Dear Anonymous:
Because of your references to what occurs in the temple, we choose not to post your last comment. But here is our reply:
We still don’t see any problem with the husband/wife wording. A husband is male, a wife is female, as in Adam and Eve. According to God, marriage only takes place between the two opposite sexes.
God gives us an unchanging standard of human conduct on important topics. Sex is important. And when people misuse the human sexual appetite someone gets hurt. This is taken for granted. It is only the modern licentious movement that is seeking to replace common knowledge with a new arbitrary self-serving standard. As Dostoeyvski said, Where there is no God, all is permitted. Those caught up in this movement are seeking to remake the law of chastity unto themselves to include some of the most base and degenerate desires and behaviors human beings are capable of.
It might be enlightening to talk to a doctor who cares for those who engage in sodomy. Not a pretty sight. These poor people are afflicted with unspeakable chronic maladies in their private parts and life-threatening diseases. Lives are shortened. The human body is not made to participate in such behavior. It cannot be called chaste by any stretch of the imagination. Decent people do not do it. You are not only denying God, you are denying nature and reality you can see with your own eyes.
Be careful what you wish for. In the 1940s George Orwell wrote, “ . . . [A]ll societies, as the price of survival, have to insist on a fairly high standard of sexual morality.” No civilized society would endanger its existence in order to indulge a small percentage of the population which claims it has a right to arbitrarily change the standard for sexual morality for everyone. No truly religious church would compromise doctrine and order to accommodate the flagrantly licentious. The presumption and arrogance of the self-serving few who pressure churches to overturn their basic rules for sexual morality to suit them is off the charts. If they get their way, these few will not just be accommodated, they will destroy. We repeat, be careful what you wish for. You can’t have the Church in the form you want it. It will cease to exist. If we have a church left at all we’ll have, as Flannery O'Connor put it, the “Church Without Christ.”
Look for the new book Chased by An Elephant, the gospel truth about today’s stampeding sexuality. It's for parents raising children but it sounds like some of the basic truths it contains are unknown to you. Coming soon!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Chastity 101
We don't know quite what to do with anonymous emailed comments. Since we can’t reply to them privately, we have to reply on our public blog. The following was a comment on our post entitled “Gays in the Church – Let’s Think it Through.”
Anonymous:
So, lots of questions/concerns, but interestingly enough, you might actually be wrong about the temple.
In the 1990 changes the law of chastity went from gendered to non-gendered. Since now everybody just follows chastity by restricting sexual relations to their legal spouse, theoretically, a legal gay marriage does not violate that covenant.
You don't have to teach two laws. You just have to apply the one law equally.
SoL response:
First, we don’t know what you mean by any change “from gendered to non-gendered.” We’re pretty sure the words “husband or wife” are meant to refer to opposite sexes.
Second, your theory does not hold water. The law of the land may sanction "gay marriage," but this does not change God's law of chastity which says that homosexual sex is out of bounds, monogamous or not. You seem to have ignored the fact that the very nature of homosexuality is unchaste. And of course monogamy does not necessarily equal chastity in any case. There are many ways heterosexual married people can be unchaste, too. Even our feelings and thoughts can be unchaste, such as lusting after other people's spouses. Our outward behavior, as well as all our desires, passions, and appetites, are to be kept within God's law.
Anonymous:
So, lots of questions/concerns, but interestingly enough, you might actually be wrong about the temple.
In the 1990 changes the law of chastity went from gendered to non-gendered. Since now everybody just follows chastity by restricting sexual relations to their legal spouse, theoretically, a legal gay marriage does not violate that covenant.
You don't have to teach two laws. You just have to apply the one law equally.
SoL response:
First, we don’t know what you mean by any change “from gendered to non-gendered.” We’re pretty sure the words “husband or wife” are meant to refer to opposite sexes.
Second, your theory does not hold water. The law of the land may sanction "gay marriage," but this does not change God's law of chastity which says that homosexual sex is out of bounds, monogamous or not. You seem to have ignored the fact that the very nature of homosexuality is unchaste. And of course monogamy does not necessarily equal chastity in any case. There are many ways heterosexual married people can be unchaste, too. Even our feelings and thoughts can be unchaste, such as lusting after other people's spouses. Our outward behavior, as well as all our desires, passions, and appetites, are to be kept within God's law.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Pure Love 101
We received this short comment from "Anonymous" concerning our previous post about gay sensitivity training in church.
"There are many ways to hate people. Ask yourselves this - would Jesus hate them too? No (need it be even said...) Love them; it’s harder but better for all in the long run."
This is our response:
Thanks for commenting. May we suggest that if you're going to invoke the name of Christ, you better know what he is really about.
There may be many ways to hate people, but there is only one way to truly love them. The one most pure and correct way, the way Jesus loves us, is perfectly patient, but does not enable our stagnation, errors, sins, or self-destruction. We are called upon to put off the natural man inside us who is so prone to wander away from God and His goodness. He invites each of us to become a new, selfless person intent on doing God's will, which will at some time or other mean putting aside our own will, as Jesus exemplified by His life and Atonement. And of course it’s entirely up to each of us. If and when we accept Christ as our Savior we are obligated to share the good news.
Most people neglect to separate people's infinite worth from the things they say and do. By making this mistake, they make more mistakes, among them, tending to embrace people’s wrong ideas and behaviors while forgetting to truly value the people. Would you encourage your friend to chain smoke or abuse drugs? No. And yet this is what gay-sympathizers are doing. They are encouraging an unnatural and extremely addictive and risky lifestyle. It doesn’t have to be this way. With a little courage you can value and love people and disapprove of the things they do come what may. Society does it all the time. Parents do it every day and correct their children. God gives us an unchanging standard to go by.
You say it is hard to love them but better for all in the long run. But your "love" and your "long run" are different than Christ's. Yours are based on comfortable human relations and the now, his are based on a relationship first with God the Father and with eternal growth and progress for His children. You say it is "hard" to love them; but it is always easier to go along with wayward people than to take a stand and truly love them. What you call love accepts people's unnatural self-determined sexual orientation (without even wondering what travesties may have caused it) because you would rather enjoy "peace" and be liked than do the difficult, right thing. What you call love does not take into account the person's temporal or spiritual safety, health, well-being, progress, and posterity. Rather than any kind of pretense of love, that sounds more like one of those many self-interested ways to hate.
C. S. Lewis put it so well: "Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them; but Love cannot cease to will their removal . . . Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness."
Friday, February 5, 2010
Gay Sensitivity Training -- In Church?
Yes, it's happening. Only, we didn't imagine bishops and stake presidents would be the instigators. It all comes as a sort of backlash on the wake of the Prop 8 victory. It seems as if some Mormons couldn't take the heat and have now organized gay sensitivity training sessions.
In California, during church services, assigned speakers claimed a gay identity and told their sob stories to a captive audience, eliciting weeping and hugging. Handouts with gay-affirming quotes and personal experiences replaced the scriptures. (No, you won't find quotes from The Miracle of Forgiveness
here.) Read this emotionalized propaganda from the Salt Lake Tribune, "Gay rights: Oakland LDS Stake tries to heal post-Prop 8 rifts." (We wonder how orthodox members would feel in such a meeting. Or how about a person who was involved in homosexuality and who then wanted out, turned away from it, and repented by the grace of Christ?)
Perhaps these Oakland people never understood the demands of religion in the first place. They seem to have set aside God in favor of personal comfort and convenience. For "gays," it's their unnatural sexual inclinations they put before God. For the others, it's public opinion they put before God. Gays want to be seen as victims, their supporters want to be seen as compassionate, all so they'll be popular with each other. (And it's especially incredible to us that no one seems at all concerned about what horrors might have caused this travesty in the first place, or the welfare of anybody's body or soul.)
Perhaps every one of us is in danger of forgetting, or never knew, the essence of Christianity. Some seem to have adopted a make-shift, Jesus-Lite, pretend religion that is based on human relations and is much easier to take than actual religion.
Evidently in some LDS wards God is out. Homosexuality is in. So what will we see happening in our church meetings next? See a previous post, "Gays in the Church? Let's Think It Through." We are very naive if we think Mormon gays' "rights" will end with group sensitivity training sessions. As they themselves say, "It's a step."
Please note that we are not opposed to those with sexual problems participating in church along with the rest of us sinners. We say: love them, welcome them, encourage them to repent, get help, and overcome this stagnating sin so they can move forward. What's horribly wrong here is the public acceptance and normalization of homosexuality itself. We are doing an unspeakably terrible disservice to these deceived and confused people by not offering truth, repentance, and help. We're also hurting children, youth, and ourselves who are being exposed to this travesty as if it is harmless.
The truly religious strive to change themselves to fit God. What we see here is a bunch of pseudo-religious people striving to change God to fit themselves. Sad.
In California, during church services, assigned speakers claimed a gay identity and told their sob stories to a captive audience, eliciting weeping and hugging. Handouts with gay-affirming quotes and personal experiences replaced the scriptures. (No, you won't find quotes from The Miracle of Forgiveness
here.) Read this emotionalized propaganda from the Salt Lake Tribune, "Gay rights: Oakland LDS Stake tries to heal post-Prop 8 rifts." (We wonder how orthodox members would feel in such a meeting. Or how about a person who was involved in homosexuality and who then wanted out, turned away from it, and repented by the grace of Christ?)Perhaps these Oakland people never understood the demands of religion in the first place. They seem to have set aside God in favor of personal comfort and convenience. For "gays," it's their unnatural sexual inclinations they put before God. For the others, it's public opinion they put before God. Gays want to be seen as victims, their supporters want to be seen as compassionate, all so they'll be popular with each other. (And it's especially incredible to us that no one seems at all concerned about what horrors might have caused this travesty in the first place, or the welfare of anybody's body or soul.)
Perhaps every one of us is in danger of forgetting, or never knew, the essence of Christianity. Some seem to have adopted a make-shift, Jesus-Lite, pretend religion that is based on human relations and is much easier to take than actual religion.
Evidently in some LDS wards God is out. Homosexuality is in. So what will we see happening in our church meetings next? See a previous post, "Gays in the Church? Let's Think It Through." We are very naive if we think Mormon gays' "rights" will end with group sensitivity training sessions. As they themselves say, "It's a step."
Please note that we are not opposed to those with sexual problems participating in church along with the rest of us sinners. We say: love them, welcome them, encourage them to repent, get help, and overcome this stagnating sin so they can move forward. What's horribly wrong here is the public acceptance and normalization of homosexuality itself. We are doing an unspeakably terrible disservice to these deceived and confused people by not offering truth, repentance, and help. We're also hurting children, youth, and ourselves who are being exposed to this travesty as if it is harmless.
The truly religious strive to change themselves to fit God. What we see here is a bunch of pseudo-religious people striving to change God to fit themselves. Sad.
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