Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It is well documented that conversion therapy is a sham. It does not work, and sometimes causes serious harm. So, NO, converting to heterosexuality is not a valid choice. It may be possible for a person to changes his/her behavior, but it is not possible to change their native attraction. To believe otherwise is to ignore what has been learned about it in the past few decades.
If you want to argue this point, don't look to me for a sparring partner. Go read the homosexuality thread from the beginning. It's already been covered.
No thanks. If it's the same jokesters I see in the main RS forum, then it's probably full of the same kind of junk arguments.
Let's not give sexually abused people a choice in how they want to live their lives. Yeah, that's real Mensa level thinking. Not.
Once again, I am finding an interesting topic but reading very little of the posts because of the namecalling and personal attacks. This is for the OP alone.
Raised Southern Baptist in rural Georgia. I have jokingly said our lineage as Baptists goes all the way back to John the Baptist, that's how deep the line goes in any direction in the family tree. Maternal grandfather was an ordained SBC pastor. Uncle a more moderate (read liberal in SBC circles) SBC Seminary professor. Older brother is a very conservative SBC Seminary professor. My widowed mother remarried her college sweetheart who had spent his life overseas with Baptist mission work and spent 12 years with him on the mission field. I myself got a music degree from and SBC institution and did post graduate work at the largest SBC Seminary.
I have been in non-denominational churches the majority of my adult life. Theologically not too far apart from SBC churches (with the exception of openness to the charismatic gifts that Baptists run from). I switched primarily because of the political infighting that started with the conservative resurgence in the 80s which happened during my Seminary years. I didn't like what either side was doing so left the political structure and found a home with like minded believers void of the political fighting.
My experience with Mormons in the bible belt has been with people with a very similar regard for church, family and moral values. My dad's oldest brother married a Mormon, all my first cousins on that side were raised Mormon. They were much older than me so I never really knew them, but good people.
My odds with Mormonism is the fundamental view that Jesus is not God. All the other accoutrements of the religion are neither here or there in my book. The flawed view of the Trinity stains everything else. They preach a different Jesus that nullifies the work of the cross. Why I view the doctrine as heretical. Maybe why you have left. It stains everything. If that was not God himself hanging on the cross, our salvation has not been accomplished. Simple as that. Doesn't matter that the people are beautiful people and sincere. The doctrine is beyond what one who views scripture as God's inspired word can theologically handle. It twists God's word to the point that one will miss salvation and be lost by following it. That is heresy in my book... not something that I don't believe in personally, but a doctrine that will cause you to miss salvation and eternal life. And Mormon theology does that.
I think you will find on a personal level SBC people (and other evangelical groups like non denominational and pentecostal/charismatic) not too far off from Mormons in social and political beliefs. But the doctrine will be vastly different. And more life giving when understood.
Hope this helps.
This is pretty in touch with the SBC views of today, and sums up what some of our current SBC members like, jimmie, are unaware of---that one time Southern Baptists provided all sides of the biblical issues (I went and studied Bible in an SBC college in the late sixties early seventies). I, too am tied to SBC by family, marrying an SBC pastor's kid while in college. I am licensed as a SBC wanna be preacher and have spoken in perhaps three score different churches.
But, I, too, left the SBC after it began denigrating women (like putting an all male oversight committee to review the work of the all women Lottie Moon Offering council), and when it chose to talk negatively about gays.
I still believe in the Trinity, but not with the passion I once did. There are plenty of Scriptures that negate such a view sans "reading into" Scripture that which the Catholic Church desires us to accept. It's a fine way to have a God of Retribution, a God of Love and Mercy, and a God of Comfort all rolled into an inconsistent concept. The NT teaches that when we see Jesus we see very God. The OT God can only be defined within what is seen in Jesus.
Jesus gave a lot of "blessed are theys" in the Sermon on the Mount. Did any of them sound like what some think the OT god said?
Quote:
Blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.
Psalm 137:9a
That doesn't resemble Jesus at all. And if it doesn't resemble Jesus, Scripture or not, it didn't come from God.
I and the Father are one. John 10:30
For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily,-- Colossians 2:9
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. (Philippians 2:5-6)
So which God does one serve? The one who calls blessed those who dash infants to death on stones, or the One Who came that we might have life, love, and fulfillment? My God is definitely NOT the one frequently seen in the OT---and that god never was God. It's why Jesus had to come to us---we screwed up the OT in both writing and interpretation.
No thanks. If it's the same jokesters I see in the main RS forum, then it's probably full of the same kind of junk arguments.
Let's not give sexually abused people a choice in how they want to live their lives. Yeah, that's real Mensa level thinking. Not.
