We are seeing a disgusting development being exposed in the church today. Many denominations have begun to cave to pressure from the LGBT community to embrace the homosexual lifestyle that also includes transgendered people. Of any ‘organization’ that should NEVER embrace these lifestyles the church should lead the list. Never at any time has scripture lead us to believe that we are to do so. Ever. All references to this perverted lifestyle in scripture state that it is against God’s principles.
One thing we must remember is that God never changes. What He did four thousand years ago He does today. We are told in Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. So, if He told us in Leviticus 18:22 “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”, then that command is still the same today. But we are seeing Lutherans, Methodist, Episcopalians embrace this evil against God’s law and even the Southern Baptists Convention this year could not come up with the votes to denounce gay therapy bans. A Southern Baptist Convention resolution that denounced gay conversion therapy bans and “homosexual identity politics” failed to go through at the denomination’s annual meeting.
Robert O. Lopez, a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, who submitted the resolution, explained to The Christian Post what happened.
“The resolution was declined in committee and never came up for a vote. Attempts to revive it from the floor failed when time was called,” said Lopez.
The SBC Committee on Resolutions explained why the measure did not go through.
“While the Committee believes that the Southern Baptist Convention messengers would agree that ministries seeking to provide biblical counsel to those with same-sex attraction is needed as evidenced by the over two dozen resolutions addressing homosexuality over the last forty years, as well as Article XV of The Baptist Faith and Message, the Committee concluded that there were many related issues of import to clarify in this resolution that were beyond the Committee’s ability to address at this meeting.”[1]
Back in 2006 the American Baptist Churches Pacific Southwest split from the parent American Baptists (USA) because of homosexuality. Theological differences between the Pacific Southwest region and the national denomination have made “close cooperation” between the two difficult for many years, according to the statement from the board. Many of the denomination’s self-governing regions, such as the Evergreen Association in Washington and the Rochester-Genesee region in New York, openly accept churches disassociated from other regions because they accept unrepentant homosexuals as members. The denomination’s general board has refused to discipline the regions who accept such churches, citing Baptist freedom and local church autonomy as reasons.
The Pacific Southwest region may not be the last region to break with the 1.5-million member parent denomination. American Baptists in West Virginia narrowly rejected a proposal to withdraw from the ABC (USA) at their meeting last year. The Indiana-Kentucky region has also proposed a change in the denomination’s bylaws that will not allow churches to transfer to another region when removed over the issue of homosexuality. Homosexuality-friendly regions oppose the new bylaw and have petitioned to reject the proposed change.[2]
I have a hard time understanding how any member of any Christian denomination, especially those that are in position of authority in those organization, can even think about embracing anything that God has called an abomination. They claim that God loves everybody, and I believe that, but God is not in covenant with everybody! As a born-again Christian you are in covenant with God and He is in covenant with you. Just because you sit in a pew doesn’t mean that God is in covenant with you. No, I have to clarify that I don’t think that a homosexual should be banned from the church because the church is the only place that he/she will hear the truth about who our relationships are to be with, but never under any circumstances should someone that is active in this perverted lifestyle be placed in any position of authority in the church. Scripture tells us in Exodus 18:21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:. Notice that it is men that fear God that we are to place in positions of authority. This actually means men that have submitted to God’s laws and principles. A practicing homosexual/transgender operates out of God’s laws and principles. When that happens, we see the church go down a path that takes it away from God.
I bring up all this to point out a couple articles that have popped up over the last month. The first one involves a subject that has plagued the Catholic church for decades and many be even millennia, molestation of children by priests. In the State of Pennsylvania, it was just released that there were more than 300 priests accused of being ‘predator priests’. Did you catch that number? 300! More than 1000 child victims have been identified from the church’s own records! Is there any excuse for this behavior in the church? Absolutely not! There is no excuse for it in any environment, but the church is totally inexcusable. The worst part is there was nothing done to these so-called priests for their behavior. One priest, after years of child abuse complaints, quit and had the gall to ask for a reference for his next job – at Disney World and got it![3]
This story is about as disgusting as it gets. A ring of predatory priests that allegedly manufactured child pornography on diocese property and used whips, violence and sadism on their victims.
That same group of priests gave boys they favored gold cross necklaces, which, the report states, “were a signal to other predators that the children … were optimal targets for further victimization.”
One priest allegedly abused five sisters in a single family despite prior abuse reports that were never acted on. The priest collected samples of the girls’ urine, pubic hair and menstrual blood, according to the report.
Lack of discipline for priests who admitted to abuse: A priest who confessed to raping at least 15 boys, some as young as 7. A bishop later said that the priest was “a person of candor and sincerity” and complimented him “for the progress he has made” in controlling his “addiction.”[4]
How can we expect our kids to respect a man of God when the so-called man of God is molesting them? How can the child ever put their faith in a God that allows that to happen? We know that this is nothing that God approves of and that it was the priest that violated God’s laws, but a 7-year-old can’t process that. And as I stated, the Catholic church has had this problem for millennia and has not corrected them problem.
One of the things I see as the problem is that priests cannot marry and there is no real biblical basis for it. Paul did say that if you can stay single, with out sin, stay single but if not, marry. 1Corinthians 7:7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
(8) I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
(9) But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
Yes, Paul was single, but he was married at one time. Before his conversion he was a Pharisee and to be a Pharisee you had to be married. The Catholic church feels that you shouldn’t marry as a priest but that was only Paul’s opinion. He went on to say in 1Corinthians 7:28 “But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.” The molestations of the girls in the Catholic church, I believe, are because of the church’s stance on a priest remaining single. That is not human nature. Some can but most can’t and shouldn’t remain single.
The violation of the boys is a completely different matter. That is a demonic spirit that causes an adult male to molest a young male which we will discuss in the next installment.
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