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“reasons for switching to a new religious tradition or denomination…(56%) say it was because they stopped believing…. 30% indicate they were turned off by the religion’s negative teachings about or treatment of LGBTQ people, 29% say their family was never that religious growing up, 27% say they were disillusioned by scandals” - PRRI

Discussion

Thu, 07/27/23

The “urge” is the sex drive, which is universal. It is shaped by many experiences and choices, the past and the power of memory (especially for strong sensations) may keep one in a recurring pattern of lust, especially if the past is an object of meditation

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Fri, 07/28/23

But there’s a level of hypocrisy in calling out homosexuality while sexual sins like adultery and porn are rampant.

Wouldn’t the hypocrisy be in calling one out while defending or excusing the others. And even if that were the case, that doesn’t mean that calling out a sin is wrong. Again, this would create numerous problems with Scripture where only one sin is called out in a passage.

How is this different than the “whataboutism” that seems hated?

Mon, 08/14/23

The issue in these particular cases was pro sports teams highlighting one particular sin and essentially requiring everyone on the team to appear as if they supported it. The other sins weren’t at issue.

There is no biblical requirement that I can think of that requires us to call out “>1” sin in order to call out a sin. Do you know of one?

There is certainly biblical requirement to not distort the gospel.

To repeat, the gospel is most emphatically not “People guilty of the sin bothering me most at the most at the moment are going to hell.”

This is actually an anti-gospel message.

The same is true if the sin being targeted in a Tweet in reaction to some recent pressure to accept it. Sports teams shouldn’t be promoting sins, of course, but the fact they sometimes do doesn’t give Christians a license to distort the gospel.

Are there no situations where we should speak about against one particular sin? I’m not saying that, but we have to be careful what sort of message we’re effectively sending, which could be quite different from the one we’re intending to send.

If a believer wants to protest the promotion of a specific sin, the way to do that is not to announce that people guilty of it are going to Hell—for reasons I’ve already noted.

If you want to protest something, criticize the promotion rather than declaring a distorted hamartiology. Rather than “people guilty of x are going to hell,” why not “Our league has no business promoting a controversial sexual ethic” or “We need to stop trying for force people to back ideas they don’t believe in” or any number of things that actually speak to what’s happening.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.