Rick Warren attacks anti-homosexuality bill

Meanwhile, Evangelical Alliance Ireland supports pro-homosexuality bill

By Julio Severo

Gay activists, who despise the divine condemnation of homosexuality, do not hesitate to use and distort the words of Jesus Christ to teach Christians that the only way for Christians to be able to demonstrate love for homosexuals is by supporting the approval of anti-“homophobia” bills.

Without such support, homosexual militants insist that Christians deserve labels as “homophobic”, hypocrites, murderers of homosexuals, etc. Their insistence is steady throughout the media. Their charges against Christians are incessant.

If constant dripping will eventually wear away a stone, then it seems that homosexual dripping is wearing away the evangelical resistance.

In Ireland, a pro-homosexuality bill received the support from the Evangelical Alliance Ireland (EAI), which explained its stance by saying that if Jesus Christ did not discriminate, so Christians are not also supposed to discriminate. EAI declared,

“Co-habiting couples are a reality — this legislation seeks to deal with that reality from a legal perspective. We may disagree on the detail of the legislation but as followers of a just and compassionate God we can recognise the justice and fairness of providing some legal protection for the reality of both same-sex and opposite-sex cohabiting relationships”.

On the other hand, Rick Warren embraced similar stance to use God’s compassion to condemn a heavy anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda. This African nation, which formerly had homosexual kings that abused boys, still faces today sexual abuses against boys. Moreover, Uganda is under international pressure to support the gay agenda. But it was not to condemn vehemently homosexual abuses against boys that Warren meddled in Uganda.

Differently from Islamic nations as Iran, which executes homosexuals arbitrarily, the Ugandan bill condemns to capital punishment only men persistent in homosexuality, homosexuals that rape boys and HIV homosexuals that infect other people.

Warren explained his motives to meddle in Uganda,

“We are all familiar with Edmund Burke’s insight that, ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.’ That is why I'm sharing my heart with you today. As an American pastor, it is not my role to interfere with the politics of other nations, but it IS my role to speak out on moral issues.”

Yet, Warren, whose experience includes meetings with religious Muslims leaders, does not use his role to speak out to Muslims that they should stop persecuting Christians. He also does not use his role to speak out against the Islamic laws that condemn homosexuals to death.

In his own nation, the United States, Warren has refrained from using his role to speak out against aggressive homosexual bills. He has also refrained from bothering Obama and his administration, which are explicitly pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality. Before the Obamanian majesty, instead of using his role to speak out on abortion and homosexuality, Warren limits himself to a smooth-tongued behavior.

The Ugandan bill is likely not to be approved, because international opposition — stemming from homosexual groups, UN and EU — has been massive.

In my view, the most problematic part of this bill is the imposition on Ugandan citizens to denounce to police homosexual practices. That imposition would harm Christian ministries that help homosexuals.

But Warren’s view is that the heavy Ugandan bill does not reflect the Gospel.

Yet, let’s talk plainly. What is the law that reflects the Gospel?

Does a law that condemns, fines, arrests or executes murderers reflect the Gospel?

Does a law that condemns, fines, arrests or executes pedophiles reflect the Gospel?

Does a law that condemns, fines, arrests or executes rapists reflect the Gospel?

Let’s be realistic: the Gospel does not condemn, fine, arrest or execute anyone. The Gospel did not come to condemn, fine, arrest or execute any criminal. The only kind of condemnation the Gospel mentions is eternal condemnation, making it clear that men that choose to live in sin shall be condemned to eternal death, being destined to suffer in Hell, eternally separated from God.

The Gospel came to save sinners. That is its exclusive occupation. So if because of the Gospel human laws cannot condemn homosexuality, then because of the same Gospel they cannot condemn murders, rapes and pedophilia

As far as the Gospel is concerned, we love homosexuals, pedophiles, murderers, rapists, etc. We love them because Jesus loves them and wants to save them. Yet, this does not mean that we should oppose laws that condemn homosexuality, pedophilia, murders, rapes, etc.

Twenty years ago, International Amnesty got in touch with me asking for my support against death penalty in Texas, because in the 1980s I was a member of a team that ministered, by correspondence, to prisoners in death row in Texas. My mission was to minister to Spanish-speaking prisoners. All of them had committed gruesome murders.

Can the Gospel save such criminals? Of course! For a long time I talked about Jesus’ love to them, sending Christian literature in Spanish, etc. Yet, whether they wanted to open their hearts to Jesus or not, my view is that they should pay their social debt.

Human laws were fulfilling their role, condemning a murderer with maximum penalty. My mission was only to lead the murderer to know the love of Jesus Christ.

There is a separation between law and Gospel. The State should fulfill its role to punish those that violate just laws. The role of the Gospel is not to destroy just laws, but only to fulfill another role: to reach out all the sinners with the message of salvation.

It is unfortunate that in his own country, Warren has refrained from using his role to speak out on behalf of Christian efforts to defend natural marriage against systematic assaults from the homosexual movement. Doubtless, Warren does not want to offend and infuriate homosexual groups or the liberal media, which does not praise of kind of defense.

Apparently, that same media, which does not condemn Islamic laws against homosexuality, is condemning the anti-homosexuality bill in the Christian Uganda. And, with all of these spotlights, Obama enters the stage.

Obama defends openly the murder of innocent unborn babies. If Warren, who in his public opportunities with Obama, has never used his role to speak out against such murderous inclinations, why is he now meddling in Uganda? Where is his consistency?

Is it fair for Warren to remember his “role to speak out on moral issues” only to Uganda, and not to Obama and his administration? Is it fair for Warren to be forceful and vehement only to Uganda, and not to Obama and his administration?

I like Warren when he says what is fair. But it is hard to appreciate when he and others, in the name of a smooth-tongued Christian love, seem to demonstrate more interest in getting media sympathy than challenging the unfair standards imposed by liberal trends.

As the Apostle Paul teaches in Romans, we have to transform ourselves by the renewing of the way we think. Without this regular transformation, we are inevitably dragged by the maelstroms, fads and traps of this world. Without this regular transformation, we get entrapped by the way the world thinks. Without this regular transformation, the Gospel becomes, instead a message of salvation and deliverance from sin, a creature in the image of human ideas and wishes:

In the hands of gay activists and liberal and progressive Christians, the Gospel is a tool to promote the acceptance of sinners with their sins. They use the Gospel to preach insistently that the only way for Christians to prove that they are as compassionate as their God is by supporting bills stemming from the entrails of the homosexual movement.

In the hands of Christians that want to please both sides, the Gospel is a tool of political, social and religious conveniences.

In the hands of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel is a tool distinct, but not opposed, from laws condemning sin. A fair law deals with misdeeds by punishing the violator. The Gospel deals with sinners to save them from eternal condemnation, without exempting them from paying their social and criminal debts here on the Earth.

Without this understanding of the separation between law and Gospel, you can easily stumble into the same delusions of the Evangelical Alliance Ireland.

May these examples help us to be balanced, impartial and fair on the law and Gospel.

Portuguese version of this article: Rick Warren ataca lei anti-homossexualismo

Source: http://www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Read more:

Int’l Pressure on Uganda to Accept Homosexuality Caused Over-the-Top Sanctions: Christian Activist