Nagaland Baptist Church Council says ‘LGBTQ+ lifestyle is unacceptable’
Kohima, March 12 (MExN): The Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) today made its “position lovingly and compassionately clear” that the “LGBTQ+ lifestyle is unacceptable.”
“It is against God’s design for marriage as male and female and against the teaching of the Bible and the belief of the Christian faith and practice,” declared the Council in a press release issued by its General Secretary NBCC.
Accordingly, it deemed the emergence of LGBTQ+ as a failure of its ministry and stated that it is the responsibility of the church to reach out in the spirit of Christian love and compassion without making discriminatory judgments.
Striking a balance between non-acceptance and its insistence on compassion, the statement further stressed that it is not “against the people who struggle with an LGBTQ+ lifestyle.” “Love the person but hate the sin should always be our approach,” it added.
The NBCC also called for refraining from criminalising and stigmatising the community. However, it further noted that while Christians try to be good citizens of the world, they must also stand their ground on issues that “impinge on our faith and morality.”
The Christians have a higher calling to stay faithful to the teachings of the Bible, the NBCC asserted. “As much as we try to understand them, the church also cannot embolden them to continue in their lifestyle, which is against the teaching and practice of our faith. We can only implore them to seek redemptive transformation,” it added.
According to the NBCC, the dual approach is not an encouragement to the church to accept the new normal as some may argue. It is not true. It has only helped the church take the teachings of the Bible and biblical morality and ethics seriously, it contented.
Instead, it has given the church the opportunity to “define our compassionate outreach and ministry by redefining what sin is and what is against God’s standard of morality,” it said. It has also awakened the church to the fact that we must be more compassionate to those who struggle with their orientation without condemning them it added.
