Posted on 01/12/2013 10:25:16 AM PST by rhema
A new chapter in America’s moral revolution came today as Atlanta pastor Louie Giglio withdrew from giving the benediction at President Obama’s second inaugural ceremony. In a statement released to the White House and the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Giglio said that he withdrew because of the furor that emerged yesterday after a liberal watchdog group revealed that almost twenty years ago he had preached a sermon in which he had stated that homosexuality is a sin and that the “only way out of a homosexual lifestyle … is through the healing power of Jesus.”
In other words, a Christian pastor has been effectively disinvited from delivering an inaugural prayer because he believes and teaches Christian truth.
The fact that Giglio was actually disinvited was made clear in a statement from Addie Whisenant of the Presidential Inaugural Committee:
“We were not aware of Pastor Giglio’s past comments at the time of his selection, and they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this inaugural. Pastor Giglio was asked to deliver the benediction in large part because of his leadership in combating human trafficking around the world. As we now work to select someone to deliver the benediction, we will ensure their beliefs reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.”
That statement is, in effect, an embarrassed apology for having invited Louie Giglio in the first place. Whisenant’s statement apologizes for the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s failure to make certain that their selection had never, at any time, for any reason, believed that homosexuality is less than a perfectly acceptable lifestyle. The committee then promised to repent and learn from their failure, committing to select a replacement who would “reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance.”
The imbroglio over Louie Giglio is the clearest evidence of the new Moral McCarthyism of our sexually “tolerant” age. During the infamous McCarthy hearings, witnesses would be asked, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
In the version now to be employed by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the question will be: “Are you now or have you ever been one who believes that homosexuality (or bisexuality, or transsexualism, etc.) is anything less than morally acceptable and worthy of celebration?”
Louie Giglio, pastor of Atlanta’s Passion City Church, is also founder of the Passion movement that brings tens of thousands of Christian young people together to hear Giglio, along with speakers such as John Piper. They urge a rising generation of young Christians to make a passionate commitment to Christ. In recent years, the movement has also sought to raise awareness and activism among young Christians on the issue of sex trafficking. It was that activism that caught the attention of both President Obama and the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Note carefully that both the White House and the committee were ready to celebrate Giglio’s activism on sex trafficking, but all that was swept away by the Moral McCarthyism on the question of homosexuality.
Two other dimensions of this story also demand attention. First, we should note that Louie Giglio has not been known lately for taking any stand on the issue of homosexuality. To the contrary, Giglio’s own statement withdrawing from the invitation made this clear:
“Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration. Clearly, speaking on this issue has not been in the range of my priorities in the past fifteen years. Instead, my aim has been to call people to ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ.”
A fair-minded reading of that statement indicates that Pastor Giglio has strategically avoided any confrontation with the issue of homosexuality for at least fifteen years. The issue “has not been in the range of my priorities,” he said. Given the Bible’s insistance that sexual morality is inseparable from our “ultimate significance as we make much of Jesus Christ,” this must have been a difficult strategy. It is also a strategy that is very attractive to those who want to avoid being castigated as intolerant or homophobic. As this controversy makes abundantly clear, it is a failed strategy. Louie Giglio was cast out of the circle of the acceptable simply because a liberal watchdog group found one sermon he preached almost twenty years ago. If a preacher has ever taken a stand on biblical conviction, he risks being exposed decades after the fact. Anyone who teaches at any time, to any degree, that homosexual behavior is a sin is now to be cast out.
Second, we should note that Pastor Giglio’s sermon was, as we would expect and hope, filled with grace and the promise of the Gospel. Giglio did not just state that homosexuals are sinners — he made clear that every single human being is a sinner, in need of the redemption that is found only in Jesus Christ. “We’ve got to say to the homosexuals, the same thing that I say to you and that you would say to me … It’s not easy to change, but it’s possible to change,” he preached. He pointed his congregation, gay and straight, to “the healing power of Jesus.” He called his entire congregation to repent and come to Christ by faith.
