Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson, a Baptist minister asks this question: "What might Australian Christians make of this?"
He says there are significant points of interest for Australian Christians to consider.
First, Pentecostals pray expectantly about 'everything' and 'anything', from a sore toe to someone in the last throes of life with a terminal diagnosis. Therefore for this group of Dutch National Pentecostals to make a public statement that there is one issue for which they need not pray, is a 'remarkable statement'.
Second, the subject for which they need not pray is stated descriptively, in that homosexuality is not an illness. In other words, someone who is a homosexual and leads a homosexual lifestyle is not ill.
Third, as someone who is a homosexual is not ill, therefore the need to pray for a homosexual's 'illness' does not exist. The statement clarifies these two contingencies, that homosexuality is not an illness, and therefore praying for healing from a non-existent illness is not necessary.
What, therefore, M V Tronson asks, do these Dutch national Penetcostals think is the nature of homosexuality?
"There seems to be two possible answers to this question," M V Tronson stated.
The first, is whether homosexuality is deemed normal behaviour. That is, it is one of the options available to human kind, a situation whereby some people are born with heterosexual passions and others with homosexual genetic mindsets?
Or put another way, although only 2% of the population is homosexual according to Church Life Surveys (whereas the homosexual PR lobby claims 10%) and therefore hardly the 'norm' but 'of natural occurrence', the view is that no discrimination in any endeavour should apply.
The second possible answer is a theological one, that homosexuality is a very specific sin and repeatedly condemned in the Scriptures.
Herein lies one of the great current debates of the current Christian era. The world wide Anglican communion is split on this issue. The US Episcopalian church is divided on this very issue.
The Uniting Church of Australia has already made clear their position on this, in that a local Uniting Church parish has the freedom to choose a homosexual minister. This gives every appearance that the Uniting Church of Australia's policy is that homosexuality is part of the natural behaviour of the human condition; that some people are born this way.
Then we hear of numbers of former homosexuals who have put aside their former life style and predispositions, saying they recognised homosexuality as 'sin' and repented. This decision for some was very difficult, for others it bought a sense of relief.
This Dutch National Pentecostal group would continue to see no need to pray for homosexuals to become heterosexuals, if, in their theology, they recognised homosexuality as natural behaviour, in that some are born this way.
If however, theologically, homosexuality is a clearly defined 'sin' in the Scriptures, therefore, as they rightly state, they would not be praying for healing of an illness, rather they would be praying diligently for the homosexual to respond positively to the Holy Spirit's conviction of this very specific 'sin'.