Featured Refusing service

No one should be forced to do something that offends their conscience.

Having said that, what about those who fail to serve someone even a drink of water based solely on their skin color, as someone previously posted?

Is that that much different than refusing to make a cake for a "wedding" of unfavorable means?

 

Should they be forced to serve?

 

Well, here is a bit of a twist:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1027072

annsni, yes, an interesting twist. A situation that will be honored by the legal system for sure.

In reality, there are other's out there just as capable at cutting hair as this man, woman, wife, husband..., what ever roll he's playing today..., and if it was me in need of a haircut I'd just move on to another stylist.

Personally, I have no desire to associate with anyone addicted to a perversion.

 

Sound's trite but what would Jesus do?

He associated with sinners, ate with them, served them, healed them.

If I were the baker of a "gay" wedding cake they would get my best work and a witness of my faith in a great Deliverer.

There's no Christian witness promoting hate and separation - look to Westboro Baptist.

Rob

 

Im liking you better every day.:smilewinkgrin:

 

I would say "bake the cake, take the pictures and leave them in the hands of an angry God".

 

Prov. 25:21,22

If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.

 

It's odd that this "should we refuse service" question is making the rounds in churches and other Christian venues.

The picture of Christ is one of a willing servant, always looking to serve. We talk a lot in our churches about wanting to serve others.

While now is the opportunity to do so and to really mean it instead of it being just a bunch of words and " the Christian" thing to do that's checked off a list once or twice a year around Thanksgiving and Christmas.:thumbs:

Be known for loving people out of the overflow of our love for Christ.:flower:

 

AMEN!:thumbsup:

 

It's amazing to me that so many Christians can justify marginalizing or discriminating against gays or other groups such as Muslims or even other Christians (think Catholics), yet claim they can "preach the truth in love." That's not possible.

Deny services or products if you must, but use the laws available to you to do so legally. Trumpeting your religious beliefs simply fires another shot in the war on Christianity. Stand up for yourselves, but be like Jesus: Preach the truth in love.

 

I don't believe that Idea ever accorded to most, er, cough, Christians. Glad ya noticed. :thumbsup:

 

AMEN! This just isn't that complicated. We've got to stop letting them goad us into these types of positions that make us look like everything but loving.

Serve these people just as Jesus would and build a relationship that may allow you to share Christ if they don't know Him.

But I see no where in God's word that He examples not serving someone because of their sin. Rather He sought to serve people in spite of their sin to show that His love is greater than their sin.

Shouldn't we do likewise?

 

Jesus associated with sinners, but He never pandered to them. Jesus never condoned or celebrated their sin. Christians should seek opportunities to dialog with all type of sinners, homosexuals included. But to attempt to link those who are compelled by conscience to refuse certain levels of commerce with homosexuals with Westboro Baptist Church is outrageous.

 

Again, the question is, should the government hold a gun to one's head and force him to cater a celebration of sodomy?

 

This is a loaded question, Brother, that if I say "yes", I'm liberal, and if I say "no", I'm a knuckle-dragging neanderthal...

I don't want us to revert back to the south of the 1950's-1960's with segregated bathrooms, blacks in the back of the bus, "we don't serve 'n*****s' here", &c....and we won't.

I just don't truly know how to answer this other than no one should be treated any less than the next human based on skin color, orientation, religion, &c...

 

I notice that everyone keeps going back to "events" or the issue of Christian vs. gay. In fact, it is the reality of hate expressed by some Christians -- not just the Westboro loonies -- that sets in the mind of the gay person that there is animosity between Christians and gays, even those gays who profess faith in Christ. I'm going to make a statement here many of you aren't going to like, but frankly I don't care whether you do or don't.

Those who are actively engaging in homosexual acts can still profess a valid faith in Christ, just as the adulterer, the addict, the thief, or anyone else in habitual sin can also do. The problem isn't their "false confession." It may not be false at all. The problem is their clinging to sin despite their faith.

There's been a great deal of discussion about the Arizona and Kansas laws that would have established a legal right for the Christian or other person of faith to decline services to someone they do not want to serve due to those closely held matters of faith. Despite my disagreement with the laws, I've never said a person doesn't have that right. My issue with the laws, and with many attitudes found on this board, is the message sent when denying services because of those beliefs.

The fact is, we bring the gay person's expectation of rejection by us upon ourselves. How? By rejecting them! Despite our constant statements that we "love the sinner, but hate the sin," that is not how our attitude is expressed. Just look at the discussion on this thread. We judge them as "being sinners." We accuse them of "having an agenda." We appeal to "conscience." Well, guess what? They are sinners, they do have an agenda,and our conscience is being challenged: Is it centering on selfish resolution of "black and white, wrong vs. right," issues? Is it taking a "my-way-or-the-highway" stance on those issues? Or is it tossing all that self-righteousness aside in favor of reaching outward to a lost world?

Christians encounter a gay person and immediately judge them and their lifestyle without even realizing it, abandoning them to their sin, leaving them hanging because they are in sin, while we mouth platitudes about loving them but hating their sin. Our focus has got to be on a desire to show them that God is love, and that He doesn’t hate them, but rather the sin. The kind of rejection we regularly subject most sinners of all stripes, but particularly gays, does not send a message of love and fellowship. It sends a message of marginalization, discrimination, and denunciation.

Don't you dare go throwing around "it's an abomination" Scripture, because God says that about all sin, not just homosexual sin. Gays are no more separated from heaven than any other sinner, the mere true and sincere confession of Christ being sufficient to overcome even that sin. And gay Christians -- those who have made that confession and fall back into the sin just as addicts, adulterers, etc., do -- are no more an abomination or in danger of "losing their salvation" than you or I are so in danger. We all know, or should, that "losing salvation" is an impossibility, and God doesn't make "special exceptions" for those who fall into homosexual sin.

We can't hide in fear, and we can't hide behind the law, expecting special laws to be written for us. As has been said, the laws in Arizona and Kansas were poorly written, and would have resulted in unintended consequences. We as Christians have an ugly tendency to demand our rights, to expect the world to act like Christ, without ever taking the initiative to show the world Christ in us.

 

I don’t believe they should be forced to partake in something that offends their beliefs. I believe that just as much for the Muslim or Jew as I do the Christian.

I think we as Christians should serve sinners. But that is not the question, the question is should they be forced to.

No I don’t think they should. Yes it may be bad for their testimony as Christians, hurt the cause of Christ and on and on, but I still think it should be their right.

Westboro got mentioned several times here. I think they are a bunch of idiots that are hurting the gospel message and giving Christianity and Baptists in particular a bad name. But I also think they have the right, under the first amendment, to do what they do. That does not mean I agree with them.