Southern Baptists Pass Resolution on Transgender

Last week, I wrote about a resolution that I proposed to the Southern Baptist Convention (along with my co-sponsor Andrew Walker). The resolutions committee did a fine job with it and offered many helpful improvements to the text that we sent them. The final draft of resolution #9 titled “On Transgender Identity” is printed below. The messengers just voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution. In fact, I couldn’t see a single ballot raised against it.

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<strong>ON TRANSGENDER IDENTITY</strong>

WHEREAS, All persons are created in God’s image and are made to
glorify Him (Genesis 1:27; Isaiah 43:7); and

WHEREAS, God’s design was the creation of two distinct and com-
plementary sexes, male and female (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6) which designate the fundamental distinction that God
has embedded in the very biology of the human race; and

WHEREAS, Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles as
ordained by God are part of the created order and should find expres-
sion in every human heart (Genesis 2:18, 21–24; 1 Corinthians
11:7–9; Ephesians 5:22–33; 1 Timothy 2:12–14); and   Continue at Denny Burk

Would You Go to Prison For Your Stance on Homosexuality?

What would you do if you received a letter from the authorities that said:

“If you continue preaching the gospel and attempting to convert people to Jesus Christ, you will be sentenced to prison for an indeterminate period of time”? I know my response (or what I hope) my response would be. I would continue preaching until they followed through on their promise—and then I’d keep proclaiming Christ in prison.

But what if I received a letter that said this:

“If you continue preaching that homosexuality is a sin and attempting to counsel those with a homosexual orientation to pursue celibacy and/or healing in Jesus Christ, you will be sentenced to prison for an indeterminate period of time”?

Could I never again preach what God says about homosexuality and still be faithful in preaching the gospel of Christ? I mean is it really something worth going to prison for—sacrificing my cherished freedom, life with my family, further gospel ministry? I see nothing about a stance on homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 15. I know that I could never say, “Homosexuality is not a sin” but could I simply say nothing? 

Help from John Bunyan and Martin Luther

John Bunyan had only been married two years when he was carried off to prison. He left his wife with four children (none of them her own) and the grief of having just lost a newborn baby. He was in prison for twelve years. He could have left any moment if he would have promised not to preach. This was Bunyan’s response:    Continue at Mike Leake

Canadian Supreme Court Ruling Has Implications for Christian Witness

The Story: On Wednesday, Canada's Supreme Court upheld a ban on "hate speech" contested by a Christian activist, ruling that the country's hate speech ban "is a reasonable limit on freedom of religion and is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

The Background: William Whatcott, a former homosexual turned Christian activist, published and distributed flyers in 2001 and 2002 which which contained various harsh statements about homosexuals and pedophiles. A complaint was filed with Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission alleging Whatcott was promoting hatred against individuals based on their sexual orientation. The Human Rights Tribunal held the publications contravened a section of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code on the basis that Whatcott's views exposed persons to hatred and ridicule on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Whatcott argued that he was entitled to make the statements based on his constitutional protected right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion and that the section of the Human Rights Code was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court of Canada, however, ruled that the sections of the Human Rights Code that prohibited hatred against persons based on a prohibited ground of discrimination was constitutional and that Whatcott's speech was not protected on the basis of freedom of expression or freedom of religion.   Continue at Joe Carter

Are We Guilty of Homophobia?

Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, recently was quoted as saying the following in an interview about homosexuality.

“We’ve lied about the nature of homosexuality and have practiced what can only be described as a form of homophobia… We’ve used the ‘choice’ language when it is clear that sexual orientation is a deep inner struggle and not merely a matter of choice.”

He was then asked to defend this statement in the recent SBC Annual Convention. The video of the exchange with SBC pastor and blogger, Peter Lumpkins is here.

I happen to agree with Mohler, especially as he clarified his statements. The Associated Baptist Press summarized Mohler’s response to the question by Lumpkins:

Mohler said at the convention “there is no way anyone in fair mindedness can be confused about what I believe about homosexuality,” because he has written more than 200 articles about it, but that “the reality is that we as Christian churches have not done well on this issue.”

“Evangelicals, thankfully, have failed to take the liberal trajectory of lying about homosexuality and its sinfulness,” Mohler said. “We know that the Bible clearly declares – not only in isolated verses but in the totality of its comprehensive presentation – the fact that homosexuality not only is not God’s best for us, as some try to say, but it is sin.”

“But we as evangelicals have a very sad history in dealing with this issue,” he continued. “We have told not the truth, but we have told about half the truth. We’ve told the biblical truth, and that’s important, but we haven’t applied it in the biblical way.”

“We have said to people that homosexuality is just a choice,” Mohler said. “It’s clear that it’s more than a choice. That doesn’t mean it’s any less sinful, but it does mean it’s not something people can just turn on and turn off. We are not a gospel people unless we understand that only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.” Keep Reading...

The Struggles of Gay Christians

The issue of homosexuality is one in which the church has not done so well over the years. The majority of Christians have long held fast to the clear teaching of Scripture—that homosexuality is against God’s plan for the people he created and that homosexuality is a serious sin, one that manifests a particular hardness of heart. In all of this Christians have honored God, I am convinced. But where Christians have been less than exemplary is in a commitment to engage the very difficult issues. I am beginning to see a lot of growth here, but the fact remains—Christians tend to engage the issue of homosexuality on only a surface level. We have easy answers that, to those who demand them, are not at all satisfying. Wesley Hill has had to engage this issue in a far more serious way. Hill is a Christian and he is gay. Now I know many will get no further than this phrase: gay Christian. Hill uses that phrase as a kind of shorthand to express that he is a Christian—an evangelical who holds to the tenets of the Chrisitan faith, but he is also a man who is homosexual in what seems to be his natural orientation or inclination. He has always been attracted to men and only men. He has remained celibate through all his life, convicted and enabled by the Holy Spirit not to act out his sexuality. But hope and pray as he might, he cannot change his inability to be attracted to women. I am not crazy about the phrase gay Christian, but will use it in this review while adding it to my growing list of things to think about in the future. Continue Reading>>>