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Once again, I am reviewing a sermon by a person that I respect
and admire. Bishop Paul S. Morton is a pioneer of sorts. He
went out on faith a few years ago and started the Full Gospel
Baptist Church Fellowship. And took the world by storm. I
don't doubt his love for God or God's people. I believe wholeheartedly
that he is called of God. But after hearing this "so-called"
sermon I have to bring into question his scholarship. You'd
think a man of this stature would be able to give his followers
something better than uninformed rhetoric. And then to actually
try to pass it off as the Word of God? I mean, AT LEAST give
some new revelation! It's almost like Bishop Morton didn't
even study. With this one, he comes off as "unscholarly" at
best.
He prefaces this speech (can't really call it a sermon) by
saying "God vs. Gays actually means God vs. Gay lifestyles.
He loves the gays. He loves the sinner. He loves all of us
that fall short of the glory of God. It's not that God doesn't
love people; it's the lifestyle that He hates. It really boils
down to God bashing vs. Gay bashing. Bashing means slamming.
And God slams the gay lifestyle. He's saying, 'I'm God, and
I change not. It's not a lifestyle I made for man.' "
Lifestyle simply means "the manner in which a person lives
their life." So what exactly is "the gay lifestyle"? What
do gays do that straight people don't? Is it clubbing? No.
Is it smoking, drugging and drinking? No. Is it promiscuous,
pre-marital or unprotected sex? No. Is it oral or anal sex?
No! Is it infidelity? No. Lying, stealing, murder, gossip?
No. So exactly what is it? Most of the gays and lesbians I
know are upstanding, tax and tithe-paying, church going, law
abiding citizens that are trying to live life the best way
they know how; just like straight people. The one thing straight
people HAVE done is make a mockery of the "sacred institution
of marriage"(check the divorce rate, domestic violence, etc.),
but that's another subject altogether.
After a long spill of social commentary (all the things Co-Pastor
Susie Owens mentioned in her sermon), he then starts on the
well-trodden path of using the literal text of the Bible to
bash the "gay lifestyle". He starts reading Genesis 19,
starting at verse 1. The Bishop didn't give any history, no
cultural analysis, no detail of social climate, or exegetical
definitions of his operative words (like one who has studied
would). He didn't even talk about the rules of hospitality
that governed the Jews of that day or the fact that Lot was
NOT a native of Sodom, but an alien himself. He DID say something
about the "men of Sodom" wanting to rape the two angels. But
did not bring out the fact that Lot was willing to give his
daughters to be raped by an angry, sex-crazed mob and how
outrageous that is. I won't take precious time and space to
proof text Bishop Morton here, you can read The
Truth about Sodom and Gomorrah in the 'Taking a Closer
Look' segment of this Web site.
Then he skips to Leviticus 20.13 where in the Levitical
code (which is fulfilled by Christ), the men who have sex
with each other should be put to death. He didn't mention
that the Levitical code is basically God's way of ensuring
the Jews stay true to their heritage…that they remain separated
from the culture they were submerged into, or that it's on
overall prohibition of IDOL WORSHIP, which included sex orgies
and the like. Now, if we dig deeper, one will find from the
transliterated Hebrew that the verse states "V'ish asher
yishkav et zachar mishk'vei ishah to'evah asu shneihem mot
yumatu d'meihem bam." IN ENGLISH? "And a man who will
lie down with a male in beds of a woman, both of them have
made an abomination; dying they will die. Their blood is on
them." It can be clearly seen that rather than forbidding
sex between men; it is restricting where it may occur. Culturally,
a woman's bed was her own. Other than the woman herself, only
her husband was permitted in her bed, and there were even
restrictions on when he was allowed in there. Any other use
of her bed would have been considered defilement. See what
a little studying can reveal?
Bishop Morton goes on to say "ROBOTS! I think the person
who made your body ought to have some say so over your body.
If you build a robot and tell it to walk, it better walk.
If you tell it to talk it better talk…the old folks used to
say Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" Okay first, I thought
we were created with free will. Was the Bishop actually saying
that God has "programmed" all of us to be just alike? Is he
saying that we are not creatures who possess God's blessing
of choice? I mean, that's the only way him mentioning ROBOTS
would make any sense. Furthermore, the Bible says God thought
it not good for man to be alone, so a "help meet" was made.
In the Hebrew, "helpmeet" is "ezer k'negdo". In the Hebrew,
there are no neuter words. They all are either masculine or
feminine (like heir and heiress). The word ezer (helper) is
a masculine. The feminine form of that word is ezrah. K'negdo
simply means "opposite him". So, since the term ezer (masculine)
is used, that means the helper was a MIRROR IMAGE! And who
is the mirror image of a man? Another man! We could get deeper
into what history, science and theology say about the creation
of humanity but we truly don't have that kind of space.
