Church's Growing (Gay) Flock Changes Heart of Texas

The Washington Post ^ | Aug. 25, 2002 | Fethiye

[Elsie]

And feel free to say that self-professed Christians who disagree with your church's doctrine are not "real" Christians

You said repeatly 'your church's doctrine'.

Just WHERE does 'doctrine' come from? Is it not to be found in the Book?

---

It would be hard for me to understand a church 'doctrine' that allowed a thief to continue to steal, in light of this:

NIV Ephesians 4:28
28. He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.

If you want a 'church' with NO opposing 'doctrine', try Unitarian.

---

Just remember how lucky (?) we are that the religious world does not have a 'three strikes' rule, or that we do not get assigned points against our drivers believers license.

Payday's final check comes only after death.

[Elsie]

And to anticipate the obvious (and I'm sure outraged!) question: Yes, that is a comparison between racism and discrimination against gays.

---

Genesis 19

 

 1.  The two angels black guys arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
 2.  "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning."   "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."
 3.  But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
 4.  Before they had gone to bed, all the white men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house. 
 5.  They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
 6.  Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
 7.  and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.

 

 

Of course, it DOESN'T say this, for there are NO verses that can be, by ANY stretch of the language, be construed to support racism without wholesale ignoring of others.  Other verses, however, are quite plain in what they say........

 

 

 

NIV Job 11:4-6
 4.  You say to God, `My beliefs are flawless and I am pure in your sight.'
 5.  Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips against you
 6.  and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides. Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin.

 

 

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
 9.  Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
 10.  nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
 11.  And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

(You CAN change!)

 

 

NIV 1 Corinthians 4:16-21
 16.  Therefore I urge you to imitate me.
 17.  For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.
 18.  Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you.
 19.  But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have.
 20.  For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
 21.  What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?

One may, if they wish, compare apples to oranges, but, in the end, they cannot equate them.

[Elsie]

Right! And We'd better be looking for a good cave or bunker to hide in when we go through the inevitable repeat of what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.

But, it WILL endure if THIS rule is still in place.........

---

 

NIV Genesis 18:20-33
 20.  Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous
 21.  that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know." 
 22.  The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD.
 23.  Then Abraham approached him and said: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
 24.  What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare  the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?
 25.  Far be it from you to do such a thing--to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge  of all the earth do right?"
 26.  The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake." 
 27.  Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes,
 28.  what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?"   "If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it."
 29.  Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?"   He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."
 30.  Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"   He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."
 31.  Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"   He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."
 32.  Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"   He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."
 33.  When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

 

 

[Elsie]

If ya REALLY wanna quit stealing - ya HAFTA quit hangin' out with thieves!

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

But I also hope that they don't marry women (or men) and have children unless they are quite sure they know themselves well enough to make that commitment.

The ones who have gotten married do nothing so much as prompt a casual observer to say, "That's a gay guy who's married to a woman and has kids." I never gave it much thought, because I knew the guys and there wives long before they got married. Then one day, my girlfriend, who's not a regular member at the church, basically made the "That's a gay guy who's married..." observation to me, and it really drove home what a potentially precarious step the couples had made.

So far so good, five years and counting for the first couple.

[reborn22]

You say "Both genetics and experience show us that dark-skinned people can and often do produce fair-complexioned offspring. However, it's genetically impossible for fair-complexioned persons to produce dark-skinned offspring."

In this you are wrong. It is perfectly possible for fair-skinned persons to produce black-skinned offspring.

I do not hate Black people. God made us all. I simply believe that the United States of America was founded as a white Christian nation. I base this belief on the many writings of our founding fathers as well as the Declaration of Independence. I believe there are those who hate the concepts of Western civilization - Christianity - and wish to turn the United States into a different type of nation than what was originally intended by our ancestors.

I think it would be terrible if white Christians ceased to exist and feel the concepts of Christianity benefit all people regardless of color. The fact is we have a right to love our children and our heritage. I believe that America was founded by white Christians for white Christians. This was their intent and was also proven by the laws of the United States for over two hundred years.

