Could mainstream christianity ever make peace with gay people?

iano, what exactly do you believe? Are you a non-denominational christian, baptist, catholic, etc. Sometime it's kind of hard to tell...

Have you ever had a friend Rahvin who seems to lie almost constantly? I can tell you that I do, and lying is actually a big part of who he is, because it allowes him to get out of bad situations and seem better at some things than he really is. This is one part of this friend that really irritates me, I hate it when he lies, but I don't hate him. Similarly, sin is a big part of all of our lives, we all lie, cheat, steal and do other terrible things. I hate many of these attributes, and I can imagine that you hate many of these things too. Between all of our sins, sin makes up a large part of our lives, but does that mean that I should hate every other person? No.

Non-denominational I suppose. I go to an evangelical church as it's the one I began as a Christian in and I've good friends there (nb: evangelical in Ireland might be a different kettle of fish than evangelical were you live). It doesn't swim in particularily deep waters theologically so I plough various furrows elsewhere.

Ok, I'm an 18 year old lesbian, but we'll just say gay for now.
I didn't realise, until five minutes ago, that there were gay people out there who believed that the way they felt was wrong, sinful.
For a group of people who are told to "love thy brother" your pretty good at hating everyone who isn't you.
I know what its like to be told that you are bad, and in some cases evil. I can clearly remember my mother telling me (and she's not overly religious) that HIV and AIDs were God's curse to rid the world of gays.
It gets better too, not only am I gay, but for want of a better word, I'm also a pagan. Guess what my mum has to say about them? "Witches are evil and deserve to burn"
I thought it was only old fashioned, unaware people, like my mother (who I love very much) who believed in things like this, but you are telling me that there are people out there who are mentally torturing people becuase of something which they cannot change?
Though to be honest I don't know what I really expected from a group of "people" who can change their scripture just to give them an excuse to kill what could be nearly two million people. that would be the line that goes something like thout must not suffer a witch to live.
But hey, what do I know right? I mean according to some branches of christianity you'd get double points for killing me.My best friend (or at least I thought she was) told me that recently. It was one of the reasons we don't talk anymore, that and the fact that I "would be stealing her childrens innocence" when she had to explain why my children would have two mums but no dad. (these are of course hypothetical children).Can someone explain to me how she can go from loving me and everything being ok about my sexuality to her hating it simply because her boyfriend is christian and has reminded her of the christian values?I'm not being sarcastic, I really dont understand any of this.

I'm glad you grew up in such an environment. Nobody should ever have to live hating themselves. Thankfully not all of them are...but yes, quite a few are filled with hate while talking about love. Funny how they don't realize that heterosexuals can get HIV as well...I know one, personally. You have my sympathies. I haven't told my family that I'm an Atheist yet...I'm pretty certain my parents would disown me. Yeah, that's about it. Possibly more - according to some, you're blaspheming right now, so that's triple.Did you know there's actually a computer game based on the "Left Behind" book series where the player gets 2 points for converting a heathen, and 1 point for killing them? The bigotry is that popular. I dont think there is a way to understand it. Bigotry and hatred can run deep, and there are many rabid racists who's "best friend is black" or what have you. The individual is always considered the "exception" to the hated group, but such friendships are built on a sham. I'm sorry to hear about your "friend," and can only say you're better off without her hatred in your life.This is the crux of the matter - Christians honestly don't think they're being bigots when they speak against homosexuality, and they honestly believe that "hate the sin, not the sinner" somehow makes everything okay. I've never met a gay/lesbian/transgender person who agrees with them. Until Christians can see their bigotry and hatred for what it is, I don't think there will ever be real acceptance and understanding.* note - when I say "Christian," I typically mean the fundamentalist conservative fire-and-brimstone Creationist type, and their more moderate but still bigoted cousins. I fully realize that many Christians have no problem at all with homosexuality, I just wish they were in the majority.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Hi blacksky, welcome to EvC I find that hard to imagine. It must still take an act of bravery to "come out of the closet" for many. Whilst still in that closet I imagine many folk struggle with confusion regarding their against-the-tide sexuality. Included in that would likely feature thoughts that it was wrong. That is what society, secular and religious has been drumming into them - so it is to be expected that they would think so. If a person is a Christian (rather than supposing themselves to be a Christian) then their hatred of anyone for any sinful behaviour is inappropriate in the extreme and they will have to answer to God for it. God's is prepared to discipline his children up to the point of removing their lives. God will not be mocked by the lost or the found."Judge not lest you be judged" is not a salvation-related issue for a Christian perhaps. But God takes a dim view on any sinner judging other sinners for their sin. For that is Gods job. From a Christian perspective your mother is as lost as you are (assuming neither of you is a Christian) and needs to worry about her own position before God - instead of concentrating on you or another. Gods plan terminates in him ridding the world of sinners of every hue: your mothers kind of sinner, your kind of sinner, my kind of sinner. He'll achieve this goal either by saving you or damning you.Everyone is born sailing in the same boat. There is no biblical need to focus on homosexuals. I'm sure God isn't shocked. It depends on which side of the fence you're looking at it from. I'm a sinner and don't find it torture to have my sin pointed out to me. Sometimes I become bone weary at patterns of sin that don't seem to change. Other times the patterns dissolve without my having to do a whole lot about it.Torture is too strong a word for it. Hmmm To be honest I've never heard of one of them. I don't want to sound harsh but your assuming that homosexual activity is not sinful. If it is, then your friend (although using a hammer to rather unlovingly crack a nut) has the semblance of a point. I wouldn't expose my own children to anything I thought was sinful behaviour whilst simultaneously giving the impression that I thought is was perfectly okay. Like I say, the issue is a sensitive one and would have to be handled delicately by you both. I've a enthusiastically Buddhist mate whereas I'm an enthusiastic Christian. It takes care on both our parts to ensure we don't thread on each others toes. It seems that you have faced a lot of hostility both from the world outside of Christianity and the world inside of Christianity. Perhaps you should clear the decks of what Christians say and look at what the man Jesus says. He doesn't talk about homosexuality per se, but you can see what kind of approach he takes to all kinds of other sinners and suppose he would take the same approach with you.You're not that unique blacksky. All sinners sail in the same boat. All sinners struggle with their own sin. All sinners need God to help them deal with their sin.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

It's the mere act of telling a homosexual that part of who they are is a sin, and that loving who they love is a sin, that is so offensive, iano.I know you honestly believe what you're saying, but despite your best intentions, from the perspective of a gay person, you're spouting hate speech.It's one thing to say "non-Christians are damned," or "those who do evil like murder and rape have sinned." You can choose your religion to some degree, and certainly nobody has to kill or rape.It's another thing entirely to say "falling in romantic love with a member of the same sex is sinful and evil, and you'll go to hell for it." I know I've never chosen who I fall in love with or who I'm attracted to. There was never a moment in my life where I got to decide to be attracted to either males or females or both. I'm sure you never had a choice along those lines, either.So let's take something else you could never choose - blood type. Let's say some imaginary group has the belief that a specific blood type is sinful, and that blood type happens to be yours. They say "we don't hate you, we only want you to stop having that blood type, because it is sinful." Let's say that this group not only shuns you for your "unwillingness" to change your blood type, but some more extreme members of the group have killed people with your blood type for no other reason. Every day you hear on the news about people with your blood type being discriminated against, and in you own town you know that if anyone finds out about your blood type, you could be beaten, raped, or worse. Your rights are restricted - you are only allowed to marry people of the same blood type, and this is called "fair" because the rules apply to everyone - you simply have a specific set of people you are allowed to marry. never mind if you fall in love with someone with a different blood type. You keep your blood type secret, hoping to avoid all of the unfair treatment, and secretly ashamed of the fact that you can't change your blood type - it's part of who and what you are.How would you feel? Afraid? Ashamed, but at the same time angry becasue you should never have to be ashamed of something like a blood type? Cut off, and isolated? Opressed?This is how gay people feel when Christians start talking about homosexuality being a sin. They remember all of the violence and hatred. Even the Christians with the best intentions, like I assume you to be, are in essence teling them that they are sinners because they were born with a certain skin color, or blood type, something they had no choice in and cannot actually change.The Christian groups who dismiss the anti-homosexual parts of the Bible along with the other bad parts tend to et along with gays just fine, and count many homosexuals in their congregations.For those Christian sects who insist on calling love a sin, just becasue it's expressed to a mamber of the same sex, there is no amont of "we don't hate you, we just think your love is evil" that will reconcile you. It only makes it worse.Christians have the right to beleive however they wish, just like everyone else. But nobody should expect gays to get along with the Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin, any more than blacks will get along with white supremacists who say "we don't hate blacks, it's not their fault they weren't born white, we just believe whites are better than they are."

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Rahvin writes

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This is how gay people feel when Christians start talking about homosexuality being a sin. They remember all of the violence and hatred.

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I don't think someone like iano will ever understand this. It's hard for them to understand especially when they've never been on the receiving end of hate.

