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Is This the Future of Same-Sex Marriage for Evangelicals?
Aleteia ^ | 25 March 2014 | Brantly Millegan

Posted on 03/25/2014 1:59:06 PM PDT by matthewrobertolson

The U.S. branch of the evangelical humanitarian aid organization World Vision announced this week that it will no longer bar its employees from being in same-sex marriages. Employees are still barred from having sex outside of marriage, but “marriage” will now include marriages between people of the same sex. World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns tells Christianity Today the change is “not an endorsement of same-sex marriage,” but it’s hard to read it any other way.

It’s certainly a disappointing loss for supporters of traditional marriage, but I’m not surprised, and here’s why.

"I think you have to be neutral on hundreds of doctrinal issues that could divide an organization like World Vision,” Stearns explains to Christianity Today in defense of the decision of World Vision U.S.. "One example: divorce and remarriage. [Protestant] churches have different opinions on this. We've chosen not to make that a condition of employment at World Vision. If we were not deferring to local churches, we would have a long litmus test [for employees]. What do you believe about evolution? Have you been divorced and remarried? What is your opinion on women in leadership? Were you dunked or sprinkled? And at the end of the interview, how many candidates would still be standing?”

In other words, evangelical Christians are divided on such a large swath of issues, with no easy way of settling them for the evangelical community, that an evangelical organization must either deem as unessential as wide a range of issues as possible (even if this means, as in the current instance, sometimes widening that area of non-essentials as positions in the evangelical community change) or else make itself impractically narrow.

The problem comes from sola scriptura, or “Scripture alone,” one of the fundamental operating principles of Protestantism.

(Excerpt) Read more at aleteia.org ...


TOPICS: Catholic; General Discusssion; Religion & Culture; Theology
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1 posted on 03/25/2014 1:59:07 PM PDT by matthewrobertolson
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To: matthewrobertolson

How long before straight marriage is outlawed?


2 posted on 03/25/2014 2:02:39 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: matthewrobertolson

How is that position called neutral?


3 posted on 03/25/2014 2:03:17 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: matthewrobertolson

I am not of the evangelical community.

But, I wonder, is there any split or reasoned debate on the issue of homosexual marriage among these Christians?

I had thought that all of these Christians, despite doctrinal disagreements on other things, all agreed that homosexual marriage was not allowed in their churches, wanted our secular laws to reflect that, and thought that homosexual behavior was a sin.

If I am mistaken on any of this, I stand corrected.

If not, this sounds like a giant breach in the dyke, so to speak, as the floodgates open, and open homosexuality becomes a social norm within Christianity.


4 posted on 03/25/2014 2:04:06 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego (as)
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To: matthewrobertolson
The problem comes from sola scriptura, or “Scripture alone,” one of the fundamental operating principles of Protestantism.

No it doesn't. Following Scripture gives the Truth "Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? ... or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are..."

No one with sin can enter the Kingdom of God and certainly not with that red flag.

The problem is the Abandonment of the Scriptures at World Vision.

5 posted on 03/25/2014 2:05:01 PM PDT by sr4402
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To: matthewrobertolson

Comparing it to “dunked versus sprinkled”? We truly are in a post-Christian world.


6 posted on 03/25/2014 2:12:31 PM PDT by DallasDeb ((usafa06mom))
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To: matthewrobertolson
Employees are still barred from having sex outside of marriage, but “marriage” will now include marriages between people of the same sex.

Homosexuals will still be having sex outside of marriage since they can no more be married than a cat and a cabbage.

7 posted on 03/25/2014 2:14:13 PM PDT by BlessedBeGod (Democrats are Cruz'n for a Bruisin' in 2016.)
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To: BlessedBeGod

it’s sickening that WV will say that a boyfriend and girlfriend having intimate relations is wrong, but two guys doing each other up the butt is just fine!


8 posted on 03/25/2014 2:22:33 PM PDT by MNDude
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To: matthewrobertolson

Do they now consider a male anus to be equivalent to a vagina?


9 posted on 03/25/2014 2:23:08 PM PDT by Flycatcher (God speaks to us, through the supernal lightness of birds, in a special type of poetry.)
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To: matthewrobertolson

When is Christians going to get it? this is satans world, the Churches that once was of God are being destroyed.


10 posted on 03/25/2014 2:29:14 PM PDT by ravenwolf (ost void of pend)
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To: matthewrobertolson

This is a perfect example of The Overton Window.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window


11 posted on 03/25/2014 2:30:07 PM PDT by Gen.Blather
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To: matthewrobertolson

Equating “I don’t know if I should be dunked or sprinkled” with “I don’t know whether or not to have homosexual sex” is really a reach.

The first has a legitimate biblical case to be made either way. Homosexual sex does not have a legitimate case in either the Old or New Testaments or in the history of the Church.

It’s biblically wrong, World Vision. It’s simply wrong.


12 posted on 03/25/2014 2:33:02 PM PDT by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)
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To: matthewrobertolson

There is no future for queer marriage in my belief system. It’s a sham, no matter who says different.


13 posted on 03/25/2014 2:34:46 PM PDT by pallis
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To: matthewrobertolson

Remember this, and Islam, and gay churches, and polygamy churches, when libertarians use the diversion of pretending to want to make marriage purely religious, to preserve it.

They do that so that politically they can advance the gay marriage march, while placating gullible republican voters.

It also usually distracts the listener into reminiscing on his own church wedding, and assuming that is what they mean.

Just as the “state” issue ignores the reality of life that America is not going to be a patch quilt of married here, not married here, parent and husband here, not parent and husband here, and that marriage is an issue in federal employment, the military, and immigration.

The only way to fight “gay marriage” is at every level, every day, at city hall, in union contracts, at the state level, at the federal level, the party and it’s candidates have to be conservative, regardless of the office they are running for.


14 posted on 03/25/2014 2:44:33 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Libertarianism offers the transitory concepts and dialogue to move from conservatism, to liberalism)
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To: matthewrobertolson

A couple of Christmas’s ago our whole family went together and sent money to World Vision to buy goats for poor people to raise and sell. NO MORE MONEY FROM ME and I shall tell them so.


15 posted on 03/25/2014 2:48:43 PM PDT by Coldwater Creek
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To: Dilbert San Diego

I think you’ll find that believers that strive to obey the Word and honor Christ in their lives honor the Word and obey Christ. That leaves those who don’t, out. They may think of themselves as ‘Christians’ but they would fly in the face of the Word and historic Christianity.


16 posted on 03/25/2014 2:50:04 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth
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To: Dilbert San Diego

They are using the term EXTREMELY loosely. In fact, they’re using the word Christian extremely loosely


17 posted on 03/25/2014 3:03:11 PM PDT by Viennacon
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To: matthewrobertolson

“The problem comes from sola scriptura, or “Scripture alone,” one of the fundamental operating principles of Protestantism.”

No, it comes from the abandonment of Sola Scriptura.


18 posted on 03/25/2014 3:17:54 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: matthewrobertolson

The late David Wilkerson (Sword and the Switchblade) received an end times vision in the early 70s. It was so disturbing he published it in a book (The Vision) at the expense of ridicule.

Everything has or is coming to pass. Believers are in for a rough ride.

DAVID WILKERSON’S THE VISION PART 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnbpGCrc1zg

DAVID WILKERSON’S THE VISION PART 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L5VPwHDwEg

DAVID WILKERSON’S THE VISION PART 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4i6q07j59k

DAVID WILKERSON’S THE VISION PART 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYgiHFcR-JM


19 posted on 03/25/2014 3:29:47 PM PDT by stars & stripes forever (Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.)
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To: matthewrobertolson

The homosexual mafia strikes again.


20 posted on 03/25/2014 3:36:40 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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