Saturday, June 18, 2011

Southern Baptists Can't Have It Both Ways on Homophobia

The Baptist Press is reporting that Albert Mohler (pictured at right), the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is making the case that Southern Baptists need to repent of a “form of homophobia” that keeps gays and lesbians out of their churches. Frankly, I don't know how Mohler plans to pull that move off as long as the Southern Baptist Convention ("SBC") - like the Catholic Church - rejects all modern medical and mental health knowledge on the immutability of sexual orientation and expects gays to live lonely celibate lives. Until the SBC stops selectively clinging to Bible passages written by ignorant individuals, puts aside an archaic and ignorant understanding of sexuality, and stops condemning same sex relationships, the SBC is certainly not a place I'd find even remotely inviting.
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Indeed, I believe that it is denominations like the SBC and the Roman Catholic Church that will ultimately be responsible for the death of Christianity. As knowledge and science continue to advance, a point will come where most people (there will always be some who due to their own psychological and emotional issues are fair game for charlatan preachers) simply will refuse to accept what is obviously untrue. Here are high lights from the Baptist Press piece:
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Mohler said at the convention “there is no way anyone in fair mindedness can be confused about what I believe about homosexuality,” because he has written more than 200 articles about it, but that “the reality is that we as Christian churches have not done well on this issue.”
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“Evangelicals, thankfully, have failed to take the liberal trajectory of lying about homosexuality and its sinfulness,” Mohler said. “We know that the Bible clearly declares – not only in isolated verses but in the totality of its comprehensive presentation – the fact that homosexuality not only is not God’s best for us, as some try to say, but it is sin.”
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“But we as evangelicals have a very sad history in dealing with this issue,” he continued. “We have told not the truth, but we have told about half the truth. We’ve told the biblical truth, and that’s important, but we haven’t applied it in the biblical way.”
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“We have said to people that homosexuality is just a choice,” Mohler said. “It’s clear that it’s more than a choice. That doesn’t mean it’s any less sinful, but it does mean it’s not something people can just turn on and turn off. We are not a gospel people unless we understand that only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.”
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Mohler has appeared on television programs and been quoted in mainstream media many times over the years in opposition to gay marriage, ordination of gay clergy and other aspects of what he has called attempts to “normalize” homosexual behavior.
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Sound like a church home you'd want? Not to me!!

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