Duck Painting & Lycra
Category: Faith...
Posted Wednesday, July 02, 2003 at 08:10 AM [GMT-6]

I ran across an entry at Signposts -- one of several excellent Australian blogs that I read regularly -- in which the author, Dan, takes the Anglican Church to task for its public and acrimonious debate over homosexuality. He suggests that the only equitable solution to the arguments is to stage a winner-takes-all "Death Match," complete with lycra and with the winner being able to "set the theological agenda."

I think Dan may be on to something with this idea, but more about that later. His post was a another in a string of similar entries in which the basic premise is that the Church should not be singling out homosexuality as its "Poster Child Sin" when there are so many other sins meriting equal attention.

Anyway, I left a comment on the post, asking a serious question: "How would you advise the Church to respond to the issue of homosexuality?"

Dan has replied to my comment via another post, the content of which merits further discussion. First, though, I want to thank him for taking the time to formulate such a thoughtful (and creative) response to my question. This is obviously an issue on which he's pondered at length, and his sincerity is obvious and appreciated.

That second post is entitled "The sin of duck painting," so now you know where I got the title for this entry. In this post, Dan constructs a fictitious situation as an allegory about how the Church should interact with society. He makes several good points, none of which I disagree with in total, although I might pick a few nits here and there with some of the details. I suggest you read the post in order to set the context for what follows here. Go ahead...I'll wait...

Back so soon? Good. Now, I don't intend to dissect Dan's post sentence-by-sentence. Actually, I don't intend to dissect it at all. I'd really like to move the discussion back to where I hoped it would go in the first place... the place that Dan describes in his first bullet point of the "Painting Duck" post, in which he writes: "If the church wants to publicly oppose duck painting in the community (supporting laws against duck-painters, opposing laws which permit duck painters to go about their business etc) then it needs to take the same stance with all sin."

Thus we return to the fundamental question that led to my original comment that led to the "Painting Ducks" post": why should the Church be more concerned about homosexuality than other sins, and what should its stance be?

It's important to state some premises upon which my position is based. First, Scripture clearly labels homosexuality as a sin; it's not my label, it's not my decision. I'm under the authority of Scripture and its Author, which provides both responsibility and comfort.

Second, all sins are equally...um..."sinful" in God's eyes, and they all carry the same penalty. "For the wages of sin is death." [Romans 6:23a] God is holy, His justice is perfect and unchanging, and we take lightly His view of our sin at our eternal peril.

Third, there's no sin we can commit for which God's grace is insufficient to forgive and remove from us "as far as the east is from the west." The blood of Jesus Christ is all ("all"? The understatement of eternity!) that's needed to make us holy in God's eyes, and to give us standing as His adopted children and heirs to the throne.

Fourth, Scripture seems to tell us that different sins -- or, perhaps more properly, the manifestations of different sins -- do call for different responses. And this is where the rubber meets the road, at least for purposes of this post.

I suggest that we can look at Jesus' reactions in two different situations, and take our cues from what He did. Grab your Bible and look up these two passages: John 8:3-11 and Matthew 21:12-13. If you don't have a Bible handy, the passage in John deals with the woman caught by the Pharisees in the act of adultery and brought to Jesus to get His reaction. The passage in Matthew describes Jesus' righteous anger in throwing the corrupt moneychangers out of the Temple in Jerusalem.

These passages contain many lessons on a number of levels. I'm not a trained Bible scholar, so I don't speak with any sort of academic or intellectual authority, but I do believe that both have something to say about the question of how the Church should deal with sin.

The key, I think, is the distinction between "individual" and "corporate" sin. In dealing with the adulterous woman, Jesus displayed the grace and forgiveness that is offered to any and every person who comes to Him, seeking those gifts. This is the perfect example of the cliché "love the sinner, hate the sin." (Note that in my translation of this passage, Jesus tells the woman to go, but stop being adulterous.)

In the second passage, we see a picture of Jesus in "death match mode," (and, believe me, you don't want to tangle with the Creator of the Universe, no matter how good you look in lycra!). Instead of taking aside each one of the offenders and gently explaining the error of his ways, He chose to kick serious tail. Why is that, do you suppose? Could it be because this was an attempt by a particular segment of society to "mainstream" and "institutionalize" behavior that ran counter to God's will? Moneychanging for exorbitant profit was, by then, something that was forced upon the people and allowed to exist by the religious authorities of the day. I have no doubt that Jesus would have forgiven each individual moneychanger who asked Him to do so, but as a group -- as an organized movement -- He offered nothing but righteous judgment.

You can decide for yourself if these examples are stretched out of reasonable shape to serve as examples of how the modern Church should respond to organized and aggressive attempts to grant acceptance and validation in all areas of society to an ongoing and willful sinful lifestyle. When I see the "Organization for the Advancement of Lying and Stealing" make similar moves against and into the Church, I will likewise support an equal and proportionate Church-wide stance against it. We might find legitimate complaints about the manner in which such a stance is implemented... humans will always be able to find the wrong way to do the right thing... but that shouldn't invalidate the correctness of the stance.

Now, getting back to Dan's original post. If what I've written still fails to make an impression on you, then, by all means, let's get readdddy to rummmmble!™ I don't have lycra outfit, but I did manage to find a tatoo, which should count for something. How about it, mate? (Oh, and don't be intimidated by that photo on the right...I'm not nearly that tall! ;-)