Osler's Razor

Last Sunday, there were many reactions to my sermon in Virginia. Though I do not agree with him, I particularly admired Bryan Bufkin, a former student during my Baylor years (and a good one), for putting his name behind his beliefs, and thought he articulated his thoughts well. I also (with prodding from David Best, a UST student) regret the tone of my initial response to him. Bryan has graciously agreed to provide a longer explication of his thoughts, which are included below:

Hello all. My name is Bryan Bufkin. I am a recent graduate from Baylor Law and a new attorney in Fort Worth, Texas. Following a difference of opinion between Professor Osler and myself regarding how Christians should treat homosexuality within the walls of a church or Christian institution, Professor Osler has been very gracious to give me this forum to express my opinions on this subject. For this, I am truly grateful. In a nutshell, I believe that engaging in homosexuality is a sinful behavior. And, just like any other sin, I don’t believe that accepting and encouraging that behavior in a Christian institution is what the Bible tells Christians to do.

I ask anybody reading this to do so with an open mind and a graceful heart. I am not trying to convince anybody that homosexuality is a sinful behavior, as that would lead to many rabbit trails and would ultimately be counter-productive. The reason I originally posted was because I felt like a lot of Christians were being unfairly labeled as being judgmental, ignorant, and hateful. I don’t believe this is the case for many Christians. This is an extremely difficult issue, and I have spent a lot of time praying and thinking about it. The point of this post is to show that there are sound reasons for my beliefs and that this is at the very least a difficult issue that many Christians have spent considerable time analyzing. I think it’s important to have an honest conversation about these issues instead of hiding behind surface level arguments about love and acceptance.

I am writing this post based on a previous post from Professor Osler. I am limiting the scope of this post to the two issues that I believe were addressed in Professor Osler’s blog: (1) whether Christian institutions that believe that homosexuality is a sin should appoint leaders that are un-repenting, practicing homosexuals, and (2) whether those institutions should bless homosexual couples at the altar. Also, I am writing this post under the assumption that homosexuality is a sin. It makes it easier to do that instead of continually qualifying it with “assuming you agree it is a sin.” Please read this post in that context.

To provide context of the earlier blog post, Professor Osler’s argument is that as Christians, our number one goal should be to love others. Our role is not to judge others. That is God’s role. I completely agree with those two basic underlying concepts. However, we disagree on what that practically means. Professor Osler argued that it is not loving to exclude certain behaviors within a church. I hope that I have fairly characterized his positions.

I believe that engaging in homosexuality is a sin based on my understanding of the Bible. Whether or not you agree, it is hard to argue that there isn’t at least a solid foundation in the Bible for this belief. It is mentioned throughout the Bible, including in the New Testament (“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). If you do read the Bible to mean that a homosexual act is sinful, it should be treated like any other sin.

The ultimate question is this: is it unloving and/or judgmental for Christians not to bless homosexuals at the altar or not to allow un-repenting, practicing homosexuals to be leaders within a Christian institution? Professor Osler thinks that it is unloving and judgmental, and I do not. Our source of disagreement is our different definitions of what “love” and “judgmental” mean. It is very easy to label any accepting and encouraging behavior as being loving, but one must look past simply labeling love as “acceptance” or “encouragement” because love doesn’t always mean those things.

We both used the story of the stoning of the prostitute to illustrate our respective points. Professor Osler’s point regarding Jesus’ love is that “they were stoning a woman, and he loved her despite her sins . . . . Every time he was confronted with a rule, he responded by talking about the principle of love.” My point is that at the end of that story, Jesus told the woman to “go and sin no more.” To me, that’s the full picture of what love is. Love doesn’t mean simply accepting behavior that will lead one away from God. It was loving of Jesus to tell her to stop sinning because Jesus knew that her acts of prostitution were separating her from God. I am not saying that we are like Jesus and we should tell anybody we want to go and sin no more. I am simply saying that when we say that Jesus was all about love, it is easy to mischaracterize what that means. Yes, Jesus was all about love, but love doesn’t mean blind acceptance and encouragement. I am not sure where this definition of love has come from. Because sinning separates man from God, encouraging a person to continue to sin is not loving at all. An example I would use is a child that is attempting to put his hand near a fire. Would it be loving for the parent to encourage or allow the child to put his hand on the fire because that is what love is? No. It would be more loving to keep the child from hurting himself. If we are going to point to the story of the stoning of the prostitute to illustrate what love is, we must read the whole story. Jesus did not show the prostitute love by telling her, “I love everything about you, even the fact that you are a prostitute. Keep on being a prostitute if that makes you happy.” The story does paint a picture of love, but it is a more complex picture than many have made it out to be.

Professor Osler argued that “[i]n a world where two men or two women can blessed before this altar of God, things will be unfamiliar. That is the nature of the journey. That is the cost of justice and hope and love.” I disagree completely that this is the cost of love. Ultimately, Professor Osler is arguing that it is loving not only to accept homosexual behavior, but to celebrate it by allowing homosexual couples to be blessed at the altar. He is asking Christians to treat the sin of homosexuality differently than any other sin. Take the story of the prostitute, for instance. Can you imagine how preposterous that it would be for Christians to be mulling over whether or not to allow prostitutes to be authority figures within the church? Then, not only accepting them as authority figures within the church, but holding ceremonies to celebrate their acts of prostitution? You can plug any other sin into that scenario, and it seems preposterous. Imagine an un-repenting, adulterous preacher holding a ceremony to celebrate that a thief has decided to continue to steal things. Not only would that never happen, but nobody that I know of has ever argued that it should happen. I understand that you can throw the word “love” out there and say just about anything, just as easily as people can throw out that Christians are ignorant and hateful. We must start examining what these statements really mean. The Bible doesn’t allow us as Christians to decide for ourselves how we should treat certain acts so long as we define the treatment as “loving.” I think it’s dangerous.

