My Response to Sarvesh aka Joshua
First, Joshua, I apologize for the time it took to write my reply. My priorities have been elsewhere lately on other personal and spiritual matters.
But as I read your response, all I saw was more tired rhetoric. Every time I talk to someone like yourself, the words are sadly the same. You seem more concerned with scripture than people's struggles, with people being part of a church than the church reaching out to the marginalized. I pour out my heart, my personal witness of my relationship with God and I get quoted scripture in return.
You wrote...
Dude, Marriage is covenant of God between Man and Women not between person of Same Sex ok.
No, not ok. Your words are hurting real people, real children, real families all in the name of preventing some apocalyptic societal meltdown. You foster hatred and bigotry which breeds violence. You deprive people of hope, you drive them from churches and fail to share with them the wonderful news of God's unconditional love. Your lack of compassion is tragic. You deny marriage to those who honor it in the name of preserving it for those who hold it in contempt.
I know several same sex marriages that God has blessed. It's just the small mindedness of men that refuses to recognize what God can do. You limit God. God can covenant with whom he will. Jesus showed church leaders of his day that God's covenant was not restricted to those the priests thought were acceptable.
And you might want to read the story of David and Jonathan with an open mind. David describes their love as more than that of women. They became "one spirit" and covenanted with each other and with God. Their relationship mirrors my current relationship much more than it does my traditional marriage.
But the bigger issue has nothing to do with religion. It's about legal protections you would deny people who desperately need them and using God to justify your actions. I can accept the limitations you and your church may have. But do not use it to harm other people.
As I wrote on my blog that after creating Man, God realize that Man needs a suitable partner than he saw every where, everyone of his creature but He did not find any.
Do you really believe God could be so clueless? Sounds like God was proposing bestiality until Adam rejected it. Dude, this is a mythical creation story (the meaning of the name Adam should be your first clue). It's a parable not science. If you read both creation stories in Genesis you can see they are different. Which one is the infallible one? To me the first creation story is miraculous in that ancient men saw God's work very close to the wonders of creation that science has revealed. Does science threaten God? Not one bit. It simply shows that God is much bigger than human minds can grasp.
Why not at that moment God created another man for his partner?
but not, Because he was looking for the stuitable partner for man then He created women which was suitable for the man.
The point of the story is to explain how people came to be, not an explanation of God's perfect family as you stretch it to be, same sex examples would have been irrelevant. But a woman is not a suitable companion for a gay man. A man is not a suitable companion for a lesbian. Even God sees this and I thank him every day for the wonderful loving man he has brought into my life as my suitable companion.
Than he said to both of them that go and fruitfull. How can a couple of same sex can be fruitful? Never? Never?
So procreation is the ONLY reason to marry? So you recommend annulments for barren couples? You would refuse to marry older couples? And how do you reconcile that both Paul and Jesus said it was better not to marry?
More, you seem to think this is the 11th commandment. It's a blessing not a demand. Being married is a covenant between two people to commit to each other, to share their lives and spirits, yet you would demean the covenant to a contract to produce babies. You turn marriage into base animal actions - reproduction.
Further, I suspect you don't know the Bible as well as you think. on your web site you state...
God only blessed sex within the committed marriage relationship of a man and a woman.
You've obviously ignored how God blessed Abraham's bastard son Ishmael.
You imply that I reinterpret scripture to find God's approval of homosexuality. Not exactly. I already know God approves of homosexuality. I search for the truth in the scripture so that Christianity remains relevant to me. If I buy your reasoning, I'll just reject the church. Your version of Christianity offers nothing to me. I must deny my love for the man in my life while I watch self-righteous Christians flaunt their love and tell me how to live my life.
More, I would reject the real work God has chosen for me to do. No, I will not do that. God sends me as one of his messengers to speak the words he gives to me. It does not improve my standing to debate with you. I only do it because God compels me to and will not let me rest until my work is done.
I say it is you that is interpreting the scriptures to suit your personal beliefs. You quote Leviticus to me yet you probably never use Leviticus for any other use. You take a letter of Paul to a specific group of people addressing a specific event and make it a universal condemnation. You probably still think Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality regardless of what Isaiah & Jesus said.
How many gay friends do you have? I'm not talking about gay people you know, but how many truly consider you their friend? How many invite you to dinner and enjoy conversing with you? While I am a bit far from you to have you to dinner, I would invite you to converse. All I ask is that you put away your scriptural dogma and speak to me from your heart.
I found it amazing that you spent many more words talking about homosexuality than you did about grace. Is that truly where your priorities are? I think if you listen, God may be calling on you to stop persecuting his gay children. And if you think Jesus didn't talk about homosexuals then you'd better research what the word eunuch meant when Jesus used it. (It's even on Wikipedia if you can't find it other places.) And I don't doubt for one moment that Jesus was ignorant of its meaning when he spoke it. Adds a whole new possibility to Matthew 19:12 that Jesus may be telling us 2,000 years ago that gay people are born that way. It's a lot more logical than assuming he's talking about men born without testicles (a statistical non-event).
