Homosexuality & the Church Part 2

Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke. I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast,

where we have uncut, honest conversations about faith, life, ministry, the Bible.

And this week is our first kind of part two. We're picking up where we left off last week.

If you didn't get to hear that one, you can go back and look at that, obviously.

But we started a conversation on homosexuality and some of the theology surrounding that.

We kind of just generally talked about homosexuality and the Church's historical and biblical

theology towards the practice of homosexuality.

That was kind of motivated out of an article we had ran across of someone being fired from

their Bible college position for kind of simply stating that the historical, historical, conservative

Orthodox position of the church throughout really all of human history, with the exception

of some factions now seeking to essentially deconstruct and rewrite what the church has

historically believed and practiced and taught regarding the acceptance of homosexual behavior

as non-sinful or okay.

Yeah. He simply said, he was like, the view that homosexuality is not or is a sin is the historical

normal position. The other position is the position that is should have the burden of proof.

Right. And so we kind of took up his kind of challenge to kind of talk about it. And so.

We got a handful of responses and questions from that episode. And so we felt like it

merited just to continue that conversation a little bit, maybe go a little bit deeper in some

areas. Before we turned the mics on, we weren't 100% sure where this podcast was going to exactly end up.

Still not entirely sure. No, we're still not entirely sure. We're just gonna, we're

we're uncut. That's the point.

And as much as we're able to, we're shooting from the hip.

Yeah. So we did want to kind of pick up with with some questions. I'll throw us I think what will probably be one of the

easier questions, maybe, is what do we think about, quote,

unquote, conversion therapy?

Yeah. So it is, you know, I.

The question as it's posed, I think, assumes or presumes a certain type of conversion therapy. Yes.

Because I mean, like, I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's like, usually when someone talks about conversion

therapy, they're talking about it in the most negative of sense.

Majority of sense.

Yeah. that it is a heavy-handed.

Kind of pray it away type of...

I'm not familiar with conversion therapy, not something I've looked into significantly.

The image that comes into my mind is the throw you away at a camp for three months

and like lock you down and like make you do camp activities,

with strange therapeutic intent behind it.

Essentially in kind of a reverse way, indoctrinate the person towards denying.

That they experience same sex attraction. Right, like no, this isn't really true.

You know, you're being deceived, you can't just kind of like,

either put it out of your mind or stop thinking about it, or we're gonna lock you in a room and pray over you

until you no longer feel these types of urges or attractions or whatever.

Now, like you said, I'm in the same boat. I don't have any, I've never had any exposure,

to any like conversion therapy.

I don't know anyone who has done it or has been through it or anything like that.

So it's only a response out of what is been maybe a caricature of it in the media or whatever.

So, you know, yeah, totally speaking out of non experience, right?

So if we were to take the most, what is probably the most biased view of it being holy and

completely negative and pejorative, you know, then if you were to ask me the question, what

what do I think of conversion therapy?

I would say that I don't like it.

Yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't know how else to, I don't know how else to talk about it

or how else to say it anymore than it would be.

It feels to me like, and again, this is without knowing it, it feels to me to leverage a certain amount of shame.

Against an individual and maybe bend towards the encouragement to just deny what you may actually

be thinking in light of like, well, we just got to do it a different way,

rather than maybe addressing what is most significantly affecting or producing, maybe that's the wrong word,

the feelings, the thoughts, the urges, the proclivities that a person has.

So.

Yeah, I mean, you sit in the same camp.

I think, like we're not counselors, we're pastors. But I will say that I find from my vantage point,

and experience, the, I don't know how else,

to really say it, the sort of therapeutic underlying thought is I think probably unhelpful.

And by that I mean simply the idea of What you are experiencing is something that we need to suppress or and or expunge or get rid of in an aggressive manner or in some sort of, or even that we necessarily can.

I think...

That's, at least in my experience, not exactly how temptation really works. Right.

It's like, it's kind of the... Christians often... this is one of the things that sometimes

happens even outside of same-sex attraction.

Let's say we get a group of Christians who are struggling with, even let's just say pornography

or as a heterosexual sexual sin or any sort of habitual type sin.

And we, like, stereotypically the idea is like, get into a room and be accountable to

one another, you know, and have this like really intense meeting.

And what can sometimes happen in that is like, you can become so negatively focused on the,

thing that you do not want to do. And then you're rehearsing how you're still doing the thing that

you don't want to do with other people, talking about it, focusing on it. And then you're feeling

guilt and shame about it because you're sitting in a group of other people and then you're having

to say like, well, did you act out on that sin this week? And then you have to say, yes, something

like that, and then you just feel more lousy about yourself, and you actually just end

up spinning your wheels, or you end up learning to lie, or you end up being a Christian who's

really good at exercising willpower, and you become puffed up because of it, because you

can exercise willpower and not grace for personal transformation.

And so that's, I think that's the same thing that conversion therapy is doing on one level, is it's rather than.

Accepting that we have desires that are not in line with God's will, and gently bringing them before God's grace and throne,

and knowing that there's grace, forgiveness, and strength there, and then kind of moving through that.

That's what I think, at least that's my method of an understanding and even theology of how we deal with any temptation. Any temptation.

And any sort of life change. any sin is accepting that that is part of us, that we are sinful, not in a like angry way,

in a like, I am broken, coming before the great physician, and then humbly, gracefully, just like

saying like, this is me. Like, I know that this won't necessarily go away, but can you give me

me the strength to endure it? And can I experience grace, love, and acceptance as a son, as a,

daughter, as a child of God, despite where I'm even currently at?

And it seems to me, in my experience, that when people kind of go through that process

with any sin that the ways in which God meets you and walks in that process with you tends

to be different for each person.

Yeah, 100%. The process tends to be different. The timeline is different.

The experiences are different.

The ups and downs are different. So to kind of categorize it as a systematized therapy,

by which you just need converted is, you know, the underlying principles there

I don't think are very healthy.

I also feel like it may, and you know, like not knowing, you know, maybe this is a presumption

or an assumption about conversion therapy,

wondering if it's like, are we converting our desires?

Or is conversion therapy meant to assume or presume that we, that our souls need converted,

like that? Well, the reason that you're experiencing same-sex attraction or whatever,

it would be, is because you have not yet surrendered your life to the Lord and we need

to actually get you to a place of true repentance and true relationship with Jesus because we,

know that will fix it.

As if Paul did not write, like, I do what I do not want to do.

But in all honesty, there are factions of Christian belief or thought, not Christian

and belief, but Christians, I should say, who would presume to say, well,

that they obviously are not saved, which I think is an important question.

There is, I think, the assumption sometimes that those who struggle with same-sex attraction,

or human sexuality issues in general,

whether it be homosexuality or something else,

cannot be Christian.

They're not Christians.

And so they need converted. They need saved. And I think that gets even down into the weeds

even down into the weeds about their relationship with the church and how the church as a whole,

maybe interacts with them or receives them or doesn't receive them, or...

You know, interacts with them in the like, in the environment of Christian community. Yeah.

You know? So, I mean, what do you, what do we think about that? You know?

Well, I think I know, I think I know what I think about it. I know what I think about it.

Let's talk about what we think about it.

Well, okay, so let's just take...do we...I think it is sometimes, I think in this conversation,

it's so much...we gain significant clarity when we zoom out from homosexuality and issues of

sexuality in general, and we think a little bit more generally, and we just say, do Christians

experience temptation and then also fall to temptation and remain saved.

Yes. I would say that most people, and you're right, there are Christians out there who do not agree

with what I just said and what we just affirmed.

Correct. I think they're wrong.

I think there's lots of reasons in the Bible to show that they're wrong.

In the fact that almost every single example of human follower of God in the Bible sins,

after having been a follower of God. I can't think of an example that doesn't.

Right. And so then if we take that and we say, okay, does sexual sin constitute, like, is it a

sin above and beyond all, it's like some sort of special category.

I don't think so. I don't see the, I don't see a...

Particularly, particularly if we're talking about same-sex attraction.

If an individual is experiencing attraction to the same sex,

that, I don't put that in a different category than I put someone who's experiencing temptation to

look at porn of the opposite sex, or to steal, or to lie.

