Posted on 04/28/2011 5:55:29 AM PDT by ZGuy
Being gay is a gift from God, asserts one church in Ohio.
That’s the message that Central United Methodist Church is spreading throughout their community via a digital billboard, launched on Monday.
This “simple statement,” the church announced, is “intended to be a gift to those who have experienced hurt and discrimination because of their real or perceived sexual orientation.”
“The Church seeks nothing less than the healing of the world, and Central UMC wants to offer words and acts of healing to those hurt and marginalized,” the website states.
Jeff Buchanan, the director of Exodus Church Equipping & Student Ministries, agrees that the Church must display love and compassion for those in the LGBT community. But he opposes the message that CUMC is sending through their “Being Gay is a Gift from God” campaign.
“Why would God bestow this ‘gift’ only to condemn it throughout the Bible? This would seemingly contradict His character as a God who is loving and just.”
The Toledo church’s controversial billboard ad is directly connected to a long month-long sermon series by its new pastor, Bill Barnard. The church is hoping that the ad will move the public towards tolerance, reported ABC 13, and not perpetuate anti-gay attitudes and behaviors, which were harming the LGBT community.
The purposes of their recently launched campaign are threefold: to offer welcome to all persons who are gay; to challenge the larger Church to fully accept persons who are gay into the life of the Church; and to call on all people to bring all the gifts of who they are to God.
“By welcoming and living in community with faithful Christians who happen to be gay, we have come to understand that being gay is part of who God made them to be,” CUMC proclaims on their site. “And by gay Christians bringing all that they are to God, the body of Christ has been strengthened.”
“In fact, we would experience the body of Christ as incomplete without LGBT persons.”
Barnard told ABC, “We really believe that being gay is a gift from God, and it’s not anything that anyone has to apologize for or be ashamed about. So that’s how [the campaign] came to be.”
Believing sexuality to be a “good gift from God” – or as they declared yet another way in God’s infinite diversity – CUMC defines sin as denying who God created them to be.
“The overwhelming scientific evidence is that people are born with their sexual orientation, that it is not a choice,” the church contends. “Fully accepting one’s sexual orientation and identity is key to leading a normal and healthy life.
“Forcing people to act against their God-given sexual orientation will lead to disordered lives. Allowing people to act in accordance with their God-given sexual orientation leads to reconciliation.”
While deeming the marginalization of LGBT persons as “unjustified” – mentioning that Jesus did not speak directly regarding homosexuality – the Toledo church recognizes that the Church today continues to be divided over interpretation of Scripture related to homosexuality.
Just two months ago, 33 retired United Methodist bishops urged the denomination to remove its ban on homosexual clergy, prolonging the undying debate within the church body.
CUMC hopes to unify believers by focusing more on “things that [they] agree on, such as kindness, justice, and humility,” instead of contributing to hate and discrimination, which they believe leads not to reconciliation, but to self-destructive practices within the LGBT community.
“Holding people responsible for matters in which they have no control is irrational and immoral,” the church declares. “We believe that both those within and without the Church are hungry for dialogue about homosexuality that reflects compassion and humility rather than intolerance and strife.”
Buchanan contends that CUMC’s message “tells people that the only option they have is a gay identity.”
But “people need to understand that thousands of men and women have found there is another way and have found freedom from homosexuality through the power of Christ,” he says.
Even if there was conclusive evidence supporting the theory that people were “born this way,” Buchanan stresses that Christians were called to be “born again.”
“While we may not choose our desires, we do have the ability and responsibility to choose whether or not we act on those desires. Our goal should be living a life that is congruent with Scripture,” he says.
“Genesis describes the fall of man and the permanent effects that sin has on us spiritually, mentally, and physically. Just because something may be inherent does not mean it was intended.”
Despite the outcry of many from the Christian community against CUMC’s campaign, Barnard continues to proclaim that homosexuality is a “gift” and has people come and remain just “as they are.”
Working to accept persons who are gay into the full life of the Church, CUMC is a founding member of the Reconciling Ministries Network, which is the United Methodist movement for gay equality in the denomination.
Two of the volunteer staff members at their church, including the music director and lead team chair, live with their partners and have served the church for over seven years.
Grieved over the misinterpretation of Scripture and false teaching that is being promoted by CUMC and many other churches like them, Buchanan encourages churches to deliver the message of Christ with love and grace, but also with accuracy and uncompromised truth.
“We must always remember that authentic love is built upon a foundation of grace and truth.”
God will deal with him too. Right now though we have to trust that God is in control because no man comes to power but by God. God has a purpose for Obama.
The whole idea that just because you are born with some weird prediliction, like trying to stick a screwdriver into your ears, does not justify its action. It just means you should try to curb those urges.
“Churches” that pretend to democracy inevitably redefine sin as good.
Unbelievable! The UMC is a joke!
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I think that is a gift from allah...
This one church has gone off the rails, according to the UMC website and doctrine.
Apparently they missed this one.
BTW, "gay Christian" is an oxymoron. You can be either gay or Christian. You cannot be both.
It's obvious that most men, by "orientation" (tendency, appetite or drive) would be "naturally" promiscuous: most of them with women, some with other men, and some with children (or at least minors at that juicy adolescent stage.) That's OK? They're good to go? It's all God-given (because "inborn") and it all leads to blessedness?
