In today’s Washington Post there is an article detailing the fact that over 200 “ministers” gathered in the District of Colombia to support same sex marriage. How is it that a man who has become a minster of the Gospel of Jesus Christ , who draws his authority to do so from the Bible, can support a lifestyle that the Word of God clearly condemns?
If a man does not believe the Bible then why would he want to become a minister of the Word of God? Unless this man uses the title of minister in some fashion other that that of the traditional minister of the Gospel, which appears to be the case today. How far we have come from the foundation laid by Jesus when He first established His church.
Jesus power and His authority came from the fact of his Holiness.
Romans 1:4 and Jesus declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
God is Love and He is the author of Mercy and Forgiveness, but He does not sacrifice His Mercy for the sake of His Justice. The Lord created a man and a woman and he ordained the first marriage. It may be socially acceptable today for persons of the same sex to marry but nothing has changed from the Lord’s perspective. From the beginning He made them male and female and these two shall become one. Marriage was never designed for anyone other than a man and a woman. Why someone who does not intend on honoring God with their life would want Him to sanctify their marriage is beyond me.
To the present day the Lord continues to strive with man, giving him more than 6,000 years to repent of his sin an turn to the Lord for salvation. There is coming a day in the near future when the Lord will no longer strive with man and will finally put down all sin and end it forever.
Within the past 40 years, pastors and those who call themselves minsters, have departed from the belief in and a teaching of the Bible as the Word of God. As a result, they have become corrupted and are now led by situational ethics to dictate what is acceptable and what is not.
In a recent Gallup survey of 7,441 Protestant pastors, 51% of the Methodists, 35% of the Presbyterians, 30% of the Episcopalians, and 33% of the American Baptists said that they did not believe in the Physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Among those same 7,441 pastors, they were asked if they believed that the Bible is the inspired, without error, Word of God. 87% of the Methodist pastors said NO, 95% of the Episcopalians said NO, 82% of the Presbyterians said NO, 67% of the American Baptists said NO (Pulpit Helps, December 1987)
In 1963 a Report from George Gallup asked Americans if they believed the Bible was the Word of God, 2 out of 3 said they did. By 1999, the number of Americans who said they believed the Bible was the Word of God had changed to 1 out of 3.
Of all the signs of the last days that point to the soon return of Jesus to the earth, surely this has to be regarded as one of the most prominent. It was sexual immorality that was one of the major causes of the downfall of Israel. It was a in part, a perersion of the proper relationship between a man and a woman that moved the Lord to allow Israel to be overtaken by their enemies and to go into captivity.
When those who were charged with teaching the people the Word of God no longer believed it to be the Word of God themselves, the people departed from the Lord and began to worship other God’s. Unfortunately, we are seeing the pre-demise of the greatest free and independent people the world has ever known. Every government before the United States that collapsed, did so just as we are now. Collapse from within by the corruption of of moral values and an acceptance of perversions and alternative life styles that destroyed the family, and eventually topples the government.
If we think that allowing gays to marry is a harmless benign freedom that is worthy of those in alternative life style, we have decieved oursleves. The perversion of sex was the downfall of the Romans, the Greeks and nearly all other great societies that existed for hundreds of years before the United States.
2 Timothy 3:1-9 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.
The following is this morning’s article in the Washington Post detailing those who support the union of a man and a man or a woman and a woman in marriage
“Pastors unite to support same-sex marriage in D.C”.
By Tim Craig, Washington Post
‘There is this myth out there that you can’t be pro-God and pro-gay’
Although ministers opposed to same-sex marriage in the Disrict have campaigned more vigorously, a growing number of religious leaders are mobilizing to support the proposal.
About 200, representing nearly every faith, have formed D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality. On Thursday night, more than 100 of them gathered at Asbury United Methodist Church in Northwest Washington to support a bill that D.C. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large) introduced this month that would allow same-sex couples to marry.
“There is this myth out there that you can’t be pro-God and pro-gay,” said the Rev. Robert M. Hardies, senior minister of All Souls Church, Unitarian, in the Columbia Heights area. “We are doing the best we can to share the message that there is strong support from within D.C.’s religious community for equality.”
The church service comes as opponents redouble efforts to scuttle the bill. Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church, and others are seeking a referendum on banning same-sex marriage in the District. On Monday, nearly a dozen ministers asked the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics to approve a public vote.
But after being overshadowed by same-sex marriage opponents, religious leaders who back the concept are speaking out.
“The coalition here is able to identify across all lines, all wards of the city, all races, all backgrounds,” said Nick McCoy, an organizer for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group. “People have come to the forefront with the argument that this something that churches don’t back and believe in, and we say, that is not true.”
The Rev. Louis Shockley of Asbury noted at the church service that the sanctuary was founded 173 years ago as a congregation for slaves.
“This congregation has always stood for social justice,” he said. “We welcome all on this night to continue the march of justice by standing on the side of love.”
At Monday’s council hearing on Catania’s bill, the religious officials backing same-sex marriage outnumbered those opposing it.
One supporter, the Rev. Christine Y. Wiley, pastor at Covenant Baptist Church in Southeast, noted that many District churches have a history of fighting for social and economic justice.
Wiley and her husband, the Rev. Dennis W. Wiley, helped form the coalition. “It just really seemed like a natural thing that we would do,” Wiley said. “We believe as African Americans who have been discriminated against . . . we don’t have the right to discriminate against anyone else.”
About 10 people attended the group’s first meeting in June. It now has a list of 169 supporters, including the Rev. Steve Huber of Washington National Cathedral and Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb of Adat Shalom in Bethesda.
The Rev. Patrick J. Walker, chairman of the Task Force Against Same Sex Marriage of the Missionary Baptist Ministers Conference of D.C. and Vicinity, said he understands that religious leaders have varying views of marriage. But he said he doesn’t “understand it from what the Bible says in terms of traditional, biblical views. Where do you draw the line?”
Despite the activism on both sides, many area pastors are staying out of the debate.
“There is whole range of churches out there who aren’t with us, but they are not with Harry Jackson either,” Hardies said. “We are hoping to reach them through dialogue.”
