July 6, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – When my good friend Peter LaBarbera, a pro-family leader and former LifeSiteNews colleague, wrote to let me know that his registration for the upcoming “Revoice” Conference was denied, I was alarmed.
Revoice has been in the news a lot lately in Evangelical circles. It is evidence of a movement afoot within the evangelical world similar to what we’ve experienced in the Catholic Church, mirroring the rise of pro-LGBT organizations such as New Ways Ministry and personalities such as Fr. James Martin, SJ.
And like the Spiritual Friendship movement within the Catholic Church, Revoice seeks to establish a new category of Christians: “Gay Christians,” a notion which implies that God creates people to be gay, and insists they should cherish their gayness.
While these groups and individuals always portray themselves as obedient to Church teaching, their aim is to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism within all of Christendom, directly opposing church teaching and best pastoral practices.
What and Who is Revoice?
The stated purpose of Revoice is, “Supporting, encouraging, and empowering gay, lesbian, same-sex-attracted, and other LGBT Christians so they can flourish while observing the historic, Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality.”
Many sense that there is something more to the movement than that.
“Revoice is incremental gay activism, designed to eventually lure conservative evangelicals into accepting ‘gay Christianity,’” warned nationally syndicated daily Christian talk show host Janet Mefferd.
Mefferd also refers to Revoice as a “Trojan Horse,” and has called for the movement to be repudiated.
“While I am grateful that so many of those on the other side of this are embracing a biblical view of marriage I do believe that they have adopted an unbiblical view of human identity—one that treats same-sex attraction as a matter of moral indifference and homosexual orientation as an identity to be embraced,” said Denny Burk, Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, the undergraduate school of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.
“There is little doubt that Revoice is intended to be revolutionary in shaping the thinking of evangelical churches,” concludes Pastor Tom Buck, Senior Pastor at the First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas and currently completing his doctoral work at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
“Understanding the problems with the Revoice Conference does not require PhD level research,” says Buck. “Fifteen minutes is sufficient to familiarize yourself with its direction.”
What Revoice Leaders Believe about being Gay Christians
Nate Collins, President and founder of Revoice has previously referred to his same-sex attraction as “My redeemed gayness,” which “reflects the beauty of the gospel when my orientation is caught up in a desire to serve one of my guy friends.”
Collins has also said that “churches that adhere to a traditional understanding of marriage and sexual expression,” make it hard for people who identify as gay to feel as if they fit in. “It’s much more difficult if Christian versions of heteronormativity are present and active in the community.”
“A gospel-centered ethic calls Christians to subvert straight privilege when it causes difficulty for gay,” said Collins who asks, “Have followers of Jesus been guilty of a baptized form of heteronormativity?”
The worship leader for the upcoming conference, Gregory Coles, expresses a common thought shared among those involved in the Spiritual Friendship movement––that God does indeed create people to have a gay identity:
“The next scandal now unfolding before our eyes in both the Catholic and Protestant churches,” notes Christian author and commentator Fay Voshell in a recent Facebook posting, “is the formation of the unholy alliances of secularist and Catholic/Protestant LGBT movements determined to legitimize what has formerly been regarded by all denominations as distorted sexuality, thus mainstreaming LGBT goals into the structures of the Church.”
Voshell points to, “a powerful network, which if successful, will result––as it already has resulted in Mainline Protestant churches––in the normalization of sexual sins that will then be sanctified by special liturgy and rites.”
“The Southern Baptist Convention and the Catholic Churches are among the biggest targets,” continues Voshell. “We must realize that the power and wealth of the Churches sought after by a heretical movement that would then use the Church for its perverted ends.”