I am your neighbor, Joshua. I am hurting from the persecution of the church. Yet you pass by on the other side of the road. Leave the judgment to God and be my friend. Tell me why you really truly are uncomfortable with gays and I will dialog with you. Quit hiding behind the Bible and be honest with me as I have been with you.
I hope some day the church as a whole can become a force for social justice as Jesus saw it instead of always being the last bastion of bigotry and prejudice.
This is obviously a subject close to my heart and my relationship with God. I celebrate that you and I are men of God and recognize our unity in Christ even though we disagree on certain things. I do not mean this as an attack but as a challenge to you. God's work for me, spreading God's grace and love to gays, is formidable because of the persecution of the church. But I welcome this cross that I bear and his strength on my path.
I just ask you to remember, Joshua, that people are more important than scriptures.
Yours in Christ,
Scott
But as I read your response, all I saw was more tired rhetoric. Every time I talk to someone like yourself, the words are sadly the same. You seem more concerned with scripture than people's struggles, with people being part of a church than the church reaching out to the marginalized. I pour out my heart, my personal witness of my relationship with God and I get quoted scripture in return.
You wrote...
Dude, Marriage is covenant of God between Man and Women not between person of Same Sex ok.
No, not ok. Your words are hurting real people, real children, real families all in the name of preventing some apocalyptic societal meltdown. You foster hatred and bigotry which breeds violence. You deprive people of hope, you drive them from churches and fail to share with them the wonderful news of God's unconditional love. Your lack of compassion is tragic. You deny marriage to those who honor it in the name of preserving it for those who hold it in contempt.
I know several same sex marriages that God has blessed. It's just the small mindedness of men that refuses to recognize what God can do. You limit God. God can covenant with whom he will. Jesus showed church leaders of his day that God's covenant was not restricted to those the priests thought were acceptable.
And you might want to read the story of David and Jonathan with an open mind. David describes their love as more than that of women. They became "one spirit" and covenanted with each other and with God. Their relationship mirrors my current relationship much more than it does my traditional marriage.
But the bigger issue has nothing to do with religion. It's about legal protections you would deny people who desperately need them and using God to justify your actions. I can accept the limitations you and your church may have. But do not use it to harm other people.
As I wrote on my blog that after creating Man, God realize that Man needs a suitable partner than he saw every where, everyone of his creature but He did not find any.
Do you really believe God could be so clueless? Sounds like God was proposing bestiality until Adam rejected it. Dude, this is a mythical creation story (the meaning of the name Adam should be your first clue). It's a parable not science. If you read both creation stories in Genesis you can see they are different. Which one is the infallible one? To me the first creation story is miraculous in that ancient men saw God's work very close to the wonders of creation that science has revealed. Does science threaten God? Not one bit. It simply shows that God is much bigger than human minds can grasp.
Why not at that moment God created another man for his partner?
but not, Because he was looking for the stuitable partner for man then He created women which was suitable for the man.
The point of the story is to explain how people came to be, not an explanation of God's perfect family as you stretch it to be, same sex examples would have been irrelevant. But a woman is not a suitable companion for a gay man. A man is not a suitable companion for a lesbian. Even God sees this and I thank him every day for the wonderful loving man he has brought into my life as my suitable companion.
Than he said to both of them that go and fruitfull. How can a couple of same sex can be fruitful? Never? Never?
So procreation is the ONLY reason to marry? So you recommend annulments for barren couples? You would refuse to marry older couples? And how do you reconcile that both Paul and Jesus said it was better not to marry?
More, you seem to think this is the 11th commandment. It's a blessing not a demand. Being married is a covenant between two people to commit to each other, to share their lives and spirits, yet you would demean the covenant to a contract to produce babies. You turn marriage into base animal actions - reproduction.
Further, I suspect you don't know the Bible as well as you think. on your web site you state...
God only blessed sex within the committed marriage relationship of a man and a woman.
You've obviously ignored how God blessed Abraham's bastard son Ishmael.
You imply that I reinterpret scripture to find God's approval of homosexuality. Not exactly. I already know God approves of homosexuality. I search for the truth in the scripture so that Christianity remains relevant to me. If I buy your reasoning, I'll just reject the church. Your version of Christianity offers nothing to me. I must deny my love for the man in my life while I watch self-righteous Christians flaunt their love and tell me how to live my life.
More, I would reject the real work God has chosen for me to do. No, I will not do that. God sends me as one of his messengers to speak the words he gives to me. It does not improve my standing to debate with you. I only do it because God compels me to and will not let me rest until my work is done.
