Until then, all we can do is be in prayer, read and study the Bible, worship, and be in dialogue with each other.

Again, there are some things that only God can reconcile.

Thanks for your kind words of condolence regarding the death of my nephew. That means a lot.

I do appreciate your taking time to comment. I should also note that I don’t fit in a “box” as I don’t fully align with liberal positions and often support positions considered conservative. I tend to accept the label “liberal” because that is how I will be described whether I want to be or not.

I apologize for the mistake I made regarding the author of the article.

On the contrary, I wasn’t accusing you of being a person who doesn’t believe in the Bible. I have no way of knowing whether or not you have been born again. I wouldn’t know if you consider yourself evangelical. I wasn’t questioning your personal state of reconciliation with God or where you stand as far as salvation is concerned.

The question I posed was more general than that. Think of it this way. How do we reconcile the differences between these two camps of thought? Both cannot be correct. How do we find out which one is right and which one is wrong? Where do we go for such information? How do we interpret it?

I can understand your ambivalence about not answering the question. So far, I haven’t found anyone willing to do so. It always seems to end the same way. Agree to disagree. So be it.

Take care,
Christine

Thanks so much for your comments. I enjoyed my interactions with all of you that I met at GodBlogCon. I wish I had more time for interaction, but now I am behind on church work and must fulfill those obligations first.

It is good to have all the great comments and questions and I am very grateful that you stopped by to read. I’m very honored by that.

The articles(s) I pointed you to are all written by Walter Wink, not Tony Campolo. The only involvement of Campolo is that Wink points out that Tony Campolo comes out on the side that homosexuality is a sin and his wife is on the side that it is not a sin and yet they remain in love with each other and married to one another. They are not the writers of the article, though –Wink is.

Your question is too “loaded” for me to answer. It amounts to what lawyers joke is the leading question on the witness stand, “when did you stop beating your wife?”

Your question assumes, by my account, that you believe in the Bible and I don’t, that you are born again and I am not, that you are evangelical and I am not. When it starts out that way, I’d agree that I’d prefer to agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Reconciliation? That comes from the power of the Holy Spirit even more than of human endeavor. Thankfully, my relationship and walk with Christ is not dependent on your assessment of my spiritual state.

Blessings to you.

Campolo:
“We have not reached a consensus about who is right on the issue of homosexuality.”

How one reaches the answer to “who is right” requires proper Bible exegesis. Man can take any Bible verse and turn it into “what is right in his own eyes.”

A good example of this is a website called “The Skeptics Annotated Bible”. I used to post at their message board but found it fruitless, to say the least. However, there is another website that completely refutes every point made by the Skeptics Annotated Bible people!

Why did I bring this up? Because we could post opposing theologians views and opinions about how to deal with “homosexuality and Christianity” all day and never come to a consensus. So what is left? We MUST rely on God’s Word and the original meaning at the time the Scriptures were written.

Applying “modern” science (which is often skewed to present the pro-homosexual side of the issue) and/or opinions could be very appealing to your side of the argument, however, it does more to damage the original exegesis of Scripture than it does to accurately portray it. In fact, you could go to a secular site called NARTH and find many point by point refutations of Campolo’s opinions through the scientific studies done by that organization.

Before I present the question, I want to clarify my position for you.

We can’t pick and choose which sins we need to repent of and which sins we don’t need to repent of. I can back up these statements with Bible verses for more clarity. Just let me know if that’s desirable or necessary for you.

In the Christian faith, “just praying for God to love you” is a great prayer, but it is insufficient. I say this, again, in accordance to what Jesus said in the Bible. He told us the need to repent of our sins. Repentance means confessing and turning away from our sins. In his many encounters with individuals caught in sin (e.g. the adulterous woman), he did not accuse her (as the many men who wanted to stone her attempted to do). He did use this incident as an object lesson to show the need for ALL of us to repent of sin (he who is without sin may cast the first stone). Each person was forced to drop the stone they held in their hand and leave because they were convicted of their own sin by Jesus’ words. Jesus then turned to the woman and asked her, “Where are your accusers?” She said there were none. Then Jesus said, “Then neither will I accuse you. Go and leave your life of sin.”

He didn’t condemn her because condemnation was not his purpose at this time. However, he didn’t condone her sin either. He SPECIFICALLY SAID, “GO AND LEAVE YOUR LIFE OF SIN.”

She left the scene a changed woman.

You see, this is different from what you claim. Yes. Christians do occasionally fall back into sin because we still have to deal with fleshly desires here on earth, however, the attitude is one of genuine desire to stay away from those sins. Why? Because we know that Christ died for them! They do not claim that they can still lead a life of sin in an unrepentant manner and/or even celebrate a specific sin. Only repentant sinners will inherit the kingdom of heaven, not those who engage in it willfully, which is an act of defiance against the grace God gave through Jesus Christ. This is where we get the saying, ‘God forbid’ from. It was written by Paul on the very subject of willful sinning in the light of grace, mercy and forgiveness through the cross of Christ.

In another incident in Scripture, there was a woman who had a continual physical problem with her menstrual cycle. She had such faith that Jesus was the Messiah prophecied in the Scriptures, that she believed (noticed, she believe FIRST and then was healed) that if she could just touch his robe that she could be healed. The encounter as recorded in the Bible tells us that Jesus felt energy leave him (shows he was both God and man) and asked who touched him. This wasn’t because he didn’t know. It was in order for people to see this miracle of healing.

