Here it is, what you’ve been waiting for, what you’ve been working for. The Weekly Town Crier, where I collect for you some of the things that caught my interest over the past week. Some for this reason, some for that reason, some for neither. The bottom line here is that everything here made me think in one way or another. But also remember that just because I link something here doesn’t mean I necessarily endorse it. Enjoy:
ReadJohn Piper’s reaction to the “atheist and the bishop” ganging up on gratitude.
Want to own the rights to a Sufjan Stevens song? Write your own Christmas song and that’s just what could happen!
Read about Hulk Hogan finding out that his wife had filed for divorce from a journalist.
Answer the question of whether or not Jesus is a “liberal.”
Read about the surprise charity concert for approximately 200 people from U2’s Bono and The Edge.
Read this report which claims that “the number of couples who claim to be in a same-sex partnership has risen dramatically in conservative bastions of America such as the South and western mountain states.”
See if you can keep track: John Piper responds to Ben Witherington’s criticism of Thomas Schreiner’s upcoming NT Theology: Magnifying God In Christ, specifically the book’s theme of “God magnifying himself through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit.” Witherington says: “I suppose we should not be surprised that in a culture and age of narcissism, we would recreate God in our own self-centered image, but it is surprising when we find orthodox Christians, and even careful scholars doing this.” Read Piper’s response (ht: JT).
Read Witherington’s full piece: “For God So Loved Himself? Is God a Narcissist?” along with some responding thoughts from Denny Burk.
ReadJames R. White’s reaction to Witherington’s “very Arminian-originated reaction to Thomas Schreiner’s biblical and sound assertion that the core of New Testament theology is “God magnifying himself through Jesus Christ by means of the Holy Spirit.” White goes on to note that “Witherington’s comments should shock you, given how prolific an author he is, but they are helpful in that they point out just how far removed, foundationally, Reformed theologians and teachers are from those who openly embrace their Arminian roots.”
Read as the Baltimore Sun examines the problem of “volume gain” in compact discs; the same problem that makes commercials louder than the program you’re watching.
Browse the newly updated Ropeadope digitial music store because, in their words, “iTunes is looking more and more like Wal-Mart these days.”
Meet the family who has photographed themselves on the same day, June 17, since 1976.
Read abut the newly crowned Miss Universe, who won despite having evening gowns “doused with pepper spray” and spiked makeup that caused her to break out in hives.
Read about the study in which scientists find that our first hunch is often the best and that when we over-analyze things, we often get them wrong.
Visit the new home of Sovereign Grace Music on the web.
Read as Justin Taylor chronicles some clear examples of “anti-religious bigotry” in the U.S. Press as they cover the 2008 race for president, particularly, candidate Mike Huckabee.
Read as the LA Times explores the “compromise” many Evangelicals are making by supporting pro-choice candidates.
Read as Reuters considers whether it’s now “cool” to be Christian on many college campuses.
Read about the controversy in Harris, county, TX: “The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review lower court rulings that a monument outside a courthouse featuring the Bible should be removed and that Harris County must pay the legal fees for the woman who sued over the monument.”
Read as Newsweek considers the “struggle” Catholics have with Rudy Guliani’s pro-choice position.
Read as the Washington Post considers “The Politics of Race and Religion” and how the votes of many African Americans are actually taken for granted by certain political parties.
Read this piece which considers how the presidential candidates have been “opening up” about their faith.
Read about many Hispanic immigrants leaving the Catholic church as they come to America.
Read about the number of reported abortions continuing to decrease: “A total of 839,226 abortions were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2004. This is 1.1 percent lower than the 848,136 abortions reported in 2003.” That’s still too many.
Don’t forget that the Paste magazine “pay what you want” subscription special is still going on!
BrowseRolling Stone’s unranked picks for the 25 best live albums ever.
Read as Entertainment Weekly names J.K. Rowling “Entertainer of the Year.”
Read as USA Today considers the history, and the future, of music documentaries.
Consider your picks as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” topped Entertainment Weekly’s “The Ultimate Cheesy-Ballad Playlist.”
