The Gospel Coalition, a site whose relevance to the Christian community and legitimacy as a voice for Christianity and the Gospel should already be called into doubt by their continued association with the abuse-covering-up C.J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries, ran a piece by Thabiti Anyabwile titled The Importance of Your Gag Reflex When Discussing Homosexuality and “Gay Marriage”. It’s a post that has generated quite a bit of well-deserved outrage in progressive Christian circles, and for good reason as it is a truly awful piece of writing.
The following quote is just a sample of the sort of things that are in the piece, though to avoid activating your own gag reflex, I shan’t quote any of the worst bits, though if you’re feeling sensitive to hateful writing you should probably stop reading here. I’ve put the rest below the jump so you can just skip past this post.
Reject the unbiblical definition of love. I said, though it was very unpopular, homosexual marriage could not properly be called “love.” You could choke on the room’s tension. “How could I say such a thing?” I pointed out that the Bible teaches plainly that “love does not rejoice in wrongdoing” (1 Cor. 13). That the Bible also teaches that homosexual behavior was wrongdoing or sin. Consequently, though strong emotions and affections are involved, we cannot properly call it “love.” Love does no harm, and homosexuality clearly harms everyone involved.
If you think you can stomach it, here’s the full piece. Trigger warnings and all that for those who are feeling particularly vulnerable to this sort of hateful language wrapped in christianese.
As terrible as the piece is, I’m not even mad. Saddened for the people who read it and internalize the message, saddened for the LGBT people whose unaccepting family reads it and uses it as justification for their continued rejection of their relative, but I can’t bring myself to feel anger. I can’t get mad because the piece is so clearly the impotent rage of someone who has already lost and knows it. The rage of someone who was too much of a coward to actually say the nastiest bits to anyone’s face a decade ago, and so, after simmering rage boiling for a decade he finally writes what he wishes he would have said, and does so on a friendly (and heavily moderated) forum.
There are still battles to be fought and it can and will get nasty, but the war has already been won. It’s over. The forces of oppression and bigotry have lost and all they can do is rant and rage at the world that is changing in front of them.
The world of Thabiti Anyabwile is disappearing. And that’s a good thing.