"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (...) Love your neighbor as you love yourself. There is no other commandment more important than these two" Mark 12:30-31,TEV
I thought for this edition of my musings I would give my opinions on a very controversial subject that is of extreme importance to me. The views I express here would be considered by many to be unchristian, but I feel they go to the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. Feel free to agree or disagree, I intended this page to express my opinions and provoke responses from whoever happens to read it... well, enough warning, here it goes...
The one thing about the "normal" Christian view of homosexuality that most grates on my nerves is the view of homosexuality as a chosen lifestyle. While I am sure there are a few homosexuals out there that have chosen to experiment, my homosexual friends did not choose, they just are homosexual, no choice about it. They did not choose being alienated from their family. They did not choose to live in fear of being lynched. They did not choose to be chastised by their church. They did not choose to live with a dreaded certainty they were going to hell. The only choice my friend had in the matter was to decide if they would take the easy way out and choose to commit the sin of lying or take the much more difficult path of excepting their God-given trait and living with the consequences. The TRAIT of homosexuality is GOD-GIVEN, the SIN of homosexuality is MAN-MADE.
The opinion above would be very hard to prove Christian, please don't mail me the list of places that the Bible supposedly says homosexuality is bad, I know they are there. So, taking one step down off of my soap box, and pretend that I believe in the MAN-MADE SIN. This part of my opinions I believe to be firmly grounded in the teaching of Jesus himself.
The scripture passage I chose to quote above has represents the most important aspect of Jesus' teachings. LOVE of God, LOVE of family, LOVE of friends, LOVE of enemies, LOVE of sinners, LOVE of tax collectors, LOVE of Samaritans, LOVE of lepers, LOVE of homosexuals... I snuck that one in on you didn't I? Kinda fits don't you think? Jesus had no fear of societies taboos. He lived by the commandment of Love. Samaritans, tax collectors, lepers, menstruating women, all were the outcasts, the hated ones, the untouchables. Yet Jesus LOVED them. He dined with them, he drank with them, he healed them. If we truly claim to be followers of Christ, how can we not do the same with the "untouchables" of our day?
Jesus ocassionally broke other commandments when he saw that obeying them was hindering the ability to obey LOVE. Religious experts of his day would argue Jesus broke the law of honoring the Sabbath when he healed a man on the holy day. He broke the commandment of honoring his mother when he refused to recognize her in the temple. He allowed himself to become unclean as he was touched by lepers and bleeding women. Why? Because the laws were man-made interpretations of God's true law. Jesus saw this. He knew that the laws had become distorted, over-used, misread. He chose to truly honor God by loving all of God's people, even the one's God's chosen people had chosen to forget.
Supposing that homosexuality were indeed a sin, it would be our duty as Christians to forgive. It is not our place to cast stones, as the gospels point out in several instances (Luke 6:37-42 and John 8 to name a few). God will be the ultimate judge. In the mean time we should purify ourselves of our own sins before we attempt to punish others for what we perceive to be their sins.
That's my two-cents worth. What do you think? Write me and I'll post your response for others to read...
Your thoughts in my opinion were right on the dot, to a certain extent. What I have saw on 20/20, in a homosexuals brain,there is a part us normal people don't have. It is not easy to try and turn your life around in the opposite direction. They HAVE TO WANT TO MAKE THE CHANGE with GODS help they can. I don't know a lot on it but I except people for who they are as a person, not what they are on the outside.