Posted by
Jason Cunningham on Thursday, December 04, 2008 6:18:12 PM
I wanted to draw attention to Frank Pastore's newest column here on Townhall, titled "Jack Black, Jesus and Prop 8." An intriguing title to be sure (it quickly drew me in); I'll let you discover the precise meaning behind it, but here I want to address an issue he raises, an issue about which there is much confusion and is often used against Christians.
I'm talking about the Old Testament prohibition against shellfish. I know: earth-shattering stuff, right? Not on it's own, it's not, but it's become a famous talking point for homosexual advocates, believe it or not.
Whenever anyone such as myself brings up the Old Testament prohibitions against homosexual activity, homosexual advocates often rebut with something like this: "Well the Old Testament also bans the eating of shellfish, but you eat shellfish, right?" Well, first of all, no, I don't eat shellfish. I think they're disgusting. But that's besides the point. Yes, many Christians eat shellfish but oppose homosexuality. So they're big fat hypocrites, right?
No. And here's why: In the course of early human history, everyone had become alike in the sense that everyone did whatever they wanted to do, in rebellion against God and how He wanted us to live. So God, in order to teach mankind His ways, began a process of sanctification, which is a fancy way of saying "setting us apart" -- making us like Him, making us different from the world. But since we humans can be quite blockheaded, God decided to take things slowly and teach us one bit at a time. One of the key strategies He used was to teach us spiritual truth through object lessons, using everyday material things that the ancient Israelites had easy access to. One such thing was the animal kingdom, so God used animals to teach the Israelites the difference between holiness (spiritual cleanliness) and unholiness (spiritual uncleanliness). And here's where the shellfish come in.
Shellfish are bottomfeeders. They eat off the ocean floor, where lots of germy stuff settles. Thus they represented unholiness (spiritual uncleanliness). So God told them to avoid eating shellfish (and that they could eat fish, which aren't bottomfeeders), and thus gave them a tangible demonstration of how to live the spiritually clean life God wanted them to live. (As a side note: God used other animals this way, telling the Israelites, for example, to not eat scavenger birds, because they ate things that had been long dead and thus represented spiritual uncleanliness).
So it's not that God was declaring shellfish to be evil and forever avoided; it was simply an object lesson during the early portion of mankind's gradual process of spiritual growth. When Jesus was on Earth, He declared that it wasn't what went into the body that defiled a person, but what came out of a person's heart that caused defilement -- thus implying that every kind of food was acceptable for eating. This was confirmed after His Ascension when the Apostle Peter had a vision of a sheet containing several types of animals that Jews considered unclean, but God told him, "What God has cleansed you must not call common" (Acts 10:9-16). This was God's way of telling Peter that Gentiles were welcome in His kingdom, and, I think, another way of God saying, "It's not about the food."
And now we come to homosexuality, which, unlike shellfish, was not merely an object lesson. As I've said, Jesus confirmed that there was nothing inherently wrong with shellfish, and that God really was okay with us eating them, after all, that He'd only been using them to demonstrate a spiritual lesson. But God never changed His mind regarding human sexuality. From the very beginning of the Bible (Adam and Eve) to the very end of it (the picture of Jesus as the groom and the Church as His bride), God makes clear His one and only intention for human sexuality: that of one man and one woman in a lifelong commitment (which we call "marriage"). He never gave His approval to polygamy (not even in the case of Solomon), or to adultery (David got in big trouble for that), or to any other sexual relationship besides "one man / one woman" marriage. Not even to homosexuality. And yes, I know (as many homosexuals have lovingly told me) that Jesus never said anything specific against homosexuality. Then again, He never said anything specifically against child molesting, either, but I'm sure we all know what he thinks about that.
But Jesus did have some things to say about human sexuality, and what he said is telling. First, during one of his many conversations with his adversaries, he told them, "Have you not read (in the law) how from the beginning God created them male and female?" To me, this is Jesus's way of saying, "Duh, people. Isn't it obvious? Male and female go together; nothing else does." Second, Jesus was clear that fornication was unacceptable to God ... and fornication is defined as any sexual relationship outside the bonds of marriage ... and the Bible clearly demonstrates that marriage is between one man and one woman ... so by speaking against fornication, Jesus is speaking against every type of sexual relationship outside "one man / one woman" marriage -- including bestiality, adultery, pedophilia, polygamy and, yes, homosexuality.
In short, the whole "shellfish compared to homosexuality" argument has no foundation.