Debate: Does Love and Tolerance Equal Affirmation?

[Music] but I know this is what you're all been waiting for so without further ado let's go ahead and get this part of the afternoon and now evening on the road so thank you all again for being here you all know dr. Frank Turk dr. Michael Brown let me introduce you to Reverend April Johnson and Reverend Ladell Benson they've been extremely gracious and I will be honest with you we had given up on having a debate for this event and they found out about it and have been extremely gracious to come and participate so we were very grateful for you both doing that a river April Johnson grew up in Charlotte she attended winston-salem State University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts and art education in 2004 after teaching in winston-salem Forsyth County Schools for seven years she heard the call to attend Wake Forest University Divinity School three years later she earned a Master of Divinity degree with a love of Hebrew Bible and as contemporary applications in 2014 she received her pastoral ordination and the Baptist all humming tradition sorry the báb decosta tradition currently she is the nobody got that joke the speakers were humming I'm sorry I could hear it currently she is the art teacher of Tuskegee Elementary in Charlotte North Carolina she also serves as minister of spiritual formation at her current church wet wood Church ooh Wedgwood Church I'm sorry who's pastor actually kind of helped us coordinate all of this so again welcome April Johnson [Applause] Reverend Liddell Benson is an ordained Baptist minister he engages the perspectives of marginalized bodies and life for his theological development and praxis he's a part-time hospital chaplain adjunct professor and activist he completed his BA degree in Liberal Studies / religion at Greensboro College Master of Divinity at Hood Theological Seminary a master of theology at Duke Divinity School enjoys spending time with his family reading writing and traveling internationally so once again welcome Reverend Liddell Vincent so the topic of the debate tonight is must love and tolerance equal affirmation I kind of formatted the debate this way simply for my own experience both in the church and in campus ministry of seeing this a lot that the love has come to be understood in this way so I thought it'd be a good conversation to have and also it's a little different because most debates that Christians participate in usually has something to do with does God exist and so the affirmative always goes first and so tonight the affirmative once again goes first but it's not our particular sign the Saints non-christian side it's just not our particular side with this particular event so we get to have the negative position tonight as in this particular debate so I will serve as moderator which really means time keeper so let me get set and we will have opening statements from each team and then we'll have open discussion with each team questioning the other closing statements and then about 20 minutes or so for Q&A so stand by and we will get going good evening all right well today I come to tell someone in this room that yes yes you can serve God and be a gay Christian I also come to tell someone in this room today not to let a loved one go somebody's praying about what to do about a loved one in this room and I'm going to tell you don't let that loved one go because to be cut off is to die now on to the question does love and tolerance equal affirmation the answer is yes but what are we asking people to affirm are we saying let it all hang out that anything goes no no I'm asking you to affirm four things today first is my birth rate as a child of God I have been made by God as of all of you you can't treat me any less than you would treat yourself and everyone in the LGBT community has been made by God we cannot accept anything less than our birthright our second thing I would ask that you affirm today is my human rights as a human being made in God's image my human rights as a citizen of this great country that we live in life liberty pursuit of happiness all of that my freedom of religion that means that I can believe how I choose worship how I choose and have the right to be a part of a community you know I have a right to all those things and you and I am definitely asking for you all to affirm then the next two affirmations not so easy so I always go back to scripture 1 Matthew says that a Centurion came to Jesus asking for the healing of his servant and see this is already subversive you know a Roman asking a Jew for something a Jewish rabbi and the word Matthew uses for a servant is Pais and some people said it has a sexually suggestive meaning were they affectionate this Centurion and his servant don't know don't care and I don't care because Jesus didn't care he agreed to come anyway the Centurion says hold on hold on don't come to my house just speak the word and it'll be so maybe he was embarrassed maybe he was trying to respect jesus's customs the text doesn't say but what is recorded is that Jesus marveled at the man's faith the third thing I'll ask you to affirm today is that when a gay person tells you they believe in God there is a place of affirmation because he liked the Centurion I've been an outsider yet I have faith in Jesus I and other gay Christians like me hold on to Jesus for dear life see it was Jesus who said he was never leave me Jesus who kept me when I was cut off from my family faith in God keeps me if Matthew Shepard had been coming out of church instead of coming out of the bar maybe he'd still be alive and Luke's Gospel tells the same story the servant his Doulos was dear to him he sends a delegation to Jesus and they beg him to come because they say the Centurion this man he loves our nation he has built us a synagogue and the text says Jesus went with them and they appeal to the hymn base it on the man's character the fourth thing I will tell you today is that when you encounter someone of the gay community talk to them about their character get to know their character let me tell you about me because he the Bible says that you know people according to the fruit they produce I'm a teacher in a high poverty school I love what I do and it's certainly not for the money I serve at my church I grew up a youth group kid I listen to DC Talk I'm still a TobyMac fan and there are others like me normal people who are good loving people trying to serve their faith community and the community that in which they live what kind of a Christian assumes they know someone without getting to know them see our Quaker brothers and sisters have a saying that says let your life speak let my life speak and others like nice speak to you before you condemn people to a hell that you have no charge over before you cast people out into a despair that leads into suicide let someone's life speak to you see affirm these four things and you will save lives affirm them as a child of God affirm their human rights affirm their faith and affirm their character hello my family the question for today is must love and tolerance equal affirmation historically humans have a dangerous practice that I believe has caused a sustained much of the turmoil in this world the practice that I'm speaking of is trying to dominate control dominating and control all that we don't understand this practice is evident within the historical realities of black and brown bodies women LGBTQ people's religious minorities and other ways of life outside of the norm what I'm speaking about it's fear fear of the non normative body has has led to the construction of horrid and cowardly practices by those in power or Christianity as a whole has rarely if ever gotten beyond this practice if we are going to really talk about love today which it is questionable to me if we really can I am also going to talk about fear because even if we're not going to acknowledge it today this is exactly what we're talking about the queer bodies that my clergy and academic colleagues refused to fully affirm are