Consider as CNN wonders how much it would cost to purchase every item listed in the “12 Days of Christmas” song.
Read as Christianity Today tries to identify “Five Kinds of Christians.”
Read as the Globe and Mail urges the movie and music industries to embrace the digital age rather than litigate against it.
Browse the list of 2008 books Justin Taylor is most excited about.
Read about Desiring God Ministries “going global” with the opening of its department of “International Outreach.”
Read an interview from October of this year with Soul-Junk’s Glen Galloway, a.k.a Glen Galaxy, about the band’s latest CD, 1959 which features renditions of Psalms 1-23.
DownloadSoul-Junk’s musical rendition of the entire book of Genesis.
Read Al Mohler’s thoughts on “Sunday School” for atheists.
Read about the WI debate of “Holiday” vs. “Christmas” trees.
Read about Alaska Airlines reportedly charging heterosexual couples more to fly.
Read as Mitt Romney tries to root his Mormon faith in a Christian past.
Read about the abortion issue continuing to hound Guliani (as it rightly should).
Browse this list of gift suggestions for “music nerds.”
Read as MacWorld discusses the growing world of DRM-Free downloads.
One of the themes here is the exploration of the Gospel’s impact on all of life. That includes creative pursuits. To that end, very often on Fridays I set aside time and space to specifically explore some creative outlets. The post was originally dedicated to poetry, then expanded to music and then again expanded to include visual art. I also regularly link to the photography of Steve McCoy, Will Turner, Joe Thorn, Joe Kennedy and the Friday Flickr group in which they participate. These days, the post will include any or all of those depending on my mood, my time and resources in any given week. The one constant seems to be music and today is no exception.
My wife and I recently had a chance to watch the documentary Danielson: A Family Movie which chronicles the rise of one of rock’s most interesting acts, Christian or otherwise. Danielson is actually Daniel Smith, who, for his senior thesis at Rutgers University, created a mixed media show that included music performed by he and his siblings. That music eventually became the first release by a group known as the Danielson Famile, A Prayer For Every Hour (Smith received an A for his project). Smith has since gone on to run the Sounds Familyre record label as an outlet for his music and others, including Colossians Three Sixteen favorite Woven Hand.
The music is often complex yet accessible. That is, for many, except for the vocals. Smith sings in a herky-jerky delivery that initially shocks some people yet becomes strangely enduring. Allmusic says of the group:
Danielson Famile is unmistakably a Christian band, but in the same way that Flannery O’Connor was a Christian writer. They reject the conventional set of Christian symbols and subject matter, while at the heart of every song, underneath the weirdness, is a perfectly orthodox Christian message; and Smith’s falsetto vocals are downright shocking, an effective tool in cutting through the barriers to convey these messages. No contemporary Christian radio station in its right mind would ever play Danielson; they’re just too out there.
The music centers around Daniel Smith and, as the Famile, includes his siblings, as Brother Danielson, just Smith and when going just by Danielson, who knows who will actually be playing. Sufjan Stevens even toured with the band and played on the Ships album. When they play live, the band will often wear mock nurse uniforms, or when playing solo, Smith will often wear a tree costume bearing nine different kinds of fruit. I’ll refrain from saying why at this point because I’m trying to line up an interview with Smith! Please put in a good word for me!
Here is the trailer for the documentary:
Here is the video for “Did I Step On Your Trumpet” from the Ships album:
Here is the video for “Headz in the Cloudz:”
Download “Things Against Stuff” by Brother Danielson
Download “Did I Step On Your Trumpet?” by Danielson
My wife and I recently saw a television commercial that spoke volumes regarding the world’s view of love. The commercial featured several young hipsters running through a city carrying roses. They all converge on the town square, exchange roses, throw them in the air and then run off. The camera zooms in on one of the roses, now on the ground, which has a tag that reads: “Love is fleeting. Knowledge lasts.” The screen immediately cuts to another which advises us to get an HIV/AIDS test.
This says much about how the world around us perceives relationships, much less love. It’s expected first of all to have multiple “partners.” Under this banner, it’s then expected that your feelings for that person will not last. In the face of all of this, we’re told that “knowledge” lasts, as though love is somehow inferior. The message was that love is not real, it’s OK to have fleeting, sexual relationships with people other than your spouse and you owe it to yourself to be “safe” in the process.
