will baptist churches soon have gay ministers?

I agree with you. In fact, one pastor of a prominent church in my area was suspected of being gay.

[/QB][/QUOTE]I don't know anyone who finds them "untrustworthy" as a result.[/QB][/QUOTE]

I can understand that experience living in a big cosmopolitan-like city like Atlanta.

Up here in little ol' South Carolina, views stand at a extremely conservative extent. The suspected pastor that I just mentioned was gone to NY not long after rumors started...because he was SUSPECTED of being gay.

Imagine what would have happened to him if he had actually openly admitted it? Could have permanently ended his pastoring/ministering/professional career.

[/QB][/QUOTE]Your peer group may be particularly uncomfortable around GLBT persons; but that simply isn't true for everyone.[/QB][/QUOTE]

I'm no sure. Plenty of the youth in my area grew up with gays and lesbians, but they only balk at the realism of gay minister when they know how the Christian communities views them.

 

Jamal, I had lunch with a home school mom last week who moved from S.C. Her previous pastor and family had moved away unexpectedly and sent a registered letter saying they were divorcing because he is gay. He's now living in Atlanta with a 'partner'. His wife and children moved back hom. I'm afraid families and churches are being torn apart everywhere.

Diane

 

Sodmites are already involved in religion(not christianity). Let's look at the history of the modern sodomite movement to understand what is going on.

Let’s go back to the beginning, which many scholars say is May 1, 1776. On that date, Adam Weishaupt, a professor of canon law at Ingolstadt University, in what is now Germany, founded the Society of Illuminati. The Illuminists worked in secret, using noms de guerre, and recruited the sons of the wealthiest, best-born, most powerful families into their conspiracy. The goal of the Illuminists was to impose a dictatorship that would enslave the entire world, in the course of which all religion would be destroyed.

Eventually, they were raided by the forces of the Elector of Bavaria, who seized some of their paperwork, which found its way into the work of Scottish Professor John Robison, who wrote Proofs of a Conspiracy (1798), which will tell you from their own mouths how the Illuminists recruited. You could also consult the four-volume Memoirs of the History of Jacobinism, by the Abbé Barruel, which, if memory serves, has recently been reissued in a new translation.

The Elector’s fine work did not completely squelch the conspirators, who simply fled Bavaria and went to Paris, where they infiltrated the Grand Orient Lodges of the Masonic Order, which they used to foment the French Revolution in 1789. In Paris, they began to implement their scheme to destroy all religion, and since the Roman Catholic Church at the time still had immense political, as well as ecclesiastical power, the conspirators did what they could to wreck it. The Illuminati later metastasized into the Communist movement, which in 1848 hired an unknown degenerate named Karl Marx to write a manifesto that would memorialize the revolution they were planning for that year.

Now, let’s move along to the Twentieth Century. Where did the latest extrusion of the sodomite movement originate? According to expert Stuart Timmons, in The Trouble With Harry Hay, Founder of the Modern Gay Movement (Boston, Alyson, 1990), modern sodomy derives from an outfit called the Mattachine Society, all of whose founders, just after World War II, were Marxists. Harry Hay himself, for instance, the preeminent founder, had been a Party member. Indeed, says Timmons, in structuring the new Communist homosexual group, Harry Hay “followed the Masonic model.” (p. 152). Indeed, “Harry had found his model, the Freemasons of the eighteenth century, in his music research. The Masons had been illegal and underground at that time . . . .”

Now, browse with me through another manifesto entitled After the Ball, How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the ‘90s (New York, Doubleday, 1989), by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. The authors teach that sodomites should “inundate” straights (normal men and women) “in a continuous flood of gay-related advertising . . . .” (p. 149). The advertising will perpetrate something called “jamming,” which they explain as follows: “. . . Thus propagandistic advertisement can depict homophobic and homohating bigots as crude loudmouths and a**holes—people who say not only ‘faggot’ but ‘nigger,’ ‘kike,’ and other shameful epithets—who are ‘not Christian.’ . . .” (p. 151)

The goal is something they call “conversion,” which is worse than old-fashioned subversion. “ . . . Yet, ironically, by Conversion we actually mean something far more profoundly threatening to the American Way of Life . . . . We mean conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media. . . .” (p. 153)

On the next page, they admit that those ads will be lies. “. . . But it makes no difference that the ads are lies; not to us, because we’re using them to ethically good effect . . . .” In other words, the end justifies the means, a hallowed commandment to all Marxists. The important thing, they say, is to keep talking, talking, talking, because the more they talk about sodomy, the more “tiresome” and normal it will seem.