I'm not putting those in different categories. those are all temptations and remnants of the old self, the fallen flesh that remains

in us as Christians on this side of eternity.

And I don't, I don't, so if someone comes to me and they say like, I'm experiencing

same-sex attraction, my assumption, if they are a confessor of Christ, is not that they,

well you just have not confessed Christ truly, you have not truly surrendered to his lordship.

I'm assuming that they're just experiencing the same problem that all Christians are experiencing,

but with this unique aspect. That's what I think.

That's what I think too. Yeah.

That's what I think too. Like, can someone be a liar and still be a Christian?

Can someone be an addict and still be a Christian? Can someone do X and still be a Christian?

I think the very question presumes what does it mean to be Christian.

And the presumption there is to be Christian means that has something to do primarily with,

the things that you do or don't do.

It becomes a, okay, I become a Christian when I don't do all of the bad things that the

the Bible tells me not to do.

And I don't believe that that's how someone...

Becomes a Christian. I think we are adopted as sons and daughters of God when we express faith and trust in God's Son, Jesus Christ, when we trust that His work on the

cross ransoms our life and gives us access to forgiveness of sins. And through His resurrection

and through our faith in Jesus, we are resurrected and welcomed into eternal life as well, same

and resurrection that Jesus experienced,

we will experience as well.

And so I think that the question of can you do X and still be a Christian starts from the point of,

well, what does it mean to be a Christian?

Because if being Christian means that we must abide by a moral checklist, then there are probably

are a lot of very moral people who are not doing X, Y, or Z, but are not doing it in.

A sense of their responsiveness to Jesus Christ in their life.

They're doing it out of a sense of guilt or shame or morality or philosophy or whatever.

Right. If Christianity and being in relationship with God is a result of keeping a moral checklist,

conceivable that somebody could just keep that moral checklist without actually knowing Jesus. Without having any saving faith in Jesus. Right. Which is

exactly what Paul says is not true, right?

That our salvation is not by works, it is by faith so that no one can boast, Ephesians 2.

Yeah, I mean, we're getting into the tension that is so clearly articulated in Romans, right?

Therefore, there's no condemnation, but should we also sin all the more so that grace could

increase, like, no, right? Like, we're like, if you want to, you

want to see what the Bible says about that, that's what we think about that Romans, it's not, it's not that salvation gives

us a sense of moral licentiousness, right? Just do whatever you want to do after expressing faith in Jesus

Christ, because that's what actually really matters. No,

they both matter. But there is a cart before the horse. Yes.

And there is a, there is, you know, our morality.

If you could call it that, we don't do any good works. All of our good works are filthy rags, right?

Anything good that we do is the righteousness of Jesus in us, not our own, but our good works or our morality

comes as a response to the life of Jesus in us or is the life of Jesus in us by his spirit,

not our own good works that earn us the position that Jesus has already earned on the cross.

So to ask the question and getting way back into it, can you be?

Can you be a liar, can you be an addict and still be a Christian?

The answer unequivocally for me is well yes, because the Christian faith is not dependent

on a moral checklist, it is dependent on my faith in Jesus Christ.

Now does that leave us in a state of, like we said, moral freedom?

No, it doesn't. It does require something of us. It does require the work of sanctification in our lives.

So that's then where the conversation, I think, begins. But it also, it requires that we ask about,

well, what is the relationship with the church?

Because I think that there are a bunch of acceptable sins that people are allowed to have when they're in the church,

and there are a bunch of unacceptable ones. There are a bunch of sins that you're allowed to display.

And I think we talked about this in part one, about like same-sex attraction being a part

of someone's testimony is still not something that's really, it's pretty taboo.

Pretty taboo, like if it's going to be part of your testimony, it better be like really far

on the rear view mirror, you somehow got miraculously healed from it.

Right, but other things are perfectly acceptable.

I really struggle with greed or anger or lust even Yeah.

Lust even, or pornography. Or the best, right? The best sin you could have is the sin of works.

I just didn't understand. I was a really good person.

