Where I Come In: An open letter in defense of Dr. Erik Thoennes

Some Background: In recent weeks, Dr. Erik Thoennes, Chair of Biblical and Theological Studies at Biola University, has come under fire from a number of groups alleging that his remarks regarding a biblical view of homosexuality were inflammatory, insensitive, bigoted, and most importantly, unchristlike. The Huffington Post published this piece by Rev. Dr. Cindi Love about the Biola Queer Underground, a group of undergraduate students who recently announced their sexual orientation on a conservative evangelical Christian campus that denounces homosexuality. In her support of these students and her rejection of perspectives that adhere to a traditional biblical view of human sexuality, Dr. Love calls out Dr. Thoennes for his refusal to embrace homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle for a committed believer.

Where I Come In:

An open letter in defense of Dr. Erik Thoennes
by Zach Underwood

I don’t have time to be writing this letter. I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the emotional wherewithal. I don’t have the spotless background to condemn sexual sin in others without hypocrisy, and to do so would be to invite having my nose rubbed in my own impurity. My life has at times been rife with sexual sin: the allure of fornication, the ubiquitousness of adultery, the temptation of pornography. Despite decades of being a Christian, there are still things in this world that can leave your purity in a heap of rubble. I am no different (forget ‘better’) than the adulterer who ruins a marriage or embraces the idol of sexual gratification, or the base, lust-filled fornicator who lives in the flesh instead of in the spirit. In fact, I am he. By aligning myself with Dr. Thoennes here today, I don't doubt that the little pink equal signs that riddle my facebook home page will in all likelihood begin to slowly dwindle as some 'unfriend' me for admitting to the reality of sin in my past, and others, for coming out of the closet as a "closed-minded bigot". For more reasons than I can possibly count, it is neither personally profitable nor professionally beneficial for me to stand shoulder to shoulder with K. Erik Thoennes, a man whose treatment by other people in the recent days has left me puzzled and dismayed. And while many people, Christian or otherwise, may disagree with me, the tide has shifted in this country to the point that the reprisal I may face for remarks in his defense could isolate and marginalize me in a way that a GLBTQ individual could never possibly understand. I do it gladly all the same, without apology and without concern for how these words may affect my worth in the eyes of men.

For starters, I’d like to point out that it takes courage, grit, and good ol’ fashion guts for a GLBTQ student at Biola University or any other conservative Christian campus to come out of the closet publicly. I believe (and trust that Dr. Thoennes would concur) that a loving, living, and sovereign God loves those students more than this flimsy letter could ever presume to express. I pray with all my heart that the fifteen students of the Biola Queer Underground, and all those who have not yet made the decision to declare their sexuality publicly, know that as well. It breaks my heart when homosexuals or anyone else have to endure bullying or abuse for any reason, including abuse resulting from the way they choose to publicly identify themselves. Courage, however, while virtuous, is not exclusively employed in acts of righteousness. We musn't forget that the fortitude to speak openly about something so sensitive under such difficult circumstances, is not what makes them right or wrong. Likewise, the boldness with which Dr. Thoennes compared 'queerness' to 'racism', does not make him right or wrong.

I’d also like to add that while I don’t believe Dr. Thoennes has ever bullied or berated a person for their sexual orientation (nor was this audio clip of his dispassionate remarks necessarily deserving of the label ‘homophobic rant’), I do admit that comparing queerness to racism is an argument fraught with potentially perilous misunderstandings, both with and without proper context. The only mistake I'll concede that Dr. Thoennes actually made was assuming that everyone who heard his comments was starting from the same baseline as he was with the same presuppositions of biblical truth. If we assume one accepts that the bible declares homosexuality to be sin, comparing the two is not only logical inasmuch as Dr. Thoennes believes that both homosexuality and racism are sins, but is also a brilliant rhetorical maneuver. He takes the oft-touted civil rights angle in defense of homosexuality (that being part of an ethnic minority and being part of a sexual minority, are identically innate and therefore justifiable) and turns it on its ear. Rather than compare being marginalized for reasons of race to being marginalized for reasons of sexual proclivity, he draws a clear line in the sand between intolerance of a person’s God-given nature and intolerance of someone’s sin, and exposes the logical flaw inherent in the arguments of those who attempt a biblical defense of homosexuality, namely, the faulty assumption that one thing (racism) is a sin and the other (homosexuality) is not. Please do not misunderstand me: the assumption, “homosexuality is not a sin” is faulty, not necessarily the belief “that homosexuality is not a sin”. To prove the belief is faulty, one must decide whose authority it will appeal to on the subject. As sad as I find it that in our culture, someone in my position would find that the burden of proof falls to him, I accept that challenge with a glad heart. Frankly, as a wretched man in a fallen world, I would normally err on the side that it is incumbent upon me (as the one who is embracing potentially sinful behavior) to prove that my sin is either justifiable, unavoidable, or in fact, not sin at all. As scripture is quite clear on sin, I have never successfully accomplished this. Instead, as the author of a letter defending a wicked, wretched sinner by his own admission, like Dr. Erik Thoennes, and at the risk of losing whatever readers have decided to graciously bear with me thus far, I gladly accept the mantle of presenting the biblical view of homosexuality.

