I was recently asked why I am a
welcoming pastor.
I enjoyed writing up my reflections,
and so I thought I would share them here.
Why am I a welcoming pastor to LGBTQ
Christians, advocating for full inclusion in the church?
It is a fair question. After all, there
are no specific texts that say “same gender sexual relationships
are fine” and there are texts in Leviticus, Romans, and Timothy,
(with the Romans text being most convicting and most explicit), that
seem to condemn homosexuality, sometimes in very stark terms
(abomination, and suggesting that the proper punishment for two men having sex together is the death penalty). My negative argument here is simple- these
texts refer not to committed partnerships, but to idol worship and
pagan religious festivities, as well as the age inappropriate
relationships practiced in ancient Greece, as well as the simple point that it would be evil
to punish gay sex with death, which suggests we might wonder whether
these particular texts should be guiding our decision making on the
issue. But that is a negative argument.
So to offer the positive case-
