Dr. Michael Brown Has 40 Answers and 2 Questions for ‘Gay’ Christian Matthew Vines
25. If not, do you feel comfortable affirming something that is not explicitly affirmed in the Bible? Again, your question is based on a false premise. What is explicitly affirmed over and again in the Bible is that God requires holiness of all His people and that the only outlet for sexual intimacy is in the confines of marriage, which, to repeat, can only be the union of a man and woman. This is as explicit as anything in the Word.
26. Do you believe that the moral distinction between lust and love matters for LGBT people’s romantic relationships? Not anymore than the distinction holds in matters of fornication and adultery, meaning, many fornicating couples love each other, but their relationship is still sinful, and many adulterers truly fall in love with their adulterous partner, yet their relationship is still sinful. It’s the same with homosexual couples, even if they love each other.
27. Do you think that loving same-sex relationships should be assessed in the same way as the same-sex behavior Paul explicitly describes as lustful in Romans 1? Absolutely, in terms of being contrary to what God intended. The fundamental issue, as the Greek text indicates, especially when compared to the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation) of Genesis 1, is that such behavior is contrary to the Creator’s design for His creation—it really is self-evident that God designed a man to be with a woman, on many levels, and that He did not design a man to be with a man or a woman to be with a woman—which is also why, on average, there is far more homosexual and bisexual promiscuity than heterosexual promiscuity, not to mention a greater percentage of sexually transmitted diseases. I realize there are committed homosexual couples (although, in many cases, their definition of monogamy is hardly traditional), but the Word never says that an inherently sinful act somehow becomes sanctified by repeating it with the same person.
28. Do you believe that Paul’s use of the terms “shameful” and “unnatural” in Romans 1:26-27 means that all same-sex relationships are sinful? Without a doubt, based on the consistent testimony of Scripture, which Paul reaffirms in Romans 1, which is why numerous gay and lesbian scholars have stated that Paul explicitly opposed all forms of homoeroticism.
29. Would you say the same about Paul’s description of long hair in men as “shameful” and against “nature” in 1 Corinthians 11:14, or would you say he was describing cultural norms of his time? Actually, you cannot possibly compare Paul’s condemnation of homosexual practice in Romans 1 with his teaching about long hair (and or veiling of the hair) in 1 Corinthians 11, nor does he ever make the latter a matter of salvation, whereas he clearly does of the former (as in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11). As to “nature” in 1 Corinthians 11, actually, women by nature have longer and fuller hair than men, and to this day, it is a much more serious issue for a woman to lose her hair than a man. And in the culture of the day, for a married woman to go outside her house unveiled would be immodest, so the question was raised as to what conduct was proper in a house church meeting. How can this be compared to the radical redefining of marriage and to the attempt to sanctify something that God says is detestable?
30. Do you believe that the capacity for procreation is essential to marriage? Procreation is essential to the design of marriage, which means only a man and woman can marry because only they are designed to procreate. That is self-evident from the creation accounts in Genesis 1-2, where human beings are commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and where Adam needs a suitable helper (not just companion) because he and his wife must produce offspring for the future of humanity, and they are the paradigm emphasized throughout Scripture, reinforced by Jesus in Matthew 19 and Paul in Ephesians 5.
31. If so, what does that mean for infertile heterosexual couples? Heterosexual couples who are infertile have not violated the design of marriage; rather, they have a disability within the designed parameters of marriage, just like a bird with a broken wing. But to compare a homosexual couple to an infertile heterosexual couple is to compare a fish to a bird with a broken wing.
32. How much time have you spent engaging with the writings of LGBT-affirming Christians like Justin Lee, James Brownson, and Rachel Murr? I have spent countless hours studying these writings, amassing a large library of pro-LGBT books, even praying as I read them for God to show me any blind spots in my own understanding. I can safely say that not one of them makes the slightest, genuinely biblical, positive case for homosexual practice and that not one of them adequately refutes the clear teaching of Scripture prohibiting all forms of homosexual practice. (On the sociological end of things, readers can work through the 1,500 endnotes in A Queer Thing Happened to America or consult the bibliography here. On the biblical end of things, readers can work through the 15-page select bibliography in Can You Be Gay and Christian? or the 518 endnotes to that book, in which I quote extensively from those who differ with my position.)
