March 14th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
The Christian Post reports (link dead) that the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, has suggested on his blog that homosexuality may have a biological cause and treatment to counter this cause in the womb may be Biblically justified. He’s taking heat on the “right” for suggesting the biological cause and on the “left” for suggesting the treatment.
I don’t find Rev. Mohler’s first seven statements on his blog to be controversial. The first disobedience of Adam has both spiritual and physical consequences through the world and the rest of the human race. We should not be surprised if there is a natural predilection for sinful behavior. Even if a baby in the womb were guaranteed to be gay, it should not be aborted.
As to whether “gay-ness” should be treated in the womb, this is an interesting question. Modern medicine has done amazing things in the womb: repairing heart defects, cystic lung tissue, and other things, but surgery to prevent behavior? That seems a little extreme even if it were possible.
Alcoholism is rumored to have genetic factors. Suppose we could “fix” that. Does that make the person any less of a sinner? No. Maybe the person doesn’t sell out his family and friends for the next drink, but something else will happen. The effort to make a person sinless is at best a waste of cash.
The fix for sin is the same for everybody, whether one has temptations (biological or otherwise) for homosexuality or everything else that puts man’s will above God’s: death by drowning.
…the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts, and, again, a new man daily come forth and arise; who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever. (Small Catechism, Baptism)
Granted, we can’t baptize infants in the womb, but they still hear the Word of God when their parents do. The future John the Baptist leaped for joy in the womb when his mother heard the voice of Mary (Luke 1:41-45). Faith comes by hearing, whether one is inside or outside the womb. When the temptations come, and they will: confess, receive Word and Sacrament to strengthen your faith, and resolve not to sin again. It will be hard, but the life of contrition and repentance is difficult no matter what your demons are.
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:6-9)
March 14th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
If Dr. Mohler thinks we can fix the gene of homosexuality, can we then fix the gene of adultery or pornographic addiction?
Just wondering…
March 15th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I don’t know if homosexuality is genetic. But if it is, it is an error to say because it is genetic, it must be okay. Genetic flaws occur all the time. There are genetic tendencies toward many diseases and psychological disorders. With the way homosexuality is expanding though, I’d have to say that there either must be a strong environmental trigger to it that wasn’t there before…or that it is mostly environmental. When it was not so soundly approved of, many men were seemingly content at least being functional heterosexuals.
In my psychology classes, we learned that something is classified as a disorder if it is deviant, statistically, not morally, and homosexuality is deviant - it deviates away from the statistical norm. Most people are not homosexual. But it also must be considered dysfunctional to fall under the tag of a disorder…keeping the person from functioning in their ordinary life. The argument is that homosexuals can hold jobs, have relationships, and otherwise function normally is pointed out. In a world that defines sexuality solely by the pleasure principle, that would be right. But from both a creationistic principle, where a person is created by God to have a lifelong bond with a person of the opposite sex and produce offspring, that would not be considered functioning well (unless some other issues that is a result of our sinful nature interferes. this also is not a judgement call, infertility is a very painful reality). The fact that the person isn’t attracted to the gender they should be attracted to and cannot seem to function in a heterosexual relationship is overlooked completely.
And even if you take an evolutionary perspective, where propogation of the species is of utmost importance (and I love how evolutionists are often always concerned about overpopulation or extinction..what happened to survival of the fittest and natural selection?), it does not fit either. But to talk in a loop, as a very liberal professor of mine said “we overcame evolution when we invented The Birth Control Pill.” And when The Pill was created and critics said that it would eventually lead to rampant sexuality and even justify homosexuality, they were told that it was a tool for married couples to limit their families and they were accused of being alarmists.
March 15th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
As for the homosexuality issue, it has been my belief for a while that homosexuality could very well be genetic (in fact, I will go as far as saying that I think it is likely at least associated with our biology). And because of that, I am still wrestling with the question, “can I call homosexuality a sin?” I don’t think I can. I can call it an effect of sin. I would instead, make no small deliniation between the act of homosexuality and the ontology (being-ness) of a homosexual person.
I agree with you - if we can alter someone’s biological sexual predispostions to being straight instead of something that is an obvious mutation from what God has set forth in Scripture, it will not “cure” that person from all sexual sin.
There are, however, seemingly no end to troubling ethical questions that come along with this topic. I’ll save those for another time, but things like “a right to be gay”, hatred and defamation of the “remnant” who could not get the treatment before they were born, etc etc come to mind.
