Mark Joseph Stern: A Relentless Crusade Against Christianity

    

           Mark Joseph Stern, who covers “science, the law, and LBGTQ issues” for Slate.com once again shows a remarkable inability (unwillingness?) to understand Christianity.  Just a few weeks ago he took aim at biblical creationists and misfired badly.   Now he dogmatically approaches that worst of all secular sins, homophobia, with more ferocity than that of the alleged homophobic “haters” he writes about in his latest column. 

            He claims he is responding to a recent Ross Douthat column about the Arizona religious freedom legislation vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer.  Douthat attempted to explain why Christians have concerns about the current wave of gay marriage lawsuits against folks who otherwise have no issue serving gay customers, but close the door when it comes to gay marriage.  Mr. Stern either doesn't understand or doesn't care to understand that what motivates Christians is not hate at all.  In what is apparently his typical fashion, he offers very little rational discourse, but plenty of venomous epithets. 

            At the heart of his so-called argument is the following: “Douthat transforms them [anti-gay bigots] from retrograde homophobes to virtuous objectors, unwilling to bend their beliefs to match public opinion.”  Perhaps in a Freudian slip, Mr. Stern tells us what is really behind his agenda – the requirement that Christians, regardless of why, or how, they hold their beliefs, ought to have to bend to public opinion.  The problem, Mr. Stern – just a small bump in your road – is we have a Constitution that protects both religious liberty and freedom of speech, even when others find that religious exercise and free speech offensive.  Thus state laws which impinge on those freedoms are problematic and violate the fundamental law of the land.  But, of course, you know that since you write about law.

            The reality is Mr. Stern is so caught up in pointing fingers at the secular sin of homophobia that he doesn’t see his own Pharisaical blindness.  For those who are biblically illiterate, the Pharisees were a Jewish religious sect in the first century with whom Jesus had many clashes because they looked more towards their own rules than to the heart of the Jewish God.  Mr. Stern recognizes only his own quasi-religious rules that homosexual behavior is utterly and unalterably acceptable and that any attempt to suggest otherwise should be met not with mere distaste, but outright, vitriolic, and determined vociferousness.  Mr. Stern’s lack of rationality is both petulant and pathetic.  He wags his finger at those nasty, Christian hate-mongers,  claiming his morality is so much more superior, and then argues that they should have to “bend their wills” to his and those who believe like him because . . .well, he offers only public opinion as his rationale.

            You see what Mr. Stern continues to miss, again, and again, is the difference that any true Christian sees between acknowledging sin and participating in sin.  I acknowledge my own sin is every bit as sinful as that of a practicing homosexual.  Where there is, however, a difference, is I am not asking homosexuals to participate in my sins through the force of legislation.  What Mr. Stern appears to want is civil rights style laws that call upon Christians to leave their religious beliefs at the door, no matter what.  To equate so-called homophobia with racism is a category error.  From my standpoint as a Christian, human beings are one race – the human race.  Efforts to cull out differences stems from our own sinfulness, not from any biblical standard.  That some Christians in the past attempted to make arguments based on Scripture to support their racist views says something about the people who made the arguments, not Scripture and not Christianity generally. 

            There is no basis in the Bible to show that a person’s skin color results in a behavior that is sinful.  However, homosexual attraction, while not sinful in itself, is like any other temptation that humans face.  When it results in behavior the Bible says is sinful, Christians have no choice but to say so.  This is not an effort to condemn, but an effort to save.  To claim it is hate would be like claiming that pulling an unaware pedestrian from in front of an oncoming bus is hate because that person doesn’t like people touching him or her.

            Where Mr. Stern's argument fails most miserably is in his mischaracterization that Christians (not the many false church goers who contemptibly shame the name of Christ with the very kind of vitriol Mr. Stern uses) see something as sin and, therefore, must hate the person who engages in the sin.  When I see a person who is sinning, I simply see a fellow sinning sojourner and recognize that without the love of Christ living in me, I would be on the same path to hell.  Since I don’t want anyone to go to hell, my desire is that person repent of their sin and turn to follow Christ.  If Mr. Stern says I am a hater to want people to enjoy eternity with the God of the universe instead of spending eternity in the pits of damnation in eternal torment, so be it.

            Ultimately, does Mr. Stern propose that it is okay to force Christians to violate their conscience?  What if public opinion were to change tomorrow?  And guys like me are dogmatic haters?  Really?