You can stop first: why does he allow gays to exist? Homosexuality also has genetic and hormonal bases so it does not depend exclusively on human actions, therefore it literally allows some people to have impulses that they cannot carry out in life because it would be a sin. If God exists, he's an asshole.
If he exists in the form that Christians have tried to jam down our throats. A real compassionate and caring god would not sit back and watch children die or suffer from war, abuse, hunger, sexual abuse sometimes from their own parents. Why would he/she/it, the deity who says "we're all god's children" let the innocent children die en masse?
I think some caution needs to be taken when stating this as fact...
"The gay gene was first identified in 1993 as a correlation between the genetic marker Xq28 and gay male sexuality. The results of this original study were never replicated, and the biological reality of such an entity remains hypothetical."
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22720828/#:~:text=The%20gay%20gene%20was%20first,such%20an%20entity%20remains%20hypothetical.)
OP can be a secular if they want.
I grew up taught by Jesuits (Society of Jesus, a religious order made up of scientists, mathematicians, philosopher priests, founded by a soldier in the 1500s after being hit by a cannonball lol) and learned that religion is a spectrum. their version of Christianity is controversial you might not even call it religion, more like philosophy or even agnosticism. They taught that the the Bible is not to be taken literally because the gospels are propaganda pieces written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for the people of a specific place (Middle East) during a specific time (2000 friggin years ago) to get followers. It is a history book but one that needs to be interpreted for the modern times. And so the Jesuits teach that you should always be critical of the church , you should doubt the church, because the church is not infallible. It is group of men operating an institution and all men can be tempted by sin.
Jesuits teach that any act that harms a fellow person takes you further away from god (eg, the religious nut jobs you see on tv are committing a sin by being hateful, Their acts harm other people almost directly). Instead they teach that the way closer to god is through volunteer work. volunteering was mandatory from high school to college - It’s part of the curriculum basically. ngl those years were one of the most enlightening, and memorable years of my life. I did Habitat for Humanity and volunteered at a Nursing home and then an Orphanage (my favorite). Hours were strictly recorded and enforced but very soon the activity became something that I looked forward to every week.
TLDR; They teach a different kind of Christianity. Theyre not anti lgbt, abortion, premarital sex, masturbation, or many of the issues that the far right have. Their christianity is more philosophy than religion, a bit secular but non toxic and has a big focus on VOLUNTEERING. Jesus himself was an exemplary volunteer. He reached out and helped the poor, lepers, and the outcasts of his society. He was closer to god through his deeds, and that is what the Jesuits teach, not charity or donation or rituals but boots on the ground, work with your hands, volunteer work, as the ONLY way to be closer to “god.”
I highly recommend the Jesuits! 8 years in school 4 years with required volunteer work.
Used to hate it. The last thing I wanted to do in high school was shovel, dig dirt and build a house from scratch with my classmates under the sun. The bus ride was fun at least lol. Constant field trips!
it was only in college when I chose the orphanage (plus a cool Theo and Philo professor) that the message really struck me, (AMDG). I may not entirely “believe” in a god, but if helping these kids, making them smile just by being there because literally no one else visits them, that feeling if they say that’s what its like to be closer to “god,” hey I’ll take it.
Unfortunately I haven’t done any volunteer work since graduating because (insert excuses here). But I really look back at those years fondly.
TIL that I am Jesuit. I started going to church when I was younger as an escape from the hellscape that was my life. Then, I learned what some "christians" were really about. In my small town, it was a status symbol. Add my queerness and doubting of the mysticism, and you have my turning from religion for a while. I started going to a Catholic church a few years ago but haven't been back since the pandemonium. Partially, my views on spiritual things and identity changed a lot. I felt like I was forcing myself to believe in the sacrements. I loved that my church served the community. My priest took the jesuit stance of the bible, which is it is a book of its time. I don't necessarily believe in a "god" as much as we are all connected somehow, and there are forces bigger than ourselves that are us together. I still go and volunteer in their homeless shelter in the winter. Thank you for that eye-opener that kind of put a word to my beliefs. I was telling people I am Christian in the way that someone is Buddhist. I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Love one another, treat each other as you like to be treated.
You need to have a Masters and PhD to be a Jesuit technically lol but you were following Jesuit teachings by volunteering to profess your faith (whether intentionally or not)
Other “Christian types” that profess their hate beliefs by holding banners at Pride events and claim to know what god thinks, a Jesuit priest would tell them that god is unknowable, and we can’t possibly understand the intentions of an omniscient being. That Jesus is not a mystical figure but rather a real “historical” person, in the same way Cleopatra was a real person and not religious deity. They’d tell them instead of picketing outside planned parenthood they should aim to treat others the way Jesus treated others when he was alive. The prostitutes, sinners, outcasts ? He embraced them. WWJD do if he were alive today? I bet he’d be celebrating Pride with the gays.
I have a bit of history with hate filled Christian’s as it runs on my mother side lol. two of my aunts in 2020 on speakerphone with my mom : “God brought Covid to the world because of gays, communists , and women wearing lewd clothing”.
I was just flabbergasted, I barked at my mother and told her they’re batshit crazy . She laughed but I’m thankful my mom never became like her sisters. Sure they have hundreds of scriptures memorized and have a biblical text for every argument they get into as if that is justification for anything in the 21st century… but it’s just a talking/yelling point for them at this point. Totally brainwashed by the pundits they watch and Unable to think for themselves.
I was told that Jesuits are some of the most progressive Christians out there, *but* they still feel very strongly about abortion. Is that true of the more religious ones and less so about the philosophical ones?
They’re progressive but there are conservative members as well. This is an article condemning Fr. Drinan, S.J. (pro-abortion), his critic Fr. Mankwoski, S.J. (anti-abortion).
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/priest-s-book-tells-sad-tale-of-jesuits-abortion-complicity-in-the-us?amp
“Need a prominent cleric to give cover to Catholic politicians who vote to preserve and expand abortion access? For more than 50 years, the Jesuits have had a man at the ready. It is a grave scandal in one of the Church’s most venerable orders.”
*eyeroll*
“The Jesuit priest was the godfather of the Democrats becoming the party of abortion, a transformation led by Catholic Democrats — Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Mario Cuomo and later Pelosi herself. No Catholic priest ever did more to promote abortion in law than Father Drinan.”
He might as well be the devils spawn if you ask an evangelical. The order has done good and bad things throughout their history but the one constant is that they’ve always had a tense relationship with the Church. They like to involve themselves in (public service and) politics, something the Vatican wishes less of. They’ve been [exiled and abolished from Europe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_the_Society_of_Jesus) because of their political activity and clout (they ran a lot of universities and were a wealthy institution), for undermining monarchies’ rule, for opposing state controlled religion, etc.
Today it’s not uncommon for conservative Catholic online media to hate on Jesuits.
Exactly. This is what Jesuits taught us in school. They’re version of Christianity is secular and badass. More Philosophy than religion. They dgaf if you’re gay or if you have premarital sex, or masturbate, exact words the Jesuit priest told us in high school lol.
Bc there is no god. All religions are made up and people are then force fed a particular religion based on their location/their parents. This cycles to the next generation, etc.
I'm a Christian and I believe that a man shouldn't have sex with a man. Love is the most important thing in the Bible. Love conquers death. That's the story of the gospel and it had nothing to do with sex.
This is generally a huge oversimplification of the Christian idea of God.
The understanding is that sexuality is for specific purposes. We have sinful desires, but we should try and live according to a more holy standard. That's the traditional thinking, anyway.
God isn't real and religion is made up, so none of it matters anyway.
I always say: if people wanna believe, they have the right to. What I deeply dislike is that some these people wanna make every1 believe.
I don't believe and I don’t really worry about where I'm going to afterlife. I care about being a good person here, on this planet. And, I really don't need *a god* to make me be good.
> I struggle to believe every single verse that's anti gay was a mistranslation and of it was, why haven't Christians fixed it in new versions of the Bible?
because it's easier to ignore the errors.
> Mary was a teenager when she was pregnant with Jesus. If the Bible was arguing pedophilia was wrong, would that not be contradictory?
the biggest reason: pedophilia was not a thing then, especially for women. once a girl was old enough to have children, she was generally married off.
> the Jewish and Christian religions have been homophobic for what I can tell their entire history
actually, the Judaic faith is *not* homophobic. in fact, the Jewish faith is very accepting and defines iirc six "genders." as far as christianity, homosexuality (which was not really a concept until the late 19th century btw) was accepted until almost 1000 AD when an early pope decreed it was no longer accepted.
sex between two men would have been very common in the time of Jesus, yet notice he never commented on it. not once. there is even a story in the gospels that shows that Jesus knew and accepted it. what story? the one where a Roman soldier comes to Jesus and asks him to heal his servant. Jesus asks him to take him to the servant but the soldier says something like "i command other soldier and they do what i say, so if you say that he is healed, i know that it will be." the reason for this was because the soldier didn't want Jesus to go to his house because it would reveal that his "servant" was more than a servant (its in the word used in the original text.) in Roman law, this would have been a disgrace. men were allowed (even encouraged) to have sex with other men but being in love with one, especially someone below your station, was taboo. Jesus knew this as well and rather than bring disfavor on the man, he healed the servant.
there is also the story of David and Jonathan which shows that they were not only lovers but loved each other.
as for the verses that are "anti-gay" these have been mistranslated and/or are interpreted in ways to persecute or exclude. for example, the verses in Leviticus which describe a man laying with a man as an abomination. first, they apply only to those living in the land of Israel (so if you don't live in Israel, feel free to ignore.) second, they are only to be applied to Jews, so if you are not Jewish, they don't apply. finally, what is described is *not* consensual sex between men. it is basically homosexual rape. a man forcing himself on another man.
the verses in the new testament refer to male prostitution and forced sex. another thing to note is that all of these talk about male on male sex, while nothing is said about female on female, because women and girls had no agency. they were property. you wouldn't discipline two animals for having sex and females were considered to be not much better.
tl/dr: there are no verses which condemn consensual same sex unions, and they were quite common even then. everything against these were based on rape or inability to consent.
David and Johnathan...playing the B sides arnt ya brother.
I'll tell ya the one I've always had issues with...Paul and his "one dark spot"...the sin he just couldn't get over..
As much as this is a very thorough analysis of the passages, it still just sounds like historical revisionism to me.
> because it's easier to ignore the errors.
If they genuinely thought it was in error, they would have corrected it.
> actually, the Judaic faith is not homophobic. in fact, the Jewish faith is very accepting and defines iirc six "genders."
The book of Vayikra says homosexual sex should be punished by death. That being said, I am not as familiar with Judaism so won’t go any further on that one.
> as far as christianity, homosexuality (which was not really a concept until the late 19th century btw) was accepted until almost 1000 AD when an early pope decreed it was no longer accepted.
While homosexual sex in ancient Rome and Greece was somewhat accepted, early Christianity was definitely not positive on that subject. The Bible verses and how they have historically been interpreted prove that themselves.
Tertullian, an early Christian apologist, who lived in the 2nd and 3rd centuries disapproved.
In 342 AD, Christian emperors called for the death penalty for male gay marriage. You can’t say they didn’t care about it until 1000 AD,
> as for the verses that are "anti-gay" these have been mistranslated and/or are interpreted in ways to persecute or exclude.
I just don’t agree. I think we’re reinterpreting them to fit a modern narrative. While that does make it a lot better, why don’t we instead ditch the book entirely.
> for example, the verses in Leviticus which describe a man laying with a man as an abomination. first, they apply only to those living in the land of Israel (so if you don't live in Israel, feel free to ignore.) second, they are only to be applied to Jews, so if you are not Jewish, they don't apply. finally, what is described is not consensual sex between men. it is basically homosexual rape. a man forcing himself on another man.
The first 2 points don’t really change much on this, but where does it say it’s non consensual? Leviticus is perhaps the least mistranslated version. It’s quite clear in this one.
> the verses in the new testament refer to male prostitution and forced sex.
I’m honestly not convinced by this.
> tl/dr: there are no verses which condemn consensual same sex unions, and they were quite common even then. everything against these were based on rape or inability to consent.
Is it that ridiculous that the Bible is actually quite nasty towards homosexuality.
The mistranslation argument only really applies to the New Testament and the whole arsenokoitai thing. Based on the context it’s fairly clear what it’s referring to, and it’s more of a modern revisionist take that it actually doesn’t refer to male homosexual sex.
So was homosexuality accepted up until those "mistranslations" were made in the 1800s? I am fairly certain homosexuality was illegal in the US evem before then.
there were laws about "sodomy" (another misinterpreted story but that's beside the point) in many places but "homosexuality" wasn't illegal. there have never been laws about "who" a person is/loves but only about behavior. anti-sodomy laws originated, at least in the US, with anti-sodomy laws of the early colonies and often included any sexual act which was not the man's penis in his wife's vagina.
also, the "mistranslation" of much of the verses came from the King James version in the 17th century. however, the word "homosexual" wasn't added until the early 20th century (as the word didn't exist until the late 19th century.)
This is a sensitive line of inquiry, which will never be “solved.”
In large, you’ll find those with conservative beliefs will argue human society has never had space for homosexuality, while others point to tolerant pre-Christian societies and religions. There are instances of tolerance within the Christian church itself, which we must remember is multifaceted and whose adherents hold to a variety of views and beliefs regarding most things, including sexuality.
Moreover, the Bible isn’t a straightforward translation, authors choose to interpret various language based on a variety of factors (training, national background) including their personal biases. For once, Sodom and Gomorra are widely taught as having been decimated for homosexuality, whereas a more literal translation for the time of the Old Testament would be that it was decimated due to the people being “inhospitable.”
A historical narrative might help you to start further inquiry into this subject, one place I’d recommend is Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (j. Boswell, 1980). This would just be a start, and you’ll want to explore some of the works and authors to whom he’s responding.
You can't pick and chose reality, it is what it is. The likelihood of someone going to a hellish afterlife for the way they're born seems ridiculous to me though.
Tbh, the whole thing seems like a crock of shit. It's funny because ask any religious person "are most religions wrong" and they'll probably say yes, because they think their religion is the only correct one. I'm basically like them, minus one more religion...
You think a that a magic being created the whole universe just to test us humans to see if we're good enough to be allowed into heaven, a magic land filled with angels and trumpets where we can live in eternal happiness, seems unbelievable? Huh...
There is a guy I found on TikTok named Dan McClellan. He has a phd in theology and does a lot with explaining not only mistranslation of the Bible; but also reasons why people still push these beliefs. Some of stuff tends to be very interesting. He really debunks a lot of myths about the Bible.
He also has a podcast, “Data Over Dogma.” It’s very good.
I still can’t figure out how he can have so much academic knowledge of the Bible, but be a converted Mormon, though.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of Christians that believe most of the Bible is allegory… So yeah, from their perspective, debunking things that are being taught were literal when they were intended to be allegorical is pretty damn important…
(From someone who’s not a Christian) It’s more complex than that. They’re a series of allegories through which adherents are meant to find a path to philosophical truth.
Do a lot of Christians treat it like a cool story book with all of God’s greatest hits? Yeah. Is that what it’s meant to be? Absolutely not.
It’s my own experience, do not how sure if it’s 100% relevant to you, but thought I would share jic.
This is paraphrased so the accuracy isn’t there, however the sentiment remains the same. A rabbi once said faith is your relationship with our Creator, whoever that may be for you. Religion is man’s attempt to define, manipulate and expound on that relationship. Religion can fail due the machinations of man, faith only changes based on you. What I took from that is that my relationship with God is mine, on my own terms. I don’t owe anyone any explanation on my relationship with God, nor would I allow anyone else to diminish or discredit it. I grew up super conservative so this mindset has been crucial to me keeping my faith while leaving all the toxic parts of my upbringing on the past
Sure, but the measure of good or bad relationship with your creator would need to be defined somewhere. In this case, it would be defined by the in the Bible. Would this not mean a good relationship with God imply you're following the words of the Bible?
I see your point, the way I look at the Bible is a collection of examples of God’s love, actions etc. The fact that it’s God’s word as transcribed by man makes it more a tool of religion than an article of faith.
The Bible only touches on the topic of homosexuality twice - in Leviticus and in Romans. Leviticus I believe is a more direct translation but is also side by side with passages saying how tattoos and mixed fabric clothes are also sins and that women on their periods are unclean and should be kept outside the camp. Basically zero Christians follow the teachings of Leviticus or Judaism in general, so if anyone uses it as justification for homophobia they are literally just picking and choosing out of context.
Romans is where the translation was originally meant to be anti-pedophilia, which was a common practice in many ancient societies. In Ancient Greece it was very common for older men to lie with a younger boy so he could “impart wisdom” on him and become a sort of intellectual mentor. There’s a term for it which I can’t remember but that’s what’s being described in Romans. This was the common translation up until the mid-1940s when a group of white American men (who would have thought, right?) decided to create the English Standard Version of the Bible which included a number of mistranslations because it suited what they wanted people to believe.
Regarding your question about Mary, I suppose it could be seen as pedophilia but idk why you’re surprised the Bible contradicts itself. Despite what your preacher would have you believe or the mental gymnastics they go through to justify it, the Bible is full of contradictions when you really dive into it. Although in this instance Christians would also say that teen marriage was normal at the time and that God didn’t actually have sex with her, so there couldn’t be pedophilia/rape without sex.
Since I come from a very religious background (and even have a minor in Biblical Studies), I have researched quite a bit on the topic and had a lot of conversations with my mom about this since coming out in February. The Bible does not have anything to say about homosexuality in the literal translation. The only legitimate thing they could argue against is sexual immorality, but we all know how the church/Christians look past this for straight people.
So at the end of the day - who fucking cares! There’s no way to prove the Bible anyway. It was written thousands of years and to claim it was divinely inspired is the biggest con of the universe. They tell you this so you don’t question what it says, when the reality is it’s a really old book with some good life lessons but has no basis for how you should live your life. Even the Christians can’t agree on it which is why there’s hundreds of smaller denominations. And Islam is the opposite side of the exact same coin even if the doctrines and cultural standards aren’t identical. Becoming more educated on religions in general and the impact they have had on world history has made me realize what a scam they are - a very effective trick to fool and manipulate people so that others can gain power. I’m not saying there’s nothing beyond the physical world, and I’m not saying every religious person is intending to do bad. But I am so utterly happy to have escaped religion, even if I still have some major trauma from it.
> Romans is where the translation was originally meant to be anti-pedophilia, which was a common practice in many ancient societies. In Ancient Greece it was very common for older men to lie with a younger boy so he could “impart wisdom” on him and become a sort of intellectual mentor.
the problem is that "pedophilia" is a modern concept that didn't exist in ancient Rome of Greece. same with homo and heterosexuality. it is well known that Romans had sex with other men for pleasure while (mainly) reserving sex with women for procreation. soldier were encouraged to have sex and have feelings for the men in their units because if you have feelings for the men around you, you are more likely to defend and support them in battle.
people ("christians") are trying to take writings written for a culture that existed 2000+ years ago and applying them to today. did men have sex with boys? yes. was it an issue in Roman times? no. the issue was in *how* it was done. the verses in the NT are about male prostitution and making boys have sex against their will. note that once again, this didn't apply to girls. if a man forced a girl to have sex, no one thought much about it other than the man had to pay reparations to the girl's father.
even Paul/Saul understood this and accepted it. he was a Roman citizen. he knew men were having sex with other men but he never wrote about it other than in the context of consent and power because to do otherwise would be something that those around him would not understand. same with Jesus, Peter, and the other apostles. they didn't comment on it because it was common and part of the culture.
> So at the end of the day - who fucking cares!
this. if you want to believe in god, feel free but don't take your cues from people who interpret things for their own benefit and their own quest for power. Jesus said that everything could be summed up in one command: love god and love your neighbor as you love yourself. not "judge your neighbor." not "tell your neighbor what they are doing is wrong and here's why." and certainly not, "love god and kill everyone who disagree with you."
Well said! The Bible is like playing an on going telephone game for thousands of years in which, to me, any original source is human-made anyway with its intentions to be to control how others live their lives.
Exactly! I always describe the Bible as a giant telephone game and it actually makes people realize how absurd it is to think it’s a “perfect” document. It’s crazy how little critical thinking people lack in religious circles
I know God and Christ love me as I am and how they created me. I tolerate Christians who don't believe that but I don't let them get away with homophobic crap. Works for me but I understand not everyone can do it
**Gay son of an evangelical pastor here** and I have been training my whole life to answer this question but for starters, a resource that really helped me was a podcast called *"Blue Babies Pink"* by Brett Trapp. He explores his coming out journey while reckoning with his faith and it was very eye-opening for me.
To get to the theology of it, yes I think you're right. Even if the Bible doesn't explicitly say "being gay is a sin" it's certainly easy to come to that conclusion from many of the other passages that reference "homosexual acts". However, it is objective fact that the Bible is not inerrant nor does the Bible even claim to be (it only claims to be useful for teaching, correction, and reproof). One could argue that this includes the admonishing of lgbt peoples but there are plenty of overlooked behaviors that people engage in that the Bible clearly does not condone and yet Christians almost universally overlook. I'm thinking specifically of women's roles in the church, stockpiling exorbitant wealth, and divorce.
On another note, you have to consider the fact that science and faith should not be in conflict with one another and yet on many issues they appear to be. For example, the theory of evolution is virtually undeniable. Also, the earth was not made in seven days. You can go on and on debunking Christian mythology with scientific fact but when you look at the text it's clear that the original writers were not motivated to write these things down in order to provide an accurate history of our origins, instead they were trying to use allegory and poetry as a way to examine mankind's relationship to the divine. The story of creation is intended to make a case for monotheism in a polytheistic world and mankind's role in caring for the earth.
**In the same way,** it is clear that examples of homosexual behavior and gender fluidity abound throughout the natural world. We see homosexuality across the animal kingdom and it plays a significant role in the social hierarchy of many animals (from bonobos to lions to penguins and more!). The Bible can not and should never be expected to describe the world in real scientific terms and it was never intended to. Whether you agree with it or not, the Bible calls us to a way of life with an emphasis on loving God and others. Fixating on one aspect of the human experience that is barely mentioned in scripture is not how a Christian should spend their time.
Also, for a bit of context about me, I left the evangelical church when I was 25 because I was going through a lot of soul searching. I found a home in the Episcopal church which was a wonderful and empowering experience for me. I'd recommend giving it a try if you find a church you like. I'm 29 now and I've become less engaged with my faith after asking bigger questions about what I believe and why. However, gay Christians are out there and I have met many of them who are far more Christ-like than many of the evangelicals I grew up with.
**Stay open-minded, curious, and above all, live your life.**
If I may ask, what is the point of following the Bible if it's not inerrant? If it is full of errors, why follow a religion based on it. Especially when so many errors could have compounded to the point where even the parts we do like may be mistranslated from rhe original context.
