According to Jen Hatmaker’s friend Doug, she would be the result of a procreative union between George Carlin and Beth Moore. According to Beth Moore, Jen Hatmaker is a Bible teacher and communicator with whom she is “honored beyond words” to serve. According to Jen Hatmaker, the church should stop excluding “gaybees.” According to me, it’s a problem when a popular evangelical speaker who often pals around with Beth Moore and company puts out a Facebook post like the one below and it gets hundreds of likes:
In the post above, Hatmaker seemed to take a soft stance on homosexuality, not once calling its practitioners to repentance or even making the clarification that homosexuality is a sin. Instead, Hatmaker laments Christian churches which condemn homosexual practice.
As you can see, this post initially makes the mistake of assuming that there is actually a such thing as a “gay Christian.” The Apostle Paul didn’t seem to think that there was. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 he wrote:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. 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.” (ESV, Emphasis added).
One could give Hatmaker the benefit of the doubt and conclude that she, a professional communicator, just employed sloppy wording. This is what I was inclined to do after first reading her post but then I looked into the comment section and witnessed her affirm a “transgender Christian” without calling him to repentance and without clarifying that transgenderism is perversion of God’s created order. She even called this man pretending to be a woman, “sister”, and said, “welcome to the family.”
Hatmaker did find it in her time to mention the sin of racism. I wholeheartedly agree that racism is a sin, but if she took the time to call out and encourage the repentance of this sin, why would she completely ignore the sinfulness of the LGBT crowd? Hatmaker rebukes racism, which is good, but why doesn’t she rebuke the sin which forms the basis of her post?
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that Hatmaker has touched on the issue of homosexuality. In an article in 2014 about the World Vision “gay marriage” issue, she made the case that the Bible isn’t clear enough on the issue of homosexuality. She stated,
This is a fact: Thousands of churches and millions of Christ-followers faithfully read the Scriptures and with thoughtful and academic work come to different conclusions on homosexuality (and countless others). Godly, respectable leaders have exegeted the Bible and there is absolutely not unanimity on its interpretation. There never has been. Historically, Christian theology has always been contextually bound and often inconsistent with itself; an inconvenient truth we prefer to selectively explain.
Throwing the the Doctrine of God, a Christian essential, to the wind to emphasize her point, she went on to say,
… [T]here has never been ‘one way’ to interpret scripture. There has never been ‘one way’ to be a biblical church. Even the early church leaders had severe and lasting disagreements about the nature of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, Salvation, Faith, Works, etc.
In reviewing the article cited above, discernment blogger Christine Pack of Sola Sisters wrote, “The Christian community, the true, Bible-believing Christian community, HAS reached consensus on gay marriage, and that is that it is an abomination in God’s eyes.” (Source).
That the market for ladies Christian teaching will abide the faltering of one of its denizens (Hatmaker) on the issue of homosexuality is a reason for great concern. I think it is important for us to examine Hatmaker’s teachings on other subjects very closely to see if they truly align with Biblical orthodoxy. Given her statements on homosexuality, it wouldn’t be surprising if they didn’t.
[Contributed by Brandon Hines]
[Edited by Seth Dunn]
