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Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Bible and Dan Savage

Dan Savage speaking at IWU as part of Gender I...
Dan Savage speaking at IWU as part of Gender Issues Week. Photo by soundfromwayout (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This past weekend, shock-jock, gay activist, anti-gay-bullying advocate, and so-called sex therapist Dan Savage took to the stage at a high school journalism conference and called parts of the Bible the excrement of a bull. Savage's scheduled topic was anti-bullying. Instead, Savage chose to go into a tirade against Christians and attempted to accuse Christians of being selective when reading their Bible. To quote Savage:
"We can learn to ignore the bull---- in the Bible about gay people," Savage told the high school students. "The same way we have learned to ignore the bull---- in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about masturbation."
Savage went on to call the Bible "a radically pro-slavery document" and referred to the walkout as "pansy-assed." (Source)
 According to one high school teacher, here is what was expected:
"We expected it to be about how student publications can promote anti-bullying programs on campus," said teacher Rick Tuttle of Sutter, who took six Sutter Union High School yearbook staff members to the three-day conference. "So we were surprised when it suddenly became clear it was not about that, but just a hostile torrent of obscenities and foul language that was completely inappropriate for a high school student audience and highly unprofessional."
A few things I want to point out.

  1.  What is with all this apologizing after the fact? This seems to be happening all too frequently.  Somebody says something that somebody else disagrees with and the media makes some big deal about it until somebody apologizes. To be frank, the words that come out of your mouth, reflect your heart. Does anyone really think that Savage is sorry for what he said, after everything else he said, has said, or is going to say? Anyone who knows who Savage is knows he's going to say something else. That's who he is. He basically hates Christians and makes no bones about it.  Stop with the apologizing already unless you are truly sorry for what you said.
  2. Savage seems to know what the Bible says about certain things, but he completely does not understand context. Yes, the Old Testament law condemned shellfish, masturbation, and homosexuality, among other things. The law was established by God to point to himself as the author of grace and truth. And no, the Bible does not condemn slavery, but it does tell us to treat fellow human beings with dignity and respect, which is not the same as affirming their sin. In the book of Acts, God shows Peter that the law is fulfilled in Christ when it comes to eating clean and unclean things such as shellfish. I guess Savage missed that part, because he likes to point out the parts that affirm his point. The fact remains that homosexuality is still a sin classified along the lines of murder and lying. Are Christians hypocritical? Sure, we are. We allow divorce in the church as common as eating fried chicken. A leader commits adultery and we look for ways to keep him in the pulpit. We allow professors in Christian universities to continue to teach even after they've fudged on their resumes. Yeah, we're guilty. But, we're also sinners. The difference is that some of us have been saved by grace through faith by Christ. He has changed our hearts, not through anything we have done, but by His grace. The problem is that people like Savage still see us as a bunch of moralists, and many of us are.

    [9] Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [10] nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. [11] And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV)
  3. Did the organizers not know who Savage was? This is a guy who started off his so-called speech about anti-bullying to teens suggesting they use birth control. Really? Is this the best the organizers of this conference could do just because Savage is the creator of the "It Gets Better" campaign? Savage is known for advocating multiple sex partners and non-monogamy in marriage. Savage is not exactly an exemplary model for teens, now is he? "It Gets Better" is a faux attempt to suggest that gay bullying among teens is an epidemic and that gay teens are killing themselves left and right. Here's a tip...calling a teen gay...and that teen commits suicide because of the bullying...does  not make that teen gay. The simple fact is that gay has been used as a bullying tactic for years before homosexuality became socially accepted. It's a word that hurts and bullies, even those who are heterosexual. Bullying is wrong, no matter what. That's a fact. Another fact is that the organizers got what they got when they invited Savage and they should have known that.
Solution?

Pray for Dan Savage. Pray that God would grab a hold of his heart, pull it out, and give him a new one, one that would love Jesus, and bring him to repentance. Christian John Shore has come out supporting Savage on this one, even continuing to push his own Change.org petition to bully Christians into affirming homosexuality. Pray for John Shore as well. He used to have some sound doctrine, but essentially has no sound doctrine anymore. We shall be persecuted, but we shall not be dismayed because Christ is our Savior and Lord.


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