Is Same-Sex Marriage a Civil Right?/Program 4

Introduction

Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. Is same-sex marriage really a civil right? And we’re talking about this important question with a person that can really answer these questions, Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr. He is the pastor of Hope Christian Church in the Washington, DC, area; 3000 members, 22 different nationalities. He has written on these topics: The Black Contract with America on Moral Values, Personal Faith, Public Policy, and The Truth in Black and White, just some of the books. He is the founder and chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition and Stand For Marriage, DC Coalition; writes a weekly column on Town Hall; has got a radio program on 400 stations. The man is Superman, I’m telling you.

Harry, what I want to talk about today is, as a pastor, when we have folks coming into our churches that feel different, they don’t know why, but they have same-sex attraction. And they don’t know who to trust. And maybe they’ve had engagements with different people, and broken it off, and they feel guiltier. Or they’re feeling just fine in that relationship right now, but they realize they’ve got a problem with the Lord. And so they finally come and they dare to say, “Pastor, what do I do? I don’t know what to do.” What do you tell them?

Jackson: Well, that’s a really important question. I’d like to answer it in light of the testimonies and the people we’ve worked with. I believe the first step in change is recognition that you have a problem, but also recognizing that that problem is sin. I don’t have a biblical answer for “I was made this way. As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to do this.” If I recognize that this is a part of my fallen nature, and the downward pull that this world brings to our lives, and it’s no worse than being an alcoholic or being someone who is trying to chase girls and not be married to them. And I think that is really the first place. So, you’re going to recognize it.

And then, second, after you recognize and call it sin, you’ve got to be able to receive God’s counsel and not—this is very important—and not bring undue shame on yourself. Ephesians 1:6 says that “we are accepted in the beloved.” And another verse that I look at is Colossians 1:10, which says that “Christ has delivered us from the powers of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” And so if we’re already born again and this test, this call of darkness, of sin, is still working in my life, walk through those steps and then the hard part starts.

Ankerberg: Yeah. And I would say also, start by resisting the temptation.

Jackson: Yes.

Ankerberg: Okay. All of us are tempted every day, okay?

Jackson: Yes.

Ankerberg: Heterosexual men can have a wonderful wife and still be tempted, okay? And their job is to resist that temptation.

Jackson: Yep.

Ankerberg: And the thing is that you might not be able to stop having those temptations. The person that is in a homosexual relationship, once they stop, they might have temptations after that.

Jackson: Um-hum.

Ankerberg: And it’s not like it goes away. The fact is, you may have to face that the rest of your life. But you stop giving in to the temptations. And then you continue to immerse yourself in the Word of God, and God starts to change you. Those temptations will get less and less. But we don’t have any expectations until we get to heaven that all of these temptations are going to go away from any of us.

Jackson: Oh, that is so well said. I think that’s so important. The resistance is also part of that repentance process, where I’m attempting to change my mind, even though what I was doing—whether it was drinking…—still feels good. But I’ve got to not do it because I know it’s wrong. So, I think you’re absolutely right.

Then I’d like to have them take another step, another “R,” and that would be relate to someone in the church that can disciple them. Start off by coming to the pastor. Let him direct you through counseling ministries. I’m thinking about one young man right now that we’re working with. We’ve been working with him for a couple of years. And he has come out of this cycle of having been tormented, of having these occasional problems. But what we did is he had accountability. “Are you reading your Bible? Are you actually doing all the spiritual things that you should do?” And then, secondly, we found that we have a counselor, a trained counselor that he’s worked with. We’re also working with people who have specialized ministries in this area.

John, I found out that many people who are walking in what we would call the gay lifestyle have never been called into manhood. And becoming masculine, feeling masculine, is a two-fold process: it’s not just all by nature, some of it is by nurture. Think about it this way. Jesus, when he was 12, his parents lost him on the way back home, to their home. And they went and chased and looked for him, for several days, until they recognized he was even gone. And they found him discussing the word with the teachers of the Law. And he said, “Well, I should have been about my Father’s business.” Jesus knew that there was a time in his personal life that he needed to become a man. He knew what the customs were for manhood. And he began to walk down that path.

In our culture, especially for men, there isn’t as clear a path, or I should say, steps, that will segue someone into manhood. So, what we’re finding is that we get real specific counseling for these people, we work with groups like Exodus International and others. But on top of that, we also have someone help take them through certain rights of life, even down to—and I hope this doesn’t sound bad to your listeners—but even down to saying, “You know what, the way you walk, the way you talk; this is a masculine approach, that’s not.” And the way you present yourself, you know, all of those things are so very important. And I think that discipleship, as we find it in the Bible, has got to be a holistic, accountable process, in which we transfer what we know and what we have in Christ. And, therefore, I do try to get outside help for people that actually have specifically gone through the temptation with the gay lifestyle. And I think, from there, it’s the growth pattern that every Christian would take toward Christian maturity.

Ankerberg: Harry, there’s a lot of ladies in our audience, that are listening, and some of them are faced with this thing of same-sex attraction, female to female. And when they come to the women of your church, to your wife and others, what is the counsel that you give to them?

Jackson: Well, the counsel for lesbians is very similar to the counsel for male homosexuals, with one exception, and that is, we believe that it’s a lot more easy for a woman, if she recognizes this is a problem, this temptation is here, it’s real, it’s sin, she starts that repentance process. She then begins to resist temptation as we talked about. Then, that process sometimes of renewing the mind is a little bit easier. I find that a lot of the lesbian relationships are more emotionally based, and based on bitterness, broken relationships with men. And let’s face it, many of our women have been sexually abused, sometimes even in church, and there is a discernable root of bitterness that can be dealt with. And then we have a course that we take people through called “Cleansing Streams.” It’s something that originated at Dr. Jack Hayford’s church some years ago, in which you go through Scripture and come to an awareness of how you can stand by faith and God’s vision of sexual purity for your life.

Ankerberg: How did your wife get over the abuse that she experienced?

Jackson: That’s a very interesting thing. First, let me say that she was very angry. And when she was in her late teens, her aunt, who is now deceased, came to her and said, “I know what happened. Everyone else wouldn’t believe you, so I’m going to fix it.” And she said, “I’m going to cut this guy.” And she was faced with having to tell her aunt, “No, I feel like I’ve just started to have feelings for Christ, and that’s not the way to go.” And, unfortunately, her aunt poured scalding water all down this guy’s chest—he came to the house—and permanently marred his body. And she had to deal with the twin areas of bitterness and forgiveness, of having experienced what she experienced, feeling at some level like she was involved and liked what was going on, played itself out in her early teen years, in terms of promiscuity, and later on in life, led to her actually having some abortions.

I say all of that to say, she was able to get the help she needed, though the avenue of forgiveness and walking first in that realm of saying, “You know what, what was done to me is not going to define my life.” And so, when we got married later on, she had just moved totally into a sold out dimension of following Christ, Bible study; Bible memorization, personal counseling in the times and seasons where she was tempted. And she was able to get through that, and we have a very healthy intimate life. We have two lovely children. And there doesn’t seem to be the scars, permanently, from such a heinous kind of childhood experience and upbringing.

Ankerberg: What do you say to those who are proposing same-sex marriage, who look at the heterosexual community and say, “You know what, we’re not going to destroy marriage, you folks are doing a great job all by yourselves.

Jackson: Yeah.

Ankerberg: And there’s a bit of truth to what they’re saying,…

Jackson: Yes.

Ankerberg: …because the divorces are up and births out–of-wedlock and abortions, I mean, all kinds of things that the heterosexual community is just violating God’s law.

Jackson: Well, John, I’d say that they’re right. But that’s two different things. If you redefine marriage, you destroy marriage: redefinition is destruction. Number two, there has to be intervention. And as I look at the entire church—black, white, Hispanic—we are not doing enough to disciple people in how to stay married. There’s a group called “Marriage Savers” whose headquarters is up in the greater Washington, DC, area. Well, they recommend that you do—and we do something like this—in terms of healthy marriages, find people in your church who’ve been married for a while, who have been through problems: problem of addiction, problem of adultery, problems of many kinds. Challenge those people to get with younger couples and go through a small curriculum with them, and let them openly share where they’ve been and that God can deliver you from this problem.

