Surprise! The SBC Church With Women Pastors Voting to Leave Over Law Amendment is a Pro-LGBTQ Church

Earlier today, The Dissenter reported that a major SBC church in Richmond, VA, was holding a vote later this month to leave the Southern Baptist Convention over the Law Amendment which forbids cooperating churches from having women pastors.

According to a special announcement on the Richmond’s First Baptist Church website, the special business meeting will be held on May 19, 2024:

The Board of Deacons recommends that Richmond’s First Baptist Church withdraw as a cooperating church in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in response to the SBC’s proposed constitutional amendment requiring pastors and elders of its cooperating churches to be men. The Board of Deacons invites the congregation to a church-wide conversation and vote on this decision. This special called business meeting will be held in Flamming Hall from 9:45-10:30 a.m. on May 19, 2024, in lieu of normally scheduled adult Sunday School classes. The Deacon Chair will provide members of the congregation with background information to enable an informed conversation on the decision. That information will be disseminated through the church’s Communications office starting on or around May 5.

As I wrote earlier, Richmond’s First Baptist Church’s decision to align more closely with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a body known for its lax standards on doctrinal issues like women’s ordination, homosexuality, and abortion—three ideologies that always seem to accompany each other—is indicative of its trajectory: away from biblical orthodoxy towards a more relativistic approach to Scripture.

Well, so far, that statement has proven to be correct, as the it has now been brought to my attention that this is a pro-homosexual church that welcomes homosexuals into their congregation. According to a blog post on the senior pastor, Jim Somerville’s personal website, earlier this year, the deacons voted to approve a welcome statement on the website that is pro-LGBTQ.

Last Tuesday night the deacons of Richmond’s First Baptist Church approved a welcome statement for our website that reads: “We affirm the biblical truth that all people are created in God’s image and therefore seek to welcome every person in the Spirit of Christ.” It seems like the kind of thing anybody could approve but it took a little while to get there.

One of our deacons wondered what we were really trying to say with such a message and I made it clear that I wanted to have something I could point to when members of the LGBTQ community asked me if they would be welcome at our church. At our November meeting I had taken an informal survey, asking the deacons how the church relates to that community currently. I asked, “Do we exclude, tolerate, welcome, or affirm?” There were nearly fifty deacons in attendance: a good representation of our congregation. This is what they said.

While the “welcome statement” that Somerville mentions on the church website doesn’t appear to be live as of yet, we were able to find other pro-LGBTQ resources on the website, including a recommended book about leading a church to “publicly affirm its LGBTQ community members” and another blog post that calls on people to “to declare the value of black lives, to loudly defend LGBTQ people, to stand alongside your Muslim brothers and sisters, to denounce the degradation of the planet.”

In Ephesians 2:19–22, the chief metaphor Paul uses is that of a building—the household of God. Christians are part of the household in the sense that they have been adopted into the family of God, which is another image that Scripture uses to describe the church.

One of the misunderstood points tht have escaped many people is that a person who has sexual realtions with one of the same sex has created a sin.

There are a number of passages in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that have been interpreted as involving same-sex sexual activity and relationships. The passages about homosexual individuals and sexual relations in the Hebrew Bible are found primarily in the Torah (the first five books traditionally attributed to Moses). The book of Romans is more comprehensive on matters of detestable sexual acts.

Romans 1:26-28 ~ For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

I have been told by homosexuals that have determined themselves saved while continuing the act, that God forgives all sin. That is not true.

Matthew 12:30 30 He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. 31 Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”

What this is aying is that the act of homosexuality can be forgiven as a sin. But by using the holy spirit to erase continually the same sin over and over is a blasphomy that can not be forgiven by the Lord. So can a person continue the sinful act and be absolved without trying to use God as a get out of jail card? And that is where the blastphomy is and thus they cannot be considered Christian. So they cannot be accepted into the Christian Church.

wy69

You cannot use Matthew 12:30 to support your view about repeated Homosexual sin in the way you describe it. The issue of repeated sin while claiming to be saved is a different issue then what Matthew 12:22-37 speaks about. Christ was accused of using the power of Beelzebub instead of the Holy Spirit to drive out a demon. The accusers were warned that to say that miracles that were of God were instead of Satan was blasphemy against the Spirit that would not be forgiven them.

“22 Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. 23 All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”

24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

29 “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.

30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

No doubt there are such people who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are saved despite doing certain sins over and over again without the inward impetus to want to break that cycle of sin. Then again what real Christian has not himself or herself sinned in some ways overtly or inwardly that would be in need of occasional confession to God and repentance.

