I had a friend online ask me to explain why I disagree with the way the church treats the gay community. It never fails, every time I talk about this online I get major pushback in different ways. I’m not naive. I understand the pushback. I grew up in church. I believe in everything I’ve heard since I was in my mother's womb. I never had a reason to question it. I learned how to read the bible. Not so I can understand it but so I can love it. So when I tell you I have a disagreement it is not out of some weird desire to show out or start another church or make a new religion.
This is a letter to the church that I love and always will. I respect you but I will not ignore you. The church is not my God. If God has led me a certain way I will follow. If reading scripture has opened my eyes to something then why would I stay blind to the problems I see? I’ve read a lot of books. I’ve read all of the Bible. I’ve studied most of it. I am no scholar but I try to read like one. I read Jewish history to better understand the context of why the writers wrote how they did. If you understand the context of where someone is coming from then you understand what they meant.
For example, the book of Revelation written by John is very confusing and makes no sense in some places. However, if you go back and read Isaiah and Jeremiah and some of the old prophets you will begin to see similarities in the things they wrote. Then it's not so confusing. When Jesus was on the cross. He said some things that made no sense. Like, “father why are you forsaking me”. In the context of the cross, it seems like Jesus and God are against each other but if you read Psalm and other OT writers you begin to see that Jesus was just quoting scripture.
When you understand the context of who they wrote it for then you understand the meaning behind the words. Context is everything. A lot of the Bible was not written for us, as Americans. It was a message to a certain group of people. We have just translated it and used it for our own lives as a way to connect with God. The writers in the bible weren't thinking about us. They were writing to a certain group of people for a certain period of time. The real miracle of it all is that God is so massive and wise that he can take a simple message in a dead language and use it to speak to everyone over countless living generations. That is the miracle of the Bible and I believe that was done by God and not by man.
Regarding the gay community. I grew up in church thinking that homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, or just sex at all was the worst sin you could do. It was never the main message it was just delivered in undertones and mini points in long drawn out sermons. I have never heard any preacher I have listened to say directly that homosexuality is the worst sin you could ever commit. But because of the way we address this situation in the church, it feels that way. The way we talk about it from the stage makes it so that you are left with no other idea but to think of sex in terms of shame. And that's crazy to me. God created sex. I didn’t come up with this. It’s not my idea. God gave me this. God gave me the tools to enjoy myself.
So when we talk about desire in the church you are only left with one option; to desire God and marriage and nothing else. We offer nothing else in Christianity. Here's the one problem. There are 7 billion people in this world. We are having a lot of sex in a lot of different ways. Not me. But apparently, everyone else is. That's a lot of kids.
The way the church hurts the gay community is the way we read the Bible.
I’ve heard it a lot when people say the Bible is God’s word to us. It’s perfect. It’s divinely inspired. Meaning it can’t be wrong. I have no problem with that. I believe God helped men write the bible. Here is my problem, just because you can read doesn't mean you understand everything. People read one verse and act like that settles everything from creation to the end of the world. It's the dumbest take. That one verse doesn’t answer every question about life. That one instruction in the Bible isn't a coverall for your moral propaganda. Some people are going through things that aren't in the Bible. People like to dumb down the bible in order to make God real and the fact is that the bible is very complicated and God is even more complicated. There is nothing easy about God. You’re not gonna understand him just because you read a bible verse every day this week. There are 31,102 verses in the bible. To use only 5 verses to explain how we should see a group of people is crazy and a problem. When you let one verse decide how you treat people you are going down a horrible slope. And that slope is called Hitler. Jesus said that man should not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. I think it's a problem to let one verse define how we see people. If all you see is people in the context of one verse then I’m afraid you might not be able to see what God is trying to do with the gay community.
2. The way the church hurts the gay community is the way we see homosexuality.
The history of homosexuality in the bible is not good. It's a horrible start. In fact, everything the bible talks about in the beginning is a horrible start. Adam sins and then blames Eve. So marriage issues in the first marriage. Cain kills his brother, Abel. The first sin committed is murder. What happened to lying or stealing? How is the first sin after the fall murder? That's so far. So by the time we get to the first explanation of homosexuality, it's not just bad, it's the worst possible scenario. Sodom and Gomorrah were the first mentions of homosexuality. A city that God destroyed (Not because of homosexuality by the way.) Then the next time it's mentioned is in the book of Judges. That period of time is some of the worst explanations of human experience I've ever read. I can’t even type it out. It’s that bad. It’s like a total lack of care for adult human life. So by the time you get to the new testament homosexuality is still a thing and it's still not good. It thrives mostly in prostitution and child grooming. At no point during all of this does God ever say homosexuality is the main problem with all these communities. Homosexuality just got abused and had no positive image. Up to this point in history, People got married because of money or to keep the bloodline pure. Love was not a reason for marriage. So for homosexuality, they were actually getting together for love. You can’t have kids so you cant continue your family name. Without kids, you die poor and alone back in that economy. You don't get rich because you aren't joining a family so there is no income or wealth transfer. Marriage has always been a business. And now in our Christian society that hasn’t changed. Marriage funds religion. Who pays the most tithe? Families. Not single people. Who has more impact on the church's future? People that bring their kids. They are the next generation that will help the church keep going. So there is a spiritual side to church but there is also a business side that understands money comes from families. If the church stays open it's because it's funded well, by families. Not single gay people. I’m not saying that's why people go to church, I'm just saying no preacher has a reason to paint homosexuality in a positive light. At no point in history has homosexuality ever helped the church grow. So from the perspective of people that are translating the Bible, it must be evil. It breaks families apart and makes it so that there are no kids. Even when Matthew starts his gospel he starts with the family tree. So you can see that Jesus comes from the bloodline of King David. That's how the bible reads. It becomes easy to assume that because the Bible reads this way then that's the way God wants us to be. If you are not married then you are not important. And that's simply not true. You don’t have to be married to have value. You don’t have to be heterosexual to go to heaven. Sex doesn’t save us, belief in Jesus does. That's the gospel.
There are 3 more reasons to write but this got longer than i thought. I'll continue it in another post. Thanks for reading it all. Leave a comment if you want to talk about it.
Audio version in the link below:
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