“O never give me over to my own heart’s desires, nor let me follow my own imaginations!” — John Wesley
There are many reasons for the modern church’s loss of its prophetic voice, politics being just one of them. As in ancient times, trying to embrace what the rest of the world is doing has diminished the power of the church to address what used to be called “sinful behavior.”
The latest, but surely not the last example, is what the United Methodist Church did last week at its convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Delegates voted 523 to 161 to replace the definition of marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman and will now allow gay Methodist ministers to be ordained and perform same-sex marriages. They dropped language that said homosexual practice “is incompatible with Christian teaching.” African delegates voted against the change. What do they know that others have forgotten?
Marriage between a man and a woman is compatible with Christian teaching. The majority of delegates should read and obey the Scriptures that John Wesley, the founder of their denomination, preached without compromise.
In Genesis, it says: “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh.” The idea is to express love through mutual pleasure and produce children (Genesis 2:24).