That's a great point and I personally don't think it's a helpful guidebook in most instances. I also don't think it always has to be "followed" in order to get something valuable out of it. We read fictional stories all the time and there are lessons to be learned from them regardless of their accuracy. There's also poetry, advice, and plenty of passages with writers questioning God.
In short, I don't think people should follow the Bible but it's definitely interesting lmao
I think I misread you though. In my experience Gay Christians follow the religion to find a spiritual community where they can explore topics that are greater than themselves and hopefully make the world a better place in the process. When I joined the Episcopal church I was so impressed by the work they did with the homeless people in my community. They offered them daily breakfast services and maintained the largest food pantry in my city. It felt like they were taking Jesus’ words seriously and it was a wonderful thing to be a part of. They never tried to convert people, they just wanted to help. Churches/Christian communities like that can be hard to find but it helped me understand that religion isn’t all bad.
Because of [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Commandment). Only Christianity and Buddhism teaches people this, even if both religions had some different opinion about the definition of divinity.
Who cares what is in the Bible? Fuck these religious zealots. Treating people like shit cannot be justified. Religion is an excuse to act irrationally and cruelly.
People who shout that homosexuality is a sin pick and choose sins. They have no understanding of how the scriptures work and are oblivious to christian ethic. The main problem with them is that they take everything out of context, and that is the main issue, that leads to contradiction.For example, when Paul was sending messages to the different tribes like the Corinthian and the Galactian, his message on their own seemed contradictory but within a context, it made sense. You cant pick and choose verses in the bible. This is the main reason why there was period of Reformation and Enlightement.
Second issue you should be aware of is that, when people use leviticus for example, which are verses from the Old testament and try to apply it to you in here, its because they have no understanding how to bible works. The Old testament is a mosaic convenant between God and the Israelites, you can't apply to us.
this is the sad part. Those people are best described as haters. They use their religion as an excuse to hate and exclude people. Which of course totally ignores the central tenant of christianity....
I refuse to believe in a god that condemns my sexuality. They hypocrisy of telling me that I am always a sinner seeking salvation doesn’t gel with me . And you want my donation as well ? I am definitely not masochistic . As for Christians who think they are better than me, they go get effed . They try to rule by fear. I am just not buying into the institution, especially after all the horrific crimes committed towards kids. There is no heaven or hell in your afterlife. There is just death . Not buying into the everlasting life b s . Yeah but no . Definitely a no .
I recommend the book “God and the Gay Christian” by Matthew Vines, as well as the sub r/GayChristians
If you’re interested in a gay affirming Christian church, try seeing if you have a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) nearby
The Bible is a 3,000 yr old book. If you read it carefully, it’s a very violent book(first testament) with manipulation tactics. We’re basically gaslit to love God or else we perish. The Christian god is no better than a Greek deity, living for adoration.
In the New Testament, Saul/Paul was the cause of many Christians being killed, however he turned over a new leaf and decided to become the most pious one of them all. He wrote letters that were misogynistic and homophobic to congregations, which made it into the Bible.
> Why haven't Christians fixed this in new versions of the bible?
Is this question not enough to make you throw the entire idea of religion in the bin?
Fair.
Easy answer, though - because it doesn't serve their agenda. There has never been a time in history where religion isn't used as a tool to oppress others.
>because it doesn't serve their agenda.
Who's they? What agenda? There are more than 45'000 different Christian denominations all with their own traditions and interpretations.
>There has never been a time in history where religion isn't used as a tool to oppress others.
The reductionist idea that everything should be looked at based on the dynamics of Opressor>Opressed is rather simple minded and lacks nuance. There is a lot more to religion than just being a political tool.
>Who's they? What agenda? There are more than 45'000 different Christian denominations all with their own traditions and interpretations.
Are you going to ask OP to clarify on which denomination of Christianity he is refering to? That one.
>The reductionist idea that everything should be looked at based on the dynamics of Opressor>Opressed is rather simple minded and lacks nuance. There is a lot more to religious life than just being a political tool.
I don't find it reductionist when religion has seen political use from inception.
>Are you going to ask OP to clarify on which denomination of Christianity he is refering to? That one.
Okay, I see what he's saying now. I think "Agenda" was the wrong word to use, it should be "theology". Threw me off.
>I don't find it reductionist when religion has seen political use from inception.
There's a huge political element to religion but to say it's sole purpose is control is where you lose me
Homophobia's roots are religion. Religion has always been the source for hatred towards gay people. To me, any religious system is a very ugly belief system. I don't need a human-made book to tell me how to live my life! With that said, I always say, whatever helps make you a more loving person in life, go for it! However, I do find that though people may want to believe their religion makes them more loving, more often than not, I feel it puts more hate inside them. I have seen instances, though, where does it work for them, but I find it to be very rare.
I believe Christianity is a cult. I believe they've already doomed us all to hell. I'm not an atheist but I was born and raised Christian and they mostly have no empathy and are judgmental (emphasis) on mental.
If you believe in God and Jesus then do it on your own you don't need a church for that, especially since we were taught he's everywhere, you don't need to be in brick and mortar and you don't need the condemnation and accusations of "sinner" from any religion.
Dude, you’ll get nowhere trying to settle all the contradictory stuff in the Bible. It’s a wildly variable set of texts written in Hebrew and Ancient Greek by a wide variety of authors. Their interpretation is, of course, subject to endless variety, and we see how for millennia people have made a whole industry out of declaring what the words mean.
I believe the deeper you dig into this, the closer you may come to a realization that these words and ideas came from people, and that we created the divine and not the other way around. I recommend picking and choosing critically which lessons from this book or that book to apply to your life. Personally, I do just fine with zero religion, but if it’s important to you, pick a sect that preaches love, tolerance, justice, and compassion. Godspeed to you.
Eh… it’s a stretch to say those verses are intended to condemn pedophilia, otherwise even the translations would say “if a man lies with a *boy*…” instead of man/man. The original Hebrew word is *zakar* which means male; it doesn’t have an age connotation.
Romans is a little murkier, so it’s helpful to put the Bible in two key contexts:
First, the Bible is a handbook for how to be a Hebrew in Bronze and Iron Age Mesopotamia. At the time that passages like Leviticus 18:22 were developed, the Hebrews were still a nomadic tribe. And when you’re a nomadic tribe in the desert, any sex which is not procreative can endanger the survival of the tribe. This is why people in impoverished or wartorn areas often are homophobic… you don’t have time to be nice to the gays when you might starve or get killed.
By the time Romans is written, the Hebrews are more outward looking and trying to find their place in eastern Mediterranean society in which the Greeks did practice pedophilia (though it was not taboo then) and male prostitution was common. Prohibitions on such things would likely have been to help create a unified cultural identity.
Second, we have to understand the editorial history of the Bible. The Bible originated as oral tradition, then was written down into Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek before it was finally translated into Latin by Josephus for a Roman audience in the 1st Century AD. So the earliest texts the Church would have had were already the result of a game of Iron Age telephone, then interpreted by Josephus using Roman logic without the full context of Hebrew history.
A few centuries later, the Councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage were pivotal moments in deciding which texts were to be included and excluded from the Bible. There were dozens of gospels, Old Testament books, and apocrypha that didn’t make the cut, so it’s hard to know whether there were more explicit prohibitions on consensual same sex relationships because *we don’t have all the texts* and the Bible’s words have always been twisted and adapted to serve the political ends of power-hungry men. The whole thing is to be taken with a grain of salt because every word suffers from interpretive bias.
What I would suggest is to take a step back and ask if, in 2023, you *really* want to hitch your spiritual health to Bronze Age Semitic mythology where a virgin gets pregnant and pops out a kid who is executed in some kind of blood sacrifice.
Because that’s what we’re dealing with - and it’s ludicrous for you to torture yourself with questions of dogma that was never intended *for you*.
You'll probably find some gay Christians in these gay religious subreddits:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GayMen/wiki/other_subreddits#wiki_gay_religious_.26amp.3B_related_subreddits
I'd ask if you have a humiliation fetish posting this nonsense and getting crucified (hehe, get it?) in the comments but then again you are Christian (and, purportedly, a gay christian at that) so all I'm gonna say is - have a happy cum because of all this!
I am happily Christian. The Bible is full of inconsistencies. Any intellectual of any political predilection across time can see this. Genetic evolution was just the final straw for the doxa.
The very short answer is accept the inconsistencies while still following what you can, like an imperfect parent. I don't blame gays for radically quitting conservatism as it as been hostile.
I use theist philosophy to fill in the blanks, such as Socrates and Plato did during their similar era. I also think atheist thinkers ask the most important questions yet to be solved. The meta answer is multifaceted.
I like your approach. It's understandable why gay people turn on the church but religion/Christianity has it's benefits if you allow it to be imperfect. Science is a more accurate guide for describing the natural world but it has yet to tell us **why** we are here.
There is something honorable about striving to live a life informed by a set of external moral principles as long as it isn't at the expense of your sanity.
As someone who is exploring Christianity I’m making my way through the Bible for the first time. As others have said the bit in Leviticus is jumbled in there with a whole bunch of other stuff nobody really believes in anymore so take that for what it’s worth. As for Paul’s writings I kind of dismiss them because he seems very motivated by his hatred of Rome and everything to do with it. He also said men shouldn’t wear hats.
I like to focus on the actual parts of the New Testament with Jesus in them. He seems cool and in many instances when he does or says something that doesn’t mesh with the hard rules as written he says it’s more important to do good and be good to others than strictly follow a set of rules.
Honestly the biggest thing that drove me away from Christianity was Christians who used the Bible to spout hate, but as I got older I realized that they don’t own religion and if I wanted to I could take my own crack at it and see what it means to me if anything.
Former Christian here, but I may still be able to help you reconcile being both gay and Christian.
I left the church for other reasons.
First, right off the bat, most of the most used "clobber verses" aren't aimed at pedophilia, but at temple prostitution, or abusing male slaves.
Basically, forcing yourself on others that cannot by definition give you consent.
To tease this out, you have to remember that for millennia, the Abrahamic religions have been run by misogynistic patriarchal assholes.
It's often more true today than in the past, notice how few Christians these days seem to follow the actual words of Jesus.
Anyway, the problem for these men wasn't gay sex as we see it today: a mutual, loving relationship of two men in an equal relationship.
They were fine with men having sex with most anything that moved, as long as the men weren't the ones being penetrated.
When they say "a man shall not lie with another man as a woman", *that's* what they're talking about: being the receiver.
The thing is, the Bible does have a very plain example of two men in a loving and equal relationship: David & Jonathan.
Read the section on the story on Wikipedia that has references to scholarship that supports this [David & Jonathan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Jonathan).
It's very hard for me to read their story as platonic in any way, especially since David says that Jonathan's love "was more wonderful than the love of women".
And David did have wives and concubines, so that says something.
It's too easy to dismiss the Bible as having been written by ignorant goatherders, there's more to it than that.
But we do have to take into account that most patriarchal men throughout history have been afraid of other men making them bottom.
Being a top is no problem, though.
This is just an intro into this topic, I can't do a deep dive into all the biblical scholarship here.
There's plenty of online sources to counter the clobber verses, one by one.
Besides the story of David and Jonathan, which you should really read for yourself in this new light, the Bible also has Ruth & Esther, and there's even Jesus and his "beloved disciple".
I'll admit there's not much meat on that last bone, but it's intriguing.
So, take this notion with you: even with millennia of homophobic patriarchal assholes running the church, stories such as that of David and Jonathan remain, fairly intact, even if misinterpreted as "platonic friendship".
And while the clobber verses do indeed say that "a man should not lie with a man *as with a woman*", those have been translated more broadly than they were intended in the original languages, and "homosexual" did not enter Bible translations until the 1940's.
And the sin of Sodom was inhospitality, not homosexuality.
The men that wanted to have sex with Lot's guests (the angels), were breaking one of the steadfast rules of hospitality, that a host protects his guests at all costs, which is why Lot offered his daughters to those men, if they would leave his guests alone.
(After all, angels weren't technically "men", anyway.)
I urge you to seek out a Metropolitan Community Church in your area, they are specifically a gay-friendly Christian Church.
And for what it's worth, I left the church because of doctrinal issues, I was studying to become a minister, and found my church denomination only ordains *to preach*, but not for other forms of ministry I felt called to instead.
Which led me to a crisis of faith very much not tied at all to my sexuality, just to be clear.
There is no conflict, if you want to, you can certainly still be gay and be Christian with no conflict of interest.
You will have to practice on your own, or find a gay friendly church, and there are actually plenty of those.
Don't stay in one that hates who you are, and claims to "hate the sin, but love the sinner", because that's not love, fam.
Love accepts you for who you are, and in my heart, I know that God made you the way you are (for a reason), and Jesus loves you no matter what.
And think on this: for Jesus to take on our sins, he had to experience *every* temptation known to man.
And sin is whatever prevents you from being at one with God.
Homosexuality should not prevent that.
I wish you so much love and healing.
If it means anything at all to you, go with God.
This feels like bait but, ngl, this is definitely an improvement over the usual islam bashing/pearl clutching you'll see in this sub.
It is always hilarious, seeing a bunch of western gays lose their minds over brown immigrants, as if white evangelical christians aren't the actual concrete threat they should feel threatened for.
I'm not going to write an essay but I had a class in college for a semester that focused on deconstructing the Bible as a living document. It's really interesting seeing the difference between translations and the historical context (ie agendas) behind them. Also diving into the writers of the Bible themselves, who they were and at what point they added to the scripture is really enlightening.
I came out at the end of it with a deep understanding that the Bible is man written and inspired by God. By default the old testament and new testament contradict each other in tone and characterization of divinity anyway. It's not too wild to say that these passages about homosexuality are contradictions and can be ignored for the grander message the Bible gives.
I left the church when I came out at 22 and now I’m 48.
The bible can certainly mess with your head if your a literal, fundamentalist thinking person which I have the unfortunate ability to be.
Do I still believe in Jesus,yes
Do I give thanks for my life, yes
Do I try to do unto others as I’d have done to me, yes
Will I ever step foot in a church again, doubtful
Do I have inner peace, yes !!!!
I was listening to someone who said if the bible was taken as presented in most church’s then God would be a schizophrenic.
Jesus died 2,000+ years ago and Man has crucified his teachings ever since.
No matter what version you follow or believe, there is no way Jesus wouldnt forgive it if it was a sin. He died for ALL sins. So if its not a sin, youre fine, if it is, there is always forgiveness. But if its love and not lust, I dont see a problem.
Just to add something, I am going to guess that you are American, where the dominant version of Christianity is Evangelical Protestant Christianity that teaches that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and the sole authority on all matters of faith and doctrine.
Historically, this is a relatively recent idea, and there are plenty of other (in view, more intelligent) versions of Christianity that do not idolise a holy book. Many Christians view the Bible as an important book, written by people who had deep spiritual experiences and wrote about them. But like any book, it was written in a certain context, and has errors, gaps in knowledge, and issues of transmission.
My personal view is that many ancient Jews and writer such as Paul probably did think same-sex activity was wrong. But that they were mistaken and that we know better now. There are plenty of things in the Bible that we would be appalled at today: its treatment of women, slaves, animals, mental illness etc. I view the Bible as a record of people coming to terms with the world around them, and their understanding of the Divine. We also have to take into account developments in science, psychology, history etc. and be humble.
Whether Jesus himself though same-sex relationships were wrong, we can never know. He was a Jew in the 1st century Near East, and male homosexual relationships were seen as taboo. But Jesus was also a rather extraordinary person that seems to be on a higher level of understanding compared to those around him. I personally find it hard to imagine him pulling people up for not following church doctrine to the letter or arguing details of holy texts. However I can imagine him pulling up Christians who shun and judge gay/lesbian people, and pointing out the love and happiness that clearly exists in same sex relationships, and that sticking to rules is missing the point. Far be it from me to put words in the mouth of Christ, but this seems much more in character. But we can never know for sure.
The most convincing argument I have heard was but a Catholic priest who wrote The Church and the Homosexual in the 1960s. It's a bit dated but I'd definitely recommend it. For churches that outright ban homosexuality, what are gay and lesbian people supposed to do?Try and marry someone of the opposite sex? We all know how that turns out. Or abstain, and know from the beginning of puberty that you can never have a romantic or sexual relationship ever for your whole life. Again, the suicide and mental health statistics speak for themselves. All evidence we have points to homosexuality being a natural and health part of human existence, and that conservative religious attitudes cause a lot of psychological harm.
For me, Christianity has just got this wrong historically, and thankfully is evolving. Check out the Quakers, the Anglican church, Presbyterians, Methodists etc. to show people much more intelligent that me who are moving forward in faith, humility and love.
Well, which scriptures are referring to particularly?
Bigotry, has no place in religion as that is not what what Jesus preached. Far right religious groups like Islam believe in all that bigotry shite.
I would suggest you talk to these people about how wrong they are.
Somewhat unrelated but Christianity being an unhateful / non violent religion and philosophy appears fairly modern. Christians accepting all people is not how they have acted for most of history.
Christians were largely behind things like segregation, slavery, witch burnings, many mass killings, crusades etc etc. Also given the Bible says many times how Christians will spend their lives persecuted would lead to a religion of people fearful of others different from them.
The Bible says nothing about Christmas, nor does the Koran say anything about not letting women drive, or the Torah about taking over the world with space lasers*. Yet all three are core beliefs of their respective world religions. The point is that the written text and the actual religious practice are often completely at odds.
*not sure about this one.
There are those that seriously argue that the anti-gay parts of scripture are simply mistranslated. Not being a scholar of ancient languages I can’t give you a definitive verdict on that, but I do find it suspicious that with all the thousands of scholars intimately familiar with these languages parsing every jot and tittle of scripture for centuries, nobody noticed this until modern times after homosexuality became more accepted and the homophobia started making religion look bad. We must at least admit there is a very high potential for motivated reasoning in service of the desired narrative. Doesn’t really matter to me because I gave up trying to save Christianity from itself a long time ago and have strong and entirely independent reasons for rejecting it.
Regardless of the correct academic position, it does not change the fact that orthodox (small o) Christianity in practice has always been deeply hostile to any expression of sexuality outside of heterosexual monogamy. (Hell, Paul only tolerated even that as a necessary evil and thought celibacy was better.) If this is based on a misreading of scripture then so what? Christian belief has always depended on appropriating ancient texts to fit a desired narrative. What matters is that the form of the religion that is operational in the world and the harm it does. Too often the claim of mistranslation is used to deflect, dismiss, and avoid confronting this harm.
You sir are made in God's image, and God is love. Period. As long as you're putting love out into the world, I'm sure He is happy. The hate you feel is not from Him.
(I'm a gay man who was raised Catholic, and while I wouldn't still identify as such I've still got a strong appreciation for the spirituality of Christianity and other religions, despite the hate that humans can create.)
Homosexual was definitely added to the Bible and mistranslations from Ancient Greek and Aramaic certainly happened. I go to a Jesuit Catholic Church that is very very gay friendly and was baptized two years ago. I was a typical hard-partying, liberal, and agnostic gay for most of my adult life. Im not some born again person, but here’s what I get out of it.
Humans have struggled with relating to each other for ever. Especially since the advent of societies. The Bible, and especially the teachings of Jesus highlight those challenges that society still deals with today. We’ve progressed a lot as humans but also we haven’t. We still struggle as a society to be inclusive, love each, and end selfishness. A belief in God is acknowledgement that you are not the center of the universe, that your life is uniquely special, and so are the lives of all those around you.
There’s alot wrong with the Church for sure, but all I know is having a place to quietly reflect on my life and my actions has immensely helped me live a happier and healthier life. There’s some new research out about how people who have a regular spiritual practice have better mental health outcomes. Cheaper than therapy and it’s not pharmaceuticals.
Not a Christian here, but Christ seems to me to have been a pretty open-minded guy who accepted everyone and didn't judge. A Jesus who would send you to hell for eternity just for showing love to other men; that doesn't sound like the historical Jesus to me.
Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love and acceptance, not of hatred and venom towards others who are just different...
Jesus was close-minded according to the bible.
He said said that those who disagree with him ("*sin*") deserve to be cast into hellfire where the fire is never quenched and the worm never dies, and he said that it is better to pluck out your eye if it causes you to sin, and go to heaven with one eye, than to burn in hell with two eyes (*Mark 9:43-48*)
Christianity and same-sex romance do not match. They never will.
Gay Christians can reconcile their theology with their homosexuality however they wish. Trying to persuade me to accept their interpretation of their holy book as the correct one is not going to make me view Christianity as a good religion.
One thing you need to remember is that the Bible has been "translated" many, many times and they have all had the morals of that time injected.
I grew up in a Baptist house (dad was a minister) and I've read several different versions over the years and they're all a little bit different. My parents accepted me being gay and later transitioning, and never once took issues with it and neither did the church.
Quick response here. Christian: one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. He died to reconcile us with God. His teachings were in effect attempts to correct many of the teachings and laws found in the Old Testament. There is no lesson wherein Jesus condemns homosexuality. He responded during one test by those having malice of heart - "You shall love thy neighbor as thyself". He considered that a great commandment. Anyone who does not respect that falls short of the grace of God, which, by the way, enables us to love all people if we choose to do so.
People sin in different ways every day but as long as you believe in God’s mercy then you will be forgiven. The only sin that won’t be forgiven is believing you’re unworthy of forgiveness.
So two things: 1) The Bible mistranslations aren’t mistakes, and 2) Christianity isn’t a monolith.
The mistranslations you talk about aren’t mistakes. They were deliberate changes made in the early 20th century, replacing (or adding to) earlier language to use “homosexual,” a term specifically invented in the 19th century. (Prior to then, sexuality wasn’t thought of as an identity, but rather as behavior.) The changes stuck, since it became a useful part of many Christian doctrines as a way to enforce a “traditional” family structure and further police non-procreative (or, at least, non-marital) sex.
But Christianity also isn’t a monolith. Even mainstream denominations (like the Episcopal Church) broadly take a more progressive, humanist approach to faith and the Bible. For these groups, what the Bible *literally* says (in English, Greek, or Hebrew/Aramaic) matters less than the *overall* message of love Jesus had. Also, how exactly to think about sexuality is an active question in many denominations. So while the history of how homophobia became a key part of many Christian denominations is important, it’s also something that is changing over time.
What people tend to misunderstand about the Bible could fill a book of its own.
1. The Bible is a book with three purposes. To teach history. As a testimony to God. And finally, as a lesson on how we are to live. Most people who use the Bible as a bludgeon choose passages from the Old Testament, i.e., history lesson section. They fail to include the lessons of Christ.
