I’m off for a day to celebrate my fiancee’s 30th birthday.As a topic for discussion, does the modern divide on homosexuality remind anyone else of the difference between Israel and Judah after Solomon?
Israel fell away from God’s law and was quickly assimilated into tribes and peoples who were not sons of Jacob. It seems that those churches that are totally “open and affirming” are doing the same and at the same risk.
Judah nominally kept God’s laws but in the wrong proportion and with the wrong emphasis (to the extent they kept them at all). Those in the strict anti-homosexuality branch of the church appear to be doing the same thing.I’m not just talking about people like Fred Phelps here. I’m referring to a much broader class of Christians who have taken the matter of homosexuality and made it central to Christian thought, as though being against homosexuality is on par with believing in the resurrection. For example, when Piper is describing how he personally views N.T. Wright, he praises him for such things as defending the resurrection and upholding the deity of Christ; then, in the same breath, he tacks on the defense of the traditional view of homosexuality. That’s preposterous — to somehow claim that the set of things that separate “real Christians” from others now includes something that gets so little ink in the Bible.
I think any church who wants to be closed to homosexuals should have already thrown out everyone who contributes to their own 401k.