Homosexuality, like adultery, is clearly condemned in scripture. I won’t get further into that here, but we Christians are admonished to not even associate with people who claim to be believers but are unrepentant, sexually immoral. Read 1 Corinthians 5:11.
Scripture is quite clear, and what do believers do? They keep God’s word!
1 John 2:4-6
UMC members who practice and approve of unrepentant sexual sin—including homosexuality—are not believers. They deny Christ. Simple fact.
I should add that someone is free to deny scripture and do whatever they please, but one cannot be a Christ follower, aka Christian, if they deny Christ’s teachings.
Besides, we are literally talking a salvation issue here. Telling people it’s OK to practice homosexuality condemns both the homosexual and the false teacher. Even if one thought scripture isn’t entirely clear, why would one risk eternal damnation by claiming a new interpretation and taking a side opposed by 2000 years of Christian thought and practice?
The act of homosexuality doesn’t fit the pattern God gave to teach about the covenant relation between God and the Church - that intimate relationship ultimately produces the Kingdom.
The Kingdom was the ‘child’ born out of the ‘marriage’ between God (’the man’) and the Church (’the woman’).
How do you get a kingdom born between two men or two women? Answer: You don’t.
The church (or the City of Enoch) was the woman in the Book of Revelation, the awaiting Bride with her foolish virgins in Matthew, the reason why God said ‘I am married to you’ in Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you; and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion;
Marriage, between a man and a woman, is to teach us here on earth about God and His relationship to the church, and that we are to act out our lives in understanding of this relationship.
How dare you inject Biblical Fellowship into a humanist fellowship debate!
/snerk
#WellSaidCitizen