The biblical perspective of homosexuality is that it is a sin, whether we like it or not, that is no different from any other sin. Genesis 19 says that the men in Sodom and Gomorrah were punished for their sexual perversion, not simply their violent desire to rape Lot’s guests. Leviticus identifies homosexuality as an abomination, twice (18:22 and 20:13). Jude 7 identifies homosexuality as a sinful, unnatural desire that must be punished. Romans 1:26-27 is very specific in regards to the seriousness of homosexuality. All that said, homosexuality is neither more than nor less than, a sin. The church may be full of wrongheaded people who see being gay as a real sin (a ‘serious’ one as opposed to those little white sins—‘innocuous’ little things like gossip or slander) but a proper view of sin, is that in the eyes of the Lord, all sin is equally inhibiting to the communion between the created and their Creator. I have asked people who both condemn homosexuality outright and who defend it blindly if it is more wrong for a pastor’s wife to gossip until the day she dies without recognition or repentance, or for a homosexual to deny the sinfulness of their thoughts/actions and their need for repentance from sexual impurity that he or she fails to recognize. It’s not an easy question to answer, but the short version is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The nature of that sin is less important than the reality, persistence, and ultimate effect of that sin; it is a deficiency that renders us ineligible for worshiping at the feet of a holy and just God.

The rotten truth of the matter is that I am probably guilty of more heterosexual sin than many homosexuals are of homosexual sin (which hopefully you realize must exist, even if you've decided homosexuality isn't inherently wrong—there is plenty of heterosexual sin on this earth), and if there was some sort of variable tipping scale with which to weigh my sin against the standard of righteousness that is God’s holiness, I would likely be more guilty and worthy of condemnation than most practicing homosexuals. The beauty of the Gospel is that it doesn’t work that way at all. Aside from necessitating our destruction in the absence of a savior, our sinfulness predates our existence and is confirmed by almost every impulsive thought or massive failure we have ever found scribbled on our ledger. A biblical perspective of sin however, says that sin is sin, and that any wickedness, be it great or small, is enough to separate us from the love of God. I’d venture to guess that all GLBTQ individuals sinned well before those desires kicked in, let alone before they acted on them. So this means that any single sin is enough to drive a wedge between us and a sovereign God, regardless of whether or not that sin is sexual in nature.  

But this means that Christians who embrace alternative sexual orientations have a problem on their hands. If the recognize that all have sinned, and everyone needs a savior, then in regards to homosexuality they must either reject the veracity of scripture, or deny its importance in comparison to the demands of a modern and increasingly tolerant society. The Bible, as the divinely-inspired Word of God states repeatedly that homosexuality is a sin. The intellectually honest believer could better start by denying the infallibility of scripture than simply reinterpreting the bible to suit their whims. The truth of the matter is however, that our feelings, our desires, our emotions, our vitriol, and even our faith, are insufficient for reconciling us to God. They’re equally insufficient for justifying a rewriting of the Gospel that embraces a particular lifestyle.

That “it doesn’t work that way” is one of the most beautiful realities of the Gospel.

The problem is that many people who claim to embrace the teachings of Christ, tend not to actually care that Christ died (and rose again) for the very real, very serious, very evil sins of the world, atoning in an instant for every deficiency of those who call upon his name as their only hope for salvation. We don’t even have to start with whether or not homosexuality qualifies as sin—we’re afforded an opportunity to look first at whether or not we all qualify as sinners, as the New Testament (which I keep seeing bandied about as a defense of queerness) clearly states. If we start with that, the question of whether or not homosexuality is acceptable for a believer to practice, while an astonishingly important one, is completely marginalized by the enduring work of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross. In other words, even if your homosexuality, or my sexual sin, or Dr. Thoennes’ is completely natural and acceptable (through some misunderstanding of scripture) then we all still need a Savior! Homosexuals are not condemned simply because of the alleged biggest sins in their lives—regardless of whether or not we agree that it’s a sin—but the aggregate of sin in their lives, which constitutes a sinful nature from which no naturally born human being in the history of man is exempt.