Many argue that if a church believed that homosexuality was a sin and decided not to hire leaders that were un-repentant, active homosexuals, it would be judging the person for their behavior. Professor Osler said: “don't think you can decide it is your role to help other to identify their sins and pretend that isn't judging. Of course it is. That's what calling another person a ‘sinner’ is.” I think this is an extremely tricky issue. The Bible does tell us not to judge, but what does that mean? Just because Christians use their judgment, that doesn’t mean they are judging as the Bible tells us not to do. We must be able to discern what sinful behavior is. In the context of a church, we need to be able to communicate to fellow believers when we feel like their acts constitute a sin. That does not mean that we are judging. I say this because if Christians weren’t able to do this, it would be impossible to follow other commands in the Bible. The Bible requires discernment of sins throughout the New Testament (“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” Galations 6:1; “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.” Matthew 18:15 (spoken by Jesus)). One of the roles of the church is to try to help others within the church live as Godly and sinless of a life as possible, and it would be impossible to do this if we accept the definition of judging that so many have given it. Judging the other person would be condemning them or deciding in your mind that they are a bad person, which is not proper. I think that the concept of judging is one of the most misused parts of the Bible.

As Christians, we are always discerning what behaviors God has deemed to be unacceptable, and we have always attempted to keep Christian institutions sacred by trying to keep those behaviors from being encouraged or celebrated. It is not considered to be judgmental in the context of other sins. Why should homosexuality be any different? We don’t consider it unloving, judgmental, etc. when Christians make discernments of other, less controversial sins. For example, it is sinful to worship other gods. If a group of people wanted to worship a pagan god in a Christian church, Christians would have no problem deciding that this type of worship is not Biblical. It isn’t judgmental for the Church to keep the worship of pagan gods outside of the church. The Church isn’t condemning the pagan worshippers or deciding what their punishment should be. The Church is merely making a discernment that this type of behavior is not Biblical, and thus, it shouldn’t be encouraged or accepted within a Church. I see no difference with homosexuality. We cannot define “judging” as discerning whether an act is sinful only for homosexuality and then allow this exact same discernment for other sins without considering it to be “judging.” It is dangerous to have a different standard of what judging is for different sins. It gives man too much power to manipulate the Bible to his liking.

Many critics may be thinking that I am treating homosexuality harsher than any other sin considering that we are all sinners, including the leaders of our Christian institutions. The argument you may be making is that if we’re all sinners, why should homosexuals be kept from being a leader while other sinners are not? The difference between the two is not the sin. As I’ve argued throughout, homosexuality should be treated like all other sins. The difference between the two is repentance. If somebody is struggling with homosexual urges and slips up and sins but then repents and tries to stop engaging in those acts, that person is exactly like any other sinner. However, the problem that I see is when homosexuals have determined that this isn’t sinful behavior, they aren’t going to attempt to stop doing it, and they aren’t going to ask for forgiveness for it. If the Baptist Church believes that homosexuality is a sin, it would not make sense for the Church to have leaders who were engaging in that act without repenting. The Church would then have leaders that have a fundamental difference of opinion on a huge issue. Practically, this could lead to major problems. Imagine a deacon in a Baptist church teaching that homosexuality is okay. This would be in direct contradiction to the message that the church believes in. Additionally, in 1st Timothy Chapter 3, the Bible lays out that leaders of the Church should be very respectable men of God. Appointing leaders that are un-repenting would not fall in line with that passage. This is another area where trying to apply the argument to other sins shows how preposterous it is. Imagine a person trying to be a leader in a Christian institution who believes that adultery is not a sin, who continues to commit adultery, and who won’t repent for that behavior. It would be wholly uncontroversial for Christian institutions to find that this isn’t the type of person that should be a leader in the institution. I see no difference for homosexuality.

I have heard from many people that Jesus was about inclusion. I agree with that. However, sin separates us from God, who is perfect. Including others doesn’t mean encouraging acts that will keep them further from God. That would actually have the effect of alienating them from God, not including them in His glory. The key is not to keep everybody from sinning . . . that is impossible. The key is to try to keep everybody within the Church as close to God as possible, which means to try to keep fellow believers from sinning, but also to keep them repenting. This is what will bring a sinner closer to God. This is what will lead to the ultimate inclusion.

In conclusion, Jesus Christ was all about love. I am so blessed to have been washed by the blood of Jesus. I am so glad to know what true love is. I believe that because sinning keeps us from God, it would not be loving to encourage sinful behavior. I believe that having a functional and Biblical church means not having leaders that will not repent of their sins. I hope that I’ve at least illustrated why others believe the way that I do. I hope that people can see that in this difficult subject, Christians like myself make our decisions based on the love of Jesus and not based on hate as we’ve so often been accused.