Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Tue, 1 Sep 1992 15:32:00 GMT
From:         Z_STAFF_CL@SOUTHAMPTON-INSTITUTE.AC.UK
Subject:      Re: Homosexuality

Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 09:01:19 EDT
From: MKLINE <MKLINE%BITNET.VDH@EDU.VT.CC.VTVM2>

*MAKS> I'm hoping nothing I've commented on sounds like a flame, it was
*      not my intention to do so.
*
*Carol A Long ----------------------------------------------------------->
*31 AUG 92  U1A9A@EDU.VT.CC.VTVM2
*> The bottom line is : you cannot continue with your boyfriend..... God
*> hates homosexual sin............
*
*:flame mode on:
*I have heard a lot of this out right condemnation on this list.
*I grow tired of ivory towers and those who cast stones from the top of them.
*:flame mode off:

Sorry all, I have committed email sin cardinal sin number 1 - flamed without
thinking.  I did try to delimit the flame with square brackets - forgetting
they don't always transmit.


*God hates sin ... agreed regardless of sexual orientation.
*The rest of the comment appears as a tirade of prejudice.
*Perhaps those who condemn so strongly should walk the way of
*those they condemn - the way of being subjected to such tirades
*for being as you believe God has made you.
*
*MAKS> I feel I need to speak up here. I have never known a member to be
*      more loving, or showing the love of Christ more than Bernice. When
*      she mentioned that God did not love the sin of homosexuality, she
*      also listed about 3-5 of her own.

This was not meant as a direct attack on Bernice.  What I was trying to point
out was that a number of people are pronouncing God's thoughts on homosexuality
with little experience of the other side of the discussion and making these
comments in such a way that there is little room for bridge building or love.
I was commenting on the tone - it did come across starkly - these comments
were not part of the flame and were not intended as one.


*      Wasn't it Kerry that said to the effect "One side says God has
*      said things are wrong and the other says nothing is wrong?" This
*      is not really about homosexuality, but more on "If something is
*      wrong, is it really wrong? If God says "NO", does He really mean
*      sometimes?"

This sounds like a red herring.  What I *think* is being debated is if the
interpretation of God saying NO is correct in context. Comments?


*      Now we have some out there who may be homosexual, we have some
*      who get angry. BOTH ARE JUST AS WRONG, TRUE. However, I keep
*      praying and turning my life over to God and asking him to
*      change me. Does the Homosexual, or does s/he simply say I was
*      born this way? Does this mean I can say "Hey, I was born angry
*      and continue to get mad, cuss, and grumble about other drivers?"
*      No, I don't think so.

Perhaps I read you wrong, are you suggesting that getting angry is a sin
in itself ?  Having an uncontrolled temper or an unloving way of dealing
with people I might see as justifiably called sinful but merely being angry ?
No, I can't see that mentioned.  I see it as the capacity to be outraged to
the point of action, in touch with oneself and, with grace, God.

Incidently, getting angry is somthing you do.  Angry is an adjective,
homosexual is a noun - it is about "being".

*>Let Jesus help you to know the way.....
*
*I know may people who are close to God and gay.  I know many who
*conform to the given view who show no signs of the Spirit in their
*life.
*
*Being gay **does not** equate to not knowing God.
*
*MAKS> I believe God is merciful. I have heard stories of city kids
*      the Lord and then finding a "cheat sheet" for the next test and
*      saying "Praise the Lord, He is so good to me!" Is this student
*      in danger of hell fire? I really doubt it. But sometime down
*      the road the student will learn that cheat sheets are wrong and
*      when he finds one, may turn it over to the teacher or destroy it.
*
*      Many gays may find themselves in the same boat. Given time, God
*      will change them. Given time, God will change my anger .......

Firstly to equate being gay to cheating is unhelpful and derogatory to
the argument.  Secondly, once again, one is about "doing", the other "being".


*> ..repent ....
*
*Repent for being the way you feel God made you and God intended
*for you to be is a strange thing to be asked to do.
*
*MAKS> "intended you to be" is a bit presumptuous. How do you know?
*      You've just said how can we know what God says, you you seem
*      positive that God made you this way.

Sorry, short hand was used.  What I should have said was "What you
in good conscience and prayfully and through experience of God's love
believe yourself to be intended to be by Him"


*	.....The Bible calls it sin.

The accepted intepretation maybe that.  If that is intended is what
we are debating here.


*      Bernice, in this example, was hooked on booze and cigarettes.
*      God changed her, but she may well have been born with the
*      desire for both. I've seem many smokers who simply "couldn't"
*      quit. The Bible is full of messages to repent.

Unhelpful.  I think you may have misundersood what I was saying.
Bernice was talking "addiction".  I am talking "being".  Language always
lets me down at this point but I will try to explain what I mean without
trivialising it or Bernice's situation.

I am addicted to purple candy bars [don't really exist say some people,
illness, sinful situation say others] and utterly unable to give them up.
I was born with this tendancancy but through free will I may succeed in
changing my belief in this enough to be different.  It will be hard but
it is only a part of my make up despite it having a large effect on
my life.
People who have made this change are on the whole seen as moving
towards wholeness and away from oppression.  That is addiction.

I am born a woman and utterly unable to give this up.
I was born with this tendancancy but through free will I may succeed in
changing my belief in this enough to be different.  It will be hard but
it is only a part of my make up despite it having a large effect on
my life.
People who have made this change are on the whole seen as moving towards
self-deception and self-opression.  That is being.

Being gay for most is more of the second sort.  There is no improvement
made in the level of wholeness once they decide not to be gay anymore. Do
you think anyone would put up with the sort of treatment gay people get if
they could be more whole being any other way ?   It is a bigger social
disadvantage in this world to be gay than black, female, under educated,
christian (yes in the UK that can be a disadvantage), "drunk" (no offence
meant in using this term over any other), drug adict.  In a society where
people try to conform to get on, being homosexual would be dropped if it
were possible by many.  I find that when a "homosexual" is "cured" there
is a *big* fuss in the media - that seems to indicate it is a rare case.
More over I have met many who say that because of the extreme methods
used in a "cure" they said they were at the time only to find that they
could not live the lie.


*MAKS> The main point here is that we should always stop and pause if
*      some new way of thinking, some new way of looking at the scriptures
*      is suddenly just what we need to justify our sin. For instance, if
*      I could find a "good" story about being angry to say what I am
*      doing is not all that bad, I think I may well find myself in
*      danger of not wanting to repent. If God says anger is a sin,
*      then I need to consider it such.

The question is, "Is the accepted intepretaion of what God says valid or
could it have been as case of using the scripture to justify a cultural
assumption that has been passed down to us and that we therefore stick to
without question and so a self perpetuating error."  It is surely a valid
question.


*      I pray this was not considered flaming, that was not my intention.
*      My intention is to say God is right, no matter what.


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Carol A Long,  					DISCLAIMER - unless otherwise
IT Service,					stated this message contains
Southampton Institute of Higher Education	my opinion...probably only mine
East Park Terrace,
Southampton	SO9 4WW,   England		RELEASE - Repost at will, with
						acknowlegements to author.
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