This isn’t a matter of simple nuance.  It’s fundamental and germane to who God is.  In revealing various acts—such as homosexual or bestial—and relationships—such as incestuous or adulterous, etc.—as forbidden and sinful, was God unaware of contributing factors?  Was God naïve?  As God who is all-knowing and foreknowing, his commands and prohibitions relating to sexuality as holy, just, pure and righteous remain constant and relative.  They are for today, as they have been for millennia.

Bishop Stephen Cottrell, new Archbishop of York, rises to the Church of England’s second highest position despite his expressed lowering of Scripture’s infallibility and God’s authorship of the Bible.

Reportedly, he states:  “But what we can do is recognise that what we know now about human development and human sexuality requires us to look again at those texts to see what they are actually saying to our situation, for what we know now is not what was known then.”

The statement, “. . . for what we know now is not what was known then” literally denies Christianity’s and Judaism’s historical belief about God’s attributes.  What does that say as to God’s attribute of “omniscience?”

Is he also saying, if not implying, that what we know about God now wasn’t known then, that is, God was not all-knowing, as inferred?  A basic and deeper question would be to question his views on who God is, and whether he is worthy of our reverence, awe, and obedience?  One publication states, “He believes biblical teaching on sexuality should come second to 21st century Western cultural beliefs.”  Whom do we believe, God or culture—a culture increasingly becoming more pagan?

Just think, God, the Creator who created not just the earth but a whole universe—all of which are intricately complex and beyond human imagination—could not possibly know consequentially impacted developmental stages following the fall?

This isn’t a matter of simple nuance.  It’s fundamental and germane to who God is.  In revealing various acts—such as homosexual or bestial—and relationships—such as incestuous or adulterous, etc.—as forbidden and sinful, was God unaware of contributing factors?  Was God naïve?  As God who is all-knowing and foreknowing, his commands and prohibitions relating to sexuality as holy, just, pure and righteous remain constant and relative.  They are for today, as they have been for millennia.  God knew human development became vulnerable to corruption through the fall, which is why later desires and passions are described as sinful.  We cannot forget that Christ pushed the button by including lustful thoughts as equal to the sinful act itself.

When sexual acts between men are called detestable or abominable in Leviticus was that Moses’ opinion or God’s directive?  When the Apostle Paul named sexual acts of men with men and women with women as degrading passions, unnatural, burned in desire, and indecent acts, was that simply Paul’s opinion or God’s condemnation?  Such strong descriptors cannot be ignored.  Take the destruction and judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah where such sins were the norm, can that judgment be dismissed?  Other passages also relate to this particular sin.  Were these merely men’s opinions or were they inspired by the Holy Spirit?  If we do not accept the whole Word of God as divinely inspired, we are in deep trouble as to what to believe or not to believe.  We not only depart from Christianity and Judaism as believed and embraced for numberless centuries, we lose our only source authority and our sure foundation.

The prophet Isaiah—Did he give his opinion or God’s counsel?—astutely warned: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness . . !”  (Isaiah 5: 20).  Throughout history, false prophets and shepherds have led God’s sheep astray.  Today, the laity desperately needs to be biblically informed, instructed, and discerning in relationship to church leaders, as to their leanings, their interpretations of Scripture, and their teachings.  Sexual immorality incurs God’s wrath, and this particular sin appears to especially incur wrath based on the enumerated descriptions as to its loathsomeness to God the Creator who created complementing genders.  Jude 1: 7 is a poignant reminder of God’s wrath: “. . .just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.”

To tamper with God’s holy, just, pure, and righteous character is dangerous and serious.  The Apostle Paul warned, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1: 20).  Bishop Stephen Cottrell, in effect, calls into question one of God’s “invisible attributes,” his all-knowing power.  If his omniscience is so questioned, what of his omnipotence and omnipresence?  The stakes in error are genuinely high.  Is anyone today wiser than Moses, the lawgiver, the prophets, or the apostles—such as an archbishop   That’s a question worth asking.

The Apostle Peter supported Paul In his writings and warned of those who distort the Scriptures in 2 Peter 3: 14-16: “Therefore, beloved . . .  be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless . . .  just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,  as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

If any church leader distorts Scripture, as the new archbishop has, bear in mind it’s to “their own destruction.”  But it’s also destructive to those taken in by the distortions.  Be faithful, be steady, and recognize God’s omniscience in the commands and directives he gave from the very beginning related to human sexuality. Father—God omniscient and the Author of Scripture—really does know best!

Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.