Tag: homosexuality

Book Plunge: Does The Bible Condemn Gay People?

What do I think of Van Der Walt and Andrews’s book published by Inspired Living? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

To be fair, this is a very short book. So short you could read it in an hour in fact. While it’s not meant to be exhaustive and I understand that, the work is highly insufficient for its claims and does not show much research on the part of its writers. You get the impression they came to the text wanting to find what they wanted to find and chose sources to make sure that that happened.

With a look at the title, even a strong conservative can say no, it doesn’t. What we can say is that it condemns homosexual activity. Once again, for the sake of argument, the Bible could be wrong in its condemnation of homosexual activity, but let us not be wrong in the fact that it does condemn it. At the start, you find the emotional heartstrings pulled with a quote like “We believe that a loving God would want a loving interpretation of His words which does not exclude anyone from any His message simply based on one aspect of their identity.”

That sounds good, but how far does it go? The use of simply there implies that sexual activity is a small thing. Should we say the same if someone considered adultery part of their identity? Would we say “A loving God would not want to exclude me based on one aspect of my identity. What if we found the same for sexual attraction to children, or relatives, or animals? Could I say it’s part of my sexual identity to be attracted to multiple women so I should be allowed? Why would a loving God want to exclude this?

Also, the writers say that they are not experts on religion, but have read widely and are presenting the work of experts. If you’re not an expert though, then don’t present an opinion on it in that way. A non-expert can have a hard time even knowing how to evaluate the material at times and their material is hardly representative. What do they use?

They use the documentary “For The Bible Tells Me So.” The description of this goes as follows:

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Seattle Interntional Film Festival, Dan Karslake’s provocative, entertaining documentary brilliantly reconciles homosexuality and Biblical scripture, and in the process reveals that Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias is based solely upon a significant (and often malicious) misinterpretation of the Bible. As the film notes, most Christians live their lives today without feeling obliged to kill anyone who works on the Sabbath or eats shrimp.
Through the experience of five very normal, very Christian , very American families – including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson – we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child. With commentary by such respected voices as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard’s Peter Gomes, Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg and Reverend Jimmy Creech, For The Bible Tells Me So offers healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the crosshairs of scripture and sexual identity.

Next we have God and the Gay Christian written by Matthew Vines which is a leading popular work arguing that homosexuality and Christianity are perfectly compatible. The video is also included. The next work is “What The Bible Really Says About Homosexuality. It’s description is

Helminiak, a Roman Catholic priest, has done careful reading in current biblical scholarship about homosexuality. While cautioning against viewing biblical teaching as “the last word on sexual ethics,” he stresses the need for accurate understanding of what the biblical “facts” are and concludes that “the Bible supplies no real basis for the condemnation of homosexuality.” Using the studies of Yale historian John Boswell (Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, LJ 7/94), New Testament seminary professor L. William Countryman, and others, Helminiak examines the story of Sodom (where the sin was inhospitality), Jude’s decrying sex with angels, and five texts-Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:27, I Corinthians 6:9, and I Timothy 1:10-all of which, he concludes, “are concerned with something other than homogenital activity itself.” Highly recommended for all libraries.

We have next “The Bible’s Yes to Same-Sex marriage: An Evangelical’s Change of Heart, followed by The Bible and Homosexuality article on Wikipedia. Yes. Wikipedia. The obvious place we all go to for excellent research. Following that is the GayChristian 101 web site and Religious Tolerance.

Now am I saying exclude these sources because they all argue for homosexuality? No, but let’s consider this.

Let’s suppose you wanted to write and say you were not an expert on the age of the Earth, but you were reading the experts, and the only books and videos and such you cited were young-earth creationists. What if you were going to write a critique of evolution and you included only people who argued against evolution in your source? What if you were going to do a look at the question of theism and the only people you cited were Christian apologists specializing in theism vs. atheism? Not only that, not one person in this list is really a scholar in the field. There are in fact pro-homosexual NT scholars that could have been cited, but these authors do not do so and yet they expect us to think they have interviewed the experts.

The authors also want us to keep in mind that the Bible was written thousands of years ago without the understanding that homosexuality was a legitimate widespread sexuality. Unfortunately, they do not demonstrate this. Is there any interaction with the Symposium of Plato where it is said some people’s missing halves were of the same sex? Is there any interaction with Hubbard’s work on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome? Not a peep of it. It had its defenders and detractors back then and even theories as to what causes homosexuality.

