The culture is raging against God and His people. On this week’s Liberty Cafe, we examine one form of this attack on God and the church: Side B Homosexuality and gay pastors.
Transcribed by Otter.ai:
Welcome to Liberty cafe, where pressure is on the menu. It’s not difficult to see with a brief glance around us that God is a creator of all things, yet the nations are raging. And they’re doing their very best to deny that God is the Creator because like it says in Psalm two, they want to cut the cords with God, they want to remove the shackles that they feel like God has put them under. They want to rule without God, and God’s interference in what they’re doing. And so they’ve gone on the attack, and they’re attacking the concept of God as a creator. Well, we’re going to talk about that, particularly as it relates to homosexuality today, and how it relates to the culture around us. In this week’s episode of the Liberty cafe. Hi, my name is Bill peacock. And this is episode 99 of the Liberty cafe 99. That sounds really great. Even better, though, is Episode 100, which we’ll be getting to just next week. So it’s a blessing to have you here for episode 99 of liberty cafe. Hope you can join us next week for episode 100. And it’s also a blessing to be sponsored by Texas scorecard, the great folks over there who are fighting for our liberty here in Texas, and really around the world every single day. So head over to Texas scorecard.com and find out what they’re doing and what you can do to join the fight for liberty. Well, it may sound a little strange, the topic I’m going to talk about today. So, but let me just lay it out for you. So I tend to church in the Presbyterian Church of America, that’s our denomination. So the PCA is one of the more conservative or evangelical or Biblically sound denominations in the United States. But it’s got a challenges over the last 25 years. The woks progressive movement has been making inroads even into the PCA like it has many other denominations over the years. And these inroads have been made on biblical doctrines, such as those related to the days of creation, race egalitarianism that’s been going on for a while. But of course, the fight of the day, really is over. Two things, it’s over abortion, and it’s over homosexuality. And, and so we’re going to focus in on today on homosexuality, because as far as we know, and the culture the canceled culture today, that Christians who speak out against some of the things that are going on in the culture today, whether it’s drag shows family friendly drag shows, or gay marriage or anything else, are often attacked, sometimes physically, more often through verbal attacks or being canceled in their jobs or their work or those kinds of things in the culture. And so it’s really important for us to have a clear picture of the perspective, the biblical perspective on homosexuality, heterosexuality, those kinds of things. So what’s been going on in, in my denomination is there’s been a lot of debate over what is known as side B, homosexuality, or otherwise known as being a gay celibate Christian. And the concept is, it’s okay to be a gay Christian, as long as you’re celibate. Now, let me just be very clear upfront that I welcome. All same sex attracted men and women, to church, let them come in, including those who are attempting to remain celibate. And I do so because they just like me, need to repent of their sin. And if they’re not in church, if we don’t let them in church, if they don’t, aren’t drawn into the church in some way, then they are unlikely to hear the truth that both same sex sex and same sex attraction are unholy and sinful in God’s eyes, and something of which they need to repent. So so that’s the big debate going on in our church right now. And I thought it’d be instructive to the folks who are listening to the Liberty cafe to hear a little bit about this. It’s a little inside baseball. But on the other hand, I think the ramifications are, have clear, or repercussions and ramifications outside the church. Because if the church is getting these things wrong, so is everybody else gonna get to me because the church is responsible for taking the Word of God to the people making disciples of the nations as Matt is. Jesus told his disciples Apostles in Matthew 28 So what’s going on now is that every year we have in the PCA, a general assembly, and they pass what what are known as overtures. And this past summer, there were a number of overtures reading relating to this. Gay Christianity, overtures, 815, and 29. Numbers don’t mean a whole lot. But overture 15 talked about the problem we’re having in the PCA, specifically about whether a gay Christian, somebody who describes himself as a gay Christian identifies as a gay Christian. So who is celibate, right? So some denominations have said, it’s okay to be a practicing homosexual. We haven’t gotten that far yet. And hopefully never do in the PCA. But in this case, there are and I think you can be a Christian and be struggling with same sex attraction, you know, and it’s just like, you can be a Christian and be struggling with adultery, either in your eyes or in actions. And if you do these things, you can repent, and you still continue to walk. And being a Christian. So there’s not a problem there. The problem is whether or not a gay celibate Christian, so to speak, or somebody who’s identifies in that way says they’re gay, and that they’re celibate can be a pastor in the PCA. So I think this is totally wrong. Because what that says that, basically, if you identify as a gay Christian, you’re saying, ultimately, that having these kinds of attractions to men or women, depending on which way you’re going there, there’s nothing sinful about them, as long as you don’t act on them. And that’s simply not the case. Jesus talks about this a lot. Maybe not specifically about the gayness, but you know, for instance, lust, murder, right? If you’re angry at somebody in your heart, you’re murdering them. You’re guilty of murder. If you’re lusting for, in my case, a woman in my heart, I’m guilty of adultery, right. And so the same thing would be if somebody is having sexual attractions