Discussion List Excerpts – February 25-27, 2002

February 25, 2002

“Well, I see she’s the wife (insert your appropriate comment here concerning women as theologians) of the Rev. Lee Irons, OPC minister. Astonishing . . . The whole argument is that we need to give them their civil rights if we expect to get our civil rights, and besides, we‘re not supposed to take or expect political power. This goes strongly with a certain type of Amillenialism and anti-Reconstructionism, although there are folk here who are both these (some of our PRC brethren) who are as horrified as I am at the content of the article.” -- 2:35 am

* * * * * * * *

“It seems rather apparent that Mizz Irons simply does not believe the Scripture. The cause for grave concern for the mainline Presby. denominations continues to grow at an alarming rate. There is apostasy at the highest levels of reputedly conservative Presbyterianism. -- 9:04 am

* * * * * * * *

“The person that wrote this gay union article apparently hasn’t lived in the homosexual community -- little do they know what goes on in that community, and that gay marriage-unions is just a roost for every sexual union they hope to advance -- there’s no way one can be in favor of “mere” homosexual marriage unions and not also every other kind of perverted union . . . that’s not God’s reality as revealed in Rom. 1!!!! Sinners are consistent in striving for immorality across the board. To think that we as bible believing Christians can endorse homosexual marriage unions and not also include incest, bestiality, paedophilia, etc., etc. is naive at it’s simplest level and perverted at the more extreme level.” -- 10:45 am

* * * * * * * *

 “A kneejerk repudiation of Mrs. Irons’s position just will not do. Her argumentation deserves to be heard, after which we may continue to disagree. Like her, I am impatient with Christians who enter the civil liberties arena taking a purely biblical tack which is guaranteed not to build any political coalitions. It reminds me of the Scopes trial, where Clarence Darrow made of monkey out of William Jennings Bryan for combatting evolution with the Bible instead of seeking to show how unscientific evolution is.” -- 1:42 pm

* * * * * * * *

“In the OPC, we view members of the OPC as having the right to a fair hearing and opportunity for correction, before conviction and before referring to someone as apostate. Such an individual has the opportunity to be confronted with their error and to seek to understand the nature of their error. Members are given a greater benefit of the doubt than church officers, who are held accountable for more knowledge and for their vows to the Westminster Church Standards. Mrs. Irons is NOT a church officer in the OPC.” -- 2:36 pm

* * * * * * * *

“Misty also speaks about ‘gay Christians’ as if there is not contradiction in terms there. I wonder if she also thinks about that group of men in the church -- the wife-beating Christians. I wonder if she knows those children in the church -- the disobedient-to-parents Christians. Or how about that other popular group -- the adulterous Christians? There is no such thing as a ‘gay Christian’ . . . And please don’t say again that these people cannot change. It is you who are making them subhuman when you imply that they cannot change. God is able to love and save them and conform them to the image of his Son as surely as he is able to do for any of us, Misty. Homosexuals can change. They can be freed from their sin. Of course, it is a terrible struggle. Any sin that one has been engaging in for years is not easily overturned. But it very wrong for you to steal their hope and preach a ‘they simply cannot change’ message. You sell Christ’s mercy short and you shortchange your gay friends when you do that.” -- 8:10 pm

* * * * * * * *

February 26, 2002

“I’ve read a lot of inane and stupid things in my time, but Misty Irons’s paper concerning her pro-homosexual-civil-marriage view really takes the cake. I’m dismayed that such a view could be espoused by someone in the OPC. This paper is a classic example of a believer kowtowing to the secular culture. Her argument, in effect, is that we must toss the Bible and its moral teachings aside if we expect to get a hearing from unbelieving homosexual activists. Well, Misty, if we throw away Scripture’s moral norms on this issue, there won’t be anything for them to hear! Her whole attitude is that, since the culture is drifting away from what Scripture teaches on this subject, then have to ‘bend to the trend’ and go along, too.”  -- 1:07 a.m.

* * * * * * * *

“Mrs. Irons apparently has no qualms about making a fool of herself. The piece is fraught with non-sequiturs, ad hominems (‘the anti-gay rhetoric of the religious right’), straw-men, errors of fact, and an utter misunderstanding of the doctrine of public morality and the state as taught in Scripture. The state is divinely ordained to uphold and preserve social order and public morality by the power of the sword. This is what the Bible calls the state to, not ‘civil rights’ . . . If Ms. Irons is so eager to open her mouth and spill out this garbage for all God’s children to see and hear, then she’s fair game for public criticism. I pray she is atypical of the coming generation of evangelicals, but I fear she isn’t.” -- 8:58 a.m.

* * * * * * * *

Subject: “We Cannot Afford to be Misty About Civil Liberties”

“It is very curious that she thinks that same-sex marriage will curb homosexual excesses. Does she not realize that claims for civil liberties does not stop at marriage between consenting adults? The Gay agenda is to provide civil liberty protection for every sexual desire imagineable. Nothing can be effectively opposed once we try to divorce civil liberties from morality.” -- 12:56 p.m.

* * * * * * * *

“Perhaps because most of those who have responded to Mrs. Irons have been indignant at her stance, I thought I would raise a couple of points, not so much to defend her thesis, but to balance out the discussion. She is right, in the first place, to raise an issue about how we respond as churches and believers to gay and lesbian partnerships (unions, ‘marriages’). The church’s calling is not to engage in a social war against gays and lesbians in society. Yes, we may humble petition the state by appeal, both as denominations and as individual believers, not to permit an arrangement which we know is in the long run destructive in society and evil in itself, just as we might make the same appeal for legal sanctions against abortion or prostitution or legalized drugs, etc. on the basis of our concern for the well-being of our fellow man.” -- 3:36 p.m.

* * * * * * * *

“I would like to add that my perception is that among many Christians I have known, there is a revulsion and repugnance toward homosexual people that come across quite clearly to them. I know a big part of this is our sensitivity toward sin, but it seems that many of us treat a homosexual person different than another category of sinner. I mean that we may know neighbors or coworkers who are trapped in sins of adultery, drunkenness, theft, lying, etc., and we will treat them with less revulsion and distance than we sometimes will a homosexual persons. Yes, it is perversion, and we need to uphold God’s truth, and yes, the strident demands of the gay activists raise our ire, but often our attitudes toward homosexual people seem to go beyond that. I believe that we can feel personally threatened and disturbed by a homosexual person in such a way that this prejudice stands in the way of our witnessing of Christ to them.” -- 5:22 p.m.

* * * * * * * *

“If an out of the closet homosexual came to an OPC church, I’m not worried that the church would invite him to join without changing his lifestyle. I AM concerned that some in the church would treat him with a Pharisaical repugnance that might convince him not to come back. Christ was called the ‘friend of tax collectors and sinners’ without having to compromise on his demand for righteousness. He must have done more than denounce their sins to earn that title -- they’d heard that before from the Pharisees! I doubt many of us have the love and finesse to be similarly called ‘friend of homosexuals’, but I pray that some be raised up to be just that.” -- 5:47 p.m.

* * * * * * * *

“I think she gives away her case in the first two or three paragraphs (with things only getting worse throughout the remainder of the paper). Her capitulation is so complete that, apparently, she honestly believes that the cultural whims that underlie so much of modern civil law are to almost automatically take precedence over the Bible’s moral norms . . . Let me repeat what so many have already said. There is NO situation, in any part of society or on any subject, in which an abandonment of Scripture’s moral norms would be legitimate.” -- 6:22 p.m.

* * * * * * * *

“The paper by Misty Irons (A Conservative Christian Case for Civil Same-Sex Marriage) is causing considerable reaction. The issues it raises are important enough to cause this subscriber to the OPC discussion group to de-lurk and add a few thoughts to those that have already been expressed. First, I was dismayed by the tone of the paper. Misty writes with a broad brush disparaging the conservative Christian community for its approach to the issue of ‘same sex marriage’ . . . In fact, many of Misty’s barbs are directed at the fact that Christians actually attempt to bring the Bible into this debate . . . In addition to the general dismissal of appeals to the Scriptures in the public arena, there is, even in the context of Misty’s paper, a lack of any attempt to understand the Biblical view of homosexuality . . . I’m not even sure, after reading and re-reading Misty’s piece, if she even thinks that the homosexual inclination is particularly sinful. She may think it is, but she writes as if the really important thing for us to understand is not what God says in the Bible, but what homosexuals think about us uncaring, simplistic, mean-spirited Christians.” -- 9:36 p.m.

* * * * * * * *

February 27, 2002

“This article upset me for to reasons. The 1st is the lack of understanding of the Gay community. Their goal in same sex marriage is not just to have their rights but to allow for the legalization of any proversion that exist in their lifestylses. I have been studying this issue a lot especially being one who by God’s grace and Sovereign mercy have been saved and repentent of this lifestyle. -- 2nd thing that distributed me it sounds like as the church so we can witness to the homosexual is to give them the right to marry . . . The way to reach the gay community is not to give ground on allowing them to have same sex marriage which in my eyes . . . is to condone their practice but to preach sin and repentence in Christ.” -- 9:59 am

* * * * * * * *

 “. . . it is the duty of every State to be ‘professedly’ Christian and to acknowledge the duty to suppress sins of the Ten Commandments, including heresy, idolatry, adultery, ‘sodomy’, etc. The Ten Commandments -- God’s moral law -- never have nor ever will pass away. Without such a constitutional acknowledgement of special divine revelation, it is unrealistic to believe men will enact laws like Adam would have enacted pre-Fall.” -- 1:18 pm

* * * * * * * *

“While I do not agree with much of Misty Irons’s argumentation, I think we can all agree with her on this: there are some sins we don’t tolerate in the Church whose legality we do not actively oppose, like idolatry, drunkenness, and fornication. So the question boils down to this: on what basis should we vigorously oppose legalizing gay marriage when there are many other sins whose legality we do NOT oppose? And if we can find no basis for opposing legalized gay marriage, do we have the intellectual and moral courage to say so? . . .

“One place most of us draw the line is abortion. I daresay most of us (including me) want abortion to be illegal. The OPC has done a rare thing in writing a paper on this issue, so we can with some confidence say the Church has spoken on the issue. Some of us (including me) have invested time trying to make abortion illegal. But I have done nothing to try and make fornication illegal, and don’t intend to.

“Now. Does gay marriage belong with abortion, on the illegal side of the line? Or does it belong with fornication, on the legal side of the line? Is there a hard and fast answer? Some of us think there is, but I don’t think they have considered my questions head-on. If they think them through and honestly come up with the same conclusion, I think they’ll be better for the exercise.” -- 9:03 pm