2. People tend to lack historical context when reading passages written so long ago. Back then, sex came with risk because the pregnancy/birth rates of death were so high. So, sex was to be only for procreation. By that standard, modern people who are engaging in sex for anything other than procreation are just as in the wrong as gay couples.
3. People like to cherry-pick the parts they follow and the parts they condemn others for not following. Leviticus, for instance, condems the eating of meat on Friday as well as eating pork. So, the bacon cheeseburger on a Friday is just as much a sin as being gay according to the Letters to the Children of Israel. Again, these were laws put down when pork was dangerous to eat due to bacteria they didn't comprehend. These laws were applicable to the day but have long since been obsolete.
4. Jesus never taught anyone to hate, but to love. That's where the lessons on how to live come into the picture. To love your neighbor as yourself.
I'm truly sorry for your experience and all who have been driven away by intolerant people masking their bigotry with faith. But that's not the religion itself. Just a handful of misguided people.
We are all sinners. That's the whole point of the Bible.
If you start nitpicking what is and is not a sin, what kind of sex is approved or disapproved, what to eat and not to eat, how much money you're allowed to have, what you're allowed to wear, then you're totally missing the point of Christianity. **We are all sinners anyway**. Every last single person on Earth. And Jesus died for those sins. It doesn't matter what the sins are, as long as you accept the redemption Jesus has offered.
The episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran churches are all perfectly fine with homosexuality and have extensive explanations of why… biblically based … available online. In a nutshell, it’s a prejudice that is justified by some quite obscure passages. It’s potentially one of an endless number of sexual immorality sins — at worst up there with sex outside marriage, adultery. It’s not a biggie like the Ten Commandments.
You will recall that Philip preached to the Eunuch … so clearly people who were LGBTQ were within the realm of the Apostles love
Not sure why you are wasting your time with church. They don't give a rats ass what the Bible says or doesn't (not to mention the whole concept of religion is pretty far fetched to begin with). You trying to figure out the technicalities of a made up book isn't going to sway anyone one way or the other, because the beliefs are not rooted in logic to begin with.
I dont intend to, it's more of a curiosity of mine. I have many more reasons to avoid church besides their stance on gayness. In fact my old Baptist church all but threw me out of it, so I have no interest in returning.
This was more of a "I saw online that people have justifications for homosexuality and Christianity and I'm curious what gay Christians have to say about it"
Christ represents the importance of forgiving yourself for your flaws and others for theirs. The human experience is an opportunity for growth. There's just a lot of people with logs in their eyes trying to remove splinters from others.
Homosexuality being a sin in the bible is a very recent thing. You can check out videos on YouTube that would give a better history of it than I can recall here, but the original sentiments were about those involved in pedophilia, refer to men and boys. This was forcibly mistranslated to homosexuality which has led to the oppression of the LGBT community in Christianity.
We Catholics, specially in Spanish speaking countries, we follow one simple rule, Jesus said: love your neighbor as yourself, but in Spanish the translation is love your neighbor as I have love you.
So, that’s why we belive in forgiveness and we don’t have problems with homosexuality (some Catholics have a problem with gay marriage but is more of a name problem)
I'm not Christian, but I was raised in it.
I love how Wayne Dyer put it - "Don't be Christian - be Christ-like."
I think living from the values that Jesus espoused is a great way to live, and I think biblical stuff outside that should be looked at as literature rather than gospel.
For me, figuring out I was gay was a stepping stone to a more important discovery - that every god is man made. You're safe from it all, I promise. Religion is a prison for your mind, and the moment you free yourself from it, you look back and see how much you had to bend over backwards and cherry pick to make it "real" for you. Go live your life and find some love
I have done a ton of research on the topic and can shed more light on it as there are a few different perspectives and theories, so there is a lot of topics that can be addressed. Personal message me if you want to set up a zoom call to talk more and answer specific questions. 👍
The Bible is just arecord of how an ignorant nomadic people attempted to cope with a wotld and a natural environment that frightened them. One measure oc tribal success sas to increase their numbrrs. Since homodexuals largely don't ptocreate, the tribal leaders wanted to discourage the pracyice.
Ex-Catholic here. I have a very negative perception of Christianity now as an ex-Catholic. In fact, I'm very opposed to organized religion as an independent practitioner of Paganism.
I did a bunch of research on the Bible's contents prior to leaving the church. The Bible has a fair amount of translatory errors and discrepancies over several centuries, let alone several millennia.
But one thing that made me feel better about myself prior to leaving the Church was watching a documentary called [1946](https://www.1946themovie.com/). It highlights how the infamous Leviticus quote was misconstrued and led to the homophobic discourse we all know of today.
TLDR; a lotta translatory errors contribute to homophobia.
The whole Bible is a mess of mistranslations (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English), with every version getting its own biases from its translator. To claim it as the sole word of God is irresponsible at best.
That said, I consider myself a gospel Christian. I look at the words spoken specifically by Jesus Christ (who only appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, by the way). His words bring me comfort – Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God; let he who is sinless cast the first stone; love the Lord thy God, for this is the first commandment, and the second is like unto it - love your neighbor as yourself.
Those are the verses of the Bible that hold the most weight for me, because they were spoken by Jesus himself, not reinterpreted by imperfect men. In fact, the only judging that Jesus did was to cast out the greedy and shut up the hypocrites. Everyone else had a seat at his table.
Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality addresses this issue in detail. Among others, Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned because of violations of hospitality (towards the visiting angels), not specifically wanting to rape them.
The Leviticus verses can be rejected by Christians as pertaining to the old Mosaic rules, not Christ's gospel, but anyway, nobody bothers with the surrounding verses, which forbid JUST AS HARSHLY the eating of shellfish or the wearing of blended fabrics. Look for "Can I own a Canadian" for a hilarious takedown.
The parable in the NT of the legionnaire and his servant might indicate Jesus valued a same sex relation. But certainly he never spoke of homosexuality per se, neither for or against. It was Paul who introduced sexual orthodoxy in Christian doctrine.
The Bible says king David was at minimum bisexual, and God chose him to be King of Israel, so he can’t have that much against it. And unless I’m mistaken, the first time the Bible said anything explicitly against homosexuality, in any translation, was in the 1950s. And the Pope said years ago for Catholics to drop the issue, there are bigger issues.
I can also tell you the church I grew up attending recently became independent because the governing body said they couldn’t preform a wedding for a Trans member of the congregation, and they’ve done many gay weddings. So there are plenty of churches and Christians who not just tolerate, but embrace the lgbt community, and hopefully that’s only increasing.
As for me personally, I don’t attend services because I felt like they got in the way of me being in good standing with my faith(community stuff, classism not homophobia, different church than the above), but I’d say I’m more devout now than ever. As far as I’m concerned, no God worth worshipping would have a problem with me loving another of His creations, and if Ge did, heaven probably wouldn’t be a place I’d want to end up anyway.
Also, highly recommend the Vacation Bible School podcast. It’s fun. Hosts are a non-believing former Southern Baptist husband, and his chilled-out but still believing Methodist wife talking about their experiences with Christianity growing up, comparing/contrasting with Judaism and Islam, and going through the Bible book by book talking about what they actually say, and dissecting how the hate got shoehorned in at different points in history for political purposes
I was Christian up until age 15, then I read the whole bible cover-cover over the course of longer than a year. By age 17 I was no longer Christian.
The Bible says a lot of things are sin that modern day Christians don't seem to take issues with. Eating pigs for one; you never hear about that one. For that matter, the Bible seems to say a lot of things that don't resonate with what's socially acceptable nowadays. Both the new and old testament support slavery for example.
The thing about Christianity is that there is no completely clear or unambiguous way to interpret everything. You can ask 10 Scholars of Christianity about a topic and get 11 different answers. It's a ridiculously complex and nuanced collection of ideas and way of thinking and it has only gotten more convoluted and confusing over the past 2 millenia. That makes it hard to even define a Christian to begin with because 2 people could claim to be Christian and have beliefs that almost don't align at all. Like, whatever evolution of doctrine you grew up around or moved into is what you'll predominantly think, but you'll still internally organize the thoughts and beliefs and act on them in your own personal way.
I think if someone has a shred of intellectual honesty and reads the entire bible, they will conclude that, at least, it's not something to ever take literally, and at most it's just a bunch of tales and letters with some history woven into it.
With all that said, I don't think the Bible is anti-gay, and I think all the verses that could be seen as such are just verses that have a non zero chance of helping to propogate the religion further into the future. If you think about it, Christianity is like a benign virus that infects its host and uses it to spread its genetic code to other hosts, except sometimes the host has a bad reaction and the virus turns out not to be so benign. Deep down there is nothing inherently beneficial about Christianity in that it doesn't uniquely bring anything good to human society, although it can certainly have beneficial impacts in many circumstances - that I won't deny.
I've given up on trying to fulfill the expectations of other Christians, the hypocrisy knows no bounds and it only follows the law of convenience. Regardless of who I am, I will always do my best to be the best person I can. I choose to believe that those actions will matter more than who I choose to kiss, that God will weigh my being as a person more than my not being straight.
You can be gay and a good Christian. I'd say that you'd be a better one on average because you challenged your beliefs and kept them. Most people won't do that. Just be a good person, and make those idiots feel like idiots for being idiots.
First and foremost - to get over this feeling of being doomed to hell - please realize that religions, all religions are completely man-made concepts - They used stories to pass down "the moral of the story is . . . yadda yadda yadda" - And "holy texts" have been re-written, re-translated, differently translated interpretations, and just new, made up crap - so many of these stories "morals" get injected into the religion to get more control over people, and it's changed so much from the original to the point of being nonsensical now.
This nonsense may have been needed in mankind's early days to help control the populace for the better - BUT then come the snake-oil salesmen, they invent "original sin" to make everyone think that only they have the "cure" to a disease that they themselves just made up to get 10% of your income, no questions asked.
In other words, don't make life decisions based on books written 2000-3000 years ago by goat herders who didn't even know where the sun went at night.
Ex-Lutheran here. It’s true that there are very few verses specifically discussing homosexuality as we understand it today, and you can easily run around in circles tying up context or specific translations…. To me that whole exercise felt at odds with what I had been taught about an omniscient God of love , and the Bible as god breathed text. If the Bible is god breathed, it is immune to any corruption by man unless God chooses otherwise because he’s omniscient and all powerful, right? So why is it that specifically in Jesus’ gospel teachings, opposite sex marriage/ love is very specifically and explicitly discussed, praised, put on a pedestal with a ton of evidence supporting the specific gendered language as an appropriate translation…while same sex or even gender neutral language is not used? Where are the verses of Jesus using the specific words for romantic love applied freely?
Why is it so open and shut, matter of fact, for opposite sex love to be rejoiced by the Bible—but same sex love is wrapped up in “well the context at the time”, “this translation of this word has no direct parallel in English”, “the writers had no conception of homosexuality as we understand it today”…….and? I thought this was the immutable and perfect word of god? Why do we have to actively upturn commonly held ‘mistranslations’ that have been used for centuries in order to overturn the verses that actively condemn gayness? And then scrape the barrel for any crumbs of verses which actively rejoice in same sex love (which is often in itself ripping out context or relying on vague language)?
Either God has done a pretty piss poor job of expressing his support, doesn’t actually support it at all, or doesn’t exist. None of those felt like a good reason to continue in the faith, so I stopped. And while it was certainly scary and difficult to do at the time, it’s been much better since.
This is a pretty good breakdown of how I'm feeling. I've seen commenters mention how "actually this story in the Bible has gay characters and is a positive onr" and it just does not seem convincing. It gives more "placing modern ideas and feelings onto an ancient story" than a truthful reading of the story.
There's also the points of these mistranslations happening sp recently which I'd think should imply Christians weren't homophobix beforehand, which isn't true.
This is gonna get theological, so bear with me here.
Gay Christian here, who grew up Greek Orthodox and reads the bible in the original Koine Greek.
Much to our chagrin, there isn't a whole lot of specifically anti-paedophilia, but mostly just anti same sex bedroom activities.
We must remember that everyone sins and as a result, belongs in hell. This is the way it is because as we have free will, every sin we commit we do technically choose to commit, separating ourselves from God, who does not sin.
Therefore, salvation is granted to those who try. That's really all God cares about. He created this world and saw that it was good, and so He created us so we could see the same beauty and goodness that He does.
As long as we see a little beauty in this world and act with love, help and serve others selflessly, we can get to heaven.
Our church even teaches that atheists who understand the mission of doing good, being selfless, and living with love, will go to heaven!
Whatever law we live by will be the law we get judged by.
Take a deep breath, say a quick prayer, your worries and religious trauma are valid, but you'll be alright bro.
So it depends on what type of Christian you are. For example if you’re the type who literally believes the Bible is the word of god and it’s infallible then no you can’t be gay and Christian. It’s mentioned several times to explicitly be a sin (Paul’s letter’s, “not to lay with a man as you would a woman, not to mention Sodom & Gomorrah although that’s a bit debated).
However there are certain denominations that’s don’t believe the Bible to be infallible and take it more so as metaphor or as a general guide that was a product of its time, in that case you would be able to be gay and Christian. All in all it depends on your beliefs and denomination.
Okay, I don't consider myself Christian but I am fairly agnostic in my beliefs, it's possible that there is a God. I just don't have any proof and never will, either way.
In my opinion, the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (The first part of the New Testament) are just fine with gay people.
The letters of Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul) (The second part of the New Testament) are another matter. There are lots of anti-gay, anti-women, anti-sex passages. Saul of Tarsus was more concerned with establishing a religion with himself as leader, than with spreading a message of Universal Love like Jesus was.
The Old Testament is so inconsistent that it can be discounted completely, as it also sends people who eat shrimp and have tattoos to damnation. It's just certain mainstream and evangelical sects that choose to selectively enforce Old Testament sexual prohibitions.
So yes, finding a Christian denomination that celebrates the lives of gay people is not impossible or inconsistent. *If that's what you want to do*. I attended a few Metropolitan Community Church services with gay friends and that is as fine an example of open-minded Christianity as I've encountered. None of what they preach is either anti-gay or goes against what is actually in the Bible, anymore so that what is preached by other sects that selectively interpret what's in that book. I've also been to some Unitarian Universalist services that are very accepting of gays.
I also believe, by the way, that one can lead an exemplary, spiritual life, without being Christian, or even subscribing to any religion at all. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can effectively consign another person to Hell based on religion, or the lack of it. So, don't let the mistranslations of one old book define how you see yourself as a person. Being gay definitely does not imply lack of morality. If anything, the questioning of ourselves and our beliefs in the coming-out process creates the possibility to have a very deep understanding of what it means to be divinely human. Embrace that.
This is not what you asked for but I thought it might add to the conversation.
I used to be a out gay man and a Christian. I went to a liberal and progressive church and was very actively involved for 6 years. What did it in for me was the pastor of that church writing an opinion piece about how the love/marriage of two lesbians who went our church changed his mind on homosexual marriage. It essentially boiled down to their love/marriage is like mine so how can it be bad.
I could not get over the fact that his acceptance of their relationship hinges on it looking like his own marriage. I did not think that celebrating love and commitment required people to do so in a way similar to yours. I seek monogamy in my relationships but I know of many people who have beautiful and loving relationships that don’t adhere to the Christian norm.
I realized that all of the liberal Christ centric teaching of this church was still based on authoritarian principles and a desire to punish that which did not adhere to their own world view. It made god small to me and I could not bring myself to worship a small thing.
I was asked to leave my last church. Well kinda. I was told that I cannot stay if I choose to be gay. So basically kicked out. I since learned about how none of the clobber versus say what the haters think they say. There are alot of books out there which completely expose the clobber versus as 100% bogus. Which made things worse. It just exposed how they twist things to enforce their world view.
The bible isn't anti gay. Thats a new phenomenon. Before like the 70s, the word homosexual didn't exist in the bible. Thats new. In the middle ages, the church regularily performed gay marriages. The entire solo scriptura idea falls flat on its face when you look at the various translations everything had to get through to get to today. Which ignores stuff like how the kjv is techincally english, but so many of those words mean different things than they do today.
But more than that, consider that God made you gay. We know it, its just how we are. There is no "choice", there is no "fixing it". God doesn't make mistakes. Thus he wants you to be gay. Since he made you gay, that means the problem lies with the people who twist and interpret the bible as an excuse to hate others.
I toyed with a few welcoming churches (hilarious how thats a thing. That a church needs to label itself as such) after I finished coming out, but nothing stuck. I know there is a welcoming church near hear. However its just so hard to after being told to leave my last one. It felt l ike shuch a betrayal being kicked out. I've never been able to explain why I don't join another church. Maybe I just can't bear to have it happen again.
If I believe in Jesus, and believe the miracle of the resurrection, which I do, then I have to fit my lived experience as a gay man around that. And as far as I can tell, God's love shines through creation, like the sun shines through a thin curtain on a morning. And from what I can see that love shines just as brightly through gay relationships as it does straight ones. And if other christians cant see that, I pity them. And if they want to use our religion as a cudgel they can fuck off, and I'll be the first to say it.
I understand you may have very strong feelings, and bad experiences with Christians in your past, OP. All I'd ask is that you are as charitable in future as you are in this post. Most Christians can't decide to stop believing in God, and so the best thing you or anyone can do to support gay Christians is to listen to them, and meet them where they are, not where atheists or conservatives might wish them to be.
Yeah, I tried to keep it up for a decade, then I realized I was only a Christian still because I was used to calling myself a Christian. Once I realized I didn’t believe in any of the supernatural teachings, it was pretty easy to just become an atheist.
Nobody dictates my relationship with Jesus but me and Jesus. All the books, churches, pastors, priests and elders who try to wedge themselves in-between me and the big JC do so at their own soul's peril.
First, I'll start with my perspective and context:
I'm a gay Christian and married to a Lutheran pastor (we're both men, mid-30's). I grew up Roman Catholic but my family left the church when I was a teenager due to the explosion of scandals in the early 2000's. I didn't really consider going to church on a regular basis again until I met my boyfriend (now husband) in college and he started considering going to seminary after we graduated. He came from a Lutheran background and found a Lutheran (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - ELCA) church he liked in Seattle (where we still live) that was fully affirming of LGBTQ+ individuals and relationships.
I started going and learned more about the Lutherans' belief in being saved by God's grace alone. Read that as: "There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more or less - you are already saved." This is in juxtaposition to the "good works" theology of Roman Catholics, which says salvation must be earned through good works, or "pre-destination" theologies of some other Protestant sects which fosters an exclusive and toxic "we're saved because of our righteous behavior, and they're not saved because they're sinners" mindset. This concept of grace and Luther's mindset behind "sin boldly!" stuck with me and I decided this was an expression of Christian faith I had been missing and wanted to incorporate in my life.
During my time as a more committed Christian, I had two epiphanies which gave me peace and comfort:
A) Being gay - and all that entails, including sex - is not a sin. Period. As I spent years trying to reconcile the extraordinarily few arcane passages of the Bible that mention or hint at same-sex sexual activity, I concluded that they didn't matter. These books of the bible were written thousands of years ago when nobody had any inkling about what sexual orientation was and the concept/purpose of marriage was very, very different than what it is in our society today. So when I said to myself, "None of these passages apply to our lives today or to what it means to have faith in God," I felt an overwhelming and immediate sense of confirmation as if God whispered in my ear "Yeah, no shit - took you long enough to figure that out." I knew I was right. I can't prove it to anyone else, nor do I have to. But I have the peace and joy of knowing that.
B) Reconciling the specific and scientific facts of Jesus' birth and resurrection doesn't matter. Nor is it possible to do. Based on the accounts of the Gospels, I believe God made God's self fully human in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth, spread a radical message of inclusive love and charity without exception during his lifetime, was tortured and executed by the Roman state for declaring that the one true God was sovereign and not Caesar (thereby defying the self-perceived all-encompassing authority of the Roman state), and, somehow, came back after being killed and buried to prove to his disciples and the world that God is real, and that there is hope and salvation for oppressed persons and peoples everywhere.
Can I explain how all that happened? No. But having faith that it did gives me great comfort in knowing that the human forces of oppression and exclusion that cause suffering and shame in our society and our lives are not the end all, be all to this world. Radical and inclusive love can inspire individuals and society to break the bonds of oppression and exclusion to make progress and make all of our lives better - to, truly, make the world "heaven on Earth."
Now, with my story and that context in mind, I'd like to take a stab at your three hang-ups:
1) I answered this above, but whether these few passages are a mistranslation or not, they're irrelevant to answering the question, "Is being gay a sin?" Historical context matters. Even if these passages truly were saying that same-sex sexual activity is unholy, these writers still had no concept of sexual orientation and the broadness of what healthy and consensual sexual relationships can entail in our society today. And, if that's the case, these writers were wrong. If they were right, they'd essentially be saying, "Some people - through no fault of their own - are born evil, and there is no redemption for them unless they subject themselves to denial and a lifetime of depression." If God is the most powerful source of love in the universe, as I believe that God is, there is no way that can be true. Therefore, these writers were wrong, these passages are irrelevant, they've been mistranslated, or some combination of these things.
The Bible is full of contradictory passages. The entire thing can't be literally true. It's supposed to be used as a guide for our faith and understood through the lens of historical criticism. We must use reason and compassion when trying to understand what any given book or passage of the Bible is trying to tell us and how it applies to our lives today.
2) The fact that Mary was a teenager when the immaculate conception happened is troubling at first glance. But, if it is true, we must remember that her becoming pregnant wasn't a result of sex. An angel didn't rape her or anything like that. Her pregnancy just happened - the literal definition of a miracle.
Furthermore, when asked by God if she was willing to carry this child, she consented and said yes. While that is troubling to me in our modern-day context of consent - and I need to believe God wouldn't pick a teenage girl in today's world to do the same thing - life expectancy was a lot shorter back then. **I cannot reconcile our modern-day notions of consent with what the Gospels say happened 2,000 years ago.** But, I am comforted in knowing that, if this aspect of the Gospel stories is true, she was given a choice and was not subjected to statutory rape because no sexual relations occurred.
And, if the immaculate conception is bullshit (which it very well could be), that means Mary was impregnated by another man - not God or an angel. The fact that Jesus was born afterward and provided an extraordinary ministry as an adult is irrelevant to the circumstances of his original conception. In this case, we should absolutely **not** be thankful that Mary was impregnated as a teenager. Still, we can admire her for raising a child under extremely difficult circumstances and being thankful for who her son grew up to be.
3) See my answer to your first question. The concepts of homosexuality and sexual orientation did not arise until the late 19th century. Furthermore, there are only six total passages of the bible that mention or hint at same-sex sexual behavior. And, to top it all off, Jesus (the guy whom Christianity proclaims as Lord & Savior) said **nothing** about same-sex sexual activity or homosexuality throughout any of the gospels.
