I have some friends who are concerned that our denomination might be moving away from a Biblical foundation. I suspect my friends are, primarily, thinking of a certain verse in Leviticus. There's a whole lot of Bible after that verse. And there are many "abominations" of that time that few if any still consider such.
I love barbecue pork and I eat it with great relish and not a bit of guilt. I have eaten rabbit. I love lobster and had a delicious plate of crawdads, over pasta with a great sauce, just last week at Henry's Louisiana Grill.
Leviticus tells me I am guilty of abomination.
My reading of the New Testament tells me that God is Love and that I should love God and my neighbors.
There is no record of Jesus ever mentioning sexual orientation. My experience tells me God gave my friends, relatives, and former students a variety of different sexual natures, and some of all sorts are deeply moral, and some of all sorts are not.
I am a preacher's kid. I have heard hundreds of sermons. I attended many Sunday school and Bible school sessions as a child. I passed courses in New Testament, Teachings of Jesus, and Basic Christian Beliefs at a very conservative evangelical college. In adulthood I have attended church services almost every Sunday for many decades. Still I had never read all sixty-six books of the Bible straight through till a couple of years ago. It's a chore --- in all my previous attempts I stalled out during all the repetition before I finished Numbers. This time I stuck with it. There are lots of rules and lots of vengeance and, really, a lot of unpleasantness in the Old Testament. But, wow, when I got to Matthew there was a whole new emphasis! Of course I knew that intellectually. But reading the whole thing straight through I was struck anew, and more forcefully than ever, by the revolutionary nature of the gospel Jesus preached in the New Testament.
You won't find a bunch of "thou-shalt-nots" printed in red in the New Testament. Jesus' red-letter words are just saturated, instead, with love. Jesus did give us two "thou shalts", so basic that they came to be known as the "Great Commandment": Love God with all your heart, soul and mind; and love other people as you love yourself.
In act two of Tom Key and Harry Chapin's wonderful Cotton Patch Gospel musical tune in at 22:00 to hear "jubilation". Whenever I think of the Great Commandment I think of this song.
Ooo-wee.
If you have time to listen to the whole musical, here's the first act.
The divisions in our nation, really in our culture, are mighty obvious. And our congregation is not immune to those divisions. Already some congregations have voted to "disaffiliate" from our denomination, and soon there will likely be some more. It breaks my heart. I pray our congregation will not go down that path. I will not be a part of that. I will stick with the group that prioritizes love. I will stick with the group that welcomes all.
Here is what John Wesley said about disagreements in the church:
“No man can choose for or prescribe to another. Everyone must follow the dictates of his own conscience in sympathy and sincerity. He must be fully persuaded in his own mind and then act according to the best light he has. Nor has any creature the power to constrain another to walk by his own rule. God has given no right to any of the children of men to lord it over the conscience of his brethren. Every wise man will allow other the same liberty of thinking which he desires they should allow him… he bears with those who differ with him… ‘Tis certain, as long as we know in part, all men will not see all things alike. It is the unavoidable consequence of the present weakness and shortness of human understanding that we be of several minds, in religion as in common life. Though we may not think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart though we are not of one mind?” -- John Wesley, founder of Methodism
