Tim Wildmon

AFA president

March 2013 – In early January, it was announced that Pastor Louie Giglio of the Passion City Church in Atlanta had accepted an invitation from the White House to give the benediction at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Louie is well known in Christian circles for his Bible teaching conferences aimed at challenging college students to live for Jesus Christ.

Now, I’m prone to question why a Christian minister would accept an invitation from a president who is the most pro-abortion in history and who is the most hostile to religious freedom, as evidenced by his Obamacare law that forces Christian businesses to pay for abortion inducing drugs for employees. But, better Christians than I am have told me they would have accepted the invitation as long as they were not told what to say or pray.

Within days of this announcement, a liberal group found on the Internet a 1990s Giglio sermon titled “In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality.” The White House quickly called and persuaded Louie to bow out of the picture, to withdraw his acceptance.

I listened to the sermon in question online. It was a consistently biblical message. It was a prophetic message. It was a loving message. Here are a couple of excerpts: 

Men, women, I can’t say anything to you tonight other than this, that if you look at the counsel of the word of God – Old Testament, New Testament – you come quickly to the conclusion that homosexuality is not an alternate lifestyle … .Homosexuality is not just a sexual preference. Homosexuality is not gay, but homosexuality is sin. It is sin in the eyes of God, and it is sin according to the word of God. You come to only one conclusion: homosexuality is less than God’s best for his creation. It is less than God’s best for us and everything in our lives that is less than God’s best for us and his plan for us and his design for us is sin. That’s God’s voice. If you want to hear God’s voice, that is his voice to this issue of homosexuality. It is not ambiguous and unclear. It is very clear … . As the church of Jesus Christ, we cannot sit on the sidelines, we cannot sit back inside our churches, but we must reach out and we must aggressively move toward the homosexual community because we have a message and we’ve got something to say… our message is: We know Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is powerful enough to do anything and to do everything. And the only way out of a homosexual lifestyle, the only way out of a relationship that has been ingrained over years of time, is through the healing power of Jesus. We’ve got to say to homosexuals, the same thing that I say to you and that you would say to me… it’s not easy to change, but it is possible to change.

With the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender activist groups and their allies in the news and entertainment media, this is not a valid view for a thinking human being. It constitutes hate, bigotry and intolerance, which are sins in the eyes of those who don’t believe in biblical sin.

To these people, the only acceptable view is one of full support of the homosexual political and social agenda. Anything less is unacceptable. And they are being more and more effective with their tactics of pressure and intimidation.

In fact, Louie’s own response after this happened to him was quite interesting. One of the things he said on his blog was this: 

Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past 15 years. Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ.

It troubled many Giglio followers and fans that in this written response (in his blog), he never explicitly affirmed his own message that got him removed from the inauguration. In other words, there was the question left hanging if he still held that view. In fact, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote this after reading Louie’s blog:

A fair-minded reading of that statement indicates that Pastor Giglio has strategically avoided any confrontation with the issue of homosexuality for at least 15 years. The issue “has not been in the range of my priorities,” he said. Given the Bible’s insistence that sexual morality is inseparable from our “ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ,” this must have been a difficult strategy. 

It is also a strategy that is very attractive to those who want to avoid being castigated as intolerant or homophobic. As this controversy makes abundantly clear, it is a failed strategy. Louie Giglio was cast out of the circle of the acceptable simply because a liberal watchdog group found one sermon he preached almost 20 years ago. If a preacher has ever taken a stand on biblical conviction, he risks being exposed decades after the fact. Anyone who teaches at any time, to any degree, that homosexual behavior is a sin is now to be cast out.

I wrote to Louie and spoke with someone who works with him on a regular basis and made a strong appeal for him to clear the air on this question. His publicist issued a statement on his behalf stating: “Louie stands by his original statement, which in no way backs away from his view of Scripture on this subject, which has not changed.”

In fairness to Louie, I am certain he had never experienced anything like what happens when the homosexual activists (and the liberal media) come after you. These activists may be small in number, but they are ferocious, often vile, and their goal is to shut you up if not shut you down. Phone calls, e-mails, news media and social media can hit like a tornado. And then your name begins to appear on television shows and on the Internet labeled a “hatemonger” when you know that is not true. 

And it bothers you greatly. I believe that’s what happened to Louie so he was hoping it would just all go away. And it will to a large extent. Of course, I’m just speculating based on his unwillingness to do interviews on what happened and what his beliefs are today on this topic.

The most important thing to me here is that Louie has not changed his views on the Bible with respect to homosexuality. I have never been one to write someone off as a brother in Christ just because he doesn’t handle something the way I would. I also believe it is important to consider the totality of someone’s life and ministry rather than just a small sampling. I have no doubt Louie Giglio loves Jesus Christ with all his being. You can know that by watching or listening to his sermons. I have personally been moved by many of his messages. But what happened to him – being punished by the White House for teaching truth about homosexuality – is, ironically, exactly what he warned would happened in that sermon years ago.

I ask you to pray for Louie Giglio. He is perhaps the leading Christian communicator to college students today. Pray that he would stand strong on the Bible and not be intimidated by the world or be captivated by what Scripture calls the spirit of the age. That would be taking the road of least resistance just to avoid criticism from a world which is increasingly hostile to the things of God.

Hate the sin, love the sinner. That should always be our approach.