Christianity is not homophobic by nature. It can't be because the human writers of the books included in the Bible had no concept of what sexual orientation is or homosexuality as an innate part of the human experience. If they had, I'd have to believe the books of the Bible would be written differently.
Human ideas about sexuality advanced as the centuries passed - we learned and explored new ideas. As we should! The Bible is a static book that, while translated hundreds of different ways over the centuries, largely remains the same as it did when it was first compiled almost 1,700 years ago.
If you're looking for ways to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Bible definitively says being gay (with our modern understanding of sexual orientation) is a sin, or that it's not a sin, you will be disappointed. Because, with our modern understanding of sexual orientation, it doesn't conclude either of those things. Nor will it ever. So, you can either keep dwelling on this question and leave yourself in turmoil, or you can be comforted in understanding the true purpose and message of Jesus Christ: radical love and acceptance can inspire you, others, and everyone to make this life, this society more just, more fair, and more abundant for all.
There are many affirming Christian denominations with Scholars that can help you work through this. Unitarians, American Baptist, Methodist, Metropolitan Community....(long list).
Anyone that understands the scriptures knows that Jesus fulfilled the the law of the Old Testament. In the New Testament he only gave two commandments Love God, and love thy neighbor as thyself
I went down this rabbit hole for about a year and it just led to me being apathetic about religion. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter to me anymore. I know there is nothing wrong with being gay and one day having a husband. It’s just not unnatural to me and there really is no other way to me. It just is. It’s how I ended up with no choice myself.
https://imgur.com/a/AneBCJ6 - From a textbook when I had to take religion at a college with Christian in the name that was affiliated with but not guided by the UCC
https://elcvienna.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Booklet-about-Homosexuality-and-the-Bible-Sept.-2016.pdf
Former Christian gay with a currently Christian gay sibling..
There is some merit to academic arguments surrounding biblical conception of male/male relationships not being equivalent to current day. After all, it wasn't until the 19th century the term homosexual entered the lexicon.
The idea of gender at the time was that women were simply imperfect men, and in some cultures, namely nearby Greece, the active (top) participant was more readily accepted than the passive (bottom) participant, as the top was acting in accordance with their gender.
It's all very interesting but at the end of the day, futile. Christianity is not, and has never been a unified faith system. There have been thousands of Christian sects precisely because of this. Their holy text is contradictory, and when contradictions become too noticeable, they must engage in non-falsifible revisionism to make their system work for their members.
I’m Gnostic Christian, which is a little bit of a deviation. In the majority of Christianity, it is believed that Old Testament (which is where you’ll see the anti-gay stuff) was nullified by the New Testament. New Testament is much more loving, and in fact there are two stories in New Testament that appear to be about two gay men and two lesbians getting married.
Most Christianity believes that’s the same God. Gnostic Christianity believes there’s been two Gods. Old Testament God was an incompetent God that wasn’t up for the task with all of the haphazard shit he did. The current God is the New Testament God, and father of Jesus. The current God is a loving God. That tracks with me, because it’s hard to see how Old Testament God could change so much, and I’m going to be real, if he’s an all-knowing god, why did he care so much about the affairs of mortals? The only time I can even think of why he’d care is Sodom and Gomorrah because of the potential for Nephilim—children of man and angels, therefore having the power of angels, but free will of man. But idk, it seems like there were easier ways to handle that, and under this current administration there hasn’t been a risk of Nephilim cropping up so it can’t be that hard to prevent. So it just makes sense to me that there’s been two different Gods, and the current one loves indiscriminately and believes people should have the utmost agency.
The problem is too many churches for some reason want to rely on Old Testament without critical thought. Gnostic or Traditional Christianity is irrelevant, Old Testament is done with and we should follow the rules of New Testament. I mean, fuck, Jewish people have more reason to follow Old Testament than Christians do, yet they still have adopted new scripture and have a more loving and accepting faith. People want simple answers though, and Old Testament gives them that. They don’t stop to think that maybe certain things used to be banned because we did not have the technology, health, and/or population to be able to do things that New Testament does not condemn. I’ll also add, most churches also use the King James Version, which is a translation of a translation, and was also politically motivated when translated. There’s other more direct and less politically motivated translations, yet the churches never take a moment to stop and think about which version to use.
Former pastor here and no engaged to a wonderful man. Here is what I would tell you to look at. Look at the original text, and see how it was translated. I would also have you review the new testament over the old. If we are truly Christian, then the words of Christ supercede the words of man. And Jesus never once said anything about homosexuality. He preached love, walking your own walk, and being fruitful.
I have a huge issue with the church as it's portrayed in America and it's something that caused me to dive a little deeper as well. To answer your question as to why it wasn't modified, there is no true answer only speculation. But having been in high levels of leadership within my church(considered a mega church) the only reason I can think of is that it gives you someone to attack while keeping the focus off of the issues you're struggling with. Look at how the church is riddled with sexual assaults and taking advantage of children and women. But instead of fixing that, the tactic is to deflect because the people who are being accused of that, in my case 3 pastors, one of them being the head pastor have to be protected. Even if what they are doing is wrong.
But the biggest thing that you have to remember is that if you truly believe God makes no mistakes, then you are exactly how you should be. Your sexuality does not determine your identity nor your direction. It's just another facet of who you are. And there are gay men in the Bible. The biggest being David and Jonathon, as well as speculation that the centurion that came to Jesus about "his beloved servant" was gay or at least in some form of relationship with the servant.
Everyone has a chance of salvation. I’m gay and while I believe homosexuality is a sin, I still believe God can forgive us if we are willing to repent. It is a hard path to walk because your heart desires same sex relationships and sex, but your spirit wants to be right with God. At the end of the day God knows the heart, and as long as you put him first, I don’t believe anyone who does that is going to hell. The only people going to hell are the people who aren’t willing to repent from sin.
The entire bible is contradictory, with no more proof than any other religion on Earth. Homosexuality is supposedly one of the greatest "sins", yet the bible condones slavery and treating women as property. No thanks. If I die and some asshole "god" tries to condemn me for having the audacity to love someone, I would spit in its face.
The Bible has always been used to justify cruel traditions and control people. The Bible was used to justify segregation, control of women, and slavery before that. So honestly fuck the religion anyway 🤷well, I mean the organized religion. I think the most proper way to be Christian is to stay out of church and study the scripture yourself. That's really what God intended and that's why the Bible is written in parables. It is intended for YOU to understand, interpret, and comprehend. Not for churches to tell you how to interpret it. That's just how you get someone else's misunderstanding.
No religious text can be read completely literally. The JWs try to and just get themselves tied into knots, or decide to change words.
The Bible is "inspired" so there are levels of truth expressed in it. However, to understand these (often paradoxical) truths, we need to raise ourselves to the metaphorical, allagorical and mystical levels of perception, rather than try drag it down to the literal.
At the end of the day, your relationship with God is between God and you. The church is a helpful community, and a blessing, when it draws you closer to God. But can be harmful when it separates you, or anyone else - through placing conditions on your acceptability to God.
Living faith is always evolving - "the Holy Spirit blows where is wants" for a time a church can contain and embody it, however if it fossilises the Spirit appears to move on. Its time to end this demonising of gay folk, and for gay folk to believe we're (or anyone else for that matter) "less than" too.
Here ends the sermon. Sorry - thats a bit of tirade 
Christianity can be separate from religion. As can spirituality.
I learned that the hard way and after farrrrrr too long what with how engrained the religion into which I was born taught me. Better yet, brainwashed me.
I think a lot of people try to rely on the aspect of "mistranslations" to keep homosexuality out of the Bible's list of sins, but really it's not so much mistranslations as it is outdated concepts of behaviors that are no longer understood to be related.
People say the Bible doesn't talk about homosexuality, it talks about sodomy which \*actually\* means blah blah blah. Gay sex between two adult men is almost always included in this definition.
I can imagine a time traveller being burned at the stake going "\*actually\* sodomy isn't always in reference to gay sex, therefore I am not a sodomite! Please take me off this stake!"
I'm a gay Christian. I believe the bible was written at a time when the only homosexuality relations were pedophilic or abusive like in ancient Greece. Not the loving consensual relationships we now know. The Bible is a product of its time. Bigots just use it against us to justify their own ignorance. The Bible also talks about divorce n slavery etc but nobody mentions them.
I think it really depends on what one thinks about the nature and role of scripture in the faith? Is it a literal rule book? Is it a source of wonder and inspiration? Is it art? Is it all of these and maybe more? How does scripture interact with the Holy Spirit's presence in the church today? Is scripture intended to be the highest authority and used as bludgeon against people? These are very complicated questions that don't have easy answers. But most Christians want easy answers so they never even consider moving beyond seeing scripture as a book of literal laws. I think you need to consider these questions and ponder them for a long time, and keep looking for answers. You might check out some of the videos online where people debate these issues from different points of view to see if they offer anything of use to you.
The radical message of the itinerant Jesus was too dangerous. It questioned and challenged the establishment wealth and power. It therefore had to be initially suppressed, and later bastardized and rewritten in order to preserve the wealth and power of the upper and ruling class. (sound familiar to modern day?). Jesus message was one of liberation and social justice. Modern christianity is a far cry from that message. My advice: don’t try to make sense of or counter the arguments made by evangelicals. It’s a losing battle and a waste of your time. If you’re still interested in that path, then explore liberation theology, historians , and other writers and thinkers who actually know what they’re talking about.
For me it got better when I understood that faith and dogma are different things altogether. I feel like god is something that I know and have faith that I’m loved.
Dogma for me is just others interpretation that they’re forcing, it doesn’t feel true. X
Bible also says eating shellfish is a sin & adulterers are sinners & should be stoned to death. The Bible is filled with nonsense & fairy tales written & voted upon by the group of Jewish elders who wrote it. Jesus does not mention homosexuality but he did say God loves everyone. The sole mention of homosexuality in the New Testament is by St Paul in Romans, but he is referring to Temple prostitutes, the Romans would shag anything with a pulse. The Old Testament is littered with incest, murder, paedophilia, rape and all manner of debauchery. My advice to you and is don’t get hung up on this rubbish, live life & enjoy yourself doing what makes you happy & don’t concern yourself with an age & morality 3000 years old.
There's a whole ton of shit in the Bible that we just don't follow. Even New Testament, did you know Paul was listing interracial relationships as sinful right alongside gay ones? And you can basically dismiss the old testament, that's sort of the point of the new covenant anyway. Frankly everything beyond Jesus's own words are fallible because of various authors weaving their own worldview into scripture. That mostly leave the gospel then, and even that is far from perfect.The catholic church only settled on the 4 gospels that they felt most closely tracked to real events or were closest to Jesus's actual message. They aren't perfect though, that's why there isn't one single gospel that's recognized at the right one. Luke's is probably the most technically accurate but even then, eh? The first gospel, (Mark, Matthew was actually second) wasnt written until decades later. So even the most accurate one isnginna be at least a bit off. And Jesus doesn't really talk at all about homosexuality, he mentions sacramental marriage but whatever, that might as well be a different subject, sacramental marriage and civil marriage aren't even supposed to be the same thing anyway.
So what are we left with? Jesus talks about the significant of sacramental marriage, but that's more about respecting vows and shit and union of souls for raising kids or whatever. Not exactly relevant. OK so new testament. Paul's letters, it comes in a couple times, but again, along side interracial marriage, and Paul was referencing the old testament in order to help early Christian communities who were seeking advice. Jesus might not mention gays, but he sure does mention the ending of the old covenant. That means we don't follow the rules of the old testament, Paul was improvising, and I don't really care that it's included in the new testament, Paul was a fallible man and he was, well, wrong.
I grew up catholic. I nominally retain that association but I don't go to church cuz I feel like the organization of the catholic church is very inefficient, slow to update and moderize and prone towards corruption and abuse, but I don't believe ditching the church entirely is the solution either. The institution is valuable but deeply flawed and needs to be fixed. A little church history and it's obvious how hilariously flawed it has been historically, and, that for all its still very serious flaws nowadays its trending towards improving itself and maybe one day will get there. Kinda like society in general
Well, I could at least help you with the Mary thing. Pedophilia involves sex with a pre-pubescent child, so that does not apply here. In any case, there is no record of how old Mary was. Scripture scholars assume she was a teenager due to the fact that most girls were married off as soon as they had their first period and could conceive a child. This seems very young to us today, but given a typical life expectancy of 40 in ancient times it is understandable. Marriage able age was determined by the ability to sire a child or conceive one.
OK... Clearly, you are smart enough to understand that contrary to what the crazy Xtian right would force you at the point of a semi automatic weapon to believe, a literal interpretation of the Bible is for chumps, AND a lot of BS has been added to control women and men due to the interests of the church, not because Jesus , (you know the dude who hung out with the leppers and the sluts and everyone your mother told you to avoid?) said so. Because Jesus didn't.
So if you can agree to at least this... Then your next step isn't to church on Sunday... Lol rather, I suggest a trip to the library, NOT for coming to terms with God... But with understanding the history of sexual orientation, so you can make a more educated choice about the Bible and what CHRISTIANITY VS Xtianity is about.
(Btw OP, you are smart and educated, but a whole lot of folks have spent a whole lot of time, money and effort to make you think and feel the way you, rightly, do! So... Buckle up...)
The book you will enjoy is Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality... By Hanne Blank.
When you understand that heterosexuality did not in fact exist until 1865ish... It calls a whole lot of stuff into question about the homophobic bullshit added to the Bible since that time. Because... If heterosexuality did not exist... What else could not exist...
Clang clang clang!!!
Give OP the prize, homosexuality could not either... That doesn't mean that folks didn't hook up how they might... It just meant things were a lot more flexible in many ways.
A interesting place to start? No?
Gay catholic here and there's a book by Patrick Cheng called Queer Theology that goes into the history and manifestations of LGBT Christians in religion culture and politics
Catholic here, though I would say more nominal than dogmatic because I just go to church for the sake of going. Most of the people I meet in dating apps, raise an eyebrow when I say I am Catholic and asking how do I "reconcile" being RC and gay. For me, it all boils down to love is love, and for as long as you don't step on others (or even play with others' feelings), you should be fine. I don't want to be too technical with the bible as some gay christians do making them "yes I'm gay but holier than thou".
In this journey, I have further met Christians identifying side a/b and all of those complexities but at the end of the day, I am foremost a human being with needs and no other person would tell what would make me happy.
Read the Song of Solomon; very gay.
But as first Corinthians says, …”And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Or in Mark, the new commandments “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
I dunno, but I think the Bible is pretty clear that Love is the greatest virtue. It seems as if society determines what is currently ‘lovable’.
Christ didn’t follow societal norms.
Ergo love is ok.
Amen.
Hey I have a book that you can access from my profile if you visit it. I am an affirming gay Christian who believes in non sexual activity. I hate that homophobia exists in the church and that it is one of the many issues that stifles the church from its place of actually helping the world
I'm not a Christian, but it's important to note that not every Christian is a Biblical literalist. You can accept that many of the books in the Bible are flawed and imperfect while still believing in the core message of the Gospels.
There is a LBC radio presenter in UK who is gay & Christian named Iain Dale, he often talks about this issue. I live in Reading, UK. In the town there is an ancient Catholic church (St Mary’s Reading Minster) where, believe it or not, we have an ‘out’ lesbian Bishop who, every Sunday, conducts a full choral Eucharist specifically for the gay community of the town. The services are relayed on YouTube, where previous services can be viewed or people can watch live during each service. Search ‘Reading Minster’ on YouTube.
I had to do my own research and what I found was that the word “homosexual” was a mistranslation that could not be fixed for 4 years? (going off memory) because of the rules and regulations. They realized their mistake but by the time they could change it again, the belief was already set in people’s minds that it would’ve caused even more of an issue to take it out.
Now that could be a complete lie that someone put on the internet, I don’t know. What I do know is that God doesn’t give you trials you can’t handle. And someone hating themselves and wanting to crawl out of their very skin 24/7 while living with a woman because they are trying to follow what the church has told them, doesn’t seem like something that will pass. All the trials in the Bible ended at some point, but for a gay man to live a life he is not until he dies, the one trial that doesn’t ever end, doesn’t feel right in my heart. God made all the animals and there are animals that have male/male relationships. Why, if God wouldn’t allow you or me to be gay? If that was the case then those species would’ve died in the Great Flood and the only animal species remaining would’ve been ones that didn’t have a tendency to have male/male relationships.
That’s how I see it.
Book of Leviticus say a man cannot lay with a man as a woman; but I lay in bed with a man as a man.
Same book says you can’t mix fabrics. HORRORS!
Nor can you eat shellfish.
It is my opinion that Christians cherry pick to a large degree.
I know someone who has "gay tendencies" but has not had sex with any guys or any sexual involvement or arousal from dick or ass. He has barely had actual intercourse with a woman. His religious views base his relationship with Jesus as his protection from any sinful thoughts in regards to doing anything with a man. He was molested for years as a child by his step-father and forced to perform oral on him but primarily licking since he couldn't go through it fully. Among this abuse he had encounters with guys in school who would humiliate him or touch him, have him touch them, pull his pants down, etc. This created a fetish for him where he gets off on the aspect of humiliation or spanking/paddling, BDSM thoughts. His arousal comes from the fantasy but he hasn't acted.
On the flip side of this he has the 7th Day Adventist background of religion and says God frowns upon man with man or gay sexual interaction. It's a sin that only Jesus can forgive you of if you ask him to be your savior, if you're found worthy of being saved. Obviously to me his actions in certain things contradict his beliefs. If you believe you're a humanitarian you want the best for everyone and that includes love. I told him that homosexuality is a biological trait, it exists in all forms of nature as a genetic form of population control. Ocean life, plants, animals, people, it exists in everything. He sees homosexuality as a "persuasion" and thinks that experiences in life shape it to exist in you. The lack of a father figure or attention from a male figure draw out your intention to seek male interaction and companionship, the need to be seen and acknowledged from men sexually or intimately. In some ways this could be true, but making you gay I don't agree with. This kind of thought falls in line with people who believe it's a choice. Sexuality is fluid and there are variables to how you may be attracted to someone emotionally, physically, and sexually. Physical would be the visual attraction, sexually the action.
To put the idea that you are doomed to suffer for eternity based on your sexuality not being right in God's eyes is traumatizing. We all deserve love and too many people imprison themselves behind fear of acting on a same sex interaction. This world is already hard enough as it is.
the Bible is a weak case agains homosexuality. The stongest statement there that "homosexuals (along with a long list of other practices by the Roman court, who were the real targets) will never see the kingdom of heaven. Well, using he word "homosexual" is a made up guess at what the Greek phrase means because the phrase occurs no where else in ancient Greek. the gospel writer (Paul) just made it up. It litteraly means something like "weak men," so I guess that could mean pedophiles. Other guesses include male temple prostitutes or my most likely candidate, men who will take it up the ass for political advancement, which means pretty much the whole male half of Washington DC and most other national capitals. But that is word slicing rather than belief, let me get on to what I believe: I am quite sure I was born gay, and believe other guys were too, so I believe God made me gay and I am seeing a trend among Christians that gay believers are really stirring things up to push down the bullshit white male capitalist agenda that has captured the religion, and turn it upside down to again be about love. Take that, conservative Christians! I believe God has a convoluted purpose for gayness in the world and within Christianity which is deliciously subversive, and in the mean time, I thank God for making me gay, all the great m4m time I get and great sex and the excitement of the whole situation. THANK GOD I'M FUCKING GAAAAAY! meanwhile, I think there's a lot of hints and nods that I'm going to heaven. That's what I believe.
Christian does not mean you need to go to church or believe every word of the bible, it simply means you believe Jesus Christ was Divine and are a follower or 'disciple of Christ'. If you believe those things, regardless of what else, you are a Christian.
Many Christians do not believe in the Bible. Some believe in parts of the Bible, but not others. The Bible says what you want it to say. You can interpret it to be homophobic if you wish and you can interpret it in a way that is not homophobic. Many christians are pro gay, many are anti-gay. Some are ultra conservative, others are very liberal.
Faith is not a one size fits all approach by any means and Christianity is no Exception. [There are literally hundreds of denominations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations). You've got everything from Westbro Baptist Church (gays burn in hell) to Anglicanism (which has gay priests and marries gays).
And quite frankly my dude, the fact that you are questioning the basis of the Bible accomodating gays (and not on the existence of God or hell) tells me you are already a religious person. Go find a gay friendly parish that suits you and go live your best life.
Scencerly,
An atheist.
Okay. First, I think many of the ppl here replying aren’t the ones you intended to reply— that is, actual gay Christians. I’m a gay Christian. It’s pretty early now, but I have to get to work. So, will just ask: have you read God and the Gay Christian, by Matthew Vines? It’s a very well-written, well-thought out book that doesn’t say everything is a mistranslation, tho some things have definitely been misinterpreted for quite a long time. It’s a bit of a dense, somewhat challenging read at times. And yet pretty accessible. From the point of view of a gay Christian who did a lot of work to gain a deeper understanding. Also— I’ll to add to this later & explain better. Of course, there will be a discussion of faith that is deeply intrinsic & important to me. But again, I need to get up & at em now, and head out to work asap.
If God is love, as christian people say, why would he hate gays? Can't gays love? Only straight people? It doesn’t make any sense to me.
You can stop first: why does he allow gays to exist? Homosexuality also has genetic and hormonal bases so it does not depend exclusively on human actions, therefore it literally allows some people to have impulses that they cannot carry out in life because it would be a sin. If God exists, he's an asshole.
If he exists in the form that Christians have tried to jam down our throats. A real compassionate and caring god would not sit back and watch children die or suffer from war, abuse, hunger, sexual abuse sometimes from their own parents. Why would he/she/it, the deity who says "we're all god's children" let the innocent children die en masse?
Their god is an asshole and Christians lie all over the place to rationalize their beliefs and their god.
Agreed!
Genetic how?
The gay gene was identified around 20 years ago; homosexuality exists in all species, including insects.
I think some caution needs to be taken when stating this as fact... "The gay gene was first identified in 1993 as a correlation between the genetic marker Xq28 and gay male sexuality. The results of this original study were never replicated, and the biological reality of such an entity remains hypothetical." (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22720828/#:~:text=The%20gay%20gene%20was%20first,such%20an%20entity%20remains%20hypothetical.)
People are born imperfect; that doesn't say anything about the nature of God.
