VOLUME III, CHAPTER 3: THE BATTLE FIELD OF THE DIVERSITY WAR
Part 2: In The Blue Corner --- The Church
In this Letter I use the “The Church” to mean the collective body of Christian denominations and Judaism.
God’s Rainbow
So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.” Genesis 9:17
The LGBTQ+ Rainbow and The Church
The “Gay Pride” flag was created in 1978 by Gilbert Baker a gay man and drag queen.“Our job as gay people” said Baker, “was to come out, to be visible, to live in the truth, as I say, to get out of the lie. A flag really fit that mission, because that’s a way of proclaiming your visibility or saying, ‘This is who I am!’ ”
Whether Baker understood that he was emulating God’s rainbow and authority is a question for Baker but there is no doubt that the LGBTQ+ rainbow is in opposition to the purpose of God’s rainbow. While God’s rainbow is a promise of his love all men the Gay Pride flag is meant to draw attention to each LGBTQ+ individuals.
In Part 1: In The Blue Corner — Love, I wrote: “Loving a person does not mean that we must also embrace their sin, their lawlessness, their perversion. But as you will see, the LGBTQ+ community is using that teaching, the instruction to Love one another, to demand that we also accept their sin, their lawlessness, their perversion and that they because of God’s command to love, have the right to impose their understanding of gender, sexuality, and Love on our children.”
What does that mean for The Church? One would expect The Church to speak with one voice. After all, they all rely on the Bible or the Torah as their foundation, they all believe in Creation as described in Genesis, and they all understand that there are commands given by God through Moses and that Christ was here for the purposes of securing our salvation.
Therefore, one would also expect great clarity and acceptance within the The Church with respect to these passages:
“27So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28God blessed them and said to them,“Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”” Genesis 1:27-28
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart….” Jeremiah 1:5
“But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Romans 9:20
Unfortunately, some of the larger denominations of both Christians and Jews have succumbed to the cultural demand of the LGBTQ+ community that they be given status within The Church outside of God’s creation of but two genders whose purpose is to be “fruitful and increase in number”. That command by God clearly precludes same sex marriage but too many denominations of The Church do not see this command as an impediment to same sex marriage and, in fact, they eagerly embrace it as they do transgenderism. This has led to major disruptions in those denominations and dithering on the issue by others lest they offend the LGBTQ+ community.
For example, the Episcopal Church (EC) while asserting that it “upholds the Bible” has over a period of 13 years adopted 26 resolutions which expanded the relationship between the EC and the LGBTQ+ community allowing homo- and bisexual members to accede to the priesthood, same sex marriages to be performed in the church, and which recognizes and embraces transgenderism. In 2017 the EC supported measures that would allow individuals to used public bathrooms in accordance with their “gender identity.” While these resolutions earned favor with the LGBTQ+ community it has cost the Episcopal Church to lose more than one-third of its membership. The Episcopal Church attributes that lose to a substantial decrease in birth rate in the US and not their LGBTQ+ policies.
The United Methodist Church (UMC) has also adopted many of those same policies reaping equally dramatically negative results. Embracing LGBTQ+ ideology has caused 1,500 churches/congregations to leave the UMC. Most of those congregations have joined the newly formed conservative Global Methodist Church.
Several weeks ago I wrote to Reverend Maidstone Mulenga the Director of Communications of the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church.
Among the questions that I asked Rev. Mulgena were these:
“Does the UMC accept and endorse the positions of both GLSEN and WPATH and does the UMC accept and condone the recruitment of children by GLSEN and WPATH who are as young as five years old into the realm of transgenderism? If so what is the Biblical basis for the UMC’s policy? And how has the UMC conveyed this to its congregants. If the UMC does not accept the GLSEN and WPATH positions has it conveyed this to your congregants and GLSEN and WPATH?”
Reverend Mulenga has yet to respond.
Both the Presbyterian Church and the Church of England are on the fast track to join the Episcopalian and United Methodist churches. The Presbyterian Church in the United States lost well over 600 churches and about 290,000 members between 2016 and 2021. Of greater concern is the speculation that the Church of England may be facing extinction in light of having lost 400 churches in less than 10 years..
Then there is the Catholic Church in America which has also sounded the alarm over the dramatic decline in church attendance by those who identify as Catholic from 75% in 1950 to 39% in 2017. Bill Donahue, Catholic League President attributed this decline to a number of things including:
Increasing hostility to religion, especially Christianity by higher education.
A runaway “pop cultural” presence on television, in the movies, and in music, all of which is marked by a “libertinism that is at odds with Christianity”.
And “the ascendancy of moral relativism” and the denial of moral absolutes society driven by America’s cultural elites “including, sadly, some religious leaders.”
Reform Judaism is also in the camp of those who appear to be embracing LBGTQ+ ideology: “The Reform Jewish Movement believes there is more than one authentic way to be Jewish and that Judaism must change and adapt to the needs of the day to survive.” And: “Reform Judaism maintains faith in the Covenant between God and Israel as expressed over the generations in the teachings of an ever-evolving Torah and tradition.” Understand that this is identical to the conservative v. liberal debate over the US Constitution — should the Constitution/Torah be read has handed down from its creators OR are they living breathing documents subject to change in response to changing cultural dictates.
On the other hand, those churches that identify as “evangelical”, Baptist or orthodox and are conservative in faith believing that the Bible and Torah contain the word of God and the teachings of Christ, have experienced generally increased or stable attendance.
IF The Church asserts that it “upholds the Bible” how can it then support the suggestion that same sex marriage comports with God’s creation of male and female who are instructed by God to be “fruitful and increase in number”? And if The Church relies on the creation story described in Genesis that created only male and female how can it also support the LGBTQ+ position that he sometimes ‘got it wrong’ and that a person’s gender may have been incorrectly “assigned” at birth by a doctor, because that is what is required of The Church when they embrace LGBTQ+ ideology.
The Church must either accept God’s version of gender and sexuality or some other version outside of God’s creation described in Genesis but The Church cannot embrace and foster LGBTQ+ ideology and then assert that they “uphold the Bible”.
Such theological confusion by offered by The Church sows confusion and chaos among all Christians, Jews, and others who are not familiar with the Bible or the Torah and is leading to an unacceptable loss of faith in a world in desperate need of having its faith strengthened.
Union, KY
30 January 2023