- Welby, D. Tutu and Co.
The Sacred Scriptures popularly known as the Holy Bible is indeed a Living Word. Events that happened thousands of years ago can come alive today, as if to justify the saying that “there is nothing new under the sun.”
When God created the world and created man, He who is Wisdom, set out laws to govern creation. In everything, there are God’s laws which helps to maintain orderliness. The earth orbiting the sun, the appropriate proportions of gases in the atmosphere, the sunshine and water are governed by God’s law and all these points to life and God is Life.
God also set up laws that will promote procreation and gave man that sacred gift called sex, to procreate. In order to have a sound family life, He made it clear that sex was and is to be engaged between man and woman only and the two should first enter into the union of marriage.
God set up other laws which were naturally written in the hearts of men all over the world. That is why it is offensive to steal, to killto lie, to disrespect fellow humans especially parents and elders, and most seriously to disrespect God in every community in this world. The Holy Bible places emphasis on these. So everywhere in the world, even though every man is created in the image and likeness of God, those who steal, those who kill and all who violate the laws are separated from society and treated differently. Should they die unrepentant, they go to hell.
God assigns punishment for those who violate His laws, which are natural laws. Some are banished from the community and some are stoned to death. Of all the sexual sins, He abhors same sex, transgender, incest and bestiality most. To these any offender was to be killed. God also mandates that anyone who kills must be killed. Then there must be some direct relationship between a murderer and a pro-LGBTQ+ in the eyes of God who is Life and who He loves life. For just as He will never tolerate anyone who takes another person’s life, He will also not tolerate anyone who changes the order of sex which promotes procreation, for sex is life.
There are some people who abstain from sex in order to stay focus and do God’s work. Such people do not offend God in any way, rather God loves and appreciates them. This can be compared to this scenario: you come home and give a piece of chocolate to a toddler. She thanks you and breaks a piece and offers it to you. Your love for that baby will soar high, because here is someone who appreciates what you give and is ready to share her joy with you. God is never offended with those who give up His gift of sex, in return for His grace to do His work here on earth.
Back to the submission. All the people knew about God’s law and all the prophets understood them since they were mandated to lead the people to do God’s will.
Unfortunately, not all prophets did according to what God expected them to do. For selfish gains these prophets were eager to lead people away from God by preaching untruths. They stood up against God’s anointed prophets and with support from the leaders of the day, they were able to insist on what should be the way of life which pleased the rulers and the people but never pleased God.
In the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, we encounter the prophet saying what God had told him, warning of imminent fall of Judah. Jeremiah had to contend with false prophets including Hananiah who came out to say exactly the opposite of what God told Jeremiah to say. He prophesied what many including the king and elders wanted to hear and not what God willed it to be. In Jeremiah 28, we are told Hananiah was removed from the face of the earth by God, because God never told him anything and yet he spoke in the Name of God.
In Ezekiel 13: 1-16, God had to warn prophets who prophesied their own thoughts, proclaiming false visions and lying divinations. For lying to the people and saying there shall be peace when there was not going to be peace, God went after them.
In the Book of the Prophet Micah in chapter 3, God dealt with false prophets who led the people astray by speaking untruths in the form of false prophecies.
In the Book of Kings, chapter 22, the king of Israel threw Prophet Micaiah into jail for prophesying the Word of God which spoke of defeat in war. Earlier, about four hundred prophets had prophesied victory. It turned out that defeat came and the king was killed in battle.
In St Matthew 7:15, the Lord Jesus Christ warned us against false prophets and in 2 Peter 2, St Peter talked about false prophets and false teachers who will secretly introduce destructive heresies and even deny the Sovereign Lord.
From the beginning of early Church to this day, teachers and prophets have come, with some even leading churches, who taught and preached falsehood.
And this is what God says about all this: “Every command that I enjoin you, you shall be careful to observe, neither adding to it nor subtracting from it. If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer who promises you a sign or wonder, urging you to follow other gods whom you have not known, and to serve them: even though the sign or wonder he has foretold you comes to pass, pay no attention to that prophet or dreamer; for the Lord your God is testing you to learn whether you really love Him with all your heart and with all your soul. ” (Deuteronomy 13: 1-4).
In this day and age, the world is going through a pandemic which no one knows when it will end. Even as it is very necessary to pray the Holy Rosary intensively and fall on our knees and cry to the Lord for mercy, we have some leaders of the Church joining hands with other people who may not know God and push an agenda to violate God’s laws against sexual immorality.
Hear them cry out that LGBTQ+ have the right to express themselves in ways that pleases them and must be allowed to be. The kleptomaniac, nymphomaniac and satyromaniac are not allowed to be when they express themselves, but are punished, one way or the other. The kleptomaniac has a defect that makes him to steal anything even if it is of no value. Some celebrities who are wealthy and could afford almost anything are on this list.
Dr. Carole Lieberman thinks kleptomania is a feeling of loss and depression, which the kleptomaniac tries to fill with stolen goods. Instead of science finding a way to cure such attitude, the long arm of the law deals ruthlessly with kleptomaniacs when caught. As for the nymphomaniacs and satyromaniacs, they are treated like social rejects and put to shame, because the defect in them that makes them to shamelessly have sex with anybody and anytime at all, is shun by society.
Human rights activists do not place these unfortunate people on their list of those to fight for and make sure they are granted their right to do what they feel like. Armed robbers and murderers are not defended by human rights activists for being oriented to steal and to kill, but they allow them to be treated as miscreants in society with their rights denied them as they face long term in jail or even death sentences, because they violated the laws of God. Adolf Hitler is not remembered as another poor soul who did what he ‘desired’ to do by causing genocide, he is rather placed on the list of villains that the world must quickly get rid of.
So why is that some violators of God’s laws are treated harshly and incarcerated or even executed, while violators of God’s laws against sexual immoralities like same-sex, transgender, incest and bestiality among others are allowed to go about freely, and here we are told they have rights?
Why should someone who God assigned a particular sex to and science truly identifies that sex in the person’s chromosomes are allowed to physically change sexes or identify as animals like dogs or horses?
This is where we expect all the clergy and members of the Christian Church to come out and oppose. However, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Church of England (Anglican Church) is leading the church to fully support LGBTQ+ acts, acts which God abhors. And Justin is threatening to excommunicate the Anglican Church in Ghana if it supports the anti-LGBTQ+ Bill placed before parliament. Is Archbishop Justin Welby conversant with Sacred Scriptures? Has he read and digested passages like Deuteronomy 13:1-4? Has he read and understood Leviticus 18 and 20? How can he preach on Genesis 19 where men of Sodom demanded to have sex with the men who visited Lot but encountered a lasting punishment, struck blind by light? What can he say about 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10 and 1 Timothy 1: 10? And what about Romans 1: 6-7? If he is indeed a true man of God, how will he interpret Jesus’ own message to mankind when He said in St. Matthew 5: 17 that He came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it?
God created man out of love and gave him the gift of free will to freely love Him back by doing what He, the Lord God, wants man to do. The way we exercise this free will, will determine where our soul will go after this life. God’s abundant mercy shines upon us in this life and always ready to forgive us of our sins whenever we repent. But there are sins that God will not forgive here on earth and in the life hereafter. This is the eternal sin which Jesus spoke about in St. Matthew 12:31. It is any type of sin which the sinner is aware he has sinned but will be determined that he does not need to repent. He boldly and arrogantly stays in that sin or sins insisting that everything is alright in the sight of God and dies in sin.
Who am I to condemn any soul, but I do not know how to describe Archbishop Desmond Tutu who boldly and forcibly defends LGBTQ+ acts since as a man of God he is not to distort the Word and Laws of God. He is condemning himself when he strongly said he will prefer hell to a Heaven where LGBTQ+ are not allowed in. We are all sinners and can only be cleansed off our sins when we repent and access God’s mercy. Therefore, Desmond Tutu who is a leader of a Christian Church should know that unless LGBTQ+ show remorse and repent of their sins and sinful acts, there is no way they will find a place in Heaven as clearly stated by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-10. Desmond Tutu must be careful of what he is wishing for.
Justin Welby, Desmond Tutu and all men and women of God who support LGBTQ+ activities are like those false prophets of old who falsely prophesied things not from God but things that people want to hear. These are dangerous people who always come to lead souls astray. We need to pray for them.
