Posted on 03/25/2014 1:59:06 PM PDT by matthewrobertolson
The U.S. branch of the evangelical humanitarian aid organization World Vision announced this week that it will no longer bar its employees from being in same-sex marriages. Employees are still barred from having sex outside of marriage, but “marriage” will now include marriages between people of the same sex. World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns tells Christianity Today the change is “not an endorsement of same-sex marriage,” but it’s hard to read it any other way.
It’s certainly a disappointing loss for supporters of traditional marriage, but I’m not surprised, and here’s why.
"I think you have to be neutral on hundreds of doctrinal issues that could divide an organization like World Vision,” Stearns explains to Christianity Today in defense of the decision of World Vision U.S.. "One example: divorce and remarriage. [Protestant] churches have different opinions on this. We've chosen not to make that a condition of employment at World Vision. If we were not deferring to local churches, we would have a long litmus test [for employees]. What do you believe about evolution? Have you been divorced and remarried? What is your opinion on women in leadership? Were you dunked or sprinkled? And at the end of the interview, how many candidates would still be standing?”
In other words, evangelical Christians are divided on such a large swath of issues, with no easy way of settling them for the evangelical community, that an evangelical organization must either deem as unessential as wide a range of issues as possible (even if this means, as in the current instance, sometimes widening that area of non-essentials as positions in the evangelical community change) or else make itself impractically narrow.
The problem comes from sola scriptura, or “Scripture alone,” one of the fundamental operating principles of Protestantism.
(Excerpt) Read more at aleteia.org ...
Money talks. World vision will get the message very quickly if people do this.
Bookmarked.
I am sure they are already trying to figure out how to do that.
I’ve heard WorldVision talked about negatively for years by Bible-believing Christians. They have not been “Scripture alone,” but evidently have allowed mainline Protestants who don’t take the Bible literally to work there, and eventually this had to be the result.
A very good book going over what happened in the last 100 to 200 years so that different denominations got away from depending on the Bible as their sole authority (including by going over what happened in different seminaries) is called The Battle for the Bible. I’ll post again with author’s name, but the same sort of thing happened. As soon as it’s said that the Bible has “errors” or can’t be fully depended on, apostasy is the inevitable result.
“The Battle for the Bible,” Harold Lindsell.
One thing I remember very well about Lindsell’s book is how aspiring professors would lie while applying to work at seminaries, and then come out with their real beliefs later and were often allowed to stay on, despite opposition from those with faithful beliefs.
For later watching.
But now they're saying that it cannot refer to two men wed to each other, but only to two men who have sexual relations who are not lawfully married.
Now, this may strike you (as it does me) as a ridiculous evasion, but the whole upshot of it is that these two words have never before in history been used to mean two men or two women who are married to each other.
Historically, they referred only to boy prostitutes and pederasts, and not to marrital relations between spouses who happen to be the same sex.
I don't buy this argument. However, if you can succeed in limiting the meaning to only those cases (prostitutes and pederasts), then you can introduce he idea that it's marriage that makes sexual intimacy legitimate for homosexuals, just as it does for heterosexuals.
They defend themselves with this verse: (Hebrews 13:4) Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.
-- They're saying, "We're neiher fornicators nor adulterers. Scripture says marriage is for all, and our bed undefiled. So respect marriage for all." Don't flame me for saying this. I don't agree with it myself. I'm just illustrating how some people interpret Scripture.
They can be legally married in California.
Headline: 17 States with Legal Gay Marriage and 33 States with Same-Sex Marriage Bans
.
Yuck.
I'm with you ... they can't be married any more than a cat and a cabbage. NO faith allows same sex marriage...NO FAITH.
Why is THAT the Roman Catholic reflex response any time there are disagreements between non-Catholics on nonessentials? Does the author seriously imagine there are none or have never been like disagreements among Church "fathers", religious orders, lay or clergy? Unbelievable that God's word must be impugned in order to assert the authority of men over God.
It seems that the Catholic church is considering getting out of the civil marriage business. Relevant radio, First Things, and a few other sources I stumbled on have had articles and shows dedicated to saying “Hey, we can leave State marriage along, and focus on the religious sacrament”.
I expect quite a few non Catholic denominations to follow suit. In other words, the Church is getting out of the marriage business just like it got out of the hospital, adoption, and aid business.
Which pleases the enemy to no end
Just this minute ended 25 years of sponsorship to world vision, on top of that I put permanent stop payment on my bank account in case they try to take 1st of the month payment out
I spoke in a live chat with a employee, they tried to suggest they had no choice, I went to world Vision facebook page as well, they said basically same to others I read
I cancelled via on line account, I suspect they will ask me to send a handwritten letter via snail mail to cancel? At any rate the permanent stop payment will take care of this
Why now?? Was it to show they disapprove with Hobby Lobby?
Franklin Graham is the Christian man I admire most, he said there are other alternatives to World Vision
I am going to today give same monthly amount to Samaritans purse
I don’t think there is any disagreement among Christians. The problem is that many of the churches, and as we now see parachurch organizations, are controlled by non-Christians.
With World Vision, there could be many causes. Pressure from the Obama administration since they get a lot of federal funding; also they get a lot of money from pro-homosexual companies like Google and Microsoft. I think obviously somewhere money talked and God walked.
Good points.
It would be nice to know, if something happened behind the scenes, such as the threat of loss of federal funds, which caused World Vision to allow homosexual marriages among their people.
World Vision just announced it reversed its position, but I suspect it is too late.
Among the other negative condemnation, the Assembly of God denomination just advised their members and churches to pull support from World Vision.
This applies to “worldly Christians”...not to be confused with the REAL deal. We are going to see these “deceptions” cast upon the churches by Satan in these last days. And because much of the world would rather embrace this LIE, it will cause many more to stray from the narrow path, and perish...believing those lies.
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