of course many women are gonna identify as non-binary if you tell them that womanhood is a feeling, something you have to be conected to, to feel and to be conscious of everyday. it's not. and most women actually don't feel anything. "i don't know what feeling like a woman feels like/i don't really feel connected to womanhood most of the time so i am probably not a woman and must be non-binary!" no it's just totally normal. womanhood is not a feeling. we don't go around having a constant womanly feeling and loving everything about womanhood 24/7. this idea is totally made up, and most women wouldn't know what the fuck you're talking about. same goes for "being a woman is being totally happy about your gender" no. not all women like being women, and saying this implies that being a woman is feeling good with all gender rules and stereotypes (because that's the def of gender) and not only it is false, but also sexist. being a woman isn’t a feeling or a connection, it is a reality.
i really do not like that there are communities of men that dress up as hypersexualized, bimbo-ified caricatures of women and are celebrated for it. i do not like drag.
i do not think that drag is an innocent outlet to explore gender nonconformity. it goes beyond that -- it is a misogynistic performance of men's idea of womanhood, and it disgusts me. the fact that drag performers adopt "female" personas with feminine names and use she/her pronouns solidifies my opinion on this.
Yes, and here’s why (with counterarguments to common statements).
This will be a bit of a harder read for some people, so please feel free to skip past if this is a topic that makes you uncomfortable. This is a post aimed at people who are already Christian, although secular peeps may benefit as well. My intention is only to educate, never to hurt–I believe two people with opposite opinions can coexist and accept each other for who they are without hostility.
BIG FAT TW for: religion, me being blunt, meaty theology discussion, discussion of sin relating to sexual orientation.
i actually skipped over this post originally, but something about it compelled me to respond to it. there is some gross misinformation in here which needs to be accurately corrected.
1. Firstly, there needs to be a clear delineation between homosexual sexual activity and homosexual love. Every passage relating to homosexuality in the bible refers to the former, and not the latter.
2. The issue with this stems not only from the translation, but from the context surrounding the bible. Firstly, the translation of the word ‘arsenikoiten’ into ‘homosexuality’ is incorrect - this term was only invented in 1946. the term is more accurately translated as ‘men who lay with men’. Whilst this may seem like a nitpick, I will now go into detail on why the difference is important. The context of homosexual activity in biblical times is vastly different to today. Today, homosexuality is typically used in reference to adult, consensual, sexual activity. Back then, homosexuality was exclusively used in reference to pederasty. There is a massive amount of historical evidence to back this up, namely St. John of Chrysostom’s writings, which speak of the wide-scale sexual abuse of young men by older men. Anyone familiar with Roman military history will also know how widespread the problem of male rape was in this era. The idea that there is any reference in the bible to homosexual adult, consensual relationships, is blatantly incorrect and ahistorical.
3. This is also incorrect, and stems from a misunderstanding of the New Covenant. The only laws from the OT Jesus directly affirms are the Ten Commandments - and the behaviours which fall under these. He specifically does not mention homosexuality at any point.
4. This is also objectively incorrect, as there is no amount of closeness to God which will prevent suffering - even the most pious of individuals suffer from grief, illness, tiredness, etc. To suggest that suffering is exclusively a result of a lack of faith is ridiculous and frankly offensive.
5. In terms of sides A vs B, you are again conflating homosexual sex with homosexual love. This is a very common misconception, and stems from homophobia - the idea that being gay is inherently sexual, whilst being straight is not. If you believe in intelligent design, and that God created all, yet cannot make mistakes, do you believe things like fatal birth defects were intentional?
6. This completely disregards the fact that intersex people exist, people who are neither male nor female. In fact, in Rabbinical Literature, 6 sexes are recognised in recognition of this fact of life. You are also seemingly of the opinion that being gay is a mutation, which is disgustingly homophobic. Scientific study has shown that the range of human sexuality is in fact a part of our biology, and that homosexuality is NOT a mutation, mental illness, etc. You state not to insult LGBT people, yet do so here by comparing someone’s sexuality to a mutations, which is both scientifically and morally wrong.
7. N/A.
8. I agree with the second half of this.
9. Yes it is - Jonathan and David. Love between two men is shown to ‘[be] wonderful, more wonderful than the love of any woman’. They are also described as having their souls ‘knitted together’, which is the same language used to describe marriage in corinthians. And no, there are different kinds of love described in the bible, and familial, romantic and sexual are all separate.
10. Loving another person is not inherently harmful. And again, sex vs love. Even if you think homosexual sex is wrong, to think homosexual love is wrong is to go against the core tenets of Christianity. I agree that current LGBT culture can be self indulgent, however this is more a result of a community seeking to compensate for the immense feelings of pain and suffering they experience in everyday life.
11. Correct, it’s not a human right.
12. No, it isn’t. Marriage has existed for thousands of years, before even Judaism existed. This is an incredibly historically ignorant view. And the Bible also states that married couples will have children (‘become one in flesh’), therefore if you are to exclude gay couples from marriage you also must exclude all infertile couples. Also, a pastor is under no obligation to perform a ceremony they disagree with. The hypocrisy of claiming that gay people wanting to be married is a stumbling block for others, whilst claiming someone’s love is sinful is palpable.
13. Again, this comes from a lack of understanding of historical context and the idea of sex vs love.
14. No, sin is always a choice. Is someone with tourettes committing a sin if they call someone a fool because of a tic? No, of course not. Intent is required to sin.
15. And yes, sexuality and relationships are important. God specifically states that sexual immorality is a sin. However, love is not. If a relationship meets the criteria of love laid out in the bible, that is honouring God.
16. The response to the question is a bit silly, that’s not what that means. If a part of your love, which God gave you, must be suppressed, yes, you will be miserable. Living in misery because you cannot love is hellish.
17. Our authentic selves are the characteristics we inherently possess, all of which are gifts. For example, someone who is gifted mathematically is being authentic to themselves if they choose to study mathematics. Also, doesn’t bring Christian require us to look inside of ourselves for an identity?
18. Again, love vs sex.
to conclude, these viewpoints stem from a theology founded in the preservation of the status quo, not in any genuine attempt to deepen your understanding of God. most of these arguments lie in a literalist interpretation of scripture, without any reference to biblical context or other biblical era sources.
i have no issue with you being against gay sex. that’s fine with me. but to see the God-given love a person has for another, and to condemn it, is an error of the highest order.
Hey there! I wrote this post quite a while ago, so I was surprised to see that someone responded to it. Honestly, I think that some of the things I said probably come across as a bit tone deaf, and if I wrote this again now, I would say a lot of thing quite differently. Thank you for going in depth and engaging with each thing instead of simply insulting me. That being said, with the understanding of this topic I have now, I would like to respond to each of your points as I think you have brought up some valid information.
1. So firstly, the issue here is that sexuality in the bible is not separated between romantic attraction/love and sexual love. It is illustrated that one thing always leads to another—so therefore, relationships do exist with solely romantic love, but that is not the way that God intended for human couples to exist, as illustrated in Genesis! Not that our sole purpose is to recreate—but rather, the separation of the two loves as you have illustrated here is an interpretation that does not actually exist in Scripture. With all that in mind though, I would love to hear more of what you mean when you say that every passage relating to sexuality is separated /genuine
2. So there are more than a few issues with this statement—firstly, homosexuality in consenting and non consenting forms has existed for centuries, so there would have been words to describe it in a non offensive way at some point—humans will not let something go undescribed for that long. The second part to this is that there is an assumption that there were not very many consensual, loving mlm and wlw relationships in Roman History, which is homophobic in and of itself. There were sapphic writings that dictated some of how lesbianism is viewed today, and I highly doubt that all of the relationships/relations referred in the New Testament, within the church, were viewed in this way or were toxic in nature. It simply is not possible, because to assume they were all harmful would leave out the minority that were not, which would be discriminatory
3. I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying here—I’m speaking specifically to people who believe that to follow one rule, you have to follow them all, which is not correct. Jesus indeed does not mention homosexuality, whether or not He mentions sexual immorality as a whole is something I need to do more research in myself, I would love to see if you have any verses talking about this! /genuine
4. I am so sorry that this came across that way, but I definitely DID NOT mean to imply that suffering is the result of a lack of faith. What i meant to say is that suffering can get worse when you follow God, but it is not His fault, and it is not always ours either—it is simply the way the world is, and God does not WANT us to suffer, but at the same time, our suffering is a symptom of the worlds brokenness. Does that make a bit more sense?
