And now from Rev. Clooney...

For anyone whose church attendance is determined solely by having a good looking minister, there is now a rival to Joel Osteen, George Clooney.
Don't know if you saw this, but the debonaire Mr. Clooney has taken to praying, and judging by the substance of this prayer, has likely been praying for longer than he's been on screen.
His prayer 'For our country' is a keeper, with application both in the U.S. and elsewhere, affected by something better than an America First theology, insisting that to kneel is the best posture and protest of all, exceeding the demands of flag and country regardless of where you live...

I pray for my country.
I pray that we can find more that unites us than divides us. 
I pray that our nation's leaders want to do the same.
I pray that young children like Tamir Rice (the 12 year old boy who was mistakenly shot and killed by police in November 2014) can feel safe in their own neighbourhood.
I pray for all of our children.
I pray for our police and our first responders.
I pray for our men and women of the armed forces.
I pray that dissent will always be protected in this great country.
I pray for a more perfect union.
And when I pray, I kneel.

Tamir Rice: police release video of 12-year-old's fatal shooting – video from the Guardian.com

Is homosexuality a sin (2)?

from believeoutloud.com

Having responded to this question earlier (see https://www.linkedin.com/homosexuality), I have to admit that my response of ‘no’ is an answer I slowly backed into.

Backing into truth is a frequent experience for me. Much wisdom comes by musing on events which persist in being re-visited … as though life demands our going through not just one but many conversions, just to remain in touch both with God and with the world swirling round us.

For example, to discover that Jesus is to be found among the poor regardless of what makes them poor, has been a major ‘backing into truth’ for me. Meeting with poor people repeatedly has gradually imprinted them as one of life’s great screen-savers, not only in my ongoing transformation, but in my understanding of Jesus as ‘Immanuel, God with us.’

The Apostle Peter had many instances of ‘backing into truth’, perhaps none more than when he had to defend himself after meeting with a group of Gentiles as recorded in Acts chapters 10 and 11.
In giving his defence to his bewildered fellow believers, the Bible records:
“As I began to speak,” Peter said, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning.  Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?” Acts 11:15-17 (See also Acts 15:7-11)

No doubt his fellow Jews would have been perplexed with Peter’s actions. It bordered on both infidelity to his Jewish faith and outright heresy. One can visualize his friends swarming Peter with their Bibles and concordances in hand.
They’d be referencing all those verses which say in say in black and white that only the descendants of Abraham are God’s chosen people, not for God’s sake those heathen Gentiles. They would have reminded Peter that even Jesus himself said that he had been ‘sent only to the lost sheep of Israel’ (Matthew 15:24), that he had earlier commanded his disciples to go only ‘to the lost sheep of Israel’ (Matthew 10:6).

So what was Peter doing parting ways with both the Bible and the earlier instructions of Jesus?

Note that Peter didn’t respond by bashing his brothers with bible verses. Not because there weren’t bible verses that didn’t apply, but in the realization that what God was doing now required everyone to revisit the Bible with a new pair of glasses. As Peter put it: ‘as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning. Who was I to stand in God’s way?’

There is no way we can equate as Christians today, the incredible hurdle Peter’s Jewish friends faced in accepting the Gentiles as among God’s chosen. Far greater than any hurdle we face in accepting LBGT believers as fellow Christians today!

So yes though I am hard pressed to point to bible verses that definitively say: ‘GAYS ARE IN', I have met many on whom ‘the Spirit has fallen.’ Like Peter I found myself asking ‘who am I to stand in God’s way?

Could it be that just as an insurmountable hurdle came down for the Gentiles to be counted among God’s own in Peter’s day, a similar hurdle is coming down for LGBT people in our day?
If so, God be praised!

Is homosexuality a sin?

Is homosexuality a sin? No.

I didn't always believe this to be true.

For the first twenty years after my 'born again' conversion, based on my reading of the New Testament and the prevailing teaching in the churches I attended, I believed homosexuality to be a sin, right up there with greed and self-righteousness.

I did have to acknowledge to the gay people I knew, who asked me why Evangelicals were so hard on LBGTQ people and so silent on the sins of greed and self-righteousness, that our talk and behaviour towards them was unloving, in contradiction to the love of God. They were having trouble reconciling the 'GOD HATES FAGS' placards they'd see Christians holding up at Gay Pride events, with the love of Jesus had for prostitutes, swindlers and tax collectors.

