Another Example of Liberalism Challenging the Church

Hope you’re having a great June.  I haven’t taken to blogging in a while.  I’ve had so many things going in my life, family and ministry that I took a hiatus from writing. 

But yesterday as I was combing through the papers after my morning devotionals I came across something I thought it was so out-landish I just had to write about it.  As a matter of fact I thought about it all night.  I just don’t know what is wrong with the world other that they are void of judgment and morality.  The Bible tells us in Romans 1, professing themselves to be wise they became fools (or in the Greek morons).  What am I talking about?

Yesterday June 7, the Asbury Park Press reported on the possibility of Kirk Cameron being disinvited from speaking at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove.  I will get to the reason in a minute.  But let me ask this question is not the Ocean Grove a old Methodist Camp Ground where people used to come for retreats and hear from God?  I believe it is still a dry town, where alcohol can’t be sold.

The founding of Ocean Gove…In 1867, Reverend William B. Osborn, a Methodist preacher, attended a week long outdoor holiness camp meeting at Vineland, NJ. Osborn's enthusiasm knew no bounds and, eventually, he found an ideal camp meeting site, a secluded community on the North Jersey Coast, where spiritual and physical health could be renewed. Thus, on July 31, 1869, a group of ministers and friends camped at what is now called Founders Park and, after a candlelight prayer service, dedicated themselves to establish a permanent Christian camp meeting community called "Ocean Grove."  So there you have it, how Ocean Grove came into being, it started as a holiness campground.

Which brings me to what I want to speak about today, I am minister, but first and foremost I am a Christian who believes that the Word of God is yardstick by which we must measure morality by. 

As I said the actor Kirk Cameron was scheduled to speak at The Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove this July.  Well Kirk is well known actor and evangelical Christian, who has a couple of movies out about the family.  He appeared on in March, on CNN and told Piers Morgan on his CNN TV show that he believes homosexuality is “unnatural” and “destructive to many of the foundations of civilization.”  I ask what is wrong with that are we not allowed to voice our opinions any more.  Well this gets better.  Then an Ocean Grove-based human rights organization now wants the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association to disinvite Cameron from two speaking engagements at the Great Auditorium this July.

Allowing Cameron to speak would reflect poorly on Ocean Grove and on the association, which owns all the land in the community, said Harriet Bernstein, co-chair of Ocean Grove United.

Stop the presses, what in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here.  Did I just not give you how and why Ocean Grove founded in the first place.  A place for spiritual and physical renewal, a place where you can get with God uninterrupted, now they want to ban someone who is speaking on marriage and is totally biblical in his belief on homosexuality.  What is the problem here?

Interestingly I did a little research on the subject.  I found out that there was documentary that was produced called “God’s Square Mile” and it is about Ocean Grove.  God’s Square Mile tells the story of a town entrenched in the legacy of Methodist social values and renewed, in large part, by the financial investment of the gay and lesbian residents who have revitalized Ocean Grove’s Victorian homes.  So in here lies the problem about Kirk Cameron speaking at the Great Auditorium. 

It seems the community of Ocean Grove is a Gay and Lesbian community, therefore anything that does not fit into social agenda should not be allowed in their community.  But it is okay for them to be in my community, my workplace, my school.  One of their own made this statement “The question of defining queer community poses a challenge because there is no ethnic or cultural neighborhood that one is born into as a homosexual. The homosexual individual “makes a conscious choice to assert a sexual orientation and ‘come out,’ to take on a gay identity.”  Anne-Marie Bouthillette, "Queer and Gendered Housing: A Tale of Two Neighbourhoods in Vancouver." In Gordon Brent Ingram, Anne-Marie Bouthillette, And Yolanda Retter, ed., Queers in Space: Communities, Public Places, Sites of Resistance,(Seattle, Washington: Bay Press, 1997). 216.

Okay that all being said, it seems hypocritical, that I have to put up with Gays social agenda is and listen to them and see them seemingly flaunt themselves.  But for someone who does not agree with them they want to ban them from voicing their beliefs, how hypocritical can you get?  And whenever someone says it’s immoral they them as homophobic and it is labeled hate speech.

Murder is wrong and immoral and when someone speaks against the murder I guess we can call it hate speech.

I’ve seemed to digress but I don’t have a degree in journalism.  My point is simple, allow Kirk Cameron to speak, if you don’t like don’t listen.  Ocean Grove was found on a higher purpose and I am sure that the Rev. William B. Osborn would not approve of the lifestyle taking place in Ocean Grove.

For us who call ourselves Christians, we’d better wake up and come out from among the dead.  Because when the judgment starts I don’t want to be milling around.

The liberals have labeled them a progressive movement to goes toward socialism.  Listen to God Word has to say on this subject.

   

Rom 1:18-32

God's Wrath on Unrighteousness

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man — and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality,* wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving,* unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. NKJV

I REST MY CASE