Why Are More Evangelils Supportg Gay Marriage? | Livg News

Contents:

• FIVE EVANGELIL PASTORS WHO BACK GAY MARRIAGE
• MEET THE EVANGELILS WHO CHEERED THE SCOTUS GAY MARRIAGE RULG
• 10 QUTNS FOR CHRISTIANS WHO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE
• FIVE QUTNS FOR CHRISTIANS WHO BELIEVE THE BIBLE SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE
• 3 OTHER CHRISTIAN DENOMATNS THAT ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE
• 10 REASONS GOD LOV GAY CHRISTIANS
• THE MOST POPULAR BIBLE VERS FOR DEBATG GAY MARRIAGE
• EVANGELILS ARE CHANGG THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE
• WHY ARE MORE EVANGELILS SUPPORTG GAY MARRIAGE?
• SUPPORT FOR GAY MARRIAGE REACH ALL-TIME HIGH, SURVEY FDS
• HOW EVANGELILS ARE CHANGG THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE
• 14 CELEBRI WHO DON'T REALLY LIKE GAY PEOPLE
• WHERE SHOULD WE, AS CHRISTIANS, STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE?

FIVE EVANGELIL PASTORS WHO BACK GAY MARRIAGE

He fend tradnal marriage a 2008 Christiany Today article, sayg he wasn’t sure he’d perform a same-sex blsg, although he did exprs support for gay and lbian civil rights. After takg a leave of absence om Harvard Universy to study the Bible and homosexualy, Matthew V gave a speech at his church about acceptg gay Christians that has amassed over 1 ln views on YouTube sce 2012. He also started The Reformatn Project, a nonprof tryg to “reform church teachg on sexual orientatn and genr inty, ” and wrote the book “God and the Gay Christian: The Biblil Case Support of Same-Sex Relatnships.

The former pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church publicly stated his views on gay marriage while speakg at San Francis’s Grace Cathedral 2013. In a post on his webse tled “My Comg Out Letter, ” Christian rock mician Trey Pearson told fans that he intified as a gay man, spe beg married wh children. As she has chronicled on her blog and The Washgton Post, she first spent a long time advotg celibacy for Christians who were gay or lbian.

MEET THE EVANGELILS WHO CHEERED THE SCOTUS GAY MARRIAGE RULG

In one of her old posts, “An Evangelil’s Rponse to Homosexualy, ” she ref to chose a si of the issue but do adm to wonrg if the evangelil church “has wrong. While he said recently that his church, Northland, A Church Distributed, will mata that the Bible prohibs gay relatnships, he now believ nservative church should wele and support those of all sexual orientatns. If you said someone was evangelil you knew pretty much what you were gettg – errancy of the Bible, importance of preachg, a foc on evangelism, warngs of hell and most of all – opposn to gay marriage.

While still far om the mastream and the overwhelmg majory of self-scribed evangelils are still opposed to gay marriage, there are a growg list of pastors who scribe themselv as evangelil and yet support same sex upl. 'It has taken untls hours of prayer, study, nversatn and emotnal turmoil to brg me to the place where I am fally ready to ll for the full acceptance of Christian gay upl to the Church, ' he wrote. In a bate at San Francis's Grace Cathedral 2013, the thor and pastor Rob Bell, already discreded by many evangelils for his book Love Ws, gave a blanket endorsement of gay marriage.

An outspoken cric of the Relig Right and print of the Sojourners magaze, Jim Wallis reversed his stance on gay marriage an terview wh the Huffgton Post  2013. Several of Jen Hatmaker's books have been produced by LifeWay's B&H Publishg, who announced they would no longer work wh her after she changed her stance on gay marriageFacebook / Jen Hatmaker. One of the relatively few proment female voic on the evangelil scene, Hatmaker received a fierce backlash when she said she thought God saw monogamo gay relatnships as holy.

10 QUTNS FOR CHRISTIANS WHO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE

In an terview wh Relign News Service she said: 'From a spirual perspective, sce gay marriage is legal all 50 stat, our muni have plenty of gay upl who, jt like the rt of , need marriage support and parentg help and Christian muny. Asked if she would attend a gay iend's weddg she said was an easy answer: 'I would attend that weddg wh gladns, and I would drk champagne.

The Southern Baptist church pastor om Los Angel, California, announced 2014 he is 'gay affirmg' and had accepted his son's homosexualy. 'In Augt of 2013, on a sunny day at the beach, I realized I no longer believed the tradnal [church] teachgs regardg homosexualy, ' Cortez said a letter published on Patheos blog. 'And was pecially the ttimony of my gay iends that helped me to see how they have been margalised that my ey beme open to the jtice that the church has wrought.

