14. Homosexuality (Remastered)

Homosexuality

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Romans 1:18-32 and our subject, ‘Homosexuality.’

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in theirknowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

Our subject this morning has a special reference to verses twenty-six and twenty-seven which highlight as the culmination of apostasy from God, homosexuality, a perversion which is sexual relations of man with man and of woman with woman. We now face the culmination of a long campaign in the courts and in the halls of various governmental bodies, and in the press, to remove the laws against homosexuality from the statute books and to permit any such relationship between consenting adults.

Part of this is a new anti-Biblical interpretation of this perversion. The facts are read in evolutionary framework, and so we are told it is a form of immaturity. Again, others read it as environmentally determined, so that the pervert is simply reflecting his environmental conditioning. Again there are others who say it is simply a fight for masculinity in a difficult world. All these and the other variations on the modern interpretation share in common an environmental and an evolutionary approach. There are those in fact who claim that it is a basic component of all people, so that all of us have some aspect of every perversion in us.

These perversions are all defended by many writers today. For example Dr. Lars Ullerstam of Sweden defends all perversions; in fact he demands that the very word ‘perversion’ be dropped. He defends, for example, incest, and he says he is happy to see it on the increase among his friends; he defends exhibitionism, pedophilia, saliromani, algolagnia, homosexuality, coprophilia, necrophilia, and many many other perversions. In fact there is only one thing he criticizes and speaks of it as the one dangerous form of sexual relationships: 

“Of all forms of sexual intercourse the heterosexual kind [that is, between a man and a woman - RJR] certainly is the most dangerous, having the greatest potential risks in social consequences. Yet this act is hedged about with fewer restrictions than several other sexual expressions of a far tamer kind. Nevertheless we consider it a happy and healthy state of things that people satisfy their sexual urge in this risky manner. Would it not be better if we encouraged people to ‘perversions’ instead, and taught them to condition their sexual secretions to other rites and stimuli besides heterosexual coition? Would it not be in the interest of the whole world to provide such education, which might, in the long run, prove a solution to the problem of overpopulation?” ⁱ

And so, of course he calls for special education in the schools, which will gear children to everything except normal sexuality, and this is precisely what we are getting today. It is interesting that Yves de Sainte-Agnes, who writes the introduction to Dr Ullerstam’s book says very candidly: 

“Present-day Sweden is living through a sexual revolution. The first victim to be hunted down is morality. In religious wars, absolution is always given for deeds of violence committed “for the cause.” Similarly, the crusade against classical morality lends its participants a kind of immunity.” ⁱⁱ

Now Yves de Sainte-Agnes says this approvingly. In other words, there is, and we could say not only in Sweden, but everywhere in the world today, a revolution going on, a religious war and the first victim to be hunted down is morality, Biblical morality, and any kind of violence for the cause is now approved because it is a war, and it is a holy war for these people, against Christianity.

The Christian is today the villain. It is his morality which is regarded as degenerate and perverted and twisted, and the pervert is regarded as the misunderstood, sensitive soul. I can spend hours citing various modern writers who play variations of that theme.

Now the whole subject is an unpleasant one, and the sad fact is that because it is unpleasant, churches rarely ever touch on the subject, unless it is liberal churches who sponsor homosexual groups. But it is important to understand that homosexuality is a very significant part in human history. It has long been a part of every revolutionary, underground movement and of secret societies. It has a long history of pre-Christian times of being linked to subversive and revolutionary movements, and still does today.

As we analyze homosexuality, before we look at the Biblical attitude concerning it, it is important to recognize certain facts concerning it. Incidentally, scholars of the church today are of no help to us in dealing with the subject. As a matter of fact, instead of imposing this revolution, most scholars of the church today are a part of the revolution, and they view the matter in psychological and evolutionary terms rather than in Biblical and theological standards; and they view it as being determined by environmental causes.

But let us examine what various writers today, who are not Christian, and who are not hostile to the homosexual, have to say concerning it. How do they analyze the homosexual character? First of all, the homosexual character is governed by an abnormal fear of aging and of death. As a result, the homosexual insists on dressing and acting the part of perpetual youth, in particular, immature youth and this façade is maintained at all times as a religious thing. The worship of youth leads to the adoption of styles which stress youth, and especially recall the innocent child, the preadolescent child to mind, or the very young adolescent. What they are looking for is, of course, the amoral world of perpetual childhood, to be beyond good and evil because maturity means responsibility, it means law, it means standards, it means a working world. And therefore both in mental attitudes and in styles… this attitude of childhood and of youth is cultivatedin effect to say, “We are never going to grow up to the world of law, of responsibility, and of morality.”

