It might surprise many of you that I am a very theologically conservative Christian! I believe in the virgin birth of Jesus; the Resurrection; the Ascension of Jesus into heaven; His Sacrifice that covers over all of our past, present, and future sins. I also believe that the Bible is the Word of God that I take very seriously.
I agree with the late Rev. Peter J. Gomes who, in his excellent book, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, stated that when we read the Bible, we must take into account the text, the subtext, the context, what we bring to the text, and what we take out of the text. Reading the Bible is not for simplistic and arrogant haters who use it to affirm and impose their preconceived prejudices onto others, and use it as a hammer to in any way hurt or condemn anyone.
A Christian is called upon by Jesus to love and not judge others! The two Commandments Jesus gave all who would be His disciples are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength; to love our neighbor as ourselves! Period!
No Christian is subject to the laws laid down for Jews in the Old Testament! Anyone who uses the Old Testament to in any way trash LGBT people is either a very immature Christian or is not a Christian at all!
All Christians are given their salvation by the grace, or unmerited favor, of God! And we appropriate that grace by having unwavering faith in God, despite seen circumstances. Hence, those who preach a false gospel of legalism, perfectionism, and what I call “genital theology,” are “missing the mark,” which is the very definition of “sin.”
Many people who condemn others, who seek to deprive LGBT people of equal civil and sacramental rights, are therefore not Christians, despite what they call themselves, and despite the fact that they may even attend church each and every week. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into a garage makes you a car!
As I have often written, Christianity is very consistent with same-sex love! There is nothing in Scripture that prevents same-sex love and same-sex marriage! Indeed, love is essential to the Christian life, and that love is by no means to be restricted to heterosexual love!
Don’t be fooled by professing Christians, many of whom are mere haters, who “bear false witness” against Gay people, thereby contravening one of the Ten Commandments. They say such outrageous things that Gay people caused Hurricane Katrina, are destroying the institution of marriage, are “disordered,” etc. These allegations are foolish on their face, and only a very limited and hateful human being could assert them or take such allegations seriously!
I have been an LGBT activist for about twenty years and, as you might imagine, I have been verbally assaulted by assorted professing Christians accusing me of not being a Christian and not respecting “the sanctity of marriage." They refuse to see that it is heterosexually married couples that, by divorce, are hurting the institution of marriage and disrespecting its sanctity!
My wife and I are about to celebrate our fiftieth Wedding Anniversary, and we both are in agreement that we want same-sex couples to be allowed to get married if they so choose so that they can not only receive the many civil benefits that accrue to married couples, but also be enabled to experience the love and fulfillment like that with which my wife and I have been blessed!
But when LGBT people denigrate themselves by using hateful epithets as self-identifiers, or engage in publicly promiscuous behaviors, or relish in their being consigned to pariah status as sexual outlaws, those actions betray and thereby retard the cause of equality! Only meaningful organizational and grassroots activism, combined with the dignified comportment and the demand by LGBT people to be treated with the dignity that must be the lot of every human being, will we accomplish the goal of LGBT equality in this Civil Rights movement.
It won’t occur in my lifetime, but I truly pray that in the foreseeable future same-sex couples will be awarded the very same rights as heterosexuals now enjoy, and that those who choose to get married will be blessed with the happiness and fulfillment that my wife and I have enjoyed for the past fifty years!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
THE IGNORANT ATTEMPT TO "TRANSFORM" GAY PEOPLE
His [Phillip Lee] Way Out ministry contends in its brochures that its position comes from the authority of Scripture rather than social sciences and medicine.
The ''sexually broken'' can be transformed through close reading of Scripture and openly discussing temptations, the ministry contends.
"Since it is acquired it can be unacquired." Lee said. "And like I said, a lot of people have bought into the born-that-way theory. There's no Scripture to support that theory."
[For the full article entitled, “Bakersfield ministry aims at transforming gays,” see the November 24, 2009 edition of KGET.Com.]
How often we have heard from professing Christian homophobes that being Gay is "an inclination," "a life style," "a temptation," "a sin" by their referring to what they call "the authority of Scripture!" The fact is that that reference to, and interpretation of, Scripture is a lie perpetrated by the ignorant and/or the mendacious and/or the haters in the world!
I defy anyone to show me chapter and verse where same-sex love is condemned, or where same-sex marriage is condemned!
To resort to some Old Testament passages to support the specious argument that being Gay is destructive is terribly misleading, not only because Christians are not bound by the laws of the Old Testament, and that the context of these "clobber passages" are in the framework of a tribal society living on the edge that needed to propagate in order to survive, but that other cultural practices in ancient Israel are affirmed in the Bible that no sane person would currently adopt, such as stoning to death recalcitrant children, stoning to death those caught in adultery, and stoning to death those who work on the Sabbath. I'm not even going into such prohibitions listed in the Bible as the eating shell-fish and the wearing of mixed fibers in one's clothes!
More to the point, the attempt to "transform," or in any way suppress, that which God has made is a sin in and of itself!
