All posts by Darris Brock

Darris Brock is an ordained minister in the Christian Church. He is a past professor at Johnson University (Johnson Bible College) and is an elder and worship minister at Lighthouse Christian Church.

The impending failure of same-sex marriage

Failure is imminent. As the newly-created subset of the institution of marriage, same-sex marriage will not succeed. Why? Simple. It cannot duplicate heterosexual marriage.

The propaganda laid out to the world was that homosexuals are just like heterosexuals and want the same long-term, monogamous, loving relationship enshrined in marriage. However, studies have not found faithful, lasting relationships to be the norm among homosexuals as the general rule. A large part of the reason is that the focus is on sex.

Focus on Sex

The typical Gay Pride parade is a display of nudity, cross-dressing, sexual expression, and sexual deviancy. These are not the types of displays that you would find at a Straight Pride parade, if straight people had them. The typical hometown parade is G-rated. The closest thing you get to heterosexual “pride” displays is the high school homecoming king and queen riding in a car together. The cheerleaders may wear skimpy costumes but that is about as close as you get to anything remotely sexual in nature. Hometown parades are a celebration of radical normalcy. These parades are populated by such “radical” groups as the local public service clubs, local veterans, some politicians, and churches. Lewdness is not welcome.

The contrasting parade illustrations can help us recognize the stark difference between the two “communities” as we might call them. The focus on sex is a self-centered focus. It exalts self-satisfaction above all else. It puts the pleasure of the adults in the relationship at center stage. Everything else turns around it. Thus, the relationship is off on the wrong foot at the outset.

Marriage Concepts

Unlike their homosexual counterparts, sex is not the major focus of heterosexual marriage. Heterosexuals have a very different mindset about marriage before they go into it. For them, marriage encompasses life itself. It comes with certain expectations of longevity, procreation, and fidelity. A brief outline of heterosexual marriage thought goes something like this: there is the dating, engagement, the marriage, the honeymoon, the first house, the first promotion, the first pregnancy, the first morning sickness, the birth of the first child, learning to be a parent, taking family vacations, saving for college, the first day of kindergarten, elementary school PTA meetings, middle school band concerts, high school activities, the ACT test, graduation, empty nest syndrome, the child’s fiancé, the child’s marriage, the first grandchild, and the retirement years.

Notice in that description how little time is focused upon the parents and how much time and energy is put into the children. The marriage begins with the couple alone and ends with the couple living alone after their child-rearing days are over. Only now, they have an extended family to care for and to support them as they age. This is a “whole life” experience where the role of sex was two-fold: to bond the couple and to produce children, which additionally bonds the couple as they unite around their offspring.

Mimicking Marriage

Homosexuals are now attempting to take heterosexual marriage as their standard and mimic it. Naturally, they can’t produce children on their own so either they are brought into the marriage from another heterosexual relationship, adoption, a surrogate, or IVF. But simply copying the heterosexual process by the unnatural introduction of a child does not change the initial focus on sex in the relationship nor can it lead to the same kind of parent-child bonding.

Inherent Dissatisfaction

Sexual satisfaction is not all that satisfying when you are doing it wrong. Simply on a pragmatic level, females have to use something to substitute for the male member and males have to treat other males as if they are females by using orifices that are not designed for sexual intercourse. There can never be a true bonding on the physical level. The couple does not have the necessary complementarity. It is a bit like mixing oil and oil. In the end you still have oil, just twice as much of it. Due to the high number of sex partners and the level of infidelity in the homosexual community, it is fair to say that sexual gratification is not the same as sexual satisfaction within these relationships.

It addition to the above, it must be reiterated that the sexual gratification of the adult homosexual couple can never lead to the production of children. If there are children involved, not more than one of the two adults can be biologically related to the child. There is not a bonding opportunity in looking at the child that the two of you created and debating whose eyes he has or from which side of the family he gets his height. This makes one of the “parents” a “step-parent” by default. It is very clear that step-parents are statistically much more likely to do harm to or even kill a child than the biological parent. This is especially true of men, which puts any child in a male/male household at higher risk. A study of heterosexual parenting conducted in Canada and Detroit found that the child with a step-parent was “40 to 100 times as likely to be murdered or maimed as those who live with two biological parents in the household.” Clearly there are issues of dissatisfaction when a non-biological parent is involved. The bonding that takes place between the heterosexual couple and the child cannot ever be attained by the homosexual couple.

Psychology

Dissatisfaction also arises because the psychological similarities of the same-sex couple is also lacking complementarity. It is a well-established fact that homosexuals have greater instances of mental health problems than their heterosexual counterparts. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that there is no counterbalancing influence from the person who is their psychological opposite. Men are more sexually driven than women. Women are more relationally driven than men. When the two are paired together, there is a moderating influence on one another. Apart from that influence there is a lopsided dynamic in the relationship. This is expressed in different ways between the two sexes.

Male homosexual conduct differs significantly from that of females in terms of fidelity within the marriage and the number of sexual partners over the course of a lifetime. Most male same-sex marriages are open marriages. This means the level of fidelity is very low. This is the pinnacle of the self-centered focus of homosexual behavior. The sexual gratification of the adults is primary. A preoccupation with sex leads to greater sexual deviancy as more and more is demanded in order to satisfy the appetite. There is no moderating female influence.

