Can gay people go to heaven
LGBTQ+ church bid: 'I was told entity gay would forward you to hell'
Betty Harper is so "sick and tired" of trying to find a church where she feels truly welcomed as a lgbtq+ woman that she is planning to start her own.
The 21-year-old charity worker from Llanddulas, Conwy county, is engaged to her boyfriend of two years. Both are Christians who want to find somewhere accepting to practise their faith but hold so far not found what they are looking for locally.
Betty has travelled a long thoroughfare to accepting her sexuality. Raised in a "very, very strict" Christian common, the message she heard growing up was that homosexual relationships were sinful.
But she knew from an initial age that was what she wanted.
She explains: "When I was younger I felt different to my friends. I wasn't attracted to the boys [but] I was attracted to the girls.
"My dad was a pastor of a church at this time and all I've recognizable my entire existence is 'being same-sex attracted is wrong, and being gay will send you to hell'."
'It didn't travel down very well'
Betty remembers first mentioning her ideas about her sexual
You Will Go to Hell
Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals1, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9b-10.)
A professing Christian husband and father leaves his wife of thirty years for a new woman the age of his daughter. A Sunday University teacher is obsessed with his favourite sports team, going into short legal title debt to produce trips all over the country to watch his team play. A college student heavily committed with the local collegiate ministry regularly has sexual intercourse with his girlfriend. A young dude attends church regularly but frequents homosexual bars, looking for gay men, and goes home with them. A seeming loving and adv adjusted lesbian couple, who know the Bible well, claim to love Jesus. An elder in a church regularly cheats on his income tax and steals money from his company. A young mother who teaches children’s church constantly badgers her husband for a bigger house, a nicer car, beat clothing and runs up huge credit card bills trying to satiate her covetous and idolatrous lifestyle. A pastor preaches
The Bible and same sex relationships: A review article
Tim Keller, 2015
Vines, Matthew, God and the Queer Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same Sex Relationships, Convergent Books, 2014
Wilson, Ken,A Letter to My Congregation, David Crum Media, 2014.
The relationship of homosexuality to Christianity is one of the main topics of discussion in our culture today. In the fall of last year I wrote a review of books by Wesley Hill and Sam Allberry that take the historic Christian view, in Hill’s words: “that homosexuality was not God’s original creative intention for humanity ... and therefore that homosexual practice goes against God’s express will for all human beings, especially those who have faith in Christ.”
There are a number of other books that take the opposite view, namely that the Bible either allows for or supports same sex relationships. Over the last year or so I (and other pastors at Redeemer) have been regularly asked for responses to their arguments. The two most read volumes taking this position seem to be those by Matthew Vines and Ken Wilson. The review of these two books will be longer than usual because the topic is so contested today and, wh
LGBT Issues and the Church: Problems With a ‘Gay Christian’ Identity
This is part one of an continuing series on problematic trends in the church regarding LGBT issues.
There’s a movement in Christian circles where those struggling with gay attractions identify themselves with terms like “gay Christian” or “gay celibate Christian.”
Others use terms like “sexual minority Christians,” “queer Christian” or even “trans Christian.”
Many who describe themselves this way – but by no means all – say they are embracing chastity or celibacy and pursuing a relationship with Christ. That is, they believe the historic, biblical Christian sexual ethic, that God created humans male and female, and sexual expression is reserved for the marriage relationship of a husband and wife.
A number of Christian writers and ministries have adopted this nomenclature, with some of them training churches and other ministries to follow their lead.
Focus on the Family does not believe these terms are biblical or helpful for same-sex-attracted strugglers. Although these groups and individuals keep to biblical teaching that transgender and homosexual lust and behavior are improper , they fail to apply