When Gospel Coalition puffed the LivingOut.org two-minute video by Anglican priest Sam Allberry, did you think it hit the sweet spot culturally and Biblically?
Sorry to disappoint, but no. Though parts of it were true, Pastor Allberry's testimony was carefully wrong at several key points—but in such a highly nuanced way that it's little wonder many people missed it. Pastor Allberry was wrong in the kind of way that listeners had to be highly educated to miss.
This sort of sound-bite plea of the pain of victimhood combined with sophisticated half-truths is what LivingOut.org specializes in, and there's a reason all men speak well of them.
Pointing out these errors Gospel Coalition keeps promoting is the subject of the book Juergen Von Hagen and I are close to finishing, now. We spent the past week...
together writing and we're getting close to turning it over to the editors, so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, a quick hint in the direction of Scripture's truth. Imagine that, instead of Pastor Allberry LivingOut as a "gay Christian," he was LivingOut as a "pedophile Christian" or a "zoophile Christian?" Listen to the video once more, replacing the sin of sodomy ("gay") for the sin of pedophilia or bestiality. As in, "back when I was in school, people bullied me for having an erotic attraction to sheep, and now I'm afraid my church will no longer be a safe place for me, either." If sodomites are brave to be LivingOut, where are the brave pedophile and zoophile Christians who are LivingOut?
But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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