Posted on 08/04/2003 9:52:37 PM PDT by LiteKeeper
It's not a contradiction. Neither are you.
I like that. If I had the money I'd put it up on billboards across America and if I ever win the lottery maybe I'll do just that. I suppose I need to actually play the lottery to raise my odds on winning but that's neither here or there.
When I wrote that short little phrase, and as I write this essay I'm thinking of you who fervently believe there's no such thing as a "Christian lesbian." You consider the term to be an oxymoron but more than that, you regard it an offense to the Gospel. You believe if someone really is a Christian they will seek repentance from the sin of homosexuality and will do all they can to change and short of change they will at least commit to a life of celibacy.
I also have those of you in mind who, even while doubting such a thing as a "Christian lesbian" can exist you've admitted to yourself that while you love Jesus and are committed to the Christian life, your only desire in an intimate and loving relationship is with another woman. Because of this apparent conflict you feel as though there's a choice you're going to eventually be forced to make, either to walk away from your faith in God or to deny, reject, or attempt to change your attraction to other women. If that's the personal struggle you're secretly holding in your heart then I'm writing to you.
And to both of you I'm writing as someone who knows you well because at one time I was you. For most of my life I believed homosexuality to be a grievous sin that led good people astray from a true faith in God. When a friend confessed her feelings toward another woman I prayed faithfully for her, counseled her, and rejoiced when her homosexual relationship ended. It was out of love and compassion and my strong belief in what I saw the Bible to clearly say about homosexuality that I reached out to help a friend I feared was slipping away from God and toward a life of destruction.
A few years later, I found myself engaged in an internal conflict I have never before known and that I could never have imagined. Above all else I was a committed Christian whose greatest longing was to live in a manner that brought honor to God but suddenly I recognized my lifelong unnamed feelings as being the very thing that would bring the most disappointment to the heart of God. I told no one so great was my shame and spent my evening hours crying out to God in prayers full of promise. I will change. I will do whatever it takes. I will never do anything to disgrace you. I will die before I do. And prayers of pleading. Please forgive me for whatever I did to make this happen. Change me. Help me. Don't leave me. Please don't hate me. In that moment I looked down the path of my future and saw nothing good.
I really have been there. I really have said and done and felt that. So to you, whoever you are, I want to offer a very basic response to this whole debate around being Christian and being gay. Let's call this little explanatory essay of mine "Christian Lesbian 101: The Basics."
1. I am a Christian.
I'm not attempting here to explain Christianity to those outside the Christian faith. I consider myself to be an evangelical Christian in the sense that I love, and am committed to, sharing my faith with others. I really do consider it the Good News and I've never been one to keep from sharing anything for which I have passion. For the purpose of this essay and for the sake of brevity I'm going to use religious-sounding language that I normally would avoid or need to explain in a conversation with someone of another faith just as I would need them to explain their own set of religious terminology that was centered in their own faith tradition. Here I'm directing my words to those of you who already identify as Christians.
When I say I'm a Christian I'm recognizing both a past event and a present reality. There was one moment in the past when I made the conscious and deliberate choice to acknowledge Jesus as my Savior and Lord. As my Savior, Jesus through his life, death and resurrection forgave my sins, restored my relationship with God and secured for me the promise of everlasting life. With Jesus as my Lord I submit my will daily to His will, seeking God's plan for my life rather than my own.
I'm a Christian, not by my own virtue but by the completed work of Christ (See John 11:25, John 5:24, Acts 2:38, John 20:31, Romans 1:16, Ephesians 2:8,9 and Colossians 1:21-23). In all these passages scripture seems relatively clear that while the final choice was mine everything else was left up to Jesus and if that's the case my salvation doesn't hinge on my faith or adherence in church teaching or in those dogmas and doctrines that are nonessential to the finished work of Calvary. It is about Christ and Christ crucified alone and to add conditions or requirements onto that glorious reality is to imply that the death and resurrection of Jesus was insufficient. While a church might say "Believe as we believe and do as we do and you can join us here" Jesus welcomes all who love Him and humbly seek Him.