made in the image of God the sin of some of some clergy and academics springs forth and not fully affirming LGBTQ humanity their sexual orientations and gender identities as made in the image of God to use the scriptures as a weapon against certain people has always been in practice the truth is deeply embedded and my family's historical reality in the United States the memory of their bodies dangling from trees as the white mob watches after church is rooted in the theological Enterprise exclusion and death has always been part of this discussion the Bible has been used to kill us and control us this has disproportionately been the practice for those who are white and male I ask that everyone take a deep look at all who have participated in this dialogue and ask yourself who is missing from the conversation the reflection of patriarchy sexism queer phobia and white supremacy are evident in this performance itself fear and the control of those feared is the real engagement today so I would like us to keep this in mind and as the conversation proceeds must love and tolerance Eco affirmation why wouldn't we affirm sex between consensual loving adults while wouldn't we affirm the identified gender identity of our individuals we often don't because of fear and the unwillingness to not allow fear to have the last word you will turn to the Bible to use some non contextual interpretation to maintain power and control over those feared but my desire in hope is that we will learn something from the poor black brown Palestinian Jew named Jesus who was born to an unwed teenage mother to an excluded people it's under US occupation I mean Roman occupation this is the Jesus we are called to follow what is important in this conversation for me is that I speak my truth affirm those in this place at this time even if they refuse to affirm themselves and that I try my best to speak with the justice-seeking proclivities of the Ministry of Jesus I am invested in tearing down the walls that divide us but never at the expense of those bodies that theological education and theological conversations tend to ignore our conversation today is founded upon a history that plunders particular bodies and the perpetuation of that history has very little if any ties to Jesus this needs to be overcome the this question that we are engaging today will tell me more about our allegiance to fear and very little about God and this day we need a Christianity that is willing to die not for belief but for bodies like those being crucified by empires women the poor the marginalized we need a Christianity that is willing to lose give away all that it has for the least of these to follow Jesus or this religion is irrelevant this is overcoming fear this will also force us to engage our question for today to love is to fully affirm one's identity well thank you so much for coming and thank you Reverend Benson vermin Johnson for being here so pleased that we have this opportunity must love and tolerance require affirmation oh of course not and everyone in this room knows that and everyone in this room on a daily basis does not affirm certain things because we love people so let's look at Jesus as our model Jesus is full of grace and truth not grace or truth but grace and truth he comes showing us God's Way and he says if you've seen me you've seen the father so Jesus reaches out to the marginalized Jesus has women as part of his ministry that would be unusual he talks to a Samaritan woman and he hangs out with the notoriously corrupt tax collectors and the prostitutes to the point that it brings scandal but did Jesus affirm the tax collectors in their corruption or the prostitutes of their prostitution no Jesus did not practice affirmation inclusion but transformational inclusion that's the gospel so Jesus sits with sinners he reaches out to those who are on the margins and he changes them because all of us are created in the image of God the murderer is created in the image of God the Atheist is created in the image of God the adulterers commit in the image of God the idol worshiper we'll all come created in the image of God and all fallen and broken and in need of salvation so Jesus reaches out to us does he if he affirm me when I was a 16 year old heroine shooting drug user or did he call me to repentance can you read the gospel without finding as the operative word the first word of the gospel consistently repent which means turn away from sin and turn back to God not only so but Jesus affirms the sexual ethic and the moral purity that God had previously laid down he says in Matthew five in the Sermon on the mountain every word I say can be backed up exegetically and contextually and historically linguistically there's nothing I'm saying that's even subject to to debate on a serious level what does he say I didn't come to abolish the law of the prophets but to fulfill and what does he do with the sexual ethic you've heard it said don't commit adultery but I'm gonna take that deeper you've heard it said you can write a divorce for this reason no no I'm gonna take that deeper so when the Bible explicitly forbids homosexual practice when every single reference to almost sexual practice in the Bible is categorically wrong when God says in the scriptures that it was wrong for the pagan nations the Canaanites and the Egyptians as well as for the other routes and passages like Leviticus 18 when God establishes that creation one man and one woman joined together when Jesus reinforces that in Matthew 19 is God's idea one man one woman together for life we don't have any ambiguity here and there's a reason that there is not one single positive reference that our loving father put in the Bible about homosexual practice not a single one and we can go back and forth on that during the cross-examination period every single reference is decidedly negative where's the pattern even Jesus and the church is the pattern of the groom and the bride not only so but here's what Jesus does and this is our pattern love sacrifices love serves love's get love gets down in the trenches love reaches out to people regardless of who they are regardless of what their background is and Jesus dies for the sins of the world and he tells us to follow in his footsteps so we to lay our lives down for those if they identify as LGBT however anyone identifies Liz we lay our lives down and we do what Jesus does we show them that God has a better way and the many many ex-gays that I know the many many folks that I know that have come out of homosexual practice some of them married oh there's not some of them right here they are so thankful that Jesus died for them not so that they contain to live in sin and brokenness Jesus doesn't set us free to sin he sets us free from sin so love tells the truth love sacrifices for the well-being of others but real love does not affirm people and brokenness or rebellion or sin or disobedience or deception love shows them a better way and love says I will lay my life down to help you get to that better way and if we're going to be faithful to following Jesus we dare not compromise his ethic his truth because it is the truth that sets us free what he said does love and truth equal affirmation you know Liddell I think it's right that the Bible has been used illegitimately to promote evil but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use it legitimately to promote good and in fact the first reason that love and tolerance do not equal affirmation is because as dr. Brown just said the Bible writers didn't affirm but they opposed sin here's just a short list they spoke against idolatry unrighteous anger self-righteousness unbelief failing to do good violating the Ten Commandments putting yourself first ignoring and exploiting the poor the Pharisees and the Sadducees Jesus went after them repeatedly failing to follow the teachings of Christ and they didn't affirm but told us to flee from sexual immorality Paul uses the word flee because the the damage getting involved in sexual immorality can be so great and I know people will say well Jesus never talked about homosexual practice no he did when he referred to sexual immorality is what making somebody unclean that category of sexual immorality included any sex outside of the marriage between a man and a woman included it all premarital sex adultery homosexuality bestiality rape everything that is other than sex between a man and a woman was considered sexual immorality and maybe it would be like Samuel Jesus never spoke against felony home invasion well no but he spoke against theft so he spoke against the category every individual practice the second reason love and tolerance do not equal affirmation is because love requires you to oppose harmful behavior Paul writes this in the wedding passage you've been to a wedding you've heard it first Corinthians 13 where it says love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth it always protects marinate on that word love always protects it protects in other words it's unloving to affirm harmful behavior our parents loving if they affirm everything their kids want to do know our country's loving if they affirm everything their citizens want to do know that's why we have laws our pastor is loving if they affirm everything their congregations want to do no it's unloving if you really want to love people you got to love them enough to protect them from evil and that means sometimes you need to tell them the truth even if they wind up hating you for it Jesus told people the truth and the Pharisees hated him for it but he told him the truth because he loved them he was not a man pleaser he was a God pleaser the third reason that love and tolerance do not equal affirmation is because the position is self-defeating in practice for love and tolerance equals affirmation then April and Liddell are not being loving or tolerant here today because they're opposing not affirming our position you see this is a self-defeating position to say that you must affirm every single position you couldn't do so they because it's a debate are not affirming our position now those are three reasons why love and tolerance do not equal affirmation now let me drill down into some more points that deal with the issue of sexual immorality here and the first reason the first point I want to make is it's harmful to violate God's design and commands even the CDC the Centers for Disease Control which by the way has been politicized it's generally pro-gay even they cannot deny the scientific evidence that reveals serious health consequences for people who engage in homosexual practice or transgenderism in fact you may have seen Reese tragically the suicide rate for transgendered individuals after sex reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the general public I don't think that is all due to the fact that people ostracize them they had an issue before they even got the surgery and tragically the suicide rate is so high the second point here is that affirming what the New Testament calls sin is serious enough to get one excommunicated from the church if you read 1st Corinthians 5 Paul actually excommunicate someone who says he's a Christian yet he's having an illicit affair with his father's wife Paul says expelled the immoral brother why does he say that it's actually a form of love to try and excommunicate someone in those circumstances because he's trying to wake up the person before the person destroys himself and if you read 2nd Corinthians you realize that when you read between the lines it was probably successful it appears that the man who was excommunicated came to his senses because of the excommunication and now has gotten back into fellowship the final reason I want to mention here with regard to sexual immorality is the purpose of life is to know God and to love God that means were to put none of our desires ahead of God not feelings not sex not family not careers not money not status not a church nothing goes before God why because the only way you're ever gonna find your life is to lose it the only way that you're ever going to receive the full benefits of communion with God is to deny yourself Jesus as you know famously said this he said and this is a paradox it's a paradox in the Christian life to say that you need to deny yourself to find yourself but he said if anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me for what for whoever wants to save his life will lose it whoever loses his life for me will find it what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul now I'm not up here to say that I have all this in order myself I don't I have idols that I did get in the way of God all the time so I'm not here to point fingers over at our friends over here to my right um this is a warning for all of us if any of us put anything above God whether it's our sex or sexual orientation our desires any of these things were involved in idolatry and it will lead to our ruin create April Ladell now has 15 minutes to question Michael brand-new printer no uh the first thing I I hear you all appeal to the authority of the Bible and I heard you all say you know yes the Bible has been misused when it comes to sexual orientation sexual orientation as you know has been discussed thoroughly by the APA as we already know and so to go back to use the Bible for a condition that nothing did not necessarily exist in Bible times puzzles me because you know if you're gonna use the Bible saying well the things that you know that up like this I'm trying to get my words together here sexual orientation is a mindset and if you're using the Bible as an authority over a mindset then how do you use that because people also said and I grew up in the Pentecostal tradition that whenever when people had an issue with their mindset oh we just needed oil and we just needed to alter and we got to do this in that but yet people in my church still struggled with mental illness they still struggled with depression and no matter um any amount of oil could fix that so how can you appeal to the Bible as an authority over someone's mindset when some of that's just science and the Bible didn't even match the science we have today yeah so number one the Bible is dealing with our behaviors interactions so for example someone may murder because they're angry because they're jealous because there can be many reasons but murder is wrong so the Bible prohibits in all situations homosexual practice under any circumstance that's that's number one and and that's that's the first issue the second thing is it deals with relationships and it deals with ideals that have been established and even anything that's in any law parable custom teaching is always presuming and presupposing and established male-female relations only so we're not dealing with does someone struggle in a certain area does someone identify a certain way but what is right and wrong in God's sight there are many things we struggle with there many things that are part of us to the core of our being and yet God prohibits behavior related to that and thirdly and lastly when you mentioned the APA it's been totally politicized there there are many of the Giants of the APA they had to leave because it got so politicized under pressure and to this day this completely unequal when they established a task force and both the both APA the American Psychological Association and Psychiatric Association are so politicized that contrary views are oppressed and there are leading lifelong liberals who served as presidents of those who have pointed out that there is not fair and equal discussion but we go back to behavior and relationships that's what scripture deals with well I directed that real quick so are you saying that you would still advocate for the EPA's old position that homosexuality be listed as a mental illness in the DSM it is certainly not the way God intended us to be for a man to be attracted to a man or a woman to be attracted to a woman it's certain that what God intended but look I'm not a psychiatrist a psychologist so I'm just saying would you advocate for the old position sir I would