Posted on 12/12/2006 5:12:42 PM PST by shrinkermd
Justin Lee believes that the Virgin birth was real, that there is a heaven and a hell, that salvation comes through Christ alone and that he, the 29-year-old son of Southern Baptists, is an evangelical Christian.
Just as he is certain about the tenets of his faith, Mr. Lee also knows he is gay, that he did not choose it and cannot change it.
To many people, Mr. Lee is a walking contradiction, and most evangelicals and gay people alike consider Christians like him horribly deluded about their faith. “I’ve gotten hate mail from both sides,” said Mr. Lee, who runs gaychristian.net, a Web site with 4,700 registered users that mostly attracts gay evangelicals.
The difficulty some evangelicals have in coping with same-sex attraction was thrown into relief on Sunday when the pastor of a Denver megachurch, the Rev. Paul Barnes, resigned after confessing to having sex with men. Mr. Barnes said he had often cried himself to sleep, begging God to end his attraction to men.
His departure followed by only a few weeks that of the Rev. Ted Haggard, then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and the pastor of a Colorado Springs megachurch, after a male prostitute said Mr. Haggard had had a relationship with him for three years...
...A lot of people are freaked out because their only exposure to evangelicalism was a bad one, and a lot ask, ‘Why would you want to be part of a group that doesn’t like you very much?’ ” Mr. Lee said. “But it’s not about membership in groups. It’s about what I believe. Just because some people who believe the same things I do aren’t very loving doesn’t mean I stop believing what I do.”
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely and counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice,” Dr. Gagnon said. “I trust that gay evangelicals would argue otherwise, but Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture.”
In fact, both sides look to Scripture. The debate is largely over seven passages in the Bible about same-sex couplings. Mr. Gagnon and other traditionalists say those passages unequivocally condemn same-sex couplings.
Those who advocate acceptance of gay people assert that the passages have to do with acts in the context of idolatry, prostitution or violence. The Bible, they argue, says nothing about homosexuality as it is largely understood today as an enduring orientation, or about committed long-term, same-sex relationships...
This is a problem and a controversy that conservatives will face regardless of their belief. It is not going away.
The Catholic Church went down that "acceptance path" and look what it did to their bank account.
The road to hell is paved with.....
I am a born again Christian. I'm also a heterosexual male with strong heterosexual urges. How I respond to those urges determines whether I sin or not. I make choices everyday about different things. Inever have the option to stand before God and say "Its all your fault. You made me this way."
Good answer.
A person who is ill is at no greater risk than when they think that they are cured when they really are not.
Christ said "For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance"
Repentance? What is that?
But if he's a practicing homosexual and thinks that's fine and dandy with God, then he's as deluded as a burglar who keeps right on burgling after going to an altar call, or a guy who keeps going to a prostitute and thinks there is nothing that he needs to repent of. But I guess it's asking too much of the mainstream media to understand this.
But if he's a practicing homosexual and thinks that's fine and dandy with God, then he's as deluded as a burglar who keeps right on burgling after going to an altar call, or a guy who keeps going to a prostitute and thinks there is nothing that he needs to repent of. But I guess it's asking too much of the mainstream media to understand this.
More or less my take as well, we all will fall down on occasion, they claim they are standing.
that is a very dangerous thing to do.
Not that any Popes or other members of influential clergy would allow their political or personal views to have influenced religious doctrine throughout the years. /S
Well said.
No, he can't. But God can.
This is a problem and a controversy that conservatives will face regardless of their belief. It is not going away.
What "controversy?" You can equivocate to human beings all you want. But the Bible is clear. And God doesn't offer a Court of Appeals.
Same-sex attraction is a difficult malady. But it is a malady, and can (and should) be treated -- just like fetal alcohol syndrom or some birth defect. Defect. Treatable.
How does one treat this?
What about transgenders? Are they also born that way and cannot change it? But then they wouldn't be transgenders. They have to change the way they are born or else... Oh....[sound of exploding head]
The Bible is clear. Pick it up and read it, or go to any Bible website and search "Homosexual". See what you find. God is not going to conform to our image. Take this same example, remove the word "Gay" and add any other you like. " Joe whoever, is a born again Baptist, believes in the Virgin birth, believes in the Bible as the Word of God, votes Republican and is a conservative bank robber!"
God has not changed! He is the same God today, yesterday and forever!
The path is a dead end! In so many ways, no one can count them!
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