Views on Homosexuality, Interaction with Lindsay on Gnosticism

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. Thank you for being patient. We had some software stuff we had to deal with that took a little time today, but hopefully got through it. It's amazing how much of our lives are now spent with such things that no one in the past could have ever understood.

First world problems, I guess they say. Lots to get to today. Let's start with... It's interesting, I saw someone mention on Twitter I said, I hope you comment on what Francis said. And I'm going, what did Francis say?

So I had to go looking it up. And so if you've seen it, Pope Francis did an interview yesterday, I think at the Vatican, basically saying that homosexuality should not be a crime. It's a sin, but not a crime.

Now it's interesting, there are a number of things that biblically we would say would be sins, but not crimes. But the question is, has it not been the reality of the experience of the Roman Catholic Church in the vast majority of nations for centuries that homosexuality was both a sin and a crime?

And at that time, Rome said nothing to those nations, which would include Italy. In fact, I have to wonder, and I'm not sure how you'd even check something like this out, but the Vatican is a nation state, is it not?

Has the Vatican always distinguished between homosexuality as a sin, but not viewed as a crime within its borders? What about Italy, Spain, Mexico, many, many places like that? We all know that it was only a couple of decades ago that the Supreme Court threw out all sodomy laws, and that means that when this nation was founded, homosexuality was a crime.

And this does raise lots of questions right now in the midst of the Christian nationalism discussions, which no one was having only a few years ago, at least not in any full-throated way. And back to Francis, it really demonstrates where he's coming from.

I think any honest person, any honest Roman Catholic will have to go, yeah, that's not where the vast majority of popes have been in the past. And if that's the case, then how much of the current theological teaching of the Bishop of Rome, the infallible Vicar of Christ, is actually dependent upon his political background?

Because he has a very strong and clear political background, which is very, very different than preceding popes, very, very different than Ratzinger, John Paul II, and those are modern popes, jump back only 100 years, and you're not gonna find anybody anywhere near.

Go back to the papal syllabus of errors, okay? Go back to the papal syllabus of errors in the 19th century and compare it with Francis today. And if you can't go, oh, yeah, there's big difference, big, big difference.

Well, of course there is. Major, massive difference. No two ways about it. So what does that tell you? If this man's theological application is primarily coming from his own political background, doesn't that tell you something?

Isn't this why a lot of people have been quote-unquote red-pilled recently? And doesn't it tell you really, I mean, because in his comments, he describes... His comments, he sounds like Andy Stanley.

You know, God's children are all loved the way they are. I find that to be such emotionally derived, unbiblical, I don't know, mashed potatoes. You just spread it all over the place. There's no substance to it.

It's jello. You can't nail it to the wall. When you talk about God's love from scripture, if you can't take into consideration the fact that it is God's purpose to sanctify us, to make us holy, that means to change us.

He doesn't leave us where we were. And if when he or Andy Stanley are saying that God makes people gay, and there's nothing they can do about that, then you simply have to go, and that means I now need to start taking an exception to 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, because that's not what is found in scripture.

And there's lots of people who do that. Lots of people. There are these quote-unquote progressivists in Twitter, and Dr. Kevin M. Young, all right? We're gonna look at something, some stuff he said in just a moment.

But I've seen a bunch of people over the past couple of days saying, you know, why do we even bother with this? He's just out here trolling us. No, he actually believes this stuff. And this is 15 years ago when I said, just prepare for a tsunami of apostasy on this subject.

That's what I'm talking about. Once you abandon a particular view of scripture, there is no basis for Christian orthodoxy any longer. There just isn't. And that's where these people are coming from. So, this is the situation we face.

Roman Catholics are facing this in a much more, I think, painful way, in a sense, because, like I said, was obvious where Rome was for a long period of time. But Rome has the problem, as the late pope admitted in his new book, posthumously published, that because Rome has a directly anti-biblical discipline, which functions as a dogma, of precluding marriage on the part of its clergy.