5. see my first point for the first part of this! The second part is an incorrect assumption of my beliefs—both being gay and being straight ARE inherently sexual, but not in the way that that is all that they are. More that romantic love as a whole encompasses all of it. this second part here doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me as a contradiction to my point—i don’t believe that God intentionally makes someone with birth defects, or disabilities. They are a part of our fallen world in the same way that suffering is. For instance, I was born with shallow hip sockets and a genetic connective tissue disorder that causes me tons of pain and other bodily issues. I don’t think God WANTED me to have that and deliberately made me disabled, it just is something that is the way it is.
6. Firstly, a lot of intersex people actually do not want to be included in the LGBTQ community, and find it offensive when they are used as a talking point, an argument, or as evidence of something else. Secondly, most intersex people are actually more one sex than the other, and all intersexuality is caused by genetic mutations (I must state very clearly here that i mean mutation in the scientific term, as in an issue with DNA development). A mutation is inherently a deviation from the norm, whether it becomes beneficial or not. Furthermore, truly ambiguous intersex people are very very rare. What is absolutely wrong, however, is mutilating intersex people at birth to force them into one side or the other. I would like to make it clear that I don’t think that’s ok. But I also don’t think it’s ok to use intersex people as a pawn to push an agenda, because a lot of the time, that is the only time I hear them being spoken about, and that’s not fair. I would like to see the sources you have for scientific study on this! I haven’t seen anything credible myself so it would be neat to see some sources (i swear im not being sarcastic, i would actually love to know this) I am terribly sorry if it was insulting, i will see if there is better language I can use in the future that isn’t offensive.
8. you say you agree with the latter half of this, but not the first. would you say then, that your idea of identity is largely based upon who you love? this is not a biblical concept (that being said, if you have sources for this claim i would love to see them!)
9. This one is a whole can of worms tbh, I don’t see any tangible proof that Jonathan and David were romantically involved, because the bible does not speak of their relationship in the same way that it does of David’s wives. I think to consider them as so is actually highly offensive because it is fetishizing their relationship and diminishing the Bible’s values of deep platonic friendships.
10. I would disagree in that loving someone can actually be harmful, if it is by the world’s definition of love. If you are in a committed relationship, for instance, engaging your desires with someone outside of that, even in a non sexual way, is still very much considered adultery. Even in secular terms, there is this concept called emotional infidelity, i think it’s called? Basically, it covers doing intimate things you would do with a romantic partner that are non sexual with someone who is not your partner. The reason why people get jealous when others do that sort of thing is because it is actually wrong, so the point of sex vs love is again moot because they come as a whole package when it comes to relationships, at least in the way that the Bible describes it
12. Someone pointed out the marriage point on another reblog, and I agree, I was wrong in that claim. Marriage is not a Christian concept. But if we are mentioning marriage from a Christian perspective, then these points still stand. You also make an error in stating that to become one flesh is the same as having children, because sex was not made solely to have children—even biblically! One look at Song of Solomon will tell you more than you want to know about that one LOL
13. I’m curious as to what you mean when you say that my belief in objective truth is a misunderstanding of history/scripture
14. I have to disagree with this one, because the Bible actually mentions unintentional sins—there were entire procedures and sacrifices for them in the Old Testament. Sin is anything that separates us from God, intentionally or unintentionally. Someone with Tourette’s however, or someone like myself with severe OCD, is not sinning by having intrusive thoughts, tics that swear, etc.. Those things are not separating them from God. Basically, to sort of explain what I mean by unintentional sin existing and still having an effect—if you hit someone by accident and didn’t mean to, you still have to apologize and do your best to make things right with the person. Another example is things that we don’t realize are sins but are—we don’t intend to do wrong things by doing them, but that doesn’t make them any less wrong.
15. Again, see my first point—the bible unites sexuality and romantic love. The idea of them being separate is actually not a biblical concept
16. I believe you may have misunderstood my point here, re. my earlier point about how supressing your feelings is wrong. I do not deny that denying yourself is incredibly, incredibly heartbreaking and hard, especially when someone is forcing you to. However, you make an incorrect assumption here implying that homosexual love is MOST of what lgbtq people feel and most of how they love others. For some it is, and for some it is not, and not everyone suffers massively from denying themselves, some find peace
17. This is incorrect, because it implies that negative inherent traits are also positive gifts, which is a dangerous viewpoint to hold. Yes, I am a dancer, and dancing is true to myself. But also, I am very stubborn, and don’t like to ask for help from others. This has been an inherent trait of mine for years that I cannot get rid of. But it is not a gift, it is not a good thing, and it makes me suffer. To lean into that would be authentic, yes, but it would not be right
This second point is also very very dangerous. Nowhere does the Bible say to look inside yourself for your identity—in fact, it advises against such things. Christianity requires us to look to God and Jesus for our identity, because He is what defines it. We do not define ourselves, and that is a major thing that separates Christianity from other religions, because the focus is not on yourself—building your own identity, looking inside yourself to find it, deciding who you are, because God has already done that for us and for us to do that puts us in the place of God (besides the fact that trying to find yourself inside yourself is like diving into a massive black hole—it never ends, is never perfect, and you end up chasing after label after label, none of which fully encompass you).
As a Christian, trying to find who I am by studying myself is exhausting and pushes me away from God, because I am not exploring with Him, I am relying solely on myself, which is a sin
I would also like to address this last part, because you make some pretty hefty accusations based on well…not a lot of information. I take offense at the idea that my theology comes from preserving the status quo, because personally, my faith and who God made me to be is entirely the opposite of that. My whole faith MISSION is opposite of that. For instance, I do not look like a Christian. I dress alt, am active in alt communities, and I love things that a lot of conservative Christians hate. I lean more liberal vs. conservative, and I majorly value individuality—I believe that God made people different, and it is important and VITAL that everyone, even Christians, expresses that in healthy ways. I am also disabled, both physically and mentally, and have struggled with my own sexuality and gender multiple times, which is why this topic is so important to me to figure out.
Secondly, you say that this is not a genuine attempt to understand God. Forgive me if I come across badly here—but you have to understand that in saying this, you are directly attacking and insulting my journey with God, AS a sibling in Christ. You assume by me making a post like this that I must have a shallow relationship because you personally do not find my statements to be sound, despite knowing nothing about my personal relationship/journey with God. You may view me however you like, but please do not insult, dismiss or invalidate His work in me without knowledge of it, because that is no longer a slight against me, but against Him, and that is the single thing I will absolutely not stand for in this conversation.
You cannot define someone’s desire for God or lack thereof, nor can you know their journey from one or two posts on the internet.
thank you for replying, and i’ll start by apologising. i did not mean to insult your faith, or your journey in Christ, and it was indeed wrong of me to do so. i am very sorry, and hope that you can forgive me.
as an LGBT person myself, this topic is quite personal to me, so i tend to get a little heated when discussing it. this isn’t an excuse for what i said, but it may help you to understand where i am coming from. my choice of language came more from frustration than genuine malice, but again, it wasn’t acceptable.
