I thought JR Kirk had a good piece on his blog. I entitled it “final thoughts” but I doubt this will be the last time he writes on it. I like his blog and find it helpful.

Here is the comment I left on his blog:

I like your point that what we are faced with today are believers who profess homosexual orientation as well as the conviction that they see homosexual practice as not antithetical to a life pursuant to the age to come. Given our context on western democracies a particular church has no power to impede their pursuit of this form of witness, the most it could do would be to excommunicate them and not allow them a particular status (member, office bearer, etc.) within that ecclesiastical group. There are also other ecclesiastical bodies that would permit them full participation in the life of their fellowship. What this affords any particular believer and the trans-denominational body of Christ itself is an opportunity for watchful waiting over this subject. How will the change of this particular element of Christian teaching impact the rest of fabric of Christian understanding? Probably only experience and time will inform us. This means that the conversation may continue for a very long time, as it has for many issues within the church.

I’ve been reading Alister McGrath’s book “Heresy” recently and have found it very helpful in understanding why the church eventual cordons off areas of thought or practices as “heresy” in time because it finds these things to unravel the foundations of Christian understanding.

Ultimately in terms of personal ethic homosexuals who profess Christ are the ones who will have to work out these issues for themselves in a more consequential way than those of us who are heteros do. Our situation of multi-denominational churches allows for a sort of freedom of experiment that makes us all responsible for ourselves and brings the consequences of our decisions and behaviors back upon ourselves.
If what we see throughout the rest of human experience is any indication I think we should expect a long and vigorous conversation with lots of surprises. One deep element of this conversation I think will be the highlighting of the broader way in which our culture view sexuality and marriage in an idolatrous light. I also expect us to realize that options and choices themselves do not equal access to the kind of meaning and fulfillment our culture associates with them.

In our context (unlike many Islamic cultures) homosexuals will be free to make their choices and congregate in the Christian assemblies of their choosing. If and how this one element impacts all the rest of the fabric of the Christian life will in fact be seen over time. It may in fact take a lot of time to see it, or perhaps not.