A Gospel Coalition writer and conference speaker seems to have come out in full support of gay marriage at a Cru Conference of college students. She is scheduled to speak at another TGC Conference in September and is a part of TGC Women’s Training Network.
CRU, which serendipitously took Christ out of their name as part of a 2012 re-branding effort, is spreading the Social Gospel to college students instead of the real Gospel and is promoting pro-sodomy sentiments instead of doing evangelism.
Reformation Charlotte wrote about aspects of this in yesterday’s post, Campus Crusade for Christ Teaching Kids that It’s Okay to Be Gay.
The tweet is actually a quotation from Rachel Gilson. Gilson, Reformation Charlotte failed to mention (they’re busy) is a contributor to The Gospel Coalition. We wrote about Gilson in a 2018 post entitled The Gospel Coalition Says Church Should Be ‘Safe Space’ for Homosexuals. In that article for TGC, Gilson demanded that church prioritize the comfort of gays in the church (over their spiritual conviction).
The audio from Gilson’s talks on LGBT Inclusion can be downloaded here and here. Please note: These are basically the same ‘talks,’ given at two different break-out sessions, so if you listen to both, they will be repetitive. The audio is poor on both files, and one cuts out after 21 minutes and another after 16 minutes; it seems that Cru doesn’t want the public to have access to the full talks.
UPDATE: After this original article broke, Cru uploaded the full audio link. You’ll notice the careful nuance without condemnation of homosexuality or gay marriage, and neglect to specify that gay marriage is forbidden in Scripture.
UPDATE: Cru has now removed ALL the audio, which you can read about in this post.
The excerpt is as follows:
“We do have a history in the church of trying to convince people that they should become straight as if being straight is a command in scripture, which it is not. There is no command to be straight. There is a command to be faithfully single or faithfully married, and you don’t have to be straight to be faithfully married to one person. Marriage is not going to be for most of us who experience same sex attraction, similarly most of us are not going to experience a change of orientation and there’s decades of research and thousands of people who are desperately in love with Jesus who have tried everything – from shock treatment to behavioral therapy – to make themself straight and it didn’t happen. Sometimes I think, rather, God allows us to continue to experience our orientation because it can be a gift to the church.” (Gilson, 2nd Session of GLBT Talk at Cru 19, audio starting at 1:00:32).
Sin is not a gift to the church. However, changing our sin-nature is a gift of the Holy Spirit, wrought through his regenerating power.
Some would argue that Gilson’s position is that it’s possible for a gay person to be in a faithful straight marriage (although that’s not what she said in what was reported by Cru19 attendees). Gilson acknowledges in the audio (linked above) that she has no more attraction to men than she did when she was a practicing lesbian 15-years-ago (although she is now married to a man), and taught that God will not change someone’s sexual desires through regeneration or conversion.
Despite this, The Gospel Coalition believes in Gilson so much that not only is she a contributor at TGC, she is promoted in TGC as an upcoming speaker at TGC Women’s Training Network conference. The Women’s Training Network is The Gospel Coalition’s attempt to undermine Biblical Complementarianism.
Notice that TGC women’s conference has this pro-gay-marriage speaker, Rachel Gilson, speak alongside another bi-sexual contributor to TGC, Rebecca McLaughlin. The topics include, “Justice, race, reconciliation, and sexuality.”Gilson and McLaughlin, along with Jackie Hill Perry, are just a few of many lesbians or bisexual women promoted by TGC.
Gilson’s comments, widely tweeted and shared throughout Social Media yesterday, were already written about at Reformation Charlotte (linked above). And yet, comments regarding marriage does not seem to be preventing her from being a keynote speaker at The Gospel Coalition.
Albert Mohler runs The Gospel Coalition. Ligon Duncan runs The Gospel Coalition. Mark Dever runs The Gospel Coalition. H.B. Charles runs The Gospel Coalition.
They’re on the leadership board and govern it. Additionally…
Danny Akin runs The Gospel Coalition. Thabiti Anyabwile runs The Gospel Coalition. Russell Moore runs The Gospel Coalition. Ray Ortlund runs The Gospel Coalition.
There is no difference between the men in the above two paragraphs, except that one is the speakers’ list at Shepherd’s Conference and one isn’t. And Albert Mohler said at ShepCon, “Who I platform speaks for where I stand on these issues.”
These men are to blame for the trajectory of The Gospel Coalition. They are not the heroes in this tale. They are the villains, the cowards, and the enemies of Jesus Christ.
If a man remains on the board of TGC, they should be anathematized under the authority of Scripture.
Be gone with them.
[UPDATE: We have found 2018 footage where Gilson endorses gays remaining in their union after conversion, so that should settle debate over what she means. You watch that footage from her 2018 talk here]
[Editor’s Note: You can still find the audio on the Wayback Machine here:
