Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 83

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Relatable. Today we are going to talk about a subject

00:00:05.680 that a lot of you guys have asked me to dive into over the past couple of weeks. We touched

00:00:10.240 on it very lightly last week, but we're going to get a little more in-depth today, and that

00:00:14.740 is the decision by the Methodist Church to strengthen its stance on traditional marriage

00:00:21.760 and the role of members of the LGBT community inside the church. So let me give you a breakdown

00:00:28.040 of how that all came about, and then we're going to zoom out a little bit further and

00:00:32.500 talk about the trend of accepting homosexuality and gay marriage in America, how that's changed

00:00:40.320 and particularly how that's changed in the church. And then I am going to address an Instagram

00:00:45.640 post that a lot of you guys sent me in my Instagram messages, and we're going to talk about what

00:00:51.580 the Bible says about all of this. So let's start with the decision by the Methodist Church.

00:00:56.120 So on February 25th, a couple of weeks ago, members of the United Methodist Church convened

00:01:01.040 at a general conference in St. Louis. The top governing body of the denomination, the General

00:01:06.880 Conference's Legislative Committee, made up of 865 delegates. Some of these people are clergy.

00:01:12.480 Some of these people are lay people. They voted on three different plans. One plan was the one

00:01:17.420 church plan. One church was the simple plan. And another plan that they voted on was the traditional

00:01:21.960 plan. And all of these had to do with LGBTQ people within the church. The one church plan would allow

00:01:28.040 individual churches to make their own decisions and regional conferences to make their own decisions

00:01:32.760 regarding the members of the LGBTQ community and how they could serve as clergy and if they could be

00:01:41.880 married in the church. And then you have the simple plan, which would remove all language about the

00:01:46.040 practice of homosexuality out of the Methodist book of discipline. One was actually the traditional

00:01:52.860 plan. So according to Religion News Service, the traditional plan would strengthen the enforcement

00:01:58.500 of language in the denomination's rulebook, stating that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible

00:02:04.300 with Christian teaching and that self-avowed practicing homosexuals cannot be ordained as ministers

00:02:09.780 appointed to serve or be married in the church. So 53% of these Methodist delegates voted for the

00:02:16.240 traditional plan. Some churches and some clergy members and some lay people have been saying that

00:02:22.840 they're going to leave the denomination. Obviously, they're very upset by this decision. Some say that

00:02:28.000 they are saying, but that they're going to kind of defy this plan and they're going to continue to

00:02:34.180 perform same-sex weddings. No matter where you stand on all of this, the division that's happening

00:02:39.280 within the Methodist church, just as if it happened in any other denomination is very sad. And the pain

00:02:45.980 that it's causing people on either side of this issue is also not something to take joy in. Now,

00:02:52.900 a lot of conservative Christians, a lot of people who believe in conservative theology, of course,

00:02:57.820 are happy that the traditional plan passed with a slight majority, but we should also be assessing

00:03:03.520 why this is happening and how we actually got to this position that we even have to have this

00:03:08.540 kind of discussion. So let us acknowledge kind of the context of all of that, because it says a lot

00:03:14.400 about not just where the Methodist church is, but really where we are as a society and particularly

00:03:18.780 where we are as the Protestant faith in general. So Pew Research did a study in 2017 that analyzed the

00:03:27.280 view on homosexuality of all Americans from 2001 to 2017. So if you looked in 2001, the opinion of all

00:03:36.200 Americans, 57% of Americans opposed, 35% of Americans favored gay marriage. At 2017, 32% opposed, 62% were in

00:03:48.740 favor. So that changed a lot over 16 years of the public opinion on the morality and the acceptance of

00:03:55.060 gay marriage. The vast majority of people today, whether they're Christian or not, would say that,

00:04:00.940 yes, homosexuality should be socially accepted and gay marriage is something that should be,

00:04:07.400 that should be, of course, legal and should be something that is celebrated in the same way that

00:04:11.400 heterosexual marriage is. A Pew poll from 2015 looked specifically at Christians and said 54% say

00:04:18.640 that homosexuality should be accepted by society. So the majority of Christians in 2015 said that

00:04:24.560 homosexuality should be accepted by society. That is up by 10 points from just eight years earlier. So again,

00:04:30.800 we saw a large shift from before Barack Obama's presidency, I'm not necessarily tying this to

