Michigan Conferences on Homosexuality

I think you missed the point of this post. The “Love Won Out” conference ministers to hundreds of people, it is gentle and led by staff members of Focus that used to live the gay lifestyle themselves. Who better to teach on it? But many homosexuals start Christian bashing because we would dare even bring up the subject and that you can get out of that IF you want to. It causes other Christians who want to be more tolerant of these particular sins to come out of the woodwork claiming to be more open minded then everybody else. THIS causes seeds of discord to be sewn among the brethren and is something that God will not honor because it DIVIDES His house. There is nothing about the Love Won Out conference that tries to understand homosecxulaity. It’s a conference led by former gays that reaches out in love to help folks addicted to that lifestyle (just as alcoholics anonymous reaches out to alcoholics). It even ends in a beautiful alter call. Why anyone would bash Christians for doing this, shows the true heart of the people protesting it.

Then the Inclusion and Equity department at the university holds a big confernce side by side to this loving Outreach Ministry to say that Christians are nothing more than their enemy for even bringing it up! Wow! This was held at a public university, and is about “Inclusion” yet they wouldn’t include anyone that believed they could get out of that lifestyle! How incredibly stacked that deck was! They call us homophobic and claim there is spiritual violence happening and yet they don’t even listen to the awesome testimonies of these men that are trying to help folks out of that. And they call themselves an “Inclusion and Equity” department but would not INCLUDE one person from the Love Won Out conference to speak. Amazing. I wish more Christians would see what’s happening here.

Wow, christianbooksbibles.com. You’re really tackling a tough issue. Way to go! I wanted to comment on the idea of “no condemnation.” Let’s remember that Jesus is clear about the fact that there will be a judgment day, and that someday it is the saints who will judge the world. The NT doesn’t teach us that there’s no condemnation, but that there’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom 8). So the issue isn’t whether or not God is going to judge. He will. The question is whether or not someone practicing homosexuality is, in fact, in Christ Jesus, walking according to the Spirit as opposed to the flesh. This notion of God not judging people is a bit scary to me as it’s contrary to the clear teachings of Scripture. I have always understood homosexuality to be the result of sin (both personal and societal), but I’ve just begun a masters program at a mainline Christian seminary where most (if not all) of my classmates and professors do believe homosexuality to be merely an alternate lifestyle, so I’ll look forward to considering the reasons for their non-traditional beliefs and seeing how well my own hold up. Thanks for writing, everybody.

No. Jesus will never let an unrepentant sinner into the kingdom of heaven.

selfish ambitious or those who take his name in vain and neither those who run stop-signs. No. The wages of sin is death. And the bible clearly tells that everyone has come short of his glory. Now if we start judging others. Jesus said emphatically that we will be judged with the same measure we measure others. God says that if we don’t learn to forgive others we will be not means be forgiven.

We don’t applause sin. But when did we become like God to judge others?

Joe

Society changes over time, but the Word of God is supposed to stand forever. Is it judging to call stealing and murder wrong, or (gasp!) call it a SIN? Of course not, because society still knows these are illegal acts. I get tired of people complaining that if you dare say what a sin is out loud, you are all of a sudden a horrible person and deemed “judging”. We have judges that help enforce the law of the land because that’s how our society was set up. They are the only ones allowed to actively judge another person. I personally don’t see many Christians out there with gavels trying to condemn homosexuals to hell for their sin. And even if they tried, they are ignored because it’s silly, they don’t have the authoriy to judge another person’s sentence. That’s God’s job. But there is nothing wrong with talking about it, saying it is what it is, or educating people on how not to be a homoesexual, or how not to be a murderer or how not to be a thief, it’s a GOOD thinng to hold wrong things up to the Light, so we can protect ourselves and our families from becoming victims. Knowledge is Power. And it’s totally ridiculous for pious self righteous, modern day pharisees to go around telling everybody else that what they are doing by calling a sin a sin, is judging. Get that beam out of your own eye. Just because we all know that having sex with someone else while married to another is sin, doesn’t mean we are judging them, just because we know it and have the audacity to voice it. Good grief.

As a follower of Christ who has been set free from homosexuality I was interested to read this thread! I can tell you that we need to continue to stand against homosexuality. My sin was driving me farther from God every single day. I was so close to abandoning the truth because of the twisted justifications that I was hearing, both in society and from Christians willing to compromise. The only thing that saved my walk and set me free were the believers in my life who were willing to step out in obedience and speak truth to me. They reflected Christ’s love in their conversations with me, but did not shy away from telling me exactly what God had to say about it all. Once I was able to make the 180 and truly repent, God’s grace & love did their work and I was set free. And I remain free indeed.

It seems that we go over and over again. We just don’t get the point that we are just as sinful as anybody else I have ever met. But we get the idea that we have earned the right to cast judgement on others.

This is a plain mistake and the bible tells us so and no matter how verbal and stout we stand against sin we can not escape the fact that God look at all humans and us the same way-…fallen.

Joe

Hi Joe, it’s hard to keep repeating oneself but I beg to differ on what “judging” someone is. Who here is saying their sin is any better or worse than a homosexual’s?

Hi Patti, yes I do think knowledge is power. Just think if that post up there from the person that was freed from homosexual bondage that if no one had led them to Christ, if no one had taught them the truth, if no one had shared their knowledge with that person, they’d still be stuck living that destructive lifestyle. Praise God that they were freed though!!!!

Hi jlugbill1, no homosexual sin isn’t any worse than any others but it does carry with it a degree of distaste in that it’s a sexual sin. Just like pedophilia and beastiality. God designed male and females to have sex with eachother within a God ordained marriage relationship, not adults and children, or humans with animals, or same sex partners or even different sex partners outside of wedlock. But no worries, in 20 years it will be as widely accepted as the latter is.

I believe the issue is not so much what qualifies as judgement and what doesn’t – that can be argued all day long. I think it is more about the attitude with which the views are expressed.

Voicing our values as a blanket statement at whoever may hear them is very different from sharing what we believe truth to be in a loving way to an individual that we have established a relationship with. Caring enough about someone to share truth with them . . . and caring enough about them to continue that friendship even if they don’t respond to us is a higher form of love.

People know when what we share with them is done through love – and that rarely ends in offense or broken relationship. They also can tell when our comments are not generated through love, and that can lead to devastating relational consequences.

It is nice, also, to have Christian brothers and sisters to bring it to our attention even when we don’t feel they are correct. It never hurts to evaluate our motives and methods and see if maybe we could use better tone or presentation.