Posted on 08/16/2007 11:08:18 AM PDT by Anti-Hillary
Should biblical churches host gay-glorifying funerals? Should evangelical politics move leftward? Many news organs give us one answer: Yes!
The lead of an Aug. 11 Associated Press story seemed to expose a clear case of homophobia: "A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay."
The story stated that officials at High Point Church in Arlington, Texas, offered to host the service for a gay janitor who wasn't a church member but had worked there -- only to say no when his obituary listed a life partner. The deceased's sister said, "It's a slap in the face."
The AP story did quote the church's pastor's concern that the service would promote the gay lifestyle. That quotation was a throwback to the old AP style of trying to present both sides equally, but the new AP is politically correct, and the overall slant of this story was clear: Christians lack compassion.
A Dallas Morning News story was more nuanced. It noted that the issue was not the deceased's unrepentant homosexuality but that "his friends and family wanted that part of his life to be a significant part of the service."
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
The Church will welcome anyone, but it will never glorify sin. And that’s just what this little pride parade was going to do.
Referencing MAN's position on divorce, not God's.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
What God put together, man cannot separate.
And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
The source of your confusion is this - it refers to abandonment or separation WITHOUT a bill of divorcement. It's the same principle today - one cannot have multiple spouses.
It's not a difficult concept.
Maybe some shyster has convinced them they have been discriminated against and deserve millions. Given all the support the church gave them I'm really surprised.
Actually, that's your strawman.
It was more polite to say that that to point out the crotch shot.
Pictures that the family denies giving him. Now what you described were two tasteless pictures which had no business in a church under any circumstances, but they're hardly the kind of pictures Pastor described. <>They did give them to the church. They have also been posted by the DMN.
So if you didn't see any of the other ones then did they exist, as the Pastor claims? Or did they not, as the family says? Or did you even see them at all?
One story had the family giving the church 75 photos, another 82, and another over a hundred. According to OneNewsNow.com, it was a female staff member that brought it to their attention, stating that the photos were 'openly homosexual.'
IT'S A CHURCH, a Christian Church. God destroyed two cites for their abominable homosexual practices. They can love the sinner while hating the sin. The church has every right to refuse to glorify his sinful lifestyle. Did you know that the family also wanted an open mike session, and the Turtle Creek Chorale, an openly gay and allegedly internationally famous group to perform in the church?
From the Church:
The issue is not whether we hold a memorial service in a lifestyle of sin. We've assisted many families in this regard. The issue is whether we would allow an openly homosexual memorial service in our church. We love the homosexual, but cannot condone the homosexual lifestyle. We could not allow homosexuality to be glorified in this house of worship.To assist the family in securing another location, an offer was made to pay for alternative venue, which the family declined. We produced for the family a memorial video they requested without the inappropriate photos. We also prepared and delivered food for the family and 100 relatives and friends. Our love for the family was demonstrated over and again in our many acts of kindness and concern. Many of our faithful members spent hours cooking and preparing the meals and our staff worked diligently to meet the needs of the family.
Many of our staff members went to the memorial service in support of the family. The memorial service located at Moore Funeral Home did confirm our concerns, as the tone was openly homosexual.
Kudos to the church for refuses to bow down to the homosexual lobby. A church is to glorify God, not a lifestyle that He condemns.
Accepting homosexuality as normal; would be like a baby nursery in a maternity hospital allowing a contagious bacterial infection to be sprayed on the baby beds.
So...I commit adultery daily and live a life that is sinfull by definition, and as long as I say I'm sorry then it's all OK? And I thought we Catholics were a forgiving lot. But at least we recognize divorce for what is is.
The confusion seems to lie with you, since Mark 10:3 clearly refers to the bill of divorcement. But I'll humor you. If, in your learned opinion, Matthew is actually talking about divorce then can we at least agree that those who divorce for reasons other than infidelity and who later remarry are, in fact, committing adultery against their former spouse?
No that seems to be your arguement. The dead man, merely by living his life, celebrated his sin of sodomy, as you put it. Well that must mean that the divorced person, merely by living his life with a second spouse, is celebrating the sin of adultery.
Churches do allow for ecclesiastical divorces so your assumption is erroneous. Just in case, I am specifically thinking about the orthodox church which has a few millenia over the recent arrivals in the last centuries.
Also, we are talking about a recreational sex behavior. Refusing to celebrate homosexual sex at a funeral is no different than refusing to celebrate a dead persons sex with animals or sex orgies when going to club med’s hedonism(tm) resorts.
Your straw-man is ridiculous and a non sequiter
In regards to homosexuality, God specifically calls this behavior an abomination in the Old Testament. In Romans 1 he refers to a depraved mind. In 1 Cor 6:9-11 we see some of the Corinthians were previously adulterers, some were homosexual, but they were washed, sanctified and justified.
What does it mean to be washed? How do you define justification? How do you define sanctification?
If we continue with the 1 Cor 6 passage, in verses 18-20 in the NIV we see:
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.How do you reconcile the above passage with your statements in this thread?
They do, ignoring Jesus' command that what God had joined, let no man break asunder. That doesn't change the teachings of Christ that divorce and remarry is adultery. That just makes it a more acceptable sin in the eyes of the church in question.
Also, we are talking about a recreational sex behavior. Refusing to celebrate homosexual sex at a funeral is no different than refusing to celebrate a dead persons sex with animals or sex orgies when going to club med’s hedonism(tm) resorts.
We're talking about a church refusing to conduct a funeral because they believe to do so promotes a sinful lifestyle, making it clear that some sinful lifestyles are OK for them and others are not.
Jesus said that to divorce and remarry was committing adultery. Now I have said all along that the church was well within its rights to refuse to conduct the funeral because the central figure was a homosexual. If it’s all about the sin, then I’m merely pointing out that if the church wants to use as it’s excuse the fact that they didn’t want to promote a sinful lifestyle then they should use the same standards if asked to perform a funeral for someone who was divorced and remarried. But I suspect that it was all about the fact that he was a homosexual.
Actually, he did that by committing sodomy but the problem was the attempt to celebrate those choices in a church.
And scripter has already gutted and fileted your strawman so we can ignore any further attempts to equate divorce with the abomination of sodomy.
Absolutely correct. Of course, these pro-homo cheerleaders don't let facts or logic get in their way when they misapply Scripture.
Of course you can say that because that's the convenient course for you to take. You say sin is sin, but some sin is apparently worse than others. A pick-and-choose theology. Divorce and remarry if you want, ignore scripture when it fits into your life style. But don't ever allow others to do the same. It's all very clear.
That's what Jesus says, and I believe Him. Can we at least agree that those who divorce for reasons of infidelity and who later remarry are, in fact, NOT committing adultery against their former spouse?
Sticking with the disproved strawman, I see. That's really rather pathetic since scripter rubber your nose in the fact that the term was "put away" and not divorce.
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