Posted on 03/16/2015 8:38:38 PM PDT by ReformationFan
The senior pastor and elders of City Church, the largest evangelical church in San Francisco will no longer require members to abstain from homosexual practice, so long as the homosexual activity occurs in the context of marriage. According to a letter written by senior pastor Fred Harrell on behalf of the Board of Elders, “We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining. For all members, regardless of sexual orientation, we will continue to expect chastity in singleness until marriage.”
“Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long ‘celibacy,' by which we meant that for the rest of your life you would not engage your sexual orientation in any way, was causing obvious harm and has not led to human flourishing,” the letter said.
As a church inspired by Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and founded in the Reformed tradition, City Church is supposed to give preeminence to Scripture. Instead, on the matter of homosexual practice, the Pastor and Elder Board gave preeminence to their judgment regarding what conduces more to human flourishing and, oddly, to a scripturally misguided book written by Vineyard pastor Ken Wilson called A Letter to My Congregation. The letter recommends it to church members for showing, “great empathy and maturity to model unity and patience with those who are in different places on this conversation, all the while dealing honestly with Scripture.” Wilson contends wrongly that the biblical indictment of homosexual practice is limited to exploitative relationships with adolescents, slaves, and temple prostitutes, as though these were the only forms of homosexual practice known to persons of the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world. In fact, adult-committed relationships in the ancient world were widely known, with early Christians and rabbis forbidding even adult-consensual marriages between persons of the same sex as abhorrent acts.
We receive indication that Paul did not have only exploitative or promiscuous acts of homosexual practice in view, given (1) Paul’s appeal to a nature argument in Rom 1:26-27; (2) his strong intertextual echoes to Genesis 1-2 and the Levitical prohibitions when citing homosexual practice (Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10); (3) the unqualified character of his indictment (including an interdiction of lesbianism in Rom 1:26); and (4) the fact that even some Greco-Roman moralists (to say nothing of Jews and Christians) rejected homosexual practice absolutely.
The best biblical scholars who have studied extensively the issue of homosexual practice, including advocates for homosexual unions (such as William Loader and Bernadette Brooten), know that the scriptural indictment of homosexual practice includes a rejection of committed homosexual unions.
Wilson also contends that Paul’s approach of tolerance toward matters of diet and calendar in Romans 14 should govern the church’s actions on homosexual practice. For Wilson, homosexual practice is an adiaphoron, a “matter of indifference,” over which Christians can and should agree to disagree. Yet Paul never relegated matters of sexual purity to the classification of adiaphora. On the contrary, he repeatedly warned converts that unrepentant participants in sexual immorality—including homosexual practice, incest, adultery, sex with prostitutes, and fornication—would not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Thess 4:3-7; 1 Cor 5; 6:9-10; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:3-5).
In the context of Romans, there can be no question of Paul regarding homosexual practice with the same moral indifference as matters of diet and calendar. This is obvious from the beginning of his letter, where Paul in 1:24-27 treats sexual “impurity” (Gk. akatharsia) in general and homosexual practice in particular as egregious instances of suppressing the truth about the way the Creator made us. It is also clear from the middle of the letter, where Paul in 6:19 repeats the term “impurity” as a description of behaviors that Christians must now either give up or face the loss of eternal life. Finally, it is evident from the last stages of the letter, where Paul in 13:13 includes “sexual misbehaviors” (Gk. koitai, literally “lyings”) among acts that believers are required to put off (a term that calls to mind Paul’s reference to arseno-koitai in 1 Cor 6:9 as a particular instance, “men lying with a male”). As the Apostolic Decree indicates (Acts 15:20), in the early church no self-professed Christians who actively and impenitently engaged in sexual immorality (porneia) could become a member. Sexual offenders who were already members were put on church discipline, to be sure as a remedial rather than a punitive measure (1 Cor 5).
The same scriptural justification City Church offers to treat as permissible homosexual sex in the context of what City Church deems a marriage could be used to say that incest is acceptable so long as it occurs in the context of a “marriage” between consenting adults. At Corinth the solution for the incestuous man was not to marry his stepmother but rather to cease from sexual intercourse altogether with his stepmother. A homosexual “marriage,” like an incestuous “marriage,” merely celebrates and regularizes (i.e. renders long-term) the abhorrent sex. Marriage does not make unnatural acts more natural.
Although the City Church letter appeals to Jesus’ mission to outcasts as a basis for jettisoning a male-female requirement for marriage, it is difficult to claim that the Jesus we encounter in Scripture would have countenanced homosexual sex in the context of a “marriage.” Jesus appealed to the two-sexes requirement for marriage (and thus for all sexual activity) given in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 as the foundation upon which all sexual ethics must be based, including the limitation of two persons to a sexual union. Just as Jesus did not reach out to exploitative tax-collectors in order to justify their exploitation of the poor, so too Jesus did not reach out to sexual sinners in order to provide a platform for impenitent sexuality. He reached out to both groups in order to call them to repentance so that they might inherit the very Kingdom of God that he was proclaiming. That is true love, not the impersonation of love now being peddled by City Church leadership.
