I call out the Rev. Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for false teaching. A respected colleague in the ELCA made me aware of the latest evidence of this fact by pointing me to Bishop Hanson’s December 6 videotaped, virtual “Town Hall” meeting, which you may view here. Another colleague provided me a portion of the transcript:

Question: Ron Huber, Akeny, Iowa: Where is there anything other than rejection of homosexual behavior in the Bible? Where is there specific acceptance of this behavior in the Bible?

Hanson: “My fear is that the we are missing a marvelous moment we have to bear witness to one another and others are watching, expecting division, because this is how these things are being defined. We have a moment to say, “Let us tell you how we understand the Word of God.” It is God’s address first incarnate in Jesus, as Gospel, Law/Gospel, and the Word recorded in Scripture. How then do we read the Scriptures? Are we falling into a differentiation of ‘some love it and some don’t love the Scripture.’

“The question is not do some love the Scripture or not, but how do we read the Scripture? We read them evangelically as Lutherans, we read it open to the Spirit bringing us to saving faith in Christ. We understand Scripture through Jesus.

“When we come to the question of how we read the Bible, in response to homo or place of gay/lesbian in life and ministry. Let’s bring the question to the text, but to the text others turn to, that leads them to say, ‘The questions of homosexual orientation that I hear asked and the understanding we have of homosexuality that we have today does not seem to be reflected at all in the context of the Biblical writers, so let us bring our understanding of sexual orientation that has been opened up to humankind over the years to this conversation.’

“My plea is that we not move into conversation with like minded people. Let’s not let this moment be a moment when Bible divides us, but an invitation to conversation with one another. To bear witness to what it means to hear Word as Law and Gospel. God is still speaking to us, and through us.”

Bishop Hanson gives evidence of his Law-Gospel reductionism. Lutheranism, for Him, does not find the proper distinction of Law and Gospel to be the interpretive key of Scripture, but the Gospel only. But Jesus Christ is the God of the Gospel and the God of the Law. In short, Hanson’s Gospel not only fulfills and supplants the Law, it destroys it.

Hanson’s response regarding homosexuality is carefully nuanced. He is correct in asserting that the Bible writers knew nothing of what we call “homosexuality,” because that is a relatively new sociological invention based on how one “feels” about sex. The word “homosexual” is only about 200 years old. Bible writers were certainly familiar with same-sex activity, however, as were the ancients. And, of course, the Bible in every instance condemns same-sex behavior without reservation. Why? Because same-sex behavior militates against God’s creation of male and female and His desire to enlarge His human family.

What Hanson is suggesting, and what this summer’s ELCA General Assembly confirmed, is that contemporary human sexuality, sociology, psychology, and the gay rights movement are the authorities to which Bishop Hanson and the ELCA submit when it comes to this sin, for which Christ also died and now freely offers His rich forgiveness through the waters of Holy Baptism.

Perhaps most interesting in the article is the final paragraph, a quote from ELCA presiding bishop, the Rev. Mark Hanson:

‘Sometimes, when I hear concerns about division in the ELCA, I worry that they express a fear that unity depends on the actions of church leaders or assemblies,’ he said in a statement on Friday. ‘Our unity, however, comes to us because God gives it freely and undeservedly in Jesus Christ.’

Here again is an example of templating übervalues, this time “unity.”  Bishop Hanson appears to deflect “rational scrutiny and grounding in the natural realm.” Unity, or better, fellowship, is God’s free gift through Baptism and faith in Jesus Christ. But I can use the ministerial gift of human reason to point to, explain and defend, the scriptural basis for that unity, even as I point to the corporeality of fellowship first between our resurrected Lord and the baptized, and second among the baptized. I can also use the ministerial gift of human reason to point to, explain, and defend God’s gift of marriage and the divine imprint of His will stamped into our created sexes, as well as His strict prohibitions of any act that goes against His revealed will for marriage. As support, I can also muster copious and detailed exegesis and systematic treatments of these topics from none other than Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Chemnitz, Johann Gerhard, etc., ad naseum.

Here I would like to ask Bishop Hanson: If “unity” doesn’t “depend on the actions of church leaders or assemblies,” is it affected by them? If not, then of what value are the Ecumenical Councils or the Lutheran Confessions? What does an assembly intend to do when it passes resolutions?

This is a Schliermachian übervalue of personal feeling, where I feel unified with you.

I, for one, do not feel unified with the ELCA, particularly if the Assembly approves Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust next month.

1) There is no particular need for “sex education.”  For many centuries there was no sex education, yet children were conceived and their parents enjoyed the process.  Discovery of each other and what is pleasant in bed, on the wedding night and thereafter, is an important part of the exciting and unique pleasure that bonds the couple.

2) Sex education inhibits pair bonding. To educate young people about something that comes naturally robs them of the spontaneity and joy of sex that is vitally important for pair bonding and thus family stability.

3) The more sex education, the more sexual self-consciousness.  There is substantial evidence that the more sex education, especially on technique, the more the couple is sexually inhibited.  The greater the emphasis on sexual performance, the less communication and interpersonal intimacy there is.

