In case anyone’s interested, the impetus behind my writing my last post, ”Christians: When It Comes to Homosexuality, Man Up is this simple truth: If my gay friends, whom my life experience tells me can no sooner stop being gay than I can stop being straight, have to go to hell after they die, then I’m going with them. Too many gays and lesbians have been too good to me in this life for me to leave them behind in the next. I won’t do it. That’s really all I was saying.
I am sure Christ will let me make that choice. I’m not sure of a lot of things, but I’m positive Christ understands sacrificing oneself for the love of others.
Just out: UNFAIR: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn’t Work (softcover edition; Kindle edition; NookBook edition). Like/join my Facebook page. Join the Unfundamentalist Christians.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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hey,
my name is David Flores
and i am a 14 yr. old boy
from New Jersey
i am Biisexual and S0mewat happy wif
my life but some ppl jus can’t accept
it waat shuld i do i loved wat u
wrote there n ppl always say “Ooo itz
an Obomination”
then ppl are always callin me a faq or
faqqet or qay n i suck this i suck tht
wat should i do anyone plz email me with
answers i need help E-Mail:DaViiDSoNaSty@aol.com
plz email me wif Answers!!! i need help
You need help alright. Get real, and I mean that literally because you aren’t.
Bill,
I am concern with your attempt to push the word and act of homosexuality away so quickly as if it is not in the Bible. What about "Sodomy, Sodomites & Sodom." And the list goes on with several verses speaking of the act of homosexuality. It has and will always be in the Bible, original word.
I would be interested in your thoughts, thanks.
Brad
im gay but im still a good person so hopefully that will be enough to get me in through the gates of heaven but if i had to stop being to get into heaven if that was the only way i wouldnt do it because that means i wouldnt be being myself and i have every right to be myself
Erik, I’m confused. Are you saying that by simply acknowledging the fact that homosexuality is a sin, you’ll still go to heaven. Or do you actually have to stop commiting the sin too?
Because if thats the case, then a lot of people are going to heaven even though they do horrid things.
Hello John
I can understand your sentiment but chosing hell over heaven because certain people may end up there is …….., I won't say it.
Homosexuality is a sin but no one goes to hell because they sin. If we don't repent of our sins then we are damned. To repent simply means to change ones mind about their conduct. Thus the homosexual can and should repent, ie, change their minds and see it for what it is. When one does so, they began to see their nature as it truly is, unregenerated, retrobate, contrary to the will of God.
The born again Christian is still a sinner but a sinner with the spirit of Jesus in their hearts and the Holy Spirit on their shoulder. God judges the hearts of his children, not their sin. It is not up to you or any human to judge the heart of any person or even to presume that someone will go to hell because of a particular sin that you are aware of them committing because surely you have your own set of sins that you are repentent of but are unable to completely excape.
Homsexuality in today's PC world is to often totted as being an acceptable life style and the homosexual that promotes it, are obviously not repentent, thus hell fire for them while the repentent homosexual is saved.
Does this mean that the presumed saved homosexual has ceased from committing this particular sin. Not necessarily. He or she simply see themselves and their nature for what it is are are extremely grateful to God for his saving grace.
I would not volenteer for hell John, you don't want to go there!
I’m saying nothing more than this: If any of my dear gay friends get condemned to hell for no other reason than that they’re gay, then I will choose to go to hell with them.
John, are you saying that, through your Bible readings, you do not think homosexuality is listed a sin (in the Bible), or are you saying that you disagree with a (religion) that would condemn homosexuality?
The Bible states sinful behaviors, but it also states the path to eternal life (belief in Jesus, as the Son of God). Do you think that all homosexuals would going to hell if it IS a sin? We're all sinners. Period. God loves us anyway.
"particularly as you have not had to struggle with such a painful and difficult situation yourself." – Nathan
This is something which I think will always be a gulf between gays and certain Christians, and so I doubt there will ever be a day in this life when gay people don't face opposition from the Church. Perhaps that is the test for gay people – to have faith in spite of the hurt and alienation.
We're failing abysmally.
J. Ellison,
It is fantastic that you can offer such words of encouragement – particularly as you have not had to struggle with such a painful and difficult situation yourself. Your comments reek of more than a little sanctimoniousness.
From the age of six I wished to be a pastor (as my parents were). I started reading the bible studiously from the age of eight. I left a successful career to take up bible school at the age of 24. Yet it would seem god had other plans.
Personally, I struggled for 15 years with this very issue – praying that god would either remove this aspect of myself or remove my life. So many nights I cried myself to sleep (or rather, fell asleep through exhaustion from my emotional distress). Don't tell me it was because I "lacked sufficient faith" – at least until you demonstrate better yourself.
At the end I came to the conclusion that God could not be a god of love if He set someone up for such a painful situation. (To imagine that someone would choose to be gay is such a stupid notion!) If, after 15 years of intense struggle, God had not changed me then He was never going to change me. If God was waiting for some "never-never" time – then he is a complete bastard.
