I have created this new Facebook group for all those people out there who support things. Unless John McCain is one of them.

So, as Christians we believe in a doctrine of original sin. We believe that by nature we are sinful and desperately in need of grace to free us from our own nature. I see this in my own life. I was born with a nature entirely inclined to do evil, to sin. We also believe homosexuality is sinful. Why then do we doubt that there are people born gay or lesbian? We are born sinful. Being gay is sinful. What am I missing. Seems reasonable enough that one way someone might be born sinful is gay. On the other hand, it seems other people aren’t but can begin to have homoerotic desire later in life. Why couldn’t this work both ways?

This seems to be the way people explain their own experiences. Some feel they’ve been gay their whole lives as if it were something they were born with, while others feel it was a choice. Why should we be threatened by either alternative? Both seem very much in keeping with the Biblical account of our nature and our choices. Why have many Christians so heavily invested themselves in a view of homosexuality that insists it can only be a choice?

Just a thought.

“A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick;”
~Prospero in The Tempest

I am Jack’s raging bile duct.

I love God.

I love people.

So does He.

This is why I get utterly furious when I learn about pastoral sex scandals and folks using God as a tool to take advantage of the unsuspecting.

So, as the world now knows, Earl Paulk, the so-called “Archbishop,” the great founder of the “Tabernacle of the Holy Spirit,” is the unholy father of his nephew by his own brother’s wife. Also, it seems he manipulated another woman into sleeping with him many times over the course of more than a decade by convincing her it was her only path to salvation. What does he make of the warning of scripture that those who become teachers face a stricter judgment? What of the words of our Lord who warned/promised that what is whispered in secret will soon be proclaimed from the housetops? Has he no fear? Read the rest of this entry »

This is a sermon prached by my good friend Smiles Welch last Sunday when he did pulpit supply for a small church in Oregon. (Click ‘Read the rest of this entry’ below to listen or download the sermon.) He preached on Psalm 42.

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Read the rest of this entry »