00:04:37.800 Barack Obama quite yet, although I have done so in previous podcasts, from before Barack Obama was

00:04:43.720 president to the middle of his term and then to the end of his term, we saw a really big shift

00:04:48.740 in ideology and immorality and in views on sexuality in America. People got a lot more liberal,

00:04:55.140 particularly on social issues. Gallup found that 41% of Protestants specifically view gay relations as

00:05:02.240 morally acceptable. And so that's a little bit different from Christians in general. There are

00:05:08.420 less than half of Protestants, at least I think this was probably in 2015 as well, who view gay relations

00:05:14.540 as morally acceptable. And then a Pew study from 2014 looked specifically at the United Methodist Church,

00:05:21.360 the denomination that we are studying right now, and said that 60% of the United Methodist Church

00:05:27.560 believes that homosexuality should be accepted. And that is, again, up nine points from seven years

00:05:33.480 earlier. The most liberal in this particular study that looked at the various denominations and their

00:05:38.480 views on homosexuality, the most liberal were the United Church of Christ, Anglican Church. Both

00:05:45.280 denominations of the Lutheran churches were fairly liberal, although one was more liberal than the other.

00:05:50.020 Episcopalian, extremely liberal in this regard. And of course, the Catholic Church is far more liberal

00:05:56.020 on the subject of gay marriage than Protestant churches are generally. Most conservative was the Southern

00:06:01.460 Baptist Convention, Assemblies of God, and Seventh-day Adventist. But every denomination within the Protestant

00:06:07.540 Church and the Catholic Church also has increased in its approval of homosexuality over the past 10 years.

00:06:14.040 Of course, we know the Supreme Court case, Obergefell, that ruled that gay marriage should be a right in

00:06:20.620 the same way that heterosexual marriage is a right. And public opinion really changed with that. Before

00:06:25.420 Obergefell, the majority of the country, a slight majority of the country still wasn't on board with

00:06:30.420 gay marriage, still wasn't really on board with homosexuality. But after that, after Obergefell

00:06:35.520 ruled that homosexual marriage is a right, public opinion really shifted. So the question that we

00:06:43.960 need to ask as Christians, which we've addressed many times on this podcast before, especially when

00:06:47.980 we talked on the episode about what Lauren Daigle said about her gay friends and the acceptance of

00:06:55.280 homosexuality within the church, we really kind of dove into what the Bible says about that.

00:07:00.000 We have both Old Testament and New Testament verses that say homosexuality is a sin. It is not the

00:07:07.820 marriage that is condoned by God. It's not seen as marriage to God. So of course you have the verses

00:07:13.520 in Leviticus, but then you also have that reiterated in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 6.9, 1 Timothy 1.10,

00:07:20.520 Romans 1.27. A lot of people ask me, okay, if we say that homosexuality is a sin because the Bible

00:07:26.960 says homosexuality is a sin, well, do we also apply that to other little verses in the Bible that say

00:07:32.880 certain things are a sin, that we shouldn't eat shellfish and things like that? No, there are

00:07:37.880 cleansing laws that Christians no longer abide by or no longer have to abide by. And there are moral

00:07:43.200 laws that are reiterated in the New Testament. And sexuality and the definition of marriage is one of

00:07:48.980 those moral laws that is reiterated in the New Testament. And for the Christian, it is not only

00:07:54.200 because it is a physical law, as we've talked about many times on this podcast, it's not just

00:08:00.360 a physical mandate. It is also a spiritual reflection. And so Ephesians 5 talks about

00:08:05.020 how a husband and wife reflects Christ and the church as the husband is the head of the wife.

00:08:10.000 So as Christ is the head of the church, and it talks about the different dynamics and leadership that

00:08:14.780 a husband is supposed to lead and serve his wife and a wife is supposed to respect and submit to her

00:08:20.960 husband. Now that is not supposed to be some subduing structure where the wife has no freedom

00:08:27.220 to talk or no freedom to make decisions. Marriage is in many ways a partnership, but the husband is

00:08:33.300 supposed to be the spiritual head, the head of the household, lead his family. He is going to have to

00:08:39.020 give account to God for his family. So the question is not just whether or not physically homosexuality

00:08:46.400 is okay and whether or not physically creation was set up like that, but also it's a spiritual

00:08:52.440 question as well. Okay. Well, if God says that marriage, earthly marriage is a reflection amazingly,

00:08:59.440 miraculously of the gospel of Christ in the church, then where does gay marriage fit into that?

