Flaws in the Well-Meaning but Misguided 'Imago Dei' Campaign Concerning 'Gays'
On Jan. 27, The Christian Post put out an article by Nicola Menzie entitled, "Can Another 'Gay-Friendly' Faith Group Help Steer the Conversation for Christians on Homosexuality?" Menzie writes in glowing terms about the "Imago Dei Campaign" that is calling on all sides of the culture war to recognize that both "straight and gay" people are made in God's image.
I appreciate the fact that this "campaign" apparently continues to view homosexual practice as sin (though in extremely muted tones) and that it wants to promote love for those who engage in it. However, its half-orbed message that "the image of God exists in all human beings: black and white; rich and poor; straight and gay; conservative and liberal; victim and perpetrator; citizen and undocumented; believer and unbeliever" is flawed.
It lumps together very different categories. There is nothing intrinsically immoral about ethnicity, social status, party affiliation, citizen status, or even the mere experience of sexual attractions to do what God forbids.
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I have a suggestion: In order to make clearer the message that affirmation of one's creation in the image of God does not lead to support for all behaviors, the organizers of the campaign should add something more explicit like: "serial pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and the people they victimize."
Those who might react viscerally against the proposed addition make my point. "How dare you compare people in homosexual relationships to serial pedophiles, rapists, and murderers?" But if the list is not constructed to convey that all the groups on the list are morally equal, why would there be any problems with adding serial pedophiles, rapists, and murderers? After all, they too are made in God's image, as are all humans that live today and have ever lived.
By reacting negatively to my proposed addition people confirm that the list does give a false impression of a certain moral parity among the various groups. It also confirms that there is something a tad askew in using the Imago Dei as a rubric for calling on people to end the "polarizing rhetoric" and "rhetorical bullying." If all people are made in God's image but some people are doing and/or promoting destructive behaviors, it is not "polarizing rhetoric" or "rhetorical bullying" to take a strong public stance against such behaviors.
Other front-and-center messages at the "campaign" website appear to add additional encouragement to refrain from public messages against the coercive imposition of homosexualism in society. "Our challenge is to see the image of God in the … marginalized [and] the oppressed," which so far as it applies to persons who engage self-affirmingly in homosexual practice sounds like a line straight from a "gay" advocacy playbook.
False antitheses are repeatedly put forward. "Christianity stands measured not by the variable of rhetorical eloquence, but rather by the constant of loving actions," as if the proclamation of God's design for marriage is antithetical to love (and note the ironic attempt at rhetorical eloquence). "Followers of Christ should be known not by what we oppose but rather by what we propose; a personal relationship with God through … Christ," as if the social message against homosexual practice (or racism or violence or greed) is at odds with the proclamation of the gospel.
Although the site states that "the Imago Dei campaign does not sacrifice truth on the altar of cultural or political expediency but rather it elevates it on the catalytic stand of grace and love" (yet another transparent attempt at rhetorical eloquence) one will look in vain on the website for any truth about the negative aspects of engaging in and promoting homosexual practice.
I get what they are doing. They want to say to hostile proponents of homosexual activity: "We don't hate 'gay' persons but love them as those created by God in his image so please don't view us as hateful bigots when we don't approve homosexual practice." Even so, I see at least three main problems in this "campaign":
(1) It appears to regard a strong expression of disapproval of homosexual practice as equally at fault with a strong expression of its approval.
(2) It fails to address the crucial point that homosexual activity, like egregious immorality generally, threatens to mar the image of God stamped on people, dishonoring and degrading what God created in his image by treating another's gender as only half intact in relation to its own sex.
The theme of marring the image of God is clear enough from Genesis 1:27 where the proclamation of the Imago Dei is immediately followed by an implicit affirmation of a male-female requirement for sexual relations: "In the image of God he created [the human] / male and female he created them." It is clear too from Romans 1:24-27 where Paul speaks of the "dishonoring" or "degrading" effect of males having sex with males and females with females, with Gen 1:27 echoed in the background.
(3) This "campaign" will do nothing to stifle the advance of coercive and abusive homosexualism in this country but may deceive many faithful Christians into silencing their own resistance to this advance as incompatible both with a positive proclamation of "a relationship with God … through Christ" and with "loving actions," as mere "rhetorical bullying" and "polarizing rhetoric" toward the "marginalized" and the "oppressed."
The former head of Exodus, Alan Chambers, whose remarks are cited uncritically in the article, amply illustrates the third point:
"Chambers, still getting familiar with the evangelical-led Imago Dei campaign, said on Friday that he finds its inclusive statement 'great' and thinks it is 'hitting the nail on the head.' ... 'You can find the image of God everywhere you look if you just look hard enough.' Even in 'monogamous, long-term faithful marriages' among people of the same sex, he added, commenting on some of his gay and lesbian friends. 'What I find in many of those relationships is that they're bearing the image of God in the area of faithfulness, commitment and love, trust and fidelity and all of those things,' Chambers explained. 'Nowhere in that do I even have to make a judgment on the morality of homosexuality or anything like that.'"
What's next? Applauding how adult-committed polyamorous unions and incestuous unions bear the image of God in various ways? Anytime Christians applaud occasions when they can leave off "making a judgment on the morality" of a behavior that Jesus and the authors of Scripture treat as a severe offense they have veered off into nonsense and, worse, heresy.
In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul did not "tone down" judgment on the incestuous man at Corinth (who incidentally was also made in God's image), nor chastise any who might adopt a strong stance against such immorality. He rather insisted on such a stance, for the sake not just of the community but of the offender himself, in order to promote the repentance of the latter, without which there could be no inheritance of the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-11).
On a related note, the article quotes Jim Daly of Focus on the Family as saying that homosexual practice is not a "super sin." Can one imagine Paul insisting that incest is not a "super sin"? I can't. It is clear from 1 Corinthians 5 that Paul did view incest, even of an adult-committed sort, as a particularly severe sexual sin. Apparently Paul felt no need to reduce the severity of a given sin in order to be able to love the offender.
Neither did Jesus. The one who is forgiven the greatest debt loves the most, Jesus once noted about a woman who had repented of severe sexual sin. There are numerous evidences in the pages of Scripture that ancient Israel and early Christianity regarded homosexual practice as a particularly severe violation since it attacks the very foundation of sexual ethics, that God created us in his image as "male and female." For that very reason we should reach out in love all the more to violators.
I'm surprised that some significant Christian leaders would lend their names to this "campaign." I'm surprised too that The Christian Post would run such a fluff piece without any critical voice within the article, except from "gay Christians" who predictably criticize the movement for not going far enough to embrace homosexual unions altogether.
This "campaign," in not more clearly putting the issue of morality to the forefront, is behaving as if Jesus did not close his encounter with an adulterous woman with the words, "Go, and from now on no longer be sinning" (John 8:11), with the implicit warning "lest something worse happen to you" (John 5:14), namely, loss of eternal life. "Speaking the truth in love" is not to be confused with muting the truth in order to love.
