Religious liberty continues to suffer in Australia.
Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick, Wayne Blakely of Know His Love Ministries, Pr Daniel Maher from Victoria Conference, and attorney Jonathan Zirkle participate in a panel discussion concerning the Australian state of Victoria's new Conversion Law, which just made it illegal to try to change or suppress someone's sexual orientation or gender identity. The law even criminalizes "prayer-based" interventions.
If a person comes to you and says “I’m struggling with immoral thoughts and temptations towards people of my own gender, would you pray for me?” you could get in trouble for praying to God on their behalf.
It’s all part of a culture that has become unhinged. Unhinged from the created sexual order and the biblical foundations of modern Western Civilization.
Commentary
These men are to be commended for tackling this issue. Most pastors are afraid of the LGBTQ issue, preferring either to ignore it, or they try to be extra accommodating to it, assuming that homosexual tendencies are immutable and cannot be resolved. Friends, that approach is a denial of the Gospel.
The real issue is not LGBTQ, it is that our world denies God as its Creator. Culture (and some churches and Divisions) is committing a grave moral sin, namely putting man before God. Homosexuality does this.
Gay Christianity becomes liberalism. Then interfaith, then paganism. Liberalism is the entrance into paganism. You reject transcendence through liberalism, and then shorn of meaning, culture becomes the word of god for this neo-pagan worldview.
What is at stake is the glory of God and the freedom that comes from such a God. Culture has replace the image of God with the image of man (Romans 1:25-26). This is why culture is now trying to outlaw biblical conversion for the image of man that they have created.
There is no way to avoid the showdown that is coming. Mainline churches have fallen, and some Adventist Churches and institutions will join them on this LGBTQ issue.
This is civil rights for the Christian. We must stand up to intense pressure from the culture, and here’s the question “How do you stand up to a culture that calls you a bigot at the beginning of the conversation?”
Ask God for the mind of Christ. This will give us a heart of compassion with backbones of steel. Resist the agenda. Have compassion on those who are enslaved by sin, and help them. Help them.
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