For he who seeks that which he knows will provoke him to unchastity has already committed this sin before God. This is irrefutably evident from the clear sayings of Holy Scripture. For thus, first of all, the holy apostle Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, 6:18, writes, “Flee fornication.” He does not only say: do not commit fornication! Nor does he merely say: fight against fornication! but he says: “Flee” it! But why does he speak thus? Precisely to tell us not only not to commit this sin grossly, but also to avoid it everywhere, to keep away from it, to avoid every opportunity for it; in short, to flee it, flee it! So we are not to think: I will go here and there, where I shall certainly be provoked to unchastity; but I will do it with the intention of fighting against it. No, says the apostle, you should rather act in such a way that you do not need to fight against it at all because of your guilt. Rather, you should flee from it like a poisonous snake. No one enters into a fight with it without necessity.1 One does not seek it out, but flees it. One takes up the fight against it only when one encounters it without one’s will. For then, of course, the rule is: either fight, or die! — Hence the godly Johann Gerhard also writes in his incomparable “Sacred Meditations”: “While the apostle held that all vices must be resisted, he calls against fornication not to a duel, but to flight, saying: ‘Flee fornication!’” — Hence also, on the other hand, the holy apostle Paul, in his second epistle to Timothy, cries out to him, who was then a young man, “Flee the lusts of youth!” (3:22.) So he says not only, Take no part in the lusts of youth; but, “Flee, flee the lusts of youth!” Do not come too near to them, but go far away from where you might be seduced, enticed, provoked to such lusts.
C.F.W. Walther, Second Lesson on Dance, delivered 10.19.1884 Immanuel Church, Saint Louis, Missouri
Allow me first, kind reader, to offer the lecture of concern itself here for you to view if you see so fit to do. Undoubtedly in these contested forms of public criticism one must field the immediate pleasantries – he quoted out of context!; did you even read, listen, ingest the whole media?; well certainly that’s not what he really meant! – and so in my winsomest efforts I shall make it known that I am trying to conceal no such context, nor skimp the whole, nor in the slightest misconstrue. If you must, watch, listen to LCMS Reverend Billy Brath’s “LGBTQ” Breakout Session from the 2019 Michigan District All Pastor’s Conference and then continue reading the truth of the scandal as I descry.
As you may have surmised by the title, the focus of this response will be centered upon Reverend Brath’s definitions of the concepts gay, queer, and cultural identity. Ultimately, it is his false division of sexual activity from its daily, cultural expression that shall be refuted on both counts, insofar as (1) they are not to be tolerated in their artificial separation nor (2) their actual, inseperable manifestation. While his false division appears to be a clever trick by which one makes an excuse for dining with tax collectors, sinners and sodomi-, err, I mean, just more sinners like you and me who just happen to talk, dress and act funny, as Reverend Brath would have us believe!-, in the end even this artificially contrived dichotomy fails under the true application of Scripture.
The straw-man first appears within the first twelve minutes of his lecture. Reverend Brath complains of other fellow pastors in the LCMS having their gaydars pinged by his dress, self comportment, et cetera, upon which opportunity he rhetorically flips the accusation of the interaction upon them: “so you mean, in our interaction that we have just had, you started thinking about who I want to have sex with? How stupid is that?”
The Biblical matter of fact is that it is indeed rather quite intuitive. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. The association between men who are effeminate and those who abuse themselves with mankind was indeed so intuitive for Saint Paul for him to have listed them side by side in the list of unrighteous. How stupid of Reverend Brath to not be concerned whatsoever with his perceived effeminacy!
This close association given by Saint Paul undoes the whole of Reverend Brath’s argument as he proceeds to make in his lecture. Effeminacy is part and parcel with self-abuse with mankind and the original Greek of verse 1Cor6:9 intricately ties the apostle’s writing back to that which he wrote to the saints in Rome, 1:272. Both verses deliberately use the Greek word for male, arsen: ἀρσενοκοῖται & ᾰ̓́ρσενες. While Paul had the word aner, andres meaning “man” available to him, he deliberately chose in both instances to emphasize the male, arsen, sex to stress the very corporeal offense being done. Indeed the Sainted Paul Kretzmann wrote in the second volume of his New Testament Popular Commentary as regards this section of Romans 1, “The heinousness of their transgression is marked by the words referring to the sex of the transgressors.”
Many in recent years have tried to defend the term μαλακοὶ, effeminate, as not referring to active homosexuals but merely people who trip gaydars in their mannerisms and dress. Whether or not one may abuse this term by appearing to successfully argue so is of no import here however. Even if we concede this effeminacy to be, as today’s parlance would have it, a type of gender expression separate from sexual activity itself (as Reverend Brath says, “queer theory- research it”), it still falls within the apostle’s list of condemnation, and that within immediate collocation.3 Moreover such effeminates of antiquity were, among others, actors of theatre, whose sort of behavior and company Saint Walther had this to say:
Now every kingdom has its peculiar customs. The customs of the world, therefore, are not to be followed by any Christian, even if it seems that he can do so without defiling himself. If he sees that the customs are really those of the wicked, ungodly world, he should not go along with them. This is the way the apostle wants it when he writes that those who want to be Christians should not conform to this world. Oh, beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, how much, how much must be reformed among us, if we want to be reformed according to this word of the apostle! How much conformity with the world one notices when one enters into the families among us, and especially when one looks closely at our youth who are growing out of their parents! Our trial fits in very well with the Reformation feast we have just celebrated; for merely reforming ourselves in doctrine is not enough, it must also be followed by a holy life, or God will take away the pure doctrine from us again.
C.F.W. Walther, First Lesson on Theater, delivered 11.2.1884 Trinity Church, Saint Louis, Missouri
No, rather than fleeing sin, rather than reforming his life, Reverend Brath maintains he must continue to attend gay bars for the ministry. Which, by the way, as he misses no opportunity to whatabout: have you seen just how terrible straight clubs are in contrast? (25-26 minute mark for those following along in the video linked above) It is here that the great atheology of sin-leveling begins its parade out of Reverend Brath’s cursed maw: all sexuality is broken, we are told! Never mind that the very Confessions to which our esteemed Reverend has vowed fidelity explicitly rule that sodomy is even worse than fornication.4 No, we must be reminded of the hetero logs in our eyes when taking exception with the homo specks in that neighbor’s. How at home Reverend Brath must find himself in the LCACA Misery Synod.
The next atheological maneuver made is to deny regeneration by the invocation of the iustus et peccator. We are told that an impenitent heterosexual adulterer can be rightly excommunicated while a lesbian (one must now strain to understand if the term refers to an active homosexual or merely a performative one; yet as shown above it is a distinction without a difference!) cannot: for she does not know she is sinning as a fish does not know it swims in water. Rather than approaching this issue with a Scriptural standard by applying proof texts of how those without eyes to see nor ears to hear are to be dealt with, Reverend Brath makes a major concession: “the majority of gay folk in America are never going to be convinced that homosexuality is a sin.” (we’re at 35 minutes in, refill your popcorn buckets now if you haven’t already…) Better yet, he states that one of the reasons for this is Scriptural – not before coyly looking upward as if to soliloquize to God, saying “no offense, You wrote it perfectly…”. All of this simply denies regeneration, that by the claim that we are all simultaneously righteous and sinner, there is no need to get caught up in the sexual sin of homosexuals (whether performative or active) contra Johann Danhauer in his Theologia Conscientiariae:
regeneration is commanded.5 A different constitution of the kingdom requires different customs; but Christ’s kingdom is not of this world; therefore it does not permit the customs of the world.
But rather than have his eyes set on Christ’s kingdom, Reverend Brath conflates His with the world. This is nowhere clearer than when he plainly states that he works with nonprofit organizations that give material aid to gay people who come to the Orlando, Florida area to seek the extra-familial LGBTQ network. He claims he does this because he wants everyone in heaven, and that this desire motivates him to stick his head out and be the gay pastor in the Missouri Synod. (we’re at minutes 40-44 in case you were wondering) In Reverend Brath’s kingdom, a stiff-necked straight adulterer is barred from entry while a culturally oblivious gay is granted infinite patience and mercy; God’s Law is completely overturned for the Social Gospel of fundraising and grooming those lost souls who have ran away from their families and churches; “stop sleeping around” and “slow down on the drug use” (his words, 40 minutes) are the closest you will get to hearing any sort of enjoinder for the wellbeing of sinners.
Don’t get me wrong: those suffering under the spiritual malaise of the LGBTQ movement need to be ministered to. Christ died for their sins and they too can be saved. But don’t tell me my sin stinks worse than theirs when our Confessions clearly deny it and in fact state the opposite; don’t deny regeneration as the proof of necessary good works flowing from saving faith; don’t artificially divorce the active act of homosexuality with its mere outward cultural expression as a sleight of hand.
- For the necessity of self defence in such circumstances, read Self Defence in Der Lutheraner ↩︎
- For an in depth review of the particular topic of focus of Saint Paul’s Roman epistle in its first chapter, read On Sodomites Axioi Thanatou ↩︎
- One must also note the strictly expressive nature of Saint Paul’s instruction on headcovering in 1 Corinthians. By appealing to nature and not sexual acts themselves when arguing that women should cover their heads, Saint Paul implicitly acknowledges there is no bifurcation between the common public and intimate private expressions of rightly ordered natures. Womanhood is therefore defined equally in being man’s veiled glory in both the public and private senses. Cognoverit lector. ↩︎
- For the clear explication of Luther’s comments on the VI Commandment, read on Missouri’s departure from Luther’s clear teachings ↩︎
- Emphasis mine ↩︎