1. so, i’d say that there is a distinct difference between our sexuality and our romantic love - and that it is illustrated in the bible. sexuality is viewed as of the world, and is noted as being the gateway to many sins - rape, sexual assault, etc. when you have sex with someone, it is not an inherently loving act - that love is brought in from the outside. it CAN be a loving act, but it is not loving in and of itself. love, on the other hand, is never seen as anything but good. it doesn’t lead to sin, it only leads to virtue. when homosexuality is discussed in the bible, only people’s sexual acts are described - them laying with each other. loving acts are not described. for example, if Paul had stated that two women kissing, hugging, holding hands was a sin, then i would think differently. but he speaks only of sexuality - and i think this is an important distinction. the LGBT community has seen how being too open and relaxed about sex can lead to bad consequences - disease, sexual abuse, violence, etc. there’s also a rather discriminatory attitude towards body image in many gay male communities, which has a nasty racial undertone. i don’t think these are ‘punishments’ or anything, as many religious conservatives like to crow, but i do think they illustrate how sex can be damaging. on the other hand, love is not. we are told time and time again how it will only help us. the problem in modern christianity is that people look at the verses relating to this sexual activity, and assume that anything even vaguely same-sex is wrong - so for example, a celibate gay couple is seen as ‘sinning’, even though they are doing nothing wrong. the only thing they are doing is being loving. as for us being created to reproduce, i agree somewhat. yes, we have to reproduce to keep our species alive. but even then, not everyone should give birth or be a parent - they’re simply not cut out to do so. this is, in my opinion, God’s purpose for LGBT people. to be the ones who don’t take on the burden of parenthood, but can help from the outside. if all our eggs are in one basket, (pardon the pun), that is a dangerous place to be. compare this to Christ talking about eunuchs in Matthew - He says that those who can accept it, should. these people were never meant to have children, and Christ affirms them.
2. this is an interesting point, and something i think i didn’t expand enough on originally. so, first, you’re absolutely right - there were many gay people in ancient history, sappho being a very good example. however, let’s remember who is righting these verses. the first is Moses, and the second is Paul. both are Jewish, and in second temple Judaism, all forms of gay relationships would have been prohibited. secondly, when Paul was writing in Romans, it’s unlikely he would have been privy to any genuinely intimate relationships - they would likely have been kept behind closed doors, or waved away as ‘good friends’. the only homosexual behaviour he would have been witness to would have been the violent, abusive kind found in public. unfortunately this likely twisted his perception.
3. sorry for any misinterpretation! i definitely agree that people shouldn’t cherry pick rules to follow. Jesus does talk about sexual immorality, specifically adultery, but He doesn’t mention homosexuality. i personally find this very interesting, as He has every reason to mention it, yet doesn’t. naturally, we’ll never know the reason for this, but i have my theories. the main one is that He knew that homosexual relationships COULD be positive, but wouldn’t have had a way to express that to a primarily Jewish audience in a way they would understand. this is an instance where His silence speaks volumes. unfortunately, that’s not very helpful for us when talking about it.
4. ah okay, gotcha! that does make a lot more sense, ngl.
5. see, i’d disagree there in part. i think romantic love and sexual desire are separate, yet overlap in situations such as relationships. this is mainly because both can exist without the other - sex without love, and love without sex. however, they can be incorporated together when discussing our relationships. but the distinction is important, as some tend to think that when LGBT people talk about their feelings, they are assumed to be simply wanting sex, as opposed to a loving connection with another person.
6. so, fun fact, i actually have an intersex condition myself (polycystic ovarian syndrome, and potential non-classic adrenal hyperplasia, i’m waiting on some test results). it’s a big factor in me being transgender, and definitely plays a part in my views on sex. you’re very correct that intersex people don’t inherently want to be LGBT, my point was more so that they are more than welcome if they would like to be. something i think you’d find very interesting is the concept of sexes in Rabbinical Judaism. they recognise six sexes, all on a spectrum from male to female. i find this concept very progressive and kind, as it ensures no one is left out of discussions of biological sex. i don’t mean to use any other intersex people as ‘pawns’, but i do also want to stress the importance of us moving away from the binary sex system when we discuss these things from a religious perspective - as with a binary there will always be those outside of it. they are also children of God, and we should strive to talk in theological terms that are as wide as possible.
8. yes, i suppose i would say that! in fact, i’d say that about all of our identities. our identities as Christians are about our love of God. my identity as a transgender person is about my love for myself, past, present and future. my identity as a bisexual person is about my love for men, women, and everyone in between. whilst some identities may not fit this pattern, we should always strive to put love at the centre of our lives.
9. okay, so clarification, (and this ties into the whole sex vs love thing), i DO NOT think that Jonathan and David had a sexual relationship. however, i DO think they had a romantic one - here is why. firstly, their love is described as ‘surpassing that of women’. now, i mean, i don’t know what the homo-erotic subtext of ancient israel was like, but i know if that if you said that to someone now, they’d assume you were gay. it’s also worth remembering that their relationships with women (specifically their wives) were romantic ones - this love surpasses that. now, i could see this being waved off as just very intense bro-ship, and i might agree, if not for one extra detail. they are also described as having their ‘souls knitted together’ - this phrase is also used in corinthians to describe marriage. whilst we’ll never know the exact nature of their relationship, i think it’s fair to assume they had a deep, deep love, and most signs point to it being more than friendship.
10. very true, emotional cheating is very real. again it ties back to love vs sex - which is why i mentioned bible-defined love, as it is non-sexual. i suppose my counter would be that does your romantic love exist separate from your sexual desires? most couples into their old age lose the desire and/or ability to have sex, yet remain very much in love. i’d also consider asexual relationships as romantically loving, despite never including sex.
12. yeah, biblical marriage is definitely very hetero-oriented, but IMO that is something rooted in the society at the time. having children was extremely important in pre-industrial societies, due to the physical impossibility of the elderly working for themselves. this is a big topic in general, but i tend to take the view that biblical marriage, as it existed in that era, simply does not exist anymore. basically, this is because marriage was intended to create children - yet nearly every church worldwide will marry an infertile couple, an older couple, etc. this wouldn’t have happened in biblical times, and therefore we have changed what marriage means to us. furthermore, even if a church doesn’t want to perform a same sex marriage, i struggle to see why they could not perform a civil partnership or commitment ceremony - both of these can be non-romantic (aka committed by people who aren’t a couple), and exist more as a legal protection and as a public display of commitment than anything else. again, this comes back to my point of us striving for love as the centre of our lives.
13. ah okay, so the comment on lack of historical context was simply about the phrase ‘homosexuality is condemned’ - see like the rest of everything i’ve written lmao. and about objective truth, i’d agree that God’s rules have been laid out, but i’d disagree that we can access to that truth. one of my theology teachers talks about this very well. essentially we all have different lenses through which we read the bible - our language, our gender, our race, our age, etc. all of this give us a slightly different understanding to another person. because of the inherent human bias and subjectivity, we will never be able to fully discern and agree on the OBJECTIVE meaning of any text - especially when parts of the bible are purposefully vague. i do urge people to be cautious of using the term ‘objective truth’, as it ignores our own bias - the text may be objective, but the way we read it sure isn’t.
14. ah yeah, i didn’t explain myself well enough there. i agree, we can commit sin unintentionally, i was going for more of a ‘there are things we truly cannot control which look like sins from the outside’, if that makes sense? and absolutely, we should always apologise for any harm we cause, even if it’s unintentional.
15. see other point.
16. gotcha. it’s interesting how much difference there is when we talk about these subjects, and how much can be misinterpreted. and yes, some people don’t feel the need to be in relationships! (lucky bastards lmao). however, i think if you do feel that need, having to wilfully deny it is very unhealthy and painful. we all walk in life alone - if we feel we’d like someone to walk with, we should all have that.