For example:

1. Black people had to post a bond usually for about $5,000 (a lot of money back then) in the Northern states to even live there. And in many counties of the North they weren't even allowed to be there unless in travel.

2. Non whites were not allowed to vote - voting privileges for non-whites weren't even considered during the founding of America.

3. A person had to profess a belief in Jesus Christ and the 10 Commandments to even hold any type of public office - from sheriff to President - to governor.

4. Interracial marriage was illegal.

5. Homosexuality was illegal.

It's evident to anyone with common sense that America was founded as a white Christian nation. This doesn't mean I support the oppression of non-whites. It means simply that America was to be governed according to the tenets of Christianity. This would be a benefit to all who lived within her boundaries whether a white citizen or a non white resident.


If a Jewish man marries a Christian woman, his children will not be Jewish. This is why marriage between Jews and Christians is not encouraged by Jews. It is nothing to do with hatred.

Some things are not right for the American way of life. One is racial integration; the other is homosexuality.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

You are acting like a bigot. I gave you CLEAR evidence from the bible that God punished Miriam when she admonished Moses when Moses married a black woman (Cushite). Read Numbers 12. Don't go spreading your hatred (and that is exactly what it is.)

God DID condemn homosexual behavior -- many times, and unequivocally. However, he created all people of all colors, descended from Adam. Either you believe, or you don't. We are ALL one in Christ, if we FOLLOW HIS WORD.

For heaven's sake -- do you know the racial makeup of the samaritans? Did Christ dump on the Samaritans because they were interracially mixed? No! go to www.biblesearch.com and search for "samaritan" in the new testament. You'll learn something significant.

Before you keep posting ignorance (and racism), I beg you to pray for wisdom, then go and do some serious study on this issue. Do you think that color matters to the Lord? NO! Only that they believe, and have faith, and do His Will!

[reborn22]

From Genesis 11:9 and other Scriptures, it is obvious that God has planted every human being in the locale of his birth, his race, and his circumstance, for the furtherance of His purposes, which are not necessarily always those of the individual involved.

For instance; a certain individual is born a Jew, because that is what God wanted him or her to be. The same would apply to a person born into the Japanese, German, American, Hispanic, or whatever nation and concomitant race one can name. And what has caused no end of trouble for people is that they try to exercise their own will and become something other than what God intended, whether it is by changing their homeland and emigrating to another country -or changing their hair color, or getting hair implants, or a face lift or whatever.

America should have been the one nation on Earth where "bloom where you were planted" would have been easily implemented, and God's plan for the creation of a fountainhead of Christianity would have become reality. Looking at the first settlers who came to the new world from England, landing on the shore of what is now Virginia in 1607, and those who followed in 1620 - the so-called Mayflower People - the bulk of these emigrants were Christian: the Mayflower people were largely a church congregation and their Pastor.

Whoever you are - and whatever you are - not even the very tiniest aspect of your existence came to be by coincidence. God had you born where He wanted you. He had you born into a certain race or nationality because He wanted it that way. He had you born in a certain time frame, for the work He wanted you to do. You were born male or female - as the case might be - because that is what He wanted, and He has never created any creature that could only be described as an "it", neither male nor female - no matter how loud the homosexuals and lesbians squall and bawl about being victims of a "third sex": "Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

God scattered the people who were at Shinar, placing them variously about the globe, and developing them into various tribes, races, and nationalities. Presumably, each person was set into a place from which he or she could grow, utilizing the natural assets and resources of that land. Indeed, some lands were perhaps more fertile and desirable than others. But each was chosen by God for a particular reason - and for a particular person or group of people, which became the indigenous inhabitants of that land.

It doesn't take much imagination to see that God intended for each tribe or race to remain separated from other peoples geographically, philosophically, and socially -eventually interacting in trade and commerce for the benefit of their respective communities as they discovered each others' existence and developed means of communicating with each other.

From the time of the Flood, up to the time of the scattering from Shinar, by implication all of the people were of one race and one tongue (lip, in the Hebrew), and all were related by blood or marriage -being the sons of Noah and their descendants: ["Genesis 10:32: These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood." "11:1: And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." ]

From this beginning - the eight people who were on the Ark - God created every racial distinction on Earth from the same flesh and blood. And, while the Scriptures do not specifically address the issue, it seems evident that He intended each race to remain pure from the contamination of intermarriage with other races, scattering the various people far from each other and preventing any further conspiracies against Him.

