I'm
not talking about gay sex or even relationships- we can leave that to other
writers in other articles. This is about simply being gay, as in being
attracted to the same sex whether or not those attractions are acted upon.
I
have seen gay friends hurt by those who supposedly represent Christ. I have
seen the damage done by ex-gay movements. I have seen good people forced to
live a lie every day for fear of what the Christians around them would
think--if they knew the truth. The Bride of Christ can be a real shrew.
I
think it is time for us to recognize that people do not choose their sexuality.
Maybe
it's genetics or upbringing or some combination (and so much of who we are is
due to both nature and nurture) but it is difficult to deny that people do not
consciously choose. Whether we are attracted to the same sex, opposite sex or
both, it was already decided before we found out that girls (or boys) have
"cooties".
This
isn't my idea, there is a growing body of research that supports this
conclusion. Besides, what else can explain the countless gay Christians who
long to be "delivered" from their "affliction"? Why would anyone choose to be ostracized and
rejected by the community of believers they cherish? And yet it happens.
Ex-gay
programs and movements have been shown to be harmful on every level. Men and
women who claim to be delivered have simply learned to live a straight life,
when pressed, they admit that the same-sex attraction remains. And that is a
best case scenario! These "ministries" have contributed to an alarming
number of suicides among gay Christians.
The
Salvation Army has a mission to love people that nobody else would love. We
should have been first in line to welcome the LGBT community into our corps and
institutions. Instead, we are known for an anti-gay stance that seriously
hinders our ability to reach individuals who need our love and acceptance.
How
can we fix this? By recognizing that being gay is not a sin. It is possible to
be a gay follower of Christ. We can continue to discuss the issues related to
gay sex and relationships and we certainly should. But in the meantime, let us
learn to love and accept the people all around us who have been shunned by the
church. Let the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit enable you and me
to love with the love of Christ. Love everyone.
-Active
Officer, USA East
Married with children
Married with children
(name
on file)
14 comments:
What a totally refreshing SA site! I've wondered for the last 18 months when the army might finally begin speaking out?! And so far it all sounds logical and not PC jargon.
God bless you!
SA soldier Detroit MI
Please note!
THE FSAOF IS NOT AN OFFICIAL SA BLOG SITE. THE OPINIONS SHARED ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR/CONTRIBUTOR AND ARE NOT MEANT TO IMPLY SA ENDORSEMENT.
THE GREAT MAJORITY OF THE ARTICLES ARE PENNED BY FORMER SALVATION ARMY OFFICERS AND WHO ARE SUPPORTIVE OF THE ARMY'S MISSION, WHILE HOPING THEY'LL CATCH UP WITH THE TIMES!
Who knows what causes sexual orientation to be as it is? The Bible doesn’t discuss sexual orientation, but it does talk about boundaries for sexual behaviour including heterosexual and homosexual boundaries.
Heterosexual people are to be celibate outside of marriage and homosexual people are to be celibate. Is celibacy realistic for heterosexual and homosexual people? I think it is. We are not animals driven by mating instinct or unbridled passion.
The New Testament records nothing that Jesus may have said about homosexuality, but the record omits other topics as well. Silence does not mean agreement, nor did it in the times of King Henry the VIIIth when Sir Thomas More remained silent on the question of the divorce. Perhaps the record is accurate that Jesus was silent on the issue.
I consider it highly probable that Jesus would be silent on the issue given that Jesus was brought up as a Jew in Jewish culture and tradition, and was speaking for the most part to Jews. In a Jewish cultural/religious milieu the topic probably didn’t need addressing and the moral position would be assumed.
No one can extrapolate for certain, but if Jesus remained silent on this topic, perhaps Christians should too on both sides of the fence, and keep their opinions to themselves. Too many people get alienated and hurt through such discussions.
Certainly love must be our bar for measuring our own attitudes and actions, which includes respect, towards other people. I don't find the tone of Peter's comment respectful, but disagreement on this issue does not warrant labelling someone homophobic either. Neither way of reacting is respectful. Silence is perhaps the loving reaction.
Canada
What I find interesting in the dialogue so far is that no one mentions same sex marriage. There is talk about the need for celibacy for both heterosexuals and homosexuals. The "lifestyle" of the LGBT community with its promiscuity is singled out for condemnation, but no mention is made of the equal amount of promiscuity of heterosexuals and the high incidence of adultery and divorce in the evangelical community, including among SA officers. Nothing is said about the extremely high number of young adults who co-habitat sometimes serially before marriage. A high percentage of youth are experimenting with sex in their teen age years, and there is silence. Once upon a time even masturbation was condemned with the warning that one could go blind or grow warts on one's hands!
Yes, the Bible as it is most often interpreted condemns homosexuality, but no one seems to recognize that when the specific text in Romans is read in context, the issue is about idolatry. That is the reason provided for "God giving them up". As a result they were filled with "malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, gossips, slanderers, haters of God and insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless." Does that catalogue describe the gay and lesbian Salvationists living in committed monogamous relationships that we know, perfectly aware that some women officers were in such relationships their whole career and right into their retirement? And gay men officers who felt pressured to enter into marriages, only to bring tragedy later to their wives and children?
Paul knew nothing about same sex marriage, and nothing about women having spiritual authority over men, the thought of women Generals would certainly have surprised him. He was patriarchal to the core: women were to be submissive to their husbands in the same manner as the church was to Christ; in other words subservient and not equal. All that has changed for Salvationists, but for those who believe the Bible to be infallible and inerrant and interpret it literally Paul's words are cast in stone. Just read the expositions of many conservative Bible teachers, and the official policy of many denominations, including the largest Protestant one in the United States. And then Christians condemn each other for picking and choosing scripture. Everyone does. Just think of 1 Thessalonians 5:23, a whole doctrine based on a wrong translation of Greek, yet enshrined in the eleven cardinal doctrines of TSA.
Sooner or later Salvationists are going to have to take a hard look at the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Christians need to bring their reason and experience to the table as well as scripture and tradition. Jesus had plenty to say about divorce, it goes unnoticed today among many evangelicals, whose divorce rate is no different than the rest of society. He had nothing to say about same-sex marriage, no one then had even heard of it, any more than they had heard of birth control. He would have known about polygamy for sure, and how strange it is that third world Christians continue to support it, while condemning gays and lesbians to imprisonment, torture and sometimes death, and we remain silent.
If it is true that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free; for all are one in Christ Jesus", in other words we are all equal in Christ, straight and gay, why isn't same-sex marriage a reasonable solution for Christians within the LGBT community, I ask you?
This, the third in our series on this divisive issue will run for at least 2 more weeks. The same sex marriage issue is far too removed from SA current thinking to warrant debate. However, inclusivity and acceptance ought to be on the table, hence our bringing the LGBT issues to the front again.
We welcome articles...
1. Dear USA East Active Officer Married with Children:
Excellent, short and to the point article. TSA certainly needs more officers who think like you! My only slight disagreement is that while it is true that nature and nurture both play "a role" in sexual orientation, from what I understand more and more evidence has been mounting that biology (nature) has the dominant role, and that no matter what happens nurture-wise if the main ingredient (biology) isn't there (particularly in males) most people are still going to wind up with a dominant majority heterosexual orientation.
2. Dear # 4 Anonymous Commenter: (probably still just above me unless someone's cut in and commented before I could get this posting out!)
You've encapsulated all of my very own thoughts (especially in light of what happened with the U.S. Supreme Court rulings this week) and I want to thank you for speaking out! I've had to work a lot of extra hours this week and have had little time for anything else including reading and commenting on blogs, so seeing your words on the subject have been like a breath of fresh air! That is of course, except for your take on the 10th doctrine of TSA--which was a little bit off the subject anyway. Though I Thessalonians is used as a scripture reference for the doctrine, it is not the only scripture the doctrine is based on. And yes, though some people have through the years screwed the doctrine up and made it into something impossible to live up to, so what? That's just one of the flaws of human nature. People have done all sorts of horrible things with scriptures through the years (homosexuality, racism and sexism are proof of that) but that doesn't necessarily make the basic doctrine wrong. And so much of how one perceives it just depends on whether one holds to a Calvinist or Arminian definition of sin anyway! ("falling short of the full Glory of God" or "willfully transgressing the known law of God.") Thanks once again though for a great commentary on same sex marriage.
Daryl Lach
USA Central
"You Must Go Home By the Way of the Cross, To Stand With Jesus In the Morning!"
You make some interesting points, anonymous. The biblical issues have to be put to rest before we can answer your last question positively.
However, I think that the biblical excuses often mask people's true reasons for condemning gays.
-Active, USA East
Daryl,
Thank you for your encouraging words. I understand that the nature vs nurture debate gains new information all the time and supports various conclusions depending on who is funding the research.
The cause doesn't matter to me apart from two concerns: 1, that we can agree that people do not choose their sexual orientation and 2, that parents know that it isn't their "fault".
If we can settle this issue, we will finally be prepared to discuss the role of gay relationships in the Body of Christ.
