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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.
Refreshing to hear, kmom. I would never in a million years believe that God would somehow judge you to be in the wrong for not judging and demeaning gay people. Some on here seem to think that he would though, and it is quite sad that they would believe in such a thing.
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.
Thanks Saint. I appreciate your heartfelt reply as well. I'm glad that even though we disagree on the issue, we can have a civil discussion. I've heard stories like your friend. Doug Pinnick is one. Raised in the Pentecostal church and King's X was even considered a Christian band at one point. But he eventually came out as gay after trying everything he knew for God to change him. I wouldn't dare begin to judge him or your friend because I never walked in their shoes or bore their burden. There are many things I don't understand and God not changing people who desperately cry out to him is one of them. but OTOH, there is the video I posted of the lady that did change and found new freedom in Christ.
The problem is everyone is wearing a different shoe, a unique life path, unique experiences and while we might win love and support from other people, ultimately, we are soley responsible for our own actions. There may be a completely different variables going on in the spiritual realm with your friend vs the other lady. We all would prefer to have one size shoe fit all. If God heals this person of cancer, He should do the same for me, for example. It doesn't work that way and doesn't make sense sometimes. Like why God allowed a church bus of believers to crash and end their lives. But only He can see into the future and know which way our unique path journey should twist and turn.
One scipture that comes to mind is this one:
Quote:
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
Matthew 16:26
Wow, Christ taught so much in so few words. Most of us wrap ourselves so up with the things of this world. Our families, romantic relationships, friends, careers, material wealth. Yet none of that, even fulfilling a desire for a partner is worth the price of your soul especially since we are here only a few decades. I think God ultimately desires for us to give back what he gave us. That sense of self identity. It's the hardest thing to do. It requires thinking how you will be a blessing to others and not about what I myself wants and what feels good to me.
I think each of us has a thorn in our flesh and for those Christians struggling with gay desires, that is their thorn. For whatever reason, God doesn't remove it for us. Like your friend, I have prayed and begged to be relieved of mine, but it doesn't happen. I guess God wants a deeper faith to rise above it.
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Originally Posted by Saintmarks
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.
It sounds like your friend is on the right path and that's great. His relationship with Christ is uniquely his own and we are not called to question or judge that relationship. However, my stance remains the same on scripture. The Bible is crystal clear that homosexuality is a sin. To dimiss the scriptures as misintpretations only raises a lot more questions, one of which is why God would create multiple sexual orientations when He clearly designed men and woman to complement each other and raise children that way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Saintmarks
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.
Love and acceptance is most important, but it can't be done at such a degree where you are accepting sin too. I can't imagine many churches who would fully accept someone into their church body like Jared if he didnt turn from his ways.
It is quite telling when you call people saying gay people should be treated equally as "bashing Christians".
No one has suggested they shouldn't. The fact that you and others continue misrepresent Christian's perspective and suggest that we do is what is "bashing". The nonstop lies and deception, slander, and attacks is what is bashing.
No one has suggested they shouldn't. The fact that you and others continue misrepresent Christian's perspective and suggest that we do is what is "bashing". The nonstop lies and deception, slander, and attacks is what is bashing.
Once again, BF, and this time I'll try to use smaller words:
And since we are Christians then Christians are being bashed. Don't try to whitewash the ugliness in your posts.
The fact that he's allowed to define the definitions here is what is the issue. He's acted with impunity here in his own little world. He's just an unhappy, angry little man. Probably lives in Mom's basement. Some youth group leader probably didn't pay enough attention to him 30 years ago so he's angry.
It does not -it however angers some people in the gay community to think that any straight people would have the nerve to question some their lifestyles in the community which aside from the sex part -can include a lot of vices that most of us feel are just plain unhealthy
Many of my conservative gay friends also question unhealthy life styles and vices
“ you are judging me bek I am gay not bek I shoot up” you get that a lot
And since we are Christians then Christians are being bashed. Don't try to whitewash the ugliness in your posts.
jeffie, just because some Christians are bigoted fundies does not mean they all are - or even most. You, Finny and BF however, fit the bill.
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Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
The fact that he's allowed to define the definitions here is what is the issue. He's acted with impunity here in his own little world. He's just an unhappy, angry little man. Probably lives in Mom's basement. Some youth group leader probably didn't pay enough attention to him 30 years ago so he's angry.
LOL.
This name fits you better than your last one.
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amen
