Time to take a breather? Guess not.

Do you ever notice that once you get interested in something, you feel like you are seeing that 'something' everywhere. I purchased a 2001 Toyota Highlander a year ago this past August. Prior to buying the vehicle (which I love by the way), I couldn't have been sure what a Highlander looked like. Now I see them everywhere. I'm beginning to feel this way about gay issues.

There was a time when the topic rarely crossed my mind. Before I took to blogging about emergent theology, I was immersed in the pro-life v. pro-choice debate (http://johnonlife.blogspot.ca/). It seemed then that I was constantly tripping over incidents, articles, programs, and polls related to abortion, physician-assisted suicide, stem cell research, euthanasia, the abortion-breast cancer link, reproductive technology, and so on. I am still very aware of these matters, of course. But with my primary attention having shifted to this more recent area of exploration, I feel like I am drowning in a new ocean of issues I hadn't thought much about in the past.

As to the mindset I bring to this endeavor, in 2011 I got involved for a brief time with a church that puts itself squarely in the Emergent camp. This experience proved to be highly stimulating academically for me, not to mention very freeing theologically. But as with every other area of interest, I have had to resort to writing to figure out what I think--hence, this blog. What is important to me as a Christian is that I think through matters of faith within the context of a high view of Scripture (see my March 5/14 post). This places historic theological parameters around my thinking that should give my conclusions (however tentative) some credibility to those for whom our faith is more important than one's personal preferences.

That's why I have been plodding through the biblical material on homosexuality (just as I did through other theological topics in earlier posts) at a snail's pace. I know that I make sloths look speedy by comparison, but I don't want to be guilty of leaving unturned stones. In addition, I am taking my standard "theology from the ground up" approach, rather than relying on established schools of thought to do the analysis for me.

But by now, I'm wondering if I've exhausted you, my faithful reader, with the my slow pace. So I ask myself, "Is it time to take a breather?"

I might have said yes, but then I ran across this: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2014/March/World-Vision-to-Hire-Christians-in-Gay-Marriages/.

It seems that the highly respected Christian organization World Vision USA has decided that it is not up to them to solve the issue of whether gay marriage is biblical or unbiblical, moral or immoral, evangelical-friendly or ungodly, and has begun to hire same-sex Christian couples. Of course, the organization, which devotes itself to social justice issues around the world in the name of Christianity, has been denounced by all the usual suspects: Franklin Graham, The Southern Baptists, the Gospel Coalition, the Assemblies of God, the American Family Association, and others.

High profile evangelical pastor John Piper makes his opposition clear:
Make no mistake, this so-called “neutral” position of World Vision is a position to regard practicing homosexuals (under the guise of an imaginary “marriage”) as following an acceptable Christian lifestyle, on the analogy of choosing infant baptism over believers’ baptism.

Over against this, the apostle Paul says they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. It is that serious. If it were not, God would not have given his Son to be crucified for our rescue. Therefore, World Vision has trivialized perdition and the cross (http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/world-vision-adultery-no-homosexual-practice-yes).

Given this hatred, disguising itself as orthodoxy, I feel that I have no option but to carry on. So gird up your loins, my friend. I'm not quite done yet.

Sorry about that.