Having written the books In Consideration of Rev. Dr. Mel While on Christian Homosexuality and The Occult Roots of Postgenderism: And a History of Changes to Psychiatry and Psychology I was fascinated to read Rev. Michael Coren’s article What would Jesus do during Pride? Simple — he’d wave the rainbow flag and march in the parade (June 21, 2021).
Coren describes himself as “straight, married, ordained Christian cleric” an “Anglican cleric” specifically. Yet, he is merely borrowing the long debunked assertions of homosexual ordained clerics and laypersons.
What I found most fascinating is the window into his thought (or rather, feelings) process and noting the many relevant facts that he did not bother including. Now, I am granting that he, for example, wrote a book titled, “Epiphany: A Christian’s Change of Heart & Mind over Same-Sex Marriage” which surely includes more details and yet, having written such a book, he should ergo be that much more aware of the importance of working in certain factual details into writing even an article (an article to which one cannot post comments, by the way).
He goes on to describe himself as “one who until around eight years ago opposed equal marriage and was considered an opponent of the LGBTQ community. But people change, thank God. Literally in my case, thank God.” This tells me that his opposition to traditional Jewish and Christian views on homosexuality began when condemned, corrupt, fallen, and secular and pagan (at once) culture kicked its pro-homosexual PR marketing campaign into turbo-high-gear and told him it was acceptable.
And yet, this is not just about “Same-Sex Marriage” but about “the LGBTQ community” as a whole. Thus, this “ordained Christian cleric” approvingly celebrates homosexuality and bisexuality and transgenderism which must mean that he not only approves of “Same-Sex Marriage” but also of “marriage” between more than two people since such is what bisexuals would do and also “marriage” between people who self-identify as a genders other than their birth one because they are at whatever stage of supposed transitioning. Is there any sexual practice that this “ordained Christian cleric” opposes?
But why claim that Jesus would supposedly “wave the rainbow” “Pride” “flag and march in the parade”? After all, it is clearly a sin!!!
How could this “ordained Christian cleric” not know that it is a sin?!?!?!
Well, Coren claims, “the theology is entirely clear” and it is, just not the way he conveniently selectively appeals to it. We are very, very clearly told, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18, RSV). This is merely one of many, many biblical statements about that pride is not a virtue but is a vice, it is sin!!!
Note that Coren capitalizes it since he is referring to an activist movement that calls itself after a blatant sin, “Pride.” This alone is a major issue and a troubling window into Coren and that activist movement that he celebrates.
We have an “ordained Christian cleric” openly celebrating a sin, and a movement that identifies itself with sin!!! Speaking of Rev. Dr. Mel White, he has stated, “I am gay, I am proud, and God loves me without reservation.”
That being said, we will have to see what Coren has to say about homosexuality (he, conveniently, does not bother discussing B and T in the article but only L, G, and Q—which all refer to homosexuality).
One reason that Jesus would supposedly wave the rainbow Pride flag and march in the parade is that “Jesus doesn’t refer to what we now define as homosexuality (a word not coined until the 19th century), and lesbianism is never mentioned in the Old Testament.”
There are at least three issue with which to deal here (which denotes how simple it is to make generic assertions and yet, how cumbersome to review them):
- “Jesus doesn’t refer to what we now define as homosexuality”: actually, Jesus does not refer to any form of homosexuality—not directly.
Yet, Christianity is not, I repeat not, based exclusively on what Jesus did or did not say but upon what circa 40 authors wrote, which is found in an anthology called The Bible.
What did Jesus say that is contextually relevant? Well, when He was asked a question about marriage, He replied:
“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh.”
Thus, the gender binary was created since God “made them male and female.” This is God’s created order for genders (which were traditionally called sexes). This was also God’s created order for marriage since “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to” whom? To “his wife,” meaning no shacking up but only living together once married. And that is when God’s created order for sensual and sexual relationships are to be engaged in since, that is when “the two shall become one flesh.”
Thus, indeed, “the theology is entirely clear” in that Jesus made it crystal clear that such is God’s created order for the genders/sexes and for marriage and living arrangements and for sex and ergo, for families—did you note that “a man shall leave his father and his mother…” was stated to Adam and Eve who did not have parents? Thus, it is clear that this was establishing a template. Ergo, any deviation from this template is unacceptable. This is Jesus’ concept of gender/sex, marriage, households, sex, and family.
