Texas Baptist Forum (updated)

Grief for Gulf

“Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord.” At last, we should make our cry a public lamentation for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

With shock and awe, we lament the blind hubris that led up to the explosion and gushing of oil. We lament the lack of preparation and the inadequate response. We lament leaders who were too quick to place blame and too slow to ask for help. We lament public officials who prevented, then obstructed, a timely cleanup. We lament the destruction brought to wildlife and human life in the region.

And now, we learn toxins are on the wind, and it is not just “their problem.” This disaster will rain upon all of us, our food and our water.

We lament most of all and ask forgiveness most sincerely for our failure to ask for help. We are the ones who have rebelled. Let us examine our path and return to God.

We ask the Creator of the sea, land and sky to cleanse and restore our world. We ask the Lord of our lives to show us our place in the scheme of things and understand our task. We implore the Spirit of God to renew our days as in times past.

Michael Francis McCarthy

Hayward, Calif.

 

Gays & Baptists

I am writing to commend the recent action by the Baptist General Convention of Texas in the dismissal of Royal Lane Baptist Church from fellowship.

Based on Geraldine Boyd’s premise of allowing practicing homosexuals in positions of service in the church (July 5), why not practicing rapists, practicing dope dealers, active felons, etc.?

I have no problem with homosexuals attending church, if they are truly interested in changing their lifestyle. It’s an entirely different matter to condone blatant homosexuality in positions of service in the church.

Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. I don’t believe there has been any change in this admonition.

James Stark

Midland

 

Geraldine Boyd commended Royal Lane Baptist Church for accepting homosexuals as active members. She mentioned God’s love and Jesus’ teachings as being all-inclusive. She left out the fact that Jesus told the adulterous woman who was about to be stoned to death to “go and sin no more” (John 8:11).

Jesus calls us to repent of our sins—not to keep on living in sin.

In the same issue, Herman Green asked, “Is homosexuality listed as one of the deadly sins?” My answer is that all sin is deadly. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

To quote God in Leviticus 18:22: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” These are God’s words. Who has the right to change them? Who can say it is OK to do what God said to not do? If the gay lifestyle is so acceptable to God, then why did he destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?

I say we should love the sinner and pray that they repent of their sin and become saved. God does love sinners, but not their sin.

Judy Upchurch

Atlanta

Churches today get so hung up on coming across as narrow-minded.

The bottom line is a Christian cannot live a life of unrepentant sin, no matter what the sin is, because that proves him or her to be a false convert.

The Bible is overwhelmingly clear on the issue of homosexuality. It is wicked (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). Certainly, Christ is inclusive in that he doesn’t turn any sinner away. However, the sinners surrounding Christ are repentant and called to live holy lives (Leviticus 19:2).

Every single Christian sins daily; none of us is better than another. The difference, though, between a true heaven-bound Christian and one who is not is the attitude of repentance, knowing each sin grieves the Holy Spirit and must be conquered. The heart has changed, and we no longer desire those things which are against God (Romans 7:14-25).

Yes, you can be a Christian, loved so much by the Father, and struggle with homosexuality. It is a sin like any other. Yet we must understand you cannot be a Christian while knowingly living in and sanctioning sin, including homosexuality, in your life.

We are to flee immorality! We are to glorify God with our bodies! (1 Corinthians 6:18-20). Christ did not die so we can do as we please, knowing we have “blanket-forgiveness” (Romans 6). It’s not about how much the church loves homosexuals. It is about how much the church loves our just and holy God and desires to see him honored and glorified.

Michelle Byrne

Dallas

 

Why are we so angry about homosexuality? Will homosexuals ruin the military? Will they ruin the church? I wish we knew what causes homosexuality, but the way we treat them is horrible.

In 1964, a Southern Baptist chaplain committed suicide after being arrested for homosexual activities. His 20-year service began in World War II. His assistant believed the chaplain was homosexual. Thirty years later, his wife told me he had said, “I married you because every preacher needs a wife.” One of their three sons died of AIDS.

In 1990, a fellow chaplain confided in me that his sexual love is with men. Perhaps he was testing me. My wife and I had supper with him and his wife that evening.

Perhaps damaged genes cause homosexuality. None of us knows.

What the Bible says is not equivalent to what the United States is all about. This nation is about freedom and equality and should give any couple the freedom to live in a legal relationship.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas could do missions without doing what we did to Royal Lane Baptist Church. But the BGCT would be criticized if it took their tainted money. The denominations need to give churches the freedom to be different. Every preacher does not need have to have a wife.

Jack R. Milligan

Lewisville

Letters criticizing the Baptist General Convention of Texas for cutting ties with Royal Lane Baptist Church ignored the difference between a person who has committed a sin and repented and a person who justifies their commission of a sin.

We love all, but we don’t put the unrepentant in leadership.

Pete Unseth

Duncanville

 

Sealed records

Just when I got to feeling good about the Southern Baptist Convention, they have to go and do something like they did in Orlando—seal the recordings of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force (June 21).

I haven’t heard more double talk and convoluted reasoning since I stopped listening to politicians.

Why would any Southern Baptist have to speak on condition of “confidentiality” to fellow brothers in Christ? It simply makes no sense.

Maybe it is time for Christians to break away from these politicians and economists.

Mick Tahaney

Port Arthur

 

Seminary insurance

Not to seem unsympathetic to Southwestern Seminary retirees lamenting loss of insurance coverage, but welcome to the real world! If I understand, it is not pensions but health insurance being terminated.

One of the worst ideas ever was employment-related medical care. Medical coverage always should have been like auto and home—portable, private, personal. Group care worked fine when a person made a life career with one entity as my husband did. Our individual contribution to medical insurance goes up every year, and we are warned repeatedly it is not guaranteed in perpetuity.

I have friends who retired after years with corporations that have rescinded medical insurance, and they are on their own. It may be good stewardship for an institution to “give back independence,” although starting over seems a cruel wake-up, if a very naive one.

Fewer companies are even offering benefits at all, which may in the end be a good thing, so long as the insurance industry is reformed to the model of other coverages, allowing more choice, with universal options.

We don’t owe a co-pay for a tank of gas or new tires, or normal maintenance on homes. We’ve been blessed—or spoiled—too long.

It’s time to lay up oil for our own lamps and “anointings,” but only with drastic amending of the system, and not just trading one “sugardaddy”—boss—for another—government.

Harriet Kelley

Dallas

More on Gays and Baptists (online only)

In reference to the BGCT and homosexuals, both my wife and myself read letters in Texas Baptist Forum. We were both upset and disappointed that there was no editor’s note or rebuttal after letters in the July 19 edition.

The question that came quickly to our minds is: What Bible have they been reading from? In the Old Testament, we refer you to Leviticus 18:6-23, where God describes sinful behaviors and condemns them, and in 20:13, he details the punishment. Granted, the word “homosexual” is not used in these Scriptures, probably because there was not a word for it in Hebrew.

In the New Testament, Romans 1:26,27, 1:28-32, 2:5-11, Cor. 6:9,10,13 make specific reference to “homosexual behavior.” Granted, all sexual sins are condemned as sin, and yes, sir, we all fall short.

There again, the Lord calls us to repent and turn from our sins. Your silence on this matter of the letters gives us the perception of acceptance. This is just another way our American society seeks to dilute the Bible.

Shame!

Fred and Pat Walker

Millsap

 

I told myself I was going to keep my mouth shut and not reply to the issue concerning Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board’s decision in relation to Royal Lane Baptist Church. But after reading the letter from Bruce Lowe (July 19), I could not contain myself. In my 66 years, I thought I had heard and seen just about everything, but his letter “takes the cake.”

First, I am a member of a Southern Baptists of Texas Convention affiliate church, but I applaud the BGCT and am very proud of their stand. Please don’t cave in to the pressure.

Now, let me see if I understand Lowe’s letter. If two heterosexual men engage in a sexual relationship, it is sin. But if two homosexual men engage in a sexual relationship, it’s normal and not sinful because homosexuality was “discovered” after the writing of the Bible.

Let’s see if I got this straight. Phone sex was “discovered,” I’m guessing, around 50 to 60 years ago. So, that’s not a sin, since it was “discovered” after the writing of the Bible. Cyber sex was “discovered” probably 15 to 20 years ago, so that’s not a sin since it also was “discovered” after the writing of the Bible.

Gosh it’s all so clear to me now. I’m still in disbelief.

F.A. Taylor

Kempner

 

In response to Bruce Lowe’s letter (July 19), the idea that the writers of Scripture, and the Spirit who inspired them, were somehow ignorant of “homosexuality” in the first century is rather naïve.