-Active, USA East
I have to take issue with your statement ‘being gay is not a sin’. I’m not sure how you come to that conclusion, other than the fact that you may want it to be true. Homosexuality IS listed in the Bible as a sin – this can be seen in the numerous scriptural references in many of the threads of discussion on this subject.
Our sins will be judged by God. As Christians I’m (hopefully) assuming everyone agrees with this – it is one of the basic reasons for aspiring to be like Jesus, and it should be one of our main motivations. We often cling to the positive concept that our God is a God of love, but we often forget that He is also a God of judgment, who has given us a free will to obey Him or not.
When we pray we ask for forgiveness for our sins. We are not told we can pick and choose which sins to repent from. Sin is sin, and comes in many guises.
We are experiencing a global aggressive campaign to sanitize the whole GLBTQ movement and therefore exempt it from God’s judgment if we say it is NOT a sin. From my studies of Scripture I am certain this is not God-directed. If it were, we would have the same aggressive activity to sanitize all the other sins.
But:
There is no public campaign to exempt angry people from judgment.
There is no public campaign to exempt greedy people from judgment.
There is no public campaign to exempt lazy people from judgment.
There is no public campaign to exempt proud people from judgment.
There is no public campaign to exempt envious people from judgment.
There is no public campaign to exempt gluttons from punishment.
We are urged to repent of these sins – so why should homosexuality be singled out for special treatment and be excluded from repentance?
It is not given precedence over any other sin, so I cannot see any reason why it is being given a special dispensation by those who aren’t God.
You say in your article ‘This is about simply being gay, as in being attracted to the same sex whether or not those attractions are acted upon’.
But God condemns ALL lust for sex, whether heterosexual or homosexual.
The seventh commandment states: "You shall not commit adultery" (Ex. 20:14). Adultery is one partner of a marriage having sex with a third person. But Jesus plainly taught us the spiritual meaning of this commandment:
"You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looks on a woman (Greek: gune, 'a woman; a wife') to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5:27-28).
The word gune can mean a wife, but it is also used many times to represent unmarried women. So this applies not just to someone's wife, but any woman. Under Moses, the law against adultery applied equally to women who committed adultery against their husbands. And so, likewise, if a woman just "looks upon a man to lust after him," she has committed adultery with him in her heart.
But does this include women lusting after women, and men lusting after men?" it does. Do we think that a man is not allowed to "lust" after a women but it is perfectly okay for a man to "lust" after another man?
I'm sure your views are sincere, but so are mine. i offer them not as an opportunity for aggressive response (as is so often seen in these threads), but as a possibility for a different viewpoint, based more on Scripture than human emotion.
Dear Anonymous (not the same as above?),
I think you are making a common error in your logic. Sexual orientation is not the same as lust. Straight people are not lusting just because they are attracted to the opposite sex, and neither are gays when attracted to the same. Gay orientation is not lust in and of itself and is not sinful.
You are correct in concluding that the Bible warns against lust but your conclusions harken back to a 1980's homophobic stereotype that gays are sex fiends who cannot control themselves.
-Active, USA East
The liberal position Theologically is quite simple. The Bible does not mention homosexuality at all. The verses that have been listed by Anonymous only refer to either a kind of homosexual act (or use the word homosexual) in translations based on NT Greek and OT Hebrew. It might be surprising to know that the Bible was not written in NT Greek or OT Hebrew. Those languages are made up and never existed in reality. They are as real as J R R Tolkeins' Elvish. The scripture was written in Ancient Greek, and Ancient Hebrew. When we look at these languages, we find an extremely different translation and understanding of those verses. As such, I can say, that there is no mention of homosexuality - especially as we understand it today - in any scriptural reference. Therefore, it is not listed anywhere in the entire Bible as a sin.
Anonymous says that he has gay friends and gay family members. Yet he still clings to wrong stereotypes. Let me as this - How would he feel, if I said that all ministers fit the stereotype of a Peadophile - given how many peadophile priests there are in the media etc? We know it is not true, and I suspect Anonymous would be extremely highly offended, but that is a stereotype. It is a wrong stereotype, but it is one that many people have. If you do have gay friends and family, then sit down with them and talk with them, and find that the stereotype is wrong. Yes, there is a lot of debauchery, and promiscuity, and all other kinds of things in the GLBT community, but they also exist in equal measure in the straight community - it is just a lot more underground so that wives and church members don't find out.
Also, some of the stats he has used are wrong. In any given population, the percentage of people who are GLBT is between 10 and 25 percent (depending on the area and the definition of GLBT you use). The only survey that has ever come up with the 2% figure referred to 2% of the population were women in a same sex relationship for more than 2 years in a conservative rural area who were willing to be known as Lesbians. Get the facts straight before you refer to them.
