Bible-Based and Pro-Gay

Leaders of the National Gay Pentecostal Alliance (NGPA) have planted churches in the United States by teaching that homosexuality is not a sin, and leaders of the group insist that Bible verses condemning same-sex relationships have been misinterpreted for centuries.

Meanwhile, leaders of ex-gay ministries have refuted the NGPA's theology as a dangerous delusion. The NGPA's members say they experience the same lively worship and spiritual gifts enjoyed in traditional Pentecostal denominations. There is one major difference, however--their churches are made up of, though not limited to, gay men and women.

The NGPA has grown in nine states and eight countries by preaching a doctrine of acceptance for all people regardless of sexual orientation--much to the chagrin of mainstream Pentecostals. While the NGPA openly promotes its so-called Bible-based pro-homosexuality views, its leaders wouldn't release membership statistics to Charisma.

"In reading the Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek, we do not find any condemnation of homosexuality whatsoever," said William H. Carey, co-founder of the NGPA. "In the Hebrew Old Testament, we find the record of two homosexual marriages. We find no evidence connecting Sodom and Gomorrah to homosexuality."

Carey also believes there have been deliberate misinterpretations of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, passages that condemn immoral behavior. "In the Hebrew, it simply states that two men cannot lie down for any purpose in a woman's bed," Carey told Charisma.

Joe Dallas, past president of Exodus International--an evangelical ministry to homosexuals--warns that Carey's arguments are deceptive. In his 1996 book, "A Strong Delusion: Confronting the 'Gay Christian' Movement," he says God isn't going to change His moral standards to accommodate someone else's.

"Please don't decide something is right just because it's hard to get over," Dallas writes. "That's tampering with the Word of God."

The NGPA also dismisses other biblical passages that mention homosexuality. "We find that 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 have been mistranslated, and Romans 1:26-27, while not mistranslated, are being completely misunderstood because people are taking them out of context and applying them to 20th-century America instead of first-century Rome, where a different lifestyle prevailed," Carey said.

Carey was preparing to enter ministry in a United Pentecostal Church in Schenectady, N.Y., when he was revealed as being gay and was then forced to leave his church in 1979. A year later he helped form the NGPA. Small NGPA churches operate in Michigan, New York, Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, Nebraska, Russia, and Ukraine.

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