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Homosexuality, Christianity, the Bible, Larry King, Jennifer Knapp, Ted Haggard and Bob Botsford, part 2

KNAPP: …there’s a pretty massive implication that I cannot say that I’m a lesbian and a believer.

BOTSFORD: …Here’s the difference. Jennifer is wanting to justify the sin.

KNAPP: How did I — how do I — first off, that’s a — that’s a very big premise. You assume that you and I both agree that homosexuality is one, a choice, and two, a sin. So to say that I have to justify it off that premise is inaccurate.

BOTSFORD: Well, based on the sacred writings of what you’re saying your spiritual authority…

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

And that is the point and the difference; she seeks to justify her sin and refuses to repent mostly by seeking shelter in “scholarship” and “churches” that will placate her. Perhaps we should establish churches that accept, endorse and justify adultery, murder, lying, idolatry, etc. (I know, I know, some do so).

Now Ted Haggard joins the conversation:

TED HAGGARD…: Yeah, I think both of them have some good points. I really appreciate what Jennifer is saying and what she is going through. And I think her big premise is that she is on a journey just like every one of us are. She accepts the fact that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that God is working in us, that we have his scriptures to work with. And it is true people read them differently and people interpret them differently.

And the pastor has a point in saying it is his role as a pastor to try to be salt and light, and represent the word the way it’s read…

KING: OK. So therefore, Bob, you’re as bad, if that’s the term, as Jennifer. Your sin may be different, but just different. Why is hers worse than yourself?

BOTSFORD: Larry, I think the difference here, if I can just point out, both with Jennifer and Ted, is this: there — all of us on planet Earth in the human race have sinned. We have all fallen short of the glory of God.

KING: All right.

BOTSFORD: Jesus came to die in our place to forgive of us our sins, no so that we would remain in a sinful lifestyle, so that we would leave that life of sin that leads to death, and be born again. The whole idea of being a Christian is that what I used to be I no longer am.

KING: But you still sin.

BOTSFORD: I make mistakes every day. But sin isn’t ruling my life. Jesus Christ is ruling my life. And when I mess up, I can repent.

KING: So Jesus Christ can’t rule her life if she is a lesbian?

BOTSFORD: Listen, if someone is allowing sin — and sin is called out in the Bible, whether it’s homosexuality, adultery, whether it’s stealing — the list is there. Read it for yourself…

BOTSFORD: Allowing that to continue to reign over your life is not allowing Jesus Christ to be lord. I’m allowing Jesus Christ to be lord. My role every day is to die to sin, not justify sin…

KNAPP: Not for a moment have I ever sat here and justified my individual path in my life. I am not sitting to try and tell someone that they have to walk the path that I walk…

HAGGARD: …Our role isn’t just to call out one particular sin and say all these people are in trouble. Our role is to say we’re all in a process, and we need to encourage one another.

So Jennifer has a group of believers she meets with. They study the scripture. They can go on that. They can do that process. That process obviously is not going to be Pastor Bob’s church. It will be another group of believers which is why we have a diversity of churches.

Ted Haggard is certainly mistaken in stating that, “Our role isn’t just to call out one particular sin and say all these people are in trouble…which is why we have a diversity of churches.”
Consider, for example, the words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians;

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.

For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed (1 Corinthians 5:1-3).

Note that this was the original liberal “church” in that they were puffed up with their own tolerance, diversity and liberalism. They were accepting that chosen lifestyle and were not putting them out of the church. Oh, and note that Paul had “judged.”

Next Larry King appears to think that the topic is not controversial enough and decides to, basically, accuse Bob Botsford of inspiring murder:

Pastor, do you at all feel bad when you hear stories about people who kill gay people?

BOTSFORD: Absolutely. Yes, that’s —

KING: They’ve gotten messages about how sinful that is that they take it to that extreme. And you add to that, don’t you?

BOTSFORD: I hope not. I hope I don’t.

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Bob Botsford

You see how quickly, within our politically correct pop-culture, a Christian who lovingly disagrees with a person who calls themselves a Christian yet, refuses to repent from homosexuality is inspiring murder. Simply astonishing. Yet, now that Larry King and Jennifer Knapp disagree with those of Bob Botsford’s point of view, if, God forbid, any such Christian is murdered—anywhere in the world—they will be complicit.
Moreover, homosexuals have killed more homosexuals than heterosexuals have killed homosexuals (see here).

Now to a points which Bob Botsform botched in a big way, to the point that Larry King could take him on it:

KING: You paint the picture. Your — in the Old Testament — I’m not a Biblical scholar — you can’t eat shellfish. Do you eat shellfish?

BOTSFORD: Absolutely.

KING: You’re a sinner.

BOTSFORD: No I’m not. There are some things, Larry, that are very important to keep in context here. Although there are verses in the Book of Leviticus that say don’t eat shellfish, don’t wear clothes that have different materials on it, things that Jennifer has mentioned in the article that she has given in the news coming out — you know what, God changed his mind on shellfish.

KING: When did he do that?

BOTSFORD: There is a wonderful passage —

LYNN: God changed his mind on mankind. And he gave his savior for one and for all.

BOTSFORD: He changed his mind, if I can finish, in Acts Chapter 10, to answer your question, Larry, on shellfish. And Cornelius has this amazing enlightenment, as Peter has this vision of the lord saying eat whatever you want.

KING: Peter may have been hungry. No pun intended.

BOTSFORD: There is this grace that comes upon all of us no longer to live by the law of the Old Testament. But when you get to the issue of homosexuality, he doesn’t change his mind on that. It flows over into the New Testament as powerfully as it was in the Old Testament.

KING: Peter gets a vision about shellfish. What if Ted gets a vision about homosexuality that says, since it’s not a choice, and as long as a person is observant and good, it is no longer a sin. You will not believe Ted?

BOTSFORD: God didn’t use Ted to write the scriptures. And the scriptures that have been written are the scriptures that I go by.

KING: Nothing is being written today?

BOTSFORD: Absolutely not.

That a law, or a set of laws, is in place at one point in time and place and amogst a certain people and is later abrogated does not mean that “God changed his mind.” God applied that which was applicable at the time/place/people. For example, all Old Testament laws that were given to Israel were given to, you guessed it, Israel: to those people, in that place, at that time, living in that theocratic government. Now, there are concepts, such as the moral aspects of the law, that are carried over into the New Testament and are there reiterated and reaffirmed. For example, recall the reference to 1 Corinthians 5:1-3 above? Well, that refers back to Deuteronomy 22:30.
Now, why claim that “God changed his mind” in allowing the eating of shellfish alone; good question. Why not give the whole story?

1) In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were told, “I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food” (Genesis 1:29)—basically a vegan vegetarian diet.

2) Then after, the great deluge, Noah was told, “all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:2-4).

3) Then the Israelites were given specific dietary laws such as those found in Leviticus 11.

4) Finally, according to the New Testament, the new covenant—note that Larry King was correct on one point in stating that “Peter may have been hungry—Peter, “became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance 11 and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. 13 And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again.”

Note also that Jesus had prepped them for this when He stated, “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean’” (Matthew 15:11).

What was applicable was applicable until it was no longer applicable. As I have elucidated in my essay series responding to Rev. Dr. Mel White the commandment against homosexuality is reiterated in the New Testament in various ways.

HAGGARD: As a result of that, there are ethics, there are rules, there are things that happen. But those rules and those ethics are not the core. The core is the relationship…

the Bible says in Romans 1, when it talks about homosexuality, it follows up with the first verse in Romans II saying, hey, be cautious about judging other people about this because you all do the same things. And then he concludes that first paragraph in Romans II by saying — by saying hasn’t it dawned on you that it’s the love and the mercy of God that leads to our repentance and our salvation.

So what he highlights there is that we’re all going — the purpose of the holy spirit is to create in us a holy spirit we grow. The purpose of the word of God is to convict us and help us grow, sanctify us. That’s all good. But we can’t do it to one another like that…

That’s not our role with each other.

KNAPP: I don’t have a problem with that at all. I think that leaves room for a great many sinful people.

BOTSFORD: Well, we’re all sinful people.

What it gives room for is truth is relative. Cain was given parameters and specifics to he is offer. He chose not to do with that offering what God had laid out. So as much as Ted is saying the rules don’t really apply, they apply.

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Ted Haggard

Indeed, yet, Ted Haggard is rather intent to keep pushing the gospel of vagueries:

HAGGARD: …Jesus was very clear and the scriptures were very clear when they say the command is to love. The command that covers them all, predominant, “love the lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.”…

And so — so, love is the predominant thing. God is love. The scripture says Jesus displays how to do this.

BOTSFORD: I am just coming back to the Bible. Clearly God has an opinion on this issue. I’m just wanting to stand up for the truth of God’s word.

That we are to love our neighbors and even our enemies does not mean that we must love that which our neighbors and enemies do.

The conversation ends thusly:

KING: …You are saying it is a choice?

BOTSFORD: I’m saying Paul clearly says in Galacians (ph) Chapter Two, whatever my life has been up to this point, I have now melt [met] Christ. And Paul says, as a result of what Christ has done for me on the cross, I am to be crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, whether it is homosexuality tendencies, whether it’s stealing tendencies, whether it’s tendencies of adultery, pedophile. It is no longer I. It’s Christ. And the life I live I live by faith. I can’t have it both ways.

KING: Ted, we only got a minute left. We are never going to answer this, are we, Ted?

KNAPP: Never.

Who is “we” in “We are never going to answer this”?
Jennifer Knapp? Larry King? Bob Botsford? Ted Haggard? Who?

In fact, why was not this interview one that was hostile to Jennifer Knapp’s position? Why was not she made to defend her position and asked theological question or being made to seem complicit to murder?

Well, “we” may never answer this but God has.


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