Is Homosexuality Consistent with New Testament Obedience?

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to take a moment to welcome you this evening. My name is

Joseph Smith, and I'm the pastor of this church, and on behalf of Switzerland Community Church, and we'd like to welcome everybody to what we consider to be a great event tonight.

We're actually really excited to host this event, and I pray that you'll feel love, that everyone who's here will feel the love and hospitality of our church.

And so we want to thank you very much for being here. We're a non -denominational church, a community church, and we felt that because of our position in the community that we had the opportunity to open the doors of this place and be a place where we can elevate the

Word of God above all human opinion. And those who would profess

Christ would hear and allow the Holy Spirit to instruct them. In our congregation, we have a wide breadth of theological range.

We've got Calvinists, okay, those who parked in the parking lot tonight were ordained to do so.

Those of you who parked in the grass, well, I mean, that's what it is.

We've got some Charismatics in our congregation, and they've been fervently rebuking

Floyd or Florence or whatever his name is, the hurricane, Florence out there, so that we could have this event tonight, and we've got a wide range in between.

But because we're a non -denominational church, it doesn't mean we're actually neutral on the topic that is here tonight.

We do have a stance, and it's appropriate for us to state our belief statement, which can be found on our website.

Our statement of faith says that marriage is God's designed foundation for the family unit as a central theme in the creation narrative, and the marriage covenant is described as one genetic male and one genetic female as one flesh, serving as the paradigm set forth to bear the image of God, which is upheld by the teaching of Jesus and attested to by the church.

We also believe that the sole rule of faith and practice for the church is God breathes scripture.

We hope that you will hear tonight the scriptures, the word of God, and that as it's examined from two opposing sides, two different sides, that you would be the ones who benefit from the glorification of God's word, and that you would hear it clearly tonight.

We also hope that those who disagree with us would still sit with us shoulder to shoulder and love one another as we pursue the truth of God together.

So can we begin at that starting point? Tonight that we're here to pursue the truth of the revealed word of God.

We thank everybody for joining us and for being here with us, and I'd like to take a moment to bow our heads and ask the

Lord to bless this evening. Father, you are God. There is no other

God but you. Tonight we are humbled before you. No matter where we stand philosophically, no matter where we stand in our theology,

Lord, we we humble ourselves before you and we elevate your word before us today, and we ask that your spirit be here.

We ask that your presence be among us, that you lead us in your wisdom and that in our hearts we would come to know truth.

Even tonight with you, we thank you for those who are here with us, who are giving their time and their viewpoints and are going to take part in this debate.

Lord, I pray for your wisdom, for your community, even in this debate, that we would be elevated together in love and grace.

And so, Father, we ask tonight for you to guide us and that this discussion honor you.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for being here. I'd like to take a moment to introduce

Chris Arnzen, one of the key pieces to this night's event. Good evening, everybody.

I don't even think I said a word just then. Good evening, I think I said. Obviously, we are broadcasting live from Mount Fuji Japanese restaurant over here.

But it is a joy to be here. I want to thank Pastor Joseph Smith.

I never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth. And I also want to thank, of course,

Executive Pastor Jake Korn, who is very instrumental in this event taking place tonight.

I want to thank my friend for many years going back to the 1980s, Richie Saxon, who actually started the ball rolling to get these events, last night's events and tonight's event, established.

He contacted me and asked me if I could get Dr. James R. White and Dr. Michael Brown to cooperate with us and participate in this event.

So I am so delighted that I've also gotten the opportunity to fellowship with my dear friend that I haven't seen probably since 1991 or something like that, a dear brother and his lovely wife here.

I also want to thank my friend, Pastor Keith Foskey, for taking me around the town here and feeding me and so on.

He is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church here in Jacksonville. And he and his lovely wife have been a blessing to me as well.

I want to give a shout out to LP and my adopted family in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the

Hopkins Richardson Ignacio family, who have been a blessing to me after moving from New York to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

And even though I am on the opposite side from the people

I'm going to thank now, I am on the conservative side of this debate.

But I really have to thank very, very much, not only the Reverend Rochelle Brown, who is the moderator of the

Metropolitan Community Church denomination, who recommended very highly that I contact

Reverend Ruth Jensen -Forbell. And also I want to thank

Reverend Ruth for accepting the invitation and Pastor Dwayne J. Robinson for accepting the invitation to be a part of this.

They will be more formally introduced in a moment. But it is very hard. I've been arranging debates since 1996, especially with Dr.

James R. White. And as he will attest to, it is very hard these days.

It's getting increasingly more difficult to get people who are willing to participate in scholarly debates where there is no hatred or fomenting or mockery or what have you.

And I am so glad that these two individuals have eagerly accepted the invitation to participate.

And I hope that this continues to send a message that disagreement does not equal hate.

Even if you disagree with somebody and you're on the polar opposite of what they're saying, and you adamantly oppose what they're saying or believing or teaching, it doesn't mean you hate them.

In fact, disagreeing with someone and telling them that you disagree can be the highest act of love when you are trying to bring correction and safety and well -being to their lives.

So I just wanted to make it clear that hatred has nothing to do with what we are doing. It's the love of God, the love for his word, the love for those who disagree with us, and also the love for everyone who witnesses this, either who is in the audience today or watches this later on on a

DVD or on the internet. And I just want to say that I am delighted to be instrumental in being the arranger of only the second debate where these two gentlemen are actually on the same side, am

I correct? These two gentlemen are usually debating each other, and this is only the second time that they are on the same side in a debate.

But now it is time for me to hand the mic over to the executive pastor here at Switzerland Community Church, Pastor Jake Korn.

Thank you very much. Oh, and one more thing real quickly, I'm sorry. I am manning a booth in the lobby for my radio show,

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I hope that you all begin listening to the program regularly. You can hear it anywhere in the world at ironsharpensironradio .com.

If you visit me during a break at the booth and you promise to hang a flyer in your church somewhere, you will get a free

New American Standard Bible. And I want to thank the publishers of the New American Standard Bible for providing us with these free

Bibles, and they sponsor my radio program, and they have been a huge blessing in my life throughout my broadcasting career.

And also I want to thank my friend Sal D 'Antona of Linnbrook Baptist Church on Long Island and batterydepot .com,

who sponsors my program as well and enables me to attend events just like this. Well, thank you very much.

I'm sorry for the false alarm there. Thanks, Chris.

Thank you again, Rich Saxon. This was all his baby. I just want to say a quick thing.

I started seminary as a charismatic, and I came out as a Calvinist. And it was because of...

It was because of coming to the Word of God and honestly challenging my presuppositions and courageously reading it for what it is.

And tonight we're not going to declare a winner. We're not going to tell you what to think when you leave. Our prayer is that you hear what the

Word of God says. Hey, we want to welcome and thank these four who have courageously come to do this important work.

So I want to introduce them to you. I'm so excited that they're here. So first is Dr. Michael Brown.

He is the author of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, president of Fire School of Ministry.

His radio show, Line of Fire, is phenomenal. I hope you check it out. Follow them on social media. He comes to us, and we are so excited to have him here.

Dr. James White. I think, Dr. James White, the people drove the longest to see you.

Who's here from Chicago? Oh, yeah. Okay. Dr. James White is the author of The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, my favorite,

The Potter's Freedom. Everyone go buy The Potter's Freedom. And director of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

Please check them out. Reverend Ruth, we're so excited to have you here.

She's a native of Jacksonville. Both of these guys are residents here in Jacksonville, so we thank you for coming.

Reverend Ruth Jensen Forbel, founded First Coast Metropolitan Community Churches.

We're really excited. She's led the effort, the Community AIDS Coalition of St. Augustine, and she's working back down in St.

Augustine, doing great work down there. And Pastor Dwayne Robinson, he is from Called Out Believers in Christ Fellowship.

Is that correct? Excellent. He leads workshops on worship, conferences on the grace of God, and healing from church hurt.

And thank you so much for being available to us. I wanted to take just a quick moment to thank our favorite sponsors.

They're in your bulletin. Pets Are Family Veterinary Clinic. I gotta be honest. They've been taking care of my pets.

They are phenomenal. And C12, led by Bob Shallow here in Northeast Florida. I don't know if you noticed from our parking lot, we are a tiny church.

We are way out of our depth to be able to afford such an awesome event. So in order to love these guests well, would you please consider sharing some of what you've brought tonight to just give them a gift to say thank you for tonight.

If my ushers would come up front, let me pray for this. And we're going to get on with our evening. If you're making out a check or if you're going online, if you just note apologetics event, we're not keeping a dime.

This is just to take care of everybody and say thank you for their time. All right? Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your time, for setting up side this time and place for this to happen.

Lord, would you bless this gift that we can thank our guests for coming, that you would be glorified in what happens here tonight.

In the name of Jesus, amen. And now I'll introduce our moderator, Matthew Hinson. Well, good evening.

It's good to be with you all this evening. My name is Matthew Hinson. I will be your moderator tonight. My job is twofold, to ensure quality debate and to be relentlessly neutral.

So that is exactly what you will see out of me. This issue does often cause passionate debate, which we welcome, provided that that passion is directed towards ideas and not people.

With that in mind, we're going to have to work together, audience, participants, moderator and everyone to ensure a good evening.

So from our participants, we have been emailing ad nauseum for the past couple of months, hammering out some rules.

I'm going to give those in brief now that our four participants have agreed to. During their allotted time, you'll notice this is a two -on -two debate.

And so there's some questions about who goes when. But during their allotted time, the affirmative or the negative side may have either participant speak here at the podium.

They're permitted to tag team, but of course, this doesn't change anything about their allotted time. The thesis of this debate, or rather the question is, is homosexuality compatible with New Testament obedience?

And if we were to turn that into a statement, it would be homosexuality is compatible with New Testament obedience. You can choose to affirm that statement or to try and negate it.

That's where we get our affirmative and our negative side. So the negative side on my right, your left, and the affirmative side on my left, your right.

The length of each individual segment has been pre -agreed to, and our time enforcement will be consistent.

If a participant chooses to ignore the time expired notice, any time that that participant goes over will be deducted from the 10 -minute closing statement.

If a participant excessively violates time allotment, the moderator may choose to verbally intervene, but I don't anticipate that that will occur.

If technical difficulties are encountered, the clock will stop until those are resolved. We will have an audience question time at the end, and we'll go over more about how to submit questions and how all that works at that time.

That'll be via index card. Our participants for their opening statements, and really for everything except for the cross -examination period, we'll be addressing you from here, but during the cross -exam we will pull the podium back and allow them to directly address one another.

So I thank you all for being here, and at this time I'd like to call the affirmative side for their 20 -minute opening statement.

Thank you. One more point of order that I did neglect to mention is that we appreciate enthusiasm on this topic, but the only sound we would like to hear from our audience is the sound of pages turning and flipping as you look up biblical references.

If you are a bit more exuberant and choose to verbally express that, we appreciate that, but we may ask you to observe the rest of the proceedings from another venue.

Thank you. 20 -minute opening statement for the affirmative side begins now.

And is that the time? The clock will be behind me up on the wall. This one will count down the final five minutes, but they will be in sync once the five -minute time hits.

All right, thank you. Yes, ma 'am. So you see my information in your bulletins.

I did want to add a couple of things. First of all, thank you for this opportunity. If you said courageous one more time,

I was going to be very, very nervous, and let you know that I've never, ever debated anyone.

I'm not a debater. I'm not trained as a debater, so I'm here to learn from evidently experts, so thank you very much.

I also want to say that what it might not be, it is not in your bio of me.

I am so happy to have my wife here. We've been married for 30 years, married before God, because that was the only choice we had.

And then when it became legal, we did become legally married in 2005, so we're celebrating 30 years together this year, and I'm so happy that she's able to be here with me.

When I was looking at this, and actually Duane and I discussed this, I looked up obedience because it's not a word that I have come to use regularly in sermons or any kind of teaching, and when

I found out what it meant, I said, oh, well, sure, obeying the word. And for me, as a

Christian, my word comes from Jesus. And so when I think about consistency, is it consistent, this is the part that really confuses me just a little, and so I want to tell you where I'm coming from, especially my debaters over here.

Consistency says to me that you do obedience the way you understand it, and as I said, for me, that is the word of Jesus Christ as a

Christian. I believe that I serve a God who unconditionally loves all of creation, and I serve

Jesus Christ. So to me, being consistent is to never, ever not serve

Jesus Christ. I know I'm a sinner, fall short of the glory of God, and praise

God for that, because that's why Jesus died on the cross for me. So that's where I'm coming from.

And I also try to keep Jesus' commands, and part of what I've done as an ordained minister is promised

God to do whatever God calls me to do. Now I do want to warn any of you who might be looking toward ordination, perhaps you're already there, when you make a commitment like that, it can be very dangerous.

Because here's what's happened to me. I had a plan for my life. I thought I was on the right road,

I was serving God, and then God said, no, that's not where I want you to be. And I was kind of enjoying being where I thought

I should be, but God said, we need to have a church in St. Augustine, and you are the person

I have chosen for that. And I said, well, okay. So I said, I can do that, and I can still teach.

I was a teacher, I enjoyed being a teacher, I was an educational media specialist. If you all know what that is, and I hope some of you do, we're the librarians in schools, but it sounds so much better to say educational media specialist, doesn't it?

So I thought, I can do that, I can go start this church, everything's fine. And then

God said, now, you know you can't be doing both these jobs. And then a colleague of mine said, you will feel like you're on vacation if you quit your job and devote your life to God.

And she was right. She was absolutely right. And so I worked lots harder for lots less money, but I felt so wonderful about it.

So I founded First Coast Metropolitan Community Church, part of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.

I started that, and I was happy to start it. And when I got to retirement age, actually a little past,

I was so happy to retire. And if you're not retired yet, you know, be happy about it for as long as it lasts.

Because I'm 72 years old, I retired at age 70, and I thought, for three months,

I enjoyed it so much. For three months, I kind of got to sleep in and didn't have a schedule and didn't have to look at the calendar every minute of the day.

And then God spoke through Metropolitan Community Churches.

When I received a call about a congregation in need of an interim pastor, and I am a trained or interim pastor, in Mobile, Alabama.

Now that's a straight shot over on I -10, if you know that. It's a six -hour drive, with a time change when you get there, and a time change when you come back.

And so I spent the last year and a half at Mobile, helping them heal, helping them re -energize, and I was pleased to participate in the installation of their brand new pastor.

