November 16, 2023 Show with M. D. Perkins on “Dangerous Affirmation: The Threat of Gay Christianity”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Questions. And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon, Cumberland.

County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 16th day of November 2023.

I am thrilled to have a first-time guest today that comes by the highest recommendations of two very dear friends of mine, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Rosaria Butterfield, who herself is an author.

In fact, Rosaria, for many years, was in slaved to the sin and by the sin of lesbianism before coming to a saving faith in Christ and becoming a new creation in Christ, and both she and Dr. White strongly urged me to interview my guest today, M .D. Perkins, who is research fellow of Church and Culture for the American Family Association, a documentarian and author, and he's going to be addressing his latest book, Dangerous Affirmation, The Threat of Gay Christianity, and gay Christianity is in quotes, and I am honored and privileged to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, M .D. Perkins.

Thank you, Chris. Very good to be with you today. Why don't you explain to our listeners what the American Family Association is, also known as AFA. The American Family Association is a pro-life,.

Pro-family ministry founded in 1977, dealing especially with morality and media and kind of the raunchiness of television at first, raising awareness about the cultural decline there and then expanding out to deal with issues of homosexuality, abortion, the gay movement to redefine marriage, and just a number of the cultural battlefronts that Christians have found ourselves in in the last 40 years or so, and so AFA has been on the front lines of many of those battles for a long time, and some people may know the name Donald Weilman.

Don Weilman was the founder of AFA, a United Methodist minister who got bothered about these things and was moved by God to take part in it, and so I'm part of the legacy of that. You know, we have over 100 employees here in Tupelo.

We've got a radio network, American Family Radio. There's a number of different arms and divisions that are connected with AFA now, but part of my job in that is just as a video producer and a researcher.

Well, if anybody wants more details about the American Family Association, go to AFA .net, A-F-A dot net, and God willing, I will remember to repeat that information toward the end of the program, and we have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which you were raised, and what kind of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to Himself.

And saved you. Excellent. Yeah, so I grew up here in Mississippi. I grew up in Tupelo. That's where my parents were based, and my parents were very active Christian believers. We were part of the PCA Church, Presbyterian Church of America here in Tupelo, Lawndale, which I'm still part of to this day, and you know, so I grew up kind of cutting my teeth on a lot of R .C. Sproul, Norman Geisler, Francis Schaeffer, that kind of apologetics material because my parents were very impacted by some of that apologetics work early on in their faith, and so I was raised in the Christian home, had a lot of good role models there, but the Lord really didn't get a hold of me until I was in high school is when I believe that He really savingly was at work in my heart and regenerated me, and it was something quite unexpected to me.

I was sitting in a Thanksgiving service actually at our church on a Wednesday night, not wanting to be there, but there to interact with some friends, and one of my friends was staying, and so I was kind of feeling forced to stay a little bit and real bitter about that, and as I was real cynical in my attitudes toward being a part of that service and everything, but at the end of the service, there was a simple praise song that was sung to close out the service that was just, There is a Redeemer, Jesus God's own Son, Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, Holy One.

It's a song people may remember from the late 90s, early 2000s, but it was one of those songs that I had sung in church a lot over my life, and of course sung many, many different hymns, but that night, the weight of those words, the idea of a Redeemer, the idea that I needed redemption, and that Christ Himself came to save me and took my sin upon Himself and gave me His righteousness and really redeemed my soul, that was something that hit me in such a profound way that evening that I went home and I just cried out to the Lord and rejoiced and read my work, read my Bible and just was really a new person, I believe, after that point, just took things seriously, took things differently, and even though I was raised a very moral and religious kid and really hated to disobey because I didn't like to be thought of as a sinner or someone who broke the rules, those things changed in me.

My attitudes and my motivations for obeying changed as a result of what happened to me that night, so it's been a growth in grace and sanctification since then, and I'm really thankful for how the Lord has been at work in me and used my family and used the local church and just used some of those simple means of grace to draw me to Himself.

Praise God, and how did you come to discover and embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace, also known as Reformed theology? Well, growing up in the.

Presbyterian Church, those things were kind of in the water, so to speak, listening to a lot of R .C. Sproul, as I mentioned, but I really didn't pay attention to that until kind of later in high school, early college, when I was beginning to think more about the contours of what was faith and what was theology and how did this look like and what were some of the things that were described in the Bible, and so I would say it was particularly the ministry of R .C. Sproul in particular that really grounded me in that.

Of course, my parents had a lot of that material in their house, and those were some of the first books I was really reaching for in that time after my conversion when I was really hungry for a stronger sense of truth and a deeper clarity about what the Bible.

Meant and how some of these pieces fit together. Well, how did you become introduced to the American Family Association? Well, AFA is, like I said,.

Its headquarters is right here in Tupelo, and so it was my parents were supporters, and they received the AFA Journal for many years, and in fact, I grew up kind of scoffing at some of the things I would read in there as a teenager, but later after I went to film school in Savannah at Savannah College of Art and Design and bounced around the independent film industry for a while in Louisiana, my wife and I and my young child eventually moved back to Tupelo just to try and reassess some things before we thought we were moving on to something else, and that was right in 2009 as the whole economy kind of crashes, and as a college student without a whole lot of job experience, I was forced to look around for some different options, and I ended up working at Chick-fil-A, but while I was there in the church that we were a part of, then I met a guy who was working at AFA and realized that they were starting to get into some film production work and particularly some documentary work, and that was intriguing to me, but it was a little bit different path than I had really anticipated, you know, to take such a spiritual focus.

I really intended to be more of a secular filmmaker, I guess, with a Christian, you know, mindset and worldview underneath it, but through God's providence and kind of bringing those different connections together, I ended up working at AFA, and I've done multiple projects with them, including The God Who Speaks, which is a documentary we did about the authority of the Bible and the history of scriptures and textual criticism and some things like that, and then In His Image that deals with gender and sexuality and what God has to say about that, and then our upcoming project that deals with Don Wildman and the founding of the ministry and Christians getting involved in the culture war in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, so that's an upcoming project, but through those projects, it led me into doing research, which is how I ended.

Up writing. Dangerous Affirmation. Yes, I guess you just wanted a quiet, uncomplicated life and decided to write a book about the threat of gay.

Christianity. Yeah, exactly. It was something I entered into quite accidentally, I'll say. You know, working on In His Image with one of the other producers, I came into her office and said, is there any way I can help you with some of the research and the things that you're needing to do on this project?

And she said, well, there's this whole question of gay Christianity. Could you look into it a little bit, especially the question of revoice? And you know, lo and behold, that was God providentially leading me into this next direction of ministry focus that ended up consuming over two years of my life as I worked on that, and it continues to be a part of how people get connected with our ministry here and some things that they're trying to work through within their own church context and things like that.

So yeah, it wasn't something I was ever really trying to do, but as I was initially just trying to research a lot of the kind of doublespeak that was happening among those who are promoting the revoice ideology or side B thinking, and I ended up writing a paper called A Little Leaven, Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement, which you can find at afa .net slash a little leaven.

It's available there as a free download and also as an audiobook listen. And from that research, then as I shared that with some of the leadership here at AFA, they were interested in taking pieces of that as well as dealing with the gay affirming church movement and trying to paint a bigger picture of what was happening in quote-unquote gay Christianity as it currently stands, because they felt like there needed to be an updated work that really delved.

Into some of the particulars of that movement. Now I think that some definitions are warranted here because there are no doubt some folks within the body of Christ who are sheltered enough that they don't even know what you're talking about when you mention revoice, when you mention side B Christianity.

In fact, a lot of this also became a part of my orbit of awareness very recently myself. And in fact, I don't know if you are aware, but I just recently organized a debate, a live public moderated debate, between Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Dr. Gregory Coles.

And Gregory Coles identifies as a gay Christian and identifies himself in the side B realm of that. And for our audience who is unaware of that terminology or unfamiliar with it, and you of course can fill in some of the holes in this very brief definition, but from what I understand, side B Christianity is basically, if you want to sum up the core essence of it, because I'm sure there is disagreement that exists amongst people who claim to be a part of that movement, but these are people who believe, as you and I do, as conservative Bible-believing Christians who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, they believe that homosexuality, when physically acted upon, and even when abused through lust, is a sinful way of thinking and behaving.

And from what I understand, at least according to Dr. Gregory Coles, he would agree with us that sex is, as the Bible teaches, only to be enjoyed between one man married to one woman. But the difference lies in, it is a very serious difference, as to identity, to continue to perpetuate an identity where you publicly claim to be a gay Christian.

And perhaps you could pick up where I left off there.

Side B Christianity and the Identity Question

Yeah, absolutely. That is the key distinction there from what side A would be, which is the gay-affirming church movement. You know, you think of a pride flag on a on a mainline church building, that kind of thing, open and affirming, you know, statements being used.

And then the side B position, which is a more conservative viewpoint on it, but it still has some key distinctions in there that are troubling, and that's what people like Dr. James White and Rosaria and others like myself have tried to point out.

It's that identity component, and that is something that people treat as if it's theologically neutral, or even advantageous in some cases. That's what Dr. Coles claimed in that debate, that there's an advantage sometimes that can be there evangelistically for him to identify himself as a gay Christian, so that he can say that God is actually for you as a gay person.

And even though he kind of hedges that in a number of different ways, there's a lot of troubling aspects to that, that that a believer, someone who's indwelt by the Holy Spirit of the living God, would be willing to take on such a sinful identity marker as some kind of, not just a way of describing personal experience, as is often claimed.

That's usually what they say when people start to criticize it. But really, once you start to hear the way that these guys talk about it, there's so much enjoyment and identifying with that idea, mindset, behavior, because homosexuality, as we're defining terms here, I mean, homosexuality is more than just engaging in sodomy or the homosexual behavior.

It is a desire, it is a way of relating to others of the same sex, it is a way of thinking about yourself, it is a way of self-identity, and then therefore group identity, and it also takes up certain political aspirations and agenda items, and it includes things like, you know, how you dress, how you speak, and how you present yourself, you know, having some sort of gay calling card.

A lot of those things are tied up in it, and they can take all kinds of individualistic ways in which they're worked out, but all of those things are kind of tied together in this rather complicated package, and that's part of what makes homosexuality such a complex topic to discuss, is that people are often thinking about one aspect of that, whereas other aspects are always tied to and implied by that.

So, yeah, side B is a lot of focus on identity, a lot of focus on language, and really it's kind of a discipleship movement, I would say, in that they're really concerned about how the church is treating them individually, and then others who identify as LGBT in some way, and so they are very critical of the way that the church historically, as well as still today, is treating those who identify as homosexual and saying that, and really wanting to move beyond any sort of language of change or, you know, shift of desire, those kinds of things, lessening temptation.

They really don't want to define in very clear terms what the work of the Spirit might look like in terms of them and their relationship with homosexuality. So, there's a real distance and pushback to things called the ex-gay movement and how they, you know, kind of dismissively have described it as pray away the gay and that kind of thing.

So, anyway, there's a lot of additional connection points there that people may have questions about, but yeah, that's some additional thoughts on side B.

And I strongly urge everybody listening to, at some point, go to YouTube and type in James White versus Gregory Coles, and you can see the entire debate that I mentioned that they had. And it was very clear that Dr. Coles does not believe that his innate identity as a homosexual has any problem with his walk with Christ or his standing before God.

He does not believe he has anything to repent of in that sense. He said only if his identity as a gay man leads him to lust, that's the only time, or of course, even full-blown physical activity, that's the only time where this would be an offense to God.

And I think Dr. James R. White really hit the nail on the head during a crucial time of cross-examination where Dr. Coles really did not have an answer for this. When the classic passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 came up, and Dr. White was citing Paul's words, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Some of you, some were, some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit of our God. The key issue that Dr. White was highlighting was, nor the covetous, because it was basically the same realm of sin that Dr. Coles was claiming was completely innocuous and harmless and non-offensive to God because of the fact that there was no lust through fantasy, no physical consummation of the desire, whereas Dr. White said, well, what about covetousness?

Covetousness is not an action. It leads to actions, just as you were admitting that a homosexual identity could lead to lust and physical sexual activity, but the sin of being covetous is a state of heart and mind.

Do you want to pick up on that? Yeah, that's an excellent point for two reasons. One, because covetousness is a good correlation to how these guys are typically using the word homosexuality or the word gay, which is just kind of an expression of how they feel, and it's also really good because it highlights the fact that covetousness is actually a key component of the homosexual identity.

So much of it is based on a desire to do something that is closed off from you. I mean, one of my early explanations of this was that, well, you can talk about committing adultery in the commandments, but what does it mean to covet your neighbor's wife?

I mean, obviously, that could be sexualized, but specifically there, there's no sexual component to it, but there's a desire for something that the Lord has not given to you, that the Lord has actually closed off from you, and it's not available to you.

You are not free to desire this in any sort of major way, but that is a component of this homosexual tendency in the way that it's being described, and one of the ways that I would say that the Side B movement has been so dangerous and confusing among evangelicals in particular is by the introduction of the word attraction into this conversation.

Now, once you say the word attraction, you're talking about something that's really rather elusive and hard to define. Is it talking about temptation? If we're trying to find a spiritual corollary, a biblical corollary, is it temptation?

Well, people would say, no, it's just kind of recognizing something else as desirable or interesting or beautiful or whatever. Okay, well, that really doesn't have an immediate biblical component, so therefore we can kind of define that however we want with whatever rubric and understanding we have from our own experience or from sociology or anything else, and so it's really free from any of the scriptures indictments or direction on anything that we would think about that, but if you think about covetousness as it's tied to attraction, suddenly it takes on a different component where if you are attracted, if you are a attracted to another man, you are desiring something that God has not offered to you.

There's no way that that could ever be fulfilled in a meaningful way besides just friendship, but if it's just friendship, then you wouldn't describe it as attraction in the same kind of way that we're using that word attraction, so there's a lot of doublespeak.

There's a lot of nuance within the language there, but I would say that the introduction of that word attraction has created a whole lot of confusion because people immediately think of a teenager going through puberty, recognizing the opposite sex, and are all of those desires inherently wicked just because he desires sexual intimacy with another woman and that kind of thing, and that's immediately what's placed there, and then it's placed in its most innocent form and assumed that the most innocent form is taking place there, but I tried to look at what these guys actually said about it, guys like Grant Hartley and guys like Greg Johnson, who was a PCA pastor.

He's not in the PCA anymore because he left, but when he was being questioned by some of the leaders of his presbytery about what he described as same-sex attraction, he talked about his heart being moved, or rather, I'm sorry, he actually said, my heart melts when a good-looking man enters the room.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I were to describe another woman entering the room as my heart melting and describe that to my wife and then say that nothing really bad has taken place there, I haven't really sinned, there's nothing to repent of there, that would not go very well for me because it's very clear that whatever is going on there, it is inordinate, and it goes well beyond what God would intend for your heart to respond to a situation of someone else entering.

The room. Absolutely right, and we have to go to our first commercial break right now. If anybody has a question for M .B. Perkins, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, and if you have a personal and private question, we will permit you to ask anonymously because this kind of subject, it's a no-brainer that it could provoke some very personal and private questions from listeners who are dealing with this subject in one form or another, whether it's somebody who themselves are struggling with homosexuality, or if it's a parent of someone who is either struggling or has fully given themselves over to this sin, it could be a whole host of things that would compel you to remain anonymous, and we will respect that request if it is personal and private.

But if it's a general question, please, again, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Don't go away, we're going to be right back after these matters. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive.

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We're now back with my guest today, MD Perkins, and MD and I are discussing his new book, which every Christian should have in their possession, Dangerous Affirmation, the Threat of Gay Christianity. Once again, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com gives his first name at least, city and state and country residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And we have a question. I was going to hold off a little on taking the questions from listeners, but there was one that really, I think, is most beneficial to have you answer right away.

We have Brenda in Culpeper, Virginia, who says, you mentioned side A Christianity. Is that a part of your book as well? And if you could explain that in further depth.

Side A Christianity and Gay Affirmation

Yeah. Yeah. So, the distinction there between side A and side B is really about how people are connecting with the overall means to reconcile the Christian faith with homosexuality. That's what I say.

So, gay Christianity is the overall attempt to reconcile the Christian faith with homosexuality, and that can take a number of different forms. We spend a lot of time on the B side, the more conservative side.

Side A is for those who say that they believe that God ordains homosexuality, that He blesses it, that a gay marriage is something that God would encourage those who identify as homosexual to pursue and to live out the homosexual lifestyle as not a sin.

There's nothing wrong about that. There's nothing to be ashamed of. There's nothing to repent of. And so, that's become more and more the mainstream position, really, not only in the mainline churches, but just around the world with the way that people are thinking and talking about homosexuality.

Whenever you hear somebody talk about homosexuality, typically in a mainstream media setting, if they ever have a Christian, it will usually be someone who's espousing this position. And so, the side A position can be nuanced to the point of people saying that they're, well, I'm just waiting, a man saying, I'm just waiting for the right man, and I'm kind of saving myself for him, or it can be someone who is actively living the homosexual lifestyle, having multiple partners, not really seeking out marriage, but believing that God just blesses and endorses this because God made me gay, and He's not going to change me.

I'm just a reflection of God's diversity and creation. And so, that's really what the side A position is, and I do talk about it in Dangerous Affirmation. I make a distinction between the gay affirming movement, the gay celibate movement, as we were just talking about in side B, and then queer theology.

And so, I kind of tease out all three of those threads and talk about the different ways that each of those approaches tries to dismantle what the Bible teaches on this, and try to give Christians an understanding of what they're talking about, why they come to that position, and how do you refute it biblically.

So, that's what.

Dangerous Affirmation is all about. Well, Brenda, guess what? You have just won a free copy of Dangerous Affirmation, thanks to our friends at the American Family Association. Please provide your full name and mailing address in Culpeper, Virginia, and we will have CVBBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, ship that book out to you.

And let us know if you are a first-time questioner, because all of our first-time questioners also receive brand-new New American Standard Bibles. Let me ask you a question about this side. A. Are they uniformly in agreement that monogamy is essential if they are going to live out a homosexual life and claim to be obedient followers of Christ?

No, they're not uniformly in agreement about monogamy. That's what Kyle was kind of alluding to there. Yeah, there's some difference of opinion on that. Kind of the main guys that people might run across, like Justin Lee and Matthew Vines, have really emphasized monogamy, as opposed to, you know, just profligate living and having a lot of multiple partners, and that kind of thing is the stereotype of the homosexual community.

But that is not a position, that's a position that they argue for as kind of a means to get in the door, because it sounds so innocent and genuine, and it just sounds like just the gay version of what we would tell our youth, just wait for the right person, try and make it a relationship that will really last, and then you come together and you can honor Christ there.

That's their approach to get their foot in the door in conservative churches, but that is not the universal opinion of most. From what I've read of a lot of the gay-affirming literature, most of it doesn't have any real care about.

Whether someone is monogamous or not. Wow. Now, would these be people who.

Profess to be evangelical? Yes. Sadly, there is. Some of them do profess to be evangelical. A lot of them are just your more mainline Protestants and those who are kind of on the fringes of church attendance or your metropolitan community church kind of folks.

For those who don't know, Metropolitan Community Church was the first gay-affirming church officially established by homosexuals for homosexuals. Of course, anybody can attend, but it was really established in the late 1960s as a way of having a place for those people who identified as gay or lesbian who wanted to participate religiously and specifically Christian religiously to have a space to do that as an out and proud homosexual.

And so that church has a number of locations across the country and world, and they've never really... I guess there's some of them that would call themselves evangelical from some perspectives. It's a weird term that some people have a connection with and other people don't, and so some do profess to be evangelicals while others would just say that they're more generally Christian or religious, but they, you know, go to a United Church of Christ church or something and that kind of thing.

We have an anonymous listener in Pennsylvania who says, I am the father of a daughter who is living out a lesbian life, and what hurts me so deeply is that whenever I try to evangelize her and let her know in love and compassion that the way she is living is a path to hell, she immediately stops the conversation, threatens to leave, and warns me never to bring up the subject again in a negative way.

I am heartbroken. I am confused. I don't know what to do. I feel as if if I don't say these things to her,.

I am being a disobedient Christian. Well, this is the experience of many parents with children who have identified as gay or lesbian or transgender, and it's a heartbreaking situation, obviously. And part of what's heartbreaking about it is that there is an element of manipulation that's usually taking place there on the part of the child to hold the parent up to this impossible standard and also to heavily scrutinize anything that the parent would say or the tone of voice or any particular way that the parent might think through or try and reason or respond to the child's statements.