Challenging the lexicon of progressive thought, Pulpit & Pen founder JD Hall once wrote, “There is no such thing as a ‘gay community.’ Communities are built around shared values, not shared deviancies. We would not classify pedophiles, necrophiles, or murderers as a ‘community.'” Despite Hall’s challenge to their rhetoric, progressive churchmen continue to cater and pander to a particular group of people who identify with their sin at least as much as they identify with Christ. Yesterday, The United Methodists of Arkansas published an article entitled “Council of Bishops’ letter to the global LGBTQ community.”
The article contains a letter addressed to the United Methodist Church’s “Global LGBTQ Kin in Christ.” In the letter, United Methodist bishops apologize to those who both identify as homosexual and Christian for “demeaning and dehumanizing comments and attacks on LGBTQ persons in conversations” related to the denomination’s debate over the morality of homosexuality. Absent from the letter is any scriptural citation of why homosexuality is sinful and a call for professing homosexual Christians to repent of lusting after members of the same sex or engaging in homosexual practices.
It is past the time for any bible-believing members left in the United Methodist Church to come out from among them. Knowing the United Methodist Church is still debating the place for homosexuals in Christ’s church nearly 2,000 years after the Apostle Paul wrote:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 1Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
For the time being, the United Methodist Church continues to recognize the sinfulness of homosexuality in its official book of discipline. However, it’s current stance is tenuous and its recognition of the sinfulness of homosexuality is largely influenced by its more conservative international bishops. American bishops tend to be more liberal. It is these liberal bishops who have been driving the United Methodist Church towards full affirmation of a homosexual lifestyle. For the United Methodist church to pen a letter from “conservative, centrist, progressive” bishops to apologize to the LBGTQ despite the biblical truth that homosexuality is clearly a moral issue signifies the church’s drift towards apostasy and compromise with the world.
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
