Posted on 06/06/2014 8:50:30 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A Southern Baptist church in California has broken with the denomination's stance on homosexuality and has decided to accept the LGBT community without judgment. The church made the change after its lead pastor announced that he no longer holds to the teaching that homosexuality is a sin.
Danny Cortez, who leads New Heart Community Church in La Mirada, explained his journey in a letter to progressive Christian blogger John Shore, founder of Unfundamentalist Christians, last month. At the end of that journey, his son came out to him as gay.
"I recently became gay affirming after a 15-year journey of having multiple people in my congregation come out to me every year," Cortez wrote. After reading many of Shore's writings and hearing testimony from gay friends who felt marginalized, Cortez said his "eyes became open to the injustice that the church has wrought" and in August 2013, he said he "realized I no longer believed in the traditional teachings regarding homosexuality."
Soon after his shift in beliefs, his 15-year-old son, Drew, revealed that he was gay and later came out publicly on YouTube.
Cortez believes that if it wasn't for that 15-year journey and his change in theology, "I may have destroyed my son through reparative therapy."
The California pastor, a graduate of Biola University's Talbot School of Theology, told his congregation in February that he had recently informed the church's elders that he now personally affirmed same-sex relationships.
Cortez explained to his church that his conversations with LGBT members of his congregation over the years had increasingly left him dissatisfied.
"I could feel the dread coming in the person I'm talking to. And I was always wondering why, of all of God's commandments, why is this the one commandment that seemed that it was different that seemed to impart life. And this is the one that created so much self-hatred, this was the sense of people feeling like they were imprisoned. A sentence of life with no chance to love," he said.
The majority of his sermon that day focused on Romans 1, a passage which many Christians interpret as condemning homosexual behavior.
"[Romans 1] wasn't so that we could judge everyone else. Paul, in this magnificent, brilliant, writing style was saying, 'I'm writing all of this, but really I'm getting you to agree with how evil it is and then telling you, guess what? You're just the same way,'" he said. "And therefore, Paul says, 'Don't judge anyone.' And yet we use this Romans 1 as the passage most often to judge all sorts of people."
Cortez also cited Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, in his sermon. In his letter to Shore, he also acknowledged that Ken Wilson's book, A Letter to My Congregation, had been influential.
Cortez's announcement, which the pastor acknowledged had frustrated church elders by its abruptness, left many in the church displeased and the church decided to vote on whether to terminate the pastor or accept his proposition.
After a period of prayer, study and discernment, which also included hearing from gay and straight teachers on both sides of the homosexuality debate, the church voted in May not to dismiss Cortez and "instead to become a Third Way church," Cortez explained.
According to Cortez, as a "Third Way" church, the Southern Baptist congregation would "accept the LGBT community even though they may be in a relationship. We will choose to remain the body of Christ and not cast judgement (sic). We will work toward graceful dialogue in the midst of theological differences. We see that this is possible in the same way that our church holds different positions on the issue of divorce and remarriage. In this issue we are able to not cast judgement (sic) in our disagreement."
Those who disagree with the church will formally leave it on June 8.
Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, criticized the idea of a church trying to embrace a third way.
"A church will either believe and teach that same-sex behaviors and relationships are sinful, or it will affirm them," Mohler stated Monday, suggesting that Cortez's acknowledgement of church members departing evidenced this. "Eventually, every congregation in America will make a public declaration of its position on this issue. It is just a matter of time (and for most churches, not much time) before every congregation in the nation faces this test."
"Even if it is claimed that some continuing members of the church are in disagreement with the new policy and position, they will be members of a church that operates under that new policy. At the very least, their decision to remain in the congregation is a decision to stay within a church that affirms same-sex behaviors and relationships," he added.
Mohler also pointed to progressive Christian blogger Tony Jones, who disagrees with Mohler's views on homosexuality but has made a similar point to that of his conservative colleague last month.
"I've got a few friends to graciously and tenaciously hang on to the idea that a third way can be found on this issue, a middle ground between affirming gay marriage and condemning it. And I agree with them, to a point. ... Those are practices of a middle ground, but that middle ground is necessarily temporary," wrote Jones on his blog.
Why could this not exist?
According to Jones, there could be no middle ground because the same-sex marriage debate in the church is always determined by practices." He cited as an example the World Vision controversy in March, in which the Christian charity announced that it was changing its employment policy to allow for Christians who are in legal same-sex marriages.
"For three years, the WV board of directors studied and prayed about the issue, and no one complained. But as soon as they decided to institute a new practice — that is, hiring legally married gay persons in their U.S. offices — conservative Christians went postal. Spokesmen tweeted, pastors called, and recording artists threatened. In less than 48 hours, WV reversed their decision," he explained.
Mohler said he believes that New Heart will ultimately be forced to leave the Southern Baptist Convention, given that the "the Baptist Faith & Message, the denomination's confession of faith, states that homosexuality is immoral and that marriage is 'the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.'"
