Reply to Do churches generate a lot of revenue from the LGBT community?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is driven almost entirely by mainline Protestant churches — not evangelical or RCC churches.

My view is that this is primarily a cynical attempt by these churches to try to increase membership — look at us, we are gay friendly, you should join our church.  As you said, they aren’t putting flags or special advertisements for any other group of people.

And yet what has happened?  These churches continue to bleed members and are a shell of their former selves.   They are only going to continue to decrease in members, and eventually those old buildings will close too because they are expensive to maintain.   Moreover, if you go to most mainline Protestants, you hear VERY little about Jesus, the cross, justification by faith, etc.  You do hear a lot of progressive politics, etc.

But this hardly means Christianity is dead.  I go to a mega church in a comfortable modern building where 3,000-4,000 people attend every Sunday.  We are apolitical.   But we strongly preach the true Gospel — that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, died for our sins, and that we are saved solely through our faith in him.

The reality is that true Christianity has a certain perspective on LGBT relationships.   It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t treat people with love and respect regardless of this issue. My own church will not perform same-sex weddings but says that it is a matter of conscience whether you attend one outside of our church, and they have a “pro” and “con” argument on the website.    I personally have no issue attending a same-sex marriage ceremony myself.  I’m comfortable with that compromise.

But there is no doubt that when many mainline Protestant churches started to lose members, one key response was to reverse course on what had beeen church doctrine for thousands of years. I don’t think they did this for strong theological reasons because the theological justifications are flimsy when you read the New Testament and understand what marriage is in the Christian context.

Many serious Christians have left these pews as a result and now attend church elsewhere, like mine, where the churches are thriving.  People want a church that has real theology and something they can believe in — not just progressive politics that they can get anywhere else.

Mainline Protestants can make up their own minds as to whether this was a wise strategy.

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