Second, because there is this insistence on being perpetually immature; never growing up and assuming responsibilities, there is this war against standards. If there is a standard it has to be attacked. And as a result, a new kind of standard, an anti-standard has to be made to stand. Thus, homosexuals delight in making studied vulgarity high style. As a result, a prominent fashion editor in New York, Martin Bender, who is definitely not hostile to the homosexuals, comments on ‘camp’ tastes, that is, homosexual tastes, and cites also the evidence of Susan Sontag: 

“In fact, camp had been a synonym for homosexual for 40 years in England, for about a decade in New York.

Miss Sontag offered more than 50 definitions of camp. A love of the exaggerated, a spirit of extravagance, “style at the expense of content,” and the declaration that there is a good taste in bad taste. Camp is antiserious, appreciative of the vulgar and the banal. The examples she gave of camp taste—Aubrey Beardsley drawings, Tiffany lamps, Twenties women’s clothes including feather boas and beaded dresses, Busby Berkeley musicals like The Gold Diggers of 1933—have become canons of faith for fashion display artists, boutique owners and department store merchandisers.” ⁱⁱⁱ

This is an aspect of the homosexual; antinomianism, to subvert laws and standards with anti-law laws, and anti-standard standards, to replace sound standards with arbitrary and vulgar ones, in other words, which mock the very idea of law, of taste, and of standards. There is a deep satisfaction for them in subverting everything and asserting man’s own autonomy. 

Third, homosexual culture is bitterly hostile to the family and to small town culture, to stability. Today it controls very largely, this is recognized by many writers, the world of fashions and the world of publishing, and it uses these two media, communications and styles, to war against the family and small town culture, against the law and against standards. The canons of homosexual culture today are the standards of the jet-set, very emphatically, and more and more of all society. The homosexual culture today is infecting the world at large.

A fourth aspect is the hatred of God’s reality, an insistence on wars against reality, in living in a world of make believe. As a result, the theater is the natural element of these people. Some scholars, again not Christian, have pointed out there has been by-and-large a strong homosexual control of the theatre in varying degrees in different times from the days of the Romans. But part and parcel of this homosexual control of the theatre has been the delight in prostituting women, in using them and abusing them for the sheer delight of showing their contempt for them. Now this is homosexual culture described by people who are not hostile to it and in fact sometimes have some good things to say for it.

Let us turn now to the Scriptures. One thing that is very clear-cut is that the Bible without reservation is emphatic in its condemnation of homosexuality and requires the death penalty. This appears clearly in the Law in Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Deuteronomy 23:17. In the passage of Scripture which we just read, in particular in Romans 1:26-27, St. Paul describes it as the culmination of man’s apostasy, and in verse twenty-seven where the King James reads how men, “leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another,” the word ‘burn’ in the Greek is more properly translated, and should have been so rendered here, as ‘burned out.’ 

In other words, what St. Paul is saying, ‘It is the culmination of apostasy, and it is also the burning out of man, it is the burning out of a culture.’ And then he goes on to give all the consequences of a culture that manifests this, in which this kind of temper becomes prominent or dominant, and he lists in the concluding verses of this chapter all the concomitant aspects of this; the total hatred of law in every sphere. It is the ‘burning out’ of man, and Kenneth Wuest, who stresses this aspect of the burning out, renders the last half of this verse, they receive: 

“…in themselves that retribution which was a necessity in the nature of the case because of their deviation from the norm.” ^iv

Homosexuality is, thus, very clearly presented as that sexual practice which culminates apostasy in hostility towards God; it is war against God. It is a denial of God's natural order and law in the ultimate form.

Thus the Bible says, “Here is a perversion that has a very prominent theological aspect. It appears at the end of an age, in times of decline and collapse. And therefore God singles it out above every other perversion as symptomatic of a world about to face judgment, a world in radical apostasy.”