- “(a word not coined until the 19th century)”: we should ponder what his points is in noting this. I happen to know that it is not just linguistics nerd trivia since that features a such a major part of pro-homosexuality propaganda that an entire film is being made about it, see my Is “1946: The mistranslation that shifted culture” the misconception that discredited a claim?
The bottom line is that 2.a) we Jews have understood that homosexuality is a misguided acted out desire for millennia before the 19th century AD and for millennia before the New Testament was written (since that statement is about one word in the NT) and 2.b) that a word was coined to express a concept denotes that the concept already existed thus, homosexuality existed long before the word homosexuality was coined. Knowing these issues, I discern that his point is that “Jesus doesn’t refer to what we now define as homosexuality” since how it is “now defined” (an example of his disregarding of the original historical, cultural, and grammatical contexts in favor of neo cultural influence) as perfectly acceptable committed same-sex couples (so he must condemn unmarried/uncommitted same sex couples, right?).
- “lesbianism is never mentioned in the Old Testament”: this is irrelevant but informs us that Coren does not seem to be engaging in the meta issues (to the level of Jews who had Shabbos Goyim to do for them what they were not allowed to do) since he is not affirming that God’s created order, as elucidated to the first two people who ever existed, is the template whether every single deviance was elucidated or not.
In fact, Coren will go on to refer to “men using boys for sex” which is not condemned in any such words in the Bible but which is conceptually condemned due to it being a violation of the template since 3.a) that is not about a man and a woman but a man and a boy (in terms of age) 3.b) and is also about two males rather than a male and a female.
See what I mean? All of that was just to reply to one sentence.
Coren also wrote, “When St. Paul writes on the subject, he condemns straight men using boys for sex — usually in pagan initiation rituals — and not people of the same gender having loving relationships.”
Anyone who has read the Bible know that it states nothing about “men using boys for sex” not about such during “pagan initiation rituals” nor about “people of the same gender having loving relationships” (this is what I meant by his neo cultural influence).
Again, knowing this territory, I know that what he is doing is seeking to sidestep what it so very clearly stated in the Bible by appealing to invented imaginary (and illegitimate) loopholes.
He is so very aware that the Bible condemns that which he seeks to approve that he must find ways to massage it to the point that it is actually approving of that which it really condemns: Coren is urging us to derive a meaning from texts that is the 100% exact opposite of that which the texts are actually really stating in their own contexts, concepts, and contents.
He offers another such example but this time, with actual biblical backing (a quotation):
“As for the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, it wasn’t linked to homosexuality until the medieval period. If you doubt me, read the Bible.
Ezekiel: ‘This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.’”
Indeed, such was the statement about it in Ezekiel and it denotes that Sodom and Gomorrah had multiple problems. In any case, their sexual issue would have not been homosexuality anyhow but bisexuality—or so it would seem—or a combination of the two (or more sexual issues, actually, since they engaged other sexual deviances as well).
Thus, to exclusively appeal to Ezekiel is to engage in Coren’s modus operandi: being selectively conveniently myopic.
He then admits biblical condemnations of homosexuality but seeks to wiggle around them:
“Those few prohibitions that do exist in the Hebrew Scriptures are part of an ancient guide for an ancient people, and also restrict certain combinations of cloth and the eating of various foods — all considered irrelevant in modern Christianity.”
Now, of course, “few” is subjective and, as I chronicle in my book contra Mel White, the Bible condemns homosexuality more often than it condemns murder.
Now, he seems to emphasize “ancient” in order to then emphasize (his generic statement) “considered irrelevant in modern Christianity.”
Thus, he is throwing out the ethical baby with the ritualistic bathwater. It is not true, or should not be, that “modern Christianity” considered such created order violating prohibitions to be irrelevant. Yes, Coren’s brand of “modern Christianity” does consider it that way but such is part of what discredits it, and he.
The NT is specific about food laws no longer being in place (Mark 7:19, Galatians 2:14, Acts 10:9-16, etc.) but no such thing is ever stated about the created order, the template, no longer being in place: in fact, we saw that Jesus was very specific about that it most certainly is.