I just didn't understand that I didn't need to be a good person, but I'm still a good,

person anyways. Right. That's the perfect testimony.

Yes. I'm also the most humble person that I know.

I haven't always been that way.

And so it feels to me like that there's still an incongruity in our ecclesiological practices about what...

Because I think one of the next questions that we got was in the practical sense, what,

do we do if there's a homosexual couple in our church?

Yeah.

Well, I think right here before we go further down that question, I think it might be important,

to give people or to just mention the perspective we have as being pastors of a church.

That I was reflecting on this and I was thinking, you know, I don't think that that's a vantage

point that everyone who comes in and sits in a pew or a chair on a Sunday morning necessarily has. Right.

And that is, and like.

We are aware of people's shortcomings, perhaps more so than anyone else in the church.

Like, we take pastoral confidentiality super seriously. We're not like, you know,

putting people on blast or anything like that, not something we do.

But we are just aware of the problems in people's lives.

And we do see that like, when we're preaching, we know that we're preaching to people

who have ongoing sin in their life,

or are struggling with something, or wrestling through, or going through a really dry season of faith,

or are coming here mourning this morning.

We are aware of all of those different things.

And so we're very comfortable with seeing the complexity and the, some of the nuances and dark sides.

Of being in the spiritual life, being a Christian and not having it all together this morning,

in a way that not necessarily everybody does on a Sunday morning.

And I think the thing is about homosexuality, because it does impact the way in which we relate to people,

particularly if you are practicing homosexuality, it's like it's on display.

That I think it forces the average attender of a church average attender of a church to come to terms with the extent of God's grace in a way that maybe they

don't normally have to because they can just pretend that everybody else has got it together

and the one thing I don't got together, you know, I'm the only one and that's not that bad of a

thing because nobody else can see it.

Right. But we can all see that.

Yeah. That's obviously not bad. Do you think that's a dynamic that's at play is my point made or?

Yeah, I think that there's a… There's a… Hmm.

You know, I think you could classify or talk about many of the besetting sins that people.

Struggle with on a day-to-day basis as being more internal to them than.

Someone who is in a homosexual relationship who comes to church with their partner.

Mm-hmm That seems to be like front and center for people But you might struggle with for instance of an addiction to porn,

that no one sees right that no one knows and so,

You might be sitting in a Church pew with you know dozens of people around you aware,

that there are That they like each person maybe has their sin, you know to put it very simply has their sin,

But since I don't it's not a display for me. I Don't I don't got to see it right now. I don't got to deal with it,

Then it does not require me to have really an opinion about it.

You know, it doesn't require me to say well why why aren't we why aren't we holding that person accountable, right? Right.

Which is, I mean, we've had people who struggle with same-sex attraction attend, conduit here,

sometimes with their partner.

And we've had comments about, like, well, why aren't we holding them accountable?

Yeah. Right? And in a gentle but pastoral and admonishing way, if I have a sense of, if I've had a

conversation with that person who's making the comment about their own life and their

own sin before, it almost acts as an instructive moment to say, okay, you would like me to

hold them accountable, all right?

The conversations that I have with them are none of your business,

but how about I hold you accountable now to the sin that is prevalent in your life?

And that's usually, and it's usually, the response is usually like,

well, it's not the same thing. Right.

It's not the same thing. It's not. Well, it's not public, it's not like,

public is what you want, right?

You want the facade of righteousness, but not the inward disposition

of having a heart completely surrender to God.

So your pride is okay, as long as it stays internal, but the homosexual practice is not okay

because it's external and everyone sees it.

That's really my, that really for me is like the, The End.

I don't know. I'm not going to say that it goes so far as to... Yeah, I get angry about it.

I get angry about that.

I think Jesus did too when he called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs.

Right. Yeah. I get a little angry about that because it, again, just presupposes,

that everyone who's sitting in the pews, everyone who's here trying to worship,

everyone who's here listening to the proclamation of God's word is we're all here because we've got

to figure it out and we're all here because we have arrived on the journey of righteousness with

Jesus. Not that that person maybe, maybe they don't have a relationship with Jesus, maybe that's the

first time in the building, maybe they're hearing the proclamation of the gospel for the first time,

maybe they've never experienced a Christian community that actually looks at them and

and treats them with grace and love,

and compassion and gentleness and kindness.

