In the spirit of your public statement released yesterday, urging churches to welcome same-sex couples, I'm writing this open letter to you, appealing to you to reconsider your decision before you bring further reproach to the gospel and hurt those you want to help. Like you, I'm a professor as well as a gospel preacher, and I have always appreciated your willingness to tackle controversial issues, not caring who you will offend, willing to rock the boat and unsettle Christians from their cozy and safe belief systems if you felt it was in the interest of truth and justice.
This time, however, you have offended the Lord, rejecting the clear testimony of His Word and โ as could be expected, given your stance โ not citing a single scripture in support of your new position. I know that your wife Peggy has long been an out and proud advocate of same-sex "marriage" and that, for a number of years, you have believed that it is impossible for a person to change his or her sexual orientation.
You have even explored the possibility of non-sexual, church-blessed, romantic same-sex relationships. Now, you have taken the inevitable next step in giving your full backing to practicing homosexual couples, calling on the church to support and embrace them. May I ask, Tony, what it was that stopped you from embracing this position years ago? Was it not the clear and unambiguous testimony of the Bible? Surely your compassion wanted you to put your arms around a gay college student and tell him that following Jesus did not preclude him from having an intimate relationship with another man.
Yet you were held back by the teaching of Scripture, knowing that God's Word emphatically states that God created men for women and women for men, that marriage, in its divinely intended form, was the lifelong union of a man and a woman, and that homosexual practice was strictly forbidden in all circumstances.
When did any of that change? When did the Bible suddenly become unclear on the subject? As a gay atheist wrote last month in the aftermath of Ireland's vote to redefine marriage, "the conservative Catholic's only proper response to news such as that from Dublin. What a terrible shame it is that a gay atheist has clearer moral boundaries and better biblical instincts than you, dear sir.
