A Few Things to Read

Boundless has a good article on homosexuality and how to deal with it using a personal account by a lesbian who has been saved.

I began meeting regularly with this man's girlfriend, who was quick to tell me that homosexuality was a sin that would condemn me to hell. She would pray with me every day. And every night I would cry myself to sleep praying, "God, change me! Why did you make me gay if that means I have to go to hell?" In my heart I wondered, "Is it true that God wants me to be forever separated from Him?"

The church I was attending did not share the hope for change that the gospel offers. Their stance was change first ... then God will accept you. I eventually got away from this woman and this church. I had asked God to change me, and He didn't. And so I embraced my lesbian identity.

Rick McKinley, at Imago Dei in Portland, has an interesting article on the emerging church.

It seems everywhere I go and speak these days people ask me the same question. It is, in some form or another, a version of this: Are you part of the emerging church? If they ask it another way it may be are you Emerging or Emergent? The letter “T” has become very important to them.

My common reply is; We seem to get put in the camp of Emerging, so I suppose we are.

Then the questions move to what the Emerging church believes about this or that. To which I reply the same things Baptists believe about it.

They scratch their head, think about what I have said and then ask, Which Baptist?

To which I reply, “exactly”.

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The danger that I see is that people, particularly Americans love to quickly categorize people so they can either turn them into a celebrity or a demon. We really don’t want to read what they have written or take the time to get to know them. We simply want to know what category they fit in so we can pronounce our judgment if we disagree with them or subscribe to their podcast if we like what they said.

As always, I am not endorsing everything in either article, but they provide some food for thought about pressing ministry issues.