The early Christians were faced with a similar situation. The first century Roman historian, Tacitus, charged them with the first recorded accusation of hate speech in Church history: “haters of humanity.” They breached the pagan pax romana.

We must now ask, “When is a culture finally 'given over'”? According to Paul, this occurs when the leading cultural institutions “exchange” their public confession of God as the Creator for interfaith divinized nature; when their worship of the immortal God is “exchanged” for the worship of mortal man and animals; and when their public legitimation of “natural” sexuality is “exchanged” for the promotion of “unnatural” sexual expressions (Rom 1:23, 25, 26). At that point, says Paul, “they are given over” (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28).