Being Gay is "acquired" the same way that being Straight is "acquired!" God made us in these ways, and it is a sin to thwart God's plan for any of God's children, for to do so not only does inexplicable harm to that person, but also thwarts the will of God and shows a definite lack of trust in God and in God's plan for each person's life!
Even secular psychologists affirm the possible danger that accrues to those who are the victims of attempts to change their sexual orientation, and Christians should know enough to agree with that affirmation as well, even on purely biblical grounds. Our sexuality is a wonderful gift from God, and that is true whether we were created to be Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender!
The love story of David and Jonathan (1Samuel 18-20), and the story of Deborah (Judges 4-5), a Judge and fierce and well-respected warrior in Israel whom I have always considered to be Transgender, shows that God mightily uses God's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender children for God's own purposes; God creates us the way God wants, and God doesn't make any mistakes!
For those who believe in "transforming" Gay people into something other than the way they were created to be by God is to show a decided lack of faith in God, and the Bible makes very clear that without faith it is impossible to please God! (See, for example, Hebrews 11:6.)
So, it is those who don't trust God and God's creative abilities, and who think that God makes mistakes, and who refuse to understand that God specializes in diversity, who are the real sinners!
And LGBT people who are comfortable in and with their own bodies, knowing that they are not some mistake, know that God created them just as God ordained from the foundation of the world (for example, see Ephesians 1:4), who are the ones who express their faith in God, and are thereby enabled to live the abundant life that Jesus promises all of us who abide in Him!
Please don't listen to ignorant wolves in sheep's clothing, be they clergy or not, who are seeking to thwart God's will for your life!
Put your full trust in God, and don't trust the rhetoric of others who may well have prejudices based upon unresolved sexual conflicts in their own lives, thereby trying with all their might to suppress in you what they are often trying to suppress in themselves!
The ''sexually broken'' can be transformed through close reading of Scripture and openly discussing temptations, the ministry contends.
"Since it is acquired it can be unacquired." Lee said. "And like I said, a lot of people have bought into the born-that-way theory. There's no Scripture to support that theory."
[For the full article entitled, “Bakersfield ministry aims at transforming gays,” see the November 24, 2009 edition of KGET.Com.]
How often we have heard from professing Christian homophobes that being Gay is "an inclination," "a life style," "a temptation," "a sin" by their referring to what they call "the authority of Scripture!" The fact is that that reference to, and interpretation of, Scripture is a lie perpetrated by the ignorant and/or the mendacious and/or the haters in the world!
I defy anyone to show me chapter and verse where same-sex love is condemned, or where same-sex marriage is condemned!
To resort to some Old Testament passages to support the specious argument that being Gay is destructive is terribly misleading, not only because Christians are not bound by the laws of the Old Testament, and that the context of these "clobber passages" are in the framework of a tribal society living on the edge that needed to propagate in order to survive, but that other cultural practices in ancient Israel are affirmed in the Bible that no sane person would currently adopt, such as stoning to death recalcitrant children, stoning to death those caught in adultery, and stoning to death those who work on the Sabbath. I'm not even going into such prohibitions listed in the Bible as the eating shell-fish and the wearing of mixed fibers in one's clothes!
More to the point, the attempt to "transform," or in any way suppress, that which God has made is a sin in and of itself!
Being Gay is "acquired" the same way that being Straight is "acquired!" God made us in these ways, and it is a sin to thwart God's plan for any of God's children, for to do so not only does inexplicable harm to that person, but also thwarts the will of God and shows a definite lack of trust in God and in God's plan for each person's life!
Even secular psychologists affirm the possible danger that accrues to those who are the victims of attempts to change their sexual orientation, and Christians should know enough to agree with that affirmation as well, even on purely biblical grounds. Our sexuality is a wonderful gift from God, and that is true whether we were created to be Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender!
The love story of David and Jonathan (1Samuel 18-20), and the story of Deborah (Judges 4-5), a Judge and fierce and well-respected warrior in Israel whom I have always considered to be Transgender, shows that God mightily uses God's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender children for God's own purposes; God creates us the way God wants, and God doesn't make any mistakes!
For those who believe in "transforming" Gay people into something other than the way they were created to be by God is to show a decided lack of faith in God, and the Bible makes very clear that without faith it is impossible to please God! (See, for example, Hebrews 11:6.)
So, it is those who don't trust God and God's creative abilities, and who think that God makes mistakes, and who refuse to understand that God specializes in diversity, who are the real sinners!
And LGBT people who are comfortable in and with their own bodies, knowing that they are not some mistake, know that God created them just as God ordained from the foundation of the world (for example, see Ephesians 1:4), who are the ones who express their faith in God, and are thereby enabled to live the abundant life that Jesus promises all of us who abide in Him!
Please don't listen to ignorant wolves in sheep's clothing, be they clergy or not, who are seeking to thwart God's will for your life!
Put your full trust in God, and don't trust the rhetoric of others who may well have prejudices based upon unresolved sexual conflicts in their own lives, thereby trying with all their might to suppress in you what they are often trying to suppress in themselves!
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