I checked out Tim Challies blog today and noticed an entry called “The Osteen Moment”. I had to check it out:
Dr. Mohler: “Osteen’s statements, verbally cushioned in every way he could imagine, fell far short of the full wealth of biblical conviction. Nevertheless, he experienced what might be called the ‘Osteen Moment,’ when his entire ministry, in the public eye, came down to his answer to Piers Morgan’s forced question.”
So I went over to Mohler’s blog. He’s written quite an extensive article commenting on Osteen’s time on Piers Morgan’s recent show. Morgan challenged Osteen on whether homosexuality is a sin. Now, I think we all can agree that Morgan picked the hottest topic possible for a good show. In any case, it seems that Osteen squirmed until he finally had to admit it was. Morgan challenged him on being judgmental. “Is Elton John a sinner?” and so on.
One of Mohler’s conclusions from this interview is that Osteen’s statements,
verbally cushioned in every way he could imagine, fell far short of the full wealth of biblical conviction.
Mohler continues (and this is the sentence that caught my attention):
To his credit, Osteen did answer his question, and by staking his position on the Bible’s teaching that homosexual acts are sinful, he took the only road available to anyone with any substantial commitment to the truthfulness of the Bible.
The famous biblical scholar N.T. Wright admitted in an interview:
Interviewer: So a Christian morality faithful to scripture cannot approve of homosexual conduct?
Wright: Correct. That is consonant with what I’ve said and written elsewhere.
It is obvious by now that endless exegetical analysis of the scriptures will only take us so far. So many things besides what the text itself is saying, such as the culture, time, the ad hoc nature of the documents, the human aspect of the texts, etc., must be taken into account. We now realize that the biggest problem is our hermeneutic… our own biases, blind-spots, prejudices and ignorance as we approach the texts.
Case in point: In Mohler’s words, I believe I possess a “substantial commitment to the truthfulness of the Bible“, but Mohler and I differ on what that means.
Is it possible that things haven’t changed much since Jesus’ day: we are more concerned with the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it?
In keeping with this blog post, I came across another sad story about gay activist David Kato beaten to death in Uganda. American evangelicals visiting Uganda insist that a “strictly biblical” attitude be taken towards homosexuals. This is the result.
How “strictly biblical” do we want to be?
My name is David Hayward, and I am the nakedpastor. I am a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.
barry
i dont know anyone who holds christs love as the standard who would disagree with you.
the standard is loving oneself as well as his neighbor
First of all, free will is an illusion. Sure, we can choose our actions, but those choices are always predetermined by our nurture and nature. Ultimately, what we chose to do was what we were always going to choose.
Barry is right that it would be unfair for God to punish us for being who He created us to be. Fortunately, He doesn’t. Considering the fact that the idea of everlasting torment in hell for non-Christians is completely unscriptural, which anyone who has actually studied soteriology in any depth already knows (see http://www.ChristianHeretic.com/hell if you haven’t studied it), that isn’t something we have to worry about.
@Lynn…I find that the most useful requests I make to God involves knowing the cause of the woes of mankind, not putting a bandaid on things. My requests usually aren’t so much WHAT as they are WHY. Knowing the why’s is far more valuable than knowing the whats. I have gained a lot of wisdom and deeper insight into things with this mentality. Do I have the cure for cancer? Sure, but I doubt people want to do what is required to cure it. We make decisions, that, unbeknownst to us destroy us in the long run. The problem is, we fail to see the connections between the decision and the destruction. I refer to that incredible novel “The Shack” In there the author points out that this world was meant to be lived in out of relationship with the Father. Without that relationship with Him, certain death and sufferings await. But people just don’t want to do that now do they? No. They would have to give up more than they are willing to. So instead we suffer these things that plague humanity, and really it IS our responsibility (collectively) as we, throughout history have made decisions that brought us to this point. But people don’t want to hear that. It is much easier to be the victim.
Drew…personally I ascribe to the annihilation theory. Most grace-believers don’t agree with me, but this is based on my own observations and experiences with God.
Fair enough Ransom. I’m one of those grace-believers who also disagrees since I just don’t see it in Scripture (see my above link as to why), but we’re all allowed our own views.
drew costen
thank you, thank you so much for absolute assurance by slagle. there is no them or us, there is only us.
i remember reading writings about a believer speaking of how some people have more disguised the christ(the spirit of christ lives in all because thru him all was created) in them than others, now i more clearly understand.
in him there is no darkness, what looks like darkness to us is filled with light.
Drew…I never read anywhere in the Bible that says you have to believe in any form of hell for salvation, so you’re good in my book, all that is needed is Christ