Posted on 06/18/2011 12:15:44 AM PDT by balch3
PHOENIX (ABP) – The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said June 15 that Southern Baptists need to repent of a “form of homophobia” that keeps gays and lesbians out of their churches.
Albert Mohler responded during his report to the Southern Baptist Convention to a question from Peter Lumpkins, a Southern Baptist blogger, about whether comments attributed to him in a March 24 Christian Science Monitor article were accurate.
Writer Jonathan Merritt, a Southern Baptist minister and well-known social critic, quoted Mohler as saying “We’ve lied about the nature of homosexuality and have practiced what can only be described as a form of homophobia,” and “We’ve used the choice language when it is clear that sexual orientation is a deep inner struggle and not merely a matter of choice.”
Mohler said at the convention “there is no way anyone in fair mindedness can be confused about what I believe about homosexuality,” because he has written more than 200 articles about it, but that “the reality is that we as Christian churches have not done well on this issue.”
“Evangelicals, thankfully, have failed to take the liberal trajectory of lying about homosexuality and its sinfulness,” Mohler said. “We know that the Bible clearly declares – not only in isolated verses but in the totality of its comprehensive presentation – the fact that homosexuality not only is not God’s best for us, as some try to say, but it is sin.”
“But we as evangelicals have a very sad history in dealing with this issue,” he continued. “We have told not the truth, but we have told about half the truth. We’ve told the biblical truth, and that’s important, but we haven’t applied it in the biblical way.”
“We have said to people that homosexuality is just a choice,” Mohler said. “It’s clear that it’s more than a choice. That doesn’t mean it’s any less sinful, but it does mean it’s not something people can just turn on and turn off. We are not a gospel people unless we understand that only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.”
Mohler said churches have not done their job until “there are those who have been trapped in that sin sitting among us.”
Lumpkin said in is blog June 16 that Mohler’s answer was not what he expected to hear and something “I’ll be digesting a long time.”
Mohler has appeared on television programs and been quoted in mainstream media many times over the years in opposition to gay marriage, ordination of gay clergy and other aspects of what he has called attempts to “normalize” homosexual behavior.
As recently as May Mohler described a decision by the Presbyterian Church (USA) Presbytery of the Twin Cities in Minnesota to ordain persons without regard to sexual orientation as “yet another tragedy in the sad history of mainline Protestantism’s race toward total theological disaster.”
In June Mohler objected to use of the term “clobber scriptures” to describe Bible verses that label
By your theory we should let them come in and spread their perverse choosing because we feel sorry for them? Let them repent first before they enter a house of God. n/s
The poster said “repentant sinner,” which is a world of difference from an “unrepentant sinner.”
So how do we get them to the point of being repentant if we bar them from church? Did Jesus ban unrepentant sinners from his presence?
The homosexual sex acts are an abomination to God, period! They are are absolutely a CHOICE. A sober alcoholic still wants a drink, but refrains. With God, all things are possible. BUT, the sinner has to hear about it.
Churches are already doing this as with any other individual living in sin. But bringing them into the church fold is another matter altogether. The church has a responsibility to it's children and memebers. Pedifiles, transgenders , homosexuals, adulterers and others need to be repentant and that is brought by praying for them...... There is a difference between reaching out and bringing them into the fold before they are saved when you know they are "living in a sinful lifestyle".
Example...Stripper who was being witnessed to...how would the congregation react when she attended church, when in fact she knew members who had watched her dance? Imagine how those reacted who saw her there after she gave her life to Christ.....God uses the most unusual circumstances to route out those who think they can hide their sin.
NOT 50 homosexuals, 50 people per Sunday service
“But bringing them into the church fold is another matter altogether”
FOLD? What does that mean exactly? “Member”? I could agree with that. Otherwise no.
So, do you have a sinner “section” in your church? It must be quite large. You of course sit in the “other” section.
Mohler is saying that many Christians will not reach out to homosexuals. He clearly affirms that homosexuality is sin, but also is affirming that it is not the unforgiveable sin.
It sounds as if he is recognizing that it is a difficult lifestyle to escape from for those who will listen to the message of Christ. I agree with that. I consider it a lot like alcoholism....there might be fits and starts before one gets it right.
The line in the sand, though, is that it always and forever must be acknowledged as sinful and destructive. It must never receive a positive representation.
You should not bring a ‘practicing unrepentant sinner’ into the church. That does not mean we are not all sinners...but those unrepentant should not be encouraged to attend. I will stand by that no matter how one might frame it.
The only difference among sinners is one is forgiven and the other is not. But when one continues in their sin without remorse or change of heart...then they should not be in attendance.