00:09:05.520 The Bible is very clear about the differing roles between husbands and wives and how that is a

00:09:10.640 spiritual demonstration of Christ in the church. And, um, that is not given to us in the depiction

00:09:17.040 of gay marriage. It's given to us in the depiction of a man and a woman and a husband and a wife. I don't

00:09:22.380 want to mess with spiritual realities. I don't want to mess with a spiritual demonstration of the gospel

00:09:27.820 that is made manifest through Christian marriage between a man and a woman. This is not just nitpicking a

00:09:33.940 couple of verses. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. If there were actual theological answers, if there was

00:09:40.440 a theological sound theological way that we could accept a gay marriage as on par biblically with

00:09:49.340 heterosexual marriage, then it would be easy. We wouldn't have to have this discussion. I think

00:09:54.800 most people would be more than happy to just say, okay, great. If this, if this is a theologically

00:10:00.240 sound position that a gay marriage is, is just as holy and just as honorable to God. And, um, it's,

00:10:07.900 it's just as biblical as heterosexual marriage, then fine. We don't even need to have this cultural

00:10:14.240 divide. I certainly do not rejoice in having this debate. I certainly don't rejoice in causing what

00:10:20.200 is now seen as a controversy. I certainly don't enjoy being a called a bigot or being called archaic

00:10:25.520 or being called backwards or my love of people being questioned simply because I believe in

00:10:30.140 what the Bible says, if there were an easy out, if there were an easy way out of this in which I

00:10:36.640 could still adhere to the Bible and still say, yes, I am completely for a gay marriage, uh, then I

00:10:43.740 would do it, but there's not. And it's primarily not only because the moral law is not only in the

00:10:49.560 old Testament, but also in the new Testament reiterated, but also because of that spiritual

00:10:53.800 reflection, spiritual component of a husband and a wife reflecting Christ in the church. There is

00:10:59.560 really no biblical out. You do hear a lot of people saying, oh, well, the Bible's only talking

00:11:05.860 about homosexual sin being a sin in the, in the context of prostitution and the context of abusive

00:11:12.100 relationships and the context of, uh, relationships that are like a pedophile relationship. Um, but

00:11:19.700 there's really no sound theology or sound research that backs up those views, especially, especially when

00:11:26.160 you look at it in light of creation, especially when you look at it in light of Ephesians 5, which

00:11:31.000 makes clear, like I said, uh, that it is a reflection. It is a symbol. It is a reiteration in an earthly way

00:11:38.120 of Christ in the church, the husband and the wife, the leader, and the one who submits. The Bible is

00:11:44.680 extremely clear about that. And like I said, I wish there was a way out and, and there's not, I don't like

00:11:51.300 taking the hard position on this. I don't like knowing that this podcast causes controversy and

00:11:56.380 causes people to think that I hate them, uh, because of that, because I don't, I don't. But

00:12:01.480 unfortunately we have a lot of voices and we have a lot of, uh, voices, even within Christianity who

00:12:08.880 would tell us that in order to be kind, in order to be loving, in order to be like Christ, we have to

00:12:14.820 say that this is not a sin. And we have to say, um, that gay marriage is on par biblically with

00:12:22.040 heterosexual marriage, that we need to forget the spiritual components of a marriage between a

00:12:26.160 husband and a wife. We need to, uh, forget what the Bible says. We need to just forget about

00:12:30.300 creation. We need to, uh, roll with the punches and we need to catch up to the times in order to not

00:12:35.480 be a bigot, in order to be, uh, truly like Christ. And you get a lot of people being convinced by that.

00:12:42.060 Why do you get a lot of people being convinced by that? Uh, because it feels good. It feels good.

00:12:48.260 You're probably like me and you don't want to cause trouble either. Believe it or not. I don't

00:12:53.080 believe it or not. I still care sometimes whether or not people like me. I still wish that I could

00:12:59.160 just say, you know what you do you and live your life. However you want to live your life, which of

00:13:04.540 course I don't believe in any laws, stopping people from living their life on a, on a basic level.

00:13:11.020 Um, but I wish that I could just say, you know what? Morally relative your truth is your truth.