I think that THIS is very interesting as well: “Granted, we can’t baptize infants in the womb, but they still hear the Word of God when their parents do. The future John the Baptist leaped for joy in the womb when his mother heard the voice of Mary (Luke 1:41-45). Faith comes by hearing, whether one is inside or outside the womb.” (quoting your blog, Dan)
I really like that idea. Is this a Dan original? Did you get it from someplace else? Could we postulate (and really, never know) that it may be possible for an unBaptized child to have an assurance of Christ’s love through hearing the word through the womb? Or would this be pushing things to an “ex opere operato” (efficacious because the work is done, not because of what the work has done) sphere of understanding the Christian faith? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
In Christ,
jW
March 15th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I think the Apology, in its discussion of concupiscence, makes it very clear that an inclination toward sin is sin. To say otherwise is to embrace Pelagius, saying that we are broken, but that doesn’t mean we are sinful.
“They argue that concupiscence is a penalty [consequence of sin], but not a sin. Luther maintains that it is a sin. It has been said above that Augustine defines original sin as concupiscence. If they don’t like this, then let them argue with Augustine… When our adversaries argue that the evil inclination is an indifferent thing, not only many passages of Scripture, but simply the entire Church, contradict them… Godly people acknowledge these things in themselves, as appears in the Psalms and the Prophets. But in the scholastic academies they took from philosophy entirely different ideas: desire and inclination are neither good nor evil, neither praiseworthy nor of blame. Likewise, that sin is only a sin if it is a voluntary action.” Ap II:38,42,43
So I don’t think the small delineation my friend wants to make is warranted.
On the subject of infant faith, I recommend everyone read what Scaer the Greater writes of it in his tome on infant baptism and what Luther says of it in his treatise written for women who have suffered a miscarriage. The simple fact is that Paul says that faith comes by hearing, not understanding. We have abundant Scriptural teaching that infants can have faith before they are born.
I really like what Petersen said about it on his blog a couple of days ago. He was asked, “Which unborn babies go to hell?” His answer: “The ones that don’t believe in Jesus.” Which ones don’t believe? I suppose it would, at least, be the ones that have never heard the Gospel in their mother’s womb.
March 15th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Seminarian jW,
First I must confess that having read repeatedly your last paragraph I am confused as to whether you are saying that I have either a) copied someone’s work without quoting or b) innovated the Gospel. Such is the pitfall of the written word. I don’t aspire to do either, especially the second. If I have completely misjudged you, please forgive me.
Article V of the Augsburg Confession states:
And yes, Article IX says baptism is required, and we reject those who say it isn’t. We are dealing with an area where a child can’t be baptized, as opposed to people who consciously reject baptism. It would be unfathomable to open up wombs to baptize babies.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
I had a “Lutheran” religion teacher once who told us he and his wife baptized her womb (from the outside) when they found out she was pregnant.
Ya know. Just in case.
March 15th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Dan,
And my apologies for a discombobulated post - I guess the lack of practice posting since my blog went down is showing.
No worries man, I’m not bringing you up on either plagiarism or CTCR charges.
I was asking especially about the idea of reading to a child within womb as being efficacious for that child. So basically, if ya read John 3:16 loud into your wife’s pregnant belly - is something happening there?
I guess I just had never encountered that specific thought before. It pushed me into thinking about a child who dies in the womb.
Am I making more sense?
March 16th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Hey there Chaz,
Thanks for the reply! I hadn’t thought of linking this issue up with concupisence, thanks for doing that for me. I’ll wrestle with this for a bit and get back.
in Christ, jW
March 16th, 2007 at 9:53 am
[...] In Utero March 16th, 2007 at 9:50 am Seminarian jWinters writes in the previous post, “Treating Sin“: I was asking especially about the idea of reading to a child within womb as being [...]
March 16th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Homosexuality is not genetic.
Physically with regard to genetics, there are only two types of people, male and female. Attractiveness to, and lust of, another person is purely an emotional trait.
However, since we are all flawed by sin, be could argue that homosexuality is inherently a possibility for everyone due to both our physical and emotional natures as humans.
Because it is not Genetic, it can not be treated in the normal methods regarding a physical ailment.
Because it is Emotional, it can be modified.
But is it a choice? or a precodition? depends on how one understands the temptations to sin that influence all of us.
If we note, not all homosexuals are effeminent men or masculine women. Most are, almost exclusively, addicts of some emotional sexual compulsion.