Im not targeting one church specifically but the Church. sorry idk your background in Church history and such but it’s C/c. “C” is the greater whole, “c” is individual church.

Called out the sin, or the person?

@tracycoyle The only time a person has ever been singled out was when a person sought to promote a particular sin within the church, at least in my experience. So, for example, when a man in our church cheated on his wife and refused to repent but instead ran off with the other woman, we named him before the church when we removed him from membership. On another occasion, a young man "came out" on Facebook, writing a lengthy series of public posts that sought to defend his homosexual behavior from the Bible. Had he not gone public in this manner, seeking to persuade others, including those in our church, of the rightness of his behavior, there would have been no need to address it publicly. I did not respond on Facebook, but I wrote a lengthy email to him, responding in details to his arguments point by point, which I copied to the members of the church. The goal was not to try to humiliate the young man publicly but rather to help him and to protect the church from what we believe to be an error. Typically, we never call anyone out publicly for anything that they themselves haven't already made public.

@KeithThroop But all actual members of your Church - not individuals otherwise known, but not associated with the Church, correct?

Jesus called out sin many times. So did his followers. and they didn’t call out just each other. Yes we need to be mindful of our own sin which is more what is being addressed in the two common verses on the topic; “judge not” and “cast the first stone”. if actually look at what’s going on and read further it has much less to do with not judging at all but how you do it. The huge issue for the Pharisees were that they acted as if they were any better. Christians are no better than any sinner, hell many Christians still sin (sorry holiness doctrine folk). When judging we need to extend grace and be humble and do it from a place of genuine love. we were living a sinful lifestyle too and we know where it leads. we were and still are just as messed up as the sinners we are “judging” the only difference is we know how to not be so messed up anymore and we want that for them too even if they don’t want to accept it

@Joehlert11 Called out the sin, or the person? 150 yrs ago, a person with seizures was thought to be possessed. Now, we know better. How many things were beyond human understanding 4000 yrs ago that we see are part of the human condition, based in genetics, or development? There is a big difference, in my opinion, between adultery and homosexuality.

I am not bound by a religions beliefs - though it's adherents might claim it so. I look at the real Universe and think a religious 'universality' is silly....

@tracycoyle hey it’s your right to disagree with Christians. And if them telling you they think a lifestyle is wrong by all means disassociate from them. as much as im sure they’d love to (and yes some try) they can't force you to
change. you can either put up with them thinking you are wrong, listen to them and change, or cut them out if your life. it’s your choice but they have every right to
their beliefs as well. and there are some things Christians have changed their stance on. some i completely agree with and others all i can do is bow my head in shame at the fact they gave in to the mob and it’s the very reason there is an issue with LGBT right now. it’s mob tactics all over again. shaming Christians for not being “loving” and cutting them off for their “backwards” beliefs that really at the end of the day just offend you. i mean id we want to push back on actuall laws that do more than just offend you and make you feel worse about yourself without actually devaluing you we can have that debate on a case by case basis but at this point it’s not even enough to make sure laws aren’t made against LGBT people even just believing it wrong needs to be eliminated as well.

@Joehlert11 I agree that leftist activism is working to destroy the Church. Tolerance and acceptance are insufficient for them. You have to conform. I find them intolerable and disgusting. They are known by their fruits - hatred. That said. I respect Christian beliefs - I've been involved in four Christian congregations (not counting my birth Catholicism). The first was unaccepting of gays - or trans. Though they were loving, but asked me to not attend services when I started to transition. The other three were accepting (Episcopalian). I was, and am, agnostic. But I attended services because it was important to my partner and our child. I was respectful. And was generally respected because I was. I tend to be an outlier though.

I tend to be reason oriented. The 'facts' have changed over the last 4000 yrs. As someone else said: facts can change beliefs, but beliefs can't change facts. I KNOW that homosexualism and transsexualism are not choices, but hardwired into the person. For that reason alone, I reject Scripture. Given my past, I consider myself reprobate, even if my Christian friends reject that claim.

