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Wednesday, November 01, 2006
A couple of days ago I received a message on myspace from my friend Terrance, who had been sent an e-mail of an article that was published in his undergraduate newspaper entitled "The Bible and the Homosexual" .
As you might have already guessed, the usual scriptures that supposedly condemn homosexuality were tossed around as if they had been written and verbalized by Jesus Christ himself.
The topic of religion and homosexuality is and will always be a sensitive topic for most people. The sad part is that a large majority of people don't study the origins of the text, but instead opt to believe everything they read and hear as truth.
How many times have you heard the church mother say, " Jesus said it and I believe it". I believe that practical knowledge and common sense should be applied to any document that's thousands of years old and has been translated more times than we can count.
Terrance wrote a response to the article and I think it's something everyone should read. The thing that impressed me the most about his response was that he didn't allow his emotions and the tired christian rhetoric we're all too familiar with deter him from stating the facts.
I'm extremely proud of Terrance, it takes courage to stand up against religious bigotry. I'll see you on the battlefield my brotha. The Response
2 Comments:
Ooo, looks like the Captain and I are your blog's biggest fans! (You might not know this about me, but I grew up in the bible belt and I went to church and vacation bible school and all that...)
I feel like everyone is focusing on whether homosexuality is a sin or not. The way I see it, everyone has their own interpretation of the Bible. That's why the Amish live their lifestyle, Catholics have their own rituals, Jehovas Witnesses don't take blood transfusions, some people dress this or that way, don't eat this or that, etc, etc. The list goes on forever. What's normal for one religion is a sin in someone else's book.
So let's compare the strictest, most literal reading of the bible vs. the loosest interpretation. Any way you slice it, EVERYONE's a sinner. The Pope is a sinner, Mother Teresa is a sinner. But isn't that exactly WHY God sent Jesus to Earth in the first place? To pay the price of EVERYONE's sins, regardless of definition, size, and frequency? There were no conditions attached. If you sin more or less, God still thought sacrificing Jesus was worth it.
So it doesn't matter if homosexuality is a sin or not, because EVERYONE sins, and everyone's sins are forgiven equally.
I think the real issue is acceptance and compassion. Jesus was all about reaching out to social outcasts - lepers, convicts, adulterers, tax collectors, prostitutes.... the list goes on and on. He accepted them unconditionally, and I believe that any church that believes in Jesus should too. As I recall, he reached out to them in order to show them God's love, not to chastise them. (The only group I remember Jesus openly criticizing was the church itself.)
If you can't accept homosexuals in your church because you think they are vile sinners, I have news for you! All sin is "vile," all sins are forgiven, and if you only want people who don't sin coming to your church, the pews are going to be EMPTY (the pulpit too). Your lack of acceptance reflects your limitations, not Jesus Christ's.
P.S. It's not up to you to decide who is a child of G_d and who isn't. But don't worry, He's not going to hold it against you!
P.P.S. I spelled "G_d" above to point out that some people think that spelling all three letters is a sin- it's considered taking the Lord's name in vain. You might not think so, but others do. :)
November 03, 2006 2:43 PM
Well said polarchip. I definitely agree with you. Thanks for stopping by my blogspot. I look forward to reading becoming an active participant in your blog as well. Feel free to stop by and respond to Captain's foolishness any day. I've just decided to ignore his crazy ass! lol
November 03, 2006 5:18 PM
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