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    Homosexuality and the Church: Guidance for Community Conversation
    Homosexuality and the Church: Guidance for Community Conversation
    Homosexuality and the Church: Guidance for Community Conversation
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Homosexuality and the Church: Guidance for Community Conversation

    By Howard A. Snyder

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    About this ebook

    In this short book, Dr. Howard Snyder approaches these questions with both prophetic nerve and pastoral sensitivity as he invites honest dialogue and authentically Christian conversation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAsbury Seedbed Publishing
    Release dateOct 1, 2014
    ISBN9781628241563
    Homosexuality and the Church: Guidance for Community Conversation
    Author

    Howard A. Snyder

    Howard A. Snyder served as distinguished professor and chair of Wesley Studies at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Ontario from 2007 to 2012. Prior to that he was professor of history and theology of mission in the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky from 1996 to 2006. He has also taught at United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, and pastored in Chicago and Detroit. He has written numerous books, including The Problem with Wineskins (IVP), The Radical Wesley (IVP) and, most recently (with Joel Scandrett), Salvation Means Creation Healed: The Ecology of Sin and Grace (Cascade).

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      A good, clear apology for an evangelical response to matters surrounding same sex relationships.

    Book preview

    Homosexuality and the Church - Howard A. Snyder

    HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE CHURCH

    GUIDANCE FOR COMMUNITY CONVERSATION

    About the In All Things Charity Series

    John Wesley is often credited with the saying, In essentials unity. In non-essentials liberty. In all things charity.

    As the world becomes more religiously pluralistic and societies and cultures grow more contentious and divided it will behoove the church to gain clarity in its discernment of the distinction between essentials and non-essentials. We must not shrink back from boldly articulating the core truths of the Christian faith. At the same time, we must grow in the quality of our character as our very conversations witness to the gospel in the presence of a watching world. Said simply, our relationships within the church are the barometer of our witness to the world.

    Jesus minced no words when he told his disciples that the authenticity of their association with him would be known only by the quality of their love for one another. Later in prayer he would connect the loving unity of the church to the believability of the gospel. See John 17.

    The Apostle Paul, in the celebrated thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian Church, in essence tells us the absence of charity, or love, signals failure.

    As a publisher, Seedbed does not want to steer clear of the difficult subjects of our time. Nor do we want to agitate the church with unnecessary controversy. For this reason, Seedbed created the In All Things Charity series. The series will contain books across a range of challenging issues. For the series we are selecting authors whom we believe embody the variety of character which enables them to demonstrate confidence in their point of view with truthful love in their approach.

    IN ALL THINGS CHARITY/A SERIES

    HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE CHURCH

    GUIDANCE FOR COMMUNITY CONVERSATION

    HOWARD A. SNYDER

    Homosexuality and the Church:

    Guidance for Community Conversation

    Copyright 2014 by Howard Snyder

    new edition 2015

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

    Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible. © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

    Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

    Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

    Printed in the United States of America

    Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62824-154-9

    Mobi ISBN: 978-1-62824-155-6

    ePub ISBN: 978-1-62824-156-3

    uPDF ISBN: 978-1-62824-157-0

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2014951086

    Cover design by Andrew Dragos

    Page design by PerfecType, Nashville, TN

    SEEDBED PUBLISHING

    Franklin, Tennessee

    seedbed.com

    SOWING FOR A GREAT AWAKENING

    To my grandchildren and prospective

    great-grandchildren—that they and future generations

    may walk in Jesus’ love and truth.

    Other Books by Howard A. Snyder

    The Problem of Wineskins: Church Structure in a Technological Age

    InterVarsity Press, 1975

    The Community of the King

    InterVarsity Press, 1977. Rev. ed., 2004

    The Radical Wesley: The Patterns and Practices of a Movement Maker

    Seedbed Press, 2014

    Liberating the Church: The Ecology of Church and Kingdom

    InterVarsity Press, 1983

    Kingdom, Church, and World: Biblical Themes for Today

    Wipf & Stock, 2002

    The Divided Flame: Wesleyans and the Charismatic Movement

    (with Daniel Runyon) Wipf & Stock, 2011

    Signs of the Spirit: How God Reshapes the Church

    Zondervan Press, 1989

    Models of the Kingdom

    Abingdon Press, 1991

    EarthCurrents: The Struggle for the World’s Soul

    Abingdon Press, 1995

    Decoding the Church: Mapping the DNA of Christ’s Body (with Daniel Runyon)

    Baker Books, 2002

    Live While You Preach: The Autobiography of Methodist Revivalist and

    Abolitionist John Wesley Redfield (1810–1863) (editor)

    Scarecrow Press, 2006

    Populist Saints: B. T. and Ellen Roberts and the First Free Methodists

    Eerdmans, 2006

    Yes in Christ: Wesleyan Reflections on Gospel, Mission, and Culture

    Tyndale Series in Wesleyan History and Theology, Vol. 2.

    Toronto: Clements Academic, 2011

    Salvation Means Creation Healed: The Ecology of Sin and Grace

    (with Joel Scandrett) Cascade Books, 2011

    Contents

    Foreword by Timothy Tennent

    Introduction

    Section One Four Key Biblical and Theological Considerations

    Section Two Core Issue versus Essential Doctrine

    Section Three A Biblical Case Study

    Section Four Holy Homosexuals?

    Section Five Questions, Answers, More Questions

    Final Word

    Discussion Questions

    Notes

    Foreword

    One of the foundational problems with the contemporary discussion on same-sex marriage is that the church has lost the debate before the first exchange of ideas takes place. This is because the underlying presuppositions of the dialogue are never properly disclosed. For example, the actual biblical teaching regarding marriage is utterly incomprehensible to the wider culture. If you read Christian interactions about same-sex marriage, it is clear that the church has largely abandoned the notion that there is a divine design to marriage. In short, we

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