Finally, Kirk and Madsen say this: “[A]ctivists have concentrated their efforts on politics, meaning efforts to secure gay rights by conspiring with liberal elites within the legal and legislative systems.” (Pp. 170-71) Remember, the word “conspiring” is theirs, not mine.

Indeed: “. . . The goal here has been to forge a little entente or conspiracy with the power elite, to jump ahead of public sentiment or ignore it altogether.” They speak of the successful use of “many executive orders (which side-step the democratic process) . . . .”

Now ask yourself, is all this a mere fantasy, or has it been happening? The point is that the present sodomite explosion is by no means haphazard; you are being subjected to a brilliantly orchestrated plan, the first gambit in which was the founding of the Mattachine Society by Reds. And remember that all of this comes from the connivers themselves, what our friends the lawyers call an “admission against interest.”

Finally, remember that according to the holiest writ of the sodomite movement, people are born homosexual. No choice is involved. Sodomites can no more blamed for sodomy than “straights” can be blamed for heterosexuality. But Kirk and Madsen say as follows on page 184 in a parenthesis: “. . . (We argue that, for all practical purposes, gays should be considered to have been born gay—even though sexual orientation, for most humans, seems to be the product of a complex interaction between innate predispositions and environmental factors during childhood and early adolescence.) To suggest in public that homosexuality might be chosen is to open the can of worms labeled ‘moral choice and sin’ and give the religious Intransigents a stick to beat us with. . . .”

In other words, sodomites are made. The idea that people are “born gay” is another conspiratorial lie; is nothing but another media gambit designed to keep the lid tightly on that sinful “can of worms.” How else could rescue groups be salvaging so many from the sodomite lifestyle and restoring them to normal life?

The sodomite onslaught in the media, in the schools and everywhere else has been designed to convince us that sodomy is as normal as apple pie and baseball. Some guys like blondes. Some guys like brunettes. And, according to the lie, some guys like guys. But the horror in the Church proves the point that sodomites are made, not born; that they must recruit because they can’t give birth—and that sodomy by its nature includes preying upon children.

Years ago, when subversion was starting to show up in many Protestant denominations, observers who weren’t Catholic would nevertheless applaud the fact that there were no signs of it in the Catholic Church; they said that at least the Catholics still upheld the basic principles of Christianity. What happened? My speculation is that subversion—and now perversion—just took longer to show up in the Catholic Church. Because Protestantism is what it is, anyone can open a storefront church. Because the Catholic Church is hierarchical, however, it no doubt took many years for the termites to work their way high enough in the hierarchy so that they could safely “come out.”

So you can see that this is part of a world wide conspiracy, authored by Satan, to attack the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is happening and in one aspect is the way God is allowing it to happen in order to Get His true church ready for His return. PRAISE GOD, FOR OUR REDEMPTION DRAWTH NIGH!!!!!!!!

 

Hahahahahaha!

That was the funniest thing I have read in awhile.

 

Brett, Your humanist education is showing

 

My apologies, but I find conspiracy theories humorous.

 

Oh really. We live everyday fighting a spiritual conspiracy of Satan. He hates the Church and Jesus and is "conspiring" everyday to destroy it, but will fail. I do not see humor in that. Maybe because Satan is not fighting you very much.

 

If a "homosexual" was abstinent and had purified his mind through Holy Spirit led sanctification such that Satan had 'fled' from tempting him with the sin of homosexuality... if he was transformed by the renewing of his mind into submission to God's divine plan for human sexuality (one man, one woman- married for life)... if his profound belief was that the only proper sexual relation he could ever have or imagine was a marriage relationship with a saved woman... then he would be qualified to minister.