00:13:16.760 My truth is my truth. Trust me. It would probably make me feel a lot better about myself knowing

00:13:21.400 that I'm not going to get into a whole lot of controversy, but God calls us to something

00:13:24.920 higher. God calls us to something else. God calls us to something different. It is not our job to make

00:13:30.860 people feel good about their non-theological stances. It is not our job to make people feel good

00:13:35.760 about their sin, about my sin, about your sin, whatever sin it is. That is not our job. Um,

00:13:42.540 and in particular, there was an Instagram post by a, um, Christian author influencer that a lot of you

00:13:49.800 guys know that we've talked about on the podcast before. I won't read her entire Instagram caption,

00:13:55.140 but a lot of you guys sent it to me. Um, she is, uh, she says a quick heartfelt note to my LGBTQ

00:14:01.540 darlings, especially the dear young Gabies beloved by Jesus. And then she says, you are

00:14:07.780 incredibly precious and wonderful and needed. You are loved. You are the church. You should be able

00:14:14.060 to lead the church. Uh, you are of his heart. You are of Jesus heart. You are of my heart.

00:14:20.420 And she talks about how much she's learned from this community. And then she ends with the church

00:14:24.400 is only as kind, as good, as true, and as rich as its widest point. We are hopelessly shrunk and reduced

00:14:30.600 without you. Thank you for loving the church when she hasn't loved you back. You are a marvel. And

00:14:35.120 I am so proud to be your sister. So on some of these things, I completely agree. Um, people,

00:14:42.320 no matter what your sexual orientation is, no matter what your gender identity is,

00:14:46.960 you are made in the image of God. And because of that, you are valuable and you are just as valuable

00:14:51.120 as anyone else. You have just as much worth as anyone else. God wants you to be saved just as much

00:14:55.400 as he wants anyone else saved. He doesn't look at you and think that you are dirtier than any other

00:15:00.220 kind of, of sinner. You are not less than other sinners. We are all dead in our sin apart from

00:15:06.500 Christ. Every single one of us, certain kinds of sin don't make you more dead than other sins.

00:15:11.920 If you know what dead means, it means dead. There's not different stages of death. You're just dead.

00:15:16.640 And so all of us who are apart from Christ are dead in our sin. And all of us, when we are called

00:15:21.260 into Christ are called to forsake our sin. We are called to deny ourselves, take up our crosses.

00:15:26.100 Think about how painful and gruesome that is to take up a cross of crucifixion and follow him.

00:15:33.320 All of us are called to hard things. All of us are called to sacrifice our sins and our fleshly

00:15:38.860 desires. And we're called to something hard, but we're called to something good. We're called to

00:15:43.160 something different. And the problem that I have with this Instagram post isn't that she says that

00:15:48.200 they are loved, that they are valuable. Of course you are. Of course you are. You're just as

00:15:53.100 valuable as I am or as anyone else is. Like I've already said, you're made in the image of God.

00:15:58.880 You are an image bearer. And because of that, you are of incredible worth. So that is not my problem.

00:16:05.720 My problem is equating this last part, equating kindness and goodness and love with saying that

00:16:12.960 what you are doing is not sin when the Bible says that it is. That is saying that you know love

00:16:19.080 better than God does. You know kindness better than God does. You know goodness better than God

00:16:24.200 does. And if the Bible's version of kindness and goodness and love doesn't make sense to you,

00:16:29.300 that you get to change it and that you get to say, sorry, God, what you said isn't good enough for me.

00:16:35.420 It doesn't make sense with the new cultural changes. It's not culturally convenient for me.

00:16:41.560 And so I am going, I'm going to reject that definition of love and goodness and kindness.

00:16:48.420 And I am going to give them my own because it feels better for them. And because it feels better

00:16:53.080 for me, I am just not willing to say that I know better than God does. I'm just not willing to say

00:17:00.540 that about myself. Like I know how finite I am. I know how little I understand things. Like I know

00:17:07.880 how little I even comprehend about the Bible and about God and about what's good and what's bad.

