Lgbtq

LGBTQ: Lov is Love

I was inspired to write this sermon by Reverend Calvin Robinson’s rebuttal in debate at Oxford Union February 15, 2023. He spoke of LGBTQ and its conflict with Christianity in a powerful loving way. I will quote him in this work.

The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It also tells us that to sin in the least of things is to sin in all things. Therefore, I can hold no one sin as worse than other sins in the eyes of the LORD. This idea that all have sinned in some way must be kept in your mind as you hear this sermon; do not pretend to be a non-sinner, a perfect person.

The subject today is LGBTQ. The history of the acronym LGBTQ: According to Ms. Magazine, the first acronym to take shape in the 1990s was "GLBT," used to describe those who identified as gay, or lesbian, or bisexual, or transgender. "LGBT" eventually replaced "GLBT" in the mid-2000s, as lesbian activists fought for more visibility. Activists and members of the queer community have since come together to form the current acronym, "LGBTQIA+." The L stands for Lesbian, the G for Gay, the B for Bisexual, the T for Transgender and the Q for Queer for those questioning their identity.

American culture is thrusting LGBTQ upon us from everything to sex changes for children, to transgender participation in women’s sports, to drag queen shows for all ages. The LGBTQ community believe that when human beings love other human beings in many different ways, that “Love is Love.”, but is it? I have no doubt that some will consider me a bigot or a transphobe or a homophobe but I am neither of these things and none of those things. I am simply a follower of Christ, a Christian. Today’s liberals are driving our culture. We Christians are and always have been counter-cultural. If liberals were truly as diverse and tolerant as they claim to be, they would entertain our point of view just as they entertain other points of view. They do not so we Christians must speak to that audience and to those affected by it.

This sermon is as much a teaching as it is a preaching. This teaching begins with Greek; it was the language of the Eastern Mediterranean and thus the language that Paul, Mark, John and the other authors that wrote our inspired New Testament. Our English New Testament translators’ goal: Translate the best extant Greek text into English as accurately and yet be as easy to understand as possible. You see, if you read a Greek text translated word for word into English, it would be very difficult to understand. On the other hand, if translators make a translation too easy to read in English it may lose some of its meaning. A balance between a verbatim translation and reading ease is always a translator’s goal.

So what of our translations, all of the people who translated the Bible into English faced the problem, how best to say in English what the extant Hebrew and Greek text expressed almost 2,000 years ago. In 1526, William Tyndale translated Hebrew and Greek texts into Early Modern English Bible. In 1611, the King James Bible first appeared. I have a copy of that; its English is hard to read. In 1895, the English of that era became the Authorized King James Version. Many churches still use it. However, we now have many other good English translations: The International Version, The New Revised Standard Version, and The New American Bible to list a few. These newer translations have the advantage of the additional extant texts earlier scholars did not have, and so we believe the newer translation are more accurate. However, some translation challenges still exist for some Greek and Hebrew words and phrases do not have satisfactory English equivalents.

One of our Greek to English challenges is the word “love”. In English, I can say, “I love hot dogs.” or “I love my wife.” or “I love America.” “My neighbor loves automobiles.” Now loving hot dogs in nothing like loving my wife nor like loving America and certainly not like loving automobiles. Unlike our English, the Greek language recognizes that there are different kinds of love. Their language has six different words to describe what English translators often translated as “love”. In addition, other Greek word variants that relate to the meaning of love. So, how did translators go from Greek to English and convey as close as possible the original meaning of love in particular scriptures? Let us look at these Greek words for the different kinds of love and see if liberals are correct in saying that “Love is Love.”