Do you find it curious that the media considers it news when a pastor — who openly serves the LGBT community and openly attends LGBT national events — makes his “coming out” in favor of same-sex marriage the subject of a Sunday sermon?
While the article in a local paper may have local significance, the content of the sermon has eternal implications.
“I have concluded, after exhaustive biblical study and theological reflection, that the Bible does condemn promiscuity of all stripes, and rape in all forms, but knows nothing of the kind of long-term loving relationships LGBT people are living. I therefore support marriage for all, with the terms and conditions of marriage being applicable for all marriages.” – Rev. Richard Gantenbein, in August 14, 2016 sermon, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Sonoma, Calif.
Either God is omnipotent, sovereign and eternal, or God is not God.
The issue is not same-sex marriage.
The issue is not the propriety or impropriety of sex of any variety.
The issue is whether or not we receive the Scriptures as the very Word of God.
If we say that the Bible “knows nothing of the kind of long-term loving relationships LGBT people are living,” we are either saying that God knows nothing of such relationships; that God intentionally included confusion about the issue throughout the Old and New Testaments; or, that the Bible is not the Word of God. Let’s take those in order.
Option 1: God knows nothing of “the kind of long-term loving relationships LGBT people are living.” If so, then God is not God in that God is not omnipotent. And, if God knows nothing of these relationships then what is a pastor or church doing when they bless such relationships? How can could God’s representatives in the world be actively blessing something that they admit God does not even know? Clearly, those who claim that the Bible doesn’t know about the kinds of LGBT relationships that exist today are saying something other than God doesn’t know about it.
Option 2: God knew and God knows about “the kind of long-term loving relationships LGBT people are living” but God put misleading and contradictory information in the Bible for some purpose known only to God. You cannot get around the fact that the Bible says what it says about gender identity, homosexual acts and bisexual behavior. Even the pastor at the center of this article admits as much:
“People say to me, ‘Everybody knows what the Bible says about this,’ and yeah, I know what the Bible says,” Gantenbein remarks. “But I think what’s being talked about in the Bible is not Ron and Dan, or Mike and Brian. I think the Bible’s talking about promiscuity. I think it’s talking about sex for the sake of sex, outside of a covenant relationship. When I get to Heaven, if I find out that I read the scripture wrong, well, I’d rather risk that, than risk being on the side of those who stand against being loving and accepting…”
The pastor is making a choice that includes the active suppression of what the Bible clearly says. So, if the Bible says what it says and yet means something different than what it says, then God is a God who cannot be trusted. That doesn’t seem like a good place to land.
Option 3: The Bible isn’t really the Word of God. You don’t have to believe what the Bible says if the Bible is merely the words of men.
Pastors in the Presbyterian Church (USA) — of which Rev. Gantenbein is a member — are taught this in the denomination’s Confession of 1967 which says in part: “The Scriptures … are nevertheless the words of men.”¹ Having undermined the foundations of the authority of the Scriptures as God’s Word, it is easy to set oneself up as an authority over what the Bible says.
There are errors in the article not least of which is the statement that “Gantenbein’s view on same-sex marriage is now shared by a majority of American Presbyterian congregations.”
While post-Obergefell research from Pew says that 64 percent of white mainline Protestants now approve same sex marriage, a 2012 Presbyterian Panel survey of the PCUSA found that “around one-half of members (51 percent) and ruling elders (48 percent) oppose same-sex marriage, while more than one in three are in favor (34 percent; 38 percent); the rest are not sure.”
Furthermore, Gantenbein’s view is anathema in every expression of Presbyterianism except for the PCUSA. So, Presbyterians in the Presbyterian Church in America, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and on and on, do not share Gantenbein’s view but hold instead to the 2,000 year teaching of the Church on the subject.
1. See page 291 of the PCUSA’s Book of Order, paragraph 9.29.
10 Comments. Leave new
This is more progressive, political garbage by this supposed “Minister of the Word and Sacrament and reflects the apostasy of the residual, declining PC(USA) which will number a mere million members by 2020. An ongoing decline (their projections) of 100,000 net members per year.
“When I get to Heaven, if I find out that I read the scripture wrong, well, I’d rather risk that, than risk being on the side of those who stand against being loving and accepting.”
Given Gantenburg’s context here, he’s grouping those who do not accept homosexuality as morally good (or at least morally neutral) together with those who do not love homosexuals. If we were substitute another sin, such as alcoholism, would he say that in order to love an alcoholic, would one be required to accept his or her alcoholism as morally good or neutral?
Leaving that aside, Scripture states that men who commit homosexuality will not inherit the Kingdom of God (I Cor. 6.9-10). If Paul accurately stated God’s final decree on the matter, then if one downplays it as “promiscuity” or “sex for the sake of sex, outside of a covenant relationship”, in order to appear “loving and accepting” of homosexuals and their sin, and if men who want to engage in homosexuality hear this message, then one has, in fact, lied to them and not truly loved them at all. Or is it now love to show acceptance for one’s sin here on earth in order to appear loving and not judgmental and risk losing their souls to hell? The Lord Jesus takes a very dim view of people who do that (Mt. 18.6, Mk. 9.42, Lk. 17.2; see also Ezek. 3.16-21, 33.1-9).
