Churches going “woke” need to wake up – Part 1 (LGBTQ+ Acceptance)

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

In the next few blog posts, I’m going to focus on the Church – a term I’ll use irrespective of any and all Christian denominations – and the propensity of some to separate from Biblical theology. This week, I will concentrate on the Church’s embrace of all manner of sexual proclivities outside the sanctity of traditional marriage between men and women. 

While researching information about a local Lutheran church for my mom to visit, I was surprised to see a picture of the new pastor at one of the assemblies. To begin, seeing a female pastor was a bit of a surprise to me – but what gave me true pause was the unique clerical collar Pastor Esthel Marie Kane had chosen to wear in her profile photo. 

Rather than the traditional white clerical collar – all I’ve ever seen church leadership wear – Kane’s ornamentation featured both the rainbow flag and black, brown, blue, pink, and white arrows pointing right. Since we all know how the LGBTQ+ community has hijacked God’s precious rainbow, I had a bad feeling about this particular symbolism, which prompted me to research the design further.

According to LGBTQnation.com, the “Progress Pride” flag was created in 2018 by Daniel Quasar. Daniel, it’s important to note, prefers the pronouns “xe/xem/xry” and identifies as a “queer non-binary demiguy.” While the flag uses the traditional rainbow colors of the LGBTQ community, Quasar explains that the additional colors are meant to incorporate those in the transgender flag while also representing “people of color as well as those living with AIDS, those no longer living, and the stigma surrounding them.” 

The flag’s arrow depiction is purposely chosen to indicate “forward movement.”

So why is a pastor wearing a Progress Pride flag on her collar? I wondered. 

After glancing through St. James’s church blog, the reasons for this particular display became readily apparent. Even in my small coastal town, the Church has apparently gone “woke.” 

For those unfamiliar with the term “woke,” the Oxford-American dictionary defines it as being “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.” One might wonder why Christian churches are more concerned with social justice than salvation, but I digress. 

On June 26, 2022, St James church celebrated “PRIDE Sunday” on the third Sunday after Pentecost. Imagine, while God’s Word tells us that pride is considered to be one of the greatest of all sins, this “church” is embracing it. As the Holy Scripture tells us: 

• “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)
• “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.” (Proverbs 16:5)
• “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” (1 John 2:16)
• “Haughty eyes and a proud heart—the unplowed field of the wicked—produce sin.” (Proverbs 21:4)

Further perusal of St. James’s website led me to discover their membership with the Reconciling Works program, promoted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). Per the program’s “About” page, “Since 1974, ReconcilingWorks: Lutherans for Full Participation has advocated for the full welcome, inclusion, and equity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual/aromantic (LGBTQIA+) Lutherans in all aspects of the life of their Church, congregations, and community.”

As if that’s not enough, the ELCA also endorses the use of preferred pronouns – going so far as to create a guide for how Lutherans should utilize the same in welcoming all persons to the denomination. 

Per EvangelicalFocus.com, the guide advises members of the Church to use the “SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression) spectrum,” while “avoid[ing] using gendered terms.” 

I wonder how they can read the Bible without referring to traditional male and female genders? Do they also superimpose all those new pronouns in the Holy Scripture? Is there a Bible version for everyone based on their preferred pronouns? That could get confusing. Imagine asking each visitor which Bible version he/she/ze/xe favored using during the Sunday scripture reading.  

The 2020 ELCA document also defines such terms as “genderqueer,” “pansexual,” “gender non-conforming,” and “androgynous,” just in case any parishioners were wondering. 

Let me pause here to make a distinction. Everyone is welcome to join the kingdom of God, no matter who they are. That much is true. Christ demonstrated love and delivered His message of reconciliation to everyone who would listen – Pharisees and prostitutes alike. 

That being said, Christ did not tell sinners to keep sinning. 

And make no mistake, the Bible clearly defines two genders – male and female – while also stating that any sexual activity outside of traditional marriage is sinful. 

