Well duh! Of course they do. The church, run by male-dominated cisgender heterosexuals, has told the gays they are broken, need to be fixed, possessed, less than human, forbidden from marriage, confined to the closet, and excluded from Christian service. We’ve told them they can sit in our pews but not serve our children. We’ve told them they are child molesters and the cause of hurricanes and the reason for God’s wrath.

Yea, no wonder the stats show less monogamy and more suicides.

There is much apologizing the church needs to do. And many reformations still needed.

What the governments do is of little concern to me anymore. Today we have co-parents, tomorrow we will go back to mother and father. Who knows? I no longer expect my wishdream of a priestly nation to be established. Instead, I see the amazing, all-surpassing grace of God exploding like new wine!

Yea Joe they definitely do read this site. South Korea and Chicago often rank high in our stats.

In the sheep spiritual order, sheep cannot talk to the senior leaders. But this website opens a new avenue of communication. Posting a comment to ubfriends is the fastest and perhaps only way to say something to the ubf echelon. Make a negative comment here and see how quickly some ubf person rebukes you (for those still under their authority).

Leaders are now asking for native speakers to volunteer as proofreaders to correct the grammar on ubf.org

http://ubf.org/world-mission-news/international-hq/proofreaders-needed

Notice that they have not asked anyone to provide input on the actual content. They only want native speakers to proofread their material, to help hide the fact that elderly Koreans are still firmly in charge. They still want to use Americans as their personal secretaries, to put an American mask on a Korean organization.

If we do such a thing, then we have to say that Jesus was wanting a massive gay-sex polygamous relationship for His Wedding of the Lamb. My point is that Jesus meant nothing like this, and we need to keep gender and sexual identity OUT of the Bride teachings.

I can somewhat see people stretching the bride of Christ metaphor into all sorts of sexual connotations. But in terms of the plain and simple reading of verses that allude to the Bride of Christ (as the church, or Israel, or the people of God), it simply communicates God’s positive and delightful sentiment toward us (God’s people throughout the ages) like that of a bridegroom toward his bride.

I find it very very very hard to see how this has anything at all to do with same sex marriage, even if people would use this argument to exclude them.

If one is sure that “Christ, my Bridegroom, delights in me as his bride–by his grace alone,” this is such an encouraging and wonderful metaphor regardless of one’s gender identity or marriage choices.

I know that the Bride metaphor exists. My points are that we should search out this metaphor more deeply and that this metaphor does not exclude samesex marriage. My main point is also about the definition of “church”. If we see the “church” as bigger than just the visible Christendom, then I’m ok with the thought. My objection is that the Bride should not refer only to the visible church i.e. Christendom. Then “falling away” becomes “not going to church” and we get a whole host of abusive teachings.

Regarding people twisting and distorting biblical teachings, this is perhaps to be expected. Any creative and imaginative person (who is also fallen and fallible) can use the Bible to justify almost anything and everything under heaven—killing, holy war, money, materialism, power, oppression, exploitation, injustice and every manner of sexual expression.

I do not find Schaeffer’s quote or the quote from Billy Graham objectionable. It is to willingly love God with all your heart (Dt 6:5) and not loose your heart to an idol, any idol (1 Cor 10:14), because you realize the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus (Phil 3:8), in whom a Christ follow will enjoy the fullness and abundance of life (Jn 10:10b) and find peace and rest (Isa 30:15).

Timothy’s book is the best book in my opinion to gain an empathetic perspective on the oppression the church has imposed onto gender and sexual minorities. If there is anything Christ-like in Christendom, they have to do better.

I know there may be a fine line as to whether Francis Schaeffer and Billy Graham are evangelicals or fundamentalists. In any case I will use them to make my point.

My point is that evangelicalism has a major precept in its teaching: The church is the Bride of Christ, who will one day get married to Jesus, who is the Bridegroom. Many other teachings hinge on this teaching. They use this teaching to claim that the Bride metaphor restricts human marriage to one man, one woman and elevate the marriage to a sacred, almost idol-like bond.

Unless this teaching is revisited and examined more deeply, there is no room for gender and sexual minorities in evangelicalism. There isn’t really room for women either.