The awesome thing is, if you take a young family, young couple, who feels like the worst thing that ever could have happened is that my husband cheated on me, and then they look at somebody who stayed faithful after that incident for 10 years. And I know that every church has failures. We don’t show them the failures. We try to say, “We’re going to get out of this sex-crazed culture alive and intact in our relationship with Jesus, by doing the old-fashioned thing of “each one teach one.” And Matthew 10 tells us that when the disciple is fully trained, he will be as, or he will be at the level of, his master or teacher. That principle of discipleship is critical, and it works in so many areas. And that’s what we do in terms of strengthening marriages. And we get up-close and personal.

And the last word on that, some people in this culture will run from accountability, even if they’ve been married for years. But we can’t let that, as pastors, keep us from doing the truth, and telling the truth, and encouraging our members to be workers together with us.

Ankerberg: Alright, we’re going to take a break, Harry. That’s a great word that you just gave to us there. But when we come back, in the very last segment, we want to talk about where is all of this going. Proposition 8 is in the courts now, it’s headed toward the Supreme Court. What hope do you have for the folks that are listening that want to see traditional marriage stay that way? And, you know, CNN and FOX and all these are simply saying it’s just a matter of time until public opinion sways over. And O’Reilly says in 14 years this will be a done deal, it will be a forgotten issue. I kept thinking to myself, you know, I don’t think Jesus is going to change His mind in 14 years. I just don’t, I don’t see that happening. But the fact is, for folks that are listening to this and feeling like the tidal wave’s going right over their head, we need a word of hope and what we should do. And in this next segment, this last segment, I want you to explain what we should do. Folks, stick with us, we’ll be right back.

Ankerberg: Alright, we’re back, and we’re talking about is same-sex marriage really all about civil rights? If it’s not, what is it about? And we’ve got our guest, Bishop Harry Jackson, from Hope Christian Church in Washington, DC. And, Harry, right here, one of the reasons we’ve done this program is that, when you listen to the conservative talk show folks, they have been giving Christians heartburn in how they’ve handled the same-sex marriage issue. We don’t hear a case being made for traditional marriage. It’s like everybody’s punting. It’s like the tidal wave is coming over. And what we need is a word of hope. All the folks that are listening out here, they’re saying, “Is this a done deal? Do we have any hope?” What is the hope?

Jackson: Well, John, first of all, thank you again for having us. And this segment of the program is ideally most important. Let’s talk first about the hope for an individual who’s been struggling with “Am I gay?” or “Can I live the way God wants me to live?”

Ankerberg: Right.

Jackson: First Corinthians 6, Paul goes through this huge list of people in various stages of life. He even addresses people who are involved in a kind of gay sex trafficking and those kinds of things. And at the end of that long litany of sins, he says, “And such”—in the King James Version—“were some of you.” In other words, hey, folks, God’s called you out of those lifestyles. And I believe Paul wants to tell us he can keep us.

But he can’t keep us in lukewarm Christianity. I believe if we run after God, as individuals, follow the steps we’ve already talked about in this program and the one before, that we can, in fact, stay in the place God wants us to be. And if we stumble, we need to get up and keep running.

My daughter ran a half marathon just a few days ago, plans to run a full marathon. And her goal was just to finish. She wasn’t trying to impress anybody with how fast she ran, but that she ran. I think if we apply that to the Christian walk, we’re going to do well.

But, then let’s bump it up a little bit. We need a Great Awakening. I believe that America’s going to see a Great Awakening like the first two. In each one of them there was a harvest of souls and there was a social consciousness that was released. In the first Great Awakening, Blacks, for the first time, heard the gospel. Your listeners may not be aware that many folks in the States didn’t let Black people hear the gospel, because they felt if they got saved, they’d have to release them from slavery, before the 1740s. But there was always a social interaction with, you come alive, and you do something. In our city, Washington, DC, I’ve told our folks, we are going to be involved because it’s an expression of our Christianity.

In the next 10 years, should Jesus tarry, we are going to create something we’re going to call “Freedom House.” The first three steps are going to be three pregnancy centers that help prevent abortions, one in the worst part of DC, and covering needy areas in our region. Second, we’re going to begin to work in this area of sex trafficking, getting people out of current-day slavery from other places, and paying to see people set free. And then, finally, to see a halfway house develop where people that have addictions can be helped.

Marriage also. My wife will begin again to do a class called “Bliss.” The Bliss class is gauged secularly; it’s advertised in secular forums. She doesn’t hold up the Bible till at the very end of the last class. She says, “I will counsel you for free if you’re willing to hear what’s in this book.” And she waves her Bible. “I won’t charge you a dime, but you’ll need to know that everything I have said in these meetings comes from this book, and everything I will say will be from this book. But going forward, it will be with much more clarity and specificity.”

We have been called to impact the culture, and I believe for those who are looking for spiritual fulfillment, if we’ll arise, God will empower us to get involved. One of the things, John, that caused me to get involved with this same-sex marriage thing, I went to the Lord in prayer, in Washington, DC. I heard the issues. I had cancer, was just coming out of it, my wife was going into it. I said, “God, you can’t be calling me to do this.” But I sat down and I wrote down, based on what I knew about this city, “If I’m going to do this, I need this.” And I wrote out a list of things. And the budget attached to starting that thing for one year, was a half a million dollars. And forgive me, as I prayed, I said, “God, if you want me to do this, I need to know, and I don’t need to know three years from now.” And I wasn’t trying to test God, I said, “I need to know.”

Ankerberg: I might not be here, God.

Jackson: Yeah. “I need to know in 36 hours. What do you want me to do? And my sign is going to be that you’re going to bring a tithe of that money, $50,000, through a source. And, Lord, I want to make it hard for you. I need more money than that to start, but I need for you to put your signature on this. I need one individual to give me that money, one organization.” Do you know I prayed that prayer and I’m waiting for 36 hours. But the next day, I got up and got about my duties and I went to my computer, opened up my computer. And there, the first email I read was from someone I’d talked to about the problems in DC, had not been able to tell them all the stories, because their interest to pass the law had just come out on the Tuesday. This is early Thursday morning. But they, no doubt, had heard a little bit about the news. They said, “Harry, we believe in you, we believe that God wants to do something in that city. And I have already cut the check and I’m sending you $50,000 to begin that fight.”

And so, it wasn’t easy doing that, and raising the rest of the money, and taking time for the church, the family to do it. But, John, I believe that what God is looking for is just a few willing vessels. He’s not looking for folks who’ve got it all together, who know all the answers and can tell everybody, “Well, the public policy answers are all of this.” But, if we’ll get on fire enough, in terms of our connection with him, to simply be in a place where we can hear and understand what he’s saying, through prayer and reading the Scriptures, I believe he’s going to commission and station some of us in powerful places, where we can make a difference, and where, ultimately, people that we touch will have their lives transformed because we’ve touched the Master.

Ankerberg: Harry, I just love hearing you talk and hearing your heart. And I can testify, too, that almost everything I’ve ever done starts with your love for Jesus Christ, and because he wants you to do it, you get involved in these things, not because you dreamed up an idea. A lot of these things aren’t fun to get into, but people need us to step up. And when God calls, one of the things I admire so much in folks is courage. You know the Lord and you have been so courageous. Your life is on the line in Washington, DC. You’ve got all kinds of duties and you’re still getting involved in other areas to help people. And so, for all of this information that you have shared with us, I want to say personally to you, thank you. And thank you to your church for allowing you to come. And thank you to Michele for another night away from home, to come and to share all this information with all of us.”

And, folks, I hope that you will pray for Harry. And when you see him on all the different network programs coming up, that you will pray for him during those times. Those are tension filled moments, those are pressurized moments and the deck is stacked against Christians when they speak up on the networks. But God has given him that duty and the brains to do it. And so, we’ve got to pray that God will help him as he does it. So, thanks, again, Harry, for coming and being with us.

Jackson: And thank you, John. What you’re doing is multiplying our impact because now we have an opportunity to touch, prayerfully, more soldiers for Christ.

Ankerberg: Amen. Folks, I hope you’ll join me again next week.