Brian McLaren recently posted some comments on, you guessed it, homosexuality, and, as might be expected, he was strong on the need to be what he was pleased to call “pastoral,” and weak on what was known, in another day and time, as “biblical.”
He was asked by a young couple what his church’s position on homosexuality was, and he found out their reason for asking before addressing the question, to the extent that he ever did address it. It turns out that this hetero couple had initially met through the odd circumstance of their respective fathers hooking up. And they wanted to make sure that the fathers would be welcome at their wedding.
McLaren does not exactly come off as a son of thunder, but who thought he would? But before addressing that, let me say a few things about his slanderous set-up of the situation. He contrasts the pastoral way (his way) with the shrill denunciations that you might expect from the practitioners of what he called “radio-orthodoxy” — as though the Church’s position on sodomy all those centuries before the invention of radio was inexplicable and mysterious. Maybe it had something to do with stuff in the Bible n’ stuff. And then he says that he wants to treat gay and lesbian folks with “more dignity, gentleness, and respect than our colleagues do.” There are two issues here. First, if we are talking about genuine personal respect (as distinct from political and cultural groveling before gay rights pressure groups), McLaren has no idea of the kind of love and kindness than conservative ministers can and do extend to countless individuals without compromising the clear teaching of the Bible. Over the years, I have worked pastorally with all kinds of people with all kinds of sexual struggles, including homosexual sin, and I know that my experience as a conservative pastor is not unique. But in pastoral counseling I am doing no favors to anyone by sugar-coating what the Bible teaches about sin. This is for the simple reason that sin destroys. Sin is what you are dealing with — it is not what you get to redefine.
The second point to make here is that it is obvious from McLaren’s stance generally that he defines dignity, gentleness, and respect to “gay and lesbian people” in terms of catering to a public agenda that insists upon public acceptance. But in this instance, as with all sin, acceptance is not love, but rather the opposite.
For all the eagerness to be “pastoral,” McLaren does not have any kind of ear for the pastoral language of Scripture. Take a listen.
“Most of the emerging leaders I know share my agony over this question.”
“Frankly, many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality. We’ve heard all sides but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say ‘it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us.’ That alienates us from both the liberals and conservatives who seem to know exactly what we should think. Even if we are convinced that all homosexual behavior is always sinful, we still want to treat gay and lesbian people with more dignity, gentleness, and respect than our colleagues do. If we think that there may actually be a legitiamte context for some homosexual relationships, we know that the biblical arguments are nuanced and multilayered, and the pastoral ramifications are staggeringly complex. We aren’t sure if or where lines are to be drawn, nor do we know how to enforce with fairness whatever lines are drawn.” To which I say, jumping Jehoshaphat and land of Goshen. If pathetic were sea-level, this is six fathoms down. If you don’t know what to think about homosexuality, then get out of the ministry. If you can’t read the big E on the eye chart, then why should the rest of us follow you into the ditch? Now homosexuality is not the most important issue in the Bible, not by a long shot. But it is, thank God, one of the clearest. And if it is not clear to McLaren, or by his account, to most of the leaders of the emerging movement, then the time has come to look for another calling, and I hear UPS is looking for reliable drivers.
If someone were to ask me whether the Bible teaches that Jesus went to Capernaum, I would say yes, it does. I would not be in agony over the question. It is not the most important question, but it is clear. If someone were to ask if the apostle Paul taught that homosexual behavior (both male and female forms) is the dead end result of idolatry, I would say yes again. No agony in the exegesis whatever. There is only agony if you are lusting after respect from the world, which they will not give to you unless you are busy making plenty of room for their lusts. And that is what the emergent movement is doing — this is really all about sex. And, conveniently enough, this has the added benefit of making room for evangelical lusts. Son of a gun. All that agony paid off.
McLaren is a leading spokesman for the emergent movement, speaking for most of the leaders of the emergent movement, and doing so as a self-described “evangelical.” And people believe him when he says he is evangelical. Other people get upset when I say I don’t believe him. But this issue is so clear that something else must be going on here. There must be a pay-off down the road, some kind of reward for blinking stupidly when confronted with such glaringly obvious statements. And it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the pay-off is the prospect of getting laid outside the confines of God’s holy laws of matrimony.
McLaren wants a five-year moratorium on all pronouncements. We need time to listen to the scholars! And then extend it another five years if we don’t know the answer yet. First, if you don’t know the answer now, you won’t know the answer then. And five will get you ten that after the five years are done, a bunch of the Deep Theologians who are scratching their heads over St. Paul’s indistinct buglings will be sleeping in different beds than they are sleeping in now.