Brian McLaren has stepped in it over at Leadership magazine (or we could say he has grabbed the third rail of Christianity) in an article about welcoming homosexuals into the church. I think that his article is very clever and presents the issue in terms that a Christian would of course sympathize with: a young couple, who want to get married in his church are concerned that their parents would be welcomed in the church for their wedding (they met through their fathers who are partners). There may be churches out there that would have a problem with this but I would think that most churches would not object to the parents of the couple attending the wedding. This is a no brainer. But taking this a step further what about welcoming a gay couple into the church?
What would happen if the pastor welcomed a gay couple into fellowship in their church? (This is the issue that is being discussed all over the Internet related to this article.) Of course Christians want their churches open to anyone who wants to attend and they want them to feel welcome. But could the gay couple take their attendance to the next level and become members of the church? Would McLaren and others make them members of their church? That, I think is the harder question.
If Paul condemned the Corinthians for accepting a man who “had” his father’s wife (1 Corinthians 5:1-13), what would he say to the church today as this issue is being contemplated? There is a discussion about this subject here.
Update: This post has been heavily edited from the original.