Blasphemy Against the Lord Jesus Christ

Blasphemous caricatures of Christ and the blatant promotion of homosexual sin seem to travel hand in hand these days. • Typical of the gay community’s visceral hatred of God and Christians was the public recitation of the vile poem, “The Love That Dares To Speak It’s Name,” by Ian McKellen at a Secularist gathering in 2008 as he celebrated the repeal of the Blasphemy Laws. • Competing with this obscene, pornographic poem is another grotesque parody of Jesus that is due to be staged in Belfast on Sunday, 15 November 2015, as part of the 2015 Outburst Arts Festival – an annual celebration of what God terms, “glorying in their shame.” Titled, ‘The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven,’ this play depicts a transsexual Jesus returning to earth and retelling Bible stories with a “different slant.” Its creator and performer, Jo (formerly John) Clifford – a transsexual man who describes himself as a practising Christian – said the message of the play was particularly important in Northern Ireland after a same-sex marriage motion failed to make it through the Stormont Assembly: “I think it’s very important to get across the message that Jesus of the gospels would not condone or want to promote prejudice and discrimination against anybody and to try to convey a message of compassion and love and understanding of everybody.” Clifford is, of course, wrong on so many counts: 1. Jesus is not the Queen of Heaven, but rather the eternal Son of God. Christ is identified as “the Son of God” on more than 40 occasions in Scripture (cf. Romans 1:1-4; Matthew 3:17, etc.). This is a title that even the unclean spirits recognised He deserved when they announced, “Thou art the Son of God” (Mark 3:11). This title is tied into the majesty, position, and power of Jesus who is holy (Luke 1:35), is associated with salvation (John 5:25), and must be acknowledged so as to have eternal life (Galatians 2:20; 1 John 5:13). It is distinctly the work of the devil to question Christ’s right to this title and all that it entails (cf. Luke 4:3, 9). 2. The “Jesus of the Gospels” (as Clifford describes Him) did not revise or rewrite the Old Testament's condemnation of sodomy; He upheld it. Consider the facts that Jesus, in the Gospels: • explicitly stated that He had come to fulfil the moral law of God to the highest degree: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:17-18); • emphasised the scope of the moral law of God to include not only the act, but the thought, of sin: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28); • expressly endorsed only one proper sexual relationship, that of one man and one woman existing as husband and wife: “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.” (Mark 10:6-8). • verified the propriety and equity of the judgment that had fallen upon Sodom and Gomorrah on account of their indulgence in sodomy, using Sodom’s destruction as a warning to those who would later choose its course: “But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:29, cf. Luke 10:12). 3. It is an outrage that this blasphemy of the Son of God, which is offensive to hundreds of thousands in our country, is being publicly funded.

Director of The Christian Institute, Colin Hart, expressed disbelief that such an offensive production has benefited from funding from a public body. Mr Hart said: “The Arts Council of Northern Ireland would never dream of funding a racist play, so why have they chosen to subsidise a show that so derides the Lord Jesus Christ, who all Christians worship? If people want to put on a play designed to cause gratuitous offence to Christians they should be left to pay for it themselves.”

“Join us for a revolutionary queer ritual,” invites the advertising blurb that has been designed to promote this performance. No, thank you ... the Bible counsels me to avoid, “the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1), and reminds me that all such are, “like the chaff which the wind driveth away,” “shall not stand in the judgment,” but “shall perish.” (Psalm 1:4-6). Instead, I would encourage the organisers and performers of this wretched piece to put a stop to this filthiness and seek God’s forgiveness. The Lord has graciously promised that, upon repentance, “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men” (Matthew 12:31). What think ye of Christ? is the test

To try both your state and your scheme;

You cannot be right in the rest,

Unless you think rightly of Him;

As Jesus appears in your view,

As He is beloved or not,

So God is disposed to you,

And mercy, or wrath are your lot. Some take Him a creature to be,

A man, or an angel at most:

Sure these have not feelings like me,

Nor know themselves wretched, and lost:

So guilty, so helpless, am I,

I durst not confide in His blood;

Nor on His protection rely,

Unless I were sure He is God. If ask'd what of Jesus I think, Although my best thoughts are but poor; I say He's my meat and my drink, My life, and my strength, and my store, My shepherd, my husband, my friend, My Saviour from sin, and from thrall, My hope from beginning to end, My portion, my Lord, and my all.