Female homosexual conduct is more faithful during the relationship than the males but less faithful than those in heterosexual marriages. The emphasis on relationship and self-worth causes the female relationships to break up rather quickly. The average relationship lasts about four years. Male relationships last longer on average but suffer from the high infidelity mentioned above.

Conclusion

Clearly neither of these arrangements is suitable for raising children, who take eighteen years to reach the bare minimum of legal adulthood. Heterosexual marriages are clearly superior in terms of their longevity, their fidelity, and their child-producing and rearing capabilities, the lifespan of the couple, the happiness of the couple, and the happiness and well-being of the children.

Those advocating for same-sex marriage would have us believe that there is no difference between the sexes. They want to pick and choose the elements of marriage that they can potentially accomplish (love, monogamy, longevity) while trivializing or ignoring those that they cannot. Simply attempting to mimic heterosexual marriage standards is doomed to failure since homosexuals cannot compete on the same playing field. They are not suitably equipped to do so either physically or psychologically. The history of same-sex relationships and marriages is against the longevity and fidelity they seem to seek. It is doomed to failure as an institution.

Moral of the Story

The moral of the story is simple: fighting the natural order of things only brings disaster and frustration. God created humans as male and female with the intention that they pair up in that manner. That can never be changed. Homosexuals who attempt to have what they cannot have will wind up with ongoing mental issues, suffer the ravages of the abuse of their bodies, and be no happier in the end than they were at the beginning. Ministers, counselors, friends, and family will be left to pick up the pieces. If you did not know before, NOW you know why.

The troubling trail to Gay Affirmation

Plenty of rational people remain befuddled at how we got to the point of having same-sex marriage imposed upon the country. It still “doesn’t make sense”. Past articles here have been written about some of the delusions in the pop culture of our time that have led us into this “Twilight Zone” type of existence. The process of mental erosion and manipulation has really been a long one and is too involved to chronicle in depth or in one post, but here are some of the major tools that were used to put us where we are today. Hopefully it will be instructive as these tactics will continue to be used on this and other subjects.

Trick 1: Emotionalism

The average person is not taught formal logic, argumentation, or philosophy to a meaningful degree. That leaves the door wide open for Trick 1. Emotionalism defies logic and other rational processes which is why rational people are so perplexed when they find someone immersed in it.

A typical scenario is this: a parent has a child who suddenly announces that he/she is “gay” and the emotional heartstrings begin to be played. The parent doesn’t want to think of their precious child as a sinner under God’s condemnation for engaging in homosexual acts so the line is drawn: choose the child or choose the Church. It has caused division in homes and churches because the parent’s or parents’ emotional attachment to the child is greater than their commitment to Scripture.

Similarly, a homosexual person who goes to a church and has a bad experience sets the stage for another emotional tug. This experience is used to indict the whole of the church as being mean to homosexuals in general. This move can then be used to justify shifting the focus to “bad church people” while ignoring church doctrine on the matter and their own bad behavior. Furthermore, we are not allowed to be reminded that other churches and church people are “good” to homosexuals. That card never gets played. Instead, people insulate and comfort themselves with a self-justifying cocoon padded with sympathizers.

The emotional attachment we have to people, be they friends or family, or our instinctive affection for simple common courtesy or an extension of love and care to a person cannot be allowed to outweigh what Scripture actually says and what historical Church doctrine has been. The call to Christ is a call to the crucifixion of one’s self to the lusts of the flesh and to a conformity to Christ. The things that mean the most to us, friends and family, and the things that tempt us have to be killed and killed again in this conformation process. Jesus knew the cost of following him was high in this regard. He knew that opposition and persecution would be found in governmental authorities and in our closest associations.

For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” – Matthew 10:35-38

The real test of fidelity to Jesus is when you have to confront your family members. That is a test that all too many people have not wanted to endure. Scripture takes a back seat to worldly, emotional attachment. The modern atheist movement has benefited greatly by playing upon the “emotional problem of suffering” and the homosexual movement has also had great success by appealing to frail, human emotions.

Trick 2: Narrowly Focus

By narrowly focusing on one thing, people on the margins can be swayed to an otherwise illogical position. How often have you heard someone say, “It’s about equality” when they were advocating for same-sex marriage? It was a common refrain. Equality is a buzzword with an emotional ring to it. It appeals to our sense of fair play. Never mind the fact that a male/female pairing is not the same as a male/male or female/female pairing in gender or procreative activity or any number of other factors. That observation is never allowed. If it is raised then it is mocked and dismissed before the focus is shifted to inheritance or benefits or the objector is bullied with accusations of being a bigoted, unfair homophobe or some other baseless charge.

Another example deconstructs marriage to focus on one element. “It’s about love.” Really? It is as if “love” were the only prerequisite for a marriage. What about the fact that all cultures throughout history have recognized that marriage was fundamentally a male/female bonding with the general intent to produce children? The male/female component absolutely must be dismissed by homosexual advocates because it would automatically rule them out by definition. So it is ignored. The same is done for procreation because that would also immediately rule out homosexuals. After all, how can you deny two people who love each other and want to commit to a lifelong, monogamous relationship the “right” to do that? You can’t unless you want to be labeled as a bigoted, unfair homophobe again.

