LGBT activism in The Church. Why not just be wronged by it?

[99percentatheism]

As the Gay Agenda, of legislating the acceptability of homosexuality and indeed "normalizing homosexual behavior" in the secular world, is finding its way into places called Christian Churches (several "Progressive and Liberal" denominations, and some being well established), should Christians that reject homosexuality, LGBT culture, and activism, and see the promoting of homosexuality as antithetical to the written record of the New Testament and orthodoxy, fight against this activist agenda or just "be wronged" by it? Should pro-orthodox Christians take a stand against Gay Activism IN the Church in a way described by Jude, Paul and Peter?

Should Christians that try earnestly to follow the teachings of the New Testament and reject same gender sexual behavior on scriptural and historical grounds, continue a secular political fight against the Gay Lobby or just stop using secular means and live similar lives in ways like the First Century Church did under similar circumstances? That being, immorality, vice and sexual depravity were secular-cultural norms and were engaged in by some people in The Church and yet were allowed to stay in congregations under certain circumstances?

Here is a few teachings from the New Testament record:

1 Corinthians 6:

Even to have such lawsuits with one another is a defeat for you. Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that?

Why not let yourselves be cheated?

Instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your fellow believers.

Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God?

Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Avoiding Sexual Sin

You say, “I am allowed to do anything�—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,� I must not become a slave to anything. You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.� (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead.

Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.� But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

The Apostle Peter makes a similar apologia.

1 Peter 4:

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.

As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.

For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

And Jude points out that there will be all manner of miscreants IN The Church. He points out who and what they are but he never says to eject them from a congregation. Just to recognize what they are:

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.

For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

A Call to Persevere

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.� These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy,

mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

[Star]

Sexual orientation itself is not a choice.

Actually for many supporters and membera of LGBT activism sexual orientation is a choice and they openly admit this. These people are referred to as the "bi-sexuals" who don't have any particular sexual orientation.

These people still have a claim to higher moral ground.

How so?

Well, imagine a bi-sexual woman. She is perfectly happy becoming sexually intimate with a man or a woman. She basically doesn't care about sexual orientation one way or the other.

So should she then be forced to marry only a man since she has a choice?

No, not necessarily. On the contrary, maybe she can't find a man who she finds attractive or compatible and who is also free and feels the same way about her. In other words she can't find LOVE with a male partner.

So she happens to meet a girlfriend that she can LOVE and who will LOVE her back. Shouldn't she still choose love over sexual considerations?

Shouldn't she marry the person she has actually fallen in love with instead of just accepting some bozo guy just because he's the opposite sex?

In other words, even if sexual orientation is a choice, LOVE should still be the moral high ground that trumps the mere sexual orientation of the flesh.

In fact, isn't this what religions preach? That spirit and LOVE should trump the flesh?

You have made so many errors in this post, I don't know where to start. This isn't just semantics. You seem to be arguing that sexual orientation is simply what gay people choose to do sexually.

Like I said, sexual orientation (straight, bi, gay, etc.) itself is not a choice, and both myself and a vast majority of the GLBT community, stand by this. As a gay man, I cannot choose to start finding women sexually attractive and men not. I don't become straight or bi if I sleep with women.

Gays are born this way, probably from something that happens in the womb. Google it or something.

[Divine Insight]

You have made so many errors in this post, I don't know where to start.

Sexual orientation itself is not a choice, and both myself and a vast majority of the gay community, stands by that. As a gay man, I cannot choose to start finding women sexually attractive and men not.

I can, however, decide to shag a woman. In fact, I can do that until the cows come home, but it won't make my sexual orientation any different.

Google it or something.

I haven't made any errors at all. You simply misread my post.

I never said that YOU have a choice.

What I said is that Bi-sexuals who find both male and female sexually attractive do have a choice.

Well, they may not have choice concerning the fact that they find both sexes attractive, but the point I am making is that people who find both sexes attractive actually do have a choice concerning which sex they chose to actually have a relationship with.

And all I'm doing there is pointing out that in the case of bi-sexuals, even having a choice is not sufficient reason to demand that they make a particular choice.

