Dr. Richard Lee, Pastor of Sugar Hill Baptist Church (SBC affiliated) in Gwinnett County, Georgia is making headlines with a recent sermon apologizing to homosexuals, couples living together, and women who have had abortions. Dr. Lee, who received his doctorate from Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, says that the Christian church has been judging, condemning and has even targeted homosexuals, live-in lovers, and women who have aborted their unwanted child. He says it is now time to make amends.
“For too long, we’re been known for the issues we’re against, not for the God we’re for,” said Lee, 38.
Why is the gospel of love dividing America? The unchurched world views us as judgmental and homophobic,” says Lee. “I don’t think God is going to ask what label we wore. He’s going to ask what did we do for Jesus.”
This reminds me a great deal of a story from Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz Don and his friend Tony build a confession both at a festival called Ren Fayre held every year at Reed College. In Miller’s account Tony says:
“We are not actually going to accept confessions.” We all looked at him in confusion. He continued, “We are going to confess to them. We are going to confess that, as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades, we will apologize for televangelists, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and the lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishenss, we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus. We will tell the people who come into our booth that Jesus loves them.”
The point that Donald Miller is trying to make in his book is that in history Christians have often gotten in the way of Jesus. Christians have failed to image God in the world as we should.
However, as I read this article about Dr. Lee, I can’t help but wonder if he is missing the point of the gospel. Does speaking pointedly and biblically about particular sins make one guilty of targeting or profiling? Is it really judgmental to point out that Scripture condemns sexual immorality? Is it condemning to lovingly tell people that if they do not repent of their sins that they will die in their sin and spend eternity separated from a loving God who made them in His image?
Contextually, it is impossible to know what Dr. Lee really is trying to say in this newspaper article. If what Dr. Lee is offering is merely an admission and apology for failing to glorify Jesus in the way that Christian relate to our culture, then I don’t have any problems with what he is saying. However, if Dr. Lee is stating that it is unloving for followers of Jesus to confront our culture with the biblical truth that all men live as tyrants and rebels before God, actively and openly functioning in this world in open defiance of the God has revealed himself to all men, gleefully extending the middle-finger heavenward to God as they worship created things rather than the Creator, then Dr. Lee doesn’t understand the Gospel. Without this confrontation no person can receive redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
Historically the Christian church has been guilty of failing to love our enemies and neighbors the way Scripture commands. But this is because we have misunderstood that true love extends compassion and mercy in light of the cross. True love is to tell both those who love and hate us the truth about God and His Word, regardless of the consequence to our own personal comfort and safety.
Evangelicals have historically not known what to do to minister to the homosexual community. This is a fair critique. This is equally true for live-in couples and women who abort their unborn children. But perhaps this is symptomatic of the failure of the church to be the church. Perhaps the problem lies within the church and Her understanding of the Gospel and how to relate the Gospel to culture. But to say that the church’s igorance is reason to defy God’s Word and fail to speak of the reality that sin kills – yes, the sins of homosexuality, sexual immorality, murder, pride, lust, greed, slander, hypocrisy, gluttony, self-centeredness, envy, covetousness, idolatry – and will all destory evey image-bearer who refuses to turn to Jesus in repentance for salvation -is even more unloving than the misguided approach to proclaiming Jesus that Dr. Lee is criticizing. A message of tolerance and acceptance (as has been redefined culturally) is not the message of Christ.
I think Dr. Lee’s apology is misplaced. Perhaps he should apologize to those who claim to follow Christ for failing to lead them in a redemptive path that would bring the Gospel to all sinners in a way that is faithful to the message of Jesus as revealed in the whole counsel of God’s Word – not just in bumper-sticker quotes from Jesus which motivates so much of he kind of rhetoric about what a real Christian is and isn’t that we see today.
Promise & Pleasure 
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April 1, 2008 at 12:21 am
Wes
There’s a followup article at http://www.christianindex.org/4296.article
I’m left wondering what long term impact this will have on his church. Be sure to keep us posted. 🙂
April 1, 2008 at 12:45 am
Jennifer
How do you think the church should minister to the homosexual community?
April 1, 2008 at 3:32 pm
johnaaronmartin
Jennifer,
This is a good question. The framework for dialogue about this issue is also relevant to ministry in other areas long considered taboo or offensive. How should the church minister to prostitutes? How should the church minister to AIDS patients? How should the church minister to the homeless?
