Homosexual sex, the issue that refuses to go away; an issue where competing views of Scripture, legal rights, communal responsibility and individual freedom collide head-on. The current controversy surrounding a UNC Christian a capella group’s decision to ask a member who publicly embraced homosexuality to leave the group has created major waves in the Chapel Hill area.  It is also the latest in an on-going series of events  highlighting the unique place of religious affiliation in American University life.

 

I’m interested in this story for a number of reasons:

1. I used to live 7 minutes from Chapel Hill, and spent time at the University.

2. I have friends and family (through marriage) who currently attend UNC.

3. From a conservative Christian’s viewpoint (and the viewpoint of many non-Christians) almost all American Universities slant liberal. However, UNC (on the whole) is notorious among North Carolinians and non-North Carolinians for the far-left positions that dominate much of the faculty. It will be interesting to see how the episode plays out.

4. I once flew through an application process for a job at a prestigious University, only to be asked some bizarre questions by an apparent practicing homosexual in the last stage of the interview process – questions that all seemed to imply I could not possibly be fair with practicing non-heterosexuals, because I had worked for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. It was weird, especially because in the previous round of the interview process the two people interviewing me, basically, just came out and said that my BGEA work experience with and for people from literally all over the globe made me by far the candidate with the most real world experience in dealing with diversity.

5. Pastor Greear (who wrote the article I am linking) has a huge ministry to students at UNC, NC-STATE, and DUKE. I’d say his church is hands down one of – if not the- most influential church among college students in the Raleigh-Durham area. His perspective is definitely not the accepted perspective of most policy makers at the colleges his congregation’s students come from.

6. My local FWB association has an official University approved collegiate ministry at our local University. CFWBC houses the ministry and provides some oversight. It’s important to see how UNC handles this and how the incident plays out in court – it would not surprise me if it heads that way.

7. Some of the most hate filled letters I’ve ever read – letters threatening to kill those who opposed them, letters threatening to take biological children away, letters threatening to make life a never ending hell- came from homosexual activists, and were directed toward a pastor- friend who peacefully and yet publicly dared to oppose the use of his local public school as an appropriate place for homosexual sex indoctrination.

8. In a year and a half of preaching 3 times a week, I ‘ve probably mentioned homosexuality twice- I have never given an entire sermon to the subject. Safe to say, I rarely discuss it. All though I would tend to agree with Pastor Greear, my problems and the problems of my congregation don’t revolve around this issue. I’ve personally got other issues in my life that regularly need addressing from God’s word and so does my church as a whole.

Let me add, I have friends who are practicing homosexuals…heck, when I worked for Books-A-Million, I was hired and then promoted by active homosexuals who knew my approach to sex was far different from theirs!  Some preachers talk about homosexual sex all the time, its easy to condemn because its not the issue most people where they pastor struggle with. 

Having said all that, this issue is not going away. It may not be a commonly discussed topic for me, but it is important to think thru the Bible’s presentation of sex in comparison and contrast with the emerging perspectives of the larger world we inhabit. (By the way, it’s amazing how often the new enlightened perspectives on sexuality actually turn out to be old perspectives that devastated individuals and communities that embraced them.)

You can read more by going to the link below. For a host of reasons, I am not going to take comments on this topic. I would ask you to pray for UNC, Pastor Greear, and all the students involved.

http://www.jdgreear.com/my_weblog/2011/08/psalm-100s-difficult-decision-of-asking-a-gay-ministry-leader-to-step-down.html#comments