17. yeah, i meant more our natural positive inclinations, be that who we love, or what we’re good at. people don’t typically use the phrase ‘be authentic to yourself’ when referring to bad habits and negative traits.
i think we do look inside ourselves somewhat as Christians - after all, the kingdom of God is within us. if we want to have good faith and understand others, we must first understand ourselves. of course, that means then going out towards others. now, doesn’t the same thing happen in terms of sexuality? you attempt to understand yourself, to come to terms with it, and then go out towards others. no one realises they’re gay and then puts on a chastity belt and goes and lives in a shack for 30 years - they find others. they experience things with them, and their identity becomes rooted in themselves, but inherently intertwined with others. i think our faith is the same - if we were all alone, would we still be faithful? our faith must include all, and that includes ourselves.
i am truly very sorry for my comments coming off in such a manner, and you’re right that i made several assumptions when initially replying.
my comments about ignorance stem mainly from the fact that most people are not aware of the historical context (pederasty, etc), which warps their view of the texts. in fact, a lot of people have very little understanding of the context of the time bar what we are told in the bible. to me, it’s such an important thing to understanding the text and how it drastically changes traditional meaning that i get quite irate and assume negatively when talking to people who are less aware of it than i am. i am sorry for this, please forgive me. let me explain a bit more.
a lot of my faith is rooted in love, as i mentioned, and when i find something that seems to go against that, i put a lot of effort into digging deeper. the idea that being gay is wrong seems to turn that into furious excavation, and i have developed quite a deep theological pit in this area.
unfortunately, i seem to get blinders whenever i see someone talk about homosexuality in any negative way in regards to Christianity, and i start eagerly dumping all of my freshly-excavated theological dirt all over them - “you don’t know the context, that’s a fundamentalist interpretation, etc, etc.” whilst i realise that it’s definitely not the right way to go about it, i often don’t seem to have the emotional energy to deal with it more reasonably, especially when dealing with people who cannot take criticism and who simply repeat whatever their pastor told them. it breaks my heart to see people deny God’s gift of love because of others who use out of context verses, and mistranslated chapters to enforce a worldview rooted in homophobia. ultimately, i think i misinterpreted your response to being in the latter.
i am grateful for you taking the time to reply, and responding in a polite and earnest manner. frankly, what i said at the end was a bit much, and you have full permission to call me a massive bastard if that makes you feel better lmao.
i can see a lot of the same christ-centred zeal in your replies that i see in myself, and you are obviously very dedicated to your faith, and i hope this is the same impression i have given you. you are absolutely right to stand up to my ill-conceived judgement, it wasn’t on.
if you’d like, i’d be more than happy to talk more about faith with you, you seem to have a very unique viewpoint and a strong sense of faith and love. hopefully we can turn something more negative into a positive.
edit: i didn’t actually look at your profile before now, and i see that you are expressing some gender critical viewpoints - if we are to have a conversation, i would ask that you fully respect my identity as a transgender man and a Christian, and the fact that both profoundly influence each other in my life. i have had several extremely negative interactions with individuals professing similar views, including death threats. if you do not feel you are able to have respect for my identity, i ask that you make that known when replying. thank you in advance.
Hi! Again, thank you so much for responding so kindly, and of course I forgive you! I am also autistic, so I sometimes may interpret things oddly, haha. As for the gender critical thing--I am someone who holds some of those viewpoints, but I highly disagree with the way that that branch of feminism views lgbtq+ people, and you can trust that no death threats come from me. I was not put on to this earth to control people--rather, to spread God's love, and that means being considerate of how others wish to be called, viewed, treated, etc.. At the same time, I try to view society through a critical lense, and even as those viewpoints do not typically affect the people around me, they help me make sense of the world.
I would definitely be open to more conversations! Again, thank you for your response!
Yes, and here’s why (with counterarguments to common statements).
This will be a bit of a harder read for some people, so please feel free to skip past if this is a topic that makes you uncomfortable. This is a post aimed at people who are already Christian, although secular peeps may benefit as well. My intention is only to educate, never to hurt–I believe two people with opposite opinions can coexist and accept each other for who they are without hostility.
BIG FAT TW for: religion, me being blunt, meaty theology discussion, discussion of sin relating to sexual orientation.
i actually skipped over this post originally, but something about it compelled me to respond to it. there is some gross misinformation in here which needs to be accurately corrected.
1. Firstly, there needs to be a clear delineation between homosexual sexual activity and homosexual love. Every passage relating to homosexuality in the bible refers to the former, and not the latter.
2. The issue with this stems not only from the translation, but from the context surrounding the bible. Firstly, the translation of the word ‘arsenikoiten’ into ‘homosexuality’ is incorrect - this term was only invented in 1946. the term is more accurately translated as ‘men who lay with men’. Whilst this may seem like a nitpick, I will now go into detail on why the difference is important. The context of homosexual activity in biblical times is vastly different to today. Today, homosexuality is typically used in reference to adult, consensual, sexual activity. Back then, homosexuality was exclusively used in reference to pederasty. There is a massive amount of historical evidence to back this up, namely St. John of Chrysostom’s writings, which speak of the wide-scale sexual abuse of young men by older men. Anyone familiar with Roman military history will also know how widespread the problem of male rape was in this era. The idea that there is any reference in the bible to homosexual adult, consensual relationships, is blatantly incorrect and ahistorical.
3. This is also incorrect, and stems from a misunderstanding of the New Covenant. The only laws from the OT Jesus directly affirms are the Ten Commandments - and the behaviours which fall under these. He specifically does not mention homosexuality at any point.
4. This is also objectively incorrect, as there is no amount of closeness to God which will prevent suffering - even the most pious of individuals suffer from grief, illness, tiredness, etc. To suggest that suffering is exclusively a result of a lack of faith is ridiculous and frankly offensive.
5. In terms of sides A vs B, you are again conflating homosexual sex with homosexual love. This is a very common misconception, and stems from homophobia - the idea that being gay is inherently sexual, whilst being straight is not. If you believe in intelligent design, and that God created all, yet cannot make mistakes, do you believe things like fatal birth defects were intentional?
6. This completely disregards the fact that intersex people exist, people who are neither male nor female. In fact, in Rabbinical Literature, 6 sexes are recognised in recognition of this fact of life. You are also seemingly of the opinion that being gay is a mutation, which is disgustingly homophobic. Scientific study has shown that the range of human sexuality is in fact a part of our biology, and that homosexuality is NOT a mutation, mental illness, etc. You state not to insult LGBT people, yet do so here by comparing someone’s sexuality to a mutations, which is both scientifically and morally wrong.
7. N/A.
8. I agree with the second half of this.
9. Yes it is - Jonathan and David. Love between two men is shown to ‘[be] wonderful, more wonderful than the love of any woman’. They are also described as having their souls ‘knitted together’, which is the same language used to describe marriage in corinthians. And no, there are different kinds of love described in the bible, and familial, romantic and sexual are all separate.
10. Loving another person is not inherently harmful. And again, sex vs love. Even if you think homosexual sex is wrong, to think homosexual love is wrong is to go against the core tenets of Christianity. I agree that current LGBT culture can be self indulgent, however this is more a result of a community seeking to compensate for the immense feelings of pain and suffering they experience in everyday life.
11. Correct, it’s not a human right.
12. No, it isn’t. Marriage has existed for thousands of years, before even Judaism existed. This is an incredibly historically ignorant view. And the Bible also states that married couples will have children (‘become one in flesh’), therefore if you are to exclude gay couples from marriage you also must exclude all infertile couples. Also, a pastor is under no obligation to perform a ceremony they disagree with. The hypocrisy of claiming that gay people wanting to be married is a stumbling block for others, whilst claiming someone’s love is sinful is palpable.
13. Again, this comes from a lack of understanding of historical context and the idea of sex vs love.
14. No, sin is always a choice. Is someone with tourettes committing a sin if they call someone a fool because of a tic? No, of course not. Intent is required to sin.
15. And yes, sexuality and relationships are important. God specifically states that sexual immorality is a sin. However, love is not. If a relationship meets the criteria of love laid out in the bible, that is honouring God.
16. The response to the question is a bit silly, that’s not what that means. If a part of your love, which God gave you, must be suppressed, yes, you will be miserable. Living in misery because you cannot love is hellish.
17. Our authentic selves are the characteristics we inherently possess, all of which are gifts. For example, someone who is gifted mathematically is being authentic to themselves if they choose to study mathematics. Also, doesn’t bring Christian require us to look inside of ourselves for an identity?
18. Again, love vs sex.
to conclude, these viewpoints stem from a theology founded in the preservation of the status quo, not in any genuine attempt to deepen your understanding of God. most of these arguments lie in a literalist interpretation of scripture, without any reference to biblical context or other biblical era sources.
i have no issue with you being against gay sex. that’s fine with me. but to see the God-given love a person has for another, and to condemn it, is an error of the highest order.