Now, of course, the whole issue of the priesthood, we can go into that, too. I recently reposted my debate with Mitch Pacwa on that subject. But because of that, there is just a massive amount of homosexuality amongst the Roman Catholic priesthood.

And because of that, there can't be any functionally consistent, long-term resistance to the homosexual movement. When you've got the gay mafia in the Vatican, which that's their terminology, that's people in the church's terminology, eventually things are going to change.

And when society embraces that change, it'll probably change even faster. I mean, who's the next pope? Look at the cardinals that Francis has elevated, and then ask yourself a question. Is there going to be a hard right turn after Francis?

Very, very doubtful. Very, very doubtful. So, all of this stuff about, you know, I've said many times when I first started studying Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholics would point me to the Bishop of Rome.

We've got the pope. We don't have all of the confusion you all have. And the reality is, the range of theological expression within Roman Catholicism is just as wide as Protestantism. And the pope doesn't answer the questions.

The pope is not the final arbiter. You couldn't ask him one way or the other. And the funny thing is, when he makes it very clear where he's coming from, as he is right now, then people are like, that's not an infallible definition.

Not very useful, but there you go. So, I made reference to this. Dr. Kevin M. Young posted a thread just today that I think is very useful. And I'm going to try to repost. We have a homosexuality playlist on YouTube, and those are primarily debates, oral presentations, things I've done, sermons.

I've asked that we add to it the six hours of response I did to Matthew Vine when he first burst on the scene. He sort of disappeared. Have you noticed that? I've not heard a word about him for years now.

In fact, some people in the audience may be going, Matthew who? For a while, he was the poster boy for some type of believing Christian acceptance of homosexuality type stuff. He did a talk at a Methodist church, maybe, in Kansas.

The talk went viral. Like I said, we did six hours. It was an hour-long talk, so I guess that would be five hours of response since we went through all of it. Then David Gushie came out as affirming.

He was a Christian ethicist, and I think we did five hours of response to him walking through his presentation at Matthew Vine's organization's thing. There's a lot of material in that 11 hours worth of stuff, and so I want that put in there.

The two or three videos that we've done, dividing lines we've done in response to the I Haven't Seen It Yet 1946 movie doesn't seem to be making much of a splash, but that may be because it's not on social media or platforms yet.

Then the Sunday before last sermon at Apology of Church on Sodom and Gomorrah. I don't know how much all that would add up to. It would be way, way, way too much for anybody to listen to in a short period of time, but hopefully we'll get that up and I'll be able to post that, and that'll give you a lot of information as a background to this thread from Kevin Young.

Here's what I'm saying to you. I think all of us, I don't care. You go, hey, you go debate these people. You've debated this subject in the United States, in South Africa, all over the place, and we're not going to ever have to do this, so we don't have to know what you have to know.

The fact of the matter is, this subject, it has been rightly said, and this is interesting, by one of the best-known Southern Baptist leaders in the United States, well, all the best-known Southern Baptist leaders in the United States, obviously, that there's no place to hide.

There's no place to hide, and that's true. The irony is that on the last program, we talked about First Baptist Church, Orlando, and I was sent all sorts of stuff from people. Justin Peters sent me stuff demonstrating that First Baptist Church Orlando is gay-affirming.

They have practicing homosexuals in their congregation. They're baptizing them without repentance. An entire gay community has become attached to that particular church, and it's Southern Baptist Church, and Southern Baptist leadership is like, it's the 11th Commandment.

Thou shalt not speak evil of a fellow Southern Baptist, and that 11th Commandment, I mean, every single seminary president, every single entity head, the president, the vice president, should all be on this like a duck on a June bug, if they have any concern whatsoever about the integrity of the Baptist faith and message, but they don't.

They're just sitting there going, they know. They know it better than I know it. They knew about this stuff long before I did, and they're silent. They're silent because of the 11th Commandment, and there you go.

So, anyways, back to our progressivist friend here who's a big weightlifter. Oh, big guy. Great, wonderful. Enjoy it while you can. I enjoyed it when I was a weightlifter. Eventually, stuff starts breaking down, so let's do it.

How I Became LGBTQ+ Affirming Without Sacrificing the Authority of the Bible

How I became LGBTQ plus affirming. Man, if you can affirm the plus, you're really out there. Without sacrificing the authority of the Bible, a thread. Oh, without sacrificing. Let's see if that's possible.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Number one, Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19, no one in the story is gay. This is ancient gang rape for power and domination. Bible never says the sin was homosexuality, Ezekiel 16, and Jesus say it was pride in hospitality.

I simply posted my sermon from a week ago, Sunday. That's pure lies. Could never be defended in public debate. That's why they won't debate it. It would be so simple to refute that paragraph. Again, I'm not going to repeat my sermon.

Please look it up on Apologia Studios or on whenever we get our YouTube thing updated with that on it. Let me back up a sec. What I was trying to say earlier is everybody, I don't care who you are, homeschool mom, especially you, homeschool kids, every dad in the audience, you should be able to read through Kevin Young's thread and shred every single argument without having to look anything up from memory just because you know what the Bible teaches on this subject.

We don't have any excuses. My generation, we got blindsided by this. It snuck up behind us. You didn't talk about stuff like this in church. No, no, no. Too late for all that. If you're going to hold to any kind of meaningful model of biblical authority and biblical inspiration, I know it's not pleasant.

I don't want to think about this stuff either. There is a heavy ick factor, the whole nine yards of it. I get it. But you've got to know that what Kevin Young is saying here is fundamentally erroneous, indefensible from a biblical perspective, and you've got to know how to demonstrate because most Christians don't because we're uncomfortable talking about these things.

Now, there may be some background stuff about Toivah, about, for example, his quotation of Ezekiel 16. I'll bet you he only quotes verses 48 and 49. Doesn't quote 40. Doesn't quote 50 because that's where Toivah is.

No, not going to go there. Not going to go to 2 Peter and Jude. No, no, no. Don't want to see a New Testament interpretation of it. And Jesus did not say it was pride in hospitality either. He was using Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of God's righteous wrath and pointing out they didn't have the light that the Jews in Galilee had, and so their destruction would be worse.

But this stuff should be second nature to any mature believer in Christ today. If you're going to walk the streets and talk to people, they've seen all this stuff. They'll throw it at you. You need to be prepared.

You need to be prepared. So, I did respond to that one and just say fully refuted by and posted Sunday's sermon there. Leviticus 18 .22 and 20 .13. We should know these. I have admitted I have admitted on this program, I graduated from seminary without knowing off the top of my head what these key texts were.

Now, these aren't the only key texts. These are called, the homosexuals call them the clobber passages as does Andy Stanley. But these are the specific texts that are a part of a much broader biblical teaching on the subject of human sexuality.

So, once again, if you go to, you know what we need to do? We need to, because I know you downloaded these in 2018 because I asked you to, we need to get permission from Pastor Smith to post ourselves the entirety of the Holiness Code series.

Have it on our own servers or put it on something instead of just having to constantly send people the sermon audio to get it from PRBC's thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he, by the way, just between you and me, he'd like to come by and watch the dividing line and chat and stuff like that.

So, we can cue. Okay. So, Pastor Smith, some of you, I'll go, we'll remember, I'll go, we'll remember when Warren Smith was volunteering with us here at Alpha Omega Ministries and man, he would come down to the radio station, remember?

And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And my way of getting people to call and stuff back then, and it drove him crazy, was to threaten to start singing John Denver songs. And this was back before we had quite the same size audience we have now.

So, sometimes to get people to call, you had to do dire things. And me singing John Denver might be one of those, which by the way, I happen to be a big fan. So, I was very sad when he left this world.