To those who would argue that Christ was tolerant and accepting of all people, I take umbrage. He loved all people, yes. But love requires truth, and it necessitates a desire to see truth reign supreme and falsehood scattered to the ends of the earth. The underlying assumption of Jesus Christ during his ministry may in fact have been a headstrong, self-assured, confidence. “Whaddya got? Name the sin in which you are drowning—I’ll take on all comers! There is no sin too big for me.” Jesus likely knew very well that there was no sin lurking in the hearts of man that could escape extinction from Calvary’s ruthless assault on darkness. But he didn’t hang out with prostitutes, enjoy a light dinner and some casual conversation, and then bid them a good evening with a hearty and tolerant, “Keep up the good work, ladies!” Instead, he called sinners to repentance. He told people to take up their cross and follow him, to hate their father and mother, to sell everything they had and give to the poor, to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The silly version of Jesus that so many people ‘believe in’—the hyper-deferential, Zen Buddhist, goody-two-shoes, kumbaya-preaching Jesus that gets constantly waved in my face—never actually makes an appearance in my Bible.

Sadly, what many people are unable to glean from the abundance of scathing criticisms of Dr. Thoennes, is that he believes that he is called to preach the gospel of Christ—not to simply speak academically about it. He and the majority of his colleagues have no interest in being popular, hip, liked, or ‘seeker friendly’ if it’s to come at the cost of seeing biblical truth undermined. As a pastor, Dr. Thoennes may want to see butts in the seats on Sunday, but he has made a conscious decision not to water down Scripture in order to put them there. And despite whatever privilege people may confer upon the middle-aged, white males who constitute much of the faculty at Biola, it was actually this same specific demographic that Dr. Thoennes points to for perpetuating atheism—a belief which has undermined the role of moral absolutes, the existence of definitive truth in society, and is largely responsible for the proliferation of uneducated and misguided interpretations of Scripture. Ironically, many of the recent remarks made as an indictment of Dr. Thoennes and people of his ilk, quote New Testament authors like Paul and Peter in defense of their beliefs, not only playing lingual gymnastics with their words (like citing passages which are clearly meant to bridge divisions between Jews and Gentiles), but are often just a stone’s throw away from passages where those divinely-inspired authors admonish their audiences not to contort Scripture to fit their whims and sinful desires. Unfortunately, this rather tragic irony is lost on those who have already decided that they—and not the millennia of foolhardy and misguided Christians who constitute the Body of Christ—are the only ones in history to correctly interpret biblical doctrine in regards to homosexuality. An intellectually honest proponent of a biblical defense of homosexuality would be better served to start by assuming they are trying to contort scripture to suit their sinful desires, rather than assume that the titans upon whose shoulders they stand were too ignorant and pigheaded to properly glean biblical truth from biblical texts.

It is hard, to be sure, for some Christians to consider the possibility that scripture makes no defense of homosexuality. Presupposing for a moment, that everything you believe is wrong, is a remarkably healthy, remarkably difficult thing to do. But dismissing an idea as ‘archaic’ has almost nothing to do with that idea’s veracity or merit, and instead has everything to do with what a modern society has decided is the proper perspective of that idea. To put it another way, it takes an ideological shift in the authority one recognizes and subscribes to in order to justify rejecting scriptural truth and instead embracing society’s truth. It’s a decision every one of us must make, but instead far too many people skip that step, presuming instead to realign scripture to their desires, rather than conforming their hearts to the Word of God. I know this, because I make this same mistake almost every day of my life.

Finally, many people listening to statements from other people regarding Dr. Thoennes, or even his own remarks, may conclude that he is a misguided and calloused man who unapologetically made indefensible statements regarding people who identify themselves as 'queer'. Others may conclude that he isn’t totally ignorant but simply made a mistake, an error in judgment that led to unfortunate phrasing. It would be easy for me, in my defense of Dr. Thoennes, to portray him as thoughtless, illogical, or insensitive, in my haste to spare him from words like ‘bigoted’, ‘bullying’ and ‘brutish’. Unfortunately, I can’t do any of that. The man I know is among the most, sensitive, kind, compassionate and thoughtful men I’ve ever met. Furthermore, any assumptions that he sees the sin of a homosexual as being worse than his own are completely unfounded. Dr. Thoennes would never suggest that his own wickedness is somehow less toxic than a homosexual’s. But to the Christian who reads this, whether they have or have not made up their mind about what God’s Word says about this issue, Dr. Thoennes’ attention to scriptural truth over the acceptance of society and the banal platitudes of people whose ‘god’ doesn’t even fit in the box they put him in, tells me all I need to know. Bear in mind, my opinion of his character has literally nothing to do with whether or not he is right. But Dr. Thoennes, if he is in fact speaking biblical truth, is oozing love for all of those around him, regardless of their sexual orientation. And it doesn’t take more than a cursory examination of Scripture to see that he is in lockstep with it. But ostracizing and marginalizing homosexuals is the opposite of what Dr. Thoennes stands for, because he doesn’t pray for the GLBTQ community to cast off their identity and embrace Christ’s—he prays for everyone to cast off their identity and embrace Christ’s. And whether his perspective resonates with you or not, Erik Thoennes isn’t concerned with seeing 'queers' come to Jesus—he’s concerned with seeing sinners come to Jesus.

And that’s where I come in…

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.                    --Chapter 4 of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians