The Religious Left Mobilizes for War on the Gospel – Part 1

An earlier article focused on the attempt to ban opposition to homosexuality and transgenderism in Great Britain under a broad definition of “conversion therapy.” This really heralds a new phase in the attempt to normalize homosexuality and destroy Christian sexual morality. Earlier phases successfully legalized homosexual acts, and then endeavored, successfully in many jurisdictions, to make homosexual behavior and inclination a civil right, which cannot be discriminated against in the public world. The same sex marriage decision was perhaps the capstone of this phase. Indeed, its principle purpose seems to have been to signal approval, rather than toleration, of homosexuality. The revolution is now moving into its final phase, in which opposition to homosexuality is prohibited in the private world – the world of families, churches, private associations, and private conversation. Mandatory acceptance is to be comprehensive and global, as was made clear by a panel assembled by Union Theological Seminary on December 7.

The panel discussed general approaches toward normalizing homosexuality and transgenderism particularly in non-Western countries, where the general public has not been browbeaten by court decisions, stealthily enacted sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) laws, regulations from unaccountable authorities (all with deceptive assurances no one would be required to accept homosexuality), and strident and intolerant rhetoric. Outside the West the general public remains opposed to homosexuality, and panelists discussed how to overcome it, with their experience in the West as a guide. But all approaches are based on the pain and humiliation experienced by the homosexually inclined or active at the rejection of homosexuality as being ipso facto wrong.

Included on the panel were Essy Adhiambo of the Initiative for Equality and Non-Discrimination, Steve Chalke of the Oasis Charitable Trust and Former UN special Advisor on Human Trafficking, Julius Kaggwa, of the Support Initiative for People with atypical sex Development (SIPD) Uganda, and Dr. L. Ramakrishana of Solidarity and Action Against the HIV Infection India (SAATHII). The panel was moderated by Fred Davie of Union Theological Seminary, with inspirational speeches from Bishop Yvette Flunder of the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries and Bishop Joseph Tolton of the Council for Global Equality.

The central right-not-to-be-offended argument was clear early in the panel discussion. Adhiambo declared: “Religion has become more dangerous than our governments … we fear our religious leaders.” Similarly Chalke urged that “The day of judgment is not a day to fear, but a day of liberation.” But this is simply wrong. The day of judgment is in fact a day of darkness, not a day of light. This is reiterated in the New Testament from the Gospel of Matthew to the Book of Revelation. Fear cannot be separated from Biblical religion. Christian faith must teach the heart to fear, even if the gospel is good news because it offers salvation to penitent sinners, and even if it disturbs the hearts of those who embrace it with questions as to whether they are truly right with God.

Ramakrishnan then got to perhaps the main point of the panel, that “Conversion therapy is something we are trying very hard to get banned… all faith institutions must come together against conversion therapy.” As has been noted in earlier articles, “conversion therapy” means much more than professional secular counseling to overcome homosexual (or now transgender) inclinations and behavior. It now means any expression that people claiming such identities are abnormal or immoral. This was made crystal clear by Kristopher Wells, one of the prominent advocates of the Canadian bill to ban conversion therapy, C-4, which will come into force in January 2022, who stated in a document advancing the ban that conversion therapy is:

“any form of treatment, including individual talk therapy, behavioral or aversion therapy, group therapy treatments, spiritual prayer, exorcism, and/or medical or drug-induced treatments, which attempt to actively change someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

And that:

“Conversion therapy practices are unethical and immoral because they imply that LGBTQ2 lives are less valuable, less desirable, and less worth living than heterosexual or cisgender persons. Ultimately, these practices believe that being an LGBTQ2 person is a disorder, sin, or disease that must be fixed, cured, healed, or repaired.”

Notice that specifically religious practices are included (“spiritual prayer, exorcism”) and that the moving idea of these forbidden practices is that homosexual or transgender inclination and/or behavior is “a disorder, sin, or disease that must be fixed, cured, healed or repaired.” This then is a proposal for a direct governmental attack on religious doctrine.

