Secretary general clarifies view after gay English bishop “outed” -ACNS

1 thought on “Secretary general clarifies view after gay English bishop “outed” -ACNS”

1. This is not a direct comment on the situation of the Bishop of Grantham but is a reflection on some of the underlying issues.

   The truths about the origins of the human race and the Fall (if there was a Fall) are obviously fundamental to the Christian Faith. Those truths have a direct bearing on what the truths are about evangelism, about salvation, about sanctification, about the new heavens and the new earth. Was there a Fall? What effect did the Fall have? On God? On the relationship between God and the human race? On the human race itself? On the space-time-mass-energy Universe (if any)? The whole subject is highly controversial and very important and has a big impact on our view of the Bible and whether it is wholly trustworthy.

   It is true, from the Bible, that because of the Fall we are all born with a faulty, corrupt and inclined-to-evil(sin) nature. This may be an inclination to pride, to deceitfulness, to selfishness, to cowardice, to unrighteous anger, to lust, and other sinful inclinations, which all arise from the heart, as in Matthew 5:28, Matthew 15:19, Romans 7:5, Romans 7:23, Romans 8:7, James 1:13-15. Both Jesus (Matthew 5:29-30) and Paul (Romans 8:13, Colossians 3:5) exhort us to put these inclinations to death, and to resist the temptation to obey these inclinations. This may be a life-long, acute, agonising struggle, maybe punctuated by repeated failures.

   If, as we debate and disagree about this sensitive, important and highly charged subject (human sexuality), we don’t agree that the Bible teaches this, then we need to debate whether it does or not before discussing the human sexuality question.

   If we agree that the Bible does teach this then the key question is whether same-sex attraction is one of these post-Fall evil (sinful) inclinations. In my view it is. One reason I hold this view is the following:

   Romans 1-3 is universal in its scope and about all humanity as a result of the Fall. Paul is setting out a universal gospel for a universal human condition. What other explanation can there be of the descriptions of humanity given in 1-3 other than the Fall? ‘Natural’ (1:26-27) therefore means the ‘very good’ male-female sexual attraction as created by God before the Fall intervened.

   Throughout the Bible, in a remarkable constellation of interrelated pictures, the husband-wife relationship is used to illustrate God’s relationship with his people and Christ’s relationship with the Church. Asymmetry is a key feature of these relationships. Those in Christ, male and female, (whether married, remarried, single, divorced, separated, widows, widowers) are all ‘female’ in this relationship.

   By denying the essential male/female asymmetry of the sexual act and the sexual attraction which precedes it, homosexuality shatters this constellation.

   In the light of these pictures it is inconceivable that same-sex attraction could have been part of the ‘very good’, asymmetric, pre-Fall human nature described in Genesis 1 and 2.

   In his book ‘Original Sin – Illuminating the riddle’ Henri Blocher quotes Jonathan Edwards:

   ‘This doctrine teaches us to think no worse of others, than of ourselves: it teaches us that we are all, as we are by nature, companions in a miserable helpless condition; which under a revelation of the divine mercy, tends to promote mutual compassion.’

   Phil Almond

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