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To: Member Churches of The Association of “Welcoming and Affirming Baptist Churches” From the beginning of human history, God has established the standard for human sexuality when He most gloriously created in His image, the first man and woman. Since that time, our enemy, Satan, has sought to rewrite God’s standards. There is no denying that the OT and NT describes and condemns the practices that the association of W&A Baptist Churches “count as sacred”. And it would be an understatement to say, that your beliefs do not represent the vast majority of American Baptists. According to scripture (Mathew 18) we are compelled to approach each of your 50 individual churches with our concerns. We want you to understand that you are not our enemy. We love each of you as one loves his family. It is in an attitude of love, that we call upon you to conform to tenants of the denomination of which you belong. (Resolution 8200:10/92 – which states, “We affirm that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” as adopted by your general Board of the American Baptist Churches by Mail Vote- October 1992). There is one point upon we can all agree – no person, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be denied an opportunity to hear and to respond to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our disagreement is that we do not “affirm” nor “count as sacred” any sinful practice. And we believe to “affirm” this practice is to deny the absolute and complete transformational “power in the blood” of Jesus Christ. We have called upon every American Baptist Church in West Virginia to pray for each of your individual churches. Our prayer is that you will prayerfully consider our request and respond by immediately withdrawing from the W&A Association of Baptist Churches and agree to conform to the tenants of the denomination of which you are a member. If you have not responded with a two-week period, you will receive additional correspondence by e-mail further encouraging a positive response per Matthew 18.
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