Yours in Christ,
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East in London
Graeme Randall - I can't see in any of the above that anyone has said they have gay friends and family. Where did you see that? It's not there.
You say homosexuality is not mentioned in the Bible - there are a host of other sins that aren't mentioned either -that doesn't make them right or excusable or outside of God's judgment. But you ARE making homosexuality an exception and I fail to understand why.
You are curiously arguing against yourself in your 2nd paragraph - I am not differentiating against different sins - I consider the whole GLBT lifestyle to be a sin on the same level as other sins. Sin is sin. Period. Therefore GLBT shouldn't be singled out for exemption treatment. It's not for us to act as God and change what He has decreed just because we don't agree with what He has said.
Active East - the biblical phrase relating to looking at someone obviously implies lust - if I 'look' on someone, I'm looking for a reason. Looks can turn to lust, and that's what Jesus was talking about.
James 1 says 'Don’t blame God when you are tempted! God cannot be tempted by evil, and he doesn’t use evil to tempt others. We are tempted by our own desires that drag us off and trap us. Our desires make us sin, and when sin is finished with us, it leaves us dead'.
All sin is sin - we have a free choice to commit it or not.
Being heterosexual is not a sin. Having heterosexual sex outside of marriage is a sin.
Being gay is not a sin. Having gay sex and not remaining celibate is a sin.
The Bible seems clear about sexual behaviour boundaries.
Canada
I am concerned about the post I made recently.
I am a Christian who loves the Word of God, It has been my greatest passion since the day Jesus saved me.
Because my love for the Word of God runs so deep, I defend it unwaveringly and will continue to defend it to my dying breath.
I never want to come across as insensitive or unloving in anything I say representing Jesus.
I spend a great deal of time thinking of my words before I speak.
As I said, I never want to come across as insensitive or unloving in anything I say representing Jesus, the Bible does that for itself.
What I mean is that the Bible is called 'a two edged sword'. Swords cut, wound, pierce and even kill. Peter tells us that Jesus is "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense" 1 Peter 2:8
The Bible is meant to offend us. Our ways are not Gods ways, so as we are disciplined by Him and as He conforms us into His image it is most times an extremely painful process because of its offending our choices and our ways.
It has been heavy on my heart for some time now the compromise that is being made with those who make an identity with Jesus and yet support or even practice a homosexual lifestyle.
We are seeing many churches, pastors and professing Christians claim that God does not consider this lifestyle a sin. That His word has changed with time.
There is so much confusion among us.
We are not compromising with the alcoholic. Or the drug addict. Or those who are addicted to pornography. Or those having sex outside of marriage.
So why on the gay and lesbian lifestyle?
There is nothing special about it that makes it greater than any other sin, it is simply a sin which, like all others, must be repented of and crucified and left at the feet of the cross.
Have we forgotten the meaning of 'there is power in the blood'?
The blood of Jesus sets us free from sin and the desire of sin. All sin.
What we once desired we now hate and what we once hated we now desire.
That is the power of the blood of Jesus!
There must still be discipline exercised in forsaking these things we have been delivered from, but inside our hearts, we no longer desire to do them because we now recognize them as sin.
According to the Bible, if we do not recognize them as sin, then we have not been born again. That is the heart of the gospel.
The arguments are many, yet the Word of God is clear on this subject.
so, If I have presented myself as insensitive or unloving, I am deeply sorry.
I am not apologizing for my stand but maybe for how It has come across. Text is so difficult because it can be misunderstood on so many levels.
You cannot look into my eyes and see the compassion as I present Gods Word. You cannot sense the love in my voice.
My attempt at encouraging and warning is only that when Jesus appears He will find a bride unspotted and unblemished. I want none of you to be ashamed.
I love people. I always have. I do not care who they are, where they have been or what they are doing. My love is unconditional.
But the Bible tells me if I truly love, then I will tell them the truth. And Jesus and His Word is truth and does not change.
I study much and am very careful not to misrepresent Jesus or His Word.
I simply want people, all people, to know Jesus and His saving power. That He can deliver any and all, from all forms of sin.
Despite my efforts, there are greater and more faithful men than me who are able to present the Word of God with greater clarity.
If you are concerned, like me, about what God truly has to to say on the subject of homosexuality, then I invite you and encourage you to watch this message by Dr. John MacArthur, one of the most dedicated men of our time in interpreting the Bible.
Now, may He lead and Guide each of us as we search for truth in a day when truth seems to be being compromised in every area of our lives.
We are commanded to "study to show ourselves approved", to do our due diligence. I pray you will listen to this doing your due diligence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udT-Ejqwi84
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