This is an article about the Rev. Mel White from the L.A. Times. I don't like to say that about people, but that's the title of the article. I don't mean to disrespect the man, but he is a homosexual activist who claims to be a Christian and thinks that the two are completely consistent. I've actually met Mel White before he came out of the closet because he was a leading evangelical spokesperson and writer. In fact, he wrote for many of the evangelical icons of the 80's and 90's. Jerry Falwell was one of them. He was married, had kids, discovered as an adult that he was a homosexual and came out. Now he is a homosexual advocate and activist as a Christian. Certainly, if you listen to Mel White and read his work, you are sympathetic to the kind of struggle a person like Mel White with his value systems and his commitment to Jesus Christ went through. There is a human element that certainly touches your heart.

I want to make clear that there is a certain distinction that touching ones heart with the human element in any personal story is not the same as a moral judgment on it. We don't make moral judgments about moral circumstances based on our emotions and feelings of mercy and sympathy for those who are caught in this circumstance. His story is tragic in the sense that as he was growing up and dealing with these things as a professing evangelical Christian it was tremendously difficult for him. I understand that, and I think we can sympathize with him. But the sympathy should not inform our moral judgment.

Now, I haven't read this article. I just happened to open the L.A. Times to page, B2, Saturday, February 10, "Religion: Exploring issues, answers and beliefs." And here is an almost quarter page picture of Mel White, who I don't call "reverend" because I cannot extend the honorific of reverend to a person who I don't actually think is a Christian based on his behavior.

I have the same attitude with regards to Jesse Jackson. There was another member of the Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles, which is a homosexual church, for lack of a better description, who I interviewed years ago and I didn't refer to him as Reverend. I was very polite with him and introduced him by his name, but he was offended that I didn't say "reverend" and so he kept correcting me. He finally said, "Why don't you call me reverend?" And I said, "I can't extend the right hand of fellowship to you as a Christian brother because of the very thing you are advocating on this program, a sin that is called by God Himself an abomination. I don't have to treat you as someone less than human, but I don't have to glorify the activity." Just in the same way that I couldn't extend the right hand of fellowship to somebody who professed to be a brother in Christ and who is championing adultery. In the same manner I don't extend the honorific of Reverend to those who are in the ministry after confessing homosexuality and championing it. That's not my main point, though.

I mentioned that this picture takes up almost a quarter of the page, and I think there is a reason for that. In order to see what is in the background, you must have a large foreground. The problem we face with 21st century culture in a post-modern era is that people are not influenced by arguments, they are influenced by images and story telling. That's what matters, so the image-maker is the one who wins, not the guy with the good argument. People don't listen. They don't understand. They don't even know how arguments work. They wouldn't know a good argument if they heard one.

Most people don't understand how thinking works so they don't see these problems. They respond instead to images and so here is an image. It is a big picture of Mel White with his cleric's collar on and a cross around his neck. He is outdoors speaking at someplace like a university. The image is the background where the photographer very cleverly and artistically captured another individual carrying a large red and yellow sign. The sign says "Fags Doom Nation." I think I know where that sign came from. Right above in the caption are two quotations side-by-side. One is by Benjamin Hubbard, Chairman of the Department of Comparative Religion, California State University, Fullerton, and you can imagine he's going to be supportive of Mel White. He says, "There will be a greater degree of safety for gays in this country because of his (Mel White's) approach."

The column to the left of it has a different quote: "The hottest spot in hell is reserved for the likes of Mel White." Who said that? Fred Phelps. Who is he? Fred Phelps is a Kansas-based Baptist minister according to the caption under his name there. Why would they be quoting Fred Phelps for goodness sakes? He is nobody in one sense, to be quoted in the L.A. Times. It's because of what he said, and what he does say frequently and outlandishly. It's embarrassing for evangelical Christians who are deeply committed to standing firm publicly regarding the moral error of homosexuality. I agree with his theological view, but I hate his tactics.

We talk about being an ambassador for Christ. This is not being a good ambassador because what happens when people like this represent Jesus Christ in this way? They get quoted in the L.A. Times. You will not see Stand to Reason quoted in the L.A. Times in this way. Why? Because we don't make statements like this. We try to make more even-handed statements and more carefully articulated statements that put the issue in its proper light. That won't sell papers and it won't make us look bad, which is my point in doing it the way we do. But they don't want to feature our kind of Christians in their newspaper because they don't agree with us. Instead, they will look around for somebody who is not a good ambassador.

He still is an ambassador, by the way, he is still representing Christ. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "We are ambassadors for Christ." So we are representing Christ whether for good or for ill, and we have to decide what that is going to be.

In this case, Fred Phelps is doing so for ill because he is not a good representative of Jesus Christ. Oh, he's got his knowledge right. He is right in his theology as far as I understand, but he is wrong in the way he is communicating his views and the character that he manifests in the process. This man goes to funerals of homosexuals who have died of AIDS and then holds up signs similar to this one that's in the L.A. Times here: "AIDS cures fags." That is reprehensible.

We can learn from this, friends, and we ought to.