When looking at Bible passages, completely ignored are passages like the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2 and the main thrust of Jesus’s teachings in Matthew 19 is ignored. In fact, other passages are gone to, such as Jonathan and David supposedly having a gay relationship. Another one suggested is that Ruth and Naomi had one. (Apparently, incest isn’t really a problem.) In fact, in looking at Matthew 19:9-12, we’re told that the passage speaking about eunuchs is widely considered to refer to homosexuality. Who widely considers this? We’re not told.

Looking at the Levitical passages, we’re told that most were only applicable to Jewish priests or Levites. We would be quite interested to find out that commands against bestiality and child sacrifice only applied to the Levites but were okay for everyone else. This also does not explain why the text specifically says the nations before were being driven out because they engaged in these practices, which were apparently only wrong for Levites. The writers then say there are many other aspects we don’t follow. True enough, because these are not seen as part of the moral law, but that these other nations got excluded from the land for these practices tells us that these are different, as well as the fact that these passages prescribe the death penalty.

For the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative, I could actually agree that the sin of Sodom is an inhospitality, but at the same time, their homosexual behavior is condemned and shown as a sign of how far they have fallen. When this is cited in Ezekiel 16, one can see that Ezekiel is citing the holiness code which includes the prohibitions of Leviticus and would include same-sex behavior.

For 1 Cor. 6:9-11, we’re told the words do not refer to homosexuals, but if they did not, then Paul had much better words to use. In fact, the latter word Arsenokoitai, comes from the Levitical passage on homosexuality and is combination of two words found there. One struggles to find a way that Paul could have been clearer.

Romans 1 is of course the key passage and here we’re told that unnatural could mean uncustomary, but the text does not permit that interpretation. Paul uses several terms such as creation, creator, male and female, etc. These are referring to the Genesis 1 and 2 narrative. If Paul wants to say idolatry is a horribly wrong twisting of reality on the vertical level to think that God can be reduced to animals and idols, then homosexuality is such an event on the horizontal level to take the natural usages of the male and female body and use them in ways they were not designed to be used. The writers tell us that Paul was not referring to loving gay relationships, but Paul would have known about such and we could just as well ask what Paul would say about loving incestual relationships or loving bestial relationships or loving polygamous relationships.

In the end, this is a hideously weak look at an important topic and the sound of one hand clapping by ignoring the best scholarship on both sides in the field. Don’t waste your time and while the book has been free on Kindle and could still be now, don’t waste your storage space.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Homosexuality and the Bible — Two Views

What do I think of this book published by Augsburg Books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Dan Via and Robert Gagnon come together in this book to discuss the view of the Bible on homosexuality. Via I have not known of prior to this, but I did know of Gagnon and I have to say that in this area, Gagnon is a force to be reckoned with. There is a reason people like Matthew Vines do not want to debate Robert Gagnon. Thus, when I saw that he was involved in a book debate on the topic of homosexuality and since I’m doing a research project on that in Romans 1 now, I thought this would be an excellent one to go through.

Unfortunately, if there’s a criticism I have of this, it’s that it is way too short. The book could be read in a few hours which I found troublesome. This is a serious topic and it deserves more time in the press than something this short. In fact, Gagnon had to restrict a lot of what he wrote because it was too long and so throughout his essay, he links to notes on his web site where readers can go to find a fuller treatment. I would have recommended that while Gagnon could have written something too long that Via would be asked to give a more engaging essay of greater length rather than just have Gagnon cut his. There are plenty of things that could have been said.

Much of Via’s arguments are exactly what you would expect along the lines of what was going on in Sodom and matters of that sort. Gagnon’s responses thoroughly show the weaknesses, though not at times as much as one would like in the book format and again, this is because Gagnon has a fuller treatment on the issue on his web site. Perhaps it would have also helped to have had other readers who were commentators on this debate. It might have even been better to have Via and Gagnon discuss separately the major Biblical passages on the topic in separate chapters.

This is also an issue the church needs to pay attention to as it has become the shibboleth of the day. Increasingly for Christians, it will become a major issue as many of our young people who are deciding what truth is more based on their feelings and experience than reason and Scripture are being thoroughly confused on all matters relating to sexuality. Sadly, few of them will pick up a massive tome like Gagnon’s and go through it and unfortunately, few of them will probably go to his web site to look at the in-depth research that he has done. It’s sad to think that we live in the information age but people today want all the information catered to them and are not interested in doing any work.

