Posted on 11/25/2023 4:22:12 AM PST by Roman_War_Criminal
People can use the bible to justify any position they want when they take words out of context, or read into the text what is not there.
On April 22, 2014, a new attack on the reliability and perspicuity of Scripture was released. “God and the Gay Christian” was a book that sought to teach readers that the Bible condones living a monogamous homosexual lifestyle. That attack continues today in the church.
The author was Matthew Vines, openly homosexual man and a professing Christian. Being an openly practicing homosexual and claiming to be a Christian often means the person has an agenda to attempt to make the Words of Scripture fit with his worldview. This was certainly the case with Matthew Vines. His attitude toward Scripture was like that of Christians who believe in evolution and millions of years, and thus reinterpret the clear words of Genesis to fit their already held beliefs. It is compromise right down the line. We do pray the church realizes this!
Sadly, a number of Christian leaders offered their praise of Vines’s book.
(snip)
I believe it is important to boldly stand against the ideas Matthew Vines promoted in the book by saying unequivocally that the book “God and the Gay Christian” is dangerous to Christianity.
(Excerpt) Read more at harbingersdaily.com ...
See tagline.
Absolutely!
That’s right.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that penitent homosexuals may get caught up in weakness, but they never try to promote or justify the practice.
Truth, (God’s word), will always be truth. To most, truth is what they make it. I don’t debate “Christians” that try to add between the lines of scripture. I believe God as His holy Spirit directs me, through His holy word.
There’s a dividing line in justifying the behavior.
They love to say they were “born this way”.
Well I was born a liar. All humans have lied at some point in their lives.
The difference is between the justification of the behavior.
Practicing it is bad enough and worthy of death, but the justification of it takes it a step further - as if it’s no harm/no foul.
God called it an abomination. What more needs to be said?
Here is a link to a radio podcast James White did. Vines had spoken at a church on “gay Christianity” and James White took apart his talk and examined it logically and then exegeted the “clobber passages” Vines brought up. The whole thing is very good. And prescient, even being 5 hrs in total length
https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/the-dividing-line/gay-christianity-refuted/
“. . . that every mouth be held shut . . . .”
And that is done by determining a doctrine you want to believe, and then taking verses or parts of verses out of context to support that doctrine.
There’s a difference between saying *I’m a *gay* Christian* and saying that *I’m a Christian who struggles with same sex attraction*.
Nobody’s sin should be their identity.
My response to that is always the same: "Jesus said you must be born again."
I have a niece who got "married" to a woman. She likes to say God brought them together. It's NEVER the will of God if it goes against the Word of God.
“Abomination” is pretty clear to me.
Right. The number 1 question, are you going to stand before Holy God and tell him that was not a sin?
There’s a difference between saying *I’m a *gay* Christian* and saying that *I’m a Christian who struggles with same sex attraction*.
Nobody’s sin should be their identity.
......................................
Truth!
Indeed. A manifest cultic example from just yesterday exposed.
On April 22, 2014, a new attack on the reliability and perspicuity of Scripture was released. “God and the Gay Christian” was a book that sought to teach readers that the Bible condones living a monogamous homosexual lifestyle. That attack continues today in the church.
It is the reading of Scripture that stands in the way of the LGBTA world, and thus the inordinate amount of labor prohomosexual polemicists expend attempting to negate its condemnation of sodomy. HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONS and the BIBLE (extensive, by the grace of God).
Excerpt:
Another among the minority of pro homosexuals who affirm that the Bible does condemn homosexual relations while seeking to reject such is Walter Wink, who states "I have long insisted that the issue is one of hermeneutics, and that efforts to twist the text to mean what it clearly does not say are deplorable. Simply put, the Bible is negative toward same-sex behavior, and there is no getting around it." And that "Paul wouldn't accept a loving homosexual relationship for a minute." However, he joins similar revisionists who disallow that the Bible offers a coherent sexual morality ''for today'', especially as regards homoeroticism, which teaching Wink terms “interpretative quicksand”. Instead, he joins others in asserting that people possess a right to sex that can supercede Biblical laws, and essentially proposes that sexual ethics are best determined by one's own subjective understanding of Christian love. (Walter Wink, "To hell with gays" and "the Bible and homosexuality") Daniel Helminiak's theory of ethics is similar, which Olliff and Hodges notes "is, at its very foundation, self-refuting. While he professes Christianity, he has adopted the autonomous man's position for the basis of his ethics." A Further Look at Pro-Homosexual Theology, Derrick K. Olliff and Dewey H. Hodges
Likewise, pro-homosexual author Daniel Via states, "that Scripture gives no explicit approval to same-sex intercourse. I maintain, however, that the absolute prohibition can be overridden, regardless of how many times it is stated, for there are good reasons to override it." (Dan Otto Via, Robert A. J. Gagnon, "Homosexuality and the Bible: two views," pp. 38,94) This requires the same type of discredited reasoning as Wink, and Via's opposing co-author Robert Gagnon responds by noting that Via is an absolutist about no absolutes," and while Scripture clearly manifests otherwise, by arguing that nothing is intrinsically immoral no sexual act can be categorically considered as immoral, including the consensual incestuous relationship of a man with his mother, which was so sinful that it required severe spiritual discipline. (1Cor. 5) (http://www.robgagnon.net/2vrejoinder.htm) (Homosexuality and the Bible: A Real Debate)
While few pro homosexual writers concede that the Bible is contrary to same sex behavior, virtually all reject any Biblical censure of it. Author Robin Scroggs states, “Biblical judgments against homosexuality are not relevant to today’s debate.”(Robin Scroggs, The New Testament and Homosexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, l983) p. 127.) William M. Kent, a member of the committee assigned by United Methodists to study homosexuality, explicitly denied the inspiration of any anti-homosex passages in the Bible, and their application today. John Boswell stated, regarding the Bible, that "one must first relinquish the concept of a single book containing a uniform corpus of writings accepted as morally authoritative." (John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 92) John Barton states that the Bible is "a big baggy compendium of a book, full of variety and inconsistency, sometimes mistaken on matters of fact and theology alike." (John Barton, "The Place of the Bible in Moral Debate," Theology 88 (May 1985), 206) Gary David Comstock, Protestant chaplain at Wesleyan University, termed it "dangerous" to fail to condemn the apostle Paul's condemnation of homosexual relations, and advocated removing such from the canon. (Gary David Comstock, Gay Theology Without Apology (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1993), p. 43. http://www.albertmohler.com/article_read.php?cid7) Episcopalian professor L. William Countryman contends, “The gospel allows no rule against the following, in and of themselves: . .. bestiality, polygamy, homosexual acts,” or “pornography.” (Dirt, Greed, and Sex (Fortress, 1988) Christine E. Gudorf flatly denies that the Bible is the primary authority for Christian ethics. (Balch, Homosexuality, Science, and the "plain Sense" of Scripture p. 121) Bishop (Ret.) John Shelby Spong denies all miracles, including the virgin conception and literal bodily resurrection of Christ, as well as the Divine inspiration of Scripture, and denies that there are any moral absolutes (Michael Bott and Jonathan Sarfati, "What’s Wrong With (Former) Bishop Spong?") and relegates the clear condemnation of homosexual relations in Romans 1 to being the product of the apostle Paul's “ill-informed, culturally biased prejudices.” (Spong, Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality, 149-52)
I’ve sketched a sermon outline advancing oil drilling in ANWR.
“..There’s a difference between saying *I’m a *gay* Christian* and saying that *I’m a Christian who struggles with same sex attraction*
Nobody’s sin should be their identity....”
^THIS^
A HUGE difference!
The Holy Spirit can work with the latter to bring about humble repentance, strength and guidance to the Truth leading to victory thru the “born again” life in Christ. The prideful former?...highly unlikely and probably not so much. But then again; I’m not God. However, on the flip side, I’ve seen what The Word (Truth) can do in a person’s life IF one’s free will so seeks and allows the Holy Spirit to what He does best. Been there,
John Barton states that the Bible is "a big baggy compendium of a book, full of variety and inconsistency, sometimes mistaken on matters of fact and theology alike."It is quite possible that the Bible is intended to sound incomprehensible to non-believers.
That said, I think John Barton is going to be quite surprised after his spirit leaves his body. He is not only turning his back on God, he is deceiving others into doing the same.
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