advocate for something in-between I would say that we recognize that it's disordered and not God's intent whatever psychologist says psychiatrist put as description that's their business but but I'd also also said this which is important most everyone I know that's come out of homosexual practice has also traced back other areas of hurt or brokenness in their lives and said don't put this in a special category it's just another aspect of sexual brokenness but see that's the thing though one of the most foremost Christian writers of our time Henry knew one as you all know wasn't it was an established fact that Henry neuen Catholic theologian great Christian arounder gay man you can clean out your closet but if it's still there if you can see you will see you can submit to Christ clean out your closet and some things are still there did you sleep with anyone did he practice homosexuality well no and he was as you know i practicing priest was bound by his vow but that did not change sir nobody's mind set but he claimed to be even into the day that he died did he did he identify primarily as a gay man or as a follower of Jesus that's the fundamental issue our identity is in Jesus as children of God I have areas of brokenness you we all have areas of brokenness but that's not how we identify we identifies children of God then we renew our minds and if my particularly our brokenness precludes me from marriage so be it I'll follow Jesus and use him the wounded healer as a great example can I just say one quick thing to that in fact dr. Brown just mentioned it we're to renew our minds and I'm born with with an orientation toward bad behavior we're all born with an orientation toward bad behavior and if I take whatever my problem is and say it's not a problem it needs to be affirmed and I'm going against God's design then I'm going against the scriptures and I'm going against what God wants for me and everybody else so I'm not saying I'm any better than you because I have the same kinds of I don't have I don't have a sexual orientation for a man but I'm saying I have an orientation toward bad behavior it's called original sin I have it we all have it and it all expresses itself in different ways the question is should we take whatever that is in our lives and say no it's no longer sin because I'm born this way I have to act on it well first of all sir original sin is not in the Bible it is a doctrine of the church so I mean you know let's just you know let's just call that out that was an idea that has been accepted and affirmed by communities what I mean original so I mean it's just it's not scriptural dr. Turner can we agree on that that it is not found well no it original sin let's just call it depravity all right we can speak about depravity but let's just you know I want to accept original sin as an idea but it is not scriptural second of all I wanted to speak to your comment about love always protecting if love protected if the church is particularly even the Evangelic Church it's protected people where was the protection of God during slavery what about the evangelical ministers who told Martin Luther King hey hey hey sit down somewhere you're doing too much where was the evangelical church that have had the counter protest when fred phelps and all his crazies were out there hurting people where was the evangelical church protecting folks up in Harlem when that guy at ATLA was talking about he was going stone people so you know like when I see yeah you know so everybody love always pretend so yet I don't see people acting in an ethnic of love and protection you're making our case depravity we're depraved all of us are and we never follow Christ perfectly the question is should we take something that God does not want us to do and say that we ought to do that and I say no but what I'm saying is prettiness just answer the question every believer I know that I work with instantly aggressively denounced Fred Phelps and the God hates movement instantly and reached out to the LGBT community to say we completely renounced this and when we hear extremists comment I've brought people into my radio show to debate them and expose them because of their hateful comments they're completely contrary to the gospel and it was conservative ever it was Jesus followers that fought to abolish the horrors of slavery yes there are hypocritical white Christians to our shame absolutely but the civil rights movement was birthed in the church all right and and the anti-slavery movement was birthed in the church and it's been those hypocritical believers that have suppressed women and suppressed blacks and suppressed others by misuse in the Bible but we rightly uphold Scripture when we say homosexual practice is wrong so everyone I teach we lay down our lives for anyone and if someone tried to hurt you they'd have to get past me first that's my ethic at the same time in love I'm going to tell you how most sexual practices contrary to God's design for you we're not gonna acknowledge the way in which if you hold up that that ethic that you're proclaiming is traumatizing and hurtful and calls and pushes perpetuates a community of suicide Jesus liberates from suicide he liberate sfrom yes I'm not because I don't believe we're talking about the same Jesus okay well that does boil things down that's fine that's hey if we divide there that's perfectly fine but the message that we bring is one of hope and liberation and freedom that's why if I ever address these issues there's a line of people coming to talk to me many who come out of homosexuality with tears saying thank you thank you for this message it brings me hope what what I see brings a lot of fear in the gay and lesbian community is that the moment you start talking differences they're going to go out kill themselves if you stand marriage as the union of a man woman gay kids gonna kill themselves well I put those thoughts in their head instead teach moms and dad love your kids no matter what but the message of Jesus liberate sin set free it doesn't bring people down but it liberates them also if Christian kids were killing themselves because they held a minority view in high school that homosexuality was wrong would you say that we should stop saying homosexuality is right could you explain that kids are dying because we say Jesus has a better way and not being a friend in a Jesus way but Jesus doesn't affirm sin can you tak can you tag me please Liddell please sir thank you real quick so let me understand me help you understand what we mean when we say that this harmful rhetoric because you know I keep hearing you say my I say mindset and you're going no no no no behavior well behavior is birth with a mindset okay you know in James it says that there's an idea and then sin comes from the idea so there's an idea that gay people are not human that gay people don't deserve respect that they are justified now you all say that you don't preach that but y'all need to get together and have a meeting with your other friends about who's preaching that because when I was hiding in the locker room so did the other girls wouldn't beat me up you know where were those same kids same kids who went to youth group you see where were they what does that have to do and what about the district oh yeah you're supposed to be asking us questions no no what I'm saying to you sir is that I've advanced I'd like to ask you that's why we're educating people and the truth this is but it happening a it's late dr. rounds it's not happening too late it's not half dying the people that felt justice Papa Matthew Shepard but had a gay relationship but they had nothing to do with gay reading the gay the definitive gay research on it had nothing to do with with the gay murder okay it was a drug issue with Matthew Shepard alright that's a tragedy but it's a drug issue and and the the number one gay journalist who covered it has exposed that but here's the thing just because someone writes are wrong too late it doesn't change the facts or the truth I hate the fact that you went through what you went through I hate the fact that people heard things that made them bully you or disrespect you or treat you even less than human I hate that I agree Vova it breaks my heart it doesn't mean that God made you to be with women it doesn't mean that it does just because someone mistreated you doesn't mean that that homosexual practice is right in God's sight or that God doesn't have a better way for you or that Jesus can't help you with your mindset the fact you were mistreated doesn't change truth what I'm saying to you sir is that this kind of rhetoric is fostering a certain kind of behavior and you're right yours you're speaking against it people are teaching against it but the fact of the matter is that in spaces and in corners and in storefront churches and things of that nature sir that kind of rhetoric is still being taught and fostering that kind of behavior my next question is for a doctor Turek and then if you don't mind please call me Frank I'm not the kind of doctor that can do any good for you you know I hear you talk a lot you know you were like excommunicate we need to excommunicate people that's all That's not me okay so you don't advocate excommunicate oh I do i do what i agree with what paul said to help somebody that's what the excommunication was for well so would you advocate the excommunication of a racist member from your community sure absolutely would you advocate the excommunication of someone who's divorced because divorce is clearly Ranse said that divorce was a good thing yes Lydia your next question question for me has a lot to do it I mean I just I really feel like they okay I really feel like they were ignoring the ways in which rhetoric and and when I got to go back to be always speaking about original sin and depravity and then you went on to talk about like concrete understandings of God in Jesus and and that's why I say that we have a different understanding of God in Jesus so I want to know like how do you who is Jesus to you and what does that mean because I believe your understanding of Jesus is traumatic and kills the people in my community and so that's what I want to know about yeah Jesus is is the Word made flesh he's the full expression of God in human form he's the ultimate revelation of love and truth and and he is the only way through which we can truly know and experience God and everything about him is wonderful and perfect and and we must emulate him and follow him and word deed as much as we can and the del I think when Jesus or the other apostles put moral limits on it it's not for his benefit God's infinite he doesn't get any benefit out of us obeying him you could you could obey Him all day he's infinite being you can't help him you can curse him all day and you're not gonna hurt him either because he's an infinite being you can praise him all day you're not gonna help him he's an infinite being the more limits are there for our benefit well you know we can drive down the highway here at seventy miles an hour if we stay within the lines as soon as we started swerving out of the lines we're gonna hurt ourselves and others so I agree with you Liddell the church in America has been a problem in many ways the most segregated hour in in America is Sunday morning I agree with all that but that's not the issue we're talking about today the issue we're talking about today is should we affirm what is known sin in the Bible as Christians should we affirm it that's done all right 15 minutes will hold closed today thank you okay let me start with this specific and this very easy one you mentioned the Pais the the Greek word for servant you said it may have sexual overtones in Matthew 8 that perhaps the Centurion this was his his gay lover yeah the word Pais occurs many many times yes it's a - in Greek and in the Greek New Testament can you give me one single instance where a single biblical writer ever used the word Pais in a sexual connotation no the research for the word Pais it being a homoerotic in having homoerotic conversations comes from the extraneous literature that matched the contemporaries of that time Kenneth Dover who is a former president of Corpus Christi Oxford University wrote that in his book and as you know Kenneth Dover is a conservative so this is not someone who's on my team and but to be clear there's not a single instance ever of any biblical author ever use in the word with any sexual context no that will be clear yeah no Pais is not Homa homoerotic Lee we cannot prove that in there we are talking about it because the Koine Greek as you know and we're using it to talk about how people would have spoken in that time period but we're opening statement I didn't know I just don't care a single instance anywhere where any biblical author ever uses it and it's it's quite an obscure use outside of Scripture but why does the same Jesus who tells the woman caught in adultery go and sin no more why would he why would he heal the the gay boy lover of a soldier that basically captured this why was it why is he telling a woman don't commit adultery but he's telling the the gay man and his sexual slave keep keep on going I'm gonna heal you so you can keep on sinning well first of all again I said that I didn't know nor did I care what I concerned myself with sir was Jesus's reaction in that particular story but if there's nothing sexual in it though if there's not any hint within the biblical narrative or in first century Judaism that there was any possible sexual I think why do I even raise it you might as well said he may have been a Martian we don't know you know what I'm saying there's there's no there's no reason to bring it up and I wouldn't want want to have a misunderstanding about that well like I said the scholarship is around Greek culture at Greek and Roman culture of that time because again no there is no thing in the judeo-christian ethic around the word Pais but we're talking about what a Centurion would have asked for or heard the culture of the particular Centurion and that is what I was using to reference and not to build a case of homoerotic Oh sir I was saying that the point is that when an outsider came to Jesus hmm the thing that moved Jesus was his faith and his character those are the two things that move Jesus to give this man an audience or a hearing and that's again what I'm asking the audience to affirm that when someone is not necessarily part of your team a part of your camp that those two things since Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith that since we look to Jesus for a model those two things we should be basing our that is an action about how does healing a sick person have any connection with affirming their morals or their behavior anyone would come to any of our churches here and say could you pray for me I'm sick and no one would give them a moral test first no one would say well what's your skin color what your how did you vote politically you for Trump or against Trump or no one no one would think of that no one say you married how many killed no no you need prayer for healing fine so we all affirm that I don't see how in any way that has to do with affirming of behavior or morality I don't see any logical connection there whatsoever couple of quick questions for both you and be an individual you can answer both both you can answer this question if God said homosexual behavior is a sin would you agree with them if God had lebed you got a pic micro yeah if God said homosexual behavior was a sin would you agree with him you're not God so I'm not responding to that question no if God said not me I don't think he'll do you think that God communicates truth through the Bible yes okay so he does say certain things yeah so if in the Bible he said homosexual behavior was a sin would you agree with them that's not part of the conversation first of all and and I'm trying to give this as little credence as possible because I I feel the okey doke come in if you feel a little Adele and and and part of that is this homosexuality is again a mindset it is a sexual orientation again I'm I