This says nothing at all about YOU, unless you claim to be bi-sexual.

In fact, if you claim to not be sexually attracted to women, then why would you even want to shag a woman?

I don't find men sexually attractive, and I have no desire to shag a man.

The mere fact that you would even be interested in shagging a woman suggests to me that you must find some attraction in that. Otherwise why bother doing it?

[Star]

I understand, but I said sexual orientation itself isn't a choice. You disagreed with irrelevant information that doesn't contradict this. Of course, we choose who to shack up with (assuming they choose us back). That was never in dispute.

Why might a gay man have sex with a woman? Closeted gay men do it because it's what their family, religion, and society expects of them. The statistics are actually quite shocking. I know a guy who pretended to be straight for 11 years because of his family and religion. Many of my gay female friends have children from their first relationship, which was with a man. They tried to be straight, but it doesn't work like that. They are only sexually attracted to, and capable of falling in love with, the same sex.

As for bisexuals, there are actually a number of factors that go into their choice of mate. Also, bisexuals are rarely 50/50 sexual orientation-wise. Saying that they get to choose sexes is an oversimplification

[99percentatheism]

should Christians that reject homosexuality, LGBT culture, and activism, and see the promoting of homosexuality as antithetical to the written record of the New Testament and orthodoxy, fight against this activist agenda or just "be wronged" by it?

Why do they need to"'be wronged" by it?

Didn't Jesus teach to love thy neighbor as thyself and to not judge others?

Should Christians that try earnestly to follow the teachings of the New Testament and reject same gender sexual behavior on scriptural and historical grounds,...

They can certainly do that as their own personal behavior. They don't need to do what other people do.

... or just stop using secular means and live similar lives in ways like the First Century Church did under similar circumstances? That being, immorality, vice and sexual depravity were secular-cultural norms and were engaged in by some people in The Church and yet were allowed to stay in congregations under certain circumstances?

Sure. Why not? Why should it be up to the congregation to judge each other. Wasn't that the way of the Old Testament before Jesus?

Jesus is the judge now, right?

John 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

Maybe Jesus has decided to forgive them on the grounds that they know not what they do? After all, that was his reasoning for forgiving the people who beat him and nailed him to the cross. Surely if he would forgive people for doing that he'll forgive people of the same gender for falling in love with each other.

So I would think that the "Christian thing to do" would be to allow Jesus to be the judge and to not judge the behavior of others on a personal level.

You also ask:

Should pro-orthodox Christians take a stand against Gay Activism IN the Church in a way described by Jude, Paul and Peter?

Shouldn't that be up to the preacher and not the flock?

Shouldn't the preacher decide whether he wants to teach the teachings of Jesus, or instead to teach the teachings of Jude, Paul and Peter.

What's the name of the religion again? Christianity?

Were Jude, Paul, or Peter "The Christ"?

If not, then why bother preaching what they taught?

I would think that a Christian preacher should be interested in teaching what the Christ taught.

Didn't the Christ teach to love thy neighbor as thy self?

Where did Jesus teach anyone to harass or condemn anyone in a judgmental way?

I would go with what Luke claims Jesus taught:

Luke.6:37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

After all, if we have a choice to teach love or bigotry, why not chose love?

Apparently we are afforded that choice by Jesus himself. We are given permission to not judge others. Some may even view this as a direct commandment of the LORD Jesus Christ.

Whether it's a choice or a commandment, it's certainly a viable option.

If you don't judge others, you shall not be judged. Sounds pretty nice to me.

Don't you just LOVE Jesus?

He totally relieved you from any responsibility to have to judge others.
You should be thrilled about that. Why look for excuses to get back into that dirty business when Jesus freed you from that responsibility?

Diviner Insight,

Please note the your following quotes. Where is this theology found in the New Testament?

Didn't Jesus teach to love thy neighbor as thyself and to not judge others?

He totally relieved you from any responsibility to have to judge others.

He taught to love our enemies and do good to those that persecute you.

