The key word is “practice”. Drunkeness is a sin but the church has many attending sober alcoholics who know they can’t touch the stuff. Many church members have been money grubbers afflicted with greed and know if they take their eye off of Jesus, their love of money will consume them. Many have made the error of indulging in adultery but have repented and are attending church. I think the same applies to homosexuals who have embraced Christ and are remaining celebate.
Pedophilia is another issue involving children out of which safety issues arise and since many homosexuals who call themselves such also have committed such sin; the question arises as to whether such persons could ever be fully integrated into a church full of families with children.
The Bible has a process for churches dealing with unrepentant folk within their midsts and it in- volves “releasing them unto Satan” until such time they repent and can be accepted back into fellowship. That’s the hard truth of it and this “official” seems to forgotten that process.
“unrepentant folk”
Actually the problem in Corinth was that they bragged about their association with sin.
I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn’t be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother. And you’re so above it all that it doesn’t even faze you! Shouldn’t this break your hearts? Shouldn’t it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn’t this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with? I’ll tell you what I would do. Even though I’m not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what’s going on. I’m telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus our Master. Assemble the community—I’ll be present in spirit with you and our Master Jesus will be present in power. Hold this man’s conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can’t, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment. Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it’s anything but that. Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.” Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast.
(1Co 5:1-7 MSG)