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So let's take something else you could never choose - blood type. Let's say some imaginary group has the belief that a specific blood type is sinful, and that blood type happens to be yours. They say "we don't hate you, we only want you to stop having that blood type, because it is sinful." Let's say that this group not only shuns you for your "unwillingness" to change your blood type, but some more extreme members of the group have killed people with your blood type for no other reason. Every day you hear on the news about people with your blood type being discriminated against, and in you own town you know that if anyone finds out about your blood type, you could be beaten, raped, or worse. Your rights are restricted - you are only allowed to marry people of the same blood type, and this is called "fair" because the rules apply to everyone - you simply have a specific set of people you are allowed to marry. never mind if you fall in love with someone with a different blood type. You keep your blood type secret, hoping to avoid all of the unfair treatment, and secretly ashamed of the fact that you can't change your blood type - it's part of who and what you are.

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Or you could use a much better example like left-handedness. For literally thousands of years, left-handed people were viewed as abnormal and downright sinful. Children that happened to be left-handed were systematically disciplined and beatened to "cure" them of left-handedness.I have an asian friend who told me that when he was little in his home country his teacher beat his left hand so hard that he couldn't use it at all. He was forced to start writing with his right hand. Nowadays, he writes with his right hand, but he does everything else with his left hand. This was in a catholic school.Catholicism in many parts of the world still teaches that left-handedness is a sin. If you live in an Islamic country and you're left-handed, god help you.You should ask iano if he is left handed or right handed. Ask him when he decided to be either. Ask him what he would think if someone else's religion begins to preach that which ever handed he is is a sin. Ask him how he would feel if his friends who happen to be left-handed or right-handed frequently get beaten because of it.With that said, I honestly don't know how someone who could claim to believe in Christ go around spreading hate speech like iano. Edited by teen4christ, : No reason given.

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http://millionfagmarch.com/Date: March 30, 2008
Time: 11:00 AMWhere: Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, KSRequirements: This is not a “gay-only” event. Just come with the ability to send a message to the WBC and Fred Phelps that intolerance is unacceptable.

Hi Rahvin, Rahvin this is a subject line I do not care to discuss but I would like to say something about my God. The one I find in the King James Version of the Bible.My God sends no one to lake of fire for anything.
Man goes there as an intruder.
The lake of fire was prepared for the devil and his angels.
The first man disobeyed God and sold all his descendents into slavery to the devil and sin.
That sin separated man from God, thus all mankind are doomed.
God provided a way for all mankind to get a free pardon from the penalty of the sin committed by the first man.If anybody goes to Hell is will be because they do not accept the offer that God makes of a free full pardon.It has nothing to do with what anyone is, had bad a person is, how good a person is.It only has to do with what anyone does about the free full pardon offered by God.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Here's the problem, ICANT: as long as homosexuality is even called a sin, even if you say that it doesn't matter becasue we're all sinners, you're still saying that who a person falls in love with can be defined as an evil thing.You would probably say you accept homosexuals, and would welcome a gay person in your church with open arms, and not even ask that they "stop being gay."But the moment you say "thou shalt not lie with a man as with woman, that is an abomination before the Lord," or even mention that homosexuality is a sin even if you allow for universal forgiveness and the idea that everyone is a sinner in some way...you're still saying that a gay person's love is evil.And I can very much understand why a gay person would take extreme offense to that.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

It isn't a sin to be a homosexual. The sin is in the sexual activity. In the same way that it is not a sin for an unmarried couple to be in love, but it is a sin when they fornicate.It doesn't say that who a person falls in love with can be defined as an evil thing, it says that people sin when they have unmarried sex. See right there, you have to lie with them for it to be a sin.Homosexuality in and of itself is not a sin.This is all my opinion, of course.

"If you live in an Islamic country and you're left-handed, god help you.
"It is a social recommendation and cleanliness tradition to eat with your right hand. There are no other requirements, and it is not a forbidden act to eat with the left hand... just generally disapproved of.

I completely agree. It's unfortunate that a very vocal group of Christians do not.Of course, then there's that little problem of wanting to physically express your love for your partner, and the whole "you can't marry someone of the same sex" thing. The church is basically saying "it's okay to love them, but you can't kiss them, get married, or have sex, because that's evil." And heterosexuals, of course, just get the standard "get married before you do it" line.That's still pretty damned insulting. I know if I was gay, I'd be telling the church to get bent, myself.

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When you know you're going to wake up in three days, dying is not a sacrifice. It's a painful inconvenience.

