Alphabet Soup “Christianity”

It’s always interesting to me how people twist the Bible in ways to fit their narrative. The most peculiar appeal to me is how Jesus never speaking about something directly is taken to be evidence that the thing is okay. Some folks shared short videos (tik toks, vines, or whatever nonsense) of ministers who are members of the Alphabet Soup Alliance who do the whole “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality” to justify their perversions. Of course, he never directly spoke about polygamy, bestiality, necrophilia, or pedophilia either, so this becomes a dangerous argument. 

This is even funnier because you’ll have neocons and leftists claim that slavery is the “original sin” of America, though Christ never spoke about slavery directly as a bad or good thing. As a brief aside, I encourage you to do an online search for if slavery is a sin.  You’ll get opinion articles that are surprisingly devoid of any scriptural references. It’s an odd argument because all these people will say slavery is a sin even though the Israelites practiced slavery, the rules about it are set in the Pentateuch, and Paul even tells a Christian slave to go back to Philemon, who was also likely a Christian, but none of the Old or New Testament writings ever say slavery is a sin.

While it’s true that Jesus doesn’t clearly state what is entailed by sexual immorality, he does address sexual immorality generally in Matthew 5:28 and 15:19 and seemingly implies healthy marriage only exists as monogamous pairings between a man and a woman (Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7-8, and John 4:18). Additionally, what these queer advocates gloss over is that the New and Old Testament, as a whole, reference sex a great deal. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals” (1^st Corinthians 6:9).  Likewise, Acts 15:29 says Christians must refrain from sexual immorality. 

To make Christianity serve their purposes, these degenerates essentially have to remove everything from the Bible but the Gospels. Of course, you cannot get rid of the Old Testament completely, as Jesus states explicitly not to “think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” and because a lot of what Jesus says and does makes little sense without the context of Old Testament moral lessons and prophecies.

Attempting to get rid of the Pauline Epistles is something that comes up from time to time and often is justified by arguing that they were directed at specific audiences and that choosing these letters for the Bible was improper. This relies on the relatively common view that the books of the Bible were selected by the Council of Nicaea. However, others argue that the books of the New Testament had been well-established and that this added role of the Council stems from a 9^th century pseudo-historical document, the Synodicon Vetus, that Voltaire quoted. It’s quite possible that the 27 books of the New Testament were viewed as God’s holy Word long before anyone at Nicaea was even born.

Even taking the less charitable view that the Council of Nicaea was where the books were selected, what is the argument? Is the argument that Constantine exerted undue pressure so we can disregard these books? How can that be reconciled with the view that the Bible is the inerrant word of God? 

It’s also amazing to recognize that even though there are numerous sects of Christianity today, none of the schisms occurred until well-after the Council of Nicaea. So, when someone tries to “well, ackchyually” about some sort of unacceptability of books of the New Testament, they are asserting they know better than basically all Christians until the late 20th century.  At that point, you may as well create a new religion because you are not Christian.

This pro-gay argument reminds me of the female minister argument from a few years back. There are numerous passages that assert that women should be submissive and not in leadership positions: 1^st Timothy 2:12, Titus 2:5, and 1st Corinthians 14:34, being great examples. As a brief aside, those verses and verses like them are great evidence for Galatians 3:28 not being meant to be taken literally. My recollection of the time is that people justified female ministers by claiming that the Pauline Epistles were only directed at specific congregations and used the somewhat ambiguous roles of women like Phoebe as evidence of early female ministers.  Ultimately, it’s unclear what exactly these women’s role were in the church as the words used could refer to ministers, deacons, or simply spouses of leaders of the church. 

Even if they had been ministers, what does that mean for the Church today? It certainly didn’t mean much for the Church in the medieval period to late 20th century. It seems more that all accepted that were these women ministers, they were exceptions to the rule rather than the norm. Joan of Arc’s successes did not mean the military suddenly had to become co-ed. Recognizing those early potential female ministers as exceptions to the rule makes far more sense than pretending the alternative that the Pauline Epistles were important enough to be included in the Bible but only applied to select congregations.

In summation, to take the pro LGBT-alphabet soup stance of the Bible, you have to reject a Biblical tradition that has existed for almost 1,700 years (if we are taking the “books decided at Nicaea” argument) because you believe you know better. Do you legitimately think you know Church history and the Bible better than all the Church fathers and Christians up until the 20^th century? If not, then maybe you should recognize that homosexuality is indeed sinful, you’re not spreading God’s Word, and you need to find a better way to increase turnout than justifying lifestyles that are immoral in the eyes of God.