Room for Who?

If you're in the RCA (Reformed Church in America, the denomination I'm a pastor in), you need to know about this organization.

Is there room for the full inclusion of all, in the RCA?

Is there room for the full inclusion of professing Muslims, who don't believe Jesus is God's Chosen Messiah, our Savior?

Is there room for the full inclusion of a guy who thinks it's perfectly fine to sleep around with as many women as he can, because HE doesn't think the Bible teaches against adultery?

You get the drift.

It is their tolerance for sexual sin and idolatry, their room-for-all-ness, that Jesus holds against the Church of Thyatira (Rev 2:20).

We have membership vows which we use, when "fully including" someone in the life of the church. They contain promises to believe certain things and to do and not do certain things. Full inclusion is restricted to those who promise to believe and do x, y and z. It is only a minor and simple clarification to move from "Scripture is my only rule for faith and life," to "One of the things Scripture says is that homosexuality is a sin I need to be trying to leave behind if I want to be fully included here as a follower of Christ (1 Cor 6:9-11)."

There are two places a person with same-sex attraction could be coming from:

1. They are purposely experimenting with it.
2. They find themselves "naturally" drawn in that direction.

Scripture makes no differentiation, but says that the attraction itself is a perversion of the natural order (Rom 1:24ff). This puts people in the second option in a difficult position, but no more difficult than the single man who is sexually attracted to a woman he will never marry, or the married man who is "naturally drawn" to the cute secretary at work. God often calls us to deny what we're naturally drawn to.

So the church responds to person 1 above by calling them to avoid intentionally dabbling in something God calls sin. And the church responds to person 2 above by calling them, as every believer, to deny themselves, take up the cross and follow Jesus.

The response will be either
1. An attempt to deny self and follow Jesus, in which case the Church obviously has room. Or...

2. An attempt to excuse behavior by re-interpretation of some very obvious texts, in which case the Church may not tolerate such impurity.