• “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
• “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” (Romans 1:26-27)
• “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” (Leviticus 18:22)
• “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.” (Leviticus 20:13)
• “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6: 9-10)
• “We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.” (1 Corinthians 1: 8-11)
• “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 13:4) 

Note that many other sins are included in the above lists of items condemned by God – including lying. Without question, every one of us has sinned in some way, shape, or form. 

And one sin is the same as any sin in God’s eyes. It separates us from a Holy God. 

Nevertheless, we are called as Christians to separate ourselves from immorality – not embrace it. As Jesus told the woman caught in the act of adultery in John 8:11: “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Is it easy to lead a life without transgressions? No way! We must each face our sinful natures every day for the rest of our lives – including me. 

But as the Apostle Paul – perhaps the most learned of all the apostles – told us, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to do so. 

“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:18-20)

So if we must constantly battle iniquity and know it’s impossible on our own to defeat it, is it okay to embrace it? Isn’t that what this new Church ideology is teaching? That we should accept and welcome everyone into all positions of the Church – including Church leadership? After all, we know that we are all sinners. 

The answer is a resounding “No!” All are welcome to believe and accept Christ as their personal Savior. But doing so means we must commit to stepping away from sin by seeking God’s help every day of our lives. 

Paul explains it this way: 

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6: 1-4) 

“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Romans 6: 11-14) 

But how do we do so? How do we walk away from ungodliness to live in a manner that exalts rather than debases our Creator?  

“Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.” (Romans 6:19-23)

The answer is clearly written in the above passages. As Christians, we must separate ourselves from immorality and live for God, not ourselves. Perpetuating an impious lifestyle is discounting the price Christ paid on the cross to save us from damnation and provide us with the gift of eternal life. Christ’s sacrifice – His blood – paid the penalty for my sin and yours. If we truly believe the gospel message that Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, surrendered His life to provide the means for all who believe in Him to be able to go to Heaven, we will want to please Him and live our lives for Him – not ourselves. 

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This brings me back to the Church’s acceptance of the gay and lesbian lifestyle. It’s one thing to welcome everyone to learn about God and explain how His forgiving grace can save them. It is entirely different never telling those involved in this lifestyle that they are leading lives of sin that will eventually separate them from Christ’s kingdom forever. 

Let me explain it this way. If I was to see a group of people on a raft heading down a river that led to a 500-foot waterfall that would spell certain death to all passengers, should I wave to them from the shore, tell them that I love them, and never warn them of the impending danger? Would that be the loving thing to do? Isn’t that precisely what the Church is doing today? 

Romans 6:23 tells us, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

As a Christian, I shouldn’t want to keep sinning as I know sin brings death and eternal separation from my Heavenly Father. If I want to sin, I must never have been made new in Christ. If I’m living for myself, Christ is not living in me. It’s as simple as that. 

To put it bluntly, churches that condone these lifestyles are utterly wrong on this topic. The loving thing to do is never to embrace someone without warning them of the danger that lies ahead. And, trust me. There is no greater danger than spending eternity in hell, separated from God. Talking about and explaining the same is the most loving thing I can ever do. It is not bigoted, homophobic, narrow-minded, or hateful. It’s quite the opposite, actually. Warning someone away from eternal death is the only loving thing one can and should do. It’s what Christ directed us to do in the Great Commission. 

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19)

And let’s not forget that Church leaders are held to an even higher standard than others. Matthew 18:6 tells us, “As leaders, you are responsible for those you lead. These people are looking to you for guidance, like little children. We have a responsibility to lead and to lead well.”

Elevating LGBTQ+ community members to become partners in the Church – including raising them up to leadership positions – is not saving their souls. It’s making them feel good about their sin.

Church leaders should not be living in or affirming an immoral lifestyle – not because they aren’t perfect, but because they can’t be true believers and continue to live or endorse this way of life. Teaching anything different is nothing but a big lie perpetrated by the devil. 

Today’s Church needs to focus less on political correctness and more on pleasing God. Anything less is too “woke” by divine standards.