In Biblical doctrine, LGBT inclination or behavior is certainly a sin, and it is precisely this which the cutting edge of LGBT liberation wants to be made illegal, as has been noted by the Christian Institute in Great Britain. The inter-religious coalition which is advancing this therefore amounts to an incipient state religion. As this writer noted in an earlier article, the call against “conversion” can easily be expanded from sex to religion and make any religious conversion illegal. But with respect to sex, the Christian Institute in its linked article observed that advocates of a conversion therapy ban in the U.K. are already expanding the meaning of “conversion” beyond addressing homosexuality or transgenderism to demand that all exhortations to sexual abstinence be made illegal. They are clear that this involves “the full range of religious practices.” So the real attack is on the common religious demand for chastity, which is particularly strong in Christianity. Remarkably, in view of the basic social liberal doctrine of self-determination, campaigners in the U.K. also call for prohibiting people who have “transitioned” to the opposite sex (which at most involves mutilations and hormones given to an immutable physical sexual identity) from “de-transitioning” to their natural sex.

As can be expected from the religious left, the gospel is seen in terms of power and oppression. Davie exhorted that “Our task is to stand against the demeaning of sexual minorities through the weaponizing of Scripture” and “It is our job… to dismantle the cis-gender hetero hierarchy.” … “Religion is used to sustain the cis-binary heteropatriarchy that really so much confines and oppresses … it will be our job to simply dismantle that cis-binary heteropatriarchy so that all people can live and breathe free.”

The problem, Davie claimed, “is the religious addiction to power.” It must be fought, as Chalke said, by “de-weaponizing our Scripture.” Evidently the religious proponents of conversion therapy bans think that religious leaders build their ministries and enhance their power by appealing to populist sentiment against homosexuality. This may have had some truth in it a generation ago, but is hardly true today. Whether one is a Christian or other religious leader, or an ordinary traditional believer, one has nothing to gain in today’s Western world by opposing homosexuality or transgenderism. There is much to lose (jobs, businesses, ministries, friends, or even freedom where the law prescribes penalties for opposing LGBT behavior, as hate speech and antidiscrimination laws do.) Yet a prominent proponent of banning religious doctrine in the U.K., Jayne Oazanne, apparently believes  that religious leaders will change their message if faced with the “full force of the law,” and thus the loss of their ministries. But God’s commands cannot be changed, nor eternal punishment for disobedience avoided, because people are pained or the secular law has made obedience to them illegal.

The religious left either does not know (or more likely, does not care) that the real reason people oppose homosexuality and transgenderism is obedience to God. There is hardly any other reason is today’s world, but the social gospel or liberation theology viewpoint the left adopts does not allow for anything other than a power/oppression narrative. However Scripture (or secular law or freedom, or anything else) cannot be “de-weaponized” in the sense they mean without rendering it meaningless. Scripture, or anything else means nothing if it can be set aside because people are pained, which is the basic objective sought by the panel and likeminded advocates.

So the real objective advanced by the panel and the many supporters of conversion therapy bans is to purge world religions of their traditional sexual morality (which, while varying, is more or less the same, and centered on sexual purity) and legally require a new sexual morality of mutual consent, which is effectively the sexual morality now recognized by most Western governments. As this writer discussed in an article this summer, what the non-Western world, still holding to traditional sexual morality faces is a new imperialism from the West, weaponized with the U.N. bureaucracy and non-governmental organizations, seeking to impose the West’s new sexual morality of consent on the non-Western world.

Against any such argument, Davie asked “What do we do with the notions that homosexuality, pluralism are Western notions, that in this particular case, have no place in the African context?” Adhiambo’s response was basically that sodomy laws came from western imperialists. She said that “religion is about love, it’s not about hate” and that there is a misunderstanding that “religion is about interfering with your life.” Chalke agreed that the majority of non-Western countries with sodomy laws and/or homophobia were once Western colonies of the British Empire. Coming from British Evangelicalism he thought it was “important to apologize” for the British church exporting “condemning, exploitative, oppressive narratives.” He believes the sexual narrative British missionaries and colonists brought has caused the problem “in the largest measure.” So he can only listen and learn from what the oppressed say. But he did agree with the others that the correct strategy is to “de-weaponize” Scripture. He said “gentle tide of inclusion is coming in, and is slowly overcoming” the opposition.

