Archbishop Tutu is causing a stir!

Besides being a much loved personality held in high esteem by a great many, his words tend to carry extra weight being those of a Nobel Peace Laureate. Last month he said in a BBC interview that he is depressed by the Church’s “obsession” with the issue of gay priests, and believes that its Gospel message is being undermined by “extreme homophobia”.

His words were: “God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality.”

He said that the Anglican Church has seemed “extraordinarily homophobic” in its handling of the issue of ordination of gay priests, and that he had felt “saddened” and “ashamed” of his church at the time.

Asked if he still felt ashamed, his words were: “If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes. If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn’t worship that God.”

A phobia is a persistent, abnormal, irrational fear of something. Given that to be the case, calling someone a “homophobe” when it is understood that the prefix “homo” is to be expanded to mean either a homosexual person, or homosexuality, is to imply that they have a persistent, abnormal, irrational fear of homosexuality or a homosexual person.

However, it is often translated to mean a hatred of homosexuals or homosexuality, more so that a fear. And those who use that term to describe others are usually unwilling to separate sin from sinner, behaviour from the person per se. They refuse to accept that Christians can love the sinner (person) while deploring the sin (behaviour) and that hating the sin does not mean hating the person - not at all.

It could be argued that it is actually quite reasonable to have a fear of homosexual behaviour, and for a number of reasons. From the point of view of a Christian, such behaviour is a transgression against God and to commit sin is a serious thing - offending God is not a wise thing to do! Also from the point of view of a Christian, the consequences of sin are fearful, both eternally and in the here-and-now. There is a cost involved, a price required to be paid. For Christians the spiritual price is already paid, but we must “go and sin no more” and in health terms, the cost will still remain - huge costs! Therefore a fear of such behaviour, and the hatred of sin, is a quite reasonable and rational thing… provided it does not become a phobia with all the unhealthy aspects of phobias.

But the secular use of that term, when aimed in a loose and derogatory fashion at faithful Bible-believing Christians, is not usually meant in that way at all. There is nothing nicely refined in the meaning when it is hurled as an insult. It is deliberately meant to mislead and obfuscate, abuse and discredit.

So how is the beloved Archbishop Emeritus using that term? Well, I would say… completely out of order! And the following is what I mean:

There is an incredibly strong push from the politically powerful Gay Lobby to have homosexual behaviour considered “normal” behaviour, that it is just another form of sexual expression on par with heterosexual behaviour. They are succeeding in many quarters, but have smacked into a brick wall when it comes to the Church. Although many who subscribe to a more liberal theology will work hard to argue that God did not really mean to include same-sex sex as a sin, they have almost 2,000 years of traditional Christianity (plus a great many more thousands and thousands of years of Judaism before that) attesting to the meaning of Scripture on this point. The position of the Church, of all mainstream Christian churches, is that sex outside of marriage is a sin against God - both hetero and homo and anything else. This is the Scriptural truth. For more on this topic, see here.

Bishop Tutu makes the error of equating rejection of homosexual practice with racism, two things that are not moral equivalents. Skin colour is genetic, but for no want of trying, scientists have been completely unable to find a genetic basis for sexual orientation. Even presuming that one day they did, it is still behaviour that is sinful according to God’s Moral Law, just as one can say that the behaviour of alcoholism is sinful although there has already been a genetic predisposition established there. We all have sinful predispositions, but that does excuse us nor make our behaviour no longer sinful. On the other hand, skin colour is not a matter of morality. Bishop Tutu’s stance on this, siding with the fallacy that is propagated by the Gay Lobby and also the Inclusive Church (liberal Christians), has him the hero of those factions who object to the authority of Scripture, that want to (in essence) rewrite it to remove the damning words against their sexual immorality, and have the Church recant thousands of years of tradition and Biblical truth. And when the Church defends against this direct attack, he will side with those factions and call faithful Bible-believing Christians - homophobic! The Church presents the moral law of God - and if that must makes Him homophobic too, and if Bishop Tutu does not worship one such as that, then just what God does Bishop Tutu worship?

