JAMAICA
The Gleaner
January 19, 2017
The recent report that a married pastor has been charged with carnal abuse and rape of an underage child raises issues for Christians as to whether a paedophile is a sign of weakness, wickedness or sickness.
Glenn Tucker in the Letter of the Day (January 13) argued based on the work of James Cantor of the University of Toronto who theorises that paedophilia is caused by biological susceptibility. Tucker concludes that ‘nobody chooses to be a paedophile’. How he knows that not even one paedophile made a conscious decision? However, because one has a predisposition to certain action it does not mean he has no control over sexual urges. One does not have to act on one’s preferences and proclivities. If Tucker is correct, then we will no longer have just LGBT but we would have to add a ‘P’ for paedophile to make it LGBTP because some argue that nobody chooses to be LGBT. However, paedophiles make a conscious decision. It is not a sickness.
But is it a weakness? The Bible has different words for the English word ‘sin’. Weakness would be when one misses the mark and fall short of expectations. So when a man and a woman, who are not in love, become intimate out of lustful desires, then that could be considered weakness. However, there is wickedness which is rebelling against God’s will; engaging in lawlessness; deliberately and stubbornly engaging in iniquity. It is presumptuous sinning. It is flying in the face of God.
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