Posted on 12/02/2016 8:43:31 AM PST by Gamecock
Cosmopolitan and Buzzfeed recently discovered that the church Chip and Joanna Gaines attend, Antioch Community Church, is led by a pastor who does not support same-sex marriage and who believes that homosexual practice is a sin. In other words, Chip and Joanna Gaines attend a historically Christian congregation on the matter of sexual ethics.
Now, not all Christians will agree with some of the statistics cited by the Gaines’ pastor, his linking homosexuality in most cases to abuse, or his portrayal of the “gay lifestyle.” But there is nothing newsworthy about a Christian church teaching that male-female marriage is God’s original design and that newly invented definitions fall short of God’s intention for human flourishing.
What is newsworthy is the religious undertone of the Cosmopolitan article. It reads like a heresy hunt. The magazine has “uncovered something many fans will likely want an explanation for—a startling revelation that has left many wondering where Chip and Jo stand.”
Buzzfeed is seeking clarification from HGTV, hoping (apparently) to hear the Gaines recant their pastor’s heretical beliefs. Until then “their silence speaks volumes.”
Uncovering the ‘Heretics’
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen reality TV stars come under fire for Christian beliefs. It’s happened to the Duck Dynasty patriarch, the Duggars (before their other scandals), and the Benham Brothers. After an initial “uncovering” of the disturbing perspective, outrage ensues, ultimatums are given, the stars are expected to recant, or the company is pressured to punish the heretics by cutting ties.
If my use of religious terminology to describe this phenomenon surprises you, it shouldn’t. Mary Eberstadt has pointed out the religious dimension to the Sexual Revolution:
The fundamental impulse leading to the penalizing of moral traditionalists today is not libertarian. It is instead neo-puritanical—that is, it is aimed at safeguarding its own body of revealed and developed truths, and at marginalizing, silencing, and punishing competitors.
She continues:
The bedrock of contemporary progressivism can only be described as quasi-religious. . . . Exactly like followers of other faiths, they believe both that they are right, and that people who disagree are wrong—and that those other people ought to think differently.
The so-called culture war, in other words, has not been conducted by people of religious faith on one side, and people of no faith on the other. It is instead a contest of competing faiths: one in the Good Book, and the other in the more newly written figurative book of secularist orthodoxy about the sexual revolution. In sum, secularist progressivism today is less a political movement than a church.
Exclusion in the Name of Diversity
Supporters of same-sex marriage once leaned on libertarian terminology to make their case. “Just live and let live,” we were told. Nowadays, despite surveys showing that only half of Americans support same-sex marriage, the traditional view, accepted by nearly all societies across the world for thousands of years, is treated as if it is a fringe position, worthy of public scorn.
The Cosmopolitan article says the revelation about the Gaines’ church is startling due to “the diversity of their audience.” If diversity were truly valued, then it wouldn’t be controversial to have a traditional Christian on an HGTV show.
Just think. If uniformity on sexual ethics is required, then Cosmopolitan would, in the name of diversity, bar the door to a Muslim host of a show, or an Orthodox Jew, or a convictional Catholic. No, this is not about diversity and inclusion; it’s about enforcing the new moral orthodoxy by shaming “cultural heretics.”
Christians as “Sex Rebels”
One of the chapters in my new book, This Is Our Time, is called “Sex Rebels” because it makes the case that Christians in our generation will be known for dissent from this ideology.
In the 1960s and ’70s, the sexual rebels were the hippies who wanted to throw off moral restraints in favor of “free love.” In the 21st century, the sexual rebels will be Christians who dissent from Sexual Revolution dogma.
But there’s no reason to be gloomy about the task we have before us. We have the privilege of bearing cultural reproach for the sake of the kingdom, and accepting the challenge to embody a different way of life.
If we’re going to be outcasts and dissenters, let’s be the kind of rebels that don’t just expose the lies of the Sexual Revolution. Let’s answer the longings of our society by offering an entirely different vision of sex and marriage. Let’s declare what God is for. After all, God’s “no” to certain kinds of sexual behavior goes along with God’s “yes” to sex in its proper place (marriage) and also celebrates various kinds of non-sexual but vitally necessary companionship within the community of faith.
Meanwhile, pray for Chip and Joanna and their church. The cultural inquisition is coming.
Neutrality of religious belief is impossible. Such a state of philosophic neutrality is impossible in the mind of any sentient human. However, religious tolerance is possible.
It is for this reason that the government should NOT run or own schools because it is impossible to have a religiously neutral school. The government school WILL uphold and establish the religious worldview of the political powerful and crush that of politically weak.
Just because a believer does not agree with the gay lifestyle because of what the Bible is very clear about does not mean they hate those people that do that. I do not know any Christian that hates them personally. We do not like what they do, from what we know to be true from God’s Word. We are not in fear of them as they refer to us as’ homophobic’ (phobia: fear of). We love them as the Lord commanded us to - we just hate what they practice. Why can’t some people get this? We need not sway our beliefs to suit them.....or shame on us.
Hate the Sin, love the Sinner.
Who would think that the Left is trying to Alinsky a Texas Contractor who has a TV Show.
So far the Gaines have kept a response to one tweet.
That is good because the left wants to force them to say their preacher is wrong. The threat is they will try to make it so they lose their show.
Keep saying nothing Gaines. Ignore them and let others do the fighting.
Then Nancy Pelosi,Joe Biden and all the other lib catholic politicians should condemn catholic church,loudly and publicly and say they are no longer Catholics....
They need to get out in front of this with their Pastor:
Calla Press Conference, hold up a copy of the KORAN and tell them “We teach about Homosexuality from the Koran just like our Muslim Friends”
LET THEM CHOKE ON IT
Heh.
It’s fine in the news forum, it’s been moved there.
is led by a pastor who does not support same-sex marriage and who believes that homosexual practice is a sin.
I kept waiting for the punch line!
So a Chritian Church believes the Word of God and that is somehow newsworthy or strange?
// his linking homosexuality in most cases to abuse, or his portrayal of the “gay lifestyle.”//
Growing up in the gay community every gay person I know was abused either sexually, emotionally or physically and often more than one of those.
And the ‘gay lifestyle’ is beyond disgusting and self centered
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/12/fixer-upper-chip-and-joanna-gaines-scandal-hgtv
Until the MSM starts applying the words scandal and shame to `religious’ leaders like the Reverend Wright (”G_d damn America”) Farrakhan and others, we should give the criticism the contempt it deserves. e.g “Joanna hates walls!”
Great show. Hard working, personable couple. There are no restrictions on freedom of religious belief, unless you are advocating killing those who disagree with you.
Disagree with Islam? You’re a hater.
Explanation? The MSM, root and branch, is as crazy as a summer orchard boar in a pile of fermenting windfall peaches.
Only with Biblical theism are there two interactive dimensions, the seen and unseen and a Holy Triune God wholly apart from His creation, allowing for two sexes.
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