While short, I must say that it is good to see Gagnon demolish the opposition in this one. Those who are wanting to see a debate on the topic in book form can start here and hopefully more will follow and as this increasingly becomes more of an issue, I am sure that more will follow. I am also thankful that we have as astute a scholar as Gagnon on our side in this.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Wow. Gender Neutral Bathrooms Lead To Disaster

Could anyone have possibly seen this coming? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So apparently the University of Toronto has decided to reduce the number of gender-neutral bathrooms. Why? Because shock of all shocks, but there were cases of women showering and cell phones reaching over in an attempt to record them. Of course, this has led to absolute shock. Who on Earth could have possibly seen this coming? Did we have any evidence out there whatsoever that men will be capable of doing absolutely anything just for the chance of getting to see a woman naked? (You know, besides little pieces of evidence like the entirety of human history and the nature of our society as a whole)

Please note that this wasn’t a shock to anyone who did not believe the overarching narrative and actually knew something about human nature. I’d been saying when I first heard about these kinds of policies that there will be many guys in high schools that will “identify” as women just to get a chance to shower with the girls. This isn’t a modern thing. Give guys a chance like that fifty years ago and they would have taken it as well. The difference is that right now our society is giving them just that opportunity in the name of tolerance and who is the biggest loser in this? The women.

After all, many women are very sensitive and protective about their bodies and don’t want them shared everywhere. When a woman is in a shower, she wants some privacy. Now men of course do care about their bodies, but women are often the most prone to being violated. Most of the time when you hear about rape, it will be the case of a man raping a woman. (We should definitely add that the reverse does in fact happen and one reason it might not be reported as much is because a man would not want to admit that he was overpowered by a woman.) Men also tend to be much more visually stimulated than women are. My words to describe the ways sexuality can work in marriage is that if a man wants sex, usually he needs to be attentive to his wife, caring about her needs, bringing home flowers, helping out with chores around the house, etc. If a woman wants sex with her husband, she just needs to even hint that she’s about to take off her clothes.

Now if we were thinking consistently and wisely about this issue, what we’d probably do is realize that the majority of women do not need to be put in a danger because of the concerns of a few individuals. If someone wanted “gender-neutral” bathrooms that could overall hold only one person at a time for instance, this would not be a problem, but when matters become public, we have a problem. My concern is that we could in fact blame the women for not being so sensitive to the people on the other end. Why should I think something like this won’t happen? It has in fact already happened with Planet Fitness.

In fact, some readers are probably thinking I’m pretty intolerant for just writing this.

If you think I am, then feel free to think so even more. As a married man, I have already decided I will not be going anywhere where I have reason to believe a man could legally go into a restroom or public shower where my wife happens to be. I care about her safety and well-being way too much for that. Am I intolerant in that sense? You bet I am. I am intolerant that there could be a man out there that somehow could possibly use a situation like that to take advantage of her and I have zero tolerance for that.

What many of us hope will happen back on planet Earth is that people will wake up and realize that gender is not a fluid concept and just because you say you feel like something does not mean you have all rights to that something. Our behavior is putting our women at risk in the name of tolerance and I suspect that it could be our children are not far behind. Again, a story like this has not been a shock to most of us, but it should be a huge wake-up call to anyone who has been buying into the narrative.

The question is now, what are we going to do about it?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Answering Thom Stark on the Bible and Homosexuality

What do I think of what Thom Stark has to say on the Bible and homosexuality? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s not a shock that Thom Stark has jumped on the bandwagon with wanting to support homosexual behavior. Now he thinks he has hard questions for Christians. Really? Let’s see what he has.

If you’re a Christian who condemns homosexuality because the Bible condemns it, there are at least five things you must also do before you can condemn it consistently:

Well I guess we’re off to a bad start since I have other grounds for my condemnation, but of course, Stark has this idea that all Christians are the same. But hey, let’s leap into the text.

1) You must also condemn sex between a husband and his menstruating wife (an act condemned on equal footing with adultery, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, witchcraft, and child sacrifice in both Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20).

On equal footing? Well no. Leviticus 18 doesn’t mention the punishments for certain crimes, but Leviticus 20 does. Leviticus 20 gives incest, homosexuality, bestiality, child sacrifice as leading to death. Witchcraft involves expulsion from the community. The same follows for sleeping with a woman while she’s menstruating since that involves blood and the punishment is being cut off. Homosexuality is right there with the ones that end in death and is thus treated differently. So sorry, point #1 doesn’t really work.

2) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, polygamy is morally acceptable to God, and is a standard type of “biblical marriage.” It is given tacit approval in the laws of Moses, in Deut 21:15-17, where a man with more than one wife is told that he must treat the children of unfavored wives equally to the children of favored wives. There is 2 Sam 12:8, where Yahweh reminds David that he gave Saul’s wives to him as a gift, and would have given David even more if he had asked. Then in the New Testament, only church elders are told they cannot marry more than one wife (ostensibly because more than one wife is a distraction from caring for the church family), a prohibition that does not apply to any other Christian.

