Jesus Didn't Say

Thursday night on Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN, the last hour was consumed with a report on "What is a Christian?" It was an interesting report, fairly balanced, and covering several areas such as Christianity and politics, Christianity and environmentalism, end times, the Word Faith movement, and Unitarians. Several times during the show, Mr. Cooper interacted with a panel of three. Richard Land is pastor and president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Jim Wallis is the author of "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It." He's also the president of Sojourners, a progressive Christian ministry. The Reverend Dwight Hopkins is an American Baptist minister and professor of theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Mr. Cooper asked the three what a Christian was. Of course, there were varying answers. Reverend Hopkins suggested that Christians were to be primarily concerned with "what Jesus Christ says in the four gospels of the New Testament." In context, it seemed innocuous, but there was a method to his madness. When the subject of homosexuality came up, Mr. Cooper asked what each thought. Reverend Hopkins fell back on his mantra. "Jesus never spoke on the issue of homosexuality. So we're at a loss as far as what Jesus has to say."

This is a standard "defense" against Christians who argue that homosexual behavior is against the Bible. I would hope that a mere moment's thought would shoot this one down in flames. "Jesus never spoke on the issue" of rape, torture, incest, child molestation ... oh, lots of things which we all agree are against the Bible. This is no form of evidence that homosexual behavior is a biblically sound practice.

The real problem for me, however, is not merely this defense. It is the further ramification. Reverend Hopkins has managed to eliminate nearly 94% of the Bible. If the primary concern of the Christian is 4 books out of 66, we've lost a lot. We've lost the wisdom of Solomon, the worship of the Psalmists, the morality of the Law, and the history of Israel. We've lost the prophets and the apostles, the foundation of the Church (Eph. 2:20). Without Paul, we've lost the entire explanation of redemption, justification, and sanctification. Without James we wouldn't know that faith without works is dead. It is only John who tells us that the one born of God cannot make a practice of sinning. And while we may have a good idea of things like the Deity of Christ from the gospel of John, the concept is filled out in Paul's letters and in Hebrews. Let's face it. If Christianity is only concerned with the four books of the Gospels, Christianity is anemic and baseless (Eph. 2:20).

Homosexual behavior and its sinfulness aside, we dare not limit our Christianity to "what Jesus said". Too many things are at stake. We need the whole counsel of God as contained in the whole Bible. And basing our Christianity on what Jesus did not say will put us in a nightmare realm. Let's not try to push limits by removing truth.