By Eric Teetsel
The new sexual revolutionaries have shifted focus from the legal sanctioning of gay marriage to the elimination of dissent. Around the country, so-called “non-discrimination statutes” undercut the rights of religious believers to live according to the demands of their faith when those demands conflict with the “new normal.” Must people of faith conform to values that contradict their beliefs?
Granted, these laws don’t affect pastors, priests and rabbis. Not yet. The LGBTQ movement is smarter than to go for that now. Instead, they are starting with people like you. Everyday people doing everyday jobs: photographers, florists, bakers. Unlikely combatants in a war they didn’t ask for. The successful attacks on these common people are cracks in a foundational principle of justice and the common good that affects the freedom of every American, regardless of religious belief. Churches will fall in line eventually, or be crushed.
If this sounds like paranoia, consider that even influential evangelical Christians like mega-church pastor Andy Stanley, Christianity Today editor Skye Jethani, and FOX News correspondent Kirsten Powers suggest that Christian conviction requires the faithful to accede to unconscionable acts. “What would Jesus do? I think he’d bake the cake.” Powers summarizes audaciously.
Well, Jesus was a carpenter, so it’s unlikely anyone would have asked him to bake. But do you see him building the altar at which gay men exchange vows? What about the pews for those celebrating the sanctioning of sin? Or the lectern from which a pastor would quote Jesus’ own description of the reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined together with his wife.
Read more at http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/02/Belief-Rooted-in-Love