Wednesday, March 26, 2014

No such thing as homosexual food

Apparently World Vision (one of the top grossing Christian charities) has publicly announced that they will not exclude homosexuals from their workforce and has sparked a frenzy of interest.  [shocked face]

Here is one of those "my two cents" posts that can be put in the "for what it's worth department".

All the big wig conservative evangelical church leaders need to stop fronting and be honest.  This was a wise business decision made by seasoned and successful businessmen.  The disagreements over homosexuality are splitting churches and dividing one believer from another all around the world.  Passions are at an all time high and self control at an all time low.

World Vision is an organization that receives over a billion dollars a year in funds to distribute to the poor.  That is a very large system which requires a lot of workers to maintain its efficiency.  To pick a side on this doctrinal disagreement would be detrimental to its survival.

Of course the larger, most prominent biblically conservative leaders and organizations want to give the impression that World Vision HAS picked a side because it trivializes a grievous sin.  What these leaders fail to recognize is that the reason World Vision has chosen to stay out of this fight is because the conservative perspective only represents one side of the disagreement. The denominations that recognize homosexual marriage as biblically legitimate would disagree with the conservative theology that led to their conclusion.

In making this decision the leaders of World Vision have left the debate over homosexuality where it belongs- in the conscience of the individuals who are directly affected by the issue.  They haven't taken a loose view of sin beyond the views of the collective of the individuals they employ.  They have not taken a grandstanding conservative posture and declared who is worthy to join with them in feeding the poor.  They left the grandstanding up to the denominational talking heads.

Since when is it acceptable to require one to sign off on a doctrinal statement before allowing someone to help feed the poor anyway?  The very fact that World Vision's announcement is such a big issue to some evangelicals is deplorable to me.  They made a wise business decision because they would like to continue thriving as one of the largest institutions and continue employing scores of individuals who don't mind setting aside their theological, doctrinal, and yes even sexual disagreements in order to work together at feeding hungry people.

When it all boils down I think it is all about control.  The leaders of World Vision made a decision that would ensure that they would remain in control of a large share of funds being dedicated to charity.  Church leaders are upset that they don't have the level of control over World Visions leaders as they'd like to have.  Perhaps these church leaders will refrain from delegating the control of those charitable funds to World Vision.  Okay fine.  Just make sure that the same monies are going toward feeding poor and needy children and not toward funding the "war against the LGBT's".