‘Not’. It’s an imaginary theological construct that makes some people feel good.
The Bible also knows nothing of evolution or a heliocentric model of the universe.
Does that mean that God doesn’t, either?
You seem to be treading on some dangerous (read: fundamentalist) ground!
Evolution is a scientific theory— and is yet to be fully proven and therefore is not yet truth. It has a long way to go before it can become fact— even though the 2016 GA raised it to point of being a “Biblical” truth (which it is not).
“…heliocentric model of the universe.” ???? Do you mean the Earth as the center of the universe? If you do, then this again was a theory which was postulated by well meaning people based on the observations which they made. When the observations failed to substantiate this theory as fact, they had to revise it.
Observations of the universe, and of biological change which appears to “evolve” over the course of many millions of years, etc., do not discredit nor change scriptural truths. Humans can choose to ignore the truths of scripture, which is what Rev. Gantenbein seems to be doing.
Mr. Lee-Cornell,
1. I presume you mean a heliocentric model of the solar system. To your point, the Bible is not adverse to the scientific finding that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around. Phenomenal language referring to the Sun moving through the sky, including reference to sunrise and sunset, must be excluded from consideration, inasmuch as we still use this language today.
2. I presume you refer to the theory of macroevolution, the theory that one species can physically mutate into a sustainable form, distinct from its parent species, that can then mate and propagate itself and cannot mate with its parent species (e.g., the supposed evolution of Australopithecus into modern Man). To your point, no scientific evidence has been produced to irrefutably demonstrate that macroevolution can occur. Again, the Bible is not adverse to the scientific finding that microevolution, that is, permanent, reproducible changes in a living organism that do not affect its ability to mate with its parent species, can occur and has, in fact, occurred.
3. I presume that the point of your post is that scientific research has provided irrefutable evidence that one’s “sexual orientation” is determined by one’s genes. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that whether or not such evidence has been produced is still a hotly contested proposition, it is a major leap from there to conclude that such “evidence” constitutes justification for homosexual behavior. There is some scientific evidence that certain behaviors, such as predispositions toward alcoholism, gambling, and violent tempers, might be genetically inherited. Yet that evidence does not excuse alcohol abuse, irresponsible gambling, or violent acts perpetrated against people, animals, or property. Neither, for that matter, would the discovery of a “gay gene” justify homosexual behavior.
Carmen’s point was that God is omniscient—He knows everything—and the Bible is His holy, inspired Word, “the only infallible rule of faith and practice”. That homosexual intercourse occurs within the context of a purportedly loving, committed relationship does not justify homosexual behavior in the eyes of God, inasmuch as He has unequivocally condemned it (Ex. 18.22, 20.13, Rom. 1.24-27, I Cor. 6.9-11, I Tim. 1.9-10, Jude 7) independently of any perceived context—postmodern or ancient.
And to presume to know better than the Word of God is to tread on very dangerous ground indeed!
One can follow this down the endless rabbit hole of the culture, sex wars, LGBTQ politics, church politics and alike. But you would miss the point. The point is a PCUSA clergy person, though one of many, may like him, that sees the calling, the vocation, the pulpit, the church, his people as more or less a commodity, a utility to be used, a vehicle to express, work out his own boutique or personal issues and agendas. For him LGBTQ, for other BLM and anti police hate speech. For others, climate zealotry, for others anti Israel anti antisemitism. For the current co-moderators, they see their elected positions as bully pulpits and raw materiel for their blogs, which are the center of their sense of vocation. All other matters and concerns are secondary at best.
This is the state of the contemporary PCUSA. Its every person for him or her self, get paid at the end or ride the wave as far as you can. The PCUSA brought this state of affairs upon themselves, they have no one else to blame but themselves.
AMEN PETER!
Thanks for the correction on the heliocentric model of the solar system. Touché.
My point has very little to do with human sexuality. My point is that this sounds like a straight up textbook example of bibliolatry – worshiping the Bible. Barth, Calvin, et al declare the Bible to be the word of God and the word of “man.” Her view of scripture doesn’t sound very Reformed. Folks will do exegesis all day long to justify ordaining women, interracial marriage, and holding onto
their possessions, but when it comes to same sex marriage or “behavior,” all
the sudden it’s prooftexting and black and white.
If Carmen wants to argue that loving, same sex relationships are wrong, then she can go nuts with the natural law argument, which is still compelling for many. But if she wants to argue that the PCUSA has abandoned the Reformed view of scripture, she needs to do better than this type of anti-intellectual “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it” nonsense. It’s lazy and unpersuasive – and yes “dangerous” because it skirts the line of idolatry.
I think you’re misrepresenting Calvin’s understanding of the nature and authority of Scripture. “This is the first clause, that we owe to the Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God; because it has proceeded from him alone, and has nothing belonging to man mixed with it.” (Calvin’s Commentary on II Tim. 3.16)