Message to Soulforce, Willow Creek Church and Young People on Homosexuality

Willow Creek Community Church’s chief of security (the man pointing and talking to police in the photo) became belligerent as he tried to deny Americans For Truth our First Amendment freedom to stand on a public sidewalk outside the entrance to the church grounds. Police informed him that he was wrong and that indeed we could stand with our banner on a public sidewalk. Our message responding to the homosexual activist (non-) “christian” group Soulforce was: “Homosexuality Is Sin. Case Closed — God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Photo: Dan Musick.

NOTE: we’ll have more on the Willow Creek-Soulforce story in upcoming posts. The following was posted on the Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear’s blog, “The Seeker,” which contains a report on Willow Creek’s meeting last weekend with Soulforce homosexual activists.

By Peter LaBarbera

I wonder: is transcendent truth conditional on the age of the person receiving it? Either homosexual behavior is a changeable sin or it is not — 1,000 years ago, today, and 1,000 years in the future. The Word of God is clear that it is. I have met far too many EX-gays to believe that homosexuality is some fixed identity (“orientation”) into which people are born — and most of these FORMER gay men and ex-lesbians testify to the power of Jesus Christ in setting them free from homosexuality.

That last part is the Good News of the Gospel that Soulforce and its traveling band of revisionist “pro-gay christians” does not want to hear, as they falsely claim that Christianity is compatible with homosexuality. That is why I and another Christian were outside Willow Creek Community Church last Sunday with a message that the case is closed on whether homosexuality is a (changeable) sin.

There was a time not too long ago when being “pro-choice” was very trendy, and opinion leaders thought the abortion debate was pretty much over (and pro-lifers had lost). Then came ultrasound and other developments and now it is the pro-abortion side that is on the defensive, and which loathes talking about the humanity of the unborn. (Try finding the word “abortion” on NARAL’s [formerly National Abortion Rights Action League] website.)

To the young people reading this I ask: what gives you the right to redefine age-old Biblical morality on sex? Did you learn something new that God didn’t know when He inspired the Bible? Have you ever met someone who overcame homosexuality through Christ? Could it be that due to your unprecedented exposure to pro-“gay” messages in the culture that your thinking is off-kilter on this issue? What gives you the authority to proclaim homosexuality and “gay” relationships OK? And wouldn’t each of us sinners like to take our own favorite sin, decide it’s not a sin and instead call it part of our basic identity — and even part of our “civil rights”?

The irony of “softer” evangelicals who complain about the “Religious Right” focusing too much attention on homosexuality as some special sin is that they are guilty of the very same thing: by being far too cavalier about homosexuality and accepting of same-sex relationships when God Himself is neither. (That is, if you believe the Bible: see Prof. Rob Gagnon’s website for clear Scriptural evidence on the Bible and homosexual practice: www.robgagnon.net.)

God in His grace changes drunks, drug addicts, gossipers, philanderers, liars, cheats, thieves, white-collar criminals, pornographers, and … people caught up in homosexuality. Deny that, and you deny Jesus Himself.

Would Willow Creek have agreed to a (forced) meeting with activists claiming that using pornography is not a sin, or that the “swinging” lifestyle is OK with God? No way. I think they bowed to Soulforce”s pressure to “dialogue” because this particular sin, as Greg aptly calls it, enjoys a certain worldly favor that most others do not. Christ said His followers would get persecuted for following Him, and these days that includes being smeared as a “bigot” or a “homophobe” — and being accused of “spiritual violence” by the savvy activists at Soulforce — merely for agreeing with God that homosexual behavior is a sin that can be overcome through Jesus Christ.