“Monogamy” is another canard trotted out, as in the paragraph above. Again, marriage is skinned down to nothing but love and monogamy. Why? Because these are ideal goals of marriage which appeal to heterosexuals in our culture. It puts them on empathetic grounds with the poor, struggling homosexual couple who just want to be like the heterosexuals but, by some stroke of bad luck, they can’t be. On the surface, it seems that homosexuals can love and be monogamous, too, just like heterosexual couples. The truth of the matter, though, is that most of the men aren’t and the women are not as faithful as their heterosexual counterparts. Again, the attempt is to match a simplistic aspect of marriage to something that homosexuals could possibly achieve.

“Lifelong” is another adjective often used to achieve the same goal. To hear them tell it, homosexual advocates want that lifelong, committed relationship that heterosexuals have. The reality is that very, very few of them aspire to or achieve this. I discuss that in more detail in another article, but the upshot is that the vast majority of same-sex relationships do not last very long at all. An average of five years would probably be a rather charitable number overstating the reality.

Trick 3: Screw-up Scripture

Since most people do not spend a lot of time studying Scripture and the higher scholarship related to it, they are, again, easy targets for this Trick. Activists like to pretend that there is some legitimate debate going on in the biblical academic world regarding what the Bible teaches or the Church has historically taught. The reality is something rather different. There are a handful of people with some level of academic credentials that try to make waves, mostly for public consumption in attempts to muddy the waters for the uninformed. The mainstream of biblical academics realizes that the Bible is firmly against homosexuality and tomes like Robert Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice really have settled the issue for all but the most die-hard supporters. While there are some unorthodox supporters in the higher halls of academia, most of the weakness is found among the laity and the pastoral class where scholarship is not always as highly valued as personal relationships (see Trick 1: Emotionalism above).

By confusing people they attempt to de-legitimatize Scriptural authority. A very fine example of this deceptive approach is this article with the subtitle, “Christians need to accept that Jesus was sometimes wrong—in fact, he might even want us to.” Oddly enough, the author acknowledges that Jesus would disapprove of homosexuality, but he then goes on to build a faulty argument as to why Jesus was wrong for us today! The mental gymnastics people will go through to condone what the Bible clearly condemns is stunning. But the uninformed youngster today might well read this and think that it is a wonderful, open-minded, contemporary, relevant, and scholarly approach to Scripture. In reality, it is simply leading people astray and causing division in the Church – which is the main objective.

Trick 4: Go Fix Your Own Sins First

The first time I was told that the church needed to go solve all its other sin problems before it got around to homosexuality I was dumbfounded. The absolute illogic of it was beyond comprehension. However, it was not a plot aimed at the logical person. It was aimed at the guilt-ridden person. People who feel inherently guilty because they recognize their own sinfulness can be convinced that they should not condemn anyone else’s sin until they fix their own personal “sin problem”.

Nowhere in Scripture do you find such a concept or statement. Everyone is sinful and everyone must repent and then control themselves so that they don’t fall back into their old ways of sin. And, like it or not, we are required to hold each other accountable for our sin. That is a brief description of what Scripture actually teaches.

The goal of this approach is to disarm people and remove them from the battlefront. A person who is sidelined by guilt will be at least tolerant of and perhaps become accepting of homosexuality.

Trick 5: False Portraits

Presenting a false portrait of homosexual life is crucial to gaining acceptance, especially among the young. The brief outline of homosexual life that I gave in my previous article tells us that it is an unstable, dysfunctional, and unhappy life. But you would never know that through TV and movie portrayals. They don’t talk about the drug abuse, the physical abuse, the cheap and tawdry sex, or the mental anguish. Sure, the heterosexual community has such problems as well but within the homosexual community they are multiplied many times over – especially for the men! The typical movie or TV portrayal will be a positive, funny, likable, and intelligent image which has the intention or result of leaving the viewer with only good feelings regarding the homosexual character. It does not show the man drinking because he is distressed or going home to a boyfriend or picking up a stranger at a gay bar for quick sexual satisfaction. The seedy side may make a few appearances on obscure cable channels but it does not make mainstream broadcasts or movies as a rule.

Trick 6: The Tolerance Shell Game

This was a good one. Cry out for tolerance then engage in intolerant behavior. Much like the guilt in Trick 4, this had the effect of causing churches to be more accommodating to homosexuals. It led to the ordination of people with same-sex attraction who were not acting upon that attraction. It seemed so reasonable, compassionate, and tolerant. After all, don’t we all struggle with sin that we don’t act upon? Sure! Churches began to liberalize even more in order to “welcome” homosexuals into their midst. Then somewhere along the way we began to see calls for ordaining practicing homosexual ministers, affirming homosexual couples, and then talking about conducting homosexual marriages. Any appeal to Scriptural authority was painted as bigotry, homophobia, “on the wrong side of history”, and so forth per Trick 3. Emotional appeals were ladled out as in Trick 1. Talk of equality, love and other narrowly focused parallels were tossed into the mix as per Trick 2 in order to “flood the zone” and here we are. We have same-sex marriage, practicing homosexuals ordained into the clergy, general confusion about Scripture among the uneducated and uncaring, and division within the church and the country. I’m reminded of Aesop’s fable of the Farmer and the Snake.

ONE WINTER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. “Oh,” cried the Farmer with his last breath, “I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel.”

The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.

Aesop’s Fables. Translated by George Fyler Townsend. Chicago; Belford. Clarke & Co. 1887.

And so it has been with the “tolerance” of homosexuals in the church. There was not an attitude of gratitude. They seized upon the opportunity afforded to them and continued their push for normalization. If one could not see beforehand that the goal was to change the church not to fit in and learn to abide by its doctrines, certainly it is clear now that this was and still is the ultimate goal for the activists. The “scoundrel” came in among us feigning calls for mercy and pity in order to waylay the merciful, kind, and unsuspecting. They played our Christian charity against us. It was a crafty move worthy of the serpent of Genesis 3.

Personal Reflection

Homosexual advocacy has arguably had its greatest success by circumventing the critical thinkers and appealing to forms of emotion and deception. Young people, who are often either not interested in such topics or haven’t had the education or maturity to think them through, are soft targets for these forms of manipulation for gay affirmation.

When I was in my young twenties and the topic of homosexual marriage was raised I was opposed to it on religious grounds and on the grounds of gender non-complementarity. Beyond that I was pretty much indifferent. It seemed like a silly idea. Nobody would ever really want to do such a thing and certainly the country would not tolerate it. It was ridiculous and laughable. At that time I really did not recognize the harm involved in homosexuality to the homosexual person nor did I think in terms of children, adoption, benefits, or other public policy matters. Even the idea that it would be an assault on religious freedoms never crossed my mind. I would probably have been very “live and let live” on the subject then. But as it has developed over my lifetime, my personal experiences with being married and raising four children, my religious education, my experiences with homosexual friends and family, my awareness of public policy implications, my observations on history, and so forth my positions have matured which has hardened my opposition to anything affirming homosexuality. Maturity has its benefits. How young people today will shape up remains to be seen. We can certainly learn some lessons from history in order to be more aware of the Tricks and better set to counteract them.

The coming Day of Sobriety for gay activists

Drunk with power after the Supreme Court misruling on same-sex marriage, the gay activists have not reacted all that well. As one writer noted, they were mean. In addition, we watched in April as German homosexuals used pages of the Bible as toilet paper and were tossing their own excrement at Christians protesting a new sexual diversity curriculum . Social media filled up with those type of images and reminders of the hostile and deviant side of this movement. Usually support for the winning side increases after a Supreme Court ruling, but support for same-sex marriage has declined. The public has awakened to the nature of the activists and have recognized the coming assault on religion and free speech.

The Coming Sobriety

For a time there will be residual euphoria. Same-sex weddings will take place in droves. There are lots of decisions to make, guests to invite, gifts to wrap, and honeymoons to plan. Then the time after the “I dos” sets in and that is when the sobriety will begin to appear. Fantasy meets reality. They will wake up one day and look at their “spouse” and realize, “We’re still only around 2% of the overall population. We’re still viewed as sinners by most religions. We still can’t have children with each other. We’re still not really ‘accepted’. We’re still not normal. We’re still gay.” Then the angst returns.

A Fool’s Paradise

Some people have naively thought that “marriage” would somehow end the angst. Once the nation was forced to allow same-sex marriage, that would be the end of the internal unrest. It was a fool’s paradise. In the end, the angst is because they are homosexuals and out of step with mainstream society. The fundamental problem has not been acknowledged much less addressed. They are still a tiny minority of the population. They are still viewed as odd by the majority of people. All the social dynamics that were in place before are still in place and they are still the same people they were before. The paperwork and legal fiction of “marriage” did not solve anything.

One of my friends in the legal profession wrote a little note on Facebook that warned her homosexual friends that things had changed. Marriage was a different legal beast. There was no more “moving in and moving out” as they were accustomed to doing when they have spats. We will learn in the future how many homosexuals actually choose to marry. It may not be all that many since unstable relationship status is a hallmark of the homosexual community.

Unstable Relationships

That’s right. I said it. Homosexual relationships are unstable. By comparison to heterosexuals, they are a very promiscuous lot. They go through many more sexual partners on average than their heterosexual counterparts. Their marriages and relationships don’t last as long as those of heterosexuals. In fact, stable homosexual families are rare (see this for a brief recounting of some facts). Lesbian relationships only last on average about five years. This seems counter-intuitive as females are perceived to be family and relationship oriented but the reality is somewhat different. With two women comprising the household there is a higher dissatisfaction rate within the relationship than with a male/female relationship. Consequently, such arrangements do not last as long. Male homosexual relationships last longer but are rarely monogamous. They are almost always “open” marriages. That means that the two men have other sexual partners during the marriage in order to satisfy their sexual desires. Naturally, this leads to dozens or hundreds of partners over a lifetime for most males, lots of cheap sexual encounters, exposure to diseases, and a shortened lifespan.