Sadly, Bishop Tutu has moved away from traditional Biblical Christianity and is showing his theology to be coloured liberal. He preaches a leaning towards universalism, the doctrine of inclusiveness taken beyond Christian boundaries. His speech at the World Council of Churches Convention in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2006) shows cause for concern.

Jesus — was quite serious when he said that God was our father and that we belonged all to one family, because in this family all, not some, are insiders. None is an outsider — Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, all belong, all are held in a divine embrace that will not let us go — all, for God has no enemies — I have said that God is not a Christian — Some people chewed me up for saying that, but I believe it. Some like to think that we Christians have the duty of protecting God. But I wish these people could meet the Dalai Lama. He is a holy person, incredible. We are the ones who keep trying to put limits on God, but God gives the incredible gift of grace.

A reporter asked Tutu if there are any limits to plurality and diversity when seeking unity. “God is the God of all,” replied Tutu. “We are too prone to excommunicate. God welcomes all of us.

Source

Yes indeed, God invites us all… but not all of us respond positively to Him, and not all take Him up on His offer of redemption. Only those who accept become the children of God. Not all… not at all. Bishop Tutu is confusing invitation with unconditional acceptance. God does not accept us unconditionally, although He does invites all to accept His plan for redemption and obedience thereafter. He welcomes us, but He has in mind to transform us, not keep us remaining the same. He also respects our integrity and if we choose not to accept, then He respects our wish to remain outside His Kingdom - we are responsible for our own excommunication. Bishop Tutu is expressing the beliefs of universalism, not of Biblical scholarship and Truth. The Dalai Lama is a holy man, but in not in Christianity. It was Jesus Himself who said “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) God welcomes us all, but on His own conditions, not ours. The grace He gives us is common grace, that is, common to all. Common grace is not saving grace, as Bishop Tutu would know but seems to have quite forgotten.

I listened to the recent BBC broadcast where Bishop Tutu expresses his views on homosexuality and the Church. I disagreed with him on many points. He is not preaching the full Gospel, only a partial gospel - a social gospel in fact, one of good works, not one of redemption and transformation. He tells only half the story, and by disputing the authority of Scripture he permits himself to pick-and-choose in a way that has caused error to creep into his beliefs. Accordingly, he now misjudges the church and because of his own status and influence, he is perpetrating mischief.

An excellant appraisal of this interview with Bishop Tutu has been written here by Dr Lisa Severine Nolland. An excerpt follows:

In broader terms, Desmond's biblical theology is fatally flawed. Though he claims he loves the Bible and especially the words of Jesus, in truth Desmond's theology is seriously compromised by a Pick-n-Mix approach. His bottom line seems to be the overwhelming love of God and the requisite to ‘do good' within a broader framework of ‘progressive' 60s Liberation Theology. Desmond preaches the ‘soft', human, God-has-low-standards-and-wears-his-heart-on-his-sleeve Jesus; the ‘hard' Jesus holds little appeal and is either ignored or rejected. Christ's teaching about the wrath and judgement of Almighty God on personal sin; individual choice pregnant with eternal consequence for good or for evil; holiness, righteousness, truth and morality; heaven and hell and so forth are filtered through the lens of Matthew 25 (‘I was hungry, and you fed me' etc.) - and very little remains. The ensuing void thus severely truncates the Christian Gospel on a good day and radically deconstructs it on a bad, as Bob Duncan notes.

Read here a particular view Bishop Tutu expresses and scroll down skimming the 100 comments to see what it has spawned. Do you see him defending Christian truth in this?

Here Bishop Tutu writes that “no religion is violent, thus by definition, Islam is not”. He explains that no religion teaches that murder and killing is right, so I must glean from such an opinion that he has never read the Qur’an or aHadith. And note the fallacy in his argument - that of constructing a definition and then attempting to validate something against it, rather than to take that something and look at its properties in order to validate or re-work the definition. Anyway, he is wrong, as neatly demonstrated by the writer of the final of the 31 comments. But again, look at the response he gets - the numbers all clinging to his every word as to one of great authority and unquestionable knowledge.

I’m sorry, Archbishop Tutu, but… I think you’ve lost the plot.