00:17:12.620 And I look back on different stages of my life when I might've thought that I was making the right

00:17:18.140 decision, but I didn't. Like I think back to a stage of my life in college where I thought that

00:17:23.280 you do you was the best imperative that someone could give me. That I was drinking, I was partying,

00:17:30.560 I was hooking up. I thought that I was doing all of the right things and all of the people who

00:17:35.340 encouraged me, I thought that they were the loving ones. I thought that they were the ones who really

00:17:39.560 believed in me, who really wanted what's best for me. And now I look back and I see some of the

00:17:43.820 regrets that I racked up and I think about some of the mistakes that I made and just how stupid I was

00:17:48.460 during that time. And I wish I had woken up to the fact that the people who were loving me were the

00:17:52.960 people who were telling me, stop, stop. And so what I think is important is that we don't equate love

00:18:00.440 to telling people that everything you do and everything you think and everything you feel is

00:18:05.080 okay because it's not. Like I don't trust myself enough to say that about myself. And so I can't

00:18:11.500 trust someone else who is also finite to say it enough about them. Like I don't trust myself to

00:18:17.700 redefine love better than God did. I don't trust myself to redefine sin better than God did. I don't

00:18:24.420 trust myself to redefine good and bad because I'm the same me who maybe changed a little bit

00:18:29.340 and thanks to Christ, but I'm the same me who made poor decisions in college and thought I was

00:18:35.000 making the right ones. So why would I think that my same finite mind now would be able to redefine

00:18:42.040 something as eternal and as great as sin or as love, as goodness, as kindness? I hope that's making

00:18:51.100 sense. So I have a significant problem with equating kindness and openness and love to disobeying the

00:18:58.960 Bible. I'm just not willing to give definitions that I say are supreme to what God's word is.

00:19:06.620 I refuse to believe that the God who said that he is love, that he is love is wrong about defining love

00:19:15.340 and defining love is speaking truth to your neighbor. That is what love is. It is also, of course,

00:19:22.660 it's hospitality. It is grace. It is forgiveness. It's kindness. It's listening to someone. It's looking

00:19:27.880 them in the eye and telling them that they are made in the image of God, but it is also not being afraid

00:19:32.680 to speak truth. Rosaria Butterfield wrote a letter in the Gospel Coalition in 2016 to this particular

00:19:41.220 Christian influencer and author, and she addressed what this author had said about gay marriage being

00:19:49.200 unholy and about it being the same as heterosexual marriage. And she said, I won't read the entire

00:19:57.300 letter, of course, but I will read part of it. She says, if this were 1999, the year that I was

00:20:03.180 converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved, instead of 2016, this woman's

00:20:08.960 words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a bomb of Gilead.

00:20:14.000 How amazing it would have been to have someone as radiant, as knowledgeable, as humble, as kind

00:20:18.520 and funny as Jen, which she has all those things, by the way, saying out loud what my heart was

00:20:23.220 shouting. Yes, I can have Jesus in my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic

00:20:28.460 discipline, which was queer theory and English literature and culture. And in my church, my

00:20:34.060 emotional vertigo could find normal once again. She goes on to say, maybe I wouldn't need to lose

00:20:39.520 everything to have Jesus. Maybe the gospel wouldn't ruin me while I waited, waited, waited for

00:20:43.900 the Lord to build me back up after he convicted me of my sin and I suffered the consequences. Maybe it

00:20:49.120 would go differently for me than it did for Paul or for Daniel or for David or for Jeremiah. Maybe

00:20:54.840 Jesus could save me without afflicting me. Maybe the Lord would give to me respectable crosses,

00:21:01.580 manageable thorns. Today, I hear her words, words meant to encourage, not to discourage, to build up,

00:21:08.040 not to tear down, to defend the marginalized, not broker unearned power, and a thin trickle of sweat

00:21:13.800 creeps down my back. If I were still in the thick of the battle over the indwelling sin of lesbian

00:21:19.300 desire, Jen's words would have put a millstone around my neck. And of course, Rosaria Butterfield

00:21:24.680 is someone who lived as a gay woman who had a partner for decades of her life and then came to be

00:21:32.440 a Christian and changed. Now, we've also talked about on the podcast that when anyone is saved,

00:21:40.000 when anyone is saved, no matter what your prevailing sin is, whatever your predominant sin is,

00:21:46.260 you are being saved from unbelief to belief, not from a liar to not a liar, not from gay to straight,

00:21:55.020 not from stealing to not stealing. That's not primarily what you're being saved from. You are repenting,

00:22:02.440 from unbelief, and you are being saved, and you will be sanctified in Christ, and you will be

00:22:08.340 given the power. We will all be given the power to put down our sin, to deny our flesh, and to follow

00:22:13.680 Christ. Does that mean we won't struggle? Does that mean that we won't be tempted by sin? Does that mean

00:22:19.620 that we won't sin, that we won't mess up? Of course it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. But it does mean

00:22:24.400 repentance from our old way of life, whatever that old way of life was, and walking in Christ.

