If this offends you…I’m not sorry. I have to put in my two cents on the whole Phil Robertson gay bashing controversy. I admit that I do not watch Duck Dynasty…I don’t get that channel. Honestly, I have actually been a little disgusted with the way people worship the Robertson family. But since it is all that everyone is talking about…and in order to give my opinion…I had to go to the source and read the famous GQ interview that started this whole thing. I DO NOT agree with the way it was written…the writer used terrible language to get his point across…but I will have to say that I am impressed that amidst the immorality that IS GQ magazine, you find words like these…
Phil: “We’re Bible-thumpers who just happened to end up on television,” he tells me. “You put in your article that the Robertson family really believes strongly that if the human race loved each other and they loved God, we would just be better off. We ought to just be repentant, turn to God, and let’s get on with it,
and everything will turn around.”
What does repentance entail? Well, in Robertson’s worldview, America was a country founded upon Christian values (Thou shalt not kill, etc.), and he believes that the gradual removal of Christian symbolism from public spaces has diluted those founding principles. (He and Si take turns going on about why the Ten Commandments ought to be displayed outside courthouses.) He sees the popularity of Duck Dynasty as a small corrective to all that we have lost.
“Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong,” he says. “Sin becomes fine.”
What, in your mind, is sinful?
Phil: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God.
Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”
Hmmm that is almost word for word what MY bible says…
[1Corinthians 6:9-11 NIV] “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
OK, people. Phil didn’t “pick on” homosexuals. He listed several sins including sexual immorality, idolatry, greed, drunkenness, slander, and swindling. Guess what; in my past I’m sure that I have been guilty of most of the things on that list! The difference between me and those that are “offended” by Phil’s words (which are actually Paul’s words in Corinthians) is that I have recognized my sin as sin. We all sin. But because I have accepted Jesus and what He did for me on the cross, I am now washed, sanctified and justified through Him.
Not even mentioned by anyone that I have talked to about all of this was the fact that Phil made sure he told that reporter about Jesus. How many of us can say that we take every opportunity to witness to those we come into contact with???
Phil: “So you and your woman: Are y’all Bible people?”
Reporter: Not really, I’m sorry to say.
Phil: “If you simply put your faith in Jesus coming down in flesh, through a human being, God becoming flesh living on the earth, dying on the cross for the sins of the world, being buried, and being raised from the dead—yours and mine and everybody else’s problems will be solved. And the next time we see you, we will say: ‘You are now a brother. Our brother.’ So then we look at you totally different then.
See what I’m saying?”
What was he doing? Planting a seed. That reporter didn’t receive salvation on the spot, but he started thinking and he ended the article with these words…
“We hop back in the ATV and plow toward the sunset, back to the Robertson home. There will be no family dinner tonight. No cameras in the house. No rowdy squirrel-hunting stories from back in the day. There will be only the realest version of Phil Robertson, hosting a private Bible study with a woman who, according to him, “has been on cocaine for years and is making her decision to repent. I’m going to point her in the right direction.”
It’s the direction he would like to point everyone: back to the woods. Back to the pioneer spirit. Back to God. “Why don’t we go back to the old days?” he asked me at one point. But now, I’m afraid, I must get out of the ATV and go back to where I belong, back to the godless part of America that Phil is determined to save.”
So what is my take on all of this??? I have a new found respect for Phil and I totally agree with what he said. After all, he was quoting the BIBLE. We need to recognize sin as sin. Phil didn’t invent what sin is. It’s all listed there in your bible. Pick it up, dust it off and read it. And if you are offended….take it up with God, not me or Phil.
Let’s get back to the woods, back to the pioneer spirit, and back to God.
And my advice to Phil…Matthew 10:14-15 NIV “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town (or TV station or restaurant or store) and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” (parentheses mine)
Quotes taken from: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/television/201401/duck-dynasty-phil-robertson?currentPage=1