He said to not judge unless you are prepared to face the same charges for doing the same thing. You lookmto be putting some kind of hippy free love taint to the Gospels. That doesn't seem to be warrneted from looking at how Jesus dealt with things IN the Gospels.

A reading of the New Testament from Gospels to Jude show that many concerns and actions about wrongdoing by people in the Church must be undertaken. This thread is about how Christians ought to go about dealing with the concerns of gay activism in the Church. There can be no legigimate doubt that at least Paul dealt with homosexuals in the Church and of course famously OUTSIDE of it as well (Romans 1,2). And Jude and Peter certainly deal with the sexually immoral in the Church. Scriptures were provided in the OP.

It is time for Christians to realize that this menace of secular morality being put upon them IN the Church is now a very serious issue.

[10CC]

[Replying to post 14 by 99percentatheism]

Do you take your over/under to church on sundays to kill all them queens what invade gods place? Why doesn't god use them almost all powerful angels to smite them with their fluffy swords, or was that fiery? Now EXACTLY how many of these dangerous homosexuals terrorists actually attack churches every sunday?

Don't forget to say grace.

[99percentatheism]

Star
99, you talk as if gay outsiders are flooding into churches with a some kind of godless agenda.

Godless? Hardly. There are gods aplenty. As you notice.

It seems you ignore the fact that these PEOPLE are actually YOUR fellow Christians which already belong to their congregation.

I have never ignored that "these people" are in The Church. Ever. I wrote this OP. And another one with hundreds of posts and 85,000 views.

You might be able to bully them so they stop coming, but you certainly can't stop them from being gay.

Political propaganda is misplaced pal. If anyone is being bullied, it is historically honest Christians that are being sued and legislated into submitting to gay authority.

Sexual orientation itself is not a choice.

Please provide scientific proof.

I'm not sure what you expect them to do.

To love their neighbors. No "anti-gay" Christian is doing anything wrong. Gay culture is antithetical to Christian truth as proved so FROM the New Testament.

My advice to them, as an atheist, is to leave their church and never go back.

Now THAT I respect. I find it incredibly odd (though spiritually interesting), that so many atheists push for homosexuals and homosexuality to be plied in The Church.

Is that what you want as well?

I rejected both atheism and sexual licentiousness.

They're much better off without you.

Oh really? How is their eternity in the hands of an atheist like you?

You, however, are not better off without them.

"I" cannot seperate anyone from Christ. That is their own choice. Liberal and progressive, gay and "worldy" theology does not cause me to give up on Christ, just because some people embrace that worldview "in the Church."

I believe that no "anti-gay" Christian is doing anything wrong. "If" it based on scriptural truth and not just loathing of homosexual behavior and culture. Anyone and everyone should agree that the "anti-gay" Christian, basing that stand on scriptural principle is the honest person.

It should be "gay Christians" and their legion of followers, mostly from the secular world and worldview I might point out, that should be ethical about how honest and innocent the "anti-gay" position is of Christians that affirm the truth of scripture. There is no support for gay behavior or gay theology anywhere in the Bible. Proving, that those Christians that reject the gay worldview are not doing anything wrong, either secular or theologically.

BTW, I'm sure someone has already pointed this out, but humans have invented much more than 100 gods. If you believe in 1%, that means you believe in a lot of gods!

http://machineslikeus.com/news/global-gods

And I'll give the same common sense answer. It is much more difficult for me to fit
99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999
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99 Percent Atheism . . .

. . . into the username box when signing up at this webite.

Send me a Private Message and I'll send you back as many .9's as you need to help you understand the metaphor of my username.

[99percentatheism]

[Replying to post 14 by 99percentatheism]

Do you take your over/under to church on sundays to kill all them queens what invade gods place? Why doesn't god use them almost all powerful angels to smite them with their fluffy swords, or was that fiery? Now EXACTLY how many of these dangerous homosexuals terrorists actually attack churches every sunday?

Don't forget to say grace.

How are you justified in placing violence in my positions and directed at me personally?

You should do your side a favor and apologize to me.

Otherwise here's how Jesus taught us to deal with unsavory issues in the Church:

Jesus told them another parable:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’�

- Matthew 13

We are to notice and point out the weeds (read Jude). But it God's harvesters that will pull them up and discard them where they belong.

