CULTURE
Pat Robertson Responds to the Episcopal Church Homosexual Controversy
By Pat Robertson
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– It was sad to see those proceedings [the results of the Episcopal
convention], and to hear what they had to say. It is a grief to anybody who is involved
in the Episcopal Church to see what they have done.
Sexual Immorality and the Anglican Church: A Historical Perspective Some of you are not old enough to remember what happened back in the '30s,
but there was a king of England whose name was Edward VIII. King Edward was
infatuated with a woman from Baltimore named Wallis Simpson. She happened
to be a divorced woman. He said, 'I want to marry her.' The Anglican Church
said, 'It is against our rules to marry someone who is divorced.' And the
king said, 'Well, I am sorry. I am going to give up the throne of England
for the woman I love.' If you weren't living through that, at least you have
seen the movies and the films of it. He was a very handsome guy. The so-called
Windsor knot, the big tie knot, was his invention. He gave up the throne of
England because the Church told him he couldn't marry a divorced woman. The current queen's sister was taking up with a horseman. He was a flight
commander and he was divorced. She was madly in love with him, but she said,
'No, because of the teachings of the church, I will not marry this man because
he is divorced.' That was standard Anglican policy that divorce and remarriage,
except for the cause of adultery, clearly understood, was not permitted. And
here were two high-profile examples. You would think if anybody could get
an exception to the rule it would be the king and queen of England, but they
didn't make it. In today's world, we have a priest, an Episcopal minister, who has divorced
his wife. It isn't that he was single before. He was married with two children.
He walks out on his wife (I presume they got a divorce), and takes up with
this guy. They have been living together in a 'committed relationship,' and
now he wants to be bishop. Instead of saying that this is an abomination,
we will not permit it, we did not let the king of England marry a divorced
person, we did not permit the queen's sister to marry somebody who is divorced,
so we certainly aren't going to permit a bishop to divorce his wife and take
up with a man, they voted overwhelmingly to sanction this. Then they said,
'Homosexuality is a gift of God to the Church.' Robinson said, 'People are
going to learn in this life and in the next life that what I did was right
and was blessed by God.' You think we have gone crazy in a short time. It isn't that people didn't
commit homosexual acts. This kind of stuff has gone on before. The question
now, though, is whether we are going to legitimize it. David Lloyd George, when he was prime minister of England some years ago, was
asked whether or not England should recognize the Bolsheviks who had just
taken over in Russia. He said, 'We might as well legalize sodomy.' That was
the feeling back in World War I and the late 1910s and early 1920s. The Bowers case [Bowers v. Hardwick] in the Supreme Court, written by Justice
Powell of Virginia, upheld the Georgia sodomy law because he said that this
court is not going to put itself in a position where we legalize sodomy. The
Court said the reasoning of Bowers was completely off and overthrew it. I was amazed at the Wall Street Journal this weekend. They have a Friday
edition, and they have a supplemental page about real estate. At the end of
that is a supplemental editorial page, and they have a column on religion.
The writer of that said that the Episcopal Church has walked away from 2,000
years of Scripture and tradition upholding marriage. The writer was scathing
in relation to this particular decision of this body. What Does the Bible Say? A Look at Romans Chapter 1:16-32 Look at Romans chapter 1. It is amazing. The Apostle
Paul introduces himself and he says he is an apostle. His mission is to bring
about obedience to the faith among all the Gentiles, among whom are those
living in Rome. He is a bond slave of Christ and an apostle set apart for
the gospel of God. He says, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the power
of God unto salvation for all who believe' (v. 16, NASB). Then he completely
changes gears: 'The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith' (v. 17). The next
verse, he switches and says, 'The wrath of God is revealed (v. 18).'First
of all he says he is going to tell us the good news. He is not ashamed of
the good news. Having said that, he then says, 'The wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress
the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident
within them' (v. 18-19). The knowledge of God and His laws and His truth aren't external; they are
revealed within us. They are inside of us. God has impressed these things
on the hearts of people in every society everywhere. 'For since the creation
of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature,
has been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that
they are without excuse' (v. 20). So nobody can say that they don't know
God. Nobody can say that I didn't know God because nobody told me. Paul says
that they are without excuse because that which is clearly seen, the invisible
attributes of God, is clear from His creation. That which He has made bears
witness to God. And then he says, 'For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him
as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their
foolish hearts were darkened' (v. 21). That is what has been happening
in theological schools and theological inquiry for at least the last 110 years
or more. Their speculations are futile. As a result, their foolish hearts
are darkened. 'Professing to be wise, they became fools' (v. 22). One of those Episcopal
bishops said that these people over in the third world, these Africans and
Asians, they don't believe in homosexuality, but, obviously, they are from
an inferior culture. He said that when they get the cultural advances that
we have, then they will understand these things. He went on to say that up
to this point, we just have to look at them as our little brothers and not
to pay too much attention to them. He concluded that when they have the education
we have, then they will be all right. 'Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of
the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds
and four-footed animals and crawling creatures' (v. 22-23) 'Therefore'
-- this is the key sentence -- 'God gave them over to the lusts of their
hearts to impurity, so that their bodies might be dishonored among them'
(v. 24). When people lose sight of God, they begin to worship idols. When they turn
away from the truth of God, they begin to dishonor their bodies. You see some
of the things being portrayed on television. You see some of the things going
on in strip clubs. These people are dishonoring their bodies. It is unbelievable
how pervasive it is. If we don't have God's blessing looking after us, we will be given over to
corruption. Society will go to corruption if we don't have a vision of God,
which is what the Bible says. The Bible says that without vision the people
perish. Without a clear revelation of God, the people run amuck. If you see
God, you see holiness, you see purity, you see honor, you see integrity. If
you don't see God, then the people run amuck. When God lifts His hand, people begin to go wild. Remember Moses on the mountain
talking to God. Just a few days after he had left them, they had stripped
off their clothes and danced naked around this calf, worshipping this idol.
As soon as people begin to worship idols, they begin to go down hill, because
there is a tendency in everybody to go down instead of up. There is always
that pull of the base nature that wants to get more base. Therefore, God gave them
up to impurity. 'They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and
worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator' (v. 25). Listen to this. We need to keep saying this over and over. I don't care if
people believe the Bible or not. You can tell me that you don't believe it,
but God's Word is still sharp and powerful. We need to wield it. We don't
need to give our reasons. The trouble with a lot of this is that we don't
stand on the Word of God. Therefore, we lose the battle. 'For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions' (v. 26).
These people are trying to say this is holy and loving, that the love of a
homosexual lover takes us near to the love of God. That is shockingly unscriptural!
'… For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is
unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function
of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another' (v. 27). That
is exactly what these guys are talking about. '…Men with men committing
indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their
error' (v. 27). They didn't have AIDS in those days, but I am sure they
had plenty of these other diseases and they were getting their share of them.
These people are prone to all kinds of diseases because the thing is unnatural. 'Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave
them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper'
(v. 28). The Bible calls it depravity. The Bible calls it degrading. The Bible
calls it dishonorable. The Bible calls it impurity. It isn't something beautiful.
It isn't something noble. It isn't a higher way of reacting. Then Paul says that once they get the depraved mind, 'they are being filled
with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant,
boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding,
untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. Although they who knew the ordinance
of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only
do them, but they also give hardy approval to those who practice them'
(v. 29-32).That is exactly what we are having with this Episcopal statement.
It is in the Bible. It hasn't changed. Human nature hasn't changed. Evil hasn't
changed. Nothing has changed. We have had a -- if I can use the term -- veneer of Christianity here in
America that has suppressed evil, and once that Christianity is lifted, all
hell is going to break loose. That is what is happening in our society, and
it is going to get worse. What Should Our Response as Christians Be? What do we do? Hold out the Word of life. In the midst of a crooked and perverse
generation, we don't lose heart. We take courage in the fact that God is with
us. We continue more and more and more to seek His face, to have His power,
and to have His wisdom, because we are walking in troubling times. God Almighty
is on the throne. God isn't losing charge of the world. He knew this was going
to happen. It was spoken about in Romans. Hold the torch high of truth. If
they will hear it, praise God. That is our job: to get the gospel out. In
the meantime, don't retreat in your belief. For those who love this country, we are facing judgment. There has been no
society who has turned itself to widespread homosexuality that has survived.
The Greeks were into it, but they didn't survive. Sooner or later God destroys
them just like He did Sodom and Gomorrah. When God moves, it can be fearsome.
We need to be covered by His blood and we need to be in the center of His
will, holding forth the Word of life in a perverse and corrupt generation.
NOTE: All Bible verses are from the New American Standard version of the Bible
(NASB).
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