Saving Truth by Abdu Murray

Author:Abdu Murray [Murray, Abdu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2018-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Finding the Moral Foundation

Opposition to the Bible’s sexual standards is premised on the claim that the Bible is morally capricious. This gives rise to serious questions: Who are homosexuals or bisexuals hurting? Why can’t we just let people love who they want and marry the person they love regardless of their genders? It mustn’t escape us that these are moral questions that assume the existence of an objective, transcendent morality. Jettisoning the Bible from the discussion doesn’t get us any closer to such objective answers. In fact, as we’ve already seen and as I’ve written elsewhere, if we evict all transcendent sources of moral authority, there are no objective moral answers. Relying on our own ever-shifting opinions as the foundation of sexual ethics courts chaos and uncertainty. What is acceptable today may be repugnant tomorrow. And so to even begin asking whether there should be any boundaries to sexuality and identity is to implicitly rely on the very God we might rebel against or claim doesn’t exist.

The young girl’s question at the university open forum that night was a moral one for which she sought objectively true answers. So we explored the issue together based on that common ground. To do this as a Christian means first taking a hard look at how our actions and reactions on these issues have been so immoral. Yes, there has been an erosion of religious freedom when it comes to this issue. And yes, it can be very difficult to speak and act compassionately when stigmatized as a hater or bigot, especially when one tries their best to follow the Christian ethic of unconditional love, but not unconditional affirmation. To deal with the rising resentment, we have to embrace the Christian moral virtue of uncompromising understanding. It’s unfortunately something violated every day through the vice of hypocrisy. Homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism have become the issues of the day. But some Christians’ reactions have turned them into the only or worst sins of the day. For some it’s as if these are the only aspects of the human condition for which Christ did not die.

Many may bristle when Christians equate homosexuality with sins committed by heterosexuals. It’s unfair, they might say, to view a loving, monogamous gay relationship to be as sinful as an extramarital affair by a heterosexual spouse. There are two responses to this. First, according to the Bible, same-sex behavior is sinful. There is simply no sugarcoating that, no matter how many hermeneutical gymnastics some may employ.3 We’ll address why the Bible calls it sinful—and what that really means—shortly. But second, acknowledging same-sex sex as sinful expresses nothing more, but nothing less, than this: all of us are fractured in every way, including but not limited to our sexuality. Every person—whether same-sex attracted or not, whether conflicted about his or her gender or completely sure of it—has veered from our originally intended purpose. We’re broken in different ways, but we are broken together. Together we need restoration.

When Christians think of others

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