There are thousands of ex-gays who have experienced a similar kind of miracle of healing through Jesus Christ. Non-Christians and gay-theology Christians might not want to recognize this fact, but it is undeniable.

Back to the woman.

Later in Scripture we find her annointing the feet of Jesus with a very expensive perfume and wiping it off with her hair. Why did she do this? In those days, it was a great gesture of respect and reverence. It also showed her greatfulness for his mercy towards her. She knew who Jesus was and believed in him even before her physical healing and before Christ’s death and resurrection even happened! She received that physical healing immediately, but, more importantly she also received spiritual healing from the Savior.

I know that it is not considered politically correct today to tell people that they are under condemnation if they do not repent and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their lives. Each of us have the choice to accept or reject the Gospel, but there is no “inbetween” state or gray area within this choice.

Unfortunately, there is a “seeker sensitive” Christian movement out there that promotes such an idea (e.g. like Bill O’Reilly’s comment to “let the Deity sort it all out.”) The trouble is, God has ALREADY sorted it out! And he has told us through the Person of Jesus Christ and His Word, the Bible. We are told who will inherit the kingdom of heaven and who won’t.

I am very grieved about the deception that I see people falling for in this world; specifically because they don’t know Jesus Christ or His Word, the Bible. I realize who is really responsible for these deceptions, but many people don’t believe that God’s adversary even exists. Therefore, many do not see the deception that he spiritually tempts and involves them in. Jesus addressed satan as a real being in Scripture. There are those who consider all of this a myth. It is one of the adversary’s greatest tools of deception.

Satan is a spiritual being who is “out to get all of us” and he DOES often use people who don’t know Christ for his evil purposes! It is wise to know the Scriptures, what Christ has said and done for us and God’s purpose as revealed in the Bible, in order to be able to discern truth from error in the people we meet who claim to be Christian.

When people are coming from the opposite sides of the religious, political, ideological, and moral spectrum, it is difficult to do anything more than to “agree to disagree” because, logically, both cannot possibly be correct. Relativism flourishes today because it allows for religious pluralism which allows for people to choose “what is right in their own eyes” rather than what God’s Word would have us do.

So, the questions still remain. Is there such a thing as moral absolutes? Is there such a thing as absolute truth? If so, then how do we determine this? What criteria must we use?

These are deep philosophical, moral and spiritual questions. How one answers them determines what one believes and ultimately, in Whom one believes. Our eternal destiny depends on how one answers such questions.

I see the liberal left churches falling into the trap of ‘gay theology’ deception. I know that you will vehemently disagree with what I just wrote. But that leads us to the question I have for you.

“I truly wonder how such a bitter conflict between the liberal church ideologies and the bible-based born-again evangelical church views can ever be solved?”

Yes, I was the one sitting on the sofa. And I’m quite serious with my claim that my gay sibling may very well be in a closer walk with Christ than mnay other Christians. But that isn’t really for me to say. Or you, or Bene, for that matter. We can decide what is and isn’t sin, but we cannot know that someone who claims to be a Christian isn’t, in my opinion.

I don’t think any answer I gave would be acceptable to your beliefs and I just have to accept that. However, for you to get some idea of the kind of approach I take, I would refer you to United Methodist pastor and professor Walter Wink, whose article on the Bible and homosexuality can be found at http://www.bridges-across.org/ba/wink.htm. (Bene has links disabled because of spam, so you’ll have to paste the link.) I have no illusion that the article would persuade you of anything, but Wink puts things better than I could.

Let’s suppose that I considered homosexuality a sin. By your reasoning, I would also have to say that every person who fought on the side of the Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War and didn’t repent for doing so wasn’t a Christian, either. Some people consider any use of alcohol to be a sin. Would we say that an unrepentant beer drinker couldn’t be a Christian? Or that all the people who professed to be Christians but supported segregation weren’t really Christians? (Even Billy Graham originally accepted racial segregation for his revivals before seeing the light. If he had died before then, would Graham not have been a Christian?)

If repentance must be perfect in order to be saved, then no one will be saved. All of us will be mistaken in believing that something we did was acceptable to God when it actually wasn’t. If we aren’t a Christian on that basis, then we are all doomed, I would guess.

Thanks for the question!

I was wondering if you attended Dr. Muehlhoff’s breakout session which focused on how to respond when non-Christians read your blog.

It was unfortunate that we lost a lot of time because it got moved to an office location.

Were you the guy seated at the end of the black leather sofa? I was at the other end of the sofa and I brought up the blog posting/comment conflict that turned ugly between some members of the gay community (one stated she is Christian and lesbian) and the leader (and several supporters) of an ex-gay ministry.

If you would be open to it, I would like to ask you a question. It is a question that so far, hasn’t been answered satisfactorily by any Christian who believes (as I presume you do) that a person can be gay and Christian.

Thanks,
Christine

I have to say, while I’m conservative, I’d agree there is too much emphasis on homosexuality on both sides. Actually I think that there is too much emphasis on sex, which I think is the crux of the matter.