WARNING: The following contains positions of a Conservative, Reformed, Theonomic, man. Strong Opinions Follow. Be Warned.

I want to make a few points about sodomy, McDonalds, boycotts, and God’s Law and the Reformed faith here. I have closed the comments on the other thread because I felt it had gone beyond productive to continue to allow the informal poll of our readers’ views on perversion to continue.

Kim posted our intention to boycott Mcdonalds in order to share our convictions with our readers, and while I don’t mind hear from and interacting with folks (even those who disagree with me ) I felt the comments had  run their course.

That being said, there are a few points I want to make clear here on my family blog.

1.) There is an eternal and perfect standard of morality given to us by a transcendent God who takes no delight in sin. It is the moral law that governs all of life and applies to every area – if we don’t know or understand how it applies to every area of life then it speaks of our shortcomings, not of any defect in the Scripture.

(Side note: before I get pelted with repeating chroruses of “We’re under grace not under law,” go and read this: James 1:25.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  Did you catch the “perfect Law of Liberty part?)

No matter how we might feel about it, God’s moral law applies to every area of life.  It is God who has decreed right from wrong and no amount of modern hand wringing will change His written objective opinion of homosexuality.  Several commentors posted verses here and here that make the it plain what God thinks of homosexuality.

Oh and by the way – God did not make people “gay” no matter how long they have been practicing homosexuality.

2.) Homosexuality is physically and mentally destructive and morally wrong. It is not “loving” to allow those we profess to love to continue in (self)destructive habits without comment.  Conversely, it is not “hateful” to caution them from behavior which will destroy their body and soul.

3.) Christian love is more than just accepting people for who they are and where they are. Yes, we are all sinners in need of grace and forgiveness, but the love of God is shown by calling men to repentance as John the Baptist did and Jesus did. Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments. He also told us through Paul that when we see someone overtaken in a fault, go to them in a spirit of meekness and correct them. He did not say to accept them for who they are; He did say preach and if they won’t hear you then shake the dust off your feet.  The Gospel eventually divides the elect from the unrepentant, yet we are not relieved from our duty to preach “repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

4.) Points one and two above are not my own misguided opinion or personal interpretation of the Scriptures. The Bible teaches us that there is much wisdom in many counselors and that we Christians are on dangerous and foolish ground when we ignore them. All that to say, there is 2000 years of church history to support my moral statement against sodomy – a unified voice that teaches men lying with men and women lying with women is reprehensible in the sight of God. If you disagree with that statement then you disagree with the big man upstairs. Incidentally, His Son Jesus doesn’t make a habit of disagreeing with him.

5.) It is not realistic for me to fight every battle or to boycott every company whose actions I disagree with as I have a limited amount of resources to go around. Neither is it hypocritical for me not to fight or boycott every company which supports something I disagree with. The Apostle Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.

I can’t go out of this world and neither would I want to, but I can strategically make use of the resources that God has given to me in order to exert as much influence for the Kingdom as humanly possible. God will do with my feeble efforts as He will.

6.)It is not a sin for me to keep buying from McDonald’s. I am not responsible for what they do with the money once I buy something from them or any other company; conversely, there is no sin in my choosing to boycott them. I have chosen to make an economic statement to a company that is in business to make money by selling hamburgers.  I have choices.  I am choosing to buy hamburgers at another restaurant for the time being because McDonald’s has done things I deeply disagree with, namely helping to normalize one of the most destructive behaviors known to man and a sin so wicked in God’s eyes that he sends it AS judgment (Romans 1). I have therefore tried as best I could to explain things to those of similar conviction in the hope they might join me.

Which brings me to

7.) I don’t think you are in sin if you don’t’ join the boycott. I thought commentor MintheGap put it remarkably well when he said in part

“Biblically, I have a choice that I can make. I can continue to patronize them (Romans 14- if Paul could eat meat offered to idols whose money went to false prophets, I can eat a Big Mac that has 1 cent go to support homosexual causes) or I can choose to boycott and hope they’ll change their position.
I can choose other places to eat– that’s not a problem. But I shouldn’t judge those that do not boycott.”

Amen and Amen. Neither Kim nor I ever tried to bind anyone’s conscience with anything other than theWword of God. This is a prudential decision about how to commit MY money. I will not stand before the Lord and give an account of what you do with YOUR money. So if you choose to keep buying Mickey D’s, grace and peace to you brother.

Lastly my comments above are aimed at those who claim the name of Christ as Lord and Savior.  I hope it helps them to understand the context of the original post a bit better. If you don’t know the Lord then you may not have a framework to interpret my comments on the sufficiency of Scripture and its application to every area of life. Likewise if you are not a Christian then we have very different standards for measuring the important things in life like morality, and we should probably have a conversation on ultimate standards of morality and the Lordship of King Jesus before we start talking about specifics.

Thanks for reading this. I do appreciate the input even if I don’t agree with it – it helps keep me sharp.