The Democrats this year discovered that being a “Christian” has political advantages. Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have dipped into the religion well as frequently as possible during their campaigns. But Barack Obama may have fallen into the well with a statement he made earlier this week, citing the Sermon on the Mount as justification for legal rights for homosexual couples. Here’s the quote in full:<\/p>\n
I will tell you that I don’t believe in gay marriage. But I do think people who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and respect and that the state should not discriminate against them. So, I believe in civil unions that will allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in the hospital, or transfer property to each other. I don’t think it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Senator from Illinois needs some basic tutoring in biblical exegesis. For one thing, where exactly in the Sermon on the Mount did Jesus advocate for civil unions for same-sex couples? Where in the Sermon on the Mount does Jesus detail the responsibilities of the STATE to its citizens? The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ spiritual instructions to his own followers (Matthew 5:1,2) not a treatise on citizenship. Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount applies to those who are related to one another spiritually through Him, not to those who share a common citizenship through a state. Only those who can truly call God “Our Father” have any interest at all in what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, what makes the Romans passage “obscure”? We can only assume that the Romans passage Senator Obama is referring to is Romans 1:26,27. The best exegesis of this passage I have ever read comes from John Piper and you can read it or listen to it in two parts: part one<\/a>, part two<\/a>. The Romans passage is the most definitive word from the Holy Spirit in all of Scripture on homosexual behavior. The only sense in which the passage could be described as “obscure” would be that it offends the sensibilities of liberals like Senator Obama who have a low view of Scripture and believe that because the passage offends them they can merely ignore it.<\/p>\n
Barack Obama is another fine example of the new “Red Letter Christians”<\/a> who ask “How would Jesus respond to homosexuals,” determining Jesus’ response not by what is clearly written in Scripture but rather by reading the “white space” between the red letters, reading into the text their own liberal orthodoxy. See my Townhall.com column for more on that<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Democrats this year discovered that being a “Christian” has political advantages. Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have dipped into the religion well as frequently as possible during their campaigns. But Barack Obama may have fallen into the well … Continue reading