Pastors, LGBT Groups React to Joel Osteen's Remarks on Sin

Christian Post ^ | 01/30/2011 | Audrey Barrick

[Dilbert San Diego]

Fornication is intercourse between two people who are not married to each other.

[LostInBayport]

We live in a magic marker society. You bring the magic marker to church along with your Bible and you simply cross out the parts of Scripture you don’t agree with.

That is a great analogy. It keenly describes a few "religious" liberals I know. Bears repeating!

[Captain Rhino]

The Rev. Dr. Miguel de la Torre, a Baptist minister and member of the HRC Religion Council, disagreed.

"As a Southern Baptist and an ethicist I believe that we can’t follow Jesus’ commandment to love God and our neighbor as our self if we start with the premise that homosexuality is sinful," Torre argued. "Starting with the belief that people are sinful doesn’t allow us to get to know them, let alone love them."

HRC = Human Rights Council, a leading gay rights organization.

Man's natural state is sin; all persons, everywhere, at all times. Homosexuality is merely a specific subcategory.

The good Rev. de la Torre should know that, as a Christian, one is charged to hate the sin but love the sinner. He appears to have chosen to love both.

[lastchance]

We really need a wailing baby logo for posts like this.

[lastchance]

If sin is burdening them the way to get rid of that burden is clear. Jesus.

[Bodleian_Girl]

The Rev. Dr. Miguel de la Torre, a Baptist minister and member of the HRC Religion Council, disagreed. "As a Southern Baptist and an ethicist I believe that we can’t follow Jesus’ commandment to love God and our neighbor as our self if we start with the premise that homosexuality is sinful," Torre argued. "Starting with the belief that people are sinful doesn’t allow us to get to know them, let alone love them."

Stay classy Southern Baptist....

[spintreebob]

I hope the wording is clear. It is not a sin to be tempted. Jesus was tempted. I am tempted to adultery. The sin is in yielding to the temptation. Just as I try to resist adultery, others should try some self-control of their own behavior.

[americanmother]

I was raised a Southern Baptist and De La Torre is phony. I have never heard in my life time the false doctrine he is throwing around.
May I tell you there are times I don’t love myself. I can not lie and cheat and love myself. I can’t watch my neighbors lie and cheat and love that.
It is the sin I hate, I love people but I don’t love the sin.
A sin is a sin. How about this so called Baptist learning what the Bible means?

[missnry]

The church is afraid to condemn divorce, even though in the Bible it says God hates divorce.

New American Standard Bible (©1995) "And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. Jeremiah 3:8

The divorce issue is similar to the homosexuality issue. When scripture is taken out of context it brings trouble to the interpretation. When a church treats divorce as "sin" it has gone down a road of no return. If God gave Israel a writ of divorce then it certainly can not be a sin. Divorce is allowed within the bible. My point being the Homosexuals want scriptures removed from the bible. Those who support divorce as "sin" totally ignore other scriptures that support divorce as a last option if reconciliation does not work.

[sarahparsons]

Homosexuality is a sin. That being said, we are all sinners. The problem with the issue of homosexuality today is that is is glorified......celebrated......and shoved down our throats, and if we don’t accept it as “good” and “normal”, then we are bad people. Christians become judgemental hypocrites which simply isn’t true.....not with myself or Christians I know. We’re simply calling a spade a spade. I acknowledge it for what it is....sin.....but I certainly don’t hate homosexuals.

[americanmother]

I do not like the way Joel preaches but I know his Dads ministry and I just do not believe he could bring himself to go against his dad.

[GeronL]

Osteen is right about this one.

[GeronL]

No. Breaking a speed limit is not necessarily a sin, especially if your only going 22 MPH. If you putting others in danger, that would be a sin.

[GeronL]

That idiot is about as Baptist as the Westboro freaks

[ICE-FLYER]

This is how freedom of religion dies. The groups aligned against you will say how out of touch you are, how much fictious pain and grief you cause, how much fraudulant injury you cause all so the basis can be laid down for the law suit that quickly ends the God given right to your faith.

That I believe being gay or acting out gay behavior to be a sin is of NO consequence to you or anyone else just like I believe lying to be a sin and adultry and stealing and more. It does not matter to you or hurt you in any way that I call lying a sin and you happen to be a liar.

These people want nothing more than legitimization of this act of theirs to NOT BE A SIN anymore and they want MAN to stop what they KNOW God calls it..SIN SIN SIN...its what it is. And my God is merciful to me when I lie, when I steal and when I do any other sin. People can be cruel, but I will fight to my death to have my freedom of religion that harms no one at all simply because I believe in it!

[americanmother]

The divorce issue is similar to the homosexuality issue. When scripture is taken out of context it brings trouble to the interpretation.

I agree with you,
I know God hates to see his children get into hurtful situations like divorce.. He hates for us to suffer. Life is hard and even harder for Gods anointed.
We must never forget that God wants us to be delivered from that, that harms us.

[gcraig]

Righteous answer. I have the same type of thinking. I asked my pastor why the United Methodist leadership was publicly speaking out against GW Bush. I also wonder why the church leaders are so tolerant of Islam. We need more people to speak out against evil, in all forms. This should include a steadfast opposition to abortion, divorce, adultery, homosexuality, etc.

The popular media promotes the bad behaviour stereotypes as if this is what everyone is doing. This deeply offends me, and if I were a liberal I would be burning tires and rioting in the street. We are in desperate need of grown ups taking our country back again or we are gonna lose our nation. I'm praying this doesn't happen. I fear the clock is running quickly, we might be three scores down in the fourth quarter.

[Vermont Lt]

OK, someone things homosexuality is a sin?

And we are supposed to ask that person to change his mind because it might offend someone else?

I don’t care what either of them think, and I bet they don’t care what I think either.

And that is what should be great about our country.

[malkee]

I find it very sad to read an article like this about a behavior that is clearly called sinful in the new testament. True, Christ never spoke of homosexuality(although some disagree) but Paul did.It just shows where our society is, even among people who are supposedly religious.
We are all sinners. And who is to say homosexuality is a worse sin than any other sexual sins? But it is clearly a sin.

[GadareneDemoniac]

Just out of curiosity, I googled this de la Torre person. I’ve been a Southern Baptist all my life and never heard of the dude.

His biography states that he came to the US as a child from Cuba, so he thinks that makes him a illegal alien. He was in the real estate business in Miami and then went to a Southern Baptist theological seminary. While teaching at some institution of “higher learning”, he shot his mouth off against Dr. James Dobson and was given the boot. He now teaches at some place called the “Iliff Theological Seminary” in Colorado. This place claims to be affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Their web page has lots of blather about “diversity”, but not much mention of Jesus Christ.

Phony.