A Pastor Talks about His Same Sex Attraction

A Pastor Talks about His Same Sex Attraction

This is just an awesome post. We are all human, and we have a magnificent Saviour in Jesus Christ.

Forgiving the Sins of our Fathers . . .

Forgiving the Sins of our Fathers . . .

This is why we forgive, according to Jesus.

An Interview with Ravi Zacharias

An Interview with Ravi Zacharias

Like C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias brought deep thought and insight into 20th century Christianity.

Ravi continues in this new millennium.

Is he always right?  No, and we non-Catholics don’t have a doctrine of infallibility for anyone at anytime.

But he is always worth a listen (or a read).  My world is better for having known he was in it!

Bowdoin College and Free Speech!

Bowdoin College and Free Speech!

For those of us who loved the movie Gettysburg and will forever associate Bowdoin College with the brilliant, if somewhat academic, military tactician Joshua Chamberlain, this news is chilling.

The fourth most highly ranked liberal arts school in the U.S. believes that freedom of association no longer works in the U.S., at least for Christians.

The leadership of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship chapter on campus are being told they must sign a statement that people of alternate sexualities are eligible for leadership in their group. The belief is that, since Maine state law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, there should be no other additional standards to those in Maine law for eligibility to lead in this Christian group.

What? As the article says, are they going to apply that to leadership of dance groups (you can’t discriminate against non-dancers) or foreign student groups (you can’t discriminate against people who have never traveled outside the U.S.)?

Scary ground toward which we head.

The Discussion of Sexual Orientation as Analogous to Race

The Discussion of Sexual Orientation as Analogous to Race

More voices on the comparison of sexual orientation to race . . .

vs. race

Rosaria Butterfield, on Moving from Gay Studies Professor to Conservative Pastor’s Wife

Rosaria Butterfield, on Moving from Gay Activist Professor to Conservative Pastor’s Wife

Before this talk, Rosaria Butterfield was picketed by gay activists whom she helped equip in her own activist days. She notes that irony in her talk, as she mentions how our worldview is informed by what we read and . . . maybe it would behoove us to step away from the electronics and read some good, old-fashioned Puritan writers and their Biblically-based worldview.

They are even available in theological libraries we can download to our tablets.

Good stuff! This sister is always encouraging.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Virginia!

So much has changed since yesterday in the state of Virginia, but yet so much remains the same.

The gospel of Jesus Christ still remains the antidote for the sin problem of the entire human race. Our problem with anger, our problem with selfishness, our problem with sexual sin, our problem with wanting to make a name for ourselves independent of God, and independent of the design and plan He built into the human race.

When Jesus came, during the Roman Empire, He defined marriage as between one man and one woman for life. So many of us nowadays fall woefully short of His definition.

Jesus then went on to concentrate on bringing the gospel, His good news, to broken, sinful people.

He did not rage against the machine.

He didn’t preach against the polygamy that was occurring in every part of the Roman Empire except Israel at that time.

He didn’t preach against the marriages that were marriages in name only, to produce heirs, while the men involved in them carried on with dozens of other women, or men, or young children.

Jesus addressed sin as sin; He addressed sinners as sinners. Yet He did more. He loved sinners. Often they received His love. They were then loved back into wholeness by the very Son of God!

Jesus is still doing that only . . . He is using the hands and feet and hearts of people who are alive in Him on earth right now. His Holy Spirit empowers us to love sinners and to lead them to Christ, that the Holy Spirit may dwell in them, too, breaking the hold of sin over their lives, as He has broken the hold of sin over our lives.

John, the Apostle of love, writes often of how Jesus said that that would be the only way the world around us would know that God is real and that He is love–when they see our love for each other and for lost people around us.

That is God’s plan for redeeming a lost world. Us. So we had better take it seriously.

Remember, the only time anyone ever threw a sexual sinner on the floor in front of our Saviour, He told her He did not condemn her.

And to go and sin no more!

That is our message for a broken world, and our message for Virginia today.

Stagecoach: When a Woman of Bad Repute Finds God’s Love

When a Woman of Bad Repute Finds the Love of God

The other night I saw the movie Stagecoach for the first time. It was not only an action Western that served as the vehicle conveying a young John Wayne to stardom. It was also a complex character study of a cast of diverse people who end up sharing a stagecoach west through dangerous Apache country.

Writers and directors can do lots of wonderful things when they throw together diverse people who would not normally meet. This has been done in lots of movies (Bus Stop, Key Largo, etc.).

In this particular movie, John Wayne is Ringo Kid, a prisoner who has escaped but who has a heart of gold. He was imprisoned for being in the midst of a blood feud between two families. He has a year or so to go on his sentence and willingly goes back with the marshall who is on the stagecoach . . .