Refusing to even read an article about a man who LED the gay conversion movement is a sign of a bigot, Ozzy. I was where you are now, but came to realize I had one foot in hell while trying to put the other in Heaven.
To simplify and summarize the OPs title question, there would really be two different ways to approach the question:
1. What does Southern Baptist/evangelical theology teach?
2. What kind of impact to Southern Baptists/evangelicals have culturally in the Bible Belt?
1 and 2 sometimes match and sometimes don't.
Whatever they are doing is no longer working. Southern Baptists have lost a million members in the last ten years, it baptized the smallest number in decades last year, and is having the same serious problem of other denominations in retaining young people.
Quote:
Between 2014 and 2015 Southern Baptists lost 204,409 members and 236,467 the year before. Today there are 1 million fewer Southern Baptists than a decade ago.
Baptisms, long considered a benchmark for denominational health, fell for the fifth straight year to 280,773. That’s the fewest since 253,361 in 1946.
How the Convention is changing--from a 2008 article:
Quote:
Baptists ages 18-39 only comprised 13.1 per cent of the some 8,000 messengers - or delegates in the Southern Baptist Convention - who attended the latest annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, in June 2007. In 1980, the young cohort represented 33.6 per cent.
------------
"Simply put, the proportion of those under 40 attending the SBC is declining precipitously - down by more than 50 percent since the beginning of the conservative resurgence, " Stetzer highlighted.
I understand your point, but shouldn't there be someone, such as some of those in the Christian church, who are actually SUPPORTING those people who are trying to convert to heterosexuality? Because at this point it sounds like you are saying that there shouldn't be anyone to support these kinds of choices.
As if converting to heterosexuality is not a valid choice for anyone?
Quote:
Originally Posted by OzzyRules
No thanks. If it's the same jokesters I see in the main RS forum, then it's probably full of the same kind of junk arguments.
Let's not give sexually abused people a choice in how they want to live their lives. Yeah, that's real Mensa level thinking. Not.
We aren't talking about sexually abused people. LGBT people are not trying to convert to heterosexuality, and conversion therapy has been thoroughly debunked.
My odds with Mormonism is the fundamental view that Jesus is not God.
Mormons most certainly do believe that Jesus is God. They just don't believe He is the same person as God the Father.
Quote:
They preach a different Jesus that nullifies the work of the cross.
Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that He died on the cross to atone for our sins. I don't know what would make you think that we believe otherwise.
Quote:
If that was not God himself hanging on the cross, our salvation has not been accomplished.
It was God hanging on the cross. It was just not God the Father.
Should you suspect that I don't know what I'm talking about, here's what the Doctrine and Covenants (which is part of our canon) has to say. (Note: This is Jesus Christ speaking.)
Doctrine & Covenants 19:16-19 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
Quote:
The doctrine is beyond what one who views scripture as God's inspired word can theologically handle. It twists God's word to the point that one will miss salvation and be lost by following it. That is heresy in my book... not something that I don't believe in personally, but a doctrine that will cause you to miss salvation and eternal life. And Mormon theology does that.
Wow. Posts like this just blow my mind. To think that any human being is in a position of being able to tell another human being that they're not "saved" has got to be the height of arrogance.
Mormons most certainly do believe that Jesus is God. They just don't believe He is the same person as God the Father.
Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that He died on the cross to atone for our sins. I don't know what would make you think that we believe otherwise.
It was God hanging on the cross. It was just not God the Father.
Should you suspect that I don't know what I'm talking about, here's what the Doctrine and Covenants (which is part of our canon) has to say. (Note: This is Jesus Christ speaking.)
Doctrine & Covenants 19:16-19 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
Wow. Posts like this just blow my mind. To think that any human being is in a position of being able to tell another human being that they're not "saved" has got to be the height of arrogance.
God is one God. Not many. False gods preached dear sir.
Of course you are going to defend your religion. Things like this run deep. But you admit that Jesus is God but not God the Father. How many Gods are there? One? or many?
Not going to debate any further, but the non Trinitarian view of Christian Theology makes your religion not a Christian religion, no matter how you slice and dice it. Paul is maligned by many, but this lines up with his warning in 2 Corinthians 11:
1I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! 2I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
God is one God. Not many. False gods preached dear sir.
Of course you are going to defend your religion. Things like this run deep. But you admit that Jesus is God but not God the Father. How many Gods are there? One? or many?
Not going to debate any further, but the non Trinitarian view of Christian Theology makes your religion not a Christian religion, no matter how you slice and dice it. Paul is maligned by many, but this lines up with his warning in 2 Corinthians 11: 1I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! 2I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
Let me just say that Christ Jesus will hand ALL THINGS over to the FATHER, after ALL is said and done.
1 Corinthians 15:24
Last edited by Jerwade; 05-01-2019 at 07:00 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