I just strive to stay in good soil. And theologically, like a good neighbor, point out where it is.

[10CC]

Star
99, you talk as if gay outsiders are flooding into churches with a some kind of godless agenda.

Godless? Hardly. There are gods aplenty. As you notice.

It seems you ignore the fact that these PEOPLE are actually YOUR fellow Christians which already belong to their congregation.

I have never ignored that "these people" are in The Church. Ever. I wrote this OP. And another one with hundreds of posts and 85,000 views.

You might be able to bully them so they stop coming, but you certainly can't stop them from being gay.

Political propaganda is misplaced pal. If anyone is being bullied, it is historically honest Christians that are being sued and legislated into submitting to gay authority.

Sexual orientation itself is not a choice.

Please provide scientific proof.

I'm not sure what you expect them to do.

To love their neighbors. No "anti-gay" Christian is doing anything wrong. Gay culture is antithetical to Christian truth as proved so FROM the New Testament.

My advice to them, as an atheist, is to leave their church and never go back.

Now THAT I respect. I find it incredibly odd (though spiritually interesting), that so many atheists push for homosexuals and homosexuality to be plied in The Church.

Is that what you want as well?

I rejected both atheism and sexual licentiousness.

They're much better off without you.

Oh really? How is their eternity in the hands of an atheist like you?

You, however, are not better off without them.

"I" cannot seperate anyone from Christ. That is their own choice. Liberal and progressive, gay and "worldy" theology does not cause me to give up on Christ, just because some people embrace that worldview "in the Church."

I believe that no "anti-gay" Christian is doing anything wrong. "If" it based on scriptural truth and not just loathing of homosexual behavior and culture. Anyone and everyone should agree that the "anti-gay" Christian, basing that stand on scriptural principle is the honest person.

It should be "gay Christians" and their legion of followers, mostly from the secular world and worldview I might point out, that should be ethical about how honest and innocent the "anti-gay" position is of Christians that affirm the truth of scripture. There is no support for gay behavior or gay theology anywhere in the Bible. Proving, that those Christians that reject the gay worldview are not doing anything wrong, either secular or theologically.

BTW, I'm sure someone has already pointed this out, but humans have invented much more than 100 gods. If you believe in 1%, that means you believe in a lot of gods!

http://machineslikeus.com/news/global-gods

And I'll give the same common sense answer. It is much more difficult for me to fit
99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99 Percent Atheism . . .

. . . into the username box when signing up at this webite.

Send me a Private Message and I'll send you back as many .9's as you need to help you understand the metaphor of my username.

Why is it that fundamentalist/biblical christians are quite often so angry?
What makes fundamentalist/biblical christians so convinced that their belief in their interpretation of what the Catholics canonized as the bible 300yrs after jesus' death is actually what jesus taught?
They claim to have knowledge of pre-scriptural scripture that aligns perfectly with the scripture canonized by the catholics and claim at the same time a greater knowledge of scripture than the compilers. These fundamentalist/biblical christians have not ever ADDED a book to the BIBLE that they claim was compiled by heretics and apostates.
Not very smart are they? That probably explains their hatred and bigotry of anything they disagree with.

[Divine Insight]

He said to not judge unless you are prepared to face the same charges for doing the same thing. You lookmto be putting some kind of hippy free love taint to the Gospels. That doesn't seem to be warrneted from looking at how Jesus dealt with things IN the Gospels.

I disagree. There is no justification in anything Jesus taught for you to be judging others in his name. So if you organize a hateful Church in Jesus' name I don't recognize it as having anything to do with Jesus.

In fact, it's precisely those kinds of Churches that give Jesus a bad name. Such Churches are an insult to Jesus IMHO.

A reading of the New Testament from Gospels to Jude show that many concerns and actions about wrongdoing by people in the Church must be undertaken. This thread is about how Christians ought to go about dealing with the concerns of gay activism in the Church. There can be no legigimate doubt that at least Paul dealt with homosexuals in the Church and of course famously OUTSIDE of it as well (Romans 1,2). And Jude and Peter certainly deal with the sexually immoral in the Church. Scriptures were provided in the OP.