These United Methodists (I know they don't represent their whole church) ought to be "United" with the Muslims. Shari'a allows men to hook up with women and children via "temporary marriage" (Nikāḥ al-Mut‘ah) which can be as short as half an hour, as long as the dower (payment) and the duration have been agreed-to.
That sounds like it would really bless people whose "God-given orientation" happens to be promiscuity, prostitution, pedophilia or polygamy.
Which would surely be a wonderful accommodation to a MUCH bigger group than just gays.
United Methodists & Muslims: Follow your bliss. God made you that way. Horniness is Holy! Inshallah.
Is Moses an Egyptian because of his birth on the soil...or is he an Israelite because of the blood of his father.
So I guess this means Barry Obama has found a church,then....
I don’t think you understand Salvation. Salvation is not dependent on what WE do but what God does. It is a free gift from God that we receive without merit.
I know plenty of Christians who struggle with sin.
RE :”“The overwhelming scientific evidence is that people are born with their sexual orientation, that it is not a choice,” the church contends. “Fully accepting one’s sexual orientation and identity is key to leading a normal and healthy life. “Forcing people to act against their God-given sexual orientation will lead to disordered lives. Allowing people to act in accordance with their God-given sexual orientation leads to reconciliation ...; Believing sexuality to be a “good gift from God” – or as they declared yet another way in God’s infinite diversity – CUMC defines sin as denying who God created them to be.....“
O Lord, please forgive me for acting against you by wearing eye glasses and thereby denying your gift of myopia.
My wife and I go to a UMC, but I don’t take them seriously. They’re like any other “modern” church in that they’re more in to marketing and less in to “offending” people who should be offended.
The UMC refuses to take a solid, Biblically based stand against abortion and homosexuality, both of which are offensive to God. But my pastor said he’d rather not get “controversial” because 1) it might offend some people, and 2) members of the congregation who are homosexual or who might have had abortions would leave.
They can and do have STRONG stands against gambling . . . now there’s something to confront their congregations with, rather than not slaughtering an unborn child or engaging in unrepentant homosexual behavior. Gambling. Boy, am I impressed! It’s more “let me entertain you” rather than “let me tell you what God thinks about these abominations!”
God’s 11th commandment: Thou shalt not offend your congregation by preaching about the previous 10 commandments!
Our Missions Chair was living in a nursing home with her lesbian partner. But I know a bunch of gay UMC pastors that have gotten the boot.
THe UMC is in total crisis mode btw.
They just published an exhuastive 2 year study by two independent outside consulting firms.
Basically the study claims church has been in perpetual decline in membership since the merger.
If it were not for the amazing growth in Africa the church would be in total free fall.
Thank God for our African brothers and sisters in Christ. Were it not for their staunch orthodoxy the votes that were taken in the last two Gerneral Conferences would have already allowed gays to hold any office and would have allowed churches to allow gay couples to join congregations as a Couple!
Thankfully due to the efforts of Ed Robb Jr. in the 70’s and continuing now with the efforts of his son Ed Robb III and Rev. Rob Renfroe, there is a revival movement shaking the UMC in the South.
The Confessing Movement is the direct opponent of the Reunification Movement mentioned in the original article. The Confessing Movement is a revival effort towards bilical orthodoxy. They are creating substantial change in several seminaries here in the US (most notably at Duke and SMU) and planting seminaries and pastoral training centers all over the world.
With the help of the Holy Spirit we can recapture the fire that John Wesley ignitied in England and America. We can and will change this world for Christ. We can and will stand against evil within and without the UMC.
“The UMC refuses to take a solid, Biblically based stand against abortion”
The UMC’s official stance is pro-life unless they changed it recently.
By their logic then being an alchoholic or drug addict is a gift from God as well?
We are living in some strange times my friend.
We left the UMC about 10 years ago. We couldn’t stand homosexual agenda and the indoctrination of our kids in the name of “tolerance”. The UMC is not Christian.
This congregation is clearly wrong if it believes it is following UMC doctrine on homosexuality by asserting that being gay is a “gift” of any kind. The UMC Discipline is pretty clear in its rejection of homosexual CONDUCT. I am willing to assume, for argument’s sake, that homosexual ORIENTATION is, at least in some cases, something one is born with (somehow it doesn’t seem reasonable that it could be genetic). But we are born with many orientations and inclinations that, when acted upon, are universally denounced, as they should be. I happen to be heterosexual, and happily married, but I confess that my inclination and orientation is to ogle, and if given the opportunity, grope (gently, of course) and attempt to seduce nearly any attractive woman I see. Sadly, I learned early in my teenage years that not everyone woman sees me as the irresistable guy that I clearly am. It became painfully apparent that my orientation was not seen as a gift by many women, and so I had to learn restraint in my behavior, if not in my thoughts. Now that I am much older the physical restraint is a little easier, but the orientation remains.
I believe that we should love all people, even those it may be difficult to love, including those with homosexual orientation and even those who live a homosexual lifestyle, just as we ought to love all sinners (which is all of us). Love, however, does not mean acceptance of sinful conduct as some sort of “gift” of God.
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