Greetings from a Brother and Fellow Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Let me begin by commending you for a most excellent interview in GQ Magazine. Who would have imagined that a little article in such a silly men’s fashion magazine could ignite such passionate dialogue and contemplation of God’s Holy Word? Even those who haven’t stepped foot in a church or read the Bible in years have embraced the faith with a fervor I cannot recall in my lifetime.

Just when I thought the controversy would die down, Sarah Palin inserted herself into the fray, defending your “freedom of speech.” People insist that she’s stupid, but I for one think she’s pulling the wool over all of us. How clever of her to reframe this as a constitutional issue, even though “freedom of speech” was never in question! And how selfless of her to support you even though you essentially called her unmarried daughter Bristol, the mother of her bastard grandchild, a godless harlot who won’t inherit the kingdom of God! In all fairness, Palin subsequently admitted that she chimed in without even reading your interview, so it’s possible she doesn’t see Bristol as a promiscuous fornicator. To be perfectly honest, none of this has changed my opinion of Palin in the slightest way; if anything, this has served to solidify it! (Just between you and me, I suspect that women like Palin are the reason 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 prohibits women from speaking in church! Leave the talking to the menfolk, right?! LOL)

But enough with the pleasantries.

I am writing to you because the GQ article was tainted by misstatements and omissions. As your Brother in Christ, I am compelled to bring the errors to your attention and urge you to set the record “straight.” By way of recommendation, and not criticism, I would suggest in the future that you refrain from fostering discord, which in and of itself is a sin (Galatians 5:20), and instead, focus on the simple, fundamental truth beautifully articulated by the Apostle Paul: “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)

As for your interview, I suspect when you said “Start with homosexual behavior and morph from there,” you were speaking from your own personal experience with sin. How very courageous of you to tell the world of your past as a sinner, and even more so to reveal where it all started!

Now, many would argue that homosexual behavior is not a starting point for sin, but rather a consequence of sin, based on a careful reading of Romans 1. Still others would point out that Jesus never said anything about homosexual behavior, though he said plenty about divorce and adultery. For that matter, the general public seems to believe the “sin” of Sodom & Gomorrah was homosexuality, completely oblivious to the scholarly opinion that hospitality may have been the real issue. (As a side note, wouldn’t THAT have made an incredible reality TV show? After the two cities were destroyed, Lot’s wife disobeyed the angels and was turned into a pillar of salt, and later, Lot’s daughters got him drunk and raped him, becoming pregnant by their own father! Genesis 19:30-36 LOL)

In the end, why single out any sinner? The Bible is subject to a wide range of interpretation, which is why even among Christians there are so many sects, each one believing theirs to be the true religion. When we get caught up in name-calling, assigning blame and making judgments, we’ve lost sight of our true mission, or at least we’ve severely compromised our ability to perform it. We know all of us are sinners, and all of us have been offered salvation through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus and the grace of God. We know that Jesus taught us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. One of my favorite songs has the chorus, “Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love,” but in the last several days, the comments I’ve seen by Christians reflect anything but love. I imagine Satan falling to the floor, laughing, over how easily our attention can be misdirected, how we can become so engaged in arguing over what the Bible says about homosexuality that we lose sight of our true mission. Is it any wonder the world jokes that the Christian Army shoots its wounded?

Surely you’ve heard the complaint that you’ve taken excerpts from the Bible out of context, but I wouldn’t give that a second thought. If your fans want context, they can hop onto the Internet and read the entire Bible, or at least all of First Corinthians. While they’re at it, they can even read how the Bible was put together, what parts were left out, and how the sequence of books and even verses were determined in the first few centuries after Christ. (Seriously, can you believe most people don’t know that the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – were written decades after the crucifixion by people who had never even met Jesus?! Thank God we live in the Information Age where all of that information is literally at our fingertips.)

I understand your approach, speaking in generalizations and broad strokes; otherwise, you risk confusing your fans or losing their interest. We live in a world where soundbytes rule, so the best messages are those so short and simple that even the most uneducated and illiterate among us can understand. However, the broadened reach achieved by dumbing-down and overgeneralizing a message comes at the cost of accuracy. Of grave concern, you initiated a controversy that quickly defined itself as a battle of gays against Christians and the Bible, as though lines were drawn between good and evil. If that was indeed your intended result, I urge you to spend time praying and soul-searching.

You may believe it to be irreconcilable for a gay person to be a Christian, but that is your personal judgment. Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, responded to the question beautifully with “Who am I to judge?” He neither condoned nor condemned it, and rightly so. It is not a simple matter of extracting absolutes from Romans 1:26-27 or 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Entire exegeses have been written on the issue, and brilliant scholars have reached different conclusions. Singling out homosexual behavior and declaring it to be sin is disingenuous and hypocritical in a world where Christians have found a place for divorcees and heterosexual people whose sex lives do not fall within the strict parameters of the Bible, as in the case of sex outside of marriage or after divorce.

Please be honest with yourself: If you met a stranger and had two minutes to share your faith with him, would you spend that time telling him that homosexual offenders will not inherit the kingdom of God? Or would you share with him the story of Christ, the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and salvation? Would you want that person to remember you as someone who showed kindness and compassion, or as someone with a “hate list” of hell-bound sinners? Your GQ interview was your “two minutes with a stranger,” and we both know your message did more harm than good.

