Gay Christians
Hello,
I've created a group for those of us who are gay and christian. This group is one that embraces the need for spirituality within the gay community. This is NOT a hate group or intended to be one that embraces hate! All respectful discussions are welcome!
To tell you about myself, I consider myself to be a Christian man. I grew up in a Roman Catholic home, and suffice it to say, you can take the boy out of the church but not the church out of the boy! I feel that my religion has failed me. To be honest, ostracised me. I am 32 years old, and I am in a relationship with a wonderful man whom I adore. We will be getting married in a United Church in our home town.
I believe that God is a loving, all accepting God. I believe that I was created in his image, and that is not necessarily a straight image. I believe that an all loving God would never condemn me to hell for something so simple as LOVE. That being said, I am not saying lust, I am saying love.
There are wonderful things about religion! Many good things come out of religion. The basic fundamentals of religion are to "love one another". No more, no less. To a lot of gay people, they feel that the church has failed them. They feel that they have been subject to hate and bigotry. Given the patriarchal nature of most religion and our world, it's no wonder that homosexuality is not embraced.
I can not tell you the number of times someone has dictated verses from the Bible... the Sodom and Gomorrah story, the countless verses about homesexuality being an abomination, etc. To which I reply, yes. They are there. Most being from the Old Testament. None of which have come directly from Jesus Himself! Christ said not one word about homosexuality. Furthermore, seeing as the Bible was written 300 years after Christ's Crucifiction, then translated from language to language. Then if I'm not mistaken, adopted by the Roman Empire as truth and fact. No wonder our world is a patriarchal society that doesn't embrace homosexuality, let alone women's right, etc.
Christ made it simple, "LOVE ONE ANOTHER"! If we'd just do that, wouldn't we be a better world? A world that would have less hate, and more acceptance? I think so, do you?
Hello,
I've created a group for those of us who are gay and christian. This group is one that embraces the need for spirituality within the gay community. This is NOT a hate group or intended to be one that embraces hate! All respectful discussions are welcome!
To tell you about myself, I consider myself to be a Christian man. I grew up in a Roman Catholic home, and suffice it to say, you can take the boy out of the church but not the church out of the boy! I feel that my religion has failed me. To be honest, ostracised me. I am 32 years old, and I am in a relationship with a wonderful man whom I adore. We will be getting married in a United Church in our home town.
I believe that God is a loving, all accepting God. I believe that I was created in his image, and that is not necessarily a straight image. I believe that an all loving God would never condemn me to hell for something so simple as LOVE. That being said, I am not saying lust, I am saying love.
There are wonderful things about religion! Many good things come out of religion. The basic fundamentals of religion are to "love one another". No more, no less. To a lot of gay people, they feel that the church has failed them. They feel that they have been subject to hate and bigotry. Given the patriarchal nature of most religion and our world, it's no wonder that homosexuality is not embraced.
I can not tell you the number of times someone has dictated verses from the Bible... the Sodom and Gomorrah story, the countless verses about homesexuality being an abomination, etc. To which I reply, yes. They are there. Most being from the Old Testament. None of which have come directly from Jesus Himself! Christ said not one word about homosexuality. Furthermore, seeing as the Bible was written 300 years after Christ's Crucifiction, then translated from language to language. Then if I'm not mistaken, adopted by the Roman Empire as truth and fact. No wonder our world is a patriarchal society that doesn't embrace homosexuality, let alone women's right, etc.
Christ made it simple, "LOVE ONE ANOTHER"! If we'd just do that, wouldn't we be a better world? A world that would have less hate, and more acceptance? I think so, do you?
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4 years ago by thebgf |
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Comments
thebgf
it's a very good place to
Posted on: 06/24/2009 22:25
it's a very good place to start the discussion. I enjoyed your perspective! Thank you for the feedback.
In my experience, I've never been one to be apart of the "gay community". I've always just been myself. I've been to the bars, but that was never really my scene, or my fiancee's. With regard to religion, I've shied away from the church (Catholic) feeling ostracised and neglected. It's funny because though I'm gay, my morals and values are very conservative. I don't believe in abortion. I believe in embracing family values (though the concept of family is ever changing), etc. My condition to getting married was that it needed to be done in a church. Seeing as we can't get married in a Catholic Church, I turned to the United Church. They were very very very accepting. Never once did I feel out of place. I felt welcome and for the first time in a long time, being in the church felt like home. I felt like I'd returned to a loving home (United) away from home (Catholic). Moreover, I felt the need to be married in a church. I wanted the religious ceremony and symbolism. I need to feel God's presence and love, while I make that type of committment. I pray that one day the Catholic church will come to accept me and my soon to be husband. I welcome the day they no longer view homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered"! Having said that, Jesus never once said anything about homosexuality. Had He, then things might be different in my eyes. Christ's message was "Love one another". So simple, yet we continually screw it up! Love doesn't hurt. My love for my fiancee doesn't hurt, it shouldn't. Afterall, aren't I just doing as Christ taught? Now there are some that will continue to resite other parts of the Bible where homosexuality is morally wrong or an abomination. Well...... according to the bible, Women wearing mixed blends of fabric are an abomination soooo.... where is the logic? I do believe that it is open to interpretion and that we all need to be respectful of each others view. I guess that's why God gave us free will! Or, why we live in a free country! We can choose to do things as we see fit. I thank God that I live my life free from selfdestructing homophobic views. I thank God that I have the self esteem to understand the difference. Thank God.
