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
It’s not shocking at all. Christians must share the Gospel. Homosexuals are not beyond redemption.
“...unless we understand that only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.”
Guess what? the Lord is our only hope against any kind of sin.
I never understood the phobia thing. I’m homoPHOBIC if I think the lifestyle is a sin? And why isn’t this so-called phobia treated with the same patience and tolerance that other phobias are?
Oh, they would in a heartbeat if they could lock us up in mental institutions - every one of us.
I agree. And Pastor Brooks, Scriptures tell us the path to homosexuality behavior is ‘they rejected the knowledge of God’ and turned to this behavior. So they turned away from God to begin with......but in my mind it’s because the church calls homosexuality a ‘sin’, and they want to continue to practice this sin without changing their behavior, and the reason they don’t go to churches.
Bottom line is homosexuals want, the behavior and lifestyle to be acccepted as “normal” by the church, when in fact is is not normal and God condems this sin. Homosexuals want both acceptance and continueous practice of their sin while attending church.
The church is called to “go out into the world” with the Gospel message. Part of the problems with the church today is we go out and haul un-believers into church before they are saved.
Well, this Southern Baptist does not and I personally don't know any that do, not down South where it's such a problem anyway.
Let me say this. A member of our Southern Baptist church recently came out and said he was gay. He ain’t in our church any more. He was tossed out. If he cleans up his life, repents his sin, asks God forgiveness and wants to come back and live a Christian life, then he will be accepted back. But, as long as he is a practicing homo, he will not be allowed in our church and around our children. PERIOD. Don’t care what the homos say. Its our church.
I wouldn’t trust The Tennessean to report anything accurately.
Very interesting article SR. Am saving this and thank you. Worth the read.
“the era of organized Christian Churches is over.”
The organized “church” is NOT the real church as defined and seen in scripture. It never has been.
Like that you used the word “sodomites”. I have decided to stop using the word “Gay” when in conversations with people about Homosexuality. Language matters to liberals and those who oppose the things of God. Restructuring language to be “acceptable” and divert from the truth of their practices is a large part of the homosexual agenda.
The error I find in what this otherwise intelligent man has said — is this he neglects to consider that the reprobate mind of the homosexual demands that to have them sitting among us in our churches means we accept their lifestyle choice-and do not expect change. The Gospel according to John clearly shows in John Chapter 3 that a man must be born anew/born form above. That a man must be dead to sin and alive in Christ a new creation is central to what I believe and leaves no room for the unrepentant homosexual. Now if one is struggling with that demonic orientation and that John 3 experience has not
manifest yet they can sit among us -but not if they continue in their sin that Gods Grace be increased.Sometimes the sinner must be utterly cut off lest that leven leven the whole loaf.
The key word is “practice”. Drunkeness is a sin but the church has many attending sober alcoholics who know they can’t touch the stuff. Many church members have been money grubbers afflicted with greed and know if they take their eye off of Jesus, their love of money will consume them. Many have made the error of indulging in adultery but have repented and are attending church. I think the same applies to homosexuals who have embraced Christ and are remaining celebate.
Pedophilia is another issue involving children out of which safety issues arise and since many homosexuals who call themselves such also have committed such sin; the question arises as to whether such persons could ever be fully integrated into a church full of families with children.
The Bible has a process for churches dealing with unrepentant folk within their midsts and it in- volves “releasing them unto Satan” until such time they repent and can be accepted back into fellowship. That’s the hard truth of it and this “official” seems to forgotten that process.
“If he cleans up his life,”
Impressive. No sinners in your church? That’s quite an accomplishment.
"Gay" is a subset of homosexual. You can be homosexual without being "gay."
“the era of organized Christian Churches is over”
so both of us musta missed the rapture
As long as homosexuality is 'tolerated' as another 'lifestyle' they will continue to support inclusiveness in society, and within the church. When in fact it's a sexual behavior one chooses to induldge in.
I spoke at length with a homosexual in his place of business....his mind is so very twisted he actually believes God should save Satan, so he prays for that. Imagine!
“unrepentant folk”
Actually the problem in Corinth was that they bragged about their association with sin.
I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn’t be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother. And you’re so above it all that it doesn’t even faze you! Shouldn’t this break your hearts? Shouldn’t it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn’t this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with? I’ll tell you what I would do. Even though I’m not there in person, consider me right there with you, because I can fully see what’s going on. I’m telling you that this is wrong. You must not simply look the other way and hope it goes away on its own. Bring it out in the open and deal with it in the authority of Jesus our Master. Assemble the community—I’ll be present in spirit with you and our Master Jesus will be present in power. Hold this man’s conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can’t, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment. Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it’s anything but that. Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.” Our true identity is flat and plain, not puffed up with the wrong kind of ingredient. The Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has already been sacrificed for the Passover meal, and we are the Unraised Bread part of the Feast.
(1Co 5:1-7 MSG)
"“Church” as we say it (it is a terrible thing that a building is called a “church”; WE are the Church, but that’s another post) is the coming together of those who know Christ. It is a time for US and CHRIST, not for evangelism specifically. It is for the sons of the Kingdom, not for those outside.
Yes, evangelism can and does happen “at church” and that is great. But that isn’t the reason we gather. We gather for Him and to be with each other."
We are not to compromise the Word of God, who we are or the biblical purpose for our gathering together in order to placate a sinful corrupt world, made up of individuals who are enslaved to sin, spiritually dead and guided by Satan, the "god of this world".
God's Word is clear: Homosexuality IS A C H O I C E, and according to Romans 1:18-32 it is the final degrading step individual men, women and societies take in the downward spiral of their degrading depravety and rebellion against the knowledge of the one TRUE and LIVING God whom they have known but rejected.
That said: faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone has the power to deliver and set free those souls who are enslaved to this sexual perversion:
"Or do you not know that THE UNRIGHTEOUS WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD? DO NOT BE DECEIVED; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor £effeminate, NOR HOMOSEXUALS,
nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, WILL INHERIT TE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Such were SOME OF YOU; but you WERE WASHED, but you WERE SANCTIFIED, but you WERE JUSTIFIED in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Emphasis added)
It is not "homophobic" to proclaim the truth and to maintain the spiritual and moral purity of the church of Jesus Christ or to protect it from the defiling influence of those actively seeking to use this perversion to destroy the church from within. It is paramount to upholding and defending the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.
Perhaps this is so but I doubt very much the average citizen understands that, most see gay as a word less offensive then the term homosexual, especially those dabbling on the fringes of.
When sin has conceived .....Either word simply stated is that of deciding where one decides to put their frontage, and their choice of who to do so with.
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