John Manning, host of Godtalk radio programme (90.3 Near FM Sundays 4pm) asked me to comment on his recent radio programme. The result was this letter which I sent to him. It caused me to think about the upcoming referendum on Gay marriage in Ireland. Here it is in its entirety:
Dear John,
Your programme last week was excellent.
While homosexuality is a hot potato which few have the courage to discuss the issue of Gay Marriage is being forced upon us to both discuss and vote in the near future. I for one will be voting NO.
Gay Marriage is 2 words and 2 topics. Marriage first of all is primarily a Covenant. Covenant is about unbroken commitment. God’s word is all about covenant, primarily God’s covenant with man sealed with the blood of Jesus, something your listeners might be familiar with. Many however don’t believe in God and don’t want to know Him in any way, as it might cramp their sinful style . If something is made for a purpose and someone uses it for a different purpose it might be called a perversion. If a car is designed for transport and I use it as a hen house then that’s a perversion. God created man and God created woman, different but both essential and complementary. I won’t get into the biological details but clearly God who created sex made Man and Woman amazingly compatible together and for a procreative purpose, as well as one of intimacy…but Covenant was essential before such union. This is where marriage comes from. Man did not invent it.
The apostle Paul in his first letter to the immoral Corinthian church (6th chapter) made it clear there is great danger in sex before marriage as we become one with the harlot (or sex partner) and we should run from this type of union. This is what he said:
16Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”b 17But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
We live in a fallen world saturated with temptation of every description. In our religious upbringing in Ireland we are thought to nit pick every sin out of our lives but this is impossible without first having the miracle of a heart transformation through a relationship with Jesus Christ as you speak of in your healing and conversion prayer. It appears hypocritical for a glutton or a liar to tell a homosexual he is in sin. However God’s word makes it clear that practicing sex with one of the same sex is offensive to Holy God. Much accusation is hurled against not only Christians but also directly at God’s word because of this clear condemnation of homosexuality.
God himself is much mis-understood. For example on RTE tonight Gay Byrne will be talking to actor Stephen Fry who says:
“Why should I respect a capricious, ean-minded, stupid God who created a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”
For an intelligent chap he displays an extraordinary lapse of intelligence in attributing evil to the creator. When God made man it was in HIs image and with free will, and it was the exercise of the free will against God that started this whole messing up of His wonderful creation, one which God called “Very Good” at the end of day 6. To blame the creator for the perversion is akin to blaming Toyota when I drunkingly wrap my car around a tree . Not very smart.
Christians are called to love all people including those who practice homosexuality but we are also called to speak the truth in love and the truth is: God created, man (and woman) perverted but then God came down in the form of his son Jesus and took the rap for all the perversions and opened up a way for fixing the mess personally and corporately.
Gay marriage may or may not become law in Ireland and the day after the vote I don’t expect a change in peoples behaviour. What would be nice is a lifting of the blindness over Ireland whereby all could see the true nature of the loving creator God we have so callously violated and His awesome Son Jesus.
I hope this helps.
Best wishes to you and your dear listeners.
Anthony Brabazon
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