Posted on 04/09/2015 9:34:44 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
A New York Times columnist and a corporate leader have agreed that Christian churches “must” be convinced, or coerced, to change their teachings on sexual morality and abandon an “ossified” doctrinal teaching that sex outside heterosexual marriage is immoral.
Frank Bruni wrote that traditional Christianity – whether among evangelicals, Catholics, or Orthodox – provides the greatest resistance to normalizing homosexuality in the United States in a recent column in the New York Times.
“Homosexuality and Christianity don’t have to be in conflict in any church anywhere,” Bruni insisted. “The continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision. It’s a choice. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing.”
Bruni quoted furniture tycoon Mitchell Gold, who has used his millions to found a liberal pressure group Faith in America, writing that Gold believes Christian churches “must be made 'to take homosexuality off the sin list.'”
“His commandment is worthy — and warranted,” Bruni added.
The column sparked outrage at the notion that a successful businessman and an op-ed writer could induce the Christian Church to ignore a 2,000-year-old dogma.
Noting Bruni's column at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher wrote that he would find a conservative columnist lecturing liberal denominations that they “must” change their moral theology equally “appalling” as an act of imposition.
“But of course nobody on that side seems to have the slightest doubt about their cause, their motives, or their methods. None,” he wrote. “In a holy war, there is no room for doubt.”
A number of mainline Protestant churches have, in effect, taken Gold's advice, condoning – if not celebrating – homosexuality and allowing sexually active homosexuals to be ordained as pastors.
The Episcopal Church saw its membership decline by half-a-million people between 2002 and 2012. After changing its views of homosexuals, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) lost more than 600,000 people – in excess of 12 percent of its total members – in just three years. The first mainline church to allow for homosexual ordination, the United Church of Christ (UCC), lost 350 congregations within three years of its 2004 decision.
But even refraining from calling same-sex relations a sin – or, in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “intrinsically disordered” – is not enough for the modern LGBT movement.
“The LGBT militants are not asking to be left alone,” said former Reagan administration adviser Pat Buchanan, a co-founder of The American Conservative. “They are demanding that we accept the morality of homosexuality and same-sex marriages, and manifest that acceptance, under pain of law and sanctions, in our daily lives.”
Buchanan said during an interview with WND.com that orthodox Christian churches must have one response to demands that they alter their teachings to fit the modern zeitgeist: “The answer is no. If it comes to civil disobedience, so be it.”
Buchanan's statement came as a number of prominent evangelical Christian leaders have called for open acts of nonviolent resistance if the Supreme Court forces states to accept homosexual “marriages” this summer.
[Why do some homosexuals insist we use that word for them?
To some degree....we are all stuck fighting over a word
what’s their point?]
Their point is they want to be called and considered normal. For umpteen hundred or more years they were called queers...even among themselves. But being called a queer sets them apart from normal society, thereby they are considered abnormal. By just changing the name they think or hope that they gain normalcy. And the left is heavily into the semantics game.
[[why do some homosexuals insist we call it a “marriage!?”]]
Because once they have the ‘state’s blessings’ on marriage, then they can go after churches and religious people who bake cakes, do photography, make banners etc. and DEMAND that they participate in celebrating the ‘marriage’ between the two homosexuals-
That’s why- And once the states declare it’s a marriage, then the supreme court will step in and declare it a constitutional right, and anyone NOT catering to the homosexuals will be violating their constitutional rights
They were NEVER ‘just going for marriage’ they WERE ALWAYS going for the destruction of Christians, morals, and churches etc- They are a bitter angry group of people who are upset that God doesn’t approve of their disgusting sinful acts, and they WILL make EVERYONE around them miserable because of it
[[Islam murders there gays. Yet no outrage by liberals,]]
They are too busy screaming at Phil Robertson and Mike Pence to notice what islam does
[[He then unfriended me.]]
No big loss- don’t need friends that are so blinded by their hate towards Christians that they would rather believe a lie than the truth anyhow-
An explanation of their want to use semantics to feel normal is easily seen with some sheep herders. They want to be known as taxidermists because it is true they mount animals.
[[Christians will be emigrating to Russia if they want to practice their religion.]]
Ooooh good Russian chicks are hot!
[[Did Frank Brunie die for the sins of the world? Did he rise again from the dead?]]
Did he accept as Savior the one who did? And then renounce his sin of homosexualty after he got saved? THEN he can advise us on morality issues (we probably won’t listen still- but he can try)
[[The goalposts keep getting moved in this game,]]
As they always do by the left who judge NOT by objective standards, but by ever changing wishy washy subjective measures-
One of the reasons my “heart goes out to gay people” is because many of them don’t realize they are being used as tools of other people’s political agendas that may lead some day to their prosecution and persecution if the winds of the tyranny promoted by the political machine drift maybe in the direction of Islam.
I think that rape should be similarly supported and promoted.
Christians must stop condemning it as sinful.
(BTW - I’m smarter than God)
I have often wondered why it was important for Peter to deny Jesus three times, and important to document that embarrassing fact. This answers the question.
Peter’s denial was important because the church will always feel pressure to deny Jesus and to deny the word of God, and documenting that example provides a warning. Documenting even unpleasant truths also reminds us that the Bible is Truth, and that reminder provides hope. After Peter’s momentary lapse, he became braver and more motivated than ever before. There is hope even for those churches that temporarily abandon God’s word.
this article is just one persons opinion, so its just to be ignored. Opinions are like azz holes, everybody has one...
I always thought 10 Commandments were too many (sarc).
Maybe we can get the list down to 6 or 8 just by removing some of them from the “sins” list - especially if it is “inconvenient”. Maybe they should pass a law to do away with:
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not covet they neighbors wife.
Thou shalt not put idol gods before me.
Remember and honor the sabbath...
This guy should try reading Genesis 19 to understand why “most” christians will always despise homosexuality.
The left’s goal in all of this:
1. Force churches to lose their tax-exempt status if they don’t embrace sexual libertinism, socialism, and moral relativism.
2. Once these churches lose their recognition as churches, regulate them as businesses. They lose all First Amendment protections.
3. Ban the resulting underground churches and make it a crime to have anything to do with them.
...but do the courts and the “president” think this should happen? Guy sounds like a lunatic to us, but right now he has more powerful support than we do.
If your church is soft and anemic, you need to change churches.
“The continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision.
It has nothing to do with Christian teaching but nature itself teaches it to be wrong.
I believe it might be surprising to find just how the drugs, porn and homosexuality is tied together as an industry and it is all about money.
When the choice is “Lose the money” or “marry Bob and Steve”, the pressure to do the latter may be to much.
I fully expect some sort of accommodation, or the end of marriage services in the church.
Should we edit the Bible to “friend” the sin of homosexuality? Then should we edit the Bible to “friend” alcoholism, or gossip, or incest? How about we “friend” slapping idiot liberals upside the head.
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