Did it ever occur to you that when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community you might be wrong?
From childhood, you’ve been taught that members of the queer community are hell-bound. Your pastor, Sunday School teacher, and Church all warned you of the dire fate awaiting those who dared fall in love with members of the same sex. If you started to doubt that position, you were assured “the Bible says it’s wrong.” And so, here you are in the Church of the Nazarene, with a stance that demeans people in the queer community.
That brings us to the recent confession of Rev. Rick Warren, the founder of Saddleback Community Church. He is arguably the most influential member of the Southern Baptist Church. In that denomination women are not permitted to preach or lead. But in 2021 Warren’s church ordained three women into ministry. As a result the Southern Baptist Convention kicked Saddleback Community out of the Southern Baptist fold.
As those events were unfolding, Rick Warren released an apology to women.
“My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women. Shame on me. I wasted those 4 yrs of Greek in college & seminary. When I finally did my proper ‘due diligence’, laying aside 50 years of bias, I was shocked, chagrined, and embarrassed… I think maybe it was because I didn’t WANT to know anything that might challenge the view I WANTED to believe for 50 yrs.”
You can find Rick’s full statement on his Twitter page.
As I followed these events, I saw myself in this story. But my issue wasn’t with women in ministry, it was with the people who were part of the LGBTQ+ community. In my more than sixty years in the church I was taught about the evils of the this community. And because I heard it from people I respected and trusted I never bothered to study and think through those issues for myself. Like Warren, “I didn’t WANT to know anything that might challenge the view I WANTED to believe” my entire life. It was only when I decided to do my own study of Scripture that I changed my mind and fully embraced the LGBTQ+ community.
Rick Warren’s story is not the same as mine. But do you see there is an applicable principle in the current stand of the Church of the Nazarene about the queer community? Study the Scriptures for yourself. Think for yourself. Read books on the subject. But most of all seek the heart of God. You may not change your mind, but we will still be friends, right?
Warren, in his apology to women, asked for forgiveness.
“I PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE to every good women in my life, church, and ministry that I failed to speak up for in my years of ignorance. What grieves me is that I hindered them in obeying the Great Commission command (And Acts 2:17-18) that EVERYONE is to TEACH in the church. I held them back from using the spiritual gifts and leadership skills that the Holy Spirit had sovereignly placed in them. That breaks my heart now, and I am truly repentant and sorry for my sin. I wish I could do it all over. Christian women, will you please forgive me?”
As I reflect on this paragraph, I recognize there were times in my 40 years of ministry that I failed to stand up for the LGBTQ+ community. I failed to even study the subject myself; content to play follow the leader. As I tearfully type these words I publicly apologize to every member of the gay community. My silence and lack of caring has done you harm. I’m so sorry and I repent. I accept you. I love you. I affirm you.
Members of the LGBTQ+ family, will you please forgive me?
You are comparing apples and oranges here. There is a huge difference between accepting and affirming LGBT community within the church and allowing women to teach. Homosexuality is a life style choice; women teaching is not. Homosexual lifestyle is condemned in Scripture; women teaching is not as long as they are under make headship. You often speak of love being your guiding light since your decision to fully affirm and include the LGBT community within the confines of Jesus’ church. Are you really being loving when you encourage people who live a lifestyle that does not honor God to continue in that lifestyle? I think not.
I must say, I have created a bald spot on top of my head from scratching trying to discern where in the world Mr. Cline is coming from. When are Evangelicals going to stop using OT rhetoric to condemn, weaponizing their hate, and start using the red letters to love?
Using Mr. Cline’s logic is like saying Jesus is pro-adultery because he refused to stone the adulteress to death as required by scripture. It was Jesus who honoured the faith of the Centurion to heal the Centurion’s slave boy. (You rarely hear of this miracle because of its homosexual overtone.) It was Philip who ignored the law and allowed the Ethiopian eunuch to worship with the crowd. Jesus was condemned by the religious leaders of his day for socializing with the so-called sinners.
When is the church going to stop embracing OT law and start embracing the red letters of Jesus? Will condemnation always override God ‘s Grace? Will stiff arms speak louder than a warm embrace? Will rejection always be accepted and acceptance always be rejected?
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible (Jesus) tells me so. I’ve never been able to understand the mind of God. Maybe someday Mr. Cline can teach me.
One is born gay. It’s not a choice.
But you do have a “CHOICE” to be Born Again & follow Jesus,
or keep sinning!!
Women clergy in the Church of the Nazarene are not under “male headship.” That’s not stipulated anywhere in the Manual and it’s not a requirement.
Dear Stephen, homosexuality is not a “lifestyle choice” just like your seemingly heterosexuality is not a “lifestyle choice” I’m sorry you have been lied to about that. Secondly, your misogynistic and patriarchal views are showing…”as long as they are under male headship” what in the actual world?! I get these views keep you close to power and privilege, but let me encourage you to lean in and explore this through the doing of exegetical work (not eisegesis) around women teaching in the church. Third, you also may want to explore your own homophobia which is being covered up by your religious ideologies; likely due to your discomfort with those not like you, as well as from the discomfort of those who have gone before you and instilled such beliefs in you. I encourage you to do your own exegetical work around the incorrect translation of homosexuality in the Bible, explore when it was translated as such and seek to understand what was taking place in our world, who the translators were, etc. Our God’s house is a big house I’d hate for you to miss out on the beauty of all those beloved by God including those you are attempting to exclude simply for loving who they love and being who they are. Peace be with you!
TNX
Thanks for reading!
I believe some churches may try to teach the sin of homosexuality, but have not been able to actively extend the God’s love to them. I believe some people feel they are born as gay, and the others become gays by their choices or under the evil influence. I can completely imagine gay people can truly love their partners as committed partners for life. I know some gay people have tried to change their sexual orientation with the help of God and couldn’t. Who are we to condemn them? Yes, they can obstain from the lifestyle and live as nonsexual beings. But I would not condemn them if they fall in that attempt. Can you imagine their lifelong sufferings? What can we say anything to anyone without really knowing them and loving them? We do need a 12 step for their struggles lead by people who had been there. Only by the grace of God, I am spared from having same sex attraction.