Or being a good Christian, you could remember that this was a practice allowed because of the hardness of the hearts of people, much like divorce was. The NT has several indications about a time where God let some people have a little bit more leeway. But what about 2 Samuel 12:8?

And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.

Does this mean more wives? No. It refers to wealth period. Would God have given David other houses besides Israel and Judah? Israel was told to not expand their borders. It refers to increasing wealth entirely. It’s a way of saying “Look what all I gave you! Isn’t that enough?!”

3) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, it is morally acceptable to capture the women of your defeated political enemies and force them to marry you. “When you go out to war against your enemies, and Yahweh your God hands them over to you and you take them captive, suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, discard her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house a full month, mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go into her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife” (Deut 21:10-13). That is biblical marriage.

I suppose Thom would have preferred that the women be either killed or left to fend for themselves alone in the ANE. That they were allowed to marry was a way to protect the woman. Is that a different kind of marriage? No. It is still a man-woman marriage. It is a different way to enter into marriage but the reality of marriage as the union of man and a woman is the same.

4) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, it is morally acceptable to force a rape victim to marry her rapist. “If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and forcibly seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives” (Deut 22:28-29). This is biblical marriage.

And Thom again doesn’t realize that this was set in place to protect the woman. In the culture, she would have been shamed and seen as undesirable for marriage by being raped. Forcing her rapist to provide for her for the rest of his life would make him think twice about the activity. The woman would have welcomed the arrangement wanting the man to be punished and making him pay the price for her.

5) You must also acknowledge that, according to God’s laws, it is morally acceptable as a matter of course to own slaves. “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness” (Lev 25:44-46). You must acknowledge that the New Testament orders slaves to obey their masters, even while it tells their masters to treat them kindly. Nowhere does the Bible condemn slavery, and thus, if you wish to continue to condemn homosexuality simply because the Bible says so, you must never condemn slavery again.

Or we could try understanding the way slavery worked in the ANE. Sorry Thom, but you couldn’t just go to Wal-Mart and get a job. You had to work for someone else and the system set up for that was slavery, a way to actually care for the poor. It was nothing like the slavery that we saw in Civil War Times.

We could go on with things you ought to support: genocide, patriarchy, etc. But these five are a good jumping-off point. When you can honestly say 1) that you do not have sex during menstruation and that you excommunicate any fellow Christians who do, 2) that you support a man’s right to marry multiple women, 3) that you support a man’s right to invade a country, kill a woman’s husband or father, and take her as his wife, 4) that you support a rapist’s right to forcibly marry his victim and deny her right to divorce him, and 5) that you support a man’s right to purchase and own human beings as slaves and bequeath them to his children, then you may come to me and tell me that you believe homosexuality is immoral because the Bible tells you so. Until that time, suffer your own hatred in silence.

Ah yes. The hatred card at the end. You see, I took the time to write this post in the middle of stomping around my house talking about how much I hate homosexuals. When I meet other Christians, all we do is gather around and share stories of mean things we did to homosexuals that week. Please excuse me because after this post I have to go to a meeting where we will hold up our Christian flag and continue our prolonged hate of homosexuals.

Yeah Thom. That kind of drivel about hate means I just don’t take you seriously there. You see, believe it or not, hate can be a very good thing.

What?

You see, I take it you don’t support genocide, slavery, or patriarchy. I would wager you hate those things. Do you think that’s a problem? I don’t. I think if something is evil, you should hate it. Even if it isn’t evil, if you think it is, you should hate it.

Meanwhile, it would have been nice of you to explain what these passages mean that you think we should just throw out. It would have also been nice to have seen you touch a passage like Romans 1 and deal with what Paul said. Oh. Maybe next time you can look at the work of Robert Gagnon and comment.

But until then, it’s this kind of handling of the text that I just find completely unpersuasive and banks on people not understanding the historical context.

By the way, telling people to suffer it in silence is a way of saying “Shut up.”

How tolerant of you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 7/18/2015

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Marriage. It’s all in the news today. It’s amazing that what has been argued by some as just a piece of paper is at the same time being argued as essential for the homosexual movement. What is it about marriage that has sparked such a debate? What is marriage? Is it just a connection of two people in love, or is it something different? How could we ever know? In order to answer these questions, I decided to have a scholar of marriage come on my show so this Saturday, I am honored to be bringing you Glenn Stanton.

GlennStanton

Glenn T. Stanton is the director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs and a research fellow at the Institute of Marriage and Family in Ottawa. He debates and lectures extensively on the issues of gender, sexuality, marriage and parenting at universities and churches around the world. Stanton served the George W. Bush administration for many years as a consultant on increasing fatherhood involvement in the Head Start program.

Stanton is the author of five books about marriage and families, including “Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society,” “My Crazy, Imperfect Christian Family” and “Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting,” which was featured on C-SPAN BookTV. Stanton has also been interviewed on the Los Angeles NPR show, “AirTalk.” He is also a contributing author to nine others.

His latest book, “Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth,” explores how Christians should interact with gay or lesbian neighbors in a Christ-honoring way. He is also the author of “The Ring Makes All the Difference,” and “Secure Daughters, Confident Sons: How Parents Guide Their Children into Authentic Masculinity and Femininity.”

Stanton is a graduate of the University of West Florida with graduate degrees in philosophy and history. He now makes his home in Colorado Springs with his wife and five children.

We’ll be talking with Stanton about the SCOTUS ruling first to determine what his stance is on the matter and why he thinks the way he thinks. What are Christians to say about this? Does having something be the law of the land mean that it is actually true, or is this a case of trying to redefine something?

We’ll also then talk about what difference marriage really makes to a society and to a person. Many people today are wanting to live together before getting married. After all, why would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive? We also have a problem with a culture that readily turns to divorce. What role does sex play in a marriage? What difference does it make how you live your marriage if you are married?

These are all important questions and I am honored to have an expert in the field come on, particularly as my own wife and I get ready to celebrate five years together. I hope you’ll be watching for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Who Are You?

What’s really lying at the core of who you are? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Identity is all in the news now. We have the news about what Bruce Jenner did and of course we have the SCOTUS ruling and then we have this going on in Hollywood, such as the movie Selfless coming out, which I will admit that last one does look intriguing. It’s not a shock that we have questions over identity and the more society normalizes different lifestyles, the more people will start to wonder. What about Christians? Who are Christians today?

I encourage Christians to always remember that who they are is who they will be before the throne of God someday. Non-Christians real identity is who they could be before the throne and if they become Christians, they can reach that potential. If not, they actually become what I prefer to call uncreations. When we speak about who we are today, we need to be careful and ask if what we’re saying about ourselves is what’s going to be at the throne of Christ. It’s far too easy to identify ourselves with the old creation instead of realizing that we are a new creation. We forget the advice of Paul to forget what is behind and strive to what is ahead.

I use the story I’ve heard about David by Donatello. When asked how he managed to turn a slab of material into David, he is said to have responded that he just went to it and took away everything that wasn’t David. I mainly want to look at the point of why I am sharing this kind of story. In the process of sanctification, God is doing the same thing with us. God is taking away everything that is not us. We are meant to be a living sacrifice on the altar renewing our minds. (Note that we renew our minds. God does not do that for us. We have our own role to play.)

The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep jumping off the altar, especially when they experience that little thing we don’t really like, pain.

But unfortunately pain is often the only way we change and if we do not learn to bear up under it, we will often just keep repeating the same lessons. C.S. Lewis compared it to God moving into our houses when we’re more like quaint little cottages not realizing that he intends to live in a palace.

If you’re a Christian, you need to realize that your true identity lies in Christ. It does not lie anywhere else. Soren Kierkegaard had a saying that went “And now Lord, with your help, I will become myself.” This also means that in reality, who we are does in fact turn out to be good. We just have a whole lot of work to do to get to that point. Sanctification is never easy. It’s not mean to be a peaceful and painless process. It hurts because we tend to cling so much to the wrongs in our lives thinking that they define us. They don’t.

If we submit though, and we learn to do that daily, we will have a beautiful end product.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What More Can We Do?

What options do Christians have to make sure their liberties are defended? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last night, I was discussing the court’s decision Friday with my men’s group as we tried to decide what we could do. The first option that came up was vote. Vote for leaders that align with our beliefs and get them to do the work they’re supposed to do. Now I have no problem with this in principle. That’s how we all vote after all. My problem is that we often do this as if the solution is the government and we have to start at the top. We are in essence in many ways saying we want government to be our savior. It cannot be. Government is in many ways a necessary evil. We have to have government just because men are evil and there needs to be a visible representation that we are not a law unto ourselves.

But what can we do otherwise? Last time I said we can be the church. We are still to do that. The Roman Empire got turned upside down by a group that was a definite minority at the start. This group did not have the internet or CNN or any multimedia to spread their message. They did write documents, but they relied a lot on word of mouth. Somehow, they did it. Somehow, they overcame. They overcame so much that at this moment, there are billions all over the world who are ready to lay down their lives for Jesus Christ right now.

We are not in a minority, but the homosexual movement started out that way, and they got their work done. We Christians didn’t do as good a job. Consider Chick-Fil-A Day. We were tired of what the homosexual movement was doing to businesses like Chick-Fil-A, so we had so many of us go to Chick-Fil-A that day and their sales were greater than they had ever been before. We can consider that a great victory. When we had this great victory then, we went and…..did absolutely nothing. We sat back down as if our work was done. Yes. We will stand up for a chicken sandwich, but we will not stand up for marriage.

And then A&E went after Duck Dynasty. We were angry again and a Facebook page was set up immediately demanding that Duck Dynasty be restored to its original status. When Cracker Barrel started to join in saying they were pulling Duck Commander material, we protested immediately and Cracker Barrel retracted immediately. Eventually, A&E did as well. We had our victory. We took this great momentum and with that momentum we went and did….absolutely nothing. So it looks like for Christians, it was more important to get our television shows the way we want them, but it wasn’t important to stand up for marriage.

No more then.

If we want to change things, we have to be willing to do the work ourselves. We can’t depend on our leaders to do all the work. Even in the Christian community, we can’t count on the big name defenders of marriage to do all the work. It will take the work of those of us who are laymen to get the job done. I recommend doing what I’ve done. I’ve already formed a group here in Knoxville for those of us who are like-minded to start meeting together and equipping one another. We will also be praying for our nation together and making sure we’re humbling ourselves and repenting for any wrongs we’ve done. Let’s be clear. We can think the homosexual community has done wrong to marriage, but the heterosexual community did it first.

This might seem small, but that’s how these start off. We start from the bottom and go up, just like the early church did. The early church did not start by trying to change the government and making a march on Rome. They just spoke to the people around them and got them to see the importance of being a Christian. We can do the same thing.

If you really think there is a problem here, then do something about it, just like the homosexual activists did. If you think there’s a problem and you do nothing about it, you’re really being a part of the problem. Be a part of the solution.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Supreme Court And Redefining Marriage

What do we do now that the court has ruled? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Like many of you, I’m disappointed by the ruling of the court today on marriage, but I am not shocked. We’ve had this before and it’s not the end of the world. The court also ruled on abortion. The question now comes to what are we going to do from here?

We are going to do what our marching orders already were. They were the Great Commission and they haven’t changed. They’re still the same. Are we living in a culture that despises Christianity for the most part. Yes, as were the first Christians and in fact, they lived in a worse one. (I am speaking to those living in America) We have not yet resisted, as Hebrews would say, to the point of shedding our blood, though many of us do think such a time is coming. Many of us can be disappointed that this ruling happened, and that is understandable, but we should not be shocked. Why did it happen?

It’s not because the world did what they do. That is what we’d expect. Why should we expect people who don’t share that worldview would act as if they did? If you want to know what has gone wrong in this country, it is not the fault of those outside the body of Christ. They are not to blame. It is the fault of those who are in the body of Christ. The reason things have happened the way they have is we have not followed our marching orders. We have insulated ourselves inside of our little bubbles and hoped that Jesus would just come back and ignored what happened in the world around us. I mean, as long as we and our children are okay, so what? We’ve done our part.

We have never fully done our part. Our part is never done.

Today is not a day to look in fear. Today is a day to look at what has happened and say “Challenge accepted.” We never stopped fighting against abortion despite the ruling of the court, just as over a century and a half ago some would not stop fighting against slavery, despite the Dred Scott decision. Why should we stop now? If we are right in our claim that marriage is a man and a woman, no ruling from a court could change that. That would be like saying that if the court ruled tomorrow that triangles have four sides or that something can go faster than the speed of light, then we would accept those things as well.

So what do we do?

The same thing we’ve always done. We just now remember what the stakes are when we don’t follow our marching orders. We are to do all that we can to spread the Kingdom of God and it should not be a shock to us that we face opposition along that path and often from the governments, just like the early Christians did. Let us instead of being afraid, come together and unite as we should and do that which we were told to do.

We will be either obedient to Christ or we won’t.

I’ve made my choice.

What’s yours?

in Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 6/20/2015: Debra Hirsch

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Not too long ago, I wrote a review of Debra Hirsch’s book Redeeming Sex. Since I have a great interest in the topic of sexual ethics, I figured this would be a great topic to discuss on the show. Just so everyone knows also, Debra will only be able to give us an hour of her time on the interview, but I hope it will be an informative one for you. So who is Debra Hirsch?

