But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. (1 Corinthians 5:11)

The Sad Truth Has Now Come Emerging

By now you may know that recently Christian Singer Jennifer Knapp came out as a lesbian, which Apprising Ministries covered in Jennifer Knapp And Homosexuality. The other night she appeared on Larry King Live as you’ll see below via SuchIsLifeVideos. In previous posts like Correcting Brian McLaren “On Faith” And Homosexuality I’ve warned that there’s a same-sex storm gathering hurricane force, which is right now, looming only slightly off the horizon of the mainstream evangelical community.

As I’ve pointed out before, there’s a very specific reason why the Lord moved me to begin covering the issue of a growing acceptance within evangelicalism that the deviant and sinful lifestyle of having sexual relations with another of the same sex, i.e homosexuality, is a viable one for the regenerated Christian. Now for those who may be familiar with fire bases in Vietnam, which were temporary artillery encampments there to provide fire support and quarters for ground operations near the front lines, in the dark of night there were many times enemy forces would try and move in for a sneak attack.

So periodically flares were shot high above the area to light up the night sky in order to monitor any possible movement of enemy troops. And even in this spiritual war Satan’s seducing spirits sneak around in the darkness with their didaskaliais daimonion (doctrines of demons). Well, I’m using the issue of homosexuality to light up the sky with the Word of God to give you a chance to see the wide, and very rapid, advance of the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church—which is a cult of neo-liberalism now firmly within mainstream of the visible church. Its primary goal has been to attack Sola Scriptura.

Through its core doctrine of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), masquerading as spurious Spiritual Formation ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard, Emergent Church leaders have been quite successful in taking the focus off proper Christian spirituality and putting it upon mere subjective feelings. As one theologian put it recently:

it is a defined dogma that God cannot be defined! And therein lies the rub, which I felt already in those early years, but which later became an even greater spiritual and intellectual irritant: how do I hold together all the certain knowledge I have as a theologian and am supposed to affirm as a believer with what I have increasingly felt,…

I’m not asking for some kind of neat, well-defined meaning to take the place of the literal meanings of those [cardinal doctrines of Christianity]. I, and many of my fellow Christians, are simply asking, “What do we believe if we don’t believe in the literal sense of such statements.” [1]

But no one’s saying that we know everything there is to know about God; what we are saying is: What God revealed about Himself in Scripture can be known; that’s a huge difference. You’ll often hear the following EC red herring as well; and you’d best get ready for it. The below was tweeted earlier today by EC church planter Jamie Arpin-Ricci, inner city pastor, Fransciscan, and missional practioner:

“The Bible is perfectly clear on that topic” can all too often be code for “This is what I believe & there is no room for discussion”. Hmmm (Online source) 

However, that proves nothing because I can just as easily turn around and say, “The Bible is perfectly clear on that topic” can also be the code for “This is what the Bible does say, and so, I believe it & there is no need for discussion.” The above views are absolutely essential for such as these to open the door for existential, and unverifiable, mystic experiences as the criterion for interpreting Holy Scripture; in other words, they are imposing onto the text how they personally feel about a given section of the Bible. And being we have a corrupted reasoning process, due to the Fall, it’s a perfect recipe for spiritual disaster.

Professing Christian Jennifer Knapp Has Made The Sad Choice Not To Repent Of Her Sin

Now against this proper backdrop we look at Knapp’s appearance on Larry King Live. A couple of things come emerging: Knapp does indeed claim Jesus Christ; and she has chosen to contend that her unrepentant, and ongoing, homosexual lifestyle is not sinful one for a Christian. Knapp’s argument is essentially summed up below when King asks Jennifer Knapp about the Bible and homosexuality:

KING: You don’t feel that your Bible speaks against it. Or, do you?

KNAPP: Well, I think there’s plenty of evidence in my exploration of my faith through the sacred text of the Holy Bible that I have definitely recognized that we are somewhat at the handicap of our own interpretations of a sacred text. Let’s take for example the original Greek translation of which I am no academic scholar of. Yet, you know, we all know that any time that we read a book or we read any kind of word, that it becomes the interpretation of our life’s experience, what we want to bring out of that. (Online Source)

Christian apologist Chris Rosebrough, host of Fighting for the Faith (FftF) on Pirate Christian Radio, has elsewhere done an excellent job refuting this argument. [2] And then Knapp uses another common liberal/progressive tactic of injecting a red herring to try confusing the categories. Knapp is talking with Pastor Bob Botsford of Horizon North County, whom I know nothing about, and she asks him a question he obviously wasn’t ready for:

KNAPP: If I am a sinner and homosexuality is a sin, let’s just go on that premise for a moment. But what separates that particular sin out from the fact that I’m angry or mad at someone or that I cheat or maybe, you know — what separates that out as so grievous to you that we have to sit here and have this type of conversation?

BOTSFORD: Well, it’s interesting. There’s — sin is sin. You’re absolutely right. And we all have sin.

KNAPP: So, why are we — why am I — why aren’t you in this seat and I’m in the other seat condemning you on national television?  (Online Source)

I’ll come back to that in a moment. First, I remind you that previously in Jesus Defines Marriage For Red Letter Christians I showed clearly from the Bible Jesus defines marriage as strictly between a male and a female; and by doing so He is instructing us, from God’s standpoint, any homosexual activity will always be outside of the marriage covenant. And, since the Bible condemns all sexual activity outside of marriage as sin, therefore homosexuality is actually found among the sexual immorality that Christians are specifically told by God, our Creator, to flee from (e.g. see—1 Cor. 6:15-20). 

So when Knapp introduces that “why” question, if you’re not careful to sidestep here and stay on point, you’ll end up running down a rabbit trail and end in what I refer to as wrestling with the snake. As soon as you focus on one area it then twists you to another, and before you know it, you’re far away from the subject you’re actually attempting to discuss. Concerning homosexuality, we must remind people that this is sin of a sexual nature, which immediately sets it apart from the other sin Knapp has mentioned above. Notice carefully what God tells us below:

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18) 

Can you see; the Holy Spirit chose to set all other sin apart from that of sexual immorality, which itself includes all sexual relations outside of marriage—whether it be homosexual or heterosexual. There’s Knapp’s answer right there: She’s willfully committing the sin of sexual immorality using her personal temple of Jesus Christ to bring Him shame before the world. And my love for Jesus compels me now to call Jennifer Knapp to repent; and since she’s continuing to disregard the Word of God, she should now be very publicly, and openly, shunned by the Body of Christ until she repents.

Don’t you kid yourself; the EC is already embracing Knapp, also in violation of God’s Word, so look for her to show up at a major EC conference soon. And you’d best understand that, with its new “big tent” Progressive Christian theology aka Emergence Christianity, the neo-liberal cult of the Emerging Church is right now working to make affirming homosexuality an issue even within your own mainstream evangelical church—and sooner than you may even think.

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Endnotes

1. Paul F. Knitter, Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian [Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009] , 56, 57, emphasis his.
2. An In-Depth Look At What The Bible Says About Homosexuality, accessed 4/25/10.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

See also:

THE SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS DIFFERENT

BUT DO EMERGENCE CHRISTIANITY AND BRIAN MCLAREN REALLY LOVE GAY PEOPLE?

HOMOPRESSION IS AT LEAST AS BAD AS HOMOPHOBIA

HOMOPRESSIVE AS JAY BAKKER 

RICK BRENTLINGER OF GAY CHRISTIAN 101 AND KEN SILVA

QUICK WORD ON SIN OF HOMOSEXUALITY

ADELE SAKLER AND KEN SILVA