00:22:31.500 And I just fear, honestly, what people of all backgrounds, of all different sins, I fear

00:22:44.260 them following someone like this Christian influencer and missing out. And we all should

00:22:50.560 fear that about our own salvation. We're working out our salvation with fear and trembling, the Bible

00:22:55.680 says. We should all fear that we're missing out by not laying down our sins and following fully after

00:23:02.260 Christ, that we're not fully experiencing the joy and the freedom that Christ gives us in salvation

00:23:09.020 to Him. So that is why it is not loving to say that any kind of sin is okay. And look, it's a hard

00:23:17.160 position to take. It is. You are going to be made fun of. You will be persecuted. I guarantee you the

00:23:23.460 day is coming when people dig up these old podcasts, old podcasts. They'll be old maybe when they're dug up

00:23:29.080 or maybe not. When people say, wow, look at this girl. She is so unloving. She's so unkind. How dare

00:23:35.200 she say these things? But they're biblical. And far be it from me to redefine love, redefine sin,

00:23:41.280 and redefine goodness and kindness as something other than what God says. And so what we are called

00:23:47.860 to do is we are called to see everyone as image bearers. We are called to see everyone as value

00:23:52.840 and as valuable and as worthy as a human being, that is. And we are called to speak the truth in

00:24:02.840 love. We are called to be hospitable. We are called to be generous. We are called to be kind. But that

00:24:08.740 doesn't mean that we are not allowed to say what the Bible says and that we are not allowed to speak

00:24:17.160 truth. I think a lot of people think that they are not saying something about hard things. And I'm not

00:24:26.140 saying we need to go out all the time and just talk about controversial issues for the sake of stirring

00:24:30.040 up controversy. Of course not. Of course not. But they need to be addressed when they should be addressed

00:24:35.020 and when the situation calls for it. We shouldn't be afraid to talk about these things. I think a lot

00:24:39.360 of people refuse to talk about it or refuse to voice their opinion. One, because of course you're

00:24:43.520 scared. And I'm scared too. Like I totally get that. You're scared of being called names, of not being

00:24:49.220 accepted. But often we kid ourselves into thinking that the only reason we're not talking about these

00:24:54.320 things is because we want to be accepting when it's actually because we want to be accepted. And the Bible,

00:24:59.780 the Bible has already spoiled that for us. Like you're not going to be accepted. You're not. The

00:25:04.620 world is totally going to push you away and you're totally going to be condemned and you're totally

00:25:09.320 going to be persecuted. And I'm not saying we have it really hard in America. We don't. Our form of

00:25:13.800 persecution is like, you know, you get kicked off social media, which in this day and age is big,

00:25:18.620 but we're not. Thankfully, we're not getting like our freedom of religion isn't actually being

00:25:25.540 prohibited and quite yet. And we are not being completely silenced and our churches aren't

00:25:32.320 getting burned down. We're not getting killed for our religion. And so, of course, we have a lot to

00:25:37.020 be thankful for. But are you going to be pushed to the outskirts of society? Are you going to be

00:25:41.980 marginalized because you're accused of marginalizing other people? Yes. And so I'll just tell you right

00:25:47.780 now, it's going to be a lot easier for you to follow this Christian influencer. It's going to be a lot.

00:25:52.740 It's going to be a lot more convenient for your life. And you will have probably a lot less

00:25:57.940 worry about fitting in if you don't take these biblical positions. If you try to find a way

00:26:08.800 to make every culturally convenient position biblical, your life will be easy. It'll be easy.

00:26:16.680 And that's why the Bible says you need to count the cost. You need to know what you're getting into

00:26:21.460 before you follow Christ. So if we want to be culturally convenient Christians and if we want

00:26:28.160 to be liked and loved by everyone, if we want to be accepted by the mainstream, then sure, we can be

00:26:33.180 woke, social justice, intersectional, okay with everything you do, you moral, relativistic

00:26:38.280 Christians. That's fine. Now, the question I would ask you is why? Why the Bible? Why Jesus? And maybe get

00:26:46.920 another hobby. You can be an agnostic and believe all those things and you have a lot more time on

00:26:51.920 Sundays. But that's the question all of us need to ask. And it's a question that I wrestle with all

00:26:57.680 the time that I'm constantly asking myself, how is my life really different? Oh, because I have a

00:27:02.260 podcast and talk about hard things. People do things that are a lot harder than I do. They sacrifice a lot

00:27:07.080 bigger than I do. They love a lot more than I do. They're a lot kinder than I do. I certainly am not

00:27:12.220 perfect in any of this stuff at all. Um, and I'm learning. And so that's, that's my take on all of

00:27:20.680 that. And I always try, it's really difficult, but I always try to be as soft and as gracious as I can

00:27:27.260 without compromising the truth. But I want you guys to be fully equipped and fully prepared when you see

00:27:32.680 this kind of stuff in the mainstream and when you see your friends following this kind of stuff, because

00:27:36.640 you will. And it's going to be really hard to have conversations about this. I do encourage you

00:27:42.060 to, I encourage you to talk to your friends about it and not in a condemning way, not in a, well,

00:27:47.280 don't you know what the Bible says? Or are you an idiot? Uh, that's probably not going to go over

00:27:52.240 well, but I encourage you to have conversations with your friends, uh, who think differently than

00:27:57.300 you do. For example, if you saw that a friend liked or commented on this post and you're actually

00:28:01.760 close enough to this person to have a productive conversation, I would encourage you to just ask

00:28:07.080 questions, just ask questions about, um, you know, okay, what, what did you get out of this

00:28:13.860 poster? Or what do you think about it? Or what do you think about the United Methodist Church's

00:28:17.620 decision? Where do you stand on that? And just be genuinely curious and try to have a conversation

00:28:23.040 with them and point them to the truth of the Bible, the truth of Ephesians five and, uh, the truth

00:28:29.280 that God gives us. And I'm not saying they're going to change their mind. They may never change

00:28:33.200 their mind and they're probably not going to change their mind in that conversation. And I'm

00:28:36.420 not saying you should cut them off, uh, from friendship or that you should be rude to them.

00:28:40.840 Try as you can to stay calm because they probably won't. This is an identity issue for a lot of people.

00:28:47.260 It's not just, um, a behavioral issue. It's an identity issue. So people get extremely defensive

00:28:53.720 about it. Um, so love your friends who disagree with you, but don't be afraid to engage and to

00:29:01.160 have those conversations because what's behind it is not just someone's thought on gay marriage,

00:29:06.060 but also what your thought is on the Bible, what your thought is on God's word, what your thought

00:29:10.620 is on how God defines love and who God is, what kind of authority do you think God really has?

00:29:16.520 And you don't have to, you don't have to know everything. People are going to have a lot of

00:29:20.260 questions for you. And if you don't know, you should just say, you know, I don't know.

00:29:24.940 That's a really good question. Like I've never thought about that before. Okay. Even if you still

00:29:29.820 disagree with them totally and you know that they're wrong and you know, okay, I think that

00:29:33.720 their comeback for this probably wasn't right, but I don't have an answer for it. Be humble and be like,

00:29:38.420 you know what? That's a, that's a really good point. Let me think about that. Would you mind if I got

00:29:43.440 back to you or would you mind if we re-entered this conversation or, okay, let me think about that

00:29:48.940 and I'll research that. But have you thought about it? Have you thought about it this way?

00:29:53.940 Try to stay as open and as humble as you can. I know this is hard and I know that you get a lot

00:30:00.620 of pushback for it, but it's important to have these conversations. It's important not to shrink

00:30:04.800 away. And it's really important for you to notice the signs of a false gospel when you're looking at

00:30:12.960 these very popular influencers. So I hope this helped. I hope this was a sufficient discussion

00:30:17.620 about the United Methodist Church. If you guys still have questions on it, of course, let me know.

00:30:22.860 And I love you guys and I love the suggestions that you give me and the questions that you have.

00:30:26.620 They're always very thought provoking and good. So I will see you guys next week. Remember three times

00:30:31.040 a week next week, and it's going to be really fun. So share this podcast. If you want to rate this

00:30:38.540 podcast, if you like it, send me an email, send me a message. If you do have any questions or

00:30:42.680 need any advice, as always, I am here. Okay. I'll see you guys next week.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 07, 2019

Ep 83 ｜ United Methodist Church

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