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.”
I'm not playing your simplistic Sunday School word games. That stuff only works on the very young and feeble minded. I stated earlier that Limited Atonement is clap-trap. Although there exists a plan for Salvation for everyone, not everyone is going to heaven because God created free will. Grace is a gift freely give, it is not imposed. I know this diminishes how very special Calvinists feel about themselves for having won the Spiritual Lottery at the beginning of time through no merit of their own, but don't fret. It isn't too late for you.
John 14:15 - "If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 15:7 - "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
John 7:17 - "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own."
James 4:7-8- "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."
1 John 5:1 – “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.”
Romans 2:10 - “but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.”
Just clarifying.
I twisted nothing. You came across as an absolutist. IOW, once someone accepts Christ, they better never sin again.
I certainly fail at that, and I bet you do also.
So if Jesus paid for the sin of all men.. then no one goes to hell right? So NL are you a universalist?
No, I am a Catholic.
If it were God's will that all men go to heaven then He would have skipped this whole earthly charade and created us in heaven. There was a reason God created free will and that reason was that He has reserved heaven for those who have accepted the gift of Grace and obeyed* Him.
*CCC - 144 To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to "hear or listen to") in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.
So then Jesus did not die for the sin of all men? That a limited atonement there .
Amen. As your links illustrate, you have his number. 8~)
I already told you, those gotcha word games are not going to work here. Jesus died for the sins of all men a plan for Salvation was made available to all who exercise their free will and choose it.
Both, I'm afraid. That is why I side with the Magisterium.
The minute one says Jesus made salvation available for some men.. then he did not die for the sins of all men did he? He only died for the sins of He men that choose it?
It seems to me that you limit salvation according to Catholic standards so Catholics actually have a limited atonement ..it is available to men that want to be saved by Catholic standards .
Is that somehow better than having God limit the atonement?
Jhn 6:37 — All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Does God have a free will?
I'm buying into a limited construct as a premise for this discussion in which only two alternatives are considered. I've made the teachings of the Church known to you. Reject them at your own peril.
And there are lots of them.
RM — here are links to arguments from another thread. This is carrying an argument from one thread to another
On the contrary, I've shown that there are numerous core doctrines that Dr. Eck's group disagrees with yours, the pentecostals -- note: core doctrines:
These are not minor issues about Benny Hinn wearing white or OPC ministers wearing black suits, but core fundamental differences.
Furthermore, this same group goes on to condemn your pentecostal fundamental beliefs as misreading, damnable heresy and "satanic gospel", note, as core doctrine. They don't stand side by side with you when secularists attack Christian Churches either.
The problem is that you don't believe the same thing, not the core fundamentals of God in any way.
And yet, Dr. Eck's group rejects your pentecostal belief that this is possible today. On the contrary, her group points out that miracles, talking in tongues, prophecy etc. ceased to exist since the time of the Apostles
These are core, fundamental differences in believing the nature of Christianity.
If the same or similar issues arise on a new thread, argue them anew.
Your logic is faultly. Jesus died for the sins of all men
1 John 2:2 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Now if you want to deny 1 John 2:2 which says so clear that Christ is the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world and if you want to deny 1 Timothy 4:10 that Jesus Christ is "the Savior of all men," go ahead....
1I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman."If a man abide not in me, his is cast forth..."
2Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
faulty logic
Jesus died for the sins of all men
1 John 2:2 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Now if you want to deny 1 John 2:2 which says so clear that Christ is the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world and if you want to deny 1 Timothy 4:10 that Jesus Christ is "the Savior of all men," ...
Christ's sacrifice is a freely given gift of grace that one can accept or reject.
The problem is that you believe in zero free will, that God pre-programs people to accept or reject Him. The problem with pre-programming (as opposed to omniscience) is that this negates the idea that God loves, that God came to save us etc.
Mantra can also be understood as “a formula,” such as “an utterance of conventional notions or beliefs.” Your simple repetition is a a kind of mantra, which accomplishes little. A fringe group neither represents all of Calvinism or the church (many basic Calvinists reject some of TULIP, and even believe in the perpetuity of” sign gifts”), and as the often fervent debate in R. Catholicism about the role of free will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregatio_de_Auxiliis), evidences which some of your points are about, this is a difficult area.
Nor are these different beliefs a real problem for me in upholding of the supremacy of Scripture, over undue allegiance to a man or office, which was a problem in the early church as well, but not bringing souls to be convicted and converted as i prior described, and maintaining a poor and contrite heart, yet rejoicing in Him (my failures), is.
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