There is a push to minimize the sin of homosexuality and sexual immorality in the Evangelical church today, and the Southern Baptist Convention is at the forefront. Last year, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission hosted a conference featuring a gay Anglican priest who suggested that churches need to fully embrace same-sex attracted people.

In a recent video captured by a Twitter user, Southern Baptist President, JD Greear displays a massive lack of biblical knowledge suggesting that homosexuality is no different than being “disobedient to your parents.”

One of the progressive tactics used to reduce homosexuality to a minuscule sin is to attempt to equalize it with other sins. Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University says,

Usually the comparison is then made with sins for which accommodations are often made by Christians (like gluttony or remarriage after divorce), rather than with sins for which no accommodation is made (like incest or murder), as a way of either shutting up Christian opposition to homosexual practice altogether or contending that self-affirming participants in homosexual practice will still “go to heaven.” 

In this instance, Greear compares the sin of homosexuality with other sins that the Apostle Paul lists in Scripture.

Here’s a question: do you think of deceit and boasting as equally depraved? How about greed? Do you think of greed as equally depraved as homosexuality? How about a rebellious attitude against your parents? Do you see that as equally depraved? Paul would.

Either Greear has lost his mind or has a severe lack of theological understanding of the consequences of sin. Of course, Paul thought of homosexuality as more egregious than other sins. Paul wrote in Romans 1:26 , “For this reason, God gave them over to dishonorable passions…” It is for “this reason,” that is, other sins like the ones that Greear is listing off, that God gave them over to the most corrupt form of judgment on earth–homosexuality.

I suppose that Greear wants us to believe that having sex with sheep is morally equivalent to boasting.

Worse than that, Greear elevates materialism as an even more heinous sin than homosexuality. Of course, we know from the direction that the Southern Baptist Convention is taking that this is likely a political move. Conservatives are repulsed by homosexuality and the progressives are seeking to change them. They see conservatives as “materialistic” because they believe in individual, absolute rights–including property rights–something that progressive evangelicalism is seeking to destroy.

Quoting female bible teacher, Jen Wilkin, Greear says,

We ought to whisper about what the Bible whispers about, and we ought to shout about what the Bible shouts about. And the Bible appears more to whisper when it comes to sexual sin compared to it shouts about materialism and religious pride.

Homosexuality is the only sin in Scripture in which two cities were wiped off the face of the earth for not only committing, but celebrating. The notion that God does not see homosexuality as far more egregious than other sins is despicable. Paul taught that some sins are worse than others, and had a particular revulsion toward homosexuality (Romans 1:24-27 , 1 Corinthians 5:1-12 , 1 Corinthians 6:9 , 15-17 , 1 Thessalonians 4:6 )

JD Greaar is a favorite among the New Calvinists in the Southern Baptist Convention, along with Tim Keller and Russell Moore. They are pushing Evangelicalism into a completely different tradition–from one that had a strong, conservative view of Scripture and theology to one that is now barely recognizable by conservative Christians. The push to normalize homosexuality, promote female teachers and preachers, and seek man-centered solutions to cultural problems are of particular concern, and are an effort to make Christianity more attractive and palatable to a lost and dying world as the Church’s influence in our culture declines.