HERE WE GO and THE DEVIL IS A LIE! Abominational “Unconditional Conference” Speaker David P. Gushee Teaches Christians Must Adopt a “NEW SCRIPT” Where Homosexuality IS NOT SINFUL
Daniel Whyte III, President of Gospel Light Society International, says “I did my best to warn you.”
For part 1 of our exposé, dealing with our general sense of the conference click here. For part 2, where we review a session by panelists with trans children who argue for gender affirming care, click here.
Andy Stanley and his followers have steadfastly objected to the notion that the Unconditional Conference was “gay-affirming” in any way, or was pushing a theological position about homosexuality one way or another. He spoke to this during his recent sermon, arguing:
“The purpose of the unconditional conference was not to equip parents to convince their gay kids that they weren’t gay or shouldn’t be gay . . . The purpose of the conference wasn’t to equip parents to debate with their kids. The purpose of the Unconditional Conference was to equip parents to reconnect with their kids and to stay connected with their kids.
…. they chose the presenters based on that purpose. (These were) presenters that Greg and Lynn knew, from their personal experience, would be most helpful for these parents.”
One of these helpful presenters was Rev. Prof. Dr. David P. Gushee.
Gushee received his Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary, one of the most pagan and progressive universities in the world, and is the Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit (“Free University”) Amsterdam and Senior Research Fellow at the International Baptist Theological Study Centre.
He is described in his press pack as “widely regarded as one of the world’s leading Christian moral thinkers” and has authored or edited nearly 30 books, including Changing Our Mind, whose purpose is to make a biblical case for why homosexuality is not a sin but a moral good. Gushee brought 80 copies of this book to the conference, where it sold out in the first four hours, until all that remained were these rack cards for folks wanting to purchase it later.
Gushee has been a long-time partner of Embracing the Journey. His lectures about how he shifted from not affirming to affirming and the scriptural justifications he employed are featured as a valuable resource on their website. He’s also been highlighted in their speaker series.
Gushee gave the same message at two breakout sessions, with his topic Wrestling with Theology, Pointing Towards Jesus, heard by over half the attendees.
Taking the stage, Gushee explained that his assignment from conference organizers Greg and Lynn McDonald was to “think theologically and biblically with you about issues that are relevant to having an LGBTQ child.” Apparently, this involves a full-throated apologetic for being gay-affirming and urging conferencegoers to develop a fresh new scripture reading.
He says that he is a pastor and “gospel minister” who cares about presenting Jesus and his teaching in a compelling way. He explains that he seeks to “try to help the church follow Jesus faithfully” and that his job is to take real-life issues and “think about them from the ground up and ask what should the church be teaching about this issue?” More specifically, “what should Christians be practicing in relation to this issue?”
Gushee explains that a child coming out as gay is considered undesirable if you are part of a traditional Christian community. It garners a negative response because there is a “script” that people believe, which is that homosexuality is a bad thing and will result in harmful “social and communal consequences.” Everyone has a plan and future they envision for their child, and that child being LGBTQ derails those plans and shatters future narratives.
But Gushee cautions that “theology does matter” and that the initial “negative or rejectionist posture” that parents operate out of when their children come out is a “script.” It results from “having had harsh judgments preached to you for decades” and that it is the “default” parents operate out of because they “lack a different script.”
Conservative Protestant traditions, he says, are all poorly prepared when their child comes out because they possess a negative script, and he wants to teach people how to be better prepared.
Gushee offers that “the traditional script is shaped by reading of what I call the Six Big Passages,” which are chosen based on a “concordance approach” to the Bible. Gushee claims that there are only six passages in the Bible that speak to the issue: Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:10, and laments that “those passages are constantly presented as the only relevant passages.” These verses, he argues:
“are usually taught without any kind of serious exegesis of the languages, or discussion of the cultural background that is relevant to the context.”
Gushee says that the translation choices in the English Bibles are “interpretations of ancient language” and cautions attendees that “just because it says it, doesn’t mean it’s not disputed.” It’s these verses that Gushee says are being taught in a way that is designed to “yield the most harshly negative judgment on the spiritual, moral, and eternal condition of our children.”
To put a finer point on it, he says adopting the ‘unhelpful script’ that homosexuality is a sin and that a child coming out is a bad thing will “predictably result in negative spiritual, psychological and relational consequences.”
Gushee says that teaching these verses to have a blanket anti-gay message has resulted in parents disowning their children on their deathbed, kicking them out of the house, or even beating them. In one case he’s heard of, a parent called the Christian college their child attended and told them they needed to pull the scholarship because their child was a “reprobate sinner.”
“But,” says Gushee, “this conference is about writing a different script.”
He uses the example of the holocaust as a historical parallel to show that a widespread change of pattern and interpretation is possible. Gushee profers that over the centuries, Christians have always treated Jewish people poorly and harshly, such as Catholic kids in Poland teaching that Jews have horns that they file down because they’re children of the devil.
He says it was during the holocaust that Christians cooperated in large part with the Nazis, acting as collaborators or, more frequently, as bystanders while they rounded up and gassed millions of Jews. It was only after the holocaust that major Christian groups began to reconsider their negative teaching against Jews, and a tradition based on particular readings of Bible passages that harmed people “was abandoned explicitly by the church” because of the harm that was done.
This also happened with slavery, where after the Civil War, Christians who seriously began listening to enslaved people and hearing their stories came to wholesale shift their views.
As a result “new interpretations emerged in all of these cases based on a recognition of the harm that was being done by that way of reading the Bible.”
By listening to their stories, people began to develop “a growing recognition of the dignity and worth of the people who have been targeted,” resulting in “a return to scripture for fresh consideration.”
Now, he says, it must happen with homosexuality.
Source: Protestia
To read more, click here: https://protestia.com/2023/10/05/unconditional-conference-speaker-teaches-christians-must-adopt-a-new-script-where-homosexuality-isnt-sinful/
