May 21, 2007
Unfinished Business
According to Washington Post reporter Joe Holley, Mel White quit his position as speechwriter and ghost writer for Jerry Falwell in 1994 when he [White] announced he was gay. White continued to attend Falwell’s church and they remained friends. In the interview White said, “I invested so much in believing he could change, but he went and died instead.” My first reaction was, why would you even think that a Christian of Falwell’s character would ever consider changing his stance on homosexuality? Then, the more I thought about it, I realized it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. We’ve all seen the homosexual agenda forcing change in religious leaders and denominations. Apparently Mr. White thought if it can happen with others, it could happen with Jerry Falwell. Hopefully, when the time comes for someone to eulogize Mr. White they won’t be saying, “…but he went and died instead.”
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4 comments:
Gail;
-----Mr. White certainly has unfinished business. And if we think that orienting our standards and life choices according to societal pressures places us on less than certain ground with God, then Mr. Falwell also died with unfinished business. The real social pressure on the Church is not focused towards the Church’s eventual embrace of the homosexual agenda. That is only a chip off the block. The focus of the pressure is for the Church to relinquish its embrace of the Bible as the infallible Word of God and Jesus Christ as God. Other chips off this same block are evolution, humanism, abortion rights, Earth worship through extreme environmentalism, the impersonalising aspects of Marxism, the promotion of Eastern philosophies, and more. They have all brought their conclusions forehead to forehead with the Bible and judged it not to be the Word of God.
-----The Bible tells us not to associate or even eat with one who is sexually immoral, greedy, idolater, etc. (I Corinthians 5:11). Paul told the Thessalonians to keep away from every brother who was idle and who did not live according to the teaching they received from him (II Thess 3:6). And John tells us that anyone who runs ahead without continuing to live in the teaching of Christ must not be received or welcomed (II John 1:9-10). Yet we dare to go forehead to forehead against the Bible proclaiming that we must give the sexually immoral, the greedy, the slanderers, idolaters, and drunkards a place amongst us because they have a need for mercy as well. We are forgetting that we all have a place amongst one another in the Lord because we are receiving mercy in our chosen struggle to put our selves off and to put on His character of not only grace, but also godliness. Love seeks to protect and preserve as well as to trust and hope. Our love for one another should then carry some element of preservation for the environment of godly fellowship that we call church.
-----Now I might be missing something in the semantics of Mel White’s definition of “gay”. Therefore, assuming that he was referring to practicing gay, willing gay, or “may not be ok to be gay but ok anyway” gay, why would Mr. Falwell accept Mr. White’s participation among the flock given into his care? And why would he continue to associate with him against very clear scripture? Maybe Mr. White just failed to realize how much Bro. Falwell had changed for him rather than for the Lord. Jerry continued to preach from his pulpit concerning the sin of homosexuality. But in practice he was willing to treat the homosexual as a brother by welcoming him into the flock where a teaching in opposition to the pure Word of Truth could ever so subtly sift through the people. I believe the possibility that Mr. White might better come to his spiritual senses if he were quickly and Scripturally separated from fellowship is worth recognizing.
-----This particular example of practice in opposition to express Scripture is just one of many similar situations in the Church regarding other issues. To arrive at these practices one must accept that either the Word of God is fallible, or God expects us to read something He wrote clearly in order to understand something quite different. Therefore, by our willingness to dismiss clear Scripture for the sake of our chosen practices, we ourselves have knocked out a few chips of judgment against the Bible. And might Mr. White’s chances of finishing his business be greater if we would stop joining the efforts of those who chip, and go on ahead to finish our business of obeying the Word as it is written?
Steve,
The article stated that Mr. White and his partner lived across the street from the church.
Gail;
-----I am sincerely sorry if I misunderstood your statement that White continued to attend Falwell’s church and they remained friends. Even if White had not continued to attend Bro. Falwell’s church, the practice of fellowshipping with those the Bible tells us not to is common. I even look into myself at behaviors which I allow as I struggle against them, and figure I ought to be thrown out on my ear too. It is interesting how what the Bible demands the church not be has tended to be a part of the church, and what it demands the church to be has somewhat been missing. It is so Romans 3:3-4ish, “What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written, “So that You may be proved right when You speak and prevail when You judge.” So whether we obey Him precisely or sloppy-follow and prove His Word right, in the end we benefit one purpose or another of His.
Excellent article!!
You are correct to point out that after all the political, philosophical and P.C. gyrations, ultimately we will stand before God. And it won't matter who in this world accepted or rejected our views.
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