I noticed that as well.
It seems that only homosexuality has become a point of identity. Instead of recognizing that they are being tempted with homosexual temptation, they embrace it and let it become their identity.
Way to lose your soul.
Who ever heard of a serial killer Christian?
Or a kleptomaniac Christian?
Or a womanizer Christian?
Or an extortionist Christian?
Ah, now here we get into another bugaboo that I’ve been occasionally squawking about.
When a Christian is tempted we have, essentially, two responses besides give in.
The first is to deal with temptation by the strength which God supplies by His Holy Spirit: that way out that He promises to provide.
The second is to try to deal with it yourself in your own strength. Essentially telling God “I got this one!”
The second probably happens far too often and, if you think about it, is kinda dumb on our part.
I guess I should back up here all the way to the beginning of humanity.
He created them as holy beings: they traded that for being merely moral beings.
Which is to say: mankind on the whole doesn’t have a morality problem but has a holiness problem.
Saint or sinner can be moral in their own strength ... but these do not result in fruits of the Spirit, or so I’m persuaded, because when we are moral in our own strength we are not relying on God.
Now, there is clearly an area when people set their standards of right and wrong by what His word tells us, which would fall under the not turning our feet to the left or right because of His commandment (Proverbs 4:27). So there is to us this fuzzy area of when we are trying by our own strength and when we are obeying Him that needs to be considered, for obedience is relying on Him ... except when it’s not.
I know that sounds confusing but consider...
Knowing His commandments can also be a cultural thing, a matter of what others expect of us, and it is possible that someone may seem to be obeying Him when, cut to the chase, they are obeying them.
And of course it can be, and probably usually is, mixed: a fellow may resist temptation one day because “it’s against God’s will” and the next “mom and dad will really be disappointed” and yet some other day push past it going “Ah ha, I’ve got this beat!”
But whatever men think about the outward result God is not mocked.
If a person has gotten so moral in their own strength I’m persuaded that He sometimes lets us be sifted as Peter was so that we should learn to rely on Him rather than ourselves.
Which is where your post leads to this one.
As you and I are all too aware there have been infamous incidents where some supposed servant of God has made a wreck of their testimony because of some long concealed sin that can no longer be hidden.
I consider it likely that these sort of incidents, here used as an example, come about because God is letting such men be sifted to prove what they are. There seems to be three end results.
The first is to be like Peter and be brought to a place of real reliance on The Lord and humility before Him. With such persons their restoration proves that they were always Christians.
The second is to fall away and depart, to be like those Paul mentioned as having departed because they were never really repentant in the first place. This doesn’t mean such a person is beyond saving, just that they no longer claim something from the past that was never the case with them.
The third, and worst, if for the unrepentant person to shed some crocodile tears, or whatever seems necessary to reenter the congregation, and then work to bring others around to their way of thinking.
This last is something like the situation that the OP was about.
So what you wrote is certainly true: a Christian’s identity, who we really are, is “Christian” ...
... if there is sin in our lives it gives way to Him ...
... we do not serve two masters ...
... and though others might claim the title of “Christian” if they come to a point that they define themselves by some thing that they do, so that it has priority to understand who they think they are ...
... which will mean they will start demanding God and His word stand aside rather than this thing ...
... Then they too are not serving two masters, they are just not actually repentant and sin is their master.
But the world often sees and acknowledges their claims, even if they are not true. That is because it rejoices to seem to discredit the Faith.
And actually, the greater the shipwreck of the faith of someone, especially those that never had a genuine faith to begin with, the louder the world will broadcast it back at genuine saints for by excuse of these do the peoples blaspheme (Romans 2:24).
Ah ... the last edit I do WAS one edit too few.
When I wrote “The last is something like the situation that the OP was about.” ...
I did not mean that she was only recently revealed because she had been sifted and found to be a tare.
She obviously revealed herself because she thought the church should change to accommodate her.
Rather “like” should then be read pretty loosely ... not as if it were really similar, just not entirely dissimilar.
She was like she has shown herself to be long before now — in the class of persons trying to sneak their thing into God’s family, if possible drawing any saints she might after her and away from Him.
That said, right now in that congregation there may be some real sifting going on, and while it may not be all that dramatic, given the history of progressive “churches”, I’d be concerned that at the end of the day that subversive-sneaky unbelievers don’t seem to carry the day ... and she stays.
I guess I should just allow that sometimes real Christians should be proverbially, if not literally, willing to run screaming into the night rather than stay a moment longer in a congregation that has flatly departed from even a semblance of the faith.