You are certainly free to worship Paul as the Christ if you like. But IMHO when you do that you are just spitting in the face of Jesus.

Jesus himself warned that there would be false prophets like Paul who would come and preach in his name. He also make it clear that we would be able to tell these false prophets by the stench of their rotten fruit. Paul's teachings are a perfect examples of rotten stench IMHO.

So I don't recognize Paul as having anything at all to do with Jesus. Jesus warned us against such false prophets, and did not prophesy the coming of Paul at all. So there is no reason for anyone to worship Paul at all.

It is time for Christians to realize that this menace of secular morality being put upon them IN the Church is now a very serious issue.

Christians who are hell bent on using Jesus as fodder for hatred can certainly do whatever they so desire. I would personally reject any such church as being nothing more than hateful bigots who actually hate Jesus just as much as they hate everyone else.

I'm actually glad to see such hateful forms of Christianity because they are writing their their own death certificate for their hateful cults. Decent people will avoid them like the plague, and since humanity is naturally evolving to become more decent all the time these hate cults will eventually die out. In fact, we are seeing this transformation right before our very eyes.

The hatred and bigotry of Christianity will soon take a back seat to decency and humanity can finally move forward into an age of true wisdom and genuine brotherly love and true morality.

Jesus himself would probably be the happiest person in all of history to see Christianity finally die. This religion has been an embarrassment to him for far too long already.

[10CC]

He said to not judge unless you are prepared to face the same charges for doing the same thing. You lookmto be putting some kind of hippy free love taint to the Gospels. That doesn't seem to be warrneted from looking at how Jesus dealt with things IN the Gospels.

I disagree. There is no justification in anything Jesus taught for you to be judging others in his name. So if you organize a hateful Church in Jesus' name I don't recognize it as having anything to do with Jesus.

In fact, it's precisely those kinds of Churches that give Jesus a bad name. Such Churches are an insult to Jesus IMHO.

A reading of the New Testament from Gospels to Jude show that many concerns and actions about wrongdoing by people in the Church must be undertaken. This thread is about how Christians ought to go about dealing with the concerns of gay activism in the Church. There can be no legigimate doubt that at least Paul dealt with homosexuals in the Church and of course famously OUTSIDE of it as well (Romans 1,2). And Jude and Peter certainly deal with the sexually immoral in the Church. Scriptures were provided in the OP.

You are certainly free to worship Paul as the Christ if you like. But IMHO when you do that you are just spitting in the face of Jesus.

Jesus himself warned that there would be false prophets like Paul who would come and preach in his name. He also make it clear that we would be able to tell these false prophets by the stench of their rotten fruit. Paul's teachings are a perfect examples of rotten stench IMHO.

So I don't recognize Paul as having anything at all to do with Jesus. Jesus warned us against such false prophets, and did not prophesy the coming of Paul at all. So there is no reason for anyone to worship Paul at all.

It is time for Christians to realize that this menace of secular morality being put upon them IN the Church is now a very serious issue.

Christians who are hell bent on using Jesus as fodder for hatred can certainly do whatever they so desire. I would personally reject any such church as being nothing more than hateful bigots who actually hate Jesus just as much as they hate everyone else.

I'm actually glad to see such hateful forms of Christianity because they are writing their their own death certificate for their hateful cults. Decent people will avoid them like the plague, and since humanity is naturally evolving to become more decent all the time these hate cults will eventually die out. In fact, we are seeing this transformation right before our very eyes.

The hatred and bigotry of Christianity will soon take a back seat to decency and humanity can finally move forward into an age of true wisdom and genuine brotherly love and true morality.

Jesus himself would probably be the happiest person in all of history to see Christianity finally die. This religion has been an embarrassment to him for far too long already.

I must agree with DI in this case. The hateful versions of christians are being challenged by all of christianity and in fact humanity and it just seems to increase their hatred for humanity. For as long as they promote their hatred the more humans will RUN away from them.