Anyways, so, Warren is now the pastor of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, where I was until 2018. And so, yeah, we need to talk with Warren and see if we can't grab the Holiness Code series, because that's 38 sermons on pretty much every text that you can deal with.

But the point is, in the first few sermons, I'm laying down the foundation. And hey, I'm sorry for those of you, it's really funny. In 2018, a lot of you really appreciate... Well, not 2018. I started preaching that in...

Man, I forget what year it was. But when I first preached this, I think I finished him up around this 2016. When I preached that, nobody had any problems with anything I said. You listen to the foundation that I laid as to how to interpret specifically the Holiness Code in Leviticus.

And then we went beyond that into Deuteronomy and some of the other texts. That was... The only way to describe that term is theonomy. And nobody had any problem with it then, because he didn't use the term.

But if you listen to it, it was very theonomic. It was general equity theonomy, but that's what it was. And it wasn't because I was reading Rush Jr. or something. I wasn't. I was dealing with the text and dealing with the whole section and how to understand it in light of application today.

So it is interesting. What? Well, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but Jeff would say he was back then. So, but yeah. Anyway, I know. I know. There's been consistency all along. There's been consistency all along.

So we need to do that, though. Don't let me forget that, because I will. As soon as I get done with the program, on to the next thing. Okay. So back to Kevin Young. We're not going to get done very fast at this rate.

Leviticus 18, 22, and 20, 13. Leviticus equals manual for ancient priests, not us, i .e. not binding, which is why between Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, you have that not binding thing, that not binding text called love your neighbor as yourself, honor your father and mother.

It's just, these are really surface level. Okay. I mean, you really have to be incredibly ignorant of scripture to buy this stuff that he says converted him. But there are a lot of people that have bought it.

There are a lot of people that have bought it. So that's why I immediately said, if you really want to dig deep and be prepared, you know, 38 sermons on the holiness code and related subjects. Leviticus is a manual for ancient priests, but it's a manual for the people of God.

And specifically what Leviticus is, you have a holy God dwelling amongst you. How do you be a holy people? Which is why Leviticus is one of the most commonly cited texts in the New Testament. And so to say it's not binding, it's not for us, is to show a massive ignorance, massive ignorance of the New Testament's use of Leviticus and of the principles found therein.

Tehuvah, abomination does not equal sin, wrong, or evil, but crossing cultural mores, that is taboo. Well, sometimes it can. That it is a lie out of the pit of hell to say that's always what it means, especially because Tehuvah is used of pestle.

Now, I don't think Dr. Young's much of a biblical language expert, but the pestle, the graven images, and those who worship them are Tehuvah. Is that just a taboo, crossing cultural lines? No, it's something that brings the wrath of God.

There are two different words for male use, so it is about sex for power domination, no mention of LBTQ. I wonder why I skipped the G there. I don't know. Oh, I see why, because it is talking about G.

Actually, yes, arsenos that is used there is picked up by Paul and applied in the New Covenant in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1. In fact, that's where Paul derives the term, is from Leviticus 18 and 20.

Complete face-plantingly bad comments there, completely in error, sorry. For some reason, my camera thingy has stopped working, and we live in an area where I like keeping an eye on the old truck out there.

Well, it's not an old truck, that's the problem, that's why I need to keep an eye on it. It froze up, so I wanted to... We're East LA today, what can I say? So, the material on Leviticus 18 and 20, fully refuted in the same-sex controversy, and in the other material that we referenced earlier, really, really bad comments on that one.

Abandoned natural relations, Romans 1, 26 -27. That's something else we need to add to the playlist, is I did start doing a response to Brownson, because Brownson's the new big name. Well, he was a few years ago, maybe he's not so anymore.

But Brownson tries to say Romans 1 is an application of Stoic philosophy and stuff like this. There are 50 different ways. Not only 50 different ways to leave your lover, 50 different ways to try to get around the plain teaching of Scripture.

That's sort of been the song. Someone should do a parody, but actually make it true, along those lines. There are 50 different ways people come up with trying to get around the plainest meanings of Scripture.

Here's another one. About hetero idol slash temple sex. Paul quotes Jewish critiques of Gentiles exposing prejudice. Romans 2 -1 reverses Romans 1 with evocative. Paul calls hetero acts shameful, but evil, the same word he used for men with long hair.

Okay, now, the only thing to mention there, the rest of it is just complete wackoism. This guy should never do it. I would love to debate him, but it would be epic. I would love to do it, though. I would love to do it.

All this stuff is just...as soon as you get into cross-examination, it would collapse like I cannot even imagine. In the background of some of this is this insane theory that Romans 1 is just a gotcha argument from Paul, and that Romans 2 changes all that.

The absurdity is easily demonstrated, but if you've never heard something like that before, and you don't see the flow of the text, you don't see how 1, 2, and 3 fit together perfectly, and they lead you to 319, and on into the presentation of justification, then you can go, I've never heard of that.

And it's an extremely minority view, extremely minority view, and certainly not a view of anybody who believes in the inspiration and authority of Scripture, which he's pretending he still believes in, but clearly does not.

Paul calls hetero acts shameful, not evil. Now, you'll hear someone else who tried this once. We've got to make sure, Rich. I hope Chris is listening, because this was something that came up in my debate in 2001?

2001? With Barry Lynn. And for those of you who don't go back that far, Barry Lynn threatened to sue us if we put the video of this stuff out. So, we need to link to the Barry Lynn debate, but especially the cross-experience, because this is what he tried to do.

He tried to say, well, Paul uses different terms here. He's got two different lists of sins, and obviously, he had not been pushed on this since seminary. So, if you don't watch anything else, at least watch the cross-examination period, because he became so angry, because he was used to being on the media and being given softball questions and stuff like that that he could just easily knock out of the park.

He didn't bring a Bible to a debate on whether homosexuality is consistent with the Bible. And so, I had to let him borrow this little, man, I wonder what happened to that thing. I wonder, it was this little, it was like this wide, but it was tall, and it was the entire Bible, but it was so small.

The print was so small. It was the only English Bible I had with me. And so, watch the cross-ex. I handed over to him, because he didn't bring a Bible, and he's struggling to read it, because the font's so small.

I get that part now. That was not purposeful. At that point in time, I could still read that size font. And so, I got out my Greek New Testament, and I pushed him on this point, where, well, it's two different lists, and it doesn't say shameful, and just nailed him to the ground, because it falls apart if you actually deal with the text.

It was as bad as when Stravinskis tried to work with 1 Corinthians chapter 3, and I just keep pushing on the text, and he's got no answers. It was just as bad. So, the only thing that's true here is that when he says paraphusikos, that he used the same term that he used for men with long hair.

So, unless this guy's a wacko IFB fundamentalist, his idea is, well, if it means it here, then it must mean it there. Not allowing paraphusis to have a meaning in 1 Corinthians 11, and a meaning in Romans chapter 1.

These people could never offer you an exegesis of Romans 1 if their life depended on it. They can't walk through that text. They can't do it. I can tell. Kevin Young is that type of person who would ever listen to anything like this program.

But pick up, God It Justifies. I did Romans 1, entire chapter on Romans 1. They can never do that. Never happened. But again, sounds like someone's done some studying. All you've done is read, and I pointed this out over 20 years ago in the same-sex controversy.

For these people, the more interpretations they can come up with, the better. It doesn't matter if they're all self-contradictory. If I give you one interpretation, and then I give you a second interpretation that contradicts the first one, hey, as long as they both contradict what I'm trying to say, we're good.

We can contradict ourselves day in, day out. It doesn't matter. And that tweet is so filled with self-contradiction, it's not even funny. But they don't care. They don't care. Won't inherit kingdom. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 -10, 1 Timothy 1, 9 -10.

Paul avoids first century words for gay sex, instead creating a word to describe religious sex rituals and or morally weak exploitive sex for sale. As written, neither text can refer to loving monogamous same-sex relationship.

As soon as you hear anybody fall into that, none of this refers to monogamous same-sex relationships. First of all, monogamy amongst homosexuals is less than 1%. Every single study has shown it. So 99 of male homosexuals are not monogamous.

At all. Okay? Let's keep that in mind. Secondly, there's no such thing as monogamous same-sex relationships in the Bible at all. None. Zero. Every single gamus relationship, a monogamous relationship, is a male and a female.

Anywhere in the Bible. And if you're going to sit here and say, well, yeah, but they didn't know back then. Did Jesus, Dr. Young, did Jesus know? Did Jesus know there were people in every audience he spoke to that were transgender?

That wanted to have maybe a monogamous same-sex marriage relationship? Why didn't he say anything? They'll never answer that. They will never answer that. Because they're abusing scripture. And they're abusing Jesus.

They will never answer that question. If these things are good and right and just, and Jesus never defended them, you're telling me you're still worshiping Jesus? Secondly, why did Paul... You should know why the first part of this tweet is, again, just utter lies.

You should know. Why? Because we have helped people to understand what's going on with the 1946 movie and its attack upon the meaning of ars encoites. Ars encoitai is plural in 1 Corinthians 6. So, we've gone over this.

We have gone over the Greek septuagint in Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20. We've gone into the Hebrew. We've talked about if Paul made up this term. We don't know whether he did or didn't. There's one... No, I remember.

I'm not pointing this out, but we have new listeners. 22 years ago, working on the same-sex controversy, I had back then what was called the TLG CD-ROM. It's now a subscription thing. You pay to use it online.

But you can go to TLG. Look it up yourself. There was only one reference that could possibly be pre-Pauline, but most dating of it put it post-Pauline. So, did Paul make up the term? He could have. Did Paul borrow it from a rabbinic source of his time period?

He could have. Because it plainly comes from the Greek septuagint, straight out of the text of Leviticus 18 and 20. So, it's not that Paul is avoiding first century words. He's using God's law. He's using the very form of the law that the people he's talking to would be most familiar with.

The vast majority of people he's writing to in Corinth don't read Hebrew. They have the Greek septuagint, which means they have Moses in Greek, and say they know exactly what he's talking about. It's what men do with other men in bed, and it ain't eating crackers.

That's how Jeff Neil put it the first time we sat down over lunch to talk about writing that book, and that's how he put it then. Thank you, Jeff. So, this is male homosexuality, which, by the way, back in Romans chapter 1 specifically says men burning with lust for other men.

This isn't older men, younger men. Every excuse in the world has come up. Romans 1 is clear. First Corinthians 6 is clear. What's furthermore never talked about by Jung and his compatriots when they're trying to give these surface-level responses is that in 1 Timothy 1, 9 through 10, if you follow the sins as Paul lays them out, he is following the moral element of the Decalogue, and so when he gets to the you shall not commit adultery, he includes homosexuality in the sexual sins precluded by the Decalogue, by the law itself.

It's right there. Oh, but maybe he just didn't know about. He could have read Gagnon if he wanted to. He could have read Michael Brown. We've been writing these books for a long time. Long, long time.

So, as written, both texts refer to abusive, whether monogamous or not, same-sex relationships, because every same-sex relationship is abusive because it's narcissistic. There is no etzer konegdo. Etzer konegdo is the Hebrew term used in Genesis, describing the woman as the helpmate, the one who is the same as yet different from and corresponding to.

There is none of that in the same-sex relationship. That's why it's not in Scripture, and therefore there is no such thing as a loving, monogamous, same-sex relationship, because to be loving, love has to be defined by Scripture, not by the current social trends.

Then he has some common rebuttal, even if we accept that all that is accurate, which we just did not, and demonstrated it's not. Jesus still never affirmed homosexuality, not so fast. Jesus likely did affirm LGBTQ and then you have to go and sign up for his substack to read the article, which I'm not going to do, but I can guarantee what it is.

This will be the lie about healing the centurion's pice, which they will turn into homosexual young lover, which is not what it means. That is a complete joke to anyone who actually reads the language.

It's just another one of those mythologies that the internet helps pull out there. What that means is every reason that he gives for becoming LGBTQ affirming was a lie, a bold-faced lie that anyone who wanted to know the truth could have found out.

That probably means that wasn't what the real issues were, at all, for why people have given in. So, what makes that interesting is Ryan Visconti. I've seen Ryan's name on Twitter before. Ryan Visconti posted a thread that I found very interesting because it had to do with Andy Stanley visiting here in the Valley.

I'm very glad that he posted it, and I'm just going to read it to you and make some commentary along the way. On September 19, 2019, I was invited to a private dinner with about 15 pastors at a local church in Gilbert, Arizona, to participate in a Q &A with Andy Stanley after he finished speaking at a conference.

I'd be really interested to know. Google Gilbert, Andy Stanley, and September 19, 2019. See if, for some reason, something pops up. I'd be interested. And since I'm going to be reading over here... September 19, 2019.

And since I'm going to be reading over here, this other camera has started to become very lonely and feeling it's unused. There we go. Hi. You can also see our really cool background back there. My really pretty Monet and stuff like that.

Anyway, I also need to go to this camera once in a while to let a certain dear friend in Inverness know that I'm still thinking about him. I'm not sure if you get that, but that's okay. After finishing the conference, the subject of homosexuality came up over the next one and a half hours.

Andy Stanley’s Private Remarks and Public Affirmation of Homosexuality

Andy shared overtly heretical views that clearly contradict what the Word of God says. I was shocked to find myself arguing with Andy Stanley, along with other pastors, despite our respect for him. Andy Stanley, homosexuality is really a disability.

Let me put the quotes in. Is, quote, really a disability, quote, using the analogy that, quote, telling gay people that they have to stop being gay to follow Christ is like taking a wheelchair away from a guy who can't walk, end quote.

Andy Stanley said, quote, I don't do gay weddings, but I can't say I would never do a gay wedding. If my granddaughter asked me someday, maybe I would, end quote. That's scary for his granddaughter. Worst of all, Andy Stanley said, quote, we need to make room for gay men who choose to be married to each other in our churches because that's as close as they can get to a New Testament framework of marriage, end quote.

Andy Stanley said, quote, I believe in gay people. Some people are gay. They can't change, end quote, directly contradicting 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, which is quite true. He said, quote, I know I shouldn't let experience dictate my theology, but I have.

Maybe I'm wrong, end quote. Yes, he is. I debated whether or not, going back to Ryan here, I debated whether or not I had a responsibility to share his remarks, but I concluded because he shared these thoughts in private, I wouldn't be right to share them publicly.

I hoped that maybe he was just struggling with his faith and would return to biblical belief. In 2022, at the annual Drive Conference, Andy began sharing publicly many of the same sentiments with pastors and Christians.

In this talk, he never says homosexuality is a sin or that God can set gay people free or that gay people need to turn from their sinful lifestyle. If anything, he holds up gay people as morally superior to regular Christians.

He refers to all the pastors that clearly condemn homosexuality as clobber pastors. He's talking about the material we reviewed on the last show, on the last program. Andy is brilliant and a master communicator, which makes him a master manipulator.

Listeners want to give him the benefit of the doubt out of respect. He keeps one foot close enough to the line so he can retreat if backlash becomes too strong and claim misunderstanding. In the Drive 22 talk, Andy Stanley essentially admits his tactic.

He says, don't take people's church away from them unnecessarily. He goes on to explain that if a pastor comes out as openly affirming homosexuality, then half the people will have to leave their church.

He claims that a pastor's job is to nudge and lead people, not announce their new position. He says we must be shrewd and cunning, and he surely is. This clip hits differently when you know Andy Stanley has said gay people can't change.