Guwahati: The Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) Tuesday reiterated its stance on LGBTQ+ practices being “unacceptable”.
Issuing a press note, the NBCC explicitly said that “…LGBTQ+ sexual practice is incompatible with His will as revealed in the Bible.” However, the council added that it was “not against the people who struggle with an LGBTQ+ lifestyle”.
“We may have failed in our ministry to the LGBTQ+, but the time has come for us to make our position lovingly and compassionately clear: the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is unacceptable. It is against God’s design for marriage as male and female and against the teaching of the Bible and the belief of the Christian faith and practice,” the statement read.
“Love the person, but hate the sin” should always be our approach. We also cannot criminalise and stigmatise them,” the statement said.
Elaborating on the church’s position, the NBCC said that the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is against the teachings of the Christian faith and practice.
“…As much as we try to understand them, the Church also cannot embolden them to continue in their lifestyle, which is against the teaching and practice of our faith. We can only implore them to seek redemptive transformation,” it said.
The NBCC further said that the biblical foundation was being attacked by the “new” definition of morality, but the “morality of the church is governed by an unchanging standard based on biblical teaching”.
“It must be clear that the law of the land, which is progressively changing with the passage of time and civilisation, cannot define religious morality and how we must behave… The socio-cultural definition of accommodation is different from that of the biblical teaching of accommodation — the love of God and the message of redemption,” the statement said.
God loves all sinners, but that love shouldn’t be an endorsement of “sinful” behaviour, the council added.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)