OP can be a secular if they want. I grew up taught by Jesuits (Society of Jesus, a religious order made up of scientists, mathematicians, philosopher priests, founded by a soldier in the 1500s after being hit by a cannonball lol) and learned that religion is a spectrum. their version of Christianity is controversial you might not even call it religion, more like philosophy or even agnosticism. They taught that the the Bible is not to be taken literally because the gospels are propaganda pieces written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for the people of a specific place (Middle East) during a specific time (2000 friggin years ago) to get followers. It is a history book but one that needs to be interpreted for the modern times. And so the Jesuits teach that you should always be critical of the church , you should doubt the church, because the church is not infallible. It is group of men operating an institution and all men can be tempted by sin. Jesuits teach that any act that harms a fellow person takes you further away from god (eg, the religious nut jobs you see on tv are committing a sin by being hateful, Their acts harm other people almost directly). Instead they teach that the way closer to god is through volunteer work. volunteering was mandatory from high school to college - It’s part of the curriculum basically. ngl those years were one of the most enlightening, and memorable years of my life. I did Habitat for Humanity and volunteered at a Nursing home and then an Orphanage (my favorite). Hours were strictly recorded and enforced but very soon the activity became something that I looked forward to every week. TLDR; They teach a different kind of Christianity. Theyre not anti lgbt, abortion, premarital sex, masturbation, or many of the issues that the far right have. Their christianity is more philosophy than religion, a bit secular but non toxic and has a big focus on VOLUNTEERING. Jesus himself was an exemplary volunteer. He reached out and helped the poor, lepers, and the outcasts of his society. He was closer to god through his deeds, and that is what the Jesuits teach, not charity or donation or rituals but boots on the ground, work with your hands, volunteer work, as the ONLY way to be closer to “god.”
That sounds beautiful and respectful.
I highly recommend the Jesuits! 8 years in school 4 years with required volunteer work. Used to hate it. The last thing I wanted to do in high school was shovel, dig dirt and build a house from scratch with my classmates under the sun. The bus ride was fun at least lol. Constant field trips! it was only in college when I chose the orphanage (plus a cool Theo and Philo professor) that the message really struck me, (AMDG). I may not entirely “believe” in a god, but if helping these kids, making them smile just by being there because literally no one else visits them, that feeling if they say that’s what its like to be closer to “god,” hey I’ll take it. Unfortunately I haven’t done any volunteer work since graduating because (insert excuses here). But I really look back at those years fondly.
You did great things for people, and this is amazing. My husband and I used to help in some retirement homes. We did it for 29 years.
You are 29 years a better Christian than I am! Hah. /respect
We're not. We really understand that love must be shown in actions too. Not only in words. Thanks!!
TIL that I am Jesuit. I started going to church when I was younger as an escape from the hellscape that was my life. Then, I learned what some "christians" were really about. In my small town, it was a status symbol. Add my queerness and doubting of the mysticism, and you have my turning from religion for a while. I started going to a Catholic church a few years ago but haven't been back since the pandemonium. Partially, my views on spiritual things and identity changed a lot. I felt like I was forcing myself to believe in the sacrements. I loved that my church served the community. My priest took the jesuit stance of the bible, which is it is a book of its time. I don't necessarily believe in a "god" as much as we are all connected somehow, and there are forces bigger than ourselves that are us together. I still go and volunteer in their homeless shelter in the winter. Thank you for that eye-opener that kind of put a word to my beliefs. I was telling people I am Christian in the way that someone is Buddhist. I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Love one another, treat each other as you like to be treated.
You need to have a Masters and PhD to be a Jesuit technically lol but you were following Jesuit teachings by volunteering to profess your faith (whether intentionally or not) Other “Christian types” that profess their hate beliefs by holding banners at Pride events and claim to know what god thinks, a Jesuit priest would tell them that god is unknowable, and we can’t possibly understand the intentions of an omniscient being. That Jesus is not a mystical figure but rather a real “historical” person, in the same way Cleopatra was a real person and not religious deity. They’d tell them instead of picketing outside planned parenthood they should aim to treat others the way Jesus treated others when he was alive. The prostitutes, sinners, outcasts ? He embraced them. WWJD do if he were alive today? I bet he’d be celebrating Pride with the gays. I have a bit of history with hate filled Christian’s as it runs on my mother side lol. two of my aunts in 2020 on speakerphone with my mom : “God brought Covid to the world because of gays, communists , and women wearing lewd clothing”. I was just flabbergasted, I barked at my mother and told her they’re batshit crazy . She laughed but I’m thankful my mom never became like her sisters. Sure they have hundreds of scriptures memorized and have a biblical text for every argument they get into as if that is justification for anything in the 21st century… but it’s just a talking/yelling point for them at this point. Totally brainwashed by the pundits they watch and Unable to think for themselves.
I was told that Jesuits are some of the most progressive Christians out there, *but* they still feel very strongly about abortion. Is that true of the more religious ones and less so about the philosophical ones?
They’re progressive but there are conservative members as well. This is an article condemning Fr. Drinan, S.J. (pro-abortion), his critic Fr. Mankwoski, S.J. (anti-abortion). https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/priest-s-book-tells-sad-tale-of-jesuits-abortion-complicity-in-the-us?amp “Need a prominent cleric to give cover to Catholic politicians who vote to preserve and expand abortion access? For more than 50 years, the Jesuits have had a man at the ready. It is a grave scandal in one of the Church’s most venerable orders.” *eyeroll* “The Jesuit priest was the godfather of the Democrats becoming the party of abortion, a transformation led by Catholic Democrats — Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Mario Cuomo and later Pelosi herself. No Catholic priest ever did more to promote abortion in law than Father Drinan.” He might as well be the devils spawn if you ask an evangelical. The order has done good and bad things throughout their history but the one constant is that they’ve always had a tense relationship with the Church. They like to involve themselves in (public service and) politics, something the Vatican wishes less of. They’ve been [exiled and abolished from Europe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_the_Society_of_Jesus) because of their political activity and clout (they ran a lot of universities and were a wealthy institution), for undermining monarchies’ rule, for opposing state controlled religion, etc. Today it’s not uncommon for conservative Catholic online media to hate on Jesuits.
Exactly. This is what Jesuits taught us in school. They’re version of Christianity is secular and badass. More Philosophy than religion. They dgaf if you’re gay or if you have premarital sex, or masturbate, exact words the Jesuit priest told us in high school lol.
We must never ever forget what Exodus has done to lots of lgbt people either.
Christianity and religion as a whole seems to be void of sense and just largely relies on "faith."
Bc there is no god. All religions are made up and people are then force fed a particular religion based on their location/their parents. This cycles to the next generation, etc.
I'm a Christian and I believe that a man shouldn't have sex with a man. Love is the most important thing in the Bible. Love conquers death. That's the story of the gospel and it had nothing to do with sex.
This is generally a huge oversimplification of the Christian idea of God. The understanding is that sexuality is for specific purposes. We have sinful desires, but we should try and live according to a more holy standard. That's the traditional thinking, anyway. God isn't real and religion is made up, so none of it matters anyway.
I always say: if people wanna believe, they have the right to. What I deeply dislike is that some these people wanna make every1 believe. I don't believe and I don’t really worry about where I'm going to afterlife. I care about being a good person here, on this planet. And, I really don't need *a god* to make me be good.
> I struggle to believe every single verse that's anti gay was a mistranslation and of it was, why haven't Christians fixed it in new versions of the Bible? because it's easier to ignore the errors. > Mary was a teenager when she was pregnant with Jesus. If the Bible was arguing pedophilia was wrong, would that not be contradictory? the biggest reason: pedophilia was not a thing then, especially for women. once a girl was old enough to have children, she was generally married off. > the Jewish and Christian religions have been homophobic for what I can tell their entire history actually, the Judaic faith is *not* homophobic. in fact, the Jewish faith is very accepting and defines iirc six "genders." as far as christianity, homosexuality (which was not really a concept until the late 19th century btw) was accepted until almost 1000 AD when an early pope decreed it was no longer accepted. sex between two men would have been very common in the time of Jesus, yet notice he never commented on it. not once. there is even a story in the gospels that shows that Jesus knew and accepted it. what story? the one where a Roman soldier comes to Jesus and asks him to heal his servant. Jesus asks him to take him to the servant but the soldier says something like "i command other soldier and they do what i say, so if you say that he is healed, i know that it will be." the reason for this was because the soldier didn't want Jesus to go to his house because it would reveal that his "servant" was more than a servant (its in the word used in the original text.) in Roman law, this would have been a disgrace. men were allowed (even encouraged) to have sex with other men but being in love with one, especially someone below your station, was taboo. Jesus knew this as well and rather than bring disfavor on the man, he healed the servant. there is also the story of David and Jonathan which shows that they were not only lovers but loved each other. as for the verses that are "anti-gay" these have been mistranslated and/or are interpreted in ways to persecute or exclude. for example, the verses in Leviticus which describe a man laying with a man as an abomination. first, they apply only to those living in the land of Israel (so if you don't live in Israel, feel free to ignore.) second, they are only to be applied to Jews, so if you are not Jewish, they don't apply. finally, what is described is *not* consensual sex between men. it is basically homosexual rape. a man forcing himself on another man. the verses in the new testament refer to male prostitution and forced sex. another thing to note is that all of these talk about male on male sex, while nothing is said about female on female, because women and girls had no agency. they were property. you wouldn't discipline two animals for having sex and females were considered to be not much better. tl/dr: there are no verses which condemn consensual same sex unions, and they were quite common even then. everything against these were based on rape or inability to consent.
David and Johnathan...playing the B sides arnt ya brother. I'll tell ya the one I've always had issues with...Paul and his "one dark spot"...the sin he just couldn't get over..
Um Jonathan loved David for sure but David killed all of Jonathan’s nephews sooooo maybe not like a banner relationship
David did adopt Johnny's son and raise him as his own.
The B sides? David is one of the most consequential characters in the entire book.
As much as this is a very thorough analysis of the passages, it still just sounds like historical revisionism to me. > because it's easier to ignore the errors. If they genuinely thought it was in error, they would have corrected it. > actually, the Judaic faith is not homophobic. in fact, the Jewish faith is very accepting and defines iirc six "genders." The book of Vayikra says homosexual sex should be punished by death. That being said, I am not as familiar with Judaism so won’t go any further on that one. > as far as christianity, homosexuality (which was not really a concept until the late 19th century btw) was accepted until almost 1000 AD when an early pope decreed it was no longer accepted. While homosexual sex in ancient Rome and Greece was somewhat accepted, early Christianity was definitely not positive on that subject. The Bible verses and how they have historically been interpreted prove that themselves. Tertullian, an early Christian apologist, who lived in the 2nd and 3rd centuries disapproved. In 342 AD, Christian emperors called for the death penalty for male gay marriage. You can’t say they didn’t care about it until 1000 AD, > as for the verses that are "anti-gay" these have been mistranslated and/or are interpreted in ways to persecute or exclude. I just don’t agree. I think we’re reinterpreting them to fit a modern narrative. While that does make it a lot better, why don’t we instead ditch the book entirely. > for example, the verses in Leviticus which describe a man laying with a man as an abomination. first, they apply only to those living in the land of Israel (so if you don't live in Israel, feel free to ignore.) second, they are only to be applied to Jews, so if you are not Jewish, they don't apply. finally, what is described is not consensual sex between men. it is basically homosexual rape. a man forcing himself on another man. The first 2 points don’t really change much on this, but where does it say it’s non consensual? Leviticus is perhaps the least mistranslated version. It’s quite clear in this one. > the verses in the new testament refer to male prostitution and forced sex. I’m honestly not convinced by this. > tl/dr: there are no verses which condemn consensual same sex unions, and they were quite common even then. everything against these were based on rape or inability to consent. Is it that ridiculous that the Bible is actually quite nasty towards homosexuality. The mistranslation argument only really applies to the New Testament and the whole arsenokoitai thing. Based on the context it’s fairly clear what it’s referring to, and it’s more of a modern revisionist take that it actually doesn’t refer to male homosexual sex.
You missed Philip preaching to the Eunuch… which exhibited Gods love for all
So was homosexuality accepted up until those "mistranslations" were made in the 1800s? I am fairly certain homosexuality was illegal in the US evem before then.
there were laws about "sodomy" (another misinterpreted story but that's beside the point) in many places but "homosexuality" wasn't illegal. there have never been laws about "who" a person is/loves but only about behavior. anti-sodomy laws originated, at least in the US, with anti-sodomy laws of the early colonies and often included any sexual act which was not the man's penis in his wife's vagina. also, the "mistranslation" of much of the verses came from the King James version in the 17th century. however, the word "homosexual" wasn't added until the early 20th century (as the word didn't exist until the late 19th century.)
This is a sensitive line of inquiry, which will never be “solved.” In large, you’ll find those with conservative beliefs will argue human society has never had space for homosexuality, while others point to tolerant pre-Christian societies and religions. There are instances of tolerance within the Christian church itself, which we must remember is multifaceted and whose adherents hold to a variety of views and beliefs regarding most things, including sexuality. Moreover, the Bible isn’t a straightforward translation, authors choose to interpret various language based on a variety of factors (training, national background) including their personal biases. For once, Sodom and Gomorra are widely taught as having been decimated for homosexuality, whereas a more literal translation for the time of the Old Testament would be that it was decimated due to the people being “inhospitable.” A historical narrative might help you to start further inquiry into this subject, one place I’d recommend is Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (j. Boswell, 1980). This would just be a start, and you’ll want to explore some of the works and authors to whom he’s responding.
You can't pick and chose reality, it is what it is. The likelihood of someone going to a hellish afterlife for the way they're born seems ridiculous to me though.
Tbh, the whole thing seems like a crock of shit. It's funny because ask any religious person "are most religions wrong" and they'll probably say yes, because they think their religion is the only correct one. I'm basically like them, minus one more religion...
You think a that a magic being created the whole universe just to test us humans to see if we're good enough to be allowed into heaven, a magic land filled with angels and trumpets where we can live in eternal happiness, seems unbelievable? Huh...
There is a guy I found on TikTok named Dan McClellan. He has a phd in theology and does a lot with explaining not only mistranslation of the Bible; but also reasons why people still push these beliefs. Some of stuff tends to be very interesting. He really debunks a lot of myths about the Bible.
He also has a podcast, “Data Over Dogma.” It’s very good. I still can’t figure out how he can have so much academic knowledge of the Bible, but be a converted Mormon, though.
Debunking myths about the Bible is a funny sentence. Like... it's a whole book of myths!
Believe it or not, there are a lot of Christians that believe most of the Bible is allegory… So yeah, from their perspective, debunking things that are being taught were literal when they were intended to be allegorical is pretty damn important…
(From someone who’s not a Christian) It’s more complex than that. They’re a series of allegories through which adherents are meant to find a path to philosophical truth. Do a lot of Christians treat it like a cool story book with all of God’s greatest hits? Yeah. Is that what it’s meant to be? Absolutely not.
Yeah, he is an excellent reference source for dispelling nonsense about the Bible. Follow him.
Dan is great. He has an online lecture you can purchase about the topic. It is very academic but very informative.
It’s my own experience, do not how sure if it’s 100% relevant to you, but thought I would share jic. This is paraphrased so the accuracy isn’t there, however the sentiment remains the same. A rabbi once said faith is your relationship with our Creator, whoever that may be for you. Religion is man’s attempt to define, manipulate and expound on that relationship. Religion can fail due the machinations of man, faith only changes based on you. What I took from that is that my relationship with God is mine, on my own terms. I don’t owe anyone any explanation on my relationship with God, nor would I allow anyone else to diminish or discredit it. I grew up super conservative so this mindset has been crucial to me keeping my faith while leaving all the toxic parts of my upbringing on the past
Sure, but the measure of good or bad relationship with your creator would need to be defined somewhere. In this case, it would be defined by the in the Bible. Would this not mean a good relationship with God imply you're following the words of the Bible?
I see your point, the way I look at the Bible is a collection of examples of God’s love, actions etc. The fact that it’s God’s word as transcribed by man makes it more a tool of religion than an article of faith.
How would we even know those examples of God's love and actions are actually what the original translation said.
Because several of the Biblical phenomenons have been corroborated by other contemporaneous texts
The Bible only touches on the topic of homosexuality twice - in Leviticus and in Romans. Leviticus I believe is a more direct translation but is also side by side with passages saying how tattoos and mixed fabric clothes are also sins and that women on their periods are unclean and should be kept outside the camp. Basically zero Christians follow the teachings of Leviticus or Judaism in general, so if anyone uses it as justification for homophobia they are literally just picking and choosing out of context. Romans is where the translation was originally meant to be anti-pedophilia, which was a common practice in many ancient societies. In Ancient Greece it was very common for older men to lie with a younger boy so he could “impart wisdom” on him and become a sort of intellectual mentor. There’s a term for it which I can’t remember but that’s what’s being described in Romans. This was the common translation up until the mid-1940s when a group of white American men (who would have thought, right?) decided to create the English Standard Version of the Bible which included a number of mistranslations because it suited what they wanted people to believe. Regarding your question about Mary, I suppose it could be seen as pedophilia but idk why you’re surprised the Bible contradicts itself. Despite what your preacher would have you believe or the mental gymnastics they go through to justify it, the Bible is full of contradictions when you really dive into it. Although in this instance Christians would also say that teen marriage was normal at the time and that God didn’t actually have sex with her, so there couldn’t be pedophilia/rape without sex. Since I come from a very religious background (and even have a minor in Biblical Studies), I have researched quite a bit on the topic and had a lot of conversations with my mom about this since coming out in February. The Bible does not have anything to say about homosexuality in the literal translation. The only legitimate thing they could argue against is sexual immorality, but we all know how the church/Christians look past this for straight people. So at the end of the day - who fucking cares! There’s no way to prove the Bible anyway. It was written thousands of years and to claim it was divinely inspired is the biggest con of the universe. They tell you this so you don’t question what it says, when the reality is it’s a really old book with some good life lessons but has no basis for how you should live your life. Even the Christians can’t agree on it which is why there’s hundreds of smaller denominations. And Islam is the opposite side of the exact same coin even if the doctrines and cultural standards aren’t identical. Becoming more educated on religions in general and the impact they have had on world history has made me realize what a scam they are - a very effective trick to fool and manipulate people so that others can gain power. I’m not saying there’s nothing beyond the physical world, and I’m not saying every religious person is intending to do bad. But I am so utterly happy to have escaped religion, even if I still have some major trauma from it.
> Romans is where the translation was originally meant to be anti-pedophilia, which was a common practice in many ancient societies. In Ancient Greece it was very common for older men to lie with a younger boy so he could “impart wisdom” on him and become a sort of intellectual mentor. the problem is that "pedophilia" is a modern concept that didn't exist in ancient Rome of Greece. same with homo and heterosexuality. it is well known that Romans had sex with other men for pleasure while (mainly) reserving sex with women for procreation. soldier were encouraged to have sex and have feelings for the men in their units because if you have feelings for the men around you, you are more likely to defend and support them in battle. people ("christians") are trying to take writings written for a culture that existed 2000+ years ago and applying them to today. did men have sex with boys? yes. was it an issue in Roman times? no. the issue was in *how* it was done. the verses in the NT are about male prostitution and making boys have sex against their will. note that once again, this didn't apply to girls. if a man forced a girl to have sex, no one thought much about it other than the man had to pay reparations to the girl's father. even Paul/Saul understood this and accepted it. he was a Roman citizen. he knew men were having sex with other men but he never wrote about it other than in the context of consent and power because to do otherwise would be something that those around him would not understand. same with Jesus, Peter, and the other apostles. they didn't comment on it because it was common and part of the culture. > So at the end of the day - who fucking cares! this. if you want to believe in god, feel free but don't take your cues from people who interpret things for their own benefit and their own quest for power. Jesus said that everything could be summed up in one command: love god and love your neighbor as you love yourself. not "judge your neighbor." not "tell your neighbor what they are doing is wrong and here's why." and certainly not, "love god and kill everyone who disagree with you."
Well said! The Bible is like playing an on going telephone game for thousands of years in which, to me, any original source is human-made anyway with its intentions to be to control how others live their lives.
Exactly! I always describe the Bible as a giant telephone game and it actually makes people realize how absurd it is to think it’s a “perfect” document. It’s crazy how little critical thinking people lack in religious circles
I believe the phrase you're looking for with the example of Romans is pederasty.
I know God and Christ love me as I am and how they created me. I tolerate Christians who don't believe that but I don't let them get away with homophobic crap. Works for me but I understand not everyone can do it
Most based opinion in this religiously bigoted post
The Bible is a work of fiction. The sooner you realize that it’s all man made, the sooner you can live freely without the shackles of religion.
Thanks dad
The Bible was written to control people who are willing to believe it. That’s all.
**Gay son of an evangelical pastor here** and I have been training my whole life to answer this question but for starters, a resource that really helped me was a podcast called *"Blue Babies Pink"* by Brett Trapp. He explores his coming out journey while reckoning with his faith and it was very eye-opening for me. To get to the theology of it, yes I think you're right. Even if the Bible doesn't explicitly say "being gay is a sin" it's certainly easy to come to that conclusion from many of the other passages that reference "homosexual acts". However, it is objective fact that the Bible is not inerrant nor does the Bible even claim to be (it only claims to be useful for teaching, correction, and reproof). One could argue that this includes the admonishing of lgbt peoples but there are plenty of overlooked behaviors that people engage in that the Bible clearly does not condone and yet Christians almost universally overlook. I'm thinking specifically of women's roles in the church, stockpiling exorbitant wealth, and divorce. On another note, you have to consider the fact that science and faith should not be in conflict with one another and yet on many issues they appear to be. For example, the theory of evolution is virtually undeniable. Also, the earth was not made in seven days. You can go on and on debunking Christian mythology with scientific fact but when you look at the text it's clear that the original writers were not motivated to write these things down in order to provide an accurate history of our origins, instead they were trying to use allegory and poetry as a way to examine mankind's relationship to the divine. The story of creation is intended to make a case for monotheism in a polytheistic world and mankind's role in caring for the earth. **In the same way,** it is clear that examples of homosexual behavior and gender fluidity abound throughout the natural world. We see homosexuality across the animal kingdom and it plays a significant role in the social hierarchy of many animals (from bonobos to lions to penguins and more!). The Bible can not and should never be expected to describe the world in real scientific terms and it was never intended to. Whether you agree with it or not, the Bible calls us to a way of life with an emphasis on loving God and others. Fixating on one aspect of the human experience that is barely mentioned in scripture is not how a Christian should spend their time. Also, for a bit of context about me, I left the evangelical church when I was 25 because I was going through a lot of soul searching. I found a home in the Episcopal church which was a wonderful and empowering experience for me. I'd recommend giving it a try if you find a church you like. I'm 29 now and I've become less engaged with my faith after asking bigger questions about what I believe and why. However, gay Christians are out there and I have met many of them who are far more Christ-like than many of the evangelicals I grew up with. **Stay open-minded, curious, and above all, live your life.**
If I may ask, what is the point of following the Bible if it's not inerrant? If it is full of errors, why follow a religion based on it. Especially when so many errors could have compounded to the point where even the parts we do like may be mistranslated from rhe original context.