2. I am a lesbian.
While I remember the very place and time when at the age of five I became a Christian, there was never a single moment when I made a conscious choice to be a lesbian and I always take it with a mix of mild amusement and irritation when people will argue that it was a choice. My irritation is that people who don't live inside my own skin would be so arrogant as to presume they know what happened within me better than I do and the amusement is in those moments when I play with the thought of how fun it would be to call them some morning asking "So how am I feeling today?" They should know after all.
And let's talk about this choice. At the time I realized I was a lesbian I was firmly grounded within conservative Christianity, both in my family and within the church where I served in full-time ministry. I had a large circle of friends, a lovely home, and a wonderful future in ministry that I loved and that brought my parents great pride and joy. Had you posed my life as a hypothetical situation and asked me what I thought would happen to someone who came out in that setting as a homosexual I would have been able to describe in detail the graphic consequences. I had a history in the church and so I'd seen the church and its people respond to those considered "in sin" and it was never pretty or kind and it was definitely nothing I ever wanted to experience firsthand. Now, I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree but I have enough intelligence to avoid certain choices like sticking my wet thumb into a light switch, coating my body with honey and lying on an ant hill or doing or being anything that's going to upset and repulse everyone I love and cause my dismissal from the only community I have ever known. Most of the gay and lesbian people I know seem to possess the same level of logic and self-preservation.
I'm in a committed relationship with my life partner Dana. We've been together for two years and will be getting married in a Christian wedding at a church this coming Spring. Our marriage will be affirmed by God and the church where our union will be celebrated even though the state will fail to recognize it. There's nothing about our life together that would look strange or odd were Dana a man and our relationship heterosexual. As a Christian couple, we begin each morning by reading devotions together. I cook breakfast. Dana makes the bed. We shower, dress and go to work. During the day we call each other to express our love or to remind the other to pick up more milk on the way home. After the dinner dishes are put away, we watch television or play with the kitten or just putter around the house until bedtime when we fall asleep beside the other. There's nothing bizarre about our life. Nothing unusual. While some would even consider our lives boring I treasure each day as an amazing and joyful blessing.
And yet, there is something very different about being a lesbian in this world. Being lesbian means knowing that in certain parts of this country you can't hold your partner's hand in public like straight couples do without risking being ridiculed or assaulted. Being lesbian means picking up the paper every morning or watching the news every night to hear about some new legislation that's being debated that if passed would negatively impact your life. Being lesbian means listening to false stereotypes being painted about you and the people you love every Sunday morning by television evangelists, all in the name of God. Being lesbian means trying to explain the nonexistence of the homosexual lifestyle or agenda to strangers.
But being lesbian means even more. Being lesbian means celebrating the joy of being a woman. Being lesbian means giving full expression to the depths of the love within you. Being lesbian means living confidently with God's approval rather than with the approval of others. Being a lesbian means standing in solidarity with others who stand on the outside whether they be the poor, the sick, the elderly, or any among God's creation deemed not acceptable by the majority. Being lesbian means finding your courage and living boldly. Being lesbian means experiencing another woman's courage when she takes your hand in a roomful of strangers or shows her engagement ring proudly without embarrassment or thought to what others will think.
I am a Christian. That is my faith. I am a lesbian. That is my sexual orientation. I make no apology for being either and if after all is said and done I remain a contradiction to you then that's fine too. Just realize what that means. When I speak of the presence of Jesus in my life you need to reject it. You have to see the fruit of the Holy Spirit within my life and call it evil. You have to deny the sufficiency of salvation through faith by requiring that I be heterosexual to first receive it.
Maybe you're right and I'm just not getting it and I never will. Perhaps I'm just foolish and naive enough to believe I can have it all, that I can live in wholeness and in relationship with God. So far that's what I've experienced and it's been the most joyful and God-filled adventure of my life!
