Define Homophobia, Please
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made the following comments recently in an Apr. 10 interview with The Advocate magazine concerning black churches’ views on homosexuality. As reported on CNSNEWS.COM
“And so from the pulpit or in sermons you still hear homophobic attitudes expressed,” said Obama. “And since African-American ministers are often the most prominent figures in the African-American community, those attitudes get magnified or amplified a little bit more than in other communities.”
First of all, I didn’t realize there were traditional and non-traditional interpretations of scriptures. There is only one Truth, and it doesn’t change regardless of your preferences of traditional, contemporary, post-modern, etc. But just what does Obama (and others) mean by the term homophobia? A phobia is a fear, right? So when Christians are called homophobic, are they saying we are afraid of homosexuals? Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention took time out to answer questions from the attendees at the Na Conference last weekend in Lousiville, KY. Here is his response to this subject as reported on ChristianPost.com.
“Always on the issue of homosexuality we realize, we as evangelicals are in perpetual danger of saying too much and too little,” Mohler told the thousands of young Christians. “If we ever compromise on the sinfulness of homosexuality and the fact that God has a normative pattern for our sexuality, we say too little and we can condemn people to their sin. We can mislead them to their condemnation. We can also say too much by trying to elaborate upon what the Scriptures says as if the Scriptures have a focus on homosexuality in ‘third Corinthians.’ There is no such book.
“We’re not saying that homosexuals are sinners sexually where others are not,” he said. “We’re saying it’s a sexual sin clearly identified in Scripture as one that needs to wake us up to the reality of sin, one that is against nature. Any human being who’s gone through puberty is a sexual sinner. So let’s talk humbly about what it means as a sinner to find the grace of Christ and the gift of the moral law.”
That doesn’t sound like fear to me. It also doesn’t sound like hate, superiority, or self-righteousness.
from my notebook 