For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
(Romans 1:18–2:1, ESV)
We have examined this text before in relation to the homosexual issue, but there’s more to this text than that. The text warns us about what can happen if a society decides to look down or laterally but not Up for its worship & sexual ethics (faith & practice in general). It al also informs us about the internal dynamics of hate.
The purpose of the created order, according to 1:20 is to testify to the existence, attributes. & authority of God by which we are all held accountable for our thoughts, words, & deeds. It goes on to inform us that people in the ancient world suppressed God’s image & authority, then they substituted their own & other image drawn from the created order, then they did worship & sexual ethics accordingly.
Consequently, they did all manner of sexual activities in service to one or more pagan pseudodeities. Then, God decided to proverb them, resulting in the Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, Egypt, Gibeah, the sack of Jerusalem, 2/3 of Rome burned to the ground, & the end of more than one ancient civilization.
At its heart, love looks to God’s image alone & then does worship & sexual ethics (all ethics) accordingly. Matthew 22 reminds us that the first table of the Law is summarized as “Love God, first. Do so exhaustively & perfectly. The second table is about loving others exhaustively & perfectly before yourself & after God.” This sort of love fulfills the Law (Romans 13) & conquers guilt related fear in the Judgment.
Hate parodies love. Hate looks not to God’s image & authority but to images drawn from the created order. Hate is a failure to love God exhaustively & perfectly & others before yourself and a persistence in this attitude toward God & others that becomes increasingly recalcitrant, unteachable, & impervious (but not immune) to sound correction. Over time, hate destroys individuals, ecclesiastical institutions, civil governments, & whole societies.
Haters look to themselves & their own image first, then to any number of sources of truth other than God’s image & authority. Over time, it can become institutionalized.
Why is there a perpetual state of war between a great many Christians & the LGBTQ community? Because for several generations, people have been taught to look to their bodies and/or psyche in order to do sexual ethics. It isn’t unusual for homosexuals to appeal to their biogenetics &/or psychology in order to underwrite their sexual ethics. Christians who follow after the traditional view are reasoning the same way & coming to a different conclusion.
Men in churches & society have been doing it for centuries too. Women are told that they are unfit for office because of their sex/gender not because of their morals. According to John Gill, Adam sinned the greater, but the Serpent was on to something because, after all, leadership is something for which just plain aren’t cut out to do.
How does gluttony work in the modern world? Robert Reich is right when he points out that modern day gluttons are accustomed to not having to look at the poor. The uber-rich might avoid driving through the sadder parts of Las Vegas. While Americans debate health care freedom & mask usage, they remain (self-reinforcingly) ignorant about what the flu & pneumonia do in sub-Saharan Africa on an annual basis.
White Supremacy is built on the foundation of looking to the human image and a quasi-romanticized view of history that runs through the White Man’s Burden narrative. They look to their own image & culture and the result is a racial narrative that scapegoats Jews, LGBTQ people, principled religious dissenters, non-white &/or non-Aryan people for all their problems.
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