Many Christians, including me, reject this teaching. I do no think the bride is the church and I do not subscribe to the subsequent ideas that we must “get ready or else”.

This teaching seems to be essential to many streams of theology, exemplified by Billy Graham, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, etc. and the movements of pietism, Methodism, Puritanism, etc.

Here are some quotes from Francis Schaeffer: “The bride of Christ can be led away and can become less than the bride should be. As there can be physical adultery, so too there can be unfaithfulness to the divine Bridegroom – spiritual adultery” (The Church Before The Watching World, 139). Also, “To turn away from the divine Bridegroom is to turn to unfufillment. This is not only sin, it is destruction.” (The Church Before The Watching World, 147).

Here are some quotes from a 1950’s Graham sermon:

“Now the Bible says we are also the bride of Christ. “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom [Matthew 25:1]. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him [verse 6].” This indicates that there will be some church members who thought they were part of the bride of Christ, but are not [see verses 1-13].

“Now the bride is to love the husband. To be a true bride, you should love the husband. Christ is likened to the husband. You and I are the bride. We are to love Christ supremely. When you get married, if you are a true bride your mind is not thinking about other fellows. You are not wishing you were married to somebody else, if you are a true bride and in love with your husband. When you are with Jesus Christ, He is the bridegroom. We are the bride. Our minds and our hearts are supremely on Him.”

“But the Bible says there will be some in that day of judgment who thought they were members of the bride. They thought they were ready to go. But when the bridegroom comes, they have no oil in their lamps and they are left out. Oh, the terrible thing of it. They were ready partially.”

“There are thousands of people whom Jesus indicated in the Sermon on the Mount that will come that day and say, “Lord, Lord, I have cast out demons in your name. I did many great things in your name.” Jesus will say, “Depart from me for I never knew you.” [See Matthew 7:22,23.]’

“Within every church are members of the real church, but there are many on the fringes of the church. When the bridegroom comes, they will never go with Him. There’s no oil in their lamps.”

Source: http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/docs/bg-charlotte/1024.html

I may be wrong but perhaps they got this “cute” phrase from John 1:18, with some English translations saying “in the bosom of the Father.” (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jn1%3A18&version=NIV;ESV;NASB;HCSB;NLT)

My opinion: Leave them alone. Allow ubf publications to continue as they are, chock full of bad grammar and konglish and strange content, because it reflects the reality that ubf is a “student ministry” run by elderly Koreans for elderly Koreans.

I find this rather funny: “On July 9 to 12 Jongro2 UBF held its SBC with the theme: “God’s Warm Breast”… http://ubf.org/world-mission-news/korea/jongro2-ubf-sbc-korea

Here is my summary of what Ravi is saying in that short clip.

The question asked to Ravi is this: “How do you respond to non believers who accuse Christians of being hateful to those who support lifestyles not in accordance with the precepts of our faith?”

Ravi responds by describing three dilemmas of non-believers who make such accusations.

He says there is a sociological dilemma. He asks what kind of culture do we live in, a theocracy where all people believe in God’s laws or a dictatorship type society where beliefs are given from authority figures or an autonomous society where each person decides for him or herself what to believe. He says we are in an autonomous society.
He says no one can impose their beliefs on others in such a society. So the non-believing accuser has a dilemma in that that the accusation is full of conflict because no one can say what is right or wrong in such a society.

He says there is a theological dilemma. He claims that race is sacred, so Christians are against racism. He says sexuality is sacred so Christians are against homosexuality. He says marriage is also sacred. He contends that the Bride of Christ narrative in the Bible restricts marriage for people to one man, one woman and is a procreative act that cannot ever be changed.

He says there is a relational dilemma. Christians are to accept people genuinely regardless of their views and accept them as they are. He says we can choose and do have the right of choice. But he claims we cannot change the consequences of our choices. He says our choices equate to determined outcomes and consequences. He says if we do what is right, we will be blessed.

Is this a fair summary of what Ravi is teaching here? Do you want my responses to this?

I’m wondering if you know what the LGBT response to Ravi is?

“Even if earthquakes come and shake your 1:1 tables, you should not be afraid. You should hold your Bible study tables and preach the gospel.”