The words of the risen Christ in Revelation 2-3 are apropos here: “Remember, then, from where you have fallen and repent and do the first works. But if not, I am coming to you and I will move your lampstand from its place, if you do not repent.... In this way likewise, even you have those who hold tightly to the teaching of the Nicolaitans [who promote sexual immorality]. So repent. But if not, I am coming to you quickly and I will wage war with them by means of the sword of my mouth.” The one who has ears to hear ought to hear.
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press).
```human flourishing```
And just how does sodomy lend itself to human flourishing?
Heresy on full display.
If you listen to the Biblical teachings of someone in San Francisco, you’re a born idiot. San Francisco is not a place of morality. They do not peddle morality; just hedonism.
No point in going to that church. Rom 6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Rom 6:2 God forbid! For we that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein?
Rom 6:3 Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death?
Rom 6:4 For we are buried together with him by baptism into death: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.
Yeah, sure!
What people tend to forget is that it doesn’t matter what you think, it matters what God thinks. The same goes for the law. If we had judges that would rule based on the Constitution instead of what they want to happen we would be much better off.
Another thread had a post about them accepting women pastors/leaders before this. As far as I have observed no faith group has accepted homosexual acts or ‘gay marriage’ without first accepting women as clergy/leaders.
Freegards
Indeed. I would be greatly surprised to learn of a religion that would endorse homosexual activity but reject women elders/pastors.
Amen.
“And just how does sodomy lend itself to human flourishing?”
It does not, nor can it ever. Cordoned off in a corner, it can do minimal damage to a strong society. Fully embraced, it invites wrath!
I do not believe “the men of Sodom” were what modern people call “gays”. No, they were something worse: men who had actually abandoned natural relations with women. Thus the anger and violence (they wanted to rape Lot’s guests, not “love” or “marry” them).
We are not there yet. Does anyone else wonder where all the REAL MEN are, as we are now being controlled by The Planet of Women? What kind of “men” allow themselves to be feminized to the point of rolling over for the sentimental mush so many women are seduced by? How did homosexuality get a foothold in our society if men were being MEN (husbands, fathers, neighbors, mentors)?
It makes one wonder if this so called “mega-church” is actually even a Christian organization at this point or if it has morphed into some new age feel good social group. My wife and I are among the most conservative members of our church. They are constantly focused on pandering to young people. They think that if they have a loud band instead of a choir and sing modern Christian music instead of Hymns that young people will flock to the church.
My wife and I were taught to dress nice when going to Church but they all wear jeans and ratty looking clothes. We were actually chastised for dressing nice by some of the people there. They think that young people won’t bother going to church if everyone else looks nice. I kind of see this “church’s” policy on gay people as an extension of the same crap going on in our church and it makes me wonder if we won’t be looking for a new church one day soon.
Homosexuals are 2% of the population. Out of that 2% they don't all even want to get married. They used to call it an "alternative lifestyle" (choice).
How many homosexuals are "saving themselves for marriage"?
What if they are wrong about their same sex attraction desires? Wouldn't it be very queer to learn on your same sex wedding night that you are repulsed by same sex 'intercourse' after all?
They require sodomites to be married in order to be in good standing? How judgmental.
>>>What kind of “men” allow themselves to be feminized to the point of rolling over for the sentimental mush so many women are seduced by?<<<
I’m 44 and got to be raised by boomer parents. This generation had many unique attributes. They had the pill, were the first young generation to come of age with no fault divorce, had a large number of working moms and (I don’t know why) they rejected in large numbers being strict with their children.
So for the first time in our history you could have sex without linking that action to procreation. How did that change how men and women related to each other? Did men seek out virtuous women or not? What values were embraced and passed down to subsequent generations from this change?
How did the widespread adoption of divorce change relationships between men and women? You have less trust in marriage now than before. Nobody can be fully secure. How many women work outside the home simply out of fear of being a divorced woman without any marketable skills? How many men have to put up with disrespectful or lazy wives under the threat of divorce, financial ruin and damaged relationships with their kids?
with mothers outside the home in such large numbers who was there to teach daughters to cook, sew and do other traditional gender roles? With women working and men not expected to pay all of the bills, is it unreasonable for the woman to expect the man to do more of the chores at home?
Anyone old enough to be raised when traditional gender roles were more common can understand your angst. But I think there are millions of men and women between 18-25 who don’t even see the blurred lines of gender roles as anything but a positive thing. And
if a man changes diapers and a woman can work full time.......what does it mean to be a man? And what is life all about for a man? I think if you asked a man 50 years ago what is life all about and you ask a man today you would find the answer to your question.
In short I don’t think men allowed anything. They are simply raised without the role models you had growing up.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say..."
Doubting what God said is the first step to sin, and this church--apparently one that started with the right intentions--is apostate.
--Adolph Hitler, May 1, 1933
Source:
http://ptfaculty.gordonstate.edu/jmallory/index_files/page0508.htm
At least homosexuals that reject God and His laws are being intellectually honest.
Twisting scripture to justify being a “gay Christian” is the most asinine misinterpretation of the Bible I have ever seen.
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