Coren spikes this by adding, “They also, by the way, justify selling one’s children into bondage” whereby he seems to be disapproving of the Old Testament. Yet, he is merely being emphatic without telling us that he is referring to having one’s offspring (he seems to use the term children for emotive effect) work for someone to whom the family was in debt when the family was unable to pay the debt back monetarily.
Coren notes, “If we’re to take the Bible seriously, which I most certainly do, we can’t always take it literally” and, apparently, his modus operandi about determining when to take it literally and when to not do so is that we should not take it literally when it is literally very clearly condemning that which condemned, corrupt, fallen, secular and pagan (at once) culture tells him is actually acceptable—and worth to be accepted, praised, celebrated, paraded about with waving flags, etc.
He goes on to write:
“There is one story in the Gospels, however, that might be relevant. Jesus is approached by a centurion; the Roman explains that his slave, whom he loves dearly, is dying. Would Jesus heal him? He does so, and praises the man’s devotion.
Based on the specific Greek words used, and the mocking attitude 1st-century Jews had toward their oppressors regarding their sexuality, it’s highly likely that those who witnessed this, and those who read about it in the early church, would have assumed that the two men were in a same-sex relationship.”
This is clearly made up stuff—and based on that which he subjectively considers, “highly likely” and “would have” been if.
Yet, what is the point? That because Jesus healed the slave He therefore approved of a supposedly alleged “same-sex relationship”? That would certainly be an incoherent conclusion and a misapplication.
Also, why say “the early church, would have assumed” rather than quoting anyone within the “early church” who actually assumed any such a thing—or, for that matter, anyone before June 21, 2021.
Yet, again, I am aware of the desperate attempt to read homosexuality where it is clearly not: in my noted book I deal with assertions that David and Jonathan and even Ruth and Naomi were homosexual—bypassing that it would actually mean they were bisexual and yet, there is no indication of any such thing and if they were then it would be spelled out utterly bluntly in the Bible itself.
Coren rightly notes, “Isn’t it interesting what happens when we understand the context and history of scripture, and read it without preconceptions and prejudice?”
Yet, we have been seeing what happens when he initially understood the actual context and actual history of scripture but gave those up for postconceptions postjudices (as in post hoc) that Coren has brought into it as an exercise in eisegesis rather than exegesis.
Another direct claim as to why he can even imagine that Jesus would wave the rainbow Pride flag and approvingly march in the parade is that “He stood with the oppressed, the rejected and the marginalized…He preached a shining new message of love, justice, tolerance and change.”
Yes indeed, Jesus did those things. Yet, the key issue is that He stood with the oppressed people, the rejected people and the marginalized people.
In other words, Jesus befriended such people, even such blatant sinners like prostitutes yet, He never once approved of their sin, nor accepted their sin, not celebrated their sin, nor paraded in favor of their sin whilst waving a flag denoting their sin.
Coren misses this fact 100%. No amount of emphasizing, “shining new message of love, justice, tolerance and change” can change this fact.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 reads, “neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Now, I am not quoting this for the reason you may think. Note the correlation, in terms of not inheriting the kingdom of God by adulterers and homosexuals.
Now, John 8:3-11 notes:
“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?’
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’
And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
Jesus stood up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.’”
Now, besides what may have been going on in the background—Jesus writing on the ground and then referring to which of them were without sin—what Jesus did not do is to call for His apostles and disciples to sew an adultery flag and parade around for adultery acceptance.
Note that due to the circumstances (such as there is more in the background since “they said to test him”) Jesus does say “Neither do I condemn you” (as actually “no one condemned” her—not legally anyhow) but He does say “sin no more” and not, something to the likes of that “Well, if it is true that you were committing adultery then go right back to it, be proud of it, and I will demand that everyone accepts it, approves of it, celebrates it, and parades in favor of it.”
Coren ends with many emotively exaggerated and utterly generic statements against traditional Christianity (virtue signaling at its worse).
He wrote that Jesus “criticized the legalists, the judgmental and the pedants who twisted holiness into hatred,” even as Coren is being judgmental and is employing un-holiness into hatred for traditional Christianity.