It shouldn’t take much to realize just how counter-biblical this message is. Biblical love is not a fleeting emotion. In fact, Paul says that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). True love bears and endures all things. True, biblical love does not “insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:5), it enables not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought (Romans 12:3) and in fact, true biblical love considers others as more “significant” than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Biblical love is a choice to endure with someone, even in the “bad” times. In fact, you might say that biblical love is a covenant. Biblical love is not an unreachable ideal, it is to be the norm: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). When we’re completely honest, what the world practices is nothing like real love. From the world’s perspective, we enter into relationships with the idea that we’ll continue as long as our needs are being met. When that stops happening, we move on, because, we deserve to be treated better.
All the while, as we’re being told that love is an unattainable ideal and everything we experience will fail, our popular culture, especially the genre known as “chick flicks” chase the ideal that most of us believe doesn’t actually exist. I’ve often wondered why romance novels and romantic comedies are often so popular among women. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s not because these mediums display something most women believe they can never find. Their presence seems to demonstrate that we realize that our experience of “love” does not match what we think love should be. But for many, an actual loving, committed, honoring, pure, romantic relationship doesn’t exist so we have to find it in fiction. The disconnect is exactly what drives so many into fantasy. So while the world tells us that relationship begin in order to end, our fantasies remind us that deep down, we believe there’s something better. Something different than our actual experience.
But what breaks my heart is that the “message” that many people, including young people receive from the culture about love, relationships and even marriage is that they simply will not last. The truth is that for most people, this bears itself out in experience, with divorce rates being no different for those claiming to be Christian and those making no such claim. In fact, it’s common, even among lyricists who claim to be Christian, to hear the refrain of “nothing lasts for long.” While in the grand scheme of eternity this is certainly true, I worry that the underlying connotation is that we ought to expect our relationships to come to an end. But how can the church say, with any credibility, that this is not the case, when for most church-going Americans, it is?
Churches need to do a better job and helping our people live the attainable ideal of God-honoring, committed, loving, stable and romantic marriages because, such things are indeed attainable, but only through God’s working in our lives, in our homes and in our marriages. Christians have often been guilty as somehow lessening romantic love as though it were unimportant at best and dirty at worst. However, God has created us to exist in relationship, first with Himself, then with one another. The pinnacle of those human relationships is to be marriage and we must view even our marriages as vessels of worship and obedience unto God. I worry that part of the reason that the culture believes that nothing lasts for long is because too many Christians haven’t shown them otherwise.
Pay attention! For some time now I’ve been talking to some friends about joining in writing here at Colossians Three Sixteen. God has blessed me with some friends with tremendous wisdom and I would love for them to share that wisdom with the rest of us. Today is the first time one of those friends has actually taken me up on that offer.
Starting today, you’ll have to pay attention to see who actually wrote the post! I don’t know how often others will participate initially and for a while, it will still mostly be me, but pay attention because it might not be! With that in mind, I’m honored to introduce to you the first post from my good friend Adam Groza.
In Memory of Judson Levasheff (December 24, 2004-November 7, 2007)
By Adam Groza
This past summer I received an email from an old friend asking that I pray for a family in Southern California whose child was terminally ill. Having lost a four-year-old nephew in 2001 to leukemia, I immediately clicked the link and read the story: Judson Levasheff was dying of Krabbe disease. From that point on, my wife and I read each heartbreaking journal entry, watched every video update, and it was our pleasure to pray through tears for a family whose son was slowly slipping away. Earlier this month I received an email informing me that a new journal entry had been posted at Judson’s Caring Bridge site. It read, “Dear friends and family. We ushered Judson into the arms of Jesus around 11:30 am this morning. We do not grieve as those without hope.”
Although most of us have access to solid theological teaching in books and sermons, the life and death of this precious little boy has illustrated for me (and countless others, no doubt) some things worth sharing:
Jesus Christ is everything.
