From TGC:
As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after Dan Savage, a homosexual activist and anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible, and used a homosexual slur to refer to those who refused to listen to his message. Savage was invited to deliver the keynote address during the National High School Journalism Conference sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association. Instead of giving the expected talk about bullying, CitizenLink notes, the students got “an earful about birth control, sex, and Savage’s opinions on the Bible.”
Read the whole thing. You can also watch a 3-minute segment of his speech below.
This video reveals many things about the speaker in particular and aggressive liberals in general (notice I did not say all non-Christians!). Here’s four:
- Savage reads the Bible as a book of rules and morality (as do many Christians, unfortunately), rather than a contextual story of God’s self-revelation throughout history. (If you are new to the blog, see posts here and here for more on this.)
- Related to this, Savage thinks that the Bible has a one-to-one applicational principle for us today (e.g. the “stoning” law he sarcastically says the GOP might try to legalize). He says that Leviticus is the place where Christians go for their code of sexuality. Wrongly, some Christians use that. In reality, the law has been fulfilled in Christ for us so that there is not one Old Testament law that has to be obeyed. There are principles to be heeded, of course, but the New Testament gives us the authoritative commentary on the Old Testament. Our “code of sexuality” goes all the way back God’s creative design in Eden, which is affirmed over and over again in the New Testament.
- Savage wants Christians to be tolerant. Yet, he is quite intolerant of Christians–not just of their beliefs, but of Christians as people.
- Savage calls Christians “hypocrites.” Yet, he is quite hypocritical as he bullies the Christians who walk out of his “anti-bullying” speech. He justifies his bullying because he has been bullied by Christians. Makes perfect sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ao0k9qDsOvs
JAMES PRUCH 
8 responses to “Anti-Bullying Activist Curses Christians”
THANK YOU! This has been eating at me since I saw it. I don’t understand how he can be an anti-bullying advocate and then do the exact same thing he’s railing against. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that he used an anti-gay slur to do it until you mentioned it either. This is a true case of not seeing the plank in your own eye while trying to remove a speck from your neighbor’s, isn’t it? Thanks for such a well thought-out and open post about this.
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not true, get facts straight. true the students walked out because of a excuse that a cussword was used.
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I think you are spot on in your blog post above with the exception of some serious drifting you did in your point #2 (see my blob post “Genesis 1: Turning the Creation Story into an Anti-Gay Treatise”).
Nearly every person who acknowledges an aversion to homosexuality does so on the basis of what he or she believes the Bible has to say. In their mind, there is no doubt whatsoever about what the Bible says and what the Bible means. Their general argument goes something like this: Homosexuality is an abomination and the homosexual is a sinner. Homosexuality is condemned in both the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, if we are to be faithful to the clear teachings of Scripture we too must condemn homosexuality. Needless to say, this premise is being widely debated among evangelicals today and seriously challenged by biblical scholars, theologians and religious leaders everywhere.
It rarely occurs to any of us that our reading of Scripture is profoundly colored by our own cultural context and worldview. In light of the post above and since you are serving as a pastoral intern and completing your Masters at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary (I completed my seminary work at Westminster Theological Seminary), I thought you might find some of these posts of particular interest and relevance. I would particularly recommend to you the following:
“Genesis 19: What Were the Real Sins of Sodom?
“Leviticus 18: What Was the Abomination?”
“Romans 1: What Was Paul Ranting About?”
“Romans 2: Paul’s Bait and Switch”
“Genesis 1: Turning the Creation Story into an Anti-Gay Treatise”
“Why No One in the Biblical World Had a Word for Homosexuality”
“Exegesis: Not For the Faint in Heart”
(Links to these and more may be found by simply clicking the link below and then selecting the “Archives” page.)
-Alex Haiken
http://JewishChristianGay.wordpress.com
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Alex, I appreciate your comments. Thanks for stopping by. I perused your blog for a bit and wanted to ask how you found your time at Westminster? When did you attend and were you “actively” (whatever that means) gay while in seminary? What was that like?
As for how to interpret the Old Testament law, check out this article by J. Daniel Hays: http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/05-Deuteronomy/Text/Articles/Hays-ApplyingLaw-BS.pdf
I see on your “About” page that you write, “I ultimately learned that the ex-gay route is a scripturally-unsound mirage.” The point is *not* to “not be gay,” but rather to be so captivated by the gospel of Jesus Christ that we are progressively transformed into his image by grace. Homosexuality is a blatant contradiction to the gospel–as are all other sins, of course. Homosexuality, in particular, however, directly violates God’s design for marriage. Christ has his Bride. Paul says this relates to marriage in Ephesians 5, between one man and one woman. The man plays the Christ role, loving and protecting and providing for his wife. The woman plays the Church role, submitting to and respecting her husband. Ephesians 5:31 appeals to the creative design of Adam and Eve as the template for marriage.