I say it is you that is interpreting the scriptures to suit your personal beliefs. You quote Leviticus to me yet you probably never use Leviticus for any other use. You take a letter of Paul to a specific group of people addressing a specific event and make it a universal condemnation. You probably still think Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality regardless of what Isaiah & Jesus said.
How many gay friends do you have? I'm not talking about gay people you know, but how many truly consider you their friend? How many invite you to dinner and enjoy conversing with you? While I am a bit far from you to have you to dinner, I would invite you to converse. All I ask is that you put away your scriptural dogma and speak to me from your heart.
I found it amazing that you spent many more words talking about homosexuality than you did about grace. Is that truly where your priorities are? I think if you listen, God may be calling on you to stop persecuting his gay children. And if you think Jesus didn't talk about homosexuals then you'd better research what the word eunuch meant when Jesus used it. (It's even on Wikipedia if you can't find it other places.) And I don't doubt for one moment that Jesus was ignorant of its meaning when he spoke it. Adds a whole new possibility to Matthew 19:12 that Jesus may be telling us 2,000 years ago that gay people are born that way. It's a lot more logical than assuming he's talking about men born without testicles (a statistical non-event).
I am your neighbor, Joshua. I am hurting from the persecution of the church. Yet you pass by on the other side of the road. Leave the judgment to God and be my friend. Tell me why you really truly are uncomfortable with gays and I will dialog with you. Quit hiding behind the Bible and be honest with me as I have been with you.
I hope some day the church as a whole can become a force for social justice as Jesus saw it instead of always being the last bastion of bigotry and prejudice.
This is obviously a subject close to my heart and my relationship with God. I celebrate that you and I are men of God and recognize our unity in Christ even though we disagree on certain things. I do not mean this as an attack but as a challenge to you. God's work for me, spreading God's grace and love to gays, is formidable because of the persecution of the church. But I welcome this cross that I bear and his strength on my path.
I just ask you to remember, Joshua, that people are more important than scriptures.
Yours in Christ,
Scott
posted by Scott | 11:29 AM
9 Comments:
Wow!
Excellent!
I am neither Christian nor LGBTQ, but I feel much the same as you do on the issue of gays and religion in general (but especially Christianity) - it's one of the many things that bother me about the way Christianity is often portrayed in the American media (intolerant and homophobic). However, I just want to say that your writing is both eloquent and deeply moving. Nobody should be denied access to God, regardless of what faith they profess.
Hello, I had just read this article and it has really moved me. I'm a 16 year old bi kid that faces everyday scrutiny because my mom and my brothers are saved and they always say that I am going to burn in hell and such. My mom says that everything about gay people is wrong and it wasn't meant to be. I came out to my family about a year ago in September, after I told them my mom said she hated me and my brothers kicked my ass. Is there any advice you could give me to give to my mom and my brothers so that they can realize that God made me who I am and loves me no matter what choices in life I make.
It sounds to me, as it always does, that when it comes to the subject of being a "gay Christian" the homosexual individual is only willing to interpret Scripture in the light of their proclivity rather than allowing themselves to interpret their proclivity in the light of Scripture.
Deciding what is "right" first and then using scripture to confirm a preconceived ideology is akin to being a god unto one's self.
The Bible's clarity on the subject of homosexual behavior is so unambiguous that only a completely perverted interpretation could justify the things that are routinely pronounced on various "gay Christian" blogs as being truth.
Unconditional love does not equate to unconditional acceptance. This is one of many theological leaps that are used to justify your behavior and your decisions, but the God-honoring truth is far removed from the reality of which you cling to.
Ultimately, you are proposing a beautiful side of evil which will have dire consequences for those you have led astray...
TIL
Romans 1:27
Leviticus 18:22.
Paul pointed that out to the Romans specific the sin of a man lusting for a man you mention because he was pointing out their sin and telling them that would recieve due penalty for their perversion - as in the perversion of God's will. As he did with the other churches he wrote to - he was telling them it was wrong. Leviticus is Jewish law and it says homosexuality is wrong. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus preached not to be a slave to the law and that it was not the way to salvation since his death would bridge that gap - but he DID NOT say to deliberately the laws that his Father gave to His people so they could live in his ways. To be gay is to live in sin as the Word points out TWICE! Since God is the ABSCENCE of sin a person who is gay and willingly living in sin cannot be in the presence of God - which is what hell is. Do not call on the death of Jesus to save you when you defy his Father's will.
I'm amazed. Do you hear what you are saying? First do you even know how to love someone and not accept their behavior? Do you have children. What if I didn't believe/condone rock music and I constantly told you its the devils music and you should never listen to it again, over and over, and if you didn't change that, then well, I love you but not accept that you won't change that? Crazy! Maybe I don't think eating meat is acceptable based on scripture and on and on. Also, have you listened to what this man said, did you read more than one blog before you puked? Fourty years this man tried to fit his life into scripture FIRST, not trying to make scriptures for his life, READ, think, ponder before you spew your generic beliefs.
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