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Reaching out to the "Gay Community"
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Post dolfan
Tom Sterbens wrote:
dolfan wrote:
Resident Skeptic wrote:
Quiet Wyatt wrote:
I don't see it as necessarily validating homosexuality at all, but instead seeking to better understand the target audience you intend to reach with the gospel. It would be no different than seeking to know how drug addicts think in order to more effectively reach them.


I agree. But that is all different from validating them as one would an ethnic group.


"Community" is a powerful word, now. In the Obergefell decision, Justice Kennedy pointed out that the DOMA was earlier held to be unconstitutional to the extent the Federal government was disallowed from recognizing same sex marriages because same sex couples "wanted to affirm their commitment to ine another before their children, their family, their friends, and their community." He reasoned, too, that same sex marriage confers benefits in children by allowing them to "understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community...". Do you see? A gay family is a part of a not just a legal community, but a moral community according to the Supreme Court. Community is not a neutral word. It has legal, Constitutional and....yes...moral weight. Ask Kennedy, who further said that marriage, and explicitly gay marriage, is "a building block of our national community."


It may have particular biblical weight far beyond mere affinity or commonality of interest or conduct. If community is equivalent to the Matthew 28 "ethne", then we are in wholly new territory. The view here seems to be that the terms are practically synonymous or that it does not matter. It is just a word.. Maybe to you, but it is a short sighted decision to think so.

If ethne and community are synonymous, we have a very difficult time finding an historical example, and an even more difficult historical pattern of, missions to groups where those groups are formed around conduct. As recently as the Lausanne conference in 1974, missionary thought has remained centered on ethnolinguistic categories with no apparent mind to behavioral categories as the basis of mission. There is no departure from that in the 2010 Cape Town Commitment by the Lausanne movement. Finally, church planting has always been an indispensable element of missionary work; if someone has a working model of church planting among the LGBT folks, it is a tragically well kept secret.

Now, jive and joke as you please. But, it remains true that "community" is a moral force with moral power assigned to it, and which assignment of power attracts groups to the label. The label comes with real benefits, including now the power to say what is right and wrong not only for those inside the "community" but for those outside of it and opposed to it. Ask Kim Davis. It is not just a word, no matter what you subjectively think when you use it. You are not in a vacuum, here.

If community is also ethne, the question arises whether behavior is the formative basis of an ethne. If so, we may be much farther away from getting the gospel to all nations than our brothers and sisters in the mission field and the translation work believe. If behavior forms ethne, then there are all sorts of mission efforts that require immediate training, sourcing and launching. And, where that ethne-forming conduct is explicitly and inherently and immutably sinful, we are forced to either justify redefining mission to eliminate church planting or to justify church planting where the converts' conduct has not changed.

So, to be clear....

As a follower of Jesus Christ, you are of the opinion that our efforts (as believers) should first be spent in arguing those in the gay "community" first acknowledge and release the term they have subsumed (community) before we invest any efforts in sharing the gospel with them?

My question is neither sarcastic or rhetorical - I'm really trying to understand why the passion over the use of a term they have chosen (community) to identify themselves as a people who share a common belief or value. And to be clear - I do not join anyone in embracing an identity that God's Word does not appear to embrace or support.

In other words - those who believe the word of God does not support an identity of "homosexual" are already aware they (homosexual people) have embraced an individual identity that is not supported by God's Word - so why are we surprised they would now use a term to define a social collective of people of like chosen identity (community)? If we want to do battle over the term "community" should we not also do battle over conceding the term "homosexual?"

Our new mantra: We may have surrendered to the term homosexual or gay....but bless God we will never surrender the term "community!"
(The last one was sarcastic Smile )

But then - maybe I've missed the point (that was not sarcastic).

Thanks


My opinion, relative to RS original point about the word "community", is that we are casual about language when the culture we are so intent to engage holds an entirely different assumption about their choice of words here. I think I told the story of my long and deeply heartfelt and serious conversation with my transgender friend; I listened to this man-who-lives-as-woman, this real friend of mine, and asked him hard questions and spoke to him honestly and kindly. I had no illusions that I was dealing with a group, no aspirations of mission. My longing was and is that he repent and surrender control of his heart, soul, mind and body to the lordship of Jesus as that is revealed in Scripture.

I am not sure where or why our interactions would need to look beyond the persons we are face to face with as we have real conversations about life in Jesus with them. I have no strategy for reaching a gay community or group or enclave or whatever. I have a burden for a friend, and a relationship with the One who is able to free him from the lie he lives and bring him into eternal Truth. I have resident in me the Spirit and power to speak the truth in love to this man. My strategy is to keep doing so and to keep the bridge of friendship open for as long as possible in hope for his soul.

It is not my intent to be mean or hostile or cutesy to anyone who disagrees with my reasoning. But, I do believe that when we consider what we say that meaning matters. Awareness and consideration of the implications of our language is needed in an age where words are chosen deliberately by the power they avail to people and groups in the world. That is really what I wanted to caution about in this discussion.

I am no one's word cop. But, we should not neglect the power of our choices of words. If "community" is a power word used to empower those who so label themselves, and our hope is to break powers of this age and this order of things, maybe we should at least weigh the wisdom of our casual adoption of their own description of themselves.
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9/13/15 7:38 pm


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