@tracycoyle well as far as the hard wired part im sorry but jury is still out there on that. what evidence there is is shotty at best. Believe me I want nothing more than to end that debate but even in secular society it’s not concrete. aside from you i’ve not heard the “gay gene” argument in years because it’s not conclusive. as far as trans, it’s essentially the same thing, not enough to really get me on board. but let’s assume for a second there is enough to say for certain it is a “born this way scenario”. this side of heaven we are all born sinful and flawed in one way or another. look at the population that identifies as LGBTQ, it’s fairly small. obviously it’s growing but i feel that has more to do with conformity than people actually being. Like sure i can just as easily claim to be bi, not as if i have to actually be seen with a dude ever i just haven’t found the right one. or i could say i’m queer since that could mean any number of things. like at this point the number is growing not because people are but because not being makes you an other. also there is the issue if intersectionality and the more groups you can claim the better. Point being if we are going to argue it is “normal” i think we need a much greater number of people who are actually part of that group and not people following a trend. it also doesn’t help when you start teaching it to children who have no clue what you are talking about but when you glamorize it they decide to go along with it without really knowing what it is they are saying. the numbers show a good majority of trans children go back on it later in life. so what do we do about the actual trans community. i know it sounds rough but like it is a mental disorder that we’ve pushed to normalize and now everyone is trans. we did a similar thing with ADHD and depression. like now every child has ADHD and depression even if they don't and it’s much harder to diagnose real depression. that or now we have our kids hopped up on so many pills that are causing who knows what damage because they don’t actually need to be on them. as far aa the Church is concerned like any nee issue i’ll admit they haven’t handled it well. like i said either they fully embrace it which im sure makes someone like you happy because they arent treating you like you are doing something wrong for being you or they go extremely antagonistic. like ive said before ive read both sides of the Christian debate on the topic and there is still. i denying that God established male and female. and marriage is meant to be that. for homosexuality, i mean even if it is “born that way” you can still choose to be celibate. Paul was. even as a heterosexual guy i have all but chosen to be celebate myself because i idolize relationships. i don't go into them with a proper approach. Trans i don't have as easy of a solution. i mean if it is actually diagnosed as legit and you and your doctor both agree surgery is the correct route for you i don't agree with it and personally i feel there are better solutions but i won’t pretend to know enough about the issue. i do at least know surgery is far from a guaranteed fix as well but it is a permanent one so there is that to be wary of. i definitely think the Church has room to grow on how they deal with the issue(s) but i do think some grace needs to go the other way too if you expect it from the Church and not just try to force then to change. and just as a personal thing as it seems you have some issues with post modernism and it’s push towards conformity and it seems you acknowledge churches are effected by it i’d suggest actually talking with church leadership wherever you are asking some tough questions. like is the reason they are so accepting of certain controversial lifestyles because they are afraid of offending people or because they have actually gone through the work of seeing what scripture says on the issue. Id even challenge them on how they wrestle with the fact the Bible is quite clear on what marriage is and isn’t. even if the verses about homosexuality are perhaps not referencing homosexuality today the definitions of marriage don’t really seem to have much room for error, we don’t get to change the definition because we want to do as we please and people have an issue with not being allowed to be with whomever, i don’t think the Bible needs to address loving monogynous homosexual relationship in order to change that. i would also ask yourself what it is you are looking for from a church. is it to grow closer to God or do you just want a group of nice people who accept you. i mean a group that accepts you is important but if they don’t challenge you and help you grow closer to Christ then i mean join a social club not a church

@Joehlert11 I appreciate your response. I am not making the 'gene' argument. I think both conditions are more complex than that. I also think that both are such a small part of the population that the only true way to 'diagnose' correctly is to check EVERY fetus in vitro and follow them for 20 years to see the outcomes. THEN we might have proof. As we will not do that, it will remain nebulous at best. My position is that both conditions have appeared for all of human history, in just about every major culture/society/race on the planet. That suggests to me a 'normal' variant. Rare, but like albinism, "it happens".

For most of history, being trans or gay was a death sentence at worst, complete isolation at best. The exceptions were the high levels of governance that protected their own - not the average society. Though transsexuals were often though highly of in some societies. Why would you CHOOSE such a situation?

I don't ask, never have asked, that a Church change itself for my benefit. Nor would I. I take and leave people (and that is what a Church is), for whom they are, AS they are. I willingly accept any one into my life - as long as their behavior is respectful. My partner was UBER LIBERAL. She would have been 'woke' if she lived longer. NONE of her friends could understand how we got along, let alone lived together. (well...I'm actually friends with two of her friends now...)

I accept Scripture. I accept it's wisdom. I also understand it's limitations. Medicine and science have similar limitations.

@tracycoyle reality is i think too often we are too quick to run from churches when they tell us we are wrong and don't agree with us and let us do as we want. “love one another” and “judge not” and all has been beaten into us but with little to. i context of what those actually mean. my mom’s all but fled 2 churches because they were less than condoning of her divorces while being a member and/or on staff but the reality is the Bible has stuff to say about divorce. now i fully support why she got divorced and feel they met the Biblical standard but she has a pattern of this behavior and the church has a stance on divorce and even if i disagree with how they handled her situation just because she doesn’t like their stance on divorce is not a reason they need to change it. now if we want to sit down and hash out what the Bible says about marriage, divorce, and how we are to handle these issues and come to a nee understanding great but with LGBT issues there’s a lot more just blindly accepting it because we don't want to offend people and then just in case the more conservative Christians come knocking we did some research and the verses don’t pertain to modern day homosexuality so we’re good at least until you realize the Bible doesnt have to talk about modern day homosexuality when it clearly outlines marriage, if it’s not that then its not what God meant.

