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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 30, 1982
PAGE 9
A third attempt is to be made this month to Persuade the
Methodist Conference to accept a statement that takes a tolerant
view of homosexual relationships.
In 1979 and 1980 reports
reaching similar conclusions were referred back for further
consideration. They both ran into opposition on the ground that
their attitude to homosexual conduct was incompatible with
biblical teaching.
The latest report, published today, records that two views exist
in the church and adds that a majority of those on the working
party which oroduced it felt that biblical teaching £!:!
homosexuality should be reinterpreted in the liqht of modern
insights.
The biblical authors considered that God had created all people
as heterosexual by nature. Hence homosexuality was contrary to
God's design. It was now understood, the report said, that some
people are by nature homosexual, and "� must consider seriously
the possibility that homosexuality is� of God's process of
creative design."
A majority of the working party therefore concludes, as did the
two
earlier
reports, that
homosexual
and
heterosexual
relationships should both be valued according to the presence£_£
absence of love.
Therefore the choice of a homosexual
relationship, including "genital expression," is to be expected
as one that Christians may responsibly make. The working party
was united in believing that� and women of! homosexual nature
should !!..Q.! be barred from Christian ministry 2£. church office.
Elsewhere in the report the working party also urges a tolerant
attitude towards people who, whether homosexual or heterosexual,
live together in transient relationships.
In other words, even "slumming around" is to be viewed with tolerance.
Anyway, I felt that a diversion from our normal coverage of world events in
order to delve into this social topic would prove helpful. It certainly
shows the immutability and wonder of God's Law and how it cannot be broken
without paying a penalty.
"Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar"--including the sex gurus of
this age such as Alex Comfort and Hugh Hefner with his insidious "Playboy
Philosophy," which he propounded continuously in his publication, setting
much of the tone for contemporary moral standards. Just because God's Law
didn't exact an immediate penalty for violation, the hucksters of hedonism
thought there was no penalty. They couldn't see that genital herpes and the
large array of other wildly explosive STD's--sexually-transmissible dis
eases--must first build up a large reservoir of affected victims before
their full impact would be felt. How much easier it is to learn truth by
obeying God's Law rather than through painful experience.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau