Criticism Of Interview

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32384, 25 August 1970, Page 7

Criticism Of Interview

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Aug. 23. Criticism of an interview with a male homosexual, broadcast during a women’s radio session last week, was expressed by the minister of the Auckland Baptist Tabernacle (the Rev. I. S. Kemp) today.

“That this has happened is probably something new for New Zealand,” said Mr Kemp in his sermon at the morning tabernacle service. "That it happened on a women’s session has startled us, though we could have excused it if the person concerned had been upheld as one among a section of society who deserves our help. “But the fact that the interview presented his way of life as reasonable, acceptable, and a valid option in society

shows how far social standards have fallen from any consciousness of God’s laws. “Worse than this, has been the publication of the Auckland District Methodist Synod’s general approval of a statement on sexuality," said Mr Kemp. “The report says that homosexuality may take on a degree of moral responsibility, that pre-marital sex might in-

volve a deep caring for each other, and that the key principle and central moral criterion in matters of sex is responsibility one to the other. “I say this is worse because here is a considerable branch of Christ’s church upholding the standards of fallen human nature, propounding the basis of Christian morality on a horizontal plane of humanistic responsibility with no apparent regard for our accountibility to God and his holy laws.

“It says that, for some, perversion may be the only outlet Yet the Christian church has been entrusted with the Gospel which is not only another more glorious outlet, but also man’s most valid option for a life that is pure and wholly free. “I have every sympathy with the loneliness of homosexuals and of people who indulge in pre-marital sex, just as I seek to sympathise with those who indulge in

pride, resentment, and carping criticism. They are my friends whom I love and help. “But in our sympathy for them let us not lose sight of the evil they commit, nor of the laws of God they have so clearly broken, nor of the fact that perversion is not the only outlet for anybody but that the better way of the Gospel is available for. all.” Mr Kemp said it was not his intention, from the vantage point of his own denomination to criticise another. What was now meeting the approval of the Auckland Methodist Synod was only symptomatic of the thinking of some within many denominations. The issue was not a denominational one. It was something that affected the very nature of the Christian Gospel, and came under the condemnation not of any party line but of the word of God itself.

“Today, we are having a moral and intellectual battle right with the Church,” said Mr Kemp. ‘There is an urgent need for a recall to the Biblical perspectives of respect for God’s holy laws, our accountability to Him for all we do and say, and also for the glorious possibilities in human nature when the Holy Spirit is allowed to live within us and transform us into the image of Christ,” he said.