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Group of Christian leaders step forward to tell of battles with same-sex attraction
Lifesite News ^ | 03Sept13 | Peter Saunders

Posted on 09/03/2013 7:48:33 PM PDT by ReformationFan

After Steve Chalke and Rob Bell joined the ‘Accepting Evangelicals’ Group in affirming faithful same-sex erotic relationships earlier this year a new group of ‘post-gay’ evangelical Christian leaders has emerged.

Their testimonies are clear, powerful, hugely encouraging and most welcome at a time when many young evangelicals are genuinely confused about the issue.

These are men in pastoral ministry who admit to feelings of same sex attraction but who also see the Bible’s prohibitions on same-sex relationships as non-negotiable.

The core of this new group, recently interviewed by Christianity magazine, are Sam Alberry, a church leader in Maidenhead, Sean Doherty, a tutor at St Mellitus College, and Ed Shaw, who helps to lead Emmanuel Church in Bristol.

They are shortly to launch a website called ‘Living Out’, aimed at helping others think through the realities of being same-sex attracted while remaining committed to a biblical sexual morality.

Doherty (pictured), who has experienced some degree of shift in his sexual feelings and is now married, explains how his own church experience helped him:

‘Church was a place of nurture and unconditional acceptance, but at the same time the teaching was clear that I shouldn’t act on those sexual desires. In an environment where young people were being encouraged to experiment, I was really grateful that I had been kept from acting on my feelings.’

He is reluctant to describe himself as gay and instead adopts terminology adopted by blogger Peter Ould who has a similar testimony:

‘I don’t speak of myself as an “ex-gay” person. I prefer the term “post-gay”. You choose to move away from the label of “gay” altogether, which has come to be associated with a certain lifestyle. I’ve clearly experienced some change in my feelings so that I am attracted to my wife. But it’s definitely not

(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...


TOPICS: Current Events; Evangelical Christian; Moral Issues; Theology
KEYWORDS: biblicallyorthodox; celibacy; chastity; courage; evangelicals; exgay; homosexualagenda; livingout; naturalfamily; petersaunders; postgay; saunders; ssadisorder
Sounds like an Evangelical Protestant equivalent to the Roman Catholic Courage organization, i.e., it ministers to individuals with same sex attraction disorder but remains faithful to Biblical Christian teaching on marriage, sex, chastity and the natural family
1 posted on 09/03/2013 7:48:33 PM PDT by ReformationFan
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To: ReformationFan; Mrs. Don-o

ping


2 posted on 09/03/2013 7:50:02 PM PDT by ReformationFan
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To: ReformationFan
stupid sexy Flanders photo: Stupid Sexy Flanders SexyFlanders.gif stupid sexy Flanders
3 posted on 09/03/2013 8:02:47 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: All armed conservatives.)
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To: ReformationFan

This just sounds bad. If you are battling same sex attraction, you’ve already lost.


4 posted on 09/03/2013 8:02:57 PM PDT by Wayne07
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To: MrShoop
"This just sounds bad. If you are battling same sex attraction, you’ve already lost."

I don't think so. Being tempted is not the same as committing the sin. Jesus was tempted, yet was without sin.

5 posted on 09/03/2013 8:37:21 PM PDT by Aarchaeus (V)
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To: Aarchaeus

There is temptation like looking at someone’s wife, or eating too much food, and then there is temptation like wanting to have sex with a man, and I don’t think even Jesus went there.


6 posted on 09/03/2013 8:56:21 PM PDT by Wayne07
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To: MrShoop
Amen!

What gets euphemistically glossed over with innocent sounding words like "attraction and desire" are the graphically disgusting words like "anal penetration and penis in the rectum."

Since schools are now demanding young children be able to refer to their genitalia in anatomically correct terms with Bill Gates'/Jeb Bush's "Common Core" national education "standards," why not begin demanding loons like these and other degenerates, quit using teenage girls' terms for romance and begin using the real descriptions of exactly what they are "desiring be done to them or they do to others?"

7 posted on 09/03/2013 10:08:51 PM PDT by zerosix (Native Sunflower)
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To: ReformationFan

Yet Even MORE “Emergent Church” Perversion!


8 posted on 09/04/2013 6:10:02 AM PDT by US Navy Vet (Go Packers! Go Rockies! Go Boston Bruins! See, I'm "Diverse"!)
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To: US Navy Vet

While Chalke and Bell are emergent, the “Living Out” group in the article is not.


9 posted on 09/04/2013 4:25:05 PM PDT by ReformationFan
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To: MrShoop

This just sounds bad. If you are battling same sex attraction, you’ve already lost.

<><><><><

so are folks battling addictions already lost?

If there is one forum on fr that would seem to allow for redemption it would be the religion forum.


10 posted on 09/05/2013 3:47:45 PM PDT by dmz
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To: dmz
If there is one forum on fr that would seem to allow for redemption it would be the religion forum.

Indeed it does.

11 posted on 09/05/2013 3:50:43 PM PDT by Alex Murphy (Just a common, ordinary, simple savior of America's destiny.)
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To: dmz

Amen.


12 posted on 09/05/2013 3:54:58 PM PDT by Gamecock (Many Atheists take the stand: "There is no God AND I hate Him.")
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To: ReformationFan

They need mental help to overcome this abnormality not affirmation


13 posted on 09/05/2013 4:04:44 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: ReformationFan

Christians who embrace sin are not Christians


14 posted on 09/05/2013 4:18:54 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: dmz; MrShoop

Only those who quit fighting temptation, only those who embrace the sin are lost


15 posted on 09/05/2013 4:20:21 PM PDT by GeronL
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