When Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim the Gospel, He gave them these instructions: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town” (Matthew 10:14). That house is now the The United Methodist Church (UMC), and the time has come to shake its dust off of our feet.
As a follow-up to last week’s article, “Why I’m Leaving the United Methodist Church,” I’d like to add a few more thoughts. I confess, right up front, that these ideas, although they mirror my original thoughts, come directly from Voddie Baucham’s sermon on homosexuality.This article, in fact, is a very brief summary of Rev. Baucham’s very thought-provoking words.
The purpose of Baucham’s sermon is to examine the arguments that people make in support of accepting and allowing the LGBTQ+ agenda into Christian practice. Below are a four of the primary arguments proposed by Progressive Methodists in defense of sanctioning same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ+ individuals:
Argument 1: Jesus never addresses homosexuality or same-sex marriage in the New Testament and we Christ-followers are “making a big deal out of something that Jesus never mentioned one time in the Gospel.”
Incorrect! Jesus made it very clear that He was committed to heterosexual marriage between one man and one woman. In Matthew 19: 4-6, the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce. He answered (referring to the Book of Genesis):“Have you not read that the One who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female?…. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’”
Furthermore, Traditionalist Christians believe that Jesus is a member of the Godhead–He is ONE with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit and all three were at Creation.
Read that again: Jesus was at the Creation. When Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God because of their sexual sin, Jesus was there. If Leviticus says that God condemned the practice of homosexuality, then Jesus condemned it, also.
Argument 2: “I’ve known I was gay since I was a child. It’s my orientation and I can’t change that.”
Pastor Baucham states that he doesn’t automatically agree with someone who says that he or she has been gay since childhood, because children don’t yet have sexual feelings.
He also doesn’t automatically agree with adults who state that they are homosexuals, asserting that there is no biological evidence that there are people who have a permanent orientation toward homosexuality. Being homosexual is not an immutable human characteristic, such as being Black or White.
Baucham’s reasoning is that if we are to overlook homosexuality as a sin because it’s an “orientation,” then must we also overlook pedophilia or wife-beating or promiscuity for the same reason. If you “feel” that this is your orientation, then you don’t have to pay attention to what the Bible says about it.
Argument 3: “All you need is love.” Same-sex marriage proponents argue that if love is the over-arching ethic of the New Testament, then if two people are in a “loving relationship,” they are expressing the height of the New Testament ethic, right?
Wrong again. Baucham quotes from the “love chapter” of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13: 4-6: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.”
Back up and read that last statement: Biblical love does not rejoice in wrong-doing, but rejoices in truth. In the Scriptures, homosexuality is, by definition, wrongdoing. Therefore, embracing homosexuality is NOT love.
Argument 4: It’s hypocritical to follow some of the Scriptures and not others. You’re picking and choosing the verses that you believe. After all, the Bible says that we shouldn’t eat shrimp or pork, or wear clothing made from more than one type of thread, or plant different crops side by side. If you believe that those things are no longer sins, how can you say that homosexuality is a sin?
Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Christ fulfilled the law. He was our once for all sacrifice for sin, so we no longer need to sacrifice lambs and bulls and goats, nor are we bound by the Mosaic laws. Jesus’ death and resurrection reconciled us to God.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that showing tolerance and love is the same thing as being Christian. It’s not. We’ve been taught to avoid arguments and to speak the truth in love.
We’ve bent over backwards in the name of tolerance and peace-keeping, and look where we ended up. But now is the time to “put on the full armor of God and take [our] stand against the devil’s schemes” (Ephesians 6:11). It’s time to enter the battle.
There’s an apple in the barrel that has been allowed to fester and decay, and our best polite efforts to get rid of the rot have come to naught. Sadly, John Wesley’s Methodist Church no longer exists within the United Methodist denomination.
The UMC continues rotting from the inside, and, paraphrasing Matthew 10:14, we find ourselves in a denomination that neither welcomes us nor listens to the Biblical truth. We must disaffiliate and shake the United Methodist dust off of our feet.
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Megadittoes!!
Thanks for reading.☺️
I wrote about this in 2004. http://www.baconsrebellion.com/archive/issues/04/05-10/Bowden.htm
Well stated. Look up Rosario Butterfield on You Tube for powerful, loving apolgetics on the Biblical view of sex.
When a church walks away from the Bible, if I can’t convince them to turn around, then they walk away from me.
Best wishes.
Thanks for reading and for sharing the story about your mother. She sounds like she could be related to some of the women in my family. And I’ll check out Rosario Butterfield.
I’d suggest you look at the Orthodox Christian Church. They are the original legally approved Christian church, since Constantine and Helen. They reliably follow original teachings from at least 300-ish AD. Their system for approval of change is that EVERY single bishop must agree to any change of doctrine… Hasn’t happened in a LONG time.
Thank you for reading. I’ll look into the Orthodox Christian Church.
Before there were the Orthodox Churches, there was the Catholic Church. Just saying.
You’re picking a fight. There was a catholic church – small C. The Greek Orthodox church pedigree is unbroken from the Apostle Paul. Its bona fides aren’t second place to the Church of Rome and the links to the Apostle Peter. The Church split. The Church was reformed. If you agree with Vatican II, then you know there is one big Church.
All churches in the three big branches – Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant – agree on 7 fundamental things and the authority of the first four church councils on doctrine. See the Nicene Creed. Please don’t pick fights.