Posted on 02/24/2014 5:51:18 AM PST by xzins
Jesus Christ would absolutely bake a cake for a gay person. Hed bake a cake for a straight person. Hed bake a cake for a girl, a boy, a person who isnt sure what they are, a black person, a white person Jesus would bake that cake if it, in some way large or small, drew that person closer to Him.
And Christians should too.
Christians should show love and compassion to gays, straights, and everyone else. Christians should show Gods love in hopes of drawing people to a relationship with Christ. 95% of that may just be relationship building, but it should still be done.
If a Christian owns a bakery or a florist shop or a photography shop or a diner, a Christian should no more be allowed to deny service to a gay person than to a black person. It is against the tenets of 2000 years of orthodox Christian faith, no matter how poorly some Christians have practiced their faith over two millennia.
And honestly, I dont know that I know anyone who disagrees with any of this.
The disagreement comes on one issue only should a Christian provide goods and services to a gay wedding. Thats it. Were not talking about serving a meal at a restaurant. Were not talking about baking a cake for a birthday party. Were talking about a wedding, which millions of Christians view as a sacrament of the faith and other, mostly Protestant Christians, view as a relationship ordained by God to reflect a holy relationship.
This slope is only slippery if you grease it with hypotheticals not in play.
There are Christians who have no problem providing goods and services for a gay marriage. Some of them are fine with gay marriage. Some of them think gay marriage is wrong, but they still have no problem providing goods and services.
Other Christians, including a significant number of Catholic and Protestant preachers, believe that a gay marriage is a sinful corruption of a relationship God himself ordained. Because they try to glorify God through their work, they believe they cannot participate in a wedding service. Yes, because they believe they are glorifying God in their work and view it as a ministry, they view providing goods and services as a way to advance, even in a small way, Gods kingdom.
Herein lies the dispute of the day. The latter group does not stand in the way of the former group providing cakes, flowers, and pictures for a gay wedding. Some of the former, however, believe the government should compel the latter group to violate their conscience. They only see the transaction through the customers eyes as if the vendors are passive participants.
Thats the problem.
We are not talking about race. We are not talking about restaurants. We are talking about a specific ceremony people of faith believe God himself created and ordained. Should the state force people to violate their conscience in that regard?
It is not staggering that there are aggrieved gay rights activists who think the state should be able to force people to recognize as normal that which most Christians view as sinful. What is staggering is the number of Christians who apparently think the State has the right to decide and enforce this issue.
You might think Jesus would bake a cake for a gay wedding. I think you are wrong. I do not think Jesus Christ would participate in the ratification of a sin and a marriage between two people of the same sex is a sin. Are you really going to tell the millions of Christians in the United States who think otherwise that not only are they wrong, but the state should be able to force your opinion of what Jesus would do on them? In your pride, you might think 2000 years of Christian orthodoxy and the majority of practicing Christians in the world today are wrong but dont think among people of practicing Christian faith you are in the majority.
I understand if you are not a believer and define yourself based on your sexual preference that you think the government should legitimize you by forcing others to treat you in a particular way. But it boggles my mind to think any Christian should want the government to force their view of Christianity on another believer.
If you think the government should be able to force Christians to provide goods and services to a gay wedding or risk losing their business, why not command a preachers service? If a Christian baker cannot opt out, why should a preacher be able to opt out? And why not take from churches their tax exempt status if they fail to participate?
Christians should serve. But the government should not force them to.
Oh, boo hoo.
>> Jesus would bake them a cake and then say, Go and sin no more. <<
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You don’t know him!
He never contributed to anyone’s defilement in any way.
Those that loved their defilement, he rebuked sternly. (Pharisees, scribes)
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Sure he would, right after he finished making all those Ashera Poles.
Yeshua was never a carpenter.
He was referred to once as a son of the carpenter, but for his entire life he was in study for the task of Cohen Gadol, and from that he never strayed.
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>>You dont know him!
>>He never contributed to anyones defilement in any way.
Would he bake a cake for a couple of adulterers who had an affair leading to the breakup of one or both of their previous marriages?
Would he bake a cake for two fornicators who had lived together prior to “making it legal”?
>> This particular example is another way of asking “what would Jesus do?” <<
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We never needed to ask that question if we read the gospels.
He showed what to when encountering wanton sin: He fashioned a whip and thrashed the animal sellers and money changers off the temple porch single-handed.
Whenever he encountered sin he rebuked it.
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NO, and NO!
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>> “Sure he would, right after he finished making all those Ashera Poles.” <<
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By Jove, I think he’s got it!
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“The basic premise here is a false one. Had the baker simply been asked to bake a cake, I doubt they would have refused.
However, they were asked to make a wedding cake. In Christianity, marriage is a sacrament. Thus, the were asked to help make a mockery of a sacrament, thus committing sacrilege. And Jesus would not take part in sacrilege.”
Except for your first sentence, your comment is the article in a nutshell.
There seems to be some confusion among some here, who believe that Jesus Christ loves everyone... except sinners. They don’t seem to realize that Jesus knows we are all sinners, and He loves us anyway. He does not want us to sin. He would never participate in our sin. He would not deny us basic goods and services for our being sinners. Mankind would have never grown beyond the first two specimens if that had been God’s policy.
The confusion here seems to be all your own.
Read your Bible for once.
Yeshua didn’t coddle anyone in any way.
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Which part of the Bible states that God only loves those who have never sinned? Where does it state that sinners should not be allowed to buy food?
Then He would share the cake, sitting at a table with said gay person, and He would explain His Father's law and His Father's infinite mercy. He would preach in parables, and try to show the sinner the error of his or her ways.
Excellent article...
Just like a Jewish Holocaust Survivor would bake a Cake for a Neo Nazi.
It’s not a question of who he loved.
It is exactly because of that love that he could not bake them a cake that endorsed their defilement.
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But he spoke in parables to hide his truth from entrenched sinners, not to reveal it.
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>>NO, and NO!
OK. Then, the cake baker shouldn’t either if he’s going to cite “religious convictions” as a reason to not bake a cake for gay customers.
Read the article. It makes a distinction. Read my posts. I agree with that distinction.
The problem is, a same-sex wedding is not a "holy relationship" that is "ordained by God." This author seems to think that you can take any two persons, declare them "married," and that somehow sanctifies the relationship. He's putting the cart before the horse. The marriage itself is only legitimate if the couple being married are a legitimately marriageable couple.
Speaking only for myself, if I were a Christian wedding photographer, I would probably have no problem welcoming moneybusiness from gay couples. Only thing is, all my business stationery, promotional materials, Web site, card board frames, etc. would be full of photos of happy, beautiful heterosexual couples, and monogrammed with Bible verses like Genesis 2:24. And if I were a baker, of course I'd be compelled to charge the gay couple extra, since I had to break open two sets of the little bride-and-groom cake toppers.
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