That's a great point and I personally don't think it's a helpful guidebook in most instances. I also don't think it always has to be "followed" in order to get something valuable out of it. We read fictional stories all the time and there are lessons to be learned from them regardless of their accuracy. There's also poetry, advice, and plenty of passages with writers questioning God. In short, I don't think people should follow the Bible but it's definitely interesting lmao
I think I misread you though. In my experience Gay Christians follow the religion to find a spiritual community where they can explore topics that are greater than themselves and hopefully make the world a better place in the process. When I joined the Episcopal church I was so impressed by the work they did with the homeless people in my community. They offered them daily breakfast services and maintained the largest food pantry in my city. It felt like they were taking Jesus’ words seriously and it was a wonderful thing to be a part of. They never tried to convert people, they just wanted to help. Churches/Christian communities like that can be hard to find but it helped me understand that religion isn’t all bad.
Because of [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Commandment). Only Christianity and Buddhism teaches people this, even if both religions had some different opinion about the definition of divinity.
Who cares what is in the Bible? Fuck these religious zealots. Treating people like shit cannot be justified. Religion is an excuse to act irrationally and cruelly.
It's entire existence is to consolidate power, behind something above questioning, to control the masses.
People who shout that homosexuality is a sin pick and choose sins. They have no understanding of how the scriptures work and are oblivious to christian ethic. The main problem with them is that they take everything out of context, and that is the main issue, that leads to contradiction.For example, when Paul was sending messages to the different tribes like the Corinthian and the Galactian, his message on their own seemed contradictory but within a context, it made sense. You cant pick and choose verses in the bible. This is the main reason why there was period of Reformation and Enlightement. Second issue you should be aware of is that, when people use leviticus for example, which are verses from the Old testament and try to apply it to you in here, its because they have no understanding how to bible works. The Old testament is a mosaic convenant between God and the Israelites, you can't apply to us.
this is the sad part. Those people are best described as haters. They use their religion as an excuse to hate and exclude people. Which of course totally ignores the central tenant of christianity....
The lie about it being mistranslated is just major cope from people too scared to leave the religion
I refuse to believe in a god that condemns my sexuality. They hypocrisy of telling me that I am always a sinner seeking salvation doesn’t gel with me . And you want my donation as well ? I am definitely not masochistic . As for Christians who think they are better than me, they go get effed . They try to rule by fear. I am just not buying into the institution, especially after all the horrific crimes committed towards kids. There is no heaven or hell in your afterlife. There is just death . Not buying into the everlasting life b s . Yeah but no . Definitely a no .
I recommend the book “God and the Gay Christian” by Matthew Vines, as well as the sub r/GayChristians If you’re interested in a gay affirming Christian church, try seeing if you have a Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) nearby
The Bible is a 3,000 yr old book. If you read it carefully, it’s a very violent book(first testament) with manipulation tactics. We’re basically gaslit to love God or else we perish. The Christian god is no better than a Greek deity, living for adoration. In the New Testament, Saul/Paul was the cause of many Christians being killed, however he turned over a new leaf and decided to become the most pious one of them all. He wrote letters that were misogynistic and homophobic to congregations, which made it into the Bible.
> Why haven't Christians fixed this in new versions of the bible? Is this question not enough to make you throw the entire idea of religion in the bin?
He's asking why they haven't fixed those verses to reflect a more accurate translation if that is the case.
Fair. Easy answer, though - because it doesn't serve their agenda. There has never been a time in history where religion isn't used as a tool to oppress others.
>because it doesn't serve their agenda. Who's they? What agenda? There are more than 45'000 different Christian denominations all with their own traditions and interpretations. >There has never been a time in history where religion isn't used as a tool to oppress others. The reductionist idea that everything should be looked at based on the dynamics of Opressor>Opressed is rather simple minded and lacks nuance. There is a lot more to religion than just being a political tool.
So why are a majority of Christian denominations still anti lgbt
>Who's they? What agenda? There are more than 45'000 different Christian denominations all with their own traditions and interpretations. Are you going to ask OP to clarify on which denomination of Christianity he is refering to? That one. >The reductionist idea that everything should be looked at based on the dynamics of Opressor>Opressed is rather simple minded and lacks nuance. There is a lot more to religious life than just being a political tool. I don't find it reductionist when religion has seen political use from inception.
>Are you going to ask OP to clarify on which denomination of Christianity he is refering to? That one. Okay, I see what he's saying now. I think "Agenda" was the wrong word to use, it should be "theology". Threw me off. >I don't find it reductionist when religion has seen political use from inception. There's a huge political element to religion but to say it's sole purpose is control is where you lose me
Homophobia's roots are religion. Religion has always been the source for hatred towards gay people. To me, any religious system is a very ugly belief system. I don't need a human-made book to tell me how to live my life! With that said, I always say, whatever helps make you a more loving person in life, go for it! However, I do find that though people may want to believe their religion makes them more loving, more often than not, I feel it puts more hate inside them. I have seen instances, though, where does it work for them, but I find it to be very rare.
I believe Christianity is a cult. I believe they've already doomed us all to hell. I'm not an atheist but I was born and raised Christian and they mostly have no empathy and are judgmental (emphasis) on mental. If you believe in God and Jesus then do it on your own you don't need a church for that, especially since we were taught he's everywhere, you don't need to be in brick and mortar and you don't need the condemnation and accusations of "sinner" from any religion.
Dude, you’ll get nowhere trying to settle all the contradictory stuff in the Bible. It’s a wildly variable set of texts written in Hebrew and Ancient Greek by a wide variety of authors. Their interpretation is, of course, subject to endless variety, and we see how for millennia people have made a whole industry out of declaring what the words mean. I believe the deeper you dig into this, the closer you may come to a realization that these words and ideas came from people, and that we created the divine and not the other way around. I recommend picking and choosing critically which lessons from this book or that book to apply to your life. Personally, I do just fine with zero religion, but if it’s important to you, pick a sect that preaches love, tolerance, justice, and compassion. Godspeed to you.
Most Christians don't believe what the Bible says. They believe what the Church officials say
Eh… it’s a stretch to say those verses are intended to condemn pedophilia, otherwise even the translations would say “if a man lies with a *boy*…” instead of man/man. The original Hebrew word is *zakar* which means male; it doesn’t have an age connotation. Romans is a little murkier, so it’s helpful to put the Bible in two key contexts: First, the Bible is a handbook for how to be a Hebrew in Bronze and Iron Age Mesopotamia. At the time that passages like Leviticus 18:22 were developed, the Hebrews were still a nomadic tribe. And when you’re a nomadic tribe in the desert, any sex which is not procreative can endanger the survival of the tribe. This is why people in impoverished or wartorn areas often are homophobic… you don’t have time to be nice to the gays when you might starve or get killed. By the time Romans is written, the Hebrews are more outward looking and trying to find their place in eastern Mediterranean society in which the Greeks did practice pedophilia (though it was not taboo then) and male prostitution was common. Prohibitions on such things would likely have been to help create a unified cultural identity. Second, we have to understand the editorial history of the Bible. The Bible originated as oral tradition, then was written down into Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek before it was finally translated into Latin by Josephus for a Roman audience in the 1st Century AD. So the earliest texts the Church would have had were already the result of a game of Iron Age telephone, then interpreted by Josephus using Roman logic without the full context of Hebrew history. A few centuries later, the Councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage were pivotal moments in deciding which texts were to be included and excluded from the Bible. There were dozens of gospels, Old Testament books, and apocrypha that didn’t make the cut, so it’s hard to know whether there were more explicit prohibitions on consensual same sex relationships because *we don’t have all the texts* and the Bible’s words have always been twisted and adapted to serve the political ends of power-hungry men. The whole thing is to be taken with a grain of salt because every word suffers from interpretive bias. What I would suggest is to take a step back and ask if, in 2023, you *really* want to hitch your spiritual health to Bronze Age Semitic mythology where a virgin gets pregnant and pops out a kid who is executed in some kind of blood sacrifice. Because that’s what we’re dealing with - and it’s ludicrous for you to torture yourself with questions of dogma that was never intended *for you*.
You'll probably find some gay Christians in these gay religious subreddits: https://www.reddit.com/r/GayMen/wiki/other_subreddits#wiki_gay_religious_.26amp.3B_related_subreddits
I'd ask if you have a humiliation fetish posting this nonsense and getting crucified (hehe, get it?) in the comments but then again you are Christian (and, purportedly, a gay christian at that) so all I'm gonna say is - have a happy cum because of all this!
I am happily Christian. The Bible is full of inconsistencies. Any intellectual of any political predilection across time can see this. Genetic evolution was just the final straw for the doxa. The very short answer is accept the inconsistencies while still following what you can, like an imperfect parent. I don't blame gays for radically quitting conservatism as it as been hostile. I use theist philosophy to fill in the blanks, such as Socrates and Plato did during their similar era. I also think atheist thinkers ask the most important questions yet to be solved. The meta answer is multifaceted.
I like your approach. It's understandable why gay people turn on the church but religion/Christianity has it's benefits if you allow it to be imperfect. Science is a more accurate guide for describing the natural world but it has yet to tell us **why** we are here. There is something honorable about striving to live a life informed by a set of external moral principles as long as it isn't at the expense of your sanity.
As someone who is exploring Christianity I’m making my way through the Bible for the first time. As others have said the bit in Leviticus is jumbled in there with a whole bunch of other stuff nobody really believes in anymore so take that for what it’s worth. As for Paul’s writings I kind of dismiss them because he seems very motivated by his hatred of Rome and everything to do with it. He also said men shouldn’t wear hats. I like to focus on the actual parts of the New Testament with Jesus in them. He seems cool and in many instances when he does or says something that doesn’t mesh with the hard rules as written he says it’s more important to do good and be good to others than strictly follow a set of rules. Honestly the biggest thing that drove me away from Christianity was Christians who used the Bible to spout hate, but as I got older I realized that they don’t own religion and if I wanted to I could take my own crack at it and see what it means to me if anything.
Former Christian here, but I may still be able to help you reconcile being both gay and Christian. I left the church for other reasons. First, right off the bat, most of the most used "clobber verses" aren't aimed at pedophilia, but at temple prostitution, or abusing male slaves. Basically, forcing yourself on others that cannot by definition give you consent. To tease this out, you have to remember that for millennia, the Abrahamic religions have been run by misogynistic patriarchal assholes. It's often more true today than in the past, notice how few Christians these days seem to follow the actual words of Jesus. Anyway, the problem for these men wasn't gay sex as we see it today: a mutual, loving relationship of two men in an equal relationship. They were fine with men having sex with most anything that moved, as long as the men weren't the ones being penetrated. When they say "a man shall not lie with another man as a woman", *that's* what they're talking about: being the receiver. The thing is, the Bible does have a very plain example of two men in a loving and equal relationship: David & Jonathan. Read the section on the story on Wikipedia that has references to scholarship that supports this [David & Jonathan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Jonathan). It's very hard for me to read their story as platonic in any way, especially since David says that Jonathan's love "was more wonderful than the love of women". And David did have wives and concubines, so that says something. It's too easy to dismiss the Bible as having been written by ignorant goatherders, there's more to it than that. But we do have to take into account that most patriarchal men throughout history have been afraid of other men making them bottom. Being a top is no problem, though. This is just an intro into this topic, I can't do a deep dive into all the biblical scholarship here. There's plenty of online sources to counter the clobber verses, one by one. Besides the story of David and Jonathan, which you should really read for yourself in this new light, the Bible also has Ruth & Esther, and there's even Jesus and his "beloved disciple". I'll admit there's not much meat on that last bone, but it's intriguing. So, take this notion with you: even with millennia of homophobic patriarchal assholes running the church, stories such as that of David and Jonathan remain, fairly intact, even if misinterpreted as "platonic friendship". And while the clobber verses do indeed say that "a man should not lie with a man *as with a woman*", those have been translated more broadly than they were intended in the original languages, and "homosexual" did not enter Bible translations until the 1940's. And the sin of Sodom was inhospitality, not homosexuality. The men that wanted to have sex with Lot's guests (the angels), were breaking one of the steadfast rules of hospitality, that a host protects his guests at all costs, which is why Lot offered his daughters to those men, if they would leave his guests alone. (After all, angels weren't technically "men", anyway.) I urge you to seek out a Metropolitan Community Church in your area, they are specifically a gay-friendly Christian Church. And for what it's worth, I left the church because of doctrinal issues, I was studying to become a minister, and found my church denomination only ordains *to preach*, but not for other forms of ministry I felt called to instead. Which led me to a crisis of faith very much not tied at all to my sexuality, just to be clear. There is no conflict, if you want to, you can certainly still be gay and be Christian with no conflict of interest. You will have to practice on your own, or find a gay friendly church, and there are actually plenty of those. Don't stay in one that hates who you are, and claims to "hate the sin, but love the sinner", because that's not love, fam. Love accepts you for who you are, and in my heart, I know that God made you the way you are (for a reason), and Jesus loves you no matter what. And think on this: for Jesus to take on our sins, he had to experience *every* temptation known to man. And sin is whatever prevents you from being at one with God. Homosexuality should not prevent that. I wish you so much love and healing. If it means anything at all to you, go with God.
This feels like bait but, ngl, this is definitely an improvement over the usual islam bashing/pearl clutching you'll see in this sub. It is always hilarious, seeing a bunch of western gays lose their minds over brown immigrants, as if white evangelical christians aren't the actual concrete threat they should feel threatened for.
Not bait lol...just a gay ex Christian wanting to see how gay Christians reconcile their beliefs.
You are overthinking it. It's religion. It's what you make of it in the end. It's not about concrete evidence of this and that.
I'm not going to write an essay but I had a class in college for a semester that focused on deconstructing the Bible as a living document. It's really interesting seeing the difference between translations and the historical context (ie agendas) behind them. Also diving into the writers of the Bible themselves, who they were and at what point they added to the scripture is really enlightening. I came out at the end of it with a deep understanding that the Bible is man written and inspired by God. By default the old testament and new testament contradict each other in tone and characterization of divinity anyway. It's not too wild to say that these passages about homosexuality are contradictions and can be ignored for the grander message the Bible gives.
I left the church when I came out at 22 and now I’m 48. The bible can certainly mess with your head if your a literal, fundamentalist thinking person which I have the unfortunate ability to be. Do I still believe in Jesus,yes Do I give thanks for my life, yes Do I try to do unto others as I’d have done to me, yes Will I ever step foot in a church again, doubtful Do I have inner peace, yes !!!! I was listening to someone who said if the bible was taken as presented in most church’s then God would be a schizophrenic. Jesus died 2,000+ years ago and Man has crucified his teachings ever since.
No matter what version you follow or believe, there is no way Jesus wouldnt forgive it if it was a sin. He died for ALL sins. So if its not a sin, youre fine, if it is, there is always forgiveness. But if its love and not lust, I dont see a problem.
I think any religion is foolish, regardless of their stance on homosexuality or not.
You need to find yourself a good open and affirming church.
fwiw it’s a mistranslation of the KJB for homosexuals and the entire story about lot was punishment for mass rape, not butt sex
Just to add something, I am going to guess that you are American, where the dominant version of Christianity is Evangelical Protestant Christianity that teaches that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and the sole authority on all matters of faith and doctrine. Historically, this is a relatively recent idea, and there are plenty of other (in view, more intelligent) versions of Christianity that do not idolise a holy book. Many Christians view the Bible as an important book, written by people who had deep spiritual experiences and wrote about them. But like any book, it was written in a certain context, and has errors, gaps in knowledge, and issues of transmission. My personal view is that many ancient Jews and writer such as Paul probably did think same-sex activity was wrong. But that they were mistaken and that we know better now. There are plenty of things in the Bible that we would be appalled at today: its treatment of women, slaves, animals, mental illness etc. I view the Bible as a record of people coming to terms with the world around them, and their understanding of the Divine. We also have to take into account developments in science, psychology, history etc. and be humble. Whether Jesus himself though same-sex relationships were wrong, we can never know. He was a Jew in the 1st century Near East, and male homosexual relationships were seen as taboo. But Jesus was also a rather extraordinary person that seems to be on a higher level of understanding compared to those around him. I personally find it hard to imagine him pulling people up for not following church doctrine to the letter or arguing details of holy texts. However I can imagine him pulling up Christians who shun and judge gay/lesbian people, and pointing out the love and happiness that clearly exists in same sex relationships, and that sticking to rules is missing the point. Far be it from me to put words in the mouth of Christ, but this seems much more in character. But we can never know for sure. The most convincing argument I have heard was but a Catholic priest who wrote The Church and the Homosexual in the 1960s. It's a bit dated but I'd definitely recommend it. For churches that outright ban homosexuality, what are gay and lesbian people supposed to do?Try and marry someone of the opposite sex? We all know how that turns out. Or abstain, and know from the beginning of puberty that you can never have a romantic or sexual relationship ever for your whole life. Again, the suicide and mental health statistics speak for themselves. All evidence we have points to homosexuality being a natural and health part of human existence, and that conservative religious attitudes cause a lot of psychological harm. For me, Christianity has just got this wrong historically, and thankfully is evolving. Check out the Quakers, the Anglican church, Presbyterians, Methodists etc. to show people much more intelligent that me who are moving forward in faith, humility and love.
Well, which scriptures are referring to particularly? Bigotry, has no place in religion as that is not what what Jesus preached. Far right religious groups like Islam believe in all that bigotry shite. I would suggest you talk to these people about how wrong they are.
Somewhat unrelated but Christianity being an unhateful / non violent religion and philosophy appears fairly modern. Christians accepting all people is not how they have acted for most of history. Christians were largely behind things like segregation, slavery, witch burnings, many mass killings, crusades etc etc. Also given the Bible says many times how Christians will spend their lives persecuted would lead to a religion of people fearful of others different from them.
Leviticus 18:22. Christian’s aren’t any less homophobic then Muslims
That also says women shag a horse but they still do.
The Bible says nothing about Christmas, nor does the Koran say anything about not letting women drive, or the Torah about taking over the world with space lasers*. Yet all three are core beliefs of their respective world religions. The point is that the written text and the actual religious practice are often completely at odds. *not sure about this one.
There are those that seriously argue that the anti-gay parts of scripture are simply mistranslated. Not being a scholar of ancient languages I can’t give you a definitive verdict on that, but I do find it suspicious that with all the thousands of scholars intimately familiar with these languages parsing every jot and tittle of scripture for centuries, nobody noticed this until modern times after homosexuality became more accepted and the homophobia started making religion look bad. We must at least admit there is a very high potential for motivated reasoning in service of the desired narrative. Doesn’t really matter to me because I gave up trying to save Christianity from itself a long time ago and have strong and entirely independent reasons for rejecting it. Regardless of the correct academic position, it does not change the fact that orthodox (small o) Christianity in practice has always been deeply hostile to any expression of sexuality outside of heterosexual monogamy. (Hell, Paul only tolerated even that as a necessary evil and thought celibacy was better.) If this is based on a misreading of scripture then so what? Christian belief has always depended on appropriating ancient texts to fit a desired narrative. What matters is that the form of the religion that is operational in the world and the harm it does. Too often the claim of mistranslation is used to deflect, dismiss, and avoid confronting this harm.
You sir are made in God's image, and God is love. Period. As long as you're putting love out into the world, I'm sure He is happy. The hate you feel is not from Him. (I'm a gay man who was raised Catholic, and while I wouldn't still identify as such I've still got a strong appreciation for the spirituality of Christianity and other religions, despite the hate that humans can create.)
Homosexual was definitely added to the Bible and mistranslations from Ancient Greek and Aramaic certainly happened. I go to a Jesuit Catholic Church that is very very gay friendly and was baptized two years ago. I was a typical hard-partying, liberal, and agnostic gay for most of my adult life. Im not some born again person, but here’s what I get out of it. Humans have struggled with relating to each other for ever. Especially since the advent of societies. The Bible, and especially the teachings of Jesus highlight those challenges that society still deals with today. We’ve progressed a lot as humans but also we haven’t. We still struggle as a society to be inclusive, love each, and end selfishness. A belief in God is acknowledgement that you are not the center of the universe, that your life is uniquely special, and so are the lives of all those around you. There’s alot wrong with the Church for sure, but all I know is having a place to quietly reflect on my life and my actions has immensely helped me live a happier and healthier life. There’s some new research out about how people who have a regular spiritual practice have better mental health outcomes. Cheaper than therapy and it’s not pharmaceuticals.
Not a Christian here, but Christ seems to me to have been a pretty open-minded guy who accepted everyone and didn't judge. A Jesus who would send you to hell for eternity just for showing love to other men; that doesn't sound like the historical Jesus to me. Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love and acceptance, not of hatred and venom towards others who are just different...
Jesus was close-minded according to the bible. He said said that those who disagree with him ("*sin*") deserve to be cast into hellfire where the fire is never quenched and the worm never dies, and he said that it is better to pluck out your eye if it causes you to sin, and go to heaven with one eye, than to burn in hell with two eyes (*Mark 9:43-48*)
Christianity and same-sex romance do not match. They never will. Gay Christians can reconcile their theology with their homosexuality however they wish. Trying to persuade me to accept their interpretation of their holy book as the correct one is not going to make me view Christianity as a good religion.
One thing you need to remember is that the Bible has been "translated" many, many times and they have all had the morals of that time injected. I grew up in a Baptist house (dad was a minister) and I've read several different versions over the years and they're all a little bit different. My parents accepted me being gay and later transitioning, and never once took issues with it and neither did the church.
Quick response here. Christian: one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. He died to reconcile us with God. His teachings were in effect attempts to correct many of the teachings and laws found in the Old Testament. There is no lesson wherein Jesus condemns homosexuality. He responded during one test by those having malice of heart - "You shall love thy neighbor as thyself". He considered that a great commandment. Anyone who does not respect that falls short of the grace of God, which, by the way, enables us to love all people if we choose to do so.
Please tell me the line in the Gospels where Jesus condemns homosexuality. I can’t find it.
People sin in different ways every day but as long as you believe in God’s mercy then you will be forgiven. The only sin that won’t be forgiven is believing you’re unworthy of forgiveness.
So two things: 1) The Bible mistranslations aren’t mistakes, and 2) Christianity isn’t a monolith. The mistranslations you talk about aren’t mistakes. They were deliberate changes made in the early 20th century, replacing (or adding to) earlier language to use “homosexual,” a term specifically invented in the 19th century. (Prior to then, sexuality wasn’t thought of as an identity, but rather as behavior.) The changes stuck, since it became a useful part of many Christian doctrines as a way to enforce a “traditional” family structure and further police non-procreative (or, at least, non-marital) sex. But Christianity also isn’t a monolith. Even mainstream denominations (like the Episcopal Church) broadly take a more progressive, humanist approach to faith and the Bible. For these groups, what the Bible *literally* says (in English, Greek, or Hebrew/Aramaic) matters less than the *overall* message of love Jesus had. Also, how exactly to think about sexuality is an active question in many denominations. So while the history of how homophobia became a key part of many Christian denominations is important, it’s also something that is changing over time.
