The great need for pastors to address gay marriage

BPNews ^ | 9/24/12 | Joseph Backholm

[rhema]

Pastors, I'd like to propose some hypotheticals for you.

Imagine a scenario in which the president of the United States used his bully pulpit to declare to the country that divorce was a good thing, beneficial to spouses and good for kids who would be saved from contentious households. Certainly some people feel that way.

Or, imagine if the president of the United States told the country that monogamy was unnatural and that it was not actually our urges that needed to be overcome but our petty jealousies over sexual exclusivity. I'm certain there are people who share those sentiments.

Now, imagine that he not only took these positions but he said that his conclusions were informed by his Christian faith.

What would you do? Sure, these positions seem a little crazy, and you hope your congregation understands that he's wrong. But it is the president, after all. And that fact that he said it kind of makes it an issue for everyone.

Would you correct the record?

Of course the president did not condemn monogamy or encourage people to divorce. But he did, earlier this year, tell the nation that his Christian faith helped inform his belief that marriage should be redefined to include same-sex couples.

But of course you knew that. It was the lead story everywhere for several days.

We are in the process of a moral revolution. It is not a revolution on simply the issue of homosexuality, but sexuality in general. A moral revolution requires the thing that was once condemned to be approved and the thing that was once approved to be condemned.

The culture is assaulting every man, woman and child in your church with the idea that the biblical realities about sexuality are not simply archaic but that they are themselves immoral.

What are you going to do about it?

I know the answer for many to this point has been, "nothing." While many pastors are choosing to take this on, we at the Family Policy Institute of Washington still get emails and phone calls from people who wish their church would address the single-most culturally relevant biblical issue of this generation.

But many won't because they're not "political." Meanwhile, some polls suggest that 39 percent of Protestants support same-sex marriage.

I think R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was correct when he said, "This is not an issue that politics is irrelevant to, but this is not basically a political issue."

Of course, getting this issue wrong, as the president has done, is not the disease but a symptom of it. For a Christian, the inability to get this question right brings into serious question the ability to get anything right, biblically speaking. You can't do calculus if you don't know how to add or subtract.

Sure, we want to make sure that we are welcoming to the world around us so we can have relationships with people and ultimately lead them to Jesus. But when 39 percent of the church gets same-sex marriage wrong, you have to look around and ask, "Who is really leading whom, and to where?"

For those who are on the reservation of Christian orthodoxy, we should be able to agree that it is the job of the leadership to train the church to think biblically about everything. Once we become aware of an area in which that is clearly not happening, we should prioritize fixing that problem.

What about the decision to focus our efforts and energies on less divisive, more positive aspects of our faith? I'll defer to Martin Luther, who said:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefields besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."

[Dr. Pritchett]

Some might say it is better to have a millstone tied around one’s neck than to lead the lambs astray.

[rhema]

Here's one denomination that's proudly clamoring for its millstone.

[Tamzee]

Does this Romans passage not describe the left perfectly, addressing the homosexual and even the humanist and environmental movements? By the way, this was the topic of an entire sermon by our wonderful Baptist pastor so, yes, some of our religious leaders ARE trying to teach the truth...

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18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:18-27

[rhema]

It describes the religious left, too, those mainline denominations that have capitulated to the world.

[kenavi]

"What the Lord has joined, let no man tear asunder."

Should we outlaw divorce?

[Elsie]

The great need for pastors to address gay marriage

It would be nice if they'd just address SIN!

[Elsie]

 

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people, who are called by my name,
shall humble themselves,
and pray, and seek my face,
and turn from their wicked ways;

then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin,
and will heal their land.

[Elsie]

Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

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Genesis 13:13

Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.

Genesis 18:20-21
20. Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous
21. that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."

Genesis 19:4-7
4. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house.
5. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
6. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
7. and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.

 

Psalms 12:8      The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.

      More?

Isaiah 3:9   The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.

2 Peter 2:13b  Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.

 

 

Ezekiel 16:49-50
49. "`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
50. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

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2 Peter 2

 1.  But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.
 2.  Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
 3.  In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
 4.  For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,  putting them into gloomy dungeons  to be held for judgment;
 5.  if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
 6.  if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
 7.  and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men
 8.  (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)--
 9.  if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
 10.  This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature  and despise authority.   Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;
 11.  yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.
 12.  But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
 13.  They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.

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But there IS hope!!!

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

 9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:
     Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10. nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

 

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If you could NOT change, you would be in most pitiful shape...