Culture
Reaction: World Vision's humble reversal 'right thing to do'...
Charlie Butts,Jody Brown (OneNewsNow.com) Thursday, March 27, 2014
...toward healing and
recovery, World Vision's leadership needs to go through a shakeup. That
statement comes after the charity and government-supported operation
capitulated on a policy decision that clearly went against the authority of
God's Word.
World Vision president Richard Stearns earlier this week announced that after seven years of prayer, the board had voted to begin hiring "gay Christians" who married in states where it's legal. But 48 hours later, World Vision admitted it had made a "mistake" and reversed itself, saying it was never the board's intent to undermine the charity's commitment to biblical authority. (Read Stearn's statement here)
World Vision president Richard Stearns earlier this week announced that after seven years of prayer, the board had voted to begin hiring "gay Christians" who married in states where it's legal. But 48 hours later, World Vision admitted it had made a "mistake" and reversed itself, saying it was never the board's intent to undermine the charity's commitment to biblical authority. (Read Stearn's statement here)
Tim Wildmon, president of
the American Family Association, believes the
leaders at World Vision heard the outcry, loud and clear, from its
constituents. "World
Vision got an avalanche of negative response from both their artists who
support them and Christians who have children sponsored through them and just
the general Christian public – and [as a result] they reversed course," says the AFA president.
"In my opinion, they had no choice if they were going to survive."
Matt Barber, vice
president of Liberty Counsel
Action and founder of Barbwire.com,
also believes World vision faced huge pressure from Christians and Christian
leaders.
He explains. "They stepped out of line
with the Holy Scriptures. In fact, they ran directly afoul of the biblical
admonition against partnering with sin and defending sin and facilitating
sin." Barber encourages his
fellow Christians to be forgiving of what he calls World Vision's "brief
flirtation with sexual immorality and apostasy" on a highly contentious
issue. "Lord
knows that not one of us is righteous and that we all fall short of the glory
of God," the Christian columnist remarks. "We also encourage other
Christian organizations and individuals to learn from World Vision's nearly
disastrous mistake and to remain faithful to the absolute truth of God's Word
as he remains faithful to us."
Russell Moore, president
of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of
the Southern Baptist Convention, who had loudly criticized the initial change
in World Vision's policy, applauded the reversal. "World Vision's
right decision, as articulated in their board letter, conveys a spirit of Christ-likeness
and humility in tone and content," Moore
Wildmon concurs and believes World Vision
needs to be given time to heal and recover from the damage done to its
credibility, but also contends another step needs to be taken. "I would say they
don't have any choice but to relieve the chairman of the board of his duties
and their president – all those who made this decision to equate homosexual
'marriage' with a man and a woman being married," he tells OneNewsNow.
"They need to go and start over with a new board."
When the policy
change was first made public, Stearns indicated while the board's
vote was not unanimous, it was "overwhelmingly in favor" of it.
- See
more at:
http://onenewsnow.com/culture/2014/03/27/reaction-world-visions-reversal-right-thing-to-do#.UzSBt6hdWSo
No comments:
Post a Comment