A Song I Heard

While driving home from a spontaneous trip to my favorite cupcake place Crumbs yesterday, Nicole and I heard a song on the radio. Our first reaction was to change the channel because the style of the song is not the type of music that either one of us listen to, but we kept the song on the radio after hearing the first few lines of the song. It turned out that the song seemed like an anthem for the gay marriage activists. My mind raced with reactions as I listened to the song. The song is called "Same Love".

This song is saying I'm a right wing lunatic and because I'm religious (in their eyes) I am a part of war mongering throughout history.

My daughter is going to grow up in a far different world than the one I grew up in.

What scientific proof do they have that being gay isn't a choice?

Where does the Bible say that?

They are using scripture out of context to say something it doesn't say.

How am I paraphrasing the Bible?

This song is preaching to our youth.

Youth will hear this sermon over and over.

Our youth are being brainwashed.

America is wicked.

I'm not going to pretend that all of the thoughts I mentioned above are great thoughts (just being honest about what was going on inside my head as I listened to the song). I immediately told Nicole that I wanted to write a blog entry about this song. While wondering how I should approach writing about this song this morning the following Bible verse came to mind.

Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. 

It is clear to me from the conversations I have with people under the age of 30 (most of the people I engage in conversations about God/Spirituality/Religion/World Views/etc...are under the age of 30 on Friday nights) that the people in our country have been taken captive by the philosophies, traditions, and deceptions fed to them by social media, movies, music, and "education". It's becoming increasingly more rare when I go to a movie to see God ordained sexual relations are taking place. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see any kind of sex at a movie (would make me feel like a peeping tom). But think about it. When you watch a television show or a movie how often is sex portrayed as something that should be between one man and one woman within the confines of marriage (as God intended in Genesis 2:24 when He created marriage)? I don't recall seeing it portrayed that way in any recent movie or television show I have viewed. Characters treat sex as a recreational activity.

Going just a bit further, when was the last time you saw a Christian portrayed on television in a positive light? The Christian mother on the Big Bang Theory television show is portrayed as a simpleton (makes racist remarks, rude comments, bad use of scripture, etc...). On the television show Community the "Christian" character is labeled a "creationist" (not in a good light) and shown to be hypocritical (pictures of her drunk plastered all over a bar, fornicating with a character, gossiping constantly, uttering phrases like "what would baby Jesus do?"). In the movie Four Christmases one of the characters mother has just begun dating a "pastor". When they go to a church service it is clear that they are mocking the way that church services operate through embellishment. The mother is shown to have, what the main characters consider to be weird, changes since beginning her relationship with the pastor. These are just a few examples.

But I'm getting off track.

This blog is about my reaction to a song called Same Love.

I am going to focus on a few lyrics/lines from the song.

"The right wing conservatives think it’s a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing god, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don’t know
And god loves all his children, is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years agoAnd you can be cured with some treatment and religionMan made rewiring of a predispositionPlaying god, aw nah here we goAmerica the brave still fears what we don’t knowAnd god loves all his children, is somehow forgottenBut we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago."

Let me start by saying that although I would consider myself conservative in my politics I don't want to be aligned with "right" or "left". Increasingly I'm seeing that the Republican party is just as wicked and godless as the Democratic party. So to say that Republican is better than Democrat is wrong. I also don't think that any gay person can be "cured" with psychological treatment or religion. I also don't know anyone who is afraid of gay people (in response to "America fearing what we don't know"). The lyric "god loves all his children" is a misnomer. It is true that God loves all of His "children", but what it leaves out is that not all of us are God's children. The Bible actually says that we are by nature children of wrath. Don't believe me? Read this Bible passage.

Ephesians 2:3

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

This passage shows that we are not "Gods child" but rather that we are a child of wrath. The next verse I'm going to post shows how we can become a child of God.

John 1:12-13

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

We only become a child of God by receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior through repentance and faith. We need to be born again (John 3:3) to become God's child. We need to believe the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:3-7). We need to repent (Mark 1:15, Acts 3:19). Until we are born again through repentance and faith in the Gospel we are a child of wrath. Not a child of God. End of story. The author of the song has been taken captive through deceptive philosophy to believe that everyone is a child of God. This viewpoint is all too common. We have been told (as a society) that we are all God's children. This is not based on scripture but rather on deception and empty philosophy. 

As for the last line where he claims that we "paraphrase a book written 3500 years ago". I'd like to know where he went to school and learned the original biblical languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) to know that we are paraphrasing what the manuscripts say? I'm guessing the author of the song just heard something about Christians paraphrasing the Bible and didn't think twice about it. I don't know how else to say what the Bible teaches on the topic of marriage, sex, homosexuality, etc...

Leviticus 18:19-23

19 ‘Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity.20 You shall not have intercourse with your neighbor’s wife, to be defiled with her. 21 You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. 23 Also you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.

As you can see from the above passage adultery (see Matthew 5:27-28), abortion, homosexuality, and bestiality are all listed as sinful activities. 

My goal in writing this is not to be "homophobic" (I'm not afraid of homosexuals). We all sin and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We all need God's forgiveness and grace. Saying "I can't change, even if I wanted to" is a statement in direction opposition to God's promise that when we are born again (John 3:3) that we become a new person (2 Corinthians 5:17). We can't change on our own, but through the power of God liars can stop lying. Through the power of God thieves can stop stealing. Through the power of God adulterers can stop cheating on their spouse. Through the power of God fornicators (sex before marriage) can quit fornicating. Through the power of God revilers (those who cuss or use abusive speech) and blasphemers can have their mouths cleaned up. Through the power of God a wicked heart (Jeremiah 17:9) can be made clean (Psalm 51:10). 

If you disagree with me, that's your choice. My only authority for my position on this topic is God's Word. If you reject God's Word as an authority then you'll agree with the song. If you accept God's authority then you probably agree with me. I know this is a hot button issue. My purpose is not to offend but to offer my personal commentary on this particular song and some of the things it talks about. The song "Same Love" closes by quoting the Bible "Love is patient, love is kind" over and over again. Interestingly they fail to mention the part in that bible passage two verses later where it says that love "does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth..." 

I end with these words from my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

John 8:32
"and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."