Homosexuality, how do you handle this subject?

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Permalink Reply by Dave Clemo on 28 November 2008 at 2:01pm

It's seen this as well.I read about it on www.archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com
As far as I can gather, he was sacked for disobeying the rules. He was asked to stop doing whatever he was doing but HE DISOBEYED.
Read Yancey's book "What's so amazing about grace" where he is confronted with this problem head on.

Me? I don't care either way. I'll probably get howled down but we are so selective about which commandments and rules we choose to obey. Do we want to go down the Roman catholic route of grading sins according to how "bad" they are?
If you agree that all have sinned and fallen short, then what about the women who speak in church, or go about with their heads uncovered, or men with long hair, or those who wear garments of linen AND wool? Or men who practise onanism?

Get over it

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Permalink Reply by Rob Mason on 28 November 2008 at 4:46pm

Without wanting to sound like a liberal where anything goes (it doesn't), it is important not to love those who sin regardless of the sin - and that would mean all of us.

Christians are too quick to condemn without a hint of love.
Gods mission is to love all of us back to himself.
Gods choice is to use the church as PART of that expression of his love
The church has a responsibility to be faithful to the truth, but unless your church is different from mine, it is likely that it is just as full of people who sin, and who have been damaged by sin and its consequences.

If we are to be a bible believing group, then no-one, no matter how hard they try is worthy to be called a son of God except through grace.

So is homosexuality a sin. - Yes, but it cannot remove you any further from God than any other sin does. In that sense, it is no different a sin (whether inside or outside the body).

But make no mistake, we are alienated from the world (no matter what we say) because Christ shines his light on how we live and the lives of others. Sin can't continue to hide in that light and that tends to make people uncomfortable. So our aim shouldn't be to make people comfortable in their sin - but to love them despite of their sin and point the way to Christ.
Our goal should be to approach all people, irrespective of their failiures, praise what they do which helps them to move towards Christ, encourage them where they struggle to listen to the holy spirit, and pray for them to receive more of the grace of God and your own friendship.

When we learn to love first, and in all conditions, we will find people are less affronted by us and more affronted by the grace of God in us.

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Permalink Reply by Phil Williams on 28 November 2008 at 5:39pm

Hi Rob - did you mean to write:

" it is important not to love those who sin regardless of the sin - and that would mean all of us."

I'm guessing you meant "it is important to love those..." :-)

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Rob Mason on 28 November 2008 at 5:53pm

oops, yes :)

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Permalink Reply by Wulf Forrester-Barker on 28 November 2008 at 6:33pm

How to reach out? Get to know some homosexuals so you can relate to them as people or even friends rather than just as part of an alien and frightening "them".

Jesus certainly wasn't very good at respecting social barriers and we generally claim to admire him for it, so lets not be afraid to take a step further and follow his example.

Wulf

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Permalink Reply by Eric on 28 November 2008 at 7:38pm

I agree with the earlier posts. I suspect that had the prostitute that was brought before him by the Pharisees been a homosexual Jesus' treatment would have been just the same.

Paul said “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. I was taught when I was little that if you point a finger at someone else then you point three more fingers back at yourself.

I think when Christians take the moralistic high ground as though others have sinned but somehow we don’t we alienate people from God, as well as kid ourselves.

So how can we deal with the situation? - With love for the individual, humbly realising that we are just as much of a sinner as anyone else is, even Jesus said he was not here to judge so why should we. We need to react in a way that does not increase the barriers that people feel to coming to know God for themselves. To drive people away from God is inexcusable. I think God will take a dimmer view of someone who stands before him accused of driving people away from him, than someone accused of being gay.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Clemo on 28 November 2008 at 11:37pm

"how do we reach out in love to homosexuals without coming across as bigots or compromising our stand as christians?"

try treating them as people?

If you substitute the word "blacks" or "women" for the word "homosexuals" in the above sentence, or "Frenchmen", or "Johnny Cash fans" or "morris dancers" ?

What does it tell you?

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Permalink Reply by CS on 29 November 2008 at 5:24pm

Morris Dancers need love too.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Read on 29 November 2008 at 8:40pm

I am very much in agreement with pretty much all that has been said so far. Yes, we should aim to be accepting and welcoming to people from all walks of life - we are all sinners, irrespective of what your particular take is on the homosexuality issue. There are much, much worse things done in this world, such as keeping third world countries in huge debt.

Now, as far as I can tell, the problem comes precisely at the point where we are asked the direct question: "So is it wrong for me to practice homosexuality?" If we give (what seems to be) the biblical answer, then the obvious reply is, "thankyou, you did seem to have been very welcoming, but actually you are rejecting me". It seems that someone's "sexuality" is so bound up with their "identity" that to "reject the sin" is to reject the person also.

I don't have good answers at this point - but I raise this because it will come up (sorry - we can be as welcoming as we like, but will have to face this at some point). At this point, the analogy with morris dancers breaks, because (regrettably) the Bible doesn't say anything on the subject of morris dancers. It doesn't suggest that practicing "being a woman" or "being French" is a sin.

One option is to conclude that Paul and other biblical writers were simply wrong on this issue. That looks like a slippery slope to me, but it's an option [aside: I think there are particular reasons why Paul seems to single this one out in Romans, for example, and it's not that he thought this was "worse" than any of the others]. Another option is that we should challenge the idea that someone's identity is rooted in their sexuality... I think there is certainly something to challenge there, but it is a difficult thing to do sensitively, especially on an individual basis. We could fudge the issue: "I can tell you my opinion, but ultimately I think it is between you and God".... hmmmmmm, doesn't seem to work either.

Thoughts, anyone? You can perhaps tell I am a bit clouded in doubt over this!

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Permalink Reply by CS on 29 November 2008 at 11:28pm

What was Paul's thorn in the flesh? There is a line of thought that he was a latent homosexual.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Clemo on 30 November 2008 at 7:37pm

I thought it was his wife. ( According to my Jewish friends, Paul would have had to have been married in order to gain the secular status he enjoyed before his conversion)

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Permalink Reply by Wulf Forrester-Barker on 30 November 2008 at 9:42pm

I would suggest that Paul was at least as harsh on a whole bunch of other areas of sin that are much more commonly displayed.

We live in glass houses; keeping our windows clean and letting in the light is probably wiser than throwing lots of stones.

Wulf

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