Under these circumstances, the man would have fully repented of homosexuality and would wholly reject the label "abstinate homosexual" but rather "former homosexual". In short, anyone who considered themselves a "homosexual", abstinate or active, would not be fully repentant and therefore not qualifed to minister. One cannot simultaneously be truly repentant and label themselves by a predisposition towards a particular sin.

Contrary to popular indoctrination, "homosexual" is defined by what some perverse people do, not by what they are.

 

You can go to alanstang.com and read all kinds of conspiracy theories that are filled with untrue, misreprented, and out-of-context tripe. The article posted comes from there.

Another link on his site concerning Hitler and homosexuality states that: "From beginning to end, the Nazi Party was homosexual" and goes into a diatribe about how the Nazi Party was driven by homosexuality. It cites the book "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party" which is a ridiculously outrageous example of historical revisionism.

 

As Joshua said truthfully, there are already "gay pastors" out there.

The danger doesn't lie only in the internal implications but the external as well. Anything a "Baptist" says or does effects how all of us are viewed by the secular world.

Our witness to the lost is damaged by these people. The call isn't simply God's love... it is also a call to repentance. Redefining sin undermines the very notion of repentance.

These 'ministers' also wound Baptists politically. If a significant portion of Baptists agree with the world that homosexuality is OK then the world will interpret the objections of the rest of us as hypocrisy and hatefulness.

 

So you say Scott. I guess all your sources are right. Yea right . As far as sodomites and Hitlers it was part of their lifestyle. Sin always produces more sin.

 

Here is another good devotional on the topic from Bill Keller. I like his devotionals and agree with him about 95% of the time. Here it is:

DAILY DEVOTIONAL THURSDAY JULY 31, 2003
( Genesis 18:16 - 19:28 )

The United States, a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah? In light of the recent
Supreme Court ruling that overturned the sodomy law in Texas, we now learn
that in New York City, there will be an all gay high school. Harvey Milk
High School will be for GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered)
students. Also, now available is a new television network called the Pride
Network , that will have 24/7 programming geared towards a gay audience. On
top of that is the plethora of new programs on cable and network television
promoting the gay lifestyle. "Boy Meets Boy" is a reality dating program
for gay
men to meet other gay men. Another reality genre program is "Queer Eye For
The
Straight Guy." Already airing on cable is "Queer as Folk" and the popular
HBO
series "Six Feet Under" where a leading character is gay. Not to be
outdone, the
networks which already have brought us openly gay characters on the
top-rated
sitcom "Will and Grace," will have over 6 new sitcoms with openly gay
characters.
Welcome to a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah!

The purpose of this Devotional today is to warn those who are not aware to
what extent the pro-homosexual agenda is being fulfilled and to hopefully
wake up the bloated, weak, and apathetic church that has to bear much of the
responsibility for the moral decay of our culture. The goal of those who
have chosen the homosexual lifestyle is to justify their sinful choice that
is inherently destructive both to society and themselves. They are trying
to force society to validate legally and ethically their choice of sexual
behavior and relationships, and to enact laws that allow them to promote
this sinful choice to our children as normal, even desirable behavior.

Let me say right up front, sin is sin in God's eyes. No sin is greater than
another. The sin of homosexuality is no more, or no less a sin than murder,
adultery, stealing, lying, gossiping, or gluttony. THE REASON THIS SIN IS
BEING SINGLED OUT AND ADDRESSED IS BECAUSE THOSE WHO
COMMIT IT, ARE PROUD OF THEIR SIN AND PROMOTE IT AS AN
ACCEPTABLE LIFESTYLE! People who commit adultery do NOT have
parades to celebrate their sin. People who commit murder do NOT have
political action committees to make murder legal. People who steal do not
have high school clubs and try to teach children that stealing is acceptable
behavior.
Homosexuality is a SIN in the eyes of God and is something to be ashamed of,
NOT proud of.