Much of the above is a brief summary of data from The Bible and Homosexual Practice by Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon from the subsection The Dearth of Lifelong,Monogamous Homosexual Relationships (2001, pp. 452-460). While the data in that section is being replaced and updated with more recent and long-term studies, the general pattern is still clear: heterosexuals have fewer sex partners over a lifetime; have longer, more stable relationships, and have much, much higher levels of fidelity within the marriage.

One of the ways that homosexual marriages do damage to the institution of marriage is that they severely degrade it by their brevity and instability. Think about all the flack that marriage has taken with the erroneous myth that fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. That number is false to begin with, but by comparison to homosexual marriages it looks stellar!

Sexual Fluidity

Sexual fluidity is not something that homosexual advocates like to talk about or even acknowledge. I’ll quote from Dr. Gagnon’s book what is still the observed truth: homosexuality is not an immutable condition. People can and do change. Dr. Gagnon writes, “The evidence to date, however, points to considerable fluidity in a spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual. People who at one time or another experience homosexual impulses do so at different times of life, and for periods of different duration. Many exclusive homosexuals come to the ‘realization’ about their ‘true’ sexual identity relatively late in life. Many who identify themselves as exclusively homosexual early in life subsequently become predominantly or exclusively heterosexual later in life. None of this corresponds to a doctrine of biological determinism” (p. 418). In fact, over 90% of people who have had homosexual encounters have also had heterosexual encounters. For women the number approaches 95%. In fact, studies have shown that people can and do shift across the Kinsey spectrum of sexuality one, two, or even three times in some cases (Gagnon, pp. 419-20).

Fluidity indicates that sexuality is not a fixed, and immutable trait and it contributes to the relational instability. Additional factors argue that it is not a trait that is good, healthy, or worthy of societal support.

Mental Disorders

Homosexuals will still continue to have higher percentages of mental illness than heterosexuals. The open marriage lifestyle that gay men live is not mentally healthy. It is inherently unstable, dangerous, and cheap. The need for exogamous sexual partners is not the sign of a healthy, bonded relationship equivalent to heterosexual bonding.

The conscious fact that they are abnormal in society weighs on the mind. Even in the case of a same-sex marriage where children are involved, the simple fact of the matter is that the same-sex “parents” will be the minority at the average school “Family Night”. They are still square pegs trying to fit into a round hole.

There is also the rarely-discussed psychological reality that two same-sex people are not opposites psychologically and emotionally. There is no real complementarity to counterbalance the other person. At the most, you get either a highly feminized male or a highly masculinized female in terms of body style, clothing, mannerisms, and make-up. These are attempts at supplying what is lacking in the complementarity but they are not and cannot truly reach that goal.

Dare I say that the type of sexual activity necessary for a same-sex partner cannot be equated to true gender complementarity? The peculiarities involved in the types of so-called “intercourse” that homosexuals must engage in are not complementary. It is perhaps in this most intimate relationship that homosexuals inwardly realize their dissimilarity to the heterosexual world. Women must use artificial male substitute devices; men must penetrate parts of the body not designed for reproduction and not designed to take the abuse of rigorous sexual activity. There are no procreative options so the primary goal has to be turned to the gratification of the participants. Let it suffice to say that the cumulative weight of all this does damage to the mental health of the average homosexual.

A Hollow Victory

The victory is hollow. It was won with intellectually vacant ideology; it was won only by circumventing the democratic process (which was 32-2 against it); it was won only by illegal judicial activism in violation of the Constitution. So, it is a very shallow victory indeed. The day of “sobriety” is coming. The pain and suffering will continue and it will spread to others through family courts and religious persecution because at the heart of the matter is “sin”. Homosexual activists don’t like to be called “sinners” and that is what the Bible calls them. Legally married or not, they are still sinners.

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

If there is one portion of Scripture that is en vogue today it is, “Judge not”. It is the one phrase that both the perverts and the softhearted Christians can agree upon.

Over the years of my education and ministry I’ve heard this said many times. Softhearted Christians and those attempting to be charitable to others will refuse to pronounce a sin as a sin out of a misguided fear of “judging” and thus coming under God’s judgment. I’ve heard this said most recently about the subject of homosexuality and same-sex marriage issues. People are genuinely afraid to identify these as sins because of this text. Of course, the people who revel in perversity love to reinforce this idea when you confront them and say, “Who are you the judge me? The Bible says ‘Judge not’!” With such a rant the poor softhearted Christian is bullied and ashamed to the point of withdrawing from the fight.

Matthew 7:1-5

There is a great meme going around social media which illustratesjudge-not how people read this verse. “Judge not” is the only part of the passage that isn’t scribbled over. Without that larger context it is easy to misunderstand this two-word text. The context in Matthew is very clearly about being a hypocritical judge of someone else’s sin. The comparison is between a “speck” in someone else’s eye versus a “board” in your own eye. The self-righteous, hypocritical person is quick to judge the smallest sin another person has while ignoring the major sin problem he has. Know anyone like that? If you do, I’m sure that you don’t like them very much.

Luke 6:37-38

In Luke’s gospel there is less context to the saying. It is preceded by a call to love your enemies, be merciful as God is merciful, then this warning not to be overly judgmental is then followed by a call to be like the “teacher”, and then the same “speck of sawdust” passage as in Matthew. In short, all of it is a perspective on proper behavior: be like God, be like Jesus.

Paranoid Friends

My paranoid friends are so traumatized by the recognition that they have sin in their lives that they do not want to be perceived as being hypocritical so they don’t want to even acknowledge that someone else has sinned. This is born, in part, out of the contemporary idea that “all sin is equal” in that it separates the person from God. While it is true that any sin would separate a person from the holiness which is God, it is not true that all sin is equal in God’s sight. Even the Bible has hierarchies of sin. We know this because the punishments vary. Some sins require a small sacrifice, others a larger sacrifice, and others can only be properly punished by execution. See the difference?

Everyone struggles with some residual guilt over their past sins. People also struggle with guilt over their present temptations. When this guilt inhibits the ability to recognize and confront obvious sin in others then it becomes problematic. To reverse the image Jesus paints for us above, imagine that the person with the “speck” sees the person with the “plank” in the eye but doesn’t say anything. Would that be in keeping with Jesus’ desire? No. The converse of Jesus’ command not to be a hypocritical judge of others is not to refrain from judgment but to do it properly: mercifully, compassionately.

Commands to Judge

The New Testament commands us to judge actions – especially those of our fellow Christians. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that those within the church are to make judgments about the sins of other church members. He himself had no problem in passing judgment on a man guilty of incest in the Corinthian church even though he had only been told about the situation and wasn’t there while it was going on. He wrote, “. . . I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this” (1 Cor. 5:3). So Paul saw no conflict with anything Jesus said about “judge not” and his ability and duty to “judge”. Neither did he see a conflict in telling the Corinthian church members that they should be judging as well. He rhetorically asks, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?” (1 Cor. 5:12). The answer is “Yes, you are to judge the people inside the church.”

In fact, Jesus gives us directions on how to properly judge people within the church. We are not to do it hypocritically or with harsh condemnation, but lovingly and with consideration. See Matthew 18:15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over” (NIV). Notice that this text makes us all responsible for helping to keep our fellow church members in line. Doing this with responsibility and a compassion for the other person helps to build the bonds of trust and holiness in the church. It makes the church a self-policing entity and that cuts down on a lot of problems within the church as everyone is focused on doing what is good and right as well as helping others to do what is good and right.

What God has already judged

Judging what is right and wrong is much easier when you realize that God has already told us much about what He has judged as right and wrong. We don’t have to question whether fornication, adultery, homosexuality, prostitution, greed, theft, slander, malice, and so forth are wrong. They are. To say so is not to be judgmental in the least. It is simply pointing out what God has already judged to be wrong.

Getting It Right

The Message is a paraphrase of the Bible and it has this for Matthew 7:1-5. “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.”

When judging is done the proper way it brings health and healing to the person involved. That is, if the person is of the proper mindset to accept gentle correction. There is never a guarantee how a rebuke will be received but it does not relieve us of the responsibility to judge.
pingomatic

Lies and Deceit in the Queen James Bible

The Queen James Bible has been around since late 2012 but it seems to be making the rounds again on social media so I’ll take some time to give a brief description of the lies and deceit it presents.

While I do have qualifications in Hebrew and Greek, I don’t plan to address those language issues in detail here. Rather, this is intended for a general audience so the analysis will be of the English texts with necessary reference to original language issues. If you wish to ask questions about the original languages I will be happy to field them but I would also direct you to this CARM site which has some original language discussion of these texts. The best and most thorough exegesis of these texts can be found in Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon’s massive tome, The Bible and Homosexual Practice.

The King James Version is a good, old translation which represents the original language texts well. The QJV follows the KJV closely with a few notable exceptions. The approach here will be to examine the texts in chronological order with a discussion of the differences and then compare these to a contemporary translation from the NIV.

What’s in a name?

The Queen James Bible’s name reveals a lot about its creators. It is intentionally provocative in that “queen” is typically used of a class of homosexual males. So the wordplay between King and Queen is intended to be affirming of male homosexuality and offensive to traditional Christians who understand the undertones behind it. So right at the outset this is a mocking, confrontational, and insulting title, ironically, representing a group that has begged for tolerance and acceptance from traditional Christians.

Genesis 19:5

KJV And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, “Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.”

QJV And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, “Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may rape and humiliate them.”

NIV They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

This is the first occurrence of a text that has homosexual overtones to it. In this story, Lot shelters two men for the night in the city of Sodom. Unbeknownst to him, these are two angels who have come to town in order to see if the city is as wicked as has been reported to God.

Ancient hospitality standards meant that Lot was to protect these men at all costs. When the men of Sodom approach the house at night they demand to have the men turned over to them. The question is what do the men want to do with these two strangers? The KJV says that they want to “know” them. This has always been understood to be a euphemism for homosexual intercourse. However, the QJV cannot let that stand so it changes the actual word into a three-word interpretation: “rape and humiliate”. The QJV has taken this step in order to remove homosexual acts as the actual sin. Instead they want the sin to be “rape” (because everyone agrees that rape is bad and it also happens between heterosexuals) and “humiliation” because this also frees the text of strictly homosexual behavior as sin.

