The next assault in this progression of assaults [upon Sola Scriptura] was the ordination of women to the Protestant clergy… The ordination of women was followed, of course, by their elevation to the episcopacy in the Episcopal Church in the United States. Clearly the battle of “Scripture only” was being lost. Now there was only one more tool left in sola scriptura‘s war chest… Enter “the gay issue.”

To approach any of the arguments and questions surrounding homosexuality in the closing years of the twentieth century and the opening ones of the twenty-first is to approach a battle to the death. When it is resolved—and it most surely will be—the Reformation’s understanding of Scripture as it had been taught by Protestantism for almost five centuries will be dead. That is not to say that Scripture as the base of authority is dead. Rather it is to say that what the Protestant tradition has taught about the nature of that authority will either be dead or in mortal need of reconfiguration.

And that kind of summation is agonizing for the surrounding culture in general. In particular, it is agonizing for the individual lives that have been built upon it. Such an ending is to staved off with every means available and resisted with every bit of energy that can be mustered. Of all the fights, the gay one must be—has to be—the bitterest, because once it is lost, there are no more fights to be had. It is finished. Where now is the authority? (The Great Emergence, 100, 101) 

Phyllis Tickle

See also:

WHO IS PHYLLIS TICKLE?

PHYLLIS TICKLE AND THE EMERGING CHURCH: IT’S NOT IF SOLA SCRIPTURA ENDS BUT WHEN

PHYLLIS TICKLE: TICKLING ITCHING EMERGENT EARS

THE EMERGING CHURCH SOON TO PUT FORTH A GAY FACE

WE FEEL HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT A SIN

APPRISING MINISTRIES: SHOCKING NEW EVIDENCE JESUS CONDEMNED THE PRACTICE OF HOMOSEXUALITY

DR. WALTER MARTIN ON HOW THE DEVIL STEALS YOUR CHURCH