When you make a policy in line with your true moral standards, your scriptural interpretation and best judgement, it reflects who you really are. To reverse that decision, based on outside pressure, and lost income, rather than what you and your board believes is right, only proves your primary concern is financial support. Your corporate heart still believes hiring homosexuals is a reasonable idea for a Christian ministry or they wouldn't ever have made such a decision. Convince a man against his will ... he is of the same opinion still. To be so blatantly wrong on what the Holy Scriptures teach, renders World Vision as spiritually visionless and unworthy of any Christian support whatever. Yes, they are asking forgiveness.
Forgiveness is easy. Continued financial support is another matter. If I support a missionary who is discovered to be transporting cocaine but asks my forgiveness, and promises to cease doing it, I can easily forgive him, but I can no longer support him with monies raised from those who are trusting my good judgement in the use of their sacrifices, wisely. It is not my forgiveness he needs, to restore himself, but a right relationship with God and, therefore, better judgement. If I continued to financially support him, my judgement would be no better than his. And it matters not if he is my best friend or brother. I can love him but I cannot support him with God's money.
Both World Vision's President and their Board Chairman say the Board "prayed about their dilemma for years" before making the "mistaken" decision. Does that now mean they are reversing it under pressure from men, in spite of what they believed was God's will? This is a crisis they cannot come out of whole. The Scriptural admonition is....
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness..." Eph.6:12-14.
There are plenty of other faithful, scripturally correct, Christian Ministries worthy of the financial support World Vision has disqualified themselves for. Rayburn Blair
What was their decision and reversal of it?
World Vision reverses decision to hire Christians in same-sex marriages
Published March 26, 2014
| Associated Press
NEW YORK – Facing a firestorm of protest, the prominent Christian relief agency World Vision on Wednesday reversed a two-day-old policy change that would have allowed it to hire Christians in same-sex marriages in the US.
The aid group sent a letter to supporters saying the board had made a mistake and was returning to its policy requiring celibacy outside of marriage "and faithfulness within the Bible covenant of marriage between a man and a woman."
"We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness," the agency said in the letter, signed by World Vision president Richard Stearns and board chairman Jim Bere.
Based in Washington state and started by evangelicals, World Vision has an international operating budget of nearly $1 billion and conducts economic development and emergency relief projects.
The agency had announced Monday that its board had prayed for years about whether to hire Christians in same-sex marriages as churches took different stands on recognizing gay relationships. World Vision staff come from dozens of denominations with varied views on the issue. The board had said World Vision would still require celibacy outside of marriage and would require employees to affirm that they follow Christ, but would change policy in the U.S. as a way to avoid the divisive debates that have torn apart churches.
But the change drew widespread condemnation, with many donors posting on the agency's Facebook page that they would no longer fund the sponsor-a-child programs that are central to World Vision's fundraising and education.
Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote on his blog that the new hiring policy was an "act was a betrayal of the nature of the Christian community" and "a denial of how Jesus defined marriage as between a man and a woman when he was asked about divorce."
Evangelical supporters of hiring Christians with same-sex spouses also rallied, increasing their donations and urging others to do the same.
However, World Vision reversed course.
"In our board's effort to unite around the church's shared mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ, we failed to be consistent with World Vision U.S.'s commitment to the traditional understanding of biblical marriage and our own statement of faith, which says, `We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God,"' Stearns and Bere wrote. "We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority. We ask that you understand that this was never the board's intent."
A few other conservative religious charities have tried to change hiring policies to recognize gay relationships, prompting controversy and a drop in donations, but World Vision was the largest and most prominent by far to take the step.
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Making our decisions in agreement with God's Word is becoming more and more unacceptable and even illegal in this wicked world, but it has never been more important and needful. If you are uncertain about what God's word says on the subject, Romans 1:20-32 is a good place to start correcting what you did or thought in the past. It's what you do from now on that will matter in eternity. RB
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