Please read this blog posted by one of newer blogging buddies. http://jamesnored.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-engage-seekers-who-are-living.html
It is about how Christians are having the difficulty of how to deal with those who are struggling or choosing to live a homosexual lifestyle. Please read and leave your comments on his blog. If you don't mind please leave your comments here as well. I am interested to see how my fellow bloggers would have dealt with this situation.
Mr. E said...
ReplyDeleteGreat Question: I approch this topic this way. What makes homosexuality any bigger of a sin than gluttony, gossip, pride, infidelity, drunkedness or any other sin for that matter? The problem with this particular sin is that it can be "Open" and visible than those some others. Although it can be hidden just the same as other problems, such as addictions. God calls us to love all sinners, but at the same time be firm and clear that their behaviors are not congruent with God's will. Love the person, hate the sin.
As far as church pictures. Hmmm! tough call. Maybe the minister should have said, "All Right anyone who has not sinned, please step forward and have your picture made!" I wonder what would have happened?
I can imagine the church's dilema over this. We don't want to condone sinfull behavior, but which sins do we choose to publicly criticize and which sins do we "keep to ourselves!"
Sadly this is not always the position I would have taken. I sadly had a "Burn in Hell Homo!" attitude. I'm so glad God has put me in my place about judging others. Now I am a little less judgmental about others sins.
A fair comparison might be taking a picture of that doctor, not with his beautiful wife, but with his 20-year-old office assistant he's been seeing behind his wife's back.
ReplyDeleteThere isn't legal gay marriage in texas where this church is, right? Does the church include photos of HETEROsexual dating couples?
Perhaps, if the marriage was "legal" I'd think harder about this, or if I knew a gay couple like this.
Like many Americans, until I'm faced with this kind of issue personally, it's easy for me to think I know how I feel.
But today, I'm leaning against photos of gay couples...and adulterers with their mistresses...
Here's what I had to say...
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's fair to simply shrug off this issue because we all struggle with sins. Yes, I believe that a sin is a sin and the consequences for all sin are the same--death. Thank God for grace and mercy and the death of his Son on the cross.
I don't pretend to have all of the answers. In fact, there are many times when I have no answers, but I think the church is compared to a marriage between a wife and a husband in Ephesians Chapter 5, which sheds some light on this matter.
(22) Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
(23) For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
(24) Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
(25) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
(26) to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
(27) and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
(28) In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
(29) After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—
(30) for we are members of his body.
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(32) This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
(33) However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
To "present" the church with a directory of families that flies in the face of His creation is just wrong. The church needs to be able to step out and make a decision--even if it's unpopular.
If this particular church is teaching the truth about homosexuality to these people, then it shouldn't be such a shock to them when the church refuses to print a picture of an openly gay couple as a "family" or the equivalent of a husband and wife.
Believers shouldn't try to be offensive, but we have to remember that the gospel is offensive to the sinful nature of mankind (all mankind).
That's my two cents.
I to agree that the church should not present openly homosexual couples as part of their directory, but then who else do we exclude. The husband/wife who is openly having an affair, the drug/alcohol/sex addict who is currently in the midst of their addiction, where does it end. I also believe Jesus calls us to love all sinners, yet the Church also has the responsiblity to teach the truth no matter how much it hurts. So far I'm glad our church does not have to face this problem. But given time with our current efforts to reach people with addictions, the time will come to possibly have to make this choice. Choose Christ, and hope the ones we choose to exclude from the "photo directory" will understand.
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