Through all of this, I say, I've found out that the love of God can do anything. In fact,

God can do anything, and I know it, I believe it, I've witnessed it. And for me, this whole topic comes down to Jesus.

And Jesus said in John 14, 15, if you love me, keep my commands. And Jesus made it so wonderful for us as Christians, because if you know anything about Judaism, if you know anything about the

Holiness Code, there are over 600 rules and regulations. And when

Jesus came, Jesus said, I come to fulfill the law. And when asked for the greatest commandment, he could have said anything, but he said, here's what the greatest commandment is, that you love

God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. But he did not stop there.

He said, the second is just like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

There was something in common in these commands from Jesus, and the word was love.

And so for me, it's all about love. It's all about loving people. And I have to say this, our young people today don't need rules, don't need judgments.

They need love. They have to know that they're loved exactly the way they are. They have to be loved through the decisions and problems that come against them.

They have to be loved through the assault of the evil one. They have to be loved through finding out who they are as a child of God.

And I believe we are all children of God. And I believe our bottom line has to be love.

Thank you. As was stated before,

I am Dwayne J. Robinson of the Called Out Believers in Christ Fellowship, and I'm very pleased to be on this distinguished panel with these wonderful doctors and very grateful to have been invited by your wonderful pastor.

And I come from a culture, I'm a black man, and I come from a culture where we appreciate our pastors.

And so I was taken aback just a little bit when the pastor said I am the pastor.

I wanted to turn the table over, but you all were sitting there very calmly. So I want to say that I just do appreciate the pastor of this church for inviting us and the leadership and the forward thinking that he has to bring these kinds of issues to us, to make us think, to not box us in, so that we are able to give a count in that last day about the word of God that is in us.

I am not here to defend anything. I am here to affirm

God's love for his people, an undying love, a never -ending love, a love that has come to snatch us out of the bowels of hell, a love that has come to make a way for us when there was no way for us.

And so my position about this particular subject, having lived through it, but even before I lived through it, my position about this, like Reverend Ruth's position, is it is found, it has to be rooted in love.

And so there are many things that I can assume because I've viewed these kinds of debates before, sat in the audience.

I too have not debated before an audience before. But we have a panel every year at our church, every other year at our church, where we invite people in.

And our audience of people are people who are LGBT. That's a word you're going to hear that you might not be familiar with.

That's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Or same -gender loving.

That's another word that you'll hear me say. Not out of fear of the word homosexual, but to take the notion that homosexuality is merely about sex.

In the same way that your marriages, heterosexual marriages, are not merely about sex.

If that is what your relationships are merely about, they will not last long. Because as we age, amen.

And so I want to use those terms, not that I'm afraid of the other terms, and our debaters may use those and not feel offended.

The other thing I want to say is I don't want anybody in this room, there was a very gracious and hospitable atmosphere as we came in.

But I also saw that there was a leaning towards trying to make us feel more comfortable than other people.

And again, as a black man, I've experienced that too. Where when I walk in the room, the temperature of the room might change simply because I'm black.

I'm a human being. And we are all human beings being loved and judged by the word of God at the same time.

These things occur. They are co -occurring at the same time. And so we want to get it right when it comes to the word of God.

We don't want to play games with the word of God. We don't want to wake up one day and end up in hell. Amen.

And so that's why I'm here. So I'm here to talk about the love that covers a multitude of sin and brings us into a consciousness and an awareness of sin and what sin is.

And our debaters will talk, I'm sure, a little more about that as well. My take on that is the harmatia.

It is that part of God's grace that causes any and every one of us who are missing the mark.

The word means, the word sin there means to miss the mark. Any and every one of us who are missing the mark, the mark of the high prize that is in Christ Jesus, that grace comes like a wind underneath any of us to carry us to that place that we're not, not one of us is worthy of.

And so I want to talk about that kind of love. I don't want to skirt the issues of the

Old Testament talking specifically about homosexuality being an abomination to God.

I understand that. I've lived through that kind of condemnation that was put on.

But the word of God comes through that same Paul who is going to be quoted in just a few minutes to say, there is now therefore no condemnation to those of us who are in Christ Jesus, whether we are bond or free, whether we are

Jew or Gentile, whether we are male or female. And we might get away with the whole

Jew or Gentile argument. We might get away with the bond or free argument, but you won't get away with the male or female argument.

There is now therefore no condemnation. And so when I talk more about this later after some things have been introduced, which

I highly expect will be introduced, then we'll come back and we'll apply these principles that we've talked about on today to those principles that I highly expect will be brought up.

But again, I want to say I've felt nothing but love, probably over love, in the room as I know that people want to make sure that we feel welcome and we do not feel in any way hated in any way, shape or form.

There's nothing but love in this. But that's what Christianity does. That's what Christ does. And so we don't want you to think by any stretch of the imagination that you got to go light on us.

Let loose, because at the end of the day, the Bible says, let God be true and every, not some, every man a liar.

Amen. To our affirmative side, you have an additional seven minutes.

Do you wish to address the podium further? No? Okay. We now call our negative side to the podium for their 20 -minute opening statement.

Well, thanks so much, everyone, for being here, everyone who put things together and especially our debating opponents, but many years of doing ministry work.

And fear not, we will let loose, because that's what love does, because love tells the truth.

In fact, amazingly, in Leviticus 19, where it says, love your neighbors yourself, it also says, you must rebuke, you must tell the truth in the very same context.

I want to present to you tonight, Jesus, the only Savior and the only Lord, Jesus who shed the same blood for heterosexual and homosexual, and Jesus who came to seek and save that which was lost.

And Jesus went after the marginalized, the outcast, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the sinners, but he did not affirm them where they were.

He did not practice affirmational inclusion. He practiced transformational inclusion.

He reaches out to where we are and changes us by his love. So, amen, we're here to speak about the love of God, and Jesus came full of grace and truth, not grace or truth, but grace and truth.

And often, the church, when it comes to LGBT issues, has been very strong on truth, but often lacking in love.

And sometimes we've given the impression that if a gay man comes into our congregation, we're all going to get

AIDS, or they're all sexual predators. And for that, from the heart, I apologize, because often, we've not recognized the rejection that folks have lived through, that was alluded to earlier, some of the obstacles that have to be overcome.

But here's the tragic mistake that we're going to work against tonight, because we love people.

Someone's growing up. Maybe they're growing up in the church. They discover, to their surprise, they're same -sex attracted.

They pray. They fast. They get counseling. People try to drive demons out of them. And then they don't know what to do.

They get online. They find out about, quote, gay Christians. And they begin to look into things. And they see,

I read books for it. I read books against it. I'm not sure. But they say, I know God made me gay. I'm sure of that.

And then they go to the Bible through that lens. In other words, they interpret the

Bible through the lens of their sexuality, rather than interpreting their sexuality through the lens of the scripture.

And that's why there's so much confusion. And once someone puts gay, lesbian as part of their identity, they have now identified in a way contrary to the way

God sees us. He sees us as human beings who have sinned and fallen short, all of whom need the grace of God to forgive and transform.

Now, we're focusing on New Testament obedience. But I want to underscore the essential harmony of Old and New Testament when it comes to these foundational issues.

We know in Genesis, the first chapter, God creates the human race, male and female. And then in Genesis, the second chapter, we see that there's no suitable companion or helper for Adam.

It says, Adam, it's not good for the man to be alone. But notice, God does not just say, I'll give him a suitable companion, but a suitable helper.

Now, in God's sight, men and women are equal. In what sense is the woman a helper? The man cannot fulfill his destiny to be fruitful and multiply unless there is union.

God's intent from the beginning is one man, one woman joined together for life. Jesus himself affirms that in Matthew 19, 4 through 6, says this is the way

God established it in the beginning. And it's not polygamy either. It's not Adam and Eve and Yvette and Yvonne.

That's not there either. So God establishes one man, one woman. And when Adam sees the woman, he calls her

Eshah. Why? Because she was taken out of the Esh. He calls her woman because she was taken out of the man and says, you are now bone on my bone, flesh in my flesh.

And the two come together and become one. Only male plus female can become one. Because there is a complementarity biologically, emotionally, and spiritually.

The woman came out of the man. And that's why when they join together in marriage, the two complementary halves become one once again.

Now you might say, yeah, but if this is such a big issue, how come the Bible doesn't mention it that much? Let me give you an analogy that a friend of mine uses.

Let's say I put together a recipe book, healthy dessert recipes.

And you read in the beginning, because we don't believe in sugar, we think it's unhealthy, you won't find sugar in any of the recipes.

In fact, every single recipe here is sugar free. And you notice, I use the word sugar just three or four times in the book, because of which you conclude sugar is not a big issue.

No, it's such a big issue, it's excluded from every other recipe in the book. Every recipe in the

Bible for marriage, for family, is male, female only. Honor your father and mother, reinforced in the

New Testament, husbands love your wives, wives respect your husbands. There is no other pattern given anywhere in the

Bible. Every reference to homosexual practice is explicitly condemned.

Every reference to marriage, to family, to mothers, fathers, it is all heterosexual.

And that means, and I don't mean this in any demeaning way, and I don't doubt the devotion that these couples have for each other.

But if you're reading scripture, and now we're reading Paul, it's New Testament, husbands love your wives, wife loves your husband.

Who's the husband, who's the wife in a same sex relationship? The pattern simply doesn't fit.

Let's take this one step further. We talk about Leviticus 18 .22, we know the verse, we can go through it very carefully in Hebrew if we need to,

I'm happy to. And it says plainly that for a man to lie with a woman, it's literally the way a man lies with a woman, that that is abomination, that is something detestable in God's sight.

You say, yeah, but God gave lots of laws in the Old Testament, like the food laws and certain kind of garments and so on.

Aha, God gave certain laws to Israel to keep them separate from the nations, like the dietary laws, which he never commands the nations to keep, like certain types of garments, which he never commands everyone else to keep.

And then there are other laws based on universal moral principles, like don't murder or don't commit adultery.

How do you know which is which? Well, the Bible tells us which is which, plus those that are universal are reinforced in the

New Testament. So when it comes to homosexual practice, not only is it explicitly forbidden in the

Old Testament, that prohibition is repeated in the New. And the book of Leviticus tells us also, this is not just for Israel.

This is not just part of a separation code. This is a universal moral principle. Read the end of Leviticus 18.

Read it carefully for yourself. God judged the Canaanite nations for practicing these very sins.

If he judged the Canaanites and it was wrong for them, it is wrong for all people.

This is a universal moral prohibition. And I say this with all respect.

If God says something is detestable, it's no less detestable if you do it with someone you love.

And it's no less detestable if you do it repeatedly with the person you love. It doesn't change the fact it's contrary to God's sacred and holy order, which is then reinforced in the

New Testament. And that's why Jesus says in Matthew 5, 17 to 20, he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill.

When it comes to the sexual moral standards of the Torah, like adultery, what does

Jesus do? He takes it to a higher level, not just adultery of the act, but now adultery of the heart.

When it comes to hatred, when it comes to murder, when it comes to other sins that are proscribed in the

Torah, Jesus takes them to a higher level. And in Matthew 15,

Jesus himself teaches that it's not that which goes into the mouth, so the dietary things, those laws, that's not what defiles, but what comes out of the heart.

And then he lists there sexual immorality. And as we have it in the New Testament, it's the

Greek word pornea in the plural, which means all sexual acts outside of marriage.

And Jesus has described marriage for us as the union of one man, one woman in Matthew 19. What's so sad to see is that there's been universal agreement on these passages for centuries, really for almost two millennia.

And before that in Judaism, these were clearly understood. It's only in the aftermath of the sexual revolution and the declining of our culture and the loss of our moral bearings that we've gotten spiritual confusion.

But the word of God has not changed, is not altered in any way.

Consistent testimony throughout the entire Bible, marriage is the union of male and female.

Homosexual practice is explicitly condemned. The good news is Jesus died for all, offers freedom and transformation for all.

Thank you. When the

Son of God rose from the dead and left behind that empty tomb, the first thing he did when he met with his disciples was to direct them to the scriptures.

He opened their minds to understand the scriptures and the testimony those scriptures had of him.

So it should not surprise us then that those very same apostles, when they put pen to paper and wrote to the churches, had a very deep consistency in their application of the word of God to those churches.

And so, for example, when we go to the book of Romans and we listen to Paul's gospel as it's presented to that very, very important church, at the beginning he lays out the universal nature of sin and the fact that rebelling against God twists the relationship between the creator and the creation.

It doesn't change God, but it does twist and change the creation that exchanges the truth of God for a lie.

There are results from that. When you derive your life from God and then you rebel against God, there's going to be results within your own experience.

And so, in Romans chapter 1, we know that Paul derives his background from the book of Genesis.

If you look at verse 23 of Romans chapter 1, when he talks about how they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible

God and the likeness of corruptible man and four -footed beasts and crawling things, and he starts describing the created order.

When people heard that, they recognized, ah, those are the very same words that were used in Genesis in the

Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe the order of creation. The very same words. And so,

Paul is deriving from the Old Testament. There is consistency. He's talking about the created order.

And why is that so important? Because 45 words later, after describing the being given over and the desires of their heart unto uncleanness and dishonoring their bodies amongst themselves, you then have the words of verses 26 and 27.

Most would recognize that verse 26 is the only explicit and direct reference to lesbianism in the

New Testament. But both verses 26 and 27 are describing, clearly, homosexual relationships.

They are not simply those of slaves and masters or anything like that, because it says they burned in desire one for another.

It was a mutual situation. But here's the point. What is said in both verses is that they went against the natural order.

The natural order. And what has happened over the past number of decades, especially, has been an emphasis trying to say, well, see, natural order isn't really nature.

It's just simply what was societally expected in Rome or something along those lines. Or try to derive it from, like Dr.

Brownson does, from Stoicism or something like this. Here's the problem. As we saw, the context, the apostle

Paul is specifically deriving from the book of Genesis. He's deriving it from the created order.

This is the immediate context. And so if we're going to be fair to Paul, if this was any other subject, if this was any other subject and we were simply approaching

Paul and saying, where's Paul deriving his thought pattern from, there would be no question that, oh, we need to say he's using the exact same words that are found in the

Greek Septuagint. That means this is where he's going to. And so we need to look back at that context. We need to allow that to be very important to our interpretation of what he is saying.

And so when we look at verses 26 and 27, and if we recognize that this is central to Paul's definition of what human sin is and what it does, then we see that verses 26 and 27, when they talk about being against nature, we're talking about nature as ordered by the created action of God himself, going all the way back to the beginning.

Same thing Jesus did in Matthew chapter 19 that Michael already mentioned. From the beginning, it was not so.

This is how God made male and female. This is how the family was to function.

You go back to the created order as the foundation of these things. And so this is what is being stated in verses 26 and 27.

There are many even homosexual exegetes that recognize that that is indeed exactly what we have going on there.

But my time is very limited, and so I ask you to turn with me to another text that is relevant to the very same issue of the consistency of what we have between Old and New Testament, and that is found in 1

Corinthians chapter 6. Now, again, context is very important. In 1 Corinthians chapter 5, a very tough chapter, the apostle had to address the church and said, you and Corinth, you have a sin that even the

Gentiles don't seem to experience, and that is that you have a man who's had his mother.

This is an incestuous relationship. And he says to the church, you should have known. You should have grieved about this.

Well, how would they know? Well, he uses the exact same

Greek words in 1 Corinthians 5 .1 that are found in Leviticus 18 .8,

the holiness code. Leviticus 18 .8 that prohibits incestuous relationships.

They should have known because they have God's moral law. So the fulfillment of that law doesn't mean it becomes irrelevant.

The one who fulfilled it takes the penalty for us sinners, but he upholds the law and its good moral character in his death upon the cross.

And the church continues to recognize, well, this is something that reveals God's heart. This is what tells us about God being holy.

And so when we come to 1 Corinthians chapter 6, it is very true that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But the same man who wrote Romans 8 wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

And there he goes through this list. He says, do not be deceived.

Do not be deceived. Do not let anyone mislead you because the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Do not be deceived. And as he lists the various sins that are found there, such as idolatry.

I mean, that's a tremendous offense before God. He uses two terms, malakoi and arsenokoitai.

And that term arsenokoitai, we look in history, Paul may have coined it himself.

There may have been an earlier Jewish source that we don't have any longer that utilized it before him. But he seems to be the first one to use it in our recorded records.

And guess where it comes from? Once again, if you go back to the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the

Septuagint, right there in Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20. The very same words that are used of men lying with men, what men do with men in bed.

And he's put them together as a single descriptor. There can be no question as to what he is referring to here, though many people have tried to revise it.

And by putting it together with malakoi, which means soft, many people believe, and I believe this is an accurate understanding, that what you have here are the active and passive partners in a male homosexual relationship.

And they are listed together. They aren't the only sins that are here, but I haven't had anyone else come along and say, well, we need to promote

Christian idolatry, and so we're not having debates on that. People say, you're all, you know, got the wrong emphasis.

No, we have to deal with what's being claimed. Here's the key. What does

Paul say in verse 11? And such were some of you.

The word were is in the imperfect tense, eta. Such were, not such are.

And as long as that imperfect tense, which refers to a continuous action in the past, is a past tense and not a present tense, that must be the ultimate authority for the church today.

Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And that is the great message that we have this evening.

It is a message of hope. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified.

These are things that God does. I am sorry if there have been those who have said to maybe you're here this evening and you experience same -sex attraction or you have decided that you are gay.

I'm sorry if you've heard someone say, well, there's no hope for you. You've just been turned over because the

Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says, such were some of you, but. And then you have, when you talk about being washed, when you talk about being sanctified, justified.

These are all things that are only possible because Jesus Christ died upon the cross of Calvary.

We can't do these things for ourselves, but his sacrifice is powerful to achieve these very things.

And so I hope this evening, no matter what else you hear, we have to stand firm upon the truth. We have to handle this word aright to honor

God. If this is God's word, we must handle it right. But I hope what you hear in this discussion,

I know it's Michael and I's heart, God's love, God's redemptive purpose, and the power of the gospel to actually change lives.

That is really what the issue is this evening. And I hope that you will hear as we seek to proclaim that and defend that.

Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you to our participants for their opening statements.

Two minor points of order. There was a misprint on the screens and in the programs that says that the rebuttals will be 10 minutes and the closing statements will be 15.

Those times are actually flipped. So we have a 15 minute rebuttal and then a 10 minute closing statement for each side.

At this time, we'd like to call the affirmative side to the podium for their 15 minute rebuttal of the negative.

All right. There's a lot to cover. As I thought, many of the arguments that I thought would be presented were presented and we'll attempt to bring rebuttal.

Number one, there was a statement about the tragedy of having the experiences that many people experience when they are coming out of the closet or in the closet and trying to reconcile suicides and all of those things that do happen when people are trying to reconcile their sexuality with their spirituality.

And one of the questions that I had as I was listening to,

I believe it was Dr. Brown. That's Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown talk about this was, when did

Jesus condemn any individual?

I heard, I heard, I believe I heard you say that he ate with the sinners, sat with the sinners, supped with the sinners.

And then he would say, go and sin no more. But I don't hear a condemnation from Jesus.

Additionally, when Jesus is talking about issues like Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus talks about their lack of love, their lack of hospitality, but he never talks about the things that are typically talked about when we talk about Sodom and Gomorrah.

In essence, he didn't say and you homosexuals. And that's a matter of scriptural record.

Additionally, the Bible says or that Dr. Brown said that people who are living through a particular phase of homosexuality tend to, maybe it wasn't

Dr. Brown, maybe it was, give me your name again. I'm so sorry. Dr. White. I'm going to get it. It's two colors. I should get it.

I believe it was Dr. White who said that people reinterpret through the lens of their experience.

Well, anytime that we're interpreting anything, any of us, including Dr. Brown and Dr.

White are interpreting through the lens of their experience. They don't have another person's experience to interpret through.

They can read what other people have said. They can read commentary. They can read the scripture itself.

But when they get ready to interpret, when they get ready to understand, it has to be interpreted or understood through their own lens.

So I think we're all on equal grounds with that. I don't think that that's something that's unique to a homosexual's experience or a prostitute's experience or whoever else you want to talk about.

The other thing is he referenced that God's intent was for male and female to be fruitful.

And I kind of talked about this a little bit when I was up the first time. There are men and women in this audience right now who are infertile and who have been infertile since birth.

And if that was God's intent for marriage, yes, the scriptures say be fruitful and multiply.

But that is not the intent. We discover the intent in Genesis chapter 1 when

God is looking for a companion for Adam. And it may come as a surprise to you, but in your

Bible, God considered the animals. Before he considered putting

Adam to sleep. Now, I didn't put that in your Bible. I didn't wake up this morning and sneak into each one of your houses and put that in there.

But that was a consideration that God thought worthy of putting into the Bible. I certainly wouldn't have put it there.

But it's in your Bible. And then God said, Adam said he couldn't find any companion among the animals.

And then God put Adam to sleep and took out of Adam his rib and formed

Eve. And the Bible says that those two that were made in God's image.

And I want us to pause for a moment and not be religious, but pause for a minute and think about the fact that the image of God was not clearly expressed until God had taken from Adam what was in Adam and formed

Eve. Which means that the image of God is male and female.

Now, I want us to think about how that shows up in science today. How that shows up in a living, breathing human being today.

If a living human being looked like God looked before he took

Eve out of, or looked like Adam looked before God took Eve out of his side, what would we call that person today?

We'd call that person a homorphodite. And I hope there are not any minors in here. I know we're streaming and all of that, but I have to be candid as we have this conversation.

We would call that person a homorphodite. Now you take that homorphodite and you ask that homorphodite which one they are.

And most often they are by society forced to conform to the image of whatever their mother or their father picked for them.

Now this is adult conversation, but it is truth nonetheless. And then there are some who will not conform to what their mother or father picked for them.

And then they put on a dress and you look at them crazy. Not you, but people. Now this is the reality of the world we live in.

We would not, which one of you would dare to tell your child who was born in that condition that they are somehow not loved by God and that there's no heaven or hell, that there's no heaven for them and that hell is their only destination.

Well what happens when that happens to an individual inwardly? Now that's the adult conversation that we have to have.

We talk about the purpose of marriage being for fruitfulness. No. The purpose of marriage being so that we can have the image of God expressed in the earth and the other place that that image is expressed is in what we call the church.

When we look at, there was a reference made to a sugar reference. Sugar being in it.

And because you say that there's no sugar in it at the very beginning, there's not really a need to talk about the no sugar throughout.

Well, it's a clever reference, but the fact of the matter is that the scriptures talk about male and female throughout the scriptures, talk about husband and wife throughout the scripture, and it reiterates it over and over and over again.

And I think there was a reference made that said, well, which one is the husband and which one is the wife? Well, what we know is from that culture, there would not have been any way in religious conversation to describe that because it was prohibited.

We talked about that. I conceded that at the beginning of the debate, that if we're talking about the Old Testament, there's no place for that conversation at all.

You're either going to be a male who's married to a female, or you're going to be a male who's single for the rest of your life, or a female who's going to be single for the rest of your life.

And if you're a female who's single for the rest of your life in the Old Testament, then you have really no part and parcel in society because you have nobody to vouch for you.

Marriage was just as much a contract with society as it was anything else. And that's the Old Testament that I have to concede to.

So when Jesus comes along, I'm looking for him to have a negative. I'm looking for him to prohibit this.

I'm looking for him to say no, no, no, no, no part. And in every conversation where he talks, and I believe somebody brought up him talking about the

Jesus defining male and female in the marriage. Well, that's only because he's been asked the question about divorce.

And he says, Moses said that you can put her away for this cause and this cause only.

And what was the cause? It was the cause of being found in sexual immorality. So I'm still looking for Jesus saying the negative.

We'll go to the first Corinthian reference in the latter part because I want to make sure

I don't take all the time. I'm sure glad Dwayne's with me.

I love the way he preaches, always have. Met him a long time ago. We actually sat together on a panel about homosexual couples and being faithful to what we've done.

So I'm just going to have to not be the debater here because I'm just going to share with you. I'm a child of the church, literally.

I was raised in the Lutheran church here in Jacksonville. Some of you may remember the church that used to be in Springfield, St.

John's. It's still there, St. John's Lutheran Church. The pastor of that church had a brother.

His brother specialized as an OBGYN. And many people would come to him from other places, mostly

Georgia, by the way, to have their child and then put their child up for adoption.

Because you didn't have a child out of marriage and really do well in Georgia. That's my understanding.

I was one of those children. And so when the doctor said to his brother, the pastor,

I have a child that's going to be born that needs a family.

And so he came to my mother and father, and he came to another mother and father who could not have children.

And let them decide who would take me, which later on they adopted a boy.

And Stephen and I often talked about how we could be in opposite families. And I say this to you because I'm a child of the church who has always been raised to know that God loves me unconditionally.

Now, here's what I have to say to you. No one who's gay, LGBT, we did not choose it.

No one would choose it. Many, many, many of us have prayed to have it taken away.

I never did because I knew from the very beginning I was a child of God. And I knew

God created me exactly the way God wanted me to be. I was blessed with a mother and father who never, never was negative about any part of my life.

I went from wanting to be a tugboat captain, which my father was, to a veterinarian, then a doctor.

And I mean, I just was all around. And then, oh my goodness, it came to me at the age of 12.

God called me to be a pastor. And then I got the rude awakening, my friends.

Women could not be pastors in the Lutheran Church. My pastor, whom

I adored, said to me, well, you can be a deaconess. And I thought about that for a moment.

And then I decided that's not what God was calling me to do. I continued to be very active in the

Lutheran Church. President of Lutheran Church Women here in Jacksonville. President of Florida Lutheran Church Women.

And then on the National Board of Directors of Lutheran Church Women. I did whatever women could do in the church.

But my calling was always there. And this is what I want to say to you. My creation as a lesbian was always there.

Please take no offense, brothers in the room. I was never, ever attracted to a man.

Oh, I had many, many good friends. And when it came prom time, my best friend, also in the

Lutheran Church, he and I, he said, you want to go to the prom with me? I said, sure, Mark, I'll go to the prom with you. Years later, we both discovered we were gay.

But we were kind of hanging around all the time. Did church events. Did events at school.

Went to the prom together. And Mark and I later, Mark got married. Had a beautiful daughter.

And he's very glad that he had that daughter. But he never, never denied the fact he was gay.

Many people have coming out stories. I was never in. That's the truth. I knew who

I was from day one. And I was, I honored that. When I found

Elizabeth, I knew she was the person for me. Because she was called by God, too.

She was called to serve God. And we were privileged to serve God together. Although she will be happy to tell you, she was an administrator before I was ordained.

She was a church administrator. Still is, even though I'm retired. And so I can tell you this.

And if there are people in the room who disagree with this, just listen for a moment.

You know in your heart your sexuality. You can pray it, try to pray it away.

You can have people lay hands on you, as you gentlemen mentioned. It will not go away if it's from God.

I've always believed if something is from God, nothing can stop it.

And I am who I am. And I preach the truth to the people that I touch.

That God loves us exactly the way God created us to be. And God does not want us to exchange the natural for the unnatural.

For me, the natural is being a lesbian. From you, it may be heterosexual.

But I know God has a plan. And I know that plan is the truth.

And I honor it every day. Oh, you want to stay there?

Okay. We'll now have our negative to affirmative rebuttal lasting 15 minutes.

And as we were just told, the gentlemen have elected to stay at their table to do so. So your time begins momentarily.

Is homosexuality consistent with New Testament obedience? And that means that there has been something revealed to us that is the norm for our behavior that is above our feelings, our experiences, or anything along those lines.

And so immediately, no matter how strongly we may be committed to our own personal feelings, there has to be a recognition that one of the dividing lines is, okay, but has

God spoken to this particular subject? And has he spoken to that with clarity?

I think it's very important that we therefore understand that we talk about obedience. Have we presented

New Testament and Old Testament evidence together consistently that we can then answer the question, is this something that God actually approves of outside of what we feel in his external revelation?

That I think is extremely important. So the issue is not how do I feel or how have

I always felt? We were just told if something's of God, it won't go away. Everyone here deplores pedophilia.

How many times does a pedophile pray for that to go away? And it doesn't go away. What does that prove? Proves we're broken, fallen race, and we need a savior is what it proves.

And if we think about some of the points we made in the book of Genesis, did

God consider, really consider that Adam have a giraffe or an elephant as a part? Obviously God's illustrating a point of the uniqueness of the woman for the man, but notice

God never tried another man, okay? That was never an option. How about another man?

Let's also consider that Genesis one lays out when God creates male and female, he creates us, and it's the very first word he blesses us and says be fruitful and multiply.

A heterosexual couple is not violating the male -female design, rather there's a defect because of which they cannot biologically reproduce.

When two men or two women come together, they are openly defying the clear biological design from God.

And the question was Adam a hermaphrodite, that would really be pushing what Genesis two is saying, but bottom line,

God didn't, even if you think he was, which I would say clearly he wasn't, God didn't leave him like that, okay? Instead, God distinguished and made male and female.

And notice that the image of God is fully seen in male plus female, not male plus male, not female plus female.

So the very argument my friend was trying to make, and by the way, you got the male, female, black, white, we got the brown, white, so we got a little diversity here too, okay?

But the very argument my friend was trying to raise completely refuted itself because the image of God finds expression through male and female coming together as one.

And Jesus himself makes that point. I think we need to look again at his words in Matthew chapter 19.

Yes, he was answering the question about divorce, but he grounded his answer in creation itself.

And notice his words. When he answered, he said, have you not read that the one who created them from the beginning made them male and female?

And therefore said, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother shall cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This is God's intended created order. And here, even in the face of all the rules and regulations that were developed in the traditions and everything else,

Jesus goes back to creation, grounds us in those purposes. And my assertion this evening is we are seeing in our society tremendous confusion.

And the reason we're seeing that tremendous confusion is we will no longer allow that word found in verse four, the one who created them.

We have a society now that has no creator. You're not allowed to believe that God created.

Well, if you're gonna follow Jesus, Jesus believed in a creator who could define male and female and what their relationship was to one another.

I think it's vitally important that we hear those words. And again, we have not heard any positive references anywhere in scripture to these types of relationships only trying to open the door for the possibility rather than the positive statement in scripture.

So we come then to what Jesus did and didn't say. If you use an argument from silence, you're in real trouble because you could say

Jesus had no problem with incest because he never condemned it. You could say Dr. White and I believe in martians inhabiting the earth because we didn't speak against it tonight.

And for the record, we don't, to be clear. But there was no, you don't need to ask certain questions when everyone knows what's believed.

In first century Jewish thought, homosexual practice was universally condemned in the strongest possible terms as I imagine my colleagues here would know.

So Jesus did not need to address that and yet he does address it in three different ways as we emphasized.

Remember, not only Matthew 19, the pattern of marriage. Yes, he was asked a question about divorce but he doesn't just answer the question about divorce.

He goes back to God's original intent for the human race. But then in Matthew 5, to go there again, he says,

I didn't come to abolish the law of the prophets but to fulfill. So for example, he's the blood sacrifice that fulfills the need for blood sacrifices.

He's the great high priest. When it comes to the moral commandments of the Torah, all right, adultery, what does he do?

He takes it to a higher level. So the same way the prohibition against homosexuality, the prohibition against incest, he doesn't remove those.

He takes them to a higher level and reminds us in Matthew 15 that all sexual acts outside of marriage, which he has explicitly defined as the union of one man and one woman for life, he says that those things defile.

And then when we're told that it's only the Old Testament that reinforces husbands, wives. No, no, that's reinforced throughout the

New Testament. And I quoted Paul, husbands love your wives, wives respect your husbands. Who's the husband?

Who's the wife? We have to deal with Paul. We have to deal with Jesus. We have to deal with Moses because they all spoke by the authority of the one true

God. And when we say that, well, but you have your own interpretational lens. We're all putting our own interpretational lens on these things.

You see, that's why we have to engage in meaningful rules of exegesis so that we can try to take our lenses off and look at the text as it was intended by the original authors.

That's why you do the hard work of interpreting in the light of the original languages and the original context so you can hear what the original authors are saying, what

Michael had said. That was a reference to something that Michael had said about re -reading the text in light of your sexual experience.

That's what he was talking about. And that's what we've seen happen. For example, all you have to do is go online and see all the revisionist writings about what ars in ekoites means of first Corinthian sex, that it doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality or what was really going on in Old Testament situations or the actual application of Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, which is why

I pointed out, for example, the continuing abiding validity of those moral laws in the life of the church in first Corinthians chapter five as part of the context.

The point was that if you have revisionists who say, my experience is the ultimate lens through which

I will read scripture, you'll end up overturning what the lexicons say, what the grammar says, and everything else.

We want to hear what God said, as I remember it was said in the presentation, we don't want to wake up one day in hell.

Well, the best way to stay out of that is to listen to the one who gave us the way to make sure to escape that.

And that's found in the word of God. That's why we need to allow it to speak for itself with clarity. And the idea that Jesus didn't condemn, yes,

God did not send him to the world to condemn the world, but to save the world. And that's why he warned us about coming wrath and judgment.

How many times did Jesus warn us about hell? More than the entire Old Testament combined.

And didn't he say, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away. He's speaking metaphorically, but talking about you've got to deal with sin radically.

We heard a reference to John eight, as you have it in most of your Bibles, that Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery, but he said, go and sin no more.

So we say that everyone here with same sex attracted, everyone here that identifies as bisexual, everyone here that has heterosexual lust,

Jesus didn't come to condemn, but to forgive and to transform and then to say, go and sin no more, not go and sin some more.

There is a major fundamental difference. So when we're told there's no condemnation, what does

Paul mean? Well, read Romans eight, no condemnation to those who are in Christ, which he then defines as those who don't walk after the flesh, but after the spirit.

He said, if you walk after the flesh, you will die. And when he said to reemphasize what

Dr. White said, when Paul wrote in Romans the first chapter, contrary to nature, he didn't say contrary to how you feel.

He said, contrary to God's created order of male, female in Genesis chapter one.

And it's very important to continue with what Michael was saying in regards to, Jesus does not condemn any individual.

The problem is if you're calling for repentance, what was the first element of Jesus' preaching according to the gospel of Mark?

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You have to know what you need to repent from.

And there is a given reality amongst the New Testament writers and amongst the experience of Jesus in speaking to them, amongst those

New Testament writers, that there is a clear revelation from God that tells us what sin is and what righteousness is.

And so when it says, well, Jesus didn't condemn anyone, they're coming to him in repentance because they already knew what the law said.

There was no question about what the law said to Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus knew that what he was doing in taking usury and the things that he was doing, he knew that was wrong, why?

Because God's law said so. And so they're coming to him already knowing their sin and finding in him the one that can bear that sin.

But you need to understand, when we look at the cross of Christ, if all you see, if you do not see the righteousness of God's law and his wrath against sin at the cross, you'll never see the depth of the love of the cross.

Such an amazing thing for the son of God to do to give himself in that way requires that God's law, likewise, needs to be recognized as reflecting his holy nature.

And so there is a deep consistency between old and new, all the way through the text of scripture on this subject of the revelation of God's truth in regards to sin and repentance.

It's also important when we look at Paul stating there's no male or female, those are not categories of sin or obedience.

He's saying there's no caste system in the Lord. There's no class system. That in Jesus, we are equally priests of God, male and female alike, equally members of the body, equally sons and daughters of God, equally branches of the vine.

There's no caste system or class system. But he doesn't say there's no obedience or disobedience.

There's no sin or righteousness. No, those are different categories entirely. So we need to be reminded of that.

And when we talk about things like suicide, Jesus sets us free from depression.

And Jesus delivers us from things that lead to suicide. And I have friends who are ex -gay.

They are genuinely ex -gay. They are, some of them, happily married in heterosexual relations, some of them grandparents, some of them celibate, but they are celebrating their freedom in Jesus and their new life in Jesus.

And I met a man, a pastor, loves the Lord, kind -hearted man, ex -gay for several decades.

He showed me a picture from decades ago. He and his friends, all professional men, all accomplished in different ways.

They were hanging out. They were vacationing together. Over 10 men there, 10, 20 years later, he was the only one of them alive.

All the rest had died of AIDS and he had found new life in Jesus. Jesus saves from death and delivers from death.

Don't let anyone tell you when you preach the truth in love that you're leading to suicide and depression.

Quite the contrary. So in closing for our rebuttal period, the thesis of the debate is, is homosexuality consistent with New Testament obedience?

The assumption of the very thesis is that the New Testament is sufficient to define for us what obedience to its teachings would be.

And I believe we have presented very clearly, not separating the New Testament out from the

Old Testament, but the consistency of God's law coming from the Old Testament text into its application by Jesus and then its explication by his apostles, application within the church, and the statements that Paul made in 1

Corinthians chapter 6 do not be deceived. Those who practice these things will not enter into the kingdom of God, but such were some of you.

And so if obedience to the New Testament is the issue this evening, then we have established that the

New Testament teaching is, but you were washed, but you were justified, but you were sanctified.

That is the consistent New Testament teaching when you look at it from its consistency in the entirety of the

Bible, when you look at it from the original languages, the context in which the people lived, whatever it might be. That is the consistent message of obedience to the

New Testament. And the fundamental, fundamental error that we heard in the rebuttal period was where did

Jesus speak against this? Again, he did not need to. Again, he addressed other scripture that made clear where he stood.

But since Jesus knew what the Old Testament taught, and since he knew what Jewish people believed in that day, and since he surely saw where church history was gonna go, if homosexual practice was right or good, he should have affirmed it somewhere.

He should have made a positive statement somewhere. He never, ever did once. Thank you, gentlemen.

That's the end of our 15 -minute rebuttal period. We're now going to move into our cross -examination period.

At first, it will be our affirmative side cross -examining our negative side. A cross -examination time is a period that is more question and answer and conversation.

It is the time during the debate in which both sides may directly address one another and attempt to further understand points or demonstrating consistencies.

We have a few ground rules for this period, the first of which being questions need to be, need to have a question mark at the end of them and must be phrased as such.

It is okay to provide some, perhaps some context, a sentence or two, but we ask that you limit questions to the bare minimum words needed to convey the thought.

Answers also, in order to have a lively discussion between one another, we'd like to limit those so that a simple question is not asked and then the next nine and a half minutes be taken up with that response.

To our audience, this is the part of the debate in which there is, like I said traditionally, a more lively exchange.

We ask that you please hold all applause until the very end of the debate. There will be a Q &A period, as you see on the screens that we will get to at the very end, but please hold your applause after each period and after each question.

Thank you. So we will now start a 10 -minute clock. This will be for our affirmative side to question our negative side, and that begins once I click my buttons here.

Okay, you may begin. The question is simple. What happens to a gay, lesbian, transgender person at the end of their life?

Same as happens to any other human being on the planet, and transgender, separate category, you would agree in terms of it's not a matter of sexual attraction, but gender identity, but the same as any other person.

If they have rejected God's mercy, if they have lived in disobedience to his commands, they're lost.

If they have received his grace and mercy and lived a new life, they're saved. So what it would mean explicitly is, say in your case, as much as you're devoted to your spouses and believe you're scripturally right, if you do not repent of that and turn to the

Lord in obedience, I would fear that you would be lost, just like millions and billions of other people.

I'm Jewish. I'm born Jewish. I didn't ask what family I was born in. I believe my

Jewish people have rejected Jesus, the Messiah, and if they continue to reject him, they're lost. So this is not a discriminatory thing.

This is across the board, and ultimately, it's not my opinion. The question is, what does scripture say? And I believe scripture is clear on that.

It's my question to everyone on the other side. Has actually to do with Romans chapter one.

There was a lot of presentation made on that, but is

Romans chapter one Paul's sermon or homily on homosexuality, or is it his homily on idolatry?

Romans chapter one, of course, is part of two and a half chapters that Paul provides demonstrating the universal sinfulness of man.

So in Romans chapter one, you have the universal sinfulness of man. Romans chapter two, the

Jews say, yeah, that's right. And then Paul says, however, this applies to you. And then in Romans chapter three, up through verse 20, you then have

Paul saying, see, we conclude that all are under sin. And so what I asserted, since I gave that information, is that Romans chapter one, specifically verses 26 and 27, flow as part of the argument of what idolatry results in in the creation itself.

And hence, the issue of homosexuality is an illustration. It's not the central aspect because Paul moves on from there, but it is an illustration of the twisting of the creator -creation distinction and relationship.

And that's the illustration that he uses. I have a follow -up question along the same lines.

Yeah, please. At the end of Romans chapter one, this same argument that you've said to us is about idolatry.

He then prescribes that they are murderers and these other things.

Do you believe that homosexuality leads to the things that Paul prescribes there in the latter part?

No, it's a common error to think that because Paul mentions actually a huge catalog of sins at the end, that that means that everyone commits all of those sins.

That's not the case at all. The point is that when a person exchanges the truth of God for the lie, there is a result.

And the reason that homosexuality is mentioned in verses 26 -27 is because of that use of the phrase natural order, the way

God made us. What this means is sin touches us at the very core of our being, the very identity of our being, and twists that relationship even at that point.

There is no connection to therefore saying that means you're going to automatically be disobedient to parents, or automatically speak evil of authorities or anything like that.

All those things flow from rebellion, but not every sin flows from every other sin.

It's also interesting to note that we affirm all the other things are sin. Murder, idolatry, sexual morality.

We don't say they're only sin in the context of idol worship or if done in an idol temple. We all affirm that all those are sin, and somehow people try to just pull out men with men, women with women, and say that doesn't mean what

Paul said it meant. So again, this is the progression when we reject

God, that it leads to this, to this, to this, and hence the fallen human race, and there are many, many different manifestations of our fallen nature.

So then you don't believe that he uses the word therefore after talking about what you've described as homosexuality to describe behaviors that come out of that homosexual description, because he says therefore

God gave them up over to reprobate minds after he says these, what you described as homosexual acts.

Which verse are you referring to? I do apologize. I didn't pull up the verse because I haven't memorized.

Thank you so much. But 24 comes before the description. I thought you had just said afterwards.

After. Read 24 and 25. Yeah, therefore God gave them over, but then that's verse 24.

26 is then therefore God gave them over to dishonoring passions and the women and so on and so forth.

So there's two therefores, but they're introducing it, and it sounded like you said there's something afterwards that somehow connects it with that or the vice list, and that's what

I didn't understand. The words there are for this reason, and it's in verse 26, and then we find, and then down in verse number 28.

And even as they did not like to retain

God in their knowledge, God gave them over to the baseline. This is after he has described that.

That's what I'm talking about. Well, but you'll notice that specifically in verse 28, and just as they did not consider it right or good to keep

God in their knowledge, God gave them over. So again, the point is in each one of these instances going all the way back to verse 21, when you refuse to see yourself, when you are in sin, when you do not submit to God and to the lordship of Jesus Christ, there is going to be a resultant disruption of your relationship, not only to God, but to the creation around you.

And the point of verses 26 to 27 is that is even something that occurs inwardly, even in our understanding of our attractions and that which

God has given to us to even continue the species. And so the point is that idolatry and sin touches all of mankind.

It's not just an external thing. It touches every aspect of our being. And again, Paul is explicit about this being contrary, men with men, women with women, contrary to God's created order in Genesis 1.

And he's not talking about the same person throughout this whole thing. This person gets worse and worse. He's talking about humanity.

And again, that's why the progression keeps going the way it goes. So I wonder then, at what point in someone's life can they accept

Jesus Christ as their savior? And Jesus says, whosoever believes in me shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

So if you're a sinner, which we all are, of course, and I'm sure we continue to sin, even though we may not want to.

I think Paul said, I continue to do the things I know I shouldn't do. And I fail to do the things

I know I should. So as we are continuing to sin in one way or another, and as we know, the scripture does not categorize sins as worse or better.

The Catholics do a good job of it, but the Bible doesn't. So at what point on our deathbed do we stop sinning?

Yeah, great question. First, I want to make clear that the sin is not to have an attraction or a desire.

The sin is not to find whether you're attracted to the same sex or you could be attracted to many, whatever.

The sin is to affirm those things or act on them. Jesus said plainly, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my father.

Paul wrote plainly that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord must turn away from iniquity. So it is one thing to affirm sin and to practice sin, which you would be doing by saying that we have been married to same -sex partners and it's fine in God's sight.

It's another thing to say, God, I recognize I'm falling short. I'm asking for help. I'm acknowledging my sins.

So confession starts with the acknowledgement of guilt, the acknowledgement of sin, and then ask for mercy and forgiveness.

If you said, hey, we're struggling. We're asking God for help. He's the judge. I'm not the judge.

None of us ultimately are the judge. We stand before him. However, if my answer is, no,

I'm going to continue to do this because I believe it's right, then that's what Hebrews 10 deals with. If we sin willfully, then there is no sacrifice.

There's no forgiveness. So that's the key thing, not struggling, not to say that we're sitting here perfectly righteous and looking down our noses at you, but rather if someone affirms that which

God speaks against, says it's not sin and I'm practicing it, then we are rejecting the lordship of Jesus.

And we're doing what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. We are practicing this. And Paul says, no one who practices this will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But my problem with this is simple. When the Holy Spirit reveals to me that my life is good, that I'm doing what

I'm supposed to be doing, it sounds like you're rejecting my relationship with God and the Holy Spirit speaking to me.

Yeah, I'm saying the Holy Spirit is not contradicting the word of God. That's the bottom line. And if I tell you the

Holy Spirit spoke to me that you're wrong, then you have to reject the Holy Spirit speaking to me. Ultimately, scripture is what we agree on, right?

Thank you, everybody, for that first round of cross -examination. We're now going to move on to our negative side, cross -examining our affirmative side.

And by the way, we're really not the negative side. We're not just smiling. Absolutely, yeah.

We're not the negative, we're just the other side. I'm feeling a little pressed here.

This point of order is noted. And rejected, move on. Yeah. Thank you, everybody, for that.

Yes, so we will now move into a 10 -minute cross -examination by our this side of our that side. There we go.

Your time begins now, gentlemen. Okay. First, thank you again for being here.

And thank you for conducting yourselves in such a gracious way. Really, much appreciated. And thank you for also reminding us that there are people that passionately believe that what they're doing is according to scripture and we have these deep differences.

First question, can you give me one explicit positive statement anywhere in the

Bible that affirms homosexual practice? Not just the general God loves us, but any explicit statement.

We know all the negative ones. Any explicit statement anywhere in the Bible that it's fine for a man to be with a man or a woman with a woman?

No, I'm sorry. Oh, can I do the woman and you do the man? You've assumed a lot.

I know. I always look to, not because my name is

Ruth, but I always look to Ruth and Naomi. It was a very interesting relationship.

I'm sure you know the story. And when Naomi chose to leave her family and her religion to go with Ruth back to her country and God saw fit to use that relationship between Ruth and Naomi as an ancestor to Jesus.

When Ruth slept with, out of marriage, by the way, slept with Boaz, conceived a child,

Scripture tells us that she gave that child to Naomi and Naomi saw that child as her child.

Now, you can say they were lesbians or not. That's not the point. These are two women who

God has used to get exactly where God wanted it to be as the idea that Jesus' ancestry went back to Boaz.

And so that's important to me as a woman. It's important to me to know that God uses every part of humanity to get the plan done.

And for me, that is a very positive thing. God allowed something that may be looked at as a sin,

Ruth lying with Boaz out of marriage, and yet used it for something

I believe very positive as that was the ancestry of Jesus. And I think many times what we do, and I'm gonna take one little point again to respond to you because I think we, and I'm saying this as we

Christians, a lot of times are judgmental about God's relationship with other religions.

You said you were Jewish. My sister -in -law is Jewish. My niece and nephew are

Jewish. But what I know is God's gonna make a way. God's gonna make a way for people to find their way back to God.

Not he God, not she God, but God who is above those terms of male or female.

Can I just jump in though just out of respect to the specific question? Just to clarify, since the

Bible explicitly presents Ruth and Naomi as heterosexual, both married women, and then

Ruth remarries with no testimony whatsoever of any sexual or romantic attraction or activity between them, would you agree that that is not an explicit example of God affirming two lesbians in the

Bible? No, I would not agree. So you're saying that it does affirm that?

Yes, I think it does. Even though you said we don't know either way, you're saying it is an explicit example of lesbianism in the

Bible. of two women being used by God to do what needed to be done. And you said that Ruth...

But is that an example of a lesbian relationship? I believe there was a love between them. And it's explicit. And if you want to define that whether they had sex or not, you're saying two women who love each other are...

So that's the only way that two women can love each other if they're lesbians? No, I think it's the way two women can love each other who do not have husbands actively in their lives.

Right. That has nothing to do with lesbianism as many women here would attest. Maybe. Okay. Let me ask a question that didn't get an opportunity of being addressed.

If I might before you to answer the same question first, the original question. Our purpose for being here, our formal debate is, is homosexuality consistent with New Testament?

And your question was, do we have an explicit example from the New Testament that...

Or anywhere in the Bible. Right. Anywhere in the Bible. Because we have the whole Bible speaking against it. Do we have any example?

And if I might also segue from what I was about to say to that issue too. I was invited here to talk about the

New Testament. I conceded to the gentleman that invited us that if we're going to talk about the

Old Testament, then I'm on your side. I'll sit over there. Except obviously our argument has been a consistency between the two.

But if you wish to limit that. I've heard you say that three or five times now. I'm here to talk about the

New Testament. And I'm talking about that. And that's very important to me because Christ is the originator of this

New Testament. He says explicitly that this is the New Testament of my blood or the blood of this

New Testament. He is proclaiming that his blood has power over all that has happened before to bring us into a new and transformational.

I believe that's your word. And I agree with it. Relationship with him. So my answer to that question that was posed is

I do not have a affirmative, explicit example any more than you have and if a negative or a condemnation from Jesus.

We stand on equal ground. In the New Testament. We have explicit condemnation in the words of Paul.

Did Paul give us a positive example anywhere? No. And what I'm saying to you is the same thing that you just said when

I asked you the same or pose the similar thing, which was do you have I'm still waiting for Jesus or Paul or anybody to talk about.

And I understand your interpretation of Romans chapter one. But I believe and you conceded that it's about idolatry and it's not about homosexuality.

No, I did not concede that at all. I said the exact opposite. So let's talk about the specific reference to homosexuality in first Corinthians chapter six.

Then could you respond to the lexical information, the contextual information where Utamalakoi Utarsanakoitai were neither homosexuals, either the active or passive partners will inherit the kingdom of God and such were some of you.

You didn't get a chance to respond to that. So could you respond to that? I did not. And it is so those two words were very ambiguous and they still are very ambiguous.

Even your even scholars who are on your side of the belief concede that those words are ambiguous, such as what we know is the context that this is written in the historical context that this is written in.

We know about temple worship and we know what was happening there. And we know that this that's those same words are interpreted as prostitutes, male prostitutes.

And you you kind of pooped on that a little bit earlier. But that's not new belief.

That's that's as old as the lexicon. It's that, in fact, it's in the lexicon. Which one? Both.

Both. I can't say the Greek words. I'm not I don't know how to say those Greek words.

No, no, I'm sorry. You said it's in the lexicon. Which lexicon? Strongs.

Strongs isn't a lexicon. It's a concordance. I'm sorry. So if we look at vines and on and on, all of those words are there.

OK, well, pull everyone here, pull up Bible Hub and look it up yourself.

First Corinthians. All right. So so you actually haven't read any of the modern scholarship that that would substantiate what

I indicated, and that is that both Arsinos and Koiteo are found right in the

Greek Septuagint in Leviticus 18, in Leviticus 20, in the Holiness Code, and that they refer very clearly to what men do with men in bed.

And that fact, even the online LGBT encyclopedia recognizes that these are not ambiguous words.

And the only reason anyone says they're ambiguous is because of the rise of the sexual revolution, not because of any advancements in our knowledge of the

New Testament. So my contradiction to that is you don't find those words in any modern translations of the

Bible prior to the 19th, as a matter of fact, the 20th century. That's a truth.

So when you say and then you just refer to. I'm sorry. Are you saying English translations determine the meaning of the

Greek words? No, they do not. But you just said it's new research. You said, have I read any of the new research?

I haven't. And then and then just a few minutes ago when you were talking, you talked about how the new

LGBT people are this. I forget the exact words that you use, but this this new theology or whatever word you use, you can't have it both ways.

You can't have new theology that agrees with you and then have new, you know, and then put the new theology that doesn't.

I'm sorry. What I was asking about are our modern lexicons. Everything you've referenced is at least a century old.

So the modern, the standard lexicon today is called Bauer, Donker, Arndt and Gingrich, BDAG. OK, so you haven't looked at what the words mean as they're used in something like that.

I will not sit here and say that I have. It says seven seconds. I figure that's that's a good place.

Thank you for all of our participants here in this round of cross examination. We're now going to take a 10 minute intermission. We'll return with another round of cross examination.

So thank you very much. So we've concluded our first two cross or first two cross examination periods.

And we've come up with some new terms for our participants here. So negative and affirmative may not be in our lexicon anymore.

So at this time, however, I'd like for. I'd like for our affirmative side to question these gentlemen here.

Because I am myself stumbling over the word. So we're going to begin a 10 minute timer on this.

This will be our second cross examination period in this direction. And you may begin when you're ready. Table because.

I'll take it. I'll take it. Well, it just seemed appropriate. You can call us a black and white table. We're fine with that, too.

So in in all of our discussion, I guess it comes down to.

And I have to say, I feel this way, so please take it as part of this whole thing.

To hear somebody say to me, a lesbian Christian, a whosoever who believes in Jesus that I'm condemned is really hard to hear.

So when you encounter people in your ministries, in your life, in your friends, whatever, is that the way the best way to present to someone that you want to transform?

Well, actually, I was responding to your question and I quoted words from the

New Testament back to you. So I regularly hear from people who've come out of homosexuality that because they heard love for me, because they heard of God's transformative power, because we were not the negative, hateful, bigoted stereotypes and because we spoke the truth in love, that that was a key for them coming out and experiencing transformation and new life in Jesus.

So what I present is what I presented at the beginning. Jesus, the only Savior and Lord. Jesus, the one who died for heterosexual and homosexual alike.

Jesus, the one who came to seek and save the lost. And Jesus, who does not affirm us in our sin, but transforms us out of our sin, preach the same way and offer liberty and hope and new life to everyone, recognizing how deeply folks feel and feel they were born this way or that they couldn't change or try.

So with always compassion, sensitivity, but it is a message of tremendous love to look someone in the eye, whoever they are, and say, if you don't turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, you're lost.

That's a universal word of love, offering hope and new life in Jesus. Love speaks the truth.

So there's a phrase, and I may be misquoting it, so excuse me, that have you ever heard the love the sinner, hate the sin?

Yes, I don't use it because it would be offensive to someone who identifies as LGBT because they would say, this is not what

I do. This is who I am. And they would hear it as if I was saying that I hate you. So I don't use that personally because I feel it can be misunderstood.

Well, I agree it could be misunderstood. But what does it mean to you, that phrase?

OK, so specifically, God loves human beings, but he doesn't love our sin.

If there's pride in my life, if there's lust in my life, if there's greed in my life, he loves me, but he doesn't love those things, nor does he affirm those things in me.

So we universally recognize that. None of us would think God loves adultery or God loves murder or God loves pride.

And those are all things that some people find to the core of their being. They're prideful thoughts or self -centered thoughts.

So we go to the cross with that rather than affirm that. But when it comes to saying, someone saying I was born this way,

I was born gay or born lesbian, which I don't believe is biological anyway, but someone feels that way. OK, that's the bottom line.

They feel that way. That's the thing that we're now affirming. So we turn the Bible upside down to affirm someone's feeling and experience as opposed to saying all of us come to the cross broken.

All of us come to the cross with issues. All of us need forgiveness and transformation. Thank you.

Oh, you guys are good. I was totally engaged.

We'll go back to the hermaphrodite thought because it keeps going through my head.

The biological piece, and I'm curious to know you started on the path, but didn't go anywhere with it.

I'm curious to know what you would say to that individual in lieu of the scripture. Well, if you're talking about someone who actually has genetic aberration and hence has either no sexual organs or sexual organs representing both genders or something like that, not only is that an extremely small number of people, but in that situation, it's the requirement of the church to come alongside and to deal with that person as they would someone, anyone else who has that kind of genetic abnormality.

The problem is, and this sort of goes beyond the issue of homosexuality because there is no proven genetic component as in gene mapping or something.

The problem is that when you look at transgenderism today, the vast majority of these individuals are not hermaphrodites.

There is no x, y chromosomal aberrations genetically with these individuals.

And so it would be a pastoral issue as to how you would approach a person who actually has that. But that's a different thing than what we're seeing in transgenderism today where the created categories of male and female are being violated based upon what

I feel today. I view that primarily as a rejection of the creation categories that Jesus himself affirmed.

So while you would acknowledge the biological, you would make no allowance for the psychological.

While I recognize that there can be those a very, very small number of people with a genetic component to a genetic disorder, that's not the same thing as someone who feels that they're a different gender, but they do not have any physical reality that corresponds to that.

That's not the same thing. I would add that obviously I don't think that a three -year -old child or four -year -old child who feels like a boy trapped in a girl's body is a transgender activist or some evil rebel.

But I would say it's a problem and the solution is to try to help them from the inside out as opposed to put them on hormone blockers before they come into puberty and then sex change surgery, then hormones for life, and they'll never be able to fully function as either male or female after sex change.

Love is to get by those parents and that kid and recognize that 75 % or more once they get past puberty will no longer be gender identity confused, but to try to help them from the inside out.

So I recognize it as a genuine issue, one psychological, one biological, but I don't now affirm the exception and affirm the problem.

I say let's find a solution to it. The same way if we have someone that's, say, deaf in our school, we don't require everyone to stop talking and use sign language.

We try to accommodate that person, but now everything gets turned upside down so that the boy who identifies as a girl uses the girl's bathroom and everyone else has to submit to that reality or else.

That's where we have the problems. Expound on that last analogy that you, because I genuinely am enthralled.

So expound on that last analogy that you just made. Sure, so if we have someone, say, intersex, so androgynous, hermaphrodite, or biological chromosomal abnormality, we recognize that as an abnormality and we come alongside that person, try to help them find wholeness and if there are biological solutions, any types of things that can be done.

The same thing we do with anyone else with a handicap, with a defect, with a problem, we compassionately stand with them.

We don't turn reality upside down. We stand with that person and help them.

So conversely, when it comes to transgender activism, I can now be penalized if I work in New York City and if you now say that you want to be

Janice and I have to identify, or Dolores instead of Duane and I don't call you Dolores, I can be fined up to $250 ,000.

And if little Johnny is convinced that he's Jane, let's say little Johnny is now 15 years old and is convinced he's

Jane, he can play on the girl's softball team and share the girl's locker room. That is absolutely absurd and crazy.

Love would say, well, look, you are a biological male. That's your chromosomal male.

Let's help work with the mental and psychological issue from the inside like we do with everything else.

If your kid's convinced he's Napoleon, you don't dress him in the Napoleon outfit. You say, okay, son, we love you, but you're not

Napoleon. So the same way, son, we love you, but you're not a girl. That's what love would do. No further questions?

Very good. We will now have our final cross -examination period.

And then we will move on to our closing statements. So gentlemen, your time begins now.

All right. So just to build on something that Duane is, do you mind first name?

Is that okay? I prefer it, actually. Yeah, okay. Has been just now that you mastered our colors.

Now you got to learn our names. Like the brown white part. All right. So the beige guys, these are the beige guys. Okay. So, all right.

James and Mike. Yeah, you got it. So, so Duane, you know,

I categorically differ with you that Jesus had to condemn homosexuality by name, but let's take something else.

Assuming you agree that adult consensual incest is wrong, that it would be wrong for two men or two brothers, sister.

Okay. When did Jesus ever explicitly condemn incest in the

New Testament? He didn't, but I believe Paul did. Okay. So based on that, and I'd be curious to know where you said

Paul did. First Corinthians five, I imagine. Right. So that was fine for you though. It's Paul condemned homosexual practice by name, but that wasn't good enough for you.

You wanted Jesus to do it also. I didn't say it was good enough for me. You asked me where, so I told you.

Okay, okay, got it. So do you agree that Paul never gave a positive example of homosexual practice and that he also spoke against it?

Right. Okay. But that's good enough for Paul. It's not good enough for Jesus. Jesus also had to explicitly forbid it.

Well, because Paul isn't our savior. Paul is an imperfect man writing imperfectly, and he comes to a place in his life where he actually admits that at the end of his life.

Where he what? Where he actually admits that he's imperfect. Ruth quoted that earlier. Okay, so then everything we heard up to now about the authority of scripture has just gone out the window.

I'm sorry, say that again. Everything that you said about the authority of scripture has got to be according to God's word.

That just went out the window because what Paul wrote is not God's word. I didn't say that what Paul wrote wasn't God's word.

What I said was what Paul wrote was imperfect. So the word of God is imperfect? Paul actually makes that argument in 1

Corinthians chapter 15 as well for those that are getting driven. He says, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part will be done away with.

I'm not trying to be anti -scripture. I believe that the scripture is the firm foundation on which we stand.

No other foundation can any man lay except that which was laid by the holy apostles. So I get that. But we're talking about the

New Testament, which is the New Testament that Jesus paid for with his blood.

So he speaks with authority about it. And when the master says something, we can't come along and contradict it or we can't make up stuff to add to it, revelation.

So are the red letters more inspired than the black letters? You know, I don't want to have a trivial.

No, because it sounds like what you're saying is if it's in Jesus's words, even though it's recorded by apostles.

So my point is, Jesus is talking about Sodom and Gomorrah and he has every opportunity to talk about it in a negative and to extend this conversation over into homosexuality by virtue of the common understanding of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And he does not. What does he say about Sodom and Gomorrah? What specific sins does he list?

He talks about sexual immorality. No, no. When Jesus talks about Sodom and Gomorrah, what specific sins?

Let's go there. Gentlemen, do you have that verse? He just references its destruction. He didn't need to reference its sins.

But I'm just confused, though, to be perfectly honest. And I think others are confused. When I asked you, did

Jesus ever condemn incest? You said no, but Paul did. Right. OK.

Well, then that's not good enough because Paul's imperfect. So maybe it's OK. That's your argument that incest is

OK? No, I'm asking based on your reasoning, sir. With all respect, if Jesus didn't condemn it.

Right. And Paul did. But Paul's imperfect. We need Jesus to condemn it to satisfy you.

And he never did by name. Right. So then it must be OK. No. Well, then homosexual practice, did

Jesus condemn it explicitly? You say no. Paul did. But Paul's imperfect. Right. So we're both making the same argument about two different subjects.

I think clear enough. If it's not, if you can't connect the dots there. I have connected the dots.

OK, all clear. I could say the same thing back to you on the argument that you've made. All right. So I'm 100 % consistent,

OK, that Jesus does not condemn homosexuality by name, but explicitly condemns it in three ways in the

New Testament. And Paul explicitly condemns it. And Jesus does not need to condemn incest because it was part of the law that he came to fulfill and bring to a higher standard.

There was no debate about it. Paul simply affirms that. Anyway. Yeah, and I agree 1000%.

Let me just read you, get your comment on this citation. This is from the online gay lesbian encyclopedia on Paul's view of homosexuality.

It says the meanings, specifically in 1 Corinthians 6, the meanings of these Greek nouns have been the subject of lively debate, largely provoked by gay authors, anxious to show that Paul in the early church had not intended to condemn homosexuality per se as harshly as has been traditionally supposed, but only a degraded type of pederasty associated with prostitution and child abuse.

Recent scholarship has shown conclusively that the traditional meanings assigned to these words stand.

Now, this is homosexual scholarship recognizing this.

Um, how do you respond to that? Well, what are the original meanings?

Standing that this is, that this refers specifically to, well, if I can give you specifically the low

Anita definition, arson, equates a male partner in homosexual intercourse, homosexual.

And then right below that, Malacost, the passive male partner in homosexual intercourse, homosexual 1

Corinthians 6, 9 through 10. Okay. So if we look at what the definition you just read at that time, it doesn't talk about anything but sexual intercourse.

Is that correct? That's what, uh, arsinos and coito would be male penetration, male sexual activity.

Yes. One who does that. And we have to, to recognize not only around homosexuality, but about other things in scripture that the understanding at that time and the understanding now has changed.

We know that about a lot of things. Well, you've talked about creation and, and whether or not you want to look at scientific,

I don't see it as contradictory. Creation's creation. They had a limited understanding of the universe.

They thought that the world, everything revolved around the earth. They thought that there was heavens and pillars and you know, all this, but we've come to know some different things.

And I think when we talk, when the word changed, when homosexuality began to be a part of translation, which was in the 20th century, prior to that time, that wasn't used as a translation.

Sodomite is a fairly straightforward. Everybody knows what that meant. Perhaps, but I, my contention is this.

We're not talking about two men who love each other, who don't have wives, who don't, you know, maintain separate households.

We're talking about, about a different thing today. We do not take our relationships lightly.

We, I, we believe in monogamy. We believe in, in responsibility. And above all else, we believe in respect.

And so homosexuality cannot be looked at from one prism and that is sex.

Homosexuality is much more than that. So the question I would have then is how could the

New Testament writers have addressed what you have defined to be homosexuality?

Or was it not simply not possible? And therefore there, the thesis of tonight's debate cannot even be answered because New Testament obedience on this subject could not possibly even be defined.

Well, New Testament obedience, and I'm glad that you brought us back to that. New Testament obedience says that we follow what

Jesus commands. That, that's my understanding. And when Jesus spoke to sinful people, he did not ever talk about their sin.

He talked about God's forgiveness, except in one instance, he very much seemed to demonstrate a hatred of sin when it occurred from religious leaders.

And otherwise, when he talked in, in Luke 7, when the woman came, crashed the party,

I know you know what I'm talking about. And she probably was a prostitute. That's what scripture tells us.

Yet Jesus said, go and sin no more. So, so she knew that that was sin because it was revealed in scripture, right?

In Jewish culture, perhaps, yes. A prostitute, yes. But is that not, is that not in scripture specifically stated?

Absolutely. And Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven. So whether or not she went to continue, he didn't say go and sin no more to her.

That's not in scripture. You don't, you don't think that would be a proper, given that the first preaching of Jesus and Mark is repent for the kingdom of heaven is hand.

If you do not repent, you too, likewise shall perish. It might be part of his overall preaching. Perhaps.

Perhaps. But we're out of time, or I would say more. Thank you to our participants there. It was a very lively cross -examination.

We're now going to move into closing statements. We'll begin with our affirmative side. And again, just a point of order.

This is a 10 minute closing statement, not a 15, just slight shift there. We'll then move into audience question time.

So we recognize our affirmative side for 10 minutes. All right.

So this is our closing statement. I am completely enthralled. The incest question is going to be one

I look up and add to my to my thought process. That was intriguing.

My position is, as we stated before, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

I am in a little bit of a conundrum with how one believes on the

Lord and becomes saved. And then somehow or another, because of a loving relationship, one is negated that very same salvation, which is afforded to him by the love of God.

I know that any of us in this room who would have had a gay and lesbian son or daughter who came out would probably be very upset in the beginning.

And over my experience with dealing with hundreds of young people,

I've heard all kinds of stories from their parents putting them out to their parents being very angry with them in the beginning.

But then there's a reconciliation period that does not involve that individual somehow becoming something other than they are.

And so I'm reminded of the scripture that says, how is it that you being evil people know how to give good gifts to your sons?

I don't understand how we come to the conclusion that such a loving

God would cast out people for love. I get the person who is out there being promiscuous and risking their lives and other people's lives, partner after partner and illicit sexual behavior.

I get that. I get somebody who leaves the confines of the fidelity of a marriage, who's made a vow before God and who breaks that vow in the heat of passion or in a calculated move.

I get why that person would be in violation against the will of God. I get why incest would be a prohibition.

I get why all of these sexual sins would be a prohibition. I don't get why love and commitment that God calls for in his word is prohibited simply because of genitalia.

I don't get that. And I don't find that in the word of God. I want to make this very clear.

I'm a gay Christian. I have been all my life and I believe the

Holy Spirit revealed to me if I am to honor God, I am to honor

God as a gay Christian. It's very difficult for me to be able to say to you that I am who

I am and I understand many of you do not agree with that, but I'm okay with it because above everything else,

I am a whosoever. I believe in Jesus. I have accepted

Jesus as my sovereign and savior. And so I know that whosoever believes in Jesus is guaranteed eternal life.

I am in a committed, loving relationship. I have been for 30 years.

I believe that I am going to attain eternal life. And you know, the interesting thing is to me is that it's not any of our call anyway.

And we can debate all we want and maybe some of us will be very surprised when we arrive in heaven.

Maybe some of us will be disappointed that other people are there that we thought shouldn't be.

But you know, it's really not our call. There's a story about someone

I hope that you admire as much as I do and that's Billy Graham and how he was kind of brought to task over not saying to President Jimmy Carter when he admitted to lusting in his heart, not in reality.

That he didn't condemn him for that. And Billy Graham said something that I think was exactly on target and it has become for me more or less a mantra.

It is the Holy Spirit who convicts, not human beings. It's the Holy Spirit who convicts.

The Holy Spirit will convict us of our sin. It's the Holy Spirit that convicts.

That's the Holy Spirit's job. It's God's job and God's job alone to judge.

We can say anything we want. We can believe anything that we want to believe about another person, how they live their life.

We can condemn someone for being too rich and not sharing that money. We can condemn someone for not helping another person.

But it's God's job to judge, period. But we have a job too, my friends.

And Billy Graham said it. He said, it's our job to love.

It's our job to love. And so he said that because when he was criticized for not saying something to President Carter about the lust in his heart, he said, that's not my job.

My job is to love. Yeah, in the remaining time,

I did think about something that I didn't say. I wanted to correct the record about Leviticus.

Look in your Bibles for yourself. In Leviticus, I didn't address

Leviticus because we were talking about the New Testament, but it's, I've got eight minutes. Three.

Three? Oh, I can't count. Yes, okay. Leviticus, every other chapter there says,

Moses say to Aaron or Moses say to Israel. It's very clear who he's talking to there.

In this audience of people, I'd like to have some folks join me on my side.

If you look at the tags on the back of your shirts, you'll see that some of you are not sitting here with pure fabrics.

That's a prohibition. Any of you that enjoy like I do, crustaceans, seafood that doesn't have scales on it, that's a prohibition.

I see some males and some females who've shaven their hair in weird, the church says ways, that's a prohibition.

Anybody with a tattoo, that's a prohibition. Anybody who's eaten anything that crawled on the ground, we like to shoot some stuff off the telephone line, that's a prohibition.

And on and on and on and on and on, the scripture is called not just a prohibition, but use that same word, abomination.

So I'm saying all of that to say this, we need the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ.

We need it. We cannot live without it. And if anybody says that they are without sin,

I'm looking for some stones to come rolling up this aisle. I'm not saying that homosexuality is a desired life to live.

I think Ruth said it best. If any of us could have chosen another way, we would have.

Maybe there are some people who don't ascribe to that. I'm not one of those people. I spent 20 years in the church in a heterosexual marriage.

My aim and ambition was to be an elder in the church. And the only way you could do it in the church system that I belonged to was to be married.

I didn't marry her for that reason, but that was certainly along those goals. My entire life has been to serve the

Lord and to do so with gladness. So the saddest two years of my life were the two years where I thought

I was lost and that there was no hope for me because I did not fit into the mold that the church had created.

When I studied the scriptures for myself, I didn't learn it from some LGBT site. I don't read them because I often disagree with what's written there.

I don't like new theology. I come from the old school. Give me that old time religion.

It's good enough for me. So I found the love of Jesus in scripture for myself. And I'm inviting anybody who knows somebody who has left the church because no matter how welcoming your church is, there are people who will not dock in the doors because they feel like they're not welcoming.

It's no reflection on you. It's the feeling that they have. I'm inviting those people to come to the

Called Out Believers in Christ Church, 1345 Nyra Street, Jacksonville, Florida, where they will find people like them who love them unconditionally.

And where you don't hear sermons about homosexuality every Sunday, you hear sermons about the love of Jesus Christ, the unconditional love that's afforded to us if we'll just accept it and let the

Holy Spirit do all of the changing and transforming that he is well able to do.

That's my closing statement. Thank you very much. We'll now reset our clock for a 10 -minute closing statement from our other side, and we will begin.

First, may I present you with my book, Can You Be Gay and Christian? for your continued studies. Thanks.

And let me say, with utmost sincerity, with deep love, we've just met, but with genuine love and with a degree of brokenness in my heart and tears coming to my eyes,

God has a better way for both of you. That's the love of God. Duane just underscored the point that I had made about dietary laws and clothing.

God never condemned the Canaanites for that. He never condemned the nations for that. When it comes to incest, when it comes to homosexual practice, when it comes to bestiality, when it comes to adultery,

Leviticus 18 says, this is wrong for everybody. It's quite distinct.

Read it through, Leviticus 18, one to the end of the chapter. God judged the

Canaanites and expelled them because of these very same sins.

What I found fascinating was we agree on the importance of monogamy.

Where do we get that from? The consistent testimony of the old and the New Testament. The standards of the old reinforced in the new.

Fascinating, we agreed on incest. There are scientists now that talk about GSA, genetic sexual attraction, and that family members who've been separated for life meet later and have this tremendous love and connection.

And there are different countries now that are saying incest should not be illegal if it's adult and consensual. In fact, this being put,

Game of Thrones pushes it, all the different shows push it. Why do we say it's wrong, even though the culture put it?

We love each other, why not? Because of the explicit testimony of Scripture, Old Testament reaffirmed in the new.

And what's interesting is that there are Jewish traditions that could have well been known in Jesus' day that one reason

God condemned the world in Noah's day was because men were marrying men. It was this concept is not a new concept.

You had a Roman emperor marrying his male lover. Paul was familiar in Greek culture of long -term committed same -sex relationships.

That's not new. And the Bible in many ways is written against the same cultural background as today, and yet God's word was explicit, was clear.

With all respect to Duane and Ruth, reaffirming Scripture, reaffirming Scripture, I heard a deep undermining of Scripture.

I heard a clear undermining of the authority of Jesus' words as much as they were exalted, because even though three different ways he made clear homosexual practice was forbidden, that was put aside.

I heard the dismissal of Paul's words as a product of their day. And I heard the hint of universalism that all religions will somehow make their way to God.

You compromise in one place, it will ultimately show up in other places as well.

And it's interesting when it comes to judging. Yes, on the one hand, when Jesus says, don't judge, lest you be judged, he's talking about judging superficially, judging hypocritically and condemning.

And we don't sit here to do this. But when it comes to within the body, people claiming to be followers of Jesus and practicing something that Scripture condemns,

Paul says, judge one another. It's an explicit command in 1

Corinthians, the fifth chapter. It is your job to do that. And Jesus says in John 7, 24, don't judge by outward appearance, but judge righteous judgments.

And that's why Billy Graham, boy, did he love people. I've gotten close with people who are close with him.

What an incredible man he was. And when you heard him preach, he preached repentance. He preached against sexual immorality.

He preached against greed and sins of our culture. And interestingly, when marriage was up for debate in the state of North Carolina, he paid for an ad to be taken out saying, marriage is the union of one man and one woman, because that's what love does.

Love tells the truth. And to everyone struggling with same -sex attraction, to those with family members,

I encourage you never to give up and to keep praying, not so much to become heterosexual, but to become holy.

And boy, it's awesome. When I get a call on my radio show, I remember one woman calling who had come out of lesbianism and said,

I'm so thankful my mom kept loving me. She kept her relationship, and she never quit praying for me.

And Jesus saved me and transformed me. He's the one we preach. He's the one we declare.

Don't let anyone mislead you with empty words. The words of Paul. Don't let anyone mislead you with empty words.

The words of Jesus. Wide is the way to destruction. Straight is the way. Narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life.

God bless you. I want to pick up in the last five minutes we have in presentation on the statement that was made.

It is the Holy Spirit who convicts. And that is quite true. But we need to recognize that the

Holy Spirit was the one who gave us the very precious words of scripture. Our Lord Jesus himself in the gospel of Mark said

David spoke by the Holy Spirit. And then what did he quote? His own feelings? No, he quoted from scripture.

And so when we say it is the Holy Spirit who convicts, how can we tell who the

Holy Spirit is? What is that touchstone by which we will know when the Holy Spirit is bringing conviction?

Well, our Lord Jesus would tell us we have what he has given to us.

And therefore, it has to be consistent with this, the revelation within scripture.

And when we say, well, you know, Paul was imperfect. And so what Paul said might be imperfect, but Paul was himself as he himself taught.

And I believe all scripture is theanoustos. It is God breathed. And so when he speaks in scripture, yes, he is speaking.

It is his words are being used. But as Peter said, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not going to lead Paul or Peter or any of the Old Testament prophets into error as they are speaking from God.

My God is big enough to reveal his word in the words of human beings. And yet it's still exactly what he wants us to have.

That's how big and how powerful he is. And that's how the New Testament writers understood the

Old Testament scriptures. That's how we should understand all of those scriptures. And when we do that, then, for example, does not the

Holy Spirit tell us that the way in which there is peace with God the Father is only in and through Jesus Christ?

Am I being disrespectful to my Muslim friends when I stand in mosques in South Africa and proclaim to them that the only way they will ever have peace with God is in and through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice and faith in him as he is revealed in scripture?

Because I do that. And I am convinced that that's the proper thing to do. And I am convinced that that's how

I show love to my Muslim friends by proclaiming to them the single way that God has provided, not many ways.

That's not disrespectful. That's right. I'll tell you what's disrespectful. Saying God has to provide many ways when in his son, he gave his life on Calvary's tree to provide the one perfect way.

I say it's disrespectful to God to say you need to respect other ways other than the way that he himself has provided.

But is not that same Holy Spirit the one who clearly told us that those who engage, those who are homosexuals in 1

Corinthians 6, I read you the lexical sources, will not inherit the kingdom of God, but such were some of you and therefore you were washed, you were justified.

All that list in 1 Corinthians 6, all those sins are forgivable in the powerful blood of Jesus Christ.

And so when we talk about, well, the Holy Spirit convicts, here's my prayer this evening, that the

Holy Spirit will convict all of us. Because it's so easy to say, oh yeah, yeah, you're right about that.

But you know, all those vice lists, all those sin lists, there are a bunch of other things in there that everybody sitting in this room is guilty of.

And so we don't want to point out just one kind of sin and say that sin is worse than all others.

The reason we have to have these debates is because there's a movement in our day to say, yeah, those other things are sinful, but this one thing,

God made me that way. So we have to address it. But that doesn't mean we get to ignore all the other things.

So as Michael said, the greatest way to address this subject is to pray that God would cause all of his people in all of their lives to seek after holiness in every aspect of their life.

Because it is the lack of that holiness in their experience, in all of our experiences, that has given rise to the weakness of the testimony of the church on this particular matter.

And so I do believe it is the Holy Spirit that convicts. And yet I believe the Holy Spirit gave us this.

We need to believe what it says. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of our participants for this debate, this exchange of ideas.

We're now gonna move into our audience question and answer time. We've had some questions submitted on cards and there were probably about as many cards as there were people in the room.

So unfortunately, we will not be able to get to all of them. Our format for this will be if the question is directly written and addressed to one of the participants, then

I'll ask it to you and you'll have 90 seconds to respond to that. Your colleagues on the other side will have 60 seconds to respond to your response.

If the question is not specifically directed, then we'll just give 90 seconds to either side. So our first question, and I'm just going to read these as written.

Ruth, how do you hear from scripture, excuse me, how do you hear from God apart from scripture?

I hear from God through prayer, mainly. I believe in prayer and I believe in listening, not just talking to God, but allowing

God to speak to you. I believe God is still speaking today. I believe a lot of people aren't listening.

And so I do believe the Holy Spirit continues to convict today.

I don't think all the conviction was done and the Bible was written and the Holy Spirit was done. I believe that God is still speaking and I make every effort

I can to be quiet and listen. Prayer and answers to prayer are something that some people say doesn't work.

The church that I founded in St. Augustine, the church that still exists there, we are a praying church.

We send out prayers every week. So God continues to speak to me through prayer and I firmly believe

God continues to speak to everyone, everyone, if they're willing to listen.

And sometimes we're just inundated with so much noise around us.

I don't mean that literally decibels, but so much noise around us that we just need to go and be quiet, be still, be still and know

God. And we can't do it if we're not willing to listen. And we can't do it by listening.

No matter how wonderful people may be, you can't do it by listening to me. You can't do it by listening to anybody else.

Everyone has a personal relationship with God and has a direct line to God.

Thank you. Gentlemen, you have 60 seconds to respond if you'd like. I want to reiterate what

I just said in my closing statement. And that is God has given us his word and that is the touchstone by which we can test our experience.

And when we have a situation where there may be very strong desires in our hearts, that we may feel very strong attractions to certain things, that's especially when we need to have an objective word from God by which we can test what would otherwise become a subjective situation where we find in scripture what we want to find in scripture.

That's why we have to do the hard work of consistently handling the word of God. That becomes the bulwark that controls us and that allows us to truly hear from God.

And the only way we can have a unified church is if you have everyone following after that objective standard rather than just going after their own feelings and expressions.

Okay, thank you. Our next question is not addressed to either side in particular. It says,

God is holy and righteous. Sin cannot be where God is. So how can someone claim that God made them sinful?

And I don't know whichever side wishes to start with. Is it 90 for each or 60 for each?

90 seconds for each side. I'll go ahead. I don't believe that God made us sinful.

Scripture says that God made man upright, but he sought out many desires. And because of the fall of Adam, we are a sinful race.

Just like because of Adam, we all die physically. Because of Adam, we all die spiritually. And then it's our nature to do the wrong thing.

One man said many years ago that human beings can go up or down just like a stone can go up or down.

You let it go by itself, it falls. If you pick it up, it goes up. So that's why we agree that we need a savior.

So we are born broken one way or another. Every parent here knows you didn't have to teach your child to say no or your child to disobey.

And every human being here knows that you didn't ask for certain things, certain lusts or pride or attitudes or desires.

That's part of our sinful human nature. But God's not responsible for that. We are. And again, in ourselves, we can't help ourselves, save ourselves.

That's why we need a savior. So I would no more say God made someone gay.

And by the way, even if I believed that, it wouldn't change anything. That was if I believe that someone was born, to certainly say, not

God made them that way. But if I believed someone was born gay, that would be no different than saying they're born sinners.

We all need redemption. And the word from Jesus says, you must be born again. So no,

God does not make us sinful. And any sinful desires in our lives are our responsibilities and ours alone.

But he'll help us if we look to him. 90 seconds. Thank you for kind of segueing exactly to what

I was going to say, because Jesus says we do need to be born again. Born again of water and the

Holy Spirit. And I think that puts the power of the Holy Spirit to a very important place.

Again, I want to say, I believe God is still speaking. And I believe God is still speaking to us by the spirit.

And I think if we are in direct contact with God, which we should be all the time, not just when we pray.

If we are open for God to speak to us all the time and for the Holy Spirit to guide our lives, then we will be born again of water and the

Holy Spirit. And we will enter the realm of God. It's very important to me, and I hope to you, that we have to be okay with what

God is asking us to do. And we have to be okay when God says don't do it. And unspoken in all of that and underlining sort of the arguments that our colleagues are making here is this notion that the 66 books are the only way that God speaks to people.

Now, God's not going to contradict what's in the 66. But even when

Peter and Paul were writing about how the scriptures were inspired, holy men of old, and that what we call the

Bible had not even been complete. They were talking about what was already known through the old text.

So anyway, time's up. Sorry. Thank you. Our next question is not directed at any side in particular.

I'll just read it as written. Given the statement that this is how God made me in regard to homosexuality, are you affirming that you are predestined to this behavior in violation of your own free will and are therefore unable to make a decision otherwise?

And since we started over here, I think we'll... Since we started over here,

I think we'll... Now I'll say something that'll get me in more trouble than I've been in the entire time. I'm not a

Calvinist, so I don't know how to respond to that. I'm not Calvinist either, so that's what we've debated against each other, actually.

So I really don't know how to respond to that. The... We could have a whole night on predestination versus free will and many times we get into those kinds of discussions.

I'm the one who said, I believe God created me this way and I want to say again,

I did not choose to be created this way and I did pray and did everything

I could to not be this way. However, God through the

Holy Spirit and prayer revealed to me this is exactly the way God wanted me to be.

And maybe, just maybe, God wanted me to be able to say to people in the same struggle, say to people dealing with the same things, pray about it.

One thing I always say, pray about it. God will reveal to you the life you are supposed to live.

Maybe you're supposed to be celibate. That's okay. Maybe you're not. That's okay too. Maybe you're supposed to seek a way to serve

God that's unconventional. Fine. If you listen to God and trust God, God will show you the way and all of us who believe in that personal relationship with God and are willing to follow

God's way will help all of us reach the life we should be living.

I think the Calvinist boogeyman got in the way of what the actual question was because when you think about it, what's actually being asked is if you're claiming to have

God have made you this way, are you saying that there's nothing that you can do about that? And you see, the point is, and I think

Michael was just saying this, let's say you honestly confess that you've always had only same -sex attraction.

The question for the Christian is, what do you do with that? If you're a

Christian and you have always struggled with tremendous anger or tremendous jealousy toward other people, if you're a heterosexual male

Christian and you have a horrific time with lust, you just simply can't keep your eyes off the female form.

So are you going to say, it's how God made me and therefore, if God made me that way, does that make it a good thing, something that I can then engage in and something that is appropriate and proper?

And the point is, we go to God's word. God's word gives us a standard of who he is, of what his holiness is, and then that gives us the objective guidance as to how we, as followers of Christ, are to mortify the flesh, no matter what those desires might be.

You may be given great athletic prowess that leads toward pride. Pride is something you need to get rid of.

So that's what is revealed to us in Scripture. Thank you, Dr. White. We now have a question that concerns a specific scriptural reference, so if you want to take a moment to turn there if you have your

Bibles handy. This is in 2 Kings 23, 7. So we'll give a few seconds to get there before we ask the question.

2 Kings 23, verse 7. And so the question is addressed to Reverend Ruth, and so we'll go with our 90 seconds there and our 60 -second response.

So the question that is written is, did God condemn or approve what Josiah did in 2

Kings 23, verse 7? And then in parentheses, it says, tearing down the sodomite houses. Well, my

Scripture says, and he broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of God, where the women did weaving for Asherah.

So do I agree with that? Do I believe that was true or what?

I mean, obviously, this is what we've been saying the whole time, is that male prostitutes, temple prostitutes, which included women, by the way, that is not what

God is wanting people to do. It's, you might as well be a prostitute anywhere, it doesn't have to be in the temple.

I think it's particularly egregious in the temple, but that's not my understanding, revealed to me by the

Spirit of God, of what being in a homosexual, committed, loving relationship is. Not this.

Tore down the temple, the houses of the male temple prostitutes. I'm not a male temple prostitute.

Okay, 60 seconds for our other side. Yeah, so the Hebrews, clearly, so tore down the houses of, yes, male cult prostitutes.

The point is, that term is not used in Leviticus 18, or a parallel term in the Greek is not used in 1

Corinthians 6. In other words, when there was a specific type of cult prostitute, there was a way you said it, and that's what's here.

So of course we all agree that that's wrong. But there were also female cult prostitutes, but was prostitution wrong outside of a temple?

Yes, of course. So when the Bible condemns homosexual practice, it condemns it in the plainest terms.

Men being with men, the way men would be with women, exchanging the created order, male with male, female with female.

It's very explicit. When it wants to talk about cult prostitutes, it does. So of course we all agree that that was wrong, but it also underscores that Leviticus 18 was a universal prohibition.

Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6 are universal prohibitions, not just in connection with idolatry. But we agree that what was done by the king was a righteous act.

What we're saying is the cult prostitution was wrong. Thank you, gentlemen. Our next question is not addressed to either side in particular, so we'll go with our 90 seconds a piece.

And the question is, how does homosexuality glorify God? I guess my question, not question,

I'll answer it. So my relationship with my spouse glorifies

God in that we use our lives, our individual lives, and even our coming together to bring honor to who he's created us to be.

Free moral agents who use our lives for good, who use our lives to help people.

My whole life does not revolve around what I do in the bedroom. I think

I made that clear. I'm of a certain age. It's not even, I don't even care anymore, really.

I mean, you know, my life revolves around love.

It revolves around loving people. It revolves around loving myself, and it revolves around loving

God, which is what Reverend Ruth commented on from the very beginning. The first commandment is to love

God. And the second is to love your neighbor like you love yourself.

So if you're asking how a sex act sex act glorifies

God, I don't really know how to answer that question. I know that we could go back to that argument about having babies, but then we've already talked about that before.

So if you want to talk about how love glorifies God, God is love.

Okay, our other side question again, how does homosexuality glorify God? 90 seconds. So explicitly, it doesn't.

It's a violation of God's order, and it's an expression of brokenness and something being wrong. Every example that was given about how

Dwayne and his spouse glorify God, that's just human beings doing good things.

It has nothing to do with homosexuality. There's zero connection with homosexuality. So explicitly, homosexuality does not, cannot glorify

God in itself. And I would add to that, that I believe that God is glorified when his law and his truth is obeyed and lived in light of.

And so since we're given very clearly what marriage is to be and what its parameters are, and that it is a man and a woman together, then he is glorified when in that, in obedience to what he has revealed, we live out that gift that he has been given to us.

But God is not glorified when we say, we're going to change the parameters of what you've given to us.

We're going to violate those parameters. And then say, this is glorifying to you anyways.

That again, takes us back to the normative authority of what God has given to us in scripture.

And I would say the very normative authority of Jesus's own words in Matthew chapter 19. Okay. Thank you, gentlemen.

Our next question is, and I believe this one was addressed during cross -examination, but perhaps it deserves another look.

Not addressed to either side in particular. Scripturally, where in the New Testament do we see homosexuality approved or accepted?

And whichever side wishes to. I think we've covered that. Okay. Moving on.

We found a point of agreement. That's right. That question has been handled. So, okay.

This one is addressed to the affirmative team together. How would you reconcile 1

Corinthians chapter 6 verses 18 and 19 while living a homosexual lifestyle?

And if we want to take a minute to turn there, we can do that before the clock starts. That's the, yeah, that's the

M and the A word that I can't pronounce. No, it's not. No, no. This is, let me read it for you.

Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? Okay. Time start.

I'm glad it says man. So I'm going to have him. Yeah. So I would have to accept the presupposition that homosexuality is sin in order for that verse to have the power, the potency that it's intended to have by the writer.

I believe that the writer is saying that homosexuality is sin. And so therefore you're not glorifying

God with your body. And I just talked about how I believe that my relationship and all others like it do glorify

God. So I don't know how I would... Because the presupposition is that it's sin.

And if I can't... So I agree with the text. I agree with everything the text says.

I just don't accept the presupposition. Go ahead. I mean, would you like to finish your time?

No, I'm done. Okay. All right. 60 seconds to the other side. 90. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah. Okay. Here's...

This is why this debate is so important. The term there is pornia. And I do not believe there is any question whatsoever that the

Apostle Paul would have understood homosexuality in this very same chapter.

He's already identified it as pornia. Everyone at that time... There just simply isn't any source that says otherwise.

And so you are risking... You know, you said... You yourself were the one who said, we don't want to wake up someday in hell.

You have nothing in the first century, nothing in the New Testament, nothing in the documents around the

New Testament that would argue against homosexuality being pornia. And there it is right there.

And you're risking everything on, well, I just don't think that's the case. I pray for the conviction of the

Holy Spirit because that is what is needed in this situation. Okay, moving on to our next question.

Again, this one addressed to no one in particular. It says, if I continue to practice sin instead of righteousness, will

I die in my sin? Is that a general... Could you repeat that one more time?

Not addressed to anyone in particular. It says, if I continue to practice sin instead of righteousness, will

I die in my sin? Yes. Yes. Yes.

The defense rests. Think about that one a second there. Yeah. And we say yes. Yeah.

Okay. There was no clock set up needed for that. We all agreed on. There we go. Sin is bad. There we go.

Okay. This one

I can only imagine will have dramatically different answers from both sides. And it is not addressed to anyone in particular.

I'm just going to read it as it is written. How can a high school youth who is straight defend against gay classmates?

Defend against gay... All right. Let's... As soon as the clock starts,

I'll answer. I'm assuming by defend against, you mean defend a position.

We're not defending against people. You want to reach out to your friends. You want to befriend those.

If you have friends that are marginalized or mistreated or get pushed away, you want to reach out to them.

And parents, you want to teach your kids to reach out to the marginalized and have them over at your home and love on them.

If you mean how can you defend your position, it's first by understanding the scriptures clearly.

And go through the debate again from tonight. Look at some of what we've written on this.

There are other websites that lay these things out clearly. There's a great dialogue recently with Sean McDowell and Matthew Vines that you could watch and learn from.

Very useful where you get both sides presented in a way that would be good for young people. So you understand the scriptures, and then you reach out and love people.

It's that simple. And don't be ashamed of the gospel. You're going to be called bigoted and hateful.

Now the tables have turned. When that happens, rejoice. When people speak evil of you for Jesus, rejoice because he gets cast out.

You get cast out with him. But remember, you're on the side of truth. And Jesus said that the truth will set us free.

So learn the scriptures, understand the main LGBT talking points, master the answers, and then walk in love and reach out to everyone.

90 seconds for our other side if you'd like to comment. I actually concur with everything you just said.

I believe that love is the best way to move forward. As I shared with you before,

I spent the entire first part of my life in mainstream church, putting that in quotes.

And so whenever we would encounter people who were unlike us in any way, shape, or form, what we were always taught to do was love them.

James talks about how if somebody comes into your congregation and they're different than you in any way, shape, or form, he's specifically talking about the person who is dressed, you know, like a popper, you love them.

You give them the seat of honor as opposed to the person who is, you know, looks like they're very wealthy. I think that's the way to address anybody.

And I think that if we did that, I don't believe that you're going to encounter the persecution that Jesus describes in Matthew chapter five.

I don't believe you're gonna get a lot of hate speech just because you tell somebody something if you tell them in love.

I know if I had encountered these gentlemen, even on the street talking the way that we talk today, I wouldn't have an ill thing to say about them.

I'd simply affirm that's, you know, what you believe and I don't believe the same.

And if he wanted to do some other kind act, I'd let him, you know, and I'd do some other kind act myself.

I don't think that, I think that love begets love. I think evil begets evil.

And I think that what happens is a lot of times we think that we're presenting in love and we aren't.

We are presenting, the scriptures say we have to present the truth in love. And that doesn't mean that we don't say things that people might consider offensive.

We have to address things that we feel like the scriptures speak against. I do it in my church.

I have people in, I gotta go real fast, I have people in our church who have these multi -sexual partners when they come to the church.

And we sit down and we talk about the morality of it all and we use the scripture and many of the same scriptures that we would use that you've heard cited today.

We don't wanna see people go to hell and I certainly don't wanna go to hell. We can prevent that by love.

And we have to understand what love is and love isn't wagging our finger and being right. Love is love, it's being patient and kind and all those things that 1

Corinthians 13 talks about. Thank you for your responses on that one.

We have two more questions. It's gonna put us over on time by about five minutes but if everyone's in agreement, we can handle these and then conclude the event.

Addressed to no one in particular, it says, my sister is gay but goes to church. Will I meet her in heaven?

If I might respond to that. Certainly. God knows, that's it.

God knows we don't. And if someone in their heart has accepted

Jesus Christ as their sovereign and savior, if someone lives a life and like Duane was saying, we don't advocate multi -partners.

We believe in monogamy, we believe in that. And what unfortunately happens in families and since this was a sister question, what often happens in families is there's less love and more judgment.

And when that happens, you've broken down the whole idea of communication. If you continue to speak in love to your siblings, if you continue to speak in love in your family, you can believe maybe different things and you may be able to transform each other.

30 seconds remaining. Okay. Our other side, 90 seconds.

Scripture is very, very clear in warning us, do not be deceived.

Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

But such were some of you. The question is, where are you on the spectrum of the verb of verse 11?

Such were some of you. Are we talking about a person who has same -sex attraction but does not act upon that and is seeking to live under the lordship of Christ and to mortify the flesh?

Are we talking about someone who says, no, this is good, I'm going to promote this, this is the way God made me and I will not therefore repent?

Then Paul's statement is very, very clear. And just look at any of the other sins that are mentioned there, the covetous.

Okay, let's use covetous because who's going to defend that, right? If you have someone who covets and says this is something that's good, it's something

I will not repent of, this is how God made me, I can't imagine myself any other way, will that person inherit the kingdom of God?

The apostle, the inspired apostle said no because Jesus changes you.

But if you're on the other side of that verb, but you were washed, but you were justified, you were cleansed, that's the power of the gospel.

So it depends on where in that verb she is. Okay, our final question is rather broad,

I believe. So we'll go with two minutes to a side and this will be our final element of debate. The question is, do you believe in hell?

And if so, who goes there? We can start since they just addressed that question.

And we'll have a two -minute clock for this one. I won't need that long. I do believe in hell.

And I do believe that anyone who Jesus says, if you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my father who is in heaven.

But if you'll confess me before men, I will confess you before my father who is in heaven. Paul, go back to Paul, says that if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that God raised

Jesus from the dead, then you shall be saved. Persons who reject the

Lord Jesus Christ, the lordship of Jesus Christ, and persons who will refuse to confess him and believe on him will find themselves in hell.

Very simple for me. And I too believe the same thing. And it is important, and thank you for bringing that scripture up.

It is important that we confess that we believe in Jesus Christ as sovereign and savior.

And when we do that, and I'll confess in front of anyone. It's what I believe. But we are all, remember, we are all sinners.

And we sin every day in one way or another. You walk by and not do what you know

God is asking you to do. You have sinned. The sin of omission is more prevalent, in my opinion, than the sin of commission.

Too many of us don't speak up, don't speak out, don't defend what we know God would want us to do.

But I believe if we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us, if we confess

Jesus as our sovereign and savior, and if we do not, if we can possibly avoid it, fail to do something we know we should do, then, yes,

I think then you go to hell. And by the way, one word I'm going to just grab from the last session.

We do not, neither Duane nor myself, promote homosexuality.

Please don't, I haven't gotten a toaster oven. I don't do it. Some of you wouldn't even understand what that means.

But the thing is, we're not promoting anything. We are preachers. We are pastors.

What we promote is God. What we promote is Jesus Christ as sovereign and savior.

We don't promote homosexuality. Thank you for that.

Now our final response of the evening. Two minutes, gentlemen. Someone once said the problem with deception is that it's very deceiving.

And it's very well illustrated when we have folks right here on the same platform, very sincere, very passionate, very serious about these things, professing the lordship of Jesus, and saying what we all agree on, that if you reject the lordship of Jesus, reject mercy through his cross, and reject his lordship, you are lost.

You will perish. There is future punishment, which is the most dreadful subject imaginable.

And yet, when the clear testimony of Scripture goes against what people feel in the core of their being, what they ultimately do is reinterpret

Scripture. And that's the great danger. Confessing Jesus as Lord is not just words.

It's confessing him as Lord, and Jesus again says, why call me Lord and don't do what

I say? So we all fall short, but there's a difference between falling short and affirming sin.

There's a difference between falling short and justifying it. And that is where the fatal flaw has been tonight.

And that is the great danger, because if we do not have the clear light of God's word shining into our hearts, self -deception is very, very easy, especially when you're talking about something of desires that flow from the very core of our being.

We need to have that external objective source. That's why Jesus directed us to those words.

If we really believe the truth about who Jesus was, these are his words. It doesn't matter whether they're red or black.

They're all coming from the triune God, and that triune God has revealed to us in the scriptures what his will is, how he's created us, and what honors him in our human sexuality and our relationships.

And I hope that has been made very clear this evening. Thank you very much for your attention. And let's thank both sides of our debate here for...

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our evening. Please go home and search the scriptures, and I wish you a good night.