let me preface this post by saying that i am just a human. i am ignorant. i am dumb. i am a sinner. God knows way more than me. God is way wiser than me. and God is a lot more loving than me. if anything i write in this post is false, please do tell me.
i got home from my first day of class and i went upstairs to chill with my roommate anna since i hadn’t seen her since before christmas. we were talking and oprah was on tv. we turned up the volume when she started talking about this big controversy from her show last week. well, she showed a clip from a new thing she has started called “spirituality 101″. there was a pastor from seattle on the show. his name is ed bacon. on this “spirituality 101″ show he said (and this is a direct quote) “being gay is a gift from God”. yes, he said this on oprah. yes, oprah is on national tv. yes, millions of viewers watch oprah every week. and yes, his statement is simply not true.
needless to say, anna and i were appalled about this. oprah continued talking about how ed bacon’s statement caused a huge uproar on her message boards and she shared a couple of the posts. then, she calls up reverend ed bacon in seattle and asks him to explain what he meant when he said “being gay is a gift from God”. now this is where i really got ticked about this joker. he answers 2 questions and everything he says (in this interview) is true, absolutely true, but he totally dodges oprah’s questions (in ways that non-christians probably didn’t catch). his explanation of his statement was that every person is a gift from God because He created us and He delights in us. well, yes that is very true, a gay person is a gift from God, but the fact that they are gay is NOT a gift from God, it is a sin against God. there is a HUGE difference here and while ed bacon did not preach false truths with what he said in this 2nd interview, he did not explain it enough. oprah then asks him about the response he got from people after last week’s show. he replies that his church was packed full on sunday and his e-mail inbox was also full. people wrote him e-mails thanking him for making that statement and going on about how free they feel now. he also said that the meanest e-mails he got were from christian people (and i can totally see this being true). he said that people were taking the bible and construing what it says in order to condemn gays. now that is a true statement. there are so many people out there who use the bible as a tool to persecute gays, and that is NOT okay. ed bacon went on to say that we are called to love others and not to judge or condemn them. he also talked about how Jesus was sent down to love the world, not to condemn it. again, everything he said about Jesus and about the bible was absolutely true, but he still did not get down to the meat of the problem with his statement, that engaging in relations with people of the same sex is a sin. plain and simple.
God’s word is crystal clear. in genesis 2, “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (verse 24). marriage is to be between a man and a woman. and only between a man and a woman. done.
in 1 corinthians 6 paul says, “do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. and that is what some of you were. 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” (verses 9-11). homosexuality is a sin. i think it is pretty clear. let me know if i am wrong in saying this. seriously. and verse 11 in 1 cor. 6 tells the good news of Jesus.
it hurts my heart to think about all of the people, both believers and non-believers, that reverend ed bacon has led astray with his “simple” statement. i must pray about this.
