Tuesday, July 22, 2014

The Christian Problem with Homosexuality

My name is Brandon and I have a problem with Christians who have a problem with homosexuality.

As a man who once trained to be a pastor, has dug through theological studies and commentaries, and more importantly, connected with people from various backgrounds I feel that I have some insight to offer here that seems to be absent from most of the internet and television mediums.

I have friends from both walks of life: the devout and the free. I have picked these terms specifically because I sense that many "christians" are binding themselves with what they think to be moral righteousness. When Jesus came to earth He came as "the son of man." He was human, and representation of what humanity should be. Too often as Christians we forget this, and deify Him more than He asked to be. He told his followers to keep secret that He was the Christ.

Jesus the man was happy and always willing to dine, party, and hang out with sinners. He seemed more than willing to insult, snip at, and argue with the super religious; the kind that prayed out loud in public and determined the absolute merit of the law while trying to persecute Jesus with it.

Today many christians seem absolutely determined to prevent homosexuality from influencing any way of life they know. If they are cool christians, they have identified they will love gays like Christ loves them, but that what they are doing is sinful. This is just another way to bind those who we feel are doing wrong and not love them.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that homosexuality is a sin (obviously I do not agree with this, but know of biblical passages where it is mentioned). Why should we, as Christians (notice the theme of capitalized and non-capitalized C's), tend to speak globally against a specific sin with so much authority? Jesus spoke mostly about the misuse of money, yet many of my christian friends speak openly about the importance of a free market society that Jesus would obviously be disgusted with.

Do we forget that we are sinners? Do we really think that by speaking out against sin we can destroy it? Do we forget that we can never be sinless? It is in our very nature to sin. That is our being. We are sinners. Every last one of us. Do we forget that God gives us a sin that forces us to humble ourselves and draws us nearer to Him? Since when does Christianity have a scoreboard?

My fear is that many chrisitans are running with the son who stayed at home and demands his inheritance remain untouched while the prodigals are in the party grateful to have a father that forgives and is happy to see their child return.

We are called to have a personal relationship with God. We are asked to be stewards of His word and land. We are not asked to oppress people groups. The bible says to follow the law of the land, and ours states that all individuals are created equal and have the freedom to practice in what religion they choose. Why should we force ours down the throats of those who have a hard time seeing what sets our God apart from any other?

On a side note, how can you ignore the data that shows that biologically males born after other males have more estrogen in their system? Or the fact that married gay couples produce highly functioning citizens of the world? If you were to not ignore the facts, it would almost seem that God was putting gay people here to show us our own hypocrisy. At the end of the day, we still deal with a unhumanly compassionate God, and there will be gay people in heaven. Why not act like they are your siblings now?