Dried Up Shrivelled Piece of Trash?

I watched an episode of "Law and Order" on television tonight. It depicted Christians who oppose homosexuality as trash using scripture to cover up their bigotry, and painted a very dark picture of Christian ministries which seek to help gay people cease homosexual behaviour.

There is no doubt that God hates homosexuality. This is clearly stated in the most forceful manner in both the Old and New Testaments. If a Christian accepts that the Bible is the innerrant word of God, then he or she must agree that homosexuality is a sin, and a serious one.

Has not God, in the person of Jesus Christ, died to free people from their sins? If your answer is yes, then you must agree that the Christian must have been set free from homosexuality. If your answer is no, then there can be no salvation for anyone; we will all die in our sins.

No one suggests that turning away from an ingrained sinful behaviour is going to be easy - but if there is salvation in Christ, then there is freedom from sin, even the sin of homosexual behaviour.

I would ask those who propose this idea - should rapists be expected to repress their sexual desire to rape? Should pedophiles be required to repress their sexual desire to molest children?

Of course they should. If however, society accepts the view that one has the right to express their sexual desires without restriction, then it will not be wrong before we are asked to be understanding of pedophile and rapist practices.

Let's be very clear: God hates homosexuality. He does not hate homosexual people. I believe that He loves them, just as He loves all of us. We must remember that much of society's heterosexual behaviour is also sinful in God's eyes.

In this regard it is common to claim that the Bible favours slavery and advocates selling one's daughters. This is completely incorrect. They pick a couple of verses from the Old Testament (which is about God's relationships with the Children of Israel, and does not give instructions to Christians, who did not exist until after Jesus' death, which is described in the New Testament). They distort these verses by wresting them from their context, as though they are not to be understood in the light of everything else God's word says on these subjects. They ignore the social context within which these verses were given. They pretend that these verses, so distorted, are of equal importance to the verses on homosexuality, and therefore claim none of these verses can be applied. They are very wrong.

The verses on homosexuality run throughout the Bible, in both the Old Testament and the New - to both the Children of Israel and the Christian church. God does not condone slavery or daughter-selling, but it must be remembered that God has not yet set everything right. The world is still under the rule of Satan and sin. God's message to the Children of Israel must be understood within its social context. God gave instructions on how God's people are to live within this wicked world, where some of us may find ourselves in slavery, and some may even find themselves being sold by their parents. (I have no idea where the idea that God encourages daughter-selling comes from, I have not found that verse in my Bible at all.)

This is not picking bits of the Bible to keep, and other bits to ignore. Every serious Bible scholar knows that Bible passages must be understood within their biblical and social contexts, and we must be careful to discern to whom Bible passages were written. You can't just pick bits out from anywhere and suggest that it applies to Christians living today.

We need to reach out, to express God's love to all people, homosexual and heterosexual. We must speak the truth about their sin, but we must speak the truth in love.

And by the way, I am not homophobic. I fear nothing from homosexuals - but I am concerned for them, and their plight. The Bible says that we will all stand before God in judgement - those who have not repented and turned from their sin will be cast into hell. This is a horrible end, but I believe it to be true, because the Bible says it. At least, I would hate homosexual people, when they are judged and being sent to hell, to turn to Christians and accuse us of not telling them of their dreadful position during their life.

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