God, Me, Homosexuality

Not to derail the thread, but this is also up for interpretation for what I know. Some Christians, like the seventh day adventist, don't consume any shellfish at all and follow some other things from Leviticus still.

But yes, there is definitely the option of being able to keep your faith and live as a happy LGBT person.

 

That's true, but Christians that do keep the Jewish dietary laws are more of an anomaly when it comes to this. Almost all Christians don't believe in keeping the Jewish dietary laws, based on several passages in the New Testament, namely:

 

Loved the replies, good thread!

Reading this thread, it brings to mind my faith my my sexuality. I remember posting a thread about choosing gay or god. Being raised Concervative-Catholic, we are also taught to be tolerant, this also applies to LGBT people also. My dad will not be happy about me when I tell him that I am gay, but he'll come around soon after. Regardless though, he does not judge nor does he condemn others for wrongful actions ect. In fact, I also have a gay uncle or "Guncle" who is not out. My dad still continues to pray for him, and he treats him the same (sorry to get off topic).

What I have found is that just being gay and Catholic does not give you or me the excuse to not practice, not live your faith or stray away from the church. As my dad always says, God has made us individually and we are all unique. Today I still search for answers like "Why am I gay" or "Why was it me?" that sort of stuff. And like many of you, I also prayed that my homosexual feelings would go away. But the thing was, God made me the way I am and why would I want to change that? There is not point in trying to alter or reverse as to how God made you.

As for my relationship with God, It only grows stronger, I am fortunate to have found him at a young age to know that I have a relationship with him and I hope I can live a life where he continues to bless me. As a gay man going to church every Sunday I still think its okay to attend, as I have made the decision to keep practicing my faith, it has been difficult at times but I have been able to grow and become a more mature man. If you feel you can't go to church, go for just 10 minutes when there is no mass just to have some quite time, I do that sometimes and its a good way to unwind. Just because I am gay, it does not mean that God hates me. Thats what the church may say but thats not true. The Catholic church has recognised that there are practicing gay-catholics around the world and encourage them to live a just and faithful life. Just comes to show that tolerance is happening! When you are being judged, don't let that worry you, When people ostracise you because of your sexuality, let them, When you feel that your not worthy, pray for guidance, because the only person who will get the ultimate say in your life is God-Thus, "only god will judge you" and at the end of your day, its about you and God, and no one else.

God-Bless! and cheers form down under!

-matthew

 

I'm going to contest that. Let us turn to Acts 10:1-28 (you can read it in the original via the link, but I'll paraphrase it for those who find the Bible difficult, and will give a tl;dr summary after my retelling):

The point made here is that even though Cornelius was, by Jewish Law, a ritually unclean person, God had told him not to call any people unclean. The parallels to homosexuality are obvious. Although homosexuals are ritually unclean people, God has said not to call us unclean and that we should be welcomed into the congregation.

I suggest reading Fred Clark's essay on the subject for further expansion on the topic.

 

I used to worry because I felt that I had somewhat moved away from my faith, but in so doing, I had an easier time accepting myself. This concerned me, because like you mentioned, Flying Squirrel, I wondered if this was all a test by God.

I questioned whether I am meant to live alone, never marry, and fulfill the natural sexual desires I, as a human, crave. I have not acted on these carnal pleasures because I believe that they should be shared with someone special. Male or female. Marriage or no marriage. It doesn't matter. That is my personal belief and what I have derived from my relationship with God. You should do the sam: Do what makes you most comfortable concerning your faith. It is YOUR faith and YOUR relationship with God.

As I strayed from my faith, though, I realized that God is love. I began pondering this thought, felt a desire to talk to God again, and I eventually found my faith again. I feel that our religion stresses this concept (love) to us for a reason. The reason is that no matter what we are going through, God put us here for His purpose and will love us regardless. If His purpose for us was to be in a relationship with a person of your same sex, so be it. It wasn't an accident; it was planned.

