Posted on 07/28/2012 6:28:26 AM PDT by madprof98
NEW YORK — A long-serving Air Force chaplain has left the Southern Baptist Convention after the conservative denomination publicly questioned his attendance at a same-sex civil union ceremony at his base in New Jersey.
The chaplain, Col. Timothy Wagoner, is remaining on active duty and has affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which holds more moderate views on homosexuality and some other issues than the Southern Baptists.
"I find very little that is more important and nothing that is more exhilarating than providing for the religious freedoms and spiritual care of all service members and their families — and will joyfully continue to do so," Wagoner said Friday in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Wagoner — the senior chaplain at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst — had made clear he would not officiate at such ceremonies, which the Southern Baptists do not condone.
However, Wagoner had told The AP — in an interview a few days after the ceremony — that he decided to attend as a show of support for the base community, for Umali, and for the Evangelical Lutheran chaplain, Col. Kay Reeb, who presided over it.
"I wouldn't miss it," Wagoner said, describing the ceremony as beautiful.
Professor David Key, director of Baptist Studies at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, predicted that Wagoner's departure from the Southern Baptists might be the first of many as their chaplains try to reconcile conflicting loyalties.
"The SBC has been defined by its anti-gay stance," Key said. "They now find themselves not just out of synch with growing segments of society but also out of synch with the U.S. military." . . . "Showing affirmation for gay and lesbian soldiers is what the military wants, and exactly what the SBC doesn't want. At the moment, it's irreconcilable."
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Good riddance.
I suppose that being a man of God is secondary to society now? No one says that you don’t like homosexuals or need to tie them to the stake to be burned. It’s not about that.
The problem is that gay marriage is condoning sin and entirely against the definition of Bible that JESUS states.
Love the sinner, hate the sin. Don’t condone and foster it.
So a woman is officiating at the ceremony and a male is the “bride”? And this is biblical how?
Agreed. I simply do not understand the mentality of theologically liberal “Baptists”:this “chaplain” is ok with anal sex but thinks baptizing babies is a ain?
Good for the Southern Baptists for holding the line and actually expecting their members to follow doctrine. If more churches would do this we would be a lot better off.
"Moderate" describes the normal maintenance of historic traditional cultural norms. The farther one deviates from those norms the less moderate one is. Moderate is thus not any sort of compromise between the normal and differing position. Normal is the center. Normal is moderate. Less moderate to one side is the line that begins with acceptance of open homosexuality and moves through homosexual "marriage" all the way to rule by or for the primary benefit of homosexuals(not terribly farfetched-look at Massachusetts and maybe California). Immoderation to the other side would be penalization of discovered homosexuals out to incarceration and execution.
The left/press uses the word "moderate" to mean what the rest of us think of as "extreme." To them "moderate" means agreeing with and promotion of the most radical position.
Indeed. I used to be Southern Baptist and thought I was “moderate” until I learned how liberal those so-called “moderates” were. It’s past time for them to be “out-and-proud” about the fact they’re neither moderate nor conservative but liberal. Then again, they might reduce their income from the blue hairs in the congregation if they said that so they continue to lie about their liberalism
BTTT.
I find it more than a bit sad that this paragraph, uttered by someone who claims to be a learned person at an institute of theology, does not contain the word "God".
Since marriage is ordained by God, not by man, God's opinion is the ONLY one that matters, and His opinion has been made crystal clear through his perfect Word.
I think this chaplain has made very clear what god he worships and it’s not the one revealed in sacred Scripture.
A photo full of FAIL in every aspect...words can’t begin to express how non-Biblical that is. How people can see that and then scorn Dan Cathey of Chik-fil-A just astounds me.
In the Hebrew, abomination translates to abomination
In the Greek, abomination translates to abomination
What word would be stronger than abomination?
God thinks that their perverted, disgusting, sexual practices (which defines them, by the way) are an ABOMINATION. How could ANY Christian think that homosexuality (remember their “sex acts” define them) is to be tolerated in any Christian church?
The answer is “they can't”. So this chaplain and any others who believe homosexuality is okay, is NOT a Christian.
Is this me pronouncing judgment on them? No. It is God's Holy Word. If you can excuse this practice then you could exclude adultery and murder. A sin is a sin is a sin. No “big” sins and “little” sins or “maybe” sins.
God's word is CLEAR in the old and new testaments and in many different verses throughout the bible, homosexual sex acts are an ABOMINATION to the Lord. They are SINS. They will send you straight to hell for eternity, if you don't repent, change your ways and accept Jesus Christ.
Tough love, you betcha! I hate the sin and love the sinner. I want all gays to repent of their wicked ways and come to Christ.
I know that WIDE is the gate and BROAD is the road that leads to DESTRUCTION (eternal life in hell, separated from God), and many enter through it. But SMALL is the gate and NARROW the road that leads to LIFE (eternal life in heaven, WITH God), and only a FEW find it.
(NIV) Mathew 7: 13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
This photo is an ABOMINATION
No doubt the Chaplain would also find the freeing of a young woman from the burdens of an unwanted pregnancy, similarly uplifting....
How ironic are his words, as he is “out of synch” with God and His Word...
Colonels make pretty good pay. He chose mammon over God.
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