Posted on 11/03/2014 11:14:00 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o
NWhen Southern Baptists convened a national conference here this week to discuss issues of human sexuality, bringing conservative evangelicals and LGBT Christian activists into the same ballroom was a recipe ripe for potential fireworks.
Perhaps the most shocking thing was how few fireworks there were.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission was clear: Sex is reserved between a man and a woman within the bonds in marriage. And openly gay evangelicals in attendance were equally clear: Homosexuality is not incompatible with Christianity.
No concessions were made, but leaders on both sides expressed surprise at how the two agreed to coexist. Put another way: The old emphasis on “Love the sinner, hate the sin” has become more a version of simply “Love all sinners. Ask questions later.”
“I do want to apologize to the gay and lesbian community on behalf of my community and me for not standing up against abuse and discrimination directed towards you. That was wrong and we need your forgiveness,” said North Carolina megachurch pastor J.D. Greear, drawing applause.
“We have to love our gay neighbor more than our position on sexual morality.”
For now, at least, some gay groups seem willing to give the other side the benefit of the doubt.
The conference brought together a “who’s who” within contemporary conversations on homosexuality and evangelicalism, including ERLC President Russell Moore and Atlanta megachurch pastor Andy Stanley, who attended the conference of 1,300 with a group of other pastors from his nondenominational North Point Community Church.
The interactions were largely friendly, with none of the hostility seen from both sides in recent years. Inside the ballroom and out in the hallway, LGBT activists mingled with Southern Baptist leaders. From the crowd, gay advocates tweeted responses to the speakers on stage, at times seeming to overtake the conference’s Twitter hashtag.
While the substance remained much the same, the evangelicals’ shift in tone was noticeable. Moore regularly referred to people who are gay — not merely people who are sexual sinners in need of redemption — and denounced so-called “ex-gay” therapy as “severely counterproductive.”
Even the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., the veteran culture warrior and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., seemed to have a change in tune, if not an outright change of heart.
“Early in this controversy, I felt it quite necessary, in order to make clear the gospel, to deny anything like a sexual orientation,” Mohler told the crowd. “I repent of that.”
Yet the thawed relations could not hide tensions between the ideas of “loving your neighbor” and “defending your rights,” particularly as legal recognition of same-sex marriage continues its lightning-fast expansion across the country. With the clashes between religious liberty and gay rights that inevitably follow, many still question whether the friendly conversations can continue.
The closest conference speakers came to politics came during presentations from the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom on what it sees as a threat posed to religious freedom by legalized gay marriage.
Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington state florist who declined to sell flowers for a same-sex ceremony, drew a standing ovation. Erik Stanley of ADF, the organization defending business owners like Stutzman, called the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998 “a hate crime myth.” Attendees listen to a speaker during the 2014 ERLC National Conference.
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Attendees listen to a speaker during the 2014 Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission National Conference. Photo courtesy of Rocket Republic, via ERLC National Conference
Mohler also decried “revisionists,” or LGBT advocates like Matthew Vines, who are encouraging evangelicals to embrace the idea that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. A copy of Mohler’s rebuttal to Vines’ book was included in the conference grab bag.
Even as Moore denounced ex-gay therapy, he nonetheless cited examples of some people who have changed their sexual orientation.The conference also featured four speakers, including Rosaria Butterfield whose personal story went viral last year, who spoke of leaving homosexuality or embracing celibacy.
Even so, specific political positions or political endorsements were largely absent. “Baptizing lost people and teaching them to vote Republican is not a revival,” Moore said to cheers and claps.
Numerous conference speakers encouraged Christians to love their neighbors who identify as LGBT. Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, who has cultivated a friendship with a lobbyist for the gay rights advocacy Gill Foundation, said he prays for LGBT activist Tim Gill.
Several speakers said the church should lead, not follow, in combating anti-gay bullying. “You have to ask, what greater lie we could tell about our savior than to distance ourselves from the hurting and the broken in the moment they needed us most,” Greear asked. - See more at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4Cj3Tea5L98J:www.religionnews.com/2014/10/31/southern-baptists-lgbt-activists-happily-co-exist-but-for-how-long/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a#sthash.OHTy0QTD.dpuf
God has a message for these Southern Baptists, and it has eternal implications:
Matthew 7:21-23.
I suggest you take heed.
SBCer here:
Ain’t happennin’.
They won’t. They’re too squeamish and/or uninformed.
I posted this because experienced pastors are increasingly saying that that doctrine can be taught best in a pastoral approach which doesn't start out by reviling and repulsing the lost lamb.
If that is the case, then it looks like we have something to talk about.
There's no indication here that I don't wish them well.
I would print the same about my own Catholic pastors.
I write as somebody who has had some life experience, both as the "shepherd" and as the "sheep."
Agree. It's a bad habit; a "vice".
Too bad. "Zombie" has done the world a great favor by documenting the San Francisco sodomites' depravity.
Luke 10 New King James Version (NKJV) The Seventy Sent Out 10 After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also,[a] and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. 2 Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. 4 Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road. 5 But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not go from house to house. 8 Whatever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. 9 And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whatever city you enter, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘The very dust of your city which clings to us[b] we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you.’ 12 But[c] I say to you that it will be more tolerable in that Day for Sodom than for that city.
You can be a virginal 13-year-old boy who realizes that has his male friends get interested in girls, he is not getting interested in girls at all, but rather interested in the other guys, in a way he finds confusing and emotionally tumultuous.
This can go on for years without him saying or doing a single thing that's "gay."
He has not habits of vice. He is not deliberately fantasizing. He is no going to gay porn sites. He is not secretly imagining himself bodily entwined with this guy or that one. He is just feeling unbidden attraction.
Afaiac, tone can and should be kind. The biblical teaching must remain clear but we can be kind in how we, as imperfect beings ourselves, relate it.
To love the sinner and hate the sin, to love the one most in need. The homosexual is a sinner and in need of repentance for all his/her sins including the sexual sins. Since many homosexuals do not think their sexual sins are sins to repent of they are indeed the ones most in need. Pray their ears hear the word of God and their eyes open to see the evil that defines their lives.
It's only a matter of time until they fold. Satan is very effective in his techniques. I'll bet not one LGBT activist is repenting of anything. No language. No ideas. No doctrines. In fact they'll continue to push others to "repent" until all mainstream churches have borrowed their doctrine from them instead of listening to Christ in the bible.
Me too. I had a friend at church who moved away. He got up in front of his new choir and announced he was a homosexual. He was kicked out of choir and church that day. This happened a few years ago. Do not know what happened to him.
I do not believe that. I believe they believe it. Self-deception and excuses are common with all sins.
If you want to go there, lying is an orientation. The desire to lie and save yourself from uncomfortable situations is natural. At the same time the desire itself is sin. You can play with terms all day long. Desiring evil is itself evil. I do not find the term “orientation” at all helpful. If it must be used, then let’s be consistent and call all sins orientations.
You know, I didn’t even know about the Zombies. Now I’m gonna have to go in. Sigh...
I think their comments were “mistranslated”.
Tell it to John the Baptist.. did he not call King Herod out..
I would think you’re right about that. If your first step in pastoral care is proclaiming, “God says you are disgusting and depraved. Go to the Bible and look up “abomination!” -— then what’s Step Two?
Seeb>#28
I don’t suppose his response was, “Say, tell me more about this Jesus”?
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