You are an ambassador of Jesus. If Jesus had been asked questions about sin, how would he have answered? I doubt he would have rattled off the list you provided. When presenting the woman accused of adultery, the Pharisees told Jesus that the law of Moses commanded that she be stoned. Instead of saying, “Yes, that is true,” Jesus responded, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” As you know, the crowd dispersed in silence. When none remained to accuse or condemn the woman, Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” (John 8:11)

Perhaps telling people they are sinners and then offering them salvation has been an effective evangelical approach for you in the past. If that is the case and you feel the need to label sinners by specific category or type of sin, then at least do it in a manner that reflects that all of us are sinners. When you paraphrased First Corinthians 6:9-10, you called out the homosexual offenders, but completely skipped the first group on Paul’s list: fornicators. After reading your interview, a person might come away with the general impression that gay sex is bad, and straight sex is good, without understanding the very, very narrow parameters of permissible straight sex.

Of greater concern, when you paraphrased 1 Corinthians 9 & 10, you basically told your audience that the homosexual offenders “will not inherit the kingdom of God,” when the very next verse of Paul’s epistle says, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11) What could be more important than the message of salvation? In the future, maybe you should lead with that to ensure it’s not left out.

Regarding “straight sex,” I hope you will clarify to your audience that even within the context of “man and woman,” there are some important restrictions. Sex between a man and woman results in a union; the two become one flesh. Essentially, Adam lost a rib when God took one to make Eve, and when a man and woman have intercourse, it’s kind of like that rib is being returned so the man and woman become one again. The problem is that every time a man has intercourse with a different woman, he’s creating another “one flesh” union, which gets complicated pretty quickly. One union is great; more than one, not so great. At least with the gays, despite their most ardent efforts, they cannot achieve that “one flesh” union. Their so-called “abomination” is akin to masturbation or oral sex, whereas fornication forever binds the man and woman, a sin against the body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. I fear your readers may have missed that point in their zeal to judge homosexual behavior.

To be frank, your interview appeared lopsided in its focus on homosexual behavior, when that behavior is only the tip of the “sex sins” iceberg. To the extent you feel the need to enlighten everybody on what constitutes sin, perhaps you can provide a more comprehensive list, including but not limited to the following sex-related sins: masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, premarital sex, extramarital sex, group sex, sex with a condom, divorce and adultery. (We don’t want anyone committing the “sin of Onan” and spilling their seed; do we?! LOL) Granted, you’re more likely to offend far more of your fans, people who share your disgust over homosexual behavior but who manage to dismiss the sinful nature of their own sexual activities simply because they fall in the “heterosexual” column. Personally, I think that approach may be offputting and counter to the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. In any event, the true test lies in the results, right? Maybe in a week or two, we can tally how many “homosexual offenders” were drawn closer to Jesus as a result of your words, how many were saved as a result of your testimony. Isn’t that your goal, to spread the story of Jesus and his offer of salvation?

As far as your statement about God intending for man to be with woman, you may want to brush up on your New Testament. Neither Jesus nor Paul were married. The Apostle Paul actually refers to marriage as a distraction and encourages followers to remain single and celibate, like him, if they are able. (“It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” 1 Cor. 7:1) But Paul quickly adds that it’s better to marry than to commit the sin of fornication. So for those who are determined to have sex, they have the option of taking a spouse. Even so, marriage presents its own challenges: No sex before marriage; intercourse with only your spouse during the marriage (no oral or anal sex, no kinky stuff!); and no divorce, or if divorced, no sex after divorce. Widows and widowers can have a second go at it, but Paul encourages them to remain unmarried like himself.

Of course, the central message regarding sex is that God doesn’t want people running around creating multiple “unions” through their fornication. In general, a marriage must be between a man and woman who are both virgins. I suspect that that’s why you recommended men marry girls only 15 or 16 years old and even joked that all the good ones are already taken by the time they’re 20, but I would suggest in the future that you exercise careful judgment before making statements like that. Most parents aren’t wild about the idea of some guy marrying and/or having sex with their 15 or 16 year old daughters, and I doubt that girls 20 and over appreciate the idea of being characterized as “leftovers.”

I applaud your enthusiasm over the vagina, but please take my word for it that not all men are interested in vaginas, and that such men were created that way from birth by God. If you won’t take my word for it, then let me direct your attention to the words of Jesus. In Matthew 19:11-12, our Savior said, “All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

Jesus is speaking of men who have no attraction to women. If a man is not attracted to women, that is not cause to condemn him or view him as in any way defective, for God created him that way from birth. Jesus himself made it clear that not everybody can receive this message, so don’t feel bad if you have difficulty understanding or accepting it. However, I would caution you to discontinue asserting that there is something wrong with such men, as that directly contradicts our Savior.

In truth, “born eunuchs” are blessed, as they are free from the temptations of fornication and adultery. They may experience what you believe to be “unnatural lusts” towards one another, but homosexual behavior regardless of how it is characterized – similar to the sins of masturbation, and oral and anal sex — cannot result in the union of two as “one flesh.”

In concluding, I would leave you with one of my favorite passages from the Bible,

Matthew 19:16-23:

And, behold, one came and said unto him, “Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?”

And he said unto him, “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”

He saith unto him, “Which?”



Jesus said, “Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

The young man saith unto him, “All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?”

Jesus said unto him, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.”

Of course, that story has an unfortunate ending: “But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, ‘Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven’.”

Actions speak louder than words. I’m certain you’re a man of both words and actions, and I’m confident that soon you will demonstrate your personal commitment to our Savior by selling all you have and giving to the poor. I can’t even fathom the millions of dollars you have already made, but I’m thrilled to know A&E has removed your suspension so you can make even more money, because I know when you sell everything you have and give to the poor, surely you will have an impact beyond imagination!

With sincerest regards,

Your Brother in Christ

PS I think you’re past-due for a haircut!