Albert Mohler: We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic

with the title.

[Mohler] our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult … face to face.

I’m not crazy about the term “homophobia” since those who approve of homosexual activity apply it to anyone who condemns homosexual activity as sin; if you call homosexual activity sin you are homophobic (which I think current usage is that homophobia=bigotry against homosexuals on the same level as racism). I’m sure some Christians do have feelings against homosexuals on the same level as racism, but I don’t think it is right to level that charge against the entire evangelical church. I’m just not crazy about using a word that essentially means that one hates homosexuals. Maybe one word doesn’t encapsulate the evangelical’s church lack of understanding about the sin of homosexual activity and what might be its confusion about how to confront it.

We went around and around on this on a prior thread. His use of the term in this article should at least put paid to the argument that he only used the term as a shock tactic to wake up his Baptist brethren. He’s now using the word before the world. There is no need to do this, and it is damaging.

Many of his comments are sound.

According to the sodomy rights activist I heard on the radio last week, homophobia is now an out of date, ineffective term.

He suggested that those of us who believe in traditional one man, one woman marriage were,……

heterosexists.

So, I am now officially a heterosexist.

I not only object to his use of the term homophobia,

I do not like him using the term homosexual.

He is simply playing the game by the sodomites rules.

Homosexual was coined in about 1892. And was brought into the common vernacular by that pervert,
Alfred Kinsey.

Kinsey Sex and Fraud

Mohler defined what he meant by evangelical homophobia…dealing with the homosexual at a distance. in other words, the church has generally dealt with the gay movement in theory, not in actuality. His entire article is pointing to the idea that with this moral revolution, we’ll now be dealing with it in a face to face manner that is substantive, not hypothetical.

[Jonathan Charles] I’m sure some Christians do have feelings against homosexuals on the same level as racism, but I don’t think it is right to level that charge against the entire evangelical church.

I think I understand where you are going with this, but you might want to state this a little more carefully. Since when is having a ‘race’ a sin? To equate ‘homophobia’ with ‘racism’ is really faulty reasoning. Racism is always a sin, wouldn’t you agree? Homophobia may or may not be, depending on what you mean by the term. And the object of homophobia is always in sin, regardless of the attitude of outsiders toward him/her.

I’m not really trying to be argumentative (this time!), just to point out that it is easy to slip into faulty thinking by making this kind of comparison.

[Don Johnson]

[Jonathan Charles] I’m sure some Christians do have feelings against homosexuals on the same level as racism, but I don’t think it is right to level that charge against the entire evangelical church.

I think I understand where you are going with this, but you might want to state this a little more carefully. Since when is having a ‘race’ a sin? To equate ‘homophobia’ with ‘racism’ is really faulty reasoning. Racism is always a sin, wouldn’t you agree? Homophobia may or may not be, depending on what you mean by the term. And the object of homophobia is always in sin, regardless of the attitude of outsiders toward him/her.

I’m not really trying to be argumentative (this time!), just to point out that it is easy to slip into faulty thinking by making this kind of comparison.

What I meant is that the word “homophobia” is used in a way to mean that one who is called “homobpobic” hates homosexuals in the same what that the term “racist” might mean that one hates people of a different race. I’m not suggesting that race and homosexual activity are in the same boat (the latter is a choice while the former is not). I just wish Mohler would use a different word because what some mean by “homophobia” isn’t what he is trying to communicate, and, I think his article tried to clarify what he means by using the word, but I wish he’d stop using it altogether.

Hi Jonathan

I agree with your essential points.

One mystery is what Mohler hopes to gain by using the term???