Bishop Wilke's Heresy Teaching of Homosexuality

Author Notes:

I briefly talked about homosexuality recently in a sermon. Afterwards I was approached by someone who asked me, “Why is everyone in the church talking about homosexuality?” I said I only speak on it when it comes up in scripture or when someone else is trying to get the Church to make changes in its doctrine and change our understanding of homosexuality when it comes to scripture.

I liken it to Trump. I have no idea what Congress is doing because all I hear about is Trump, how bad he is and his possible impeachment. Right now to the lost world it may seem all the Church talks about is homosexuality, they aren’t really seeing the Church for what it needs or should be. A body of believers loving on a lost world in order to show the love of Christ.

I wrote this because of what I see as false teaching by someone who has the ears of a lot of people in Methodist circles. I don’t expect it to get back to him or change his mind. I don’t expect it to really change anyone’s mind. I wrote it to correct wrong teaching. It’s just that simple.

Also, the point of this article isn’t to say that those who are homosexual or who have different views shouldn’t be allowed in church. All are welcome who want to know more about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. However, someone who is living in a homosexual relationship should not be allowed to serve in the leadership of the church, they should not be leading or teaching. To understand why, study 1 and 2 Corinthians where Paul addresses the open sin of a church member.

Finally, please do not take what I have written as hatred. I do not hate. It’s not what I was called to do. Do not read this article with an angry voice, because I was not angry when I wrote it. As a matter of fact, I read his article several times and took a few weeks to study the subject a little more in depth before I wrote this.

I have homosexual friends and family. I love them. I’m excited to see them when I see them. I hug them. I love on them. I do not treat them any different than I would treat anyone else. God calls us to love all people, all the time. God is love.

The definition of heresy is “a belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine.” The early church was no stranger to heresy. False teachers were spreading all types of misinformation, many we can read about in Paul’s writings. After all, many of those writings were written in order to dispel the false teachers. Today, just like then, the church is facing heresy, false teachers who are trying to convince the church to accept homosexuality as normal and within God’s plan that homosexuals should be allowed in church leadership.

One such person is Richard Wilke. Wilke is a former Bishop with the United Methodist Church. He is well known in UMC circles. He has developed discipleship curriculum for UMC and he and his wife have worked hard for UMC and God’s kingdom. While I am about to write about how wrong Wilke is in his teaching of homosexuality, I have the utmost respect for him and his family and the amount of work they have put into reaching people for the kingdom.

Years ago, Bishop Wilke’s daughter came out to him and his wife as a lesbian. According to a recent article he wrote about his daughter coming out and his understanding on homosexuality in scripture, he was “amazed at my lifelong ignorance about homosexuality.” Bishop Wilke continues to give points as to why he feels the way he feels now. I am not going to address every single point but there are a few that I believe are important for us to understand and that deal specifically with scripture.

Bishop Wilke points to Leviticus and Deuteronomy where Old Testament scripture speaks against homosexuality. He writes, “This code was designed for the specific purpose of setting the Jews apart from the Canaanites. It was not intended as a universal morality.”

Leviticus chapter 18 deals with sexual immorality. Before God mentions homosexuality, there is a laundry list of people you are not to have sexual relations with, they are people related to you. God calls this depravity. Then homosexuality is mentioned which God calls an abomination. Finally, God rules out sex with animals, which He calls perversion. Four more times in this chapter, He uses the word abomination in reference to all of the above sexual immoralities.

In Bishop Wilke’s reasoning then, since homosexuality was not meant to be universal morality that means we are free to have sexual relations with anyone and anything. You see, in his reasoning incest and bestiality are ok too.

Bishop Wilke defends his position by using food, food that was once banned by God to be eaten is now ok. Keep in mind God gave Peter a vision that he then shared and that Paul later help teach, that foods seen as unclean before were ok to eat now. However, nowhere in scripture is homosexuality taken off the sexual immorality list.

As a matter of fact, In Acts 15, the church is faced with one of its first biggest challenges in false teaching, that a gentile must first become a Jew through circumcision before becoming a Christian. The Jerusalem council decided this was not the case and sent a letter to the gentile believers. In the letter the council encourages the new believers not to eat of food given for idol worshipping, not to eat food that has been strangled and not to participate in sexual immorality. The council, which contains the likes of Peter, John and other apostles, tell the gentiles not be sexually immoral people. By Wilke’s reasoning, sexual immorality no longer exists. So if it no longer exists, why would the council feel it important to mention it here?

So let’s say Bishop Wilke is correct, since the council simply used the phrase “sexual immorality” without defining what sexual immorality is, how would the gentiles know the definition? How would they know what was or was not permitted sexually? Because there was a universal understanding of sexual immorality.

If you reason out homosexuality from the list given in Leviticus, then the whole list of sexual immorality must go as well. Remember, nowhere in scripture is homosexuality taken off the list of sexual immorality. Nowhere in scripture does God reverse his decision that homosexuality is an abomination. And it is His decision to make, not ours.

One more thing that Bishop Wilke attempts to reason out, is why Paul speaks about homosexuality. He says Paul speaks of homosexuality because of wealthy Greeks who would buy young slave boys for the purpose of having homosexual relations. In order to stop this practice, Paul makes a blanket statement about homosexuality.

What Wilke fails to mention is that the act of homosexuality was an accepted practice in ancient Rome. Roman men were not only permitted, but expected to be interested in sex with both genders. For Romans, it wasn’t about the gender, but about being conquered. Those who were submissive were looked down upon, while those who were considered conquerors were given high societal status.

Again, with all due respect to Bishop Wilke, he subverts scripture by explaining why it is irrelevant do to historical facts or by trying to explain away Paul’s text by telling us what Paul really meant by his writing with no other scripture to back up his claim.

The Gospel is painful. It illuminates who we really are, a disobedient creation that falls short of the glory of God. Human beings who do not have the ability to live up to God’s standards.

But in the midst of the pain something miraculous takes place. In the pain we feel love. We feel a love that brings us into a right relationship with God.

In that right relationship comes truth. As God begins to transform us, we begin to realize the most important relationship that deserves our total focus is our relationship with Him. All other relationships pale in comparison. 

The Church today is splitting because the focus is on human relationships rather than Godly ones.

Sin is a selfish act. It’s putting your own wants and desires above what God wants for you and out of you. When we come into a right relationship with God, He wants us to put away the selfish acts and become a living sacrifice. Humbling ourselves to live the life He needs us to live in order to do the work He needs done.

No excuses. No justifying our actions. No complaining.

Just living for Him and Him alone.

(If you would like to read Bishop Richard Wilke’s article, I have included the link: https://www.umnews.org/en/news/bishop-gay-daughter-sent-him-back-to-scriptures)