Interesting views, But I tend to agree with Doggeystyle on this one. Here's why,
While I do not agree with the bannishment of the church from the baptist denomination, we too have to understand what it means to submit. Christ's core message was love, both God the father and man (check John chapters 15, 16, &17). Part of this love was to live a righteous life, meaning you ascribed to a higher moral law than selfish desire. This moral law would be most effectively lived out if you abided in Him (Christ) and His word (ideas, logic, higher moral law) abided in you. After Christ's ascension, He promised a Holy Spirit that would "Lead and guide all disciples into all truth". Stating that a Holy Spirit would ever be present , searing the conscience of the believer and reminding him/her of the true righteousness "apart from the law". This true righteousness, though, would not violate the law, but fulfill the law (i.e. give us a better understanding of the law). With that being said, Christ himself never teaches on homosexuality, but this doesn't logically correlate to a condonement of the lifestyle. At best we can assume that Christ viewed homosexuality as the rest of the law viewed it. Now here's where it gets stickey, because there are many ways to see the Bible's stance on this issue.
Abomination-highest wickedness (Levitical law as well as Pauline) The very act of and desire for ("as a man thinks in his heart, so is he") homosexuality is the utmost of sin, because God sees this as an ultimate perversion of the divine unity of matrimonial; procreative sexual intimacy (Gen 2:24), which strikes at our core as beings "created in the image of God". To assert that same sex couples can unite in that "image" of maleness and femaleness comming together in love with the ultimate "2 becomming 1 flesh" union with the possibility of creating new life ulitimately insults the very image of God, who created human kind, in the very likeness of God, both Male and female (Gen. 1:26)
Liberal view- that the prohibitions of homosexuality in the Old Testament were prescribed for nation building. The Children of Israel were new in the land and needed offspring to carry on the nation and make it strong. Homosexual relationships can yeild no children to carry on the name and birthright of the Jews. The prohibition is not doctrinal , but practical for the Jews at the time (similar arguments are made about the Levitical calls for dietary restraints and interaction with women on their menstruation cycles, which Christians today for the most part, see as only temporal prohibitions). In the New testament, the word for the lust of men lying with men and such in Romans 1 is orexis, the lust that could be good or bad, depending on context. This lying with same sex peoples is called unnatural because, some suggest, people were doing it out of idolatrous lust and temple prostitution, which was common in the Roman occupied territories at that time. These people were heterosexuals performing homosexual acts
. Therefore, homosexuality as we know it today, with the questions about whether sexuality is innate or a choice, is not understood by Paul in those days, in which heterosexual people (if you accept that sexuality is innate) were performing homosexual acts out of idolatry (worshiping wanton sexuality).
At any rate, regardless of which side of the fence you fall on this issue, the question has to be the mission of the church. I tend to believe that homsexuality is a choice, just as heterosexuality is a choice. To have the desire is one thing, but to affirm the desire and the act as righteous I believe is profane and is similar to what Romans 1 is saying about idolatry. With that being said, everyone who believes, is welcomed in the Kingdom. I trust that the conscience of the true believer will be seared by the same Truth that caused the faith profession of salvation for the believer in this issue. The true believer should not, with a clear conscience, claim homosexuality as righteousness, due to the truth about sexuality in our and God's sacred identity.
Can a person have homosexual desires and perform homosexual acts and be a believer, of course. Can that same person, with a clear conscience, say that homosexuality is righteousness, I think not, but hey, I could be wrong. The church should welcome all who believe, but as disciples, we must submit our will to God's will. A question to all who do not see anything wrong with homosexuality, can you give a higher moral claim to this assertion, other than society's own acceptance of this act or "lifestyle"?
Blackwatch!!!!!!