Saturday 8 July 2017

Has the FIEC capitulated on the homosexual agenda?

John Stevens is national director of the FIEC. In this blog post - http://www.john-stevens.com/2017/06/tim-farrons-resignation-how-should.html - he has many good things to say.... but unfortunately ruins it all by taking the position that Christians have only themselves to blame if homosexual rights' activists think that evangelical churches are not on their side. He says:
First, some of the organisations that have been most vociferous in condemning the intolerance that led to the resignation of Tim Farron are those that have consistently stood against the grant of any civic rights and freedoms to the LBGT community. It is hardly surprising that the gay community is suspicious of the political objectives of evangelical Christians. Christians need to adopt a political philosophy that is appropriate for a genuinely plural society that encompasses both believers and unbelievers.
This view is disastrous. Firstly, since we are God's spokesmen, let us speak as God does. In the Bible, you will not find anything like the vocabulary of this paragraph. The Bible does not recognise such a thing as "the LBGT (sic) community" or "the gay community". This is not a Biblical way of speaking. People who choose to define themselves by, and campaign for approval of, what Scripture labels as serious depravity and rebellion as the Creator, are not a "community". There is no "gay community" any more than there is a "murderer's community", "adulterer's community" or "thieves' community". It takes a few decades of aggressive brainwashing before we start to forget these simple things, but in theory, in the churches of Jesus Christ we're regularly instructed on God's point of view and taught to think straight about such things - aren't we? Secondly, what does John Stevens mean by "the grant of any civic rights and freedoms to the LBGT community"? It is now over 50 years since private homosexual activity was decriminalised. Since then, the various political fights have been over such things as:

  • Whether it should be compulsory for schoolchildren to be indoctrinated in homosexualist ideology, or whether they should be protected form it (Section 28)
  • Whether children have a right to a father and a mother, or whether they should be treated as trophies, and homosexuals permitted to adopt them.
  • Whether Christians should be forced, on pain of losing their livelihoods, to promote homosexual ideology (e.g. by being forced to publish homosexual propagranda, write homosexual propaganda on wedding cakes, etc.), or whether they should retain the freedom to have and live according to their own views.
  • Whether marriage should be redefined so that it no longer is a fixed entity, reflecting the fixed thoughts and will of our Creator, but should instead be a political football reflecting the arbitrary will of a majority of 600-odd MPs, which today means, promoting homosexual depravity as fully equal to actual marriage.
  • Whether it should be a crime to seek to help a person who experiences homosexual temptation to seek to deny and/or re-orient his desires, through the power of the Holy Spirit, rather than teaching him to embrace them as his core identity.
And so on, and so forth. That's where the fight has been in our adult lifetimes, at least since before England last won the World Cup.

The fact that Mr. Stevens considers that Christian organisations who have been speaking up clearly and straightforwardly on these matters have been doing wrong, is absolutely disastrous. It shows that the rot of propaganda in the name of dreadful perversity has now reached right to the core of conservative evangelicalism. The fact that Mr. Stevens considers that capitulating is actually the *virtuous* thing to do is a thing that should make Bible-believing Christians weep.

Steven's stated position is that what is widely accepted in society ought to be the yardstick of what Christians seek for, and campaign for in the public space. On that basis, we should not just give up the fight against the homosexual agenda, and the current push for radical "transexual" ideology being pushed on our children (e.g. very aggressively by Ofsted), but a whole host of other issues too. Why fight against abortion? Against sexual immorality of any kind? The culture and society are against us. So why not just give up? "Pluralism" is such a warm and fuzzy word after all, isn't it?

Surely the answer to those questions has something to do with the Creator's rights over his creation? To be sure, the Bible recognises that sometimes laws will exist "because of the hardness of men's hearts". Churches are not an alternative police force. We must live, as much as possible, within the framework that we find ourselves in. But this has absolutely nothing to do with changing our theology, and handing over the world to the devil simply because people don't like what their Maker has to say about things. It has nothing to do with making peace with sin, and retreating into our homes and churches so that we only preach about it among the faithful, whilst leaving the rest of the world to rot.

There is more in the comment I wrote on Mr. Stevens' blog piece: http://www.john-stevens.com/2017/06/tim-farrons-resignation-how-should.html

One final thing. In case you think I'm too strong, notice the first comment, from one of the sheep, as he listens to this shepherd. What's his take-away? "A really helpful article. Thanks. It helped me think afresh on what it means to be a pluralist society, and challenged my opinion of some evangelical organisations who advocate and lobby parliament to uphold traditional Christian practices." As I say - this is a disaster.

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