Hey there! I wrote this post quite a while ago, so I was surprised to see that someone responded to it. Honestly, I think that some of the things I said probably come across as a bit tone deaf, and if I wrote this again now, I would say a lot of thing quite differently. Thank you for going in depth and engaging with each thing instead of simply insulting me. That being said, with the understanding of this topic I have now, I would like to respond to each of your points as I think you have brought up some valid information.
1. So firstly, the issue here is that sexuality in the bible is not separated between romantic attraction/love and sexual love. It is illustrated that one thing always leads to another—so therefore, relationships do exist with solely romantic love, but that is not the way that God intended for human couples to exist, as illustrated in Genesis! Not that our sole purpose is to recreate—but rather, the separation of the two loves as you have illustrated here is an interpretation that does not actually exist in Scripture. With all that in mind though, I would love to hear more of what you mean when you say that every passage relating to sexuality is separated /genuine
2. So there are more than a few issues with this statement—firstly, homosexuality in consenting and non consenting forms has existed for centuries, so there would have been words to describe it in a non offensive way at some point—humans will not let something go undescribed for that long. The second part to this is that there is an assumption that there were not very many consensual, loving mlm and wlw relationships in Roman History, which is homophobic in and of itself. There were sapphic writings that dictated some of how lesbianism is viewed today, and I highly doubt that all of the relationships/relations referred in the New Testament, within the church, were viewed in this way or were toxic in nature. It simply is not possible, because to assume they were all harmful would leave out the minority that were not, which would be discriminatory
3. I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying here—I’m speaking specifically to people who believe that to follow one rule, you have to follow them all, which is not correct. Jesus indeed does not mention homosexuality, whether or not He mentions sexual immorality as a whole is something I need to do more research in myself, I would love to see if you have any verses talking about this! /genuine
4. I am so sorry that this came across that way, but I definitely DID NOT mean to imply that suffering is the result of a lack of faith. What i meant to say is that suffering can get worse when you follow God, but it is not His fault, and it is not always ours either—it is simply the way the world is, and God does not WANT us to suffer, but at the same time, our suffering is a symptom of the worlds brokenness. Does that make a bit more sense?
5. see my first point for the first part of this! The second part is an incorrect assumption of my beliefs—both being gay and being straight ARE inherently sexual, but not in the way that that is all that they are. More that romantic love as a whole encompasses all of it. this second part here doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me as a contradiction to my point—i don’t believe that God intentionally makes someone with birth defects, or disabilities. They are a part of our fallen world in the same way that suffering is. For instance, I was born with shallow hip sockets and a genetic connective tissue disorder that causes me tons of pain and other bodily issues. I don’t think God WANTED me to have that and deliberately made me disabled, it just is something that is the way it is.
6. Firstly, a lot of intersex people actually do not want to be included in the LGBTQ community, and find it offensive when they are used as a talking point, an argument, or as evidence of something else. Secondly, most intersex people are actually more one sex than the other, and all intersexuality is caused by genetic mutations (I must state very clearly here that i mean mutation in the scientific term, as in an issue with DNA development). A mutation is inherently a deviation from the norm, whether it becomes beneficial or not. Furthermore, truly ambiguous intersex people are very very rare. What is absolutely wrong, however, is mutilating intersex people at birth to force them into one side or the other. I would like to make it clear that I don’t think that’s ok. But I also don’t think it’s ok to use intersex people as a pawn to push an agenda, because a lot of the time, that is the only time I hear them being spoken about, and that’s not fair. I would like to see the sources you have for scientific study on this! I haven’t seen anything credible myself so it would be neat to see some sources (i swear im not being sarcastic, i would actually love to know this) I am terribly sorry if it was insulting, i will see if there is better language I can use in the future that isn’t offensive.
8. you say you agree with the latter half of this, but not the first. would you say then, that your idea of identity is largely based upon who you love? this is not a biblical concept (that being said, if you have sources for this claim i would love to see them!)
9. This one is a whole can of worms tbh, I don’t see any tangible proof that Jonathan and David were romantically involved, because the bible does not speak of their relationship in the same way that it does of David’s wives. I think to consider them as so is actually highly offensive because it is fetishizing their relationship and diminishing the Bible’s values of deep platonic friendships.
10. I would disagree in that loving someone can actually be harmful, if it is by the world’s definition of love. If you are in a committed relationship, for instance, engaging your desires with someone outside of that, even in a non sexual way, is still very much considered adultery. Even in secular terms, there is this concept called emotional infidelity, i think it’s called? Basically, it covers doing intimate things you would do with a romantic partner that are non sexual with someone who is not your partner. The reason why people get jealous when others do that sort of thing is because it is actually wrong, so the point of sex vs love is again moot because they come as a whole package when it comes to relationships, at least in the way that the Bible describes it
12. Someone pointed out the marriage point on another reblog, and I agree, I was wrong in that claim. Marriage is not a Christian concept. But if we are mentioning marriage from a Christian perspective, then these points still stand. You also make an error in stating that to become one flesh is the same as having children, because sex was not made solely to have children—even biblically! One look at Song of Solomon will tell you more than you want to know about that one LOL
13. I’m curious as to what you mean when you say that my belief in objective truth is a misunderstanding of history/scripture
14. I have to disagree with this one, because the Bible actually mentions unintentional sins—there were entire procedures and sacrifices for them in the Old Testament. Sin is anything that separates us from God, intentionally or unintentionally. Someone with Tourette’s however, or someone like myself with severe OCD, is not sinning by having intrusive thoughts, tics that swear, etc.. Those things are not separating them from God. Basically, to sort of explain what I mean by unintentional sin existing and still having an effect—if you hit someone by accident and didn’t mean to, you still have to apologize and do your best to make things right with the person. Another example is things that we don’t realize are sins but are—we don’t intend to do wrong things by doing them, but that doesn’t make them any less wrong.
15. Again, see my first point—the bible unites sexuality and romantic love. The idea of them being separate is actually not a biblical concept
16. I believe you may have misunderstood my point here, re. my earlier point about how supressing your feelings is wrong. I do not deny that denying yourself is incredibly, incredibly heartbreaking and hard, especially when someone is forcing you to. However, you make an incorrect assumption here implying that homosexual love is MOST of what lgbtq people feel and most of how they love others. For some it is, and for some it is not, and not everyone suffers massively from denying themselves, some find peace
17. This is incorrect, because it implies that negative inherent traits are also positive gifts, which is a dangerous viewpoint to hold. Yes, I am a dancer, and dancing is true to myself. But also, I am very stubborn, and don’t like to ask for help from others. This has been an inherent trait of mine for years that I cannot get rid of. But it is not a gift, it is not a good thing, and it makes me suffer. To lean into that would be authentic, yes, but it would not be right
This second point is also very very dangerous. Nowhere does the Bible say to look inside yourself for your identity—in fact, it advises against such things. Christianity requires us to look to God and Jesus for our identity, because He is what defines it. We do not define ourselves, and that is a major thing that separates Christianity from other religions, because the focus is not on yourself—building your own identity, looking inside yourself to find it, deciding who you are, because God has already done that for us and for us to do that puts us in the place of God (besides the fact that trying to find yourself inside yourself is like diving into a massive black hole—it never ends, is never perfect, and you end up chasing after label after label, none of which fully encompass you).
As a Christian, trying to find who I am by studying myself is exhausting and pushes me away from God, because I am not exploring with Him, I am relying solely on myself, which is a sin
I would also like to address this last part, because you make some pretty hefty accusations based on well…not a lot of information. I take offense at the idea that my theology comes from preserving the status quo, because personally, my faith and who God made me to be is entirely the opposite of that. My whole faith MISSION is opposite of that. For instance, I do not look like a Christian. I dress alt, am active in alt communities, and I love things that a lot of conservative Christians hate. I lean more liberal vs. conservative, and I majorly value individuality—I believe that God made people different, and it is important and VITAL that everyone, even Christians, expresses that in healthy ways. I am also disabled, both physically and mentally, and have struggled with my own sexuality and gender multiple times, which is why this topic is so important to me to figure out.