Why would God want the races to intermarry? (1) He created separate races - not different people. Had He wanted all people alike, there would be no racial distinction between any two people on Earth; (2) a child born of an interracial marriage is a child without a country, so to speak, and is instantly devoid of identification with an ethnic "family".

Both secular history and the Scripture bear witness to the turmoil which invariably arises when a nation tolerates interracial marriage and the resulting mongrel offspring find acceptance within the society. In the 11th chapter of Numbers, mongrels quickly tired of manna and began longing for flesh. In the 24th chapter of Leviticus, a mongrel blasphemed. In the 9th & 10th chapters of Ezra, the remnant which returned to the land of Judah following the Babylonian captivity rapidly fell into apostasy through intermarriage with the surrounding nations. In the 13th chapter of Nehemiah, the congregation was troubled by alien wives who, refusing to adopt the ways of Israel, followed their native cultures and languages in the rearing of their mongrel children.

The mongrel - together with certain alien races - is forbidden by the Law of God from entering the congregation.


"A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee. Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever" (Deuteronomy 23:2-6).

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Please read your post again. As a Christian, you should be willing to suffer for Christ's sake before anything else. It is obvious that it is not the case for you. I love America and served her well in the Armed Forces, but as a Christian, Christ and his commandments MUST come first!

This great nation is a gathering place for those that want to live and worship freely. Did you know that over 60% of all Americans of Korean descent are Christians now? Would you exclude them from the bounty of Christ? I could give you other statistics but I have a feeling it will fall on deaf ears. Get past your racial problems, and learn to Love others as Christ wants us to.

[reborn22]

You are quite mistaken. I am not a racist. I condemn racism. As a Christian I love all Christians, whether White or Black, heterosexual or homosexual, American or Korean.

I welcome Black people and colored people and homosexual people into Christ's Church. But the Lord asks us to respect how He has created us, and so we should not change His world by mixing up the races, any more than we should break God's law by allowing two people of the same sex to marry. That is not the same as hating them or not welcoming them into the Church. All God's people should be allowed to be Christian, and we Christians will love them for it.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

Your post reads if you have never heard of Christ or the New Testament. So...do you actually claim to be Christian? The blood of Christ gave us the "New and Everlasting Covenant."

Here are some of your bigoted, racist, non-Christian statements:

America should have been the one nation on Earth where "bloom where you were planted" would have been easily implemented, and God's plan for the creation of a fountainhead of Christianity would have become reality.

Gee...we were just PLANTED here? Not a single one of us Christians were PLANTED here! God did not plant people on America when he separated us at Babel. 99.999% of all Americans descend from IMMIGRANTS!

And, while the Scriptures do not specifically address the issue, it seems evident that He intended each race to remain pure from the contamination of intermarriage with other races.

So...where in the Bible does it say you can interpret the mind of God to suit your thinking? It seems evident??? To whom? Racists? Again, read Numbers 12, and you will KNOW what God thought when Moses married a Cushite! He punished Miriam for admonishing Moses!

It doesn't take much imagination to see that God intended for each tribe or race to remain separated from other peoples geographically, philosophically, and socially

You're right. It doesn't take much imagination. It takes one heck of A LOT.

Look at the words of yours that I highlighted: It seems evident that He intended...","It doesn't take much imagination...","to see that God Intended..."

I'd be careful of putting words into God's mouth.

"For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takse away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

Remember this when you think about your desire to see all people and races separate:

"GO Therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Still want us to stay by ourselves, separate from all of the people who do not know the sacrifice and love of Christ, and his gift of eternal life? It is the last Word and commandment of Christ before his ascention to the throne!

I grew up in Detroit, and I had no inclination of any racist issues throughout my childhood. I moved to the south 15 years ago, and I have now fully seen what racism is. It is WRONG!

