Crisis?
Is it really?
I'm a Presbyterian pastor, and I have watched my own group rip itself to shreds over this issue - "fundamentalists" on both sides, yet I lay the greater responsibility at the feet of the so-call "evangelicals" - those who claim the high moral ground and lift up the name of Jesus at every turn of the road, yet behave with malice and back-room tactics.
I made my decision, biblically and theologically, a long time ago. Of course, there are always questions, as there should be in any large decision we make. Yet that's the problem - for the conservative wing of the church, there are no questions, no doubts, no second thoughts, and I'll say, "no thoughts at all."
They claim homosexuality to be the ultimate biblical test, just like states' rights and slavery for the South of the 1840s, and absolute submission to the church for the Inquisitors of the 1400s.
Religious fanatics always draw lines in the sand, but time, like an ever-changing tide, sweeps such lines away, but only later generations can see the folly. At the moment, they feel good, helping folks to "feel in" by determining those those who are "out."
This, too, shall pass, but not soon enough to prevent the shame the church before the world and deny welcome to a segment of our human family.