agree with dr. Robbins cross out of Union seminary when we when we look at the Bible some people are in a camp that the Bible is exactly as it is in this interim and then there are people who believe that it is a foundational document because if we take things in the Bible to be literally true there are a whole lot of things that come into question I have not seen nor have I I don't think you have a talking snake or any of the other things that are in have you seen the targets naked L see so we can't sit there and say well it's in there so it must be that nah and again the scholarship and scientific work around homosexuality is not the same as it is and if we were sitting in I don't know 30 ad or 50 B you know or it's not the same so no so if you're asking me would you know if I'm having a conversation with the most holy God well then that's a different story but to sit there and fall for the okey doke no sir we won't we won't next question yeah there's no okeydoke because the Bible is God's Word and if he didn't communicate clearly then we're all Roman in big trouble so there was no trick question I just want to know if you were open to it yeah for changing your mind that's all now am I open to dialogue with you yes no open to changing your mind changing my mind about what sir homosexuality no sir because see the thing is no no no no because the truth is whatever you disagree with me or not I know God for me you can't I mean we can debate Scripture and splice all day long but though testimony in my personal life is that God is still real to me that he still speaks to me he still provides and takes care of me so the you know and you know because for a long time you know I was one of those people who were worried as the scripture says about the reprobate mind and all that others but no but so am i open to changing my mind no because I know where God is for me but at the same time I believe that there are people as you say dr. Brown who have come out of it but there were other issues attached to that there are people like I said if you're sure there are no other issues attached in your own life you're a hundred percent sure I am very sure sir mmm all right so just know the simple real simple question this cancer how old were you when you came out as gay 14 all right when did you come out as black okay because we've done this one before go ahead do that one and then I'll answer yeah I find it very and genuine when you compare gay Americans with black Americans I said it's a white person so if you could give me the parallels if the millions who died in millipede give me the parallels of Americans buying and selling gays as as slaves if you give me the the powers I'm not saying there hasn't been mistreatment but every every black believer I know deeply resents gay activists piggybacking on the civil rights movement and as one activist who marched with dr. King recently said I did not March a single step so that women could use the men's bathroom and men could use the women's bathroom so to me when you say yes a new black you're conflating two issues first of all my gayness and my blackness are a part of who I am so I can't conflate my own existence sir second of all you do know that this the historic march on Washington was coordinated and this is an established fact by a gay black quaker man you do know this right Bayard Rustin the very man who coordinated the whole of march on Washington gay black man could you mean the parallel though between the suffering of gay Americans and something equivalent to middle passage or the buying and selling of human beings don't quote my culture to me sir please don't do that that's quite offensive no no what I mean when I say that is quite offensive to be because I hold to what scripture says about about what about sexuality to be labeled as a slave-trader basically did no not to make sure that all we're trying to do is sphere in power so you could speak or marginalizing people we're reaching out to the margins and that empowering that that implies that you know which I mean that your your perfect Jesus quick question are you marginalizing us because you disagree with us no sir let's be very real about what's going on there with white people about that we're not talking ethnicity here we're talking about a sexual way no let's talk about the practice here because I understand what that question Glenn Stanton talks about it in his book loving my LGBT neighbor and that's one of his objections that he writes and you know the Glen writes for Focus on the Family and he speaks about this that you know you cannot complete race and sexual orientation but that's not what we're doing we're talking about the practice that is creating the analogy and that is an entirely different thing know what this analogy the enjoy Jesus liberates people from slavery Jesus liberates people from homosexual practice same Jesus same liberator okay sir sir first of all again it is the practice of other ring and marginalizing people when you push someone to the margins because you are other we don't agree we dislike or the Bible says however you want to justify that when you push someone to the margins they suffer okay that that's the issue they suffer whether you feel religiously justified to do so or not when you push someone to the margins they suffer okay does the middle passage equal Stonewall no it does not but what it does do is point out that the practice of other ring the sin of power over is still very alive and effective today and it is a stronghold and the Bible says also that there's one way to break a strong law and that is the knowledge of God that Jesus liberate that what you say in many ways is all true but I think your your you're conflating things here there's a difference between other and making distinctions you're making a distinction right now between your position and our position right are you other enos when you say that no sir okay so why are we other in you and we say that a particular practice that you agree with is wrong okay well here's the thing you're disagreeing with me yes we can disagree as colleagues and people increasing on that but when you're other and me makes me lose my job when your other amino no be real because you feel April you're talking the wrong guy no no but what I'm saying is and it's still wrong I agree it's wrong but what I'm saying is if and dr. Turek yes I am very aware that you have not announced but one position but at least two positions because of your beliefs Wikipedia can be fun but the issue is the issue is this that when black people can be kept as a person as a as an underclass because of other rings when I can lose my job oh you know and this is just recently things have not been this way when I could lose my job as a teacher when I serve children and underserved populations but if someone were to find out about me I could have lost my job as like as recently as 10 years ago okay so when we talk about other people and their suffering that is a very real thing all right so let's be very real about that so as a Jew probably my people have suffered more than anybody in the room has historically mm-hmm and I still stand to say that Jews need Jesus many Jews find offensive and when my wife and I got married as Jewish believers the rabbi wouldn't come to our wedding because we were followers of Jesus that separation happens all the time when I tell the Jewish person they need Jesus to be saved I'm not uttering them I'm not discriminating discriminate against them I'm reaching out with love because Jesus did you came and died for them so what I what I still don't understand is is how injustice in society or mistreatment of people changes what scripture says about right and wrong or more or less Co behavior so for example if I asked you you said same-sex relationships levering relations should be affirmed what if this has actually come up what if take two Gabe others loved each other and wanted to marry should they be allowed to no sir I do not advocate incest but Johnson do not have whoa be just a few people know when they