Different Light
Conservative and Liberal Gays
Posted on: 06/22/2009 20:25
I discovered I was primarily attracted to men when I was a young age. For many years I was in denial, and was miserable. I pretended be straight, but finally could not deal with it any longer. I came out.
Interesteringly enough, coming out did not have me change my values. Through support groups, I met many other gay Christians who were either celibate or married to someone of the opposite sex and were happy and content with themselves. I learned that most important is to be content with yourself. I "came out" to my very conservative congregation. To my surprise, they accepted me and boied me up. Life has never been better.
It often seems to me that a gay conservative Christian often has to chose between his sexuality and his religion. Either he needs deny his sexual orientation and pretend to be straight or deny his religious convictions and pursue same-sex relationships.
I feel the gay community is not very friendly towards conservative Christians in general, but particularly to gay ones. Shouldn't the gay community be welcoming of all gays, not just those who believe same-sex relationships can be moral?
I listen to the debate - one side saying that no gay can find fullfillment unless they pursue same-sex relationships and the other side saying every gay would be more fulfilled by abandoning same-sex relationships. Is there a middle ground? Can we just be gay and then have the choice what type of lifestyle we want to lead without either side forcing their views on us.
Anyway, I thought here would be a good place to start a discussion about how to gap the difference between conservative and liberal gays.
I blogged about this a couple days ago. http://joshuajohanson.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-agree-with-gay-rights-but.html
Comments
thebgf
it's a very good place to
Posted on: 06/24/2009 22:25
it's a very good place to start the discussion. I enjoyed your perspective! Thank you for the feedback.
In my experience, I've never been one to be apart of the "gay community". I've always just been myself. I've been to the bars, but that was never really my scene, or my fiancee's. With regard to religion, I've shied away from the church (Catholic) feeling ostracised and neglected. It's funny because though I'm gay, my morals and values are very conservative. I don't believe in abortion. I believe in embracing family values (though the concept of family is ever changing), etc. My condition to getting married was that it needed to be done in a church. Seeing as we can't get married in a Catholic Church, I turned to the United Church. They were very very very accepting. Never once did I feel out of place. I felt welcome and for the first time in a long time, being in the church felt like home. I felt like I'd returned to a loving home (United) away from home (Catholic). Moreover, I felt the need to be married in a church. I wanted the religious ceremony and symbolism. I need to feel God's presence and love, while I make that type of committment. I pray that one day the Catholic church will come to accept me and my soon to be husband. I welcome the day they no longer view homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered"! Having said that, Jesus never once said anything about homosexuality. Had He, then things might be different in my eyes. Christ's message was "Love one another". So simple, yet we continually screw it up! Love doesn't hurt. My love for my fiancee doesn't hurt, it shouldn't. Afterall, aren't I just doing as Christ taught? Now there are some that will continue to resite other parts of the Bible where homosexuality is morally wrong or an abomination. Well...... according to the bible, Women wearing mixed blends of fabric are an abomination soooo.... where is the logic? I do believe that it is open to interpretion and that we all need to be respectful of each others view. I guess that's why God gave us free will! Or, why we live in a free country! We can choose to do things as we see fit. I thank God that I live my life free from selfdestructing homophobic views. I thank God that I have the self esteem to understand the difference. Thank God.
Different Light
Conservative and Liberal Gays
Posted on: 06/22/2009 20:25
I discovered I was primarily attracted to men when I was a young age. For many years I was in denial, and was miserable. I pretended be straight, but finally could not deal with it any longer. I came out.
Interesteringly enough, coming out did not have me change my values. Through support groups, I met many other gay Christians who were either celibate or married to someone of the opposite sex and were happy and content with themselves. I learned that most important is to be content with yourself. I "came out" to my very conservative congregation. To my surprise, they accepted me and boied me up. Life has never been better.
It often seems to me that a gay conservative Christian often has to chose between his sexuality and his religion. Either he needs deny his sexual orientation and pretend to be straight or deny his religious convictions and pursue same-sex relationships.
I feel the gay community is not very friendly towards conservative Christians in general, but particularly to gay ones. Shouldn't the gay community be welcoming of all gays, not just those who believe same-sex relationships can be moral?
I listen to the debate - one side saying that no gay can find fullfillment unless they pursue same-sex relationships and the other side saying every gay would be more fulfilled by abandoning same-sex relationships. Is there a middle ground? Can we just be gay and then have the choice what type of lifestyle we want to lead without either side forcing their views on us.
Anyway, I thought here would be a good place to start a discussion about how to gap the difference between conservative and liberal gays.
I blogged about this a couple days ago. http://joshuajohanson.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-agree-with-gay-rights-but.html