for somebody of their own sex, that’s sinful, we need to they need to repent. And, again, that’s all right, if they’re working on it, and desire to repent, but that really doesn’t mean that if they’re describing themselves that way, and saying it’s okay that they don’t need to repent, then they shouldn’t be a pastor in our church or any other church. So this was a narrowly contested vote at our general assembly this past year. They approved it by only 51% was a 50 vote margin 1094 to 1044. But that’s not enough to put this into the Constitution, if you will, we call the book of church order, which is one part of our Constitution at the PCA, it now needs to go back to the presbyteries and be approved by two thirds of the presbyteries. Well, a lot of people are predicting that two thirds of the presbyteries aren’t going to approve it because of the narrowness of the vote. And I think that’s probably the case. I think it’s going to be tough to get the things passed. But I think we as Christians, and I’m not an elder in my church, but I think we as laity, or members of the Church, owe an obligation to the church and to our elders to reach out to them and explain what we think about this issue, and why they should be voting for in this case, overture 15. To strictly prohibit. Same people who identify as same sex attracted Gay Christian from being an elder or a pastor in our denomination. So my denomination or my presbytery, based here in Austin is going to be meeting on this on October 29. And they’re going to vote on it. So I’ve already begun the process of reaching out to them and letting them know. And I think that this is important, because of the structure or the PCM. And also because what the Bible tells us, so in our book of church order, it tells us that well, Pete let me put it this way PCA the PCA members elect their elders, it’s just like voting for a president or vice president. You can’t become an elder in the PCA at a church anyway, there are some callings, but you can’t become a pastor or an elder at a church in the PCA unless you’re elected by the congregation. vote them up or down. Now, most people We were recommended by the session or by a search committee get elected, but not everybody does. We also wouldn’t know we’re not congregational though. So we’re not like Baptists, you can vote out a pastor. But there are mechanisms in our book of church order, where we can ask a an elder, a teaching elder, or ruling elder to leave where we can make our thoughts known about that. So what that tells me about the relationship between elders and members is that members have a responsibility to make informed decisions. They need to educate themselves on this issue, just like voters, and the voters, I’m talking to today, whether you’re in a PCA church or a Baptist church, and hope you’re in a church somewhere. But whether you’re in one of those denominations or not, you need to make informed decisions about this issue and other issues when you’re electing your officials and let them know what you think. And so that’s important to realize. But it’s also important to realize that because of our obligation, the shepherds over us, the elders in our church, and the pastors in our churches should be helping inform us on these issues. So they should be reaching out to us, and helping us see what issues are out there. Whether they agree with us or not, or which side they take. It’s, I think it’s their obligation to help let us know about what’s going on. And you can see this in parts of the Bible. For instance, in the book of Exodus, there is a part where the God asked the people three times, if they will affirm the His covenant with them, before it’s imposed on them. Now, it’s God and he gets to do whatever he wants to do. But yet he reaches out and ask the people if they affirm that, so that’s what kind of where the elected part comes from, in our denomination. And I would say, with Baptist as well. But we can also see where God desires input from his people. And input would be prayer, right? God enlighten Luke 18, one through eight, God desires prayer, and he actually responds to it. And you actually go into the book of Exodus, and he changes his mind in response to people’s petitions. Another example of that is in the book of Genesis, where God is tells Abraham, he’s going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. But he ultimately responds to Abraham who want he says, if you find only five people, or 10, people who are righteous, well, you’re not destroyed, and God says, I won’t destroy it. Of course, he can’t even find those five people. And so he does wind up destroying it, but he God wants to hear from us. I think our rulers ought to desire to hear from us. And if we make a biblical case for something just like Abraham and others have done to God, they ought to change their mind and listen to us. So there’s a lot of reasons why the there are people are opposing overture 15 in the PCA. And, first of all, some people believe it’s okay to describe themselves as a pastor. And I think that’s just wrong. And if you’re an elder in our church, and you believe that I don’t think you have any more business, being an elder in our church, than the person who’s describing himself as, as homosexual. Second, there’s also the language of the overture 15 is unclear and contentious. And let me just read this again, one more time for you just in case you missed it the first time. Men who describes themselves as homosexuals, or maybe I didn’t say it the first time. But anyway, men who described themselves as homosexuals, even those who described themselves as homosexual and claimed to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church of America. Very simple, very clear. I think what happens though, is people who disagree with it, don’t like it because of its clarity, and they’re contending against it because of that. And then finally, there are those who think that it’s just not the way to deal with this issue by changing the BCo inserting language about a specific Senate. And I think, at least we can have a discussion about that. But again, I think the people miss the big picture for the little picture, if you will, and can’t see the forest for the trees, and don’t really realize that we’re in a fight, and that we’re losing the fight and a lot of ways now, God is sovereign, and God is going to win this battle and win this fight and win this war. In fact, we know that Christ has already completed His work on the cross. The rest is just a mop up operation in some ways, but still, we have to fight the fight that God has put before us. So I think anybody who opposes this is on the wrong side. And I think that if we don’t put this into our BCo, then it’s going to affect the peace and purity of the church. So why am I talking about this here? Well, just like the lack of clarity, on the gay issue inside the Presbyterian Church of America is harming its peace and purity. I think it’s very clear that the lack of clarity on homosexuality is causing a lot of problems with the peace and purity of our culture. And again, I don’t want to just make it seem like I’m focused on homosexuality alone. The same thing could be said about divorce, and adultery, and premarital sex, fornication, all those kinds of things. I think it also is true when it comes to the days of creation, and a lot of other issues, racism, very few folks in the general culture and the culture wars out there, and have a clear understanding the biblical perspective on those issues. So I thought I’d just take a minute to lay this out and apply it to the world around us today. Right? We’re getting cancelled, for speaking out on these issues, there was a federal district court ruling, I think it was, I think it was a district court, not the appellate court at the Fifth Circuit here in Texas, just this past week, perhaps. And, and a lot of conservatives were celebrating it because it was about the, the LGBTQ issue, you know, the Biden administration, and the courts actually have come out and said, for some time, that you can’t discriminate against somebody in your hiring practices because of their LGBTQ orientation or something like this. In this recent court opinion, a federal judge affirmed that, but then came along and changed what some other courts had been doing, by saying that doesn’t necessarily give the right of a person to use the bathroom of their choice, according to their chosen gender, or use being guaranteed that they should have people addressing them by their chosen preferred pronouns. So in one sense, that’s a really good victory that Elise protects women, particularly from having guys come in, and go to the bathroom with them, or younger women, perhaps, having guys come in and change clothes with them in the locker room, that’s a good step in the right direction. It means that, you know, if you hire somebody who is LGBTQ transvestite in this case, then you don’t have to call her him. So that’s a good step. But the other problem with this is it still affirms the problem that you have to hire somebody, no matter what you think of them. And particularly, you know, if you just extend that into churches, and Christian schools and those kinds of things, that’s a problem. I don’t know if this ruling goes that far. I know people would like it to go that far. But even just into a regular employer, employers are using their private property, now maybe a big corporation. But that big corporation still has private property, it may be a small mom and pop person where the owner is just one person or a family, it’s their private property, they should not be forced to use their property, to hire somebody who they don’t want working for them. It’s as simple as that. And it’s as simple as that, because God made the world and he made world where it was private property because it’s his property. And he delegated and gave use of that private property to individuals. And it’s not up to the government to tell private people how to use their property. So and this is really a fallout of the Civil Rights Act of 19 was 64, where they were dealing with the problem of racism, but the racism was usually state racism where the states had laws that blacks couldn’t eat in cafes, it wasn’t that the cafe owners were prohibiting blacks from coming in because it was their idea. Now, it might have been in some instances, but for the most part, it was the government telling the blacks that they couldn’t go in there and telling the white people that they couldn’t let the black people come in, or else the white people got in trouble. So they passed the Civil Rights Act, but what it did was made it illegal for anybody to Use their property in a way that discriminates against somebody or actually put it put another way, they can’t, they have to let anybody into their property, they have to hire whoever they want, as we see now. And it’s not just blacks anymore. It’s LGBTQ, those kinds of things. That was a egregious violation of property rights. And we can see how this is going farther and farther down the road. And we’re going to have pretty soon a situation where our private property, and private property rights are not going to mean anything. Because the government’s gonna be able to come tell us to do whatever they want us to do with that, including just take more and more of it away from us, and impoverish us and oppress us. So that is why ultimately, I thought it’d be good to talk about this issue today. Because if we can get some clarity on all these different issues, but in this case, homosexuality, and what is really true and right and good under God’s eyes, then the whole culture will start to repent on this and the laws that we have the individuals that are going against this, including we hope individuals who are committing a heterosexual adultery, and we’ll have a lot more peace and purity in the culture around us today. Well, thank you for joining me on episode 99 of the Liberty cafe. And once again, thank you to the folks at Texas scorecard for being our sponsor. Thank you for listening to the Liberty cafe with Bill peacock. This show is produced by Texas scorecard. You can learn more about this show and find other shows at Texas scorecard.com. Be sure you subscribe and rate the show on whatever platform you listen on. See you next time
