A Baptist seminary professor said Aug. 20 it is hypocritical for Christians to preach against sins like homosexuality they see outside of the church and not about sins like divorce that affect church members.
"It is very, very easy for you to get 'amens' and applause by standing up and denouncing sins that are not immediately present in your own congregation," Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said during a weekend conference on the church and home at the seminary in Louisville, Ky.
"Look at the difference between the way conservative evangelical churches in America speak to the issue of divorce and the issue of homosexuality," said Moore, who also is teaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville.
Moore said both the issues of divorce and homosexuality are clearly addressed in the Bible, but "in the one case we speak in very muted and ambiguous terms."
"The reason we say we do that is because divorced people are hurting and they need grace and mercy," he said. "Of course! Do you not think homosexuals need grace and mercy?"
"The reason we speak that way is because the people in our congregations are not watching divorcee parades in San Francisco and shaking their heads in disgust," Moore said. "We have far more out-of-the-closet divorcees than out-of-the-closet homosexuals in our congregations, at least that we know about, and the out-of-the-closet divorcees are the ones who are tithing and paying bills, and so we speak to them in a very different way than we speak to others on the outside. That is a scandal."
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SOURCE: Associated Baptist Press
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
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