A Baptist Pastor named Grayson Fritts in Knox County Tennessee said God has granted the power to government to arrest and execute homosexuals. He made these statements while preaching from Leviticus 20:13 which says homosexuality is capital crime.

What is also very noteworthy is that Pastor Fritts was also a Knox County police detective for 19 years. He had quietly accepted a buyout a couple weeks ago. Some are calling for his police pension to be reviewed.

He claims that this never affected his job as a police officer equating it to if he worked at Burger King that he would still make food for homosexuals and not do anything to their food because it was his job to do so and this is the same way he carried out his duties as a police officer.

In the recording above, after his initial sermon which caused the media firestorm around him, he made it clear if you listen to his whole sermon, he never called on individual civilians to kill or do anything to homosexuals. He was saying God has invested the civil government with this power to arrest and execute homosexuals.

So those who were saying he was inciting his church members or other civilians to go out as individuals and cause harm to homosexuals are factually incorrect and the recordings of his sermons prove this.

You can read more about him in this article from WBIR.com entitled

“Offensive and reprehensible’: Knox Co. DAG reviewing cases involving detective who condemned gay people and called for their executions in sermons”

Many Christians on Facebook and elsewhere have said his statements saying he hates homosexuals are the complete opposite of the Christian faith and that hate of any kind has no place in true Christianity.

However, those Christians who say this may want to consider the words of King David in the Psalms:

“Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,

and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?

22 I have nothing but hatred for them;

I count them my enemies.”

Psalm 139:21-22 (KJV)

God Both Hates and Loves Sinners

While anyone who reads this blog will know I have some disagreements with John Piper in some areas of theology, on this subject of hatred in regard to sin he has a great sermon and article about this entitled “God Loves the Sinner, But Hates the Sin?” where he states the following:

“The problem with the statement—“God loves the sinner, but hates the sin”—is that it is misleading. It is not a false statement. And what is misleading about it is the word but, but hates the sin, because but should be and. God loves the sinner and hates the sin. But implies he doesn’t hate the sinner—that is not true. God does hate sinners. Psalm 5:4: “You are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers.” Or Psalm 11:5: “The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.” So it is just not true to give the impression that God doesn’t hate sinners by saying he loves the sinner and hates the sin. He does hate sinners. His wrath is real. It is not something he pours out on people he approves of. This infinite disapproval is what the Bible means when it says God hates sinners. He infinitely disap-proves of them. Sin is not sinful except as committed by sinful hearts. Sin is an expression of anti-God human corruption, human hearts. Sinful volitions are owing to sinful hearts. Sin doesn’t just hang out there with its own existence, it is in hearts or it is nothing. Sins do not suffer in hell, sinners suffer in hell. I wonder what people who say that believe about hell, because he is not punishing sin in hell, he is punishing sinners in hell. He hates—now here is the paradox—and he loves at the same time. For God so loved the world that he hates. Hate and love are simultaneous as God looks upon hateful, rebellious, corrupt, loathsome, wicked God-dishonoring sinners. Now here is the distinctions we need to make. This is just so crucial. I hope people will listen carefully. Hate and love both have two meanings each. Hate can be intense loathing of a quality or hate can be be-yond that the intense intentionality to destroy. Love, similarly, can be an intense delighting in a quality and it can be an intense intentionality to bless even in spite of the presence of some unsavory quality.”

And now after showing Piper’s words on the subject of hatred in the Scriptures I will add a few thoughts of my own on this subject.

If we examine the Scriptures we will find a truth that is uncomfortable for many modern Americans. We are taught in our American culture that all forms of hate are bad and all forms of love are good. The Bible however, teaches something very different.

The Bible teaches that hate is sometimes holy and love is sometimes vile.

Consider these two passages from the Scriptures below which illustrate these twin truths:

“Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.“

Psalm 97:10 (KJV)

“26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

Romans 1:26-27 (KJV)

This is Both a Religious Issue and a Political Issue

I have quoted the following statement from Leviticus 20:13 multiple times on this blog in past articles and comments:

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.“

While no punishment is prescribed for women in Lesbian relationships, the practice of Lesbian relationships is condemned by God in Romans 1:26. But the government could punish Lesbians in some way short of capital punishment.

However, God has granted the civil government the right to treat men having sex with men as a capital crime and Romans 13:4 says the following of the civil government’s authority by God to perform capital punishments for certain sins which he allows it for:

“For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”

This power DOES NOT belong to individual citizens . There is no Biblical warrant for individual citizens to execute men for having sex with men, only the civil government has this power.

I understand where this Pastor was coming from and I partially agree with him. If we are talking about male homosexuals – then I 100% agree that the government has the right to make homosexuality a capital crime for men. If we are talking about female homosexuals, then I would support criminalization for female homosexuality short of capital punishment.

Conclusion

Many who even disagree with his statements have said it was his free speech right as well as religious freedom right to make the statements he did from his church pulpit. But as I have stated on this blog several times, there are others in this country that want to criminalize what this man did from his pulpit.

But these same people do not realize that if this man were to be led away in hand cuffs for what he stated from his pulpit that this would probably ignite a second American civil war just as there are a few other issues that would as well (like gun confiscation). So be careful of what you wish for (criminalizing Pastors preaching against homosexuality) because you may just reap the consequences of what you sow.