UPDATE:
I think it important to note that Albert Mohler Jr. was running for President of Southern Baptist Convention.
I think it important to note that Albert Mohler Jr. was running for President of Southern Baptist Convention.
Citing a desire to serve as a uniter amid turbulent times, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. said in October he had agreed to accept a nomination to serve as SBC president at the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting.
So, I made myself read an essay Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It? by Albert Mohler Jr.. Nothing like a good dose of old time Religion early in the day. Bracing. Woke me right up.
Mohler makes a mad dash for Reality. You, Cher Reader, must tell me if he made it. This is one of his conclusions:
Christians must be very careful not to claim that science can never prove a biological basis for sexual orientation. We can and must insist that no scientific finding can change the basic sinfulness of all homosexual behavior. The general trend of the research points to at least some biological factors behind sexual attraction, gender identity, and sexual orientation. This does not alter God's moral verdict on homosexual sin (or heterosexual sin, for that matter), but it does hold some promise that a deeper knowledge of homosexuality and its cause will allow for more effective ministries to those who struggle with this particular pattern of temptation. If such knowledge should ever be discovered, we should embrace it and use it for the greater good of humanity and for the greater glory of God.
The essay gave me cold chills. My Pervert Alarm is clanging bigtime. There is a detailed discussion about the mechanics of turning gay Rams straight. Not the football kind of Rams.
Asexual folks need to recuse themselves from discussions about Sex and Society. Illiterate consumers of the Bible the same. Most folk with sexual fetishes do the decent thing and make home videos. Albert Mohler, in the marketplace of ideas, all you are is what you write. Bestiality for Science and God? Cover your proclivities, Love, because your ramrod is out.
Note: I work with this definition of Religion. One can be an anti-theist or atheist and still be 'religious' if we see Religion as a function of the human psyche as Wm. James attests:
Religion...shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow. - The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
The most interesting research along these lines relates to the study of sheep. Scientists at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station are conducting research into the sexual orientation of sheep through "sexual partner preference testing." As William Saletan at Slate.com explains:The vision of a bunch of men sweating in a barn, tugging off some ram's penises and telling themselves they are doing Science cracks me up. Think their penises were flaccid during the event? I wonder if there were any women present. LMAO. Fluffing rams for Jesus.
A bare majority of rams turn out to be heterosexual. One in five swings both ways. About 15 percent are asexual, and 7 percent to 10 percent are gay. What makes the sheep "sexual partner preference testing" research so interesting is that the same scientists who are documenting the rather surprising sexual behaviors of male sheep think they can also change the sexual orientation of the animals.
Asexual folks need to recuse themselves from discussions about Sex and Society. Illiterate consumers of the Bible the same. Most folk with sexual fetishes do the decent thing and make home videos. Albert Mohler, in the marketplace of ideas, all you are is what you write. Bestiality for Science and God? Cover your proclivities, Love, because your ramrod is out.
Note: I work with this definition of Religion. One can be an anti-theist or atheist and still be 'religious' if we see Religion as a function of the human psyche as Wm. James attests:
Religion...shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. Since the relation may be either moral, physical, or ritual, it is evident that out of religion in the sense in which we take it, theologies, philosophies, and ecclesiastical organizations may secondarily grow. - The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"