Debra Hirsch

According to her bio:

Deb Hirsch is a speaker, church leader, and writer. She has led churches in both Australia and Los Angeles. She is one of the founders of Forge Mission Training Network and a current member of the Forge America national team. She also serves as a board member for Missio Alliance. She co-authored (with Alan Hirsch) Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship. Her new book Redeeming Sex reflects something of her own journey and attempts to bring new conversations around sexuality into the context of the church. Deb has been involved in social work, community development and as a trained counselor has worked in the field of sexuality for over twenty five years. She and her husband live in community with others in Los Angeles.

We’ll be discussing the way sex is viewed in our culture and in the church. Why is it that so many of us in the church are so hesitant to talk about copies of sexuality when the world all around us is ready to talk about sexuality constantly? What is sexuality anyway? What is the purpose of sexuality? Can we think of Jesus really as a sexual being? How is it that people who are single are to view issues of sexuality?

We could also spend some time talking about the homosexual movement. What is the ideal way to dialogue with those on the left who are in fact often the most opposed to our message? How can you love a homosexual person while you disagree with their behavior? Even if we are right in our beliefs on homosexual behavior, is our approach always the best way to go about handling the issues that we talk about?

Ultimately, how can we redeem sex? How can we as a church reclaim the sexual ground that it looks like we’ve lost in our culture? Can a Christian really enjoy sex and be able to talk about it? Can a Christian encourage true intimacy with one another? What are the steps that we are to take if we are to appreciate the gift of sexuality that God has given us and at the same time to treasure it properly and hold it in the sacred place that it rightly deserves?

I’m looking forward to this interview with Debra Hirsch. I hope you are too and I hope you have got a chance to enjoy the past archives being caught up as I finally had the time to sit down and take care of it and may they never get that far behind again. I hope you’ll be watching for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Winning The Marriage Battle

Are we taking the proper steps to win the battle for marriage? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have a friend who is very interested in the marriage debate. Now I watch this subject to, though it is not my main theme, and I have my own opinions on it, but I tend to try not to argue about it. Still, I am quite interested in sexual ethics because like many men, I have an interest in sex. That has only increased since I’ve got married. I see more and more every day why it is that this is so important to a marriage. I also sadly see that many marriages are ending in divorce. Now to be fair, people like Shaunti Feldhahn have made convincing arguments that the divorce rate is not as bad as we think it is, but I think she would agree that it is still bad and it is especially tragic when Christian marriages end in divorce.

Another sad aspect is some of you are hearing me talk about divorce and wondering what this has to do with the modern marriage debate.

Christians have had a time fighting for things that they want if they think that they benefit from them. Sure. We’ll fight to keep Duck Dynasty on the air. We like that show. Sure. We’ll go to support Chick-Fil-A because we like Chick-Fil-A. Now of course, I’m not saying all who participated in these events were Christians and I am not saying all Christians participated in them, but Christians no doubt made up a sizable number of the people who did that. You would think that if Christians claimed they got any benefit out of anything, that it would be marriage, and that marriage would be worth fighting for.

Sadly, it doesn’t look like it is. As soon as Christians win a battle, off they go to do their own thing and don’t carry any of the momentum to the next battle. We have our chicken sandwich and we have our TV show. Why should we trouble ourselves more? Dare I say it, but the reason the marriage debate has gone downhill on the Christian side in our time is because the Christians have not been honoring marriage like they should.

To do this, we must start with what most of us already agree with the culture on. Sex is awesome. Let’s start there.

Sex is indeed awesome, but frankly, the Christian church does not do a good job of talking about it. To this day, I remember being at a Silver Ring Thing service at a church and the associate pastor got up to talk to the teenagers there about waiting until marriage for sex. Good point. I agree. From there on, the pastor went on to talk about the topic and I was listening as a young college man.

And I was bored.

Pastor. If you are talking about sex, and a college guy is in the audience and getting bored, you are doing something wrong. I could just as easily say if anyone is getting bored, you are doing something wrong.

Here’s in fact what was said. It was said that if you have sex before marriage, you will be doing it for selfish reasons. I can agree with this. In fact, for even sex within marriage, I think we often have mixed motives. There is usually some self-interest involved with all that we do. I’d like to think that my motives are always pure when I do something nice for my wife, but I’d be lying if I said that they were. The problem was the pastor then gave us reasons to not have sex before marriage, such as getting an STD, an unplanned pregnancy, or the shame one might have on a future wedding night.

Sorry, but those sound like selfish reasons also.

There was hardly anything said about the joys of sex in marriage. Lip service was paid to it. That was all.

