Thanks for sharing this great article. I admire Jay Bakker and his boldness to share his concern with Joel about the gay/lesbian community and his desire to presence the gospel and speak hope into the lives of those who take up residence in it.
All my heart says “Way to go Jay!!!”

why does this site mask words like
b i s e x u a l

I would say that Jay Bakker took a very clever strategic front in going to Osteen and his church about this.  Why?  Because Osteen just about never preaches on controversial topics or anything smacking of sin, wrath, or judgment.  It forces Osteen’s hand to welcome them into his church or to take a stand.  Since Osteen about never rejects anyone or anything, for fear of damaging his image, they gain the spotlight of a church watched by hundreds of thousands of people.

Could you imagine if Bakker went to a sound, Bible-believing place like John MacArthur’s church with the same goal of, “to create meaningful dialogue about homosexuality and Christianity”?  I imagine that the dialogue would focus around Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, and a few other key pieces of Scripture.  It would be a direct call for repentance, instead of an “open forum.”

--
CS

Dan,
You’re not reading it wrong.  They’re coming whether you like it or not.  Watcha gonna do about it?  I read the initial post here and visited the site trying to get more information.  Got the typical “you hate homosexuals” responses from most people and then was “quoted” in a letter further on.  All to the point of showing just how much I hate the GLBT community members.  So much for the meaningful dialogue that they claimed they wanted.  I didn’t attack any of them, but was asking what their reaction is to people who say their beliefs are wrong and back those arguments up with scripture.  Basic response was “that’s all we ever hear - why doesn’t anyone listen to us?” Saying that we’d heard their arguments and rejected the merits of them, even though we still cared for them as people didn’t seem to work.

Like I said, I gave up on the dialogue.  Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say and it was pretty frustrating that there really wasn’t a whole lot of attention to truth in the arguments.  We won’t see eye to eye on this issue and a good portion of people in the GLBT lifestyle so closely associate that with their identity that it’s really hard to have a conversation about it without them feeling attacked.

I recently completed a study on the topic of oppression in the latter prophets and gospels.  Three primary themes seemed to recur:  (1) God judges through oppression (e.g., the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities); (2) God judges oppressors; and (3) God will bring release from oppression.

One thing that stood out was how often God accused the Israelites themselves of oppressing aliens, widows, orphans, the sick, the poor, etc.  Oppression of Israel was often God’s judgment for oppression by Israel. 

One of the conclusions I drew from this study was that the church today - certainly the evangelical church - needs to take to heart God’s condemnation and judgment of the oppression of which Israel was accused.  The evangelical church (of which I am a part) stands guilty before God of oppressing outcasts; today, the list of outcasts includes homosexuals, people who have had or performed an abortion, Arabs broadly and Muslims specifically, people with tattoos and/or body piercings; anyone associated favorably with any of the above; and many more, I’m sure.  We in the evangelical church need to lay down our doctrinal swords - or better, beat them into plowshares - and figure out how to serve these whom we have for so long cast out.  Let us not forget that the same Spirit who inspired Romans 1 (the wrath of God against godlessness and wickedness) also inspired Romans 2 (we have no excuse...and ”God’s kindness leads you toward repentance”. 

I’m not sure we need more dialog about what the Bible says about homosexuality; we will always have disagreement on that.  But perhaps we would make more of an eternal difference in the lives of some homosexuals if we would show more of God’s kindness...and leave the wrath to God.

Richard,
I guess you are not aware of it but Jay Baker has and is doing all of those things.

[Does anyone else think this has more of a “We’re coming whether you like it or not, how are you going to respond?” ring to it, rather than a “We’d like to come and have a dialogue, are we welcome?” tone?]

Not only that, but as some have found out, many in this community do not want dialogue, they merely want those who are more “conservative” in their beliefs to change them. It’s that simple. That’s not dialogue, and in many cases, that is simply not going to happen.

