Blog | Did ‘all-loving God’ once condone stoning of gay people? South Carolina Evangelical leader says it isn’t ‘present’ day ‘God’s way’
From the Good News section of the day:
Bob Jones III has issued an apology about comments he made 35 years ago:
“I’m sure this will be greatly misquoted,” he said in 1980, according to the Associated Press. “But it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel’s day against murder and rape and homosexuality . I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands.”
He has recently issued a personal apology:
“I take personal ownership of this inflammatory rhetoric. This reckless statement was made in the heat of a political controversy 35 years ago. It is antithetical to my theology and my 50 years of preaching a redeeming Christ Who came into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Upon now reading these long-forgotten words, they seem to me as words belonging to a total stranger—were my name not attached.
I cannot erase them, but wish I could, because they do not represent the belief of my heart or the content of my preaching. Neither before, nor since, that event in 1980 have I ever advocated the stoning of sinners.
The Bible I love, preach, and try to practice, does not present today the stoning of sinners as God’s way. Its message is the good news that Christ Jesus was condemned on behalf of sinners to rescue all of us from condemnation and judgment by His willing sacrifice, for He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
I apologize for the reflection those remarks bring upon Jesus Christ, Whom I love; Bob Jones University, which I have loved and served; and my own personal testimony.”
This has always been an interesting touchstone for the Christian faith, and many Christians disagree just about how it should be solved.
What Jones called for in 1980 can be found in the “Old Testament” of the Christian Bible, which calls for stoning to death all sorts of sinners.
While many Christians call for the placement of the 10 Commandments in all sorts of public places, they usually leave out the “God wants us to stone people to death” part, for obvious reasons and reasons not so obvious. They often do what Jones did in this apology, say that “ The Bible I love, preach, and try to practice, does not present today the stoning of sinners as God’s way.”
But that means they are convinced that there was a period in human history during which “an all-loving” God condoned and essentially mandated such behavior.
Does it really make sense that an all-loving God would have ever been in favor of such actions? Or is it more plausible that kind of thinking was a product of the culture, not God?
And if we are to accept the view that God at one time condoned such barbaric acts, how can we firmly condemn ISIS when it declares that the God it serves wants such things now?
Saying the Bible is about “the good news” now is a message that is undercut by belief in a vengeful, eye-for-an-eye God.
This story was originally published March 23, 2015 at 10:48 AM with the headline "Blog | Did ‘all-loving God’ once condone stoning of gay people? South Carolina Evangelical leader says it isn’t ‘present’ day ‘God’s way’."