Generally speaking those who are so do not attend...or stop attending by their own choice. But today people have so little conviction of what they do it’s unfortunately not uncommon to find them remain in the church....thus the church fails it’s other members.
Looks like the Southern Baptists are getting ready to fall apart.
Look into Mohler’s background. I suspect there is something there to make him say this now.
Oh come on! God sees who they are and is faithful to send his people to them when they're in a place of struggle or repentance. It doesnt require they attend church...we are called to go out to them. I would be concerned were my church half filled with homosexuals, for you didn't say they had or not stopped their practice. The homosexual 'agenda' is to infiltrate the churches as we know...and over time demand their rights to be acknowledged and their lifestyle accepted within the church body.
I love Dr Mohler. I do not love the word: "homophobia" because it literally means: "the fear of man". It is commonly used to falsely accuse those who are not under the curse of sodomy and still have a natural revulsion for it of being "irrationally afraid". While it is true that my revulsion for sodomy and effete behavior is visceral, it is also very rational. We don't wallow in excrement because it is disgusting and unhealthy. We don't swim during a thunderstorm because it makes us susceptible to lightning. And in general we don't hang out with suicidal maniacs. But sodomy is like swimming in an open sewer during a thunderstorm. Sodomites are proud, self loathing blind men who want to defile everything around them while begging God for their own destruction.
They need a lifeguard, but the lifeguard ain't us. We all need a lifeguard and he is Jesus Christ. Our sins are inconvenient and they come from our prideful and willfully ignorant reprobation. The revulsion we feel for homosexuals should give us a tiny taste of the revulsion that our Holy and Just God has for our heap of stinking sins. Mohler is right, sodomy is not "a choice" is is "inconvenient reprobation" and we need to pray for God's amazing grace and love in the way we deal with those despicable reprobates because some of them are His and God forbid that we continue to call unclean what He has made clean. We all need to humbly retain God in our knowledge or we will surely fall under the same terminal curse.
It's hard to imagine Jesus accepting these people if they hadn't displayed a repentant attitude:
Mark 7:
25For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:
26The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.
27But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.
28And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.
29And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.
John 13:
6Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
7Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
8Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
Luke 9:
62And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
You really need to shake off the "inclusive" heresy that is so prevalent among evangelical thinking nowadays. Jesus was preeminently exclusive when it came to his commands.
They say homophobia like it’s a bad thing.
Well said.
The impression I get from his position is that he is willing to compromise on the message to assuage the feelings of the "audience."
Certainly we should expect that active homosexuals may present themselves into the audience of a Sunday service, but they should never knowingly be admitted into the congregation.
Admitting them into the congregation allows their cancer to infect the whole congregation and soon the church is turned into a feel good social club and before you know it the pastor is a practicing homosexual.
God’s grace in Christ is ENOUGH for any sinner to be saved and to become a child of God!
This man Mohler is only preaching what Paul preached and I presume no one on this thread would have trouble with it:
“... and such were some of you”.
Mohler is only trying to point out the terrible failure of our modern church in regards to homosexuality.
“PieterCasparzen” on this thread points out the verse about incest in a professed believer in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 5
But what this citation says is that Christians are
1. not to tolerate sin in a professed Christian
2. Not to even eat a meal with a liar, cheater, idolater, swindler or sexually immoral person who PROFESSES CHRIST
3. Paul goes on to say that we in the church are not to “Be removed from the world” . Thus, Paul addresses the problem of monasticism or the sin of false asceticism, removing oneself from the world and thinking you are more spiritual by isolation!
4. This citation makes it clear that we are not to judge the unsaved for their sin because THEY HAVE NO WAY TO OVERCOME THEIR SIN WITHOUT JESUS.
5. Paul makes it clear we have no right to judge the unsaved, God is their judge, BUT WE ARE TO JUDGE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE CHURCH or who PROFESS JESUS if they are sexually immoral.
This man Mohler is doing the work of the Holy Spirit, not being liberal or loose about sin.
Such were some of YOU until someone loved you enough to preach the Word of God to you and you accepted Jesus and repented of your sinful life and put the Old Man of Sin to death in your life.
Mohler is right. And so is Paul.
I wonder, how many men who use porn on a regular basis and go to church should be treated as Paul treated the man in incest in 1 Corinthians? We know the church is filled with porn addicts. This sin is as much of an abomination as being gay to God. And yet people are afraid of evangelizing or ministering to unsaved gays? Hypocrites. The church is for the sick.
Jesus says “I came not for the healthy (the righteous) but for the sick (the sinners) — did He not say this?
Jesus weeps. No wonder we in the church are being judged. Mohler is a man of God, and I say Lord bless this man's hands, keep him strong in You Oh Lord.
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