That is the quintessential Christian Gospel. That is undiluted biblical truth. Those words are the consensus of the Church for over 2,000 years, and the firm belief held by the vast majority of Christians around the world today.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment. By its newly articulated standard, any preacher who holds to the faith of the church for the last 2,000 years is persona non grata. By this standard, no Roman Catholic prelate or priest can participate in the ceremony. No Evangelical who holds to biblical orthodoxy is welcome. The vast majority of Christians around the world have been disinvited. Mormons, and the rabbis of Orthodox Judaism are out. Any Muslim imam who could walk freely in Cairo would be denied a place on the inaugural program. Billy Graham, who participated in at least ten presidential inaugurations is welcome no more. Rick Warren, who incited a similar controversy when he prayed at President Obama’s first inauguration, is way out of bounds. In the span of just four years, the rules are fully changed.
The gauntlet was thrown down yesterday, and the axe fell today. Wayne Besen, founder of the activist group Truth Wins Out, told The New York Times yesterday: “It is imperative that Giglio clarify his remarks and explain whether he has evolved on gay rights, like so many other faith and political leaders. It would be a shame to select a preacher with backward views on LBGT people at a moment when the nation is rapidly moving forward on our issues.”
And there you have it — anyone who has ever believed that homosexuality is morally problematic in any way must now offer public repentance and evidence of having “evolved” on the question. This is the language that President Obama used of his own “evolving” position on same-sex marriage. This is what is now openly demanded of Christians today. If you want to avoid being thrown off the program, you had better learn to evolve fast, and repent in public.
This is precisely what biblical Christians cannot do. While seeking to be gentle in spirit and ruthlessly Gospel-centered in speaking of any sin, we cannot cease to speak of sin as sin. To do so is not only to deny the authority of Scripture, not only to reject the moral consensus of the saints, but it undermines the Gospel itself. The Gospel makes no sense, and is robbed of its saving power, if sin is denied as sin.
An imbroglio is a painful and embarrassing conflict. The imbroglio surrounding Louie Giglio is not only painful, it is revealing. We now see the new Moral McCarthyism in its undisguised and unvarnished reality. If you are a Christian, get ready for the question you will now undoubtedly face: “Do you now or have you ever believed that homosexuality is a sin?” There is nowhere to hide.
Obama and his party dispise Christianity. They'll pretend to go along for PR reasons but the DNC's platform regarding abortion, homosexuality, accountability, and other issues assure that no one can be a Democrat and a God-fearing Christian at the same time.
Someone will be chosen to give a blessing to Obama's ungodly administration. True Christians are sometimes led into the lion's den, to witness and work to change things from the inside, so I won't call that someone a Quisling, a stalking horse, or a hypocrite. There's at least a slight chance that somebody isn't an enemy of his own faith, hired to paste a veneer of respectability on pure evil, or a clueless "useful idiot" being used to legitimize an ungodly regime.
I believe you've misread Pastor Giglio's words, Bryan. His teaching is Biblical and points solely to Christ as He is revealed in Scripture. Giglio does not soft-pedal sin, but teaches that all of our sin points to our total reliance upon God's grace to atone for our sin.
Perhaps some who have not taken the time to look closer don't understand Giglio's ministry, which is targeted at college and young adults who may or may not have any familiarity with Christ or the Gospel. (I didn't know who he was until our small group used one of his series last year.) Like Jesus and the Apostles, Giglio invites everyone to come and hear the compelling truth of the Gospel, delivered in love and containing the power of God to transform the lives of all sinners to whom God grants to power to believe.
Louie Giglio is a solid Southern Baptist pastor whom this PCA believer respects as one of today's Christian giants. Don't shoot - he's one of the good guys!
“Due to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration.”
Well, I guess this is conclusion Jesus would have reached. Sigh.
Well said.
I read that article as he preached a sermon containing the truth, and now he is stepping down from the inaugural festivites to avoid the truth becoming inconvient for him and/or the president.
Au contraire! Witness the reaction of the Boston Globe to the sex abuse by Catholic priests. The Globe went ballistic and stayed that way for several years. Now don't get me wrong, I think those priests should have been put UNDER the jail, but that's not why the Globe spilled so much ink on the issue. They weren't worried about the children as much as they wanted to reduce the influence of the Catholic Church in the coming push for homosexual marriage in MA.
Within 18 months of the break of the scandal, the Supreme Judicial Court in MA allowed homosexual marriage by fiat, and the Church had lost much of its credibility to fight it, though the Bishops tried hard. They actually might have eventually succeeded, but for the election of 'Cadillac' Deval, who bribed 5 state legislators to vote against allowing the citizens of the Commonwealth to have a say in the issue. Sadly, those legislators never paid any political price for their turn.
What the Boston Globe never said during all this time was that they were in support of NAMBLA, the National Man Boy Love Association, which wants to lower the age of sexual consent to 12. If that lowering were to succeed, it would have rendered moot the vast majority of charges against the priests involved in the abuse scandal, because much of it involved tween or teenaged boys.
And already, the “academics” are attempting to designate pedophilia as a “sexual orientation.”
They need to be opposed at every opportunity.
Do you really believe that Louie Giglio is compromising the truth by withdrawing from the inauguration? I don't for a minute.
It is clear from their subsequent comments that the inaugural committee was going to "disinvite" Giglio had he not withdrawn, and he could only participate at the pleasure of the President. It would have been futile to try to force himself into a place where he was no longer wanted, and prevailing would have only guaranteed angry demonstrations against him that would have detracted from the event in which he was participating. Giglio chose not to make a bad situation worse, and had the grace to simply decline the earlier invitation.
The more important work of his calling - to preach and teach the unvarnished Gospel of Christ - goes on...
In fact, he should have spoke and turned it up a notch by referring to this topic in his talk.
The homohadists only win when society gives up then we all lose.
In other words, he surrendered the battlefield and retreated.
Some say that the measure of belief and or faith is in deciding what one is willing to die for -that is why law recognizes a conscientious objection as a legitimate premise for not obeying a law.
Martyrs faced more than the ridicule this man of faith runs from. I pray that his 'grace' is not adopted by too many because the storm clouds are on the horizon, the danger is clear and present; we face evil right now and evil will not compromise nor be defeated by the surrender of truth. Surrendering truth simply emboldens the enemies of freedom and leaves but one remedy 0sacrifice of blood and treasure...
If this is the Lou Giglio I’m thinking of, he is FANTASTIC! See his You Tube Video: How Great is Our God. He loves astronomy and loves to showcase the Creator’s greatness through astronomy. Fantastic.
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It is sadly dismaying to see how quickly some Freepers will shoot their best allies in the back while they fight in the front lines. Louie Giglio is one of those allies.
The inauguration ceremony is not Pastor Giglio's battlefield. Tell me, how would it advance the Gospel of Christ if Pastor Giglio demanded that he be allowed to deliver the benediction at the ceremony? Would the Almighty God be honored by such behavior?
Pastor Giglio's battlefields are Passion City Church in Atlanta and the numerous conferences held around the country. Because of Giglio's ministry, tens of thousands of young adults - raised as unbelievers - now follow Christ. Tens of thousands who were raised and taught that there is no such thing as "sin" now know the Savior who died and rose again to forgive them. Tens of thousands who were raised and taught to approve of all forms of immorality - including homosexuality - now know that God has a perfect provision for our intimate relationships. Those are Louie Giglio's battlefields, where God has placed him.
One and the same!
I would believe you IF he stated that he was not participating because of something he believes in and teaches TODAY!
RATHER than stating it was about something 15-20 years ago.
Actions count.
You're right that actions do indeed count. Louie Giglio's actions can be counted in thousands of changed lives. I wish my own actions counted that high!
I was shocked to find out Giglio had accepted being part of the Obama Inauguration sham....(& hadn't even known he was invited)
What is a benediction?.....A benediction is a blessing!
Why would a 'Christian' want to be part of blessing this cutthroat, evil, socialistic administration------accessory to murder of millions of unborn babies?
I know of Giglio well.....and thought highly of him.
I don't now.
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