Secondly, you say that this is not a genuine attempt to understand God. Forgive me if I come across badly here—but you have to understand that in saying this, you are directly attacking and insulting my journey with God, AS a sibling in Christ. You assume by me making a post like this that I must have a shallow relationship because you personally do not find my statements to be sound, despite knowing nothing about my personal relationship/journey with God. You may view me however you like, but please do not insult, dismiss or invalidate His work in me without knowledge of it, because that is no longer a slight against me, but against Him, and that is the single thing I will absolutely not stand for in this conversation.
You cannot define someone’s desire for God or lack thereof, nor can you know their journey from one or two posts on the internet.
That pretty much explains why men object to women space then, dunnit? Once we find out what safe feels like we don’t want to go back to living in fear.
Also, there’s a difference between exclusion from mainstream society (ie. Being denied a job because you’re female, being denied a service because you’re gay, being bullied in school or being treated as less than because of your skin colour) and exclusion from groups specifically designed for a certain group of people to feel safe and included in, and I think a lot of “inclusionists” tend to conflate the two, as if they’re the same thing. Female only gyms/services were designed to give women a safe space because they felt either excluded from mainstream spaces or unsafe in mainstream spaces. Lesbian/gay spaces were designed specifically because gay people felt unsafe and excluded from mainstream places. Access to these sorts of spaces are not universal human rights and being exclusionary is okay because those who are excluded either already have access to safe and accepting mainstream spaces or they’re members of the group who made those mainstream spaces unsafe in the first place.
Hey there! Thanks for asking this, I actually didn't even add them in my homosexuality masterpost, so here they are for you and others who may be interested. :)
FIRSTLY, I want to state that discrimination against LGBTQ individuals is wrong and not something I support. Me listing these verses is in no way intended to be this. I firmly believe that I am not in this earth to control the behaviour of others, but rather, to love and accept them as Jesus would.
That being said, the Bible is very clear on Christianity (and God's) stance on homosexuality. The mistranslation claims I have debunked in the post just below this, and I have another post by someone else who has researched the original languages as well.
NOTE: the word "sexual immorality" means any sexual activity outside of a married man and woman
OLD TESTAMENT:
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. Leviticus 18:22
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. Leviticus 20:13 ESV (this is an old Testament Jewish rule, so it is NOT right to put gay ppl to death, context is very important here)
NEW TESTAMENT:
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. Romans 1:26-28 ESV
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 1 Corinthians 6:18
But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 1 Timothy 1:8-10 ESV
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Hebrews 13:4 ESV
just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Jude 1:7
I'm not sure from checking out your blog if you are Christian or not--if not, then treat this as information about a religion different than yours, as to you it will not be absolute truth :OOO
Yes, and here’s why (with counterarguments to common statements).
This will be a bit of a harder read for some people, so please feel free to skip past if this is a topic that makes you uncomfortable. This is a post aimed at people who are already Christian, although secular peeps may benefit as well. My intention is only to educate, never to hurt–I believe two people with opposite opinions can coexist and accept each other for who they are without hostility.
BIG FAT TW for: religion, me being blunt, meaty theology discussion, discussion of sin relating to sexual orientation.
You said that you are open to civil discussion and that is what I would like this to be. I am a queer Christian who is pursuing a career in ministry/as a priest in an affirming denomination.
I’d like you to cite your sources for both claims 1 and 2.
Hey, so I appreciate your interest in my point of view and your desire for a conversation! I can definitely find my sources for the first and second claims, I just need a while to gather everything as I’ve been pretty busy irl.
That being said, before I do that, I have a few questions for you.
Firstly, you yourself recognized that I am solid in my viewpoint. I also recognize you are solid in yours. Hence, what is your reason for questioning me, since if both of us are solid, what’s the point?
Secondly, as you are also making many claims, can I see your sources for them as well?
Thirdly, you mentioned you are planning to become a priest in your denomination. From where do you get your morality or decide what is right or wrong? If you are going to lead others it is very important to make sure that you have something solid for them to lean on.
Ofc, these questions are optional, however, they will help me know how to explain my viewpoint best to avoid any misunderstandings :) /gen
For the most part, I ask out of genuine curiosity to see what your sources were, as someone raised in the church and a very homophobic area I have done a lot of research into verses that are often used against LGBTQ followers. If there are reputable sources and viewpoints on this topic that I have yet to read I would like to remedy that.
Apart from that, as you said in your original post this discussion is mainly meant for Christians. There are many Christians, or people considering becoming Christian, that are less theological versed than we are and I wanted to provide the information that there are other perspectives and interpretations on this topic in case people have not done their own research. There are many churches that I know of that have moved their focus away from Bible study and scriptural literacy and as a result of this there are many Christians that do not have a deeper understanding of the text we base our faith on. My goal was not to change your mind but to learn more about your perspective and provide another viewpoint on this public discussion.
Alrighty, sorry for the long response time, tumblr wasn't actually showing me your reply fsr so I thought you deleted it xDD
First off, I would like to say I worded the part about marriage incorrectly. If we're talking from an objective, conceptual point of view, marriage as we know it to be today as a practice existed before the organized religion we call Christianity, HOWEVER, we as Christians (and Jews as well if I'm not wrong) believe that the God of our religions invented marriage as a whole with Adam and Eve, as they were made to be created and to become one with each other. That's why it's existed for so long even in secular cultures--marriage is sacred and in God's design. However, that part is semantics really tbh
Secondly, the point about Greek/Roman sexuality is actually not really relevant to the conversation, for a few reasons:
A: Your point assumes that ALL homosexuality of that time was exploitative, which is logically not correct. People weren't really that different at their cores back then, and to assume there WASN'T what the world would consider pure-intentioned love between two consenting adults of the same gender doesn't account for much diversity and therefore doesn't really make sense.
B: Heterosexual love is mentioned in specific ways when Paul or someone else gives direction on what to do or not to do in the Bible. For instance, divorce, lust, the sin of sex outside of marriage, etc. So why isn't this specificity given to homosexuality besides a general "don't do this?". This is why I can't believe it's a mistranslation--it simply does not make sense with how the Bible addresses everything else.
C: Even if homosexuality was not mentioned generally in the Bible, that doesn't mean it's automatically right because of that lack of mention. You can't say that it's not wrong because certain verses only mention a specific part of that thing (I.e. The argument that it is referencing pedophiles). That's like saying pornography is ok bc the Bible doesn't mention it specifically and sexuality is mentioned in other specific ways.
D: As stated in my post, there are so many verses you can find about how to do heterosexual love right and wrong, whereas the only homosexuality mentioned in the Bible is painted in not just a negative light, but a VERY negative one. Generally, it's safe to assume then that it's wrong because of that, even if it's only referencing specific scenarios.
Below I've linked a couple sources that go more depth than I can about the Bible's ultimate accuracy--the dead sea scrolls are a good thing to look up as well if you want some solid proof from both secular and religious scholars on the Bible's inerrancy. I've also linked a post from a scholar that compares the controversial homosexuality verses in multiple versions of different languages--and finds the translation to say the same thing.
Take this how you will of course--however, consider this. If you have to jump through so many loopholes to prove that something's not a sin, I would advise you to consider why you might be doing that, as the Bible is clear enough to guide us on most things of importance. The source of your morals shouldn't come just from the title of being a Christian, or from the ideals of Christianity, because even atheists, satanists, and people from other religions take their morality from there. It should come jointly from the Bible and from your close, personal relationship with God Himself.
Yes, and here’s why (with counterarguments to common statements).
This will be a bit of a harder read for some people, so please feel free to skip past if this is a topic that makes you uncomfortable. This is a post aimed at people who are already Christian, although secular peeps may benefit as well. My intention is only to educate, never to hurt–I believe two people with opposite opinions can coexist and accept each other for who they are without hostility.
BIG FAT TW for: religion, me being blunt, meaty theology discussion, discussion of sin relating to sexual orientation.
You said that you are open to civil discussion and that is what I would like this to be. I am a queer Christian who is pursuing a career in ministry/as a priest in an affirming denomination.