When you watch a child-size casket being lowered into a grave, there is no comfort in riches or status, in degrees or accolades. It doesn’t matter that you have hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances, or that your team won or lost the “big game”. What matters is that there is a God who defeated death, who can empathize with suffering, who welcomes children in heaven as on earth, who recreates, and makes the dead live again. The cross matters. The empty grave matters. Scripture matters. Christianity shines at the graveside and at the bedside of the sick and dying. Resurrection means that life has meaning, death has promise, and union with Christ is everything. Seeing a room full of people praying over a dying child reminds us that we are helpless and depend on Christ for everything. He is everything.
The church is our family.
As many prayed for the Levasheff family and for Judson’s healing, they were not praying for strangers but for family. Jesus tells us that our mothers and siblings are those who love and follow Christ. St. Paul tells us that there is one body and one Lord, one faith and one baptism (Ephesians 4:4-6). This family of strangers and aliens becomes the visible and tangible expression of grace in the trenches of life. Christians throughout the world are members of the same sheepfold and loved by the same Shepherd who knows and cares for His sheep. The reality of the Resurrection and the beauty of saving grace are most gloriously on display when Christians love one-another as family and are spurred on to good works as an expression of their love for God. Christians around the globe (literally) joined prayer vigils on behalf of their little brother in Christ. In the waking hours, many of us found inexpressible joy in committing the Levasheffs (our family) to our Father.
Christ is our home.
The Christian is a sojourner, living on earth with citizenship in heaven. Judson reminds us that the life of a sojourner is temporary and sometimes painfully short. Solomon tells us that life is a collection of seasons whose duration is (at best) a vapor. To watch video of Judson singing praise songs with childlike pronunciation and gestures reminds us that praise and worship are enduring and more valuable than gold. Caring Bridge provides a wonderful service to countless families with critically ill loved ones. The ability to instantly communicate updates with friends and family saves precious time and energy. As I read the Levasheff’s comments following the death of Judson, they made it clear that hope in God didn’t disappoint. Even though God chose not to heal Judson’s body, they weren’t hoping in a cure but in a Savior, who in the words of the old hymn, is our help in ages past and our eternal home.
Children are a blessing.
This, of course, is what God tells us. Children remind us of Eden, of filling the earth with God’s image, of creation and redemption. They expose our selfishness and make us slow down! As they grow, they teach us about joy and pain. We realize in those times we cannot “make it better” but He can, and He will, in His way but sometimes not ours. We ourselves are children whose heavenly Father is not only omnipotent, but also benevolent and in our lack we find comfort. In our weakness we find His strength. Judson reminds us that life is precious; from the first cry to the final breathe. He reminds us to make it count – to redeem the time. Judson reminds us that being pro-life isn’t just about the unborn, but about the staggering numbers of sick children battling for their lives, their exhausted parents, and mounting debt. Judson reminds us that true religion is caring for the sick and the poor, both at home and abroad. Sick children, poked with IVs, nauseous from medications, and bald from treatments are a blessing. They are welcome by God and they are a privilege. Judson reminds us to turn off our televisions and reach out to those suffering, to write checks, to be inconvenienced, and to embrace their suffering for Christ’s sake. The Levasheffs honored the Lord by honoring the life and death of their son, their blessing.
So on November 7th, as most of us were answering emails, changing diapers, making the deal, or finishing the project, Judson Levasheff died, surrounded by his family. My faith has been encouraged to see the Gospel provide real hope in the midst of suffering. I think we honor this boy’s life and redeem his tragic suffering when we think of him and join him in praising the Lord, who gives and takes away.
A friend recently pointed me to an article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I had also received an e-mail about this same story a week or two prior, but it appeared that the story was not only not going away, it was gaining momentum.
The controversy surrounds Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX. For the church’s 125th birthday, they planned to distribute a new pictorial church directory. But, as the newspaper reports, “since three gay couples asked to have their pictures included, Broadway Baptist has been involved in an increasingly divisive struggle over whether allowing the portraits to appear would be an endorsement of homosexuality by the congregation.” Broadway Baptist Church is part of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT). As the paper reports: “the convention includes churches that broke away from the Southern Baptist Convention when the SBC started becoming more conservative.”
