There is no way, short of a miraculous and full-scale changing of
hearts and minds, for North American denominations to survive the
homosexuality crisis. Denominations like the PCUSA, ELCA, RCA, UMC, and
Episcopal Church will continue. They won’t fold their tents and join the
Southern Baptists (though wouldn’t that be interesting!). I’m not
suggesting most of our old, mainline denominations will disappear. But I
do not see how any of these once flourishing denominations will make it
through the present crisis intact.
And the sooner denominations admit this sobering reality the better.
Every denomination is different. The percentages on both sides of the
issue and the official positions are not identical. But the basic
contours of the problem are quite similar.
On one side you have liberals who want to see the church open its
doors to the GLBT agenda. They want homosexual behavior welcomed and
affirmed. They want to perform gay marriages. They want gays and
lesbians to be ordained to church office. Liberals (or “progressives” or
whatever-I’m trying to use neutral labels) see this as a justice issue.
They believe conservatives are simply on the wrong side of history and
that one day we will look at our traditional attitudes toward gays and
lesbians like we look at old attitudes toward African Americans or our
old attitudes toward women’s ordination. We will be embarrassed to see
that we could have been so blind and bigoted for so long. Continue at Kevin DeYoung
See Also - 50 Shades of Magic Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment