In response to the advertisement for “prodigal ministries” in the Oct. 27 issue of The News Record, Robert Fee, Academic Director of Undergraduate Affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Cincinnati states, “Prodigal ad not Christian in message.”

First off, I’d like to acknowledge that as a whole, Christians haven’t been the best at responding in a Christ-like fashion to homosexuality, among myriad other issues.

However, he claims, “The content is absurd and contradictory to the religious tradition it purports to uphold.”

The claim is understandable, yet without merit. To say that when the church began and all through time until now that it openly accepted homosexuality as “not an issue” is severely devoid of any truth and denies extra-biblical sources.

The Apostle Paul spoke to the church at Rome about homosexuality and its “unnaturalness” in Romans 1.

He then again told the church at Corinth that it is something that is to be avoided, along with all sexual sin (because too often groups like WBC like to isolate homosexuality as some unforgivable, degenerate sin and seek to “correct” by hate speech and horrible cult-like tactics).

History proves that is a distortion of the truth in context. Homosexuality was extremely common in the Greek and Roman world and by New Testament time was very prominent.

However, the Bible isn’t the only place to hear this.

Plato wrote, “Whether one makes the observation lightheartedly or in all seriousness, one must observe that, when the male body unites with the female body for procreation, the pleasure that goes along with this is understood to be in accordance with nature, but that when male joins with male, or female joins with female, it is outside the bounds of nature. This outrage was first done by people whose desire for pleasure was without self-control.” Plato on Homosexuality, From Plato, Laws, 636c, trans. by Duane Garret.

What about Aristophanes, the Greek comic poet who mocked homosexuality? For example, in “Women at the Thesmophoria” he ruthlessly ridiculed the notorious homosexuality of the poet Agathon. Why don’t those people, who are viewed as “brilliant minds of philosophy and comedy” ever get called out for
their opinions?

I hope we can keep in mind that while we all won’t agree on everything and every opinion, it is our constitutional, God-given right to stand for what we believe in.

Scott Johnson is a campus minister at the Clifton Church of Christ and an adviser for 4G Campus Ministry at the University of Cincinnati.