Fear will be the death of me. That's what I hear denominations trying to tell us, "Fear will be the death of me." Until today, I've restrained from calling people "homophobic." I've called their laws homophobic, their ideas homophobic, their words homophobic, but never them. So, today I'm coming out as a person who calls other people homophobic.
Why? Well, because they are. Homophobia is the fear of homosexuality. At this point, it is impossible for me to believe that most people who hide behind the Bible or denominational polity haven't had more than ample time to recognize that those two things simply don't support their belief that homosexuality is a sin.
I've written on the topic from time to time and have produced what many say is the one of the best resources online to combat biblical gay bashing (there are plenty of other equally good resources). There are also some exceptional books on the topic that go into much greater depth about the very few places the Bible makes any mention of same-sex relationships. All of them show clearly that using the Bible to condemn homosexuality is an act of misreading the Bible. For anyone who has been exposed to this very clear research, using the Bible to condemn homosexuality is a willful misuse of the Bible and, as I point out in my piece on the "clobber verses," it is also exactly what the Bible considers "using God's name in vain to be."
For me, the final nail in the "you're being homophobic coffin" is this video from Matthew Vines. It is a must watch. Yes, it is and hour long. Yes, it is just a guy giving a lecture -- but it is so much more than that. It is brilliant. It is well-researched. It is precisely presented. It is emotional. It is personal. Everyone needs to watch this.
From his talk:
"It's still commonplace for straight Christians to say, 'Yes, I believe that homosexuality is a sin, but don't blame me -- I'm just reading the Bible. That's just what it says.' Well, first of all, no, you are not just reading the Bible. You are taking a few verses out of context and extracting from them an absolute condemnation that was never intended. But you are also striking to the very core of another human being and gutting them of their sense of dignity and of self-worth. You are reinforcing the message that gay people have heard for centuries: You will always be alone. You come from a family, but you'll never form one of your own. You are uniquely unworthy of loving and being loved by another person, and all because you're different, because you're gay."
My denomination, the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, at its national gathering this year voted against marriage equality. Some of those who opposed recognizing marriage equality stood up and basically equated same-sex relationships with bestiality (among other things). They equated a loving, consenting relationship with something that is clearly not about either. These are intelligent people. So why are they willing to make such fallacious leaps in logic on top of using God's name in vain? Fear. Fear works some mighty mojo on the intellect.
"The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear." --Gandhi
People are homophobic, not because they hate, but because they fear. The people who voted against recognizing marriage equality which serves only to lead our denomination further down the road to certain demise as we demonstrate clearly to younger generations that the PC(USA) prefers exclusion over inclusion and polity over people, believe it or not, are mostly loving people. They just happen to fear what they don't understand. Homophobia is the fear of homosexuality. I'm not saying they're homophobic in a hateful kind of way; I'm just saying they're homophobic in a fearful kind of way.
Being that it will be another two years before the PC(USA) can again address this issue, I'm afraid society will have already passed us by (in many ways it already is doing so); we've relegated ourselves to further irrelevance when it comes to contemporary topics. While I know I'll get plenty of PC(USA)ers taking issue with that point, the reality is this kind of behavior is built into the system. Until the system changes, we will continue to see this kind of behavior just like we did with slavery, just like we did with ordination for women and LGBT folk -- and the younger generations will observe it, take note, and continue to walk away from institutionalized religion and specifically from the PC(USA).
So, what can we do about it? Karl Augustus Menninger, author of "The Human Mind" and "Love Against Hate," once said, "Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out." We need to educate folks, educate the fear out of them. So, please share this post. Share the video from Matthew Vines and help expose the fear behind the homophobia.
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Amy Lamé: What About Gay Christians Who Want to Get Married in Church?
Richard Giannone: Pride and HIV/AIDS: The Spiritual Goodness Within
John Shore: Christians and LGBTQ Equality: There Is No Middle Ground
All of the kind people here who are trying to convince the religious nuts are seriously off-topic. The equal societal & secular rights of citizens are not something to be voted on based on religious bigotry.
If that were true, I would vote against anyone being able to utter one word about their personal religion to me- not one, single word- because THAT is definitely a learned, environmental behaviour that DOES impact others when it is used as a tool to discriminate. What cowards these people are who try to use their "good books" to rule & to hurt others...
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Homophobia: Disliking homosexuality?
What bothers me is people like to use words like homophobia or bigot for behaviors that do not even closely resemble a phobia or hatred of a person at all. If someone acts violently towards a homosexual person, then sure, the words fit, but just disliking it does not make it a phobia.
A bigot is a person who is obstinately convinced of the superiority of their opinion over that of others, and is prejudiced against those who hold differing opinions.
So maybe some are homophobic but maybe we are called homophobic because of their inability to accept the word of God for what it is. The law does not change just because forgiveness, grace and compassion has been revealed through Christ. That is not an excuse to alter the law of marriage of God's laws. What man does in this world is different than God so which kingdom do we want to be part of?
Homosexuals cannot change what they are no more than I change myself but we all have been given grace to accept our forgiveness as rebellious children and return to God. But don't use your existence to change God's Law. That is why I have always said that to call joined gay couples, "married" is a mockery and an outright lie.
Many people believe I should not be allowed to own a gun by law. Well, the law, in it's current state does allow it. Some would call that a mockery to God based on the fact I am supposed to defend myself with faith.
In so many ways you are right. Like I said, sometime things are not as they should be. I am divorced and re-married. Therefore the Law of marriage in my own life has been broken. Yet, I never said it was right in the eyes of God nor do I attempt to alter the law. It is what it is. Since this article mentioned Christians there is a definite definition of marriage to the Christian and it has nothing to do with homophobia but more to do with watching corruption, before their eyes, being accepted as normal.
