Profiles in Cowardice

Have you heard the news?

Jason Collins, who played this regular season for the Celtics and Wizards, has announced to the world he was subject to unnatural, corrupting sexual desires — and that, so far from seeking help or freedom from them, he yielded to and pursued their indulgence.

The news media has overwhelming praised him for his "bravery" and "courage".

On top of that, he had to add that he was a "Christian".

ESPN report Chris Broussard, during a segment on Outside the Lines was asked his thoughts as a Christian:

Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly, like premarital sex between heterosexuals. If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits. It says that, you know, that’s a sin. If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, whatever it maybe, I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian because I don’t think the bible would characterize them as a Christian.


Would you fault Chris for his response?  How does his response match up with what you think the Bible teachs?

When I first heard it, I thought "Wow!  I was not expecting that!"

All he did was to confess what the Bible teaches about sexual morality and about what God requires of every Christian—obedience (1 John 2:4). It was a clearer word than what you would hear in many pulpits. It was biblical. It was faithful. It was courageous.


But of course, Broussard has committed today's unpardonable sin:  being a Christian out loud in public.

There was an immediate backlash.  Katie McDonough at Salon.com called Broussard’s words “hateful.” Even ESPN issued a statement saying that it regretted the distraction from Jason Collins’ announcement.

So Broussard added this:

Today on OTL, as part of a larger, wide-ranging discussion on today's news, I offered my personal opinion as it relates to Christianity, a point of view that I have expressed publicly before. I realize that some people disagree with my opinion and I accept and respect that. As has been the case in the past, my beliefs have not and will not impact my ability to report on the NBA. I believe Jason Collins displayed bravery with his announcement today and I have no objection to him or anyone else playing in the NBA.

To that, ESPN felt compelled to add:

We regret that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today’s news. ESPN is fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement.

So who was truly brave?
Of course, only Chris Broussard was to any degree brave, by to any degree indicating that he might agree with God's view of sin. He did it rather timidly, but to do it at all today is potentially to commit career hari-kiri.


Who was cowardly?   Well, I have to say Chris Broussard again, for saying that "Jason Collins displayed bravery with his announcement today." How? In what universe? Surely not in America. In America, this instantly guarantees Broussard protected-martyr status. Further, how is it brave to say "I'm giving in to base desires"? I guess in a perverted way, it's a kind of bravery to dare to associate yourself with a God who so totally condemns such behavior while insisting that you intend to rebel against Him and still count on His approval... but still, I'd chose words like gall and arrogance and lunatic hubris. Not "bravery."   And of course ESPN are cowards. They have to apologize for a Christian answering a question like a Christian. They have to say that "ESPN ...welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement." Why do they? What business of theirs is it to do so?

But worse, in so doing, they throw their own employee under the bus. They welcome Jason Collins' announcement — but do they welcome their employee's enjoyment of his First Amendment rights, and his conscientious practice of his own religious faith, which they have to know will surely expose him (not Collins) to excoriation and abuse?

This is our America church.  What are you doing about it?

HT:  Dan Phillips

Quote of the Day

“I can think of no New Testament precedent for continuing to identify oneself by sins from which one repented on conversion. Nor do I see compassion in patting someone on the head who dons a title that self-identifies as embracing a sin. Practicing homosexuality is sin; a ‘gay’ is someone who embraces perverse desires so as to practice homosexuality; a ‘Christian gay/lesbian/homosexual’ is a contradiction in terms.

It is to say ‘I am an unrepentant pursuer of indulging perverse desires of whose indulgence I’ve repented.’ Further, as we’ve often discussed, it’s debatable whether there’s any value to ongoing public reminders of what particular temptations we are fighting. To say you’re a Christian is to say that you are in warfare against fleshly lusts (1 Pet. 2:11). It’s definitional.

Sir Aaron said it perfectly: ‘if I had to identify myself by my sinful desires, it would take me a long time to introduce myself.’ Also, it’s doubtful as to whether it would serve any healthy purpose.”

– Dan Phillips

SImple But Not Simplistic

Writing for Christianity Today, Michael Horton shows that “struggling with homosexuality is a paradox, but embracing homosexuality is a contradiction.” He responds specifically to “the controversy provoked by a recent interview in the Atlantic with Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International.”

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Just Doing What Comes Naturally

From Greg Koukl and Stand to Reason:

A common defense for homosexuality is that same-sex attraction is natural for homosexuals. There’s nothing wrong with homosexuality - the animal kingdom is filled with examples of same-sex erotic behavior. It's natural.

Now on the surface, there seems to be some truth to the claim that homosexuality is natural. It’s not unusual, for example, to see male dogs mount each other in an erotic way. There are two problems with this view, however.

First, the observation is flawed because it assumes that erotic behavior in other mammals is the same as homosexual desire in human beings. Male homosexuals engage in sodomy because of an attraction to a gender. They are male erotic, and sodomy is an expression of that desire.

Does the animal kingdom display this kind of same-gender eroticism? When a male dog mounts another male dog, is it because he’s attracted to the male gender of the other dog? I don’t think so. This same poor pooch will slavishly mount sofas or shrubs or anything else available, including the leg of your dinner guest. None of these things are the object of the canine’s sexual lust; they are merely the subject of it. The dog does not desire your unfortunate visitor. He simply desires to be stimulated. It doesn’t prove they have same-sex attraction that is in any way parallel with humans.

Secondly, the view asserts that simply because the condition “occurs in nature” it is “natural.” But by this use of the word all sorts of things would be natural—humans mating with animals, children drinking cleaning fluid, rain forests being replaced with concrete—because all would be occurring “in nature.” Human beings are part of nature by this definition, and therefore all and any human conduct would be natural. Virtually nothing could ever be considered unnatural on these terms.

Generally we mean something else when we say that replacing virgin forests with parking lots, imbibing poison, and copulating with beasts are not natural. Things are natural if they fit the pre-technological, natural order of things; they are functioning according to their primitive pattern or purpose, and that’s key. A natural sexual desire, then, is a desire that serves to accomplish a sexual goal in the primitive order of things.

However, this definition of “natural” doesn’t help the homosexual either. According to the primitive natural order of things, the natural purpose of sex is reproduction, getting one’s genes into the next generation. But homosexuals don’t reproduce, so homosexuality can’t be “natural” on this definition either.

Further, wouldn’t one consider it unnatural if someone had eyes, but couldn’t see, or ears and couldn’t hear? Why is it then deemed natural to have male genitals, but be dispositionally incapable of using them to accomplish their reproductive purpose with the opposite sex?

Homosexuality does not seem to be natural in any meaningful sense of the word. Therefore, its morality cannot be defended by a mere appeal to nature.