My personal experience with God (both before coming out and after) is nothing like that. My personal experience with Christians (both before coming out and after – and I include myself in this) is that we seek certainty and want confidence in our "rightness". It is much more difficult to accept ambiguity and uncertainty. More difficulty but involving more faith.
John, the gospel has more hope than what you offered in this post. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul does not make a great distinction between homosexual practice and stealing when he says, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, ESV). Yet, he does not leave it there. He gives us hope: "And such WERE some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11, ESV). Paul uses the past tense. It's over. It's in the past. The good news is that we are a new creation in Christ Jesus. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV). That doesn't mean that there is no more temptation or no more struggle, but God's mighty power is at work in us to change us into Christ's image (Ephesian 3:20; Romans 8:29) so that we no longer live in sin (Romans 6:1-23; 8:1-13; 1 John 3:1-10). The gospel is the power of God (Romans 1:16). It does change us or it is worthless.
Sentiment must not dilute the gospel. In our compassion, let us give a compassionate message of hope. God does change our sinful nature; His Holy Spirit does make us holy.
John, neither you nor I, could go to hell for anyone else; only the Sinless One could take our place, and He did. And on the cross His blood was spilt that we might be cleansed from all sin (1 John 1:7) and His body was broken that the body of sin in us might be destroyed so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin (Romans 6:6).
We have to offer our homosexual friends more than sentiment. We must offer them the hope of changed lives (2 Peter 1:3-4), the hope of changed affections (Colossians 3:1-10), the hope of a pure heart (Matthew 5:8), and the hope of heaven (Philippians 3:20).
**********nor men who practice homosexuality..*********
Therein lies part of the problem in these discussions. Interpretations. The word “homosexuality” was not in King James original version, for example. It could not have been because the word itself was not in existence until Freud first coined it in the 19th century. I was raised on the KJ but haven’t read one for years so it may be there now. I do have The Living Bible and it is in there. It’s a re-interpretation from the earlier “effeminate” which is itself and interpretation from Greek, which was an interpretation from Hebrew which is an interpretation from Aramaic which…..well, you get my point.
The original ancient languages of the Biblical writings had no word for homosexuality because the cultures surrounding early Christianity made no such distinction. People had sex with men or women. That was it and, apparently for the most part, it was a matter of little concern and it didn’t become an issue until the 2nd or 3rd centuries as what we now know as the Roman Catholic Church began to take shape and the religious leaders got hung up on sex and gender issues, often for political reasons.
The word “homosexual” is a glaring example of people with personal agenda changing “jots and tittles” to suit their own theological notions.
And just an ironic note: King James was a flaming queen, so much so that his advisers had to repeatedly admonish him to tone it down lest he upset the people he ruled.
John:
I'm only getting round to catching up with your posts for the last month…I been a busy boy…THANKFULLY!
I agree entirely with your post and say this as one who was a wild hearted liberal prior to becoming a near Nazi right winger after I accepted the church…Now, I'm a person who loves and knows Jesus as my Savior and that lets me off the hook of having to pretend I am Jesus by judging everyone else and damning them to hell.
Nice!
“Is God trying to split the church by allowing a command He never wrote to appear repeatedly in the Bible – in the strongest possible language?” – Second Michele
What if it is a test to “sort the wheat from the chaff”?
The test could simply be whether or not a person chooses the right side of the debate. In this case whether or not gay sex is sin is critically important, which to me sounds Pharisaic and is a denial of the ability of Christ’s sacrifice to forgive all sins.
Alternatively (and I think this far more likely) it could be whether or not a person tries to show love to those on the other side of the debate or, if they struggle doing so, whether or not they have the humility to admit the fact. In this case whether or not gay sex is sin is of secondary importance to what Christ described as the greatest commandments in the law – to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself. Since you cannot show love to God while breaking the second law, obedience to the first law requires us to show love to one-another despite any theological disagreements we may have. Irrespective of your opinion on gay sex, this second option would rely entirely on the ability of Christ’s sacrifice to cover all sins. There are two possibilities for why this is the case.
Firstly, sin could be subjective – in other words it is the decision to rebel against God’s laws that is the sin, while the act itself is symbolic of that rebellion. In this case if you believed it sinful to leave your house after midday and you did so then you would be sinning even if no-one else agreed with your view. In this case neither side is wrong since it’s all down to personal opinion.
Alternatively sin could be objective – a list of things we can and cannot do. In this case one or other side would be at fault and therefore in sin themselves, and so would rely on Christ’s forgiveness. If gay sex is sinful then those say it isn’t are sinning by misleading others and/or by committing the sin themselves. If gay sex is not sinful then those who say it is are sinning by discouraging or preventing non-Christians who disagree with them from forming a relationship with Christ and obtaining his forgiveness.