Look, I’ve been accused of being a bleeding-heart liberal, but I have to defend the authority and inspiration of Scripture. I can’t change my mind about what it says. And yes, I have heard all the arguments about how Scripture may not say what we think it says. Some of them are rather interesting and almost compelling, but I’m not convinced yet…

And yes, I’m fully aware that it says to love my neighbor is WAY more important than tsk-tsk-ing him in his sin, and I’m all over that.

what is jay doing to help these people, does he tell them it is a sin, or does he go along with the life style hoping they will change, or what is his purpose in all of this, some say he is doing a great job, exactially what is his job,

Leonard, I would agree with you on the type of dialogue we need to have. 

A response to Jay’s response (as reported by Derek): several years ago, my sister - a pretty strong believer - was dating a non-practicing Jew.  When I talked with her about that, and how it squared with scripture, she used a similar logic; namely, how could God let me feel this love for someone if it’s wrong? I didn’t have a great answer for her at the time - other than, maybe it’s not from God - but that didn’t satisfy her heart’s struggle.  I don’t know if she has ever found a better answer (though they did break up eventually).  The hard part is, we truly can love someone we’re not supposed to love romantically.

Brad, your comment is unhelpful and unbecoming a Christian. As a brother in Christ I ask you to apologize.

Randy--I think you’re on to something. Our romantic culture tells us that love is required for marriage. But this is a lie. As Christians, we should rather say that marriage (with all its formal structural requirements) is the prerequisite for love--for it is only in marriage that we truly learn to become loving people.
(Side note, by ‘love’ here I mean sexual love and marital love. Single folks such as Jesus and Paul were of course loving, but that’s not the kind of love I mean… hopefully that was obvious.)
If you’re attracted to your spouse before you marry them, great. But we as a Church need a more robust theology of marriage. If the ONLY reason we marry someone is because we feel we ‘love’ them, then there really is no reason to exclude gays from the blessing of marriage.

Peace,
-Daniel-

[Does anyone else think this has more of a “We’re coming whether you like it or not, how are you going to respond?” ring to it, rather than a “We’d like to come and have a dialogue, are we welcome?” tone?]

Yes, absolutely, no question about it.  But isn’t that what Christian fundamentalists/evangelicals have been doing for years to people who, as Randy suggested, are “aliens and foreigners?” We have pushed our agenda into the public forum, unwilling to have genuine dialogue about what is right for American society (as if American society and Christian society were synonymous).  I think Soulforce learned from the evangelicals about imposing on people one-sided “discussions” with no genuine interest in the opposing position.

Don’t we need to have a contextual approach to our discussions?  Within the context of our churches we can (and must) defend the authority of scripture on this and any topic.  In the public forum, where we have the same right to our views as the gay/lesbian person or advocate has to theirs, we must learn to honor and respect and even live side-by-side with people who have lifestyles that are completely opposed to our biblical values.

Wendi

As someone who participated in the 2007 Equality Ride, I can tell you that my personal desire for dialogue was genuine.  As a lifelong Christian, I understand that even the most fiercely anti-gay people are usually wonderfully good-hearted.
I can say that I took away much from every conversation that I had, I can only hope those I spoke with took something away as well.
I thought I would share the reactions from faculty and administrators of Fresno Pacific University in our closing meeting.  Many of the other schools we met with had similar responses but these were the only ones I wrote down:
<ul>
<li>“I appreciate greatly your integrity in the process of meeting us on campus."</li>
<li>"graciousness"</li>
<li>"appreciate the way you all have engaged our campus"</li>
<li>"impressed with how genuine” your desire for dialogue is</li>
<li>"I think it’s been a good day"</li>
<li>Some people were expecting “narrow-minded, abrasive, and in your face--and you weren’t that at all”</li>
</ul>
I hope that the leaders and members of the churches visited during the American Family Outing will take the oppurtunity to have a spirit-filled conversation about issues which are tearing up our country, our churches, and our families.  And I hope other churches are inspired to begin similar conversations in their own communities.
Soulforce is an organization rooted in non-violence and thus the goal is not “victory” or “making the others take your side” but rather moving forward together. I’m excited to see the growth all around that can come out of these conversations.

Sorry about the funky comment… it looked great in the live comment preview