Last week the Presbyterian Church USA (not to be confused with the Presbyterian Church In America) voted to amend its constitution to allow homosexual marriages. A statement was added to officially recognize “a commitment between two people,” making the Presbyterian Church USA the largest protestant church to approve homosexual marriage.
The move was endorsed last summer by the church’s General Assembly, but the formal change required approval from a majority of the church’s districts. Of the 171 districts, the 86th vote for the change came last week from a district in New Jersey. The change will take effect on June 21. Not all members are happy with the change and this was apparently anticipated by whoever wrote the language to amend the church constitution. It includes a provision stating that clergy cannot be compelled to preside at homosexual weddings or host a homosexual wedding ceremony on church grounds.
The Mormon Church is also changing their position on homosexual marriage. The church will not approve or allow homosexual marriage, but is softening the church’s position on members whose opinions differ from the church.
Christian Today – A leader in the Church of Latter-Day Saints confirmed Friday that its members are free to voice support for same-sex marriage without fear of punishment or excommunication.
Elder D Todd Christofferson said that as long as members do not engage in organised activity that attacks the Church, they can express their opinion on social media.
“Our approach in all of this, as (Mormon founder) Joseph Smith said, is persuasion,” Christofferson told KUTV-Salt Lake City. “You can’t use the priesthood and the authority of the church to dictate. You can’t compel, you can’t coerce. It has to be persuasion, gentleness and love unfeigned, as the words in the scripture.”
Online sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to Christofferson, are “not an organised effort to attack our effort, or our functioning as a church.” The only issue then would be “supporting organisations that promote opposition or positions in opposition to the Church’s.”
Additionally, the Mormon Church has apparently decided to try to do some damage-control to their public reputation by endorsing a Utah measure that outlaws employment and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Their endorsement seems to be in direct conflict with the official church position.
Meanwhile, at the American Baptist College in Nashville, TN, officials there defended their decision to invite a lesbian pastor to speak on the campus. College President Dr. Forrest Harris said he finds it “sad that people use religion and idolatry of the bible to demoralize same-gender-loving people.” He also said about the Bible that “we can’t be guided and dictated by a first-century worldview.”
For clarification, the American Baptist College is not affiliated in any way with the Southern Baptist Convention. It is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, which is the largest predominately black Christian denomination in the United States.
Embracing homosexual marriage, a law defying the First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and homosexual ‘pastors’ is what I would expect from churches and religious leaders who are more concerned with public perception and being trendy than with the truths given to us in the Bible. Ever-changing social practices and increasingly licentious behavior will always be in conflict with a church that bases its views and teachings on the Bible instead of on the societal morality of the day. A church that is not in conflict with the broader culture has abandoned the authoritative revelations in the Scriptures and should no longer be considered a church. A church that modifies its doctrine to mirror societal changes is no longer a church but a social gathering of people who are fooling themselves.
As more churches approve of homosexuality this will embolden the godless left and, in their mind, give strength to their argument that the few remaining churches who still call homosexuality sin are wrong. I would expect nothing less from the heathens than for them to think they have a vote in deciding what is sin and what is not sin. None of us have a vote in that. But for people whose morality comes from themselves instead of God, the only immorality is to have beliefs that differ from theirs.
With more and more immorality being mainstreamed and declared by societal promulgation to be the new normal, what is to become of those of us who find our moral direction in that “first century worldview?” Chastisement, protests, harassment, lawsuits, criminal charges and perhaps even jail one day? How many will still hold fast to the timeless morality instead of abandoning it in order to assimilate into an idolatrous culture whose god is amorality? It seems even those who claim to represent the Church are not immune from the temptation to put societal opinion above God’s. By doing so they are endorsing the lost people’s belief that Christians should approve of any kind of ‘love’ no matter how immoral. Proof positive that they don’t understand Christianity. And apparently, neither do some people who claim to be Christians.
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