Also, “The time will come when organized Christianity will look back to its homophobia with shame, just as it looks to racism as a filthy stain and sometimes an open wound.” May the time come when people within Coren’s circles will look back to its homosexual approval with shame.
Disapproving of homosexual has always been and still is biblical, racism is not since, for example, “behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9).
Coren’s circles consist of what he puts as that, “Many churches have already moved on, apologized, and now work to repair the damage they caused.” Yet, this is part of the generic and emotive nature of his assertions. He might as well write of “the damage they caused by condemning heterosexual adultery.”
He then takes it up a notch with a series of emotional bombs, “people have suffered for too long…horrendous persecution and violence…This outrageous obsession shames Christianity….reactionary bigotry…”
He also ads, “there are many in the church — some of them with political influence even in Canada — who believe that people can be ‘converted’ from who and what they are, as if there is something wrong and bad about them. God forgive such malice!”
He live in Canada (which explains a lot) but what of people “in the church…who believe that people can be ‘converted’ from who and what they are” in terms of sexual deviances?
Well, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, that I stopped quoting at “neither…will inherit the kingdom of God,” actually goes on to state, “And such were some of you.” Coren cannot seem to conceive that as real as abusive persecution of homosexuals (or any in the LBGTQIIAPPR+ groups) has shamefully been at time, part of that suffering has been because they have chosen to carry out sinful lifestyles—and are proud of it.
Coren leaves us with that “authentic faith is about acceptance, not exclusion” which is shockingly incoherent in part because it is uselessly generic.
His ultimate take away point is, “Pride should remind Christians of that” rather than, apparently, that we all have sins that we love oh, so very much but of which we must repent.
I will leave you with a quotation which helps to evidence that the greatest danger to a person tends to come from their in-group and not from without.
The following was stated by long-time homosexual activist Harvey Fierstein (Op-Ed for The New York Times entitled, “The Culture of Disease,” July 31, 2003):
“So we produced advertising, created enlightenment programs, spent endless hours making certain that having AIDS or being H.I.V. positive was nothing to be ashamed of. We did a great job. Maybe too great a job. After all the effort exerted to convince the world that AIDS is not a gay disease, we now have a generation embracing AIDS as its gay birthright…Many of our young men see infection as a right of passage [sic], an inevitable coming of age. I hear of them seeking the disease as entree into the cool, queer inner circle that being negative denies them…
Unlike the photos in the ads we see, most of my friends who are on drug cocktails [to treat H.I.V.] are not having the time of their lives. They spend mornings in the bathroom throwing up or suffering from diarrhea. They spend afternoons at doctor’s appointments, clinics and pharmacies. And they spend endless evenings planning their estates and trying to make ends meet because they are not well enough to support themselves and their new drug habit. And those are just the friends for whom the drugs work. For many women the cocktails are nothing but a drain on finance, internal organs and stamina…
We have done a terrific job removing the stigma of having AIDS. But in doing so we’ve failed to eliminate the disease. H.I.V. is an almost completely avoidable infection. You need to be compliant in some very specific behaviors to be at risk. In fact, if every person now infected vowed that the disease ended with him, we could wipe out the ballooning number of new infections. Instead, we’ve sold our next generation into drug slavery and their destiny to medical researchers because we’d rather treat each other as sexual objects than as family…stop minimizing the infection with cute little names like ‘the gift’ or ‘the bug.’” [emphasis added for emphasis].
Postscript:
I emailed this to Coren:
“Good day,
I pray I find you well.
Hoped to request a bit of elucidation since it was not clear to me, after having read your article ‘What would Jesus do during Pride? Simple — he’d wave the rainbow flag and march in the parade’ why you think that Jesus would celebrate Pride.
Thank you for your time and attention,
Ken Ammi”
His reply was:
“Here’s my book. Enjoy.
[The url to his book being sold at Amazon]
Thanks and blesings [sic.].”
I replied:
“Thank you so much for the speedy reply.
So, if I read it: will I find out why Jesus would celebrate Pride even when, as one mere example, Proverbs 16:18 informs us ‘Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall’?”
Yet, that was all since he never replied again.
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Again, for more details, see my book In Consideration of Rev. Dr. Mel While on Christian Homosexuality and also The Occult Roots of Postgenderism
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