Jesus never spoke about homosexuality, whereas his indictments against greed and self-righteousness were relentless, as though religious pride and material greed are where the real evil resides.

The prevailing wisdom from evangelical churches has been: 'to love the sinner and hate the sin' which as Austen Hartke noted in a remarkable sermon on Reconciliation is like saying, “I love the you I think you should be, but I hate the you you are.”

So what changed me? And how could I articulate it to those within evangelical circles who see this as the great betrayal? It was like my own 'coming out' where I'd not only have to answer to my fellow evangelicals, but answer as well that great Christian, The Apostle Paul, who wrote that "those who ... practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive... —none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God." (1 Corinthians 6:9,10)
To disagree with the Apostle here, was more than a small whimper of dissension. I mean we are talking about the guy credited with writing nearly half of what constitutes the New Testament! What's an insurance agent like me doing taking on a saint whose writings will outlive by generations any word I write! It is quite plainly preposterous!

Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right? Luke 12:57

What helped was to realize there were other passages of Paul's writing which troubled me. They weren't the parts having to do with the efficacy of the Cross or the power of Christ's resurrection to rescue anyone who looked to God for help. They were the other parts, albeit few, such as Paul's discouraging women from either speaking or assuming leadership roles in the church. (see 1 Timothy 2:11 and 1 Corinthians 14:34,35)
If Paul was wrong about women, could he be wrong about gays as well?

Some people have speculated that Paul in condemning gays was condemning the practice of older men having sex with young male adolescents, which I'd agree is sinful. Any sexual relationship driven by aggression and not love on the part of one and resignation and passivity on the part of the other, is wrong regardless of who is involved. But if Paul is referring to consensual sex involving two people of the same gender where love and not coercion is the glue, I think Paul is wrong.

Surprisingly enough, one of the scriptures that had me re-thinking this issue was likewise written by Paul.
For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:27,28

Here is the Apostle, who in his other writings had reinforced a hierarchy where women were subservient to men and where slaves served their masters without complaint, throw that same hierarchy out the window, in this one amazing revelation.
'In Christ,' he wrote, 'there is no longer male nor female, slave nor free'... 'that putting on Christ was like putting on new clothes', where all the usual dividing lines and prejudices between male and female, slave and master, no longer applied.
Could this also apply to the line between 'gay and straight?"
I concluded it did.

So sometime after 1986 when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, and before 2005 when the Federal Government's Bill C-38 made gay marriage legal in Canada, I started believing that not only was homosexuality not a sin, but a gift from God to be celebrated. As though God has made us, whether gay or straight, the way we are.

What helped me alongside my scriptural wrestling were the gay Christians I knew. Not only was their faith genuine, I was overwhelmed with the courage it had taken many of them to come out, in many instances paying dearly for it. They were an inspiration given the ridicule they'd endure, especially those who remained committed to God despite the lack of welcome they'd get in many churches.

Two such examples are Austin Hartke and Cassidy Hall whose stories are accessible via the links below:
http://austenhartke.com/blog-1/2017/2/12/reconciling-a-sermon-on-matthew-521-37
https://17spaces.org/2017/09/10/dear-nashville-statement/

Also there is the story of a 'mega-evangelical' church in Nashville who decided to become an inclusive evangelical church. See http://time.com/3687368/gracepointe-church-nashville-marriage-equality/

My faith story

When people commend themselves, it doesn’t count for much. The important thing is for the Lord to commend them. 2 Corinthians 10:18

I wrote this faith bio in response to an inquiry from one of the members of the Global Pastors Network.
He (Simon Mawdsley) wrote:
As you know John, there are many, many saved thru the Cross born again followers of Jesus who are left wing. Here in the U.K. I would say that the majority of those who have truly turned to Jesus through repentance and faith are left wing socialist. However unlike yourself, they place much more importance upon what God's Word says, ALL of it, than any political persuasion. Also, unlike your good self, they know the Way of salvation, walk in it and tell others about it. Come on John. I'm happy to be proved wrong about you. If you're really saved, tell me how, what happened and what you believed. I want to know if you know the saving Gospel and if you've called upon the Saviour, as a sinner and pleaded God's forgiveness, accepted His Cross work for you and turned away from your old life (repentance) and followed Him. (Oops I've given you a bit of a clue there). Be honest. Tell me how u got saved & how I can be saved? I'm not joking or being sarcastic I really do want 2 hear where u stand