Anyone who studies the whole of the Sodom and Gomorrah story will acknowledge that the cities were rife with all manner of sin. The Sodom story points out that one of those sins was to violate the hospitality codes and engage in homosexual activity with, and quite possibly the rape of, the two men. This is one of the least offensive changes made by the QJV and yet it is still deceptive as it tries to blunt the force of the homosexual activity and re-channel it into the directions of rape and humiliation only. The NIV preserves the sense of the text and the best scholarship by simply saying “have sex with them”. This does not imply that they necessarily intended to rape the men, although that is still a possibility.

Humiliation would be the natural outcome in the ancient world if the men were sexually used as women. These were classed societies and the passive male partner in sexual relations lost status in the eyes of such societies at this time. The QJV text mixes some truth about humiliation with some uncertainty on the issue of rape in order to present this text as being less about homosexuality as sin and more about criminal behavior and social customs violations.

Leviticus 18:22

KJV Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.

QJV Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind in the temple of Molech: it is an abomination.

NIV Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.

This is the first text explicitly on the subject of male homosexuality. As you can see below, the KJV has no qualifying phrase placing any limits on the sin of homosexual practice. It is simply “an abomination”. The first deceit that the QJV puts into the text is the phrase “in the temple of Molech”. This phrase does not exist in the original language texts of the Hebrew Bible. So why is it here? This is an attempt to limit the impact of the text so that not all homosexual practices are wrong, just those done in a particular religious context.

The attempt to deceive finds some ground based upon Lev. 18:2-3 where God tells the Israelites that they are not to follow the practices of the Egyptians or the Canaanites. Among those practices is male homosexuality. This leads to the natural conclusion that both groups committed these, or at least most of these, sins. Verse 21 seems to be the only exception because the Egyptians did not worship Molech. In fact, they saw it as a detestable form of worship.

Molech worship included stoking fires inside the god’s bronze idol until its hands were glowing red hot. Then a child or infant was placed on the hands and allowed to burn to death. Priests would play musical instruments in order to cover over the sounds of the dying child’s shrieks of agony. The Egyptians did not do such things. Homosexual acts, however, were something the two cultures could have in common. It also makes sense that the acts were condemned outright as we know of no homosexual acts conducted during worship in Egypt. So there doesn’t seem to be any grounds to the idea of ritual worship much less Molech worship “in the temple”.

The text is also deceptive in that Jewish religious tradition has held that homosexual practice was a sin based upon this text and the next one and there were no limiting factors. The NIV gives a modern translation and it does not limit the text in any way. Simply put, the text says that male homosexual practice is a sin.

Leviticus 20:13

KJV If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

QJV If a man also lie with mankind in the temple of Molech, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

NIV If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

This passage also has the same phrase “in the temple of Molech” included. Again it is without any justification. All of the same criticisms can be leveled at this as the text above. Both texts seem to hope to have the reader infer that the text was in some way incomplete, misunderstood, or even covered up until now. While conspiracy theories may be appealing to some people, the text has actually been consistently understood to mean that male homosexual acts were sinful all along the translation history.

Romans 1:26

KJV For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against their nature.

QJV Their women did change their natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, left of the natural use of the woman, burned in ritual lust, one toward another.

NIV Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

This text has even more problems than the texts listed before it. The QJV has simply struck out part of the text of this verse, moved it to the next verse, and rewritten the rest. It departs from the KJV’s faithfulness to the original Greek text at this point. This is the most extensive change under discussion here.

Notice that the KJV line “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections” does not appear at all in this verse of the QJV. Also notice that the QJV adds men to this list, which is not in the Greek text at this point, and it includes the limiting phrase “in ritual lust” which is, again, not in the original Greek. All of this is again an attempt to limit the sin of homosexual practice to only pagan worship practices.

Romans 1:27

KJV And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

QJV Men with men working that which is pagan and unseemly. For this cause God gave the idolators up unto vile affections, receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

NIV In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

In conjunction with verse 26, this verse has also been significantly reworded. The missing sentence “for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections” has been moved to this verse and is modified. It removes the word “them” and inserts the word “idolators”. As before, this is not found in the Greek. Similarly, the words “pagan and” are included which are not in the Greek text. As in the previous verse and the Leviticus verses, the goal is to limit the sin of homosexual practice only to pagan worship. That would mean that all other homosexual practice is free and clear of any “sin” label.

The assumption underlying the use of “idolators” is that Romans 1 is only about pagan idol worshipers. In fact, it is about humanity at large. When human beings are left to their own devices they naturally turn away from God, His will, and His intentions. This is a rebellion in which God is abandoned only to be replaced by worthless idols and human sexuality is misused and abused through homosexual acts.

1 Corinthians 6:9

KJV Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

QJV Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor morally weak, nor promiscuous,

NIV Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men

Here we are presented with an interesting case. Notice the three underlined sections. The KJV has the term “effeminate” which is a translation of the term “soft” from Greek. Two lines of thought have been proposed on this translation. One that retains the KJV translation is to understand the effeminate male as what we might consider a transgender or cross-dressing male. The other is to understand the pairing of the two words used here as the active and passive participants in male homosexual acts. This seems to be the best of the two arguments for reasons that are too lengthy to be discussed at this time.

Notice that the QJV has completely changed the translations of these words to their own peculiar choices. The effeminate male becomes “morally weak” and the “abusers of themselves with mankind” become “promiscuous”. These are very strained readings of the text at best but it serves the purpose of removing general homosexual acts from the category of “sin”. The NIV has followed what scholarship has come to conclude: that these are the active and passive partners in male homosexual acts. It has also gone a step further by not trying to draw the nuanced distinction for the English reader but simply combining the terms to say “men who have sex with men”. This covers it all for the modern English reader and there is a footnote to explain that this renders two Greek words.

1 Timothy 1:10

KJV For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

QJV For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.

NIV for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine

A look at the Greek text is almost required for this passage. The underlined words are only one word in Greek. The English text has more words in it than the Greek because it has to explain what is meant by the Greek whereas the Greek readers knew instinctively. The Greek word is a combination of two Greek words which indicate male homosexuals. It more literally means a “male-bedder” that is, one who “goes to bed with” a male. Used euphemistically, it has sexual overtones to it. Scholarship has improved the translation of this passage in two ways and they are both reflected in the NIV. The first is the phrase “for those practicing homosexuality” and the second is the change from “whoremongers” to “sexually immoral” as the Greek word covers a more broad range of sexual sins.

It is also worth noting that the QJV has omitted any reference to “mankind” in the underlined section. Notice the rather ambiguous phrase “for them that defile themselves”. This is more unjustified sleight of hand to fool the uninformed reader. Exactly what type of defiling is in mind is not clear from this translation. It may be an attempt to point to religious defilement of some sort, which would be somewhat consistent with the previous attempts to limit the sinfulness of homosexual acts only to those done in the context of pagan religious services.

Jude 1:7

KJV Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

QJV Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after nonhuman flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

NIV In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

Referring back to the Genesis 19 situation at Sodom, Jude raises some issues unlike the previous passages. Notice the adjectives change from the “strange” flesh in the KJV to “nonhuman” flesh in the QJV. The problem here is what nuance was intended by the word “strange” in the Greek. The QJV wants us to think that the men were sinful because they wanted to have sex with the two angels. However, the men never know that these two are actually angels. They think that they are simply two men who are visiting the city overnight. The QJV might also wish us to think that the story is told with the reader already having the knowledge that these two men are actually angels and that the reader would know that the real sin was the men wanting to have sex with angelic beings.

Of all the changes listed here, this is the only one that might be justified. The Greek word is literally the word “other” and not “strange”. In fact, it is heteros from where we get hetero-sexual. The Greek word homois means “same” and is where we get the word homo-sexual. In the latter case it means people of the “same” sex whereas in the former case it means people of the opposite sex. But some other observations need to be made in order to fill out the interpretation. Jews of the time knew that homosexuality was a sin. Nowhere is it indicated that the men of Sodom knew the two “men” were angels. So how should we understand the word “other”?

Modern translations have varied a bit in how they handle this. The NIV has again corrected the other two versions by changing “fornication” to “sexual immorality” based upon better scholarship. The NIV has also opted to say “perversion” instead of “strange flesh”. The combination of the two is clear enough for the informed English reader to understand that “perversion” is something beyond “sexual immorality” and thus has homosexual implications because of the story’s background. The ESV has “unnatural desire” while TLB has a more clear explanation, “lust of men for other men.” The NRSV simply has “unnatural lust” which is relatively clear based upon the context in the same way as the NIV.

At this point I would not side exactly with any of these translations. I would retain the NIV’s use of “sexual immorality” instead of “fornication” but I would opt for “other flesh” as a more literal reading of the text. Having said that, the intention of “other flesh” is probably to indicate the “nonhuman” or “angelic” flesh of Lot’s visitors. Jude uses stories about angels to make his point. He precedes this with reference to a story from 1 Enoch about angels who left heaven to come to earth for their own purposes; he follows it with reference to a story about the archangel Michael disputing with Satan over the body of Moses. In between he references the story of Sodom with its angelic visitors. By using thesestories as illustrations, Jude is telling his readers that certain ones have similarly improperly transgressed into the realm of angels since they “heap abuse on celestial beings” (v. 8).

Why, then, do other translations specifically indicate or allude to homosexual activity? The most obvious answer seems to be that they understand the term “other” to mean something like “other men not of the city; not of their ethnic group – strangers”. If the men of Sodom simply wanted homosexual activity they could have satisfied themselves with each other. Instead they went after the strangers who were “other” than them.

One other factor deserves some thought. Since the KJV says “fornication” and “strange flesh” it doesn’t have a homosexual overtone to it other than the background knowledge of Genesis 19 that the reader brings to it. So it is difficult to see how this change would lessen the sin of homosexuality, unlike the previous changes made in other passages. The only way it is possible is to understand “strange flesh” as a euphemism for “homosexual acts with strangers”. Based upon the context, this seems unlikely. The QJV may be reacting more to modern versions which retain the notion of homosexuality in them than to the language of the KJV since it is ambiguous in meaning anyway.

Much more could be said and has, in fact, been written on these topics. This is a selective, concise summary and evaluation of these passages. It is in no way to be considered a complete exegetical evaluation.