Okay, this is for all you people, like me, who need to get out more. Apparently there is this Christian rock star, Vicky Beeching, who has written worship music that lots of people sing, and who has come out of the closet as being something that rhymes with say. You can read a brief interview with her here.
I want to pick up on a couple of expressions used in the interview because they will serve us well in identifying the basic move here. It is the opening gambit — “not that we expect everyone to go along with this, but we need to establish this as something upon which people can agree to disagree.” But in order for evangelicals to agree to disagree about something, there needs to be some principle of unity. If we let lesbianism inside the fence, we still need to have a fence, and we need to know what it is.
As this particular move gets run on us, that principle of unity is having “a high view of Scripture.” That adjective, like love, is supposed to cover a multitude of sins. Notice how she says it — “I value the Bible highly,” and “my very high view of the Biblical texts.”
But high is not necessary a good thing, as those who have dealt with stoners should know. Once I saw a church sign that perfectly represented an inadequate view of the power of this word: “There is no high like the Most High!”
“I value the Bible highly” does not have the same semantic range as “I read the Bible accurately.” Someone who believed that the book of Romans is actually a coded numerological message from aliens might have a very high view of the book, meaning that he did not think about anything else, but having this “high” view is not the same thing as knowing anything about it. 
The whole thing is the classic bait and switch. You start with a high view of Scripture, detached from real exegesis, and what you wind up with is a low case of the hermeneutical uglies. How this sad woman looks provides us with a metaphor. You start with Vicky Beeching — quite a pretty woman — but when this story is over and done what we will have later on is Miss Hardcastle in orders. Not quite as alluring.
Besides the author’s intent, shan’t we acknowledge some guilt on how the church handled and handles people with this predisposition? “I was trying to align the loving God I knew and believed in with this horrendous reality of what was going on inside me,” she says. Yet church folks did not help her through it. So she made that Reality tolerable by making Him less horrendously rear. Shouldn’t we start any help by really knowing the horrendous reality of our own other-than-homosexual state? Why did I not early on feel that guilt, and something like her early sense of shame,… Read more »
sorry — “less horrendously real” — as in softer, accepting, inclusive, accomodating of those poisons laced with sweet sugars.
In the interview you linked to, Ms. Beeching says, “We often confuse needing to agree as the basis of being able to love one another.” While there is some truth to this, and any honest person looking for examples of a lack of demonstrated love between factions in the church who disagree over some technical points of theology or the colour of the carpets or the tempo of the worship songs will have no trouble finding ample evidence of a lack of love in the midst of disagreements, there is a really dangerous error in this thinking. I will let… Read more »
That church sign is a bit like a church sign down here that read, “Aint’ no ghost like the Holy Ghost.” Sad how inadequate biblical understanding covers so many miles and oceans. This whole story is making me think of James 2 for some reason. You can have one bit but the lack of having the whole, discounts what you do have. I do hope her church was not negligent with Truth, it is highly possible but it is also possible for a church to handle a situation correctly and a person still have error because they do not have… Read more »
This reminds me of a wife-beater’s professions of love for his bride.
Some religious people in our day embrace homosexuality ,and claim that God is a God of love and does not judge. As Christians we should encourage those who are homosexual to come to our churches and here the Gospel preached. This is the only way any of us can begin the process of coming to know our sin, and our desperate situation apart from Christ. For those who claim Christ and see a place for homosexuality as a norm in the Church, there claim is a false one. And churches that teach this inclusion as the norm are not the… Read more »
How much did God love you when you were His enemy?
Enough to grant me the great mercy of not giving me over to my sins.
Love the reference to That Hideous Strength. I have reread the Space Trilogy twice and now re-read Out of the Silent Planet for a third time.
Now I’m re-reading the Lord of the Rings, which I forgot how epic it was (due to me just watching the movies).
I think we all owe Lewis and Tolkien the same respect as Calvin(yup, I said it).
Let’s hope He rescues Vicky.
Yes. Lets hope. To do that sincerely we’ll have to acknowledge that Vicky needs to be rescued.
Even the sprightliest fairy in the infertile fields of the UCC can see that the Bible clearly and repeatedly teaches that there are people with desires that run contrary to the will of God. They want what they Shalt Not have. Among these people would be me, you, and every who – save One. There is not a shred of anything in the Scripture that even hints that same sex practices are anything but detestable acts in the eyes of God. Homosexual desire is simply one of those wants for the Shalt Not haves… with the added caveat that it… Read more »
Jay nailed it.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend. They really are wounds.
Beeching does seem to be more of a superstar over there than here. She’s a regular on some BBC morning show or other and is BFF with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s daughter who recently got married (to a man). Earlier in the year she did a blog series on “equal marriage” and apparently lost a chunk of royalty revenues because churches started dropping her songs after that. She is pretty and seems nice and winsome and a couple of Brit friends who have met her describe her as “a really sweet”. I’ve followed her for some time and have wondered… Read more »