Panel on Homosexuality & Religion

I arrived a week ago Thurs. at the New Science Bldg. in the evening.
The organizers greeted me and introduced me to the other panelists.
I had been told that I would have six minutes at the start to explain my position.
What I didn't know is that by the "luck-of-the-draw" I would be going first!

"As a Christian and a Baptist I not only hold to certain views but to a way of arriving at my positions. My epistemology (how we know what we know) is best described as "revelational." This means that, unlike the "Empiricist," I don't rely solely on what can be gathered from observations. And, unlike the "Rationalist," it is not human reason and the categories of the mind that inform my views. Accepting the authority of the Bible means that the God who made the world, has spoken. If this is true then we have access to some truth that is very much worth knowing and yet past our finding out apart from the Sacred Text."

With this opening I prepared the packed house of students and faculty members to hear something very politically incorrect and perhaps even culturally insensitive. And I excused myself from the burden of having to explain or defend my comments in terms that a Rationalist or Empiricist could accept.

"What God has revealed in the Bible is that He wants us to love Him and love others and that He cares very much how we treat one another. Our Creator has seen fit to give us some very definite guidelines on the use of His gift of sexuality. As a powerful expression of intimacy and a means of reproduction He has commanded that it only be enacted in the context of heterosexual monogamy."

There was much discussion during the Q & A time and many opportunities to share more about the relationship with God that demands a different standard of behavior. The christians in the audience gave me good positive feedback and the students and faculty involved in sponsoring the event thanked me and complimented me.

My favorite part was a bit of spontaneous preaching I did in response to a student who asked, "Why are we talking about this?" In other words, why is this such a hot topic? My response had the support of the other panelists, none of whom were in favor of sexual promiscuity.

"The Emperor's New Clothes," I explained, "are the view of 'free sex' that declares that you can make a responsible choice to be sexually active as young as thirteen years old, have any number of partners as you go through High School and College, and suffer no negative consequences as long as you use a condom."
There was a lot more to this, as I stated emphatically that in 20 years of campus ministry I have NEVER seen pre-marital sex do anything but damage and detract from the kind of closeness you want with the person you love. I wonder how many students had never heard that before?