Ethics Daily reports on a controversy that threatens to tear apart a baptist church (considered moderate doctrinely) in Fort Worth, TX.
Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, planned to include a new pictorial directory as part of its 125th anniversary celebration. A wrinkle developed when gay couples asked to have their portraits included, setting off an internal church debate that went public in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story published Nov. 16.
The church scheduled a called business meeting after yesterday's worship service to decide whether to picture gay couples together, separately or--in a compromise supported by members including Pastor Brent Younger--not to have individual and family pictures at all.
In his Sunday sermon at Broadway Baptist, Younger lamented the difficulty of finding consensus on an issue that is dividing many mainline churches.
"Some of the most committed conservative Christians in our congregation are baffled by this whole episode," Younger said. "They're seeking the best they know how to be faithful to Scripture and follow Jesus. They've been taught all of their lives what the Bible says on this issue, and those who read the Scriptures in a different way don't seem to be taking the Bible seriously. The verses in Leviticus seem straightforward on homosexuality. How can the majority opinion throughout 2,000 years of church history suddenly be wrong? It's hard for these gracious Christians to understand how anyone could disagree."
"But there are other thoughtful Christians who feel differently," he continued. "They are seeking the best they know how to be faithful to Scripture and follow Jesus. They know the Bible has been used to defend polygamy, slavery and the oppression of women. They look at the compassion of Jesus and the way he included everybody, and it seems clear that we should do the same. How can anyone who knows Jesus believe that God condemns people to the way they were born? It's hard for these gracious Christians to understand how anyone could disagree."
"Both sides feel so certain that any real compromise can feel like being asked to give up something close to the center of their faith," Younger said. "Many feel so strongly about this issue that a church directory in which gay couples are pictured together seems dishonest. And others feel just as strongly that a church directory in which gay couples are pictured separately seems dishonest."
"This predicament has left many feeling despair," he said. "When churches have a vote that may be divisive, it's hard not to feel like we'll all lose."
That last thought is one of the truest statements I've heard in a long time. At least is appears that some of the members of the church are honestly seeking God's will instead of pushing their individual agenda. We can only hope they will find it and reach a solution based on love that brings unity instead of divisiveness.
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Who would have ever thought, that including everyone in a Church family, could cause such heartache.
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder, if the Church really knows who Christ is.
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ReplyDeleteAm glad to have found your site. Please consider linking, featuring, or editorializing on the following....I intended this as a letter to the editor, but the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran it as an editorial.
ReplyDeleteYour site (as opposed to mine!) would be the ideal home afor this material.
http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/333268.html
Wow - I am amazed. I always viewed the Catholic Church as living in the stone age, and the Baptist Church as being a relic like the bones of prehistoric monsters - tyranosaurus, etc, that get dug up and put in museums.
ReplyDeleteI certainly hope that this is an opening. As I have learned, once you know gay people, you discover some great people. The heartache comes from knowing them well enough that they will talk about their early life. Of four gay men I know reasonably well, #1-"I was totally suicidal when about 21 in college, hiding who I am. #2 "I was only one trigger squeeze away from blowing off my head, rather then admit to my Dad who I was". #3 - When I came out one of my parents said they wanted to kill me, but hoped I would do it for them".
All these stories have happy endings, but think of the thousands of gay kids who commit suicide every year, thanks to the "right to lifers" attitudes towards gays. And so many more str8 kids do the same thing - they have problems succeeding in wooing the opposite sex, and have the irrational fear, thanks to some churches, that there is nothing else to do except "become gay" - another lie of these churches, and that is a fate worse then death in their mind, so you understand, don't you. And meanwhile we have the Ministers like Ted Haggard, Sen Craig, etc - gay haters in public, who hate themselves so much due to church backwardness, that they throw out their hatred on others in an attempt to both cleanse their souls (soles would be more apt spelling here) and hide who they are.
Hopefully this church is beginning to budge. And congratulations to the gay man who won a seat on the Ft. Worth city council just a short time ago.