The Nashville Statement is 5 years old today. Here's how to repent from signing it 🧵
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Today is the 5th anniversary of the release of the joint @CBMWorg and @ERLC#NashvilleStatement. Many sexual and gender minorities who adhere to the historic, biblical sexual ethic experienced the NS as a form of spiritual abuse.
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We felt bullied into compliance by evangelical leaders who were our spiritual heroes. The NS reduced us to pawns in a culture war and coerced us to fight a battle that we did not believe was biblical.
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It also robbed us of language that we believe has enabled us to be faithful to scripture, as well as honest about our experience.
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If you signed the Nashville Statement, but now see how it has harmed those whom our Savior has described as “the least of these”, here are some suggested steps you can take to repent: 1. Contact CBMW and ask to have your name removed.
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2. Share with your friends and co-signers your decision and why you chose to remove your name. 3. For those you know personally who were negatively impacted by your participation, reach out and apologize.
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4. For those who were harmed that you do not know personally, share publicly about your change of mind. (Post, tweet, or hey, even reach out to Christianity Today and see if they would be interested to do a piece. I suspect it would rate as newsworthy.)
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Making mistakes—even big ones—does not have to be the end of the story, unless you let it be so. Just ask Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Peter, or Paul.
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I don't know of a single Side B gay Christian who has ever used the phrase "Side B Christianity." 1/8
This makes me wonder if the use of the phrase "Side B Christianity" by straight Christian leaders is a form of "othering" of those of us who use LGBT terminology, to cast us as different (but more importantly, wrong) Christians. 2/8
As a gay man who believes in Jesus and is living by faith according to a biblical sexual ethic that prohibits all forms of sexual intimacy between members of the same sex, I reject the idea that my "Christianity" is fundamentally different from that of my straight siblings. 3/8