(RNS) — As whe evangelil nomatns double down on their opposn to equaly, many younger evangelils, gay and straight, are votg wh their feet.
Contents:
REMEMBERG THE GAY SAN FRANCIS CHURCH THAT WAS TORCHED OUT OF HATE IN 1973
The s-long stggle for equal rights for the gay muny clud an unlikely transformatn wh a lol Catholic church that is now thrivg San Francis's Castro District. * gay church san francisco *
We, of the Metropolan Communy Church of San Francis, are a beloved muny jog together om diverse spirual backgrounds and misterg primarily wh the Lbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgenred Communy as a hoe of prayer of all people and a home for queer spirualy. The parish offers a spirual home to all: senr cizens and youth; sgle people and fai; those who are straight, gay, lbian, and transgenr; the healthy and the sick, particularly persons wh HIV/AIDS.
The senr pastor and elrs of San Francis's evangelil Cy Church will no longer require members to absta om homosexual practice, so long as the homosexual activy occurs the ntext of marriage. Instead, on the matter of homosexual practice, the Pastor and Elr Board gave preemence to their judgment regardg what nduc more to human flourishg and, oddly, to a scripturally misguid book wrten by former Veyard pastor Ken Wilson lled A Letter to My Congregatn.
The Metropolan Communy Church San Francis was one of four gay church burned arsons between 1973 and 1974, the same year of the adly UpStairs Lounge fire new Orleans, which was also ... * gay church san francisco *
” Wilson ntends wrongly that the biblil dictment of homosexual practice is limed to exploative relatnships wh adolcents, slav, and temple prostut, as though the were the only forms of homosexual practice known to persons of the ancient Near East and the Gre-Roman world. We receive ditn that Pl did not have only exploative or promiscuo acts of homosexual practice view, given (1) Pl’s appeal to a nature argument Rom 1:26–27; (2) his strong tertextual echo to Genis 1–2 and the Levil prohibns when cg homosexual practice (Rom 1:24–27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10); (3) the unqualified character of his dictment (cludg an terdictn of lbianism Rom 1:26); and (4) the fact that even some Gre-Roman moralists (to say nothg of Jews and Christians) rejected homosexual practice absolutely.
The bt biblil scholars who have studied extensively the issue of homosexual practice, cludg advot for homosexual unns (such as William Loar and Bernatte Brooten), know that the scriptural dictment of homosexual practice clus a rejectn of mted homosexual unns. Wilson also ntends that Pl’s approach of tolerance toward matters of diet and lendar Romans 14 should ern the church’s actns on homosexual practice. For Wilson, homosexual practice is an adiaphoron, a “matter of difference, ” over which Christians n and should agree to disagree.
On the ntrary, he repeatedly warned nverts that unrepentant participants sexual immoraly—cludg homosexual practice, ct, adultery, sex wh prostut, and fornitn—would not her the kgdom of God (1 Ths 4:3–7; 1 Cor 5; 6:9–10; 2 Cor 12:21; Gal 5:19–21; Eph 5:3–5). In the ntext of Romans, there n be no qutn of Pl regardg homosexual practice wh the same moral difference as matters of diet and lendar.