Posted on 06/06/2014 8:50:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A Southern Baptist church in California has broken with the denomination's stance on homosexuality and has decided to accept the LGBT community without judgment. The church made the change after its lead pastor announced that he no longer holds to the teaching that homosexuality is a sin.
Danny Cortez, who leads New Heart Community Church in La Mirada, explained his journey in a letter to progressive Christian blogger John Shore, founder of Unfundamentalist Christians, last month. At the end of that journey, his son came out to him as gay.
"I recently became gay affirming after a 15-year journey of having multiple people in my congregation come out to me every year," Cortez wrote. After reading many of Shore's writings and hearing testimony from gay friends who felt marginalized, Cortez said his "eyes became open to the injustice that the church has wrought" and in August 2013, he said he "realized I no longer believed in the traditional teachings regarding homosexuality."
Soon after his shift in beliefs, his 15-year-old son, Drew, revealed that he was gay and later came out publicly on YouTube.
Cortez believes that if it wasn't for that 15-year journey and his change in theology, "I may have destroyed my son through reparative therapy."
The California pastor, a graduate of Biola University's Talbot School of Theology, told his congregation in February that he had recently informed the church's elders that he now personally affirmed same-sex relationships.
Cortez explained to his church that his conversations with LGBT members of his congregation over the years had increasingly left him dissatisfied.
"I could feel the dread coming in the person I'm talking to. And I was always wondering why, of all of God's commandments, why is this the one commandment that seemed that it was different that seemed to impart life. And this is the one that created so much self-hatred, this was the sense of people feeling like they were imprisoned. A sentence of life with no chance to love," he said.
The majority of his sermon that day focused on Romans 1, a passage which many Christians interpret as condemning homosexual behavior.
"[Romans 1] wasn't so that we could judge everyone else. Paul, in this magnificent, brilliant, writing style was saying, 'I'm writing all of this, but really I'm getting you to agree with how evil it is and then telling you, guess what? You're just the same way,'" he said. "And therefore, Paul says, 'Don't judge anyone.' And yet we use this Romans 1 as the passage most often to judge all sorts of people."
Cortez also cited Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, in his sermon. In his letter to Shore, he also acknowledged that Ken Wilson's book, A Letter to My Congregation, had been influential.
Cortez's announcement, which the pastor acknowledged had frustrated church elders by its abruptness, left many in the church displeased and the church decided to vote on whether to terminate the pastor or accept his proposition.
After a period of prayer, study and discernment, which also included hearing from gay and straight teachers on both sides of the homosexuality debate, the church voted in May not to dismiss Cortez and "instead to become a Third Way church," Cortez explained.
According to Cortez, as a "Third Way" church, the Southern Baptist congregation would "accept the LGBT community even though they may be in a relationship. We will choose to remain the body of Christ and not cast judgement (sic). We will work toward graceful dialogue in the midst of theological differences. We see that this is possible in the same way that our church holds different positions on the issue of divorce and remarriage. In this issue we are able to not cast judgement (sic) in our disagreement."
Those who disagree with the church will formally leave it on June 8.
Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, criticized the idea of a church trying to embrace a third way.
"A church will either believe and teach that same-sex behaviors and relationships are sinful, or it will affirm them," Mohler stated Monday, suggesting that Cortez's acknowledgement of church members departing evidenced this. "Eventually, every congregation in America will make a public declaration of its position on this issue. It is just a matter of time (and for most churches, not much time) before every congregation in the nation faces this test."
"Even if it is claimed that some continuing members of the church are in disagreement with the new policy and position, they will be members of a church that operates under that new policy. At the very least, their decision to remain in the congregation is a decision to stay within a church that affirms same-sex behaviors and relationships," he added.
Mohler also pointed to progressive Christian blogger Tony Jones, who disagrees with Mohler's views on homosexuality but has made a similar point to that of his conservative colleague last month.
"I've got a few friends to graciously and tenaciously hang on to the idea that a third way can be found on this issue, a middle ground between affirming gay marriage and condemning it. And I agree with them, to a point. ... Those are practices of a middle ground, but that middle ground is necessarily temporary," wrote Jones on his blog.
Why could this not exist?
According to Jones, there could be no middle ground because the same-sex marriage debate in the church is always determined by practices." He cited as an example the World Vision controversy in March, in which the Christian charity announced that it was changing its employment policy to allow for Christians who are in legal same-sex marriages.
"For three years, the WV board of directors studied and prayed about the issue, and no one complained. But as soon as they decided to institute a new practice — that is, hiring legally married gay persons in their U.S. offices — conservative Christians went postal. Spokesmen tweeted, pastors called, and recording artists threatened. In less than 48 hours, WV reversed their decision," he explained.
Mohler said he believes that New Heart will ultimately be forced to leave the Southern Baptist Convention, given that the "the Baptist Faith & Message, the denomination's confession of faith, states that homosexuality is immoral and that marriage is 'the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.'"
"Furthermore, the Convention's constitution states explicitly that any congregation that endorses homosexual behavior is 'not in cooperation with the Convention,' and thus excluded from its membership."
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO... "WHY I CHANGED MY MIND ON HOMOSEXUALITY"
If you could hear what goes on in the northeastern convocations of the old mainstream churches, you would swear you were at a meeting of the University LGBT Pro-Unionist Abortion Rights Anti-Gun Sociaist Democrats for Anarchy.
Interesting, this church sought out man’s opinion but it did not search out the bibles teaching. It disturbing they decided they won’t judge either so now they when sin is engaged in by their members their response is silence? Jesus never stood silent when confronted with sin.
How will they do their alter call since they no longer condemn sin? Come to Jesus but you can still sin, your life won’t be transformed?
AWFUL parenting is running amok.
I’m a Baptist Pastor’s kid, and if I had “come out”, dear ol’ dad would have broken with ME, not the Bible’s teachings.
Things are happening with increasing regularity, that just a few years ago no one could have dreamed.
That could be said for so many things that've happened, in my opinion, over the past 7 years.
The speed and ease are amazing...and, were prophesied.
You’re right. In just the time since I signed up with FR, so many things (not just militant homosex) have happened that were unthinkable at the time. It’s amazing and frightening at the same time.
......Soon after his shift in beliefs, his 15-year-old son, Drew, revealed that he was gay and later came out publicly on YouTube.
How inspiring & uplifting! A father-son homosexual coming out party.
Ahhhh, they do realize that homos can't procreate, don't they? If so their lineage will end, unless of course they go out on joint recruiting liaisons to keep the abomination alive!
You wrote...
Why would he have engaged in reparative therapy? That’s for the people who have the problem, not the pastor?
Perhaps the wording is confusing, but I interpreted Cortez's remark that he felt he would have destroyed his son by enrolling him in reparative therapy to overcome his son'a gayness.
No matter really, the whole article is about a morally sick reprobate homo father leading not only his congregation astray, but even more so, his own 15 yr old son
If we were to look at it in a more charitable but still Biblically sound way, you could say that it’s someone who is or was faithful, but faced a test of faith and failed it.
Whatever the case, prayers for this man and his son and congregation to escape this noose of sin.
Romans 1 implies that homosexuality is a form of judgment itself. Due to their sins, the scripture says "God gave them up to depravity." It sure looks like God has given up this country to depravity. In spite of continuous votes against gay marraige, it's becoming the law of the land. Even liberal Oregon voted 66% against gay marriage, but that was recently thrown out by the courts.
As we see the church falling away, we shouldn't be discouraged. When the Communists began persecuting churches in Russia, the average church saw a 95% falling away. The average church dropped from 300 to 15 members. The same thing will happen here. There is a persecution coming, but few are theologically prepared for it.
I completely agree with everything you posted there. The day is coming where it will cost us. It alrady cost a cake baker in Colorado.
