Could gay marriage debate drive young Christians from church?

As the battle over gay marriage heats up in this election year, one evangelical Christian writer is calling for a truce, fearing that the outspoken opposition to gay marriage among some church leaders could alienate an entire generation of religious youth. . . . A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute shows the generation gap between young Christians and their elders is large, with 44 percent of white evangelicals aged 18-29 in support of marriage equality compared to only 12 percent of those 65 and older. According to the same survey, nearly 70 percent of young Christians also agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues. “For young Christians, having gay and lesbian friends is just a part of our life,” Held Evans said. “It’s just really hard for us to see them as mere issues to debate, because we’re talking about our friends here.”

I never said they are pro-fag. They(I) just don't care about the issue. There is a difference.

Yeah, I probably didn't care much about family and appropriate cultural influences for my children when I was in my twenties.

I do now.

And I'd be careful trying to catagorize too generally what your cohort may think about homosexuality.

Y'all have been so relentlessly indoctrinated, from childhood, to accept it as normal, and even desirable, that I don't think you can really know how you think about it.

I know this, though: people tend to react negatively upon learning they've been lied to.

I've never pushed it and don't..I just don't care about it as do many conservatives.

I don't know how many conservatives you think you speak for but morality is at the very core of conservatism and is closely linked to fiscal conservatism. You certainly seem to be advocating a "big tent republican party", that tent is already too big allowing people like mittens to represent it, it doesn't need the 1%-2% of the population that practices faggotry in our midst.

Don't like Ron Paul..and you can be moral and don't care about gay rights

I'm not even sure what that means but you cannot be moral and not care about the issue of queer marriage and queers adopting children. Those issues are very real moral issues and conservatives do indeed "care" about them.

People like you LJ have done more to tear conservatives apart and help reelect obama.

That is nothing but an outright lie and the name calling that followed that statement is liberalism, plain and simple.

We get it, you don't care about morality.

What is morality is not up for a vote, not subject to individuals’ whims, not debatable, and there is no sliding scale or grading curve. Morality is not decided by polls or popularity, it doesn’t change with the times, and it doesn’t evolve.

And people when are immoral in their so-called private lives, oddly enough that immorality seeps through and taints everything they touch. And vice versa, I might add.

No argument here. I suppose the best example of what I am talking about can be found at: http://stonethepreacher.com/ The man that operates that website is an associate pastor at the church I attended when I lived in the LA area. That church was large enough to have discipleship, teaching, and accountability throughout our body. That church also emphasized evangelism.

LJ, I have always respected your views. As I have walked with the Lord, I have come to realize that it is easy to tell somebody that they are going to burn for eternity unless they get right with Jesus. It is easy to invite people to church or ask them “if you died right now, where do you think you would go?”. It is much, much tougher to be somebody’s friend, gain standing in their lives, honor them (in spite of what they do), and speak truth with love into their lives.

It is easy to condemn a sinner for what they do and I spent years doing just that. The task I have set myself to over the last few years is speaking forth the renewing life that Jesus gave me and holds out to everyone.

At one point in my life, I had thoroughly steeped myself in addiction, with no intention of changing or even admitting that such behavior was wrong. Praise God that He saw me differently and gave others the vision to see me one day saved, healed, and delivered from THAT disgusting path to death! I have come to see no difference between between the things I did while I was lost and the things the vilest perverts do right now. All of us will one day answer for those things, and a piece of paper that says “married” is irrelevant. The Blood of Jesus is my answer and while I am here, steering people to the foot of cross has to be my priority.

Winning souls is my Father’s business. Understanding that a government can call something a marriage that my Father will never acknowledge as true is my business. SSM is a non-issue in my book; it is only another lie of the world to overcome, one soul at a time.

By the way, my point earlier was that the republican party doesn’t need the pervert vote nor should they seek it by caving to their immoral demands. I have a different perspective about trying to get one to come to church to hear the word of God. God can and does save people from their sinful ways and that includes the sin of homosexual practice as well as the addictions that you and I both had.

James 5:

19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

20 Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

I’m not acquainted with a homosexual, that I’m aware of but if I were, I’d certainly invite him to church.

I don't understand how young Christians can't reason that they don't need to leave the Church because they have friends who engage in sex outside of marriage, pornography (and let's not go into how the men of the Church struggle with that), and profanity and can't include homosexuals in that.

The men I hang out with are addressing pornography in the church directly. I think it's shameful that we hide behind our church masks. We need to recognize that most men in the church are at the mercy of pornography and lust. Their wives are devastated when they find out because they think their guy is the only one.

I talked to a lady the other day who was ready to leave her husband because she found out he was doing porn. I explained to her how easily it can ensnare a man, and that 80% of the men in her church were probably doing the same thing. It wasn't until we talked about how God can free a guy that she calmed down.

I shared my personal experience in that sin and how God's grace freed me and she became hopeful.

Talking about it openly robs it of some power. It also helps women "get it", because very few do.

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