Here is an example:

“They worshiped idols, materialism, political power, and pleasure-seeking. Because of these, they fell into deep sins. They were very corrupted morally and homosex spread wildly in their society, like Sodom and Gomorrah. To Apostle Paul’s eyes, one million Roman citizens walked on the street not as human beings, but as zombies.”

“Paul says homosexuality is unnatural, indecent and abnormal. These days in America and Europe, homosexuality has spread like swine flu. What is worse, some Christian leaders are homosexuals. Five states of America made homosex marriage legal. But this immorality destroys families. According to one of high school teachers in Chicago said that about the ninety percentages of the students are broken families. The family is the core of our society. If the family is destroyed, the society will be destroyed. If the society is destroyed, our societies of the earth would be like orphanages without families.”

source

I don’t see an imposing of LGBTQIA onto everyone. What I see is the medical, historical, political and religious fields of study coming across new information about humanity. We simply cannot conform every human being into the “pure male” or “pure female” catogories. That wineskin of thought is bursting.

For exmaple, there are over 30 different combinations of XY and XX chromosome combinations that have been discovered. There have always been people born with extra body parts and a mix of male/female biology. And what is more our brains are gendered just as our bodies are gendered. On top of all that, there are mountains of social expectation issues to navigate.

So my main argument is to persuade the church to “have the conversation” and keep the discussions going.

In my personal life however, I have no time to wait on all that to be sorted out. I must start with love first, and figure out the theology and biology later.

We may just be playing with words, but I recognized that you can be affirming toward the person but not affirm samesex marriage. I would call this “partially affirming”. And so I changed my “gay acceptance scale” accordingly.

If you are indeed having a “genuinely loving gracious non-imposing tolerance”, then you are more than merely tolerant, you are “accepting”. I respect such a position very much.

“Probably until a few years ago, I would have stated boldly and unequivocally, “According to the Bible, homosexuality is a sin.” But I won’t say this any more”

I’m glad to hear this. There are so many topics wrapped up in that one, loaded statement. The answer is of course a mix of “yes” and “no” and repeating that phrase without any thought is mindless and damaging.

We should be aware of some history around the word “homosexuality”.

– The word “homosexual” was invented in 1892 from an English translation of a German paper, written by Krafft-Ebing called “Psychopathia Sexualis”.

– The word “homosexual” is not in the KJV version of the Bible, since it was written in 1611. So it was not possible to go around saying “homosexuality is sin” for thousands of years.

– The church has had a really tough time figuring out what word to use for the Greek words “malakos” and “arsenokoitai” (namely in 1 Corinthians 6:9). Check out some translations: abusers of themselves with mankind, boy prostitutes, effeminate, those who make women of themselves, sissies, the self-indulgent, sodomites, lewd persons, male prostitutes, catamites, the unchaste and the masturbaters. For about 400 years, the church could not make up her mind about what words Paul was really referring to. Maybe we should keep searching?

– The first use of the word “homosexual” in a Bible translation was in 1946, in the RSV. Some ask why are we just now talking about homosexuality so intensely? Well one reason is that the word was NOT in the Bible until recent years, and it was not until the 80’s that the word became more widely used in many translations.

– In 1952, in the USA, the medical term “homosexuality” was considered a mental disorder and placed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM).

– In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder.

– In 1975, the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives declassified homosexuality as a disorder.

– Major mental health organizations followed the American organizations, including the World Health Organization in 1990

– Note how the RSV translations followed the new knowledge of medical info and corrected the translation of 1 Corinthians 6:9

RSV1952: homosexuals
RSV1977: sexual perverts
RSV1989: male prostitutes

RSV Today:

1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_psychology

As MJ’s article pointed out, language is so important in our understanding. I have many ideas and will share more thoughtful responses later. But I will say that the essence of your article is inline with my thinking in regard to LGBTQIA.

Fourth, making statements–regardless of whether it is right or wrong, true or false–that simply breaks the communication and relationship is unwise – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2015/07/17/affirming-and-non-affirming/#more-9365

Pope Francis has been saying this as well. On his recent trip to Bolivia, he called for church leaders to focus on creating an environment/process for sorting out disagreements, rather than expending their energy arguing why their positions are right.

And Francis said a similar thing back in 2013: “We must initiate processes rather than occupy spaces.”