I’d like you to cite your sources for both claims 1 and 2.
Hey, so I appreciate your interest in my point of view and your desire for a conversation! I can definitely find my sources for the first and second claims, I just need a while to gather everything as I've been pretty busy irl.
That being said, before I do that, I have a few questions for you.
Firstly, you yourself recognized that I am solid in my viewpoint. I also recognize you are solid in yours. Hence, what is your reason for questioning me, since if both of us are solid, what's the point?
Secondly, as you are also making many claims, can I see your sources for them as well?
Thirdly, you mentioned you are planning to become a priest in your denomination. From where do you get your morality or decide what is right or wrong? If you are going to lead others it is very important to make sure that you have something solid for them to lean on.
Ofc, these questions are optional, however, they will help me know how to explain my viewpoint best to avoid any misunderstandings :) /gen
A gay person only has to act like a straight person all their lives (no gay relationships, gay porn, not "acting" gay) and the gay person will go to heaven if they believe in Jesus?
A person who is submitted to the will of God will choose the things of God and will love Him more than sin. This isn't about needing to be a heterosexual to get to heaven, it's about if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus for your salvation.
Besides the fact that not acting on your attractions doesn’t = heterosexual, it just means you’re abstaining from ANY romantic or sexual relationships, which to most LGBTQ ppl is really not that much different from aroace identities. So really, it shouldn’t be that much of an issue even from their point of view
i really tried to understand the whole "oh yeah i don't really date people from x race, it's just a preference!" but yeah no i don't get it. it's so easy to find God-given beauty everywhere that i feel like if you can't do that for a whole group of people, you're either blind or haven't looked hard enough lol
naur that’s just straight up racist for ppl to do. Like, that’s actually full on discrimination. There is no good reason to not date someone from a minority race JUST because they are that race, or you don’t like the way they look, or whatever. Preferences are valid, bc everyone has different attractions, but if you close your mind too much, especially when it comes to disabled people, different races, etc. then it’s not a preference, it’s your internalized abelism/racism
i think we should go back to stories like North & South and Pride & Prejudice where the main girl doesn't look at her love interest and thinks "i could change him" or "he'll be better once we're together" but instead waits for him to become a better man (while becoming a better woman herself) and then accepts him. i love seeing women have STANDARDS, even if it's fiction
When Half Alive said 'I am creation both haunted and holy' like yea man. I'm flesh and ugly and corrupted and wicked and full of darkness and yet made in God's image and His mercies are being made new every day and someday we will be made new too and Christ is in us and makes us redeemed in imperfect bodies and doesn't that make you go crazy?? Doesn't it???
“God is no exotic gender theorist, separating anatomy from identity. As we shall see, the teaching of Scripture is that your body and your identity are bound, a whole, constituting person, namely, YOU.”
— Owen Strachan & Gavin Peacock The Grand Design, pg 14
the idea of gender identity is nothing more than an aspect of another religion--it is something metaphysical that cannot in any way be proven to exist as an entity apart from the body.
"choke her with a sea view" literally gonna get women killed and i'm not kidding
the only kind of man who gets off to choking women is the same kind of man who doesn't care if you want it, your consent is a formality for his domestic abuse.
on the one hand i have to stop acting like life's a competition but on the other hand my mom was pregnant with me at 27 so i got 4 years to find a husband and have a baby, let's do this ✊🏾
Yes, and here’s why (with counterarguments to common statements).
This will be a bit of a harder read for some people, so please feel free to skip past if this is a topic that makes you uncomfortable. This is a post aimed at people who are already Christian, although secular peeps may benefit as well. My intention is only to educate, never to hurt--I believe two people with opposite opinions can coexist and accept each other for who they are without hostility.
BIG FAT TW for: religion, me being blunt, meaty theology discussion, discussion of sin relating to sexual orientation.
Before I begin I would like to state that I do not believe harassing, discriminating against, insulting, etc. lgbtq people is ever acceptable. What someone does with their life is not for me to control or change, I am here to love and walk with people regardless of whether I agree with them or not. That being said, there are many misconceptions progressive Christianity tends to make about Christianity’s stance on homosexuality particularly that I would like to address and counter. (i will tackle gender issues in another post). Secondly, I can grab sources for any and all of my claims if needed, I’m open to (civil) discussion :). With that out of the way, let’s begin!
1. “The Bible is unclear on its stance with homosexuality.”
-There are multiple verses in both the New and Old testament that condemn the practices of both male and female homosexuality.
2. “The Bible was mistranslated.”
-The bible is scientifically, even from secular standards, the most accurately translated book of all time, even surpassing that of records of Alexander the Great. The only mistranslations found have been too small to be relevant. If the Word of God is most reliable, God wouldn’t let a miscommunication such as that slide. In order to say such an important thing in the Bible is mistranslated, you have to also accept that many things you read on the internet, in widely-acclaimed books, teachings, etc. may be wrong and mistranslated solely to how old they are, aside from logical soundness, which is impractical.
3. “If you say homosexuality is a sin, you also have to abide by all of the laws of the Old Testament, including mixing fabric and eating pork.”
-This is incorrect, because in order to understand the Word of God you have to
A: Read the whole thing.
B: Look at the context.
Those laws in the Old Testament were to separate the Israelites from the nations around them, and only Jews follow all of those rules. The law does not condemn us because we are not under it, we are under Christ. Being that homosexuality of all kinds is condemned in the New Testament (i.e. post Jewish law, under Christ), this argument is irrelevant because it is condemned by more than just traditional law. There is a such thing as cherry-picking scripture, but it only applies when one takes a verse out of the context in order to prove that it means the opposite of that which the context stated it to be. The context of all verses relating to homosexuality in the Bible do not have surrounding context that disproves them when it is included, rather, the context proves them to be right. A better example of a verse taken out of context would be the one where Jesus says that if you ask for something, it will be given to you (the true context is if you ask in God’s name, which means you would already be asking for something that God wants for you).
4. “God wouldn’t want me to suffer.”
-This is a hard one, because God never wanted us to suffer. That being said, suffering is a result of our broken world, and nowhere in the Bible does it promise that by following the right way of Jesus you will no longer suffer. In fact, it often gets harder. So no, God doesn’t want us to suffer, but it happens regardless because it was the path we chose at the fall. In heaven it will no longer happen. But suffering is not the fault of God. Suffering is a result of separation from God, so if God wanted us to suffer, that would mean He wanted us to be away from Him, which is contradictory to His nature and...you guessed it, a sin. God cannot sin.
5. “God made me gay.”
-How do you know that God made you gay? In order to know that this was true, you have two options depending on which side of the argument you fall on.
A: Being gay is right, therefore my sexual orientation is glorifying to God.
B: Being gay is a sin, but God made me gay, so God made a mistake.
In the case of A, it is already disproven via the Bible, so indulging in gay temptations is not any more glorifying to God then me engaging with thoughts and behaviors relating to my straight orientation if God didn’t want me to do so. In other words, it does not glorify God.
In the case of B, it is disproven because it contradicts the character of God. If God is perfect, then He cannot make mistakes. It is not that He won’t, but that because of His nature, He cannot. To believe this is also to believe that God was responsible for your sin, which is simply not true. God is not responsible for anyone’s sin, because that would mean that He Himself sins in doing so, and God cannot sin.
6. “How do you know that my queer relationships are not glorifying to God?”
-Because they contradict the image He created us in, which is His image. Male and female were made specifically to become two parts of a whole, and to represent different aspects of God, aside from gender (this is NOT saying God is both genders, he is referred to as male in all areas of the Bible). To put one half with one half creates an incomplete image. Besides this fact, from a purely biological perspective, in every other area of creation homosexuality is an abnormality and is not shown to benefit the cycle of creation in any way other than to fulfill pleasure. The second point to this is that God created us with the blueprint of how to live and procreate. Not once in the Bible is there given any direction concerning homosexual relationships other than “don’t”, whereas there are clear directions on how to create and maintain healthy heterosexual relationships. This proves that homosexuality, just as any other unhelpful genetic mutation, was not in God’s design before or after the fall.
