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Redeemer Church

Redeemer Church
Looking for a church in the Omaha area? Come check out ours on Sunday mornings at 11!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Who's forcing their views on whom?

I write this blog with more than a little trepidation of being mistaken as a bigot. So let me instead address the Christian community first. We have shot ourselves in the foot when it comes to the gay and lesbian community. We have largely remained silent about the love and forgiveness and life change available through Christ. Instead, we've blown homosexuality out of proportion and consider it somehow worse than the other sexual sins of premarital sex, adultery and pornography (sins occurring within the church). When we pick on homosexuality and turn a blind eye to these other sexual sins in the church, we are hypocrites. Unfortunately, the most vocal ones are the extremists who do not represent the majority of Christianity but form much of the public's opinion of Christianity. They are decidedly unbiblical in their bigoted thought and hateful speech and give no evidence of the grace and life change that a genuine conversion brings. My suspicion is that they are not part of the true body of Christ at all.

However, the homosexual community is committing one of the same errors that we as Christians tend to make. We seem to expect them to live by the same set of morals and values that we do without accepting our source for those values. In other words, we expect them to live up to Christian community standards without accepting Christ. We are guilty of trying to force them to live as if they accept our beliefs.

Yet they are doing the same thing, and on a much greater scale. The homosexual political lobby has exerted all it's strength to force it's view on the rest of society. They seek to pass laws or have judgements made in courts to force other people who have conscience concerns to the contrary to live as if they thought that same sex unions are exactly the same (naturally, socially, morally) as heterosexual unions. The majority of the people in this country do not adhere to such a stance, so to enforce something like same sex marriage statutes is to enforce such that is contrary to the public will.

It is not the religious side forcing it's views on gay community in this conflict, the Christian response has been largely on the defensive. The religious right would not be reacting if the homosexual lobbyists were not pressing to change laws to force people to accept their beliefs. Notice, there are no laws against homosexual relationships or unions, but there are also no allowances or exemptions for it. No rights are being infringed, but neither are any provisions being made. It seems to me that it's not the Christians who are forcing their views on the homosexual community, but rather the opposite.

3 comments:

Jason said...

Hiya,

This is a great, great, great post. I had a discussion with somebody a couple of years ago, in which they said that I was "anti-gay" (because of my stance on gay marriage) and in the process of discussing what she meant and why I was able to express the fact that I thought homosexuality is another proclivity to be thrown in a big bin with hatred, stealing, sex outside of marriage for anybody, substance addiction, and on and on, BUT Christ can and does liberate me and many others of our particular proclivities every day. She had never heard it presented as another sin which condemns without Christ, only as a REALLY BAD sin which REALLY condemns or as kind of a mortal sin, her being a Catholic.

I also appreciate the way that you deal with how the roles have now been reversed. Very perceptive.

I got here via Tim Challies-STR. I saw your post regarding Kengor's view to Ms. Clinton's "extreme" view of abortion, which you found methodologically troublesome, and I understand what you are saying. I feel the same way as he does, and perhaps you do, but our feelings don't determine "extremism". If unbending is extremism in the matter of abortion then it seems as though Mr. Kengor could also describe me as an extremist.Is that your central concern in the way it was stated? You seems wonderfully measured in the way you handle these things and I just wanted to understand better.

Anonymous said...

Excellent post! I agree with all of your points here. I get tired of hearing Christians condemn homosexuals like they are the only "real sinners" in the world. We have all sinned in one way or another.
it is absolutely true to say that mainstream media, and outspoken pro-gay people are trying to force their opinions on Christians.

I attended the Love Won Out conference last year and I was amazed by some of the statistics I heard. For one, mainstream media tells us that 10% of the American population is gay, when in reality it is closer to 2-3%. That 2-3% is a very loud minority!

King Ott said...

Good thoughts. Well spoken.