As the article chronicles the controversy surrounding the gay yearbook additions, it becomes quickly apparent that the issue for the church is not whether or not homosexuality is a sin. Instead, they have openly allowed gay members for years. In fact, Brett Younger, the church’s pastor recently said: “that the church has had gay members for decades but that no couple had ever been pictured in the directory. He said to change directions would understandably be “troubling to many.” In other words, the issue is a baptist “we’ve never done it that way before” problem more than it is over homosexuality. The pastor essentially condoned homosexuality from the pulpit as it is, they just don’t want to change the way they’ve always done their directories.
The only reference to the possibility that homosexuality might be viewed as sin comes when the article notes that the BGCT does consider homosexuality to be sin, but “it is up to the local church to decide what it wants to do” and that “the convention adopted a policy in the late 1990s that encourages churches to minister to gays.” In other words, the BGCT says out of one side of its mouth that homosexuality is sin, out of the other it says that such “sinners” are more than welcome in church and that it’s up to local member churches to decide how they want to deal with sin.
Scripture teaches, both in clarity and by implication that homosexuality is sin. For example, in the very creation account itself, particularly Genesis 2:18-25 presents heterosexual union as normative. Upon noting that it was not good for man to be alone, God brought from him and brought to him a woman. The two were made for one another; that is their union and interdependence is part of God’s design for nature itself. This creation ordinance with its natural differentiation of role between male and female is continually reaffirmed by the writers of the New Testament (Mark 10:6-8; 1 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 5:31). Thus Paul maintains that heterosexuality is the natural God-given orientation (Romans 1:26-27). Scripture clearly teaches that homosexuality is contrary, both to the order of creation and re-creation (redemption) and is a perverted consequence of man’s fall.
We find clear demonstrations of these truths, but in narrative and didactic passages. For example, the tale of the destruction of Sodom found in Genesis 19. The men of the city demand to “know” (yadha in the Hebrew) Lot’s guests, with the result of the men of the city first being struck with blindness and then the entire city being destroyed with fire and brimstone. So what was the sin that deserved such punishment? Some argue that it was a lack of hospitality (this is an understatement to say the least) while others argue that the intent of the men of the city was murder rather than homosexual relations. But these views simply do not stand up under scrutiny as Lot’s unscrupulous offer of his daughters demonstrates. God’s response was the total destruction of the city.
Other passages clearly expound on this idea. For example, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 teach that both homosexual and lesbian relations are an “abomination” to the Lord. Yet some try to even work around such clear statements by arguing that since these admonitions are connected to other ceremonial laws such as the prohibition of eating certain meats, that these were cultural rather than normative and do not apply to us. However, this ignores the distinction between ceremonial and moral laws. While the ceremonial laws have passed, the moral have not. We know, for example that these prohibitions are part of the moral law because, as we have seen, heterosexual relations are part of the created order itself. Therefore, we stand on firm ground arguing that these prohibitions do in fact stand, even the ceremonial law has faded under the new and better covenant.
Much more could be said as to why we ought to understand these as moral injunctions rather than ceremonial, but time and space prohibit further study here, but one of the strongest arguments is that Paul himself picks up on these ideas in Romans 1:20-32. In Romans 1, Paul develops the idea that all are without excuse. Nature itself points us to God’s presence (much less existence) and all are without excuse. Rather than acknowledging God and worshiping Him as we ought, people worshiped everything other than God. We’re told in Romans 1:124-25:
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
In case there’s any question as to the sins that Paul has in mind here that God has given people up for, Paul continues in Romans 1:26-27:
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Clearly Paul views homosexuality as sin and the tolerance of it as a result of God removing at least a bit of His restraining grace. Some have tried to argue here that Paul is simply arguing that homosexuality is “against nature” in the sense that it is not the norm. For example, if I were to get up to preach next Sunday wearing a bright red clown wig, many in the congregation would (I hope!) say, “Well, that’s unnatural for Pastor Brent.” But Paul clearly means more than that. For example, he clearly identifies them as “dishonorable” passions” and “shameless acts.” Clearly, neither God nor Paul look upon homosexuality as simply a “lifestyle alternative.” In addition, as we’ve seen, God has established heterosexuality as the norm for nature. Though there are certainly other places to turn, and much more to say, it is worth noting that elsewhere, Paul notes that the law was given, at least in part, to condemn homosexuality, among other sins (1 Timothy 1:8-11) and that “men who practice homosexuality” will not “inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9).
