Thursday, December 18, 2014
The Confusion of Therapy and Theology
Talbot Davis on the Methodist debate regarding homosexual practice and related church issues:
Our emotional responses are warped by that sin. Our love is perverted by that sin. In the end the debate on homosexual practice is not about homosexual practice, it is about one of the basic and most core doctrines of our faith - SIN.
In the name of love and understanding we have over the years eroded what we believe to be sin - I know of no one that discusses divorce in terms of sin anymore save the Roman Catholics and they do so in America in the most hushed of tones. And this all came becasue we have long ago stopped talking about far more subtle sins like gluttony or gossip.
It is a powerful argument that homosexuals are being singled out, but our response should not and cannot be to cave on this as well. If we do, I fear the concept of sin will disappear altogether. Our response must be to restore the conversation about those things we have let slide. We need to build the crowd around homosexuality once again.
The call is not to fight homosexuality, but to rebuild the church.
church homosexuality sin
However, when therapy turns into theology, something else entirely happens: our experience and our empathy determine our doctrine.There is deep wisdom there. The thing we must always remember is that our experience is always, I repeat ALWAYS, tainted with sin.
Our emotional responses are warped by that sin. Our love is perverted by that sin. In the end the debate on homosexual practice is not about homosexual practice, it is about one of the basic and most core doctrines of our faith - SIN.
In the name of love and understanding we have over the years eroded what we believe to be sin - I know of no one that discusses divorce in terms of sin anymore save the Roman Catholics and they do so in America in the most hushed of tones. And this all came becasue we have long ago stopped talking about far more subtle sins like gluttony or gossip.
It is a powerful argument that homosexuals are being singled out, but our response should not and cannot be to cave on this as well. If we do, I fear the concept of sin will disappear altogether. Our response must be to restore the conversation about those things we have let slide. We need to build the crowd around homosexuality once again.
The call is not to fight homosexuality, but to rebuild the church.
church homosexuality sin
