There is no doubt that we live in extraordinarily strange times. As progressivism and the increasingly liberal norms surrounding sexuality continue to pervade our modern culture, Christians have found themselves swimming upstream. As followers of Jesus, believers want to love and accept people but are conflicted by the equal challenge to preach the truth of the Bible on the crucial issues of our day.
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When it comes to LGBT issues, it appears that much of the evangelical Church has begun place a higher premium on maintaining good social standing, rather than unashamedly proclaiming the teaching of the Bible as something that is good and true for all people, even nonbelievers.
In a highly engaging Twitter thread, Pastor Tom Buck expanded his own take on why evangelicalism is suffering such a crisis of identity.
“The rate at which evangelicalism is adopting worldly culture is astounding and it seems that few are paying close attention. Almost overnight, we have adopted the world’s language regarding homosexuality & Christians speak of ‘LGBT community’ as if it’s biblical language,” he wrote.
To offer an example, Buck highlighted the recent “Revoice Conference,” which, he explained, “aims to ‘gather together with other gender & sexual minorities’ to ‘experience a new kind of gospel community.'”
The pastor voiced his concerns over many of the topics that are so openly accepted by the theologically trained evangelical leaders who are involved in the conference.
“One of the keynote speakers is Nate Collins who is apparently a part of the SBC (Southern Baptist Conference). He received his PhD from SBTS (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) and taught New Testament Interpretation there. If his speaking at such an event were not disturbing enough, consider his personal bio found here.”
But there’s more. One of the keynote speakers is Nate Collins who is apparently a part of the SBC. He received his PhD from @SBTS and taught New Testament Interpretation there. If his speaking at such an event were not disturbing enough, consider his personal bio found here: 4/13 pic.twitter.com/IGdAhRsPm4
— Tom Buck (Five Point Buck) (@TomBuck) May 29, 2018
Buck then made a pointed observation regarding Collins’ bio:
“Notice he describes himself as ‘a married, same-sex-attracted/gay man.’ Now stop & consider how far we’ve come in evangelicalism. Just 10 years ago would anyone have imagined such a statement? Why would anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ describe himself that way?
There are only three possible conclusions to his statement:
1) He once was attracted to men, but he has renounced that sin, mortified it, and now finds his sexual attraction solely in his wife. But if this is the case, why identify yourself as a same-sex attracted gay man?
2) He’s same-sex-attracted & isn’t sexually attracted to his wife. He’s married to someone he isn’t sexually attracted to & refrains from his true attraction towards men. In this case, he would indeed be a same-sex-attracted/gay man who happens to be married to a woman.
3) He is actually sexually attracted to both men & women and is in fact bisexual. If this is the case, wouldn’t his bio more correctly be that he is a married, both sex-attracted/bisexual man?”
Buck further highlighted his belief that evangelicalism is on a slippery slope to a widespread acceptance of homosexual practices, sexual orientations and cultural norms of sexual deviance as firmly in line with a Biblical worldview.
“If the final option is correct, evangelicalism has moved beyond the ‘G’ in LGBT & has now normalized the ‘B.’ When does this movement in the homosexual alphabet end?” he wrote. “If we don’t wake up and pay attention, before we know it, evangelicalism will have fully embraced the “T.””
Many people have replied to Tom’s thread with words of encouragement:
“Tom. Thanks for taking the time to post this. We, the body of Christ, must pay close attention to these matters, and stand firm on the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ — while adding nothing to it, and subtracting nothing from it,” one user tweeted.
“Thanks for those words, brother! We live in perilous times and need to understand the times in which we live,” another added.
Pastor Buck later added additional information from the conference page to his initial thread:
Addendum to thread:
After reading about the breakout session that Nate Collins will be leading at the Revoice conference, I think it gives further evidence the logic I present above is sound. Notice that the questions he will be answering are related to someone being bisexual. pic.twitter.com/BtPo5KiK2i
— Tom Buck (Five Point Buck) (@TomBuck) May 30, 2018