The reality is that the visible church is limited in what it can do regarding ministry to these groups of people. Some challenges to ministry relate to geography or cultural climate (is your church situated in a community with a high homosexual population?). The church can’t minister to the needs of every particular group.
One of the significant issues with the homosexual community and the response of the church to the homosexual community in general is that the political and social homosexual agenda being propogated in our culture is a deliberate and sometimes blatant offense to conservative Evangelicals. There are as many existing caricatures about Evangelicals in the mainstream homosexual community about Evangelicals as there are about homosexuals in the Evangelical community. Don’t believe. Watch TV or a movie.
I think the local church has to weigh multiple variables regarding its response to the homosexual community. The problem, as I see it, is that the visible church is most cases is doing very little, but even what it can do is difficult because there has been a cultural redefinition of the terms of engagement. Culturally it is no longer acceptable for a Christian to seek to minister in the homosexual community without accepting the homosexual completely. This means that the redefinition of tolerance and acceptance is that to do both means we are not only respecting one another in our differences, but that we are also AFFIRMING those differences. This is the rub for Evangelicals. How can you AFFIRM behavior that you believe is sinful?
So responding to the homosexual community – a community which demands tolerance and acceptance – is a difficult task. In a local church situated in a community with a high population of homosexuals, one way to engage would involve relationship building. What form I am unsure of because, quite frankly, that isn’t the world that I live in. I don’t know a lot of homosexuals.
Good question though. What are your thoughts?
April 2, 2008 at 12:11 am
Wes
Aaron,
Here’s a question. How many church members do you know of who struggle greatly against some particular sin? Maybe same-sex attraction or opposite-sex attraction, maybe compulsive gambling or porn, maybe a past abortion, or whatever. Maybe it is different for you because of your position, but I know a lot of church members who struggle with particular physical problems and I just don’t know what any of my brothers and sisters struggle with spiritually, except maybe in the most general terms. I am pretty sure that no one at church knows what I struggle with. And I’m not likely to tell in person, much less on the internet.
To be clear, I do not necessarily think that these things ought to be common knowledge, but I do think the local church should be a safe place to talk about these kinds of issues in general terms, and I wonder whether we could do better at facilitating accountability groups or small groups, or whatever the right term is, where we could help bear one another’s burdens.
Maybe if we were better at ministering to one another (and being ministered to) and if we took time to learn more about what it is like to live with some particular temptation, we would have something more useful to say to those on the outside who have given in to that same temptation. I don’t think it is helpful to think of any of these issues with an “us/them” mentality. In fact, I think that’s a big part of the problem. Just a thought.
April 2, 2008 at 1:36 am
Jennifer
Well, piggy-backing on Wes, I do think that you probably know a whole lot more people “struggling with” homosexuality and abortion and all those things than you realize. But anyhoo-
I think you’ve pinpointed the difficulty: that it’s hard to love without affirming behavior. I just find it a little troubling that there is any group, especially a group that is marginalized by their society, that Christians have trouble reaching out to or ministering to. It’s a point that’s thrown out there a lot, but it was the least and the downcast and often, the morally reprehensible that were drawn to Jesus. And that begs the question: why are so many Christians incapable of living a kind of holiness that attracts these people? We can say that it’s because of cultural changes and tolerance of sinful behavior, but Roman culture was certainly at least on par with any sexual immorality that we see today, if not worse. I think it is religiosity that gets in the way of loving homosexuals, and I think we need to tame our religious impulses in a way that gives us more and more freedom to love everyone. It’s a process, and it’s a struggle, but I think it is part of the call of Christ.
I actually applaud Dr. Lee, and think he has done a beautiful thing. I think he is right that Christianity has too long been defined by what it is against rather than what it is for. Also, these people don’t really need another moral voice in their life, to be honest. Most of them, especially the homosexuals that you would be likely to encounter, already have that little voice inside them saying “This is wrong this is wrong God doesn’t approve God doesn’t approve.” What they can’t hear in the gospel is the love and acceptance of Christ. And if we really believe that love is transforming, why can’t we just stand back and let it do it’s job? We might even learn something in the process.
April 2, 2008 at 3:27 am
johnaaronmartin
Wes,
I say “Yes” and “Amen” to your comments. I do believe that if the church was a safer place for people to talk about and find redemption and healing for their struggles that it would be easier to minister to fringe communities within culture whether they be homosexuals, prostitutes, etc.