Theologically this is not even a debatable issue. All through the Bible,
from the Old Testament through the New, homosexuality is defined by God as a
sin, PERIOD. God calls it an ABOMINATION! I have heard the tortured
theological arguments homosexuals have made, but there is absolutely NO WAY
to change the fact this act is a sin. Just because there is now a
homosexual
version of the Bible where they have literally changed the passages that
call this act a sin, that does NOT change God's inspired, inerrant Word.
Just
because there is a fast growing homosexual denomination, the Metropolitan
Community of Churches, that does NOT change the fact God calls this act a
sin. I
can guarantee you if I started a church that taught adultery was acceptable
and wonderful behavior, I could fill stadiums on Sunday morning! THERE IS
NOTHING THAT CAN CHANGE THE FACT GOD CALLS HOMOSEXUALITY A SIN!!!

The two greatest lies the pro-homosexual community has put out are that 1)
homosexuality is something that you are "born with," 2) 10% or more in our
society are homosexual. First, modern science has CLEARLY rejected and been
unable to prove that ANYONE is "born gay". IT IS A CHOICE!!!! PEOPLE
CHOOSE TO ENGAGE IN HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR!!!! LIKE ALL SIN, ONCE YOU DO IT
LONG ENOUGH, IT MAY SEEM 'NATURAL', BUT IT IS STILL A CHOICE THAT YOU MAKE.
Also, all legitimate studies done by the non-homosexual community clearly
show that less then 1% of the population EVER engage in this type of sexual
sin.

Of course, anyone that dares to speak up on this issue is labeled as
"intolerant" and a "homophobe." I find it amusing that Dr. Laura, who
correctly pointed out that homosexuality is a deviant lifestyle, had her
television program targeted and eventually taken off the air by the
homosexual community. So this group that calls for tolerance by others, is
very
INTOLERANT when someone opposes their views. They also use the word
"homophobe" to intimidate people from speaking out against their sexual
choice.

Since I started Liveprayer just under 4 years ago, I receive an average of
5-6 death threats a month. By far, the largest number of those threats over
the years have been after running a Devotional on this issue. Last night on
my television program I dealt with this issue. I immediately received 2
death threats, was sent some of the most hateful, nasty, vile emails that I
have ever seen. But I can promise you one thing, I WILL NOT BE SILENT! It
upsets the pro-homosexual community in Tampa where my program originates
since my program has no commercial sponsors that they can boycott, and I BUY
THE TIME from the UPN Network, specifically so nobody can tell me what I can
and cannot say. So they have no way to silence me, except thru trying to
intimidate me. I CANNOT BE SILENT ON THIS ISSUE BECAUSE IT IS NOT
ONLY A BONDAGE MANY MEN AND WOMEN NEED TO BE SET FREE FROM,
BUT IT IS HELPING TO DESTROY THE FAMILY!

I love you and care about you so much. THE GREATEST PROBLEM IN OUR
NATION TODAY IS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FAMILY. God's definition
of "family" is a man and woman that are married and their children. We have
literally
watched the family become perverted and destroyed over the past 40 years.
The
destruction of the family will be the ultimate destruction of our society.
THAT is
why this issue is so critical, because it destroys the family as God
intended it to be!

The church better wake up and realize that while they have been building
great buildings and getting fat, satan has been busy using the sin of
homosexuality to destroy the family. As much of an abomination as
homosexual churches are, equally as abominable to God are regular churches
that accept homosexuality as a normal lifestyle! Parents, you better wake
up
and be aware that your daughters are being taught at school that it is
"cool" to have sex with other girls, it is called "lesbian chic." You also
better be aware that your sons are being taught having a boyfriend is the
"in thing." Lastly, you better be VERY AWARE of what is on television, in
music, and out in the culture that is constantly sending the message to your
children
that homosexuality is a normal and acceptable CHOICE!

We live in a free society. If people who have chosen to engage in
homosexual activity want to have their own schools, their own churches,
their own television network, they have every right to. It is about time
the church wakes up and realizes that those who promote this sin are bold
and are stopping at NOTHING to get their message out to the masses. THAT is
why I am always talking about how the church, those who know Christ as their
Savior, have got to quit preaching to the choir and start taking the hope
and love of Christ to the world at large. As those who follow Christ, we
also have a responsibility to pray for those who are in this bondage, for
God to
open their hearts to the truth of His Word, and to turn from their sin.
Only God
can change hearts, and for those who are in bondage to the sin of
homosexuality,
we must pray for them to open their hearts and turn from their sin.

Until Jesus returns, we will always have those who choose a perverted form
of sex with those of their own gender, just like we will always have those
who choose to pervert sex by having it outside of the bonds of marriage.
While we can never accept their choice since it is clearly against God's
Word, we must pray for them, just like we must pray for everyone who is
battling sin in their life.

For those reading this who are currently fighting homosexuality, let me tell
you that God has never
stopped loving you, and is simply waiting for you to turn from your sin and
come back to Him. We serve a God of deliverance from sin, a God of
forgiveness, and a God of restoration. Millions have turned from the sin of
homosexuality and found complete restoration and fulfillment in living a
life according to God's plan. What He did for someone else, He can do for
you! I pray today that you hear these words, and choose to find freedom
from your sin today. That freedom is only a prayer away!


In his love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller

 

To answer the OP: not in my church, matey! Indeed I can't think of any church in our Baptist Union of Great Britain which would knowingly call or ordain a practising homosexual, and if they did I think they would be kicked out of the BUGB. That's different from having someone who is a celibate and repentant - note the italics; it's not enough IMO for a homosexual to be celibate simply because for example they consider celibacy to be 'trendy' or 'more holy' - in the pulpit. I would have no problem with that, whether they call themselves a 'recovering homosexual', 'abstinent-with-homosexual-orientation', 'former homosexual'etc; there would probably have to be certain pastoral and accountability safeguards in place such as strong leadrship team or them not being the sole minister, the same for any other vulnerable individual such as a recovering alcoholic.

Yours in Christ

Matt

BTW, that one about Hitler and the Nazis being homosexual - that's a good one! . I guess that's why he had them all gassed in Germany and had Ernst Roehm, homosexual leader of the SA, shot in the Night of the Long Knives

 

Supplanter, I meant no offence - no way was I referring to the Holocaust being a joke - far from it; it was Jailminister's (?) opinion that the Nazis were all closet homosexuals that I was laughing at - I was attempting to point out the high degree of improbability and implausability of that in the light of the fact that many homosexuals perished in the Holocaust at the Nazis' behest.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Matt Black and supplanter. Read this(There are many more if you need them)

The fact is that the Nazi Party was founded by homosexuals. This is documented beyond dispute by historians whose works have been published since the end of WW II, most recently by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams in "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality In The Nazi Party."

Hitler is listed as a homosexual in Viennese police files, according to the historian Desmond Seward in his "Napoleon and Hitler." There is little doubt that he was a sexual pervert. Beyond any challenge is the fact that Hitler's closest friend, Ernst Roehm, was a notorious homosexual. Hitler and Roehm were founders of the Nazi Party in the early 1920s.

The fiction that the Nazis were anti-homosexual stems from the murder of Roehm, on orders of Hitler, June 30, 1934, the "Night of the Long Knives." Roehm, along with thousands of his homosexual followers, was murdered not because he was a homosexual, but because Hitler had reason to believe that Roehm threatened to seize leadership of the Party.

Roehm was in position to do so because his brown shirts, some three million, outnumbered the German army. Roehm had been turned down by Hitler when he demanded control of the German Army. For their part, the Army generals demanded of Hitler, who was already the Chancellor, that Roehm be eliminated. Their demand was affirmed by German industrialists who threatened to cut off funding of the Nazi Party. Thereupon, Hitler decided to end both his friendship and the life of Roehm.

