I presume my readership volume just went up due to the title, and I suppose that could be a savvy journalistic trick – but I really do want to discuss the “sex police.” Mainly because Toby and I were recently accused of being the sex police. To be precise, the Know Your Bible viewer’s email was worded thusly: “Why are you guys so controlling about sex?” As you may know, we cover all kinds of questions about the Bible and life on Know Your Bible, and we really get very little criticism or dissension from our viewers. But over the years I’ve noticed an interesting pattern. Questions about doctrinal issues – the Trinity, salvation, end times, good and evil, and such matters – produce very little “pushback.” When we discuss a few topics that are near and dear to a specific religious group – Sabbath day worship for instance – we get a few responses telling us that we don’t know what we’re talking about. But, when we answer questions about what can be politely called “lifestyle choices,” some folks get downright upset. As this viewer put it, we are out of line. We are trying to control other people’s lives. We are being judgmental. Strange isn’t it? Not really. It’s just the spirit of this age. Since there are no standards for behavior any more – especially sexual behavior – no one wants to hear that what they are doing might be wrong.
Of course we try to answer all questions with a Bible answer, but we are especially diligent in sticking to the Bible on those kinds of moral queries. We always show the pertinent verse on the screen so that it is clear we are simply quoting the Bible position. But folks still don’t like it – so they blame the messenger. I remember one fellow called the office during the week after we had answered (quite Biblically, and also kindly I thought) a question about a certain sexual practice. Steam was coming out of his ears. (You may wonder how I could see that over the telephone, but just trust me, it was.) He raged for quite a while about how intolerant and vicious we were. When he finally took a breath, I responded that all we had done was read a Bible verse. That fired him up even more. He kept accusing us of being hateful, and I kept responding the same way. He finally sputtered out some expressions (that I considered sort of hateful) and hung up.
That kind of thing is still a pretty rare occurrence, but I’ve been answering questions for thirty years and I can tell you it is more common in 2016 than it was in 1986. Our culture has changed to demand total tolerance. Therefore, God’s Word just can’t be tolerated.