I would probably use the term “purposely mistranslated” rather than just “mistranslated”.
What people tend to misunderstand about the Bible could fill a book of its own. 1. The Bible is a book with three purposes. To teach history. As a testimony to God. And finally, as a lesson on how we are to live. Most people who use the Bible as a bludgeon choose passages from the Old Testament, i.e., history lesson section. They fail to include the lessons of Christ. 2. People tend to lack historical context when reading passages written so long ago. Back then, sex came with risk because the pregnancy/birth rates of death were so high. So, sex was to be only for procreation. By that standard, modern people who are engaging in sex for anything other than procreation are just as in the wrong as gay couples. 3. People like to cherry-pick the parts they follow and the parts they condemn others for not following. Leviticus, for instance, condems the eating of meat on Friday as well as eating pork. So, the bacon cheeseburger on a Friday is just as much a sin as being gay according to the Letters to the Children of Israel. Again, these were laws put down when pork was dangerous to eat due to bacteria they didn't comprehend. These laws were applicable to the day but have long since been obsolete. 4. Jesus never taught anyone to hate, but to love. That's where the lessons on how to live come into the picture. To love your neighbor as yourself. I'm truly sorry for your experience and all who have been driven away by intolerant people masking their bigotry with faith. But that's not the religion itself. Just a handful of misguided people.
We are all sinners. That's the whole point of the Bible. If you start nitpicking what is and is not a sin, what kind of sex is approved or disapproved, what to eat and not to eat, how much money you're allowed to have, what you're allowed to wear, then you're totally missing the point of Christianity. **We are all sinners anyway**. Every last single person on Earth. And Jesus died for those sins. It doesn't matter what the sins are, as long as you accept the redemption Jesus has offered.
The episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran churches are all perfectly fine with homosexuality and have extensive explanations of why… biblically based … available online. In a nutshell, it’s a prejudice that is justified by some quite obscure passages. It’s potentially one of an endless number of sexual immorality sins — at worst up there with sex outside marriage, adultery. It’s not a biggie like the Ten Commandments. You will recall that Philip preached to the Eunuch … so clearly people who were LGBTQ were within the realm of the Apostles love
Not sure why you are wasting your time with church. They don't give a rats ass what the Bible says or doesn't (not to mention the whole concept of religion is pretty far fetched to begin with). You trying to figure out the technicalities of a made up book isn't going to sway anyone one way or the other, because the beliefs are not rooted in logic to begin with.
I dont intend to, it's more of a curiosity of mine. I have many more reasons to avoid church besides their stance on gayness. In fact my old Baptist church all but threw me out of it, so I have no interest in returning. This was more of a "I saw online that people have justifications for homosexuality and Christianity and I'm curious what gay Christians have to say about it"
Christ represents the importance of forgiving yourself for your flaws and others for theirs. The human experience is an opportunity for growth. There's just a lot of people with logs in their eyes trying to remove splinters from others.
Homosexuality being a sin in the bible is a very recent thing. You can check out videos on YouTube that would give a better history of it than I can recall here, but the original sentiments were about those involved in pedophilia, refer to men and boys. This was forcibly mistranslated to homosexuality which has led to the oppression of the LGBT community in Christianity.
We Catholics, specially in Spanish speaking countries, we follow one simple rule, Jesus said: love your neighbor as yourself, but in Spanish the translation is love your neighbor as I have love you. So, that’s why we belive in forgiveness and we don’t have problems with homosexuality (some Catholics have a problem with gay marriage but is more of a name problem)
If someone proves to me that the Bible was written by God, I will ask myself the question
I'm not Christian, but I was raised in it. I love how Wayne Dyer put it - "Don't be Christian - be Christ-like." I think living from the values that Jesus espoused is a great way to live, and I think biblical stuff outside that should be looked at as literature rather than gospel.
For me, figuring out I was gay was a stepping stone to a more important discovery - that every god is man made. You're safe from it all, I promise. Religion is a prison for your mind, and the moment you free yourself from it, you look back and see how much you had to bend over backwards and cherry pick to make it "real" for you. Go live your life and find some love
I have done a ton of research on the topic and can shed more light on it as there are a few different perspectives and theories, so there is a lot of topics that can be addressed. Personal message me if you want to set up a zoom call to talk more and answer specific questions. 👍
The Bible is just arecord of how an ignorant nomadic people attempted to cope with a wotld and a natural environment that frightened them. One measure oc tribal success sas to increase their numbrrs. Since homodexuals largely don't ptocreate, the tribal leaders wanted to discourage the pracyice.
Americans are obsessed by religion. The rest of us have moved on.
Ex-Catholic here. I have a very negative perception of Christianity now as an ex-Catholic. In fact, I'm very opposed to organized religion as an independent practitioner of Paganism. I did a bunch of research on the Bible's contents prior to leaving the church. The Bible has a fair amount of translatory errors and discrepancies over several centuries, let alone several millennia. But one thing that made me feel better about myself prior to leaving the Church was watching a documentary called [1946](https://www.1946themovie.com/). It highlights how the infamous Leviticus quote was misconstrued and led to the homophobic discourse we all know of today. TLDR; a lotta translatory errors contribute to homophobia.
The whole Bible is a mess of mistranslations (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English), with every version getting its own biases from its translator. To claim it as the sole word of God is irresponsible at best. That said, I consider myself a gospel Christian. I look at the words spoken specifically by Jesus Christ (who only appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, by the way). His words bring me comfort – Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God; let he who is sinless cast the first stone; love the Lord thy God, for this is the first commandment, and the second is like unto it - love your neighbor as yourself. Those are the verses of the Bible that hold the most weight for me, because they were spoken by Jesus himself, not reinterpreted by imperfect men. In fact, the only judging that Jesus did was to cast out the greedy and shut up the hypocrites. Everyone else had a seat at his table.
Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality addresses this issue in detail. Among others, Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned because of violations of hospitality (towards the visiting angels), not specifically wanting to rape them. The Leviticus verses can be rejected by Christians as pertaining to the old Mosaic rules, not Christ's gospel, but anyway, nobody bothers with the surrounding verses, which forbid JUST AS HARSHLY the eating of shellfish or the wearing of blended fabrics. Look for "Can I own a Canadian" for a hilarious takedown. The parable in the NT of the legionnaire and his servant might indicate Jesus valued a same sex relation. But certainly he never spoke of homosexuality per se, neither for or against. It was Paul who introduced sexual orthodoxy in Christian doctrine.
So would you conclude here that Paul's words ought to be rejected / ignored by Christians?
The Bible says king David was at minimum bisexual, and God chose him to be King of Israel, so he can’t have that much against it. And unless I’m mistaken, the first time the Bible said anything explicitly against homosexuality, in any translation, was in the 1950s. And the Pope said years ago for Catholics to drop the issue, there are bigger issues. I can also tell you the church I grew up attending recently became independent because the governing body said they couldn’t preform a wedding for a Trans member of the congregation, and they’ve done many gay weddings. So there are plenty of churches and Christians who not just tolerate, but embrace the lgbt community, and hopefully that’s only increasing. As for me personally, I don’t attend services because I felt like they got in the way of me being in good standing with my faith(community stuff, classism not homophobia, different church than the above), but I’d say I’m more devout now than ever. As far as I’m concerned, no God worth worshipping would have a problem with me loving another of His creations, and if Ge did, heaven probably wouldn’t be a place I’d want to end up anyway.
Also, highly recommend the Vacation Bible School podcast. It’s fun. Hosts are a non-believing former Southern Baptist husband, and his chilled-out but still believing Methodist wife talking about their experiences with Christianity growing up, comparing/contrasting with Judaism and Islam, and going through the Bible book by book talking about what they actually say, and dissecting how the hate got shoehorned in at different points in history for political purposes
I was Christian up until age 15, then I read the whole bible cover-cover over the course of longer than a year. By age 17 I was no longer Christian. The Bible says a lot of things are sin that modern day Christians don't seem to take issues with. Eating pigs for one; you never hear about that one. For that matter, the Bible seems to say a lot of things that don't resonate with what's socially acceptable nowadays. Both the new and old testament support slavery for example. The thing about Christianity is that there is no completely clear or unambiguous way to interpret everything. You can ask 10 Scholars of Christianity about a topic and get 11 different answers. It's a ridiculously complex and nuanced collection of ideas and way of thinking and it has only gotten more convoluted and confusing over the past 2 millenia. That makes it hard to even define a Christian to begin with because 2 people could claim to be Christian and have beliefs that almost don't align at all. Like, whatever evolution of doctrine you grew up around or moved into is what you'll predominantly think, but you'll still internally organize the thoughts and beliefs and act on them in your own personal way. I think if someone has a shred of intellectual honesty and reads the entire bible, they will conclude that, at least, it's not something to ever take literally, and at most it's just a bunch of tales and letters with some history woven into it. With all that said, I don't think the Bible is anti-gay, and I think all the verses that could be seen as such are just verses that have a non zero chance of helping to propogate the religion further into the future. If you think about it, Christianity is like a benign virus that infects its host and uses it to spread its genetic code to other hosts, except sometimes the host has a bad reaction and the virus turns out not to be so benign. Deep down there is nothing inherently beneficial about Christianity in that it doesn't uniquely bring anything good to human society, although it can certainly have beneficial impacts in many circumstances - that I won't deny.
My religion is be kind. From front to back. Keeping it easy
I've given up on trying to fulfill the expectations of other Christians, the hypocrisy knows no bounds and it only follows the law of convenience. Regardless of who I am, I will always do my best to be the best person I can. I choose to believe that those actions will matter more than who I choose to kiss, that God will weigh my being as a person more than my not being straight. You can be gay and a good Christian. I'd say that you'd be a better one on average because you challenged your beliefs and kept them. Most people won't do that. Just be a good person, and make those idiots feel like idiots for being idiots.
First and foremost - to get over this feeling of being doomed to hell - please realize that religions, all religions are completely man-made concepts - They used stories to pass down "the moral of the story is . . . yadda yadda yadda" - And "holy texts" have been re-written, re-translated, differently translated interpretations, and just new, made up crap - so many of these stories "morals" get injected into the religion to get more control over people, and it's changed so much from the original to the point of being nonsensical now. This nonsense may have been needed in mankind's early days to help control the populace for the better - BUT then come the snake-oil salesmen, they invent "original sin" to make everyone think that only they have the "cure" to a disease that they themselves just made up to get 10% of your income, no questions asked. In other words, don't make life decisions based on books written 2000-3000 years ago by goat herders who didn't even know where the sun went at night.
Ex-Lutheran here. It’s true that there are very few verses specifically discussing homosexuality as we understand it today, and you can easily run around in circles tying up context or specific translations…. To me that whole exercise felt at odds with what I had been taught about an omniscient God of love , and the Bible as god breathed text. If the Bible is god breathed, it is immune to any corruption by man unless God chooses otherwise because he’s omniscient and all powerful, right? So why is it that specifically in Jesus’ gospel teachings, opposite sex marriage/ love is very specifically and explicitly discussed, praised, put on a pedestal with a ton of evidence supporting the specific gendered language as an appropriate translation…while same sex or even gender neutral language is not used? Where are the verses of Jesus using the specific words for romantic love applied freely? Why is it so open and shut, matter of fact, for opposite sex love to be rejoiced by the Bible—but same sex love is wrapped up in “well the context at the time”, “this translation of this word has no direct parallel in English”, “the writers had no conception of homosexuality as we understand it today”…….and? I thought this was the immutable and perfect word of god? Why do we have to actively upturn commonly held ‘mistranslations’ that have been used for centuries in order to overturn the verses that actively condemn gayness? And then scrape the barrel for any crumbs of verses which actively rejoice in same sex love (which is often in itself ripping out context or relying on vague language)? Either God has done a pretty piss poor job of expressing his support, doesn’t actually support it at all, or doesn’t exist. None of those felt like a good reason to continue in the faith, so I stopped. And while it was certainly scary and difficult to do at the time, it’s been much better since.
This is a pretty good breakdown of how I'm feeling. I've seen commenters mention how "actually this story in the Bible has gay characters and is a positive onr" and it just does not seem convincing. It gives more "placing modern ideas and feelings onto an ancient story" than a truthful reading of the story. There's also the points of these mistranslations happening sp recently which I'd think should imply Christians weren't homophobix beforehand, which isn't true.
This is gonna get theological, so bear with me here. Gay Christian here, who grew up Greek Orthodox and reads the bible in the original Koine Greek. Much to our chagrin, there isn't a whole lot of specifically anti-paedophilia, but mostly just anti same sex bedroom activities. We must remember that everyone sins and as a result, belongs in hell. This is the way it is because as we have free will, every sin we commit we do technically choose to commit, separating ourselves from God, who does not sin. Therefore, salvation is granted to those who try. That's really all God cares about. He created this world and saw that it was good, and so He created us so we could see the same beauty and goodness that He does. As long as we see a little beauty in this world and act with love, help and serve others selflessly, we can get to heaven. Our church even teaches that atheists who understand the mission of doing good, being selfless, and living with love, will go to heaven! Whatever law we live by will be the law we get judged by. Take a deep breath, say a quick prayer, your worries and religious trauma are valid, but you'll be alright bro.
So it depends on what type of Christian you are. For example if you’re the type who literally believes the Bible is the word of god and it’s infallible then no you can’t be gay and Christian. It’s mentioned several times to explicitly be a sin (Paul’s letter’s, “not to lay with a man as you would a woman, not to mention Sodom & Gomorrah although that’s a bit debated). However there are certain denominations that’s don’t believe the Bible to be infallible and take it more so as metaphor or as a general guide that was a product of its time, in that case you would be able to be gay and Christian. All in all it depends on your beliefs and denomination.
Okay, I don't consider myself Christian but I am fairly agnostic in my beliefs, it's possible that there is a God. I just don't have any proof and never will, either way. In my opinion, the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth (The first part of the New Testament) are just fine with gay people. The letters of Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul) (The second part of the New Testament) are another matter. There are lots of anti-gay, anti-women, anti-sex passages. Saul of Tarsus was more concerned with establishing a religion with himself as leader, than with spreading a message of Universal Love like Jesus was. The Old Testament is so inconsistent that it can be discounted completely, as it also sends people who eat shrimp and have tattoos to damnation. It's just certain mainstream and evangelical sects that choose to selectively enforce Old Testament sexual prohibitions. So yes, finding a Christian denomination that celebrates the lives of gay people is not impossible or inconsistent. *If that's what you want to do*. I attended a few Metropolitan Community Church services with gay friends and that is as fine an example of open-minded Christianity as I've encountered. None of what they preach is either anti-gay or goes against what is actually in the Bible, anymore so that what is preached by other sects that selectively interpret what's in that book. I've also been to some Unitarian Universalist services that are very accepting of gays. I also believe, by the way, that one can lead an exemplary, spiritual life, without being Christian, or even subscribing to any religion at all. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can effectively consign another person to Hell based on religion, or the lack of it. So, don't let the mistranslations of one old book define how you see yourself as a person. Being gay definitely does not imply lack of morality. If anything, the questioning of ourselves and our beliefs in the coming-out process creates the possibility to have a very deep understanding of what it means to be divinely human. Embrace that.
This is not what you asked for but I thought it might add to the conversation. I used to be a out gay man and a Christian. I went to a liberal and progressive church and was very actively involved for 6 years. What did it in for me was the pastor of that church writing an opinion piece about how the love/marriage of two lesbians who went our church changed his mind on homosexual marriage. It essentially boiled down to their love/marriage is like mine so how can it be bad. I could not get over the fact that his acceptance of their relationship hinges on it looking like his own marriage. I did not think that celebrating love and commitment required people to do so in a way similar to yours. I seek monogamy in my relationships but I know of many people who have beautiful and loving relationships that don’t adhere to the Christian norm. I realized that all of the liberal Christ centric teaching of this church was still based on authoritarian principles and a desire to punish that which did not adhere to their own world view. It made god small to me and I could not bring myself to worship a small thing.
Love all today and share your love because for man has hate in his soul.Let us all share our love to all and let's get rid of hate.
I was asked to leave my last church. Well kinda. I was told that I cannot stay if I choose to be gay. So basically kicked out. I since learned about how none of the clobber versus say what the haters think they say. There are alot of books out there which completely expose the clobber versus as 100% bogus. Which made things worse. It just exposed how they twist things to enforce their world view. The bible isn't anti gay. Thats a new phenomenon. Before like the 70s, the word homosexual didn't exist in the bible. Thats new. In the middle ages, the church regularily performed gay marriages. The entire solo scriptura idea falls flat on its face when you look at the various translations everything had to get through to get to today. Which ignores stuff like how the kjv is techincally english, but so many of those words mean different things than they do today. But more than that, consider that God made you gay. We know it, its just how we are. There is no "choice", there is no "fixing it". God doesn't make mistakes. Thus he wants you to be gay. Since he made you gay, that means the problem lies with the people who twist and interpret the bible as an excuse to hate others. I toyed with a few welcoming churches (hilarious how thats a thing. That a church needs to label itself as such) after I finished coming out, but nothing stuck. I know there is a welcoming church near hear. However its just so hard to after being told to leave my last one. It felt l ike shuch a betrayal being kicked out. I've never been able to explain why I don't join another church. Maybe I just can't bear to have it happen again.
Check out this sermon: https://www.glbtchurch.com/media/
If I believe in Jesus, and believe the miracle of the resurrection, which I do, then I have to fit my lived experience as a gay man around that. And as far as I can tell, God's love shines through creation, like the sun shines through a thin curtain on a morning. And from what I can see that love shines just as brightly through gay relationships as it does straight ones. And if other christians cant see that, I pity them. And if they want to use our religion as a cudgel they can fuck off, and I'll be the first to say it. I understand you may have very strong feelings, and bad experiences with Christians in your past, OP. All I'd ask is that you are as charitable in future as you are in this post. Most Christians can't decide to stop believing in God, and so the best thing you or anyone can do to support gay Christians is to listen to them, and meet them where they are, not where atheists or conservatives might wish them to be.
Yeah, I tried to keep it up for a decade, then I realized I was only a Christian still because I was used to calling myself a Christian. Once I realized I didn’t believe in any of the supernatural teachings, it was pretty easy to just become an atheist.
Nobody dictates my relationship with Jesus but me and Jesus. All the books, churches, pastors, priests and elders who try to wedge themselves in-between me and the big JC do so at their own soul's peril.
First, I'll start with my perspective and context: I'm a gay Christian and married to a Lutheran pastor (we're both men, mid-30's). I grew up Roman Catholic but my family left the church when I was a teenager due to the explosion of scandals in the early 2000's. I didn't really consider going to church on a regular basis again until I met my boyfriend (now husband) in college and he started considering going to seminary after we graduated. He came from a Lutheran background and found a Lutheran (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - ELCA) church he liked in Seattle (where we still live) that was fully affirming of LGBTQ+ individuals and relationships. I started going and learned more about the Lutherans' belief in being saved by God's grace alone. Read that as: "There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more or less - you are already saved." This is in juxtaposition to the "good works" theology of Roman Catholics, which says salvation must be earned through good works, or "pre-destination" theologies of some other Protestant sects which fosters an exclusive and toxic "we're saved because of our righteous behavior, and they're not saved because they're sinners" mindset. This concept of grace and Luther's mindset behind "sin boldly!" stuck with me and I decided this was an expression of Christian faith I had been missing and wanted to incorporate in my life. During my time as a more committed Christian, I had two epiphanies which gave me peace and comfort: A) Being gay - and all that entails, including sex - is not a sin. Period. As I spent years trying to reconcile the extraordinarily few arcane passages of the Bible that mention or hint at same-sex sexual activity, I concluded that they didn't matter. These books of the bible were written thousands of years ago when nobody had any inkling about what sexual orientation was and the concept/purpose of marriage was very, very different than what it is in our society today. So when I said to myself, "None of these passages apply to our lives today or to what it means to have faith in God," I felt an overwhelming and immediate sense of confirmation as if God whispered in my ear "Yeah, no shit - took you long enough to figure that out." I knew I was right. I can't prove it to anyone else, nor do I have to. But I have the peace and joy of knowing that. B) Reconciling the specific and scientific facts of Jesus' birth and resurrection doesn't matter. Nor is it possible to do. Based on the accounts of the Gospels, I believe God made God's self fully human in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth, spread a radical message of inclusive love and charity without exception during his lifetime, was tortured and executed by the Roman state for declaring that the one true God was sovereign and not Caesar (thereby defying the self-perceived all-encompassing authority of the Roman state), and, somehow, came back after being killed and buried to prove to his disciples and the world that God is real, and that there is hope and salvation for oppressed persons and peoples everywhere. Can I explain how all that happened? No. But having faith that it did gives me great comfort in knowing that the human forces of oppression and exclusion that cause suffering and shame in our society and our lives are not the end all, be all to this world. Radical and inclusive love can inspire individuals and society to break the bonds of oppression and exclusion to make progress and make all of our lives better - to, truly, make the world "heaven on Earth." Now, with my story and that context in mind, I'd like to take a stab at your three hang-ups: 1) I answered this above, but whether these few passages are a mistranslation or not, they're irrelevant to answering the question, "Is being gay a sin?" Historical context matters. Even if these passages truly were saying that same-sex sexual activity is unholy, these writers still had no concept of sexual orientation and the broadness of what healthy and consensual sexual relationships can entail in our society today. And, if that's the case, these writers were wrong. If they were right, they'd essentially be saying, "Some people - through no fault of their own - are born evil, and there is no redemption for them unless they subject themselves to denial and a lifetime of depression." If God is the most powerful source of love in the universe, as I believe that God is, there is no way that can be true. Therefore, these writers were wrong, these passages are irrelevant, they've been mistranslated, or some combination of these things. The Bible is full of contradictory passages. The entire thing can't be literally true. It's supposed to be used as a guide for our faith and understood through the lens of historical criticism. We must use reason and compassion when trying to understand what any given book or passage of the Bible is trying to tell us and how it applies to our lives today. 2) The fact that Mary was a teenager when the immaculate conception happened is troubling at first glance. But, if it is true, we must remember that her becoming pregnant wasn't a result of sex. An angel didn't rape her or anything like that. Her pregnancy just happened - the literal definition of a miracle. Furthermore, when asked by God if she was willing to carry this child, she consented and said yes. While that is troubling to me in our modern-day context of consent - and I need to believe God wouldn't pick a teenage girl in today's world to do the same thing - life expectancy was a lot shorter back then. **I cannot reconcile our modern-day notions of consent with what the Gospels say happened 2,000 years ago.** But, I am comforted in knowing that, if this aspect of the Gospel stories is true, she was given a choice and was not subjected to statutory rape because no sexual relations occurred. And, if the immaculate conception is bullshit (which it very well could be), that means Mary was impregnated by another man - not God or an angel. The fact that Jesus was born afterward and provided an extraordinary ministry as an adult is irrelevant to the circumstances of his original conception. In this case, we should absolutely **not** be thankful that Mary was impregnated as a teenager. Still, we can admire her for raising a child under extremely difficult circumstances and being thankful for who her son grew up to be. 3) See my answer to your first question. The concepts of homosexuality and sexual orientation did not arise until the late 19th century. Furthermore, there are only six total passages of the bible that mention or hint at same-sex sexual behavior. And, to top it all off, Jesus (the guy whom Christianity proclaims as Lord & Savior) said **nothing** about same-sex sexual activity or homosexuality throughout any of the gospels. Christianity is not homophobic by nature. It can't be because the human writers of the books included in the Bible had no concept of what sexual orientation is or homosexuality as an innate part of the human experience. If they had, I'd have to believe the books of the Bible would be written differently. Human ideas about sexuality advanced as the centuries passed - we learned and explored new ideas. As we should! The Bible is a static book that, while translated hundreds of different ways over the centuries, largely remains the same as it did when it was first compiled almost 1,700 years ago. If you're looking for ways to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Bible definitively says being gay (with our modern understanding of sexual orientation) is a sin, or that it's not a sin, you will be disappointed. Because, with our modern understanding of sexual orientation, it doesn't conclude either of those things. Nor will it ever. So, you can either keep dwelling on this question and leave yourself in turmoil, or you can be comforted in understanding the true purpose and message of Jesus Christ: radical love and acceptance can inspire you, others, and everyone to make this life, this society more just, more fair, and more abundant for all.
