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I’m assuming you have no problem with someone whose religious beliefs dictate restricting the choice to murder, or molest a child, or steal. So what you are really advancing is the libertarian position that religion ought not intrude on a person’s “private choices,” except insofar as they cause immediate bodily or financial harm to others.

That’s not quite right. I think religion, and religious people, can say and enforce whatever behaviors they feel are morally correct — among themselves. My belief, however, is that they have no right to require people who do not adhere to their beliefs to conform to them UNLESS there is also a secular/civil value to it.

Stealing is demonstrably harmful. Homosexuality is not. (I realize there are people who believe it is, but inherently it is not. Irresponsible sexuality, hetero or homo, is harmful; responsible sexual expression is much harder to argue against on non-religious grounds.)

Or perhaps you’d take it further, and advocate that religion ought say nothing about any of these matters, instead leaving them to the civil authorities (setting aside for now the questions — empirical as well as philosophical — of law’s origin). Then we would be left with a religion that says nothing about how one ought to live, a dogma-free faith in . . . what? Good intentions? Each of us “finding the love he needs”?

Again, no. Religious beliefs are fine with me, as long as the people who believe them don’t feel entitled to require me or others to live as if we believed them too.

Ray Boltz apparently struggled very hard to live as he believed his religious beliefs required — or perhaps, as he felt the audience he needed to appeal to expected. I do not fault him for making the effort (though I do find it sad he felt he had to) but neither do I fault him for finally concluding he couldn’t keep it up.

I don’t say the religion should be contentless, and I suppose if pressed I have to admit that he chose to try to conform.

I suppose such a religion exists, going by various names. But I don’t think one can call it Christianity. Christians are called to a life that involves taking on certain behaviors, and setting down others — never as a transaction that produces salvation, but as a means of drawing closer to God. We can quibble (and do) about what these behaviors are at the margins, but when we torture language (as does the false teacher Matt cites, in #13 above) until it cries out that God condones the abandonment of spouses, the “seeking of love wherever we can find it,” and homosexual sex, then we might as well own up to the fact that we are fashioning out of whole cloth a self-focused faith to suit our modern sensibilities and desires.

Well, to be clear, I’ve not defended abandoning spouses. I have defended, and will continue to, allowing homosexual people to be who they are without the kind of social condemnation that pressures them into sham hetersexual marriages, to the great detriment of all involved.

Your religion calls homosexuality a sin; mine does not. (That does not mean mine is free of moral standards, by the way, just that that particular one is not among them.) I do not tell you not to believe as you do, but I do tell you I will not agree with you on that point.

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I’m having trouble discerning whom you are addressing. Who here has declared, as you put it: “Away sinner”?

And if Christians are not to be the first to point out sin, what do you recommend as the alternative? If we believe that sin is a sickness leading to death, then what does love demand? What does Christ demand?

The point of my essay is that too many of us fail to call this action by Boltz and others what it is: the grave sin of abandoning one’s spouse. The fact that he is “amazing” makes it all the more tragic. The fact that professing Christians imagine the Bible enjoins us to remain silent about sin is likewise tragic.

My encouragement to you is to dig beneath the easy stereotypes. Consider all of that Bible you’ve quoted at us, not just a couple of verses that justify your wrongheaded notion that the sin of this brother about whom you profess to care is a personal choice that is none of your concern.

We must, as Christians, divorce ourselves from the worldly notion that loving the sinner means ignoring the sin, because precisely the opposite is true. Sin is not only an affront to God — which ought to matter at least a wee bit to us — but an act of self-destruction by man. If we do not love our brother, then we needn’t concern ourselves with his unrepentant sin. If we love him, then we must tell him what he is really doing to himself, and pray for his release from bondage. And if we love our other brothers who may likewise be tempted to adopt Boltz’s path, we must in no uncertain terms declare it for what it is, not confine it to some “private sphere” about which we may not comment.

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I’m assuming you have no problem with someone whose religious beliefs dictate restricting the choice to murder, or molest a child, or steal. So what you are really advancing is the libertarian position that religion ought not intrude on a person’s “private choices,” except insofar as they cause immediate bodily or financial harm to others. Or perhaps you’d take it further, and advocate that religion ought say nothing about any of these matters, instead leaving them to the civil authorities (setting aside for now the questions — empirical as well as philosophical — of law’s origin). Then we would be left with a religion that says nothing about how one ought to live, a dogma-free faith in . . . what? Good intentions? Each of us “finding the love he needs”?

I suppose such a religion exists, going by various names. But I don’t think one can call it Christianity. Christians are called to a life that involves taking on certain behaviors, and setting down others — never as a transaction that produces salvation, but as a means of drawing closer to God. We can quibble (and do) about what these behaviors are at the margins, but when we torture language (as does the false teacher Matt cites, in #13 above) until it cries out that God condones the abandonment of spouses, the “seeking of love wherever we can find it,” and homosexual sex, then we might as well own up to the fact that we are fashioning out of whole cloth a self-focused faith to suit our modern sensibilities and desires.

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Has this man turned from his sin? Does he even believe homosexuality IS a sin?

What do we do when someone who professes to be a Born Again Beliver lives in sin?

9 wrote to you in my letter to stop associating with people who are sexually immoral-

10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, greedy, robbers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.

11 But now I am writing to you to stop associating with any so-called brother if he is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunk, or a robber. You must even stop eating with someone like that.

12 After all, is it my business to judge outsiders? You are to judge those who are in the community, aren’t you?

13 God will judge out­siders. “Expell that wicked man.”
1 Corinthians 5

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But someone who chooses to find the kind of love they need, I also say fine. And to those who would demand that their religious beliefs should dictate which choices are open to others, I say, back off and mind your own business.

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Ray Boltz is an amazing person, and his music has ministered to millions of people around the world. I do not question the sincerity of his faith in God in the slightest. As to my personal feelings about what he has chosen for his life right now, they are irrelevant.

It is truly sad to me that those of us who identify ourselves as Christians are usually the first to begin commenting publicly on the sins of others. If you feel the need to throw scripture at this news, this may help:

Gal 6:1
Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.
(The word gentle here is used for meek (Definition: Gentle; Tender; Free from Pride.)

So, one of “our own” confesses his struggle and makes a decision we believe he will suffer for… and our response is “Away sinner!” Sad.

If you truly believe that he is “caught in sin”, pray for him & his family. Oh, and when you pray, try this:

Mat 6:5-8
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

In closing, the world knows all too well what we’re against. Let’s act like followers of Christ and show them what we’re for. Jesus came with a message of grace and redemption. We do not have to approve of what this man has chosen, but we do have to continue to love this man. If you find that hard to do, remember that Jesus only ever displayed his feelings of anger in reaction to what “religious people” were doing or not doing.

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Yes, lifelong celibacy is a perfectly legitimate biblical option. So, I imagine, would be a fully committed marriage–not necessarily an easy option, but certainly a biblically legitimate option.

It’s really only our era of easy divorce, and our heavy emphasis on sex, and our idea that homosexuals are irrevocably bound to commit homosexual sin, that makes that option seem impossible today. But I imagine that through the ages there have been millions of faithful husbands and wives who might more “naturally” have had sex with their own sex, had that been a morally legitimate option. It wasn’t, and commitment to one’s family was a high virtue, and they simply didn’t sit around wishing they could leave their spouse and have sex with someone of their own sex. Yes, some DID choose homosexual activity, but I imagine many did not, that today we’d call bisexual or even homosexual.

Again, I don’t know that I’d recommend marriage to someone in this situation, but under the right circumstances, with a person of high integrity, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend against it. It is a biblically acceptable choice, as long as the lifelong commitment is there, “for better or for worse.”

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Reg what is none of my business?

Forgivness of sin is not off topic, nor is forgiving others who have hurt us. Did Jesus forgive the woman caught in adultery? None of this is off topic, not at all.

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