I said earlier that almost all theologians without exception, perhaps there is an exception I don’t know of it, view it with very congenial eyes and apologize for the church’s condemnation of it in the past. We find this even in one distinguished German theologian Helmut Thielicke who is aware of the theological implications. Let me quote Thielicke. He says: 

“… there can be no doubt that the Old Testament regarded homosexuality and pederasty as crimes punishable by death (Lev. 18:22, 20:13). Whether direct injunctions are to be derived from this for Christians must remain a matter of discussion, at least insofar as behind this prohibition there lies the concept of cultic defilement and thus the question is raised whether and to what extent the Old Testament cultic law can be binding upon those who are under the Gospel Law. Here the problems of theological principle which are referred to in technological terminology under the subject of ‘Law and Gospel’ become acute.” ^v

So, Thielicke says that, very definitely, the Bible does condemn it. but he says, “We are no longer under the Law, we are under the gospel, under grace.” But if there is no law then there is no gospel. We must say to him if the law is set aside, the humanistic amoral ethics of love then takes over, and then you have total humanism. The only consideration becomes the human being, and this is what has happened with the theologians. And as a result, Thielicke himself declares: 

“It is true that the homosexual relationship is not a Christian form of encounter with our fellow man; it is nevertheless very certainly a search for the totality of the other human being. He who says otherwise has not yet observed the possible human depth of homoerotic-colored friendship. Moreover, the perversion inherent in the reduction of sexuality to mere ‘physical excitation’ is also to be found in heterosexual relationships. To make this charge refer especially to homosexuals shows ignorance or prejudice.” ^vi

Now if you could follow that rather peculiar language, what he is saying is that the homosexual is trying to establish a relationship with the totality of the other person. And there is just as much evil, he is saying, in normal marital relationships as there is in the homosexual. So, what he has done is to say that as long as there is a search for the totality of the other human being, it is good. In other words, having knocked out law, God's Law, he has introduced a totally humanistic standard. But every search for the totality of the other human being apart from God is vicious, depraved, and under the condemnation of God's Law.

Now Thielicke is aware of the theological meaning. Let me quote again what he has to say about Romans 1:26-27, the passage we have been dealing with: 

“The wrath of God over this hubris expresses itself in God’s giving man over, abandoning him (paredoken) to the consequences of this his fundamental attitude, leaving him, as it were, to the autonomy of the existence which he himself has entered upon. In consequence of this autonomy of judgment, then, religious confusion also lead to ethical chaos. It consists in confusion of the eternal with the temporal. That is to say, finite entities are vested with the sovereignty of God and men worship idols (Rom. 1:23). Because the lower and the higher, the creature and the Creator, are exchanged (“perverted”), the result is a perverse supremacy of the inferior desires over the spirit. And in this context, the sexual perversions are mentioned as further marks of this fundamental perversion (Rom. 1:26 f.).

What is theologically noteworthy and kerygmatically “binding” in this exposition of Paul’s is the statement that disorder in the vertical dimension (in the God-man relationship) is matched by a perversion on the horizontal level, not only within man himself (spirit-flesh relationship) but also in his interhuman contacts.” ^vii

In other words, he makes it clear that this is the culmination of apostasy according to St. Paul, that it is a radical perversion of everything that man is and that the relationship of man to man should be. But then what does he do? He says, “But all of this is set aside because we are now no longer under law.” And so, humanism takes over. In other words, what the theologians today are telling the church is that the Bible, whether you believe it or not, no longer has any validity because we are under love, not under law. And so, the Bible has abdicated and the purpose of Christ’s ministry is to say, “The Bible is no more, you are on your own, boys.”

Now this very baldly stated is exactly what they are saying. And so, they end up by championing this; and even Christianity Today, which is supposedly, and is the most prominent evangelical magazine in the United States, comes out and states very plainly that the homosexual is more sinned against than sinning. Having abandoned their faith in the binding quality of God's Law, they abandon all Scripture. Can they be called Christian?

As a result today, instead of seeing it as Thielicke does, he admits that St. Paul says that this is war against God, against other men, and against oneself, and yet he says, “We can no longer condemn it, because the Bible has abdicated it. This was the purpose of Christ, to abdicate God and Scripture.”

Therefore, they see it in humanistic terms, as a natural act and as a phase in the development of man; not in terms of Scripture, as an act against God and therefore against nature. The older term for it was that it is an “unnatural act,” that is, contrary to the order in nature, a product of the fall therefore, and of its ultimate implications. The modern view goes along with the Marquis de Sade, who said: 

“The rule of law is inferior to that of anarchy.” ^viii

The penalty that God requires is death, a godly order will enforce it. A homosexual culture such as we have today, works to remove it.

One further aspect of the law as against homosexuality, one aspect of it, lesbianism, that of female homosexuality, the same evil, is called ‘an uncleanness’ in Scripture, and instead of incurring the death penalty, incurs instead divorce, is grounds for divorce, Deuteronomy 24:1, and of course excommunication. Why not the death penalty for women?

