Woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!

You know Tony Campolo, right? Pretty big name, actually. He was the spiritual advisor to President Clinton, an author, a speaker, evangelist, and a well-known "evangelical left". He was the subject of a heresy hearing in 1985 because of some of his assertions in his book, A Reasonable Faith. Because of the book, Campus Crusade for Christ and Youth for Christ cancelled his speaking engagements with them. He was found to be "naive" and "incautious", but not heretical. Now he has come out of the closet, so to speak. He has called for "the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church."

Well, of course, none of it has any biblical backing. I mean, he doesn't offer any explanation as to why, in his "countless hours of prayer, study, conversation and emotional turmoil", he decided that the Church has always been wrong on this topic and the Bible does not say what it repeatedly says on the morality of homosexual behavior or the meaning of marriage. So why does he say he changed his mind?

It's interesting, first, why he said he was opposed before. He was always "somewhat ambiguous", he says, and believed that being ambiguous on the question helped him serve as "a bridge person" between homosexuals and Christians. So why change? Well, a key reason is his wife. She always favored same-sex unions and she encouraged him to do the same. Besides, he knows so many nice "gay Christian couples". Well, that should be good enough to convince anyone. Besides, we were always wrong on that whole "keep women out of leadership" issue, weren't we? Why not this one, too?

Campolo ends with, "I hope what I have written here will help my fellow Christians to lovingly welcome all of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters into the Church." I sincerely hope that what he has written won't serve to encourage "the least of these" to fall into temptation, deny Scripture, jettison the Church, or encourage further sin. I'm afraid that's a slim hope.

"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!" (Matt 18:5-7)