This is my response:

Born 1949

1967 - President of Rosedale United’s youth group, first exposure to inner city work

1968 - voted Rosedale United’s Man of the year for my contribution to church life

1969 - left the church, got involved in inner city youth work and head off to University

1971 - quit university to start a rock band, end up moving to California to live with girlfriend attending Stanford University, did the long haired, acid laced hippie thing

1973 - in an apple orchard just outside of Penticton, British Columbia, led by a young 7th day Adventist named Terry Boomer to accept Jesus

1974 - became part of a Jesus people community in North Philadelphia where I became chief cook and house keeper for a Jesus people house of 11 guys. Filled with the Holy Spirit in the middle of a very cold night in February and started speaking in tongues

1975 - moved home to Toronto, joined a charismatic church having upwards of 1500 young people, started writing musical choruses for the church

1977 - married 2 days before Christmas

1982 - the charismatic church my wife and I had met in, where both of us served as deacons imploded with its congregants scattered in many directions

1983 - Deb and I began attending a Christian and Missionary church, Bayview Glen Church.

1992 - for our kids' sake joined a church with more contemporary worship and youth activities.
It was also the year when I became involved in an inner city agency run by the United Church of Canada and was re-introduced to the dynamic of poor communities which provoked significant changes in what I understood the gospel to be. 
Read a lot by Christian writers such as Jim Wallis, John Howard Yoder, Thomas Merton, Simone Weil, Leonardo Boff, Tony Campolo, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others about the social implications of the gospel. 
The two books that most influenced me during that time were Yoder’s ‘The Politics of Jesus’ and Bonhoeffer’s ‘The Cost of Discipleship’. Profoundly impacted as well by St. Francis of Assisi, particularly as portrayed in GK Chesterton’s biography of him. (see Chesterton - St. Francis)

1996 - the small groups pastor of Unionville Alliance Church, after spending 3 hours with me visiting my various street friends near my office downtown told me and subsequently our church community that my ‘small group was the homeless people I had befriended’ - a charge that has affected my ministry ever since.
In subsequent years, I have became increasingly involved in advocacy - speaking to various levels of government and to churches about the dire need for social housing in Toronto, as well as supports for street people struggling with mental illness and addiction. 
Since the people I advocated for were people I knew intimately and had prayed for, there was some strength to my appeal coming as it was not from a social worker, or social agency employee, but from a downtown business person.  This advocacy is central to what I understand Christ’s call on my life to be.
As someone involved in social advocacy, I have become close not only to other Christians in this work, but people outside the faith, notably Muslims and humanists, in appealing to various groups of political, social and economic influence alongside those who are poor. It was through this period that my 'inter-faith' conversations began and continue to this day.
Among the more dedicated and articulate social advocates I have met are LBGT Christians, who have convinced me that one can be both gay and Christian. Some are indeed "eunuchs for the kingdom’s sake", while others are in monogamous gay relationships.

2003 - was a founding member of a new church start-up (The Olive Branch) in North Markham, an affluent neighbourhood just north of Toronto and lead the community outreach program called 'Branch Out'.  I was also the back-up preacher to the Lead Pastor. From the outset, I was known as the social justice Jesus guy, quite distinct from the regular preacher/pastor, a ministry and perspective he thoroughly supported.

2009/10 - after giving a sermon on ‘The Politics of Jesus’(see Sermon notes), was unofficially taken off the roster of back up preachers. 
That same year I was asked by a inner city Anglican Church (All Saints Community Church) to lead Sunday services 1 to 2 times per month in additional to leading a mid-week sing-along, where old hymns are sung alongside ‘Let it be’, ‘Knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door’, ‘I can see clearly now’, ‘Lean on Me’ etc., to widen the circle of participants. We close with some scripture verses and prayer, typically lead by the more devout among us.

At present my wife attend an evangelical Anglican Church 20 minutes south of where we live. We have hosted a bi-weekly prayer/bible study group in our home since 2005.

We have 3 grown children, two of whom are married, the third being the closest thing I have known to a saint, he beginning his walk with Jesus in 2001. For more about Michael go to: SDG Imagery
We now have a grand-daughter who has us all amazed at how 'fearfully and wonderfully' each one of us is made.