My last article titled, “Mental Health of Our youth at Risk,” one reader told me I had “crossed a line,” with my “ignorant misguided viewpoints.” He did not articulate which line that was or how I had crossed it. He said we live in a post-Christian world, because the church “has been causing more harm than good.” He told me I should not write “columns that condemn…issuing judgment,” and I was not “fooling everyone” with my “self-righteous pontifications” spewing “hatred and intolerance.”
“I thought he might have mistaken me for a Supreme Court nominee.
I thanked him for pointing out my “ignorant and misguided viewpoints,” and then thanked him for his. He called me a “Pharisee (aka hypocrite),” and that I am “far from Christ-like.” His visceral diatribe was so lacking in cerebral substance I thought he might have mistaken me for a Supreme Court nominee. He thought I shouldn’t issue any judgment, but felt quite comfortable doing so himself calling me a hypocrite and the church noxious.
I am not angry or annoyed by what he wrote, no more than I would be with a blind man that stepped on my foot. The heart of the issue here is we have two different worldviews and they are diametrically opposed. I believe God made us and knows what is best for us, and has revealed that to us in the Scriptures, others think differently.
I have no desire to fool anyone so read carefully. Ultimate judgment lies with God alone, but Christ has commanded us to make “righteous judgment (John 7:24),” about matters in this life; it is the only way to choose good over evil.
What we should be asking ourselves is why God has condemned certain sexual practices.
I haven’t condemned anyone or anything; God did. What we should be asking ourselves is why God has condemned certain sexual practices. One reason is the God who made us knows the human psyche is too fragile to cope with the guilt of sexual sin, which runs counter to the created purpose for sex. This is evidenced in the elevated suicide rates among those youth who promiscuously engage in sex. It is ten times higher; forty percent compared to the average of four percent.
I was told I shouldn’t make assumptions about those who are sexually pure before marriage and faithful to their spouse after, because he has “firsthand experience.” If his experience is informed by the same worldview as his judgment, I question his assumptions.
I think suicidal thoughts and suicide itself are virtually nonexistent among those who practice biblical morality.
I wrote, “I wonder what the suicide rate is among those who remained sexually pure before marriage, and then married and remained faithful in a heterosexual relationship? I think the incidence of suicide in such relationships is virtually non-existent.” If I am wrong I need statistics not an “experience.” I challenge anyone to show me a suicide note that reads something like, “I feel so guilty about being sexually pure, I decided to kill myself.”
I did not write about sexual sin to condemn, but to warn of its consequences and plead for those who have been snared by it to turn from their sin and in faith to Christ.
Leave a Reply