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> trac ki n g s p i r i t u a l t r e n d s i n t h e 2 1s t ce n t u r y
v o l u m e 2 0 : 6 ( 1,2 3 5 ) / F e b r u a r y 1 1 , 2 0 1 5
In this issue:
HOMOSEXUALITY - Time magazine
HOMOSEXUALITY
A Change of Heart: Inside the Evangelical
war over gay marriage by Elizabeth Dias
reports that EastLake Community Church
in Seattle <eastlakecc.com> is quietly coming out as one of the first openly LGBTaffirming evangelical churches in the U.S.
... The churchs first gay wedding took place
last month. Pastor Ryan Meeks, 36, regularly preaches an unusual brand of evangelicalism.... A turning point came when he
realized one of his staffers had been afraid to
tell him she was dating a woman. ...
The overall public has favored gay
marriage for three years. Dias adds that
evangelical churches and their congregations typically remain opposed, though that
opposition is weakening. ... Support among
the oldest evangelicals grew from 1 in 20 in
2003 to 1 in 5 in 2014. But the fastest change
can be found among younger evangelicals,
whose support for gay marriage jumped
from 20% in 2003 to 42% in 2014. And that
is a shift that is uprooting everything. ...
In many evangelical communities, the
Bible itself is on trial. A new generation is
rejecting the culture-warrior tone that gave
evangelicals outsize political power during
the past three decades. ...
Its not surprising that EastLake is an
early adopter. Seattle has a higher percentage
of gay-couple households than SanFrancisco
1 in 17 couples living together in the city
is gay. Nearly all of Meeks 30 staff members
are under the age of 35 and plugged in to cultural shifts. But theologically, it is daring. If
evangelicalism is famous for anything, it is
opposition to homosexuality. ...
Consider the Reformation Project
<www.reformationproject.org>, a Wichita,
Kans.-based effort by 24-year-old gay evangelical activist Matthew Vines to raise up
LGBT-affirming voices in every evangelical
church in the country. To reach that goal, he
is training reformers in batches of 40 to 50
at regional leadership workshops who can
go back to their home churches and serve
as advocates for LGBT inclusion. The Reformation Project has staffers in three states,
representatives in 25 more and plans for a
presence in all 50 states by 2018.
homosexuality (continued)
APOLOGIAreport
v o l u m e 2 0 : 6 ( 1,2 3 5 ) / F e b r u a r y 1 1 , 2 0 1 5
sexuality, Mitchell argues that heterosexuality is not just the opposite of homosexuality but also the opposite of feminism.
Under the heading The Challenge of
Coming Out, Mitchell writes: Todays gay
Christians defy this biblical and traditional
Christian order when they come out and
publicly profess their homosexuality, as if the
old man were who they really are, as if change
were not possible, as if Christ could not heal
as if they could not still marry and have children, and as if others were wrong to expect
them to conform to heterosexual norms distinguishing the sexes in so many ways. ...
[P]ublic acceptance of the immutability
of their sexual identity is just what many gay
Christians seek from other Christians. ...
The truth is that even adults who have
fully embraced an unchase gay lifestyle can
and do sometimes change enough to live
happy heterosexual lives, but the hope of
such healing gets short shrift in the chastegay narrative.
Mitchell concludes: It takes perhaps a
generation for a compete moral inversion
to take place. You cant keep what you wont
teach. Older members, taught that heterosexuality is normal and that homosexuality is
sinful, will give way in time to younger members, who have never heard homosexuality
condemned in church, who instead have been
taught by the world to hate the haters who
condemn it, and who therefore will think
they do God service when they persecute the
faithful for bearing witnes against wickedness. Touchstone, Jan/Feb 15, pp31-37.3
SOURCES: Monographs
2 - Time, <www.time.com>
3 - Touchstone (conservative ecumenical),
<www.touchstonemag.com>
Michael Jaffarian
Missions Researcher, CBInternational
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