In man's world they can call purple, yellow if they want. The law of God has no part in their agenda and social politics. It will eventually lead to the practice being accepted even within the church. And so it is now. I don't mean just gay marriage but the practice of lawless (pertaining to God's laws) sexual conduct.
As far as you thinking bodies were only designed for the opposite sex, you're ignoring the rest of the relationship and acting as if you know more about someone's sex life than they do. How do you know that LGBT people's bodies are only made for the opposite sex? Have you engaged in same-sex sex to know this?
By the way, did you even go watch Matthew Vines' video? Do that with an open mind and a prayerful heart and then figure out if we're changing God's law. I say entering into a loving committed relationship is the fulfillment of God's law.
Close, but that is really not the fulfillment. It is to first Love God and 2nd to Love my neighbor. And as Jesus said, no greater love has no man than this: That a man lay down his life for his friends.
Let that be our Christian walk.
From the old covenant till John we have law. The law cannot change since it is so from the beginning. However true the law is and however perfect it is we can never be saved by it. It is to show all people that according to the law we are separated from God and walk in ways that are not good. The need for us to be cleansed and have relationship with God has always been about bloodshed. Though we are the ones who should perish God has allowed the blood of sheep, bulls and various other animals to atone the law of sin and death, until our Lord Himself descended and became man and took the chastisement of our sins upon himself. This one act alone is the salvation of all men who receive it.
If we do not acknowledge our sin before God then we are not partakers of the cross of Christ by which is the only means to come into relationship with Him. God accepts no other sacrifice and is able to make men free from the bondage of sin and its deadly results, through the cross.
Until this cross works in our lives we are unable to truly love one another because we have not accepted the love of God.
Preach, or leave as it will be better to have a millstone around your neck than hurt one of his children.
What do you know of what it is to be Gay? Have you ever asked someone who is? Have you ever entertained the idea that you might know far too little to espouse such a dismissive opinion?
Homophobia needs to be treated the same way any other phobia is treated; with professional help such as medication and/or therapy sessions.
This collection of prophesies has subsequently been translated from their original language into their current form. These translations suffer from the shortcomings of every language through which they pass and the subjectivity of the translator. Beyond the skilled hand of the translator we have the then passed the bible through the pens of thousands of hand transcriptions.
Given the open source quality of the Bible it makes no sense to rely on single passages for guidance as to God's will. Only when taken as a whole, and placed into historical perspective does the bible begin to make sense. The bible repeatedly and overwhelmingly calls for non-judgement, acceptance and inclusion. In my opinion these precepts must over ride individual passages which conflict with these overarching principles.
I'm not a big fan of religious dogma because it forces you to accept what you are told verbatim, without question. Unfortunately, the track record of those who have led our religious organizations, and in so doing formed the Bible we have today, have not always been stellar when it comes to their motivations. God's intentions are pure, but sadly man's hands are not always clean.
I choose to embrace my spirituality with a healthy dose of reflection as to how something resonates for me in order that my faith, as much as I can, be something who's motivations I understand and endorse.
Atheist communism never had much time for homosexuality either. At least not in China and the Soviet.
Homosexuality has nothing to do with the actual act of sex but to do with attractions. Anyone who is sexually attracted to a person of the same sex and not the other sex is homosexual. There are plenty of homosexual virgins, just like there are plenty of heterosexual virgins.
The reason the Bible would teach that sex outside marriage is sin is because there were not DNA paternity tests in those days and it was important that a man knew that the children to whom he was passing on his property were actually his own children and not some other man's. Today, it is pretty easy to establish paternity, women are not property anymore, and that issue is not really a problem.
I also find it interesting that for all the teaching in many Evangelical churches about premarital sex being sinful, a recent study released by a big Evangelical group showed that 80% of all Evangelicals have sex before marriage. I think the reason there's so much trouble with sex in those churches is because they deny the fundamental sexual nature of humanity. It leads to terrible problems down the road.
The translation itself was overseen by religious translation.
With that in mind, the bible teaches sex outside marriage as a sin because it is outside the remit of God's gift of sex. Indeed it teaches that sex closed to procreation is a sin. And not sanctioned by God's grace. That's not to say Christians exercise their sexuality outside this remit, but that is the guiding moral structure.
Now you can reinterpret the bible your way if you like but its not an accepted interpretation by most Christian religions.
Matthew 19:3 Then some Pharisees came to him (Jesus) in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any cause?” 4 He (Jesus) answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Gen. 2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to him.”
Considering that Jesus is God Incarnate of the O.T, He (Jesus) is God of the O.T.
And, since Jesus is the God of the O.T. and the Messiah of the N.T. it stands to reason, that Jesus doesn't approve of homosexuality, adultery, pre-martial sex, beastiality and FORNICATION/PORNEIA of any such kind outside of what he said above.
Man/woman marriage.
So, Jesus is CLEARLY stating that the O.T. applies in the N.T.
Romans 1:24-27
New International Version (NIV)
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
That's the deffinition. Now, what most people are would deffinitely be on extreme of that deffinition, but it could still be construed by some to fit.
Nonsense. They are creative, even learned, attempts to read the Bible in a way they want to read it. Which is to say, they are the same as most attempts at Biblical interpretation. What makes them particularly likely to be wrong, IMO, is that they represent an attempt to interpret the Bible in a manner consistent with developments in our secular culture. They represent the most common thing in the world: an interpretation of a religious writer in which it turns out that God, surprise surprise, thinks just like the person doing the interpretation.