This of course misunderstands Christianity, which is about the mortification (and thus the hatred) of sin, and thus requires a changed life based on God’s commands in Scripture. Likewise it surely misunderstands most non-Christian, traditional non-Western religions, which, as already noted, do not vary greatly from Christian sexual morality which focuses on opposite sex marriage, and condemnations of sex outside of this natural marriage.

Bishop Yvette Flunder gave an inspirational talk during the discussion in which she proposed a “12 step program for recovery” for religious oppressors. Similarly guidance is now being given to pastors in the state of Victoria, Australia, where religious teaching against homosexuality is banned with a 10 year prison sentence and affirmation for homosexual sin is required. Flunder said that what she regards as harmful views “cannot be sanctified by religion” and the “holy work of inclusivity can no longer be passive.” People have been “burned by Bible believing Christian flame throwers.” People on the margins “have difficulty … holding themselves together” and must be allowed simply “to be.” She said that means they should be able to “live without fear of family, without fear of jobs, live without fear of losing resources, just to simply be.” This presumably means that everyone in society should accommodate whatever it is that the oppressed think is necessary for their identity. For instance, shelters for homeless and abused women should include biological men who believe that they are women, girls sports should include biological males, children who believe they are of the opposite sex should have their sexual development stopped and artificially directed to the opposite sex for the remainder of their lives, parents should be prohibited from objecting to this obvious child abuse, everyone should contribute to homosexual behavior, be required to say that it is good, and pastors should not preach or counsel against homosexuality. “Radical inclusivity must be constantly about re-affirming, re-affirming, re-affirming,” she said.

Davie said that as a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Freedom he knows that USCIRF is “looking at ways in which LGBTQI+ persons are denied their opportunities for their religious expression as people of faith by dominant faiths in various countries around the world. There’s more that can be done there. I and several others on the commission are carrying that message with the support of this administration. So there’s still much that can be done to address the issue of the exportation of hate and oppression by U.S. based religious groups and we hope to continue to have that conversation.” These remarks could well mean that religious groups should be legally required to include people who are homosexually active (as U.N. Special Rapporteur for Religious Freedom has proposed), and perhaps more broadly, that religious groups should be legally required to include people regardless of their sexual behavior. This of course directly attacks religious doctrine. Christianity, and other religions as well, condemn and exclude sexual sin. Christ’s exhortations to love do not lessen his warnings of damnation to impenitent sinners.

Davie also seemed to be saying that leaders of conservative religious groups in the United States should punished and prevented from supporting traditionalist religious groups in other countries that reject homosexuality and gender ideology, most especially traditionalist religious groups in the non-Western world. He asked if the U.S. government might be concerned with “the exportation of homophobia by U.S. religious leaders.” However, he acknowledged that “there may be some legal issues with that, but it does not mean that the President and others cannot call people out for exporting hate and oppression and he certainly has a bully pulpit.” Thus he obviously would like to make global social conservative connections illegal, but seems to understand that is not now possible given U.S. First Amendment. Biblically, of course, Christians are to imitate Paul and declare as he did whole counsel of God, who hates sin, not embrace sin as an oppressed status.

But Davie was cheered that the LGBT movement now has “the blessing of the U.S. government.” He said it is “a sign of that gentle tide of inclusion … will increasingly become a more persistent and forceful tide.” The tide, however, is not so gentle if sincere religious believers are to be persecuted for declaring God’s revealed truth or declining to be complicit in sinful behavior, which is exactly what the conversion therapy bans and their attack on religious doctrine are aiming at.

Further remarks by the speakers and panel discussed more specifically the barrier that religious freedom poses to the international LGBT agenda. They will be reviewed in a subsequent article.

It can be viewed here.