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I believe homosexual activity is sexual immorality and perversion of God's design. I also believe bestiality and pedophilia is sexual immorality and perversion of God's design. The only thing that is comparable is that they are all forms of sexual immorality. Now if you want to take it further and claim I'm saying gays are just as bad as the other forms then you are lying. Which wouldn't be surprising coming from you.
I believe fundamentalism in religion is immoral. I also believe it is every bit as immoral as you think pedophilia and bestiality are.
And Jesus called you and your ilk, "whited sepulchers."
I believe fundamentalism in religion is immoral. I also believe it is every bit as immoral as you think pedophilia and bestiality are.
And Jesus called you and your ilk, "whited sepulchers."
Fundamentalists cause sin to abound. They clearly hold the world to a standard that they fall short of. They walk in unforgiveness towards the world, which means for certain that as much as they think otherwise, they are not forgiven by God
For if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will forgive your trespasses
I believe homosexual activity is sexual immorality and perversion of God's design. I also believe bestiality and pedophilia is sexual immorality and perversion of God's design. The only thing that is comparable is that they are all forms of sexual immorality. Now if you want to take it further and claim I'm saying gays are just as bad as the other forms then you are lying. Which wouldn't be surprising coming from you.
How often do you have to remember you chose to be straight, and a non baby/child diddler?
Is it something you decided with like you have with animal sex?
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Last Amalekite 1Sam15
What age were you when you made the choice between your buddies and girls?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Same age when I **chose **not to have sex with an animal. Because I knew that was not natural and wrong. Just like SSM.
Jeff, this is the most real thing you have posted here and I thank you for it.
If I am straddling a fence it is to love the ones that have felt marginalized by the church. My 35 year friendship with my dear college brother has changed how I see the church and their response. He did absolutely EVERYTHING he could to be rid of same sex desires. Everything. Teen Challenge Ex-Gay boot camp. Gave up his job, everything to go live in this intense environment to be rid of homosexual tendencies. Went to charismatic/pentecostal healing services. Had more than one faith healer pray the gay demons off of him. Got filled with the spirit, prayed in tongues. Would wake up before dawn and quote scriptures to memory and pray in tongues and english and lie prostrate before his little prayer room altar and give his heart mind and flesh to the Lord to rebuild him from the inside out.
This wasn't a season. This was a good ten years.
He left the 6 month boot camp and went straight to Atlanta to a gay bar and home with a guy.
I have wept with him and prayed with him, we opened our home to him in the darkest of days.
He finally came to me and told me I probably wouldn't agree with him but he had come to a peace between him and the Lord and he no longer feared going to judgment day. He said he will stand before the Lord gay and the Lord was okay with him in that.
Who am I to tell him he is wrong? He has studied these verses in depth. The clobber verses as some here have called them. He gave me his on study and it aligns with much of what people have shared here. He has wrestled with God over this and walks with a Jacob limp over it and is a finer man of God than any I know.
And he is gay.
This changed my narrower way of thinking, the same that you share above. Because it is more than words in a book. It is Spirit and Word and Life and Flesh all mixed with years of love and walking together through the worst that life can throw you and the joy of small victories here and there. Jesus is alive with this man. Jesus is pleased with this man. And the man I was changed. Changed to love. And saw the response of the church to him that was ugly and mean spirited and harsh and unlike Jesus in many ways. And I like the Jesus in him more than the ugly I saw.
I don't want to be that version of the church anymore. Maybe I'll face judgment day and be wrong. But I don't think so. If I err, I will err in love. If I have to have a home group that these kinds of people will be accepted and that be my church cause the ones worried about membership and paying the staff salaries and paying the mortgage on the sanctuary.... well, you can keep that church. Cause that institutionalized church is the one that rejects because they don't want to lose tithing members that keep the institution afloat. I'll have church at home with the least of these. That will be church for me.
I can't go to a church that tells anyone they aren't welcome. Never again. Come as you are.
It is not possible to welcome those whom you would discriminate against.
But some people have a tendency to talk out both sides of their mouth.
I ask this without any animosity: who are these easily angered, conservative Christians you are speaking of? Is this a generality or are there specific people you are referring to?
I ask because the loudest noise I hear on social media is NOT coming from conservative Christians. I don't know a single Christian who is angered over homosexuality or even vocal about thier opposition. And heaven help anyone who tries to explain thier view point if it varies from a pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, pro-transgender, pro - insert any thing that goes against biblical teaching here -....
So many times I've read discussions that start like yours: a question is posed: "why do conservative Christians think/ act/ speak this way?" And when they try to explain why, they are belittled, attacked, harassed.
There must be some weird filter on Facebook that I'm unaware of; because my Facebook is filled with largely left leaning, culturally diverse, articles. How is yours filled with "right wingers venting"? Could you be exaggerating? Or ar you seeking out these things?
I have to say, your post doesn't really appear to seek an open dialog in an effort to answer your question. Your mind seems already made up about the "why". It comes across as yet another invitation to bash Christians and thier beliefs/morals.
I am sure there are many laws you reject, although the Bible certainly says you should respect the laws of the land. There are laws I do not necessarily like, but I obey them anyway.
What is more important, the law or the spirit of the law? And, are not the laws subjected to change as we grow and mature in our understanding? Or, should we continue to persecute and condemn the innocent?
This thread is almost 1000 pages long...any chance of splitting it off and making a new one? I'd love to get up to speed but not with this many pages.
I'm a Christian. I'm also divorced and remarried. There are verses in the NT that condemn me just like the verses that condemn gays, yet the thought of going through life un-partnered was too great a burden to bear. Growing old, getting sick...all alone. I imagine gay people face the same dilemma with the church telling them to be celibate and un-partnered. I've chosen mercy and grace (since that is what God has given to me), and hold out the hand of love to people born gay. If I'm wrong, then at least I have erred on the side of mercy not judgment and I'll be happy to answer to God for that. And since Jesus said by which measure we judge, that is how we will be judged, I'm always going to err on the side of mercy.
To answer the question of why homosexuality angers Christians more...perhaps because a tiny percentage of the population is gay, so for most Christians this is the one sin they haven't/won't commit, so they feel very secure in taking God's place as the judge.
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