Excuse me, but I think the joy of sex deserves more than a quick blurb of lip service.

One would especially think the men among us would be wanting to celebrate this just as much. Of course, we all know that it takes two to tango, so I would advise women to keep in mind that if you want your husband to celebrate your marriage, it’s good to make sure that he knows that you are celebrating him. Please a man here and chances are you will find he is bending over backwards more often than not to make you happy. Men are really very easy to please.

Unfortunately, the world looks at what they see in movies and TV and says “It looks like this way of sex is a lot more fun.” On the face of it, one can understand it. You have variety and you don’t have to rely on one person forever and you can have whole new experiences. Marriage often is depicted in negative terms and from that point on, you’re stuck with just one person for life so you’d better make the most of it and if that person doesn’t want to do anything with you, you’re sunk.

If we are going to show the reality, we will have to show that sex in marriage is the greatest path to joy in reality.

For starters, we need more sermons in churches on sex. Once a year is not cutting it because the world is getting its message out there every day and it’s accepted as the norm. Even in the church, you can find people who are living together before marriage and engaging in pre-marital sex and it’s seen as acceptable. They’ve fully received the message of the world. What we want to show is that a sexual relationship built on a promise of mutual trust and continuously learning about how to love one person is far better than anything else. It is better to dive into the ocean of one instead of the many shallow pools of many. It is better to be in a relationship where trust is the foundation and there is already acceptance rather than earning it.

For instance, too often in cohabitation, it can be a test for marriage. Each person thinks they have to measure up in order to get a lifelong commitment. Our old adage is that you wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive. That sounds reasonable. It does until you ask one question.

Which person is the driver and which person is the car?

You see, if you take a car for a spin and it doesn’t please you enough, you take it back to the lot. The car does not have hurt feelings. The car does not feel unworthy. The car doesn’t care one way or another. A person is not like that. This is especially so with women who are really the ones making themselves the most vulnerable. They are the ones who are the most emotionally connected on average to the sex act.

Do you really think it’s proper to treat a person like a car? If you enter the sexual relationship that nervous thinking you’re being tested, you really aren’t going to be doing your best. In fact, most couples would tell you that even if you do wait, which you should, your first time is not going to be the best time you’ve ever had. Why should it be? It should be a memorable and special time, but it won’t be the best. You’re just learning. You’re just now starting to get used to how each other’s bodies work and just starting to explore them for the first time. Things can be good, but you should expect that they will get better.

And with trust, you know there is no pressure. This person is not going to reject you. Honor marriage right and you’ll know they won’t because they have a covenant. When I meet couples who are struggling in their marriage, I tend to talk to the guys because it’s much easier for me to counsel a fellow man. I always point them to the covenant. You made a lifelong promise to that woman when you married her. You are to honor it.

Do you get one person? Yes. That is a person you know will be there. You don’t have to go to sleep wondering if the person will still be there when you wake up. You don’t have to be worried about the sexual history of that person. It is someone you know. Love builds up sex and sex builds up love. It is a beautiful circle and it extends in marriage. Your marriage will build up your sex life if you do it right and if you do your sex life right, it will build up your marriage. This is a circle where you two keep blessing and celebrating one another and things get better and better.

And then, marriage is the ultimate place for when children come along. Should you have a child, the child is in an environment built on love where there is a mother and a father waiting. It does not have to be a disaster if a woman gets pregnant. It can instead be something to celebrate. The love you two share can then be passed on so the child can grow up in love. While the love you and your spouse have is sexual, you can be sure that if that love is consistently being shared, that love will pour out and reach beyond itself. Ladies. For the most part, if you want to fill up your husband’s love tank, there is never a return receipt on sex. Your husband will be overflowing if you are consistent. Remember that it is said that just like pizza, bad sex is good sex. You won’t go wrong affirming a man like this.

Why does this matter? Because the ultimate way to win the marriage battle is for us to celebrate our marriages ourselves. The world should be looking at the Christian church with envy wondering how it is we have such good sex lives. It should not be something we’re hesitant to talk about. Of course, some matters should be private, but that you have joy in your marriage should not be private. That should be something worth sharing and let the rest of the world draw its own conclusions about why the two of you are so happy.

Also, this is not to say sex is the only important part of marriage. It certainly is not, but it is an important part and one the Bible speaks about often, which means we should speak about it often as well. Those wanting good sex should also be doing as much as they can good in a marriage and again, like the circle, good sex will help make that easier. When we find that marriage is something worth honoring for ourselves, we’ll give the rest of the world reason to honor it as well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters