Un-Christian attitudes towards gays, cont...

Speaking of un-Christian attitudes toward gays...

Jimmy Swaggert (yes, he's still around...) had this to say recently:

I'm trying to find the correct name for it . . . this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. . . . I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died.

(See analysis at Volokh here and here)

Well, I'm not sure Rev. Swaggert has any credibility anywhere among mainstream Christians, but the problem is his opinions are shared by many... Do his remarks even need a rebuttal? (I mean, any Christian who shares Swaggert's view isn't going to listen to what I or anyone else has to say anyway...)

I do have a pet peeve with people (in this situation and many others) who arbitrarily pick and choose random scriptures from the Bible for the purpose of either justifying their manmade doctrines and philosophies, or attempting to attack and discredit the Church instead.

Anyone who actually reads the Bible knows that there's a big difference between the laws of God in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. The majority of OT times is covered under the Law of Moses, the lower law which came about because the early Israelites were too hard-hearted and wicked to accept the higher law. The ultra-strict (and often violent) Law of Moses was purposely brutal and unforgiving, since the people had rejected the higher, more merciful law. You frequently read about the Israelites being commanded to kill the 'heathen' nations and people who didn't follow the Lord, but those who did follow the Lord but broke certain commandments received the same treatment as well. Sure, gays were put to death (see Lev. 20:13) but so were adulterers, those who mocked living prophets, even one poor guy whose sin was touching the Ark of the Covenant with his hand... Strict and unmerciful? Sure, but it was the only law the people of God could handle at the time.

Things changed, though--and this is what many critics and followers of Christ's church seem to forget. Jesus Christ in His mortal dispensation fulfilled the Law of Moses, and from that time forward (including the present day) we're under the new law--described by Christ himself. It's not 'eye for an eye' anymore, but instead 'turn the other cheek' and 'love your enemies'. There is no scripture in the New Testament that advocates violence toward any 'sinner'--in fact, Christ's encounter with the woman taken in adultery is a direct repudiation of the Law of Moses' method of punishment...to anyone who's actually paying attention to the text.

Thus, people who use Old Testament scriptures to describe what present policies or doctrines should be are flat-out wrong: the Law of Moses doesn't apply anymore (do you see anyone creating altars and sacrificing sheep?), the "Law of Christ" does. And while this doesn't mean sins are no longer sins, it means that the way we treat fellow sinners should only be based on Christ's NT teachings, and any other interpretation is way off base...