Your attitude of superiority lacks love and humility. If you were raised with this attitude, you need to do what you can to prevent it from spreading, because what you speak of is of your own invention or the invention of your parents and their parents (or whoever taught you that non-biblical garbage) -- it is not what Christ said, and you can NOT determine what Christ wanted unless it comes from HIS WORD.

Now, please pray and study before you respond again.

[reborn22]

1 Corinthians 6:

14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

2 Corinthians 10:

1 Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:

2 But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

7 Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.

8 For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed:

9 That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.

10 For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.

11 Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.

12 For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

13 But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you.

14 For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, as though we reached not unto you: for we are come as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ:

15 Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men's labours; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly,

16 To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand.

17 But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

18 For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

I read it, and since you don't have any comments, I am not sure of your point. Nice passage, but were you trying to make a statement to support your earlier statements? If so, I didn't see it in there. If I'm missing something, please let me know.

[reborn22]

As you rightly say, it's not for you or me to interpret the Lord's word. So I merely gave you some texts to think about. You could dwell particularly on the significance of 1 Corinthians 6:14, "what communion hath light with darkness?", or 2 Corinthians 10:13, "But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you."

However we read the Bible, we are still entitled to our own views on how we should defend the United States of America and the ideals of the founding fathers, which are too often neglected.

[far sider]

1 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

To: Reborn
CC: GraftedBranch
Re: Unequally yoked
I suspect you are a racist who thinks he is a Christian, but Grafted says I shouldn't give up on you. So here goes.

If you really are a believer, please answer this question. Would you prefer for your son or daughter to marry a black person who is a Christian ("believer") or a white person who is a non-Christian ("Infidel")? Tough choice, huh? Your grandchildren would be bi-racial, but at least they would be raised by Christian parents in a Christian home. Keep in mind that you already admitted in previous posts that blacks and other races can be Christians, and not all whites are Christian? I challenge you put aside the racial ideas that you cherish, long enough to honestly answer me.

Remember this is all totally anonymous. No one knows who you are, and none of your racist friends are watching. Like Dr. Laura says, do the right thing.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

That phrase is NOT speaking of skin color. It is speaking of GOOD (the Light) and EVIL (absence of the Light).

Jesus said He is the Truth, the Light, and the Way.

[stands2reason]

THE REV. MYCHAL JUDGE: Judge's death certificate listed him as victim No. 00001 - the first official fatality of the World Trade Center attack. A stretch of West 31st Street has been renamed in the New York fire department chaplain's honor, and the Mychal Judge ferry runs around Manhattan and from New Jersey. A group of New York firefighters traveled to the Vatican to deliver Judge's helmet to Pope John Paul II. And former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen's grandson, born three weeks after the attack, was named Mason Judge. Judge's poster-sized portrait still stands inside the front door of Engine Co. 1/Ladder Co. 24, his local firehouse. The Advocate, a national gay magazine, put him on its cover as one of "our heroes." Thousands filled the church for Judge's funeral, and hundreds stood outside. ---

The remarkable thing about this paragraph is what it doesn't say. It doesn't say that Father Judge was homosexual, because he wasn't. A particular homosexual activist "outed" Father after his death even though his closest friends insist he was not. Many publications just took this for truth without bothering to vet the information, even referring to Judge as "openly gay". You won't be hearing the truth about this man from any major publications, because he's already a gay hero, and many homosexual editors do not want that to change.

[reborn22]

I am NOT a racist. I do not hate black people any more than I hate homosexuals. If it is right for black people to partake in a Christian marriage to a white person, then it is right for a homosexual to be married in Church to a person of the same sex. If Americans give way to interracial marriage, they must give way to accepting homosexual relationships in the Church.

If I had a son or a daughter, I would expect them to follow their own conscience in deciding whom to marry.

If you had a son or a daughter and they were homosexual, but Christian believers, would you prefer them to get married in Church or to live together in sin?

[reborn22]

How can you be so sure what that phrase is speaking of? It is not for you to decide the Lord's intentions.

[far sider]

If I had a son or a daughter, I would expect them to follow their own conscience in deciding whom to marry.

Can't answer the question, huh? I didn't think you could. You answer mine, I'll answer yours.