The Greco-Roman world was very aware of homosexuality, and some Greek philosophers as famous as Socrates and Plato practiced and were open about these tendencies. The Apostle Paul and others had most certainly met “homosexuals” in the  first century.

Contemporary attempts to explain away the biblical approach to this issue are ill-advised. There may be excellent ideas to bring to the table on this issue, but the idea that homosexuality was not “discovered” until 1869 is not one of them.

As a ministering body of believers who seek the redemption and cleansing of all people, we need to avoid the deceptions of narrow cultural re-interpretations and invented apologetics to support such interpretations, even when presented by “theology professors.” 

We need to treat this issue and those who affected by it with the compassion of Christ who died for this sin as well.  Trying to pretend that the Spirit was unaware of it in the first century does not serve that purpose.

Bruce Parsons

Roscoe

 

Bruce Lowe condescends from his Mount of Knowledge to enlighten us slobbering troglodytes that homosexuality was not known until 1869 (July 19). And here I thought we’d been bent on self-destruction for the last five or six thousand years!

If the Scriptures tell us anything about man it is this: (1) we have been created in the image of an infinitely holy God and (2) we are at all times and in all ways in active rebellion and all-out war against the Giver of that image. The anthropology Lowe describes is completely foreign to the biblical record.

Jesus affirms in Matthew 19 the creation narrative of Genesis 1-3, that there is only male and female. There is no third status, no protected behavior. 

“But all cowardly and unbelieving and abominable,” Jesus warns in Revelation 21:8, “and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars will have their part in the lake that burns with fire.”

So all deceivers who won’t repent and turn to Christ are speeding down the broad way that leads to destruction. All unbelieving, all idolaters, all self-lovers, all arrogant, all greedy, all adulterers, all homosexuals who will not repent of their sins and turn to the free and gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ will have their everlasting reward in the lake of fire.

“Repent and believe the gospel,” Jesus simply invites in Mark 1:15. Turn from sin and believe there is One who gave his life for sinners.

Ben Mullen

The Colony

It is because of my longstanding respect for the high quality of your journalistic leadership at the Baptist Standard that I feel compelled now to question your editorial judgment.  In my opinion, the venomous comments of James Stark (Aug. 2) in which he compares homosexual Christians  to “rapists, dope dealers, and active felons” should not have been printed.

I can only imagine how challenging it must be to manage the great breadth of autonomous Baptist opinion that is represented in each edition of the Texas Baptist Forum. It clearly does us all good to read the diversity of perspective on this critically important issue in our time.  Still, does the noble goal of the Standard to hold up the priesthood of all believers as a kind of Christian First Amendment require a respected Baptist newspaper to make room for hate speech? 

While I am pleased that Stark has no problem with homosexuals who satisfy his conditions attending church, I am eternally grateful that our Lord placed no conditions on his dying for me.  Of course, Stark is right that Jesus admonished the woman caught in adultery to sin no more—just before he said to the rest of us,  “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

John Paul Rohde

Franklin, Tenn.

Michelle Byrne wrote, “The bottom line is a Christian cannot live a life of unrepentant sin, no matter what the sin is, because that proves him or her to be a false convert” (Aug. 2) So, was Noah a false convert? After all God had done for him and through him, Noah got drunk and passed out naked, leading to the cursing of Canaan because of the actions of Ham (Genesis 9:20-21). Was his salvation without fruit?

I believe that once we are saved, we are always saved. What is a “life of unrepentant sin”? Are the sins of over eating and smoking that many Christians commit every day “unrepentant sin”? (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

How is a sexual sin different from any other sin? It is not, and therefore homosexuals may be saved! Homosexuality keeps them from growing as close to God as God wished they would, but how is that different from the Christians who continue to smoke or over eat? Homosexuals also have no place in church leadership.

Byrne continues to espouse “you cannot be a Christian while knowingly living in and sanctioning sin, including homosexuality, in your life.” So you cannot be gay, but you can be fat and smoke? That is doozie of a double standard!

The next thing you know, we will be told we must repent for each sin just as the Catholics do.

Matthew McKinney

Amarillo

 

 

What do you think? Because we affirm the Baptist principle of the priesthood of all believers, we value hearing from our readers. Send letters to Editor Marv Knox by mail: P.O. Box 660267, Dallas 75266-0267; or by e-mail: [email protected]. Due to space considerations, limit letters to 250 words, and only one letter per writer per quarter.