First of all, we have seen previously that the Scripture says that man’s greater authority means greater moral responsibility, and therefore greater guilt in sinning. Today our culture is topsy-turvy; the adultery of the man is not regarded as seriously as that of the woman, but in terms of Scripture, because the man has the greater authority, his guilt is greater. Second, because homosexuality is an expression of apostasy, men cannot in good conscience punish that which their own abdication of moral authority encourages.

Hosea declared in Hosea 4:14, God declaring through Hosea: 

I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom,

Nor your spouses when they commit adultery:

For themselves are separated with whores,

And they sacrifice with harlots:

Therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.

God says in other words: “There is punishment, but the punishment is from God; the people or nation shall fall.”

The homosexual culture, as we have said, is at war with God, and there are no negotiations possible in this world. That modernists and atheists would be in the enemy camp should not surprise us. But we know how far gone it is when periodical like Christianity Today carry articles stating that the individual homosexual would appear to be more sinned against than sinning because his condition is either genetic or environmental in nature, and therefore not his fault. Thus, we should not be surprised at what is happening today. Columbia University recently approved as a campus club a homosexual club. Chapters are going to be formed at other campuses, and plans are underway to establish chapters in California Universities.

Again, Ann Landers in a column recently wrote:

“The experts on homosexuality, with whom I consult, tell me that while the chances for a complete cure are extremely slim, the tortured homosexual who hates themselves often profits from therapy. While it does not convert them into normal males, it helps them to accept themselves without guilt and shame, and all self-destructive emotions that accompany these twin horrors.” 

In other words, what is the purpose of psychotherapy today, the purpose that Ann Landers recommends? To enable them to be what they are, that is to sin without guilt or shame. But there is no escaping God and His judgment.

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.

Psalm 24:1.

And what is built today has, as St. Paul declared, all the earmarks of a homosexual culture. That is, a culture at war with God and God’s reality, and is therefore under the judgment of God, 

“Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”

Let us pray.

* * *

Our Lord and our God, we thank thee that though the laws of men fail, thy Law never fails. We rejoice, our Father, that in the face of the ugliness and the evil ‘round about us that this world is still under thy law. And so, our Father, we appeal against the courts of this world to thy court, the Supreme Court of the universe; may thy judgment be upon these evil doers round about us, who subvert law and order, who strike against thee and against thy Word, who defile thy church, and put it to ungodly use. We thank thee, O Lord, that according to thy Word judgment shall begin first at the house of God. Therefore may thy judgment begin in the churches today, and spread from thy churches throughout the world, that the earth may be cleansed of iniquity. Protect us, O Lord, in the days ahead, and make us faithful to thy Law-Word, and confirm us therein that we may live thereby. Grant us this we beseech thee. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Do you know what Iain Murray’s stance here is? ^ix

[Rushdoony] I don’t know what Murray’s attitude here is. Murray on the whole is fairly strict with regard to the Law, but I don’t believe he has commented on this.

[Audience Member] What about the Reformed seminaries here, what’s their stand? ^x

[Rushdoony] In general, even at Westminster, which is about the best seminary there is today, the newer men who are there will not condemn it. I lectured at Westminster to the student body a few years ago, about three years ago I believe, and when I mentioned that the Scripture required the death penalty here, I had strong objections. The graduate student who argued the most emphatically with me is now probably going to be teaching.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Is it true that some homosexuals are so because of their genetic inheritance? ^xi

[Rushdoony] Definitely not. There is no such thing as a genetic homosexual, that has been disproven over and over again. It is an act of will, of choice.

Dr. Edmund Berrgler, a psychiatrist, a Freudian, whose opinions I would not agree with by and large, nevertheless a few years ago wrote a book: Homosexuality, Disease or Way of Life? Now, he didn’t like the implications of what he was turning up, and so he didn’t openly answer the question, but it became very apparent from everything that he wrote in that and a couple of other books that it is a way of life for these people, a religious way of life. You can see why he shied away from the implications of what he turned up. It is a religious way of life for these people, emphatically so. And this is why it has a long history, almost as an underground church and religion. 

One writer a few years ago, a foreign correspondent, stated that there were some who believed, and he was writing of the situation in Europe, that the most powerful underground movement, the most powerful international in the world was the homosexual international, and that its control in all subversive movements was very powerful. Its history is so closely linked for centuries, going back to pre-Christian times with subversive, revolutionary, and Illuminist movements.

