Posted on 06/25/2010 2:44:02 PM PDT by NYer
This is a troubling story.
There are support groups of all kinds. Groups that help you stay sober or drug free. There are groups that support you if you battle gambling addiction or even porn addiction. The one thing that all these groups have in common is a bond of privacy. What gets talked about in the group stays in the group.
But what if what you are battling something that others don't want you battling. Does your privacy go out the window?
A Lutheran Pastor who is opposed to gay clergy suffers himself from same-sex attraction. But this Pastor chooses to live a chaste life. In support of this choice he attends a Catholic support group that encourages those with same-sex attraction to live chastely. Of course it goes without saying that the privacy of anyone seeking such support should be respected.
It wasn't.
A mean and vindictive gay magazine sent a reporter undercover to the group to report on what the pastor said in the meeting. This is absolutely despicable.
Lavender Magazine sent a reporter to the Faith in Action meeting and reported on the Pastor's struggle with temptation.
Hope Lutheran's executive pastor, the Rev. Tom Parrish, said when confronted with the article, Brock "simply said he indeed has been attending this Christian group, both going there and being honest about temptations he has, and is being held accountable so he never would do anything with that temptation."What is queer is that Lavender magazine seems incapable of distinguishing between temptation and action. Most likely because the active homosexuals who run it cannot imagine NOT acting on temptation.
Parrish said Brock was put on leave from the job of senior pastor at Hope Lutheran when the article came out, but likely will return after an internal investigation.
"What they've done is unconscionable," Parrish said of Lavender's covert infiltration of Faith in Action. The group is the Minnesota affiliate of the Catholic Church's Courage program, described on its website as a "spiritual support system which would assist men and women with same-sex attractions in living chaste lives in fellowship, truth and love."
Ping!
Ping!
If his temptations are little boys...get rid of him.
It's sad and morally bereft.
This pastor has made a very difficult choice for himself. I don’t see how he’s hurting anybody so why is it any business of the homos if he chooses to be chaste?? Where’s the “freedom of choice” and “tolerance” that the left is always lecturing us about??
"Same-sex attraction". I wish I'd made up that term.
I would think that the big question would be who in that church was reading the Lavender Magazine?
I believe most homosexuals know full well that the sodomy they practice is a perversion and I doubt many really feel good about their sexual behavior. This is likely the motivation for all the 'gay pride' nonsense and the unending (and often too-successful) attempts to 'normalize' homosexual behavior in the mind of the non-homosexual public (about 98% of the population).
"Outing' those who engage in homosexual behavior has this benefit for the homosexual 'community': when a religious authority figure is 'outed', it not only embarrasses the person involved but homosexuals can point to him and scream 'hypocrite' while smugly asserting: "see, even ministers are gay!", as if this somehow makes the behavior acceptable. Of course, just about every major religion on earth condemns homosexual behavior (for good reason) so 'religion' and religious authority figures are always a target of the more aggressive homosexual advocates. This case is an example of that reality.
Fortunately, although politicians and the mass media have tried to shove homosexual behavior down our collective throats as 'normal', few sentient beings really believe it is. Proof: Not only have same-sex 'marriage' drives failed when the people can vote on them, but for teen age boys and many grown men, being called any version of 'homosexual' is still a reason to throw a punch at your accuser. Normal people realize that homosexual behavior is perverse. They'll tolerate it, to a point, but they won't accept it as anything close to 'normal'. Thank God.
He is a threat to those who believe that God 'made them that way' and that no 'choice' is involved.
Homosexuals have crossed one of society’s most basic divides between right and wrong and some have no more attachment to anything “right” and demand that the rest of the world, especially other homosexuals must validate their new inverted system of right and wrong.
As a reader and advertiser, I have to say I’m appalled. 12 step programs, regardless of what is at issue or who attends, are sacred. This isn’t journalism, this is tabloid trash. Your attempts to justify your actions fall short. He didn’t try to cruise and get caught, he went to a meeting where the first rule of attendence is “who you see and what you hear, stays here”. Look, the guy’s an a** with an agenda, I get it. Yet there are some lines you just don’t cross without losing respectibility. Fight “the good fight” with integrety not with deceit. Sneaking around and taking names? Really? Did you also follow the other attendees home and check to see if they’ve ever said anything you can print too? I’ll be contacting the advertising dept. first thing in the morning. I don’t want my business associated with this type of “journalism”. --Link.
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The biggest temptation for gay folks, I think, is the temptation to believe that they are different from other people. In reality, we are all full of longings that will never be fulfilled and we seek to fill ourselves with things that just don’t work. That’s the human condition. That’s what sin is - our brokenness which seeks fulfillment in something besides the grace of God.
I have more respect for a person who knows their weakness and earnestly strives to overcome it through God’s strength than for anybody who denies having any temptation.
And I think you pegged it right, that there are people who insist that it’s not a “temptation” because there’s nothing wrong with it - it’s the way they are “made”. Every baby is “made” wanting nothing more than to serve itself. Every person is “made” wanting to strike out when they’re scared or hurt. Every person is “made” with an instinct to lie if it will get them out of trouble. Every person is “made” lusting after something or someone. That doesn’t make any of it right. The only reason a person would stop being tempted is if they’ve already lost the fight against the wrong.
In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, Jesus said the repentant one who earnestly sought forgiveness went home justified. The one who thought he had done nothing wrong - nothing as bad as the “other guy” - was not justified. A person who thinks they are well has no need of a physician.
How could it ever be considered hypocritical for a sick person to seek help from a physician? Paul talks about “Christ Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” We’re told that Jesus was tempted every way, just as we are, but without sinning. The battle against sin is not a scandal - it is a fact of life for a Christian.
I hope that this situation creates a chance for the reality of sin and grace to be made clear, because the people who thought they were exposing some great scandal obviously have no concept of what it means to be a fallen person resting fully in God’s grace - which is all any of us can do, when we look ourselves straight in the mirror.
I just want to also add that one of the songs I love is “You Are My All in All”. That song always meant a lot to me, but it means even more since I heard its composer tell how God’s grace had found him as he struggled with homosexuality.
Rich Mullins (a Christian musician) has a video where he tells about being in a train in Europe discussing in explicit detail with his friend, Beaker, the temptations he struggled with - thinking that nobody in the train spoke English. Then some guy asked him if he was Rich Mullins. Rich says he had to think about it for a while and decided that he IS Rich Mullins - whether for good or for bad, that is who he is.
Unlike some other people, though, God doesn’t beat us over the head with who we are in our deepest selves. He loves us anyway, and He holds us close in the middle of even the stinky parts of us and our lives. He took our stink on Himself and buried it in Hell when He died on the cross - the only Innocent One who exists taking the place of the guilty, in order to fulfill justice while saving the children He so dearly loves.
That is what saves us, and what keeps us putting one foot in front of another until the day we’re finally free from our sin and the struggles it causes. If we deny that we sin, then we’re claiming that Christ died for no reason.
Your comments are excellently thought out.
Placemark for pingout later.
"Modern" society snickers at the idea in the Bible that people could be possessed and controlled by demons, and even if true, it doesn't occur today. I strongly beg to differ.
Homosexual activity is at its core self-destructive behavior. Misery does love company and as well wants all others willing or unwilling to join the self-destructive party -those intent on destruction tend to destroy that around them as they have no regard for that which really matters...
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