"Following the entry by the pastors and the attendents, Pastor Mike Matthews entered with the cross. It was the cross that entered down the center aisle, usually reserved for the brides, while Dana and I entered from opposite sides. It is through Christ that we have been joined together into relationship and it's our earnest intention to keep Jesus at the center of our marriage."
SITREP
This was a Lutheran wedding service.
[27] Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
[28] But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Again if Jesus and His teachings matter ... relating this to heterosexuals if one LOOKS at a woman, LUSTING after her, he's ALREADY committed adultry in his heart. So being "celibate" doesn't matter. He's already guilty of adultry. He looks at your HEART. You don't fool Him. Simply because you did NOT act on it doesn't get you off the hook. Sin is sin and He knows who is thinking and doing what. You aren't going to fool Him by OUTWARDLY supressing action when inside you BURN with lust. Staying "celibate" while burning with lust in a same sex situation or a heterosexual situation is sin in God's eyes and it IS His eyes that matter. The line you tout is often used and it's not Biblically correct. It's just satan at work trying to decieve people on what GOD says.
Again if being a "Christian", you know following the teachings of CHRIST matters ... He definitely deons't approve of this.
Romans 1:23-32
[23] And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
[24] Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
[25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
[26] For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
[27] And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
[28] And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
[29] Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
[30] Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
[31] Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
[32] Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
Yeah, they changed His Word to suit themselves, that is the parts of the Bible they ALLOW themseves to read. How sad to be in such heavy duty denial of same sex unions and what is written in the Bible - teachings they infer they follow.
If you are a lesbian it is impossible to be a Christian. Make you choices and live with them but don't deceive yourself when it comes to where you will wind up when you die.
It appears that this statement is a lie. Liars do not inherit the Kingdom of God. The Same God who Gave His Son as a propitiation for mankind is the one who said "Thou shalt not Lie with mankind as with Woman".
i confess that i have an urging not to be celebate, does this now mean that i can disregard the Lord's commandments in that respect with impunity and still claim that "He's Lord of my life"? After all, if it's good enough for her...
Here's what they present as their statement of faith.
(Click on "Baptist faith and message" tab, then scroll down and click on links to specific points in faith statement.)
I want to know the secret.
You did not want her to shove her "piss poor crap" down you throat. You read the title of the thread. You clicked on the title and read the article. You stood here with your mouth open and let her spoon feed her "piss poor crap" down your throat. Now you stand here whining "LEAVE ME ALONE."
How did she manage to take control over you and assault you like this.
I want to know the secret.
IV. Salvation
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.
B. Justification is God's gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.
C. Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God's purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person's life.
D. Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.
Genesis 3:15; Exodus 3:14-17; 6:2-8; Matthew 1:21; 4:17; 16:21-26; 27:22-28:6; Luke 1:68-69; 2:28-32; John 1:11-14,29; 3:3-21,36; 5:24; 10:9,28-29; 15:1-16; 17:17; Acts 2:21; 4:12; 15:11; 16:30-31; 17:30-31; 20:32; Romans 1:16-18; 2:4; 3:23-25; 4:3ff.; 5:8-10; 6:1-23; 8:1-18,29-39; 10:9-10,13; 13:11-14; 1 Corinthians 1:18,30; 6:19-20; 15:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; Galatians 2:20; 3:13; 5:22-25; 6:15; Ephesians 1:7; 2:8-22; 4:11-16; Philippians 2:12-13; Colossians 1:9-22; 3:1ff.; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:12; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:1-3; 5:8-9; 9:24-28; 11:1-12:8,14; James 2:14-26; 1 Peter 1:2-23; 1 John 1:6-2:11; Revelation 3:20; 21:1-22:5.
You won't find this in the statement of DoC because they do it their way, not God's.
Here's a peek at its progress in the 1800s.
And here's Susan B.'s support for it.
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