Here we are, three days before Christmas, and in the midst of another Christian controversy. I refer, of course, to the comments Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” fame made about homosexuality and the Bible in a recent interview with GQ magazine.
We can talk about Robertson’s comments about the relative attractiveness to “dudes” of certain male and female body parts. We can talk about how his descriptions of sin jibe with mainstream Christian doctrine.
We can talk about freedom of speech, or companies’ right to make decisions by their own values (which applies to the Christian founders of Hobby Lobby as much as Robertson’s employers at the A&E network).
We can talk about the dichotomy between the way the GQ writer highlighted the things Robertson said that were likely to offend others, and the writer’s frequent cussing and blaspheming in an article about a show that maintains, as he put it, a “no-cussing, no-blaspheming tone.”
In short, we can talk a lot about what other people have said about, or done toward, others.
But if Robertson had anything truthful to say about sin — and I believe he did — we’d do well to apply his words to ourselves.
The Scripture that Robertson paraphrased in the interview, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, reads as follows in the New International Version:
“Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Given the rest of the interview, the part Robertson paraphrased as “homosexual offenders” has drawn the most criticism from gay activists, among others.
Likewise with what Robertson said he considers sinful: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”
But if you are a Christian who agrees with Robertson’s inclusion of homosexuality on a list of sins, don’t ignore the other items on the list: “sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman”; adultery, greed, drunkenness, slander, swindling; and a kind of catch-all sin, idolatry.
Idolatry is the subject of “Strange Gods,” an insightful new book by Elizabeth Scalia. “If God created humankind in his image,” Scalia writes, “we humans … create gods so reflective and shiny, they keep us looking at ourselves. … I’ve come to believe that an idol is an idea, fleshed out or formed by craftiness and a certain needy self-centeredness.”
Just about every Christian I know, myself included, can plead guilty to at least that one. We ought not emphasize one sin we may not be inclined toward, and de-emphasize those which are all too tempting. One need not ignore the one to acknowledge the others.
Some of Robertson’s defenders argue Americans are too eager to dismiss the sinfulness of anything they’d rather accept. They’re right — and we all do it.
But just as Robertson applied the biblical principle of sin to all of us, so did he hold out the biblical hope of grace and redemption for all. That is the good news Christians proclaim: that because we are all sinners, a baby was born more than 2,000 years ago to bear that burden for us.
It’s a case of getting the bad news first, and then the good news. It is, as the saying goes, the reason for this Christmas season.
