Al got the privilege of writing the controversial chapter entitled Homosexual Marriage as a Challenge to the Church: Biblical and Cultural Reflections for Sex and the Supremacy of God. He did a great job of staying on point and not engaging in name-calling or knee jerk reactions.
This topic is important because: “The covenant fidelity at the very center of marriage is a picture of God’s purpose in the creation of the world and the redemption of the church.” As a result, homosexual marriage by its very nature would speak falsely of God and redemption. This goes far beyond arguing on the basis of tradition and culture. Mohler makes a good argument for “Compassionate Truth-Telling”. It is “not only the accurate preseentation of biblical truth, but the prayerful and urgent hope that the individuals to whom we speak that truth will be transformed by that truth and respond to the grace of God in Jesus Christ.” That is not accomplished by “turn or burn” types of arguments. This does not mean we avoid the reality of judgment, faith & repentance, but that we see it in the larger context of creation, Fall & depravity, and redemption.
1. “We, as Christians, must be the people who cannot start a conversation about homosexual marriage by talking about homosexual marriage.” How do you like that? What he means is putting it in a fuller context. We have to address the presuppositions held by those with whom we disagree on this issue. In our worldview, morality is a reflection of the character and purposes of God for His glory and our good. In a naturalistic & materialistic, it becomes mere social convention and part of the evolutionary process (and some advocates will use the term evolutionary in talking about ethics). Part of the larger story is that gender is a part of the goodness of creation. God saw Adam’s need. Adam, apparently was still content. This is why I believe the problem of his aloneness is not being lonely, but being unable to fulfill the creation mandates. He needed a helpmate, a complement, to work side-by-side with him. One aspect of that mandate is to fill the earth with God’s image, something homosexual relationships are not able to do if and of themselves (though many cannot totally suppress the imago dei and desire to have children via adoption, surrogates or artificial insemination).
2. “We must be the people who cannot ever talk about sex without talking about marriage.” There are many ways to devalue marriage. All of them include sex divorced from marriage. Adultery, pre-marital sex, incest, rape etc are all sexual sins at least in part because they remove sex from its proper context- marriage. We must speak about all of these, not just homosexual marriage. We must consistently hold marriage in high esteem as a gift from God for our good. We do not have the authority to define, redefine, circumvent etc marriage. We do not have the authority to divorce sex from marriage. All attempts to do so display our sinful attempts at autonomy (self-law). We should be no less critical of adultery as a corruption of marriage and sexuality than homosexuality- because it is not about homosexuality per se.
3. “We must be the people who cannot talk about anything of significance without acknowledging our absolute dependence upon God’s revelation- the Bible.” As Mohler continues “Christians do not claim to be smart enough to figure out everything on their own.” Further, “receiving God’s revelation about marriage also requires that we admit our obligation to obey God’s command. Human sinfulness requires that we be protected from ourselves.” He is right to remind us that our message is no less politically incorrect as it was in Paul and Jesus’ day. First century Graeco-Roman culture was a sexual sewer in great need of the purifying power of the Gospel.
Mohler mentions the ‘yuck factor’. I remember talking with a lady who thought oral sex was wrong merely because that is what homosexuals do. Well, homosexuals kiss and hug. We don’t argue on the basis of a practice we may find distasteful. Tastes change (as hearts are more or less godly). We can’t trust our conscience in such matters either (Romans 2).
4. “We must be the people with a theology adequate to explain the deadly deception of sexual sin.” This was a GREAT section. He focused on Romans 1 and how “the human race is involved in a massive exercise of self-deception, suppressing the truth and hiding it even from ourselves.” The more people do this, the more God gives them over to life-dominating sin (and Paul mentions lots of them in Romans 1, not just homosexuality).
As Christians we don’t necessarily have the moral high ground. On a relative scale we may, but on an absolute scale- no way. “We are sexual sinners speaking to other sexual sinners.” It is offensive to God and others when we act like we are not sexual sinners. I love how he brings the doctrine of depravity to bear on this issue. All of us, including our sexual desires, is corrupted and disoriented. While the choice to engage in homosexual activity or a lifestyle is a choice, “the underlying desire is often not experienced by homosexuals as a matter of choice at all.” In other words, in many cases they did not choose to be aroused by people of the same sex just like I don’t choose to be interested in people of the opposite sex. But I have to make choices about what I do with that interest, desire or arousal. So do they (and adulterors, pedophiles, unmarried people etc.). The heart is deceptive, as Jeremiah prophesied, so we have a great capacity to rationalize our own sexual misbehavior.
5. “We must be the people with a theology adequate to explain Christ’s victory over sin.” We believe that the grace of God teaches us to say ‘no’ to sin in this life (Titus 2). We won’t perfectly, but we are progressively transformed in our character and behavior. People can change. This doesn’t mean every homosexual will suddenly be happily hetero & married. Many will wrestle with temptation til the day they die (we all wrestle with temptation, the specifics are just different). The ultimate re-ordering of desire (for all of us) won’t happen until we see Jesus. But we can change our choices. Salvation is far greater than not partaking in a particular sin anymore.
6. “We must be the people who love homosexuals more than homosexuals love homosexuality.” This is true of people no matter their sin. Holding signs with messages of hate, is not what Jesus calls us to do. He says to love your neighbor, even if they hate you. We are not to be the ones using “hate speech”, though we should expect those who disagree to falsely accuse of of being bigots, homophobes etc. Love means rubbing shoulders with homosexuals, not wishing they’d be confined to the ‘gay ghetto’ so we don’t have to be bothered.
7. “We must be the people who tell the truth about homosexual marriage and thus refuse to accept even its possibility because we love and seek the glory of God for all.” Keep compassionate truth-telling in mind. Truth-telling Jesus’ style is not an excuse to give them both barrels of hate-filled invectives.
Sadly, the church is not listening. We tend to either bury our heads in the sand, go along with the crowd, or give in to hate. I think it is time for the Church to repent and begin to lovingly, redemptively engage them.
Cavman Considers 
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