[Audience Member] Could you comment on the use of “those things which are not convenient” as a description for the homosexual act in verse twenty-eight of our scripture, Dr. Rushdoony? ^xii

[Rushdoony] Yes, let’s see, that is in verse twenty-eight. Well, just translate it as ‘not right, morally wrong’. That is as good as any. Words do change their meaning, and sometimes they startle us in terms of their original meaning.

Originally it meant more, ‘That which is right and fitting. Proper.’ Yes. 

[Audience Member] You could say that the fitting and right thing is also the easiest thing to do. ^xiii

[Rushdoony] Yes, of course, this is true. From a scriptural point of view that which is right and fitting and proper is also that which is most easy to do. This is why it was earlier spoken of as an unnatural act, and you see, we have lost that sense that that word conveyed earlier, that perversions required an act of will, you had to go against that which was natural and normal for a man to do. So it had to be a kind of dedicated religious act, an anti-God act, a willful thing.

Yes?

[Audience Member] It seems to me that they are missing the simple truth that all that they oppose is good, and all that they embrace is evil and therefore multiplies sorrows in their lives. ^xiv

[Rushdoony] Well of course the sin in us often leads us off to evade the very simple, easy answer. So the sin in us fights shy of the simple easy answer. But of course the charge you see, that is made; remember I said that they opposed the family and small town culture. Why? Their charge is that this is the run-of-the-mill way, the easy way, the normal way, you see. And you have to do things the hard way to suit them.

Yes?

[Audience Member] It seems that the church is full of this; there is a hardly a church that they have not actively sought to subvert. ^xv

[Rushdoony] Very true. This is very rigidly followed today as a kind of principle, because they are out to subvert. And so, they do work their way into the churches, and they try to play on the sympathy of church people. But we have a choice here to make. God says that they are anti-God to the nth degree, the homosexuals say they are for God. Now, who are we going to believe; God or the pervert? It is a very simple choice.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Could you comment on verse twenty of our text, Dr. Rushdoony? ^xvi

[Rushdoony] Verse twenty? Yes. 

“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:” 

The point St. Paul there makes is that everyone, whether they have ever read the Bible or heard the gospel, knows in his heart that God is God and what his law-order is. So that every man in his unbelief and in his immorality is without excuse because God, having made him, has written His requirements in the tables of every man’s heart, so that they all sin with knowledge; whether they are in the depths of the African jungles or in the heart of Asia, or in the heart of New York. Every man sins with knowledge.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Some primitive peoples segregate the homosexuals to the margins of society. ^xvii

[Rushdoony] Yes, that is true, in some tribes they isolate the perverts, but in other tribes they are made the high priests or the medicine man, which indicates the extent of their perversity. 

Our time is just about up; a couple of things before I pass them on to you. Any of you who would like to be on the Chalcedon Report mailing list, please give me your address.

First of all, a little word of wisdom from Groucho Marx. He was asked a few days ago what he thought of all the nude stage plays, which are now appearing, ones like “Hair” and what his attitude was on the whole towards nudity on the stage, and he said he would like time to think it over; and then he reported that he went home and took off his clothes and looked at himself in the mirror for a few minutes, and then decided it wasn’t worth $5 to $11 a ticket to see something like that.

And then this from the comic strips, which especially tickled me, because I think women are marvelous, but their psychology sometimes is baffling. And I have had two husbands report this kind of incident to me, and then I meet it in Ebb and Flo.

Ebb and Flo are taking a trip on their vacation and it is late at night and Ebb is getting sleepy and he says: 

“We’ll have to find somewhere to stay the night, I am getting drowsy. Look, there is a motel up ahead.” 

And Flo says:

“No, don’t stop Ebb, it can’t be much of a place if it has a vacancy.”

And with that we are adjourned.

i. Lars Ullerstam, M.D., The Erotic Minorities (New York: Grove Press, 1966), p. 163.

ii. Lars Ullerstam, M.D., The Erotic Minorities (New York: Grove Press, 1966), p. vi.

iii. Marilyn Bender, The Beautiful People (New York: Dell, 1968), p. 29. On the fear of death and aging see p. 27 f; on homosexuals and fashions, see pp. 231, 282.

iv. Kenneth S. Wuest, Romans in the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), p. 36.

Italics in the original.

v. Helmut Thielicke, Ethics of Sex, p. 277 f.

vi. Helmut Thielicke, Ethics of Sex, p. 271 f.

vii. Helmut Thielicke, Ethics of Sex, p. 279 f.

viii. Cited by Simone de Beauvoir, in Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom, etc., p. 49.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

x.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xiv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xvi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

xvii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.