Poor christians

We know that, for a minority, homosexuality is disgusting. We get that. Many of those people call themselves Christians, and base their bigotry on the Bible. Unfortunately, this takes a lot of the justified derision they suffer, which they deserve, and transfers it to the Bible, which is far richer and more interesting than they know. It makes good people ridicule the message of Christianity.

Here is one such fool. He is an idolater, ignoring the message of Christ and ascribing vast importance to one of his own bigotries. He is without love, not caring for God’s creation or permitting God to create it as God wants. He is ignorant of the teachings of Jesus, not understanding that bit about taking the log from his own eye. He is a poor Christian, and unfit to be a pastor- all that is clear. But- why does it matter to him so much? Why this one issue, to keep banging on about?

Here is another. He wrote on how a priest in New York had denied communion to a lesbian woman, because she was living with a partner. The priest, now suspended for other reasons, denied it to her at the altar rail, breaking the Catholic rule about not creating a scandal at the altar rail, as well as humiliating her in public -at her mother’s funeral! John got all pious on us, telling us that the bible condemns lesbian sex, and so does God. I challenged him on this, and he said I had misunderstood, and closed comments on the thread. Which was a shame, because I liked his line about being a Follower of Christ on twitter. He has now deleted that post, but this one shows where he is coming from. “Don’t expect the Lord to find forgiveness for you”- he lives with a judgmental God, that condemns people who are doing their best under difficult circumstances, and sends a great many of them to Hell.

John, I have no misconceptions about your post. I get that you are extremely insistent in it that you are not judging others. I tell you that you are, because you are taking an interest in a “sin” which you are not tempted to. So you are talking of something you know nothing about, and have no need to know about. Your false interpretation of the Bible is that Christianity condemns lesbians for what we do; if you really were not judging, you would take no notice. Are you entirely sure that you write of this because of your own selfless commitment to religious truth, or does your personal disgust for other people making love have some part in it? God does not mind. Why should you?

I am angry because I and other people I care about have been and are still told in childhood that we are wrong, that we are less than others, that our characteristic is not to be welcomed and celebrated as part of human diversity created by God but to be condemned and hidden and shamed. Under this wave of bigotry some of us break, and some of us just do not reach our full potential. Your previous post is just one small part of the oppression hurting God’s children Now. You can turn to similarly bigoted people, and reassure yourself that your own opinion is right and you should continue to oppress us; or you can turn to Christ, and read Acts chapter ten.

Crumbs, I really am doing teenage. This is part of stretching my wings, flexing my muscles. It is better to be able to stand up for my individuality and worth publicly, but doing it at the keyboard is good practice.

Some Evangelical Christians say beautiful things.

20 March: after I got totally fed up with that pastor, and said I would prefer the Lake of Fire to Heaven, if God were really like he said, I got thirty page views from his site. Welcome. You may be shocked by some of what you read here: the openness to other religious traditions, the struggle with feelings, so different from Evangelical Certainty; the acceptance of people, and the total lack of belief in an Eternal Hell. Try to see the Love. Try, if you can, to see some good, any good, in what I write. Please leave a comment, and explain if you can the Love in your position.

As far as the pastor is concerned, he has no ears to hear. The thing is that gay people do not affect him. He may carry on serenely believing the rubbish he believes about us. He does affect us- that is why the it gets better videos are so necessary.

22 March: That pastor confesses in a comment,

 But quickly, to be clear, the ELCA has formally approved of homosexuality for a long time. To make matters worse, in synod convention in 2010 they formally approved of homosexual pastors. (To be expected I suppose since they already approve of female pastors)

Ha! The lights are going on in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America! People are listening to the Holy Spirit, despite all the efforts of Hoobie and his pals to keep people in darkness, bigotry and fear! I don’t want to know why Hoobs disapproves of female pastors, that would be just too pointless and boring. If you really want to know, this is Huebner’s splinter-group, which is not part of ELCA.