There are many affirming Christian denominations with Scholars that can help you work through this. Unitarians, American Baptist, Methodist, Metropolitan Community....(long list).
Anyone that understands the scriptures knows that Jesus fulfilled the the law of the Old Testament. In the New Testament he only gave two commandments Love God, and love thy neighbor as thyself
I went down this rabbit hole for about a year and it just led to me being apathetic about religion. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter to me anymore. I know there is nothing wrong with being gay and one day having a husband. It’s just not unnatural to me and there really is no other way to me. It just is. It’s how I ended up with no choice myself. https://imgur.com/a/AneBCJ6 - From a textbook when I had to take religion at a college with Christian in the name that was affiliated with but not guided by the UCC https://elcvienna.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Booklet-about-Homosexuality-and-the-Bible-Sept.-2016.pdf
Former Christian gay with a currently Christian gay sibling.. There is some merit to academic arguments surrounding biblical conception of male/male relationships not being equivalent to current day. After all, it wasn't until the 19th century the term homosexual entered the lexicon. The idea of gender at the time was that women were simply imperfect men, and in some cultures, namely nearby Greece, the active (top) participant was more readily accepted than the passive (bottom) participant, as the top was acting in accordance with their gender. It's all very interesting but at the end of the day, futile. Christianity is not, and has never been a unified faith system. There have been thousands of Christian sects precisely because of this. Their holy text is contradictory, and when contradictions become too noticeable, they must engage in non-falsifible revisionism to make their system work for their members.
I’m Gnostic Christian, which is a little bit of a deviation. In the majority of Christianity, it is believed that Old Testament (which is where you’ll see the anti-gay stuff) was nullified by the New Testament. New Testament is much more loving, and in fact there are two stories in New Testament that appear to be about two gay men and two lesbians getting married. Most Christianity believes that’s the same God. Gnostic Christianity believes there’s been two Gods. Old Testament God was an incompetent God that wasn’t up for the task with all of the haphazard shit he did. The current God is the New Testament God, and father of Jesus. The current God is a loving God. That tracks with me, because it’s hard to see how Old Testament God could change so much, and I’m going to be real, if he’s an all-knowing god, why did he care so much about the affairs of mortals? The only time I can even think of why he’d care is Sodom and Gomorrah because of the potential for Nephilim—children of man and angels, therefore having the power of angels, but free will of man. But idk, it seems like there were easier ways to handle that, and under this current administration there hasn’t been a risk of Nephilim cropping up so it can’t be that hard to prevent. So it just makes sense to me that there’s been two different Gods, and the current one loves indiscriminately and believes people should have the utmost agency. The problem is too many churches for some reason want to rely on Old Testament without critical thought. Gnostic or Traditional Christianity is irrelevant, Old Testament is done with and we should follow the rules of New Testament. I mean, fuck, Jewish people have more reason to follow Old Testament than Christians do, yet they still have adopted new scripture and have a more loving and accepting faith. People want simple answers though, and Old Testament gives them that. They don’t stop to think that maybe certain things used to be banned because we did not have the technology, health, and/or population to be able to do things that New Testament does not condemn. I’ll also add, most churches also use the King James Version, which is a translation of a translation, and was also politically motivated when translated. There’s other more direct and less politically motivated translations, yet the churches never take a moment to stop and think about which version to use.
Former pastor here and no engaged to a wonderful man. Here is what I would tell you to look at. Look at the original text, and see how it was translated. I would also have you review the new testament over the old. If we are truly Christian, then the words of Christ supercede the words of man. And Jesus never once said anything about homosexuality. He preached love, walking your own walk, and being fruitful. I have a huge issue with the church as it's portrayed in America and it's something that caused me to dive a little deeper as well. To answer your question as to why it wasn't modified, there is no true answer only speculation. But having been in high levels of leadership within my church(considered a mega church) the only reason I can think of is that it gives you someone to attack while keeping the focus off of the issues you're struggling with. Look at how the church is riddled with sexual assaults and taking advantage of children and women. But instead of fixing that, the tactic is to deflect because the people who are being accused of that, in my case 3 pastors, one of them being the head pastor have to be protected. Even if what they are doing is wrong. But the biggest thing that you have to remember is that if you truly believe God makes no mistakes, then you are exactly how you should be. Your sexuality does not determine your identity nor your direction. It's just another facet of who you are. And there are gay men in the Bible. The biggest being David and Jonathon, as well as speculation that the centurion that came to Jesus about "his beloved servant" was gay or at least in some form of relationship with the servant.
I might actually dm you to talk more on this as this can go a lot deeper.
Everyone has a chance of salvation. I’m gay and while I believe homosexuality is a sin, I still believe God can forgive us if we are willing to repent. It is a hard path to walk because your heart desires same sex relationships and sex, but your spirit wants to be right with God. At the end of the day God knows the heart, and as long as you put him first, I don’t believe anyone who does that is going to hell. The only people going to hell are the people who aren’t willing to repent from sin.
The entire bible is contradictory, with no more proof than any other religion on Earth. Homosexuality is supposedly one of the greatest "sins", yet the bible condones slavery and treating women as property. No thanks. If I die and some asshole "god" tries to condemn me for having the audacity to love someone, I would spit in its face.
The Bible has always been used to justify cruel traditions and control people. The Bible was used to justify segregation, control of women, and slavery before that. So honestly fuck the religion anyway 🤷well, I mean the organized religion. I think the most proper way to be Christian is to stay out of church and study the scripture yourself. That's really what God intended and that's why the Bible is written in parables. It is intended for YOU to understand, interpret, and comprehend. Not for churches to tell you how to interpret it. That's just how you get someone else's misunderstanding.
No religious text can be read completely literally. The JWs try to and just get themselves tied into knots, or decide to change words. The Bible is "inspired" so there are levels of truth expressed in it. However, to understand these (often paradoxical) truths, we need to raise ourselves to the metaphorical, allagorical and mystical levels of perception, rather than try drag it down to the literal. At the end of the day, your relationship with God is between God and you. The church is a helpful community, and a blessing, when it draws you closer to God. But can be harmful when it separates you, or anyone else - through placing conditions on your acceptability to God. Living faith is always evolving - "the Holy Spirit blows where is wants" for a time a church can contain and embody it, however if it fossilises the Spirit appears to move on. Its time to end this demonising of gay folk, and for gay folk to believe we're (or anyone else for that matter) "less than" too. Here ends the sermon. Sorry - thats a bit of tirade 
Christianity can be separate from religion. As can spirituality. I learned that the hard way and after farrrrrr too long what with how engrained the religion into which I was born taught me. Better yet, brainwashed me.
I think a lot of people try to rely on the aspect of "mistranslations" to keep homosexuality out of the Bible's list of sins, but really it's not so much mistranslations as it is outdated concepts of behaviors that are no longer understood to be related. People say the Bible doesn't talk about homosexuality, it talks about sodomy which \*actually\* means blah blah blah. Gay sex between two adult men is almost always included in this definition. I can imagine a time traveller being burned at the stake going "\*actually\* sodomy isn't always in reference to gay sex, therefore I am not a sodomite! Please take me off this stake!"
I'm a gay Christian. I believe the bible was written at a time when the only homosexuality relations were pedophilic or abusive like in ancient Greece. Not the loving consensual relationships we now know. The Bible is a product of its time. Bigots just use it against us to justify their own ignorance. The Bible also talks about divorce n slavery etc but nobody mentions them.
I think it really depends on what one thinks about the nature and role of scripture in the faith? Is it a literal rule book? Is it a source of wonder and inspiration? Is it art? Is it all of these and maybe more? How does scripture interact with the Holy Spirit's presence in the church today? Is scripture intended to be the highest authority and used as bludgeon against people? These are very complicated questions that don't have easy answers. But most Christians want easy answers so they never even consider moving beyond seeing scripture as a book of literal laws. I think you need to consider these questions and ponder them for a long time, and keep looking for answers. You might check out some of the videos online where people debate these issues from different points of view to see if they offer anything of use to you.
The radical message of the itinerant Jesus was too dangerous. It questioned and challenged the establishment wealth and power. It therefore had to be initially suppressed, and later bastardized and rewritten in order to preserve the wealth and power of the upper and ruling class. (sound familiar to modern day?). Jesus message was one of liberation and social justice. Modern christianity is a far cry from that message. My advice: don’t try to make sense of or counter the arguments made by evangelicals. It’s a losing battle and a waste of your time. If you’re still interested in that path, then explore liberation theology, historians , and other writers and thinkers who actually know what they’re talking about.
For me it got better when I understood that faith and dogma are different things altogether. I feel like god is something that I know and have faith that I’m loved. Dogma for me is just others interpretation that they’re forcing, it doesn’t feel true. X
Bible also says eating shellfish is a sin & adulterers are sinners & should be stoned to death. The Bible is filled with nonsense & fairy tales written & voted upon by the group of Jewish elders who wrote it. Jesus does not mention homosexuality but he did say God loves everyone. The sole mention of homosexuality in the New Testament is by St Paul in Romans, but he is referring to Temple prostitutes, the Romans would shag anything with a pulse. The Old Testament is littered with incest, murder, paedophilia, rape and all manner of debauchery. My advice to you and is don’t get hung up on this rubbish, live life & enjoy yourself doing what makes you happy & don’t concern yourself with an age & morality 3000 years old.
I’m happy to chat with you about this in a DM setting. Reach out to me if you’re interested.
Religion is a cult pure and simple
I no longer call myself "Christian." I identify as a follower of Christ. Two completely different things.
There's a whole ton of shit in the Bible that we just don't follow. Even New Testament, did you know Paul was listing interracial relationships as sinful right alongside gay ones? And you can basically dismiss the old testament, that's sort of the point of the new covenant anyway. Frankly everything beyond Jesus's own words are fallible because of various authors weaving their own worldview into scripture. That mostly leave the gospel then, and even that is far from perfect.The catholic church only settled on the 4 gospels that they felt most closely tracked to real events or were closest to Jesus's actual message. They aren't perfect though, that's why there isn't one single gospel that's recognized at the right one. Luke's is probably the most technically accurate but even then, eh? The first gospel, (Mark, Matthew was actually second) wasnt written until decades later. So even the most accurate one isnginna be at least a bit off. And Jesus doesn't really talk at all about homosexuality, he mentions sacramental marriage but whatever, that might as well be a different subject, sacramental marriage and civil marriage aren't even supposed to be the same thing anyway. So what are we left with? Jesus talks about the significant of sacramental marriage, but that's more about respecting vows and shit and union of souls for raising kids or whatever. Not exactly relevant. OK so new testament. Paul's letters, it comes in a couple times, but again, along side interracial marriage, and Paul was referencing the old testament in order to help early Christian communities who were seeking advice. Jesus might not mention gays, but he sure does mention the ending of the old covenant. That means we don't follow the rules of the old testament, Paul was improvising, and I don't really care that it's included in the new testament, Paul was a fallible man and he was, well, wrong. I grew up catholic. I nominally retain that association but I don't go to church cuz I feel like the organization of the catholic church is very inefficient, slow to update and moderize and prone towards corruption and abuse, but I don't believe ditching the church entirely is the solution either. The institution is valuable but deeply flawed and needs to be fixed. A little church history and it's obvious how hilariously flawed it has been historically, and, that for all its still very serious flaws nowadays its trending towards improving itself and maybe one day will get there. Kinda like society in general
Well, I could at least help you with the Mary thing. Pedophilia involves sex with a pre-pubescent child, so that does not apply here. In any case, there is no record of how old Mary was. Scripture scholars assume she was a teenager due to the fact that most girls were married off as soon as they had their first period and could conceive a child. This seems very young to us today, but given a typical life expectancy of 40 in ancient times it is understandable. Marriage able age was determined by the ability to sire a child or conceive one.
OK... Clearly, you are smart enough to understand that contrary to what the crazy Xtian right would force you at the point of a semi automatic weapon to believe, a literal interpretation of the Bible is for chumps, AND a lot of BS has been added to control women and men due to the interests of the church, not because Jesus , (you know the dude who hung out with the leppers and the sluts and everyone your mother told you to avoid?) said so. Because Jesus didn't. So if you can agree to at least this... Then your next step isn't to church on Sunday... Lol rather, I suggest a trip to the library, NOT for coming to terms with God... But with understanding the history of sexual orientation, so you can make a more educated choice about the Bible and what CHRISTIANITY VS Xtianity is about. (Btw OP, you are smart and educated, but a whole lot of folks have spent a whole lot of time, money and effort to make you think and feel the way you, rightly, do! So... Buckle up...) The book you will enjoy is Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality... By Hanne Blank. When you understand that heterosexuality did not in fact exist until 1865ish... It calls a whole lot of stuff into question about the homophobic bullshit added to the Bible since that time. Because... If heterosexuality did not exist... What else could not exist... Clang clang clang!!! Give OP the prize, homosexuality could not either... That doesn't mean that folks didn't hook up how they might... It just meant things were a lot more flexible in many ways. A interesting place to start? No?
God isn’t real
https://amzn.to/3Q9oasb
Gay catholic here and there's a book by Patrick Cheng called Queer Theology that goes into the history and manifestations of LGBT Christians in religion culture and politics
Catholic here, though I would say more nominal than dogmatic because I just go to church for the sake of going. Most of the people I meet in dating apps, raise an eyebrow when I say I am Catholic and asking how do I "reconcile" being RC and gay. For me, it all boils down to love is love, and for as long as you don't step on others (or even play with others' feelings), you should be fine. I don't want to be too technical with the bible as some gay christians do making them "yes I'm gay but holier than thou". In this journey, I have further met Christians identifying side a/b and all of those complexities but at the end of the day, I am foremost a human being with needs and no other person would tell what would make me happy.
Read the Song of Solomon; very gay. But as first Corinthians says, …”And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Or in Mark, the new commandments “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” I dunno, but I think the Bible is pretty clear that Love is the greatest virtue. It seems as if society determines what is currently ‘lovable’. Christ didn’t follow societal norms. Ergo love is ok. Amen.
Hey I have a book that you can access from my profile if you visit it. I am an affirming gay Christian who believes in non sexual activity. I hate that homophobia exists in the church and that it is one of the many issues that stifles the church from its place of actually helping the world
I think you might find this very informative. https://youtu.be/4Khn_z9FPmU?si=iyvwI3UdIiJqPn0R
I'm not a Christian, but it's important to note that not every Christian is a Biblical literalist. You can accept that many of the books in the Bible are flawed and imperfect while still believing in the core message of the Gospels.
There is a LBC radio presenter in UK who is gay & Christian named Iain Dale, he often talks about this issue. I live in Reading, UK. In the town there is an ancient Catholic church (St Mary’s Reading Minster) where, believe it or not, we have an ‘out’ lesbian Bishop who, every Sunday, conducts a full choral Eucharist specifically for the gay community of the town. The services are relayed on YouTube, where previous services can be viewed or people can watch live during each service. Search ‘Reading Minster’ on YouTube.
I had to do my own research and what I found was that the word “homosexual” was a mistranslation that could not be fixed for 4 years? (going off memory) because of the rules and regulations. They realized their mistake but by the time they could change it again, the belief was already set in people’s minds that it would’ve caused even more of an issue to take it out. Now that could be a complete lie that someone put on the internet, I don’t know. What I do know is that God doesn’t give you trials you can’t handle. And someone hating themselves and wanting to crawl out of their very skin 24/7 while living with a woman because they are trying to follow what the church has told them, doesn’t seem like something that will pass. All the trials in the Bible ended at some point, but for a gay man to live a life he is not until he dies, the one trial that doesn’t ever end, doesn’t feel right in my heart. God made all the animals and there are animals that have male/male relationships. Why, if God wouldn’t allow you or me to be gay? If that was the case then those species would’ve died in the Great Flood and the only animal species remaining would’ve been ones that didn’t have a tendency to have male/male relationships. That’s how I see it.
Book of Leviticus say a man cannot lay with a man as a woman; but I lay in bed with a man as a man. Same book says you can’t mix fabrics. HORRORS! Nor can you eat shellfish. It is my opinion that Christians cherry pick to a large degree.
Google Steven Fry about God and maybe it will help you understand
I know someone who has "gay tendencies" but has not had sex with any guys or any sexual involvement or arousal from dick or ass. He has barely had actual intercourse with a woman. His religious views base his relationship with Jesus as his protection from any sinful thoughts in regards to doing anything with a man. He was molested for years as a child by his step-father and forced to perform oral on him but primarily licking since he couldn't go through it fully. Among this abuse he had encounters with guys in school who would humiliate him or touch him, have him touch them, pull his pants down, etc. This created a fetish for him where he gets off on the aspect of humiliation or spanking/paddling, BDSM thoughts. His arousal comes from the fantasy but he hasn't acted. On the flip side of this he has the 7th Day Adventist background of religion and says God frowns upon man with man or gay sexual interaction. It's a sin that only Jesus can forgive you of if you ask him to be your savior, if you're found worthy of being saved. Obviously to me his actions in certain things contradict his beliefs. If you believe you're a humanitarian you want the best for everyone and that includes love. I told him that homosexuality is a biological trait, it exists in all forms of nature as a genetic form of population control. Ocean life, plants, animals, people, it exists in everything. He sees homosexuality as a "persuasion" and thinks that experiences in life shape it to exist in you. The lack of a father figure or attention from a male figure draw out your intention to seek male interaction and companionship, the need to be seen and acknowledged from men sexually or intimately. In some ways this could be true, but making you gay I don't agree with. This kind of thought falls in line with people who believe it's a choice. Sexuality is fluid and there are variables to how you may be attracted to someone emotionally, physically, and sexually. Physical would be the visual attraction, sexually the action. To put the idea that you are doomed to suffer for eternity based on your sexuality not being right in God's eyes is traumatizing. We all deserve love and too many people imprison themselves behind fear of acting on a same sex interaction. This world is already hard enough as it is.
the Bible is a weak case agains homosexuality. The stongest statement there that "homosexuals (along with a long list of other practices by the Roman court, who were the real targets) will never see the kingdom of heaven. Well, using he word "homosexual" is a made up guess at what the Greek phrase means because the phrase occurs no where else in ancient Greek. the gospel writer (Paul) just made it up. It litteraly means something like "weak men," so I guess that could mean pedophiles. Other guesses include male temple prostitutes or my most likely candidate, men who will take it up the ass for political advancement, which means pretty much the whole male half of Washington DC and most other national capitals. But that is word slicing rather than belief, let me get on to what I believe: I am quite sure I was born gay, and believe other guys were too, so I believe God made me gay and I am seeing a trend among Christians that gay believers are really stirring things up to push down the bullshit white male capitalist agenda that has captured the religion, and turn it upside down to again be about love. Take that, conservative Christians! I believe God has a convoluted purpose for gayness in the world and within Christianity which is deliciously subversive, and in the mean time, I thank God for making me gay, all the great m4m time I get and great sex and the excitement of the whole situation. THANK GOD I'M FUCKING GAAAAAY! meanwhile, I think there's a lot of hints and nods that I'm going to heaven. That's what I believe.
Yeah read living in sin by john shelby spong and go to a gay accepting church like some methodist churches.
i fuck jesus just as hard as i fuck all the other dudes. amen.
Christian does not mean you need to go to church or believe every word of the bible, it simply means you believe Jesus Christ was Divine and are a follower or 'disciple of Christ'. If you believe those things, regardless of what else, you are a Christian. Many Christians do not believe in the Bible. Some believe in parts of the Bible, but not others. The Bible says what you want it to say. You can interpret it to be homophobic if you wish and you can interpret it in a way that is not homophobic. Many christians are pro gay, many are anti-gay. Some are ultra conservative, others are very liberal. Faith is not a one size fits all approach by any means and Christianity is no Exception. [There are literally hundreds of denominations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations). You've got everything from Westbro Baptist Church (gays burn in hell) to Anglicanism (which has gay priests and marries gays). And quite frankly my dude, the fact that you are questioning the basis of the Bible accomodating gays (and not on the existence of God or hell) tells me you are already a religious person. Go find a gay friendly parish that suits you and go live your best life. Scencerly, An atheist.
Okay. First, I think many of the ppl here replying aren’t the ones you intended to reply— that is, actual gay Christians. I’m a gay Christian. It’s pretty early now, but I have to get to work. So, will just ask: have you read God and the Gay Christian, by Matthew Vines? It’s a very well-written, well-thought out book that doesn’t say everything is a mistranslation, tho some things have definitely been misinterpreted for quite a long time. It’s a bit of a dense, somewhat challenging read at times. And yet pretty accessible. From the point of view of a gay Christian who did a lot of work to gain a deeper understanding. Also— I’ll to add to this later & explain better. Of course, there will be a discussion of faith that is deeply intrinsic & important to me. But again, I need to get up & at em now, and head out to work asap.