Biblical Authority at Issue in Ordination of Homosexual

The ordination of a practicing homosexual as an Episcopal bishop in Massachusetts has a lot of people in the "mainline Protestant" churches thumbing through their Bibles. Two camps are emerging, pitted against one another over whether the Bible means what it says on the subject.

Even the liberal, "inclusive" camp has to admit that the Scriptures are very clear when it calls homosexual behavior an "abomination." However, since they do not believe that God wrote the Bible, they claim that the writers had no way of knowing about the modern development of "stable, healthy same-sex relationships." Therefore the condemnation is obsolete and can be disregarded.

With this, God has exposed their unbelief and many members of their congregations are suddenly realizing that this is not just about homosexuality, but is questioning the very authority of the Bible. This is causing a ground-swell of "conservative" concern, not just in the Episcopal church but with Presbyterians, Lutherans, and other denominations that have been compromising their stand on the Scriptures.

Even in this debate, one seldom hears a discussion of why God might have spoken against homosexual behavior. But if anyone brings up the subject, he is quickly silenced. One example is the priest in Pennsylvania who was ordered by his superiors to stop distributing a pamphlet entitled "Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do." It describes in disgusting detail the unnatural sexual practices that injure the body and spread disease as well as the medical costs of the high incidence of violence, crime and drug addiction in the homosexual community.

The priest claimed that he was only trying to help people understand the need for proposed legislation defining marriage as between a man and woman. But he was told to stop because the pamphlet "borders on the pornographic." This assessment is partly correct because there is no way to describe the perverted acts without using descriptions commonly limited to pornographic literature.

The pamphlet is authored by Paul Cameron, head of Family Research Institute, PO Box 62640, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80962. He was stunned by the action against the priest claiming that he used only clinical language to describe the dangerous homosexual activities.

Despite the claim that such conduct is between consenting adults and harms no one, Cameron proves that the social consequences of this unnatural behavior are huge. It is powerful evidence supporting God's claim that such practices are an abomination to all of society.

We need to use tracts such as Sin City and Doom Town to inoculate young people against the propaganda in their schools and culture that this sexual perversion is normal. They need to know what God thinks about it and that their very life and health is at stake if they yield to this temptation.