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Church Leaders: Have You Asked?

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Here is an excerpt from a Tampa Bay Online article that articulates a truth far too many Christians don’t want to acknowledge:

“Twenty years ago no one was even saying the words ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian,’ and now here we are talking about gay marriage.”

Kay, echoing the hopes of GaYbor District founder West, paints a bright picture.”The younger generations, those in middle school and high schools, are far more open than their parents,” said Kay, a mother of two.

“These older fanatic, right-wing generations need to pass on, and with the younger people will come greater acceptance and civil rights, even for us gay folks.”

And with the acceptance of homosexuality mentioned in this excerpt necessarily comes a diminished respect for the authority of Scripture and a willingness to trade our religious and speech rights for perverted faux-marriages.

IFI challenges pastors, including youth pastors, to ask the members of their congregations and youth groups to share with them their honest feelings and thoughts about homosexuality. Church leaders should ask the following questions of those whom they are charged with leading:

  • What do you think about the nature and morality of homosexuality?
     
  • What do you think causes homosexuality?
     
  • Do you think homosexuals are “born that way”?
     
  • Do you think that if there are biological factors influencing same-sex desires, then homosexuality is moral?
     
  • Should the United States legalize civil unions/domestic partnerships?
     
  • Should the United States legalize “same-sex marriage”?
     
  • Do you think legalized “same-sex marriage” would affect traditional marriage?
     
  • Do you think legalized “same-sex marriage” would affect public education?
     
  • What do you think the Bible teaches about homosexuality?
     
  • Do you believe that the traditional or orthodox understandings of passages in Leviticus and Romans about homosexuality are correct?
     
  • Do you think homosexual couples should be permitted to adopt children?
     
  • Are public schools neutral on the issue of homosexuality? In other words, when it comes to the two main cultural positions (i.e., that homosexuality is biologically determined and morally equivalent to heterosexuality vs. homosexuality is not biologically determined and is not moral conduct), are public schools neutral?
     
  • What do you think about how schools address bullying of homosexuals?
     
  • Is it hate speech to say that homosexuality is immoral?
     
  • Can schools address the problem of bullying without presenting homosexuality as normal and acceptable?
     
  • When schools present the accomplishments of famous homosexuals, should they specifically mention their homosexuality?
     
  • What do you think about the relationship between race and homosexuality?
     
  • What do you think about the comparison between traditional marriage laws and anti-miscegenation laws (i.e., laws that banned interracial marriages)?
     
  • What do you think “tolerance” looks like?
     
  • What do you as a student, parent, and/or citizen do in your home, church, school, and community do to oppose the propagation of unproven or fallacious ideas on this issue?
     
  • How are you who are parents preparing your children to understand all the myriad dimensions to this issue?
     
  • How are you preparing your children to understand the specious secular arguments that are used to normalize homosexuality and to which they are relentlessly exposed?
     
  • Do you think we, your leaders, are teaching by example the importance of courageous non-conformity? Are we as leaders exposing the “unfruitful works of darkness”? Do we show by example that we “consider it pure joy” to “face trials of many kinds”?
     
  • Do you parents teach your children by example the importance of courageously resisting peer pressure? Are you willing to stand on principle even if doing so may result in rejection, ridicule or hostility?
     
  • What do you think church leaders can or should do regarding teaching on this subject? Would you like the church to provide more instruction on this issue?
     
  • Should church leaders be more involved in the culture at large on this issue?

Church leaders and their flocks need to consider the big picture. They need to understand that cultural change rarely occurs through dramatic single events but, rather, through the slow accretion of little occurrences that are ignored or dismissed. We say, well, that profane or obscene word is insignificant, so no need to be reactionary; and that offensive passage in the book is just part of a whole that isn’t in its entirety so bad; and despite the few brief scenes of graphic sex, the rest of the film delivers a positive message; and, although Will and Grace and Seinfeld and Friends do promote a very sympathetic view of homosexuality and promiscuity, they’re really funny; and on and on ad infinitum and nauseum.

We all need to ask what we are doing in our homes, churches, schools, and communities to oppose this grand social experiment that if left unopposed will result in a dystopian world suffused with sexual anarchy.

Churches need to offer workshops and classes to church leaders, college groups, senior high and middle school youth groups, parent groups, small groups, and adult Sunday school groups to inform, equip, embolden Christians on issues related to homosexuality and gender confusion that threaten children’s rights, parents’ rights, speech rights, religious liberty and church unity.  These workshops and classes need to address both theological perspectives on sexuality, marriage, and family as well as the specious secular arguments and manipulation of rhetoric that are persuading the public that homosexual activity and relationships are moral.