The most popular verse in the Bible (according to progressives): Matthew 7:1. The most hated verse? Read on.
The issue of conversion therapy also known as reparative therapy is getting a lot of press today. A new Canadian federal law is being proposed, but its counterpart has been in place in Ontario since 2015. Similar laws are being enacted throughout the US. Simply put, conversion therapy is any psychological counselling or psychotherapy that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sexual behaviour. It is overwhelmingly seen by current psychology as a terrible thing that must be banned. This banning means that although a boy may become a girl, a 1homosexual boy can never become a heterosexual boy. This is confusion at its finest.
At the heart of the matter is the question, “How set is this identity, this desire?” Is it impossible to change orientation, but not impossible to change genders? How often? Is it undesirable to even allow the question of change? Please read Wilson’s excellent recent blog posts here and here. I cannot express this issues as well as Wilson does, so I won’t attempt it. He lays it out pretty straight. I want to extend his though a little.
My concern is the goal of all this. When Wilson writes that “It is a matter of high principle to the progressives that any teenager afflicted with this particular form of lust must be allowed to drown in it” he is speaking of a goal. When he writes that there must be no prohibition against a sex change yet excluding homosexuals from the possibility of a change of orientation, “The reason you exclude them is that you are not trying to liberate anyone. Your mission is to corrupt everyone, and that is not the same thing. And of course, once people are corrupted, you want to keep them there” he is also speaking of a goal—the goal of corruption. Drowning in lust and corruption are mandated by law. That is the goal, but it goes further than that.
So back to the goal that ought to be clear to any Biblically informed Christian: the goal is to eliminate the legality of Christian conversion. This is possible in their minds because progressives think that the laws they pass actually create reality. But now the riddle, “What is the most hated verse in the Bible?” Right here: 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
This “sin list” is not exhaustive, but because it might be missing some sins it is not sound hermeneutics to conclude that they are exempt from this condemnation. Further, it should not be assumed that only visible, physical acts are condemned here, keeping in mind Jesus’s words about the sins of the heart (Matthew 5-7).
The real offence to the modern mind is this, “And such were some of you . . .” (vs 11). This implies change—a change forbidden by the world. Anti-conversion laws are essentially laws that restrict the Christian faith to the limits of a small part of an individual’s private life, and that will be reduced in time. We shouldn’t expect anti-conversion laws to be content to stop at sexual orientation. If the world loves corruption, it will love corruption through every aspect of life and come to demand it.
Sexual orientation is seen as something fixed and immutable, and if one is same-sex attracted there is nothing that can be done or allowed to be done to change it. It is certainly not something to correct, for that would imply something is wrong! No, the only wrong thing here, according to our 21st-century masters, is that gender is fluid and orientation is not.
“But such WERE some of you . . .” See the problem?
The Gospel is the enemy of this kind of thinking. But then it always has been.