Meanwhile, he falls in love with a woman of ill repute who is on the stagecoach. His love, in a Hollywood way that comes very close to presenting Christ’s redemptive love, turns her around and makes her a woman who will be a good wife for him when his sentence is finished.

As the above blog post shows, when a sinner collides with the love of God, freedom ensues, just as it does when the sinful woman in the movie comes in contact with Ringo Kid’s love.

Love, God’s love, even as reflected in imperfect man, is the strongest force in the universe.

It is love, God’s love and God’s grace, that make us whole. What the law could not do for us, God did, by loving us through Jesus Christ.

The Dark Underbelly of the Super Bowl

The Dark Underbelly of the Super Bowl

Enjoy your parties this weekend, guys and gals, but don’t be naive.  There is still a lost world out there that needs Jesus.  

One Woman’s Story of Abortion, and Her Journey Back to God!

One Woman’s Story of Abortion, and Her Journey Back to God!

I love this!  God is love and He wants relationship with His fallen creation.  All of us!  Our sins, whether we think they are small or large, all separate us from Him until we accept His forgiveness in Christ.  

Anti-Gun Mayor Imprisoned after Holding A Man Captive and Firing a Gun . . .

Anti-Gun Mayor Imprisoned after Holding A Man Captive and Firing a Gun . . .

There is so much wrong here . . . where do we begin?

The least of the mayor’s difficulties is firing his gun inside his residence (even with his membership in an anti-gun group).

It seems that, while having his “complex life involving bisexuality” he committed acts of stalking, misuse of government resources (having the police go pick up the person he was stalking–how frightening), unlawful imprisonment (making the stalking victim stay with him for three and a half hours), underage drinking (odd that giving alcohol to a 20-year-old is a crime, while consensual sex with a 20-year-old would not be a crime), attempting to have a sexual relationship with that 20-year-old (non-consensual, therefore a crime, no matter who you are), and bondage.

This is a perfect time for the gay people of good will in our nation to loudly denounce this sort of thing. Just as heterosexual (and gay) men of good will have spent forever saying that it is wrong for men to force non-consensual sex on women. Being an emotional basket case is not an excuse for breaking the law and I am glad this mayor had the book thrown at him.

Five Steps to Fight Porn by Living in God’s Design for Us!

Five Steps to Fight Porn by Living in God’s Design for Us!

Mainly written for men, but too good not to share. God has a design for the human race and when we think we can live outside of it, we get out of balance.

Trying to make life exciting and fulfilling via porn is like walking past a feast that God has given us to go eat mudpies. Really!

Five Ways to Open our Children Up to Porn (they are not what you would think . . .)

Five Ways to Open our Children Up to Porn (they are not what you would think . . .)

This certainly opened my eyes (and I believe 100% in every principle presented here–I just had not tied the lack of these principles to porn involvement in young people).  

Phil Robertson, New Jersey, and You

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/12/18/duck-dynasty-star-fired-over-remarks-on-homosexuality/

Watch New Jersey to see whether any religious exemptions will be allowed to the acceptance of gay marriage.

Disclaimer: I Don’t Watch “Duck Dynasty” but I Do Support the Free Exchange of Ideas

Disclaimer: I Don’t Watch “Duck Dynasty” but I Do Support the Free Exchange of Ideas

This post contains the Phil Robertson quote about homosexuality. It is not nearly as graphic as I thought. It is actually Biblically accurate with the first three chapters of Genesis, in which God created us male and female.

It’s the kind of thing you would say to friends, not in a national interview. So, for that reason, it is just a bit tactless.

And . . . maybe it is a bit insensitive in not acknowledging the obvious fact that gays don’t automatically feel the same desires that heterosexuals feel. But is it now a requirement for heterosexuals to always present that disclaimer when talking about the sex act? I don’t necessarily think so. God clearly created us male and female, in a complementarian way (including sexually). Again, see Genesis 1-3. I think it might be up to those who don’t live by that model to present the disclaimers. It is nice when a heterosexual remembers to do so, but I don’t see it as a requirement.

Phil Robertson’s remark was certainly acceptable within the realm of the free exchange of ideas.

The quote on the races is more disturbing to me. I can see the insensitivity there. Saying he worked with blacks in the field because he was “white trash” . . . Sounds like something out of “To Kill a Mockingbird” (and that may very well have been the culture and era in which he grew up, but he could have said what he did with more tact, as it is now 2013).

Still, should A&E have fired the lead on their most lucrative show? Only time will tell. They have the right, under free enterprise, to hire and fire whomever they want. They definitely exercised viewpoint discrimination, but that is not protected under the labor laws. You very much can be fired if the boss doesn’t like your viewpoint. It isn’t right, but it is what it is. And there are many petty people around who only want to work with people who agree with them on issues. Sometimes they are the boss.

I think maybe Paula Deen and Phil Robertson should start their own network for fallen people who realize that not everything in this world operates according to what we regard as ideal . . .