In the ensuing years, Hitler sought to strengthen his popular support by proclaiming his opposition to homosexuals. Under German law, homosexuality was a felony. The German people held homosexuals in disdain. Coming out against them was made easier for Hitler who arrested and imprisoned individual homosexuals accused of crimes.

Among these homosexuals were those who murdered Nazis and left notes on their corpses that the killing was in revenge for the murder of Roehm and his homosexual followers.

At no time were homosexuals rounded up as were Jews and transported to concentration camps for extinction. They were not gassed. Many serviced homosexual guards during their incarceration. It is especially significant to note that some prominent homosexuals were retained by Hitler in leadership positions in the Third Reich right up to its final days in 1945.

Remember sin only produces more sin.

 

Ditto. I've come across this kind of thing before, often by right-wing groups who will do anything to distance themselves from the Nazis and try to make out that they were not a far right group by trying to make out either (a) they were far left really (b) they were all homosexuals really or (c) (a) and (b). I would think that this kind of theory originated with such a right wing group.

But...we're getting off topic, folks.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Jailminister, how about a source to back that up?

 

Here is another source as well as the news article.

Hitler was gay - and killed to hide it, book says

Kate Connolly in Berlin
Sunday October 7, 2001
The Observer

Adolf Hitler was gay - or so says a sensational new biography on the Nazi dictator due to be published tomorrow.
Eyewitness accounts from Hitler's former lovers, and historical documents that for the first time illuminate rumours that have circulated for over half a century, are disclosed in Hitler's Secret: The Double Life of a Dictator .

The respected German historian Lothar Machtan even claims in his book that Hitler ordered the deaths of several high-ranking Nazis to prevent the secret of his homosexuality from surfacing.

Ernst Röhm, the leader of Hitler's Sturm Abteilung or Storm Troopers, tried to blackmail Hitler by threatening to reveal his sexuality. Röhm, who was also gay, was murdered as a result, according to Machtan, a history teacher at Bremen University.

He refers to scores of historical documents to support his thesis. In 1915, the young Hitler was a dispatch rider at the front in France. Years later, yet before Hitler became infamous, one of his fellow soldiers, Hans Mend, wrote in his memoirs: 'At night, Hitler lay with Schmidl, his male whore.' Schmidl, otherwise known as Ernst Schmidt, and Hitler were 'inseparable lovers' for five years, according to Machtan.

Hitler's service notes read that as a result of the love affair there was reluctance among senior officers to promote him. According to Erich Ebermeier, a lawyer and writer who viewed Hitler's military files years later: 'Despite his bravery towards the enemy, because of his homosexual activity he lost out on a promotion to non-commissioned officer.'

Police reports from Munich after the First World War also suggest that Hitler was pursued by police because of his sexual orientation. 'As a "brown" [fascist] activist, Hitler managed to lure many young men to his side, but not only for political reasons,' says Machtan.

According to a Munich police protocol from the early part of the 20th century, a 22-year-old man called Joseph told the police: 'I spent the whole night with him.' Another, Michael, who was 18, told them: 'I had been unemployed for months, and my mother and my brother were always hungry, so, at his request, I accompanied the man to his home.' Another, a boy called Franz, said: 'He asked me if I'd like to stay with him and he told me his name was Adolf Hitler.'

The police reports were collected by Otto von Lossow, a German army general who took part in suppressing the Hitler putsch in 1923. He kept the Munich police file for years, as, he described it, 'a form of personal life insurance'. If Hitler had attempted to push him aside, he would have blackmailed him with the information, he said. The police documents were published some years ago in Rome by Eugen Dollmann, a close friend of Heinrich Himmler's and also Hitler's interpreter. But because his book never appeared in German, the startling information remained largely overlooked by historians.

Machtan says that Hitler was particularly drawn to Rudolf Hess, his deputy, who was known in party circles as 'black Emma' and with whom he had spent months in Landsberg prison.

Why, then, did the Nazis persecute homosexuals, sending hundreds of thousands of them to their deaths in labour camps and the gas chambers?

'Hitler himself never condemned homosexuality, but he allowed the persecution of gays in order to disguise his own true colours,' Machtan says.