The very act of needing to “take every thought captive”, to “guard the heart for from it flow the issues of life” involves a tough inner discipline that none of us will fully master until the resurrection. Never mind the repeated sin of a Homosexual who says he is saved, you mean to say that multiple lapses into sins in our own thoughts over a lifetime will also mean that a blasphemy of the Holy Spirit has been occurring when we say we are saved and there-fore we have no salvation? How then can anyone be saved if what you are saying about “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is true?

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit means “speaking falseness or evil” and verbally attributing the works of the Holy Spirit as those as being wrought by the Devil was the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit that Jesus warned us about, He gave us the whole context and meaning in Matthew 12:22-37.
It is the spoken word against the Holy Spirit in the earshot of other men that Christ was talking about.

I don’t think your example of repeated sins of Homosexuals while claiming to be saved necessarily rises to that level that Jesus spoke of in matthew 12. You have cited the Homosexual with his or her repeating of such sin while claiming to be saved as a kind of Blasphemy of the Spirit. They may not have been truly saved ever and God has given them over to a reprobate mind. Only God knows. Yet all Christians will sin in a variety of ways thru-out their lives though they will show growth as fewer and fewer such events will occur. Generally, the overt sin stops as the battle moves to the state of mind, spirit, heart, body and soul.

Still we shall all stumble in our races from time to time. Your expanded definition of what you think constitutes the “Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”, were it true, condemns all Christians after about the 2nd sin we’ve made and confessed to after our conversions.

You’ve taken Matthew 12:30 way out of context.

“Your expanded definition of what you think constitutes the “Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit”, were it true, condemns all Christians after about the 2nd sin we’ve made and confessed to after our conversions.

If it is the same sin and it is being used to indicate an acceptance of the spirit for the sinner’s purpose, is the sinner not using the spirit for repeated attempts of salvation knowingly the sinner is doing wrong and has already lied to God by asking? And if a sinner repeats the same sin using God for their purposes rather than asking forgiveness, that is not asking, that’s using.

Blasphemy refers to great disrespect shown to God or to something holy, or to something said or done that shows this kind of disrespect by making a mockery of God’s forgiveness. And this act we are talking about is a perfect example as the sinner has no intention of stopping the act against God’s orders. In other ways, it’s called a getting out of jail free card every time, after time, after time...that’s not asking for forgiveness. It’s clearing the way with using God’s gift.

wy69

Why is the “same” sin in repetitious fashion the determinant in "blasphemy" in claiming to be saved and not a multiplicity of differing sins that all Christians contend against and occaisionally fail at, such as the occaisional angry feelings against a brother that Christ himself likened to murder in one's heart? Look again at the scripture reference...Christ is speaking of the overt spoken words against the Holy Spirit...in this case, the accusations he faced by the claim that he was driving out Devils with the power of Satan. That was a huge no no. There are other scriptures that cover "willful sin" from which there is no returning. There are other scriptures such a Paul putting a judgment on a fellow Christian, releasing the fellow to Satan for the destruction of the body so that his spirit would be saved in the day of resurrection. So the Bible has different things to say about the failures of Christians from time to time depending on their circumstances. Many Christians will testify of struggling and failing at conquering a sinful weakness multiple times and finally succeeding in full repentance, while all the time still claiming to be a believer. (Many Homosexuals have this issue but some actually are granted the power and they do overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the spirit.) Some Christians have had multiple types of failings but over time grew into stable adults of faith. Did all these folks blaspheme the Holy Spirit by calling themselves believers at the same time?

Christ said we must forgive 77 x’s 7 and if our brother comes to us again with repentance asking for forgiveness, we must forgive him again. Don’t you think that’s what Christ also does for us even as Christians? I do believe however that at some point something will give in such believers. They will embrace the light and stay in that light and allow themselves to have their sins reproved and cleansed in a constant communing fashion...think of it like “continuous quality improvement”.
They either will buckle down in the spirit of grace and truth and power and dominion will be brought to bear over those weak areas in life, or the person will become hardened and frustrated and will fall away and /or as one apostle says...”they were never one of us to begin with.”

A Homosexual who has no consciousness that his actions are sinful who nevertheless thinks he is saved is not committing a blasphemy per se though he has deceived himself; unless of course he starts to openly preach such a heretical blasphemy that there is no sin in Homosexuality. And you and I both have seen and read of such horrible teachers who do preach t those things. Only Christ can determine what sort of path these folks will fall into. He could release such folks to the destruction of their bodies by Satan, save they repent, so that at least their spirits are saved in the day of resurrection. Such folks may have most of their works burned up at the Judgment seat of Christ but they still with have that foundation that is Jesus!

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