Jennifer,
While I would affirm most of your comments, the issue is still, “What does mean to share the ‘love and acceptance of Christ'”? Yes, this love is transforming, but the reality is that within our culture the definitions and meaning of “love” is changing depending on what community of people you are seeking to engage.
I am reminded of an episode of “ER” several years ago where Dr. Weaver’s character, a lesbian, tells her conservative evangelical mother that she is gay. Her mother is shocked at first, and then tries to tell her daughter that she loves her in spite of the fact that she believes her actions are sinful. Dr. Weaver responds by saying, “I don’t want your love! I want you to accept me for who I am!”
This is part of the battle waging culturally. I think that Wes is right when he says that if the church was doing a better job of being the church – which is what I alluded to the in post – then the church was be a redemptive, safe place, rather than a perceived place of hostility and religiosity to groups that you say are marginalized in society such as homosexuals.
April 2, 2008 at 11:28 am
Jennifer
Hmm. Well, it’s true, gay people want acceptance, not just “love,” whatever that love would mean. Is it really possible to offer love without acceptance?
See, I don’t really think it is. I have certainly never been able to make it happen. So what that means is, if we are not willing to accept these people as they are, then we are not capable of loving them. That is what it comes down to. And I think we should think long and hard about that, and we should ask ourselves, did Christ face the same problem? I think he did. I think it is a problem that always comes along with loving imperfect people. But he can still do it. So what are we missing?
Anyway, thanks for thinking through this with me. I think the task of struggling through how to love is our most imperative one.
April 2, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Wes
Jennifer,
What exactly do you mean by “acceptance”? I think people who ask for “acceptance” really just mean “don’t try to change me” or “don’t tell me I’m wrong”, but love cannot do that.
Usually when people met Jesus they thought “I need to change” or they thought “I need to get away from this guy” (which eventually turned to “we need to kill him”). I don’t think it is necessarily a problem that some (many?) people would want to avoid us or write us off as nutcases or whatever, as long as it is the gospel causing them to stumble. I think our problem is that almost nobody who gets to know us thinks “wow, I need to change, I need to be like this person”. Too often we are the stumbling block, not the gospel. I think that’s what we are missing.
April 2, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Jennifer
You think love has to try to change someone and tell them that they’re wrong? Really? Any time I feel like someone is trying to change me, I don’t experience that as love. Because that says “you are not good enough,” and that makes me feel worthless. Love affirms what is good in me. It accepts me. Let’s see, it’s patient, kind, keeps no record of wrongs.
It’s true, when I think about people that have loved me well, they often make me feel like I can be a better person, but they don’t demand it of me. They inspire it in me. They don’t list out the things that are wrong with me. And it makes sense that when someone is confront with a “love” that does just that, their response would be “please do not tell me who you think I should be.”
What do I mean by acceptance? I suppose I mean letting a person be who they are, and trusting them to make their own decisions about their lives.
I agree that those are usually the responses Jesus got, but we should also pay attention to who was affected in each way. It was religious people, just trying to do what they thought God wanted, those who thought they were honoring God by regulating who they bestowed approval upon, it was those people that hated Jesus.
And I agree that we should be the kind of people who inspire change in others. I just wonder how we do that. If it’s not happening now, then we’re doing something wrong, so what is it? I think a lack of acceptance is part of it.
April 2, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Wes
To turn the question back around, when Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to “go and sin no more” was he unloving?
I’m not sure how one can love someone and not call attention to actions or behaviors or attitudes that are wrong. Of course there are many unloving ways to call attention to those things too. Your distinction between demanding change and inspiring change is a good one, and much of what we call “love” probably isn’t. When we look at people as projects to be repaired rather than people who need redemption then we’re not loving. But that’s not what I’m saying anyway.
To answer your first question (finally!) I do not think I have to try to change anyone, and I think if I tried I’d just make a bigger mess out of them than they already are. But I know that everyone needs to be transformed, and I know who can do it, and I know that if I don’t tell them and show them then I don’t love them.
April 2, 2008 at 9:41 pm
johnaaronmartin
The Father demonstrated his love for us by sending Jesus into the world. if you want to know what love looks like relationally, then look at Jesus. The reality is that Jesus did call people to repentance – i.e. change – by the powr of the Spirit.
The reality about how the Scriptures describe humanity – depraved, sinful, aliented from and hostile to God, rebels. spiritually dead – mean that it is impossible for those who love and cherish the gospel to related to people in a way that “accepts them for who they are” because culturally “who you are” really means “what you do”.