"Those profsed Evangelils who are willg to jettison the Bible's teachg regardg homosexualy n no longer claim to be persons of the Gospel -- Evangelils, " Schwarzwalr wrote.

FIVE QUTNS FOR CHRISTIANS WHO BELIEVE THE BIBLE SUPPORTS GAY MARRIAGE

What arguments would you e to expla to Christians Ai, Asia, and South Ameri that their unrstandg of homosexualy is biblilly rrect and your new unrstandg of homosexualy is not culturally ndned?

Should your brothers and sisters Christ who disagree wh homosexual practice be allowed to exercise their relig beliefs whout fear of punishment, retributn, or ercn?

3 OTHER CHRISTIAN DENOMATNS THAT ALLOW GAY MARRIAGE

Peterson, a retired Prbyterian mister and award-wng thor, recently exprsed his support of same-sex marriage, proclaimg the bate ncerng gays and lbians the Christian church “might be over. ”"I wouldn’t have said this 20 years ago, but now I know a lot of people who are gay and lbian, and they seem to have as good a spirual life as I do, ” Peterson said an terview wh Relign News Service. “He says that he’s known some nice gay people, therefore he now disrds the moral nsens of the entire 2, 000-year history of the Christian church, ” wrote Denny Burk, profsor of Biblil Studi at Boyce College, on his personal blog.

-Christians Debate, ” who is also gay, dismissed cricism agast Peterson as failg to regnize an terpretatn of the Bible wh LGBTQ people md. In fact, you would argue that ’s bee you love J and bee you believe the Bible that you now embrace gay marriage as a God-sanctned good. After assailg the nservative church for ignorg the issue of divorce, will you exercise church disciple when gay marriag fall apart?

If nothg has really changed except that you now unrstand the Bible to be approvg of same-sex terurse mted lifelong relatnships, we should expect loud voic the near future nouncg the fily rampant homosexual relatnships. Surely, those who support gay marriage out of “evangelil” prcipl, will be quick to fd flt wh the notn that the male-male marriag most likely to survive are those wh a flexible unrstandg that other partners may e and go.

10 REASONS GOD LOV GAY CHRISTIANS

Acrdg to one study rearched and wrten by two homosexual thors, of 156 homosexual upl studied, only seven had mataed sexual fily, and of the hundred that had been together for more than five years, none had remaed fahful (ced by Satover, 55).

It is a safe assumptn that those favor of gay marriage are likely to support gay and lbian upl adoptg children or givg birth to children through artificial sematn.

No matter how many cent, pable homosexual upl we may know, are we nfint that as a general le there is nothg signifint to be gaed by growg up wh a mother and a father? From the Jewish world the Old and New Ttaments to the early church to the Middle Ag to the Reformatn and to the 20th century, the church has unrstood the Bible to teach that engagg homosexualy activy was among the worst ss a person uld m. Some terpreters, seekg to migate Pl’s harshns, have read the passage [ Romans 1] as nmng not homosexuals generally but only heterosexual men and women who experimented wh homosexualy.

THE MOST POPULAR BIBLE VERS FOR DEBATG GAY MARRIAGE

It has weled gay people sce 1976, when s General Conventn cid that “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim wh all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral ncern and re of the Church. Some morn Bible translatns say that “homosexuals” will not her the kgdom of God, but neher the ncept nor the word for people wh exclive same-sex attractn existed before the late 19th century.

EVANGELILS ARE CHANGG THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE

Requirg that all gay people rema celibate is at odds wh the Bible’s teachgs on celibacy, which are ground Scripture’s re affirmatn that God’s physil creatn is good.

Mastream nomatns like Prbyterians and Epispalians now orda openly gay clergy, and there are seeds of change evangelil church as well. Matthew V is the thor of God and the Gay Christian and is the founr of The Reformatn Project, a Bible-based non-prof anizatn that seeks to reform church teachg on sexual orientatn and genr inty.

This victory reflects recent pollg that shows that majori of all relig groups are favor of “broad nondiscrimatn protectns for lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) people. Grav-Fzsimmons told the thors that, “Intifyg as both a Christian and a gay man mak me eply mted to the work of llective liberatn. As a gay Black man, he is particularly terted  reformg the relatnship between the New York Cy Police Department and New York Cy’s LGBTQ muny and muni of lor.