7. “God said it was ok.”
-This cannot be proven unless what God has been heard to say lines up with Biblical resources. Unless it does, then this statement unfortunately holds no weight because when listening to God it is too easy to let our biases get in the way.
8. “It’s wrong to make someone repress who they are.”
-Yes, it is. If you are gay, lesbian, bi, etc. you do not have to hide who you are, Christian or not (check out the side b community on tumblr!). However, your sexuality is not everything that you are. Temporary things like feelings are not good to define yourself by because of how temporary they are. I am straight now, but I may experience same sex attraction some point in the future, who knows. (Note: the feeling of attraction is not a sin, it is pursuing it that is.) How you experience your relationships with other people is not all that you are.
Yet the answer is not to deny that you struggle. However, the Bible does say to deny yourself, i.e. desires of your worldly nature, and this goes for BOTH straight and lgbtq people. Jesus says to “take up your cross and follow me.” The Bible does not endorse giving in to all of your desires--as a matter of fact, related to sexuality or not, following after your desires with little to no restraint is considered a sin.
9. “Love is love. If God is love, why would He condemn this?”
-God’s love is not homosexual love, purely because His love is never described in this way in the Bible. God’s love for the church is compared to heteroromantic imagery in the Bible, however, this is not literally romantic, but rather, an analogy for deep love that is easier for humans to understand. God’s love goes beyond human romance, and to equate it to that is an offense to Him.
Besides this, if you were to take those analogies literally, you also have to take the ones about familial love literally as well, and that puts you in the awkward situation of implying the nature of God’s love is incestual, which is blasphemous, because incest is sinful. God cannot sin, so therefore this cannot be true.
10. “It’s not hurting anyone.”
Three points to this one:
-How do you determine whether something is hurting someone?
-If you continue to do something that God outlines as a sin (which we have established homosexual behavior as such), then you are hurting Him as well as yourself by separating yourself from Him. He did not die for us to continue doing things that separate us from Him--He will forgive us, but we shouldn’t be taking advantage of that grace to keep doing things He doesn’t want us to do.
-Consider what you are aligning yourself with. LGBTQ+ culture is extremely self-oriented and self-indulgent. Many are encouraged to find who they are within themselves, and seek fulfillment, comfort and acceptance relating to it. It is very easy to fall into a pattern of self-absorption and creating an identity that is apart from God, namely, identifying with your sexuality. If you are becoming tempted by this, or other people (especially Christians), are becoming affected by this, then maybe it is something you should stay away from affirming.
11. “Being in romantic and sexual relationships is a human right.”
-The only things that are human rights are things that are necessary for us to survive, i.e. food, water, companionship, medical care, safety. If all humans needed sex to live, then people who do not have sex (i.e. young children, celibate people, people unable to have sex, people with no interest in sex), would be dying in the same way people die without water or food. If you need sex in order to stay alive, that would be considered a medical disorder. People with extremely high libido suffer and are not the norm.
12. “Everyone should be allowed to be married no matter their sexuality!”
Several points to this.
A. See number 11.
B. Marriage is an inherently Christian concept, and is a union made with God and the couple. Biblically this does not line up with gay marriages, since the Bible does not affirm those relationships in the first place, they cannot be considered marriages from a Christian perspective. This does not make them right, however, because they are using a sacred covenant to affirm something considered sinful.
C. If you are using this argument from a Christian perspective, it doesn’t make sense from a morality standpoint because one of the cornerstone concepts of Christianity is that no one deserves anything other than death. If someone deserves something, that implies that they have done something that makes it so that they have a right to receive such a thing. This is countered by the Bible, because from a moral standpoint, the penalty for every sin is death. If the only mention of what humanity deserves in the Bible is that, then you cannot say that man deserves anything good, because by the system of fairness he/she/they would be dead before they were to even receive it.
D. The bible states that you should not be a stumbling block to other Christians. Becoming married by a pastor would do this, as the pastor is affirming the rightness of sin by marrying a same sex couple. The standards for pastoral moral conduct are higher since they are a leader for the people to look up to, so for one to request a pastor sin in this way is....not great.
13. “What’s wrong for you may be right for someone else.”
- This is both right and wrong. For instance, I wear crop tops as a women sometimes. For some Christian women, crop tops are too immodest. They may lead them into sin, they may live with those who struggle strongly with lust/porn addiction/etc and want to help those people not be tempted. For me, I wear them bc I want to, and it’s an act of defiance against societal norms and ideals (i don’t wear them everywhere however), so it isn’t necessarily a sin for me. That was a long-winded analogy, but essentially, some things are like that.
However, this statement is also often made by people who deny or dislike the idea of objective truth--basically that there is a universal idea of right and wrong that is inflexible. There are many things, especially that which concerns sacred things such as sex, relationships, love, etc. that have objective truths related to them. To deny the existence of these is to deny the truth God has laid out for us, which is a sin. The Bible has stated quite clearly that homosexuality is wrong and contrary to God’s original design for human sexuality, so this argument is a moot point.
14. Why would something we cannot help be a sin?
- The nature of sin is that we cannot help partaking in it, and it has been that way since the beginning. What defines whether something is a sin or not is not whether we can help it, but whether it separates us from God. (Besides this, there is not a single person, christian or secular, that can control their own sin. This is biblically supported as well.)
15. God doesn’t care about who I love.
- Sexuality and human relationships is established early on in the Bible as something that is important to God. Besides this, God cares about even the smallest issues in our lives--that’s what unconditional love is like. So if He cares about something as small as whether or not we had breakfast this morning, why should He not care about our sexualities?
-Aside from the previous point, sex as an act holds a TON of weight in the Bible, so much so that there are many guidelines around it and the punishments for misusing it were more severe than that of other sins. It is a powerful tool God gave us to unite two people together, and as such, misusing it has dire consequences (I can go into more depth about this as needed as well)
16. If it’s a sin then it wouldn’t make me/others happy.
- Question: Do you then think that anyone who doesn’t believe in or follow God is always unhappy?
- Secondly, for this logic to be true (sin makes us unhappy), there would be a lot less sinning happening in the world. People love to be happy and feel good, so why would they constantly do something that creates the opposite effect? If sin made us unhappy, it would be a lot easier to repent from it and give it to God, since we would have nothing to lose but our own unhappiness. Yet this is not the case. As a matter of fact, most people think that CHRISTIANS are unhappy because of all the things we reject as sinful!
-Thus, how it makes us feel isn’t a good indicator of whether something is a sin or not.
17. Living out my sexuality is living my authentic self. How is that sinful?
-What is your authentic self? How do you define that?
-God doesn’t call us to live our authentic selves, He calls us to follow Him and become like Jesus. In this way, we are called to put God first, not ourselves first. This results in us becoming who HE made us to be, not who we feel like we are. Becoming and living out your authentic self is not a Christian goal--it is a worldly one.
-Your sexuality is not who you are--in order for this to be true you would have to define yourself by your actions and feelings, which is not biblical. God does not define us by our works, He defines us by how He loves us. Anything else is not right because it requires us to look inside ourselves for our identity, which is sinful.
18. Being gay is not a choice.
- This is correct. Being straight is also not a choice. We don’t get to choose our temptations or our feelings, we experience them and are helpless to change them. But this doesn’t mean that following after those desires and feelings is right, solely just because we can’t help having them. Currently, as a straight person, despite longing for a relationship, I’m abstaining from pursuing one as I know it’s not in God’s plan for me right now. Those desires I have, however, are not sinful, just as being angry isn’t sinful, or sad, or happy. That being said, if I were to indulge in those feelings and pursue them, that would be a sin because God has ordained that He doesn’t want me to do that. Homosexuality is the same--whether or not we choose our feelings doesn’t define whether or not they’re right. The only thing it defines is whether or not we can change them, which has nothing to do with whether or not homosexuality is a sin.
20. (insults, ur mom jokes, unwarranted aggression, etc.)
- If the only thing one has to say is insulting and resorts to attacking the opposite party then one clearly has nothing else of relevance to add to the discussion.
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