There has to be a way – in the Gospel – to love people as Jesus did while also calling them away from a lifestyle that is contrarty to the Scriptures.
April 3, 2008 at 12:15 am
Jennifer
Wes –
The woman caught in adultery. John 8, right? That’s an interesting passage to bring up, I think. You’re right, Jesus does say to leave your life of sin. But the whole point of the passage is that everyone sins; it’s a call to not judging. Also, before Jesus says “Leave your life of sin,” he says “If they don’t condemn you, neither do I condemn you.” He doesn’t condemn! Interesting. What can that passage teach us about love and acceptance?
But anyway, yes, point homosexuals to Jesus, point everyone to Jesus. Nothing wrong with that. But that’s different than pointing to their sin. Isn’t it??
Aaron –
Yes, Jesus called to repentance. Jesus also ate with sinners and tax collectors. which we all know in ancient Judaism was a sign of religious approval. Approval. Acceptance. What I see in the life of Jesus is radical love, radical acceptance. Healing, regardless of faith or righteousness. And it’s that love and acceptance that transforms people. That’s the kind of love that makes people want to be better people, and that inspires loyalty to God.
Whoops, I don’t want to make Jesus into a teddy bear, he was definitely not that. He was strange and unpredictable and sometimes mean. And he was serious about God and servanthood and lots of things, but he was also serious about love.
I’m not totally sure where we disagree, in theory. I think loving people does bring about positive changes in the lives of the loved. I just think that we too often have a tendency to restrain our love for the sake of our convictions. And no, I don’t think that’s the example of Jesus.
April 3, 2008 at 12:37 am
johnaaronmartin
Jennifer,
I genuinely appreciate your comments. However, I couldn’t disagree more with your interpretation of John 8. The whole scenario presented to Jesus by the religous leaders was to “test” Jesus so “that they might have some charge to bring against him.” Was the point of the passage to point out that everyone sins, and therefore no one has a right to judge or condemn? I think Jesus is actually exposing the hypocrisy of the religous leaders. He is pointing out that if one of you (the religous leaders) is without sin, then cast the first stone. I think what we have here is a similar principle to Jesus’ instruction in Matt 7 when he speaks about not judging others. In Matt 7 Jesus is talking about an attitude of self-righteousness and superiority. Jesus is talking about a condeming judgment. Jesus is using hyperbole, challenging the religous not to be hypocrites. Here Jesus is rebuking those who find “sawdust” (sin) in others when they are often guilty of doing the same thing. The condemnation that Jesus is not offering out to this woman is final judgment and condemnation. He is offering her a reprieve, but it is a reprieve that is conditional. Repentance is necessary for her to escape ultimate condemnation. Though Jesus does not condemn this woman in this moment, should she have failed to repent, she would one day be eternally condemned.
Furthermore I would submit that you can’t talk about Jesus and his love for people without talking about what Jesus has done to solve our sin problem. If you want Jesus you can’t have him as a moral, loving man only. You have to deal with the reasons that Jesus came into the world. He who knew no sin became sin (our sin) so that we might become the righteousness of God. You can’t disconnect Jesus’ message of love from the cross. And what exactly was happening on the cross. Jesus was bearing the full wrath of God for our sin. He drank the cup of God’s wrath dry. This is love!
I believe we simply understand approval and acceptance different. You say Jesus offered them approval by eating with them, what do you mean? I don’t believe Jesus means to approve their sinfulness which characterized their lives. He is embracing them in love, but he is doing so with the aims of seeing them leave their life of sin by faith.
Jesus was more than an example to us. He is the reason that all things exist (Col 1:15-20). The goal of the Gospel is to transform us into the image of Christ. The aims of the Gospel are not merely an expression of love for us, but a weak-willed love that only aims to transport us into eternity without first making us a holy people who walk in the righteousness of God by the power of the Spirit secured for us in Jesus Christ. Perhaps this is what you are saying and I am just missing it. But it doesn’t appear we understand love, acceptance and approval in the same kind of way.
Once again, thank you for participating in the dialogue. I appreciate your presence on this blog.
April 3, 2008 at 2:39 am
Wes
Jennifer,
Jesus didn’t condemn that woman on that day, it is true, but one day he will condemn. Even so, that is not our role of course, and nowhere have I said that we ought to be condemning people.
On the other hand, I’m not sure why we’d point anyone to Jesus apart from their sin. It is only sinners who need a Savior. Also, I think equating acceptance and approval is curious. I don’t see the tax collectors and prostitutes hanging around Jesus and then keeping their professions. That’s not the kind of effect he had on people. If what drew them to him was approval then why would they change?
