Churches and Gay people
In modern cultures like America, every Christian is faced with the problem of homosexuality. Churches are pulled into the tension, too, because “there is no demilitarised zone in the homosexual debate.” Shrugging isn’t an option. The implications are all around us, in schools, in politics, in denominational tensions, and — maybe most importantly — in determining how the Church lives out her faithful witness to a culture in desperate need of Christ. With the marriage amendment on the Minnesota ballot and a growing list of personal questions in my Moleskine notebook, I contacted Dr Robert Gagnon, a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a man who has, for many years, bravely addressed homosexuality from a biblical and theological perspective. He published the 500-page book The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics . A decade later, his work remains the most thoroughly exegetical and hermeneutical book on homosexuality and the Bible ( John Pipe...