Wednesday, March 26, 2014

BREAKING: World Vision Repents UPDATE: Or did they?

The Board of World Vision USA has reversed its decision to recognize same-sex “marriages” and asked for forgiveness from “trusted partners and Christian leaders who have come to us in the spirit of Matthew 18 to express your concern in love and conviction.”

This is quite a surprise and a pleasant one.  I suspect WVUSA is going to catch it from both sides now.  But reversing their decision was the right thing to do, and they are to be commended for that.


I am on a tight timetable at the moment.  If I have something to add, I’ll do so in the morning.

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UPDATE:
As I mentioned, I posted in haste last night.  This morning, Christopher Johnson noticed a statement from World Vision USA President Richard Stearns I missed:

“I think every Christian organization will continue to deal with this sensitive issue,” he said. “The board will continue to talk about this issue for many board meetings to come. … We need to have a process to do further and wider consultation with key Christian leaders around the country, and we will be discussing how that can happen.”

Johnson thinks this statement “suggests that the board was taken completely by surprise by the resulting firestorm and tried to cover its ass while intending to continue to look for a way to slide this policy change in under the radar at some point in the future.”  And I cannot disagree.  Being Anglican, talk about continued “conversation” sounds alarm bells.  It too often means talking and meeting and pressuring (all very “prayerfully” of course) until libchurchers get their way.  And listening too much to so-called “key Christian leaders” helped get World Vision in this mess in the first place.


So which lesson did World Vision learn from this episode – to stick to Biblical authority and morality or to engage in “conversation” until you get to do what you wanted to do anyway?  We shall see in due time.

3 comments:

Christopher Johnson said...

I'm not sure that repentance is the word I would use. To me, the accounts all seem to suggest that the firestorm took WV (US) completely by surprise, their board issued a hasty, "Never mind," and will continue to look for a way to slide this change in under the radar.

Mark said...

You've got a sharp eye, Chris. I've updated now.

wannabe

MichaelA said...

Good observations WA and CJ.

God in his providence has provided many Christians equipped with keyboards to keep an eye out for further attempts by WV to do this, and let everyone know about it.