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Megachurch orders all members to sign new anti-LGBTQ pledge to adhere to ‘biblical sexuality’ or risk expulsion: Pastor defends pledge as ‘an exercise in clarity in a sexually confused world’
- The First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, decided in October that all members must sign a pledge to adhere to ‘biblical sexuality’
- Parishioners have until March 19 to sign the pledge or else the church will consider them to have resigned their membership.
- The church claims it is “an exercise in clarity so that our members can understand our most fundamental commitments in a sexually confused world.”
A Florida megachurch is asking its congregation to sign a pledge denouncing homosexuality, warning them they will be kicked out of the church if they don’t sign the document affirming their beliefs “in a sexually confused world.”
First Baptist Church in Jacksonville decided in October to have its entire 3,500-member congregation sign the declaration by March 19. If they refuse, “the church will consider that they have resigned their membership.”
The pledge reads: ‘As a member of First Baptist Church, I believe that God creates people in his image, whether as male or female, and that this creation is a fixed matter of human biology, not individual choice.
“I believe that marriage is instituted by God, not by the government, it is between a man and a woman, and it is the only context for sexual desire and expression.”
Heath Lambert, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, defended the controversial pledge.
All members of the Jacksonville church (pictured) must sign the statement by March 19.
Critics say the statement is homophobic, but Heath Lambert, the church’s senior pastor, insisted it was not targeting gay people.
“It throws out the variety of LGBTQ sins,” he said. Rolling Stone.
But, he insisted, it was not just an anti-gay statement.
“Rape, incest, polygamy: all sorts of things are out as much as homosexuality.”
The church, on its website, said the statement was “an exercise in fidelity to Jesus Christ, whom we trust and serve.”
The website says: ‘It is an exercise in clarity so that our members can understand our most fundamental commitments in a sexually confusing world.
“It is also an exercise in love for a lost world that desperately needs to know God’s standard for human sexuality.”
Members and supporters of the LGBTQ community attend the ‘Say Gay Anyway’ rally in Miami Beach, Florida on March 13.
Lambert said they wanted to make their views very clear.
“We wanted to be registered,” he told the website.
‘We want to be able to say, ‘Hey, everyone in our church believes that the male sex is a biological reality; woman is a biological reality.
Lambert said a 2017 ‘bathroom ordinance’, which gave trans people the right to use any bathroom they chose, was a factor in driving the declaration.
“And that has to do with the decisions we make about who uses the bathrooms, who gets fired, and who gets to serve as pastor,” he said.
“We want to function as a truly Christian organization.”