The General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) voted to welcome “open members of the homosexual and transgender community to worship and serve in the denomination’s churches the same way members of different races and ages do” (“Disciples of Christ Church Votes to Affirm,” Christian Post, July 19, 2013). Cherilyn Williams, a member of the denomination’s Marketing and Communications Team, says, “Our resolution is about welcoming everyone to the Lord’s Table in the way God welcomes each and every one of God’s children into God’s embrace regardless of creed, race, ability or any other wall that divides.” This is complete apostasy, a brazen rejection of God’s Word as the sole authority for faith and practice. The Gospel of Jesus Christ invites all men to come to God through Christ, but they must come as repentant sinners, acknowledging their own unrighteousness and receiving the righteousness that is only available through Christ’s atonement. Jesus said that men must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3). The early churches provide the example that we are to follow. The membership of those churches included every type of sinner--idolaters, adulterers, thieves, drunkards, murderers, and homosexuals--but they had been converted by the saving power of the Gospel, and they lived their Christian lives by putting off the old man and putting on the new. Any homosexual or adulterer can be saved, but to pretend that they are fine in an unrepentant condition is a lie. The Disciples of Christ is a small and dying denomination, having declined in membership from nearly 2 million in the 1960s to its current 600,000 members (and active members would be much fewer). “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). (Friday Church News Notes, August 16, 2013, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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