American Christian evangelist and author, Hal Lindsey, aged 40, had his book, The Late Great Planet Earth, published in 1970. The book is a treatment of literalist, premillennial, dispensational (an evangelical, futurist, Biblical interpretation that understands God to have related to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants in a series of "dispensations," or periods in history), eschatology (the study of 'end things', whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, the end of the world and the nature of the Kingdom of God). Coming on the heels of the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War (1967), the book fueled the popularity of dispensationalism and its support of ethnic Jews as the "chosen people of God". It was later made into a film, “The Late Great Planet Earth”, with Hollywood actor/ director/ writer/ producer Orson Welles doing the narration and was released in theaters in 1979. Many of Lindsey's later writings are sequels or revisions and extensions of his 1st book.
The Late Great Planet Earth compared end-time prophecies in the Bible with then-current events in an attempt to broadly predict future scenarios leading to the rapture (a word not used in the Bible) of believers before the tribulation and Second Coming of Christ to establish his thousand-year (i.e., millennial) Kingdom on Earth. Focusing on key passages in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, Lindsey originally suggested the possibility that these climactic events might play out in the 1980s, which he interpreted as 1 generation from the foundation of modern Israel in 1948, a pivotal event in some conservative evangelical schools of eschatological thought.
He cited an increase in the frequency of famines, wars and earthquakes, as key events leading up to the end of the world. He also foretold a Soviet invasion of Israel (War of Gog and Magog). Like many previous books, The Late, Great Planet Earth postulated an Antichrist ruling over a 10-member or 10-nation European confederacy. Lindsey believed that what was then the 6-member European Economic Community (later the 28-member European Union) could be a forerunner of this confederacy, which he considered to be a revival of the Roman Empire.
Lindsey wrote that the biblical prophets identified certain nations would ally with other countries to form "4 major spheres of political power" during the same time era that Israel would be reestablished as a nation. These nations and their allies were identified as: (1) Russia with its allies, (2) China with other nations of the Orient, (3) Egypt with other Middle East countries, and (4) an alliance of Western European nations. He stated that the prophets did not directly or indirectly refer to the U.S. He concluded that this was an indication that the U.S. would no longer be a leader on the world geo-political stage by the time the Tribulation of the end times arrived, but he suggested that Ezekiel 13:13 could be speaking of the U.S. in part.
Ezekiel 13:13 (NIV, © 2011) 13 “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: In my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury.
Although Lindsey did not claim to know the dates of future events with any certainty, he suggested that Matthew 24:32-34 indicated that Jesus' return might be within "1 generation" of the rebirth of the state of Israel, and the rebuilding of the (3rd) Jewish Temple, and Lindsey asserted that "in the Bible" 1 generation is 40 years. Some readers took this as an indication that the Tribulation or the Rapture would occur no later than 1988. In his 1980 work, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, Lindsey predicted that "the decade of the 1980s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it".
Matthew 24:32-34 (NIV, © 2011) 32 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 33 Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it[a] is near, right at the door. 34 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
Lindsey's earlier predictions all assumed that the Cold War would continue indefinitely, and had eschatological significance; he explicitly identified Russia with the apocalyptic figure of Gog. He also assumed that the 1960s counterculture would eventually become the dominant culture, and become the source of prophesied "immorality" that would lead to the establishment of a false religion.
His 1996 book, Planet Earth – 2000 A.D: Will Mankind Survive?, stated that Christians should not plan to still be on earth by the year 2000.
In 1994, he created a weekly television program, “The Hal Lindsay Report”, which was focused on Biblical prophecy and current events. He is still making weekly editions for the program at aged 84. They air on the Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) under his own financing.
So true.
We Americans have many gay men going to the Episcopalian church because the Episcopalian Church accepts homosexual relationships.
Not yet in SBC churches I don’t think.......
I love that argument. My dogs eat turds, too. I don’t do that, either. We aren’t supposed to act like animals.
This group is no longer “Southern,” and it does not even have “Baptist” in its title. What is it?
It’s probably good that he’s out of there then. Has your friend found another church to pastor?
True.
‘One can only imagine how St. Paul would be treated in the modern society.’
Or John The Baptist. He would be vilified for his “intolerance” of Herod Antipas’ adulterous and incestuous lifestyle.
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