Whenever you believe that the evil outside you is greater than the evil inside you, a heartfelt pursuit of Christ will be replaced by a zealous fighting of the “evil” around you.  A celebration of the grace that rescues you from your own sin will be replaced by a crusade to rescue the church from the ills of the surrounding culture.  Christian maturity becomes defined as a willingness to defend right from wrong.  The gospel is reduced to participation in Christian causes.

- Paul David Tripp from “How People Change”.

Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful. Christian community is the ultimate apologetic.

Change is an unavoidable and necessary part of life.  Sometimes it may involve the smallest adjustment in our day and other times it might involve a radical transformation.  Some people like change and others will do everything in their power to avoid it (and often these two types are married to each other).  As it relates to sexual orientation, the term “change” has often been a point of confusion.  But does it have to be?  Is the problem that there are those who insist that change be defined as an absolute and unconditional concept?  I believe so.  The question we must ask is,

“For change to be authentic, must it be absolute?”

Our current culture has become very ambiguous when it talks about sexual orientation.  Is it fixed or fluid?  It depends on whom you ask.  One cultural icon claims that we are “Born This Way”.  But another celebrity announces they have left their same-sex partner to enter into a heterosexual marriage.  Those who are challenged by this revelation will scurry to clarify that the person was actually bi-sexual all along.  Yet, the concept of change is never acknowledged.  When it comes to sexual orientation, our culture can perceive “change” as a betrayal or rejection of who they believe we truly are.

Change is the act of making or becoming different.  People change in various ways every day.  However, we must know those changes may not be absolute or complete.  Does this mean they haven’t changed?  Of course not.  We recognize and applaud the incremental stages of transformation in people’s lives and understand that some changes may never be fully realized this side of heaven.  I may recognize that I need to change when it comes to pride in my life and that will be a process.  However, I know I will never fully eradicate pride in this lifetime.  Am I still defined as a prideful man or am I a man who wrestles with pride realizing that I must depend on God’s grace each day to walk in humility?  After years of allowing the Lord to transform my heart and learn newer levels of humility, am I to discount God’s work in my life simply because pride rears it’s ugly head from time to time?  God forbid.

When we claim that God has done a transformational work in our lives regarding homosexuality, this does not necessarily mean the elimination or even the diminishing of same-sex attractions.  If sexual orientation is the dominant direction of sexual attractions, can that “dominant” direction change?  For some people, yes.  For others, this may not be the case; they may still have varying degrees of same-sex attraction.  But does this mean they haven’t experienced change?  If you answer yes, then I wonder if change is possible in any area of life. . . .

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A city councilman in Brazil is paving the way for heterosexuals to stand against excessive gay rights with the nation’s first Heterosexual Pride Day. But some Christian ministries that work with gays think this so-called Straight Pride Day sends a divisive message.

Carlos Apolinário’s legislation proposes to celebrate heterosexual pride on the third Sunday of December. Although the mayor could rain on the parade by not signing the bill, Heterosexual Pride Day is set to take place in Brazil’s largest city—São Paulo—where gay pride marches frequently take over the city streets.

“I respect gays and I am against any kind of aggression made against them,” Apolinário said. “The creation of Heterosexual Day does not symbolize a struggle against gays but against what I believe are excesses and privileges.”

Perhaps ironically, gays and Christians alike agree that Straight Pride Day is a bad idea. With the percentage of gays killed in Brazil rising 113 percent in the last few years, the Brazilian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Association is concerned that Apolinário’s Heterosexual Pride Day could incite homophobic violence.

Jeff Buchanan, executive vice president of Exodus International, an interdenominational Christian ministry that assists those who struggle with same-sex attraction, is more concerned about social persecution than acts of violence.

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The wordsmithing Brits behind the Oxford Dictionary define “hate” as “hostile actions motivated by intense dislike or prejudice.” But words take on new meanings as people speak them, often deriving more from the context of their usage than from their actual definitions.

The word “hate” has become one of many such grammatical casualties as some now use it to describe the positions of any who vary from emerging cultural norms. 

Among offenders are gay activists who increasingly define anyone who believes that marriage should be applied only in the context of monogamous, heterosexual union as anti-gay and hateful. But is a belief in traditional marriage an inherently hateful posture?

Continue reading . . . 

Just when you think things couldn’t get more bizarre, they have. This past week a petition was launched calling for the marriage of two iconic characters from Sesame Street, Bert and Ernie. The petition asks that the marriage be executed in a “tasteful” way in order to “Let us teach tolerance of those that are different.”

The petition was filed on the activist site Change.org that has become the equivalent of a national blacklist registry of individuals and organizations who hold to a conservative view on marriage and sexuality. While the site has had some success in intimidating organizations such as Apple and most recently Starbucks to comply with their demands, Sesame Street held strong and stated that Bert and Ernie are best friends and as puppets, they do not have a sexual orientation.

My question is how far will this go? A recent Op-ed in the New York Times called for the legalization of polygamy between loving and consenting adults. Will we see a petition launched for the marriage of Kermit, Miss Piggy and the Cookie Monster to teach that love between consenting individuals, no matter how many, is acceptable and should be celebrated? Of course, this is an extreme situation. But is it?

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Great response from a great thinker and speaker!