The surrounding culture has shifted, the remaining effects of Christianity on the culture are ebbing and most people don’t want to be at odds with the people in the office, their family, or the social circle. This is why the mainline churches such as the Presbyterian Church USA have abandoned much of historic Christian teaching. They recognized in the early 20th century that the culture was shifting and they shifted to keep up. Ironically, in so doing, they signed their death warrant and now they are losing congregations and members at an unsustainable rate. If the church is only saying that Oprah is saying, why go to church when Oprah says it so much better?

Erskine College is in the news this morning for articulating the biblical and historic Christian position on human sexuality: “We believe the Bible teaches that monogamous marriage between a man and a woman is God’s intended design for humanity and that sexual intimacy has its proper place only within the context of marriage.” Remarkably, the there is a media “furor” (when is the media not in a furor anymore?) over it. TheReuters headline declares that Erskine is being “scrutinized” for its “biblical (in scare quotes) stance on homosexuality. Implicitly being scrutinized is a bad thing because it could lead to having the school’s accreditation threatened in the way Gordon College is being threatened by its regional accreditation agency. If school’s lose their regional accreditation their students are no longer eligible for Title IV federally-subsidized student loans. Loss of regional accreditation makes it more difficult for students to apply to graduate school. Loss of regional accreditation may lead to decreased enrollment.

No homosexual students have been asked to leave Erskine College but it has expressed its views and required members of the college to abide by them. How dare a historically Reformed and Presbyterian College re-assert what Scripture says and what Christians have believed for 2,000 years? After all, the culture has shifted dramatically in the last 40 years and every institution and person must now come along obediently.

Scripture Is Clear
There should be little doubt about what Scripture says about homosexuality. There was little question about it until the culture began to shift. When I read the literature in the mid 1980s it was clear that there were two basic approaches: those who were willing to acknowledge what Scripture says and those who sought to find a way to make Scripture say something that was more culturally acceptable. In the intervening years not much has changed. The pace of cultural acceptance of homosexuality increased with the advent of the internet and the urbanization/suburbanization of North America. As people become more disconnected from nature and even the very idea that there is such thing as nature, as social pressure to get along, to conform with the majority increases—social and sexual diversity is greater, the disjunction between ordinary life and e.g., food production is greater in urban areas than in rural.

As Robert Gagnon, among others, has been demonstrating for years, the case for homosexuality from Scripture is beyond weak. The truth is that 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 condemn the “αρσενοκοιται” (arsenokoitai). The standard definition (Bauer, Arnt, Gingrich, Danker) is “a male who practices homosexuality, pederast, sodomite.” This is the way the word was understood in early Christian, post-canonical usage though it occurs in the same sense in the Sibylline Oracles (6th cent BC) ii.73. See Moulton and Milligan s.v. The biblical teaching on homosexuality is just as clear as its teaching on murder or theft or idolatry. For the moment, murder is still frowned upon so no one is coming under the dreaded “scrutiny” for opposing it. Erskine College is coming under, dun, dun, dun, “scrutiny!” In 1 Corinthians 6:9 God says:

Or do you not know that the unjust (αδικοι) will not inherit the kingdom of God? Neither will you who deceive (πλανασθε) nor the sexually immoral (πορνοι) nor idolaters (ειδωλολατραι), nor adulterers (μοιχοι), nor the effeminate (μαλακοι), nor homosexuals (αρσενοκοιται).

Human beings, made in the image of God, who are impenitently unjust, who impenitently deceive, who are impenitently sexually immoral, effeminate, adulterers, or homosexual will not inherit the kingdom of God. God justifies sinners in Christ (Rom 4:5). Justified sinners will continue to struggle with sin but they acknowledge sin for what it is and they do not demand that their sin be accepted as normal.

Deceiving is not normal and shouldn’t be socially acceptable. In fact it isn’t. Try to deceive a bank into giving you money that isn’t yours and see what happens. When you’re arrested and prosecuted there will be no “scrutiny” or outrage because people don’t want you stealing their money. The newspapers rejoice when a crooked business person or politician is exposed. It gives them something about which to right and it gives pundits an opportunity to posture as moralists.

Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s, however, our culture has not wanted to hear much about the sin of sexual immorality. The majority decided that sex is a purely private thing—never mind the reality that tax dollars, public funds are given to Planned Parenthood in order to murder the unwanted children produced by ostensibly private sex. Adultery, of course, was normalized during the sexual revolution but still one has the sense that had Erskine College issued a statement rejecting adultery, no one would have cared. No, the mass media, opinion shapers, and the culture gatekeepers have decided that everyone, and they mean everyone is going to conform to the new social dictate: homosexuality is okay and don’t you dare say otherwise.

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