It would be difficult IMO to make a case that Jesus was about “letting a person be who they are, and trusting them to make their own decisions about their lives”. He didn’t come to empower us to make better decisions about our lives, he came to save us from our sins.
In Jesus’ last appearance in Luke, he says this to his followers:
“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
Our love for each other and for the lost must include this news of repentance and forgiveness of sin.
April 4, 2008 at 2:03 am
Jennifer
Aaron –
First of all, I really do appreciate the welcome. I rarely get that, when offering challenges on blogs, and I think it says something about you that you’re willing to engage with people who disagree. So thanks.
This is a long one. Sorry!
Ok, John 8. I agree that Jesus is pointing out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. But if the religious leaders are hypocrites for condemning this woman, wouldn’t anyone who sins be a hypocrite for condemning this woman? I understand your point about this not being a final reprieve. Still, it is from within that context of no condemnation that Jesus says “Now, leave your life of sin.” Again, here, I see acceptance; acceptance first, call to change second. Do you think you could say to a homosexual, no strings attached: I don’t condemn you. Because whatever is going to happen in the final judgment, Jesus is not bringing it up here, is he? He doesn’t make any effort to say “Sure, I don’t condemn you now, but it’s desperately important that before you get to the ultimate judgment, you must change, or else I will condemn you.” He just lets the statement lie.
And ok, I admit, this gets into murky water at this point, because I actually don’t think homosexuality is a sin. Whoops! I said it! But regardless of what we think about the actual behavior, I still think the church is failing to reach out to the homosexual community, and I think it is hurting us, and hurting them exponentially more. Gay people, who do not believe they are in sin (especially those who also love the Lord), can really only be hurt by the typical approach that Christians give them. It is only going to push them away more. I think attempts at correction or moral direction really only work in the context of a loving relationship. Once I trust you and respect you, and know that you accept me and trust me to make my own decisions, then I might ask you for some advice about how to live my life. But until that point, any attempt to tell me how to live is just going to feel out of place, and it will probably make me defensive and push me further away.
So the task, for evangelicals who believe homosexuality to be a sin, is to find a way to love homosexuals without being disingenuous. How is this possible? For starters, we can recognize the way that they’ve been excluded and wholly rejected for this part of themselves, and we can share in that pain, and encourage them that they are beautiful, valuable human beings, made in the image of God, who don’t deserve to be treated that way.
Of course, the problem comes when they want you to tell them that there is nothing wrong with what they’re doing. That has been the problem recognized throughout this discussion. And so I circle back around: I don’t think it is possible to love someone without accepting them, i.e., without saying “I accept that you are a work in progress and that where you are now is fine with me.” Homosexuality is difficult ground, because it’s something that doesn’t demonstrably hurt anyone, but is still proclaimed in Scripture to be wrong. If this person were a child rapist or a thief, there’d be concrete things we could point to and say “Look, you’re hurting people, and that’s not fair.” Not so with homosexuality. Actually, and you might not like me for this, but from what I’ve seen, it hurts homosexuals a lot more to try and deny this part of themselves than to engage in homosexual behavior. And so, for many homosexuals, when they hear you say “I believe your behavior is sinful,” what they hear is “I would rather you hate yourself and live your entire life feeling guilt and shame about this part of yourself than for you to be who you are. And God feels the same way.” And that doesn’t sound like love, does it?
Yeesh. I realize I probably have a zero percent chance of getting you to reevaluate your thoughts about homosexuality, because you feel confident that Scripture condemns it, and you want to base your ethics on Scripture, and I respect that. But I think in the end, that’s what this discussion comes down to. That it is probably not possible for people who believe homosexuality is wrong to love homosexuals who don’t believe it’s wrong. because that person is willing to sacrifice love for the homosexual before they’ll sacrifice their belief.
All that to say, I just wonder what it means to say “the church isn’t being the church as it should,” if in the end, you don’t think it’s possible to accept the life decisions of an unrepentant homosexual. Because if that’s really the case, then the church is doing just fine in that area. They accept the people who feel guilt and shame about their sexuality, and oppose those who don’t.
And I could be totally wrong about the impossibility of condemning homosexuality and loving homosexuals. I would love to be wrong about that. Can anyone show me how it is possible? I have….yep, I have never seen it done. I have never seen the parent of a gay child continue to have a functioning relationship with their child and still believe that person is behaving sinfully. If it’s possible, how?
