Read an article in The Sun that reminds me how urgent and crucial it is that Christians learn the art of engaging our culture in public...
It was about two Chinese books - "God loves Gays" and "Gays Love God" by Oyoung Wen Fong - now selling in Mentor and Popular Bookstores. Publisher is 3nity. (Trinity?)
The first one sparks a major debate among Christians on homosexuality (the author is doing Phd in sociology, and has theological background) - 'their love was no less true compared to heterosexual couples'.
The second one discusses the testimony of four homosexual Christians, how a gay person can be religious and remain in their 'lifestyle'.
To his credit, he recognize that 'if u define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, then gay marriage is not a marriage.' So he propose to call it another name.
The good thing is, Christians ought to be exposed and not to isolated from what supporters of homosexuality think. But we also need to know how to respond.
So far, the author claim that people "refuse to look at the arguments nor did they try to reason with you".
Some returned the book without reading it, openly criticise him.
Other Christians claim that he's demon possessed.
When asked when he came out of the closet, Wen Fong said, "I didn't want readers to make my sexual orientation an issue, I wanted them to look at my arguments instead."
Here, I agree 100% with him. It doesn't matter whether the person is evil or saintly, homosexual or heterosexual...
What matters is the validity of stuffs he had to say.
Does his argument hold water?
At the moment, not many evangelical Chinese-speaking leaders who could do it at this level. (even though the publishing arm/newspaper column for the Chinese community is much more advanced than the English brethren)
Some friends of Meng Wai could do it. But even these intellectual evangelicals were marginalised by the church herself... and had to do their writing overseas.
We can do better than that. We need to be equipped.
We need to challenge how the issue is being framed: "The Right To Love"...
It's the same tactic used by abortionists, to frame the killing of unborn as "the right to choose". But, choose what?
The real issue is: What is the foetus? A human being? Or not?
Similarly, we need to frame the issue of homosexuality not as 'the right to love', but what is marriage? As Francis Beckwith put it nicely, Just because you can eat an ashtray doesn’t make it food... (highly recommended article)
Other stuffs to equip you in being an ambassador for Christ:
How To Give Your Point of View?
Born that way?
Letter to a Friend
Are You Homophobe?
It was about two Chinese books - "God loves Gays" and "Gays Love God" by Oyoung Wen Fong - now selling in Mentor and Popular Bookstores. Publisher is 3nity. (Trinity?)
The first one sparks a major debate among Christians on homosexuality (the author is doing Phd in sociology, and has theological background) - 'their love was no less true compared to heterosexual couples'.
The second one discusses the testimony of four homosexual Christians, how a gay person can be religious and remain in their 'lifestyle'.
To his credit, he recognize that 'if u define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, then gay marriage is not a marriage.' So he propose to call it another name.
The good thing is, Christians ought to be exposed and not to isolated from what supporters of homosexuality think. But we also need to know how to respond.
So far, the author claim that people "refuse to look at the arguments nor did they try to reason with you".
Some returned the book without reading it, openly criticise him.
Other Christians claim that he's demon possessed.
When asked when he came out of the closet, Wen Fong said, "I didn't want readers to make my sexual orientation an issue, I wanted them to look at my arguments instead."
Here, I agree 100% with him. It doesn't matter whether the person is evil or saintly, homosexual or heterosexual...
What matters is the validity of stuffs he had to say.
Does his argument hold water?
At the moment, not many evangelical Chinese-speaking leaders who could do it at this level. (even though the publishing arm/newspaper column for the Chinese community is much more advanced than the English brethren)
Some friends of Meng Wai could do it. But even these intellectual evangelicals were marginalised by the church herself... and had to do their writing overseas.
We can do better than that. We need to be equipped.
We need to challenge how the issue is being framed: "The Right To Love"...
It's the same tactic used by abortionists, to frame the killing of unborn as "the right to choose". But, choose what?
The real issue is: What is the foetus? A human being? Or not?
Similarly, we need to frame the issue of homosexuality not as 'the right to love', but what is marriage? As Francis Beckwith put it nicely, Just because you can eat an ashtray doesn’t make it food... (highly recommended article)
Other stuffs to equip you in being an ambassador for Christ:
How To Give Your Point of View?
Born that way?
Letter to a Friend
Are You Homophobe?
Comments
I still owe you the VCD, hehee... trying to find a good time to meet up!
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance;
by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful but irrelevant;
by our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lot not only our identity but our authority and our relevance.
Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant.