MAX LUCADO APOLOGIZES, ON BEHALF OF THE CHURCH, FOR OFFENSIVE EFFORTS TO PREACH...WELL, THE BIBLE.

Max Lucado—who serves as the teaching minister at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas—recently came under fire from LGBTQ+ activists for a 2004 sermon he preached, from the Bible, on same-sex marriage.

Pro-LBGT activists in the Washington National Cathedral congregation made valiant efforts to get church leadership to rescind the offer to Lucado by circulating a petition. Initially, the cathedral's Dean Randy Hollerith defended his decision to invite Lucado, saying, "We have to come out of our corners," and "hear from each other." But the anger within the LGBT contingent of the progressive cathedral congregation continued to grow even after Lucado's appearance.

Even though his recent message had nothing to do with same-sex marriage or homosexuality, Lucado himself made the decision to offered an apology—on behalf of the entire Christian church--to those within the LGBT community who were negatively affected by his past messages regarding sexual morality.

"In 2004 I preached a sermon on the topic of same-sex marriage," Lucado began. "I now see that, in that sermon, I was disrespectful. I was hurtful. I wounded people in ways that were devastating. I should have done better. It grieves me that my words have hurt or been used to hurt the LGBTQ community. I apologize to you and I ask forgiveness of Christ."

"We were pleased to see an admittance of guilt", said Jim Silver, one congregant we spoke with from Washington National Cathedral. "That is an important first-step towards healing for us. However, our goal has never been to make peace with the enemies of 'Love is Love'. It's not good enough for us to agree to disagree. We demand full acceptance of our unbiblical behavior and also a commitment from evangelical leaders that they will no longer preach certain passages from the Bible which are now considered—by the majority of people in our culture—to be homophobic. The world has moved beyond the stereotypical cisgenders and archaic sexual preferences and practices of first century Christianity and it's time for the Church—and the Bible--to get with the program."

It seems that Max Lucado agrees to some degree. "Faithful people may disagree about what the Bible says about homosexuality", said Lucado in his apology. "But we agree that God's holy Word must never be used as a weapon to wound others."

Time will tell how genuine the apology from Lucado actually was. Will he show, with his sermons, that he is no longer going to preach the hateful messages of the gospel-past or will he continue to preach the full gospel of Jesus Christ; which is now considered a message of hate to many people in today's culture?

"I'm not sure we can ever truly forgive pastor Lucado", said the Silver. "The damage he's done is reprehensible and unpreparable. And to be quite honest, it's also beyond forgiveness. I know the Bible tells us to 'love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us', but I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't talking about the forgiving bigots and homophobes. There is never an excuse for those kinds of behaviors and forgiveness would indicate acceptance to some degree and the God we serve would never embrace anything that is blatantly hatful; especially when it comes from those preaching the Bible."