April 4, 2008 at 2:16 am
Jennifer
PS – That comment sort of unfolded for me, and I ended up saying something different than when I started. Just wanted to say, I recognize that, but I went ahead and posted the whole thing, because I wanted to explain the whole thought-process.
Wes –
My dictionary actually defines acceptance as “approval or positive regard.” So that’s where that comes from.
Also, yes, table-fellowship, in the ancient Hebrew world, was a sign of religious approval. Which is why everyone was angry with Jesus for “eating with tax collectors and sinners and the unclean.” He didn’t demand that they change their ways first. He just wanted to be with them, and that made people furious.
I think the reason people would want to change after encountering Jesus is because he helped them see they could be better people. and not because he came at them adversarially telling them he didn’t approve of their lifestyle. But again, I don’t think that’s what you’re advocating anyway.
Are you Reformed? Because if not, I would guess that you believe God allows us to make our own decisions, and doesn’t coerce or force us. And yes, of course, he came to save us, but didn’t he also come to show us a better way?
April 4, 2008 at 4:18 am
johnaaronmartin
Jennifer,
I appreciate your transparency here on this issue. I must say I wasn’t surprised to hear you say that you don’t tihnk homosexuality sinful. I would disagree that homosexuality doesn’t hurt anyone. If it is a sin, and I believe it is, then sin kills. The sin of homosexuality kills, marrs and destroys all that God has made and has declared good. However, I don’t believe that homosexuality is any more lethal to the human soul than pride, lust, gluttony, envy, covetousness, idolatry, etc. Homosexuality – like all sin – hurts the individual and all those who know and love that individual. But most of all homosexuality – like all sin – hurts Jesus. Jesus endured the wrath of God, drinking the cup of God’s wrath dry, for sins such as homosexuality.
I will say that I think you bring up some excellent points. While I don’t have all the answers, I do believe that, in the Gospel, it is possible to love someone in Christ and not condemn them for living an unrepentant lifestyle. But this can only happen in the context where sinners live constantly in the shadow of the cross, while openly living as a community of believers as saints who sometimes sin, as a people who are striving to stir one another up to love and good works.
April 4, 2008 at 11:22 am
Jennifer
To your second paragraph: Thanks, and cheers to that kind of community.
April 4, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Lisa
Wow…you guys have lost some sleep over this according to the times you’ve posted. I have to ask: Jennifer why don’t you think homosexuality is a sin? You may have already answered, but I couldn’t find it. What about the other issues that pastor was talking about? Non-married couples living together? Lust? Are these not sins? I’m just curious..
April 4, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Wes
Jennifer,
Another definition of acceptance is “a disposition to tolerate or accept people or situations”. Toleration is more what I was had in mind than approval, I suppose.
Yes, I’m Reformed, at least as Reformed as a Baptist can be. But I also believe that God allows us to make our own decisions. If I may quote my forefathers, I believe that “God from eternity, decrees or permits all things that come to pass, and perpetually upholds, directs and governs all creatures and all events; yet so as not to destroy the free will and responsibility of intelligent creatures.” Yep, I believe that both concepts are true and consistent. Just don’t ask me to explain how. 🙂
April 17, 2008 at 3:36 am
Jennifer
Wes –
Haha, I used to be Reformed, so I know how that goes. Even so, yes, God allows us to make decisions. I can’t remember why I was trying to make that point, and don’t care to look.
Lisa –
Fortunately, no sleep lost! I think the time stamp was really screwy. I remember I posted once at 8:45, and it said it was at 2 in the morning. Don’t know what that’s about.
Why I don’t consider homosexuality sinful is a long and sordid tale of several years of thinking through the question and hearing the stories and sharing the journeys of many gay friends. Bottom line: I don’t believe sexual preference is something that people can choose, and while some people manage to pray through it and straighten up, many many gay Christians can’t change it or pray it away, and end up spending years and years consumed in self-hatred and spiritual stuntedness because of it. And I just can’t imagine that’s what God wants for these people. I know lots of people spend years, even lifetimes, tormented by their sin, but sexual orientation is just a different kind of “sin.” It affects literally every part of a person, since it is so wrapped up in identity, and thus, if God is said to disapprove of and hate your sexuality, it’s hard to find any shard of you that he could actually love.
Anyway, there’s much more to explain, but that was at least the starting point for me changing my thoughts about it.