Oh I thought you were talking about christians in general. There's more to it than a simple lack of marriage. Its the whole sex is sinful in general attitude.... Marriage isn't a Get-out-of-sin-free card to fulfill any sexual desire.
I think it is considered sinful to have sex just to bust a nut as opposed to physically expressing love. Have I made it seem any less insulting now? If I was gay, I would just say meh, and just go sin anyways. Its not like Jesus is going to not forgive you. LOL, but I'm Catholic

It might be helpful to get a few basic principles straight.The first basic principle is that lost sinners see their sinning as natural and the reason why they see their sin so is because they are, by nature, sinners. The bible describes this nature as the sinful nature - curiously enough. Make no mistake: it is as natural for sin-natured individuals to sin as it is cat-natured animals to catch mice. And for them to view their sin that way*.The second basic principle is that lost sinners hate being told that what they do is sinful and wrong and evil. It doesn't matter what kind of sin you happen to be talking about. If I go on a bikers website that I frequent, where women are viewed as sex objects, and began to tell these married men that their lusting over this and that calender babe is adulterous then strong objection is what I can expect.*found sinners are a different case. They sin and can vary in view regarding their sin. That's a different matter. At the moment I am only looking at the case of lost sinners. Homosexual acts are either sinful or they are not. If they are then I am not spouting hate speech but telling the truth. If they are not sinful then I am seriously mistaken - but not spouting hate speech. Something dealt with by the first basic principle. Falling in romantic love may be felt as completely natural - but it arises out of man (and womans) fallen (thus sinful) nature - which is not natural. "It feels so right it cannot be wrong" does not alter a persons sinful nature. This fact cannot be circumvented just because it causes offence. But there is the issue of culpability...A lost sinner doesn't so much chose to sin as sin because it is their nature to sin - just like it is a cats nature to catch mice. There is an essential difference between men and cats however: God's restraint placed upon mans nature (or Gods action which holds a man back from being as sinful as he possible could be). The call of conscience.If God has (genuinely) not acted on a persons conscience towards restraining them from an area of sin then rationally he cannot punish a person for engaging in that sin. That would be as unjust as would punishing a cat because it catches mice. What makes a person culpable for their sin is their rejection of God in the areas he does attempt to restrain them. If they end up in Hell it is these sins that can justly be punished. Assuming we are talking homosexuals who are born and not made it's a good analogy.In the case of non-Christians I would have nothing to say about their stopping homosexual acts. Just like I would have nothing to say to any non-Christian about stopping any kind of sinning. Telling a person they are a lost sinner is not the same as telling them to stop sinning. Indeed, God utilises a persons sinning to save them (as well as condemn them) so it would make no sense to tell them to stopIn the case of Christians I would say that the matter is between them and God. Other than the narrow area of church discipline (which covers all areas of sin and doesn't or shouldn't focus on a particular area of sin) what anyone does is between them and God I sympathise that homosexuals are mistreated so. It is an appalling injustice visited upon them. As if the people casting stones had never sinned themselves. As mentioned earlier, I have no objection to the secular authorities permitting gays to marry and enjoy all the rights the state gives married people. It can be called marriage too. Christs church is a nation apart - it shouldn't seek to impose it's system on society at large. In so far as it attempts to I think it is mistaken. Granted, the religious voice should have a say in the affairs of a democratic country - just like any voice. But it shouldn't seek to overrule other voices. Hopefully what I have said will have cleared things up theologically. But I take your point that there is much more to this than mere theology. And that we are talking about the ground littered with real pain, suffering and anguish. The sinful natures of all involved on all sides. They have a lot to answer for. And they will answer for it. At the cross or in person. The Bible isn't anti-homosexual. It's anti-homosexual activity. There are two ways in which a homosexual Christian can approach things. They can interpret the Bible so as to eliminate those sections which clearly condemn the practice. Or they can submit to God on the matter and seek his grace - no matter what. The Bible only seems to condemn homosexual activity. I'm not sure what the situation is with loving another person. I'd guess it's not condemned. I appreciate that my position might cause difficulty but there are only two options for me: hold to the Bible or not. If that seems to be as absolute position as the one you suggest is held by homosexuals (that homosexual activity should not be considered sinful) then that is because it is an absolute position.Harmony, in so far as it is to be found, will have to be found outside areas where absolutes hold sway. Perhaps some things I have said in this post (namely: limiting the area of concern about homosexual activity to church discipline + the church having but a share of the voice in a democratic society) will indicate there isn't anything like as big a problem as some might be supposed between the church (as represented by me) and homosexuals whether lost or found.