Denny Burk, Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, addresses the “progressive Christian” push to normalize homosexuality and same-sex marriage in the Church. Are these people the sheep spoken of in John 10 or are they goats? “At the end of the day,” says Burk, “the church follows the voice of the Lord Jesus and will not go after the voice of ‘strangers’—those offering a teaching that is contrary to Christ and his word. Those who do go after the “strangers” are revealing themselves not to have been a part of the fold to begin with. They leave the church because they were Christians in name only.” So, what is going on in the evangelical movement right now? Burk offers his opinion:
“…the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” John 10:3
I was just rereading an essay I wrote about six years ago on what the bible teaches about homosexuality. That essay begins with a discussion of Brian McLaren’s then recent affirmation of committed homosexual relationships.
It is strange to read that essay now and to consider in retrospect how quickly McLaren faded from evangelical view. At the time, the emerging church still had some purchase within the evangelical movement. Now that entire project is defunct and so are its major proponents. They pushed the very edges of the leftwing of the evangelical movement until they pushed themselves right out of the movement. Many of them did so by adopting unorthodox positions on sexuality.
