Ironically, in the name of “life-long commitment,” “gay marriage” (though it includes expressions of human affection) ultimately deifies self-love. It does not see the other, but narcissistically sees a reflection of self in the other. A society that makes selfishness sacred, as a defining principle of communal life, will be deaf to the Gospel, and will eventually implode like the Sodom of old. Read more».
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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@ Zrim and his Monty Python interlude…
Well said… or should I say, well embedded! Good to know there are some reformed folk who can look to the lads of Monty Python for proof text.
Kudos…
Jack
Dr Clark,
You said: “I can’t grant your claim that contraception is always destructive unless you think sperm is sacred (which is bizarre).”
What happened to the “potential for life” and “unproductive” aspect of your original response? Your comment here seems to imply that you *do* grant that contraception is ““necessarily and always unproductive.”
You seem to have re-framed this issue to only be focused upon the “destructive” aspect.
I’m not sure how you’re using “destructive,” but it seems to be limited to the physical health risks of sodomy. If so, I would agree with that, but I’d say drugs which destroy one’s wife’s fertility are just as damaging in terms of health. And I’d say sperm and eggs are “sacred” in that they have a special sacred function and to abuse them is certainly destructive and wrong (which is why it’s morally wrong to sell eggs and sperm). Lastly, I deliberately didn’t use the term “sodomy” in my original response because homosexual sexual perversion goes beyond the act of sodomy and not necessarily destructive in terms of physical health problems.
(I’d say there are damaging *psychological* and even physiological health problems for all of the above, which in many cases can be worse than physical health problems).
…unless you think sperm is sacred (which is bizarre).
Stop tape, cue Monty Python:
Dr Clark,
I agree with your clarification regarding “potential” existing, but you don’t make mention of the contraceptive issue at all.
You said homosex is “necessarily and always unproductive and destructive” – but is *this* not identical in essence to contraception? Contraception is by *nature* “necessarily and always unproductive and destructive.”
Nick,
I was trying not to be too graphic so I used the adjective “destructive” but you’re using it in a completely different sense. I can’t grant your claim that contraception is always destructive unless you think sperm is sacred (which is bizarre). To destroy a conception, i.e., an embryonic human is destructive but to prevent a pregnancy is not. Sodomy is clearly prohibited by God’s moral law. Contraception is not.
Scott,
I am sensitive to the homosexual argument though, that the sexual immorality seen in Sodom is rape, not just sodomy. Had they abused women that way I’m not sure the judgment would have been much different. I do believe homosexual activity is sinful, but I’m not sure it is fair to say God destroyed Sodom simply because there were a lot of practicing homosexuals there.
Scott,
Right, that’s why I said, as much as, – in Ezek the first reason given for their destruction is their greed, but not meant to downplay the sexual immorality either as another reason.
Just to add to John’s correction, the stated reason given for Sodom’s destruction had as much to do with their refusal to share with others as with their sexual lusts, and in God’s eyes, Sodom by comparison was more righteous than Jerusalem (Ezek 16:49-52)
Todd, can you account for Jude 7?
Dr Clark,
Simple question: how is contraceptive sex different in principle to homosex?
Both render the act non-life giving and non-bonding.
Not all heterosexual copulation is productive of life. Nature sometimes (in the providence of God) prevents conception but the potential for conception exists. God intended heterosexual copulation. He did not intend sodomy, which is necessarily and always unproductive and destructive.
Sent from my iPhone
This is why Catholicism has always opposed to contraception (and related things like masturbation) – which Protestantism, as a whole, has given the “ok” to do.
In doing so, Protestantism has, ironically, demolished any principled difference between gay sex and hetero sex, since through contraception the act is rendered sterile. Both “acts” are equally non-life-giving and not true bonding. The only rope the Protestant has to hang on to is some Biblical commands against gay sex, but these prohibitions are only as authoritative or strong as a Biblical prohibition against eating “unclean” foods and such. There is no *intrinsic* grounds supporting the prohibition of gay sex as always and forever intrinsically evil.
That’s just a silly argument. Contraception does not turn sodomy into copulation anymore than consecration turns the elements onto the host. Romanist magical thinking.
Sent from my iPhone
“God destroyed the city.”
That’s an implosion?
My point was that Sodom was not put on a path to worldly failure by its actions. Your city (the United States) is not going to (necessarily) be put on that path for a similar reason. God may destroy your city, sure, but worldly greatness has sometimes come to greatly debauched cities.
Spoke too soon. Quotation marks could’ve keyed me earlier. Thanks for sharing.
Wow! Very insightful. I’ve been trying to figure out how to think about just this, and here you’ve, along with Jones, given it words.
Good analysis of the perversion of homosex. The denial of God, or of the right of God to have anything to say about their behaviour, including their sexual behaviour is the foundation of their behaviour.
Just to correct Scott a wee bit: God had already decided to destroy Sodom even before its inhabitants tried to rape the angels. God already knew what they were like.
“Sodom didn’t implode.”
Its inhabitants tried to rape angels in the form of men, so God destroyed the city.
Sodom didn’t implode.
I think it lawys boils down to living life “My Way” or “God’s Way!” However, we will always screw it up…God sets perameters of behavior based on what is best for man…