Christianity Today
Southern Baptists votes to cut ties with church for being LGBTQ-friendly
On Tuesday, the Southern Baptist Conventions’ senior administrative body voted to sever ties with two churches. One was an LGBTQ-friendly church in North Carolina the other was a New Jersey congregation it cited for “alleged discriminatory behavior.”
According to the Associated Press reports, the church remains under investigation by the Department of Justice.
The federal government is believed to have opened an investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention after a consultancy discovered sexual abuse within the church, along with mistreatment of survivors by church officials. Despite the report from the Associated Press, the Department of Justice has not disclosed the subject of the investigation.
Tuesday’s voting committee proclaimed that the College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro failed to be in compliance because of its “open affirmation, approval and endorsement of homosexual behavior.”
The College Park congregation noted that they had already opted to leave Southern Baptist Convention in 1999, the AP reports, and its website declares it’s no longer part of the organization and has since become the member of more progressive Baptist associations.
The church website re-iterated their stance on inclusivity, “Our church family in Greensboro welcomes and affirms all persons without distinction regarding race, ethnicity, national origin, class, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other category created by humans. We are an inclusive, fun faith community where persons from all walks of life feel comfortable worshiping and working together to bring Christ’s love to the world – doing the best we can and trying not to embarrass Jesus too much.”
College Park went on to say, “We are not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. We are affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA, Alliance of Baptists, and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.”
Baptist congregations are not centralized and are self-governed. That means the Southern Baptist Convention can’t force churches to follow their policies, but they can remove “friendly cooperation.”
Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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The first thing people need to remember that the words “homosexual” and “homosexuality” are used to avoid referencing same-sex-on-sex behavior. The words describe an abnormal sexual attraction to someone of the same sex/gender not a behavior. The proper term people need to remember that describes the “LGBTxyz” behaviors and those who practice them are sodomy, sodomite, and sodomize. No one is born engaging in these behaviors. At some point they chose to engage in them. Consider, a women who is promiscuous or would be called a slut has chosen to engage in the behavior. Drug use, abuse of various types, and indoctrination, can result in a behavioral imprinting, which is something people hate to admit to. And remember, pedophilia is often a result of abuse as well as indoctrination.
Supporting people trying to get out sodomy based relationship is something a church should do but no one who engages in the behavior qualifies for any sort of leadership in any church. Consider, bestiality is not supported and is treated as an abnormal behavior which it is.
So one thing people need to ask are these two churches involved in the promotion of deviant and other abnormal behaviors. If they are then they have abandoned Christianity. And something to keep in mind is marriage is rooted in reproduction – that is male and female relationship that produces children. What is called “same-sex marriage” is not marriage. It is an attempt to rationalize deviant behavior. And note, one will not find the behavior of sodomy in the animal kingdom. What is often falsely claimed to be examples are dominance behaviors related to which male gets to reproduce, or a teaming up to help with reproducing or raising cubs, chicks, pups, etc.
The Calvinist concept of the Visible and Invisible church appears to apply in these cases. The Visible church is those who claim to be Christian and the Invisible Church are those who are Christian. The two groups overlap but are not the same. People should take the time to read Revelations and Daniel and look at what the end time involves since this article appears to covers what is reported to occur in the end times.