So while the point is *not* to “not be gay,” Christians are to fight, by God’s grace, against every fleshly impulse that contradicts the good news of Jesus Christ. Those who battle the sin of homosexuality, therefore, should seek to mortify it because it is not in line with the new creation. This goes for me, a heterosexual, who battles lust, greed, jealously, self-righteousness, and a host of other sins. I am to continually put to death those sins because they are not in line with the new creation.
Thanks for stopping by, Alex. I hope to see you back again.
James
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James,
My time at Westminster was great! I graduated in June 2010. And yes, I was openly gay there. I would not have been able to do with the program with integrity any other way. Needless to say, this opened the door for much dialog on the topic.
You said: “The point is *not* to “not be gay,” but rather to be so captivated by the gospel of Jesus Christ that we are progressively transformed into his image by grace.
Me: I could not agree more. However, this has nothing whosoever to do with our respective sexual orientations. Please read on.
You said: “Homosexuality is a blatant contradiction to the gospel–as are all other sins, of course.”
Me: That may sound good in theory and I know that’s what you were taught, but unless you can demonstrate that exegetically, you are as wrong as Christians were in the past when they found “proofs” in their Bibles that slavery was God-ordained, that women and blacks should not be allowed to vote, that interracial marriage is wrong, that women should not be allowed to preach, teach or wear lipstick, that anti-Semitism is biblically supported, and on and on. A number of biblical texts were cited to give support to each of these and, of course, the Bible verses that once footnoted these notions are all still in the Bible.
You said: “Homosexuality, in particular, however, directly violates God’s design for marriage.”
Me: I’d suggest you read the posts I suggested above. They address your presuppositions in much greater detail For you above statement, don’t forget, “Genesis 1: Turning the Creation Story into an Anti-Gay Treatise”.
There’s much more to say in response your post, but I think the above is a good place to start. In the meantime, I’ll check out the Hays article.
-Alex Haiken
http://JewishChristianGay.wordpress.com
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Alex, thanks for the conversation. I appreciate it! One question and some thoughts:
How do you reconcile your view with the fact that there is not one NT passage (not to mention OT) that condones homosexuality?
In every reference, it is always negative. Indeed, there is not one biblical passage that condones sexual immorality of any kind (that goes for self-professing Christians who live together and sleep together before marriage who say, “We are married in our hearts!”). The only sexuality the Bible approves of is sex between a man and women who are married.
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James,
That is a great question! For a more detailed answer to it, please see my post: “WHY NO ONE IN THE BIBLICAL WORLD HAD A WORD FOR HOMOSEXUALITY.” In short, if we could stand Moses and Paul before us — the only two biblical authors who have been attributed as having said anything pertaining to or about homosexuality — and applaud or ridicule them for their condemnation of homosexuality, they would almost certainly stare at us in blank incomprehension. Why? Because homosexuality per se simply isn’t anything they’d ever been aware of.
Again, links to this and other posts may be found by simply clicking the link below and then selecting the “Archives” page.
-Alex Haiken
http://JewishChristianGay.wordpress.com
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James,
I realized I didn’t answer your second question. You categorized it as a thought; but perhaps it’s really a question about shunning sexual immorality. Another good one!
Without any doubt, throughout the Bible we find instructions to shun sexual immorality and seek the highest moral standard that reflects the Spirit of Christ (e.g. Rom. 13:11-14; 1 Cor. 6:13-20 and 7:1-3; Eph. 5:1-5; Col 3:5-17, to cite only a few examples). However, the fact that the violation of others is strongly condemned does not mean that all homosexual behavior warrants such censure any more than all heterosexuals are to be condemned for their sexual behavior by association with the sins of pedophilia, lust, rape, fornication or adultery. The few verses in Scripture that proscribe sexual union between men ALL seek to address sins of pagan idolatry, rebellion, self-indulgence, abuse, or grossly irresponsible behavior.
We must be careful about reading things into the text that simply are not there. As I’m sure you’ll agree, lesson #1 in seminary is: no “frontloading” allowed. That is to say, we are not to read our own personal, political, prejudicial or ideological beliefs back into the Bible. That is “eisegesis” — which is precisely what we’re to avoid like the plague.
On the contrary, we’re to do “exegesis”. As no likely know, the word exegesis comes from the Greek verb which means “to draw out”. Simply put, exegesis is about drawing out from the text the true meaning of a Bible passage. It means getting out of the text what it originally meant to the author and to the original intended audience, without reading into the text the many traditional interpretations that may have grown up around it.
– Exegesis is reading out from the Bible what the original writers were saying.
– Eisegesis is reading one’s own ideas or prejudices back into the Bible.
– Exegesis is about getting out of the text what is truly there in the first place.
– Eisegesis is about putting into the text something never intended by the author.
– Exegesis is drawing out the true meaning of a Bible passage.
– Eisegesis is at best unwise, and at worst extremely dangerous.
Therefore, when you see the term “sexual immorality” in the Bible, you may not simply say, “Um, its homosexual, that settles it; let’s move on” without even considering the context. That distances us from God, the writer and the text. It is respectful of God’s gift to us to go after the author’s intentions and meanings before arriving at our own.
Hope this helps!
-Alex Haiken
http://JewishChristianGay.wordpress.com
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