Personally I don’t know whether I think sin is subjective or objective, and I’m not sure it’s really important since both rely on Christ’s sacrifice and forgiveness. That to me is the important thing.
Second Michele –
"How callous, how wicked and deceitful of God to even permit Paul and Moses to “mistakenly” put injunctions in the Bible that condemned something God actually sanctions?"
Hardly callous, wicked and decietful — more like, the way God usually operates. God inspires: he does not mind-control people into writing exactly the ancient Hebrew/Koinoneia Greek he has in mind.
God lets His people do things a lot more horrible than just *write* wrong or time-bound ideas. God allows Christians to murder, conquer, rape and enslave. Why would he allow those things but *not* allow Paul to write Paul's own thoughts?
Think of the personal details in Paul's letters: "Do your best to get here before winter. Eubulus greets you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia and all the brothers." Is that eternal timeless scripture containing truth for all the ages, the Word of God? Or is that Paul earnestly writing in his own voice, under his own power, to his friend Timothy?
What about 1 Corinthians 7:12? "To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord)"? Paul says he is NOT speaking for the Lord there. Is that true?
The obvious sense of the Bible to me is that these are stories, histories, poems and letters written by people who had intimate experiences with God and with Jesus. God didn't mind-control the authors any more than he mind-controls you and me writing these comments.
I'm influenced by C.S. Lewis's thoughts on the matter as well (http://www.crivoice.org/lewisbib.html) : "That the over-all operation of Scripture is to convey God’s Word to the reader (he also needs his inspiration) who reads it in the right spirit, I fully believe. That it also gives true answers to all the questions (often religiously irrelevant) which he might ask, I don’t. The very kind of truth we are often demanding was, in my opinion, not even envisaged by the ancients."
Jesus was willing to go to hell for His gay loved ones.
No matter how much sympathy, admiration, or love you have for gay friends, none of us love them more than Jesus did!
God so loved the gays that He sent His one and Only Son to die to save them – and all of us – and He KNEW (even if Paul and Moses didn't) the horrible struggle that many gays go through.
And yet Jesus, being God, personally gave the law to Moses, and Jesus in a vision called Paul to an apostle.
People will read these hard texts and say, My God is a God of love, He didn't write those texts – men did. Or they say He is an evil god and they do not believe in Him.
But just the opposite is true. God would have to be a heartless monster to put those texts in the Bible and not mean EXACTLY what He said.
How callous, how wicked and deceitful of God to even permit Paul and Moses to "mistakenly" put injunctions in the Bible that condemned something God actually sanctions?
Would God willing afflict people with commands that contradict their true and God-given nature – so that, at the very least, thousands of other Christians would get real confused and start to think – of all things- that God condemns same-sex unions, when in fact He blesses them?
Is God trying to split the church by allowing a command He never wrote to appear repeatedly in the Bible – in the strongest possible language?
We must either go with the atheist or maltheist explantion, that this Biblical God is evil and/or non-Existent – or we must admit that He was right to condemn ALL our sins. Even the ones we feel are entirely a part of our nature – no more changable than our height or our skin color. (Even straight people have those feelings about aspects of our nature the Bible condemns. Anyone here stopped sinning yet? Anyone here "perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect?")
Jesus did not die for a mistake Moses wrote, or that Paul failed to correct. He died for our SINS – our real, actual sins, which really do cause harm – both to our relationship with God, and to our fellow man.
Time and again it is asked HOW homosexual sex harms others and repeatedly the answer from anti-gay religious is that it does…….without ever saying how. They never answer the question, just repeatedly pontificate.
The media is complicit in this. Politicians and religious conservatives rant on about how gay marriage is harmful to marriage in general but they never say how, and the media never insists they explain. Why is that?
wow! well said and yes there’s no right or wrong answer when talking about the bible because everyone has a different perspective for it,but well said u’ll be in my prayers…..
I've just been reminded of a favourite quote from C. Jay Cox:
"Your church doesn't like alcohol or homosexuals. Hmm… Well, I definitely won't be joining. Can't imagine heaven without both."
"people go to hell for one reason and one reason only…rejection of JESUS." – wordsseldomsaid
"a rejection of Christ and his offer of eternal life is what sends one to hell." – Rob
This is something I agree with entirely – but there's a sad irony at work here. Many (if not most) gay people reject Christ because of what they see as the rejection, intolerance, condemnation and even (in same cases) hatred directed at them by Christians. Many straight people reject Christ because of the way their gay friends feel.
In effect, the very people who are commanded by Christ to convert the unconverted are driving thousands, if not millions, to reject his message. Under those circumstances, I agree with John Shore's point of view. If my actions caused a friend – or indeed anyone – to end up in Hell, I wouldn't want to be in Heaven. I'd want to be with them.
I recall something in the Bible…..an admonition to not cause another to stumble. I don’t know the verse but it sure seems appropriate to many who profess their christianity.
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