk about it?"

Gushee is a serious scholar who made important contributions to Southern Baptists during his time among us, perhaps most notably his pivotal role in the 1995 SBC resolution addressing slavery. Unfortunately, beyond the problematic main argument of the column, his repeated self-referential comments suggest a lack of humility.

"I'm one of the few leaders in Baptist life with the freedom to talk openly and honestly about the complex theological, moral, pastoral, and public policy issues raised by homosexuality without destroying myself professionally," Gushee writes rather immodestly, noting that his tenured teaching post at the liberal, formerly Southern Baptist school makes him "one of those rare souls who can talk candidly about this hot-button issue."

Only now is Gushee suddenly free to talk about homosexuality as he is unencumbered by the apparently smothering restraints of his two former Southern Baptist teaching posts at Union University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Today, safely ensconced in his tenured seat at Mercer, Gushee finds it "hard to avoid the nagging and unsought conviction that this freedom now demands responsible exercise."

With his newfound voice, Gushee writes, "Jesus taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves. He defined neighbors to include everyone. Absolutely everyone. He sharpened that definition by calling us to attend to those regarded as the last, the least and the lost. The most rejected, the most hated, the most abandoned, the most feared, the most loathed, the most despised, the most mocked - these are the people to whom Jesus most directs us to offer our love."

I agree totally, including how Christians are required to treat homosexuals.

The problem is the application seemingly cancelling God's commands on homosexuality and Gushee's total silence on the indisputable, unwavering fact that God demands rejection of behavior contrary to His revealed will, including homosexuality.

Rather than speaking to that, Gushee outlines "Christian commitments" on homosexuality, calling on those who "have (reportedly) affirmed that Jesus Christ is Lord" to not use derogatory rhetoric, hate, bully, make homosexuals the subject of political demagoguery and the recognition of the "full dignity and humanity" of homosexuals as God's image-bearers.

Finally, "The complete recognition that when Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, that includes especially our homosexual neighbors, because the more a group is hated, the more they need Christ's love through us."

No faithful follower of Christ should disagree. After all, Gushee is basically calling on Christians to act like — Christians.

Unquestionably, there are some who profess to be followers of Christ who do indeed harbor and have exhibited attitudes and actions towards homosexuals which call into question their own spiritual condition. Such behavior should be repudiated as strongly as is homosexuality.

Still, must Christianity's biblically based, historically held understanding of sexuality be questioned today and those who practice homosexual sin patronized, tragically to their detriment?

Why do we not have major theological, societal and political debates in America suggesting such concern for racists, for example? Is racism any more sinful than homosexuality that racists do not deserve similar care from the Christian church, undermining the biblical witness about this terrible sin? Of course, Christians should not hate, bully, and demagogue racists, and we should recognize they, too, bear God's image and deserve the neighbor love required of Jesus' disciples.

But who today would think that such sinners deserve to be spoken of as an interest group in need of special treatment, causing liberal Christians everywhere to wring their hands over intolerant ministers who preach against racism? Indeed, Christian liberals rightly complain today that racism is not preached against enough.

Incredibly, not one of Gushee's 845 words even faintly suggests homosexuality is contrary to God's Word. In fairness, he concludes, "There is more to be said. But this is at least a place to start."

Why not start with what the Bible actually says about homosexuality? Perhaps in future columns Gushee will address the clear biblical witness condemning homosexual sin — as it does all sexual sin outside of covenant marriage.

I fear, however, Gushee's appeal to Jesus' demand of neighbor love suggests the distorted red-letter hermeneutic so prevalent among liberal Baptists that pits Jesus' words in the Gospels against the rest of the likewise divinely-inspired Scripture and finds that Jesus' silence on homosexuality must drive our acceptance. Needless to say, this is a decidedly unevangelical understanding of the inspiration of the Scripture which leads inevitably to a wholesale abandonment of the Bible.

There is no dichotomy between Jesus and the rest of Scripture. Jesus' demand of neighbor love cannot include being so unloving that we fail to preach the full counsel of God's Word concerning any sin, even when the culture today insists homosexuality is not a sin.

We can pray that Gushee's next columns will indeed embrace the entire biblical witness on homosexuality and explicitly reject the red-letter hermeneutic. Perhaps he is being intentionally provocative to draw more readers. With the eternal destiny of his readers at stake, however, his deafening silence concerning what God's Word says about homosexuality places on him a great burden to endlessly clarify his convictions on this matter.