Maybe the only experience they've ever had is people saying, well, I mean, if you're,

I mean, you obviously can't be Christian or be here because you're gay. You know, so.

For me, it is a.

Theologically repulsive attitude. And that is in still, that's still,

that pulls against the other side of the teeter-totter that says, yeah, I do believe that, you know,

God does call us to a place of holiness and righteousness that is beyond a place of our sin.

You know, both fortunately and unfortunately as a pastor, I do not control the speed at which

or the willingness at which someone walks that journey of sanctification.

I don't.

Yeah, we could, you can't kick someone down the path of holiness.

And if you do, you usually end up just kicking them out of church.

Exactly. Is kind of what we're, like if you want a quick diagnostic

of why so many people are deconstructing

and leaving the church, it's because that.

It's because we've been kicking people down the path of righteousness and religiosity without pastoral care,

love and support, grace and the gospel.

You know, Paul, I think it's in one of the Corinthian books,

but Paul says, you know, what is it that you have to be judging those who are outside of the church?

And I think that's something really, I think that's a really important point, is that.

Apart, and this is in my view, is that if apart from God, apart from a belief that God has created you,

and that He has a revealed will for your life, and that He has an intention for human flourishing,

and what is good and righteous and holy and respecting of Him, right? Apart from that.

Why would you have an understanding of sexuality that Christians hold? And like,

if you're, if I was, you know, if I was, you know, an atheist, like, I do not know

why I would particularly be all that interested in anyone's sexuality and what they do. The moral framework for me and how I understand sexuality and how

people conduct themselves, other than the philosophical, like, tenet of do no harm unto

others. That would be the only philosophical tenet, really, as a starting point for me as an

atheist. But I'm not an atheist, I'm a Christian, and so I believe that God has a revealed will.

About sexuality, and so then I'm to receive that will and to submit myself to grace and conform myself to that will because that is what God's will is, and,

out of submission and fear to God's will and the desire to follow after Jesus. But

if you're not a Christian, I don't know why you would do that. Right. And we have

a lot of Christians who are... Why I should expect you to do that. Why I should

That's Paul's point, is why would you expect people

who don't know Jesus to act like they know Jesus?

Right, and isn't that what we talked about this just last night in the class that we were teaching

on the Holy Spirit, right?

And Paul's words about, I think it's in 1 Corinthians 2, on the man that does not have the spirit of God

cannot know the things of God, cannot know the mind and heart of God.

Their foolishness to him.

Right. And so if someone is new at the beginning.

At the pre-stages of even following Jesus, like that's not the most important thing.

It's not, in my view, like their sexuality is not the most important thing.

The most important thing is whether or not they know Jesus.

And I think sometimes, as someone comes into the church, we see, oh, they're living an alternative sexual lifestyle.

That is the one thing that we must fix. That's the one thing we must fix. And we don't focus on showing them the love of Christ,

pointing them to the cross, demonstrating the truth of the gospel.

Gently showing that God has a will for their life, and that is revealed in the Bible.

Instead, we're fixated on getting them to stop doing something, that they have no basis for

doing it. Right? Like if you're not interested in following Jesus and following God's will for your

life, why would you? Why would you? Why would you? And how do you become interested in following

God's will for your life? Well, you know God. You recognize that you are in need of Him and you come

to Him for salvation. Submit your life, lose your life, find it in Christ, and then experience

transformation. And so...

Yep. Period. Period. End of the sentence. Thanks for joining us today.

I mean, I got... You know, that kind of is... Even that really does sum it up.

So what would be the response if someone...

If a homo... I mean, that's how the question essentially is formed, right?

Yeah, if an openly homosexual couple were to attend our church.

Welcome.

Yep. We hope that you meet Jesus here. Because I know that if you earnestly meet Jesus and want to meet Jesus, then Jesus is going to do

do with you what Jesus needs to do with you.

Yeah. Apart from through me or in spite of me.

Yep. and.

And that doesn't mean that we're not gonna... Like you're preaching on Romans later this year.

Yep. Right? Romans has things to say about this. Oh, yes.

I'm sure that will be a topic that comes across. It will be.

Right? And so it's not that we would ever avoid or hedge what we believe or teach here, what

we think God's will is.

For crying out loud, we're putting it on the internet right now for all to see.

You know, like this is gonna live forever. My great grandkids are gonna be able to watch this video.

So. Yeah, that's true. Oh, that's weird. Um, let's not think anymore about that.

But like, just to, I don't know, in context, we still do believe that homosexuality is incongruent

with Christian life, that that's not what the Bible teaches,

that like, it's what we believe, right?

Right from the very foundations of the creation of the world and creation of man and woman

and the identity of their genders and the role of their genders.

Yeah, it's not a very popular contemporary opinion to hold, but it is the opinion that we hold.

Well, one way of summarizing this in a pithy way, because we might be asked,

well, is conduit an affirming church? That might be a question that we have gotten or will get more.

And a simple way of maybe answering that might be to say that we're welcoming but not affirming.

Yeah, I think for those who are listening or watching or whatever, it might be helpful for them

for you to define what you mean by affirming.

Right, affirming generally is the shorthand way of saying that we approve of slash affirm Bye.

Any sexual behavior, particularly homosexuality. That we don't see any incongruency

between whatever sexual behavior that you choose in Christian life and teaching. Right.

Right. So that is what that typically means. And by that definition, we are not affirming.

We are not affirming.

Right. Because this isn't an issue that, The way that the lines are drawn, you can't not take a position on that.

If the question is, are you affirming or are you not affirming, you have to be, you can't

say, well, I just choose not to decide.

Yeah. Well, because if you've chosen not to decide and you've chosen to take no stance on it,

you have de facto essentially become affirming. You've taken a stance.

And so one is unable to not make a choice in that conversation.

And so we're not affirming. But we are welcoming, right?

To put it maybe in another sense. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, absolutely. Like there's not a single person in the whole world that's not welcome here, I think.

I mean, like, I don't know. I didn't think about that statement for a second.

You know, it's a pretty absolute statement.

Yeah. It's like, you know, well, within pastoral reason. Right.

People safe here. Exactly. I think everyone understands what I'm talking about. But like,

yeah, if you wanna hear the gospel, you're gonna hear the gospel here. I don't care who you are.

Yeah. What? I think it might, it might be helpful to, so we were, we were sent a.

A brief, I won't call it like a significant theological statement, but we were sent a

statement by a church that had kind of done some wrestling, and it decided to become an

affirming church. And they had a couple of sort of, I guess, theological principles that they

sort of used as their jumping off point for their decision. Do you feel like that would be worthwhile

for us to kind of just talk about briefly to kind of give some...

Yeah, we can see it. You have it where you can pull it up and we can...

Yeah, I can pull that up for us. So let's see.

So this church, I'm not in any way as familiar with this church,

not interested in putting them on blast, but their statement,

they have decided to become an open and affirming congregation.

And they say, this means that we affirm our belief that all people are created in the image of God

without regard to age, disability, gender, including gender identity, expression, race, ethnicity,

social or educational status and sexual orientation.

It's a really long sentence. Yeah, okay. So can we pause there for a second?

Yeah. And respond to that part? Yeah.

They're saying we affirm and believe essentially that all people are created in the image of God

no matter what. Correct.

Agree. Yes. I agree. We also agree. Yes, we agree.

We confirm. Confirm people are made in the image of God. Absolutely.

Biblical truth. Very biblical. Yes. Stated in Genesis.

Right. 100%. Yep. No matter what, you have value, have worth,

are important to God and therefore important to us.

Like period. Yeah. One does not degrade the image of God.

They say they have a history of having just been welcoming is the words that they use,

And then they the other main kind of theological point that they make here is they say in his letter to the church in

Galatia the Apostle Paul writes you are all God's children through faith in Christ Jesus,

All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself of Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek

there is neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.".

Agreed. Again, it ignores the context of Paul's letter to the Galatians, which he's speaking in

terms of salvation. The context of Paul's, there is neither male nor free, slave nor free, Greek

Greek or Jew, essentially, male or female, all are one in Christ Jesus.