love each other all right now the outrage over incest so so sorry human crying power-hungry fear-mongering and urea when you're you've been this entire time on this stage both of you and what's happening right now is there's no reflection is a reflection of what white supremacy does ah what whiteness book see that's that's where you're looking through biased glasses right that's where you're perceiving the world with a blind spot so we talked about put up mr. Moran to the incest question hey um based on timeout wait a minute timeout can we quit call timeout for a second let's just cool it down a little bit here for a second okay sir if the audience is okay with this let's continue this dialogue for another five minutes is that all right and then we'll get to questions because we're maybe making some ground here no I I just want to ask Ladell cuz you were mentioned white supremacy and evil and I most just about everything you're saying I'm agreeing with you on that there's been a lot of evil no question about it my question is and this is where dr. Brown was just going here's the question the question is what is your moral standard where do you draw your moral conclusions from what's your standard what why do you say he's racism is wrong or or or not affirming homosexuality is wrong or abortions okay or abortions whatever whatever your position is where do you get your moral what's your moral standard sorry about that I mean I think it I think it says it in my brief bio about what people are in pain and suffering dying I think that's what Jesus wins and if we're talking about Jesus as y'all keep articulating in which I don't believe we're talking about the same Jesus as I stayed in it he's right in here nobody y'all still are interpreted through a white lens which that's what that's the thing I'm pushing up maybe Jenna please no we can't we can be pause real quick though because I hear a lot of murmuring in the room and so please I want to articulate what we mean when we say you interpret the Bible through a white lens because what what I don't want is black/white that's not what we're here that's not even the question we're talking about when we talk about this listen you are and and my heart is around spiritual formation as you guys know I teach that's what I teach and the thing is we all bring our experiences and our culture to the Bible we're inclined to think of ourselves as the good guys you know it's I identify with Exodus of course you do you know as a person of color I identify when the Jews make it through the Exodus you know what I mean and I identify as a female when Jesus says you know woman you're okay and woman you're healed and anything so we bring our experiences in our context to the Bible the problem is that the people who hold power in our society have also brought an interpretation to the Bible are we saying all white people are evil no are we saying that what white people bring to the Bible is this no no no no no no we're not saying that and I want to make that extremely clear what we're saying is that when you are in the majority you're not going to see things the way Ladell and I do and see the few black people who are in the audience I don't know your context I don't know where you've been so to sit there and say all of us are gonna read the same content well no sir we're not gonna read it in the same context brother no we're not no since we're not gonna read it in the same context and that is fine but what is what we're saying is that when you stand in the group of the majority as dr. Brown says when you're in the majority there's a blind spot and only when you have been other door mistreated are you gonna feel it a different way because dr. Brown has said on his radio show that you know white people don't always catch racism white people don't always catch that there's a power play in place because when you're sitting with the majority it's easy to sit confidently okay and sometimes as dr. Brown says black people see racism where there isn't any but you know the thing about that is know when you've been wound a little tight I don't know 400 odd years it kind of get sets your teeth on edge and as a person who is Jewish you know you and I talked to we've talked about that we're going to heart there so we're gonna go one more minute one more question since we interrupted the time 90% of these arguments we go out the window if we had a black brother and a black sister sitting here and in point of fact the black of angelical church is more conservative than the white of Angelica Church and I traveled Minister around the world and in Asian Christianity and an African Christianity which is not taught by the white man they are much more strongly against homosexual right I just I just want to ask let's just take a simple command like thou shalt not murder is there is there a different is there a black interpretation and a why Pat white interpretation for that thou shalt not murder Mike might not even connected to what we're trying to let you could everything you say could be true politically but this isn't we're not talking politics here we're what we're trying to get at is we're trying to see if a particular practice that the Bible seems to prohibit is something go out of affirm or oppose and I that's what I'm trying to get asked you the question is they on format we're gonna have to call is there a different interpretation for thou shalt not murder or thou shalt not sleep with another man is is there a black interpretation for that and a white interpretation for that well short short answer real quick and we're going to get back on format what you're not gonna you're not gonna okay then I'll honor your I'll honor your stance on that Sarah no no okay okay okay seven minute closing statements from each team in April and Lydia will begin first before us again I want to reiterate you don't have to agree we don't have to agree we do not okay you know I have two uncles that have spent most of my adult life as alcoholics I don't like it they've ruined their bodies in trying to get dry you can actually die because you know the body has been too weakened but I have never treated them as anything less than who they were my uncles they are addressed as uncle so-and-so when they walk in my house their identity informs how I treat them when Jesus helped the woman with the bentback people were fussing and he says why shouldn't I help this daughter of Abraham he treated her according to her identity I want to reiterate for you all again whether you agree with gay Christians or not you cannot take away their birthright as children of God you can disagree all day long but you cannot refute their human rights challenge them in their faith challenge them in it everyone has to clean their closet everyone okay I'm not advocating for a position where people aren't to spiritually grow and to be challenged everyone has to clean their closet challenge them in their face affirm their character these people work with y'all they live in your neighborhood they can be the person who teaches your kid at the Y you wouldn't know judge them according to their character these are the things in which we must relate to one another Martin Buber is a great philosopher and he talked about the I the relationship you know that I am me and you are you and that your existence doesn't take away from mine but we can coexist one to another but that when we begin to other people then that takes on an i it relationship and those kind of relationships are wrong you don't have to agree with me you don't have to agree with others like me but to push people to the margins without knowing them knowing their story knowing their lives is wrong to push people to the margins because you inherently feel like they're better than them and yes we can go i of my sin too but I'm gonna tell you right now nothing makes people feel more justified than calling out a sin that they've never or calling out something I can call out the dangers of alcoholism because I've never sat in a I don't know what that power has over me you know what I mean I can't do that nothing makes people for them feel more justified than calling out a sin that they've never done or never experienced you don't know that until pushing people into an ayat' relationship is wrong dr. King appealed to the ideals of Martin Buber in some informing some of his essays on civil rights to be in a fully i val relationship whether we agree or not is about love it's about being me able to stand in your shoes and you standing in mind don't hide behind the bible if you don't know a gay person or you do and you know you don't know their story you don't know anything about them don't hide behind the bible if you're really about love if you're really about sacrifice get to know them not for the purposes of converting them or get to know them know them and love them as god loves them and see if your own perspective doesn't change it might not but these are things you can affirm in anyone's life their birthright their human rights their faith in their character well i don't have a whole lot to say but i think history and and also within the scriptures we see what happens to communities and individuals that are mistreated and marginalized and what i mean by that that their humanity that their identity is not affirmed and we see what happens to them over and over through our history they are killed they are pushed into poor communities though i mistreated we see it over and over again so the conversation that i was trying and wanted to have up here is the the way in which whiteness influences the way that we look at scripture the way that we read scripture and the way that we move throughout the world and even influences me and i'm black so to even argue that it doesn't influence our to other scholars here would be very problematic and we can with the story of an that Turner and the way that the Bible was used to enslave him and he had to reinterpret the text to reach towards freedom and to not acknowledge that how that has worked throughout history is is it's just not helpful at all to marginalize communities seven minutes for brown and dirt well first let me say that that from the super pleasant conversation we're having before I'm so glad we really got to get to the issues candidly and from the heart but what's interesting is when we were talking before I said the one thing I don't like is the makeup because it's to to whites with to blacks and this has nothing to do with white or black it's interesting we had that discussion before because this has zero to do with whiter black where the homosexual practice is right or wrong in God's sight has zero to do with white and black and again go to Africa talk to African Christians there who mean that have never heard of Mike Brown or white scholarship in America and find out what they teach about homosexual practice go to Asian Christians who may not even know a white theologian and find out what they have to say about it no this has to do with God's standards and God's ways being best you know the most translated book that I've written is called our hands were staying with blood and it's about the horrible history of anti-semitism in church history and how Christian leaders used the Bible to persecute Jews and even put Jews to death it's horrible it's painful reading it's agonizing reading but the fact is even though the church misused the Bible to persecute Jews it doesn't change the fact that Jewish people need Jesus the fact that some professing Christians have hurt gays and lesbians is something I fight against at all my friends fight against and teach against and if you were here to hear my session earlier you know exactly what I teach in much of what April was saying get to know people spend time was exactly what I was saying but love reaches out to the margins and wherever someone is says Jesus can change you and bring you into something better and what's so fascinating is if you asked the question about homosexual practice 30 years ago and is it okay for two men or two women to quote marry you would have gotten the exact same reaction that you got from my panelists here about incest well on what basis is it wrong for two grown men who are consensual to love each other if love wins you have the right to marry the one you love and they can't even have children with genetic defects is it just cultural biases many incest advocates say yes so the point is we've got to go back to God's standards the Bible is unambiguous there is no linguistic textual archaeological hermeneutical exegetical discovery that's been made in the last 50 years to change anything that we believe about homosexual practice it remains wrong in God's sight the good news is we're all fallen and broken Jesus dies not just to save us from our sins but to heal us from our brokenness that's good news and it gives value to those who are on the margins April had four points that she made in the beginning and I don't really disagree with any of them I don't disagree every human being is made in the image of God everybody has human rights a gay person can believe in God I I think they have a misunderstanding of this particular issue on in that case and we ought to get to know people who are in the LGBT community I don't disagree with any of that but none of that has anything to do with what we're talking about here today what we're talking about here today is is a certain behavior regardless of where it comes from whether you're born with it whether it's the nature and nurture issue that's another question is a certain behavior in the scriptures should that be affirmed does love require us to affirm it and the points that I think dr. Brown and I tried to make was the loving thing to do is not to affirm behavior always affirm the person but don't affirm the behavior you're not affirming our behavior right here you have you guys haven't been affirming anything that we've been we've been saying here that you affirm us as what closing statement no closing statement please closing statement oh yeah you're what I'm saying is you're not affirming you may affirm us as individuals but you're not affirm the behavior were exhibiting here when we're trying to disagree two minutes remaining so the point here is is do we affirm things that the Bible clearly calls us as sinful behaviors not people and natural law forever has demonstrated to be against God's design and I think the answer is is no now April and Liddell have been talking about different interpretations based upon one's race and based upon one's ethnicity whatever there's only one race the human race and Paul rightfully writes there's neither Jew nor Gentile there's neither slave nor free nor is there male or female for you're all one in Christ Jesus we do not get our identity from who we sleep with we get our identity from the the being that created us the uncreated creator the being that came to earth added humanity over his deity and was nailed to a cross by the people who rebelled against him and every one of us has in order that we could be reconciled to him so we may disagree forever about this issue but let's not disagree what Jesus came to do he came and paid the price for everyone in this room and everyone watching outside if if you don't get any other message from us that's the message we'd like to give to you that Jesus died for everyone and no matter what your sin is you can put it under the cross of Christ and be saved thank you okay that's it debates over [Applause]

Channel: Southern Evangelical Seminary

Views: 29,426

Rating: 4.9068031 out of 5

Keywords: transgenderism debate, transgender debate, how many genders are there, lgbt debate, lgbt charlotte, lgbt pride month 2019, transgender charlotte nc, transgender athletes winning, michael l brown, michael l brown debate, dr michael l brown youtube, frank turek youtube, frank turek debate, frank turek transgender debate, michael brown transgender debate, gay acceptance, lgbtq acceptance, lgbt acceptance, transgender acceptance

Id: m5Etn0_z_1s

Length: 69min 40sec (4180 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019