"Furthermore, the Convention's constitution states explicitly that any congregation that endorses homosexual behavior is 'not in cooperation with the Convention,' and thus excluded from its membership."
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO... "WHY I CHANGED MY MIND ON HOMOSEXUALITY"
I’ve seen just that thing. A parent will justify their child doing just about anything. There are a number of churches who do not count it as stealing if it is a “poor” person stealing from a “rich” person. They see it as a net good.
“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways.” —James 3:1-2
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” —2 Timothy 2:15
“Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” —John 3:10
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.”
— Matthew 10:24
“You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal?” —Romans 2:21
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness...” — 2 Timothy 3:16
Why would he have engaged in reparative therapy? That’s for the people who have the problem, not the pastor?
Remember, having homosexual feelings is not a sin, in the sense that all of us sin, and all of us have a fallen nature that makes us desire various sinful actions.
Our calling is not to engage in sinful acts. You know, there was a time when we actually married people off to strangers, and somehow they learned to “love” each other after time. People have a remarkable ability to become attached to those who they are not immediately drawn to sexually.
But nowadays, we have been trained by culture that we are supposed to “marry” the person who makes us “hot”, who we can’t resist.
But we are called to resist all sorts of things. If you can’t find a woman who will have sex with you, you are expected not to have sex, so why is it so hard to live by the rule that even if you are sexually attracted to another guy, that doesn’t mean you HAVE to become sexually active with them.
I imagine if the son was not gay, but had decided he really loved a girl who was not a christian, and who didn’t accept marriage, that this guy would have eventually decided that the church view on unequal yoking and on being married before sex were also no longer operative.
Because nobody wants to think their kids are living in sin. But sadly, too many pastors have decided that God is powerless in our lives anymore, and therefore simply can’t believe that God would have the capability to give the grace necessary for people to bear the burdens they are given.
One can only imagine how St. Paul would be treated in the modern society.
Matthew 10:37. Believe me, from personal experience it’s not easy, but Jesus expects no less.
The same way he was in his own. Times change, humanity never changes.
There is NO WAY that we've had it wrong for six thousand years.
Sexual relations exist for reproduction, all pleasure derived from sex is secondary. As there can be no reproduction from homosexual activities, it can only follow that God didn't intend for them. Despite the lefts wishes to the contrary, humans are the only creatures that engage is such unnatural acts and that is because we alone have free will and use it to defy God.
Homosexuality has been a problem since the beginning. What’s different now? For one, the media is composed of the extreme left wing. Also, much of this is a result of our public schools, where the children of this country are brainwashed for 12 or more years, years that are crucial in their development.
The rudder was removed in 1948 when the Supreme Court elevated the rights of atheists to the same level as those who believe that we are a nation Under God. From that point onward, all sorts of moral relativism has rotted the body politic from the inside. And because Protestantism was the mainstream in America, but has no central teaching authority as does Catholicism, the largest old time Protestant churches -- Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist -- have been corroded by the influence of a relativistic society, to the point of becoming agents of the devil. Their founders are spinning in their graves. It's mainly offshoot congregations that are holding to the Bible now.
Or put another way, 'many preachers today no longer preach the word of GOD'. They seem to make it up as they go along depending on the mood of their following and so long as it get's the coffers filled.
More accurately that church has broken from sound biblical doctrine.
His ego cannot accept that he, as a father, is failing his son. He had no words of scripture to relieve his own anxiety or to help his boy. So he blames the church for being mean! and tries to change the outward world to excuse his inner turmoil. What pitiful immaturity.
To my understanding a lot of those mainstream Protestant groups are only really having these problems in the euro/north American west, at least so far.
Freegards
That is the two-edged sword of Protestantism. On the good side, one must work out one's knowledge of the Word and one's certainty about repentance and salvation in a deeply personal way, which creates in believers a solid, intimate relationship with God. On the downside, with weak persons we see the example in this article, and many similar calumnies.
This cowardly wolf will lose his soul if he doesn’t repent. He is also responsible for the souls of others, which is even worse.
If he had any morals or backbone he would have stepped down before bringing this evil insanity upon his congregation.
A consistent interpretation of Biblical Truth may be found in the Catholic Church; but even the Catholic Church is subject to 1 Corinthians 13:12. There is no patent or trademark on Truth.
On an earlier thread about this guy, the article said that many of his congregation got up and left when he took this left turn. So the ones who remain agree with him and are complacent in this self-righteous point of view. The threshing floor...
Agreed. People are more married to their pastor and church society than to God.
Not exactly true. Many animal species will hump their same-sex companions under stressful circumstances -- dogs, cows (I've even seen cats hump objects or humans), or even collectively as a variety of biological adaptation, like the bonobo monkeys. But it is because humans have the total package -- opposable thumbs, dominion over animals, technology, literature, folklore, libraries, virtual communications -- that such disgraceful inventions as "gay marriage" and "gay parenting" can take place. We are the ones who have eaten from the tree of knowlege.
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