Posted on 09/13/2018 9:41:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's not a matter of if your church and pastor will face these kinds of questions. It's a matter of when.
Here's a scenario: a same-sex couple or someone openly living in a same-sex relationship starts to attend your church. Maybe they've got a child from another relationship or a child conceived through IVF. Because your church practices infant baptism, they ask to have their child baptized. What do you do?
I recently heard of a church that faced this exact situation. A lesbian couple who'd been attending asked to have their child baptized. The church had theological convictions about sex and marriage, as well as about how, in their theological tradition, infant baptism was offered based on the faith and obedience of parents. The pastor, however, chose to go through with the baptism, in order to "show love to the child and her parents." Was this pastor right?
Now let me be clear. This commentary isn't about the correct theology of baptism. Many of you attend churches that practice what's called believer's baptism, unlike this particular church.
My concern here is the argument the pastor made, especially given how quickly situations like this are becoming common. According to this pastor, love not only meant including those who are in unrepentant sin as members of the church, but also allowing them to partake in the sacraments. These sorts of situations are coming to a church near you.
Baptist brothers and sisters, here's one that you might face: If a gay couple wanted to join your church and take communion, would it be a loving thing to tell them yes?
The answer is no. Let me explain.
It's not because a gay couple or their child are somehow too sinful or tainted to be forgiven. After all, baptism is a visual picture of Christ washing away our sins. Christ welcomes sinners to His table. If He only welcomed the righteous, none of us could participate, "no, not one."
But as Tim Keller often points out, the world is not divided into sinners and saints, but repentant and unrepentant sinners. The prerequisite for joining the family of God isn't to clean yourself up, but to allow Jesus to clean you up. That means turning from sins, not clinging to them.
Jesus Himself told the Pharisees He'd come to call sinners, not the righteous, to repentance. He wasn't saying the Pharisees were righteous, but that only those who knew they were sinners could receive the gift of repentance and forgiveness.
Those who won't repent, refuse the gift. As C. S. Lewis explains in "Mere Christianity," repentance is not something God requires of us before He takes us back. "It is simply a description of what going back to Him is like."
Thus telling those who hold on to sin that they have the gift from God isn't loving, because it isn't true. The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians that those who eat and drink the Lord's Supper in an "unworthy manner" eat and drink judgment on themselves. "But what about lying, gossip, or any of the other sins," you might ask. Exactly. Unrepentant sin of any kind is a problem.
But, of course, this requires a correct understanding of sin, of the church, and of Christ's sacraments. To simply try to love people into the Kingdom without truth isn't love at all, it's sentimentality. The truth remains that homosexual acts are sinful. They twist God's created design. All who come to Christ for cleansing must be willing to repent. And all who repent are embraced by Christ, and then ought to be embraced by the church, including at His table and in His sacraments. But only after repentance, not before.
It may feel more loving to do what the pastor that I mentioned earlier did. We want the church to be a welcoming place where people can encounter Jesus. Every church should welcome sinners. (My church does it every time I walk through the door.) But truly loving people means telling the truth.
Every single church today needs to be ready for these difficult situations. Again, it's not a matter of if they'll happen, but when.
You can love them like you love someone with anorexia. Don’t enable their illness.
You can go to church. But don’t act in opposition to your human nature and claim that it is because God made you that way.
Heads up to my Evangelical brothers and and sisters in Christ, the LGBT folks are coming!
The bible tells the church to confront the sinners living in open rebellion to God, and tell them to repent, and if they will not to excommunicate them
Church discipline is a matter of Christian love- it is meant ot get hte open rebellion sinners to repent and become right with God- for their own good- if they refuse to accept htis, then God commands they be ousted
“And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private” (Matt. 18:15)
“If he doesn’t listen to you, take one or two more with you” (Matt. 18:16)
Matthew 18:17: “And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.”
the fourth step, the last half of Matthew 18:17, must be implemented: “And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-gatherer.” That means the person is cut off from all association with the local Body of Christ
The emphasis on severing ties to the person continues in 1 Corinthians 5:13: “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”
The Goal Is Restoration. It often happens when a person is cut off from all association with believers that the seriousness of the sin is recognized. The person may have nowhere to turn except back to God. If the person repents, the Church is to welcome the believer back immediately.
http://www.biblebb.com/files/CHDISCIP.HTM
The reason for the excommunication is to try to get the open rebellion sinners to recognize they are living in open rebellion to God and get them to repent for their own good BECAUSE if they do not, God will bring sickness as a consequence, and then ultimately death to the person or persons. Excommunication is NOT done out of anything but love for those who are excommunicated- The world sees it as unloving, but it’s not- it’s for the good of the people involved in the open rebellion
Tell them to REPENT and BELIEVE in the Gospel!
My feeble understanding of repent involves turning away from sin.
If you are not turning away you are still sinning.
So true. The Church of Nice might as well be a denomination. (A false one.)
Yes, you can. We love you, we offer ministry to you, and we disagree with your “lifestyle”, whether homosexual, swinging heterosexual or drug abuse.
at least in the Lutheran church there is a second couple that stands with the couple who is getting the child baptized. there responsibility is to the spiritual welfare of the child. you allow the baptism and explain the problem insisting that the god parents not be anyone involved in the sin that is in the way of the child being baptized. the child is innocent but the parent and there partner are not... I am guessing that the lesbian or gay couple would feel so self righties about it not being a sin that in most cases the baptism would not happen.
It is for the benefit of the child, without regard for the state of the souls of the "parents".
This is a tough one. If the church believes in infant baptism, then they could offer to baptise the child privately, but not as a public display in front of the congregation.
During the last century, one of my relatives had parents in a religiously mixed marriage. The parent who claimed religious “ownership” of the child never went through with taking the child to church. So the other parent just started taking the child to the other denomination, and when it was time to be confirmed, the child and her faithful parent had to skulk into the church office to have the 12-year-old baptized. The church was not fooling around, and did not want to encourage neglectful parenting, since they believed that baptism brought God’s protection to the infant.
These requests for special accomodations by gay couples are often a direct attempt to denounce the church, and by extension, the Word of God, and lay the groundwork for lawsuits. So the churches need to address these matters in their by-laws in advance of such requests being made, to remove a legal ground for discrimination against individuals (as distinct from a long-standing, clearly stated policy).
Hate the sin, love the sinner. I will never accept homosex-trasvestitism.
Instruct the couple as best can be done and hope it made an impression (and even follow up on it), but do not use that baby's soul as a bribe/cudgel/punishment for the sins of the parents/"parents."
Can you give Communion to someone who hates homosexuals?
Ooooh...my head.
The loving thing IS to tell them the truth.
Not believing that infant baptism has any validity, that question doesn’t bother me at all. However, how is the child responsible for the sins of the parents?
If one believes that baptism is necessary for salvation even for infants, how is it loving to put the child in danger of hellfire because the parents are in a state of unrepentant sin?
That said, it is different with adults. Blatant, public sinners should not be encouraged with lies.
They would not be voted in as members as they are openly in defiance of God. There would be lots of no votes and they would not like the messages from our pastor. He doesn’t breath fire and brimstone towards gays but he makes it very clear God didn’t just change his mind in the last ten years about this abomination in his eyes. He would say we will love you but we will condemn the sin and not look the other way because you are showing no attempt at repentance.
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