A Baptist church in the state of Texas has now decided to allow heresy in their church in the form of same-sex marriages. They are also giving their own pastoral staff the right to officiate:
CHRISTIAN POST – After months of praying, leaders at the University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, announced Sunday that they have decided to allow their ministers to perform same-sex weddings inside their church building even though it goes against the official policy of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
“Four months ago, the leadership team stood before you and asked for your prayers and your voices regarding building use and pastor autonomy for same-sex marriages,” church leaders noted in a letter to the congregation.
“We believed then, as we do now that UBC is a place that celebrates intellectual and theological diversity, but felt that our ambiguity on these polices had the potential to create harm for those in the LGBTQ community,” the letter continued.
Months of praying? Who were they praying to, Satan?
Christian Post continues:
“On the matter of building use for same-sex marriages, we have voted yes. On the matter of pastoral autonomy with regard to performing LGBTQ marriages, we have voted yes,” the letter said.
“Though it is not our polity at UBC to take congregational votes, in January we said that it was our aim to come to our best collective/theological conclusions on these decisions, and so it is important to share that our votes were consistent with both congregational and pastoral feedback.”
It continued: “We know that for some this announcement comes with great joy, and we sit with and among you today. We know that for some this announcement comes with loss, and we sit with and among you today. We know that for many this is a day of uncertainty or ambiguity—too much, not enough, or some other singular or mixed emotional highs and lows—and we sit with and among you, too.”
This is horrible. Not only did the leadership vote for this, but the congregation did too – assuming the leadership is being honest here.
Notice their name is ‘University Baptist Church’. They are very close to Baylor University and it wouldn’t surprise me if this had a huge effect on the leadership vote.
According to Baptist Standard…
At the November 2016 BGCT [Baptist General Convention of Texas] annual meeting in Waco, Texas Baptists approved a motion establishing affirmation of same-sex marriage as grounds for declaring a church outside the bounds of cooperation with the state convention.
Carrying out that policy, the BGCT Executive Board in February 2017 declared three churches—Lake Shore Baptist in Waco, First Baptist in Austin and Wilshire Baptist in Dallas—“outside of harmonious cooperation” with the BGCT.
So this isn’t the first Baptist Church in Texas to go this route? Geez. I fully expect that the BGCT will probably declare UBC “outside of harmonious cooperation” as well. Not sure that will have any effect on this heresy though.
According to the words of Christ in Matthew 16:18, the Church is supposed to break down the gates of Hell and RESCUE sinners from Satan’s grasp. But these churches apparently have decided that Hell is their new home. Who is gonna rescue them now?