Christian Homosexual???

Azariah Southworth, host of the popular Christian youth show The Remix (can be seen in more than 128 million homes worldwide and averages more than 200,000 viewers weekly on TBN's JC TV channel) announced yesterday that he's gay, saying:

"This has been a long time coming. I’m in a place where I’m at peace with my faith, friends, family and more importantly myself. I know this will end my career in Christian television, but I must now live my life openly and honestly with everyone. This is my reason for doing this. ... I know I will be cut off from many within the Christian community, and if so, then they didn’t get the point of the life of Christ. I believe by me living my life honestly and authentically now, I am able to be a better person and a better Christian. We all know there are so many other gay people in the Christian industry; they’re just all scared. I was scared, but now I’m no longer afraid."

Rather than deconstructing each phrase, I want to point out something I've been noticing for a while among Christians that happens to be prominent in his statement above, specifically, that in the name of honesty & authenticity we excuse our sin.

While I'm sure this has been very difficult for Mr. Southworth both in his own soul and now in public, the goal in life is NOT authenticity--especially when being authentic or honest means being sinful. Sadly, he will not be "a better person and a better Christian" because the goal of life is to please God (1 Corinthians 10:31; 2 Corinthians 5:9)--something his new lifestyle cannot do no matter how authentic he is.

For the Christian, no matter what temptation you're struggling against (lying, stealing, greed, anxiety, homosexuality, cussing, laziness) it's just that, a struggle! A struggle to do what God wants and not what you want (Romans 7:14-25). He folded in his struggle, and because it's a fold that marks his entire life in rebellion against God this likely proves he was never a Christian to begin with (I John 2:19). I just pray more won't follow his example, but rather keep on advancing in their fight against their own sin (Romans 8:12-14; Galatians 5:24-25; 2 Timothy 2:22).

Which leads me to something else. I wonder, is it as easy in churches to say you're struggling with anxiety as it is that you're struggling with homosexuality? Could this guy have been honest with someone before he "came out," or did he have no where to turn? I don't know. I just know we consider it OK to talk about struggling with some sins, but not others--a phenomena in Christianity that doesn't serve people like Mr. Southworth.

Read more about this here, and if you do, make sure you read some of the comments. You get the obligatory "God loves you just how He made you," which is so deceiving, but what do you think of the "God hates you sodomite" stuff, or the obligatory quoting of Romans 1?

Specifically, I'm asking if it's a godly way to approach a sinner and if it's effective in light of passages like, say, "love your neighbor," Colossians 4:5-6, the end of 1 Peter 3:15, 2 Timothy 2:24-26, Proverbs 12:18, 15:1, 16:21 and 16:24.

Generation Me

I don't remember where I heard about it, but I just purchased and will start reading Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before by Jean M. Twenge.

Thanks to David Wells and Os Guinness, I have a growing fascination with sociology and how it's insights can help pastors who are seeking to connect the ancient text of the Bible to the modern people of today. I'm really looking forward to this read.

9Marks Interviews David Wells

I've had this 9Marks interview of David Wells, one of my favorite living authors, on my desktop to read for weeks now, and I'm so glad I waited until now to do so.

I've interviewed many college and young adults' pastors about their ministries with my new job. Time after time all I hear about from them is that I need to make a group where people will connect with each other. Connecting, making friends, fellowship is the most important thing to someone in their 20s or 30s, they say, so this is the main goal of your ministry and the main thing that should fill up your time.

David Wells, thankfully, says

"we have replaced the pulpit not even by a barstool, but by a cup of Starbucks coffee, which speaks of 'human connecting.' And human connecting has become more important to us than our hearing from God."

I felt strange and out of place as I talked with these man because I always saw preaching as the most important aspect of my job (loving people = connecting with them is second), but so many disagreed.

Dr. Wells also says this, which turns conventional ministry "wisdom" upside down too:

"...the results of some important research among formerly unchurched people who then came to church are shocking. When these individuals were asked what they liked about the church, ninety-odd percent said that what was preached was important to them. And almost 90 percent said that they wanted to know what the church believed. They wanted to hear its doctrine. Now that is just the reverse of what the common outreach approach assumes. It assumes people don’t want to know. In actual fact, those who want to come into the church do want to know."

Finally, I loved this line from the interviewer:

"for the local church preacher, 'Show sensitivity to the alienation, the inner angst, the emotional turmoil people feel; yet use all these to segue to the Word of God and the more fundamental measurement of their relationship to him.'"

USA's Youth Surveyed

Click here to read what one survey found made most American youths happiest.

You might be really surprised.

I was encouraged by this part:

"Less than half strongly believe that their religious beliefs are true and universal and that other religious beliefs are not right (31 percent), while 68 percent follow their own religious beliefs but think that other religious beliefs could be true as well."