@tracycoyle in regards to the death sentence thing i am absolutely against that and am glad for the most part we’ve moved away from that. and actually that is sort if what the “judge not” stuff is about or i guess more specifically “cast the first stone”. it was believed that the righteous were allowed to pass FINAL judgement (death) on sinners. that only God can do but simply telling someone they are living in sin is not judgement in the context meant in those passages people use to stop Christians from taking issue with someone’s lifestyle. At most the only judging being done in most cases is the proclamation of being guilty of sin just like anyone else is guilty of doing which is why following “judge not” there is a whole bunch reminding us we too are sinners and if we are going to judge do so while acknowledging we are no better. like it’s basically saying if we were to make a Message translation. “So yeah when you judge people for sinning don’t be an ass. You are (were) a sinner too. You aren’t any better than them so stop acting like you are. You need[ed] Me the same way they do. You were once living like they did, and still do from time to time. So yeah call them out on their bad behavior but not because you are better than them but because you are just like them and know how bad living like that is.”. it’s like anyone who has ever been there telling someone not to make the same mistakes they made. they aren’t saying they are better than the other person just trying to make sure they don’t head down the same path. and hey im glad you value scripture i don't think many do anymore and even those who do or at least say they do think they get it. again a danger of post modern thinking, “i don't need someone to tell me what the Bible means, it can mean whatever i say it does.”. at that point i can use the same logic, how can you tell me my interpretation is wrong if we get to decide what it says for ourselves? I mean at that point why have pastors even? like im constantly readying various commentaries and books by various pastors who have both similar and different views from me so i can grow but like ive had many a Christian laugh at me for that and say all you need to know is “love others”

@tracycoyle i did realize i forgot to address your first part and yes we see it having occurred for years but that still doeant make it “right” and. it something to be fixed ir at least worked on like any other mental health problem. yes i know calling it that is controversial especially because society has changed its view but like anything medicine can be just as politicized or changed to fit social agendas and nit actually be rooted in science and even if it is as Christians as ive said even if it does naturally occur and is “normal” to have happen it doesn’t change the Bible’s stance. We even see the same thing happening now with weight. we can’t even tell people who are overweight something is wrong because it’s fat shaming. Im sorry but being overweight is unhealthy no ammount of me accepting me as you are is going to change that. if nothing else it is going to make you worse off because now i’m going to be afraid to say anything that might get you help because im too worried i might offend you.

i agree in part with what you are saying. Now if we are struggling with the same sin absolutely we need to shut our mouths but i don’t think say someone dealing with drug use can't help someone who has a completely different problem. obviously the hard part is who knows about our sinful behavior behind closed doors? Reality is we are all messed up people, even Church leaders (just look at Ravi Zacharias) obviously if our sin is exposed it’ll have damning effects, hence why i think we need to be better about admitting our sin before it gets exposed but just because we may be struggling with sin shouldn’t be an excuse to not help others with theirs

@Joehlert11 the topic was more about calling out those in the LGBT lifestyle and exposing them. In the same spirit as John the Baptist called out Herod's sin. A lot of professing believers like the calling out part, yet still keep secrets. We don't realize that every secret will one day be exposed, and coming to that realization is crucial. Repenting from personal sins should be the first order of the day, before good works, before any calling out. A drug user helping out someone with a different set of problems is conceivable, but not in the Christian context. Remember the log in the eye?

@eschatologyguy i think i get what you are saying. my point is that i don't think we need to entirely have our shit together unless perhaps we are addressing the same sin we are wrestling with but that would also require is to be more open about our sin than we are

Sex issues seem to be the biggest deal in all manner of instances. Sex titillates, enflames and shames. Something everyone has, something everyone wants, and few agree upon. More than anything else....

Hello. Polygamy is openly practised by Mormons although most Christian groups reject it. It is yet another thing that escapes the definition of "sin", it seems.

@Naomi No, God is cool with polygamy.

@ZuzecaSape Really? I thought that was an Old Testament thing.

@Naomi There's no prohibition against polygamy in the NT.

OK.

my point was how culture is shaping the Church. Now if they do preach those other sexual immoralities are sinful then yes there is some truth to the hypocrisy claim but at this point i don't even think the Church even believes them
to be sinful anymore. they just have to from time to time because if they still want to go after LGBT they are all in the same verse. Id argue they are just going down the line trying to get Christians to flip on their beliefs. Christians are so antagonistic when it comes to homosexuality for thar reason then. it’s pretty much the last one they haven’t budged on or at least entirely.