The context of Paul's letter there, the context of Paul's thought is that salvation is accessible

in Jesus Christ to all who would come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Correct.

Which is what we were saying earlier, right? Exactly. Right?

We've affirmed that. Right.

Right? what Paul's not saying is nothing matters.

It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you practice.

It doesn't matter whether or not you have like life-saving faith, like.

We all come together. We're all like we're all the same. We're all we're all one,

I think that that's the implication behind the use of that. Yes, that's the understanding is that there's some there's some sort of implied,

universalism right of both belief or practice or position or whatever the case may be but.

We don't believe or agree with that.

And so, if that is the mark of being an affirming church, again, then I would say that we're not affirming,

but we are welcoming in the same way

that the Spirit of God is welcoming to all those who would come to seek Him and to know Him,

that those who seek Him will find Him when they seek Him with all of their heart,

And that if someone who comes in is off like a two-week bender on drugs and alcohol and

active addiction, but is here and is like seeking to know God, seeking to experience

something of His grace and His love for them, then yes, we openly welcome you into this

community that you might know the grace of God,

experience the love of God, and meet with Jesus that he can transform you, or someone who is,

you know, like, has an addiction to pornography, or who is, has same-sex attraction,

or has any other, like, issue that we would classically consider to be sin or contrary to Christian thought,

doctrine or teaching or biblical doctrine or teaching.

So I think that.

I don't know that church. I don't know the pastor. I don't know. You didn't even show

me the thing, so I couldn't even look it up if I knew it. But I think that if I'm being honest,

it feels like they wanted to say something about it without actually really saying anything.

RL Well, no. PJ From my reading it, it sounds like they had already taken a stance of affirming, and they just had...

RL Reaffirmed. Reaffirmed. Reaffirmed. Yeah.

I guess that they were an affirming or that they weren't going to hold that line.

Because there isn't, there's not much of an argument in there.

There's just some simple statements that they have assumed, right?

There's an assumption that if we call this a sin, we have somehow... Ostracized.

Ostracized. Ostracized, or we have not upheld the human dignity, the image of God, in that we're somehow

disregarding the equal footing of the gospel.

And we simply believe that that is...

Those are not mutually exclusive. Not mutually exclusive. Peace.

So there's an underlying assumption there that I think they're making.

I mean, there certainly are more like tributaries to this conversation that we could

have, whether or not those are interesting to people or not is, I think, a question. And,

there are some questions that we still have and are wrestling with. And like,

we talked about a few of those before we turn the mics on, like, you know.

Know, transgenderism and general gender dysphoria and the confusion that surrounds all of those conversations.

Again, I'm not an expert on human psychology or human sexuality.

And I know the word. And so that's where my kind of expertise lies.

If you wanna talk about the word of God or you wanna talk about jujitsu,

I can talk about those two with somewhat expert level mastery.

Me, it's sci-fi and Bible. Right.

But other things, I'm kind of having conversations based on inference.

But some people are, they're curious about those types of things.

And I don't, neither of us are sitting here pretending to be or presuming to be experts

on human psychology or sexuality or anything like that.

We're just pastors in practice at a church trying to be faithful to the word.

Exactly. So, I mean, if you have more questions that you would like to see us respond to

or wrestle with in regards to this topic or corollary topics, you're always free to send those to us.

You can comment wherever it is that you're consuming the podcast,

YouTube or Apple or Google or whatever. We'd also appreciate it if you would comment.

Yeah. Even if you say, hey, I liked it or hey, I didn't like it.

Yeah. If you're listening on Spotify or iTunes, leave us a review if you find this helpful.

Like that would be a huge honor to us if you did that.

Yep.

And then of course we always have our text line. Yep. Which allows for you to ask questions.

Yep. those even if you don't necessarily get a response and that question doesn't come up right away, like we get those.

Yes, that text line is 716-201-0507.

And if it's pertinent to like a part two or a part three, we'll add it into the next episode.

If it's not, then we'll just add it to our next.

Music.

Ever up.