by Barbara Oliver

Monday, October 11, 1:36 am, I struggle to put on my socks and shoes, climb quietly down from the top berth. I sneak quietly past a sleeping J.C., notice that Betty has disappeared somewhere in the night. I pick up the liter bottle that I have been craving for the last two hours and drink greedily, disappointed that the frosty, slushy concoction of earlier in the evening has turned into lukewarm tea.

We said goodbye to the New Delhi brethren at about 7 pm, after the evening worship, drove with our sixteen pieces of luggage to the train station (yes that is more than we left the US with). Francis and Vinay, his son, and Sunny and his wife Nargis came with us. We sat on the train together until 8:30, had a pray and said goodbye to them. And we were underway.

At about 9:00, we had the famous train-food that Betty, Elzy (Francis's wife) and I had been cooking all afternoon: masala potatoes (fried potatoes with Indian seasoning), fried pork loin with Indian soy sauce (note to self: bring soy sauce from the US next time!), fried chicken strips, and chapatti (Indian bread similar to tortillas).

Ugh! Train sickness. See you later.

Well, it is Thursday evening. We spend Sunday night, Monday, day and night asleep. All those good intentions of listening to language CDs and reading were lost to a Dramamine/train-rocking induced sleep. And after the first night, the train-food lost its appeal!

We arrived in Kakinada on Tuesday, about 12:00 pm and drove to Joshua and Kabita Gootam's home. Their three boys were all home from college. That evening we went to a village and J.C. preached for about an hour. Since most of the audience were women, after a short break, Joshua Gootam translated as Betty spoke to the women for about 15 minutes. All was going well until Betty finished and Joshua said, "And now we will hear from sister Barbara."

I leaned over and said, "Joshua, I am not a speaker." He said, "Come on. Just say a few words." So before I knew it, I had said a few word and was again seated in my chair, squeezing the plastic arms so tightly they squeeked! The evening ended wonderfully as three were baptized.

Wednesday, I didn't go with J.C. and Betty to the village because Montezuma caught up with me. Wednesday evening, we met with the brethren at the church building here in Kakinada, and then today, we drove two hours to a village, where once again J.C. spoke. After baptizing seven people and having lunch, Betty spoke to the ladies, again with Joshua translating. I was sure I was safe, but I believe in the saying "once bitten twice shy", or something like that. Anyway, I was semi-prepared and lived through the experience. The good thing I can say about my little talk - short and sweet!

Tomorrow we board the train again for a 24 hour trip to Bangalore. My standards have really fallen. I am only keeping out two CDs, have my Dramamine handy and don't really expect to do anything but sleep!

by Mike Benson

I am outraged. My anger is due to an affront from within religious academia against our Savior. Dr. Theodore W. Jennings is an ordained minister with the United Methodist Church. He is also a professor of biblical and constructive theology at Chicago Theological Seminary. /1 This past May, Dr. Jennings published a book entitled, The Man Jesus Loved. /2 The title relates only the very “tip of the iceberg” in terms of what the author affirms. According to Jennings:

. Jesus not only condoned homosexual relationships, but He was actually involved in one with John (cf. John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20).

. To exclude people from our fellowship on the basis of their sexual practice is to “distort the Bible generally and the traditions concerning Jesus in particular.”

. There is a preponderance of biblical evidence (especially in the gospel accounts) that endorses same-sex relationships.

Permit me to briefly respond to each of the professor’s assertions. Consider:

1. It is blasphemous to insist that our Lord engaged in any form of fornication. Jesus lived under the Mosaic regime (Gal. 4:4; cf. Luke 2:21ff). He revered, endorsed and perfectly obeyed the law in all respects (John 5:46-47; Matt. 5:17-18; 7:12; 22:36ff; 23:23). /3 How then could He engage in that which Mosaic legislation explicitly condemned (Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Deut. 23:17)?

2. The Bible is distorted when men wrench it from its original context. “As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which those who are untaught and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:16). The Greek word for twist is strebloo (found only here in the NT) /4 and means “to turn from the proper position, to torture, to pervert”. /5 The term refers to a rack that was used by ancients to contort the bodies of prisoners in an excruciating fashion. Jennings has done just that. In order to advance his own immoral agenda (cf. Phil. 3:19), he has violently wrested the Word of God from its original context and forced it to teach things never intended by the sacred writers (2 Pet. 1:20-21). Having fashioned his own hermeneutic, Jennings has taken the Holy One (Mark 1:24; Acts 2:27; 3:14; 13:35; 1 John 2:20) and molded Him into a sexual deviant (cf. Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 Pet. 2:22).

But there are implications for that which the professor espouses. The instant one accepts this warped view of the Son of God, he immediately forfeits his salvation. For to portray Christ as anything short of perfect (Heb. 9:14; 1 Pet. 1:19) is to nullify what He did at the cross on his own behalf (1 Cor. 5:7; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 10:12).

3. Jesus sanctioned His Father’s plan for physical union and intimacy.

   And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?’” (Matt. 19:4).

   The gospel of Matthew reveals that the divine arrangement for sexual union (i.e., one flesh) since the beginning of time has always been one man for one woman (cf. Gen. 1:27). Any other order is not in harmony with the revealed will of God (cf. Gen. 49:4; Matt. 5:32; Heb. 13:4) and invites eternal judgment (Rev. 2:22; 21:8; 1 Cor. 6:19ff; 2 Pet. 2:4ff).

Not so long ago, any attacks against Christ—but especially like those leveled by Jennings—would have prompted a unanimous outcry from “Christianity” at large. Men would have rushed to the Lord’s defense and upheld His moral integrity by virtue of the revelation of Scripture (cf. Rom. 1:24-27; 1 Tim. 1:9-10; Jude 7). Today, many religionists are not only deafly silent, but in some instances, actually supportive of this so-called “scholarly inquiry into the Bible.” Dear Christian, we simply cannot be so-inclined (Isa. 5:20a; Ezek. 33:1ff). Too much is at stake (2 Pet. 2:2).

/1 www.ctschicago.edu; Chicago Theological is associated with the United Church of Christ.
/2 Subtitled Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament; ISBN 082981535X /3 Jennings admits that the Old Testament and the apostle Paul condemned homosexuality. /4 Robertson, “The Second Epistle of Peter,” Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol. VI, 179. /5 Woods, “Second Peter,” A Commentary on the New Testament Epistles of Peter, John, and Jude, 191.