By not holding a funeral for this man, the pastor is showing a very unforgiving, judgmental attitude.
We all sin. Will we not hold funerals for adulterers and alcoholics?
Will we not hold funerals for thieves?
How about we just hold funerals for perfect humans?
Hurting family members after the death of their son is wrong.
Should he be honest and tell the family at the funeral that Jesus says the son is now in hell?
No one is more against the queer agenda than I am, but I can’t see why they wouldn’t hold a funeral for him. It’s not at all like a wedding.
I suppose if an adulterer’s obituary said that he leaves a wife, a long-time mistress, and Sherry Bops, his favorite t...y bar dancer, the church might decline to bury a reprobate.
No. The church could not accommodate a homosexual "spouse" and still honor God. There wasn't a problem until it was revealed that he was "married". They could not honor a relationship that is outside of God's law. There would have been a mess had they refused to acknowledge the "husband". They did the right thing.
“By not holding a funeral for this man, the pastor is showing a very unforgiving, judgmental attitude.
We all sin. Will we not hold funerals for adulterers and alcoholics?”
I will gently disagree.
The family apparently did not inform the church that the son was gay and had a “husband” who is a survivor. They read it in the obit.
As such, it was a “gay funeral.”
I don’t disagree with the church. They were blindsided. Obviously the family knew everything and never told the church. They should have. To disagree is not unforgiving or judgmental.
Boo hoo, find another funeral home more accomodating.
They reject the teachings of the church. We all sin, but we know we sin.
They do not believe they are living in sin, there’s no repentance, they are asking the church to celebrate their sin. That is not right.
Jesus said, "Let the dead bury the dead". Jesus is the God of the living (those in Christ).
No, that is not so. He is only reflecting the very unforgiving, judgmental attitude that God shows all humans who reject the only offer He has for redeeming those whose habitual lifestyle has been in practicing sinful living in direct defiance to what the pastor preaches and the congregation sustains. That offer is confession, repentance, and abandonment of self, of Sin as a a Master and life style, as well as rebuffing the world system as their standard for behaviors.
You are asking the pastor and the congregation to give the deportment of the deceased an exit stamp of approval, and his relatives a vote of affirmation, when the church assembly cannot conscientiously do so. (Had the family of the deceased been a regular committed part of the cogregation, the pastor might have cut a little slack, if in any case he could still preach a gospel of salvation for the living. But, from the article, it appears they were not.)
Of course all members of the congregation can, and do themselves admittedly slip from time to time. But their process of dealing with that slippage is compliance through confession and repentance, and abandoning ungodly conduct. A continual, ongoing, God-fearing life style is the path to fellowship with God ging on, not just repeating their errors.
Spitting in God's Face in life through sodomy, and thus openly shaming the modest behavior of one's fellowmen/women, is a preferred mode of those with the unnatural bent, and is not the best basis for demanding that the church nave be the celestial departure gate, with the next stop being Sheol rather than Paradise. There are plenty of funeral homes that provide space for entertaining the bereaved in such a case.
The argument is that the relatives want to play the game of "Let's pretend." Honest Christians won't participate when they have to ignore the doctrines on which they live, and also die, in order to play the "He was a nice, loving guy" game.
It's exactly at funeral time, when the test is over after which the marks will be given out, that the message of salvation for the lost kin comes into sharp focus for those remaining, when it is recognized that the determinedly lost, unrepentant child, brother, father, or uncle has finally passed the point of no hope and no return. His demise and future abode should be formally acknowledged, confessed, and wept over, but rejected as a model of one's own behavior going forward.
Rejecting God and His people in life; rejected by God and His people in death. It is deeply sad, but an object lesson needing to be taught.
You need to have some compassion for the pastor who has to deliver this decision to the surviving family. You think he likes to have to do this?
So go and find another church, plenty of Godless ones out there