Then he jumps to Romans 1.24. He reads a little bit
and then throws in "you'd think AIDS would make people
straighten up. They STILL doing what they wanna do."
This letter was written to Christians in 1st Century
Rome. And knowing that, we must understand what was going
in Rome at that time. During that time period, bisexuality
was considered the ONLY "normal" orientation, and society
expected everyone to be bisexual (and we know everyone isn't
bisexual). In addition to that, it was common in that era
(especially in Rome and Greece) to worship idol gods. This
meant people had to disregard their natural (in Greek: phusikos-
instinctive, native disposition) sexuality and do what was
"unnatural" to them as participation in idol worship. Look
how fundamental READING is! A little reading up on Roman history
would have revealed the true meaning of this passage. Now
what does AIDS have to do with this? He didn't say because
it has NOTHING to do with it.
That's when the floodgates opened and Bishop Morton let it
rip. I guess he didn't have anything else of substance to
say. He used Romans 1 to justify following statements... "You
don't try to put 2 plugs or 2 sockets together. I want some
folk to get deliverance. You ain't got no socket rubbing up
against another socket talkin' 'bout 'come on light my fire!'
It ain't gon light!" The congregation went wild. Then
he says, "That's the reason they getting as far as they're
getting now…'cause God gave 'em up! If you living this lifestyle,
I'm here to help you. I love you with all my heart. I wanna
see deliverance in your life. This word is not for God to
give you up. He's giving you a chance to understand that His
word is right!" He reads more, then says "you want
gay rights because you serving the man you want, or the woman
you want more than the One who created you and that's an abomination
in God's sight. People of God, you gotta understand either
we're gonna live by this word, or we're gonna deny this word."
His tirade continues with "We need to break the curse 'cause
even some of these older women are attacking some of these
younger women and placing them in this lifestyle. I rebuke
you in the name of Jesus, and I take authority over you that
you get your filthy hands off of God's property. Somebody's
got to know what the Word of God says." He goes on to
say "That's why you can't even walk right when you doin'
that stuff (the crowd goes wild at his animated prancing).
You hurtin' 'cause it ain't natural." So is the Bishop
saying God has given up on gays and lesbians and this text
proves it? Is he saying that gays and lesbians don't worship
God? Is he saying older lesbians are ATTACKING younger straight
girls and MAKING them lesbians? Come ON! I got another question.
Just how would YOU know that anal sex hurts Bishop? Did we
personally study that one?
If we're going to live by this word (he's talking the literal
text, not the REAL Word of God which is spiritual) there are
a few things that would have to change. First of all, the
Bishop wouldn't be a Bishop. In this country he'd be a slave!
All blacks would be. Slavery wasn't prohibited in Biblical
days (Leviticus 25:39-46). And those brave souls who
stood rebelliously against slavery and fought for our freedom
would have been operating in the sin of witchcraft. And rebellion
is as the sin of witchcraft (I Samuel 15:23). And Bishop's
wife, Debra (an anointed woman of God) would have to sit down,
and shut up. Women were not allowed to address anyone but
their husbands in the Bible days, let alone preach (I Timothy
2:12)! We could go on, but there isn't enough space on
the website to continue on this path. This again goes to show
that LITERAL translations of scripture don't work in today's
society. Because if you're gonna translate ONE scripture literally….ALL
OF IT must be translated literally. Again I say, STUDY!
He goes on to say imply that gays and lesbians don't want
to hear from God. Wrong answer! We DO want to hear from God.
We just have sense enough to know the difference between ignorant,
fear-based, prejudicial rhetoric and God's voice. Jesus said,
"my sheep know my voice, and another they won't hear."
Instead for trying to be "the God of man", and abusing people
with literal, loose and uninformed interpretation of the Word,
Bishop Morton needs to try being a "man of God" and study
so he can deliver a REAL Word from the Lord. How does he know
that there wasn't a person there who was on the brink of committing
suicide and wanted a Word to help them escape the spiritual
pain they're in? What if someone killed himself/herself after
hearing this mess he called the Word of God? How does he know
that someone didn't come to church that night to hear a Word
that would give them hope to persevere through a trying time?
Did he think that something he said could actually keep someone
from blowing his or her brains out? Don't the people he is
supposed to be serving deserve to hear a real Word from the
Lord? Since God is against the "gay lifestyle" then He's against
the "straight lifestyle" too. Studying will show you that
other than the intrinsic differences between people, we are
basically the same. At least Bishop Morton did say one thing
right….God loves us ALL
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