WHY ARE MORE EVANGELILS SUPPORTG GAY MARRIAGE?

His current scholarship teas out the terplay of relign, sexualy, and palism artifacts of popular and queer culture, and his earlier scholarly work examed the activist histori of gay and lbian Catholics durg the early years of the AIDS epimic. Hodg cisn, public support for legalizg gay marriage cracked the 60% level, and last year reached the 70% mark for the first time. Risg natnal support for legal same-sex marriage reflects steady creas among most subgroups of the populatn, even those who have tradnally been the most ristant to gay marriage.

Amerins who report that they attend church weekly rema the primary mographic holdout agast gay marriage, wh 40% favor and 58% opposed.

SUPPORT FOR GAY MARRIAGE REACH ALL-TIME HIGH, SURVEY FDS

Sce 2007, the topics of homosexualy, same-sex marriage, and gay marriage have received over 30, 000 vot across 940, 000 pageviews, providg a reasonably broad wdow to the passag that people–largely evangelil Christians–apply to the bate. Tcher was one of 50 people flown om around the untry and the world—Canada, Cha, Nigeria and South Korea—to a four-day Bible boot mp dited to discsg, and embracg, gay relatnships.

The vio has gone viral, rackg up more than 730, 000 views to date, landg V on the ver of the New York Tim Sunday Styl sectn and helpg him raise $100, 000 for the nference, where he lnched The Reformatn Project, a natnwi work of pro-gay evangelils mted to endg their church’s longstandg hostily toward gay people. Tcher told me she had once “tried on” an anti-gay attu to f wh her nservative muny Liberty Township, outsi Ccnati, but like many evangelils, she stggled to see how homophobia uld acrd wh an all-lovg Christian God. It’s no secret that attus toward same-sex relatns have changed this untry: Gay marriage is legal 19 stat pl the District of Columbia, and all major public opn surveys now show a majory of Amerins are favor of .

HOW EVANGELILS ARE CHANGG THEIR MDS ON GAY MARRIAGE

But Matthew V and Amy Tcher are no longer outliers eher: Increasgly, even evangelil Christians, long known for doctrally nmng homosexualy, are embracg gay people, too. Over the past , evangelil support for gay marriage has more than doubled, acrdg to pollg by the nonpartisan Public Relign Rearch Instute.

14 CELEBRI WHO DON'T REALLY LIKE GAY PEOPLE

About a quarter of evangelils now support same-sex unns, the stute has found, wh an equal number occupyg what rearchers at Baylor Universy last year lled the “msy middle” of those who oppose gay marriage on moral grounds but no longer support efforts to outlaw .

And gay stunt anizatns have recently formed at Christian lleg across the untry, cludg flagship evangelil mp such as Wheaton College Illois and Baylor Texas.

Even some of the most proment evangelils—megachurch pastors, semary profsors and btsellg thors—have publicly announced their support for gay marriage recent months. Rick Warren, pastor of one of the untry’s biggt megachurch, said 2009 that he had apologized to all “all my gay iends” and that fightg gay marriage was “very low” on his list of prri.

WHERE SHOULD WE, AS CHRISTIANS, STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE?

The change has taken nservative polil lears by surprise, actured the aln agast gay marriage and begun to dry up fundg for some of the tradnal-marriage movement’s most proment anizatns.

Jt a ago, nservative Christians powered an electoral surge that outlawed gay unns 11 stat and, the view of many polil analysts, helped to ensure Print Gee W. Barely one 10 evangelils supported gay marriage, and church lears like Warren urged their followers to vote agast same-sex unns. Evangelils “uld not stand idly by while the radil gay agenda was forced down their throats, ” Jam Dobson, then the chairman of the nservative Christian advocy group Foc on the Fay, said at the time.

Now, Christian polil groups, cludg Foc on the Fay and the Natnal Associatn of Evangelils, have virtually stopped mpaigng on the issue, shiftg their foc to legal efforts to shield relig bs owners om havg to ter to gay weddgs. In Oh, where 2004 evangelil activists were among the first the natn to mpaign for a succsful ballot measure outlawg gay unns, both Rob Portman, the state’s Republin senator, and Jim Petro, former Republin attorney general, now support overturng the ban. As if nfirmatn of Moore’s warng, the followg month, a Southern Baptist ngregatn outsi Los Angel beme the first the 16 ln-member nomatn to vote to accept gay worshippers even if they are relatnships.