4) The more sex education, the more sexual activity. It is quite conclusive now, that the more sex education, the more sexual activity and all the problems that go with that.  The introduction of sex education is well correlated with the increase in abortion, STDs and boy-girl interpersonal problems. Good education gives people the desire to try it out or learn more experientially.  Paradoxically, in that respect, current forms of sex education are good education but have the wrong results.

5) The earlier the sex education, the younger children explore sex and try various sexual techniques. Present evidence makes it possible to also conclude that the earlier the sex education, the earlier the sexual behavior. Thus sexual education is sexual titillation.

You can read the rest of Dr. Ney’s assessment here. Dr. Ney’s Web site can be found here.

HT: Jill Stanek.

To the express exclusion of other identifiable groups – including veterans, the elderly and the homeless – S. 909, in its current form, would grant special federal resources and preferred minority status to pedophiles, homosexuals, cross-dressers and – as Democratic sponsor Alcee Hastings recently admitted on the House floor – a host of other APA recognized “sexual orientations” (i.e., deviant sexual fetishes and perversions).

Not only is this legislation constitutionally dubious on First Amendment grounds, and a prima facie violation of Fourteenth Amendment required “equal protection of the laws;” it also flies in the face of the Tenth Amendment, which explicitly limits the federal government’s authority in such matters to those powers delegated by the U.S. Constitution.

Notable Puritans. Source: Wiki Commons; public domain.

As this April 4 The New York Times article shows, advocates for same-sex marriage, such as Lambda Legal, are making headway in New England.

Ironically, you can thank the Puritans, advocates of individualism and intellectualism, for some of the success.

This is your last chance.  After this, there is no going back.  You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember that all I am offering is the truth.  Nothing more.

The conclusions and recommendations made in Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, a proposed social statement by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, should come as no surprise.

The foundations for them were already being laid by the Twentieth-Century Project, which I define as the efforts of twentieth-century theologians to salvage the perceived essence of Christianity in the face of Darwinism and new, scientific discoveries that on the surface appeared to descredit key elements of the faith. 

For Protestantism, the Twentieth-Century Project resorted to: reductionism (brainiac definition here; lay-friendly here), which would suggest that the whole of Christianity can be reduced to its chief parts; appeals to theologians (notably Luther, Calvin) as the final authorities for contemporary theological discourse; and to theologizing in systematic categories, rather than offering biblical propositions to support an argument.

Thus, faced with a perceived threat of new epistemologies, some theologians “reduced” Christianity either to the biblical fundamentals of faith (fundamentalism), or the discernment of religous truth (modernism). (Yes, fundamentalism and liberalism are the twin daughters of reductionism.)

So, dear reader, you can take either the blue pill and believe whatever you want to believe, or you can take the red pill and come back soon to Bioethike to see how deep the problem of “sexuality” in the Lutheran Church goes.

Knock, knock, Neo.

dilemma for the folks at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has distributed an estimated 10 billion U.S.-made AIDS-preventing condoms in poor countries around the world.

Which makes me ask,  “Why are my federal tax dollars being used to purchase condoms which, in the African context (see post below), are ineffective anyway?”

The problem with current discourse in Lutheran circles regarding sexuality is, well, the word sexuality. You can’t find sexuality in the Bible (oh, sure, there are male and female, marriage, sex, more sex, approved sex, prohibited sex, and so on), but not sexuality. You can’t find sexuality in the Lutheran Confessions (yeah, there are marriage, procreation, moral prophylaxis, celibacy, and so on). But no sexuality.

Sexuality as a word came into use about 1800 AD. Which means that, until about two hundred years ago, we didn’t talk this way about male and female, the purpose of marriage, and so on.

Which makes me wonder: when it comes to Lutheran ethics within the household of faith, Why do we use it at all? It is loaded with a lot of freight. Sure, the term is popularly used in our culture, especially by sociologists, evolutionary biologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and so on. And we should rightly familiarize ourselves with the term and all that it implies in the public square.

But in the Church? Shouldn’t we be speaking (and writing) in the language of Scripture?

Interestingly enough, the ELCA’s Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust uses the word “sexuality” 123 times. “Bible” is mentioned 3 times, “Scripture” 20 times, and “Confessions” 13 times. “Marriage” is mentioned 60 times, and “children” 45 times. Although “sin” is mentioned 34 times, specific sexual sins (which we might expect in a document on sexuality), are not mentioned. “Fornication” is mentioned once, “civil unions” beats “heterosexual” 3 to 2, and the sexual virtues of “continence”, “chastity”, “purity”, and “holiness” are down for the count at zero.

Which makes me wonder: If sexuality were not in our Lutheran Church vocabulary, would there be a “human sexuality” document at all?

• invocation of Scripture and Luther (or other Reformers);
• promotion of Lutheran or biblical categories (justification, blessing, Bible, vocation, gift) in order to justify certain predetermined positions;
• promotion of the new über-values of “openness” or “trust” that trump all other ethical values;
• avoidance of actual biblical or Lutheran texts speaking to the issue at hand.

Both documents avoid what the Bible and Luther actually say about marriage, fornication, adultery, and so on. Both documents also theologize in Lutheran systematic categories rather than presenting a coherent theology on the subject.