I honestly feel that prayer helped me find my way back. I would talk to God, explain things, and carry on a conversation. It may have seemed to be one sided at first, but the inner peace I began to feel was His way of responding. Good luck with everything buddy.

 

This is an interesting point and I thought about it for a couple days. And while I want believe it means what you suggest, unfortunately, I don't think it reaches quite that far.

I agree with you that this passage is important for the Christian Faith as it suggests that everyone is welcomed into the Christian community, not just Jews, and that it removes the Old Testaments dietary laws. However, I don't think this rebuts the Conservative side of the church's claims regarding homosexuality. I think Conservative Christians would agree with you that this passage welcomes gays into the Church -- this is not what Conservative Christians take issue with. Their issue is that the act of homosexual sex is what makes gays sinful -- not being born gay.

Instead, I think this passage states that everyone is welcome into the Christian Community no matter skin colour, prior faith or sexual orientation. However, we still make ourselves "ritually unclean" or sinful based on what we do. Many conservative Christians would subsequently argue that we are made unclean by lying, stealing, lusting, arrogance, adultery or homosexual sex.

While I personally do believe that the Bible doesn't speak against consensual homosexual relations, I don't think this is one of those passages.

 

Okay, so I am not officially a Christian, but I am still very religious and this particular question really interests me.
I've posted before on my thoughts on God and religion, and my beliefs are the same as they were then. I believe God (or whatever deity to which you subscribe) made us the way we are for a reason. This reason may not be obvious to us now, hell we may never get the message at all, but there is one. I also believe very passionately that everything happens for a reason, and that everything about us serves a specific purpose. Be that for us to learn a valuable lesson, meet someone who will impact us in ways we never thought possible, or lead us to something that otherwise shapes us as a person. Including us being gay, lesbian, or whatever.

God, or at least my God, doesn’t care if you are black or white, get turned on by men or by women, or even if – God forbid – you’re a redhead (I’m only kidding, redheads are cool). He or she (since I personally see god as a sort of sexless being who manifests himself in whatever form you think that he should take) sees beauty and meaning in everything that was created.

I for one have never agonized over trying to mesh my religion with my being gay. They are both very important factors in who I am as a person, but they are totally unrelated in my opinion. When my time is over and I am on to whatever adventure comes after life as we know it, I am confident that my God (if that is indeed who I meet then, he could be busy so I may end up waiting to talk to a Human Resources associate, do they have HR in the afterlife?) will not be so hung up on whether or not I slept with a man or with a woman.

Almost all of the religions on earth preach love and acceptance, so why would God be any different? Isn’t religion about trying to be as close to God as possible? So in order to be close to God, shouldn’t we try to do as he does and just love and accept?

 

I hope I'm allowed to link... Have you seen Gay Christian Network website? It's not as alive as these boards. But there's some interesting reads and it's a good place to have all the specific discussions with others who are trying to walk the gay Christian life (myself included). I think it will be a lifelong struggle. Personally, I'm trying to be comfortable with the questions... because I don't believe answers will come.

I'd give specifics on my own views, but I'm sure others have already mentioned them. One thing I'm fond of saying is that if God hates gays, he hates women more... and society managed to move past that one.

Anyway... good luck.

 

If God made everything on this Earth, you have to ask yourself, why would he allow homosexuality to be created if it's a sin? And what's more, why would he allow his children to suffer in agony just because they sinned? I don't think God would allow any one of his children to go to Hell, he possibly just passed on the idea of hell so that people would try to limit their sinning for fear of going to Hell. Though I personally think even the idea of Hell is ridiculous. You are you. God made you that way.

 

I am in the mood for being partial, so let me help you produce a grand argument to reconcile spirituality and sexuality.

(I will be referring to God as 'he', I couldn't care less if he is a male, female or genderless.)

Foundation:
First, let's ask ourselves, what do we know about God? Many use the bible as a resource.

1) The bible needs to be interpreted (everything you read needs to be interpreted, really). And you probably already know that there are lots of varying interpretations out there. So how are we to interpret the bible such that we properly understand God's Will (or the Gospel)?

2)What if the bible is a test of faith? What if the bible doesn't accurately represent God, and God let it be, to see if we can reach in to our hearts and find the truth in there? Bear in mind that before the time of Jesus, there were no bibles. And Jesus even disagreed with many of the old testament interpretations at that time (i.e. Sabath).

As you can see, the bible is probably not a good foundation to start. Let's start with something that MOST Christians seem to be able to agree with - that God loves us all. If there is an all powerful entity that doesn't love us at all, then why even bother worshipping the entity and allowing that entity to have such effect on us - it's almost like worshipping a military government, right?

Arguments
Now, if you accept that God loves us all, there is really only one big argument that is preventing the reconciliation of sexuality and spirituality.

"The act of homosexuality is a sin and God created homosexuals to test their faith."

And this is essentially the belief of the Roman Catholic Church. (Also the Pope). So let's break this argument down and all is good.

The argument has empirical support. After all, humans are also inherently angry, jealous, greedy, etc. and these are all sins in the eyes of God. But like I said, the bible also listed a whole other list of 'sins', so how do we know which are actually sins, and which really are just a result of horrible interpretation? Let's refer to our foundation - that God loves us all.

Bear in mind that God loves us all, he doesn't love you more than he does me (which is a very common belief really!). So naturally, he'd be against you deriving your happiness out of someone else's pain (i.e. murder, and theft). Also, because he loves you and wants you to be happy, he'd naturally discourage behaviour that drives people away from happiness (i.e. greed, jealousy).

Does it make sense for homosexuality to be a sin? Now you have to understand that for some of you out there, you are hurting your parents or some other people who love you for choosing to find happiness with a man. Which is why if you're really religious, you should definitely take into consideration your parents' feelings and point of view and not just shout at them and slam the door in their faces if unnecessary. But things like homosexuality or sex before marriage doesn't really deprive others of happiness.

There is an argument that we cannot claim to understand God, and whatever the bible say is sin, we should accept blindly. I cannot possibly perceive a God, who loves us all, and yet declares all kind of random sins for his own benefit to make our lives miserable. If such an entity exist, as mentioned above, he wouldn't be God. (Just like how people were condemning Jesus for working during a Sabbath, a rule or 'sin' that Jesus very readily disregards).

Conclusion
So let's recap. 1) It doesn't make sense for God to just want to 'test our faith' and make us miserable. The reason why sometimes he would want us to do against our will or instinct is because it hurts other people whom he loves as much. 2) It doesn't make sense for homosexuality to a sin because it technically doesn't deprive anyone else of happiness.

Now, many people have told me that I shouldn't use reason to determine God's will and should just trust the bible. Again, my argument is that, we don't know what the bible really says, as it requires so much interpretation and can be also a test of faith. What we know is that God loves us all, and with the logical reasoning he has given us, we can prove that he has nothing against homosexuality. So go live happily with God's blessing!

 

Howdy. I'm sorry to be so late to this thread. I've written up some of this in a couple of blog entries. I am an Episcopal (Anglican) priest in the United States. We have fundamentally landed with choice number 3. The ancient world could not conceive of homosexuality in the context of a committed, loving relationship.

The fundamental question concerns our being made in the image of God. Is being gay a defect in that image or is being gay just part of the mystery of being made in God's image. Once you make that decision, it determines how you read scripture, how you interpret genetic studies, which side you take on almost any debate on human sexuality.

I'm a mystery man. That's what I preach.

 

You see I also have faced the similar predicament lately with coming to terms with my sexuality and I am big with my religious views and I have seen many people completely disown me from the church even though I came out as gay but I don't act on it. I believe that as long as God is the center of relationships that you can be anyway and still be gay. Me personally I have been questioning alot of things with my beliefs because I know its not a choice and am trying to understand if God made me this way then why? Why create something that you know is going to face the rejection from society and from the church. So in respect I am a gay Christian but I question things. Of course if you just take things with a grain of salt and just listen to the pastor you are just complacent in your beliefs and not taking the actions. So it makes me happy to know that you did your research.