By Bob Allen
A former Southern Baptist Convention official says gay marriage functions as a “truth serum,” distinguishing real evangelicals from those who don’t affirm the Bible’s authority.
Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, wrote a March 27 column in the Christian Post about World Vision’s rapid turnabout after announcing it had changed its employment policy to allow the hiring of professing Christians who are legally married to a member of the same sex.
Land, who retired last year after 25 years as head of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said the episode demonstrates that gay marriage is different from matters of doctrine like baptism, the role of women, reproductive issues and divorce and remarriage where Christians adopt “a range of views.”
“Same-sex marriage cannot be squared with the traditional, historic, evangelical view of biblical authority,” Land said.
“As World Vision has learned, evangelicals cannot declare ‘neutrality’ on this issue, and it cannot be fudged or finessed,” Land said. “If you tolerate same-sex marriage and/or same-sex behavior as acceptable morality for Christians, then you have rebelled against biblical authority and departed from the orthodox faith of biblical Christianity.”
Land predicted the same-sex marriage issue “will act like a truth serum, dividing true evangelicals from the faux evangelicals who seek to travel under the evangelical banner while denying the biblical faith of their evangelical forefathers.”
Previous stories:
World Vision’s policy reversal turns tables in same-sex marriage debate
SBC leaders blast World Vision for hiring openly gay Christians