My point is not to isolate homosexuality as some “worse” sin while turning a blind eye to others. Nor is my point to particularly condemn those caught in the sin of homosexuality, for apart from God’s redeeming hand, none of us is righteous, none of us does good, none of us seeks God (Romans 3:9-18). We have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and we all need a Savior (1 Timothy 1:15).
Rather, my point is that Scripture clearly teaches that homosexuality is as sin and as long as a gathered group of people calls themselves a “church,” we are not bound to our standards but God’s. In the face of this truth, the fact that Broadway Baptist Church pretends that the real issue is about the photo directory simply breaks my heart and speaks volumes as to how far removed from God’s Word our culture has actually become. It seems that they have forgotten that “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1 Corinthians 5:6, Galatians 5:9, etc.) and that we are to “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump” (1 Corinthians 5:7).
Proclaiming sin as such is not an easy thing. Standing by those convictions is even more difficult, but we have not been called to what is easy. The church of the living God is to be a “pillar and buttress of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15), and yet, in so many instances, we see people abandoning the bulwark of salvation (Isaiah 26:1-3). We must express care and concern. History’s pages are certainly filled with people who have spoken the truth in anything but love. Homosexuality is a sin and we must proclaim such but we must not overlook other sins in the process. We must lovingly but boldly, with broken hearts and strong consciences, stand against our society as it moves to “normalize” sin.
We will not be judged by our pictorial directories. We will be judged by how we have kept the commandments of God (John 14:21, 1 John 3:24, etc.). Broadway Baptist church of Fort Worth and others in similar situations serve as a reminder of just how easy it is find ourselves so far removed from the Word and the Truth. May we indeed serve as a “pillar and buttress of the truth” rather than those who want to please those with itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3).
Here it is, what you’ve been waiting for, what you’ve been working for. The Weekly Town Crier, where I collect for you some of the things that caught my interest over the past week. Some for this reason, some for that reason, some for neither. The bottom line here is that everything here made me think in one way or another. But also remember that just because I link something here doesn’t mean I necessarily endorse it. Enjoy:
One of the themes here is the exploration of the Gospel’s impact on all of life. That includes creative pursuits. To that end, very often on Fridays I set aside time and space to specifically explore some creative outlets. The post was originally dedicated to poetry, then expanded to music and then again expanded to include visual art. I also regularly link to the photography of Steve McCoy, Will Turner, Joe Thorn, Joe Kennedy and the Friday Flickr group in which they participate. These days, the post will include any or all of those depending on my mood, my time and resources in any given week. The one constant seems to be music and today is no exception.
My wife and I recently saw a television commercial that spoke volumes regarding the world’s view of love. The commercial featured several young hipsters running through a city carrying roses. They all converge on the town square, exchange roses, throw them in the air and then run off. The camera zooms in on one of the roses, now on the ground, which has a tag that reads: “Love is fleeting. Knowledge lasts.” The screen immediately cuts to another which advises us to get an HIV/AIDS test.
Pay attention! For some time now I’ve been talking to some friends about joining in writing here at 
In Memory of Judson Levasheff (December 24, 2004-November 7, 2007)
A friend recently pointed me to an 
clown wig, many in the congregation would (I hope!) say, “Well, that’s unnatural for Pastor Brent.” But Paul clearly means more than that. For example, he clearly identifies them as “dishonorable” passions” and “shameless acts.” Clearly, neither God nor Paul look upon homosexuality as simply a “lifestyle alternative.” In addition, as we’ve seen, God has established heterosexuality as the norm for nature. Though there are certainly other places to turn, and much more to say, it is worth noting that elsewhere, Paul notes that the law was given, at least in part, to condemn homosexuality, among other sins (
