October 8, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) Like their American counterparts, many of the liberal Protestant denominations in Europe are accepting homosexuals as church members and pastors. A report in the Presbyterian Church USA News for July 2 gave the following information:
The Uniting Churches in THE NETHERLANDS (UCN), the largest Dutch Protestant denomination, accepts unrepentant homosexuals. Laurens Hogebrink, a Dutch Reformed pastor who is a leader in the UCN, said that the denomination has ordained homosexuals for many years and the UCN doesn't regard homosexuality as a sin, nor distinguish between sexual orientation and practice. He said that in the 1980s when a local congregation refused to give communion to a homosexual couple, the Synod refused to allow the action. In 1995, the Synod confirmed that homosexuals have equal rights as church members.
In GERMANY, the German Evangelical Church, an alliance of Lutheran and Reformed congregations, holds the position that it is acceptable to ordain homosexuals in some cases. Kerstin Soederblom, a lesbian pastor in Frankfurt, said that the majority of the German Evangelical Churches do admit homosexual pastors "provided that they do not promote or too openly proclaim their homosexuality." She estimates that in Frankfurt, roughly 25 percent of their pastors are homosexuals.
In 1994, a theological committee of the AUSTRIAN Protestant Church issued a declaration that "there are no fundamental theological arguments against homosexuality." It appears that they have removed large portions of their Bibles! After this document was sent to all the congregations, the national Synod voted in 1996 to accept a three-point policy that (1) homosexual believers are brothers and sisters and should not be discriminated against, (2) the State should give legal recognition to homosexual couples, and (3) the criterion for admission to the ministry is not sexual orientation but responsible sexual behavior.
The Waldensian Center of Agape, in Northern ITALY, opened its doors to homosexual "believers" in the late 1970s. They sponsor an annual conference on faith and homosexuality. In 1998, members of Waldensian, Baptist, and Methodist churches founded the Italian Protestant Network on Faith and Homosexuality. Those familiar with church history will recognize the Waldensian name. It identifies groups of faithful believers in the Italian alps and elsewhere in Europe who stood for the apostolic faith and bore the brunt of persecution in the Dark Ages. How sad to see that they have fallen to such wretched apostasy.
"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished" (2 Peter 2:1-9).